“We don’t take kindly to folks with no manners, kid!” the figure in blue said.
And immediately after that—
“Your mistake, Clay,” the other one remarked, his very voice so steeped in black it made everyone else in the small watering hole tremble.
“Well, I’ll be,” the first man said, his blue cap rising unexpectedly. The eyes set in his steely face were even bluer than his attire. Though he’d called the person he heard walking over a kid, he was only about twenty years old himself. His face looked mean enough to kill a timid man with one glare, but he suddenly smiled innocently and said, “Well, I’ll be! And to think they say you can disguise your face, but you can’t do a thing about how old your steps sound,” the man grumbled.
“Too bad, sonny,” the newcomer said. His voice spilled from his lips like dried-out clay, as cracked and creased as the rest of his face. More than the countenance so wrinkled that age could no longer be determined, more than the silver hair tied back with a vermilion ribbon, it was the slight swell in the gold-fringed vest and blouse that gave away the sex of the speaker. “I happen to hate being ignored,” she continued. “I don’t care if you’re the biggest thing to ever happen to the Outer Frontier, I think you still ought to show your elders the proper respect. Don’t you?”
The rest of the customers remained as still as statues, but even so an excited buzz went around the room. Someone said, “That old lady’s looking to start a fight with Bingo and Clay Bullow!”
“What do you want?” Clay asked in an incredibly light tone.
“Well, tomorrow, I’m heading across the desert to the Inner Frontier. And I want the two of you to come with me.”
Clay’s mouth dropped open. Without taking his eyes off the crone, he said, “Hey, bro—some old hag I don’t even know says she wants us to keep her company on a trip through the desert.”
“There’d be a heap of pay in it for you,” the crone told him. “I’d like you to watch out for me and another person, you see. With you two along, I figure we’d get there in less than a week . . . and alive, to boot.”
“Bro—”
“You don’t know her, you say?” another voice said. Calling to mind rough-hewn rock, his tone didn’t exactly match his spindly, spider-like limbs. “Little brother, you’d best jiggle that memory of yours a bit more. We might not have met her, but we know her name. You’ll have to pardon me,” he told the old woman, “but I’m asleep at the moment. Wish I could greet you properly, Granny Viper, People Finder.”
The silent saloon was rocked. She was Granny Viper. The chances that the Inner Frontier’s greatest locator of those who’d been hidden would run into the Outer Frontier’s greatest fighters had to be about ten million to one. They were really in luck.
“I couldn’t care less about greetings. So, how about it? What’s your answer?” the old woman chirped like a bird.
“We’re waiting for someone,” the face beneath the silk hat said.
“Whoever it is, I’m sure they’ll be dead before they get here.” The crone’s mouth twisted into an evil opening. Her maw was a black pit—without a single tooth in it. “And if they do make it here, they’re gonna have a little run-in with you, I suppose. Either way, it’s the same thing, am I right?”
“Without a doubt,” Clay said, throwing his head back with a huge laugh. “But this time, we’ve got a real job cut out for ourselves. Depending on how things go, we might end up—”
Staring at the back of the hand that’d appeared before him without warning, Clay caught himself. “I know, bro—I’ve said too much already.”
Bingo’s right hand slowly retracted.
“Sure you’re not interested?” the crone asked in a menacing tone.
The man in the silk hat didn’t answer.
“Sorry, but I just have to have you two along,” Granny insisted.
The wall of men and women around the trio receded anxiously. The eyes of all focused on the hands of the old woman and the two brothers. In light of what was about to happen, it was a completely natural thing to do. Their eyes were filled with consternation. Even an old woman like her had to have some sort of “weapon” if she lived out on the Frontier. Her lower back looked like it’d snap in two if someone even touched it, and just below it she wore a survival belt with a number of pouches on it, but she had no bowie knife or machete—the most basic of equipment. But what everyone’s eyes were drawn to was a large jar that looked like it was ceramic. It had an opening that seemed wide enough to easily accommodate the fist of a giant man, but it was stoppered with a polymer fiber lid. And although it looked like it would be fairly heavy even if it were empty, the old woman walked and stood as if unconcerned with its weight. One of the taller spectators had been up on the tips of his toes for a while trying to get a good look at it, but the lid was the same gray color as the jar, and its contents were completely hidden from view.
Similarly, the weapons of the two men were every bit as eccentric as hers. What hung at the right hip of the younger brother, Clay, couldn’t have been any more inappropriate for him—a golden harp strung with silver strings. As for the older brother, Bingo, what he had was more surprising than anything. He was completely unarmed.
Granny Viper the People Finder, and the Fighting Bullow Brothers. Getting a sense that an otherworldly conflict never meant for human eyes was about to be joined between some of the Frontier’s most renowned talents and the weird weapons they possessed, the saloon patrons were all seized by the silence of the grave. The crone’s right hand slowly dropped to her jar. At the same time, Clay’s hand reached for the harp on his hip. Bingo didn’t budge an inch. And just as the three deadly threads were about to silently twist together . . .
The black bowler hat flew up in the air. The wrinkled face of the crone looked back over her shoulder. The gaze of the youth in blue was there just a second later, at the door. Still closed since the crone had entered, the door now had the eyes of all three of these rough customers trained on it. There was no one there—at least, not in front of it. So, what were the three of them looking at?
It was at just that moment that the doorknob turned. Hinges squealing as they bit down on sand, the door became an expanding domain of darkness on the wall. Perhaps the figure it revealed had been born of the very night itself. The saloon patrons backed away. The hue of the black garments that covered all but his pale and perfect countenance made it seem that he blew in like
a fog of fine sand. As if the countless eyes on him meant nothing, the young man shut the door behind him and headed over to the bar. What they were dealing with now was something even more unusual than the Bullow Brothers or Granny Viper the People Finder. With every step forward the figure in black took, grains of sand dropped from his long coat. To the women there, even those grains seemed to sparkle darkly. As soon as the young man stopped at the bar, the people heard him say in a voice like steel, “There’s supposed to be someone here by the name
of Thornton.”
Swallowing hard, the bartender nodded. Though he was big enough to serve as the bouncer, too, the man’s colossal frame grew stiff, and it sounded like he was barely squeezing the words out as he said, “You’re Mr. D . . . aren’t you?”
No reply was needed. Though the bartender had only heard about one characteristic of the Hunter, this was unquestionably the man who stood before him.
“He’s out back right now,” the bartender said, raising his right hand to point the way. “But he’s having himself a little entertainment at the moment.”
In many cases, the saloons in little Frontier towns also doubled as whorehouses.
D walked off in the direction the man had indicated. He’d gone about a dozen steps when someone said to him, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
It was Bingo.
“Bingo Bullow is the name. That’s my younger brother, Clay. You might’ve heard of us. I was thinking we might get to know the greatest Vampire Hunter on the Frontier.”
&n
bsp; Bingo looked at the back of the figure who’d stopped there. Like his body, the elder Bullow’s face was extremely thin, and his chin was covered by a wild growth of beard. Seemingly hewn from rock, his expression shifted just a bit then.
As if he’d merely stopped there on a whim, D started walking again.
“Well, shut my mouth!” Granny Viper exclaimed in an outrageously loud voice, indifferent to all the other spectators. “This is a surprise. I didn’t know there was a man alive who’d turn his back on Bingo Bullow when he offers an invite. I like your style! Indeed, I do!”
“Hold it, you!” Clay shouted as if trying to destroy the old woman’s words. He jumped to his feet. His cruel young face grew red as hot blood rushed to his head and he reached for his elegant weapon. Suddenly, the thinner hand of his brother pressed against his stomach.
“Knock it off,” Bingo told him.
His older brother’s word must’ve been law, because the younger Bullow didn’t utter a single complaint after that, and the anger that radiated from his powerful form rapidly dispersed.
“I’ll be waking up soon,” the elder Bullow informed him. “We’ll have to wait until the next time I’m asleep to pay our respects.”
Out of the countless eyes there, only those of the crone sparkled.
The door to the back room opened, and then closed again, swallowing the darkness given human form in the process.
The cramped room was filled with a lascivious aroma. Long, thin streams of smoke rose from an opening in the metallic urn that sat on the round table. It was an aphrodisiac unique to the Frontier sectors, and all who smelled the scent—young or old, male or female—were transformed into lust-crazed beasts. On the other side of the table sat an ostentatious bed that’d been slathered with the gaudiest color of paint imaginable, and on that bed something terribly alluring wriggled—a knot of naked women, all of them dripping with sweat. It was probably the influence of the aphrodisiac that kept them from so much as turning to look at the intruder.
Perhaps wondering what was going on outside the intertwined flesh, a raven-haired head popped out of the middle of that pale pile of femininity even as feverish panting still filled the air. From the man’s face, it was impossible to tell whether he was young or middle-aged. He must’ve been the only one who’d responded to D’s knock. Roughly pushing his way free of the women clinging to him, he finally stopped what he was doing and stared directly at D.
“Well, I’ll be . . . Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you hear, I guess . . . Your looks are so good, my hair’s practically standing on end.” And then, as he hastily began shoving the women out of the way, he told them, “C’mon, move it!”
Although his squat form looked to be less than five feet tall, he had a considerable amount of fat on him—evidence of days spent in pursuit of culinary delights. He didn’t bother to cover himself as he slipped on his underpants, but once he was wrapped in a robe, he actually looked quite dignified. Digging a thick pair of glasses out of his coat pocket, he put them on. He almost looked like he could pass for a scholar from the Capital.
“This isn’t exactly the most appropriate place to receive a guest who’s traveled so far, but, you see, I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.” Glancing then at the electric clock on the wall, he added, “Actually, you’re right on time. But back at the hotel, I heard that a cloud of moving miasma had shown up on the road here, and that no one would be able to get through for a couple of days . . . Guess I should’ve remembered I was dealing with Vampire Hunter D.”
In what was surely a rare occurrence for the young Hunter, he received a somewhat sheepish smile from the other man, but when the man in black failed to move even a single muscle in his face, Thornton shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, I suppose I should tell you about the job, then.”
The reason he averted his gaze at this point wasn’t so much to change the tone of the conversation, but rather because he’d reached the point where he could no longer stand looking at D head-on. Regardless of gender, those who gazed at the young man’s gorgeous visage for too long began to hallucinate that they were being drawn into the depths of his eyes. Actually, the women the little man shoved out of the way had been ready to voice their dissatisfaction, but then D entered their field of view, leaving them frozen with their mouths hanging open.
“Okay, get your asses out of here! I’ll pay you twice what you had coming,” the little man—Thornton—said, but even as he shoved them out, the women kept their dumbstruck gazes trained on D until the very end.
“Care for a drink?” Thornton asked the Hunter as he picked up the bottle of liquor sitting on the table, but then he shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, that’s right—you dhampirs like to say, ‘I never drink wine,’ don’t you? Sorry, I may be a lawyer, but I’m still just a plain old human. Pardon me while I have one.”
Filling his glass to the very brim with the amber liquid, Thornton pressed it to his lips. Time and again, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, before he exhaled roughly and set his empty glass back on the table.
As he nervously brought his hand up to wipe his lips, Thornton began by saying, “I wrote to you for one purpose and one purpose alone. I want you to cross the desert. To go all the way to the town of Barnabas, across this ‘Desert of No Return’ where so many have never been seen again.”
“For what purpose?” D asked, opening his mouth at last. “In your letter, you said you could furnish me with information about someone I have a great interest in.”
“That’s correct,” Thornton said, nodding his agreement. “And the reason I can do so is because the request to send you out into the desert comes from that very person.”
.
II
.
Now that it was late at night, the sound of the bugs had only increased in plaintive splendor. A few minutes later, blossoms covered the town and the sounds died out, began anew, and then vanished again . . . as if the night would never end, and the song of parting would never cease.
It was at that moment that a wrinkled hand knocked on the door to a room in a hotel on the edge of town. There was no answer. Without waiting very long for a reply, the hand then pushed against the door. It opened easily. The interior was claimed by the same shade of darkness as the world outside. The reason Granny Viper turned to the right side without hesitation wasn’t because she’d memorized the location of the bed, but because she could see as well in the dark as she could at midday.
“Pardon the intrusion,” the old woman called out in a hoarse voice, and although she received no reply to her greeting, she could see the tall figure that lay on the bed clearly enough. “Ordinarily, I’d call you careless, but for the Vampire Hunter D, having the door locked or unlocked probably makes no difference. Anyone who came in here with evil in mind wouldn’t live to tell about it.” Her tone was buoyant, and she meant her words as a compliment. As always, there was no reply, so the hunched-over figure said, “Sure, I’d heard of you before, but I never could’ve imagined you’d be so incredible. Obviously, you’re awful good-looking, too, but what I couldn’t believe was that someone actually ignored the Bullow Brothers. That’s when I thought to myself, That settles it. At first, I was aiming to ask the two of them, but forget that now. Who needs a couple of punks fresh outta short pants, anyway? I’ve decided to go with you instead.”
Here the old woman paused and waited for the Hunter to respond. But there was no reply. Perhaps he was just a shadow that had taken human form? Straining her ears, she couldn’t hear him draw a single breath, let alone catch the beating of his heart. The crone realized that if her night vision weren’t so keen, she’d never have noticed his presence.
Any ordinary person would’ve lost hope at this exercise in futility, or grown indignant at his cold-heartedness, but the old woman went on talking. “When I first came in,” she said, “I didn’t feel the urge to kill from you, and I don’t now, either. I’ve been to other Hunters’ rooms, but it’s unbel
ievable. They’re always on edge, never knowing when somebody’s gonna try and get the drop on them, and you can feel the violence in the air just hanging around outside their rooms. No matter how big they may be, you’re above them all. If someone came in here, they’d take you for a stone until the second you struck them dead. On the other hand, if you had a mind to, you could stop a foe cold through a stone wall with just a harsh look in their direction. But I suppose I’d be surprised if you had a mind to do that even once in your life. And that’s why I’ve pinned all my hopes on you.”
In a manner of speaking, all the old woman’s efforts were rewarded.
“What do you want with me?” asked the shadow of all shadows.
“I already told you, didn’t I? I want you to come with me. You know, across the desert to the town of Barnabas. There’d be a nice piece of change in it for you. Enough for all the booze and broads you’d ever want. I just know you couldn’t say no to a sweet deal like this.”
“No.” His concise reply had an intensity that completely severed the discussion.
“Well, why the hell not?”
“Leave.”
“Stop mucking around,” Granny said to him. “I just told you how set I am on having you. Maybe you think you’re too good to listen to some old bag, eh? Well, I’ll show you. You might not think so, but I’m pretty well known across the Frontier. And while they may not be quite as dangerous as you, I know a lot of people—folks that’ll come running just as soon as I give the word. No matter how tough you are, up against a hundred of them—”
The crone’s voice died there. As if pushed by something, her stooped figure leapt back. Perhaps unable to weather the otherworldly air that staggered the imagination, she flew out of the room with terrific speed. Light flowed in from the corridor.
“Stop it,” Granny shouted. You might even call it an
entreaty. “What, do you plan on killing me? I’m over a hundred, you know. What’ll you do if you give me a heart attack or something?”
The Stuff of Dreams Page 18
