door. "I'll see you in a few hours with your pine box."
"I will be waiting for you," Boots said. "Oh, and if you should encounter Cora Oglesby while you are there, please try to contain her in the mines. I won't be able to help you if you don't."
Wash gave him a funny look, then took his leave. Boots watched the door close behind him, then turned his gaze toward the narrow shafts of sunlight and smiled.
"What the hell is this, George?" Cora's voice rang out in the darkness.
"Please, Mrs Oglesby, do keep quiet," James said, looking around. "We don't want to draw them down on us."
"Then please explain what I'm looking at."
In front of them, several large beams stood upright in the tunnel. A horizontal board was nailed to each one, forming a crude set of crosses. Withered cloves of garlic hung from the wooden arms, filling the air with their scent.
"This is my barricade, madam," James said. "It keeps the vampires from leaving this tunnel and gaining access to the mine entrance."
"I see," Cora said. "And what's to stop them from just stepping around them?"
"Their unholy fear of a holy God."
"Well, couldn't they just throw rocks or something from further back and knock them down?"
James paused in mid-step. "Well," he said after a moment, "perhaps they haven't thought of it yet." Another pause. "I believe the scent of the garlic would keep them from passing through even if they managed to destroy the crosses."
"Good for us, then," Cora said. Careful not to disturb the crosses, they worked their way to the other side of the barricade. The rails beneath their feet continued on into shadows. "Any more farther down?"
"I'm afraid not," James said. "After all, they were rather hastily constructed."
Cora lifted her lantern and peered forward into the darkness. This tunnel was much like the other, stable and straight. James had continued his habit of lighting the lanterns along the way, allowing them a visible retreat if things turned sour.
She turned to him. "Here, take this," she said, offering him her lantern.
"Why?" James asked, taking it in his free hand.
"I need my other hand," she replied. With a fluid motion, she drew her saber and turned back toward the darkness. "Come on, George, let's find us a spook."
Her boots crunched along the sandy floor as she advanced into the shadows. James followed, the light from his lanterns playing along the length of her saber. Aside from their footsteps and his nervous breathing, the mine was as silent as a tomb.
Soon, the tunnel widened, opening up into another cavern. The rails snaked off ahead, vanishing into the bowels of the mountain. To their left, a small wooden platform led to a series of stairs descending down a steep slope.
"Which way should we go?" Cora asked.
"Back," James replied in a whisper. "We're quite unprepared for this."
"Suit yourself," Cora said, "but I'm going this way."
She thumped across the wooden platform toward the stairs. Taking them one at a time, she listened for any new sound, but all she could hear was James muttering to himself. The stairs bottomed out on the rocky floor of the cavern, which was strewn with sand and pebbles. Cora motioned for James to hold his lanterns higher. In their glow, she could see the floor slope upward into the cave wall. At regular intervals, square beams braced the rocky surface, holding back potential cave-ins. Several picks and a small shovel lay on the floor, evidently dropped by panicked miners in their retreat.
"You boys sure are sloppy," she remarked.
"Yes, well, it's hard to remain organized while your comrades are being eaten alive," James replied.
"If you say so," Cora said. "I still ain't seen no sign of these vampires."
"With the way you keep yammering, I expect they will show themselves shortly."
"Maybe they're all asleep."
"I suppose that's a possibility," James said, "though without the threat of sunlight, I don't see–"
Cora held up her gun, cutting him off. In the silence that followed, she could only hear the sound of the blood rushing through her ears. Yet she thought she had heard something else, a faint shuffling. Her gaze swept over the blackness surrounding them. Maybe it was nothing, just the echoes playing tricks on her.
No, there it was again: the soft sound of skin on stone. She pictured cold flesh stepping across the cavern floor, and she tightened her grip on the revolver.
Another step. The echoes and the darkness made it impossible to know where it was coming from.