Once again a gunshot rang out, a streak of orange from a window in the living quarters split the darkness, and one of the dragons reeled back as the spot between its eyes exploded. For someone foolish enough to camp out at night, the shooter seemed well-informed and incredibly skilled with a gun. People who lived up north had usually never heard where to aim a kill-shot on southern creatures like these lesser dragons. But a solution to that puzzle soon presented itself. There was a large magneto-bike parked beside the vehicle. Someone was pitching in to rescue them.
The traveler tugged on the reins. Shaking off the moonlight that encrusted its body like so much dust, his cyborg horse suddenly began its descent. Galloping down the steep slope with the sort of speed normally reserved for level ground, the mount left a gale in its wake as it closed on the lesser dragons.
Noticing the headlong charge by this new foe, a dragon to the rear of the pack turned, and the horse and rider slipped by its side like a black wind. Bright blood didn’t spout from between the creature’s eyes until the horse had come to a sudden halt and the traveler had dismounted with a flourish of his cape. The way he walked toward the creatures—with their colossal maws gaping and rows of bloody teeth bared—seemed leisurely at first glance, but in due time showed the swiftness of a swallow in flight. All around the young man in black there was the sound of steel meeting steel time and time again. Unable to pull apart the jagged teeth they’d just brought together, each and every one of the lesser dragons around him collapsed in a bloody spray as gashes opened between their eyes. And the dragon leaping at him from the motor home’s roof was no exception.
The young man’s gorgeous countenance seemed weary of the cries of the dying creatures, but his expression didn’t change in the slightest, and, without even glancing at the two mangled bodies, he returned his longsword to its sheath and headed back to his cyborg horse. As if to say he’d just done this on a lark, as if to suggest he didn’t give a thought to the well-being of any survivors, he turned his back on this death-shrouded world and tightened his grip on the reins.
“Hey, wait a minute,” a masculine voice called out in a somewhat agitated manner, and the young man finally stopped and turned around. The vehicle’s door opened and a bearded man in a leather vest appeared. In his right hand he held a single-shot armor-piercing rifle. A machete was tucked through his belt. With the grim countenance he sported, he’d have looked more natural holding the latter instead of a gun. “Not that I don’t appreciate your help, bucko, but there’s no account for you just turning and making tracks like that now. Come here for a minute.”
“There’s only one survivor,” the young man said. “And it’s a child, so you should be able to handle it alone.”
A tinge of surprise flooded the other man’s hirsute face. “How did you . . . ? Ah, you saw the sleeping bags. Now wait just a minute, bucko. The atomic reactor has a cracked heat exchanger and the whole motor home’s lousy with radiation now. That’s why the family went outside in the first place. The kid got a pretty good dose.”
“Hurry up and take care of it then.”
“The supplies I’m packing won’t cut it. A town doctor’s gotta see to this. Where are you headed, buddy? The Zemeckis rendezvous point?”
“That’s right,” the young man in black replied.
“Hold on. Just hold everything. I know the roads around here like the back of my hand.”
“So do I.” The young man turned away from the biker once again. Then he stopped. As he turned back, his eyes were eternally cold and dark.
The child was standing behind the biker. Her black hair would’ve hung past her waist if it hadn’t been tied back by a rainbow-hued ribbon. The rough cotton shirt and long skirt did little to hide her age, or the swell of her full bosom. The girl was a beauty, around seventeen or eighteen years old. As she gazed at the young man, a curious hue of emotion filled her eyes. There was something in the gorgeous features of the youth that could make her forget the heartrending loss of her family as well as the very real danger of losing her own life. Extending her hand, she was just about to say something when she crumpled to the ground face down.
“What did I tell you—she’s hurt bad! She’s not gonna last till dawn. That’s why I need your help.”
The youth wheeled his horse around without a word. “Which one of us will carry her?” he asked.
“Yours truly, of course. Getting you to help so far has been like pulling teeth, so I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you do the fun part.”
The man got a leather belt off his bike and came back, then put the young woman on his back and cleverly secured her to himself. “Hands off,” the man said, glaring at the youth in black as he straddled his magneto-bike. The girl fit perfectly into the seat behind him. It looked like quite a cozy arrangement. “Okay, here I go. Follow me.” The man grabbed the handlebars, but, before twisting the grip starter, he turned and said, “That’s right . . . I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m John M. Brasselli Pluto VIII.”
“D.”
“That’s a good name you got there. Just don’t go looking to shorten mine for something a little easier to say. When you call me, I’ll thank you kindly to do it by my full name. John M. Brasselli Pluto VIII, okay?” But, while the man was driving his point home, D was looking to the skies. “What is it?” the biker asked.
“Things out there have caught the scent of blood and are on their way.”
The black creatures framed against the moon were growing closer. A flock of avian predators. And lupine howls could be heard in the wind.
—
Expectations to the contrary, no threat materialized to hamper the party’s progress. They rode for about three hours. When the hazy mountains far across the plain began to fill their field of view and take on a touch of reality, John M. Brasselli Pluto VIII turned his sharp gaze to D, who rode alongside him. “If we go to the foot of that there mountain, the town should be by. What business you got with them anyway, bucko?” he asked, but when D made no answer he added, “Damn, playing the tough guy again, I see. I bet you’re used to just standing there doing the strong, silent type routine and getting all the ladies, chum. You’re good at what you do, I’ll give you that—just don’t count on that always doing the trick for you. Sooner or later, it’s always some straight-shooter like me that ends up the center of attention.”
D looked ahead without saying a word.
“Aw, you’re no fun,” the biker said. “I’m gonna gun it the rest of the way.”
“Hold it.”
Pluto VIII went pale for a minute at the sharp command, but, in what was probably a show of false courage, he soon gave the grip starter a good twist. Uranium fuel sent pale flames spouting from the boosters, and the bike shot off in a cloud of dust. It stopped almost as quickly. The engine was still shuddering away, but the wheels were just kicking up sand. In the dazzling moonlight, his atomic-powered bike was not only refusing to budge an inch despite its five thousand-horsepower output, it was actually sinking into the ground slowly but surely. “Dammit all,” he hissed, “a sand viper!”
The creature in question was a colossal serpent that lived deep in the earth, and, although no one had ever seen the entire body of one, they were said to grow upwards of twenty miles long. Frighteningly enough, though the creatures were said to live their entire lives without ever moving a fraction of an inch, some believed they used high-frequency vibrations to create fragile layers of earth and sand in thousands of places on the surface so they might feed on those unfortunate enough to stumble into one of their traps. These layers moved relentlessly downward, becoming a kind of quicksand. Due to the startling motion the sands displayed, those who set foot into them would never make it out again. To get some idea of how tenacious the jaws of this dirt-and-sand trap were, one had only to watch how the five thousand horses in that atomic engine strained themselves to no avail. For all the bike’s struggling, its wheels had already sunk halfway into the sand.
“Hey
, don’t just stand there watching, stone face. If you’ve got a drop of human blood in your veins, help me out here!” Pluto VIII shouted fervently. His words must’ve done the trick because D grabbed a thin coil of rope off the back of his saddle and dismounted. “If you screw this up, the rope’ll get pulled down, too. So make your throw count,” the man squawked, and then his eyes went wide. The gorgeous young man didn’t throw him the rope. Keeping it in hand, he started to calmly walk into the quicksand. Pluto VIII opened his mouth to howl some new curse at the youth, but it just hung open . . . and for good reason.
The young man in black had started to stride elegantly over deadly jaws that would wolf down any creature they could find. His black raiment danced in the wind, the moonlight ricocheting off it as flecks of silver. He almost looked like the Grim Reaper coming in the guise of aid, but ready to wrap a black cord around the neck of those reaching out to him for succor.
The rope flew through the air. Excitedly grabbing hold of the end of it, Pluto VIII tied it around his bike’s handlebars. The rest of the coiled rope still in hand, D went back to solid ground and climbed onto his cyborg horse without saying a word.
“All right! Now on the count of—” Pluto never got to finish what he was saying as his bike was tugged forward. “Hey! Give me a second. Let me give it some gas, too,” he started to say, but he only had a moment to tighten his grip on the throttle before the bike and its two riders were free of the living sands and its tires were resting once more on solid ground.
“Bucko, what the hell are you anyway?” Pluto VIII asked the mounted youth, with a shocked look on his face.. “We’d be lucky to get away from a sand viper with a tractor pulling us, never mind a cyborg horse. And here you go and yank us out without even working up a sweat . . . I thought you was a mite too good-looking, but you’re not human after all, are you?” Smacking his hands together, he exclaimed, “I’ve got it—you’re a dhampir!”
D didn’t move. His eternally cold gaze was fixed on the moonlit reaches of the darkness, as if seeking a safe path.
“But you don’t have anything to worry about,” the biker added. “My motto is ‘Keep an open mind.’ It don’t matter if the folks around me have red skin or green—I don’t discriminate. So long as they don’t do wrong by yours truly, that is. Naturally, that includes dhampirs, too.” Pluto VIII’s voice had the ring of unquestionable sincerity to it.
Suddenly, without even glancing at the biker who seemed ready to burst with the milk of human kindness, D asked in a low voice, “Are you ready?”
“For what?” Pluto VIII must’ve caught something in the Hunter’s disinterested tone, because his eyes went to D, then instantly swept around to the left and right, to the fore and rear. Aside from the piece of land the three of them were on, little black holes were forming all over the place. As sand coursed down into them the way it does into an antlion pit, the funnel-shaped holes quickly grew larger until one touched another, encircling the trio like the footprints of some unseen giant.
—
II
—
Son of a bitch . . . Don’t seem like this freakin’ sand viper aims to let us out of here alive,” Pluto VIII said, the laughter strong in his voice. Sometimes a bit of cheer came to him in the midst of utter despair, but that had nothing to do with Pluto VIII’s laugh, still full of confidence and hope.
But how on earth could they get themselves out of this mess? It didn’t look like even D, with all his awesome skill, could get out of these preposterously large antlion pits. Especially since he wasn’t alone. His traveling companion had a young woman strapped to his back, and, since she was suffering from extreme radiation poisoning, time was of the essence.
“Hey, what do we do?” Pluto VIII asked, looking extremely interested in the answer.
“Close your eyes and duck!” came the harsh reply.
Pluto VIII didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on, but the instant he complied the whole world filled with white light. Under the pillar of light stretching down to the bottom of the colossal funnel, grains of sand grew super-hot, bubbled, and cooled almost instantly into a glassy plain reflecting the moon. The pillar of light silently stretched to the sky time and again, and, as D squinted ever so slightly at this mixing of light and darkness, his face was at times starkly lit, at other times deep in shadow. It seemed to go on for ages, but it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds. Aside from the dim, white depressions gleaming like water, the moonlit plain was just as it’d been before—deathly still.
“Looks like an atomic blast blew the hell out of the sand viper holes—melted ’em and turned ’em to glass. Who the hell could’ve done that?” Pluto VIII asked, and then he once again followed D’s gaze. He might’ve been well-informed, but a gasp of wonder escaped from him nonetheless.
A black shadow that seemed both circular and oblong clung to the central part of the distant mountain range. It wasn’t on the mountain’s rocky walls. The shadowy shape was crossing the mountain peaks. Not only that, but, as it slowly moved forward, it was clearly coming lower as well. Taking the distance into consideration, it must’ve been moving at a speed of twelve or thirteen miles per hour at least. It was round, and about two miles in diameter.
“So, we have them to thank then?” Pluto VIII asked.
D gave a negligible nod. “Good thing there’s still a mobile town around equipped with a Prometheus cannon. Incredible marksmanship, too. Our saviors got here right on schedule.”
“Well, thank heaven for that. I just hope the mayor ain’t the kind of guy who’ll expect us to return the favor. Let’s go,” said the biker, “I don’t feel like waiting around for the town to get here!”
The bike’s boosters roared and the thud of iron-shod hoofs on earth echoed across the plain. After they’d run at full speed for a good ten minutes, the huge black shape floated up over the crest of a hill before them like a cloud. The bottom was covered with spheres constructed of iron and wood, as well as with pipes. The white smoke erupting from the latter indicated that compressed air was one of the types of energy driving the cloud forward. And yet, how much thrust would be necessary just to move this thing an inch? After all, this massive structure that made the earth tremble as it came over the slope and slowly slid down it was a whole town. Even knowing that, even seeing it up close, it was no easy task to comprehend something so awesome. The town must’ve covered more than two square miles. On top of a massive circular base some thirty feet high, buildings of wood, plastic, and iron were clustered together. Between them ran streets, some straight and orderly, others twisting and capricious. At the edge of the densely packed buildings there was a small park and a cluster of tombstones that marked the cemetery. Of course, in addition to the residential sector, the structure boasted everything found in an ordinary village or town—a hospital, a sheriff’s office, a jail, and a fire station. In the park, live trees swayed with the wind.
Startlingly enough, the base that supported this colossal establishment and was indispensable in its smooth movement hovered some three feet off the ground. That wasn’t something just compressed-air jets or rocket engines could manage. No doubt power produced by the atomic reactor inside the base was run through a subatomic particle-converter and changed to antigravity energy. Still, to keep the structure a good three feet off the ground, there had to be some secret to the output of their atomic reactor or the capacity of their converters.
The base loomed blackly before the two men, and the mechanical whoosh blew closer and closer. A blinding light flashed down on the trio of travelers from a platform near the iron inlay on the top edge of the base. A question boomed over the speakers. “What do you folks want?”
Pluto VIII pulled the mic from his bike to his mouth and answered, “We’re travelers. And we got an injured person here. We’d like to have a doctor take a look at ’er. Would you let us in?”
There was silence. The searchlight continued to shine on the trio. Well-concealed guns no doubt ha
d them locked in their crosshairs. After a while, there was a reply. “No can do. We’re not taking on any new blood. The town’s population is already thirty percent over what our resources can support. Find yourselves another town or village. The closest one’s twelve and a half miles from here—a place by the name of Hahiko.”
“You’ve gotta be yanking my chain!” Pluto VIII growled, pounding a fist against his handlebars. “Who the hell’s talking about twelve and a half miles?! Look, this girl I’ve got on my back’s been doused real bad with radiation. She couldn’t make it another hundred yards, let alone twelve and a half miles. What are you, the freaking Nobility?!”
“Nothing you can say’s gonna make any difference,” the voice said coldly. “These orders come from the mayor. On top of that, the girl is part of the Knight family—Lori’s her name. Two and a half months back they left town, so we’re not about to let one of them back in now.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. We got a girl in the prime of her life about to die. What, don’t any of you have kids?”
The voice fell silent again. When another announcement rang out, it was a different person’s voice. “We’re set to roll,” the new speaker said, “so clear the way!” And then, sounding somewhat agitated, he added, “Hey, young fellah—you wouldn’t happen to be named D, would you?”
The youth nodded slightly.
“Oh, you should’ve said so in the first place. I’m the one who sent for you. Mayor Ming’s the name. Just a second and we’ll let you on board.”
Machinery groaned, the iron door rose upward, and a boarding ramp started to glide out.
D said softly, “I’ve got some companions.”
“Companions?!” Mayor Ming’s voice quavered. “I’d always heard you were the most aloof, independent Hunter on earth. Just when did you get these companions?”
“Earlier.”
“Earlier? You mean those two?”
“Do you see anyone else?” the Hunter asked.
Demon Deathchase Page 18
