the mocking voice echoed down the hallway. "Still as quick as ever. I am glad to see that age and grief haven't slowed your wits."
"I can't see how happy you are," Cora said. "Why don't you show me that pretty smile of yours?"
"And let you draw the curtain before the final act is done? After a ten-year intermission, I should think you would want to relish this performance of a lifetime. Unless, of course, you have forgotten your lines."
"Never gave two shakes for no theatrics," Cora said.
"Not even your own tragedy?" he asked.
"Every life's a tragedy," Cora said. "Only thing that matters is making sure you ain't in the role of the bad guy."
"Ah, but who determines which role is the villain and which is the hero?"
"As I see it, the villain's the cocky bastard that goes around killing innocent folk."
A rolling laugh echoed down the hallway. "'Innocent' is such a human word. Does the fox care for the innocence of the hare? Can a wolf weigh the iniquities of the elk? No, it is only man, burdened by the weight of his mortality, who sews morality into his life as a miser sews gold into his bedclothes."
"Don't matter how you cut it," Cora said. "Them miners you killed didn't deserve it."
"Of course they didn't."
The voice came from behind her. She spun around and swept over the empty room with the barrel of her gun. Nothing. "Then why'd you kill them?" she asked.
"Because the world is unfair," Glava said. His voice seeped in through the window like the cold night air. Stepping toward the sound, Cora tried to make out his shape, but saw only shadows and the lights from across the street.
"Ain't no reason to kill folk," Cora said.
"I was hungry, and they were plentiful. Should I be denied my own right to life because I must kill men in order to live? What are the lives of a few miners? They would have spent them drinking and whoring only to die in a cave-in or a fever. What does it matter that I ended such worthless existences?"
"You ain't God."
"Now you disappoint me, Cora. Have you not yet learned that the nosferatu are the only gods humanity need concern itself with? I believe I said as much to you only this afternoon."
"I wasn't listening all that close," Cora said. "Don't put no stock in what a madman says."
"You're one to speak of madness," the vampire said. "Do give my regards to your husband when you see him next."
A well of dread sank into Cora's gut. "What do you know about Ben?"
"The perfect question for that meddlesome priest."
"What priest?"
Cora heard the vampire sigh. "Perhaps your mind has been addled with time after all. I had hoped for a refreshing sparring of wit, the parry and repartee of mortal enemies before the final battle, but here you are, sober and dull. Your husband always was the sharper half of you. I had so looked forward to an eternity of his conversation. It is a shame you cut it short."
The vampire fell silent. Cora leaned toward the window, searching the shadows for any sign of her enemy. All she could see was her own reflection, fogged by her breath. After a few minutes of silence, she holstered her pistol and turned away from the window.
"Tell the priest that Fodor Glava sends his regards." Golden eyes flashed at her from the doorway. Cora pulled her gun again, but the vampire vanished before she could get a shot off. Silence filled the room. After a moment, Cora stepped back to the doorway and peered out into the hallway. It was empty.
Cora kept the revolver in her hand as she locked the door and leaned against it. Fodor Glava. The name didn't ring any bells in her memory, but nothing about him did. He seemed to know who she was, though. Townsend's theory that he had somehow mixed her up with somebody else seemed less and less likely. The vampire knew her name well enough to find the hotel room, and he knew about events in her past that she hadn't told a soul in Leadville.
The mattress rustled beneath her as she sat on the bed, unable to stand any longer. The vampire hadn't called the priest by name, but she knew he meant Father Baez. She and Ben had met many priests in the long years since they came west, but the kind old man in Denver was the one who had helped them