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Quincey nodded at the preacher. "Let's get on with it."
The preacher started in. Quincey had heard the words many times. He'd seen people stand up to them, and he'd seen people totter under their weight, and he'd seen plenty who didn't care a damn for them at all.
But this time it was him hearing those words. Him answering them. And when the preacher got to the part about taking…
do you take this woman…Quincey said, "Right now I just want to give."
That's what the count couldn't understand, him with all the emotion of a tick. Seward and Holmwood, even Lucy's mother, they weren't much better. But Quincey understood. Now more than ever. He held tight to Lucy's hand.
"If you've a mind to, you can go ahead and kiss her now," the preacher said.
Quincey bent low. His lips brushed hers, ever so gently. He caught a faint whiff of Mrs. Murphy's soap, no trace of garlic at all.
With some effort, he straightened. It seemed some time had passed, because the preacher was gone, and the evening sky was veined with blue-pink streaks.
The piano player just sat there, his eyes closed tight, his hands fisted in his lap. "You can play it now," Quincey said, and the man got right to it, fingers light and shaky on the keys, voice no more than a whisper:
"Come and sit by my side if you love me,
Do not hasten to bid me adieu,
But remember the Red River Valley,
And the cowboy who loved you so true."
Quincey listened to the words, holding Lucy's hand, watching the night. The sky was going black now, blacker every second. There was no blood left in it at all.
Just like you, you damn fool, he thought.
He pulled his bowie from its sheath. Seward's words rang in his ears:
"One moment's courage, and it is done."
But Seward hadn't been talking to Quincey when he'd said those words. Those words were for Holmwood. And Quincey had heard them, but he'd been about ten steps short of doing something about them. If he hadn't taken the time to discuss philosophy with Count Dracula, that might have been different. As it was, Holmwood had had plenty of time to use the stake, while Seward had done his business with a scalpel.
For too many moments, Quincey had watched them, too stu
He used the bowie, and he left Whitby that night.
He ran out. He wasn't proud of that. And all the time he was ru
So much blood, all spilled for no good reason. Dracula, with the needs of a tick. Holmwood and Seward, who wanted to be masters or nothing at all.
He ran out. Sure. But he came back. Because he knew that there was more to the blood, more than just the taking.
One moment's courage…
Quincey stared down at the stake jammed through his beloved's heart, the cold shaft spearing the blue-pink muscle that had thundered at the touch of his fingers. The bowie shook in his hand. The piano man sang:
"There never could be such a longing,
In the heart of a poor cowboy's breast,
As dwells in this heart you are breaking,
While I wait in my home in the West."
Outside, the sky was black. Every square in the quilt. No moon tonight.
Thunder rumbled, rattling the windows.
Quincey put the bowie to his neck. Lightning flashed, and white spiderwebs of brightness danced on Lucy's flesh. The shadows receded for the briefest moment, then flooded the parlor once more, and Quincey was lost in them. Lost in shadows he'd brought home from Whitby.
One moment's courage…
He sliced his neck, praying that there was some red left in him. A thin line of blood welled from the wound, overflowing the spot where Lucy had branded him with eager kisses.
He sagged against the box. Pressed his neck to her lips.
He dropped the bowie. His hand closed around the stake.
One moment's courage…
He tore the wooden shaft from her heart, and waited.
Minutes passed. He closed his eyes. Buried his face in her dark hair. His hands were scorpions, scurrying everywhere, dancing to the music of her tender thighs.
Her breast did not rise, did not fall. She did not breathe.
She would never breathe again.
But her lips parted. Her fangs gleamed. And she drank.
Together, they welcomed the night.
FOXTROT AT HIGH NOON by Sergei Lukyanenko
Translated from Russian by Michael M. Naydan and Slava I. Yastremski
Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko is the author of the international bestselling vampire novels Night Watch and Day Watch, which were adapted to film by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov. The third book in the series, Twilight Watch, is currently in production. The fourth and final book in the series, Last Watch, was published in January. He is among the most popular Russian science fiction/fantasy writers, and is the author of several other novels as well, but to date only the Watch books have been translated into English.
Lukyanenko's short work has appeared in English only once so far, in James and Kathryn Morrow's SFWA European Hall of Fame anthology. That story, like this one, was translated by Michael M. Naydan and Slava I. Yastremski.
This story appears here for the first time. It tells the story of a lone stranger, in a post-apocalyptic future, coming to a town overrun by lawlessness.
The town was lost between the mountains and the sea, like a man between the earth and heaven.
The train moved along the shore all night, and the rattle of the wheels merged with the sound of the surf in a single unending melody. In the freight car, Denis was barely able to sleep. He lay on boards that smelled of hay and horse dung, watching the infrequent flashes of stars through the holes in the slotted roof of the car. There were no horses here-the livestock pens were empty-but a little bit of hay remained, and he raked it under his head. Before going to sleep, Denis had undressed, and now wore only his undershorts. Boots stood beside his feet; jeans, a plaid shirt, and a velvet jacket hung off the side rail of the livestock pen. His left hand rested atop a heavy revolver in a frayed holster.
The wheels of the train knocked out their song. Denis began to stir, and whispered:
"The train is rushing-what a beaut,
The wheels are knocking-tra ta toot toot!"
– then dozed off for a short time.
Denis awoke as the car was gripped by the morning chill. He stood, grabbed his weapon, and walked from the end of the car to the caboose platform. In one of the pens, a vagrant lay still and unmoving in the shadows. Denis averted his eyes.
Daybreak. The door to the train car was open; he had entered the train through it last night. Outside, on the platform, he unhurriedly relieved himself, then sat down, hanging his legs off the side of the car, an endless ladder spreading out beneath him, the rails like twin steel bow strings and the rungs of the cross-ties dark from creosote. If you lay your head back it seemed as if the train were gliding down from the sky itself.
"The wheels are knocking tra-ta-toot," Denis repeated.
A quarter of an hour later, when the train had stopped in a small town, Denis stood in the open doors of the freight car finishing a cigarette. The train pulled onto track number one; on track two, a long freight train with tanks and storage containers began to sing and toot and started off in the opposite direction. Denis jumped down without waiting for the train to come to a full stop and teetered, but kept his balance.