Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (25 page)

Not a chance. She could read men and Cody was an honest one. The only lies he told were huge ones, transparent tall tales for his own amusement and hers as well, which did her no end of good in the laughs department. She hadn’t had a good one in a while. No, this Cody wouldn’t lie to you, just change the subject. And it wasn’t in a rude way; no, it was rather skillful actually. The conversation would just seem to float away from topics he didn’t want to cover, and if you weren’t paying close attention, which she was, you’d never realize he had masterfully controlled its course.

No. This guy was one for the books. Even if it were just for one night.

First thing was, he was funny. Second, he was obviously smart and well enough off. Of course, there was the fact that they had a few things in common; they didn’t want to talk about where they’d come from or where they were going, they were both hiding something besides an easily identifiable accent, and they shared strong desires and were not afraid to announce them.

And finally, the most important thing about Mr. Cody October (which name, she was certain, was as fake as her own teeth) was that his presence left Vanessa quite aroused. And it wasn’t the money and it wasn’t the smarts and it wasn’t the fact that he was nearly bloody psychic as a cardplayer. It wasn’t even the fact that he was so damned handsome, which he was in a most unconventional and old-fashioned sense—she’d never been one to go in for long hair on men, but it seemed right on Cody. She liked the beard, too. The eyes—not quite gray but with no better word to describe them—they surely had something to do with it. He was tall and that helped; thin, too, with a strong build, but not bulky all over, and she did so dislike those mutant musclemen on the television. He was handsome on the whole, but no movie star, that was for certain.

No, what had drawn her over to the blackjack table to watch in the first place was not just his looks, but something more, something that enhanced them. Though obviously just forty, his eyes crinkled at the edges and a light grew in them and lit his face with a fatherly amusement and grandfatherly wisdom that was concerned and dismissive all at the same time, as if he didn’t need to care about his actions, but did so for his own purposes.

So all of that, put together, that’s what got her over to the table. But what was it, to return to the important question, that aroused Vanessa so? What was it that inspired her to leave with him, to practically invite him to make love?

It was the same with all the men she fell for. It was the easy charm and the warmth of his smile and the nonchalant spontaneity of the man. The part of him that whispered to her, “You mean everybody isn’t like this?” that assumed that contrary to popular opinion, life was a game but a fun one, and it truly wasn’t winning but how you played that was important.

And then it hit her. He’d spelled it out for her. He was an entertainer. A performer and a storyteller in a way that few British men ever could be, or understand. No, this gift Cody had was something purely American, and for the first time in her short life Vanessa envied the people of that nation. To produce such men, to whom constant good humor and easy laughter were not extraordinary, but rather the order of the day. To Cody, sharing the mood and the laugh and the tale was not serious business, but as natural and necessary to his being as breathing.

Vanessa thought all these things about Cody as they walked along the cement path rising above the rocky shore and leading to the pier. He’d been telling her stories from the moment they left the casino, with a short break when she asked if he really had a ship and could she see it. A man with class, he hadn’t tried to hide his randy grin, but rather shared it with her in an intimate fashion it takes men in general years with one woman to master.

She didn’t think she’d ever wanted a man more in her life, and here he was blabbing about having fucked the Princess of Wales.

“You slept with Princess Diana?” she asked incredulously, eyes wide.

He looked at her in mock surprise, his face the picture of innocence. “Well, hell. Hasn’t everyone?”

They were approaching the pier now, the cement soon to turn to wood, and she balled up a little fist and socked him in the shoulder.

“Well, I haven’t,” Vanessa said.

“That’s a shame,” Cody replied. “I would have liked to’ve seen that.”

She hit him again.

“Now then,” he went on, “tell me a little bit about yourself. My tall tales are getting taller and I want to save the best, and the dirtiest, for later.”

“Well, you know most everything I’d like to tell you, though I’ll tell you what most women won’t. I’m thirty-one, I weigh one twenty. My teeth are fake, but my breasts are my own. I know things in the States regarding breasts have gotten a bit dicey. I’m not from London, but I say I am because you’d never have heard of the town.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Well, perhaps I would. You are a man full of surprises, but even so, let’s say I’m from London. I have no parents, no family, I’ve been married twice, but I’ve never been faithful and don’t intend to start. I have all kinds of hobbies, the most important of which you’ll soon discover, and the rest of which you’ll probably never know. That about covers it.”

“Why were you at the casino? Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing most people would do on a whim, jet off to Monte Carlo for a couple of days by themselves.”

“Why, I should have thought that would be obvious Cody, love. I’m hunting.”

Now his eyes perked up and his face took on dark qualities that were new to her. The entertainer was still there, but now there was danger in him, too. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. He said one word. It wasn’t a statement. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t truly aimed at her.

“Hunting.”

“Come on now. I see it in your face and I knew it when I saw you. You’re hunting, too, a predator. We’re all out there looking for something, but only the aggressive ones, only the predators, are truly going to get what they’re after.”

Now he smiled at her again, and Vanessa returned the smile. She knew what he was thinking, that they were both going to get what they were after.

Cody was still sizing up the girl. Certainly she wanted him to give her a poke, but he’d wait until later to decide if she could handle his preferred method of penetration as well. He’d known plenty of women who couldn’t, but an extraordinary number who could. He’d killed some in the early days, but eventually had regained his self-control. His whole life, even before Major North had pointed him out to Ned Buntline, the hack writer who’d given him his awful nickname, even before that, he’d been able to talk almost anybody into almost anything. And he’d much rather be offered what he needed than take it. Still, he wasn’t above a little midnight theft when necessary, though still without killing. Of course, if he were defending himself, that was another story entirely.

No, he didn’t like to kill for sustenance. He’d learned a lot since he’d scalped Yellow Hand in memory of that maniac Custer, and the most important thing was that killing folks is not only bad for the soul, but it’s also bad politics and ends up causing no end of trouble.

Cody liked to think he was simpler than all that. Just a storyteller, he told himself. Even fifty years earlier his curse was that if he told his stories, the true and the not so true, he ran the risk of people believing him, and nobody was supposed to know he was still alive. These days, though, he talked incessantly and was never believed.

As he talked to Vanessa he began to sense even more strongly that she might be willing to do all sorts of “kinky stuff” with him. It had gotten easier since American “doctors” had started to publish books about people who drank blood for various reasons, from health to insanity. And hell, even if he decided not to go for the throat, so to speak—well, he’d have more than enough fun with this fiery redhead. And he liked her a lot, smart and pretty as she was. He’d always had a little soft spot for redheads, especially ones he could talk into bed.

So he’d give her a poke. Maybe even drink her blood. But he wouldn’t kill her. She seemed like a pretty nice girl, after all.

“We’re here,” he said, and gestured at a beautiful ship. Not a huge yacht like many of the ostentatious vessels berthed here, and yet certainly of a size and condition that communicated stature, like its owner.

They turned onto the walkway. Vanessa could see the name painted on the side, and it was
Wounded Knee
, a strange name for a boat, to be sure. But Cody was a strange man.

For the first time, Vanessa noticed that she and Cody were holding hands. They’d done it instinctively, naturally. She looked at him and smiled. His smile was both warm and sad; a man who’d done things he shouldn’t, and couldn’t forget, yet who lived life with a rare energy. Every day, every conversation, every moment was a game to be won. Like blackjack.

In contrast, it usually seemed as if every thought that entered her own mind contained a but. Not this time. Cody may have been a little strange, a bit larger than life, but he definitely had style. Definitely one for the books. She squeezed the hand she held tightly and led him toward his boat.

“
Cody!”
The voice rang out from the deck of the boat, deep and full of the promise of violence. It was a tone Vanessa’s first husband, Ian, had taught her well. She hated it.

But then another sound replaced it, one with which she was unfamiliar but quick to recognize. She hated this new sound most of all.

It was her companion, her new friend, screaming.

Damnation, it hurls!

Cody can’t control his voice at first, the scream sliding out like far too much whiskey from an empty stomach. A slow breath, like wiping that whiskey vomit from his mouth, he regains control.

“
Cody!”
the voice booms again, and it’s all moving too slowly. “I don’t want to have to tell you this more than once. Move away from the woman and she won’t be hurt.”

She
won’t be hurt? Hell, he’s the one with a silver dagger sticking out of his back and they’re telling him
she
won’t be hurt? What kind of shit is that?

He moves quickly.

Cody can’t sec the man who’d been yelling to him, but as he turns there’s no mistaking the trio coming down the pier, or the one only a dozen steps away, who must have backed off when he realized his silver dagger had missed Cody’s heart.

“Pull it out,” he says to a still-startled Vanessa.

“What? But I—”

“Do it!” and he’s glad she’s as tough as he thought she was, because she does do it, puts one hand on his back, covering part of his spine, and with the other, yanks the knife from the wound. Cody sinks fangs into his lip but does not cry out. The lip will heal almost instantly. The wound in his back bleeds freely and will take much longer, poisoned as it is.

“Now get in the boat,” he growls as he sees all four men begin to move forward.

“But . . .” she says again, and he looks at her now, sees her fear just as surely as she must be able to see his anger, his pain, his intentions.

“Get in the boat, damn you. They’re going to kill me and you’re going to be a witness. You think they’ll let you live?” He wants to save the girl, but he hopes she’ll be smart and help him do it.

He knows who they are, immediately. He’s surprised, actually, that it’s taken this long for them to get to him. Von Reinman’s death was a blow, and at first he’d wanted to go after his mentor’s killers, but then, when reports of other assassinations began to trickle in, he’d realized what they were doing and decided simply to wait for them. Karl’s death was just the latest in a series of tragedies that had proven to Cody that his friendship with other men was a curse for them. First his father, Isaac Cody, and then his brother, Sam, and then men who were like brothers to him; Dave Harrington, James Butler Hickok, Sitting Bull. Karl Von Reinman’s death still rankles within him, but it is the cumulative effect of all of these untimely deaths, deaths he could not prevent, that drives his rage now, lends an old storyteller even more courage and strength than Von Reinman’s blood had given him nearly eighty years before.

He is on his first attacker, the man who stabbed him, before the others can even lift their weapons. They’d been insane to attack him at night in the first place, so he knows they’ll be packing whatever weapons it might take. That means silver bullets, and though the wound in his back is healing, silver hurts like hell and might kill him. He isn’t about to let that happen.

He can hear Vanessa gasp at how fast he moves, a man who’s just had a foot-long blade plunged into and then removed from his back. His would-be assassin is yelling in fear, though he’s been trained all his life not to do so. Cody turns him to face his church brothers as they squeeze off their first shots, wasting silver as it thanks into his boat, the pier, and their no-longer-screaming associate. Still, Cody effortlessly holds the dying body up as a shield and pulls out his own weapon.

“My God!” he hears one of them shout. “He’s armed.”

And he is armed. Well armed. A nine-millimeter Beretta, semiautomatic loaded with hollow points, fifteen in the clip and one in the chamber. They aren’t silver. They don’t need to be. He was always a much better shot with a rifle, but it’s hard to carry one under a tux jacket. But the pistol is enough. The last thing these guys expect is a gun.

“Shit.” He takes a slug in the abdomen. It travels through his human shield before it reaches him, so its entry is slow and painful. It will have to come out.