Night of the Vampires (14 page)

She shook her head. “No, no…”

“Megan, I didn't attack you.”

“No…I know that.”

“Then,” he said very gently, “whatever force it is that you think is here to help us—isn't. You were lured. Something very evil wants to reach you—remove you from the equation of whatever game this is.”

She struggled to sit up. He helped her. “But—if something meant to hurt me, why didn't it…finish me? I was out. I was down. It could have killed me.”

“Maybe—I was behind you. It knew that it wasn't going to be alone.”

Her lips curled into a slow smile. He was surprised and oddly affected when she reached up and touched his face. “I know…you came gallantly to save me. But…I don't think
it
would have been afraid of the two of us as a force.”

“Wait a minute. We're a pretty good force!” he protested with a smile.

Her knuckles brushed his chin. He was startled by the
way her touch sent warmth radiating throughout him. The world came down to the two of them, alone, in a mystic pool of light that streamed through the chapel window.

“No. I agree,” she said quietly, looking into his eyes. “There was something
evil
in here, too, but I think that my father was here and stopped whatever force it was that wanted to harm me. Don't laugh at me, Cole, please don't laugh at me. And don't tell me that something like that couldn't have possibly happened. Yes, of course, it's what I want to happen, but it could be the truth.”

She was so earnest. And young. Though hardened by the war, by her own existence, she was still laden with hope.

He remembered what he had seen, or, what he
thought
he had seen.

A whirlwind, like twin tornadoes, meeting and melding in a storm of spinning darkness, flying away from the chapel.

He had thought that it was like a pair of thunderclouds, clashing with a tremendous violence, battling their way into the wind, together.

The light around them dimmed as the sun was setting.

“We need to get going. You're not particularly strong right now, which is going to make us both vulnerable.” He eased her from his lap and stood, supporting her, helping her to her feet. “Are you…are you still in much pain?”

She shook her head and gingerly touched the back of it.

“It's already dissipating.”

“Put your arm around me.”

“I'm already better, really.”

He asked her, “Why don't you accept help, just for a minute?”

She lowered her head with a soft sigh, then let him slip an arm around her and support her as they started from the chapel.

At the door, she paused, looking back.

“What is it?” he asked tensely. The
beings,
the clouds, whoever or whatever they had been, had gone, heading north.

But this place now made him uneasy.

“I don't really want to leave. My father has been here. I have faith in that, Cole. Please, until something is proved otherwise, please let me have that belief.”

“If your father was here, and he's protecting you, he knows about you. And Cody. And if and when the time is right for him, he'll let himself be known, Megan,” Cole told her.

She looked up at him. “But we're leaving tomorrow. For Harpers Ferry. He's here.”

“Megan, if your father is the force for good that you want him to be, he'll fight this battle the way that he sees fit. If he's good, he's been fighting this for a long time most likely. And you have to trust that if he's not revealing himself to you now, it must not be the time for him.”

“All right,” she said after a moment.

“I really think we should leave.”

“I'm better,” she told him.

He touched the back of her head. Already the lump was disappearing.

“Still, you're susceptible at this moment.”

He led her out. He was ridiculously glad that she didn't
push him away, and that she seemed content to lean on him as they walked from the cemetery.

The rain was going to come again soon. The air was damp and heavy with the portent of the coming storm.

He moved quickly, but she seemed lethargic, caught up in her own thoughts. He reminded himself not to allow his mind to wander too deeply into thoughts of her. He needed to stay alert as they left the cemetery.

As they neared the gates, he turned to look back. There was nothing behind him but gravestones, monuments and praying angels forlorn in the shrouded air. The wind blew through the beauty of the spring flowers that had bloomed. The sky looking the way it did, it was almost as if time had stopped during their escapade in the chapel.

When they reached the horses, she straightened. She looked at him gravely. “I'm fine now. I'm really fine. I'll be ready to leave first thing in the morning, whenever you wish.”

“So, you're really fine with the appointment, after your meeting with the President?” he asked, ready to help her mount her horse.

She was quiet for a moment. She leaped up on her horse without assistance.

“No,” she told him. “I was never here for any political reason, for any government. And now, I'm not going to Harpers Ferry for a president or a government, either. I'm ready to go for that one man, and for
people.
”

He mounted his bay.

“We'll be on our own, you know. We'll really have to trust one another.”

“I always trusted you. It's you who's suspicious,” she
reminded him. “‘Trust has to be earned'—you're the one who said that.”

He glanced at her sideways. “Maybe you've earned it,” he said.

“Really?” she said, and he was glad when she laughed. “How? When?”

He shrugged. “I'm not sure, just feels that way. Then, maybe I'm going on a little bit of faith, too. C'mon, let's get on out of here and back to Martha's before the rain starts, shall we?”

 

T
HEY RETURNED IN
time for supper, a feast Martha Graybow had prepared in light of the pair's departure the following morning.

Cody and Cole were sequestered in the parlor, talking with one another while Martha set out their meal with Alex and Megan—and Brendan Vincent.

Brendan was being more than courteous, trying to help carry everything while Megan and Alex set the table. Alex glanced at Megan, giving her a quick grin.

It was obvious that romance was beginning to flourish. The Unionist had to be almost twenty years older than Martha, but he was a wise and gentle man, in very good shape—from the military and vampire hunting, Megan assumed—and the widow seemed not at all averse to his attention.

Megan hoped that this meant good things would happen for Martha and her young children. As far as being the perfect gentleman, someone who would truly love and care for Martha—and her children—Megan could think of no finer a man.

She was curious, however, that he wasn't with Cody
and Cole, and if she began to wonder if their conversation wasn't more personal than professional.

“I think that we're just about all set,” Martha said, flushing, “thanks to Brendan giving us so much help. Will you call in Cody and Cole, and would someone mind stepping over to my house to fetch the children? They've been doing their homework, or, at least, they've supposedly been doing their homework!”

“They're good children, Martha, I'm sure it's all done,” Alex said, smiling.

“I'll run out back and get them,” Megan offered. As she opened the back door to go out to the carriage house, she was startled to see that there was someone just slipping out the door. His back to her, the man was essentially nothing but a large hat and long, black coat, but even with that, Megan could sense something dark and sinister about him.

“Hey! What are you doing? Who are you?”

The person froze. Then, as she ran toward him, the back of his black coat become a swirl of black movement. Shadowlike bat wings lifted up toward the sky and the figure shot up in swift flight.

Terrified, she watched it disappear, but only for a split second, before racing into the carriage house, dreading what she might find.

“Artie? Marni?” she cried, bursting through the front door, even as she heard Brendan yelling from far behind her.

The carriage house had been divided into four rooms: the entry, set up like a parlor, two bedrooms to the left and right down a hallway and Matha's larger, master bedroom at the rear.

There was no one in the parlor.

Megan hurried down the hallway, calling out to the children. “Artie? Marni? Please, answer me, where are you?”

She burst into Artie's room, a perfect room for a growing boy. It showcased a train set, books on the military heroes and a desk with a telescope and schoolbooks spread out over a blotter. The inkwell had been knocked over; a quill pen lay in the midst of the ink.

Panic began to lodge in Megan's soul. She hurried into the next room, Marni's room. It was a charming room for a little girl. Martha had sewn a ruffled canopy for the small four-post bed, and the curtains matched. Dolls lay on the bed, and Marni's young reader lay on the floor. It looked as if the little girl had been doing her reading, just as her mother had said.

Megan ran back into the hallway and looked down to Martha's room. She ran to the door, not wanting to open it.

When she did so, she had to swallow back the scream of horror that had lodged in her throat before she could breathe again.

“A
RE YOU GETTING
along any better? It appears so, at the least. But I have to admit that I don't like the situation we're in,” Cody said, leaning forward. They were both sipping shots of the delicious, aged Scotch that Martha had offered them, and it was good to sit with Cody in the relative ease of the parlor and talk out some of the things that had recently happened.

Things that had happened. Not things that he was feeling!

“We're getting along fine. That's not going to be a problem,” Cole said. “What I'm worried about is Megan's almost desperate insistence that your father is here, and that he's somewhere in the background, helping us fight the scourge that's upon us.”

Cody leaned back, shrugging. “Odd. I was convinced that my father was a monster, and that I had to find him for
that
reason. Stop him—before he was the scourge. Or kept being the scourge, but then again, we know now that he
didn't
create all the tragedy and travesty out by Victory, Texas. We
found
that culprit.”

“No, and we've seen that some people can hang on to their
souls,
I suppose you would say, their decency,” Cole agreed. “We've seen it—we know it. But we also know just how damned rare it is.”

“And so we're left to wonder—how many more like Megan and I might be out there?” Cody said.

“That an interesting question,” Cole agreed. “And…”

“And what?”

“Well, if they all grew up to be as decent as you. And Megan,” he added quickly.

Cody offered him a small, dry grin. “So, you do believe in her. In truth, and deep down. Because I was afraid you'd go to West Virginia on this hunt simply because you'd been asked—even if you didn't really trust Megan.”

Cole laughed. “No. I'm not that decent a human being. If I still didn't trust her, I wouldn't be going.”

Cody smiled, and then his face quickly turned grave. “You won't have much help. Well, from what I understand, the Union officers are aware that something far more dangerous than a Union spy or a sniper is about. Apparently, from the conversation I had yesterday with some officers, they've learned on their own to stay locked inside at night, to have their guards on duty in four-somes—and to wear their best Sunday, go-to-meeting crosses. But they're mainly working off superstition with that last bit. It will be you and Megan, really, who understand the heart of the matter.”

“But I will have the
cooperation
of the military?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And
not
to start hunting down poor locals who Northerners might think are Southern sympathizers or monsters themselves?” Cole asked.

“You'll find that the orders on this have come straight down from the top—from the supreme commander of all the forces. I doubt if you'll spend your time arguing over the finer points of States' Rights,” Cody said. “Not in the
midst of this. Once people face it, they realize they have a much greater enemy than the one they already know.”

Cole nodded. He'd been through Harpers Ferry once, years ago. Oddly enough, he remembered it as one of the most beautiful spots he had ever seen. The mountains rose high above the rivers, the terrain was rich and filled with trees and foliage. The waters of both rivers converged with crystal beauty as they danced over rapids beneath the sun.

He knew, too, that the military firmly held the lower town with stations planted along the heights, as well. The lower town provided greater safety, being highly developed. A man named Harper had, definitively, started a ferry at the junction of rivers soon after he received his patent in 1750. The town had been a gateway for those moving into the Shenandoah Valley. Construction for the United States Armory and Arsenal had begun at the end of the last century, and the town became famous for its production of guns. In the mid-1830s, the Ohio and Chesapeake Canal had created a boon for transportation, and true industrialization had taken root. Early in the war, Southern forces had destroyed the arsenal and armory—before the Union forces could take it over.

Cole had the feeling he wasn't going to enjoy the changes in the town he remembered fondly. Once, it had been bustling, filled with life.

“We'll be fine,” he said at last.

“It's been decided that you'll have a military escort,” Cody said.

“Oh?”

“The same fellows you worked with before. Apparently, when asked for volunteers among the unit, the four stepped right up. They admired you, said you were a
damned good man, and they even thought you were so decent, there might be more decent folk back in Texas,” Cody said lightly.

Cole nodded. Good. He could work with that crew. Which reminded him that he needed to acquire the necessary weaponry still.

“Arrows,” he said to Cody. “Bows and arrows. And I think we'll make sure we're carrying plenty of vials of holy water. Each man needs to be wearing a cross—or Star of David, or some sign of his affiliation. They'll need their rifles, bayonets and sidearms, as well. Knives. A good bowie knife or something similar. But I'll start with them on bows and arrows.”

“Good thinking. I should get some of the men here trained with those, too.” His eyes were light. “There's a lot to be learned from the West, and I should have thought about that before now,” Cody said. “Out in the West, we had the Apaches and John Snow and his mixed-up family, and they were open-minded—not so disbelieving of when the unusual happened. And their expertise with arrows was certainly a boon.”

Cole started to answer him but he broke off, staring as he heard the kitchen door slam open and Megan screaming for help. He and Cody jumped to their feet, racing back to where the others were.

Megan hadn't come into the parlor. Apparently she had just opened the back door to the house long enough to scream that horrible sound. By the time Cole reached the back door, Brendan, Alex and Martha were already out of the house, having followed Megan. He and Cody followed in their wake, bursting into Martha's carriage house.

He heard Martha scream as they rushed down the hall to the woman's bedroom.

And then he saw why.

Her son and daughter were laid out on the bed.

As if they had been prepared for a death viewing by an undertaker.

Martha had thrown herself upon her daughter and was trying to gather her son into her arms. Cole saw that Cody looked instantly at Megan, who was staring back at him, her eyes betraying the fact that she was praying for help—hoping against hope that he knew something that she didn't, something that would help make this better.

“Marks?” Cody asked Megan.

She nodded.

“Is there any life left?” Cody asked, walking forward to take her arm. Brendan and Alex were trying to gently wrest Martha from atop her children, lest she smother them herself.

Megan nodded. “The heartbeats are faint, but I found them, and they're both breathing. But…their throats…yes, the marks are there.”

“How? Oh, they
knew
not to ask anyone in!” Martha wailed. Then she grew desperate, panicking and looking at them all with wild eyes. “No, no, no! I know what you all do—as vampire killers—and I will not let you. You will not kill my children. You will not impale them, and…oh, God! You will not decapitate my children. You will not, you cannot, I will not let you, I will fight and scream and I will…” She couldn't speak; her rash of desperate fury ended as she burst into a wail of tears again.

Brendan pulled her into his arms. “Please, please,
Martha. All is not lost if there is still a ghost of life. Please, please…Cody?” He looked back to his friend.

Cody nodded. Megan was still staring at her brother, confused. “I need my medical bag,” he said.

Alex nodded and hurried past them. Megan still stood there, looking lost.

“He's going to give them a blood transfusion, Megan,” Cole explained to her.

“A blood—
transfusion?
”

Cody was already rolling up his sleeves. “Actually, several doctors have been experimenting with blood transfusions in this war,” he said. “In this situation, there's no other choice. It's all right. I know what I'm doing. But there are two children, so we'll both need to be donators.”

She continued to stare at him blankly.

“It's all right, Megan,” Cole said. “Cody has done this before.”

That seemed to surprise her more than the fact that Cody was going to attempt to transfuse blood from someone into someone else.

“But—is our blood
tainted?
” she asked.

He shook his head. “No—it will actually give them the strength and power to better resist another bite. All right. Lie down next to Marni.”

“Oh!” Martha gasped, sagging against Brendan. “But you had rigged the house with alarms. There were…there were crosses around the house, there was holy water around the house… Cody, how…?”

“Someone powerful did this, Martha. But, I
can
save the children. They were left yet alive to torture us, as a warning, but we won't let them die. We'll save them. You have to have faith in me.”

Martha looked around at everyone. Tears continued to stream down her face. “But—Cody, I've only vaguely heard about this…this operation.”

“Several physicians have worked transfusions in different way, but it's all the same thing, really. I have needles that basically attach to tubes, and the tubes will carry the plentiful blood from Megan and me into the children. It takes some time, but it's effective. Brendan, take Martha into the parlor, where she can gain some calm while she waits.”

As he spoke, Alex returned.

“I can't leave the children,” Martha said weakly.

“You must,” Cody told her gently. He nodded to Brendan, who nodded in return, and with firm tenderness steered Martha out of the bedroom. “Alex, Cole, you'll have to listen to me, and help when I need it. Megan, lie down next to Marni. Cole, can you please tie one of the tourniquets around her arm? I'll set the tubing and the needle.”

Megan looked at Cole with wide eyes. She did as Cody instructed, lying next to the little girl. “We need some leverage, so get Megan up—gravity will be at work here, too,” Cody explained.

In a matter of minutes, they had her on a stack of pillows and clothing. Cole smiled at her gently and warned that the tourniquet would pinch. She looked up at him with wide eyes, enigmatic, but apparently she trusted him. He wound the tourniquet around her arm, and Cody tested her arm for a vein before setting the needle and instructing Cole on how to watch the flow in her tubing while he set the instruments up for the child. When he was finished, he lifted Artie; they were going to have to take the boy, larger than the girl, into his own room
to set up a similar circumstance. Cole started to follow Cody, but he stopped him.

“You have to keep watch here. Watch Megan, and Marni, and most importantly watch the flow of blood. Shift the tubing around if it slips, and make sure it stays in her arm. Alex can help me. If the flow stops, Megan, pump your arm. You should be fine. You're my sister, which means we have the same systems.”

Alex followed Cody out. Cole was left to kneel on the side of the bed, hovering over Megan and trying to keep an unblinking eye on the apparatus. He saw the blood flow from Megan and into the tube, and then onward through into the little girl. He felt numb. He knew that Cody had done this before—he had faith. But the little girl had been so pale….

So close to death.

“Are you all right?” he asked Megan.

“Of course. I would do anything to save Martha's children.”

“I didn't ask that,” Cole said, trying to smile. “I asked if you were all right.”

She nodded to him thoughtfully. “It's strange. I can feel it. I can feel the blood flowing from me.” She hesitated. “Will they really live?”

“I believe so,” Cole said. “But the situation disturbs me.”

“We were here—and that put the children in danger.”

Cole nodded. “I'm afraid so.”

“We have to get out of here,” she said flatly. “All of us. We have to get away from Martha and her children.”

He shook his head and she frowned. “No. The creature that did this will only come back now that he knows. You
and I have to leave as planned—and Martha has to move into the house with Cody, Alex and Brendan.”

“But what if whoever did this gets into the house?” she demanded.

“Cody will be there. It won't happen.”

She shook her head in distress. “We can't leave anymore.”

“We
have
to leave. It's imperative that we get to Harpers Ferry before it—before it doesn't exist anymore. When an outbreak that severe happens… Well, there's a ghost town near Victory now. We have to go, and we have to have faith that we're all going to be able to do what needs to be done.”

He looked at the tube and watched the way that the blood was flowing, then looked back to her. Megan trained her eyes on his. She was oddly afraid, he thought. And he found himself evermore attracted to her. There were so many aspects of the woman to…like. The way that she…was put together. Built. She was a stunning creature of sensuality in her frame, in her carriage, in the way she stood, in her…physical being. But it was her eyes that seemed to entrap him every time. The hazel—the green and brown, turning gold when combined—
that
seemed to sweep his soul away, every time. The way she looked at him now…so trusting.

She stared at him. “Do you think that they'll really be all right?” she whispered.

He gripped her hand and answered in honesty. “Yes. I do. Cody—
your brother
—would give his life a thousand times over to save that of an innocent child.”