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He wondered what she'd make of Morrisville. It was about as far from the stone manors of Whitby as one could possibly get. No vine-covered mysteries here. No cool salt breezes whispering from the green sea, blanketing emerald lawns, traveling lush garden paths. Not much of anything green at all. No crumbling Carfax estate, either. And no swirling fog to mask the night-everything right out in the open, just as plain as the nose on your face. A West Texas shitsplat. Cattle business, mostly. A match-stick kind of town. Wooden buildings-wind-dried, sun-bleached-that weren't much more than tinder dreading the match.
The people who lived there were the same way.
But it wasn't the town that made this place. He'd told her that. It was that big blanket of a sky, an eternal wave threatening to break over the dead dry husk of the prairie, fading darker with each turn of the wagon wheels-cresting, cresting-ready to smother the earth like a hungry thing.
Not a bigger, blacker night anywhere on the planet. When that nightwave broke, as it did all too rarely-wide and mean and full up with mad lightning and thunder-it was something to see.
He'd promised her that. He'd promised to show her the heart of a wild Texas night, the way she'd shown him the shadows of Whitby.
Not that he always kept his promises. But this one was a promise to himself as much as it was a promise to her.
He'd hidden from it for a while. Sure. In the wake of all that horror, he'd run. But finally he'd returned to Whitby, and to her. He'd returned to keep his promise.
And now he was coming home.
"Not another place like it anywhere, Miss Lucy. Damn sure not on this side of the pond, anyhow."
She didn't fake a blush or get all offended by his language, like so many of the English missies did, and he liked that. She played right with him, like she knew the game. Not just knew it, but thrived on it. "No," she said. "Nothing here could possibly resemble your Texas, Quincey P. Morris. Because no one here resembles you."
She took him by the lapels and kissed him like she was so hungry for it, like she couldn't wait another moment, and then he had her in his arms and they were moving together, off the terrace, away from the house and the party and the dry rattle of polite conversation. He was pulling her and she was pushing him and together they were going back, back into the shadows of Whitby, deep into the garden where fog settled like velvet and the air carried what for him would always be the green scent of England.
And then they were alone. The party sounds were a world away. But those sounds were nothing worth hearing-they were dead sounds compared to the music secret lovers could make. Matched with the rustle of her skirts, and the whisper of his fingers on her tender thighs, and the sweet duet of hungry lips, the sounds locked up in the big stone house were as sad and empty as the cries of the damned souls in Dr. Seward's loony bin, and he drew her away from them, and she pushed him away from them, and together they entered another world where strange shadows met, cloaking them like fringed buckskin, like gathered satin.
Buckskin and satin. It wasn't what you'd call a likely match. They'd been dancing around it for months. But now the dancing was over.
"God, I want you," he said.
She didn't say anything. There was really nothing more to say. She gave. She took. And he did the same.
He reined in the horses just short of town. Everything was black but that one circle of white hanging high in the sky.
He stepped down from the driver's box and stretched. He drew the night air deep into his lungs. The air was dry and dusty, and there wasn't anything in it that was pleasant.
He was tired. He lay down on top of the big black box in the back of the wagon and thought of her. His fingers traveled wood warped in the leaky cargo hold of a British ship. Splinters fought his callused hands, lost the battle. But he lost the war, because the dissonant rasp of rough fingers on warped wood was nothing like the music the same rough fingers could make when exploring a young woman's thighs.
He didn't give up easy, though. He searched for the memory of the green scent of England, and the music he'd made there, and shadows of satin and buckskin. He searched for the perfume of her hair, and her skin. The ready, eager perfume of her sex.
His hands traveled the wood. Scurrying like scorpions. Damn things just wouldn't give up, and he couldn't help laughing
Raindrops beaded on the box. The nightwave was breaking.
No. Not raindrops at all. Only his tears.
The sky was empty. No clouds. No rain.
No lightning.
But there was lightning in his eyes.
TWO
The morning sunlight couldn't penetrate the filthy jailhouse window. That didn't bother the man in black. He had grown to appreciate the darkness.
Sheriff Josh Muller scratched his head. "This is the damnedest thing, Quincey. You got to admit that that Stoker fella made it pretty plain in his book."
Quincey smiled. "You believe the lies that Buntline wrote about Buffalo Bill, too?"
"Shit no, Quince. But, hell, that Stoker is a silver stickpin gentleman. I thought they was different and all-"
"I used to think that. Until I got to know a few of the bastards, that is."
"Well," the sheriff said, "that may be…but the way it was, was…we all thought that you had been killed by them Transylvanian gypsies, like you was in the book."
"I've been some places, before and since. But we never got to Transylvania. Not one of us. And I ain't even feelin' poorly."
"But in the book-"
"Just how stupid are you, Josh? You believe in vampires, too? Your bowels get loose thinkin' about Count Dracula?"
"Hell, no, of course not, but-"
"Shit, Josh, I didn't mean that like a question you were supposed to answer."
"Huh?"
Quincey sighed. "Let's toss this on the fire and watch it sizzle. It's real simple-I
ain't dead. I'm back. Things are go
Quincey Morris shot a thumb over his shoulder. The sheriff looked up and saw how dirty the window was. He grabbed a rag from his desk. "I'll take care of it, Quince."
"You don't get it," the man in black said.
"Huh?"
Again, Quincey sighed. "I
ain't dead. I'm back. Things are go
The sheriff squinted at the words painted on the window. He wasn't a particularly fast reader-he'd been four months reading the Stoker book, and that was with his son doing most of the reading out loud. On top of that, he had to read this backwards. He started in, reading right to left: O-W-E-N-S-V-I-L-L-
That was as far as he got. Quincey Morris picked up a chair and sent it flying through the glass, and then the word wasn't there anymore.
Morris stepped through the opening and started toward his wagon. He stopped in the street, which was like a river of sunlight, turned, and squinted at the sheriff. "Get that window fixed," he said. "Before I come back."
"Where are you headed?" The words were out of Josh Muller's mouth before he could stop himself, and he flinched at the grin Morris gave him in return.
"I'm goin' home," was all he said.
There in the shadows, none of it mattered, because it was only the two of them. Two creatures from different worlds, but with hearts that were the same.
He'd come one hell of a long way to find this. Searched the world over. He'd known that he'd find it, once he went looking, same as he'd known that it was something he had to go out and find if he wanted to keep on living. His gut told him,