Night of the Wolves (20 page)

“Shall we sing?” the older woman, Alice, suggested.

“I think we should stay quiet and not draw undue attention to ourselves,” Father Joseph said.

Thank you, Father Joseph. Thank you, Cody thought.

It was going to be a long enough ride as it was.

A
LEX STEPPED OUTSIDE
the saloon and looked down the street. There wasn’t a soul to be seen. She looked up at the sky and felt a moment’s unease. The sun wasn’t sinking
quite yet, but it wasn’t strong, either. The air had taken on the slight difference that came when sunset was near.

And Cody and Brendan weren’t back.

The others had returned from the cemetery a little while ago, their grim task completed. Bert and Levy had headed back to the boardinghouse, and the others had gone home, ready to batten down for another long night—except for Cole and Dave, who were staying at the saloon, one of them always on guard.

She watched the street for another long minute, wishing that they would appear in the distance. But they didn’t.

“Alex?”

She swung around. Cole was watching her from the saloon door.

“I’m coming back in,” she told him. “It’s still daylight.”

“And you still shouldn’t be out there alone,” he said firmly.

“All right, big brother, all right,” she teased him. “I just…”

“You’re just worried. I know. I am, too,” he told her. “But come on inside, anyway.”

“Cole, where did they go today?” she asked. “I know you know.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Hollow Tree,” he said. “They’re looking for Milo’s hideout. Cody says there has to be one.”

She nodded. “Cole?”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe—do you believe that my father could be a monster?”

He lowered his head and sighed softly, then looked up at her. “Alex, I’ve seen lots of good people turned into demons by this—this disease.”

“Don’t you think that some people can fight it?”

“I don’t know, Alex. But…but you can’t let yourself be fooled, you can’t take any chances. You know that, right?” Cole said.

“Yes, I know,” she said.

He was still staring at her, and though he’d never said the words, he’d answered her question. No, he didn’t believe that her father could be anything but a monster.

She glanced down the street in the direction of the distant town of Hollow Tree, then sighed and went back to the saloon.

Cole was still standing in the doorway. “Alex, your father was a good man. He was like a father to me, too. He was one of the most respected men in town. But the man you knew and loved, the man I loved, is dead.”

“I know that, Cole.”

He nodded. “We all just—well, we care about you, Alex,” he said.

She smiled and gave him a brief hug. “I know that, Cole. I know that.”

“Let’s go in. And let’s have some faith in Cody and Brendan, huh?”

“I have all the faith in the world in them,” Alex said. “But no matter how much faith we have—well, they’re only men, and there are only two of them.”

“But they’re two men who know what they’re doing.”

Inside the saloon, Dave was playing cards with the girls. Sherry Lyn seemed to have recovered. She sniffed now and then, but she also cried out with pleasure as she took a poker pot.

Roscoe was still standing behind the bar, drying the same shot glass he’d been drying when Alex had stepped outside.

“Hey, where’s Jigs? I haven’t seen him all day,” Alex said, noticing the empty piano bench.

“Sleeping,” Linda said. “He’s been sleeping all day.”

“I’ll just go up and see that he’s all right,” Alex said.

Linda adjusted the cards in her hand. “Last door at the end of the hall, honey,” she said.

Alex walked up the stairs and headed straight for the last room, then hesitated at the door. The poor man was probably exhausted. Keeping guard, on edge—all of them afraid that if they went to sleep, they might not wake up.

Or worse.

That they
would
wake up. As monsters.

She raised her hand, preparing to knock gently. But then she decided that if he was sleeping, she didn’t want to wake him, only look in and make sure he was all right. She turned the knob carefully and opened the door.

The room was in shadow.

She stepped in, trying to make out the man on the bed in the dim light.

As she did, a cry like a bobcat’s suddenly filled the room, coming from behind the door.

The door slammed into her, knocking her off balance, and she gasped for breath as Jigs came flying out at her, hands like talons, fangs dripping with saliva and anticipation.

“T
HEY’RE COMING
,” C
ODY SAID
.

The priest stared at him.

“I can hear them. Get ready.”

He heard Brendan swear, heedless of who might have heard him in back, and saw him flick the reins to urge the horses into a burst of speed.

They were still about five miles out of Victory, and the sun was going down.

Cody stood, balancing on the back of the wagon, stringing his bow, watching the sky.

The sun was a ball of fire in the west, and shadows were beginning to stretch across the plain.

The vampires came in a wave, but there were only a few so far, few enough that Cody could count them. Six.

To his surprise, he realized that the priest was standing at his side. He’d opened his portmanteau and pulled out a bow and arrows. Now he, too, was taking aim, gauging the distance as the creatures approached.

Alice was passing out stakes and vials of holy water to the other passengers. The boy slipped forward to take a position next to Brendan, a stake at the ready in his raised right hand.

The other two were braced against the side of the wagon so they could shove their stakes home without tumbling to the ground.

“Now?” Father Joseph asked.

“Wait…wait…hold…
now!
” Cody said.

They picked off the first two immediately. The third reached the wagon, flapping and shrieking, giant wings beating the air. The man surged forward, impaling the creature.

Cody nocked another arrow as, from the corner of his eye, he saw the monster’s body fall under the wheels. The wagon shuddered, and they all struggled for balance.

Cody let his arrow fly.

The fourth creature went down without reaching the wagon. Father Joseph’s arrow hit the fifth, which exploded in a burst of black powder, still fifteen feet from the wagon.

The sixth came diving toward them.

Alice rose. “God, let my aim be true,” she prayed.

Cody reached for a stake.

He didn’t need it. Alice splashed holy water at the screeching shadow, which let out a hideous wail and flopped into the back of the wagon. Father Joseph shoved it, and it fell into the dirt behind them, writhing as it turned to ash, which flew toward the sky like a tiny whirlwind.

The wagon kept rolling at a breakneck pace. Father Joseph lost his balance and fell backward, but the young woman caught and steadied him.

“Victory is straight ahead!” Brendan shouted.

A
LEX SCREAMED, STUNNED
and weaponless. She leaped away from the door, staring at the wild thing that Jigs had become.

He was ashen, with a day’s growth of beard shadowing his face, and his eyes glowed with a red fire. Most terrifying of all, he was grinning at her with a madman’s pleasure.

“Jigs! Jigs, stop!” she cried as he started toward her.

To her amazement, he paused for a moment, his expression uncertain.

In that blessed second of reprieve, she streaked past him out the door and slammed it shut, then leaned against it to keep Jigs from escaping. Immediately he began screaming and shrieking, hammering at the wood between them.

But by then Cole had come up the stairs, Dave on his tail.

“Alex, what in God’s name…?” the sheriff demanded.

“It’s Jigs—he’s infected,” she said.

“Jigs?” Cole said incredulously. “But…he hasn’t left the saloon.”

As he spoke, the door began to splinter.

“Dave, get something…anything. And hurry!”

Dave turned around, white as a sheet, and shouted down the stairs. Roscoe came rushing up, a sharpened stake in his hand.

Cole grabbed it from him and watched as the door shuddered and began to split.

With one final blow from the far side, the door shattered. There was not help for it. Cole gripped the stake hard and slammed it into Jigs.

The pianist let out a howl of pain, staggering back, gripping the stake, which had only gone through the shoulder, not his heart, as the momentum of his escape had nearly carried him straight past Cole.

But Jigs didn’t come at them again. Instead, he staggered down to his knees, deathly white.

“Alex!”

She spun around, recognizing Cody’s voice and feeling weak with relief that he was back. He was halfway up the stairs, his features taut with concern. Somehow she refrained from throwing herself in his arms.

“It’s Jigs,” she said.

Cole was already stepping forward, ready to rip the stake from Jigs’s shoulder and impale him with it once again.

“Wait, please!” she cried. “Cody—can we save him?”

Cody stared at her, looking almost dismayed.

“We can give him my blood. Please?” Alex begged.

“Alex, what are you talking about?” Cole asked.

“Alex, no,” Cody said.

“Cody, please. This is Jigs. We have to try to save him.”

But Cody shook his head, then told Cole, “We’ll get the
stake out. If he doesn’t die, there’s a chance for him. But be careful. Don’t let him bite you. If he even scrapes you with his teeth, it will make you weaker and could end up killing you.”

Alex stepped back, relieved that he was going to help Jigs, who was still wailing and writhing frantically as Cody and Cole closed in, as careful as if they were trying to pin a rattler.

She turned away, unable to watch, and saw that Roscoe and the girls were at the top of the stairs, watching with wide eyes.

And they weren’t alone.

To her amazement, a priest stepped past them and headed toward her end of the hall. He was saying a prayer and carrying a vial of what had to be holy water in front of him. He went straight past her, to where Jigs was screaming as the men worked to remove the stake without getting bitten.

“In the name of the Lord,” the man thundered, and sprinkled the holy water around.

To Alex’s amazement, Jigs went silent, then began to sniffle. Cody and Cole quickly grabbed him and carried him back to his bed.

Cody looked at Alex. “I need my bag,” he said. “It’s at the boardinghouse.”

“I’ll go,” the priest said.

“No, send Brendan. They don’t know you. And priest or no, they might not let you in.”

“I hear you,” Brendan said as he walked along the hall toward them. “I’m going.”

Cole asked, “Father, who are you?”

“Father Joseph, and I’d just come out to serve in Hollow Tree when this terror started,” Father Joseph said.

“And you’re…alive?” Dave asked skeptically.

“Father Joseph and a few of the others were holed up in the church,” Cody explained.

“Others? Where are they?” Cole asked.

“Downstairs.” Cody said.

Alex took a look at Jigs. His shoulder was bleeding, but Cody was stanching the flow with a wadded-up pillowcase.

Jigs had gone silent, but his eyes were open. He looked scared, and as docile as a lamb.

“Do we need rope?” Alex asked.

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” Cody said.

“I think he still fears a higher power,” Father Joseph said softly.

“And I’m afraid we still have to fear him,” Cody said.

Brendan returned with the bag. Roscoe, who had come to the doorway out of curiosity and overheard the conversation, produced a curtain cord, which they used to truss Jigs.

“The rest of you might want to get out. Brendan can assist me,” Cody said.

“I said that I’d give him my blood, Cody. You can’t keep using your own,” Alex protested.

“It’s no good, Alex. Mine has a—a special coagulating power. Trust me, it will be all right. I know what I’m doing. Everyone, please, I need you to get out.”

“Look, he can have my blood,” Cole said.

“Or…mine,” Dave offered, a little hesitantly.

“No. It needs to be mine,” Cody said. “Out.”

Cole took Alex’s arm, leading her toward the stairs. The others turned and hurried down ahead of them.

Downstairs, Alex was stunned to see that the saloon was
now hosting two women, a middle-aged man and a boy of about sixteen.