Lourdes: A Vampire In The Old West

25. I Will Be No One's King

A quiet comes over the chamber, with but two feeble men in rags in the center of the pit. Volga holds a stone inside blistered knuckles. Hunched above the little boy, he readies his rock to flatten the heart of Lourdes Iscariot.

"I lied to you, Volga..." Lourdes whispers. "I was stalling." Volga doesn't listen. "Through this whole night, I was stalling. I didn't want Katterina to get hurt, but even after she fled, I still stalled." Volga swings his rock. "I drew out this fight..." The stone lands at the end of messy strikes. "Maybe I've got it in me to defeat you. Maybe I don't." Volga's painted with Lourdes's sinew. "Maybe it doesn't matter because I've already won..." Lourdes still speaks. "But I didn't defeat you. You did." Pops as bones break. "The older we get... The bigger we get... The stronger we get... You're right about that." Lourdes's words come in between the splatter of his blood and rending of his flesh. "The older we get, the more self-absorbed we become as well. I just needed to keep you going until now." Lourdes's words finally make it to Volga's ears. "Until this very moment... Right here. Right now."

Volga stops.

He drops his blunted stone and descends on Lourdes with his fists.

"You're afraid..." Lourdes mutters. He's beaten into only the loose outline of a man. "You hide it under a grin, but you're petrified, and you know deep inside I'm right."

Volga pulls back. Bone shines on his ruined hands, his fangs grow long, and he bows now to taste the elixir that is Lourdes's lifeblood. His teeth against the boy's ear, an inch from his neck and a second from his death, Volga whispers.

"Why?"

"Because I have a pocket watch," Lourdes grins. Opening his remaining hand, the cowboy still clutches his gold watch. Lourdes shows Volga the time. He kept the fight going all night, and it's now morning. Lourdes turns his dim and distant eyes to his faraway knife. It's still lodged within an alabaster sheath. It quivers. It trembles. It shakes. Lourdes instills it with life. Plucked free from the cavern's wall, it roars across the air and - through an alchemy of will, chance, and luck - finds a boarded-up passageway. A clang. Splinters. A flash. Rotten wood. A streak. The knife busts a dam holding back dawn's first light. Morning cascades into the cave, and in an instant, the mess of flailing limbs that was Volga atop Lourdes is now Lourdes atop Volga. Vitriol. Venom. Lourdes, wrapped around Volga, holds him under the sun.

Volga shrieks.

Stark light from the desert sun hits the mountain, rattling through its veins and roaring into the vampires inside its heart. Saved up all night, the sun's fire spears Volga Grigory Ustinov and Lourdes Iscariot. Their bodies melt. Exhausted, there's nothing either can do against the untempered radiance of the rising star. They cannot mend their flesh. They cannot heal mortal wounds. They cannot escape. Spread before the sun, they are prostrate in the court of an unmerciful king.

"No!" Volga bawls. "This can't be! I can't..."

"I told you to pray!" Lourdes sings. Lourdes forces all his weight over the monster. He rocks back and forth as Volga lashes out with the last of his might. Lourdes remains as both are engulfed. He glares down with eyes as bright as the sun. Chrysanthemums. "Personally, I'd pray Saint Peter doesn't stick your head on a pike!"

Day purifying the demons, they start to turn to steam. Volga churns, his insides boiling out, as Lourdes's only arm is reduced to ash. Fighting to make it to shade, frantic to alter his fate, Ustinov tries to run. He pushes through the mound of black that was moments ago Lourdes's grasp. He cackles. He hacks. Furious and desperate, he comes to what few bones still make up his feet. He takes a step. A second. He's struck from above. He falls. Wielding a shovel, Katterina stands.

She's returned.

The sunlight glistens in her apple orchard hair and paints her cheeks the tendermost gold. The arrows which pierce and destroy the devils only shower kisses on the girl. She stares at Volga until she's certain the aching, burning monster recognizes her as the vengeful daughter of Christina and Leroy Adelaide, and then she wheels her shovel at the terrible man again. His legs become dust. Another swing. The pitiful man collapses in a heap. Another strike. The condemned man looks into Katterina until his neck breaks. His skull hangs lame, and Volga's eyes sink to Lourdes.

Katterina looks on Lourdes as well. He burns. No more. Throwing herself over the boy, she smothers his flames. Volga watches as the red-headed girl keeps Lourdes safe. He watches until his eyes melt.

"Judas!" Volga screams.

It ends. Volga Grigory Ustinov ends. All that is Volga Grigory Ustinov comes to a close. The blood Volga held for generations boils away, the magic that gifted him marble skin is dispelled by the sun, and each and every day he's trod over the earth shows upon his face. Volga roars against his brilliant death until the dawn overtakes him. Pure light robs him of his fangs, and he becomes mute. He still has his tongue, and his vocal cords have yet to turn to vapor, but feeling all the days dragging down his soul, the devil stops his yelps.

Volga's ledger burns with him. The vanquished man's body is tinder for the tome, and the big old book is kindling for his bones. Together, they broil. Together, they glow. The pages and Volga's memories, in the same moment, surrender to smoke. Games of chess with scholars. A horse race across the steppe. The taste of a kiss from a peasant girl on Constantinople's final night. The thousands he murdered. The hundreds he sired. The few he loved. The Roma he encountered the season spent stalking a caravan. The young prince from Antwerp. The magician from the Far East. Their memories fade. Their names disappear. The sailors stranded at port because of a storm. The stablehand looking for advancement. The satin sheets after the long hike through the wilderness at an inn in Königsberg. The mother and father devoured on a rattling train and the little girl who ran. What was that girl's name? Her blood tasted so sweet, but what was her name? What was she called? What was her...

The haggard, deviant fiend. A king so far away from home. All that is Volga turns to gold. Fire burns through Volga's mind and leaves only an ounce of salt inside a sallow box. Day scorches Volga's body and leaves but blackened fibers holding up a vacant husk. He whimpers.

Ablaze, all that is Volga Grigory Ustinov turns to soot.

Volga broils into nothing.

Tears well in Katterina's cheeks, and she lets out a breath she's held for a long, long time. She spits on the horse trader's ashes and then turns her lips to Lourdes. The boy looks at the girl over him, his fire lapping across her breast. Lourdes smokes. Katterina doesn't let go. Lourdes smolders. Katterina holds him tight. She presses her soft skin against his charred flesh. She extinguishes his flames. She kisses his chin and cheeks.

Weak, she looks down at the boy in her care. Weak, he smiles up at her. Lourdes shuts his eyes. His body makes itself fall asleep. Katterina covers him.

"Sleep," Katterina whispers.