By the time Fossie had finished what he could do for Blue and bound Rebinaux’s mangled hand with bandages, Eric was back with the blankets and a short ladder. Under Lawson’s command, the two desperadoes set Blue on the ladder, the doctor folded a blanket behind her head and smoothed the other one over her, Rebinaux hauled himself up from the floor cursing all the way and they were ready to go.
“Here,” Fossie set before they started out. He brought a small brown bottle from his bag and offered it to Lawson. “She shouldn’t wake before you reach Helena, but if she does and she fights to get at that wound, put some of this down her throat. It’s morphine and straight rotgut whiskey, enough to drop a mule.” Then the doctor’s eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. “You are also ill, Mr. Lawson?”
“I’ve been better,” said the vampire. “I will be again.”
The doctor nodded, though Lawson was certainly sure Fossie had no idea what illness he was looking at. Lawson ordered Mathias and Presco to carry the girl between them. Johnny Rebinaux staggered along. Eric and the doctor followed them out and through the throng that had gathered outside in the falling snow, while Cantrell stayed behind to make sure his Palace wasn’t looted.
Under the single siding at the small train depot, the 4-4-0 locomotive hissed and seethed as if angered at the delay. The engine would be pulling the same load down from Perdition as it had pulled up: a coal tender, a passenger car and four freight cars. The train’s crew of engineer, fireman and conductor had been here since the late afternoon run, likely having their dinner at one of Perdition’s two cafes after turning the train southward again on the oval track that circled the town. Nealsen and Ann were waiting on the platform, along with the engineer who Lawson figured was the man Cantrell had referred to as “Tabbers”. The gent appeared to be a true Viking, standing about six-foot-three with a flame-red beard and a face that could scare a gargoyle. The fireman, a young black man, was at his station in the cab. Alongside Tabbers stood the conductor, who Lawson and Ann had already seen on the way up; he was a short bulldog of a man about sixty years of age, wearing a dark blue coat and cap, with long white hair flowing about his shoulders and the battered look of a boxer who had gone a few rounds too many.
Fossie went directly into the telegraph office to send the message. “Get her aboard!” the conductor said in nearly a growl when he saw the two men carrying the wounded girl, and he hooked a thumb toward the passenger car. “Everybody else who ain’t got a ticket for Helena, get one now and be quick about it!”
Ann had already secured the tickets and put their bags aboard. Lawson paid the bartender the ten dollars he’d promised. Tabbers was climbing up into the engine and the conductor went up the metal steps into the passenger car, which was lit within by oil lamps set in gimbals on the walls. It was time to get started.
But Lawson staggered; he had been holding himself tight against the smell of all this blood, and now he lost himself for an instant. In that terrible span of time the evil desires of the vampire rose up from the place he’d been forcing it down. Not only did the muscles of his face jump and twitch as his mouth seemed to want to open involuntarily, but he saw in the redseared eye of his mind himself slaughtering everyone on this platform—Ann included—and feasting as was his power and right as a god of the night upon these pathetic creatures. Such weaklings as they were did not deserve to live in the world that was to come, and indeed would eventually fall to the fangs of the Dark Society. Why not now? Why not take them all, right this moment? It would be a blessing for them to be released from their hopeless shells, really; he could turn Ann if he pleased. He could set her right with her sister and her father, and she would know what it was like to be chosen…to be fearless…to be a power that no human could resist…
“Are you all right?” Ann asked him, and Lawson saw that he was the center of attention because he had fallen against the wooden wall of the telegraph office and seemed to be hanging there on the verge of toppling to the boards.
He put a hand to his forehead. Usually he was so cold, but tonight he felt feverish.
“Get everyone on the train,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“What’s the—”
“Just do it. Please.”
She nodded. Her face was grim, her lips tight. She well aware that something was going on with him that perhaps she didn’t wish to know. Quickly, she turned away and with her gun drawn she oversaw the carrying of Blue into the passenger car. Rebinaux went in, and behind him went Eric. Ann started to speak again to Lawson but when she looked back she saw him stagger into a narrow alley between the telegraph office and the small structure where the tickets were sold. She decided that for the moment there was nothing she could do for him; he would come when he was ready. She went into the passenger car and closed the door behind her.
In the alley, as the snowflakes whirled down and the bitter wind sang, the vampire sought his bottle of cattle blood. He was shamed to his soul for the images and thoughts that had assailed him. But even so, some deep and dark part of him kept whispering Why not? Why not?
He got his back against the timbers and fumbled for a few seconds with getting the bottle uncorked. His hands, usually so strong, had become as white-fleshed jelly. He was losing control of himself in all ways…physically, mentally, spiritually. The road of no return beckoned him…a horrible road, but one of great beauty too…no, no…not beautiful…a torment, a death-in-life…but what is your life now, Lawson?
He drank from the Japanese bottle. Drained it dry. Still he burned, and still he yearned.
Something scuttled in the alley.
It took him two seconds to focus upon the gray rat that was feasting upon a scattering of garbage in the snow. What was in that pile of refuse was difficult to say, but even to one of vampiric nature it was repulsive.
Blood flowed within the rodent. That was all Lawson needed to know.
He was on the rat in a blur of motion. It was picked up before it realized it was in danger. The desperate creature who gripped it opened his mouth to tear the rat’s head off and drink the fluids in a fountain of gore from the ragged neck.
“Mr. Lawson?”
Someone behind him, in the alley.
He froze, standing in the falling snow with the squirming rat right at his mouth, the small claws struggling for purchase, the red eye a bloody cup of terror.
“Mr. Lawson? Sir?”
It was the doctor. Lawson would’ve sensed him there, but all his powers and energies had been aimed toward feeding this ungodly hunger.
He dropped his hand. The rat gave him a little nip on the index finger as it jumped free. No ichor rose; the rodent’s teeth had not gone deep enough. The little scratch would be healed in a few minutes. The rat scrabbled into a tangle of broken crates and was gone.
He turned toward Fossie, who stood about ten feet away at the alley’s entrance. If the doctor had seen what he was about to do, what of it?
Take him, the vampire thought. Do it quickly…
Fossie cleared his throat. Snowflakes were stuck on the lenses of his spectacles. “I…have sent the message. The train’s moving out. You should be on it, ya?”
They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.
Then Lawson nodded.
“Yes, I should be,” he answered, and when he approached Fossie the doctor drew back. Maybe he’d seen nothing, maybe he’d seen everything; at the moment Lawson cared not.