Night of the Vampires (18 page)

His arm was around her and she leaned heavily against him, allowing him to lead her through the door and out to the hallway. A crowd had gathered, their waiter among them, a number of the diners from the restaurant, as well. Guests had come into the hallway, and she saw several men in suits and hats with notebooks, writing and drawing furiously as she walked into the hallway. She and Cole were met with applause.

Mrs. Osterly came hurrying toward them from a nearby doorway, her smile brilliant and lighting up her face, though tears still dampened her cheeks.

“He's so much better already! Joshua has color and opened his eyes and spoke to me—and he's telling me that he's hungry!”

“We're grateful to hear that,” Cole said.

“Very,” Megan agreed.

“There must be a way to repay you…. I have some money,” she offered.

“Stay well and survive,” Cole told her. “Keep the lad in at night, and keep him wearing that cross I gave him. That's payment enough.”

“Pray!” said a man from the crowd.

“Prayer and belief are always good,” Megan said.

Mrs. Osterly walked up and kissed her cheek. Her
voice was tremulous as she said, “You gave my grandson your blood! May God protect and bless you!”

A bright light suddenly burned her eyes and a puff of smoke filled the room. One of the newspapers had sent a photographer to the hotel. Megan blinked furiously, and Cole said, “Excuse us, please, we must be on the train.”

“This way, this way, come along!” The speaker was Sergeant Newcomb, who was waiting at the hotel's main door alongside Gerald Banter. The two had come to bring them back with an escort so that they wouldn't be waylaid further by the crowd.

Cole led her through the mass of people to the doorway. She realized that meek little Trudy Malcolm was hurrying along behind them, the medical bag now in her hands. They walked down the street to the station with applause and well wishes following them. Michael Hodges was waiting at the top of the steps to their car and reached down to help her in. Cody followed, then Trudy and then Sergeant Newcomb and Gerald Banter.

“Let's get her to her seat,” Cold said.

“I'm all right,” she protested.

“You're going to need one of the drinks Cody sent,” Cole told her firmly.

He ushered her into a seat by one of the small oval windows and sat down next to her. “She's fine!” he told the others. “She just needs some rest now, gents. And Miss Malcolm, if we can give her a little peace…!”

“Oh! I'm back here, if you need me,” Trudy said.

As she sat, and waited for Cole to find the blood in the travel bag beneath her seat, she noted that Sergeant Newcomb had the medical bag, and apparently intended to keep guard over it. Cole produced a canteen, and she
drained its contents quickly. Almost immediately, she felt revived.

“I'm better!” she assured him.

“Rest anyway. It's not far now. Close your eyes, and rest. It may be that you'll need your strength. Soon.”

He reached for her, pulling her head down to his shoulder.

She liked it. She wanted to reimagine her rich meadow with Cole there at her side. With the sound of bubbling water near, and the sun overhead. She wanted to dream….

A dream in which there would be no black-winged shadows.

 

T
HE ROCKING
of the train's motion, and even the click-clacking of the wheels, had a lulling effect. Megan seemed to be sleeping peacefully enough against him, and Cole was careful not to move, lest he disturb her.

They'd traveled slowly, the engineer ever vigilant for track sections that guerilla troops had managed to rip out or damage. They passed through the rolling country and headed toward the mountains, and giant, beautiful bluffs, purple and orange in the waning of the day, began to appear before them. Cole wasn't tired. He'd actually had several hours of sleep the night before. But the motion was so lulling that he'd begun to doze himself when he heard the first faint thud on the top of the train car.

He was instantly alert, and he sat rigid for several seconds, waiting.

No one else seemed to have noticed anything.

And there was nothing else…

Then he heard sound again. There was something moving stealthily atop the car.

He eased himself up, trying to slide Megan to lean against the side of the car, but she was instantly awake. She didn't cry out in alarm; she looked at him tensely, waiting.

“On top of the car,” he said quietly, pointing up.

She nodded. He rose, moving back to Sergeant Newcomb, who had been dozing, rocking along with the motion of the train. He touched Newcomb and the sergeant was quickly awake and aware, as well.

“I'm going out back,” he whispered. “Guard the front of the car. Take one of the knives, and if anyone tries to enter, go straight for the throat.”

Newcomb nodded. “And decapitation,” he said flatly. “Soldiers! To your posts,” he said in a low voice as he tapped each one awake. The soldiers on board got up, deftly negotiating the tight aisle space. Newcomb and one of the men headed directly for the front of the car as the other two men began to follow Cole to the rear.

“Oh, dear Lord! What's happening?” Trudy cried out.

“Sit tight and stay quiet,” Cole told her, pausing by her side to bring his fingers to his lips in a warning motion. He realized that Megan was by his side.

“
Sit
. You can't be strong enough,” he told her.

“But I am,” she assured him flatly.

“Megan, please?”

“Cole, I'll settle for giving you the lead,” she said and looked at him. “We don't know how many there are,” she reminded him.

No, he didn't know their numbers. Nor did he know their power….

“Why, Miss Fox,” Sergeant Newcomb said. “You sit down. I've been on trains under attack before.”

“Not like this, Sergeant Newcomb,” Cole said firmly. “She knows what she's doing, and we can use all hands, honestly.”

Megan looked at him for a moment with eyes full of appreciation. Then, suddenly, she was all business and supplied herself from the box they had quickly split open in the aisle. She followed Cole to the back.

Hodges was waiting by the rear door, ready to let them out. When he opened the door, Cole grasped the edging to gain his balance before straining with his all his might to pull himself up to the top of the moving car. He ducked low, aware that he might have been heard.

It seemed that Megan came up beside him with far less effort.

He saw a being ahead, clinging to the roof of the train car and bending low to push at the windows. Crouching low, Cole balanced for a minute, then moved quickly down the length of the car, learning to move with the sway of the train as he did so.

He moved quickly to reach the figure and didn't dare take the time to ask questions. With all his speed and force he pounced upon the creature's back, catching its hair and drawing his bowie knife across its throat.

There was no blood. The effort was minimal. The head came off in his hand without being severed.

He quickly tossed the head and the body over the roof.

“Cole!” Megan cried.

He turned just in time to keep himself from being swept off the roof of the car. The creature that flew at him came in a dark fury, not even a fully solid form at first, only becoming so as they both crashed down flat and hard on the roof.

The creature stood up quickly though. It stood over him, this thing that had once been a Southern cavalry soldier now missing half of its face, the other half offering a one-eyed stare as malignant and evil as anything Cole had ever seen. The mouth opened, and fangs seemed to sparkle as they dripped saliva. With all his force, Cole kept the creature at bay, straining to get his knee and leg up to kick the thing away from him. At last he accomplished the task and sprang to a crouch, ready for the next attack.

But the creature didn't come at him again. It let out an unholy scream and began to smoke, twist, wriggle and writhe. He saw Megan behind him, an empty bottle of holy water in hand. He reached into his belt satchel for a stake and dove at the being, slamming the stake down hard into the heart. In a flash, the smoking creature became deadweight and fell at his feet. It rolled and fell from the moving train.

As Cole stared at Megan, gasping for breath, he saw something else emerging from the darkening sky, heading her way.

“Megan, duck!” he ordered and pulled out another stake. Bracing himself, he waited for the flying object so intent on bringing down Megan. Lunging forward, he managed to catch the shadow on the stake, and, using the momentum of the weight that came flapping heavily against him to press hard, prayed that he had struck somewhere near its shapeless heart.

He'd struck, but he hadn't managed a dead aim. The thing became fully solid, in the form of a man, this one in a Union artillery uniform. It was injured but still fighting, still desperately hungry and still clinging to what had become its existence. Cole slashed at the thing. He
cut its flesh, and, though catching the throat, realized he wasn't getting his cuts in deeply enough.

To avoid the chomping fangs, he grabbed the thing and rolled off the roof.

He desperately grabbed at the upper railing, losing his bowie knife but catching hold. To his horror, the thing didn't roll and go flying from the moving train.

The thing clung stubbornly to his back.

It was desperate, too.

Their position was perilous. Cole's legs were swinging wildly and the effort to hold on was like fire ripping down his arms. He tried to shake the thing off, but its fingers were gripped into his back like talons. He knew that he couldn't hold long, even if its fangs didn't strike into his nape or his shoulder.

But the thing clinging to him made a hideous shrieking sound, desperate. He wasn't going to be able to shake it. He had to get back on top of the train and free his hands to draw another weapon.

With all his might he strained. But then he saw that Megan was above him, casting vial after vial of holy water onto the creature—it began to shake and ease its hold. He twisted to look over his shoulder and see it turning darker and darker, see the flesh turn to ash and blow in the wind.

Briefly a skull appeared beneath the dark and smoking ash, and then the bones disarticulated and fell, some clattering away from the tracks, some crunching loudly beneath the iron wheels. Megan gave Cole an arm, drawing him back to the roof. They fell there for a moment together, gasping. Then he pushed from her, rising in a leap, balancing carefully and turning around and around.

One more shadow came out of the air that had turned
into mist as they came closer and closer into the foothills of the mountains.

Cole reached into his pocket, drawing out a vial, hitting the shape before it could take full form and substance. It shrieked, crashing down just inches before them, flapping its parts, banging wildly with arms and legs as it burned and sizzled in horrible throes. Megan, behind him, tossed another vial, and the thing began to burn in earnest. He drew a stake from his coat, pinned the creature straight through the heart and then kicked the whole of the burning, decaying, disjointed creature from the roof of the train car.

Again, the two of them adopted a defensive stance. And waited, ready for whatever might come.

Cole could hear it. The things made a sound when they came sweeping down. And he knew that the one coming was older, wiser. It didn't rush.

It landed feet away from them on the swaying surface of the roof. Megan was ready; from a crouched stance, she rushed forward, hurling holy water with a speed and accuracy that surprised even Cole. It surprised the creature, which just stood there, screeching, burning.

She turned to look at Cole.

“Cole!” Megan cried. “Duck!”

“From where—?”

“No—the railway tunnel!”

He collapsed face-first in the nick of time. The quivering, shrieking
thing
was dashed against the granite archway of the bridge. Its cry was cut off, and it was as if a
silence
now issued from the thing. Bursting into a thousand pieces, it blew away, one with the darkness.

Cole inched closer to Megan as the blackness of the tunnel and the coming night overwhelmed them. He
reached for her, drawing her tightly against him until they had cleared the tunnel.

And yet, the sky barely lightened. They were nearing Harpers Ferry, and the heights around it, and the mountains were now rising like massive shadows, deep violet against the gray of the sky. Night was nearly fully upon them.

“They're gone, I believe,” Cole said after a minute.

“They—they seemed to be starving. I don't think they were part of any band…. I don't see any more of them…. And I don't—hear them.”

“The other cars—” Cole began, straining to see in the darkness. But he could detect nothing more either before them or behind them.

“It's over,” Megan told him. “It's really over.”

It was over, but he knew their real ordeal was just beginning.

They were coming into Harpers Ferry where the Shenandoah and Potomac met, where great peaks looked over deep valleys. Where John Brown had determined to free the slaves, and instead, a freed black man had been among the first to die.

Where the abolitionists had been given their cause, and bloodshed had come early.

By night, it was oddly beautiful to roll closer and closer to the depot. To see the majesty of nature in the massive cliffs, feel the soft, cool air as it rushed around them.

And still…

The cliffs and valleys held secret places where evil could dwell, where the unwary might be taken, where evil could abide.

And watch.

And wait.

The mist grew denser. The train began to chug over the bridge and then slow. Cole could see the station ahead.

They had arrived.