The wind scraped the top of the plains once more, as if checking there was nothing left at the bottom of a bowl, and the cold made Quincey Morris hold his coat tighter to his frame. His guide said something to him in Portuguese, but Quincey had still not picked the language up. He barely knew Spanish as it was, and his assumption that all of South America spoke it had failed him many times since his journey into the Pampas. Throwing language aside, the guide motioned to the east and bared his teeth. Jaguar. The guide was telling him that he had spotted their quarry at last. Quincey smiled, thrill warming him against the harsh winds. He unslung his rifle from his horse and made quick inventory. Father would owe him for years for this trophy. The two men started out across the plains, stalking silently, as the sun dipped below the horizon.

They left their horses by a trickling stream, faces gazing into the lowered sun. They could walk for miles and still see the creatures. Quincey wondered if this was what his ancestors felt crossing the frontier on their way to Texas. All this green, the rich tapestry of untapped potential. Quincey was here for a hunt, not business, but the diligent Protestant dug into his psyche nonetheless. The folks of the Pampas could benefit from industry, it told him. Your great uncle was at the Alamo. Don’t you owe it to them?

From Arthur Holmwood’s Journal

10 December

To put the events of the past month into scrutiny would be to invite madness. To bury not just the woman I was to wed, but to bury a long-honored friend, is far too much to ask of a man, and yet, I have done just that. Jack has informed me that writing about such tragedies will ease the grief, and so to this end I will record my final thoughts for Quincey P. Morris.

There was not, and may never be, a braver man than Quincey. A man who embodied all the greatest qualities of the American while dispensing with the barbarity they are so often capable of. Throughout our many adventures together I relied on Quincey’s quick-thinking, heroism, and not too few times, his excellent gun arm. From our battles with the savage natives of the Marquesas to the showdown with Decembrist rebels in Tobolsk, Quincey never wavered nor hesitated in the face of danger.

Not to say he did not have a gentle side, of course. His appreciation of the beauty of Lake Titicaca and his sympathy to the working British Naval Officers in Port Hamilton set him apart from many men of his kind, and where a man as myself was welcome, so was he. It is most regrettable that he never found a match in a woman, for that would have made the perfect man in my mind.

As I pen these thoughts, it occurs to me that one small mystery has died with him; that is of course what happened to Quincey when he hunted alone on the plains of the Pampas. He would passingly reference this night on many of our adventures, but I was never quite able to pull the full tale of what was, by his pale expression, a terrible night of horrors. All I know is that his horse was brutally mutilated and was put down by his own bullet.

But whatever happened then surely paled in comparison to our fight with Count Dracula, and seeing how stalwart his approach to that menace was, I can only assume the beast in the Pampas was bested by Quincey with small effort. And he did not have to face Dracula alone. He died among friends and loved ones. What more can a man ask in his final moments?

The guide pointed slightly north. The wind was steady yet their slight change in approach put them against the force. Quincey had to squint to continue and refrained from shouting in surprise. It would do no good to the guide who spoke no English and the jaguar would only be alerted. The sun winked under the plains, and night took the Pampas. Quincey saw a herd of deer some ways off. The guide was staring past them, creeping along the grass, near enough the ground to crawl. Quincey made no move to do the same.

The deer alternated watch, flicking ears and lifting heads, waiting for the wind to carry the scent of a predator downwind. He was sure the deer could spot Quincey standing tall, but it was not them he was hunting. The moment the guide pointed out the cat Quincey would fire and kill it in one shot. Such was his confidence. His birthright.

A horse screamed into the night. Behind them, something was killing the steeds. Quincey whipped around, rifle up, but the night was total. He could no longer see the horses standing along the bank of the stream. A loose hair fell in front of his face, and he made no move to blow it away. All was still. The guide said something lost in the gulf of European conquest.

“Jaguar?” Quincey dared to say.

“Não.”

The guide said something else, the words mockingly close to Spanish. A knife unsheathed behind him. The deer were gone in Quincey’s peripheral. The wind moved the grass again, shushing the night. It was only him and the guide in all the world. Something moved in the grass ahead. Quincey steadied. The Pampas breathed.

From Dr. Jack Seward’s Diary

7 November

Quincey P. Morris died in Transylvania yesterday, at the hands of Count Dracula. The Count’s death confirmed soon after. Observation of soldiers coming home from war suggests the loss of a friend in battle can affect the brain; to that end, recording my grief is standard treatment.

Quincey was born in Texas, one of the states that makes up the United States of America. His paternal family came to Texas for opportunity and land ownership, not an uncommon motivation. One of his maternal grand uncles allegedly fought in the Battle of the Alamo. Records of this cannot be confirmed, but it is a source of family pride. His paternal grandfather fought in the Mexican-American War; from the war spoils, the Morris family was able to establish their horse ranch. It is from this business that Quincey gains his wealth. His father made a fair profit from selling riding horses to the Confederate Rebels during the American Civil War. After the defeat of the Confederates, the Morris family switched business to the Union. There are no repercussions for war profiteering in America, it seems.

Our triple pursuit of the late Lucy Westenra was comedic; but what confused me was Quincey’s attempt at a foreign wife. It would suit his Texan family better to take a bride from his home state, and it was his family's approval Quincey sought often. His courtship of Lucy seemed false, as if he was just putting on a show. Quincey could have had any woman back home. Why the deception? Would he clown himself so just to give Arthur and I better odds?

Quincey was a valuable companion in my time as a traveling doctor, but one solo adventure he undertook seemed to haunt him. Arthur had alluded to it a number of times, but I only heard the story from Quincey when we were in the middle of the Dracula affair. He spent a night on the Pampas and had to put down his horse due to a “vampire bat.” The story was indeed harrowing, but it was clear there was more he did not confer to me. Perhaps his willingness to fight the Count was based on previous experience.

My grief seems to be circling a sense of lost opportunities. Quincey had his whole life ahead of him, and to die without a legacy is a terrible fate for a Morris. The evil of the Count did not end that morning; it will continue to haunt us for years to come.

It was a snake of woman moving through the grass. She wore no shirt, her long skirt tangled in her legs, pressing down to the ground, so low her body was shifting left, right, left, right, as she crawled towards Quincey. Crawling too fast. The guide shouted, again meaningless, and Quincey took action. The rifle fired.

The clap raced across the open fields looking for something to bounce off of, swallowing the night like a cotton of sound. Light from the gunshot illuminated more than Quincey wanted to see. She had a nest of hair, death in her eyes, and long fangs that pressed against her bottom lip. Had the bullet hit? Quincey leapt back. The guide was gone, run off when the beast was revealed. He pressed the lever forward, felt the next bullet fit into place. The second shot was louder than the first, but this time he saw it strike. In the flash, blood sprayed the grass; the woman screamed—a howl without mercy, the wail of a warrior dying during childbirth.

He flicked the lever again. Running was not an option. A trophy needed to be won. This was his Alamo; he would be his own Lord Byron.

The woman stood. Her hands dangled by her sides, nails sharpened to claws, her hair did little to hide her loose breasts, stained with grass and dirt. Quincey held the Winchester level. Her wound had stopped bleeding, somehow, and he could still see the dried spot where the bullet entered her shoulder.

“You would kill me?” she said.

“As you would me.”

She cocked her head to the side, eyes reflecting in the moon’s light. She moved the hair from her chest to expose herself more to Quincey. He remained level.

“I would not kill what I can have,” she said.

She reached a claw to him while the other went to the snake-skin belt around her skirt. She had ample hips underneath. Despite the monster she was, Quincey saw now the appeal she would have on any base man. The desire she would bring up, a siren of the Pampas.

Quincey felt nothing, and fear rose in him at last.

“You are far from home,” she said. “Seeking a wife in a place like this?”

Seeking a trophy to bring home. He could not return home until he found a woman, because he could not have the ranch unless he married to continue the Morris name, he could not marry a woman unless he loved her, and he would never find a wife because—

Quincey fired his rifle again, pulling the lever and firing a fourth, the two bullets seconds from each other. They rippled into the woman’s skin, blood oozed like bubbling stew, but standing she remained. She had moved an arm’s length away from him.

Her clawed hand hovered over his pants, grazing his crotch. He jerked away on instinct. She smiled wide, fangs pricking above her chin. She leaned in close, her mouth to his ear.

“You will be left seeking. The only wives you will find will be in men,” she said.

She was gone in moments, crawling after the guide that fled. The Pampas resumed its breath, the plains rustling a sigh of relief. Quincey could not lower his rifle. He was still afraid, because the specter had not left him.

Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Arthur Holmwood

5 May

My treasured Art,

I shall find myself in London later this month if it pleases you; I daresay I have a tale or two to give you envy. You will not let me forget to regale you with my time in the Falklands, or my single night upon the Moors. I even found the time to see our old Jack in Hong Kong; a capital doctor as always. I understand you are in courtship; I will not take you away too much from that lucky lady. As it were, I was hoping to hear the results of that libel case with the Wilde fellow. I understand it’s taken the streets of London with intensity! I want no details spared.

Yours, as ever and always,

Quincey P. Morris

The horse was torn and left bleeding. She had fed on its blood, and so wanted something else from Quincey. Something he did not have to give. His horse was still clinging to life when he approached. The gunshot was the last one the Pampas heard that night. The deer returned after a time. The rhea flocked back to the gurgling waters. A jaguar found the horse as the sun began to rise. Its rider’s scent was nowhere on the air. He had found what he was looking for.