"You married, Sarge?" Valentine asked, trying his best to let the other sentry win a cigarette off him at gin.

"Is he married? You might just say that!" Valentine's partner said. "What are you up to now, Sarge, four?"

"Seattle, St. Paul, Chicago, and Atlanta," the sergeant said, leering at Valentine. "Each one waiting for the next run that will allow me to return to hearth and home. Travel has its advantages, Trooper."

"You don't say," Valentine said, picking up and laying down a card. "How do I get into this outfit?"

"I could put in a good word. You could write Capt. Caleb Mulroon, care of Overland Consolidated in Chicago. That is, if you think you could get out of your present post with no hard feelings."

"Gin!" said the sentry, laying down his cards and picking up the cigarette ante.

"I think I can make the Troopers happy to be rid of me," Valentine said, passing his cards across to be shuffled.

Four pairs of eyes widened when Duvalier returned later. Her appearance wrecked a perfectly good game of poker.

The transformation was nothing short of incredible. She had changed from slightly grubby scarecrow to head-, neck-, and shoulder-turner in the space of the afternoon. Her short red hair was now in carefully arranged, slightly curly disarray. She wore a midriff-revealing, sleeveless jeans jacket unbuttoned to a hint of lacy red bra and more than a hint of cleavage. Short shorts hugged assorted curves where they didn't reveal long, athletic legs ending in white canvas rubber-soled shoes. Her lips matched the fire in her hair, and her eyelashes seemed longer and thicker. Valentine was not used to makeup, especially not on Duvalier.

"Better, sweetie? Hardly spent any money at all."

"You are a lucky son of a bitch, West," one of the Overland guards said.

Valentine got up and took her hands in his. "Much better. That's the Ali I dream about at night." He gave her a hug and experimentally patted her on her backside as he planted a kiss on her ear.

"Now, now, Westin, can't have these men thinking you're a pig," she said, locking her eyes on his. "Don't let's get carried away now-we still have a lot of traveling to do before we're home safe."

The miles rattled off pleasantly until Duvalier killed the Overland guards.

She had been napping in one of the little bunks set atop the caboose's wooden storage cabinets. It had tiny rails to keep her from rolling out.

As evening fell, the card game had died off, and Valentine put some clothing in to soak in a soapy basin, getting in a badly needed laundry between stops. One Overland guard kept watch from what the sergeant called the "catbird seat," a cupola high at the train-side end of the caboose, and the sergeant retired to the bunk opposite Duvalier.

The other guard, suspenders dangling and in a sweat-yellowed tank top, kept up a pretext of conversation with the man on top as he eyed the sleeping Cat from an angle that allowed the best view down her decolletage. Valentine heard her stir as he wrung out a pair of socks, and she looked up in alarm at the presence looming over her.

"Ever think about trading up?" the guard asked, touching her hair before sending his fingers walking down her shoulder and across the exposed top half of her freckled breast.

Duvalier locked on the guard's eyes and wrist at the same time. Valentine felt a horrid trill of danger from some inner alarm as she pulled the exploratory hand down under the sheet and between her thighs. "I thought so ...," the guard said, giving Valentine a wink across the rocking caboose interior.

She clamped his hand there.

The knife came up fast-so fast, the guard never saw it. He let out a surprised cough, gaping at the handle sprouting from his armpit. Duvalier rolled out of the bunk, walking stick ready.

Valentine smelled blood. His pack and weapons were in a locker at the other side of the room. He grabbed the washbowl. He needed something-anything-in his hand.

Duvalier thrust with her stick just as her would-be lover opened his mouth. She caught him solidly below the breastbone; the yell for help died into a gasp of a contracting diaphragm. He grabbed at the weapon, and Duvalier left hi|p holding the empty scabbard as she drew twenty inches of naked blade.

She became a blur. To Valentine, it was like trying to watch a hummingbird.

"Hol-huh?" the waking sergeant asked just before she stabbed him up and under the chin. The guard in the catbird seat brought down his rifle. Not knowing what else to do, Valentine .threw his bucketful of water and laundry in his direction.

The splash of water brought the man with the blade in his armpit out of his shock. He dropped Duvalier's scabbard and pulled the bloody-handled blade out of his armpit. Duvalier danced out of the way of the arterial spray and spun to slash up at the legs of the seated guard. At one time or another, Valentine had heard the expression "cut off at the knees." Now he saw it in practice.

Blood pouring from under his arm, the guard made one half-swipe at Duvalier with her knife before he sank to the floor, face calm and beatific as though relaxing into sleep.

Tchick-BANG went the guard's rifle and splinters flew and Duvalier stabbed up and up through the seat and the blood came down as though from a broken pipe and the rifle fell on the man bleeding to death on the floor. BANG-Valentine ducked as the rifle fired again as it landed and Duvalier pulled the mutilated guard out of his seat and threw him to the floor and jumped on his back and pounded his face again and again into the bloody floorboards until broken teeth lay like dropped candy and clear fluid ran out and the screams ended.

Valentine pulled her off the guard.

"Damn them all," she said, leaving a bloody smear as she wiped her nose with a trembling hand.

Tags: E.E. Knight Vampire Earth Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net