The Gunslinger's Man (26 page)

“What about Dorcas?” Asher blurted, the lesser of all the questions he wanted answered. Did Nyle’s death mean nothing to Malachi? Surely he knew Halloran had shot him—and why.

Malachi turned. “Who? Oh, that…” He waved an indifferent hand. “You may salvage what you like and burn the rest. Later. For now, you’ll come along. Your master didn’t ride all this way to see
me
.”

You only wish he had.
Envy would have been a mistake, so Asher decided the squirming in his gut was merely rage. He cocked an eyebrow at Halloran.
Well, master? What do we do now?
Dance to Malachi’s tune or tempt fate again? Neither option appealed.

“You’ll come along,” Halloran muttered after a beat, aligning himself with Malachi, as Asher had always known he would, as he should’ve expected even from a vampire who killed his own.

He toyed with the thought of trying to retrieve the pistol, but there was no time. Malachi could shatter his spine in the half second it would take Asher to crouch. Halloran could easily get caught in the crossfire. Asher’s skin prickled. He hated himself for considering that an impediment. He hated Halloran for making him weak.

Gears and pistons engaged as he made his feet follow the summons, the sensation unsettling but not without merit. Dorcas hadn’t been aware of her body as her heart beat its sluggish last and ignorance had done her little good.

All over Main Street, shadows stretched along the shuttered storefronts. The hour was too damn early for anyone to be out and about. That was something to be glad of, at least. There was no one to see Asher get marched up to the town hall, no one to watch him enter Ambrose’s home like a good little pet, a mindless automaton tethered to its master’s whims.

Halloran’s hand at the small of his back kept him from stumbling up the steps—or worse, bolting. Asher could’ve shaken it off. He didn’t.

* * * *

Asher’s insides twisted as the door closed behind him. He’d never been to Malachi’s wing. He had never cared to know whether it was more or less lavish than the guestroom he’d been offered for a time. He would’ve died quite happy without that information.

Malachi stripped off his pinstriped frock coat and jettisoned his cufflinks to a nearby table. His aim was as impeccable as the cut of his clothes. Asher had never seen him dressed down. If he’d stayed human, he might have hung on to a reputation as something of a dandy. No one in town would dare speak that way about a vampire. Not if they wanted to live out the day.

“Well, gentlemen?” Malachi rounded to face them.

“Well, what?”

The deep, low baritone of Halloran’s voice set the hairs on the back of Asher’s neck on end. He couldn’t help but be aware that he was suddenly trapped in a room with two creatures built for speed and agility, stronger than any boy he’d ever wrestled in play or genuine scuffle.

“Is this how you spend your time together? Quietly pretending not to look at each other? It’s very sweet,” Malachi simpered, “but we can dispense with the flirting. We’re all men here. Aren’t we, Asher?”

The pointed question seemed to conceal another. A shudder rippled down Asher’s spine. He didn’t know where this was going but he’d never had trouble using his imagination before. If he tried hard enough, he could scare himself into freezing where he stood, like some witless desert rat trapped in a hunter’s sights.

“Halloran don’t share.”

Malachi arched his brow. “He will, with me. Won’t you, darling?” His smile only widened when Halloran failed to correct him. “See? And if I were to suggest that he take your clothes off, I’m sure he’d do that too…”

Fists balled at his sides, it took everything Asher had not to flinch at Malachi’s approach. He’d felt naked under scrutiny before, and he’d had Halloran’s hands on him half a dozen times already.
But not like this.
In this ornate, Fabergé egg of a room with its thick draperies and large bed, he felt like an elastic band stretched to breaking point.

“I wonder,” Malachi went on, lodging a knuckle under Asher’s chin, “do you enjoy
his
mouth or the other way around?”

He and Asher were almost of a height. It wouldn’t have been an effort to meet his eyes or refrain from biting his tongue as Malachi traced his lower lip with a finger.

“Mm, yes. I think I’d like to see that. Get on your knees, lovely.”

“That’s enough,” Halloran barked.

“This is my father’s house.
I
decide what’s enough,” Malachi corrected sweetly, “and
I
say he takes off this blood-spattered shirt and shows me just what it is about him that’s got you cooped up at Willowbranch instead of coming here as you used to.”

The pressure of his touch left Asher with a Hobson’s choice to open his mouth to the intrusion of Malachi’s thumb and potentially loose a tooth. He tasted metal and honey, the sharp, piercing flavor of strong whiskey making him gag.

He didn’t see Halloran stride forward until he’d pried Malachi’s hand off and sent him staggering back a pace. “Leave us, Asher.”

Malachi caught himself easily, his laughter like the scrape of a blade against porcelain. He’d only been dislodged because he allowed it, this latest retreat as false as all others preceding it.

Asher understood why. Malachi’s gaze might as well have been glued to Halloran. Asher was only the bait, just as Halloran had claimed he’d been for Moreau.

“
Asher
.”

He snapped himself back from that train of thought.

Without letting Malachi out of his sight, Halloran nodded toward the door. The message was clear.

Asher clamped his mouth shut. The last he saw of Halloran and Malachi on the other side, they were facing each other like two fighting hounds about to lunge
.

Chapter Thirty-One

“You shouldn’t be here.” Angelita’s voice rose from the depths of the corridor, too soft to echo.

Her door had opened soundlessly, but a triangle of light spilled onto the landing, giving away her presence. If he’d been thinking clearly, Asher might have judged that as a good moment to run.

The memory of what Angelita could do was impossible to set aside.

“You’ve said that before,” he recalled.

“You shouldn’t be
back
.” Petulance slithered into her tone. “Why are you—?”

A clatter upstairs curtailed the question.

Asher leaned his head against the banister. What was he waiting for? It didn’t matter what went on behind Malachi’s door. Halloran would land on his feet. He was a vampire, nigh indestructible. He was also the prize Malachi wanted for himself, which implied a longer lease on life than any other man in his position might have enjoyed.

“Oh.” Angelita glided onto the landing, the train of her cobalt frock dragging over the boards.

“They’re not fighting, are they?”

Angelita could sense vampires the same way she could drive humans into submission. She’d know the answer. She could confirm Asher’s suspicions.

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not.” Asher found her gaze. “You know, one of your maids is in my shop. Dead.” Broken, he’d almost called her, like a pocket watch that failed to keep time or a cuckoo clock that only chimed once in a blue moon.

A shadow passed over Angelita’s features. “Yes, I… I heard.”

“Someone stabbed her.” Someone strong, he had assumed at first—a vampire looking for easy entertainment, a human with an ax to grind—but strength came in all forms.

That familiar brush against his psyche made Asher tremble where he sat. “I ain’t gonna rat.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Angelita protested, but the eerie caress inside his mind flinched away as if she was deliberately granting the reprieve.

“It’s Matheson, isn’t it? The stuff he’s feeding you?” Those vials on her dresser weren’t filled with restoratives. If it was human blood alone she needed to get better, Ambrose would’ve had the whole of Sargasso drained. He seemed to value her a great deal, like any gunslinger fond of a good pistol.

Angelita slid her hands over the railing and tipped forward until she balanced over the open chasm of the stairwell. Her voice, when she spoke, was almost wistful. “Two men face each other across a stretch of road. They don’t know they’re facing opposite directions because all they see is each other. Do you understand?”

“Not even a little,” Asher was happy to report. He’d always believed he wasn’t entirely bereft of smarts, but Angelita had talked circles around him before. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he didn’t want the kind of brains that kept a woman in cahoots with men like Ambrose and Malachi.

Blood pounded against his eardrums twice, the vibration driven by some other force than his own pulsing heart.

“Try this, then,” Angelita said, and leaned forward a little more. “In a land where nothing grows, the only seeds that sprout are in the mind.”

“Gotta be some other land than this one,” Asher offered tepidly. “If we had any sense ’round here, we’d do for Sargasso like your pals did for Redemption, and set up shop somewhere kinder.”

Slanting a pitying glance at him, Angelita dropped her voice to a whisper. “We tried.”

“Yeah, thanks for the reminder.” As if Asher didn’t know that it was all his fault. As if he needed Angelita of all people to pass judgment over his failures.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Angelita sighed. “You plant a seed and you let it grow. It may not grow as fast as you wish, but it
will
grow.”

Asher snorted. That was some bald-faced crap.

“Sargasso is more fertile than you think,” she went on. “It’s just…we grow facing opposite directions.”

Another clang upstairs sent Asher to his feet. “Your philosophy’s real interesting—”

“Ambrose thinks something is coming.”

That caught Asher’s attention. Halloran had said something similar once, in the depths of a dream. It hadn’t made much sense then, either.

Angelita drew her bottom lip between her teeth as if in thought.

“Why are you telling me this?” Asher scowled. “You’re his pet.”
I’m the guy who tried to kill him.

“He changed you.”

“Yeah. Me and the maids,” Asher drawled, humorless. “Are you going to tell me what happened to Dorcas?”

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Two men face each other across a stretch of road. They both have blood on their hands… Do you understand?”

Asher swallowed hard. He would’ve been happier if he didn’t. “I’ll see you around.”

Every last ounce of strength he possessed went into forcing his mechanical body into motion. He braced for Angelita’s invisible hand snagging at his throat, but there was no hook, no anchor in his bones. With no one to stop him, he took the stairs two by two and shoved open the front door.

Ambrose’s thugs eyed him warily but whatever orders they’d been given with must not have involved keeping him trapped inside.

The notion stung. Even Ambrose, who had the most reason to fear him, had come to believe that Asher was effectively neutered.

“Hey, do you see that?” one of the goons stationed on the porch asked his pal.

Sunlight stinging his eyes, it took Asher a moment to notice what he meant—a black smudge in the distance, the sky shimmering above two orange flares.

The other gunslinger used the hilt of his rifle to push himself to his feet. “The hell is that?”

“Fire,” Asher breathed, feeling as though he’d been punched in the chest. “Fire at Willowbranch…” And that inky blur racing toward Sargasso at break-neck speed could only be the cattle.

Whatever relief might have sprung up at the sight was quickly quashed by the presence of horsemen accompanying it—the ones closest to the herd and the ones trailing a long way behind, their pistols raised high.

Gunshots echoed over the valley, spurring the animals on. One of the figures in the first group slumped over his mount and didn’t sit up again.

“Raise the alarm!” Asher shouted. “Go!”

Confusion gripped the town as men and women going about their business heard the commotion. Mr. Pinkham poked his head out of shop. Dr. Matheson, fresh out of the post office, nearly dropped the parcel under his arm when Asher brushed past him.

The church bells began to chime just as he stumbled into Uncle Howard’s shop. With Dorcas forgotten on the worktable, it looked more like a funeral home. Asher didn’t let himself dwell on it for long. His heart pounding a frenzied tattoo, he dove under the desk, gratified when he found the pistol still there, still loaded. It wasn’t much of a shield against harm, but if Redemption had taught him anything, it was that to be armed was better than the alternative.

Dizzy with the déjà-vu, Asher slid the remaining bullets into his back pocket and levered upright. He nearly lost his footing when the ground began to shake beneath him. In more than seventy years, Sargasso had never known a single earthquake. It hadn’t been trampled by cattle, either, whose hooves stirred clouds of orange dust, blinding themselves and everyone around them.

Gunshots echoed close by. No sooner had Asher made it to the door of the shop that a rider raced by so close Asher had to duck back over the threshold. He thought it might have been Charlie, but the haze swallowed him up too fast for Asher to be certain.

Another horse strode past, this one with a limp burden on his back that slid to the ground some twenty feet away. Tangled in its reins, the animal whickered and stopped a back hoof.

Its rider had been human, judging by the way it had kept its form. It was also dead, or dying. Keeping low to the ground, Asher hurried toward it.

The cattle pounded an almighty ruckus. Screams accompanied them somewhere on the far side of Main Street. Men and women who hadn’t been quick enough to race for cover found themselves caught in the throng.

Another cavalcade swung past. Asher pressed himself against the wall of the leatherworks and raised the pistol. His hand hadn’t trembled when he’d shot Moreau, but Moreau had been coming straight at him. Moving targets were a different story. His flesh ached where Malachi had sunk his teeth. He pressed against the wood to keep the sting alive. His penchant for pain had always worked against him. Perhaps it was time to use it to his advantage.