Father Baez looked at the crucifix without answering. After a few moments, he nodded and turned back to her. "If I can help you in any way, I will."
Cora nodded. Trying to keep her voice steady, she told the priest about her two encounters with Fodor Glava. She recounted as best she could his exact words about Ben and Father Baez himself. When she finished, the priest leaned back in the pew, stroking his white beard.
"His words took you by surprise?" he asked.
"Course they did," Cora said, looking at him like he was crazy. "My Ben ain't been killed by no vampire, at least not that I know about." She paused, looking down at her hands again. "Truth is, that's the other reason I came calling on you today, Father. See, Ben didn't come back to the hotel last night, and that's got me awful worried. It ain't like him to just disappear like that."
"You were expecting him to come into your hotel room?" Father Baez asked. Cora nodded. "When was the last time you saw him?"
"Yesterday afternoon," Cora said. "Why?"
The priest looked at the crucifix again. His eyes betrayed a deep concern, but he remained silent. Cora watched his face, her fingers working at her belt. In the silence, her thoughts began running wild again. Father Baez wasn't reassuring her the way she thought he would. There were no words of comfort, no gentle laugh dismissing her worries. Candles winked on the altar, and the face of the blessed virgin looked down on them from a window.
Father Baez continued to look at the dying savior, his eyes wandering over the cloth draped around its arms. Finally, he roused himself and looked at her, his face filled with sorrow. "I've been trying to think of the best way to say this, and I've decided that our Lord's advice is best: the truth shall set you free." He took a deep breath. "Cora, my child, your husband Benjamin Oglesby has been dead for ten years."
Cora blinked.
A gale of laughter erupted from her lips. "That's plumb crazy, Father. Like I said, he was with me just yesterday. It may be that he was killed last night, but I know he ain't been dead no ten years."
Father Baez offered her a sad smile. "I can't explain that to you, and I don't intend to try. All I know is that I conducted a funeral mass for your husband ten years ago and laid him to rest in the old church's cemetery."
"But that ain't right," Cora said. "That Fodor Glava feller said that he killed my Ben, so if he did, then Ben ain't been laid to rest. He'd be…" She trailed off, unable to voice the thought.
"He was," Father Baez said, his smile disappearing. "Your husband was killed by a vampire, this one you call Fodor Glava. His body was reanimated as the unholy undead, one of the vampire's minions."
"Right," Cora said, "so you can't have laid him to rest. That means he ain't been dead no ten years, and maybe that means he ain't dead at all."
The priest shook his head, his face lined with regret. "No, Cora. Your husband's body became a vampire, a member of the nest you destroyed. I may have laid him in the ground, but it was your silver bullet that laid him to rest. Don't you remember?"
Cora shook her head, her mouth working but unable to speak. If she had killed her husband, she would remember doing it. What she did remember was talking with him, laughing with him, and riding with him every day of those ten years. They'd put a number of monsters to rest during that time, too, which was something a dead man couldn't do. Father Baez, for all his kindness, must have confused the story, just like Fodor Glava.
An image came into her mind: Ben's rusted pistol, lying in the bottom of their trunk amid unused bullets. She shifted her legs, uncomfortable with the thought, and felt the weight of the silver dagger in her boot. Her hand slipped down and pulled it out. The silver glimmered in the candlelight as she turned the blade over in her hands. She remembered it glimmering in the lantern's glow in the mine tunnel, Ben's fingers around its hilt.
The voice of James Townsend echoed in her ears, asking to meet her husband after a long afternoon of riding with him. The hotel clerk's confused eyes when she mentioned her husband. Ben's silence during the meeting with Lord Harcourt. Mart Duggan, asking for a description of Ben so he would know him if he saw him. She remembered now that Ben had been with her to see the marshal when she'd borrowed the gun she used to kill the wendigo. Duggan had to have seen him then, yet he couldn't recall what Ben looked like.
Cora's shoulders began shaking in quiet sobs. She felt a warm arm around her back, and she let herself fall into the priest's embrace. Her tears soaked into his vestments as the past ten years began unraveling. Ben's bright blue eyes shining as he laughed. His hand on her shoulder. His quiet concentration when he picked up a book. His grim determination as…
…they entered the vampire nest. The vampires had holed up in a large house in north Denver. It had taken the hunters nearly a week to track them; the nest never stayed in one place for long. Ben kicked the front door open, letting the afternoon sun stream into the dark interior. They entered, guns at the ready, and waited for their eyes to adjust. She could hear Ben's steady breathing next to her.
Once the darkness had retreated from their sight, they moved up a stairway along the right-hand wall. The boards creaked beneath their boots, announcing their presence, but no monsters came flying out of the shadows. The hunters went from room to room on the second floor, ensuring each was clean of undead before moving on. Boards covered the windows, letting in only thin streams of sunlight. The floor lay under a thin carpet of dust that swirled around their spurs.
They found a second staircase in a hallway attached to the main bedroom. Ben led the way down, rifle at the ready and saber on his hip. Cora kept her big Colt pointed behind them as they descended. The stairs emptied into a large kitchen. The shadows of cooking stoves lurked in the corners of the room, their fires long dead. Baskets of stale bread sat on shelves lining the walls. A door to their right opened into a pantry. In the dim light Cora could see cans of vegetables and fruit.
As they moved toward a door across the room, Ben stooped down and picked something up. He turned to his wife and handed her his find: a small hatchet. She took the handle in her free hand, then looked at him with a question in her eyes.
"We need some sunlight in here," he said, his voice just above a whisper. "Go on back upstairs and see to the windows."
"What about you?" she asked.
"I'll hold the line right here," he said. "Hurry on back so we can lick these bastards."
Cora nodded and, keeping her pistol handy, made her way back up to the second floor. Starting in the main bedroom, she began chopping away the boards covering the windows. The hatchet was light but still sharp, and streams of sunlight soon began filling the room. Her efforts echoed through the house, making her more than a little nervous. She kept one eye on the door, ready to drop the hatchet and open up with her pistol at the first sign of a vampire, but nothing came. Moving from room to room, Cora worked as fast as she could. Soon, the upper floor was awash in late afternoon sunlight.
When she finished, she made her way back down to the kitchen, dropping the hatchet by the bottom of the staircase. "All set up there," she said.
Ben was gone.
Her Colt's hammer clicked in the stillness. She gave the room a thorough sweep with her eyes before moving from her place next to the stairs. The kitchen was silent. Lowering her gaze to the floor, she checked for any sign of a struggle. The carpet of dust remained undisturbed save for two sets of tracks leading toward the far door. She knelt down next to them and took a closer look. One set belonged to Ben's boots, and the other had been made by a pair of smaller shoes.
A thrill ran through her as she began following the tracks. She didn't know how someone could have survived in a vampire nest, but they must have heard her racket upstairs and come looking. Perhaps a butler had been trapped or away when the vampires attacked, or perhaps it was a drifter taking advantage of the abandoned house. Either way, Ben must have taken him outside as soon as he appeared.
Keeping her eyes on the trail, she followed it out of the kitchen and through the central hallway of the house. The fresh sunlight pouring from the second story gave the house a glow like deep twilight. The tracks led her to a closed door near the front of the house. Cora stared at the door in confusion. If Ben had found a survivor, he would have taken him outside to keep him safe, so why did his tracks lead deeper into the house? She reached out and pulled the door open. The groaning of its hinges seemed to screech in the silent house, making her wince. Behind it, a staircase descended into the darkness of the house's underbelly.
Before Cora could give the mystery much thought, a wail echoed from somewhere in the basement. The barrel of her gun gleamed in the dim light as she pointed it into the shadows. Moments passed, but nothing came rushing up the stairs. Her own breathing filled the silence. Cora's mind urged her forward, screaming that her husband was down there somewhere, but her instincts held her in place. She couldn't help him if she was blind and stumbling in the dark.
After a few minutes of silence, she took a step toward the door. Her worry was overpowering her sense. Ben was down there, and if she didn't follow soon, she would be too late. The silence told her that he wasn't fighting anything, but that didn't mean he wasn't in danger. Vampires could see in the dark, and he couldn't. They were no smarter than animals, but enough of them might be able to bring him down. Her boot creaked on the top step, and she paused. Nothing. Tightening her grip on her Colt, she began making her descent.
Two steps later, a savage mass of arms, legs, and fangs slammed into her, throwing her back through the door into the hallway. The vampire's weight kept her pinned to the floor as it snarled and snapped at her. Her hands clamped around the vampire's neck, holding its fangs at bay mere inches from her face. She didn't remember dropping her gun.
Cora managed to bend her knees enough to get her heels on the ground and shove upward. She released the pale neck at the same time and threw the vampire over her head. It slammed into a nearby wall with a hiss. Collecting itself, the creature regained its bearings and sprang at her. Cora rolled out of its path, and the vampire sailed through the open doorway back into the shadows.
Drawing her silver dagger, Cora got to her feet. When the monster came charging out of the basement a second time, she drove the point into its face as it smashed into her. Smoke billowed around them as the vampire let out a final, inhuman screech and went limp. She pushed the corpse off of her. The dagger slid out of the vampire's skull with a wet, slurping sound. Clutching it in one hand, she crawled on her hands and knees toward the stairs. Her pistol lay on the top step, its barrel gleaming in the semi-darkness. She picked it up, stood, and wiped the dagger on her buckskin pants.
Before she could sheathe it, another snarl came from the shadows. She pointed both weapons toward the stairs. Small pinpoints of light winked at her. The flash from the revolver's barrel lit up the darkness like a bolt of lightning, but it vanished before she could make anything out. No screech cut through the gunshot's thunder, so she thumbed the hammer back and waited.
Then, without warning, a series of wails filled the air, followed by the pounding of many feet. Cora backed up as her heart began to race. The echoes made it difficult to determine their numbers, but it was more than a few. Glancing over her shoulder, she could make out the stream of sunlight coming through the front door. As much as she hated it, she couldn't take on the entire nest by herself. Keeping her face toward the chorus of howls, she began making her way toward the door. Hissing, gray shapes poured out from the basement door. Their savage eyes locked on her, their fangs glistening in the twilight. She jumped backward into the doorway. The vampires approached her, snarling and snapping, but they did not follow her into the sunlight. Counting three targets, Cora grinned to herself. She took aim at one of the ugly faces and squeezed the trigger.
The vampire ducked as she fired. Her bullet punched into its shoulder, and it shrieked in anger and pain. The rest scattered like roaches. Cursing, Cora pulled back the hammer and fired again, but her target had already vanished into the darkness. Gunsmoke drifted through the sunlight as she stood facing an empty hallway.
In the waning daylight, Cora's mind began racing. She glanced at the sky over her shoulder. The sun hung just above the western mountains; her time was short. The shadows inside the house still rumbled with the movements of the vampires, but they kept themselves hidden from her sight. She could charge down the basement stairs and hope to find Ben before they noticed, but she'd only have a minute or two at most. If she failed, neither of them would make it out alive. Still, she couldn't just abandon him to darkness and death.
Behind her, she heard a horse whinny. Cora pulled her hat low against the sun as she looked out at her mare. She was a new purchase, bought only a few months ago. Her last mount, a bay named St. Andrew, had been shot out from under her by a group of bandits. This new mare didn't have the stamina old Andrew had, but she had a gentler nature. Cora had taken to calling her Our Lady of Virginia.
Cora looked at her now, wondering how long it would take her to ride out to the farmhouse where she and Ben were staying. Father Baez was there, protecting the family in case they failed to root out the infestation. His help would be essential if she was going to storm the nest and rescue Ben, but she didn't want to leave her husband to be devoured by vampires.
Common sense finally won out. Cora smashed a vial of holy water on the front steps of the house, ran over to her mare, and swung up into the saddle. They hadn't bothered to tie their horses when they went in, so she turned the mare toward the eastern road and gave her a punch with her heels. Our Lady started off at a good canter, and Cora let her warm up as long as her patience allowed before breaking her out in a full gallop. The house shrank behind her, its whitewashed walls glowing in the sunlight.