Stakes & Spurs — Hank Edwards

Dex Wells, former deputy of the prairie town of Belkin's Pass, awakes to the sound of screaming. He is chained to the wall of a cave, prisoner of the powerful vampire Balthazar, who has turned many of the residents of Belkin's Pass into vampires like him, and used most others as food. Balthazar keeps Dex as bait, hoping to lure Dex's lover, Josh Stanton, into the caves and capture him. There is something different about Josh, Balthazar senses it, but what that difference is he can't quite tell.

Josh Stanton can raise the dead. It's a power he's always had within him, and something he's considered a curse. Now, however, he's discovered that the risen dead can bite through vampire skin and bones. If he can just learn to control the power and, with it, the dead he's resurrected, he might be able to save his lover, Dex, from Balthazar's caves. But there's still a bounty on Josh's head for a murder he did not commit, and he ends up back in Belkin's Pass with Glory, a half Indian, half white former saloon girl watched over by a Native American spirit. Together, they gather the few residents left alive and make a stand against the rampaging vampires and the wolves under their control.

The arrival of two members of the US Army, however, throws their careful plans into uncertainty as Josh is taken into custody. Can he convince the Army men the truth of their outrageous claims? And can Dex be saved before Balthazar turns him into a vampire as well?