Hollister needed to walk. It was getting close to midnight. Winchester had left a couple of hours ago, after giving them a dizzying array of weapons, and Chee had remained behind at the… Hollister couldn’t think of anything else to call it but headquarters. It was far more than a warehouse or storage depot. The upper level, reached by a stairway, had rooms for all of them as well as a kitchen, sitting room, and armory.
Jonas was confused. There was obviously money and power behind Pinkerton, Van Helsing, Winchester, and the others. He wondered if the setup was for him specifically or just something set in motion that he happened to be a part of. He was going after some deadly things, these vampires, as Van Helsing had called them. Looking at everything that had gone into preparing him for the task, he still couldn’t help but feel a little bit like cannon fodder.
He walked on, fingering his Colts. Winchester had concentrated mostly on long guns during his demonstrations, but his gunsmiths had made some modifications to an array of pistols as well. They had been similarly altered and now could fire a multitude of ammunition. Some of the bullets had small holes drilled into them, the hole filled with holy water and then sealed with wax. One of the most interesting weapons, besides the “Ass-Kicker,” of course, had been a large-bore single-barrel shotgun that shot a net weighted down with lead balls attached to its edges. It deployed in the air and could capture a man or a beast “with apparent ease,” as Winchester had put it. Hollister snorted at the word ease. He didn’t think there would be anything easy about catching any of these monsters.
Hollister couldn’t help but laugh at that. But he could see the tactical applications of the weapon.
He drew the Colt on his right hip and tested the weight of it in his hands. It felt good to him and he realized again how much he had missed his former life. He missed the army, guns, and sabers, and the trappings of being an officer. Commanding men and fighting and even the rigid structure of the army had been his passion, and he had longed for it.
The Colt slipped back into its slot on the tooled leather holster he’d been given. He had made sure the belt was full of extra rounds, and two speed loaders were strapped securely to each leg. When it came to facing down whatever he’d met on that hillside so many years before, he knew he wanted as much firepower as he could muster.
A light misting of rain started to fall. He felt all jangled up and jumpy and put it off to the fact that until yesterday, he’d been in a jail cell. Walking around like this made him feel out of sorts. Like most cities though, Denver had a rowdy part of town close to the rail yard, and before long he heard noise and pianos and banjos playing from a variety of saloons. He kept going. Denver was a place he’d never visited, and he couldn’t see much of it at night, but the freedom of walking, the fresh air, and even the rain felt good.
Before long, he had passed by the saloons and whorehouses and into a quieter place again, lined with shops and businesses long closed at this hour. Jonas wasn’t sure when he felt the first prickle of alarm along his neck. Growing up, working on the farm, going to West Point, the constant marching and drilling had kept him fit and he moved quietly and well, even when there was no reason to do so. He had learned on the plains that noise could mean death. And when he reached the next street corner, he left the wooden walkway and stepped out onto the dirt street, his strides much quieter in the rain soaked ground.
He meandered across the street at a long angle, pulling back his duster and resting both hands on his pistols. When he reached the walkway, he paused momentarily, pretending he was unsure which direction to take. In the few seconds of quiet, he heard the clump of a boot on wood and the squeak of leather coming from across the street. Not reacting, he stepped carefully up on the wooden sidewalk and walked on. It was dark, and whoever followed him would have a hard time seeing him fingering his Colts. Unless of course, whoever was watching had excellent night vision-inhuman vision-like one of those things.
“Jesus,” he muttered to himself. “Snap out of it, Hollister. No goddamn ‘vampire’ is going to jump you right in the middle of Denver.”
Yet his grip on the Colts remained firm.
He strolled silently down the street, stepping as lightly as he could, pretending to be interested in the shop windows dimly illuminated by the gaslight street lamps. At the next intersection, he turned the corner and put his back against the wall. He drew the Colt from his right holster and waited, counting to ten. Then, removing his hat with his other hand so as not to cast a shadow, he leaned forward and peered around the corner.
Nothing.
Or something.
For a moment, he could have sworn he saw a black-clad figure dart into the alleyway two blocks back the way he had come. The movement was so quick, he wasn’t sure he had seen it and he would have discounted it immediately but for the flash of blond hair. Long blond hair, and wearing a black duster. Now he was sure of it. Without moving, and scarcely breathing, he scanned the street but caught sight of nothing else.
Four years of prison had dulled Hollister’s sense of smell. He was used to the stink of unwashed men and the other disgusting smells of daily prison life. But men who reeked of cologne were another matter. He spun around, bringing his gun hand up, putting the Colt almost on the nose of a tall, thin man wearing a black Stetson, with a scraggly beard over a pockmarked face. The man didn’t flinch, barely moved a muscle in fact, and Hollister found that odd. He moved his hand to his other gun when he saw the dim shadows of three other men behind the first one.
“A very good way to get yourself killed, sneaking up like that,” Hollister said.
The man barely shrugged and asked, “Your name Hollister?” Jonas thought he had a voice like a saw on wood, but so far Jonas had moved the Colt an inch closer and the man barely acknowledged it.
“Who wants to know?” he said. And just so each of them understood he was not in the mood for games, he drew back the hammer on the gun. The click sounded like a cannon shot in the quiet street.
“Mister, I’m raising my hands up real slow. And I’d appreciate if you’d drop the hammer on that smoke wagon real gentle-like. You got the jump on me for sure. It ain’t right, me coming up on you like this in the dark, and I’m sorry fer it.” The man slowly lifted his arms until they were bent at the elbows, his hands floating near his shoulders, the move so nonchalant that Jonas began to worry one of those creatures had found him after all. He kept the gun cocked.
“Mighty generous of you,” he said. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Name is Slater. These fellas here work fer me. And I work fer a man who’d like to talk to you,” Slater said.
“The man have a name?”
“You ever hear of a senator named Declan? James Declan?” Slater asked, his preternatural calm beginning to unnerve Jonas somewhat.
“No,” he lied.
“Well, I reckon you ain’t from around here, then. What matters is he’s a-heard o’ you and he’d like to talk to you. Right quick-like,” Slater said.
“What about?” Hollister asked.
“Don’t reckon I know. Just do what I’m told. Just like you, if you are Major Jonas Hollister, United States Army. That is you, ain’t it?” Slater asked, his dark eyes darting momentarily as if his knowledge of Jonas’s identity had given him some temporary advantage.
“No dice,” Hollister said. “I don’t take orders from you or any so-called senators. Especially not from ones who send gun hands to request my presence, sneaking up on me like a bunch of Kiowa. You’re damn lucky you didn’t lose your head. You tell the senator, if he wants to talk, Major Jonas Hollister will meet him at the Oriental Hotel tomorrow morning at nine A.M. sharp. You got that?”
“Listen, Mr… Major Hollister, the senator, he’s an impatient man, he wants to talk to you tonight, and if I don’t…” Slater stopped talking when Hollister pushed the Colt forward till it rested directly on the tip of Slater’s nose.
“Tomorrow. Nine A.M. Oriental Hotel,” Hollister said. “Is that clear?”
Slater’s eyes changed then. Hollister had done a tour at a Fort in Florida right after the war and living there, he’d seen plenty of gators. Right then, Slater’s eyes reminded him of an alligator, dark and dangerous and peering out of the water, ready to snap.
Slowly and with great deliberation, Slater took a step back and then another. He kept his arms up. His voice was even more tense when he said, “Nine A.M. it is then.” He backed away a few more paces, then turned and walked up the street, his men following along. Hollister held the Colt ready until they turned the corner and disappeared.
Declan. How did he know Jonas was in Denver? Pinkerton had said no one knew except him, the president, and a few members of the Order. Obviously, that was no longer true. He slipped the Colt back into the holster, but not before peering around the side of the building again and looking for any sign of blond hair and a black leather duster. The street was empty.
He headed back the way he had come, eager to report this news to Chee and Pinkerton, wondering one thing with each step: What in the hell was going on?
“Huh,” he muttered to himself.
S haniah watched the altercation of the men in the Denver street from a rooftop. She had returned to Denver having lost Malachi’s trail again. She couldn’t understand how, but he was growing more and more devious and better able to hide his scent from her. What had he learned in his odyssey from their homeland? Was it the altitude? Unlikely, since they had lived in a high altitude in their homeland. Perhaps the air here was different in some way. Had he uncovered a solution to the natural Archaic fear of water and learned a new way to cross rivers and streams? Or had she lived so long in her high mountain stronghold she had just lost the skills of a hunter?
Then, out of nowhere, she had encountered the man from the Wyoming ridge four years earlier. It was a chance encounter since she had rented a room at a hotel near the tracks. It was not a high-class establishment; it was a place that would not draw attention, run by a Chinese family who asked few questions, but instinctively and respectfully feared her.
She caught his scent as he walked by and there was no doubt it was him: the tall, dark-haired soldier who had survived his encounter with Malachi so many years before. Though she seemed unable to keep Malachi in her sights, her Archaic senses had heightened enough in the months she had been in America, and in a matter of seconds, his walk, his smell, and even the sound of his voice, which she had heard carried on the wind, told her it was him.
Why was this man here? Back then she had traveled near Camp Sturgis and the mining camps at Deadwood a few weeks after Hollister had met his fate, and she’d heard people talking. A captain in the army had lost his platoon-to the Sioux-it was said, and had lied to cover it up. He was going to prison. Shaniah knew this is not what occurred, but understood that the soldier would have had a hard time convincing his human masters what had actually happened. Now the very same man was here in Denver.
Instinct told Shaniah it was not a coincidence. The man may have been released from prison, but with Malachi and his band having slaughtered the miners in the nearby camp, it was unlikely that he was here for another reason. America, she had learned, was too big a place, with too many other places to go. People were talking about what had happened at Torson City; word was leaking out that a survivor of the attack was telling wild tales of monsters and demons on the loose. A local powerful politician-the humans called him a senator-was trying to quell the panic, saying it was only a band of renegade Indians who had attacked the miners. If the soldier had heard these rumors, maybe he had come here seeking revenge. If that was true, the man was foolish.
Shaniah did not believe he was foolish though. She had learned never to make snap judgments. Especially when it came to humans. That day on the Wyoming ridge, the soldier had stood up to Malachi. He had been cautious and even fearful at first, but when Malachi attacked, he’d fought bravely and tried desperately to save his men.
It was odd to see him out at this time of night, so heavily armed and alone. Human men were creatures of the flesh, and at first she thought he might be on his way to find a companion for the night, but when he passed by the brothels without a glance, she became even more intrigued.
After following him a few blocks, she knew he had become aware of the fact that he was being followed. Yet Shaniah was willing to bet that he had no idea he was being stalked by her and four other men. Her curiosity nearly revealed her presence when the soldier stopped and turned suddenly, and were it not for her superior reflexes he might have caught more than a glimpse of her. And a few minutes later, as he encountered the four ruffians in the alley, he likely thought it had been one of those men who had been following him.
She watched the man deal with the men and his behavior intrigued her further. He did not show fear, only the calmness that comes from a healthy dose of self-assurance. By then she was on a rooftop above the confrontation below, two buildings south of them, and could easily hear the entire conversation. It confirmed her suspicions: he was here because of Malachi.
When the man turned away from the intersection and started back the way he had come, Shaniah followed him, this time from the rooftops. As far as she knew, this soldier walking in the streets below her was the only human who had survived an encounter with Malachi. He was following Malachi’s trail as well. So she would follow him.
She had nothing to lose.