Dead Roses for a Blue Lady (28 page)

"Mine?" Cade took his hat off and hurled it to the floor.
"Damn
it! The old copper mine! I was there earlier today, just before I got the call about Nate's barn! I
knew
something was wrong out there, but I just couldn't put my finger on it!
Damn it!
He kicked the remains of a broken chair across the room in his anger. "I should have followed my instincts and gone into that fucking mine! If I had, this never would have happened!"

"Don't be so rough on yourself," Sonja said gently. "Chances are you would have simply gotten yourself killed. Being a werewolf isn't much help in a vampire's lair—especially if he's got a minion with him. And judging from the mess in the coop, our friend didn't waste any time replacing his ghoul.

"Do you think there's a chance she's still alive?"

"The only humans vampires keep alive are renfields," she said, shaking her head sadly.

"They are psychics who serve as watchdogs for their masters during the day. Unless your Mrs. Cowpers is a telepath or clairvoyant, her only use to Vasek is as an addition to his brood."

Cade sighed and picked his hat up off the floor, knocking the dust off it. "You're the vampire hunter—what do we do now?"

"We wait for the sun. There's no point in trying to find him before then. As long as he remains underground, Vasek is capable of moving about during daylight hours. However,
enkidu
don't like interrupting their beauty sleep. He'll be somewhat sluggish, as will be whatever by-blows he's got down there with him."

"In that case, political correctness be damned! I'm rounding up the rest of the human homesteaders tonight and bringing them inside the perimeter for the duration. I'm not going to let that son of a bitch claim another life on my watch! Filthy bloodsucker! Uh, no offense, ma'am."

"None taken, sheriff."

As dawn arrived, two vehicles pulled up to the old abandoned copper mine. The first was

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) the Jeep, with Cade at the wheel, Sonja riding shotgun, Fella wedged in between them.

The second vehicle was a pick-up truck, containing Uncle Billy and Cissy, with Cully riding in the bed.

Cade hopped out of the Jeep and cupped his hands to his mouth.
"Wiley! Where are you?'

"I doubt he will answer," Sonja said. "From what you've told me, your friend was probably one of Vasek's earliest victims."

"I still have to try and find him," Cade replied as he mounted the stairs to Wiley's cabin.

"His safety is my responsibility."

"Any sign?" Uncle Billy called up from beside the truck.

Cade shook his head. "His bed doesn't look like it's been slept in." He hurried back down to join the others. As he reached the bottom of the stairs something brownish-gold and low to the ground flickered at the corner of his eye. As he turned towards the thing at the edge of his vision, Changing Woman rose up onto her hind legs, her three rows of teats barely discernable through the thick fur covering her belly.

"Good morning, mother," Cade said evenly. "I see you've chosen to join us."

"Of course. You are my son, matters of conception aside. I would not allow you to go into battle alone. And, to speak straight, I have my doubts about your new friend." She gestured with one talon to where Sonja stood, talking to Uncle Billy.

"What about her?"

"I do not trust her. There is a shadow on her soul, one that waxes and wanes like the phases of the moon. Some times her face shines, other times it is in eclipse."

"Could you say that a little louder? I don't' think she can hear you from where she's standing!" Cade snapped at Changing Woman. "Look, if Sonja was going to kill me, she could have done it several times by now. Jesus, mother—one of these days you're going to
have
to learn to trust other species!"

"I remember how this land was before the white man," Changing Woman replied curtly.

"Speak to me of trusting strangers in another century or two."

Exasperated, Cade went to where the others were gathered, trying to ignore the burning in his ears.

"You're mother's right," Sonja said. There was no trace of anger or insult in her voice.

"There is no reason for her to trust me. For all you know, I'm one of Vasek's minions leading you all into a cleverly orchestrated death trap."

"Are you?" Cade asked, arching an eyebrow.

"No," she replied. "But I
could
be
.
You never can tell—whether it's with people or things that pretend to be people. Now let's get this show on the road."

As they neared the mouth of the mine, Uncle Billy grimaced. "Christ Almighty! You smell that?"

"Yeah," Cade replied through clenched teeth.

"Smell what?" Cissy asked, looking confused. "All I smell is dirt and machine oil."

"Sorry, girl," Uncle Billy said. "I forgot your nose isn't as keen as ours. Even Cully's picked up on it." He nodded toward the young ogre, whose nostrils were flared like those of a nervous pony.

"Bad. Bad in dark," Cully rumbled anxiously.

"It's the odor of nesting undead," Sonja explained. "That means there's more than one down there."

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"Sonja and I are going in. Uncle Billy, Changing Woman, I want you to wait here with Cissy and Cully. If anything comes out, I want y'all to blast it, understand?"

"Gotcha," Uncle Billy said as he broke open his shotgun and slid a couple of cartridges into the breach.

"Whatever you do, make sure you shoot it in the head," Sonja explained. "It doesn't matter whether you're using regular buckshot or the silver loads. If you blow out its brains, it ain't goin' nowhere. If you can't manage a headshot, try for the spine. Cutting them in two won't kill them, but it'll slow them down."

"Yes, ma'am," Uncle Billy snapped his shotgun back together. "Here, you better take this with you, Skin," he said, handing Cade a nine-volt flashlight. "I realize y'all don't have much trouble in the dark, but there's a limit to even
vargr
night-vision."

"Thanks, Billy," Cade said, hefting the flashlight in salute. As they moved towards the yawning mouth of the old incline shaft that led down into the mine, Fella dropped into step behind them. Cade turned and shook his head, pointing sternly at the others. "Fella!
No!

You can't come with me this time, big guy! You've gotta stay here with Uncle Billy and the others."

Fella made a snuffling noise and shook his head, his ears flapping like stubby wings.

"You heard me! I said
no!"
Cade's tone was stern and loud, as if he was talking to a recalcitrant Labrador Retriever insisting on following him to school. "You can't go with me!"

Fella's ears drooped, his shoulders slumped, and his tail dropped. After a long moment, the half-wolf turned and plodded back in the direction of the others as Cade and Sonja continued into the mine. As they followed the narrow-gauge tracks that once ran the ore-cars, Cade glanced over his shoulder and saw the half-wolf framed against the daylight, watching after them with an anxious expression on its face.

"Damn hard-headed beast," he sighed.

"He's extremely loyal," Sonja commented, not without some admiration. "You are lucky to have him as a friend."

"He's more than a friend; he's family," Cade explained. "And I don't mean it in the usual way people do when they talk about their pets. He's a first cousin on my dad's side. Good Lord—what's that stink?" He swung the flashlight beam in the direction of the reek. The dim light reflected off the peeled skull of a burro. "That's Sookie, Wiley's pack animal, or at least what's left of her." He grimaced and looked away. "Did—did that Vasek asshole do this?"

"Judging from the puncture wounds on the animal's throat, I'd say he was responsible for part of it. But I'm betting most of that damage was done by a ghoul. They're equal opportunity carnivores. Horses, chickens, pigs, dogs, humans, whatever. They prefer living meat, but they'll eat the dead if there's nothing else on hand." She glanced around at the various side tunnels that branched off the main shaft. "I wouldn't be surprised if the ghoul wasn't using these passageways to excavate bodies from the local graveyard."

"He wouldn't have to go that far," Cade replied. "This mine is one huge tomb. There was a cave-in in one of the lower galleries back during the 1920s that trapped at least fifty miners. The company decided it was more cost-effective to leave them there rather than excavate them. Not long after that they closed down the mine for good."

"How quaint," Sonja grunted in reply. "No wonder Vasek chose this place to nest in; the

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) very walls are impregnated with the horror and suffering of those miners left to die.

Enkidu
are drawn to scenes of human misery like flies to shit."

As they moved farther into the mine, the incline grew steeper and the atmosphere increasingly close.

"God, the air's stale down here," Cade grumbled, coughing into his fist.

"That doesn't mean much to a creature like Vasek. Vampires don't need to breathe like living things do."

Cade paused, tilting his head to one side like a hound. "Do you hear that?"

Sonja stood still, lending her ears to his. "Yes," she whispered in reply. "It's coming from over there." She pointed to one of the side-tunnels off the main passageway.

Cade turned the flashlight in the direction she had pointed, casting its beam onto an image born of nightmare. A pallid figure, nominally human, squatted on its haunches in the darkness, naked save for the bushy mane and beard framing its face and the blood and chicken feathers smeared across its chest and thighs. It was busily gnawing on a human thighbone that had been snapped in half.

Cade stepped forward.
"Wiley
—!"

The ghoul jerked its head in Cade's direction, baring its teeth at the intruders, spittle and blood dripping from its curled lips.

Sonja grabbed Cade's arm in an attempt to stop him from getting too close, but it was too late. The ghoul leapt forward, swinging the thighbone like a crazed caveman, knocking the flashlight from Cade's hand. The passageway was plunged into darkness deeper than any grave. The ghoul's powerful hands closed upon Cade's throat, bearing him to the ground with a strength born of something beyond simple madness.

There was fierce growling and the smell of fur and the ghoul's face contorted in pain and it's blood-wet mouth opened wide and shrieked in agony as it was dragged backwards, off the prone body of the sheriff. Cade could see Fella pulling the ghoul down the tunnel, his powerful jaws locked onto its hind leg.

The half-wolf whipped its massive head back and forth, savaging the captive ghoul like a terrier with a rat. The ghoul shrieked and plunged the jagged end of the thighbone into Fella's shoulder, causing him to yelp in pain and let go of his prey. The ghoul quickly got to its feet and disappeared into the darkness, dragging its right leg like a broken kite.

Sonja dashed after the wounded undead thing, her silver knife drawn.

Cade turned his attention to Fella; the half-wolf lay on his side, panting rapidly, the thighbone jutting out of his shoulder, not far from a major artery. Cade gripped the makeshift knife and pulled it free with a single tug. Fella turned his head to lick his wound, whimpering like a pup on the tit.

"Fella! Damn it, boy! I
told you
to stay put!" Cade said as he saw to his friend's shoulder, wrapping a strip of cloth torn from his shirt over the puncture. Fella licked Cade's face as he bandaged his wound. "Don't try making up to me right now!" he said sternly, pushing Fella's muzzle away. "You disobeyed a direct order! Now go back up top and stay there!"

"Take this with you."

Cade looked up, startled by Sonja's sudden, silent reappearance. One second she wasn't there, the next she was standing at his elbow, Wiley's head held in one hand like a perverse lantern. She tossed the gruesome souvenir onto the ground between the half-wolf's paws.

Fella eagerly snatched it up, careful not to tear the skin with his fangs, and trotted off like

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) a dog with a new chew toy.

"It was a quick enough death, as such things go," she said as Cade got back onto his feet.

"Your friend felt very little, assuming there was anything of him left inside that thing. You okay?"

"I'll live," he wheezed, massaging his bruised throat.

"I didn't dare interfere when it jumped you," she explained. "If I nicked you while trying to stab the ghoul..."

"I understand."

"We're close to the nest. I can feel it," she said. "I can take over from here. You go back up top with Fella."

"No. This is my town. I am the law here. It is my responsibility to see that justice is done."

"Nobody would think less of you for letting me take care of this, Cade. After all, you have a wife and kids depending on you."

"That's exactly why I can't turn tail at a time like this."

Sonja took a deep breath, as if preparing to argue the matter then let it out again, like a weary horse. "Suit yourself. It's your jurisdiction."

"Which way do we go, then?"

"This way," Sonja said, gesturing in the direction the ghoul had fled. "Wounded minions invariably flee in the direction of their masters. For some deluded reason they think they'll protect them."

"Do they?"

"Naw. Usually they just kill them."

"Do you think he knows we're down here?"

"Oh, he knows, alright. They always know when you kill one of their posse. Don't ask me how, they just do. So be on your toes."

The narrow passageway eventually opened onto a large gallery, the solid rock ceiling carved into the rough semblance of a cathedral. The air was foul and heavy with moisture from the seeping walls.