Demon Night

10014.
    ISBN: 1-4295-9489-6
    BERKLEY ® SENSATION
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

To Bobby, because you’re it for me.
    And to the Renob Dogs (of the American Society of Barbecued Cats for Breakfast): my sisters, Jen, Kate, and Echo. Sorry, Megan, you were born too late to join—but, because you live with me and I’m afraid of waking up with shaved, green, and/or super-glued hair, I guess this is also for you.
    Special thanks to my editor, Cindy Hwang, because the first time might have been a fluke, but you went for a second, and that’s more than I ever expected. To my agent, Roberta Brown, for making the second time as smooth as possible. And to Leis Pederson, for making sure that everything gets to me (and that I get everything back to you).

PROLOGUE
    Eden, Arizona Territory
    1886
    “The McCabe boys are coming in, Sheriff. From the west.”
    A dusty deputy was an unlikely harbinger of doom. Lightning forking across the sky, tremors that fractured earth and ocean— those were portents of ruin. Two safecrackers were hardly cause for concern, no matter how many lawmen had died in pursuit of them or how many jail cells they’d escaped, and so it was several hours before Sheriff Samuel Danvers recognized the announcement for what it was.
    Danvers eased up from behind his rosewood desk, tipping his hat back and surveying the young deputy. He’d seen rolls of barbed wire less tightly wound.
    “Randolph found their campfire up on Webb Ridge, Deputy Erwin, and the latest report over the telegraph was a robbery in Tucson. How is it that they are coming in from the west ?” A wasteland of scrub and desert stretched for fifty miles in that direction. Nothing to tempt men, whether sinners or saints or all of those in between.
    “They’re circling around, Sheriff. Like buzzards.” On each word, the deputy’s Adam’s apple bobbed with the force of his excitement.
    Vultures. Danvers liked that description; the McCabe boys likely wouldn’t. If they stepped foot in his town with the intention of bringing trouble, the only carrion to scavenge would be their own.
    Danvers’s smile was slow and long, and Erwin visibly brightened beneath it, straightening his shoulders. “Well now, Deputy. We’d best show our visitors the depth of Eden’s hospitality.”
    Erwin nodded, muttering, “Circling around, sneaky as coyotes. Throwing us off the scent.”
    As the deputy undoubtedly hoped, Danvers was pleased by that comparison as well. “It won’t be difficult to sniff them out.”
    Danvers adjusted the fit of his vest and collected his pistols from a wooden peg, buckling them around his hips. The holsters were a negligible weight, and the threat of their appearance commanded more respect than the gleaming weapons within—so much respect that Danvers hadn’t yet fired them.
    But then, most outlaws were cowards at heart, and his deputies were eager to please him.
    After donning his neatly pressed jacket, he continued, “If not directly to the bank, where do you imagine a pair of iron workers dry from the trail would go first, Erwin?”
    “Madam LaFleur’s, Sheriff.”
    Danvers paused on the threshold. “Deputy.”
    A blush ruddied the young man’s tanned skin, and his lanky form wilted under Danvers’s disapproving stare. “The saloon, sir. They’d have an almighty powerful thirst.”
    “Yes.” Men were all too often driven by their weaknesses—thirst, hunger, lust—and surely men such as the McCabes were more susceptible than most. “Round up Singleton and Randolph, Erwin. I’ll expect you in the saloon by nightfall.”
    Cowards and coyotes waited to slink in under the cover of darkness; the McCabes wouldn’t be any different.
    Danvers stepped out onto the stoop. The main street curved snake-like through Eden, east to west, and the sheriff’s office was at the head of it. The sun hung low over the flat roofs and peaked façades lining the street, washing the graying buildings with pale gold, casting deep shadows in between. The jagged ridge of mountains on the western horizon appeared lavender—and was quickly deepening to purple.
    “You’d best hurry, Deputy,” Danvers said softly.
    Erwin darted past him, and dust flew from his gelding’s hooves as he sent it galloping down the