“You’ll wait.”
“I’ll get Brendan and my medical bag,” Cody said.
Cole was heading to the rear, for the hooks by the kitchen door, to retrieve his railway frock coat.
It was a long coat. Megan thought that it was also probably well supplied—with stakes, a mallet and a number of sharp knives. With his height and the length of the coat, his heavy supply of armor might not be noted beneath its folds.
She made it out the door first, walking purposely for the street and seeking a carriage to hail. Cole was right behind her, towering over her and lifting his hand high as he hurried her along. Just as Cody and Brendan caught up to them, a carriage for hire pulled alongside them and Cole asked that they be delivered to the Lincoln General Hospital. The four of them climbed in, Brendan being the one to first appear the gentleman and hand her up the footstep so that she might take a seat.
In short time, they reached the hospital. It was immense, founded in 1862 because of the staggering number of war injuries and diseases that plagued the soldiers. When they set foot at the emergency arrivals area, it seemed that the place was nothing but chaos, which was good for their purposes. Cole had a letter of authority from the Pinkertons—who were ostensibly investigating the mysterious murders—and a grim medic, hurrying from one tent to another, directed them to the far rear of the encampment.
“Did we really need all four of us for such a task?” Brendan grumbled, wincing as they walked past a pile of amputated limbs. “My dear!” he added, pulling Megan close to him. “These are not sights really fit for a lady.”
“How kind, sir. But I’ve been on many a battlefield.”
“I’m sure you have,” Cole said.
“Where is your actress–Amazon warrior friend, Sheriff?” Megan asked sweetly. “Wouldn’t she have better directed us on this mission?”
“Miss Annalise is a superb actress and songstress, in the city to warm the hearts of the injured and those working on the home front, and even those just waiting, raising their children,” Cole said pleasantly. “She is otherwise occupied by her very important work.”
Megan tried to restrain from an unladylike snort. She did manage to suppress the sound to a barely audible sniff.
She didn’t like Lisette Annalise. She was sure that the woman would happily propel enough bombs to obliterate the entire South, heedless that it would kill countless innocents and take out half the Northern troops, all in her determination to exterminate her enemies. Did Cole realize that? she wondered. It hadn’t taken any great intellectual mind to realize that the woman was a Northern spy, working with the Pinkertons. Though Cody had not told her so directly during Cole’s absence, he hadn’t denied her query about the woman, either.
A soldier suddenly barred their way. “What business have you here?” the man demanded. “If you’re seeking the body of your kin, you’ve passed the tent where the latest casualties lie.”
“I’m here under a matter of government concern,” Cody said, and Cole produced their letter of authority.
The soldier nodded, looking a little white. “Dr. Mansfield examined the bodies earlier. I shall conduct you and remain with you throughout your own examination, sir.”
Megan knew that her part in the charade was at hand.
“Oh!” she whispered suddenly.
Making sure that she was far enough from the men, she brought the back of her hand to her eyes and pretended to waver.
“Miss!” the soldier cried, rushing forward to catch her before she could fall.
“Oh, thank you!” she cried, circling her arms around him. “I don’t know what’s come over me! I’ve nursed men on the fields…. I just need…perhaps a bit of water.”
“My poor dear sister!” Cody said, starting forward.
Cole caught him by the shoulder. “Dr. Fox, we’ve been asked to make a report as soon as possible on the condition of the poor family!”
“Indeed,” Cody said, distressed.
“I have the young lady,” the soldier said, now staring at Megan with something like puppy love in his eyes. “Be brief, please. I am ordered to watch over the corpses—God knows why. They are certainly not going to rise and fight the Union. And who would seek to steal a corpse—and besides there are thousands on the battlefields. There are sons in the family, but they are in the field. Oh, just hurry, sir, and do what examining it is that is necessary. I will see to the young lady. My officer’s tent is just there….” He pointed.
“Oh!” Megan said again, clinging to him.
“Dear girl! Dear girl!” he said. And barely aware of the others, he helped her as she leaned hard against him, and they walked to the officer’s tent. She glanced back over her shoulder just once, smiling at the trio of men. She noticed Cole looking back at her, appearing amused.
THE OBVIOUS FACTOR regarding the corpses was their color.
Or lack thereof.
“White” was the term used, and yet they weren’t really white at all. They appeared to be a pale, opaque shade of yellow-pearl, and they seemed hollow, as if they had never been human at all.
Cole noted immediately that in addition to the massive trauma apparent on their necks, their throats had been neatly slit as well, though long after the blood had been drained. The perpetrators had been savage, making no tiny pinprick point in the throats of their victims, but tearing at them like rabid dogs. Young vampires, yes. And maybe an older one, hastily trying to cover their tracks.
Cody looked at the victims, laid out on the ground, covered in poor, unbleached cotton sheets, bearing the muddy look of the ground where they lay.
Cots would have been saved for the living.
Joshua Brandt had been a man of perhaps fifty or sixty years; even in death, he had a furrowed brow. His wife was thin, probably pale in life as well, her face portraying the wrinkled countenance of a life that had been long lived. Brandt’s mother was long, excruciatingly thin, and probably soon for death even without the vampire’s kiss. The servant girl was young and had been pretty; her hands were callused. There had been a male servant as well, an older man, bearing signs of stooped shoulders from a long life of labor. The bodies had only received cursory inspections and thus remained fully clothed.
“The heads, or stakes?” Cole asked Cody with sadness in his voice.
“Stakes, beneath the shirts and bodices,” Cody said.
Cole hunkered down and reached into his coat for a long, narrow, honed stake and his mallet. He paused before looking down then discovered that he was poised above the body of the young servant girl. She looked peaceful, young and lovely.
To his surprise, her eyes opened. She looked at him and smiled, and he paused again. Then he saw that something in her eyes was registering cunning and evil intent.
He hammered the stake into her heart just as her lips drew back and saliva dripped off her fangs. He sat back, trembling slightly. She had changed quickly. And in daylight.
Cody
