The setting sun burns through the doors of the Guinevere and throws long shadows across the bar. Hostesses run about lighting candles and lamps in between refilling mugs of cheap ale and watered-down whiskey shots. Lourdes is seated at a table with Jane. The boy is a statue, and even his eyes are stones blindly fixed forward. Jane, too, has become an object made of marble. Only her eyes retain their influence, piercing the boy as she decides what to make of him.

As the long shadows pass over the table, draping both Lourdes and the lady in darkness, the Guinevere's girls are nowhere to be found, too busy turning the cowboys spilling in into drunks and unfaithful husbands to light the candle sleeping between the child and the brothel owner. Lourdes, for a moment, takes his eyes off the woman in front of him as Katterina, high above, lights a chandelier. The gold makes the room flush with light, yet still the vampire and the madam remain in the night.

Setting his eyes back on Jane, Lourdes slowly lifts a hand. He spreads his fingers and, with the slightest arch of his brow, produces a flame. Yellow. Light. Life. The ember hovers above Lourdes's fingertips and chases them down to the candle at the table's center. Lourdes lights the wick.

The fire dancing off his golden eyes, Lourdes stares at the woman made of smoke opposite him.

"I didn't know your kind could do that..." Jane, breathless, gasps. She watches as the tongue of fire recedes within Lourdes.

"My kind can't. I can," Lourdes responds. "Just because you've dealt with a vampire or two in the past, don't presume you know me."

"So you admit it?" Jane smirks. "It took you a day to say the word, but vampire finally passes through your lips. Care to say it again? Care to tell me what you are?"

"Do you care to call yourself a prostitute, Madam Jane?" Lourdes asks in return.

"Whore," Jane flatly explains. "I'm a whore."

Lourdes's eyes open wide. He takes two breaths two minutes apart. His fingers trace his narrow jaw, pointed ears, and brittle hair. His vision spills over Jane's primped and perfumed flesh. His golden portals shrink.

"Vampire," Lourdes hisses. "I'm a vampire."

"Thank you, Mr. Lourdes," Jane bows. "I don't pretend to know how hard that was for you. And as we're speaking about things we don't know nor understand, don't presume you understand the Guinevere, me, or my girls." Jane places her palms over the candle, warming her hands atop its glittering flame. "My girls haven't been completely honest with you." Jane's eyes look across her establishment. She sees her women. They laugh, smile, and holler. Madam Jane's eyes snap back on the boy. "One of your species demanded a duel. He gave you two days."

"I've heard," Lourdes quickly replies. Far away, a knife finds the center of a dartboard. Elsewhere in the Guinevere, mud-colored miners toast the discovery of what-they-think-is-gold with a bottle of what-they-think-is-champagne. Somewhere on the second floor, there's the sound of a gun being cocked. Across the street, a mouse chews into a curing ham. Lourdes hears all of it.

"And I've heard you're running away," Jane speaks. "That stops now. My girls treat you well because you're a customer, and – let's be honest – because they're afraid if your fangs aren't wet with whiskey they'll be wet with blood. This said, there's a greater danger they're keeping muffled in their throats. My girls told you not to worry; however, we are all shivering to our bones." Lourdes looks at Emma, Beatrice, and Helena liquoring up their guests. "As a rule, we play with the emotions of men. So we don't get hurt, we don't show our real faces to customers." Emma, Beatrice, and Helena smile and chatter. They steal one cowboy's hat, sit on another's lap, and lick the dust off a third's chaps. Jane comes in between Lourdes and the waitresses. She locks onto the boy with a grave face. "It's rough out here. My girls don't admit it to patrons, and they spend so much time pretending they often don't admit it to themselves, but don't you believe their pretty faces." Jane leans close to Lourdes. Wrinkles become clear in the yellow light. Frayed hairs, scars, and blemishes beneath heavy makeup. "I don't often see them scared, but my girls are terrified."

"I'm running for a reason," Lourdes breathes.

"And I have six reasons that stops right here," Jane states. "Beatrice, Helena, Cassidy, Julia, Emma, and Katterina." The woman clenches a fist. "When the vampires return, if you don't fight them, they will slaughter us. I won't let my girls die because of a corpse. You will fight."

Lourdes says nothing, only listening. Jane sips a drink. Coffee.

"You will notice Julia is on the second floor," Jane informs the boy. "If you don't fight, she will take your head." Lourdes's eyes glance up. The woman's indeed trained behind a rifle at the top of the stairs. Her spine shivers beneath the weapon, but her trigger finger is firm. "You will meet them willingly, or we will present them with what's left of you."

The boy leans back. He thinks for a long time.

"Do you really think a bullet will stop me?" Lourdes asks.

"I soaked the shot in holy water and garlic, and if neither do you harm, I have a stake beneath my dress," Jane speaks without any intonation of malice. Setting her coffee down, the woman's hands disappear.

"Wouldn't murdering a customer be bad for business?" Lourdes inquires.

"You murdered someone not far from this very spot, but the Guinevere's as full as ever," Jane responds, stating a fact. Her eyes look about the solid wall of men stuffed inside her saloon. The spot where Liam fell and the sawdust covering what leaked out of his brain can't even be seen through the crowd.

"Do you think you can control me?" Lourdes asks.

"No, but I think I can talk to you," Jane corrects. Her hands emerge from within her dress with a veritable vampire-slaying toolkit. Jane places a knife, stake, ball of twine, rosary, and crucifix on the table. The woman speaks to the boy; however, no words escape her lips. Katterina, moved down from the chandelier, now tends a close table. She watches.

"You don't comprehend what I am. I'm sure you've heard the legends. I have no doubt you've witnessed the work of others of my race, but you really, really don't know what I keep inside," Lourdes growls. Lourdes's fangs grow as he speaks. His eyes radiate with heat. Jane's cross wilts under the resonance of his voice.

"Enlighten me," Jane requests.

"I never asked to be turned into this," Lourdes breathes. The candle at Lourdes's table flares up. All the lamps and candles in the bar flash. Bright. "To despise the sun. To crave the feel of a crypt. To have my blood run dry. To hear the devil inside my head. To look at my family, friends, and you as food."

"And yet I'm alive," Jane comments. She lifts her knife, turning the tiny piece of polished metal and letting it reflect the golden light hanging about the air. Slowly and deliberately, Jane brings her wrist up beside it. She presses the blade against her flesh and casually runs it to where skin and veins meet. Then, quick, she makes a cut. An invisible wind whips the boy's hair into a frenzy. Lourdes's hands become fists. Jane, her eyes on the boy, brings her slit wrist to her coffee. A drop of blood hits the woman's drink. A second. Jane pushes her mug across the table. Apples. Lourdes stares into the thin pool. Roses. No words are said. Red. A silence that sucks the din from the room breeds above Lourdes. The boy remains rigid in his seat as Jane, with a smile on her face, lets her blood flow freely over her skin.

The woman turns now to Katterina, still at a table not far away.

"Katterina, since I know you're listening, come over here and take this away," Jane speaks with a red finger pointed at her cup. Katterina jumps. Found out, she complies. She hurries over and places the mug of blood and coffee on a tray. Lourdes's eyes, following the chalice, pierce into Katterina until she disappears and then fix into the deepest part of Jane. He holds his chest, controlling his breath. Still bleeding, Jane gives Lourdes the biggest grin she can. "There was nothing stopping you from drinking from my cup, and now you could jump right over the table and take me, or you could have had Katterina. Instead you resist."

"This is a dangerous game," Lourdes states, each word louder than the last.

"You, Lourdes, are running away," Jane tells. The woman wraps her dress around her hemorrhaging wrist. "You, Lourdes, are running away from your nature, and that's why you'll fight." Jane turns toward the larger part of the room and finds Katterina's head bobbing among the men. "Katterina! Get me some raw beef!" Jane looks back at Lourdes. "The vampire who won't drink blood has to have something to eat. He's going to need his strength for the fight."

"Why won't I refuse?" Lourdes asks.

"Because all this started with you. Because you killed Macintosh. Because you're too good to kill us through either your actions or inactions," Jane responds. "You could have let the man molest my dear Katterina, but you put a stop to it with a bullet through his brain. How can you sit idly by now as she is about to be torn limb from limb? You can't. Your blood may have run dry. You may hear the devil in your head. But you still know right from wrong."

"You're assuming," Lourdes spits. "A lot."

"Honey, I make my living assuming things about men, and the Guinevere makes more money than the bank," Jane smiles. "So, tell me, cowboy, what are you going to do? I want an answer now. One little word. Run or Fight?"

Lourdes leans back in his chair. Jane reaches for her stake. Julia tightens her grip around her gun.

"I haven't had friends in 70 years, and I don't want any, but I saved the little miss once," Lourdes breathes. "I can't go on now and have her die on me." Jane smiles. It's premature. Casting his eyes on Jane's vampire-slaying kit, the weight of Lourdes's will turns the weapons to dust. An ancient voice slithers from his lips. "I've shackled what I am and spent more than one lifetime walking to the end of the world to keep it deaf, blind, and mute. If you're asking me to fight, you're asking me to embrace the beast inside my skin. Something that will be very difficult for me. And for you."

"I think I can live with that," Jane speaks.

"No," Lourdes shakes. "I don't think you can. I may be able to slay the monsters returning to the Guinevere, but as soon as they hit the sand, what I am will come for you. You'll be exchanging executioners but not altering your fate."