EYES THAT GLEAM IN THE DARK

CHAPTER 2

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I

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Night soon fell without further incident. After tethering the horses to hooks on the back of the wagon, the whole group settled down for the evening behind a sand dune. A certain air of dignity prevailed over the world. Though darkness had covered everything, the heavens hadn’t lost their dull gray clouds, which continued to hang over the heads of the little group. As the temperature fell rapidly, no one said a thing. White breath alone spilled from their lips.

“A hell of a desert this is,” Clay groused as he warmed himself by the electronic heater he’d set down in a firmer spot in the sand. “Hot as a bastard by day and cold as a bitch at night. I don’t mind it cooling off some, but the damn temperature’s dropped more than sixty degrees!”

“There’s a good side to it, though,” Granny interjected as she held her hands out over Clay’s heater.

“Hey, don’t be sidling up to my stove like we’re best buddies or something. That lousy wagon of yours has a heating system in it, don’t it?” the younger Bullow said harshly.

Not the least bit fazed, Granny replied, “That’s pretty tight-fisted talk for someone who calls himself a man. Well, with a temperament like that, I’m not surprised you start blubbering at the first little chill. Sure it’s cold, but see how the grains of sand get heavier in the lower temperatures so it’s not blowing around like it does all day? Of course, it helps there’s no wind, either.”

“Damn straight,” Bingo concurred in a deep voice from a spot some eight or ten feet from Clay. Now the younger Bullow couldn’t possibly argue with Granny. But what kind of man could his older brother be? He wasn’t by the heater. Why, he wasn’t even lying down. He was still astride his cyborg horse, sitting in the kind of hard saddle that ordinarily left a rider numb below the waist after three or more hours of riding.

Granny muttered, “Strange tastes your brother’s got.” And it came as little surprise that she sounded a bit unnerved.

“Not really. You wanna talk about strange, there’s your guy!” Clay said, tossing his jaw in the direction of Granny’s wagon.

Leaving his cyborg horse beside the vehicle, D had lain back against a nearby sand dune with his sword in his left hand and his eyes shut.

“If that guy don’t look like the loneliest thing ever. And it ain’t because he’s turned his back on the world. With him, everybody’s happy to see him coming, but no one’s sorry to see him go. And anybody who catches sight of him is bound to step aside on account of that intense scent he’s got about him.”

“Yes, the scent,” the crone said with a nod as she followed Clay’s gaze. “The smell of blood. The scent of solitude. But you still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” Clay asked, eyes opening wide.

“She’s right,” the slender black shadow on horseback said.

“Not you too, bro! You’re siding with an old hag over your own brother?”

Before Clay had finished airing his complaint, D sat up without making a sound. Grains of sand spilled like waves down the slope he’d been leaning against. Eyes still closed as he stood up straight, he then froze in place like a bronze sculpture.

“What is it?” Clay asked, squinting his eyes.

Granny’s face grew tense, too. There was no trace of movement around them—just the night frozen solid. That’s all that was out there.

D’s silhouette shifted. With a movement just as brusque as the one that’d put him on his feet in the first place, he seated himself again in the same spot.

Clay and the crone looked at each other.

“What is it?” Clay said again.

The old woman went over to D. “Did something happen?” she asked.

D didn’t raise his eyes. “It rained sand,” he said.

“Sand?”

“In this desert,” the Hunter continued, “what we know about the world doesn’t count for much, it seems.”

“Did you sense something?”

“It’s going to get more dangerous. Try not to make things any worse.”

“Is that a fact? Well, we’ll be counting on you, in that case,” the crone remarked, pursuing the matter no further. If she left things to the Hunter, she couldn’t possibly go wrong. Her feelings on the subject were more a matter of rationality than trust—she didn’t want to be burdened with too much information when she could have D shouldering it all. Cold air suddenly snaked into her nostrils, and Granny sneezed loudly.

“Hey,” Clay called out to D. “You seem to know an awful lot about this desert. So, why don’t you tell us what’s lying ahead? We’re in this together, and we’re all headed the same way. Why not share the wealth, eh?” His tone was somewhat belligerent.

D didn’t move a muscle.

“Hey, don’t play games with me. You plan on keeping everything to yourself?” Clay blustered, not giving up. In a desert crossing such as this, any information about the vicious creatures it contained could literally mean the difference between life and death. He was deadly serious.

“Wait just a second, you two,” Granny interrupted. “We’ve barely finished our first day out here, right? We have a falling out this early in the game, then there’s no point in traveling together in the first place. Think about it, D. There’s some sense to what he’s saying. We don’t want to go plodding off across the sands without the slightest clue now. Tell him some of what you know.”

“Not some of it. All of it.” There was composure to the warrior’s tone. He was ready to fight if need be. His right hand drifted toward the harp at his waist.

“Come now, D,” Granny prodded.

Clay’s index finger was poised by his harp. He pulled back on one of the strings, and then he stopped. He saw D open his eyes. Cold water rushed down from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine—the Hunter’s glare was that powerful.

“If I tell you, you’ll have to go first,” D said in the kind of voice that crept along the ground.

“Fine by me,” Clay replied with a magnanimous bow. It was no bluff. He seemed to have considerable confidence in himself. “I wouldn’t be a weasel and ask you to go first anyhow. I’ll plow dead ahead wherever we gotta go. So, just put your mind at ease and tell me all about it.”

“The moving forest,” said D. Clay noticed that the cloud of white that spilled from the Hunter’s lips with his breath was far fainter than that of the rest of them. “If the notes I have are correct, it was about a dozen miles southwest of here. But it is a moving forest, after all.”

“Meaning there’s no telling where it’s gone? That’s a hoot!”

“The person who left those notes only saw it in motion from a long way off, but didn’t go any closer. Whether or not he was lucky in that respect, I can’t say.”

“I see,” said Clay.

“And another thing—there are people.”

“What?!” Granny cried, her eyes bugging out. She’d thought whatever else slipped from D’s lips couldn’t possibly surprise her, but she was wrong. “People out in this desert? Stop pulling my leg.”

“That’s what it said in the notes,” D continued softly. “About thirty in all. Apparently, they attacked on cyborg horses about a hundred and twenty miles south of here. Killed almost a dozen of the traveler’s companions and made off with their goods and the corpses.”

“What would they take corpses for?” Clay asked.

Giving him no reply, D simply said, “There’s more. It seems they were shot and stabbed but did not die.”

Silence descended.

Bingo’s torso rose from his mount. “Immortal, are they?” he said in a low sleepy voice.

“That’s all I know,” D said. His eyes were closed.

Clay shrugged his shoulders. “That’s no big freaking deal, is it, bro?” he said to the figure on horseback. He sounded thoroughly relieved. Perhaps a desert plagued by beasts and immortal bandits was nothing to them. “That right there scares me a lot more,” Clay said, tossing his jaw in the wagon’s direction. There was no one but Tae inside, but everyone was well aware of what the hidden represented.

It was at just that moment that the wagon’s door opened. Clay grimaced awkwardly and rubbed his scruffy beard. Tae’s head hung low; it seemed to be something of a habit with the girl. Perhaps averting her gaze had kept the weight of her fate from crushing her.

“Get back inside. It’s cold out here,” Granny shouted. The rebuff had a touch of animosity to it. While it was her job to find children who’d been “hidden,” she was entitled to feel however she liked about her charges.

“Aw, why don’t you just leave her be?” Clay said as he glared at the crone’s wrinkled face from the corner of his eye. “It’s a hell of a lot more comfortable here than blasting the heat in there. Besides, a person’s got a right to do whatever they damn well please. She don’t have to take orders from anyone. And I’d be tickled pink to have a cutie like her out here instead of all these ugly mugs I’m traveling with.”

Knowing as he did Granny Viper’s name, Clay also surely had a good idea of the girl’s circumstances, but his tone held neither fear nor loathing. No doubt he’d be brimming with confidence until the very moment he died.

Tae quickly ducked back inside.

Giving an appreciative whistle, Clay said, “Now, ain’t she a beauty. What’s her name, anyway?”

Granny met the man’s cheery inquiry with a stern visage. “Let’s be perfectly clear on something,” she said, her voice rolling across the ground like a toxic cloud. “That girl is my merchandise. Try anything funny and you’ll find yourself in hell trying to get some action from a she-devil.”

“Well, that’d have to beat looking at your ugly kisser,” Clay sneered back. “Your merchandise may be pricey, but that don’t mean it’s good. We all know what happens to most hidden who go back home, so you’d best pray that she ain’t one of them.”

“You needn’t worry about it,” Granny replied snidely. “My job just entails getting them home. What happens after that doesn’t concern me. On the other hand, until I get ’em there, I’ll look out for them even if it costs me my life. And I’m not letting anyone pull anything funny with her.”

“Interesting,” Clay said, licking his chops. “Well, just let me give you fair warning then. Before this little trip of ours is done, I’m gonna leave my mark on your precious goods.”

“Oh, is that right?” Granny shot back, her eyes growing wider by the second.

“Knock it off, Clay,” a sober voice said, shattering the tension. It belonged to Bingo. “Well,” he continued, “it looks like the best thing to do is pull out of here as soon as possible.”

Both Clay and Granny turned in the direction that the skinny figure indicated with a toss of his chin. White sand was dropping all around a form of unearthly beauty. Returning his weapon and sheath to his back, D stared out at one point in the darkness.

“What is it now?” Clay asked with seeming relish.

“Can you make something out?” Bingo inquired sleepily.

“Butterflies,” D replied, walking over to his horse without making a sound.

“Hey, Hunter! You just gonna turn tail and run then?” Clay sneered, as if he’d been waiting for the chance to say these exact words.

“So, we’ve got no choice but to plow right through them?” Bingo added.

Not replying to Bingo’s query, D merely said, “I don’t think this is a job for me.” He was looking right at the old woman.

“So you know what I have up my sleeve, then?” Granny said, her eyes going wide. “If my moves have become public knowledge, I may have to learn a whole new bag of tricks.”

Just as D mounted his horse, Granny seated herself in the wagon. With an expression that said he didn’t have a clue what was going on, Clay put his feet into the stirrups. Though all of them strained their eyes, they didn’t see anything—the darkness drank up every sound, leaving everything in a state of utter silence. D’s mount took a few steps away from them.

“Hold up a minute. Won’t we be tackling this together?” Granny called out to D.

“I don’t remember asking you to follow along after me.”

“When you said this wasn’t a job for you, was that supposed to mean you’re leaving the rest of us to our own devices then? You’re not a real compassionate man now, are you?” Granny railed at the Hunter, but D had ridden his horse beyond the reach of her abuse.

Perhaps nothing save the hyper-keen senses of a dhampir could’ve detected the paper-thin presence that was closing in on them from the depths of the darkness. At long last, the wind moved around them. The flowing air came from the beating of countless wings, yet was still strangely light. The mass consisted of butterflies beyond number—a swarm of thousands, or even tens of thousands. But where did they live, and what did they seek?

They rushed at D, enveloping the tall figure in black with the color of darkness. His blade flashed out. Without so much as the sound of a slash through the air, all of the bisected butterflies started to drop to the ground as D galloped through them. As the mount and rider advanced in a dusty cloud, the wave of black drifted away as if frightened of the Hunter, but an instant later it became a broad band that began following after him. It was only natural that the rest of the swarm set upon the wagon and the other two riders.

“Damnation! What in blazes is this?” Granny screamed from the driver’s seat.

“These little buggers sure have some nerve!” Clay shouted as he plucked off a few that were covering his face. The black butterflies relentlessly besieged his livid countenance; Bingo had already been reduced to an ebony sculpture.

Suddenly the world of darkness felt a protest of orange light. Caught in three thousand degrees of flame, the butterflies them-selves added fuel to the fire.

Pulling a tank filled with fire-dragon oil and a leather pressure-pump up onto the driver’s seat, Granny waved the reinforced plastic nozzle around as she cackled, “Well, how do you like them apples?! Have another taste of one of the Capital’s very own flamethrowers. I’ve still got plenty of this fuel to go around.”

And in keeping with the crone’s haughty talk, tongues of flame licked out in all directions as helpless butterflies fell like blazing scraps of paper. Not quite so conspicuous due to Granny Viper’s furious battle, Clay and Bingo nonetheless were engaging the butterflies about forty feet away. The odd thing was, the butterflies really weren’t doing anything. There was no sign of them injecting some solvent to melt the travelers’ flesh or clogging their windpipes to suffocate them; they merely kept going after them.

“Damn! No matter how many we fight off, they just keep coming. At this rate, there’ll be no end to it, bro.”

There was no answer to Clay’s remark—Bingo’s entire body was draped in black cloth. While the younger Bullow struggled to pull the insects off his own face, his older brother sat on his horse without moving a muscle. As a result, it looked like he’d grown twice as fat.

“Damn you little pests!” Clay shouted through the airborne butterflies that eclipsed the darkness. And then a beautiful note rang out that sounded like someone strumming a guitar. But what happened when that sound melded with the darkness, and then became a wave that rippled out?

The swarm of butterflies that appeared to float on into eternity all disappeared within a ten-foot radius. Another note resounded: every time the mellifluous sound rang out, the maddening black swarm of insects that rushed in to replace their fallen comrades disappeared. And in the center of the gap that’d opened so suddenly was Clay. His right hand was on the harp he wore on his hip. He kept one eye on his older brother.

“Bingo’s fine,” the younger Bullow told himself. “The old bag’s giving them a hell of a fight, too. Now where the hell’s that Hunter gone off to?”

While Granny was indeed on top of the situation, Clay’s older brother was blanketed, mount and all, with black butterflies. What was fine about that?

At that very moment, the swarm of butterflies smoothly drifted away. Because the creatures did no harm but merely trailed along after them, Granny and Clay found them all the more disturbing, and their expressions stiffened accordingly.

Gasps of surprise slipped from two pairs of lips at the same time.

The butterflies had begun to glow. So like the darkness in hue, first the contours of their wings and then their entire forms had suddenly begun to take on a silvery light.

“What the hell . . .” Clay muttered as the silver butterflies formed several thick bands before him that then intertwined and began to leisurely eddy about.

This wasn’t merely some pattern formed by the capricious flight of the creatures. It was clearly a configuration purposely orch-estrated by some higher intelligence. Straight lines and curves, polyhedrons and circles all existed in the same place and time, twisting together and pulling apart again. Yet for all that activity, the swirling figures remained focused on a single point in space.

While they weren’t sure how long they’d watched, Granny and Clay felt like they were being pulled into the center of that vortex, and the two of them frantically shut their eyes. A few seconds passed.

“Looks like it’s over,” said a cold voice that sounded equidistant from the pair as it set their eardrums trembling. Opening their eyes in unison, they found a man on horseback stopped about fifteen feet from them. It was D.

“I just knew you’d be back,” Granny exclaimed with joy, still holding a nozzle that dripped liquefied fat.

“Looks like he came back once he found out the butterflies were harmless,” Clay muttered scornfully.

“I just came to tell you something,” D said dispassionately from the back of his horse.

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“A tornado has sprung up nearly a mile ahead of us. Not a very large one, but enough to pick all of us up. It’ll be here in about five minutes.”

Of course, Granny and Clay must’ve wanted to know how the young Hunter had eluded the swarm of butterflies, and whether or not he’d watched their dizzying display until the end, but the threat of natural disaster took precedence over all else. As she stowed the flamethrower again, Granny asked the young man apprehensively, “You’ll be going with us, won’t you?”

Needless to say, his reply was the same as always: “You’re free to follow me if you like.”

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II

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While a pale ash colored the east, light began to rain down at the same rate the darkness dissipated. It was dawn.

The group had moved about three miles west from their first encampment and was sheltered behind a sand dune. When the wagon door opened quietly, a pale and reserved-looking face peered out. Roaring snores crept from the vehicle’s interior—the whole group had gone to bed about three hours earlier. Tae looked around sleepily at her surroundings, but they weren’t particularly terrifying. Behind a dune to her right lay a lumpy blanket where the toes of a pair of boots jutted from the end. Apparently, that was Clay. There was no sign of his older brother, and his horse wasn’t with Clay’s, either. There was no telling where a man like that could’ve gone. Sweeping another seventy degrees, Tae’s eyes then halted. A figure in black was reflected in her widened pupils.

D was on the crest of a dune, staring off to the west. His form was reminiscent of the most exquisite sculpture, and as he focused solely on the direction they were headed, he had an air of intensity about him that suited the situation perfectly.

Tae climbed down from the wagon and headed for the dune. For a girl who seemed to have lost her own will and who was manipulated like a doll by the old woman, this was an unbelievably purposeful course of action. Climbing the dune, she was a few yards from the Hunter when she came to a halt. It was the words that came over the back of his black coat that stopped her.

“What brings you out here?” he asked.

Tae didn’t answer.

“There’s no telling what’ll come at us next out in this desert. Go back to the wagon.” His voice was soft, but it allowed no debate.

Tae closed her eyes. Her head still hung low, and her thin, bloodless lips trembled with fright. “I . . . I thought I might . . . answer your question . . .”

Back at the cheap hotel, D had asked the girl the name of the Noble who’d abducted her. Now it was a different question he put to her. “Do you want to tell me?” he asked.

Tae looked up at D with an expression that betrayed her surprise.

“Why have you decided to talk about it? If you don’t want to, don’t force yourself to do it.”

The girl didn’t know what to say.

“Did Granny put you up to this?”

Tae looked down again. It took a few seconds before she could speak again. “If you didn’t feel like helping . . . she said none of us would make it across the desert alive . . . that’s why . . .”

“Your parents are in Barnabas, aren’t they?”

Several more seconds of silence followed.

“It seems both of them are dead,” the girl replied. “But my big brother got married and took over the house.”

“In that case, you needn’t burden yourself unduly for the rest of the trip. I can’t take you there, but you’re free to follow me.”

Tae looked at D strangely. The black expanse of his back spoke volumes on loneliness and complete isolation. Somehow, she got the impression that the young man had nothing more to say to her. Tae backed away a few steps; she was too afraid to just turn around. Right as she was about to go, the girl hesitantly said, “I don’t remember anything at all. Just . . .”

Just what?

“In the darkness, there were always these two red eyes, blazing like rubies . . . watching me . . .”

The Hunter hadn’t turned toward her, and the girl then turned her back to him, too.

Not long after the sloping dune had hidden the tracks she left in the sand, another voice—a hoarse one—could be heard where D seemed to be alone. “Well, it looks like he got a taste of her after all,” it said with a chuckle. “In which case she’ll never know happiness no matter how she might try, eh? So, what do you suppose he did to her?”

There was no reply. D just kept his eyes trained straight ahead at the cold world of sand that seemed shrouded in gray light.

The voice laughed with amusement. “She may be behaving herself right now, but he isn’t crazy enough to snatch a human girl just so she can be his maidservant. Sooner or later, that girl’s bound to show her true colors. Our foes aren’t on the outside, but rather—”

“There are some girls that nothing happens to,” D finally replied.

“Sure, but that’s maybe one in ten thousand,” the voice shot back ruthlessly. “And just think about the miserable end this world has in store for all the rest of those girls—and I don’t just mean the ones he took.”

If that comment had been directed at anyone but D, they would’ve grown pale as they tried desperately to strike the answer from their brain, or perhaps they would’ve frozen on the spot from the overwhelming horror of it.

For the hidden, the tragedy really began when they were found and brought back to the world of humanity. There were girls who might suddenly sprout fangs and tear into someone’s throat the very day they were reunited with their parents. There were boys who might live uneventfully for months, or even years, before going mad without any warning whatsoever. There were actually records of a case a dozen years or so earlier where such children abandoned their parents again to live someplace in the mountains, but even there the madness in their blood set them to killing each other, until in the end they were all dead. You could say both the beginning and the end of the hidden’s tragic tale was penned when the children disappeared.

“You know how it is,” D’s left hand continued. “In the end, nothing good can come of that girl going back to her family. At first, her parents will weep for joy. They’ll probably want her to live with them, even if it means hiding her from the neighbors or moving to another region. But after a while, they’ll get to wondering if maybe her eyes don’t have a strange glint to them. Not that you can blame them. To eyes that have peered into the darkness of the other side, this world is a hollow reflection. And could anything shy of the sights of hell ever move those kids again? No, not till the end of time. And there’s the first act of the tragedy. The very parents who would’ve died to have their kid back now can’t even look at them. They lock the kid in their room. And then one day the two of them pack up a wagon and take off out of the blue, leaving just their kid in the house.”

The voice broke off there; D was squeezing his left hand into a fist. He did so with such force it wouldn’t have been surprising to hear the bones cracking.

But from his fist, a tortured voice said, “I suppose you could say the kids that get left behind are the lucky ones, though. Some parents are more . . . thorough. The same parents who spent their last dalas searching for their kids one day start whittling down a piece of wood and putting a point on the end of it . . .”

Something red had slowly begun to seep from between D’s fingers.

“Oof . . . No one can really say . . . who it’s harder for . . . the parents or the kids . . . But I can tell you this . . . If that girl there never goes home . . . no one . . . gets . . . hurt . . .”

At that moment, D quietly turned around. Seemingly following Tae’s tracks, he went down the dune. After mounting his cyborg horse, he wheeled around in the direction of Clay and the wagon.

“There’s a tornado approaching,” the Hunter declared. “We’re moving out.”

After just enough time to contemplate his words, the blanket rose and the door to the wagon opened. Both the old woman and the warrior had been awake for some time. They certainly weren’t average travelers.

“What, again?” Clay complained.

“Seriously?” Granny Viper asked, just to be sure. “I mean, it’s not like that sort of thing springs up all the time. So, I take it this is a different one from last night, right?”

“No, it’s the same one,” D said flatly.

“Meaning all of what, exactly?” Clay asked, his lascivious expression twisting into a sneer. “Are you trying to tell us ol’ Mr. Twister’s out looking for us or something?”

Ignoring him, D started riding to the east.

“Son of a bitch,” Clay growled, hatred in his eyes, as he hustled after the Hunter and toward his own horse.

Granny made haste, too.

No sooner had the wagon taken off than Clay did something rather strange. Looking all around, he cupped one hand by his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could, “Bro, I’m going on ahead. You catch up with me later, okay?”

Though Bingo didn’t seem to be anywhere within range of Clay’s cries, it seemed like his younger brother might have been able to see him. Saying nothing more and not seeming at all anxious, the warrior lashed his horse into action. As he galloped toward the wagon that was already twenty or thirty yards ahead of him, he looked over his shoulder.

“God, that’s unbelievable,” Clay said, the words spilling from him like a trickle of disbelief.

Distance-wise, it must’ve still been a couple of miles away—a line that looked like a twisted metal wire tied the heavens to the earth. It was bizarre the way that either end was blurred, seemingly dissolving into the sky at one extreme and the ground at the other. As far as Clay could see, it just kept growing thicker and thicker.

Riding full-tilt, the younger Bullow pulled even with the wagon. Granny Viper also wore a look of desperation as she gripped the reins. She recognized the tornado for what it was now.

The door opened, and Tae’s face appeared.

“Don’t come out here,” Clay barked, but it was the old woman’s expression, instead, that stiffened at the remark. Tae remained as devoid of emotion as ever.

Clay rode up on D’s right-hand side. For a split second the desire to take a shot at the Hunter from behind surfaced in his brain, but it quickly faded again. “What the hell’s the story with this tornado?!” he shouted. “It’s following us! A while back, I joked it was looking for us, but this is just—”

“It’s a strange desert, isn’t it?” D said in a rare response.

“Damned if I ever heard of a tornado chasing travelers all night long. But we managed to give it the slip once already. We’ll just do it again, right?”

Giving no reply, D flicked his gaze to the rear.

Imitating him, Clay looked back as well…and groaned despite himself.

The tornado looked like it was three feet thick now instead of a thin wire. The distance was dwindling; it wasn’t a mile away now, or even five hundred yards.

Shouting something, Clay kicked his horse’s flanks. As he shot away from D, he heard the Hunter behind him say, “The wagon’s going to be sucked in.” His voice was cold, like a machine’s. Clay quivered, as if an electrical current had just shot through his powerful back.

“Do something, D!” Granny cried, her voice trailing after the Hunter.

Grains of sand buffeted all of their faces.

“This seriously ain’t good,” Clay muttered as he pulled back on the reins. Letting D pass him, he pulled up next to the wagon. “Granny, send the girl over here,” he shouted. His eyes were glittering.

“Don’t make me laugh! Why, I’d no sooner trust a goddamn rapist like you than—”

“I’m a lot faster than your wagon. We might just be able to get away.”

“Give it a rest. Before I’d ever give her to you, I’d let the whirlwind have her.”

“If that’s the way you want it.”

Clay flew into the air. His huge form seemed to become feather-light, and he landed right next to the old woman. He then bulled his way to the door.

“Stop it. If you don’t, I’ll—”

Powerful winds tore away the rest of Granny’s cry. Not only did it tug at her words, but her body as well—the instant the edge of the fiercely writhing, sand-lifting pillar of black touched the wagon, both the vehicle and its three passengers were thrown high into the sky.

.

III

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As Tae’s consciousness pulled away from the darkness, the conviction that she had returned to reality hit her. She was lying down. Beneath her, it was soft. Sand, no doubt. And it was hot. The sand was scorching. Slowly, Tae moved her limbs. She wasn’t in great pain. The dull throbbing she felt here and there was from being tossed around inside the wagon when it was picked up by the tornado. Propping herself up with both arms, she looked all around. A sense of incongruity dug into her spine.

The endless expanse of sand was gone; right before her towered a fairly high mound of stone. It looked about a hundred and fifty feet high. Come to mention it, she was surrounded on all sides by rocks large and small. As it occurred to her that it wouldn’t be that strange to find such a rock formation in the desert, Tae picked herself up off the ground. Sweat spread across the back of her neck. She had no idea what time it was.

“Well, little lady, looks like you made it okay,” someone called from the rock behind her, prompting her to turn in a daze. When she did, her eyes caught the massive form of a man in a brimless blue cap. Feeling the malicious lust in his eyes as he watched her, Tae backed away a few steps.

“Don’t go being so cold with me, now,” Clay said, a broad smile creeping across his face as he approached her. The beads of sweat covering his face glistened. “I just came to a minute ago myself. This is a hell of a place to find ourselves. Could be me and you are the only two who survived, you know. In which case, it’d be better for both of us if we could play nice, now wouldn’t it?”

“Keep away from me.”

“Well, now. You got a lot more to say than I thought, don’t you? I didn’t really get to hear what you were jawing about with the Vampire Hunter. But I’d sure like to hear me some of that sexy voice of yours.”

Before Clay had finished speaking, he pulled the girl’s tiny body close to his own massive form. Given almost no time to resist, Tae was pushed back against the sand.

“Stop it!” Tae screamed as fingers hard as rock sank into her breasts through her blouse. When she tried to push the warrior off, her hands were caught by the wrist and twisted up over “her head. Clay’s lips came closer. The girl desperately turned her face away. His lips touched her cheek. Suddenly all the strength drained from the girl, and Clay knit his brow. Re-gardless, he sought her lips again. She was as unresponsive as a wax effigy.

“What the hell?! You giving in already? That’s no fun at all. C’mon. Scream or cry or something!”

Though the younger Bullow believed his words had carried sufficient threat, Tae’s expression hadn’t changed at all. This wasn’t just some trick to rob him of his carnal urges.

Unable to stand it any longer, Clay shouted, “Hey!” and shook the girl by the shoulders. Taking her chin in hand, he turned her face back. The instant their eyes met, a moan slipped from him. What occupied Tae’s eyes was something humans were never meant to see. Sadness and hatred, suffering and fear—all of those emotions commingled in her eyes, but more than anything they were shrouded with a distant coldness beyond imagining.

“You felt that all those years . . .” Clay muttered absentmindedly.

“I remember . . . a little . . .” the eighteen-year-old girl said in a tone that could freeze even a hardened fighting man. “A little of what happened to me there . . . You’re exactly the same . . . All of you . . . Humans and them . . .”

“You mean you were . . .” Clay muttered, and then a harsh sound rang out. With a cry like a wild animal he pulled back, and then sprang forward. A howl through the wind followed after him: a mighty lash from a leathery whip.

“Prepare to take your medicine. I’ll flay the hide off your hands and face!” Granny shouted from beside a massive boulder five or ten feet to the right of where Clay had first appeared. The whip whistled; it hardly seemed possible that an old woman was manip-ulating the whip as it dealt Clay a blow that stung to the bone.

Eyes still shielded by both hands, he hurled a single insult: “You fucking hag!” Once again, Clay leapt back, and a beautiful sound rang through the air. A split second later, half of the whip that was snaking after the man’s massive form disappeared like a puff of smoke. At a loss for words, Granny stiffened with tension.

“I’m gonna punch your ticket, you old bag!” Clay shouted, his right hand creeping across his harp. A prismatic cloud suddenly spread before his eyes.

It was sand. The very instant that she saw Clay was drawing on his own skill, Granny quickly discarded her whip and pulled the sand from the jar at her waist. However, the strange color of the sand and the way she used it made it clear that this was no simple trick to blind her opponent.

The sand that fell between the crone’s feet and the tips of Clay’s boots began to take human form—an image of Clay himself appeared on the ground.

Something gleamed in the old woman’s right hand. The moment the short knife she kept hidden on her stabbed into the sand painting on the ground, Clay clutched his right ear with one hand. Redness seeped out between the palm of his hand and his cheek, but he didn’t make a sound.

“What do you want carved up next? An eye, or maybe your nose?”

Buffeted with the kind of threats that made grown men and fire dragons alike freeze in their tracks, Clay smirked as if the situation was so amusing that he just couldn’t help himself. “Granny Viper, People Finder—I guess the name ain’t just for show after all,” he said. “Now things are starting to get good. This is just the way I like it!”

“I was about to say the same thing myself,” Granny said, licking her lips. The situation was rapidly escalating to a dangerous boiling point where more blood could be spilt and lives could be lost.

And then someone said, “Hold it right there.”

Both of them froze at that pitch-black voice. Two pairs of eyes zipped halfway up the rocky mound, where the hem of a black long coat billowed out in the scant breeze. It wasn’t clear whether it was Granny or Clay who mumbled D’s name.

“Put your personal differences aside until we figure out what’s going on with the desert. Where’s the girl?” the Hunter asked.

Clay and Granny finally noticed that Tae was no longer there. An almost pitiful look of distress rose on the old woman’s haughty countenance.

.

Tae came around the rocks and wiped her lips. Bewilderment and despair were rising from the pit of her stomach, spreading through her whole body. She didn’t know what she was going to do next, or even what she should do. She started walking. She didn’t want to sit there crying, though she wasn’t really sure why she shouldn’t. She wasn’t sure where she was going; all she knew was that wanted to get away from everyone.

As countless phantoms flickered in her consciousness, one vivid image came to the fore, and then faded: crimson eyes glowing in the darkness . . . coming closer.

Where will I go? What will I do?

Those eyes were peering into her patiently. As she tried to squeeze out a scream, her throat convulsed, barely choking it off. From behind the crimson glow, a pale visage vaguely drifted into view. It was a face that was incredibly beautiful, manly, and above all, sad. An emotion that felt like crystal-clear water filled the girl’s heart.

Compared to that, she thought, compared to the fate that fashioned those eyes and that face, my pain is nothing.

The red points of light faded.

Tae noticed she’d come to a standstill. I should go back, she thought. Though she had no idea what awaited her, she decided to forge ahead anyway. Then suddenly Tae turned right back around as she heard something stir behind her. She looked over her shoulder. A good two seconds passed before she could push a scream past her lips.

.

The first one to race over to the girl was Clay. The instant he came around the rocks, he saw Tae running toward him. Steadying the girl who’d just thrown herself at his chest, he then concentrated his gaze on the person before him. It was a man clad in a tattered shirt and trousers. Covered with a bushy overgrowth of hair and beard, his face looked emaciated, although his physique was relatively well-defined. The man stood there dazed for a few seconds and then fell to his knees on the spot.

“What in blazes do we have here?” Granny said from behind Clay.

“I don’t know. By the look of him, he seems like a traveler lost in the desert. But how the hell could he get by living in this hole in the rocks? Could be dangerous.”

Grabbing Tae by the arm and pulling her away, Granny told the warrior, “You’ll have to help me while I bring her away someplace safe. If you’re a real man, you’ll take care of matters here.” And then she beat a hasty retreat.

“Who the hell are you?” Clay asked, his fingers still poised on his harp. Murderous intent billowed from every inch of his body—it would’ve been enough to make the average person collapse on the spot. He was head-and-shoulders above the warriors and Hunters found everywhere else.

Scared perhaps by the younger Bullow’s demeanor, the man shook his head repeatedly and raised both hands defenselessly. “How . . . how did all of you get here?” he asked. It almost sounded like his windpipe was clogged with sand.

Odd as it was, it prompted Clay to reply, “We got scooped up by a mean old tornado and went for a little flight.”

Clay watched with surprise as the other man’s shoulders slumped part-way through his reply. His hands came down to hide his face. “It got you, too? I just knew it. We’ll all be stuck here for the rest of our lives . . .”

“What’s that?!” Clay bellowed. “Just what do you mean by that? And who the hell are you, anyway?!”

When Clay took a step toward the other man, his eyes were drawn to several riders coming around the base of the mountain. Perhaps noticing them too, the man who’d been crouched there suddenly leapt back up, gave a frightened cry, and raced over to Clay. Just as the ragged man was about to collide with him, Clay dodged easily to the right and stuck his foot out. Falling forward with great impetus, the man threw a cloud of dust high into the air. But he quickly got back up again. He might have clutched at Clay’s legs, but the warrior effortlessly backed away to keep the contact from happening.

“Please, help me,” the man groaned. “I ran away from them. Up until yesterday, I was one of them. There was no use trying to escape . . . no one’s getting out of this damn desert!” the man cried with the most appalling look of hopelessness hammered into his worn face.

But Clay did him one better as he glared back at the stranger with an almost demonic expression. “Don’t make me laugh, you little coward. Unless you want me to turn you over to them, you’d best promise to answer me straight about everything I wanna know. If you do, I’ll chase ’em off for you. If not, I’ll personally see to it that they butcher you on the spot.”

“Okay,” the man said, nodding without complaint. Although his face didn’t look like that of a weak-willed person, the man exhibited considerable fear.

“Just so long as we’re clear on that. Wait behind me, then. Oh, and one more thing: you gotta promise me you’ll keep your mitts off the girl.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Good. Get back there. You can relax now.” As he listened to the man scurrying behind him for cover, Clay stood there waiting for the approaching dust cloud.

Though the man said that these were his compatriots, there must’ve been a grave mistake. Astride cyborg horses that looked brand new, the group of men wore shirts so neat and starched they looked freshly laundered. There were four of them.

“Hey there!” Clay called out, raising his left hand in greeting. The gazes that met him were like stone. His smile never fading a bit, the warrior continued, “We went and got ourselves carried off by a tornado. We’re in a spot of trouble, seeing as we don’t know where we’re at now. So, this is great. You guys sure are a sight for sore eyes. Just whereabouts would this happen to be?”

“We came for the man,” said the middle-aged man who stood at the fore—a powerfully built character, who seemed to be their leader. His voice was impenetrable. It was devoid of every emotion a human—or any creature, for that matter—normally possessed. Actually, the voice would’ve sounded more natural coming from a rock. “You’re coming with us, too.”

Clay bared his teeth in a pearly smile. “That’s fine by me. I had me a good upbringing, and I ain’t too tough. See, I hate to go anywhere alone. But this other guy says he don’t wanna go back, so I don’t reckon there’s any way to satisfy everybody here.”

The men didn’t even exchange glances with one another.

“Is that a fact?” the leader said. “In that case . . .”

Seeing the middle-aged man’s hand go for the firearm in his belt, Clay swung his right hand up from below. The broadsword he’d hidden up his sleeve became a flash of white that pierced the man’s throat. The man’s hand was on his gun; Clay saw the muzzle of it turn toward his chest. It disgorged flame. The breechblock moved back, and a sleek empty cartridge flew from the weapon.

Taking a hit from an explosive round that could’ve easily blown a human head apart on impact, Clay just smiled. The inner lining of his shirt came from the bark of the armor oak, which was harder than rock. His right hand flowed across the strings of his harp releasing a tremendous sound.

The man at the fore of the group became an ash-gray statue, and an instant later the same fate befell his horse. They both fell to the ground in a dusty cloud. There would be no further attacks; the three others behind the leader had turned to dust, too. Perhaps the only reason one rider and mount at the very back still retained their original shape in this sandy form was because they were at the very end of the audibility range for the sound.

“Maybe they don’t die, but they seem to turn to dust just fine,” Clay said as he raised his right hand and hacked off one of the motionless horse’s legs. Not bothering to watch the new pile of sand the collapsing figures created, Clay looked up. He had no idea where they’d been hiding, but another horse and rider now galloped away about fifty yards from him. “Son of a bitch!” he moaned, cursing his own carelessness.

Taking his harp in hand, he turned it toward the rider fleeing over a rise. The device generated ultrasonic waves that destroyed the molecular structure of any material, and as if to compensate for the cruelty of those sound waves, the vibrating strings also created splendid melodies.

However, Clay didn’t have a chance to unleash another deadly attack with his fingers. The one surviving attacker suddenly saw a figure standing in the road before him. His horse didn’t stop. The moment it looked like the beast’s iron-shod hooves were going to trample him, the shadowy figure leapt up. Even after D landed, with his long coat spread out around him, the horse and rider kept right on running. But when the longsword clicked smoothly back into the sheath on D’s back, the rider’s head finally left his shoulders and rolled across the road.

“Glad you could pitch in at the end there,” Clay said as sarcastically as possible to D, who walked toward him without even glancing at the results his own skill had wrought. “Where the hell did you run off to after you found out the girl was missing? Weren’t trying to get a preview of my skills, were you? No, you wouldn’t do any petty shit like that. Went to check out the neighborhood, right? You’re a cold customer. Didn’t you give any thought to what’d happen if I found the girl? And you left me to handle all of them, too. If I got killed, the old bag and girl would’ve both been goners, you know.”

“You didn’t get killed,” was all D said.

Clay had no reply, and that was the end of it. But three pairs of frightened eyes greeted the approaching beauty in black.