CHAPTER 5

.

I

.

It was thirty minutes later that a trio arrived at Old Mrs. Sheldon’s house: Maggie the Almighty—who discovered the body—Sheriff Krutz, and D. The sheriff himself had requested that D accompany them. “Are you coming?” he’d asked, and D had stood up. That’s all there was to it. For some reason, the sheriff
had brought the Hunter’s longsword with him. D didn’t seem
to care at all.

When the little house came into view beyond the ever-changing contours of the hill, the sheriff furrowed his brow and looked over at Maggie, who rode by his side. Smoke was rising from the chimney. Apparently she had noticed it, too. “That’s odd. When I left, there wasn’t anything coming out,” she shouted.

Her words were soon obliterated by the thunder of hoofbeats as they quickened their pace toward the house. With riddles locked in their hearts, the three of them halted their mounts in front of the little house. The sheriff was the first one through the front door—where he froze on the spot. Peeking around from behind him, Maggie let out a scream of terror. “It can’t be . . . When I saw her, I’m sure she was—”

“What’s this you’re so sure of?” Old Mrs. Sheldon asked, setting her steaming cup of coffee down on the living room table and glaring at her boorish intruders.

“We’re not . . . It’s just . . . We got word that someone had found you murdered, you see,” the sheriff explained with a rare feebleness in his voice.

“I’m not sure I want to hear any more of that talk, Sheriff. Sure, a lonely old bird such as me likes to have company, but certainly not on account of that sort of rumor.” The old woman closed the front collar of her coat as she stood up.

“But this can’t be! I saw her lying in the garden out back, covered with blood,” Maggie bellowed, her meaty jowls shaking. “Check into it, Sheriff. Check into it real good.”

“Take a good look. The person you claimed was dead is standing right in front of us. If there’s anything human that can survive getting shot through the neck, I’d sure like to see it.” And saying that, the sheriff turned around and suddenly exclaimed, “Where’s D?!”

It appeared that the Hunter had vanished from the doorway without anyone noticing.

Maggie and the sheriff circled around behind the house to the flower garden and found a tall figure in black swaying with the breeze.

“You stay where I can see you,” the sheriff told him.

“There’s not even a trace of the blood. That’s impossible,” Maggie said from behind them. Stepping in front of the two men, she extended her hand toward part of the riotous mix
of blooms. Amazingly, her limb wasn’t even trembling. It was this same courage that allowed her to work as a jack-of-all-trades visiting scattered villages across the Frontier. “She was
lying right over there and the ground all around her was bright
red with blood . . . There was a black arrow jutting out of her neck . . . What’s this?!”

The sheriff squinted at her exclamation.

Maggie’s hand then pointed to an area a little in front of the first spot she’d indicated. “Even the flowers have vanished!” she shouted.

“The flowers?”

“There were blue flowers in bloom. Right in here. Prettier than any I’d ever seen. And now, as you can see, they’re just gone . . .”

As if in a daze, she turned to Sheriff Krutz, and as their eyes met, D asked the lawman, “When’s the last time you were out here?”

“About five days back,” the sheriff replied in a voice as thin as paper. “But I didn’t actually see her then. I was just in the area—and I saw the smoke coming out of her chimney.”

“Were there blue flowers in bloom then?”

Thinking a bit, the sheriff shook his head. “Nope.”

“So, they bloomed and then disappeared, did they?” the Hunter mused.

“I think her eyes might’ve been playing tricks on her.”

“Wait just one minute there—you think I dreamed all this?” the woman roared angrily, but she immediately fell silent at the result of her words.

The trio was enveloped by tension as tight as a nerve at the breaking point. D quietly looked at the sheriff. The stiffness that’d taken hold of Krutz’s whisker-peppered cheeks was gone in an instant, and the placid atmosphere returned.

“What kind of flowers were they?” D asked Maggie.

Perhaps thinking him her ally, the traveling merchant stared at his profile as if hypnotized, then hastily made some gestures with her plump fingers. “They were about this big, and just the most beautiful shade of blue. Though I’ve never been there before, I have to wonder if it’s the same color as the ‘sea’ that I’ve been hearing about since I was a kid.”

The sea—a blue petal.

D turned right around. Faster than anyone else, he’d determined there was no use staying there any longer.

The sheriff apologized to the old woman for their sudden call, and then the three of them mounted up.

“You should show your face around here from time to time, Sheriff,” the old woman called out, her words clinging to them as they rode away.

On the road leading back to town, D alone wheeled his horse around.

“And where are you going?”

“I can’t leave the village.”

“You’re in custody,” the sheriff said bitterly.

“Your wife told me all about the girl. Where’s the shortcut to the dance?”

Giving it some consideration, Sheriff Krutz then pointed in the direction of the forest to the southwest. “Go about two miles,” he said. “When you come out of the forest, there’ll be a little path. Follow that for three-quarters of a mile.”

“I’ll come back when this is finished.”

As D finished speaking and prepared to give a kick to his horse’s flanks, a long, thin shape flew toward him. Catching the longsword in his left hand without even turning, D galloped off.

“Not the most social type, is he?” Maggie muttered as she smoothed her hair. “But that’s how the lookers have to be. I don’t care how cold he was to me; I suppose I’d still try to move heaven and earth for him . . . even knowing he’d leave me for sure.”

“You can tell how it is?” the sheriff said as he watched the dwindling figure.

“Hell, anyone can tell. He’s not trying to do it, but he makes the people around him unhappy. At my age, and with me leaving the village behind real soon, it’s not a big problem . . .” She looked at Sheriff Krutz with a sort of pity in her eyes, then turned the same gaze toward the old woman’s home. “But I figure it’s gotta be pretty hard on the rest of you folks . . . Gotta wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if you’d never let him in.”

.

By the time D arrived at the vacant lot, the sunlight was already fading and the sky was graced with a languid blue tone. Tethering his horse to a tree trunk, D trod across the yellowed grass. The scene around him was a familiar one. The lot was fairly large—some might even call it vast. At present, it held no mansion steeped in blue—just a grassy field stroked by the wind. Not speaking a word, D stood in the center of the lot where, in the dream, the great hall would have been. Here, the girl the sleep-bringer loved had imagined dance parties every night, and here in this overgrown lot she’d danced with furtive steps. And her partner had been—

“Can she come out of the dream?” D asked, as if putting the question to the wind.

“I don’t know,” the unsociable reply came, riding on the wind.

“Shall we give it a try, then?”

“Sure, why not?” the voice said.

D moved a little to the right. The tall grass hid him completely where the garden would have been. If he went still further to the right, he’d come to the gate, and beyond that, to the road that led to the mansion.

Catching strange sounds on the wind, D quietly turned around and saw two figures approaching from the path at the opposite end of the lot. The slender one was a little quicker. Squinting, he saw that it was Nan. The young man behind her was about the same age, though his face was quite boyish. The two of them probably lived close by.

“Aw, don’t get so mad about it,” the young man said, trying to keep his tone down, although the wind carried it clearly enough.

“I’m not mad at all. Go home,” Nan said tearfully. This wasn’t a quarrel between siblings, but between lovers.

“I didn’t mean to say that, it just came out. You don’t have to get so hot about it,” the boy said. “C’mon. Let’s go back. The sun’ll be going down soon.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been coming here for a long time. You can go home alone.”

“Stop being such a ninny,” the boy said, anger tingeing his words. Then he reached around from behind Nan and grabbed her by the wrist. Nan shook her arm free of his grip and quickened her pace.

The boy stopped following her. Cheeks flushed with indignation, he shouted, “Do whatever the hell you please, then. No matter what happens, your precious Hunter’s not coming for you!” And then he turned his back on her.

Nan stopped in her tracks. Once the young man had vanished down the road, she turned around. She looked worried. She looked sorry, as well. Standing on tiptoe, she was about to go after him, but she soon abandoned that idea and settled back down on the ground. With the back of her right hand, she rubbed both her eyes. If silent tears could be called crying, then that’s just what she was doing.

Waiting for her to finish dabbing at her eyes, D came out of the grass. When he was about fifteen or twenty feet away, Nan casually turned in his direction, and then finally she noticed him. Her eyes opened wide and her cheeks flushed instantly. “Oh, no!” she gasped. “How long have you been here?”

“I just arrived.”

Nan seemed relieved. No one liked to be seen crying by other people. “But you saw us, didn’t you?” she asked bashfully. Voice dipping lower, she said, “And I suppose you . . .” She wanted to ask if he’d overheard the boy mentioning a certain Hunter, too, but caught herself and never finished.

“You shouldn’t fight like that.”

“Stop it. You sound just like one of my teachers at school. It really doesn’t suit you. And it wasn’t even anything worth fighting about.”

D said nothing.

“When I said I’d dreamt about you a few times, he said that was really strange because he’d only had the one dream. That irritated me, so I went ahead and told him I’d gone to see you and talk about it. And that’s where the argument started . . .”

What would D make of this little dispute that centered on him?

“One of your childhood friends?” the Hunter asked.

Nan nodded. “The boy next door. His name’s Kane.”

After answering, Nan noticed that D had turned his back to her, and she went off after him. The same boy was coming back down the road. D was ready to move away.

“Don’t. Stay here,” Nan said, clinging to his arm. Perhaps she was just being obstinate.

Kane froze in his tracks and stayed that way for a while. It was hard to tell whether he was angry or amazed. “Asshole!” he shouted.

Nan hollered back, “Too bad. Looks like I already have a date!”

“The night creatures can eat you for all I care. Hop in a grave with the Nobility, why don’t you?” And with those typical Frontier curses, the young man ran off.

“He’s worried about you,” D said, his voice calm. For some reason, the young man’s voice got like that when he looked at a youthful, lively figure.

“What, that little bastard?” Nan sulked. She tried to act like an adult, but that unbelievable bit of childishness made her expression run the full gamut.

“Why did you come out here?”

“No reason. It’s close by, and I’ve been playing here since
I was little.”

“Apparently Sybille used to come here a lot, too,” said D.

“How do you know that?”

“Do you want to go to dance parties, too?”

“You don’t talk about yourself at all, do you?” Nan said angrily. The Hunter was the cause of her quarrel earlier. She felt like since he knew it, the very least he could do was be a little kinder when he talked with her. But he was far too distant for her to ever say such a thing to him. After all, he was from another world. So, why did she have to dream about him three times? All of a sudden, Nan felt a sense of hatred toward someone, but she didn’t know who—a fact that only further churned the emotions inside of her.

“You said you were in the bed next to hers, didn’t you?”

“The room next to hers,” Nan corrected him. “I spent two years in the hospital with foam worms eating through my chest. You know what happens when you get a case of those buggers?”

“I hear it hurts.”

“Yeah,” Nan said, holding her left hand over the soft swell of her bosom.

The worms were a favorite food of spear-carrying sprites, but the girl didn’t realize they were part of the air that filled her lungs until the damage was done. If even one of the thousandth-of-a-millimeter-long creatures was allowed into the body, the toxins it contained could turn the victim’s every breath into flames. Yet they actually hardened the lining of the lungs, so their host went through an agonizing hell before their body was completely burnt. When treatment came too late, the flaming breath could spread throughout the entire body, eventually serving up a corpse that had a glossy sheen on the outside, but was charred and crumbling on the inside.

A case of the foam worms was only treatable if caught during the first four weeks in the body—Nan had barely made it in time. Strapped down to her bed, she was pushed to the brink of madness by the pain, begging more than once for them to kill her. What saved her was the encouragement she got from her parents and Kane, and the wisdom the hospital director showed in the decision to move her bed.

Dr. Allen had used these words when he introduced the quietly slumbering girl in the next room to the agonized Nan: “You’re going to get well someday. I know it hurts, but that’s just proof that your condition is improving. If you just bear with it another year or two, you’ll be able to race around under the blue sky again, free as you please. You’ll be able to kiss boys, too, I suppose. But that girl won’t. Chances are she’ll never awaken again as long as she lives. All the things you’re going to go on to experience ended for Sybille thirty years ago. And now she just sleeps, never aging. Is that any kind of life?”

“So, I just suffered through it,” Nan said, gazing at D with sparkling eyes. “Knowing I’d get well someday—that someday, I could get out of bed, run across the ground, pick apples in the fall, go skating in winter, and swim in the lake in summer. And listen to Kane play his guitar again. That’s what I thought about.”

Having said all of this in a single breath, Nan suddenly looked down bashfully and played with her hair. The dusky light painted her profile a rosy hue as D remained silent and gazed at the eighteen-year-old girl. “What you said earlier . . . ” Nan ventured in a tiny voice, still looking at the ground.

“Yes?”

“About the dance party—I heard about it from the sheriff. He said it was Sybille’s dream—that he was sure every night she was throwing a dance party.”

“Do you envy her?” D asked.

“Sure I do.”

“This is a peaceful village.”

“I still envy her. A lot more, recently.” Nan stopped herself then. Frightened by D’s eyes as he watched her, she froze. What was going to happen? The thrill that accompanied her shudders made her very pores open.

What actually happened was unexpectedly simple.

“How recently?” the Hunter asked her.

She didn’t answer right away, but when she did speak, her voice was husky. “Since you . . . since you appeared in my dreams.”

.

II

.

Did you get them?” Dr. Allen asked.

In lieu of a reply, Sheriff Krutz removed a thick wad of papers from the chest pocket of his coat and held them out. “Which one?” he said, teasing Dr. Allen by casually moving the mass of papers away from the older man as he reached for them with his blotchy fingertips. Suddenly, there was a sharp crack. The sheriff’s eyes shifted from the papers he’d just smacked into the palm of his otherhand and looked up at the hospital director. Krutz’s eyes were ablaze, kindled by grief and an intense hatred.

The director took his gaze impassively. His iron will ruthlessly deflected the sheriff’s arrows of fiery sentiment. An incredibly powerful sense of duty was supporting him. “You know what happened to Clements?” the director asked.

They were in Dr. Allen’s private office. While flames fed by petroleum and a light that was a complex arrangement of lenses kept the dark at bay, the two of them were like darkness in human form.

The sheriff gave no reply.

Folding his hands on the table, Dr. Allen said, “He’s in serious condition—broken ribs punctured both his lungs. Even after he heals, he’s never going to be very spry again. Makes you wonder if he wouldn’t have been better off dead. If nothing else, he was a fair bit more adventuresome than you.”

“You think he knew what’s going on here?” the sheriff asked in a hoarse voice.

“He doesn’t seem to be aware of the situation. But from here on out, there’ll be a lot more like him. We won’t be able to say this is a peaceful village anymore.”

The sheriff once again smacked the bundle of papers into the palm of his hand.

With the pile of papers now tossed down before the director’s stormy eyes, Allen picked them up and began reading them. He pored over the pages with a prudent gaze, as if he were studying a patient’s charts. “Alexis Piper: at least seven counts of murder, uses an electric whip . . . Belle Coldite: seventeen counts, trained in demon kempo . . . Maddox Ho: twelve counts of murder, uses a knife . . . I don’t think any of them could stand up to the Hunter,” Dr. Allen mused. “Hmm . . . The Bio Brothers . . .”

Eyes shining brightly, the director went on scanning through the rest of the papers. While he was doing so, the sheriff seated himself in a chair by the wall and gazed out at the darkness massing beyond the windows, never moving a muscle.

An hour later, the hospital director came to a decision, saying, “These guys are it.”

“Can you get them?” the sheriff asked.

“I’ll manage something. It may take some time, but time isn’t a problem.”

“You mean because he can’t leave?”

“Precisely.”

“Killing that Hunter’s not gonna be easy,” Sheriff Krutz stated. “Not even in this world.”

“I realize that. That’s precisely why Sybille called him here. But now that he’s in here, there has to be some way he can be killed. Just as we can die, so can he.”

“Well, I saw him a little while ago, and there wasn’t a scratch on him.”

“That’s just because our preparations were inadequate,” said Dr. Allen. “But I’ve continued to make improvements to the machine. This world and everything in it is on our side.”

“For all the good it’ll do us.” The sheriff’s words were
accompanied by a metallic squeak—the sound of a trigger being pulled tight.

The hospital director gazed disdainfully at the muzzle of the missile gun that Krutz leveled at him. “Traded up for something to use against a Hunter who can chop down a laser beam, did you? You’d certainly be better off using that against him, but you really can’t do that, either. You’d still have to worry about him coming back to life. Have you thought about blasting someone else with that thing?” His tone was inflammatory.

“You talking about Sybille?” Sheriff Krutz said, spitting the words.

“At the very least, it would settle matters here. Though I don’t know exactly how everything would wind up,” the director said, leaning back in his chair. “I was born in this village. It was a good village. Ever since I was a little boy, I thought there couldn’t possibly be a more wonderful world anywhere. Every child eventually gets the urge to leave their birthplace, but the thought never even occurred to me. It was my sincerest wish to live my whole life here—to grow old and die in this village.”

“Me too.”

“But,” the elderly physician began, his eyes colored as never before by weariness and despair, “I never would’ve guessed the whole thing was a sham . . .”

“Don’t start that!” the sheriff moaned. The finger he had around the trigger was white from the strain.

“I believe I showed you proof of that not long ago. This world and everything in it is just Sybille’s—”

Dr. Allen may have actually caught himself at the very end. The instant the ultra-compact missile flew from the twenty-millimeter-wide barrel it reached maximum velocity, slamming into the elderly physician’s chest at a speed of fifteen hundred miles per hour before exploding. The detonation was the work of an impact fuse. A half ounce of explosive gel blew open the hospital director’s chest and his left shoulder, killing him instantaneously.

“The Bio Brothers?” the sheriff muttered as he caught the foul stench of burning flesh and fat. Getting to his feet, he looked down at Dr. Allen with a touch of sadness in his eyes. “I was born here in the village, too, and swore to the people that I’d be their sheriff. And I can’t be a party to murder, no matter what the reason.”

Holstering the weapon at his waist, the sheriff grabbed the list of criminals and walked out of the room. There was no sign of anyone in the hall. Normally, he’d pass a few nurses at this hour. Come to mention it, there wasn’t the smell that was unique to this time, either—the aroma of supper.

Sheriff Krutz went down into the basement. In front of the room where Sybille slept he came to a halt briefly. He tried to think about what he was doing, but couldn’t get his thoughts to come together. He went in.

The machine, the feeble darkness, and Sybille were all sleeping.

There ought to be a few nurses around, the sheriff thought. It was like an empty hospital. He stared at Sybille’s face, propped up on the pillow like a pale moonflower. Her serene breathing served to lessen, at least a bit, the burden of the darkness crushing down on his heart.

“Is it true, Sybille?” he called out to her. “Are all our memories just made-up stories? Was all that stuff about you and me just a dream? Is me being here now a dream? Hell, are the things I’m thinking now not even my own will? Is it all really just some dream you’re having? Or something the other you dreams?!”

The sheriff slowly brushed his hand against the missile gun on his hip. He hesitated when his fingertips met the grip, but, after repeating this gesture a number of times, he finally grabbed the grip firmly and drew the weapon, pointing the barrel at Sybille. All part of a single action. That the barrel of the weapon shook was completely natural.

And then, a pale hand gently came to rest on the sheriff’s.

“Ai-Ling?!” Open wide with amazement, Sheriff Krutz’s eyes reflected the quietly smiling image of his wife. “But how . . . ? When did you get here?”

“Please, stop already,” Ai-Ling said. She sounded so sad.

For a second, the sheriff got the impression that for the longest time he hadn’t seen his wife wearing any other expression but sadness.

“It’s already begun,” Ai-Ling said. “No matter what you do, it won’t help anything. The Sybille we have here isn’t the real Sybille, you know.”

“No. She is. I know she is.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know anything at all. Not even about yourself. Probably not even who you love.”

“But I . . . You’re the one I . . .”

“That’s a lie,” Ai-Ling said with a thin smile as she shook her head. “You’re just trying to love me. But even that’s just because Sybille makes you do it. The same goes for me hating you. Don’t you see? I’m very happy now. Of course, that’s due
to Sybille’s control, too . . .”

“No,” Sheriff Krutz said, shaking his head. The sweat that had seeped from him, while he was unaware of it, now did a sparkling dance through the air. “That’s not true. I’m me. I love you with all my heart. And you hate me with every inch of your body.”

Ai-Ling was speechless. Something began to glisten in her eyes as they watched her husband.

The sheriff was pierced by a near-indescribable fear. That fear spoke to him.

What exactly are you?

I’m the sheriff. My name is Krutz Bogen. Age: forty-eight. Weight: one hundred and fifty-seven pounds. Height: six feet three inches. My favorite food is . . .

What are you? Why are you here? How did you come to exist?

I was born. I came from my mother’s womb.

Where is your mother? What do you mean by “mother”?

The woman who gave birth to me. Her grave’s in the cemetery on the outskirts of the village.

“Krutz! Darling!” his wife called to him. “Give up already. Let’s just accept our fate. That’s the best thing we can do.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” the sheriff moaned. His hair was standing on end. But this phenomenon was more the result of anger than fear. “I don’t care what my fate may be—if it’s something someone else would assign me, then I’ll be damned if I’m gonna submit to it. I’m me. I’ll live by my own thoughts.”

“Yes, that’s it. It’s all about living,” Ai-Ling whispered gently. “Even if we are just part of some other Sybille’s dream, we still have a right to live. This whole world does. Please, you’ve got to help me with this.”

Sheriff Krutz shut his eyes. His wife’s request overflowed with the sincerest passion . . . but even that wasn’t her own doing. He recalled what the hospital director had revealed to him just before he’d gone back to the jail to visit D.

This village, this world, even we ourselves are a dream—a dream Sybille has. All of this will vanish like a popped bubble if she awakens even once—that’s what we all are. And that includes the Sybille who sleeps in our world, too.

When Krutz still refused to believe, Dr. Allen manipulated the machine connected to Sybille’s head to give substance to her image so the lawman might see. The image was a copy of the girl as she made herself appear in her dreams, a copy that disappeared less than two seconds later, but even after that the sheriff was a tangle of doubts, standing still as a statue. And now—

“It’s a lie,” he groaned.

“Please, help me with this,” Ai-Ling begged him. “So we can continue to exist . . .”

“And do what? What’s the point? Suppose we are just the dream of the other Sybille . . .”

The words of the hospital director came back to him: Since we are dreams, in order to continue to exist, we must see to it Sybille continues to dream. That Hunter came to disturb everything.

How do you know that? Krutz had asked.

Because . . .

“Sybille!” the sheriff screamed. The frantic cry gave him the determination to stick to what he believed. His thumb cocked the hammer of the missile gun.

“Don’t!” Ai-Ling cried.

“What are you afraid of? The director said this Sybille is just part of a dream created by the other Sybille. Just like us.”

“We’ll disappear, too.”

“If Sybille wants to wake up, then that’s fine,” said the sheriff.

“How can you do this?”

“You said all our emotions are just something someone else gave us, right? In that case, maybe I really don’t love Sybille at all,” Sheriff Krutz said. “If this Sybille is just part of the dream, sleeping and dreaming within this dream . . . then, if I kill her, the other Sybille might wake up . . .”

“Darling!”

Taking her cry as his cue, the sheriff pulled the trigger. Bright red flames enveloped the bed. The sheriff stared at the missile gun like an idiot. Sybille was sleeping peacefully. Not a trace remained of the flames now.

If we’re lucky, perhaps this world has broken off from Sybille’s dreams and now has a will of its own, the words of Dr. Allen came back into his mind once more. The world doesn’t want to be destroyed. That’s why it put me to work.

Sheriff Krutz lowered his weapon. The frosty beauty of the Hunter drifted to the forefront of his mind and a strange peacefulness came over him. D alone, he knew, was a separate entity. The missile gun sank slowly.

“Darling . . .”

Not answering his wife’s call, the sheriff calmly walked toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna leave the village.”

“How?” Ai-Ling asked.

“I don’t know. But I’ll go around and around a thousand times if need be. Maybe I’ll die in the process.”

Ai-Ling said nothing.

The white door pinched the form of the sheriff from view.

“My darling . . .” Ai-Ling fell to her knees, sobbing. Up ’til this very day, she’d lived with the knowledge that her husband’s heart would never let go of Sybille. She’d always believed the passing years would eventually sweep away the anger and sadness she felt watching her husband go off to see the girl. Thirty years had passed before she finally realized she was used to it. But a resolution was coming—now.

“It’s an awful dream, isn’t it?” the voice of the hospital director echoed over her shoulder.

“But, my husband . . .”

“Can’t be helped. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Ai-Ling closed her eyes and nodded. A tear left her cheek, falling to strike her knee.

.

III

.

When darkness ruled the world, people went in-time. Ten thousand years of memories of the creatures in black were locked into the populace’s DNA, and the nocturnal cries of the beasts only served to multiply their fears. Even now, night didn’t belong to humanity—with the exception of this one small village. Normally, lamps glowed between the trees here, the long shadows of lovers flickered on paths, and the mirthful voices never ceased. But tonight, all that had changed. There were no human forms out on the moonlit streets. The door to every house was barred; people were huddled around their fireplaces, unable to move, as if that was the only place they’d have substance. Each and every villager was straining his or her ears to catch the movements of a single man.

Moonlight falling on every inch of him, D slept in part of the vacant lot. Propped up against the trunk of the same demon’s scruff oak tree that his horse was tethered to, his torso looked ablaze in the light. A few minutes earlier he’d shut his eyes and immediately fallen asleep. He was once again heading to the blue mansion to ask its mistress why she’d called him there. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew against his body and D’s eyes opened. The echo of iron-shod hooves came down the road, and before long a horse and rider appeared in the lot. They were heading straight toward D, who made no attempt to get up.

“Thought you’d be here,” the sheriff said. “Did you meet with her in your dream? With the real Sybille, I mean.”

Lightly raising the brim of his traveler’s hat, D stared
at the sheriff’s honest face. “Finally found out, did you?”
he asked.

“Yep,” Sheriff Krutz said with a nod. “When did you know?”

“When I called on Old Mrs. Sheldon’s place with you. I remembered that I’d had a cup of tea there with a blue petal floating in it. After that, it was just a matter of adding things up.”

“I don’t know exactly how, but Dr. Allen intends to get the Bio Brothers. Ever heard of them?” the sheriff asked, smiling wryly. After all, he couldn’t tell if the information in this world would match that of D’s own.

D didn’t say anything. The sheriff believed his silence wasn’t due to his being uninformed, but rather because he knew who he was going up against and it didn’t matter to him in the least. How torturous had the times he’d lived through been? Thinking of this, Sheriff Krutz felt the heavy, dark sediment that had collected in his heart suddenly disappear; he smiled without even knowing it. “That’s all I had to say. Looks like I went and woke you up, though. Did you see Sybille?”

Meeting the lawman’s searching gaze, D shook his head. “No.”

“Haven’t slept yet, then?”

“I didn’t dream.”

The sheriff didn’t quite know what to say, but then D answered his question for him.

“Probably due to the machine the hospital director was using.”

“In that case, the dream you had would be the same one the Sybille in this world is having, wouldn’t it?” Sheriff Krutz asked.

“Probably.”

“Wonder if it’s the same one the real Sybille has.”

D nodded. “The blue light and the white gown really suit her.”

Staring at D for a while, the sheriff then thanked him. “Dr. Allen and Sybille are in the basement of the hospital. That’s all I really came to say. Good luck to you.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out of the village,” the sheriff said. “Don’t know where I’ll go once I’m out, but I’ve gotta give it a shot. If Sybille wakes from her dream in the meantime, that’s fine by me, too.”

“Good luck.”

“Same to you.”

Sheriff Krutz wheeled his horse around, and D watched him until he’d vanished down the road. Apparently, the only way the Hunter would be able to ask Sybille why she’d called him here was to go to the hospital.

“Well, are we off then?” his left hand asked.

“There’s no other option.”

“Why don’t you try talking to the girl? You know, persuade her to go on sleeping. No matter what you try, nothing you do will counter the effect of his bite. The girl the sleep-bringer loved will never wake again. You ought to tell the doctor and sheriff of this fact and set their minds at ease.”

D pulled a dagger from his coat and slowly began digging up the ground. “Maybe the girl won’t ask me to wake her up,” he said.

The voice in his left hand seemed bewildered by his statement. After a short time, it said in a vaguely buoyant tone, “You sure do say some crazy stuff for a pretty boy. So, what’ll you do if that happens, eh?” The voice stopped suddenly, making a sound like something was stuck in its throat. D pressed his left hand against the mound of black soil he’d dug up. And with that, a sound that anyone would recognize as chewing began, and the mound of dirt dwindled swiftly.

What was happening went without saying. Powered by the four elements of the universe—earth, wind, fire, and water—the countenanced carbuncle was taking his sustenance. And yet, it seemed to be eating out of frustration. D simply kept his eyes pointed straight ahead at nothing and didn’t move a muscle. In no time, the exaggerated sounds of mastication faded; a rude smacking of lips ensued, followed by a belch that shook the darkness.

“They’ve taken measures against you, haven’t they? If we can’t do what we like in this world, we might not even be able to ask the girl what she wants,” the now mean-spirited voice informed him. “That guy from the hospital’s been meddling with the brain of this world’s Sybille. If the dream you have is the same one she’s dreaming, you probably won’t be able to see her again.” And then, as if suggesting something the Hunter hadn’t thought of, he added, “But wouldn’t that wrap everything up all neat and tidy? The dream just wants to stay a dream, after all. I mean, even for the girl, I don’t think this world is all that bad, as dreams go.”

“You’re not the one who has to dream it . . . and neither am I.” D got up without making a sound. Bright in the moonlight, his profile was cold and beautiful enough to astonish any dreamer.

.

ven as Krutz came up on the last curve, he didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. Is it gonna send me around in a circle again? The lawman paused and wondered. If it does, that’s just fine by me. Sheriff Krutz rode on, regardless. The scene around him was unchanged. He finished making the turn, and could then make out the dome-shaped watch post on the outskirts of the village. It looked like he was going to be able to get out.

The watch post was manned twenty-four hours a day by three shifts of young men from the village. He took a peek inside, but there was no one around. If there’d been anyone in there, he’d have felt them or heard their breathing, but there was nothing like that—only the cold atmosphere on what had been an unattended post from the very beginning pierced the sheriff. Perhaps this was a dream, too?

Getting off his horse, he went into the watch post and pushed the control button. There was the low whine of a winch as the four bars that comprised the roadblock were hoisted out of the way. The sheriff mounted his horse again and took a hold of the reins when all of the sudden a low whinny entered his ear and raced through his whole body. There were two sounds—the sounds of a horse and another animal.

Forty-five to fifty yards ahead of him, the road was intersected by a broad strip of white. Sheriff Krutz concentrated his gaze on the right side—off to the south. If he couldn’t see that far in the darkness, he never would’ve been cut out to be sheriff. Although it wasn’t a particularly common occurrence, rescuing those careless enough to travel by night was part of what he was paid to do.

The moon was bright. And yet, the two approaching silhouettes seemed to have an undulating darkness trailing along behind them. One of them was a man in a coat on horseback. The other one was doubled over the back of some black quadruped shape, which at first appeared to be just a hump on its back. The sheriff’s memory informed him of who they were. Giving a light kick to his mount’s flanks, he rode out to the road.

The strange silhouettes continued to draw closer, not seeming the least bit unnerved.

“Hold it,” the sheriff called out to them from twenty feet away.

The two men halted as if on cue. Their stop had been so well synchronized, it almost seemed like they were telepathically linked.

“You’re the Bio Brothers, aren’t you?” the lawman asked.

There was no reply.

“I’m the sheriff in this village. Krutz is the name. You keep riding on straight to the north.”

As soon as he’d finished speaking, there was some reaction from the others. The man on the horse said nothing, but smiled. The quadruped shadow bared its fangs. Either side of the muzzle it extended had a gleam of emerald—its eyes.

From his seat on the back of a cruelly snarling black panther, the shadowy figure said, “He told us to be on our way down the main road, big brother.” The tone was mocking. Scorn was a common camouflage for anger. “He’s telling us to keep out of his village.” Below the source of that voice, there was a wet sound, like flesh ripping. The little man who looked like he’d been lying on his belly had risen. The flesh of his abdomen continued to rip free from the black panther’s back.

“We’re here because we were sent for,” the man on the horse said. He was a figure of imposing proportions, every bit as tall and broad-shouldered as the sheriff. His tone was as dark and heavy as the earth. “You ought to know that. You’d know one of our jobs, at least.”

“Yeah, one of them,” the man on the panther’s back said. The little man was dressed in black from top to bottom. It was impossible to tell whether or not his lower body was actually fused to the panther’s back.

“Really, now. How many more are there?” Sheriff Krutz asked, lifting the bottom of his jacket and brushing the grip of his missile gun with his right hand. He was well aware of the ruthless ways of the Bio Brothers. Two of the most dangerous killers on the Frontier, the pair were known to tear those that faced them limb from limb, while the panther filled its belly with their victims’ innards before they finished ripping them to shreds. Could he take them? He tried to imagine it, but wasn’t so sure if he could. The two of them would be bad enough, but he sensed something else waiting behind him.

“Just one,” the man on the horse replied. “Getting rid of you.”

The sheriff kicked his horse’s flanks. At the same time, the two men across from him also began to advance. Sheriff Krutz figured the battle would be decided in an instant. The distance between the two factions was definitely diminishing, and the darkness between them made sounds as it began to coalesce. A lust for blood blew at the sheriff’s face like a gale-force wind. The panther sprang at him from the left, like pouncing darkness. In midair, its claws grew a foot long.

The very instant the sheriff vanished from the beast’s field of view, the little man on its back leapt into the air. “What the hell?!” the little man cried out in astonishment. Although he’d followed the sheriff’s leap and was launching an attack on the lawman, the knife that gleamed in the little man’s right hand had been deflected by the barrel of the missile gun. To make matters worse, the gun Krutz was holding also smacked him in the forehead, knocking him backward.

Even in midair, the sheriff kept an eye on his foes on the ground. He turned the missile gun that’d smashed open the brow of the little man—who was apparently the younger brother—in the direction of the big man on the horse and opened fire.

“Hyah!” the man cried, and a second later, he was galloping across the earth.

Equipped with a laser-targeting unit, the missile limned a gentle curve.

Touching down again, the sheriff fired a second shot at the black panther that’d bounded off the back of his horse in another direction. The panther didn’t dodge it. In fact, the flames from the missile imbedded in its forehead vanished unexpectedly. Was it a misfire? Or was that the world’s way of trying to save itself?

Time for a third shot. The sheriff’s fingers worked reflexively, and even when he found the pale flames of a projectile sinking deep into his chest, his digits didn’t stop. When the unholy conflagration finally died out, a shadowy figure stood up in the spot where, until then, the sheriff had existed. It was the man on the horse—the older brother. The missile had been aimed at him, however, the target that’d apparently run away had appeared again from the completely opposite direction.

“Wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be,” the younger brother spat from the panther’s back, one hand pressed to his forehead. He then licked at the blood dripping from his fingers with his hideously long tongue.

“Excuses about being out of practice aren’t gonna cut it,” the older brother said reproachfully.

“You’re right.”

“Our next opponent is a heavyweight.”

The younger brother stopped moving. As he did, the black panther bared its fangs and let out a menacing snarl. The moon alone remained bright as the two shadowy figures headed into the village.

.

It’s getting rougher on her,” Dr. Allen muttered as he watched the blue line on the display panel. “Sybille’s putting up quite a fight, too, as I thought she might. Of course, that’s not surprising, as this world was hers to begin with.”

“Will it be all right?” Ai-Ling asked. “That machine of yours will only work on our Sybille, I take it. What’ll happen if the other Sybille intervenes?”

“I don’t know,” the hospital director said. “I don’t even want to consider it. All we can do is pray it doesn’t come to that. That is, if we even have the right to pray.”

“I should hope we at least have the right to live,” Old Mrs. Sheldon said, sitting in her favorite rocking chair over by the window. “Not that I mind, as it’ll be time for me to call it a night soon. Of course, I can’t even get a decent night’s rest with the thought of this world of ours bringing me back from the dead whenever it pleases. What in blazes is gonna happen next? Who gets to decide our fate? This world? The other Sybille you folks have been talking about?”

She turned her face toward the floor in contemplation, as Ai-Ling said in a brooding tone, “D. What if we explained what’s going on to the Hunter and tried to get him to help us? We could ask him to ignore Sybille’s request.”

“I’m thinking that’d be a big waste of time,” Old Mrs. Sheldon replied, shaking her head. “Sybille went to all the trouble of calling him here. Whether he wants to or not, he’s gonna wake Sybille up.”

“I have to agree with that,” the director said as he adjusted the energizing crystals.

“Wake her up . . .” Ai-Ling muttered. “Wake up someone who received the kiss of the Nobility . . . I wonder if he could?”

“What other point would he have in being here?” said Dr. Allen.

Ai-Ling was about to open her mouth to speak when the old woman’s harsh tone stopped her.

“Leave your thoughts as just that. I certainly don’t wanna hear them.”

Silence descended on them until the intercom set in the wall started to buzz softly. Getting to his feet, Dr. Allen pushed the talk button and asked, “What is it?”

The nurse’s voice wasn’t very loud, but the other two heard her well enough.

“So, they’re here, are they?” the director muttered, confirming that he’d gotten the message before he released the talk button again.

“What’ll you do? Are you going to leave Sybille’s dream erased?”

Dr. Allen shook his head at Ai-Ling’s question. His gesture carried something more with it, but the woman didn’t want to interpret it as despair.

“Is there anything else we can do?” the old woman asked as she rocked.

“We won’t know until we try,” the director said, reaching for his machine.

DAYS THAT WILL NEVER COME AGAIN