Strangely, the woman smiled. “Never is a very long time, Don Ricardo. I think we may hear of each other again someday. You will tell me stories of what you have seen.”
He offered her a respectful bow, and for just a moment regretted that he could not spend more time here.
“We will deliver your message.”
“Gracias.”
She wheeled her horse around, and the others followed. The riders trotted away after the soldiers who’d fled before.
Now he could deal with Suerte. “I would have managed them,” he said.
The boy—not so much a boy anymore, he was sixteen and sure of himself—picked himself off the ground. He slung the crossbow easily over his shoulder.
“Of course. But a little help never hurt, eh?”
Together, they returned to the manor.
The house’s main sitting room was directly through the front doors, across the courtyard. Comfortable chairs were gathered around a fireplace, tables held vases of flowers, and borders had been painted on the stucco walls over the years by anyone with talent and a desire. Blue and yellow flowers looped around each other in a vine-like pattern near the ceiling, and a geometric pattern in red lines framed the hearth. The room was warm, lived in, and Ricardo spent most of his time here when he wasn’t working or sleeping. Originally, this had been the main part of the church Fray Juan was supposedly presiding over. Ricardo had taken it over, knocked down walls, expanded it, made it a home. In the next room, a trapdoor led to his cellar bed-room—windowless, forever dark. That was the only room of Fray Juan’s he had kept.
He wondered what Henri would do with that room when he was gone. Turn it into a root cellar perhaps. Or seal it up.
The whole family had gathered. Henri, his wife Madalena, their oldest son Tomas and his wife Juana, Suerte, and several of their other children. A large, contented family who’d built this place into a village. Ricardo was proud of what they’d done here.
He sat in a large cushioned chair, his hand resting on a bundle of papers on the table. “All that remains is to file the papers with the provincial governor’s office in Zacatecas. You are now my heir, and this is all yours.”
Henri looked stricken. The others were uncertain, looking to him for how to respond.
“This is only a paper,” he said. “A fiction—”
“No, it is not. It is all yours. It’s the only way to keep the vampires out, and to keep you all safe, as I promised your grandparents I would. So you will be Don Henri, and I will leave.”
As soon as he said the words aloud, his heart lifted. At least, what was left of his heart lifted. Facing this change, this upheaval—he could no longer see into the future, and it felt good. He felt like he had when he had boarded the ship in Spain a century before.
He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to convince them this was truly what he wanted to do. Madalena rushed forward, kneeling at his feet, clasping his hands. “Ricardo, no, this is your home! Haven’t we always taken care of you? Doesn’t our blood run through your veins?”
He squeezed her hands in return. “I will miss you all, truly. But I feel the need to seek out an adventure. Go north and light a candle for my old commander.”
“I will go with you,” Suerte said, stepping forward.
Both Madalena and Henri started, “No—”
“You’ll need someone to look after you.” Suerte spoke only to Ricardo; he knew whom he had to convince here.
And, Ricardo realized, he would need someone. Certainly he could attempt to travel and survive on his own. But how much easier his existence would be with someone to seal the doors during the day. Someone to provide a cupful of blood every few days. And Suerte would not need coercing. He felt a gratitude for the young man he’d never be able to express.
He expected the parents to argue further, but Madalena went to embrace her son, proud and sad all at once.
Ricardo looked around at his home and his family that he had fought hard for, that he had enjoyed for decades longer than any man could expect to enjoy home and family. Yes, he would always remember this place fondly. But it was time to go.
In the early years of the border town of Santa Fe, people of all sorts came and went, all the time. Missionaries and traders from the south, the soldiers defending them, native peoples from every direction. Settlers, families, and all the people who followed to carve homes out of the desert land. The place was becoming a crossroads.
In a certain tavern where travelers often stopped before setting out to press even farther west and north, a man could be found with a cup sitting before him that he never drank from. He was obviously of good breeding, with an elegant bearing and an old-fashioned way of speaking. He had a servant, a rough-looking Mexicano of around thirty whom the man treated more as a friend, which was odd, but one could make allowances for the eccentric. The pair acted as translators and guides—they were friendly with many of the Pueblo people and had even successfully negotiated with some Apache. Strangely, though, if you wanted to hire this man for your caravan or as a scout, you had to understand that he only worked at night.
Late at night this man would tell old stories of conquistadors so vividly that he might have been there himself—which was impossible, of course. He was a young man in his prime. When pressed, he said his great-grandfather had been part of Coronado’s company, a true conquistador. Much debate went on about whether to believe this.
In the end, he was so comfortable in the border towns, and he gazed over the plains with such appreciation—love, even—everyone felt he must have at least part of the soul of one of those old soldiers.
Dead Men