My wife suggested one night at dinner that she was thinking of a vampire western. At first I thought the idea sounded silly, but then I started thinking. What if a particularly ruthless gunslinger was dying of thirst and came across an Indian shaman and decides to kill him to drink his blood? At the time when he’s shot, the Indian shaman is travelling in the spirit. As his life is being drained away he returns, and discovers he cannot re-enter his own body.
The gunslinger not only steals the life of the Indian shaman, but his healing magic as well. His dark heart corrupts the power and he learns that by stealing life, drinking blood, he can make himself powerful and immortal. Instead of sunlight being lethal to this vampire, it instead brings the the spirit of the medicine to the forefront. The medicine man is eager to stop the monster, but suicide is not an option because his people still need him. So he meets some European vampire hunters and discovers that he’s simply a new variety of the same creature–andthat the “cure” is not what he really wants. Anybody want to read that?