Night of the Vampires

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“A shadow?”

She nodded.

“Megan, they come as shadows, they can move like the wind. You know that. You’ve done it, I’m sure.” She was surprised when he touched her arm, gently. “This is our battle,” he said. “It would be nice to think that others were helping, but it’s doubtful. And we’ve got to get moving here—we have a bit of a problem.”

She looked around at the fallen. The corpses were far too new to have dissolved to ash.

“Good point. How do we explain all these dead?”

“And how long do we dare stay here without…without reinforcements?” he asked. “The sun is falling. We have to make sure that we’ve completely dispatched all these men, and then we have to get out of here. I’ll find Lisette and have her see that the burial detail that cleaned up at the prison gets here, too. We’ve got to get back to Cody and Brendan and find out what they discovered today. Hopefully we got a fair number of the loose vampires here.”

She nodded. She didn’t know why, but she felt a sting of tears in her eyes. So many dead! It was war, and men were dying every day. But this…Her heart went out to the beings she had taken down. The Rebels that lay dead had endured battle and capture, but not this unnatural thing.

They shouldn’t have ended this way.

“Disease,” Cole said sadly, looking down at a soldier. “Ah, yes, Cody told me once that disease and infection killed far more men than bullets. I guess he’s right. The gangrene and the vampire diseases, both.”

Wincing, Megan silently agreed, and together they hurriedly made sure that the “diseased” could not come back to strike again.

The sun was almost completely down. They hurried from the cemetery, hitching a ride into the city on a medical supply wagon. They sat in the back, on a flatbed filled with crates, forced to nearly sit atop each other.

But it wasn’t a bad position, Megan thought. She was tired, and the afternoon had left her worried and confused. Her fears of a greater threat came to the fore again, and she considered mentioning something to Cole, weighing her combat-born fears against rational thoughts….

And was surprised when Cole once again took her hand from where it lay on her knee and squeezed it.

She was more surprised, at herself, when she leaned against his shoulder to rest.

He didn’t move away.

THEY ARRIVED AT THE BOARDINGHOUSE to find that the rest of their party had had an uneventful day. Cody and Brendan had scoured the churches with burial grounds, but had run out of daylight time to go on to the other cemeteries.

Brendan Vincent announced he would head to the small office of the Pinkerton agency, which dealt with many secret matters of state, so as to see that the cemetery was cleaned of the evidence of combat before morning.

Before letting Brendan go, Cody hunkered down by his wife and asked, “Alex, do you think that it’s safe?”

Megan was surprised by Cody, Alex and the question.

Alex hesitated before answering him. “Cody, you know that—that I can’t see things on command.”

He nodded. “I was hoping that you might have a sense.”

“I’m not feeling that it’s unsafe. I was worried when you all left this morning, but that was quite natural, don’t you think? I can’t conjure a vision of the cemetery, but…I don’t think we have a choice, do we?”

Cody looked at her awhile longer, smiled and nodded. “All right, Brendan. We don’t have much of a choice.”

“One of us should go with the crew,” Cole said. “Me, I suppose. I know where…I know where the corpses lie.”

“Well, that’s foolish. If we did miss any of the creatures,

you’ll be as vulnerable as any of the men,” Megan told him. “I can go.”

“You were falling asleep on the way back,” Cole said. “I’ll go. You must have realized by now that I do know exactly what I’m up against and how to fight this enemy.” He was irritated when he first started speaking, but she supposed, even if she did have a natural immunity, she ruffled his pride when she suggested that he wasn’t competent—or that he didn’t have the strength. He spoke more gently when he added, “You were fighting that bunch several minutes before I reached you. You have to be far more worn-out. I’ll go.”

Megan frowned, wanting to protest, but Cody put an end to that. “He knows what he’s doing, Megan. Let him handle the situation.”

Cody left with Brendan. Alex rose. “I have a plate of supper for you, Megan. I saved a plate for Cole, too, but…anyway. You need to have dinner. And sustenance.”

Sustenance appeared to be a steaming cup of tomato soup; she knew that it was not. But though Megan hadn’t thought that she was hungry, she was famished.

Cody went out while she was eating. Alex stood looking out the window in the boardinghouse kitchen; there was an actual kitchen building behind the house, but Martha had put in a sink with a water pump and a stove when she had begun letting out rooms. Megan knew that when she wasn’t cooking breakfast for a household of guests inside the house, she prepared food for her children and herself in the kitchen building out back.

Alex seemed anxious as she peered out.

Then she turned and smiled. “Cody is taking a few precautions. He’s setting up an alarm system, arranging

crosses, sprinkling holy water around Martha’s little carriage house, as well.”

“Thank God,” Megan said.

Alex smiled at her, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. “You knew Martha before you were brought here, didn’t you?”

Caught off guard, Megan nodded. “I was afraid to say so. Brendan Vincent is so staunch a Unionist, I was afraid he would think that Martha was a Confederate spy if I let on that we knew each other.”

“Is she a spy?” Alex asked.

“No,” Megan said, with a stone-serious expression Alex could not misinterpret.

Alex smiled and took a seat at the table across from Megan.

“But you are.”

Megan shook her head. “I was a courier, and sometimes I carried information that fell into my lap. I was never actually a spy. And now…well, we’re all fighting a different war.” Megan looked at the woman, staring into her eyes. “Your turn, Alex, please. What was Cody talking about when he asked you if it was going to be safe for Brendan and Cole?”

Alex sat back. She was quiet for a minute. “I have dreams. I see things that happen, or may happen. When I can, I try to prevent them from happening. Actually, I was once brought in for being a spy, but—” she smiled “—I became friends with the U.S. government instead.”

“Who?” Megan demanded, wondering if highest government and military leaders in the land really understood the reality and seriousness of the vampire situation.

“We’re not totally sure we trust you yet, you know,” Alex replied.

“I am Cody’s sister.”

Alex smiled, curling her fingers around the cup of tea she had poured for herself. “I believe that biologically, yes, you’re his sister. But this country is currently full of brothers who grew up in the same house, loving the same two parents, going to war against one another. I’ve personally seen this travesty ripping apart the country. So, whether we all believe you’re Cody’s sister is rather a moot point. None of us knows you.”

“Martha knows me. And you know Martha, too, don’t you?”

Alex laughed. “Yes, I do. I know a lot of people in Washington.”

“Then ask Martha about me,” Megan suggested with both force and exasperation at this tension between them.

“I’ll probably do that.”

They sat in silence for some minutes, whatever had spiked up between them dissipating for the most part. Though questions still remained.

“And you do trust some vampires,” Megan said.

“Some,” Alex agreed, smiling. She hesitated for a moment. “Actually, I have good reason to believe in the goodness of some vampires—as do Cody, Cole and Brendan.” She stood. “You are looking a bit worse for wear. Why, actually, you look like you’ve been digging in a cemetery. I had the tub filled in the back kitchen. I’ll add some water and you can take a bath.”

“I’m not going to take your bath,” Megan protested.

“Oh, seriously, I insist. You look like you need it much more than I do!” Alex told her. “I’ll put more water on to boil.”

It would be good to take a long, hot bath.

Alex provided her with a nightdress and robe and a cake of her own soap; it smelled deliciously of lavender. It seemed such a luxury that night—she hadn’t seen decent soap in a long time. It was growing scarce in the South.

Cody was putting the final touches on a bell-and-wire alarm system on the carriage house where Martha slept with her children. Megan made a mental note to find time with Martha alone in the morning; she didn’t know what Martha knew about Cody and Alex Fox and their friends, Brendan Vincent and Cole Granger. She thought she’d be much better prepared for whatever might come if she studied up on her new associates.

She carried the water to the tub herself, determined not to let Alex tote it for her on top of the kindness she’d shown already. Once she was in the external kitchen, she bolted the door and noted the many windows she had never much paid attention to before. They were closed, the drapes drawn. It was nice. She was beginning to feel as if she was being watched far too easily.

She had never been afraid, not since she had bitten Samuel. Then her mother had sat her down to explain that she was a being of free choice, and that she must choose for herself, but that using her strength for good would certainly prove to be the best thing to do, at least in the long run. Once the war had begun, she hadn’t thought much about what she was; she had thought about little but the men on the field who needed help so desperately. The Minié ball and the other amazing rifle technology in the North had made it certain that many soldiers would be shot, and that most of those hit would die. She’d left Richmond with the Army of Northern Virginia, always on the lookout for the brother she knew had to be out there somewhere. She’d heard he was in New Orleans, and she’d planned to go there. But then a courier told her that he had gone out West, and that he was some kind of a hero in a town called Victory.

Impatient with herself, she dropped her lace-up boots and her muddied outfit to the floor and sank into the water. It wasn’t as warm as she would have liked it, but it was delicious anyway.

And the soap! The sweet scent of lavender was a true wonder.

She leaned back and simply enjoyed the scent and the feel of cleanliness, closing her eyes and letting the water ease around her.

Then she heard a knock at the door.

She stiffened, then relaxed. “Alex? Come on in.”

She had bolted the door, she remembered. “I’m coming. Hang on just a minute, please.”

She hesitated, though. There had been no response from whoever had knocked at the door. Someone tried to twist the door handle. She heard the sound. She saw it move. But it was bolted.

There was another noise.

Now at the side window.

Then…

At the rear window.

Megan scrambled to her feet. She hopped out of the tub just as she heard the shattering of glass.

And saw the figure of a man crawling heedlessly through the shards of the windowpane that clung to the frame.

He was wearing butternut and gray. A Confederate Uniform worn by the Virginia Regulars. His uniform was worn and frayed on his gaunt, tall frame. Creeping menacingly from beneath his hat, a straggly beard, green eyes and dusty brown hair.

She knew him.

He laughed, staring at her, and she realized she was still dripping wet, and naked. She grabbed the bright white towel and covered herself haphazardly.

When he spoke, his voice was strange.

“You! Ah, you, Megan Fox. Imagine. I smelled the intoxicating scent of blood…and it’s you! How delicious. Now, I know. And now, I have the strength, and the power—and the hunger!”