XXIX

It felt like Caff had been waiting for this meeting for longer than he truly had. In the grand scheme, three days wasn't much. Even if they were as busy as his had been. In that time he had still managed to build an expectation in his mind, of what Artemus Talmadge would be and seem like. A cold-eyed, gnarled old cur spit full of venom, or a distant, careless figure full of horrid knowledge and awful secrets. To do what Talmadge had done required qualities such as that, or something else that Caff had no ability to imagine. His hand went to the smooth-worn ash grip of his pistol that had only four shots left. He stood, eyes locked on the old man in a thick, warm-looking robe, and was strangely disappointed by that being all he saw. He said nothing and Jennie stood as well, taking a place to the side and just behind.

Talmadge lifted his hands with a careful slowness, like he knew how liable he was to get shot. “I'm not armed,” he said, and his voice was a scratchy kind of warm. It was the wrong kind of voice for the man, fit more to a kind old grump than the murderer he was. He sounded like Leland, Caff realized. That didn't sit right. Jennie racked her twelve-gauge, more for the threat of the sound than anything. She'd run out, by his memory. Talmadge startled and stepped back. “I'm not!” he promised, voice rising. “I swear!”

Jennie grunted and moved up to stand at Caff's side. The contrast between what he thought to see and what lay before him was stark. He did not like it, feeling as though something about this was wrong. A trap, maybe. He'd play helpless, then strike when they got close. Change one of their minds and have them attack the other, sitting back while they did his work for him. Again. Caff looked to Jennie out of the corner of his eye and saw her looking back. There was a question there. She wanted him to decide what to do.

So he did. He drew his pistol and pointed it at Talmadge's chest. This close there was no way he could miss. He pulled the hammer back with his thumb. Jennie went tense and still beside him. In front, Talmadge went very pale and his hands began to shake. “I'll come quietly, I swear!” he promised, “You'll have no trouble from me, just don't – don't kill me!”

Caff had to swallow to get the words out. His mouth was suddenly dry. He said, even and calm, “I am placing you under arrest. You are accused of the murder of Ruby Pendleton, the violation of her corpse, the attempted murders of Everett Swanson and my own self, and...” He had to trail off to think on it. Far as he could in that moment recall, there was no specific law against changing someone's mind. “The abduction and torture of Elijah. Try to fight, or run, and I'll shoot you. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly,” agreed Talmadge, eyes on the guns arrayed against him. “Though...I must protest, Sheriff. I am an innocent man. I've never heard of or met any of these people.” The very instant he finished his declaration of innocence, Caff knew it was a lie. He was absolutely and bone-deep certain of it. It was a little odd surprise, how certain he was. He put it aside as something to think on later. It wouldn't do to lose focus.

“Sure you haven't,” Jennie agreed, managing to convey a roll of her eyes by the tone of her voice alone. “Not never once.” She took a step forward, allowing Caff to see the tension in her shoulders and running up her spine. She was keen, even eager, for something. “You like killing women, Art?” She asked. Her voice had gone from dry sarcasm to something low and dangerous. Predatory. Made Caff think that she might be the one to shoot Talmadge, in the end.

“No!” Talmadge lied, himself taking a step back. Before he was in the threshold of the little room. Now, he stood behind it. He had lied again and Caff was again utterly convinced of it. In stepping backwards Talmadge stumbled a little, heel catching on something or other. He had to brace himself on the doorframe to stay upright. “I am too old to leave my home, let alone do all of...” he seemed at a loss for a moment, waving a hand for a moment before settling on, “that!”

“You're lyin'!” Jennie snarled. Her finger twitched on the twelve-gauge's trigger. Not enough to fire, mind, but near to it. He moved to interrupt, thinking she was working herself up to the act, and hesitated as he drew level with her. There was a good chance that touching her would startle her, she'd pull the trigger, and he would never know why all of this was done. Jennie's drawn brow, narrowed eyes, and thinned lips all spoke to something sharp and keen inside her. “Lyin'! You done it!”

“I–” Talmadge began to lie once more, and once more Caff knew it. He had no idea how. He just did. She interrupted him.

“You lie again, I'll kill you.” She promised. That was also a lie. A small knot of some tightly wound thing loosened in his chest. She was bluffing. That was good. He couldn't say why it had caused him such upset. It just seemed wrong to think of Jennie killing a man. The once-dead corpses were different. Not really living. He didn't know. It was wrong, was the point.

He'd play into the bluff. Not because he wanted Talmadge's confession, though that would be helpful down the line. No, he wanted to know why. Everything else, he had. The whole sordid affair. He'd used Elijah and Rupert to kill Ruby, given her liver as currency in a transaction with some hungering spirit, and tried to kill Everett and Caff to cover his tracks. The reason was all that remained. He wanted it. He needed it. “Best do as she says,” he offered. “been a real bad day for us both.” He locked eyes with Talmadge. “Real bad day.”

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The old cur seemed to understand. Whether he fell for the bluff was another question. Caff had no idea. He believed the twelve-gauge, at least. Talmadge straightened himself, tugging wrinkles out of that thick robe of his. “Very well,” he said quietly. It seemed to dignity he was aiming for. “I confess.”

“To what?” Caff asked, something like eagerness coming to him. “and why?”

“Well, I...” Talmadge fell short of what he'd aimed at. Hit bluster instead. “all that I am accused of, I suppose. But you have to understand, I was forced to! It made me! I didn't want to, I swear!” It was odd to hear a mix of truth and lies. The truth lay in his confession. The lie was in what followed. As for the 'it', there was only one meaning Caff could think of. The hungering spirit.

“Tell me about it,” he said, lowering his pistol. “and you better not tell a single lie. I'll know, and Jennie here'll...well...” Something in what he'd just said sparked something in Talmadge's eye. A little flicker of maybe interest or recognition. It was come and gone too fast to recognize. A quick glimpse, and little else. Wisely, Talmadge began to talk.

- - -

A century-and-a-half ago, Artemus Talmadge had been approaching the end of his days. He would soon pass and be sent on, leaving behind only memory in the hearts and minds of his loved ones. Unlike some but rather like others, he had not dealt well with this fact, instead being consumed with terror. It had become all he could think about, filling his waking and sleeping hours with visions of whatever he could conjure as the hereafter. He began a search for a way, any way, to stave off his inevitable end. He found one.

Calavera's vampire was, after all, a being out of time. When Talmadge had approached the creature's mausoleum and made his plea, it was to deaf ears. The creature had stupidly, naively, expressed envy of Talmadge's impending doom. It had told him that unending existence was nothing but unending loneliness, and had refused him. Bitter, angry, and more fearful than ever, Talmadge had returned to his home and drunk himself into a stupor.

It was in this stupor that he had found himself in a sitting room, clutching a half-filled bottle of whiskey and staring into a crackling hearth. It had died down to embers, only a merry-red glow beneath the crumbling logs, and he had stared at it until his eyes hurt. His fear, anger, and disappointment he had slurred from a drink-numbed tongue. Slowly, and quite by itself, the fire had built back up. Only it had not been a mix of red-and-orange as flames usually were. No, this had been a beacon of pure, bright orange. A beacon that had spoken to him. It had done so directly into his mind and without using a single word.

He had thought himself finally gone mad. The rejection, the drink, and his terror had done it. This beacon, this orange flame, had made him an offer. Feed it a human's liver, for the liver had been, was, and would always be the seed of life. It would grant him his greatest wish if he did.

That was exactly what Talmadge had done. He had gone into town, riding into Calavera on one of his family's prized horses, and had paid a whore to accompany him back home. He'd killed her, stabbed her to death with a carving knife, and used that same to remove her liver. With blood-soaked hands he'd carried the whore's liver to the same hearth, where the orange flame now waited. His hands had shook as he'd fed it. The flame had wrapped itself around the organ, holding it aloft and tearing into it like a beast. Strips of dark meat pulled away and vanished into nothing. When it was done, the flame told him the deal was complete and extinguished itself.

Life had rushed like wildfire through Talmadge's old, frail body. Thin bones had become solid, atrophied muscles strong once more. His vitality had returned, given back to him by a hungering flame. For the next fifty years he lived deliciously, reveling in what a whore's life had bought him. In that time he had wondered what else he might be able to buy, and what it might cost him. The orange flame returned, and told him.

For the knowledge of and power to change minds he fed it his family's stables and all the horses within. Their screams as they died had been terrible and worth the price. For the ability to take something as simple and common as shadow and manipulate into shade, he gave the flame the bones of his family. Every last one. He came to call it the Hungering One.

He fed it well.

Another fifty years, another dead whore. The first one had not been missed. Neither had the second. It had made sense. Talmadge had been content to wait and enjoy his eternal life, acquiring the services of a fool named Rupert Wagner to do his bidding in town when it was needed.

Then, three days ago, it had been time. Fifty years to the day since the Hungering One had been fed. Since Talmadge had never stopped being afraid of death, he acted once more. Only this time, he thought to get his revenge and punish the vampire for denying him all those years ago. So he did.

- - -

Caff found his pistol lowering to his side, arm aching from the strain of holding it up. That, plus the litany of other pains, were secondary to the complete halt his mind had come to. It was the kind of halt that came from the collision of what he had thought he would learn and what he actually learned. He had expected more from Talmadge. Something less petty and pointless than fearing death. To learn that everything had resulted from that was truly and utterly disappointing.

It was also stupid and nonsensical. Pointless. Dying was preferable to living like Talmadge had, on time bought with blood and torment. Caff ought to be alight with rage and disgust. Here was a coward who had forced others to die so he could eke out a few more decades, with which he did nothing but make things worse. It wasn't fear, Caff realized, not anymore. The fear of death had been replaced by a hunger for more life. He wondered if the mind behind the eyes was still Artemus Talmadge, or if it had long been replaced by a flame of bright orange.

It didn't really matter. Wouldn't bring those nameless women back, nor Ruby. Wouldn't let any of the souls of those once-dead corpses rest easy, their graves having been violated. It was done and could not be undone. It hadn't been a lie, either. Not one word. He looked to Jennie and saw her staring in slack disbelief. He lifted his pistol to waist height and gestured with it, urging Talmadge to come to them. At the point of the gun he did, and made no fuss. Lucky for him. Caff's resolve to keep him alive was wavering at best.

He should be triumphant. The case was solved. Guilty party would either hang or spent his next blood-bought half century in prison. It should feel good, but all he could feel was tired. His hurts were keening more by the minute. In the end, Ruby Pendleton had died for nothing.