Free I Travel by Night by Robert R. McCammon Page A

and the rest of his arms free. He sat up in his boat, which was roped to the nearest cypress. The pistol in the girl’s hand was aimed at his chest. She had on the same clothes and dark green jockey’s cap she’d been wearing in the Swamp Root, except now they were wet with sweat. The eyes in her otherwise attractive face were the same hard bits of coal. She was wearing her pair of black leather gloves to guard her hands against the rough wood of the oars. She was the type of woman, he mused, who came prepared. “Well,” Lawson said, his vision filmy in the glare. He worked up a smile from the tight muscles of his pallid face. “Here we are.”
    “Yes,” she replied.
    “That’s all? You’re not going to ask me why I’m wrapped up like this and sleeping in my boat at…what time is it? Ten o’clock?”
    “Near enough.”
    “I’ll ask you some questions, then. You fired a shot that broke the gambler’s knife, yes? And then shot the hat off his head? Very good shooting. You must be an expert. But why do that? Because you thought he was going to kill me? And you wanted me alive? Slow me down if I’m going too fast.”
    “You’re on the tracks,” she said.
    “Your name is…?”
    “Annie Remington.”
    “Hm,” said Lawson. “That’s a Remington Army pistol in your hand. I’m suspecting that’s a professional name. You’re a trick shooter? Travel for the company?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Your real name is…?”
    She paused for a moment, but Lawson already knew what she was going to say. “Ann Kingsley.”
    He nodded. “Eva’s older sister. I saw her portrait. You do resemble each other. Your father told you everything? So you came here to make sure of exactly what ?”
    “I came here,” said Ann Kingsley, staring directly into the orbs of Lawson’s goggles, “to find out what kind of game you’re playing with my sister’s life.” The Remington pistol never wavered. “How you got my father—a sensible man—to agree to this, I have no idea. But I’m not letting you out of my sight. And I sure as hell didn’t want that gambler killing you last night before I had a chance to kill you…if I have to.”
    “I see,” said the vampire. He scratched his smooth chin. “You think I had something to do with Eva’s kidnapping?”
    “I don’t know what I think. I just know I’m burrin’ to your saddle.”
    “That’s a complication I’d rather not have.”
    “Do tell.”
    Lawson considered his position. The gunshot would hurt and might break a bone or two, but he’d survive it. He could rush her and take the gun, if this sunlight wasn’t sapping his strength and speed. He could send his Eye into her head and command her to hand the pistol over, but he thought she might put up some strong resistance. He would win, in the end, but still…
    Maybe she ought to keep her little piece of power, he decided. Could be useful, before all was said and done.
    But still…
    “You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” he said, which sounded like the most hackneyed statement ever made but was in this case horrifically true. “You don’t want to stay around me, Miss Kingsley. And you surely do not want to go to Nocturne.”
    “Do tell again,” she replied, with a derisive curl of her upper lip.
    “Mercy me,” Lawson said. “I suppose you won’t take it on faith that I had nothing to do with all this, and that I intend to pay the ransom and return your sister unharmed?” Relatively speaking, he thought. What she’d witnessed might have already driven her mad. Or…she might have already been turned.
    “I don’t have that much faith. Or stupidity. Explain to me why you of all people were asked to take that ransom money in. Why ?”
    “Lucky,” said Lawson.
    “Don’t think that’s just it. Think there’s a whole lot more you’re not telling.”
    Lawson reached for his hat and put it on, because even in the shadow the sun was scorching his head. His skin was prickling, getting painful.