Lourdes: A Vampire In The Old West

20. Beatrice Raffles

The crow lands on the roof of the Guinevere Hotel. Half the town is in flames and the other half already ashes. The streets are barren. The bird becomes a boy and bursts into the saloon. His hands are talons. His skin boils. A forked tongue darts from cracked lips. Hollow and scorched, Lourdes stands but through odium pumping from his black heart. The vampire's ready to demolish everything in his path, but everything's already rubble. Sharp eyes snap throughout the bar. The hotel's empty. The battle's over, and Heather and the Guinevere lost. Lourdes's gold eyes sort the debris. Hostesses hide in the remains of the stage. Soot... Kindling... Humans... He has no friends here. Jane rises from the wreckage.

"I didn't know..." Jane whispers. With bare feet, she walks across broken glass. Her shoulders are exposed. Her neck and chest are bruised. Clumps of hair simply aren't there. Her left foot falls behind her right. Other women emerge from hiding but stay away. They cower in curtains cut free from the stage. Lourdes looks down on Madam Jane. He sniffs her. The possessed corpse circles the doe. His fangs crest over his lips. He snaps at her, backs away, and holds his heart.

"Speak," Lourdes growls.

"I swear to you, I didn't know..." Jane begins again. She looks up into Lourdes, through the gold light of his eyes, into whatever is beyond. Tears come quickly to her cheeks. "After first light, the priest came in... He shouted that he killed you... He said he took you from beside the Guinevere... He said he burned you and threw you into the dawn... I didn't know..." Jane's words escape in spurts. She speaks as her mind tries to understand one short stretch of the day at a time. "I didn't know what he did... I didn't know what to believe... I didn't know what was true..."

"All this? A priest?" Lourdes coughs. He opens his arms to shattered chandeliers and a hole blown clear through the bar. A shadow of strange delight creeps into his voice. "Are you telling me a priest high on killing a demon burned down your town?"

"A priest turned into a demon..." Jane sobs. The shadow lifts from Lourdes's throat. He becomes silent as the woman who's seen the whole world end continues to speak. "After his boasts, the priest invited the town to his church... He said he had important news... He said he had an important guest... An hour later, he returned with his flock... And they were changed..."

Here, Jane stops. Her legs losing their resolve, she wobbles to one knee and then none. She finds a spot on the floor and turns quiet. Lourdes stares down.

"Changed?" He questions.

Cassidy, in the remains of a dress, offers an answer. Slowly making her way from the stage, she's covered in cuts and burns. She's missing a tooth. She paces toward the collapsed matron.

"They were like you," Cassidy speaks. "Demons. Devils. Vampires. They were like you."

His eyes narrow, Lourdes looks about the Guinevere again. He tries to draw in a deep breath, and a new pain arcs across his face. He's too hurt to detect his kind. His senses so mangled he can barely see and stand, sniffing the preternatural is an impossible feat. Lourdes falters.

"Breybinder wasn't so bad," Jane tells, risen again in Cassidy's arms. "He went about murdering anything in his path, but if you stayed low, you were safe."

"We stayed low," Cassidy tries to grin.

"It was the others who did this," Jane quivers. His hands fists, Lourdes paces. He looks about the saloon. Something's not as it should be. "A tall one in black. With more in ratty coats. Vampires, all of them. I reckon they were the ones who turned our pastor into a freak. They invaded my Guinevere."

"No..." Lourdes whispers. "They were supposed to leave this town after me." He looks again at the remnants of the Guinevere, his old eyes wet with the realization all this is because he ran. Cleft in two, he turns back to Jane. Lourdes staggers forward. He touches her, brushing the hair from the matron's neck. No marks. He looks over Cassidy next. His hand goes for the gun at his side.