I Travel by Night (10 page)

The night fled, and the sun strengthened.

The noise of the swamp became a harsher buzzing, as armies of insects reacted to the growing light and heat. Lawson crawled to the edge of the roof, moving painfully and slowly, and leaned over. There was a glassless window a few feet down. The sunlight was getting yellow now, the glare off the green water burning his eyes. He was going to have to turn himself into the correct position and get his boots on that window ledge, then lower his body through. The pain in his back and ribs were robbing both his strength and his power of will. The sun was hot, adding to his pain. His eyes were nearly blinded. It was going to be a hard descent, though only a matter of maybe four or five feet.

He was ready. He had to go now, before this pain worsened.

“Lawson!
Lawson
!”

He heard her voice, off somewhere to his left, and what remained of his heart leapt. Wherever she’d been hiding, she had heard the derringer shot too. He could barely see without the dark-tinted goggles. He shouted, “I’m here! Up on the steeple!”

There was a moment’s pause. Then: “I see you!” He squinted against the glare and could make her out also. Ann was rowing a skiff up underneath him, and she looked to be covered with gray mud.

“Can you get down from there?” she called. “Can you jump?”

“Maybe,” he said. It was thirty feet and would be a painful landing for him, even in the water. “Here! I’m going to drop this!” With an effort he removed his coat and waistcoat and got the leather harness and the sticks of dynamite off, lifting it over his head. “Get underneath it so it doesn’t get wet. You ready?”

“I am.”

Lawson dropped the harness over and it landed in the boat. “Matches, too. In the waistcoat pocket on the right. Have to keep those dry.” He folded the waistcoat up and dropped it into the boat. He wished he had a rope to lower himself. Maybe there was one in the belltower, but the sun was burning him and his senses were going and he felt panic start to gnaw at him. He was going to have to jump, take the pain and get into that boat. Then find some shelter. He thought sure Ann would be dead by now. There was no time for further deliberation, he had to go.

Lawson gritted his teeth, got his body turned boots first and pushed himself off the roof.

It was bad, but the sunlight promised worse. He came up from the water and with Ann’s help pulled himself over. He huddled in the boat, careful not to wet either the dynamite nor the waistcoat. “Shelter,” he said hoarsely. “I’m burning.”

Ann nodded and began to row toward the nearest half-submerged mansion, a structure with a partly-collapsed roof and green vines and moss covering its facade. “They came after me,” she said, her face and hair coated with dried mud and mud freighting her clothes. Her voice was quiet and measured; it was the voice of a woman fighting shock. “Three of them. I swam. Got down in the mud. I stayed there as long as I could. Then I moved to another place. Down in the mud. I found a place I could hide. Lifted my face just a little above the water. Just a little. So I could breathe. They came after me, but I didn’t move. For a long time. Then they went away. I saw them in their boats. Some left, but some stayed. They’re hiding in these houses. My sister…they turned Eva into one of them, didn’t they?”

“They did,” said the vampire, who shivered as he burned.

“They’re in these houses. All around us. Are they sleeping?”

“They are,” said Lawson.

“Will they wake up in the daylight?”

“No. They’re not like me. I can stand it…a little bit. Will you please hurry?”

“I will,” she promised.

They glided into the cool shadows of the ruined mansion. Sunlight did stream through the windows, but there were trapped corners of velvet darkness. And in those corners were boats with bodies lying in them, wrapped up in protective material such as sailcloth, blankets and—as Lawson had used—window or bed curtains. In this one room alone there were four bodies lying in three boats, their skiffs tied one to another and anchored in place.

Lawson and Ann sat in their skiff in the green gloom, one battling his pain and the other fighting both her shock and grief.

The young woman’s gloved fingers drew her pistol from her holster and began to load it with silver bullets from the ammo loops. Lawson’s Colt with the rosewood grip, grimy with mud, was stuck down in her waistband. Her hands shook a little. “My gun’s dried out,” she said. “I cleaned it as best I could. Do you want me to kill them?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Do you want to see their faces before I do it? The woman…LaRouge. You don’t want me to kill her, do you?”

“She won’t be here,” he said, relieved by the coolness and the shadows. “She knows Christian Melchoir is dead. She suspects I’m still alive. So wherever she is…she’s somewhere else by now.”

“You’re not going to give up looking for her, are you?”

“Give up?” Lawson asked. He stared at the other boats, and the sleepers. “No. I’m not ever giving up.” He saw one of the bodies twitch, as if enduring a bad dream. Maybe they knew they were in danger; maybe they would make an effort to rise from their sleep, even as the bullets were delivered. But today belonged to the angels.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” he said. “I’m sorry she was caught up in this. I’m sorry…for everything.” Even as he spoke, he smelled the fragrance of Ann’s warm blood. He figured the sleepers did too, and they dreamed of sinking their fangs deep and drinking their fill. Maybe he might dream that of Ann, too. Maybe he was more vampire than he wished. Maybe.

Maybe.

“After you finish with the bullets,” Lawson said, “there’s the dynamite. I think Nocturne should be returned to the swamp. What do you say?”

“I say…” Her fierce black eyes in the mud-covered face peered at him. “I want to find my sister, and if she’s anything like
them
…I want to set her free. I can’t bear the thought of my Eva…like
that
. But no one will believe us, will they?”

“Not many, but a few will.”

“Where will you start looking for LaRouge?”

“I think they’ve overtaken another town at the edge of the swamp. I’ll find it. That’s where I’ll start.”

Ann set the six-shooter in her lap. She chewed on her bottom lip, as some of the bodies writhed in their shrouds.

“It seems to me,” she said quietly, “that you need somebody to help you.”

“I wouldn’t ask anyone on this earth to do that. Not knowing what’s out there waiting.”

“It seems to me,” Ann went on, “that you need somebody who can travel by day.” Lawson was silent.

He thought the young woman had lost her mind. That this experience with the Dark Society had done her in. That she was deep in shock and had confused a challenge with a walk into the world of nightmares.

“I can’t go back to what I was,” she said, and as she stared at him two tears ran down through the dried mud on her cheeks. It was the sadness of loss, Lawson thought. It was the sadness of knowing what evil could do. “You know that. Nothing can be the same for me, ever again.” She lifted the pistol. “I can shoot. I can fight. I can avenge my sister. Will you let me help you?” It was night work, Lawson thought. It all came down to night work, except…today was different. Today the sunrise had brought him something new. He didn’t know how much to trust himself with Ann. He was still clinging to humanity, yes, but the vampirism was slowly overtaking him…and the need for human blood was getting stronger.

I travel by night, he thought. Yet it was true…he could use someone who could walk freely in the daytime world. With Ann, he might stand a greater chance of finding LaRouge, drinking her ichor and becoming fully human once more…if that was even possible, and not just a myth given to him by a legless Confederate corporal.

Lawson needed rest. He needed to take the shroud of one of these vampires after they’d been reduced to dust, wrap himself up as if in the wings of a darktime creature and sleep. He and Ann could start moving in the twilight, when his pain was lessened and his resolve firmed.

He felt he had many miles to go in this quest. He felt he had to endure many more horrors, many more trials and tribulations to fight what had been thrust upon him. He was sure Father Deale would like to meet Ann Kingsley. And if the future was uncertain, at least Lawson would know he had another gun on his side.

Ann was waiting for a reply, in this chamber that held equal measures of light and dark just as did life itself.

Lawson wished he had a cigar. He would buy a box of them, once he got back to New Orleans, and in the next few days after his bones had healed and his bruises were gone he would sit on a roof and ponder the stars, and count himself lucky to be alive even in this world where the Dark Society thrived.

Ann was waiting for a reply.

Lawson had taken many chances and trusted much to Fate. He decided to take one more chance, and trust to Fate now more than ever. The vampire gunslinger spoke.

The word he said, both gratefully and sadly for he knew what terrors awaited them, was: “Yes.”