Joshua York put a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, Abner. I did try.”
“Oh, I know,” Marsh swore. “It was him that did it to her, that turned her rotten like everything else he touches. Oh, I know who it was, I sure as hell know that. What I don’t know is why the hell you lied to me, Mister York. All that business about the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee. Hell. She ain’t goin’ to outrun nobody, she ain’t never goin’ to move again.” His face was beet red, he knew, and his voice was starting to get loud. “Goddamnit it all to hell, she’s just goin’ to sit and rot, goddamnit it, and you knew it!” He stopped suddenly, before he started to shout and woke up all the damned vampires.
“I knew it,” Joshua York admitted, with sorrow in his eyes. The morning sun shone behind him, and made him look pale and weak. “But I needed you, Abner. It was not all lie. Julian did put forth the plan I told you, but Billy told him what bad shape the Fevre Dream was in, and he gave it up at once. The rest was all true.”
“How the hell can I believe you?” Marsh said flatly. “After all we been through, you lied to me. Goddamn you to hell, Joshua York, you’re my own goddamned partner, and you lied to me!”
“Abner, listen to me. Please. Let me explain.” He put a hand up against his brow, and blinked.
“Go on,” said Marsh. “Go on and tell me. I’m listening, damn you.”
“I needed you. I knew there was no way I could conquer Julian alone. The others . . . even those who are with me, they cannot stand before him, before those eyes . . . he can make them do anything. You were my only hope, Abner. You and the men I thought you would bring with you. It has a painful irony. We of the night have preyed upon the people of the day for uncounted thousands of years, and now I must turn to you to save our race. Julian will destroy us. Abner, your dream may have rotted through, but mine can still live! I helped you once. You could not have built her without me. Help me now.”
“You should have just asked me,” Marsh said. “You could have told me the goddamned truth.”
“I did not know if you would come to save my people. I knew you would come for her.”
“I would have come for you, damn it. We’re partners, ain’t we? Well, ain’t we?”
Joshua York regarded him with quiet gravity. “Yes,” he said.
Marsh glared up at the gray rotten ruin that had been his proud lady, and saw that a goddamned bird had built a nest in one of her stacks. Other birds were stirring and fluttering from tree to tree, making little birdy sounds that vexed Abner Marsh no end. The morning sunlight fell upon the steamer in bright yellow shafts, slanting through the trees and swimming with dust motes. The last shadows were stealing away from the dawn, into the underbrush. “Why the hell now?” Marsh asked, frowning at York again. “If it wasn’t the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee, what was it? What makes today different from the last thirteen years, that all of a sudden you’re runnin’ off and writing me letters?”
“Cynthia is with child,” said Joshua. “My child.”
Abner Marsh remembered the things York had told him so long ago. “You killed somebody together?”
“No. For the first time in our history, conception was free of the taint of the red thirst. Cynthia has been using my drink for years. She became . . . sexually receptive . . . even without the blood, the fever. I responded. It was powerful, Abner. As strong as the thirst, but different, cleaner. A thirst for life instead of death. She will die when her time comes, unless your people can help. Julian would never permit that. And there is the child to think of. I do not want it corrupted, enslaved by Damon Julian. I want this birth to be a new beginning for my race. I had to take action.”
A goddamned vampire baby, Abner Marsh thought. He was going to go in and face Damon Julian for a child that might grow up to be just like Julian was. But maybe not. Maybe it’d grow into Joshua instead. “If you want to do somethin’,” Marsh said, “then why the hell ain’t we in there, instead of yapping out here?” He jerked his shotgun in the direction of the huge ruined steamer.
Joshua York smiled. “I am sorry for the lie,” he said. “Abner, there is no one like you. You have my thanks.”
“Never mind about that now,” Marsh said gruffly, embarrassed by Joshua’s gratitude. He walked out from under the shadows of the trees, toward the Fevre Dream and the rotted, purple-stained indigo tanks that loomed behind her. When he got down near the water, the mud grabbed at his boots and made obscene sucking sounds as he pulled them free. Marsh checked again to make sure the gun was loaded. Then he found an old weathered plank lying in the shallow, still water, leaned it up against the side of her hull, and hefted himself up onto the main deck of the steamboat. Joshua York, moving quickly and silently, came behind him.
The grand staircase confronted them, leading up to the darkness of the boiler deck, to the curtained staterooms where their enemies slept, to the long echoing dimness of the saloon. Marsh did not move immediately. “I want to see my steamer,” he said at last, and he walked around the stair into the engine room.
Seams had burst on a couple of the boilers. Rust had eaten through the steam pipes. The great engines were brown and flaking in spots. Marsh had to step warily to make sure his foot didn’t crash through a rotten floorboard. He went to a furnace. Inside was old cold ash, and something else, something brown and yellow and blackened here and there. He reached in, and came out with a bone. “Bones in her furnace,” he said. “Her deck rotted through. Goddamned slave manacles still on the floor. Rust. Hell. Hell.”He turned. “I seen enough.”
“I told you,” said Joshua York.
“I wanted to see her.” They walked back out into the sunlight of the forecastle. Marsh glanced back over his shoulder at the shadows, the rotten rusted shadows of all that she had been and all that he had dreamed. “Eighteen big boilers,” he said hoarsely. “Whitey loved them engines.”
“Abner, come. We must do what we came to do.”
They ascended the grand staircase, climbing with care. The slime on the steps was foul-smelling and slippery. Marsh leaned too hard on a carved wooden acorn and it came off in his hand. The promenade was gray and deserted and looked unsafe. They entered the main cabin, and Marsh frowned at three hundred feet of decay and despair and beauty gone to rot. The carpet was stained and torn and eaten away by fungus and mold. Green splotches spread across it like cancer eating away at the soul of the steamer. Someone had painted over the skylight, had covered all that fine stained glass with black paint. It was dark. The long marble bar was covered with dust. Stateroom doors hung broken and shattered. One chandelier had fallen. They walked around the pile of broken glass. A third of the mirrors were cracked or missing. The rest had gone blind, their silver flaking away or turning black.
When they walked up to the hurricane deck, Marsh was glad to see the sun. He checked the gun again. The texas loomed above them, its cabin doors closed and waiting. “He still in the captain’s cabin?” Marsh asked. Joshua nodded. They climbed the short flight of steps to the texas deck, and moved toward it.
In the shadows of the texas porch, Sour Billy Tipton was waiting.
But for the eyes, Abner Marsh might never have recognized him. Sour Billy was as ruined as the boat. He had always been skinny. Now he was an animated skeleton, sharp bones thrusting against sickly yellow flesh. His skin had the look of a man’s who has been bedridden for years. His face was a damned skull, a yellowish pockmarked skull. Nearly all his hair had fallen out, and the top of his head was covered with scabs and raw red blotches. He was dressed in black rags, and his fingernails had grown four inches long. Only his eyes were the same: ice-colored and somehow feverish eyes, staring, trying to scare, trying to be little vampire eyes, just like Julian’s. Sour Billy had known they were coming. He must have heard them. When they turned the corner he was there, his knife in his hand, his deadly practiced hand. He said, “Well—”
Abner Marsh snapped up the shotgun and fired both barrels, point-blank, at his chest. Marsh
didn’t much care to hear that second, “Well.” Not this time.
The gun roared and kicked back hard, slamming into Marsh and bruising his arm. Sour Billy’s chest turned red in a hundred places, and the blast threw him backward. The rotten railing of the texas porch gave way behind him, and he went crashing down to the hurricane deck. Still holding his knife, he tried to get to his feet. He reeled and staggered forward dizzily, like a drunk. Marsh jumped down to the hurricane deck after him, and reloaded the gun. Sour Billy grabbed for a pistol stuck through his belt. Marsh gave him two more barrels, and blew him clear off the hurricane deck. The pistol spun from his grip, and Abner Marsh heard Billy scream and smash into something on the way down. He peered down at the forecastle. Billy was lying face-down, twisted at an unnatural angle, a smear of red beneath him. He still had a hold of his goddamned knife, but it didn’t look like he’d be doing any damage with it. Abner Marsh grunted, pulled a couple of fresh shells from his pocket, and turned back toward the texas.
The door to the captain’s cabin stood wide open, and Damon Julian was out on the texas porch facing Joshua, a pale malevolence with black and beckoning eyes. Joshua York stood immobile, like a man entranced.
Marsh wrenched his eyes down to his shotgun and the shells he held in his hand. Pretend he ain’t there, he told himself. You’re in the sun, he can’t come for you, don’t look at him, just load, just load the gun and give him both goddamned barrels right in the face while Joshua holds him still. His hand shook. He steadied it and slid in one shell.
And Damon Julian laughed. At the sound of that laughter Marsh looked up in spite of himself, the second shell still between his fingers. Julian had such music in his laugh, such warmth and good humor, that it was hard to be afraid, hard to remember what he was and the things he could do.
Joshua had fallen to his knees.
Marsh cussed and took three impetuous strides forward, and Julian whirled, still smiling, and came at him. Or tried to. Julian vaulted down to the hurricane deck over the ruined porch, but Joshua saw him, rose, and came leaping after, catching Julian from behind. For a moment they grappled on the deck. Then Marsh heard Joshua cry out in pain, and he looked away and slid the second shell home and closed the gun and looked up again and saw Julian coming, that white face looming up before him and the teeth gleaming, the terrible teeth. His finger tightened convulsively on the trigger before he had the damned gun aimed, and the shot went wild. The recoil sent Marsh sprawling, and that was what probably saved his life. Julian missed him, spun . . . and hesitated when he saw Joshua rising, four long bleeding tracks down his right cheek. “Look at me, Julian,” Joshua called softly. “Look at me.”
Marsh had one shot left. Sprawled on the deck, he raised the shotgun, but he was too slow. Damon Julian tore his eyes away from Joshua and saw the barrel swinging toward him. He whirled, and the shot boomed through empty air. By the time Joshua York had helped Abner Marsh to his feet, Julian had vanished down the stairs. “Go after him!” Joshua said urgently. “And stay alert! He might be waiting for you.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll see he doesn’t leave the boat,” Joshua said. Then he spun and leaped from the edge of the hurricane deck, out over the forecastle, quick and nimble as a cat. He landed a yard from where Sour Billy lay, landed hard and rolled. An instant later he was back up, and darting up the grand staircase.
Marsh took out two more shells and reloaded. Then he went to the stair, peered down it warily, and began to descend step by careful step, the shotgun held at the ready. The wood creaked beneath his tread, but there was no other sound. Marsh knew that meant nothing. They moved so silently, all of them.
He had a hunch he knew where Julian would hide. In the grand saloon, or one of the staterooms off it. Marsh kept his trigger finger tensed, and went on in, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the darkness.
Way at the far end of the cabin, something moved. Marsh aimed and froze, then eased off. It was Joshua.
“He hasn’t come out,” Joshua called, his head moving as his eyes—so much better than Marsh’s—raked the cabin.
“I figured he hadn’t,” Marsh said. All of a sudden it felt cold in the cabin. Cold and still, like the breath from a long-closed tomb. It was too dark. Marsh couldn’t see anything but vaguely menacing shadows. “I need some goddamned light,” he said. He jerked the shotgun upward and fired one barrel up at the skylight. The report echoed deafeningly in the enclosed cabin, and the glass disintegrated. Shards and sunlight came raining down. Marsh took out a shell to reload. “I don’t see nothing,” he said, stepping forward with the gun under his arm. The long cabin was utterly still and empty as far as he could see. Maybe Julian was crouched behind the bar, Marsh thought. Cautiously he moved toward it.
A vague tinkling sound touched his ears, the clatter of crystals clinking together in the wind. Abner Marsh frowned.
And Joshua cried, “Abner! Above you!”
Marsh looked up just as Damon Julian released his hold on the great swaying chandelier and came plunging down at him.
Marsh tried to raise and aim his shotgun, but it was too late and he was too damned slow. Julian landed right on top of him, and sent the gun spinning from Marsh’s grasp, and both of them went down. Marsh tried to roll free. Something grabbed him, pulled. He smashed out blindly with a huge rough fist. The answering blow came out of nowhere and nearly tore his head off. For a moment he lay stunned. His arm was seized and wrenched roughly behind him. Marsh screamed. The pressure did not let up. He tried to push himself to his feet, and his arm was bent upward with awful force. He heard it snap, and he screamed again, louder, as the pain hammered through him. He was pushed roughly to the deck, his face hard against the moldy carpeting. “Struggle, my dear Captain, and I’ll break your other arm,” Julian’s mellow voice told him. “Remain still.”
“Get away from him!” Joshua said. Marsh lifted his eyes and saw him standing twenty feet away.
“I hardly think so,” Julian replied. “Do not move, dear Joshua. If you come at me, I will tear out Captain Marsh’s throat before you are within five feet. Stay where you are and I will spare him. Do you understand?”
Marsh tried to move, and bit his lip in anguish. Joshua stood his ground, hands poised like claws in front of him. “Yes,” he said, “I understand.” His gray eyes looked deadly, but uncertain. Marsh looked around for the shotgun. It lay five feet away, well beyond his reach.
“Good,” said Damon Julian. “Now, why don’t we make ourselves comfortable?” Marsh heard Julian pull over a chair. He seated himself just behind Marsh. “I’ll sit here, in the shadows. You can take a seat beneath that shaft of sunlight the captain so obligingly let into the saloon. Go on, Joshua. Do as I say, unless you want to see him die.”
“If you kill him, there will be nothing between us,” Joshua said.
“Perhaps I am willing to take that risk,” Julian replied. “Are you?”
Joshua York looked around slowly, frowned, took up a chair and moved it beneath the shattered skylight. He seated himself in the sun, a good fifteen feet away from them.
“Take off your hat, Joshua. I want to see your face.”
York grimaced, removed his wide-brimmed hat, and sent it sailing off into the shadows.
“Fine,” said Damon Julian. “Now we can wait together. For a while, Joshua.” He laughed lightly. “Until dark.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream,
May 1870
Sour Billy Tipton opened his eyes and tried to scream. Nothing passed his lips but a soft whimper. He sucked in his breath, and swallowed blood. Sour Billy had drunk enough blood to recognize the taste. Only this time it was his own blood. He coughed and fought for air. He didn’t feel so good. His chest was on fire all over, and it was wet where he was lying. Blood, more blood. “Help me,” he called out, weakly. No one could have heard him more than three feet away. He shuddered, and closed his eyes again, like he could maybe sleep a
nd make the hurt go away.
But the hurt stayed. Sour Billy lay there for the longest time, his eyes closed, breathing ragged breaths that made his chest shake and scream. He couldn’t think of nothing but the blood that was seeping out of him, the deck hard against his face, and the smell. There was some awful smell, all around him. Finally Sour Billy recognized it. He had gone and shit in his pants. He couldn’t feel nothing, but he could smell it. He began to cry.
Finally Sour Billy Tipton could not cry anymore. His tears had dried up, and it hurt too much. It hurt awful bad. He tried to think about something else, about something besides the pain, so it would maybe leave him alone. Slowly it came back to him. Marsh and Joshua York, the shotgun going off in his face. They had come to hurt Julian, he remembered, and he had tried to stop them. Only this time he wasn’t fast enough. He tried to call out again. “Julian!” he called, a little louder than he had before, but still not very loud.
No answer. Sour Billy Tipton whimpered, and opened his eyes again. He had fallen, fallen all the way from the hurricane deck. He was on the forecastle, he saw. And it was daylight. Damon Julian couldn’t hear him. And even if he did, it was so bright, it was the morning, Julian wouldn’t come to him, Julian couldn’t come until dark. By dark he would be dead. “I’ll be dead by dark,” he said aloud, so softly he hardly heard it himself. He coughed and swallowed some more blood. “Mister Julian . . .” he said feebly.
He rested for a while, thinking, or trying to think. He was shot full of holes, he thought. His chest must be raw meat. He ought to be dead, Marsh had been standing right by him, he ought to be dead. Only he wasn’t. Sour Billy sniggered. He knew why he wasn’t dead. Shotguns couldn’t kill him. He was almost one of them now. It was like Julian had said. Sour Billy had felt it happening. Every time he looked in the mirror he thought he was a little whiter, and his eyes were getting more and more like Damon Julian’s, he could see it hisself, and he thought maybe he could see better in the dark this last year or two. It was the blood had done it, he thought. If only it hadn’t made him sick so much, he might be even further along. Sometimes it made him real sick, and he got bad cramps in his belly and threw up, but he kept on drinking it, like Julian said, and it was making him stronger. He could feel it sometimes, and this proved it, they’d shot him and he’d fallen and he wasn’t dead, no sir, he wasn’t dead. He was healing up, just like Damon Julian would. He was nearly one of them now. Sour Billy smiled, and thought that he would lie there until he was all healed, and then he would get up and go kill Abner Marsh. He could imagine how scared Marsh would be when he saw Billy coming, after the way he’d been shot.