He’d killed his first man at seventeen in Dodge City. He’d drifted into town looking for work, unable to find any, and started pinching from cowpokes outside the saloons when they were all drunked up. One night a cowhand took exception and put up a fight. Slater put a knife in his ribs and watched as he bled out right there in the alley. He thought taking a life might make him feel something: powerful or godlike or remorseful or scared. To Slater it was no different than pulling on his boots, but what he felt was nothing. He took the coin pouch from the dead man and left him there in the dirt.
Slater worked his way west across the plains, partnering here and there with various thieves and rustlers and doing his share of honest labor when he could, even a session as a town deputy marshal in Nebraska, but never any legitimate work for long. Slater was not suited to rules.
Six years ago, he’d arrived at Senator Declan’s ranch outside of Denver. He’d heard there might be work. Declan’s was one of the largest cattle operations in the state and owned nearly forty thousand acres. Slater signed on and worked for a few months; then a dispute with the foreman rose up. The foreman came at him with a branding iron and Slater took it away from him and beat the man to death.
Slater thought that would be the end. Colorado had just become a state and Declan, now richer than ever with his silver strike, had thrown a lot of money toward the governor to get an appointment as a senator. And he’d succeeded. Declan saw an opportunity.
He was on his way to Washington; with his foreman dead and his ranch in turmoil, he’d need a firm hand to keep things under control. And that’s what he saw in Slater, someone who would keep things orderly. Instead of sending Slater off to prison for killing his foreman, Declan promoted him.
James and his wife, Martha, had one son, James Junior, who was a lost cause, in the senator’s opinion. Spoiled, weak, vain, and unwilling to take what was his, the boy caused nothing but trouble. Now James had caused a whole new kind of trouble. The boy had thought to try his hand at mining, and had been in the Senator’s Torson City camp when these… whoever or whatever they were had killed everyone but James, who somehow managed to wade into the stream and get away from these things. And no matter how hard Declan and Slater tried, the boy would not be silenced. He insisted he’d seen “monsters,” not men.
When James refused to change his story, Declan sent Slater to the camp to investigate. And what Slater saw there had unnerved him. Slater was a killer, without an ounce of remorse for any of the men he’d killed. It wasn’t so much what he’d seen as what he hadn’t seen. If that many men had died the buildings, the town should be painted in blood. There was very little blood. Almost none, in fact, but everywhere he looked there were signs of struggle. Not just struggle but desperate struggle, the evidence of men fighting for their lives and losing. But not much blood.
There was another thing bothering Slater and it was something he couldn’t put into the words. When he had ridden into the camp, seen the general store and the saloon where the men had died, he had felt fear. It had started at the base of his spine and worked its way up till it reached the top of his head. He was frightened for the first time he could ever remember-after years of fights, robberies, beatings, and outright murders, he was never afraid. But being in Torson City, he felt fear. And he’d wanted to leave as soon as he rode in-even his horse was skittish.
He’d never been a gun thug, but he kept track of the men he killed. He didn’t put notches in his gun handle or act like the fakers. He just killed and moved on to the next killing. Most of the men he murdered were at the senator’s behest, some because they’d just been in the way when a job needed doing. It was not something he felt warranted much careful accounting. But five minutes in Torson City and he knew James wasn’t lying. Something evil and dark had been there. It killed efficiently and savagely, then took the bodies and left.
Now at the senator’s orders, he’d watched the strange-looking train roll into town and off the siding to its own warehouse. Pinkerton men guarded the outside, and so far neither Slater nor any of his men had been able to get a look inside. He had watched the short man enter with a porter and two shipping crates and a while later heard the muffled sound of weapons fired, followed by an unusually loud explosion, but since then nothing.
He shoved himself upright. It was time for him to report to the senator. Whatever was inside the warehouse had something to do with Torson City. The senator had been sure of that.
Now Slater was too.
Chapter Fifteen
Hollister needed to walk. It was getting close to midnight. Winchester had left a couple of hours ago, after giving them a dizzying array of weapons, and Chee had remained behind at the… Hollister couldn’t think of anything else to call it but headquarters. It was far more than a warehouse or storage depot. The upper level, reached by a stairway, had rooms for all of them as well as a kitchen, sitting room, and armory.
Jonas was confused. There was obviously money and power behind Pinkerton, Van Helsing, Winchester, and the others. He wondered if the setup was for him specifically or just something set in motion that he happened to be a part of. He was going after some deadly things, these vampires, as Van Helsing had called them. Looking at everything that had gone into preparing him for the task, he still couldn’t help but feel a little bit like cannon fodder.
He walked on, fingering his Colts. Winchester had concentrated mostly on long guns during his demonstrations, but his gunsmiths had made some modifications to an array of pistols as well. They had been similarly altered and now could fire a multitude of ammunition. Some of the bullets had small holes drilled into them, the hole filled with holy water and then sealed with wax. One of the most interesting weapons, besides the “Ass-Kicker,” of course, had been a large-bore single-barrel shotgun that shot a net weighted down with lead balls attached to its edges. It deployed in the air and could capture a man or a beast “with apparent ease,” as Winchester had put it. Hollister snorted at the word ease. He didn’t think there would be anything easy about catching any of these monsters.
Hollister couldn’t help but laugh at that. But he could see the tactical applications of the weapon.
He drew the Colt on his right hip and tested the weight of it in his hands. It felt good to him and he realized again how much he had missed his former life. He missed the army, guns, and sabers, and the trappings of being an officer. Commanding men and fighting and even the rigid structure of the army had been his passion, and he had longed for it.
The Colt slipped back into its slot on the tooled leather holster he’d been given. He had made sure the belt was full of extra rounds, and two speed loaders were strapped securely to each leg. When it came to facing down whatever he’d met on that hillside so many years before, he knew he wanted as much firepower as he could muster.
A light misting of rain started to fall. He felt all jangled up and jumpy and put it off to the fact that until yesterday, he’d been in a jail cell. Walking around like this made him feel out of sorts. Like most cities though, Denver had a rowdy part of town close to the rail yard, and before long he heard noise and pianos and banjos playing from a variety of saloons. He kept going. Denver was a place he’d never visited, and he couldn’t see much of it at night, but the freedom of walking, the fresh air, and even the rain felt good.
Before long, he had passed by the saloons and whorehouses and into a quieter place again, lined with shops and businesses long closed at this hour. Jonas wasn’t sure when he felt the first prickle of alarm along his neck. Growing up, working on the farm, going to West Point, the constant marching and drilling had kept him fit and he moved quietly and well, even when there was no reason to do so. He had learned on the plains that noise could mean death. And when he reached the next street corner, he left the wooden walkway and stepped out onto the dirt street, his strides much quieter in the rain soaked ground.
He meandered across the street at a long angle, pulling back his duster and resting both hands on his pistols. When he reached the walkway, he paused momentarily, pretending he was unsure which direction to take. In the few seconds of quiet, he heard the clump of a boot on wood and the squeak of leather coming from across the street. Not reacting, he stepped carefully up on the wooden sidewalk and walked on. It was dark, and whoever followed him would have a hard time seeing him fingering his Colts. Unless of course, whoever was watching had excellent night vision-inhuman vision-like one of those things.
“Jesus,” he muttered to himself. “Snap out of it, Hollister. No goddamn ‘vampire’ is going to jump you right in the middle of Denver.”
