The timing of the fire that destroyed the anarchic vampires coincided with the time that Wyatt Earp spent as deputy marshal of Dodge City, and rumor had it that his law-enforcement activities extended to the supernatural. I thanked Alette for the tidbit and promised to keep in touch.
Research into ghost towns and fires in 1870s Kansas followed, and I marked likely spots on a map. Not that burned vampires left any hard evidence behind. I was never going to find solid proof, a diary or letter in Wyatt Earp’s handwriting stating, “Yes, I killed vampires while I lived in Dodge City.” But I hoped to get … something. That was how, a month later, Ben, Cormac, and I ended up standing in the middle of a stretch of prairie about fifteen miles northeast of Dodge City.
Getting Cormac out here had been a challenge in itself. He was on parole after serving time for a manslaughter conviction and officially wasn’t allowed to leave the Denver area for the time being. But we were family—Ben was Cormac’s cousin, and I was Ben’s wife. So that made us cousins-in-law. Or something. We explained to Cormac’s parole officer that we were going to visit a dying relative. The story must have been convincing, because Cormac got permission to leave, but we had to make a lot of promises about getting him back to Denver to check in and sign a lot of papers taking responsibility if anything happened while Cormac was with us.
We’d jumped through all the hoops because I’d wanted his perspective out here. And, if I had to admit it, the perspective of the ghost he’d picked up in prison—a nineteenth-century wizard named Amelia Parker. She was either haunting him, had possessed him, or was just along for the ride. It was a long story.
I asked, but Cormac said she hadn’t known Wyatt Earp herself.
“It’s not like the movies,” he said. “Not everybody knew each other.”
“I know that. I figured it was worth asking.” I was getting frustrated with everyone treating me like this quest was naïve and silly. It was easy to get frustrated, standing on a stretch of grass that went on for miles with only 140-year-old rumors as a guide.
While he might be an American hero, Earp hadn’t been the nicest guy in the world. His name came up in a lot of court cases involving things like running prostitution rings. Much like Sherman and his nervous breakdown, Earp had some missing time in his history, a couple of years when historians couldn’t quite track down where he’d been or what he’d been doing. One account had him hunting buffalo across the Great Plains.
I had a feeling he’d been hunting something. Not that I had any hard evidence.
Late afternoon, the summer sun was setting, casting a warm golden haze over a landscape of rolling hills, rippling grasses, and a copse of trees leaning over a trickling stream. Birds fluttered, and a swarm of gnats hovered nearby. I could almost smell the sunshine—ripe grass, rich soil, life thriving just out of sight.
Sweating in the sticky air, we’d hiked a couple of miles off the end of the dirt road where we’d had to leave the car. I had a GPS navigator, and according to the coordinates, there used to be a farmstead around here. We fanned out to search for evidence.
“What are we looking for again?” Ben said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Timbers, foundations, scraps.”
“Fire,” Cormac said. His expression was unreadable behind his sunglasses. He wasn’t carrying guns, but he looked like he should have been. He wore a leather jacket over a T-shirt, worn jeans, scuffed biker boots, determined scowl—ready for action. In the pockets of the jacket he was probably carrying something that he—that Amelia—could use as weapons. Amulets, charms, potions, spells. I didn’t know what all she could do, through Cormac’s body. Cormac would appear to be the wizard to anyone who knew what to look for. You had to really know Cormac to recognize that he wasn’t always the one in charge. I tried not to think too hard about it.
“This is like looking for a needle in a haystack without even knowing if the needle is there,” Ben said.
“Everyone needs a hobby,” I said.
“We don’t have a whole lot of daylight for this,” Cormac said, glancing west. A bright orange sun had touched the horizon and was sinking fast.
I turned on him, arms out. “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll make sure someone puts out neon lights so we know exactly where to go.”
“Kitty, calm down,” Ben said.
“I’m calm.” I frowned.
We hunted. I kicked the grass as I walked through it, hoping to uncover something odd, and took in slow, easy breaths, searching for incongruous scents. This was silly—what evidence could possibly have lasted after 140 years?
My toe knocked up against a blackened length of wood. I knelt beside it. Half of it was buried, but it looked like a board, planed smooth and square at one time, but now it was charcoal, burned through and cracked. It could have been a year old or a hundred, protected from the elements by remaining buried all these years. A recent storm might have uncovered it.
It could have been anything, but my imagination spun the tale I wanted to see. Had this been part of the building that sheltered the rogue vampire family? Had Wyatt Earp really destroyed them by burning it down?
“Hey,” I called to the others. “You want to come look at this?”
They joined me, kneeling on the hard ground, looking to where I pointed—a straight, artificial line under matted prairie grasses.
Cormac moved a couple of steps out, then a couple more, pulling away vegetation,
