Read Guadalupe's Tears for Free Online Page B

knuckle so hard her tiny teeth broke the skin and began to ooze blood.
    Once finished, Lee wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He felt powerful, rejuvenated, and invincible. He leapt over the bed that held the unfortunate husk of the former bartender and rushed to her. He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her face to his. He forced his tongue into her mouth, and Livvy dragged her nails across his face. Lee jerked back, startled, somewhat confused and angry.
    “No you don’t,” Livvy whispered, rage blazing in her eyes. “Nobody does that to me again, nobody. And don’t think for an instant that I don’t know nothing about how to take you out, because I do and I will.”
    “I’m sorry,” Lee said, stepping back. “I don’t know what came over me. I promise it won’t happen again.”
    “I know it won’t.” She hissed.
    Lee blinked at her, comprehension finally beginning to dawn. He walked back to the remains of Bruce the former barkeep, and looked down at the dried husk which was quickly turning to dust. Had this happened to the other men Lee had fed upon? He couldn’t recall. Lee’s head tilted as he thought something over. He reached down then, and placed his index finger in a small pool of blood upon Bruce’s pillow. He stepped up to the wall above the head board and wrote.
    “Your nonexistent liveryman shoulda sold me that gelding when he had the chance.”

 
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Lee scrambled up the roof of the dilapidated Catholic mission that dominated the center of town. The Milky Way Galaxy, poised huge and golden in the sky, was beginning to fade a bit around the edges. He gazed up at it, and then turned away, his eyes trailing toward the mountains, and he knew that she was there. He could feel her energy; taste the exotic flavor of her lips. Her song, which faded along with the night, still resonated deeply within him. After he finished with the town he would go up and get her, get the red whore and her man pets that satisfied her cravings. He would put them all into the ground, but not before staking them outside so that the sun could blast their bones clean.
    Lee climbed on top of the largest church bell and crouched upon it like a gargoyle.
    “What are you doing up there?” Livvy asked. He had freed the two young men after he dined upon Bruce earlier that evening. Now they stood beside Livvy, looking up at the man-thing that swung on the ropes like a buccaneer on a ship’s mast.
    “You’ll see,” he responded as he grabbed the ropes and began to pull.
    “Folks are gonna see you,” Livvy called up to him. “And hear you too. You’re making an awful racket.”
    “I know,” he replied. And with that he rang the bell. The claxon call resounded all the way through town and within moment’s kerosene lights sparkled from unshuttered windows. Men in various stages of dress and women in their shawls and gowns came out onto the boardwalk. They milled around like cattle in a new feed lot, looking confused and somewhat dazed.
    “Rise and shine all you good God fearing folk,” Lee shouted between clangs. “It’s Judgment Day.”
    He clamored back onto the roof and squatted there with the saddle bags he’d retrieved from under the bar just after his encounter with Bruce, along with his pistols and a good supply of cigars. He pulled out a cigar from his shirt pocket and lit up, grinning down upon the confused mob milling around the front of the mission. He enjoyed a few puffs as he pulled a stick of dynamite out of the saddle bag.
    “The railroad boys shouldn’t leave their toys out for devils like me to find,” he said to the crowd. “And you can thank good old Bruce the barkeep for the stogies. I know I did.” Predictably, a woman screamed. People scattered like the frightened mice they were. Livvy and her two men moved aside as Lee tossed a lit stick of dynamite at the crowd. They fled, and laughing like a demon, Lee tossed more lit sticks, the explosions blossoming on the