so unless you got any pressing business with him, I'll get right to taking his head off."
James sighed and nodded, turning his face away as Cora's saber came down on the old man's neck. She wiped the blade clean on the snow next to the body, then dried it on her coat and slid it home. James turned back toward the old man and knelt. He reached into his pocket, produced a small clove of garlic, and stuffed it into the victim's mouth. He muttered a brief prayer, then stood and looked at Cora. "Shall we?"
"I reckon so," Cora said. "You want to bring him back for a proper burial?"
"I'll send a wagon for him in the morning," James said. "The vrykolakas will have no interest in his remains."
"If you say so," Cora said. "You got to get the retreat ready, anyhow."
"Ready?" a young man from the group asked. "Ready for what?"
James looked skyward at the waning daylight. "For the coming darkness."
FOURTEEN
Ben and Cora rode back to town under the afternoon sun. She had wanted to stay and help James fortify Harcourt's retreat against the vampiric attack, but the scholar would have none of it. He had stood beneath the archway leading to the front door, refusing her passage.
"I can prepare my own home," he said. "It's more important that you return to Leadville and make what preparations you can. You will need all the help you can get should we fail to hold them back."
Cora finally relented, but not before informing James just how much of an old fool he was. Shaking her head, she walked down the path to where Ben stood with their horses. When he saw her approaching, Ben climbed on Book's back and turned the gelding's head toward the road. Cora followed suit, Our Lady swaying beneath her as she mounted. She readied her heels for a punch to the mare's ribs when the scholar's voice echoed back to her.
"You will remember to bring your husband next time, won't you?" James called, waving his hand. "I should so like to meet him."
Cora raised her hand without responding, then gave Our Lady her heels and followed Ben down the road. They rode at a good clip, bandanas pulled up against the frigid air. The town of Leadville was nothing but a dark gray shadow in the distance, ignorant of the menace that threatened to swallow it whole. Above their heads, the eastern sky was beginning to give way to the darker blue of evening.
After awhile, Cora broke the silence. "That James Townsend is a mite touched, if you ask me."
"Why's that?" Ben asked. "Cause he's set on making a stand all by his lonesome?"
Cora shook her head. "He just wants to be a hero, and I can't blame him on that account. There's plenty of times we've made dumb moves just to make the kill that much more fun. You remember the time we cornered that werewolf down in Santa Fe?"
"That's the one them Indians said was a skin-walker, right?"
"One and the same," Cora said. "There I was, set to put a silver bullet in its head while it was still human when you come barging in and tell me to wait. 'It's a better time if you let it change,' you says. So I held my fire until them hungry-looking eyes were staring holes through me. Fool thing nearly tore my neck out before I put that bullet in it, but at least we looked like the heroes we is."
Ben chuckled. "I only said that to get you to hold off on the killing until it didn't look like a man no more," he said. "They'd have hung us right quick if you'd shot it before it changed."
"That ain't so," Cora said. "They knew that boy was a monster. Why else did they call us in?"
"All they knew was that something kept killing their sheep," Ben said. "As I recall, the Mexicans in town thought it was one of them chupacabra critters."
"That notion had us chasing through that desert scrub for near two weeks before we came to our senses."
"We?" Ben shot her a smirk. "Ain't that giving yourself too much credit? You never did have no sense, not then and not now. I was the one that figured we was chasing the wrong spook and turned us back out of the desert. Without me, you'd have been nothing but buzzard chuck."
"You should have left me out there, then," Cora said. "That way, you could