Michael Spradlin - Blood Riders

The crowd was silent. Malachi looked at the remaining group.

“It will be sunup soon. We will wait until the darkness returns, then we will find Shaniah and the humans who assist her. And we will kill them.” He spun on his heel and entered the mine. Leaving the Archaics behind him, the sun just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon.

Monkey Pete had shooed everyone away, telling them he could construct the cart on his own, and that they would just be in his way. Hollister had suggested they get some sleep while taking turns standing watch in the gunner’s bubble above the armory car. Chee had volunteered to take the first watch. He sat in the seat, his hand on the handles of the Gatling, ready to shoot in an instant if the Archaics reappeared.

Chee was too wired to sleep, so keeping watch had been a good thing for him. But it didn’t sit right with him, knowing Shaniah and Hollister were not sleeping. Hollister had made a show of heading for his bunk and Shaniah did the same, leaving the main car and following Monkey Pete, giving every indication she was going to the guest quarters.

Chee was willing to bet one of the two was not in their bunk. She had made her way to Hollister’s quarters or he had gone to hers, but they were together somewhere on the train. They were lovers. Chee had seen it almost immediately when they returned from their ride the previous night. It should not bother him. The major was an adult, his own man, and not to mention Chee’s superior officer. He could sleep with whomever he wished. The sergeant just wished it was anyone but Shaniah.

He reached inside the folds of his shirt and fingered his medicine bag, and he could still feel the cord with the coin tied around his ankle. He muttered both a Shaolin prayer and a Creek war chant. Neither made him feel better. He wished his grandmother Annabel were here so he could ask her more questions. How could he protect all of them from this Brujeria — this witch- in their midst?

Monkey Pete lowered the door on his “lab” car, slowly rolling the cart he’d built down the ramp onto the ground. One of the spare Gatlings was attached to it. Chee continued to marvel at the engineer’s ingenuity as he yawned and stretched.

It was almost time to fight again.

Shaniah lay next to Hollister in his bunk, with her leg draped over his torso. Hollister questioned his judgment in making love to her again, right before the biggest fight of his life. It was a fight he knew he might not survive.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, her fingers tracing the scar on his shoulder from the bullet he’d taken at Five Forks, right before the end of the war.

“I was wondering if I was still alive,” he said.

She laughed. “Oh, you are alive, all right.”

“I might not be for much longer,” he said. “Is this… I mean

… your people… do they always… is their lovemaking always this… intense?”

“Yes!” she teased him. Enjoying making him uncomfortable.

“You’re kidding. It’s always this… vigorous?”

“Yes, most of the time,” she said.

“Dear God,” he groaned.

“I’m pleasantly surprised,” she said.

“About what?”

“You shouldn’t worry, Jonas, your stamina and… skill is quite remarkable.”

He sighed. “At least there’s that.”

He had no idea what time it was, but he should probably get up and relieve Chee of the watch and allow him to get some sleep, although he had begun to wonder if Chee ever slept.

He sat up on the bed, feeling weak and dizzy after making love to Shaniah. Was that what it would always be like? The truth of it was, he couldn’t remember anyone like her. It was like the women he’d known had all been wiped from his mind and no other woman had existed for him before her. Strange, he thought.

“I’ve got to relieve Chee,” he said. “It is almost…”

“He knows, Jonas,” she said.

“Knows what?”

“About us.”

Hollister tried not to react.

“Chee knows a lot of things,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he figured this out.”

“He ‘figures things out’ because he is a Vrajitoarea,” she said.

“A what?”

“It is what my people call… your word for it would be ‘witch.’ ”

“Chee’s a witch?” He looked at her, smiling.

“Yes.” And from the look on her face he could tell she wasn’t joking.

“Like a ‘bubble bubble, toil and trouble’ witch?”

She frowned, not understanding his reference.

“It’s from Shakespeare… a play… a story written… never mind. I’m pretty sure Chee is not a witch.”

“Do not take this lightly, Jonas. You have now come to realize the world is more than what you thought. I am an Archaic, there are many more… species outside the human world; Vrajitoareas, the wolf people, vampires, the undead…”

“Whoa!” he said, holding up his hand. “I’m having enough trouble dealing with your Archaic pals. I’ve read Van Helsing…”

“You are not listening to me! You have more to worry about than my ‘Archaic pals’!” She nearly spat the words at him.

“And you’ve got a lot to learn about Chee. He’s not a Vera… whatever…”

“Jonas. I am an Archaic. I have been alive for nearly fifteen hundred years. I was a widow, taken in a raid on my village by Archaics. Our society is not structured like yours. We live by rules of strength and guile. Your people, people like Chee, are the ones who found the ways to kill us. To drive us into the mountains and force us to live as we have the past few centuries. Why is that so hard for you to accept?”

“Whoa. Why are you so angry all of a sudden? All I’m sayin’ is Chee is just a man, like me…”

“No! He is not like you, Jonas,” she was angrier now, getting off the bed and putting on her clothes. “Yes, he is a human, but he has a connection to the world that you don’t. And if you are smart, if you live through this, you will be wise to remember that there are far more things in this world that can kill you, not just Archaics or humans… or grizzly bears!”

“Look,” he said, trying to calm her. “I’m trying to understand here…”

“No, you are not,” she declared, fastening the buttons on her blouse.

“Listen to me, I believe you…” He tried to placate her.

“You do not believe me, Jonas Hollister. You have seen plenty of my kind. You have killed them, watched what they can do, and yet you consider me crazy because I tell you of witches and wolf people and vampires and that your man Chee is a witch?”

“Whoa! I didn’t mean…” He stepped toward her and tried to take her in his arms. He didn’t want to fight with her. But she was too quick and dodged away from him. She glared at him and left his bunk, gone so fast it was almost like she’d never been there.

Hollister found Chee in the armory. Since it was in between his bunk and the guest quarters, where Shaniah was supposed to be sleeping, he wondered how she had gotten past Chee without his seeing her. He guessed it didn’t matter though, because according to Shaniah, he already knew about them.

“Chee, we’ve only known each other a short time. And its become clear to me you know a lot of things about the world that I don’t,” Jonas said.

“I’m not sure I understand, sir,” Chee said.

“You know things. When Van Helsing was here, not a lot of what he told us surprised you. You knew about Deathwalkers, as you called them. And you’ve got that Chinese fighting style and…”

“Kung fu, sir,” he said.

“Yes… Kung fu. My point is that a lot of what we’ve learned about these Archaics and the other things we’ve seen hasn’t appeared to surprise you,”