stopped and spread his arms wide. “Well, brother Lawson…how do you like my town?”
“A little damp,” said Lawson. “A little musty. I think it’s just a matter of time before it slides into the swamp.”
“True,” Christian Melchoir replied. He frowned, and with a toe of a black boot prodded at the empty green gown and the ashes of a dead vampire. “Painfully true. But it won’t happen this night! This night…we celebrate!”
“Celebrate what?”
“Your homecoming. Your chance to rejoin your tribe , sir. And look, you’ve brought us a peace offering. Musicians!” Melchoir turned toward them. “Please keep playing! Everyone, dance as you like! We are here to bring brother Lawson back into our fold, so please…make him feel welcome!” As the musicians began scratching out a tune again, Melchoir grinned at his new guests. “Did you tell this blood-puppet everything? Did you prepare her? Oh, that must have been quite the moment!”
Lawson was content to say nothing and smoke his cigar. He was taking stock of Christian Melchoir. The man was tall and lean and dressed in a swamp-stained gray suit with a dark blue shirt and a lighter blue paisley waistcoat. He appeared to be about twenty-five years old, his pale face smooth and unlined. He had curly black hair and a high-cheekboned face with a long angular nose and a cleft in his chin. His grin was ferocious and hungry, his eyes cool gray under gracefully-arched eyebrows. He gazed from Lawson to Ann and back again, as a few of the vampires continued their dance around the woman in the chair and the others watched the confrontation with a nervous interest, for the sudden extermination of the blonde vampire had served to focus their attention on a small item of mortality they had forgotten about in their present condition.
“Well,” said Lawson, as he blew smoke into the steamy air. “I’ve come to pay you the ransom you requested. First I want to see Eva’s face.”
“We’ll get to that, if you insist upon it.”
“I want Eva back.” Ann aimed her Remington at Melchoir’s head. The gun was miraculously steady, though her voice was certainly not. “I want her untied now .”
“Tell your pretty,” said Melchoir with a fixed smile, “that she does not give orders here. And please lower that gun before anyone else is damaged.” He motioned toward someone amid the watchers. A bald, big-shouldered and barrel-chested vampire in a filthy white shirt and black trousers walked a few steps to Eva’s side, slid a derringer from his pocket and placed the little pistol’s barrel against her right temple. The body stirred and the head gave a startled jerk.
“She has come to no harm yet ,” Melchoir went on. “We want you , Lawson. Of course you know that. Very brave of you to come here, but why bring a blood-puppet?”
“She’s the girl’s sister. I couldn’t stop her.”
“Not so good with the powers of persuasion then, are you?” Melchoir came forward two more paces before he stopped again, warily eyeing Ann’s six-shooter and Lawson’s Colts, the one in his hand and the other still holstered. “We have thirty-eight of us here tonight,” he offered. “Um…pardon me, thirty-seven now. Do you have that many of those magic bullets in your guns? I don’t think so. You can destroy some of us, surely. But…” He opened his mouth wide to show his fangs, which were particularly large and curved. “These will win,” he said when the fangs had slid back into their sockets again. “Eventually, they will win everything.”
“First you built a town that slid into the muck. Now you want to build a world?”
“We want to keep our Society alive and…healthy, so to speak. That means…well, you know what it means.”
Lawson did. It meant the blood hunts by night and the destruction of one farmhouse family after another…and the destruction of one small town after another…and more and more, until…when?…the end of time? He spewed
“A little damp,” said Lawson. “A little musty. I think it’s just a matter of time before it slides into the swamp.”
“True,” Christian Melchoir replied. He frowned, and with a toe of a black boot prodded at the empty green gown and the ashes of a dead vampire. “Painfully true. But it won’t happen this night! This night…we celebrate!”
“Celebrate what?”
“Your homecoming. Your chance to rejoin your tribe , sir. And look, you’ve brought us a peace offering. Musicians!” Melchoir turned toward them. “Please keep playing! Everyone, dance as you like! We are here to bring brother Lawson back into our fold, so please…make him feel welcome!” As the musicians began scratching out a tune again, Melchoir grinned at his new guests. “Did you tell this blood-puppet everything? Did you prepare her? Oh, that must have been quite the moment!”
Lawson was content to say nothing and smoke his cigar. He was taking stock of Christian Melchoir. The man was tall and lean and dressed in a swamp-stained gray suit with a dark blue shirt and a lighter blue paisley waistcoat. He appeared to be about twenty-five years old, his pale face smooth and unlined. He had curly black hair and a high-cheekboned face with a long angular nose and a cleft in his chin. His grin was ferocious and hungry, his eyes cool gray under gracefully-arched eyebrows. He gazed from Lawson to Ann and back again, as a few of the vampires continued their dance around the woman in the chair and the others watched the confrontation with a nervous interest, for the sudden extermination of the blonde vampire had served to focus their attention on a small item of mortality they had forgotten about in their present condition.
“Well,” said Lawson, as he blew smoke into the steamy air. “I’ve come to pay you the ransom you requested. First I want to see Eva’s face.”
“We’ll get to that, if you insist upon it.”
“I want Eva back.” Ann aimed her Remington at Melchoir’s head. The gun was miraculously steady, though her voice was certainly not. “I want her untied now .”
“Tell your pretty,” said Melchoir with a fixed smile, “that she does not give orders here. And please lower that gun before anyone else is damaged.” He motioned toward someone amid the watchers. A bald, big-shouldered and barrel-chested vampire in a filthy white shirt and black trousers walked a few steps to Eva’s side, slid a derringer from his pocket and placed the little pistol’s barrel against her right temple. The body stirred and the head gave a startled jerk.
“She has come to no harm yet ,” Melchoir went on. “We want you , Lawson. Of course you know that. Very brave of you to come here, but why bring a blood-puppet?”
“She’s the girl’s sister. I couldn’t stop her.”
“Not so good with the powers of persuasion then, are you?” Melchoir came forward two more paces before he stopped again, warily eyeing Ann’s six-shooter and Lawson’s Colts, the one in his hand and the other still holstered. “We have thirty-eight of us here tonight,” he offered. “Um…pardon me, thirty-seven now. Do you have that many of those magic bullets in your guns? I don’t think so. You can destroy some of us, surely. But…” He opened his mouth wide to show his fangs, which were particularly large and curved. “These will win,” he said when the fangs had slid back into their sockets again. “Eventually, they will win everything.”
“First you built a town that slid into the muck. Now you want to build a world?”
“We want to keep our Society alive and…healthy, so to speak. That means…well, you know what it means.”
Lawson did. It meant the blood hunts by night and the destruction of one farmhouse family after another…and the destruction of one small town after another…and more and more, until…when?…the end of time? He spewed
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