Of Masques and Martyrs by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online

this? Why had he dragged poor Allison across North America on a tour of all the places that had meant something to him while he was alive?
    They’d started on Prince Edward Island, where he’d stood over the graves of Codys and Feehans, and met a bearded man with kind eyes who’d come to do the same thing. Will had given his name as Frederick Cody there, and he and the man had established that they were cousins or, at least, that their ancestors were. It was a part of his family history that Will had never explored, and he lamented now that he couldn’t go meet all those people, cousins from far and wide.
    After that moment he had determined it was best to be the pride of these people, not their shame.
    From Prince Edward Island they’d gone to Lookout Mountain in Colorado, where his bones were supposed to be buried. And Cedar Mountain, which looked down on a Wyoming town named after him. The two towns had fought over his remains, and Will was glad they’d never dug him up. It would have caused his family too much heartache to know that his body wasn’t where they thought it was.
    Still, he took some small amusement from the knowledge that neither of the places which had sparred over his supposed corpse ended up being his resting place. He didn’t know where he wanted to be buried now. There’d been so much life since his death. But he suspected that, in the end, he’d like to be laid to rest somewhere around North Platte. Or even better, on Prince Edward Island, which he and Allison had felt was a little bit of paradise. Somewhere quiet, in any case.
    In the end.
    When was that going to be? He’d thought about it a lot, of late. His life had been filled with such joy that he’d jumped at the chance to prolong it, no matter the cost. But the life of a shadow was filled with violence and grief, and Will honestly didn’t know how much longer he could go on with it. If it weren’t for Allison . . .
    He squeezed her hand in his and looked over at her hazel eyes, at the tiny crinkles around them that told him she was growing older, at the blond hair she had adopted as a small attempt at disguise. Will had offered her the “Gift.” Immortality. She had turned him down, a response he hadn’t really understood at the time. Now he wouldn’t dream of offering it again. He envied her, in a way. In fact, he’d allowed himself to grow a little older as well. For her, and because he didn’t want to be recognized as they traveled. He looked nearly fifty now, but still trim and fit, with neatly trimmed hair and beard.
    He’d been truly old when Karl Von Reinman had made him a vampire, but his shapeshifting abilities had combined with his vanity to regress him. His love for Allison had changed all that. They would age together now. Will liked the idea of growing old with her. The subject of her actually dying, however, was one he refused even to consider. That day would be the death of him as well, without question.
    “So,” the petite woman said, her voice husky with the morning, “you feel like Buffalo Bill today? Now that you’re home?”
    Will looked at her and offered a weak smile. He glanced up at the sky; it was changing colors magnificently as the sun came over the horizon, stretched across the plains toward them.
    “I never felt like Buffalo Bill,” he said quietly. “Not here, or anywhere else. Jim Hickok never called me anything but Will, nor did Louisa.”
    Allison was staring at him.
    “Hey,” she said, bringing his fingers up to brush them against her own cheek. He looked at her, smiled again, and breathed deeply of the Nebraska air.
    “If I’d known you were going to get all sad on me, I never would have agreed to come out here with you,” she said. “I know that was just a name for you, like an actor on a stage, but it’s still a part of your life.”
    “Not anymore it’s not,” he said without rancor. “Buffalo Bill never really existed, but this place was where Will Cody lived. There