of that blue-eyed feller, and be done with it. Saw no need to tell you any more than that, neither."
The hunter paused to rummage through her satchel. Finally emerging with a piece of hardtack, she tore off a bite. Her eyes glittered in the firelight as she regarded the young woman, chewing thoughtfully. Victoria fidgeted under the hunter's gaze. Pebbles grated against the hardpacked earth as she shifted her weight. She tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear. Still Cora watched and chewed.
Victoria was on the verge of speaking up when the hunter finally swallowed. She didn't speak right away, but her eyes finally left Victoria's face. The fire snapped, sending a flurry of sparks toward the stars.
"Ain't easy for me to admit," she began, "but I ain't no closer to puzzling out who that feller was. All I know for sure is who he ain't, and that's Fodor Glava."
"You're sure?" Victoria asked. "Couldn't he have come back from the dead if he was a vampire like you say?"
Cora shook her head. "No vampire could stitch his own head back on his shoulders, no matter how strong he was. I know I sent that bastard on down to hell where he belongs, and that feller last night done confirmed my thinking in that regard. No matter what he says, he ain't Glava.
"But," she continued, "he ain't just nobody, neither. He's got himself the same tricks and traps that old Glava had, what with the vryko-whatevers and all."
"The what?"
"Nasty ones," Cora said. "Them ones as couldn't speak and was all fangs and such. George had a fancy name for them, too, but it's gone right out of my head. Before I met him and Glava, I done figured them badgery ones was the only kind of vampires out there. Never knew they came in a speaking variety, and it ended up that I paid a price for not knowing."
"What price?"
"I'm getting to it," Cora said, rubbing her brow as if soothing an aching head. "Point is, not knowing what you're fighting is usually a one-way ticket to an early grave, and that's if you get lucky. Some folk ain't so lucky and get themselves turned into some nasty piece of work like them fools back at the ranch."
"I remember James Townsend saying something similar," Victoria said. "About knowing your enemy as best you can."
"King George has him a head for facts, I'll give him that. Thought he was just a big bag of wind when we first met him, but he ended up being useful. All of his book learning about vampires and such is what helped me put an end to that Glava bastard. Just came a bit too late is all."
Victoria's brow wrinkled. "Too late? What do you mean?"
The hunter paused. Her hand snaked into her satchel as if it had a mind of its own, emerging with a small flask. Cora unscrewed the stopper and took a swig. Her eyes never left the fire as she swallowed the first mouthful, then the second.
"Well, if I'd have met old George sooner rather than later, I might have spared myself some powerful unpleasant business."
Victoria could hear the liquid in the flask sloshing as Cora took another drink. A large piece of kindling collapsed in the fire, creating a shower of sparks. The hunter bent over and tossed a stick into the flames. "Part of it was my own yellowness. Ain't nobody in this wide world likes admitting they're yellow, but there it is. If I wasn't such a coward, maybe it wouldn't have happened."
Cora seemed to be speaking more to herself than to her companion now. Victoria looked down at her toes, her brow furrowing. The silence between them was almost tangible, a weight on her chest that grew heavier with each breath. She wanted to say something, anything to break it, but nothing sounded right.
"Anyhow," Cora finally said, "take two cuts of coward and stew it with a big mix of ignorance, and you got yourself a right fine recipe for making your own tragedy."
"What tragedy?" Victoria asked, relieved to have found her voice.
Cora inhaled sharply, as if she had just then remembered to breathe. She held the breath for several seconds, her jaw working in silence.
"Fact of it is," she said, "that Fodor Glava bastard killed my Ben."
It was Victoria's turn to inhale. Her eyes went wide as her fingers covered her mouth, but Cora paid her no mind. "Killed him and turned him into