The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

FOUR

He’d drawn a sash around his belly, but it hadn’t done much good. His jeans were stiff with blood, and his left boot seemed to be swimming with the stuff. That was his guess, anyway–there wasn’t much more than a tingle of feeling in his left foot, and he wasn’t going to stoop low and investigate.

Seeing himself in the mirror was bad enough. His face was so white. Almost like the count’s.

Almost like her face, in death.

Mrs. Danvers stepped away from the coffin, tucking a pair of scissors into a carpetbag. “I did the best I could,” she said.

“I’m much obliged, ma’am.” Quincey leaned against the lip of the box, numb fingers brushing the yellow ribbon that circled Lucy’s neck.

“You can’t see them stitches at all,” the whiskey-breathed preacher said, and the seamstress cut him off with a glance.

“You did a fine job, Mrs. Danvers.” Quincey tried to smile. “You can go on home now.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to stay.”

“That’ll be fine,” Quincey said.

He turned to the preacher, but he didn’t look at him. Instead, he stared through the parlor window. Outside, the sky was going to blood red and bruise purple.

He reached into the box. His fingers were cold, clumsy. Lucy’s delicate hand almost seemed warm by comparison.

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 stunned to move. But when he did move, there was no stopping him.

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 running, he’d thought, 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.