Lourdes: A Vampire In The Old West

11. Two Burning Bodies

Morning. A new sun chases old shadows across parched sand. The hellish cold of the desert night transforms into the hellish heat of the desert day. Ranchers and miners move out into the wasteland with hopes of finding fortune and prayers of finding their next loaf of bread. Yet, a patchwork of pastures and claims are empty today, their owners instead a swelling circle around the town's stone church. Bowing in the shadow of its twisted cross, Breybinder's congregation beat on the chapel's door. Hands slam against worn-down wood. Palms bang a row of heavy locks. Whispers and rumbles peak into shouts.

Slowly, a shadow behind the door shakes its bolts. Opening the gate just enough for his old eyes to touch daylight, Pastor Breybinder gazes on his trembling flock.

"What is it?"

†

Alone in a corner of the Guinevere Hotel, Lourdes sits facing a tall grandfather clock. Beside him is a bottle of gin. Lourdes's eyes follow the pendulum and count its every tick and tock. Emma, Katterina, and Julia tend bar. They serve plates stacked high with bacon fat and washed down with warm beer. Half their customers nurse hangovers, and half are in search of hangovers of their own. Beyond the comprehension of the Guinevere's regulars, who all too greedily lap up their poison and pork, something invisible hangs in the air. There's a pall around Emma, Katterina, and Julia, and the smiles the barmaids serve today are forced.

"It's been two days since Egon and Duncan came into the Guinevere. It's been two days since they learned their Liam left this world. It's been two days since the vampires demanded a duel," Emma mutters between platters of bacon and ham. "Or a massacre."

The woman looks at the boy in the corner. She leans across the bar and hangs over the green eggs of a half-drunk cowhand. Her eyes sweeping over Lourdes, she tries to understand the vampire and his fascination with the timepiece sleeping in shadow. Will he fight for them? A cowboy pays Emma for beer, and she spills his coins straight into a bundle of stockings and dollars just beneath the bar. If the boy doesn't fight, she's prepared. Emma huffs at the thing.

"Has he been there all morning?"

"And all night," Katterina responds. Katterina, Emma, and Julia all gaze over the mountains of sausage and beer. They stand together behind the bar, their hair a bit less teased than yesterday and lips just a little less rouged than the day before that. Why spend an hour putting on your face if you'll only live till noon?

"Is he just looking at the clock?" Julia asks, her teeth chattering despite her best efforts. Lourdes's ears twitch.

"I wouldn't be if you gave me back what's mine!" The vampire shouts across the room. His voice carries over the cowboys laughing, shouting, chewing, and slurping. For a moment, there's silence, and then Lourdes speaks again. "I want my pocket watch!"

"I didn't know he could hear us," Julia breathes with a hand to her mouth. She stumbles back as the boy, turning from his clock, fixes his eyes on the waitress. Julia's legs move from the thing until they hit a wall.

"I'd appreciate my gun, too!" Lourdes barks. There's a grit on his tongue. It's not anger, not rage, and not irritation. Instead, it's determination, a firm resolve to do what must be done. Lourdes's eyes are narrow and lips drawn tight. His visage pangs the blonde prostitute, who – dressed in a duster and little else – walked away with his belt, watch, and gun on Lourdes's first night. A cowboy cries to the woman for a drink. She doesn't hear him. The ghoul's vision grips Julia and robs her of her warmth.

Turning on her heels, Julia runs. She disappears. Emma and Katterina watch the blonde bird fly up the Guinevere's stairs and then give each other only the most candid glance. More beers. More bacon. More coffee spiked with gin.