In that instant I saw the faces of all those loved ones departed from this earth: my dear, sweet little boy; my sturdy Armstrong and beloved Ann. I saw my sister, and my angel mother. But when this instant passed, and my eyes remembered themselves, my executioners remained in the light of the burning house, shock on their faces. Speed and Lamon remained standing on either side of me.
We still lived. Our executioners, however, were not as fortunate. All three fell in unison, bullets having torn though their skulls.
It was a miracle.
That miracle was Henry Sturges.
He charged out of the dark with eleven Union vampires on his heels. Some held rifles, others revolvers, firing as they came. The Southern vampires nearest Davis hurried him off, while the others prepared to meet their Northern counterparts. One of them, however, remembered that the job of my execution remained unfinished. He leapt at me from twenty yards distant, fangs and claws extended, eyes black behind his dark glasses. I let my ax fly, and the blade found its target—but my strength not being what it once was, it failed to sink more than an inch or two into his middle. He fell back briefly and looked at the dark ribbons pouring from the gash in his belly. They were of no concern. He picked my ax off the ground and came at me again. I thrust a hand into my coat, looking for a knife that had not been there in twenty years… helpless. With the vampire not four feet from me, Lamon aimed over my shoulder and fired, forever diminishing the hearing in my left ear, but silencing the creature with a bullet through the face.
As the smoke from Lamon’s revolver hung in the air around his head, Abe became aware of a sharp pain coming from his chin.
I pressed my hand to it. [The vampire] had come close enough to open a gash with the tip of my ax. Blood dripped from the wound and down the front of my shirt as vampires clashed before us in the light of the flames— jumping impossible distances, crashing into each other with enough force to shake the ground beneath our feet.
Here, for the first time, I saw Henry Sturges in battle. I watched him run headlong into a Southern vampire and drive the devil into a tree—the result being that its trunk split in two. Yet Henry’s opponent was hardly affected, for he pushed back and began to swing wildly with his hands, as if holding a sword in each. Henry defended each of these strikes with his own clawed hands, until, being the better swordsman of the two, he saw an opportunity and ran his opponent through the middle—forcing five straightened fingers into the vampire’s belly and out his back, snapping his spine in the process. Henry withdrew his hand, and his opponent fell to the ground, unable to move. I watched him twist the vampire’s head backward and rip it from his shoulders.
The living men unfortunate enough to find themselves in the middle of this melee were torn apart, their limbs taken by errant claws, their bones crushed by the force of the vampires colliding around them. Realizing that the numbers were not in their favor, the remaining Southern vampires made a hasty retreat. Several Union vampires gave chase—the others, including Henry, hurried to meet us where we stood.
“Abraham,” he said. “I’m pleased to see you alive, old friend.”
“And I to see you dead.”
Henry smiled. He tore a sleeve from his shirt and held it to Abe’s chin to slow the bleeding, while his companions attended to Lamon and Speed (who were shaken up but otherwise unharmed).
The Union had been given false information by a traitorous spy—information meant to lure me to my death. Henry and his allies did not learn of this treachery until after we left Springfield. With no means of getting word to us (for we traveled under false names), they rode for two days and nights to head us off, while sending word to the trinity to have Mary and the boys placed in hiding.
“And you’re sure they’re safe?” asked Abe.
“I’m sure they’re in hiding, and protected by three of my most cunning, most vicious allies,” said Henry.
It would suffice. Abe knew that the trinity took their work seriously.
“Henry,” he said after a long pause, “I was certain that I was going to—”
“I told you, Abraham… it wasn’t your time.”
It would be the last hunt of Abe’s life.
On November 6th, 1860, Abe sat in a cramped telegraph office in Springfield.
The tide of well-wishers and appointment seekers had risen to unbearable levels as the election approached. When the 6th came at last, I declared that I wished to see no one until all the votes were in. My only company was to be the young [telegraph] operator. If the outcome was the one I and my supporters expected, there would be few peaceful days in the coming years.
He’d grown a beard for the first time in his life to conceal the scar on his chin. * It gave his face a fuller, healthier appearance. “More distinguished,” as Mary said. “A face befitting the next president.”
Mary was, at first, quite opposed to my running—having not enjoyed her previous time in Washington, and being all too aware of the time such an endeavor would require of me. As my campaign met with increasing success, however, her position began to change. I suspect that she rather enjoyed the well-wishers who came to our door at all hours; the wealthy couples who invited us to their homes for dinner; and the lavish events thrown in my honor. I suspect that she began to see the many social possibilities of being married to the president of the United States.
As the returns began to trickle in over the telegraph wires that Tuesday evening, it seemed more and more certain that Abe would be just that.
I admit it came as little surprise, for I believed that the Union would see to my victory—whether earned or not. **
I could therefore feel none of the honor that had accompanied my being elected captain by my fellow soldiers. The weight of the thing was immense. The challenges and miseries ahead unknowable and numerous.
Henry’s telegram had been one of the first to arrive that morning—long before a single vote had been counted.
CONGRATULATIONS MR PRESIDENT EVER H
IV
President Elect Abraham Lincoln’s journey to the White House began in Springfield on February 11th, 1861. A private train was ordered to shepherd Abe, his family, his close associates, and his private security detail to Washington, D.C.
It hadn’t been an easy transition.
Just over a month after the election, South Carolina’s legislature voted to secede from the Union. One by one, more Southern states followed—seven in all by Inauguration Day: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas. Abe could only watch as President Buchanan did nothing to stem the crisis.
[Buchanan] continues to rest on his rump as the country comes apart. As the ships of our navy and forts are daily surrendered to the South, and the Union dissolves before our eyes. His weakness astonishes. It seems clear that he has decided to kick this crisis down the road. I, on the other hand, am very much looking forward to kicking him onto Pennsylvania Avenue.
Three days before Abe’s train left Springfield, the self-proclaimed “Leaders of the Southern People” met in Montgomery, Alabama, to formally adopt a constitution and announce the Confederate States of America.
They chose Jefferson Davis as their president.
