CHAPTER 4

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I

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D went into the holding cell in the sheriff’s office. Almost instantly, burdensome business took human form and started knocking on the office door. The first to come were those villagers who’d seen the sheriff bringing D in, the overwhelming majority of whom were women. When they asked what had happened, Sheriff Krutz told them they were interfering in official matters and sent them on their way. He also came up with a more personal reason—those who pressed for more substantial details were told the Hunter had picked a fight with him over the way he was caring for Grampy Samson’s meat beast out at his ranch. Making it a work-related problem as close to his personal business as he could, he was able to set the villagers at ease—there was that much more distance between the case and themselves. Less than thirty minutes after D was taken into custody, even the mayor paid them a visit. Explaining the situation, the sheriff tried to get him to leave.

“That’s not exactly what I’d call a very detailed explanation,” the intractable mayor said.

To which the lawman replied, “The truth is, I’m questioning him as to why we all had that dream about him.” And that did the trick.

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D lay on his narrow cot, not moving a muscle.

“You’re an odd one, you surely are,” Sheriff Krutz said to him. Getting no reaction from the Hunter, but unable to keep his mouth closed, he continued. “This may sound funny, but I kinda get the feeling I’ve thrown royalty into my jail. Just take a look out the window. Every woman in town’s watching this place. We might not be able to get the door open with all the baked goods they’ve been leaving outside for you.”

“Why don’t you go to the hospital instead of keeping a watch over me here?” D suggested, opening his mouth for the first time since he’d been put in the cell. “There’s no way Sybille’s appearance isn’t connected to them treating her with that equipment. Or maybe—”

“Maybe?” The sheriff’s tone suddenly dropped. “Maybe what?”

“You said the village was peaceful long before you were born, didn’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Ever had any big accidents or major problems?” the Hunter asked.

“Well, I can’t say that we haven’t. We are out on the Frontier, after all.”

“How many times have you nearly been killed?”

The sheriff furrowed his brow at the rapid-fire questions. Ordinarily he was the one who did the interrogating. Though the tables were turned, he knew there was no way he could correct it. With some irritation the sheriff realized that the bizarre question had started a chain of ripples in some dark inner portion of him. “What would you ask a thing like that for?” he replied. “I’m sitting here talking with you, aren’t I?”

“Whether you’re alive now or not isn’t particularly important,” D remarked softly. “What I want to know is how you’ve managed to survive.”

For a split second, the most virulent shade of hatred resided in the sheriff’s eyes. Vigorously lowering the blinds over the window, he walked toward the cell. Tossing his coat down on the floor, he tugged his shirt off roughly. His hard pectorals looked sculpted from clay, and the few long scars that ran from his chest down to his tight abdominal muscles left a huge purple X on him. There were also scattered round scars that seemed to be from bullets, with four of them on the left side of his chest and three closer to the middle of his belly.

“I picked up part of this scar eight years ago, and the rest five years back. The color’s strange because the swords had poisoned tips. Two of the holes in my gut are from steel arrows; everything else is from slugs.” He turned his broad back toward D. Melted purple flesh covered him completely below the scapula. “All I’ll say is . . . I got burnt. I don’t mean to brag, but in twenty years I’ve only missed two days on the job.”

The sheriff held his tongue and waited for a reply from D, then suddenly he heard a knock at the door. As he pushed his arms back through his shirt sleeves, he turned to the intercom and asked who was there.

“It’s me—Bates.”

It was the same deputy who’d questioned D the day before. The position of sheriff wasn’t necessarily a full-time job on the Frontier, and the sheriff had—at his discretion—the ability to grant the title of deputy to anyone who requested it. Most of the time, Bates was just another villager. He’d been out patrolling the town, but now he was back.

“I hear you tossed him in the slammer,” the deputy said as he bounded in energetically. “So, was there something fishy about him after all? That’d mean that Nan was—”

“This has nothing to do with the Tokoff incident,” Sheriff Krutz said flatly. As Bates frowned in disappointment, he added, “I’m going out. You take over here. Keep a good eye on him. No matter what happens, don’t you dare let him out. His blade’s over there,” he said, his eyes indicating the longsword propped against the side of his desk. Then, grabbing his hat off the hat rack, he left. Not once did he look at D.

Bates whistled enthusiastically. “Finally acting like his good old self.”

“Is he the big hero in town?”

Still ebullient, Bates turned to the cells and said, “I suppose you could say so. Peace is good and all, but he was built to be zipping around taking care of business. Vampire Hunter or not, you’d be no match for him.”

Locking the front door, Bates settled into his chair with nervous excitement and turned toward D. He was so eager to share the sheriff’s glories he could barely contain himself. There’d been a showdown eight years earlier that he began to describe in utmost detail and with great respect.

It all started when a notorious group of roving criminals, the subject of warrants from the Capital, came to their village. Each of these villains had committed numerous murders, and each was heavily armed—packing both pistols and laser rifles. When a rider on a fast horse brought word from the neighboring village, Sheriff Krutz went out alone and waited for the three of them in the street. Until then, the three men hadn’t met any resistance, but when they stopped in front of him, the sheriff told them to go right back the way they came.

“He said the same thing he always does: ‘Don’t bother stopping.’ I was still a kid—had just turned twenty and was hiding behind a pillar—but it sent shivers down my spine. And what do you reckon happened next?

“Of course, the three of them started to get off their horses. ‘Don’t bother getting off,’ the sheriff told them. It was three against one. Even with the disadvantage they had of drawing on horseback, the odds were still against the sheriff.”

Bates continued, recounting that a heartbeat later, the battle began. The three of them reached for their holsters first, but Sheriff Krutz beat them on the draw. The blue flash from his sol gun reduced the face of the middle rider to flames. The sheriff rolled across the ground as roars and fiery streaks flew from the riders and tore through the spot where he’d been. Three times the blue beam flew off, and as soon as the last shot roasted the torso of the man to the left, one slug after another ripped into the sheriff’s belly. An instant later, the face of the third man was reduced to its constituent atoms, and the battle was at an end.

“And if you think that’s something,” Bates added, “What happened next was even more incredible. He went to the doctor’s without any help from anyone, had him put a bandage on the wound after the slug had been pulled out, and then went right back to work.”

Bates’s cheeks were red hot, and his eyes glittered. He was like a little boy boasting about his father.

Waiting a bit for the deputy’s ardor to cool, D asked an odd question: “What do you think of the Nobility?”

“What do you mean?” Bates asked with a grimace. “What the hell are you—”

“Do you hate them?” D’s tone was soft. The sound of it hadn’t changed, but the intent behind it had.

Bates realized as much. “Not really . . . I don’t like ’em or hate ’em. I can’t say as I’ve ever heard my ma or pa speak ill of them, and back in the old days we used to get along with Nobles in these parts. I don’t know how it is in other places, but they never caused us no harm.”

“Sybille was bitten by one,” the Hunter reminded him.

“Sure, but that was . . .”

When you thought about it, it was rather strange. Fear and hatred of the Nobility was handed down from parent to child, generation after generation. Yet this village seemed entirely cut off from that hatred—a fact that would have been startling to just about anyone, and probably considered miraculous by many.

D never got to hear the deputy’s reply because a ferociously spirited knock suddenly echoed throughout the office.

“Who is it?” Bates asked through the intercom.

“It’s me. Open up.” It sounded like Clements.

“What’s your business here?”

“Well, it sure ain’t with you. I need to see that Hunter you’ve got locked away.”

“Hey, I’m busy now,” Bates said into the microphone.

“Hell, so am I. Hey, I’ll have you know I pay my taxes and all. That sure as blazes gives me the right to go into the sheriff’s office.”

Bates clucked his tongue. “Gimme a second,” he replied, and then turning to D he added, “Looks like you’ve got trouble. But relax. I won’t let any harm come to you.”

D didn’t move an inch.

When the door finally opened, Clements took his sweet time coming in, a pair of lackeys trailing behind him. While the man’s brown double-breasted suit didn’t merit particular attention, Bates’s eyes were drawn to the weapon he had tucked under his arm. It was a three-foot-long cylinder about eight inches in diameter—a large-scale impact cannon.

“Were you thinking of taking out a Noble’s tank or something with that?” Bates asked with his right hand resting on the old gunpowder-driven automatic handgun that was tucked in the holster at his waist.

“Aw, shit, no! We’ve just been out playing army. Me and my boys here, that is.”

“Don’t try anything, Clements. He’s still a suspect in the—” Bates started to say, but then he remembered he didn’t know exactly what charge the Hunter had been locked up for, so he just rolled his eyes instead.

“Hold it right there, Bates. Reach for the sky!” blustered one of the lackeys.

A muzzle so huge a child’s head could fit inside it pointed in his direction. Bates brought his right hand away from the grip of his automatic. “C’mon, Clements. Don’t be stupid. You do this, and the sheriff and me won’t let it stand.”

“Well, the rest of the village will sure as hell let it stand. You think they’re all just gonna sit around doing nothing after some bastard they don’t know from a hole in the wall killed one of their own?”

“In that incident, Tokoff made the first move. Nan saw it.”

“You think that counts for shit?” Clements said, licking his lips. “That little bitch’s at the age where she’s got an itch only a man can scratch. All this guy’d have to do is nibble on her earlobe and she’d tell us whatever he wanted her to.”

“What the hell’s possessed you? Have you taken complete leave of your senses? You start swinging that cannon around in here and you’re liable to take out the next three houses to-boot!”

That last remark had an unexpected effect. A thin film covered Clements’s eyes, and for a few seconds he just stood there. Then he was suddenly back to his usual self, and he barked at his dumbfounded lackeys, “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Take care of business!”

“Stop! You commit a murder in the sheriff’s office, and they’ll execute you, sure as shit,” Bates yelled. He then tried, unsuccessfully, to get between the weapon’s muzzle and the holding area, catching a severe blow to the cheek. The unpleasant sound of steel connecting with bone seemed to cling forever to the side of the impact cannon.

“Okay, now that there’s no one to stop us, you can kiss your ass goodbye, pal!”

Still not having moved in the slightest, D said to the sneering Clements, “You had a dream about me, too, didn’t you?”

“Kill him.”

At Clements’s rather softly spoken command, the two bewildered lackeys threw the switch on the impact cannon. The bars of the cell flew inward, and a shock wave that could have sent a charging five-ton beast snout-over-tail reduced D’s bed to dust as it hammered a mortar-shaped depression into the floor.

D, unscathed, danced through the air.

With the slight sound of another discharge, a section of wall over six feet in diameter collapsed. The hem of the Hunter’s coat fluttered out as a cloud of dust suddenly rose up and struck the outer surface of his garment. Had D’s coat not absorbed half
of the force of the blow, the shock wave that rebounded in the direction of the two lackeys would have killed them instantly. Instead, the pair sustained internal injuries as the force slammed them against the floor and bruised every inch of their bodies.

Having been struck both inside and outside by the shock wave, the set of steel bars that comprised D’s holding cell began to break, shooting bolts everywhere and collapsing outward. With nowhere to escape, Clements let out a scream when he realized he was pinned under them. In no time at all, the air was crushed out of his lungs, his flesh and bones cracked and popped under the strain, and the agony was enough to cut his cries short.

“I’m going to take a little nap,” D said, having just devastated three foes without lifting a finger.

“Okay,” Bates said dazedly from his spot on the floor. He no longer had a clue as to who was the victim in the situation. He couldn’t even remember the last words out of his mouth. Raising a bloodied hand to his brow, he repeated, “Okay. Pleasant dreams.”

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II

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The sheriff arrived at the hospital, his heart grown as heavy as lead. As he got closer to the hospital, it became clear that gravity was tugging at it harder and harder.

“Sheriff—” the nurse at the front desk called out to get his attention, but his feet kept moving. “Sheriff, the director says he needs to talk to you.”

“I’ll get to him later,” he replied tersely, advancing down the hall. His heart was growing heavier, and yet it was beating faster than before. Somehow he seemed to know that even after he reached her room it wasn’t going to get any better.

A number of nurses and patients stepped out of his way, almost as if frightened. When he reached her room—in half the usual time—he grabbed hold of the doorknob and found, much to his surprise, that the door opened easily.

Not much had changed in the room—the bed and the curtains were still a part of that quiet, feeble darkness to which he had grown accustomed. Only Sybille was missing. His heart became a red-hot lump of steel.

“Sheriff!” someone called out down the hall.

From the sound of the approaching footsteps, he knew who it was. The voice was that of a male nurse named Basil, who was widely known as the hospital’s bouncer. The lawman turned toward the door to find Basil standing there with a forced smile, two other men close behind him. The nurse at the front desk must’ve let Allen know he was there. That woman was a shrewd one.

“Sheriff, the director—”

Krutz lunged forward. He easily got a grip on Basil’s throat and, giving one easy breath, the sheriff lifted all two hundred pounds of the strapping man off the floor with one hand.

“Sheriff?!” The powerful hands of the other two men grabbed hold of the lawman’s arms and shoulders from both the fore and the rear.

“This is . . . Sybille’s . . . room.” Krutz forced out each and every word with the weight of three decades in his voice, and then, with every ounce of strength he could muster, he took a swing with his left hand. The two men, who were no strangers to violence, slammed back against the wall with a force that made it tremble, and then slowly slid onto the floor. On the way down, one of them managed to get his electromagnetic baton out, but the sheriff struck it out of his hand with a swift kick of the foot. The hand that gripped the weapon was crushed at the wrist—the steel baton shattered in a shower of blue sparks. Between the pain and the electromagnetic waves that bombarded him, the man lost consciousness.

“What the hell . . . are you doing . . . Sheriff?” Basil gasped, his hoarse words falling with his sweat.

“This is Sybille’s room,” the lawman repeated. “For thirty years, I’ve been coming up here to see her. You, me, this village—we all got older, but this right here never changed because Sybille was always here. Where’d you take her?”

“Don’t . . . know . . . ask the director . . .”

“Where’s Dr. Allen at?”

“I’m right here, Krutz. You’d best set Basil down. Another three seconds and he’ll suffocate.”

After the briefest hesitation, the sheriff released the man. “Don’t try anything funny. I don’t care how tough your boys may be, they’re not in my league. That’s why you need me.” There was something about the last thing he’d said that lingered in his heart, but the sheriff soon put it out of his mind and asked about Sybille.

“She’s been transferred to someplace safe.”

“And what was so dangerous here?”

“Now, don’t get all hot under the collar,” Dr. Allen said. “There’s no immediate danger, however, we have to be prepared in case something crops up suddenly. You should come with me, Sheriff.”

The director turned then and stepped out of the room, motioning for the sheriff to follow. Out in the hall, a number of nurses and patients had formed a semicircle around the doorway. Just as the sheriff was about to turn around and leave the room, he lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor.

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D walked through familiar woods in darkness devoid of sound. It was such a quiet night that it almost seemed possible to hear the thin fog whisper as it drifted about. Even in this dream world, D wasn’t sure if the fact that his footsteps failed to make any sound as he stepped on the grass was his own intention or not. In any case, he supposed Sybille would be waiting for him at the mansion.

The iron gate stood in the moonlight as it always had.

D halted. This particular evening, he might be an unwelcome guest.

The man stood at the gate. Garbed in raiment like the very darkness, with his face covered from the nose down by a black scarf, he wasn’t entirely unlike D. Two eyes set in skin redolent of bronze held D’s reflected image. If the powerful emotion they were loaded with wasn’t something special directed at D, then surely all he gazed upon must’ve been touched with fear.

“Don’t intend to let me in?” D inquired softly. “There’s no point fighting here. Any duel decided in a dream can’t be called a duel at all.”

His opponent stood there, looming like a wall of iron that had no answers for him.

“Like the mansion itself, you’re just another one of the girl’s creations. You led me here. You saved me. Now get out of my way.”

“Go back,” the man in black said, his scarf trembling slightly as he mouthed the words.

The two of them gazed at each other. Both of the man’s black-gloved hands went into motion. Bringing together a bow and a single arrow before his chest, the man drew the steel bowstring back with tremendous power and determination. It was clear that no matter how fast D might move, they were too close for him to evade a shot.

“Go back,” the man in black ordered him once again.

“Is there already another guest at the mansion? Or is another one on the way? If you use that bow, there’ll be no taking it back.”

The tension swelled. The moonlight froze, and even the fog stopped dead. In a world choked with a thirst for killing, the youthful Hunter was the only thing of beauty.

The steel flew.

D stopped it with his empty left hand, and as he caught it, that same hand blurred with activity. An instant later, D felt another presence off to his right.

Both D and the man in black kicked off the ground simultaneously and ran toward the presence. It came as no surprise that both of them sprinted forward in an attempt to discover the identity of whoever had invaded this dream. In the next instant, black lightning shot from the treetops at the two men as they sprinted toward it, side by side. The two figures quickly split to the left and the right of the lightning bold. Still holding the arrow that he caught with his bare hand when the man fired it at him, he hurled it again in the direction of the presence he detected. Apparently, that foe then hurled it back again. There was no blood on it. Did those who lived in this world of dreams even have flesh and blood in the first place? No, this was the dream of a young lady who slept ever on.

Suddenly, the man in black pulled out ahead of the Hunter. As he was a part of this world, it was only natural that he raced into the thicket with a speed D couldn’t match. There were emanations of some awesome conflict from the area, and then the presence unexpectedly disappeared. Jumping in scant seconds later, D found a thin mist eddying sadly before his eyes. There was no sign of either the man in black or their unseen foe. Perhaps they’d awakened from the dream?

Noticing something on the ground, D bent over. What his black-gloved fingers touched was a scrap of cloth sticking out of the earth. It was clear from the jagged shredding at the edge of the cloth that it had taken incredible strength to tear it off—perhaps the man had torn it free in that brief second of battle. After trying unsuccessfully to pull the scrap from the ground with all his strength, D realized that it was going to be impossible. Perhaps in accordance with some physical law of this dream world, the cloth had become one with the black ground.

Drawing a slender dagger from his belt and cutting off the corner of the cloth, D left the thicket. Where had the two of them disappeared to? Were they engaged, even now, in supernatural battle without end in some other, unimagined world? There were any number of things that should’ve occupied the Hunter’s thoughts, but he seemed aloof as he turned back toward the road. Perhaps the man in black had urged D to go back because he was expecting an intruder. Tonight it seemed, at the very least, that the man harbored no animosity toward the Hunter.

As always, the mansion towered majestically in the blue light.

Suddenly, D heard the most bizarre groaning—at first appearing to emanate from the highest heavens and then seeming to originate from the depths of the earth—a sound that stopped him dead in his tracks as soon as it reached him. Human groans. The groans of a woman.

Without a sound, D leapt back. The thin fog rising around his chest trembled—shook with regret. D surveyed his surroundings. There was no change. A band of white wove plaintively in and out of the grove—only the fog to the fore was clearly heading toward him, in defiance of the rules of this world. Surely he’d be able to elude it. However, if the fog’s purpose was to cut off the area between D and the mansion, it would have to keep pushing him back indefinitely.

“Was this fog born after hearing the scream in this dream?” D muttered.

The fog kept closing in on him. D didn’t move. His field of view became obscured by a world of pearly white. Was it coming? Even after the fog receded—trailing tails of white behind it—D continued to stand in the same spot for a short time longer.

Awash in blue light, the mansion showed no signs of being any different. Neither cautious nor hurried, D passed through the iron gate. Advancing a few steps, the Hunter heard the gate shut behind him.

“This is dangerous business,” his left hand said in a hoarse voice. “There’s something funny here. You can’t be too careful.”

Once inside the mansion, D caught sight of a figure in white at the center of the hall and halted. It was Sybille. Along with her white gown, she wore a sorrowful expression that she cast down at the floor. Even a sad dream was still a dream.

“My travels aren’t particularly urgent, but it’s getting to be
a bit boring going to the same place every time I sleep. Today you’re going to explain what you want with me.”

At D’s words, her slim face grew even more pensive and she hung her head still lower. Her shoulders were shaking. The trembling grew more intense. From beneath that downturned face, sobs trickled out. No, it wasn’t sobbing—it was laughter. With D standing right there, the girl began roaring with laughter as if she were completely deranged. Slowly, the whole mansion warped.

“Wow! Looks to me like that fog earlier didn’t belong here after all,” the hoarse voice said with what sounded like admiration. “So, is this a dream within a dream, or has some other dream invaded the place? Whatever the case, it ain’t good. Okay, now how do we get out of here?”

The voice seemed to suggest that the fog might be an illusion powerful enough to drive even the master of this dream mad.

“Can’t we just leave the dream as a dream?” D muttered, seemingly oblivious to the mansion as it swayed like the whole place was underwater. His tone sounded somewhat weary. “It’s horrifying, so it must be destroyed. It’s beautiful, so it must be destroyed. It doesn’t want to destroyed, so it must be destroyed. At this rate, what will humanity leave behind?”

These remarks likely weren’t directed at the young lady before him. The girl’s voice had already become something inhuman, and D noticed that fragments of it moved around her like a white cloud. Every time the girl opened her mouth, more sound poured out. This was truly a dream world, with clouds forming from her voice. Part of the cloud suddenly stretched out. A silvery flash sliced it in two.

Longsword in his right hand, D ran straight for the figure he now knew was a fake Sybille. Retreat was not in this young man’s nature, yet clouds besieged him from all sides. As his longsword mowed through them, they wrapped around the steel like silk floss, one layer after another.

With the girl right before him, D made a swipe with his longsword. The blade should’ve taken her head off then and there, but it met stiff resistance and bounced off—the work of the clouds, no doubt.

Someone pushed the rebounding blade behind the Hunter’s back. This person that even D hadn’t detected was none other than Sybille. With one movement of her slim arm, she snapped D’s sword in half. Taking the portion of the blade that remained in her hand, Sybille hurled it at D. The Hunter caught it with his left hand. The piece then stretched out between the fingers that gripped it, penetrating deep into D’s chest.

Sybille grinned deviously, but her face stiffened, and surely at that very instant she was witnessing D’s left hand slowly extracting the bizarre shard of his blade. Perhaps this young man wasn’t subject to anyone’s control, not even in their dreams.

Having extracted the shard that’d been poking all the way out of his back, D made a leap at this foe in the form of Sybille. In midair, his pose was disrupted. The floor he’d been standing on stretched like rubber, clinging to him and pulling him back.

Scattering clouds of white from her smile all the while, the fake Sybille turned from D and retreated toward the far reaches of the mansion.

Still in that awkward pose, D hurled his fragmented blade in her direction. Howling through the air, it went into the slim figure through the nape of her neck and jutted out through her windpipe, nailing the girl’s body to the wall.

Feeling the pulsing of the floor beneath his boots like the beating of some vile heart with his every step, D walked toward the fake Sybille. Red bloodstains were quickly spreading across the back of her white dress. Almost like predefined shapes, the stains welled up from the very fabric of the gown like roses opening their petals. No, they actually were roses. And her gown wasn’t the only thing that was blooming crimson buds. Red roses welled up on various parts of her body until each and every one of them blossomed in a riot of huge roses that covered every inch of her.

D didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at these weird proceedings, but surely his eyes caught the next eerie transformation to the girl’s flesh. A number of black lines burst out of her body
in different places, stretching out in all directions, sinking into the floor, walls, and ceiling. Yes, they sank in—everything in the mansion lost its shape, growing soft as watery paint and swallowing the vines that grew from the girl. But did D realize what it all meant? As he calmly looked over his shoulder, countless vines were sprouting back out of the walls and ceiling, intersecting and forming a fine lattice that, in the blink of a human eye, managed to completely contain the Hunter.

Tearing his boots free of the sticky floor, D went over to the closest lattice, put his left hand and both feet against the center of it, and then leaned his body against it. His brow crinkled ever so slightly. The lattice of thin vines had grown needle-like thorns that pierced his hands and feet.

“Oww . . . This is the real thing!”

Though the Hunter’s left hand may have overstated the case, it was clear the pain from this was real. The blood running out of him was real, too—the dream’s reality. In which case, a death in a dream might be a death in reality.

The walls began sliding closer, the ceiling lowered, and the floor slowly rose. As the walls reached the body of the fake Sybille still nailed to the wall, she melted away. In less than ten seconds, the three-dimensional jaws of death would make contact with D.

The dagger glittered in D’s right hand. The blade was brought down with all the power he possessed, and sparks shot out as it bounced off the surface of the vines.

“Looks like we’re cornered,” the Hunter’s left hand moaned almost nonchalantly.

“Why don’t you try swallowing the ceiling or one of the walls?” D asked softly. Although he sounded as if he was talking about having a cup of tea, this was, of course, a grave matter that could mean the difference between life and death.

“You’ve gotta be joking. You think you can just drink a dream? If I did that, then everything would just turn to dreams.”

“Okay, then,” the Hunter replied.

“What’ll you do?”

“What happens if you die in a dream?”

“I don’t know,” the left hand said. “And wouldn’t you know it, there’re no dead folks around to ask. Why don’t you try asking the one who made all this in the first place? You-know-who.”

Giving no reply to that, D reached into his coat with his right hand. “Dying in a dream? That would be an interesting experiment—but we can’t do that.” As he spoke, his right hand was thrust toward the sky. Something like a scrap of paper flew up into the air. It was D’s dagger that then pierced the scrap. And then both items were driven right into part of the floor that was rising like muddy water, though the substance rang like something solid as he stabbed into it.

Suddenly, everything went black.

D opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of the lane that ran to Sybille’s mansion. Waking from a dream within a dream, he’d returned to the first vision. Not saying a word, he looked down at his left hand. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on the back or the palm. As for his longsword, it remained in its sheath.

“Hey! What did you do?” the Hunter’s left hand asked in a surprised manner.

Bending over, D reached for something that glittered on the ground by his feet. This was the spot where he’d thrown his dagger, and what he’d picked up was that very same blade. To the tip of it was stuck a piece of brown cloth—the cloth that the assassin in the thicket had left behind. Because the twisted, melting mansion was some nightmare spawned by the assassin, a strike to the piece of cloth that linked it to Sybille’s dream was all that was needed to deal a lethal blow to that dream within a dream. Nevertheless, waking from one dream into another was quite strange.

“What’ll you do now?” the voice asked.

D began walking. In his dreams, just as in reality, the young man’s steady pace was always the same.

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III

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As soon as he awoke, Sheriff Krutz opened his eyes and realized he was lying on a bed in an examination room in the hospital’s internal medicine ward. When he tried to get up, something tugged strongly at his head. Bringing his hand up to it, he felt countless cords there. Some kind of pliable substance covered his scalp, and cords were stuck into it. It must’ve been the conduction paste they used when taking electroencephalograms.

Just as the lawman finished prying the whole mess off his head, the hospital director appeared in the doorway on the far side of the room. The speed with which the old man stepped aside belied his age. The gooey mass the sheriff had hurled slammed against the wall, cords and all. The only thing capable of marring his face any further at this point was retribution.

“I’d say our friendship has had it,” the sheriff said as he got off the bed.

“Would you just wait a minute?” Dr. Allen said, raising one hand.

Though the sheriff had been about to uncork some choice vocabulary, the thing that kept his tongue in check was the depth of the pain the old doctor wore on his face.

“After having done this to you, it’s only fair that I explain all the circumstances. The truth of the matter is, I don’t want to tell you, and I believe you’ll probably wish you’d never heard it, either. You see, I’ve come to a conclusion—a most unfortunate one.”

“Where is Sybille?” Sheriff Krutz asked, as if brushing aside everything the hospital director had just said. He felt around his waist to make sure that his gun was still strapped
to his belt.

“She’s this way. Come with me.”

“No more sneak attacks,” the director said in a sarcastic tone.

“What did you do to me?” the sheriff finally inquired after a few minutes of walking in silence.

“We checked your brainwaves for abnormalities—although
I doubt you’ll believe that. Come with me and you’ll find all your answers.”

The two of them got into a wooden elevator and descended into the basement.

“Hey—we’re in the emergency ward. Is Sybille’s condition more serious now?” the sheriff asked, his voice echoing down the cold corridor. Before it had entirely faded, the two of them were greeted by a white door. Tough-looking male nurses stood to either side of it. The sight of one of them carrying an old-fashioned rocket launcher and the other cradling a photon-beam rifle made the sheriff’s eyes glow with quiet determination. Whatever was going on with Sybille, it was extremely important.

“Was Basil okay?” the sheriff asked.

“Yep, he’s resting now.”

“Be sure to tell him I’m awful sorry about what I did.”

One step through the doorway, and the sheriff froze in his tracks. The sound of the closing door was quietly embraced by the thin darkness. The bed that held the soundly sleeping girl, the curtains, the machine by her pillow, and even the feeble darkness of human design were all very much like her old room.

“I just stopped it a little while ago,” the hospital director said, having noticed how the sheriff’s gaze fell on the machine. “She was connected to your brain, and it was working beautifully, but things got fouled up when we were so very close.”

“Don’t you have any nurses in here?” the sheriff asked.

“They’ve finished up. From here on out, no one comes into this room except you and me. And if anyone else tries it . . . Well, I suppose a doctor committing murder does pose a bit of an ethical dilemma.”

The sheriff eyed the elderly physician with something akin to anxiety. “And what reason would you have for going to that extreme to protect Sybille?”

The hospital director gestured to one of the chairs and seated himself in another. After he’d watched the sheriff seat himself in a chair with its back against the wall, Dr. Allen said, “I want to ask you the God’s honest truth. Are you sure you really don’t know?”

Feeling like he might be incinerated by the blazing spark in the other man’s eyes, the sheriff replied, “I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

The hospital director stared at him. The fierce light in his eyes had a hint of desolation to it that suited the perpetual twilight of the room. Suddenly, the active doctor looked like a tired old man covered with wrinkles and hung with heavy shadows, and Sheriff Krutz had trouble believing his eyes.

“Earlier, when I was bringing that Hunter back to town, I saw Sybille.” As the lawman spoke, he paid special attention to the director’s face to see what reaction it would register,
but the old physician didn’t react at all. Maybe he thought it
was a joke, maybe other matters were occupying his mind, or
just maybe—

Tracing back through his memories so he might describe Sybille better, the sheriff suddenly remembered something. Something he’d seen somewhere before. Her clothes . . . The white blouse and the skirt . . .

“The Sybille you saw was one I called forth.”

The impact of the director’s words jarred the sheriff back to his senses. The wind whistled in his ear. “What did you just say?”

“To be a bit more precise, I extracted Sybille’s image from her dream. Using this device here.”

“Then, does that mean you can use that thing to wake her up?”

The director said nothing.

“I guess that’s what I should expect from a machine from the Capital. That’s fantastic.”

“No,” Dr. Allen said as he looked down at the peacefully slumbering girl with a pained gaze, “this machine can’t awaken Sybille. The only thing that can do that is the Noble who left his fang marks on her throat. And another thing—this isn’t from the Capital.”

“It’s not? Well, who made it then?” Sheriff Krutz asked, suspiciously eyeing the complex arrangement of metal, crystals, and batteries.

“I did. And it took me just two hours.”

The sheriff was at a loss for words.

“Two hours before I ran into you and the Hunter outside her room, I had just gone back to my office after finishing my rounds. I thought I’d stare out the window for a while, have myself a smoke, straighten up my desk—when I found this there.”

The sheriff was still speechless.

“Well, not really this, but all its parts. They didn’t even have plans with them. But I took one look at them and knew how to put it together. Now, don’t you look at me that way,” he said to the sheriff. “I’m not crazy. You should know better than anyone I’m not that kind of person. I always tell the truth.”

“That’s true, but—”

“Come on, Krutz,” the hospital director said in a nostalgic tone. Very rarely did he call the sheriff by name, but what they were involved in now had made them compatriots, or, perhaps more accurately, co-conspirators. “It’s been a long thirty years. When this happened to Sybille, I was just thirty-five, a doctor still wet behind the ears. I tried so hard to save her, like I was fighting for my very life . . .”

A ghastly spark resided in the director’s eyes. It was as if something extremely precious had been taken from his soul, and that spark was a light shining out of the abyss left in its place.

“I can still recall how it was back then. You and Sybille walking home from school, holding hands. And Sybille making you garlands with flowers from the field out back. White and blue ones—maybe they were celaine blossoms? She put them around your neck, but you got all bashful and took them off like a big dope. On the other hand, that time Sybille fell into the river, you jumped in without a second thought—even though the current was wild enough to drag a man away in only knee-deep water. And when she went out grape picking with her friends and she was the only one who didn’t come back, you were the one who went off with a beat-up old rifle in hand to search for her all over a demon-filled forest. Isn’t that right?”

Sheriff Krutz nodded. His expression looked like he was staring at something right in front of him, but on the other side of an eternal gulf.

“Were Sybille’s hands warm? Were her lips soft the first time you kissed them? Was that golden hair of hers as soft as silk? Well, was it?” Dr. Allen asked. “And when she pressed her feverish cheek against your chest, didn’t she tell you it was like iron? And that she could hear the beating of your heart?”

“Probably.”

The tone of the old man’s voice suddenly dropped. “What if all of that was a lie?” he said.

For a brief while, the sheriff’s expression showed he was still lost in remembrance. And then, slowly studying the face of the elderly physician, he said, “What?!”

“I’ll tell you.” Gently resting his hand on Sybille’s forehead, the director muttered in a low voice, “I’ll tell you something you’re better off not hearing. Something you’re better off not knowing.”

.

When Sheriff Krutz got back to the station, D was lying down in the cell without bars.

“What happened here?” the sheriff asked, and Bates explained the situation. “As soon as Clements gets out of the hospital, lock him up,” the lawman ordered. “We’re gonna make an example of him. Give him two weeks. Now, get out there and patrol. I’m gonna ask our guest some questions.”

“Yes sir.” Wearing an expression that showed he didn’t completely understand, Bates stepped out of the office.

The sheriff turned around to face D. There was an incredulous look in his eyes as he inspected the shattered wall.

“Did you solve the mystery about Sybille?” D asked softly.

“Nope. Think you know the answer?”

“How long are you going to keep me in here?”

“Until this is over.”

“When will it be over?”

“I don’t know,” the sheriff replied wearily. Of course, D had no way of knowing the lawman wore the same tired air as the hospital director. “From what Bates tells me, you were sleeping. You dream about Sybille?”

“There was some interference,” the Hunter replied.

“Interference?”

“It seems there are those who don’t want me to respond to the girl’s call.”

“Are you saying a foe can get inside dreams?” the sheriff muttered as if in a daze. “In that case, could you even call it a dream? What do you think?”

“Maybe even dreams can dream.” D quietly gazed at the sheriff. “I don’t mind staying in here, but are you sure that’s the best thing for the rest of you?”

“Just what’s that supposed to mean?” Sheriff Krutz was gazing back at D. For the first time, a mood of impending violence hung between them.

Their eyes shifted in the same direction simultaneously. A plump female form burst energetically into the cell while her feverish knocking still echoed from the door. The face, now pale, was that of the jack-of-all-trades—Maggie.

“Sheriff, we’ve got serious trouble!” she bellowed, her tone perfectly matching the energy that carried her into the room.

“What is it?” the sheriff asked.

The woman pointed out the door. “Well, I hadn’t been out there in a dog’s age—to Old Mrs. Sheldon’s, I mean.”

D’s eyes sparkled with sudden interest.

“But when I got there, you just wouldn’t . . . When I got there, I found the old woman out back in her garden . . . with
a black arrow through her throat . . .”

THE AWAKENED