---

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From the depths of the earth there spilled a pale light. It was alive.

At the edge of the earth, D gazed in silence at the crystalline mountain. Whatever sort of thoughts D had as he looked out at the scene couldn’t be read in his elegant features.

“Is that it?” Bingo called out from ten feet behind the Hunter.

“You said you saw it in a dream—was this it?”

“Yep.” His reply was gummy with sleep and fatigue. “It had some crazy idea about combining humans and Nobility, of all things. Even after the research center here fell into ruin, the machines kept going, and they let the things they made run loose in the desert. Can’t say I blame the thing for wanting to get smarter.”

Almost as if in response to Bingo’s explanation, the light in the depths of the earth grew stronger.

Long before, forbidden experiments had been conducted in the vast region guarded by the sandstorm. Regardless of what the results might’ve been, time marched on cruelly, and unbeknownst to anyone the abandoned machinery produced a child beyond anything they could have intended.

What did D think of the desert having a will, or the reason it sought to evolve even further? His gorgeous visage clouded darkly from the incessantly blowing sand and glowed mysteriously with the light rising from deep in the earth.

“What now?” asked Bingo.

Saying nothing, D got off his horse. In his left hand he carried a rolled-up blanket. The wind echoed through the heavens. Taking a knife from his pocket, he bent over and began digging up the ground.

The actions that followed were most likely beyond the com-prehension of Bingo, who watched the Hunter from behind. But then, in this condition there was really no telling whether Bingo was awake or asleep, and perhaps the daydreaming warrior never had any intention of watching D at all.

Once he’d dug up enough earth to fill both arms, D opened the blanket. A bundle of thick, twisted branches spilled out—no doubt procured back in the moving forest. Taking two of the logs in hand, D rubbed them together lightly until they produced flames. Throwing them down on the dirt and adding the remaining wood, D then held his left hand up to the flames. The knife in his right hand flashed across the opposite wrist. Fresh blood gushed out like a torrent, falling on the flames and the dark earth so that a strange black smoke billowed from them.

“Is that enough?” D asked.

“I suppose that will do,” a hoarse voice somewhere around D’s left wrist replied.

That same hand rose high into the air. And as soon as it did, a howling wind twisted all around the young man in black. Sand and dust dancing wildly, the smoke and flames stretched long and thin and perilously close to snapping. Then, finally, they did snap right off. The flames flowed into a single stream of a color that defied description. The palm of D’s outstretched left hand swallowed the stream—not only the flames, but the earth that’d tasted his blood, as well.

Earth, wind, fire, and water—all four elements had been assembled. In less than three seconds the strange suction ended. It seemed to have some significance to D, as he then walked over to the rim of the crack in the earth. His horse whinnied and backed away. Arriving at the edge of the precipitous drop, D pulled out a knife with his left hand.

In his mind, something spoke to him and asked: Are you going to do it?

The Hunter drew his left hand back behind his head.

A gleaming sphere poked halfway out of Bingo’s mouth.

How I’ve waited for this day so very long. The whole reason I attacked you was because I thought you might put me to rest.

D stopped moving. The prismatic sphere leisurely approached his head.

“Why don’t you put yourself at rest?” the Hunter asked.

I tried, but I could not, even though it was what I wished. The temptation to rise again was simply too great. You must tell me, am I the only one who finds it so?

D bent back at the waist. The globe burst without a trace.

Tell me. Everyone wishes to be something else, don’t they? Even when they know that it would involve incredible pain and weariness.

D’s knife became a flash of light flying through the air.

Don’t they?

The flash of light disappeared, swallowed up by part of the crystal forest.

Without pause, D mounted his horse.

“Is that the end of it?” Bingo inquired in a vague tone.

Giving no reply, D began to slowly ride away. After his mount had taken three steps, what sounded like a sigh could be heard from the hole at his back. Seven steps and one part of the crystals gave off a pale glow. Ten steps and the glow became points of light that collapsed into the crystal with a serene sound. After this, nothing more could be heard. Perhaps that’s how ruin was. Thousands and then tens of thousands of cracks raced through the glittering mass. Countless fragments formed, and then collapsed.

The two figures slowly riding away didn’t flinch. Needless to say, they didn’t look back, either.

.

Two hours after Granny and Clay looked around in amazement at the suddenly abating sandstorm, D and Bingo returned.

“It’s finished, isn’t it?” Granny asked. “If it’s a regular desert now, we should have no problem. Another two days and we’ll be across it. It looks like we’ll somehow make our arrival date after all. Well, then, let’s get a move on!” the old woman cried, pulling on her reins. Her team of four cyborg horses began tearing up the ground.

“Somebody up there must like that guy,” Clay grumbled as he climbed on the horse behind his older brother. “Of course, since he had you with him, bro, there was never any question he’d be okay.” Only after he’d said it did he seem to realize the contradiction in that logic; he could do no more than don an odd expression.

D rode by the brothers and asked, “Why did you stop what you were doing back there?”

His question dwindled in the distance, but in the end, Bingo never replied.

.

Three days later, in the early morning, the party entered the town of Barnabas.

“Well, this is where we say our goodbyes. Really, the only reason we made it this far was thanks to all of you. I could thank you a million times. Hey, you come out here, too,” the absurdly jubilant Granny called back to Tae from the driver’s seat.

D rode on without saying a word. Right behind him was Bingo on his horse, and Clay—who, not surprisingly, had climbed down to the ground.

“What, you boys going already?” asked the old woman. “I was just about to go deliver the girl to her home. Say, before I do, why don’t we have ourselves a drink?”

Clay alone looked back at her. When he saw the figure that lingered by Granny’s side like a white bloom, his ferocious face was suffused by a wondrous peace.

Perhaps noticing him, Tae lowered her head a bit.

Cupping his hand by his mouth, Clay coarsely shouted, “Hey, missy! I’ll be seeing you! It was a fun trip. Oh, and Granny—I’ll be sure to pay you back for making him go rescue me that time.”

“Okay, but I’m not gonna hold my breath waiting on it,” Granny said, both her voice and form dwindling in the distance, as did the form of the girl by her side. No one noticed that the girl watched the back of that black long coat for ages, her eyes hinting that it was the most dazzling thing she’d ever seen.

Wasting no time, D rode down one of the main streets and dismounted in front of a three-story building five blocks away. There was no sign of the Bullow Brothers; the town of Barnabas had a population of twenty-five hundred. As far as the buildings went, most were made of wood. Only after D had disappeared through a doorway did the first hopeless sighs escape from the dazed women who stood paralyzed in various parts of the street.

Just inside the door was a staircase, and to the right of the stairs hung a brass plaque engraved with the names of tenants.

Room 202: Thornton Law Offices. A black-gloved hand rapped on the door in question, and it opened right away. A young lady—apparently the secretary—froze there with her lipstick-rimmed mouth agape.

“Oh, don’t mind her—c’mon in!” a voice the Hunter had heard before called from beyond the entryway.

Gently pushing the woman aside, D slipped through the waiting room and opened the door.

The room was of moderate size. Behind the desk by the window sat Thornton, a sullen look on his face. “Welcome. Right on time. But what else should I expect from Vampire Hunter D?” The lawyer offered his hand, but then reconsidered and withdrew it. Many Hunters avoided shaking hands. It was a precaution against being caught off-guard.

“Tell me what I want to hear,” D said softly.

Thornton’s condition had been that he cross the desert and reach this location by a designated time—which was this morning. Now it was time to collect on the other half of the bargain.

“You aren’t going to ask how I was able to get here before you?” asked Thornton.

“No,” the Hunter replied, “Although there aren’t many who can operate a flyer.”

The lawyer nodded, saying, “I happen to be one of them, though. So, how was your trip?”

“Where did you meet him?” asked D.

“You should ask him that yourself.”

For the first time a hue of emotion surfaced on D’s face. “Where is he?”

“He’s in a certain run-down house on the southern edge of town. A long time ago, it was a Noble’s mansion. It’s all overgrown with weeds, but it seems he chooses his lodging based less on present appearances, and more on past glories. He should be sleeping at this hour.”

D turned around.

“Wait. I was merely conveying a message for him. Nobility or not, he is my client, you know. Why did he have you cross the desert?” Thornton asked, but his words merely crumbled as they met D’s back.

As the secretary watched him go, her mouth dropped open once more.

Thirty minutes later, the Vampire Hunter showed up at the dilapidated mansion. Across from the entrance, where even the bronze had crumbled with age, lay a hall as vast as the sea.

“Watch yourself,” his left hand said. “He’s here. I can feel him.”

And, almost as if to overshadow that remark, a solemn voice said, So glad you could make it.

The source of that comment was clear. Halfway up the grand staircase that curved into the feeble darkness from the far end of the hall there stood a ghostly figure.

Crossing that desert was to be a trial for you. Not one of combat. What you witnessed was the end of something.

There was a flash from D’s left hand, and three streaks of white light zipped through the black figure. As the rough wooden needles were swallowed by the darkness behind him, the figure smiled silently.

What did you see? What did you think? What of your own future? Do you still intend to subject yourself to day after merciless day of this? Do you not yearn for a life of peace?

D ran without making a sound. The rotten boards couldn’t take the impact of a pebble, but as D dashed across them he didn’t leave a single footprint. The Hunter cleared the first twenty stairs in just two bounds. He sprang—then slashed.

As the blade came straight down from above, the figure made no attempt to dodge it, but simply let it come. The blow passed through him without meeting any resistance.

This is your answer, then? Very well. That is what makes you my only success. But so long as you embrace that fate, death will ever cast its shadow over you.

Once again, D’s blade shot up from below, slicing the steel banister in two.

“It’s no use,” the voice in his left hand said. “This is just some residual image from the past. Quit it already.”

The shadowy figure leisurely receded up the staircase.

About to follow him, D was suddenly struck by a strange sensation—like he had just awoken from a dream. A single bound took him down the staircase, and the world grew hazy. Now D was in a dream. If the dreamer awoke, it would all disappear. The power to manipulate dreams was truly incredible.

D’s left hand stretched out before him. A black line shot out toward the door. Even that rectangular region was distorted, but the instant it burst open to reveal blue sky, the door returned to reality.

Leaping out into the overgrown garden, D looked over his shoulder. The house behind him suddenly vanished, and a few prismatic orbs of light drifted toward him. Dreams. The orbs themselves were purely dreams. Anything they touched turned to dreams and faded away.

The black thread snagged a globe of light in midair. A second later, D drove his blade into the stain spreading across the surface of the globe, and the substance of the dream shattered to pieces.

“Outstanding!” a sleepy voice could be heard to say from the overgrown grass. As the swaying figure got to his feet, his legs wobbled unsteadily.

“Where’s your brother?” asked D.

“In a saloon.”

“Who put you up to this?”

“Didn’t you know already?” Bingo said drowsily.

His body was pierced by a needle that scorched through the air, and then vanished as it still jutted from his flesh.

“When I dream, I am a dream,” Bingo told the Hunter, laughing in his sleep.

Being real, D couldn’t carve up a dream; at that moment Bingo was essentially immortal.

“I put a hole in your dream,” D said softly.

Thin flakes of dark red fell like dust from his opponent’s chest. The black lines that had flown from the Hunter’s left hand were thin trails of blood.

“Shall we do this another day?” Bingo said calmly. As he slept, his serenity only seemed natural. “You can name the time.”

“I’ll leave that to you,” D replied.

“Okay. Early tomorrow morning, then. Dawn is at four o’clock. So, right here at three-thirty.”

“Why don’t you make it during the day?” the Hunter inquired.

“Why don’t you cut me down right here and now?”

The guard on D’s longsword clicked home as the Hunter sheathed his weapon.

Pointing a slowly swaying hand in the direction of town, Bingo said, “I’ll be in a bar called El Capitan all day long. Stop by if you like.”

.

Night came. The wind that had been blowing out into the desert changed directions, carrying the grains of sand back to town. As they struck the windows and wooden fences, they made a lonesome hum. It was a melancholy sound both for those it saw off on departure and those it welcomed back on arrival.

It was late that night that Granny Viper called on D as he slept in the overgrown garden of a mansion. He ended up there after the hotel had refused to give him a room.

“Tae didn’t come by, did she?”

Those were the very first words out of the old woman’s mouth, after she’d called out to D in a shrill voice and followed his voice back to him.

“If she didn’t come with you, then she’s not here.”

Granny sighed dejectedly. “A fine mess this is. Running off the very same day she gets here, the little fool.” The old woman took a seat on the ground. Her shoes were white with dust. There was no light save that of the moon.

“What happened?”

According to what Granny told D in answer to his question, when the girl called on her brother and his wife, things didn’t go so well. Her sister-in-law heaped abuse on her, determined from the very start to drive her away. You’re the Nobility’s plaything, she’d sneered. Why couldn’t you have just died somewhere along the way? It was my mother-in-law and father-in-law that asked them to look for you, not me. If you hang around, they’ll burn our house down. Tae’s older brother said nothing as he simply watched his sister walk away.

“There’s no reason to be so upset,” D told the crone. “You must’ve imagined this would happen. Besides, your job is done when you deliver someone.”

“That’s true,” Granny said, shrugging her shoulders. “But, you see, even I worry about what becomes of my merchandise from time to time. Why, I even swung by the saloon and asked those boys if they’d seen her. Well, I don’t know about the older one, but the younger one ran out like I’d lit a fire under him. He’s probably still looking for her now.”

“If she comes by, I’ll contact you. You’re at the hotel?”

Granny mumbled something once again about the girl’s stupidity, how she couldn’t restrain herself for even a single day. Compared to how tough she’d have it trying to make it on her own with a dhampir baby to look after, a little verbal abuse should be music to her ears. Saying she was heading out to look for the girl again, Granny took off.

“A dhampir baby? Yeah, a dhampir . . .” she muttered, the words growing fainter and fainter until they were like a whisper through the trees.

A short while later, someone called out, “D!”

The pale figure appeared between the trees in the distance. By the time the figure reached the Hunter, he could see that it was Tae.

“Granny told me what happened.”

“I . . . I really was going to put up with them,” the girl stammered. “No matter what they said about me. But . . . when they called the baby inside me a vampire . . .”

“It’s a dhampir.”

“It’s the same thing to everyone else!” The tracks of tears remained on Tae’s cheeks, but no sparkling beads could be seen. She’d run dry. Held captive by the Nobility for eight long years, when she finally returned home she couldn’t stay even one day . . .

“What will you do?”

“Let me rest here just for tonight,” Tae said, her tone firm for the first time. Her single-minded gaze met D’s eyes. “Come tomorrow, I’ll manage something on my own. Just until then. Please, just let me stay with you.”

“Do as you like.”

Tae seated herself by D’s side. He dropped a blanket in her lap.

“But this is yours . . .” said the girl.

“It’s not for you.”

Tae gazed at the blanket and then back up at D. A tear fell from her cheek, splattering against the back of the hand that held the edge of the blanket. Her supply of mournful tears had nearly been exhausted.

“Okay,” Tae said as she pulled up the blanket.

“You said you’d manage something on your own, didn’t you?” D asked as he gazed straight ahead.

“Yes.”

“Well, there’ll be two of you soon.”

Tae didn’t know what to say.

“It seems dhampir children are quite considerate, although there are exceptions.”

While the young man seemed as cold as ice, a faint hint of a smile skimmed across his lips. Tae watched with utter disbelief and then sheepishly touched D’s chest with her pale hand. D didn’t move.

“I . . . I’ll try to be brave,” Tae mumbled, bringing her cheek to rest next to her hand. “Good,” she said after a little while. “I can hear the sound of your heart. When I was a little girl, Papa told me something. He said dhampirs didn’t breathe. And so their hearts didn’t beat. I honestly believed him. That the Nobility had hearts of gold and veins of crystal, and that dhampirs did, too. Now I know that’s not true, though after seeing you, I sort of thought it still might be.”

D said nothing.

“But I’m glad it’s not. A dhampir’s heart beats just like ours. Your blood is warm, too. I’m glad. My baby will be just like you, won’t it?” Tae said. She was crying. And she went on crying. Her voice was full of joy. Without knowing why, Tae thought that somehow she’d get by now.

At some point the girl lapsed into the quiet breath of sleep, and D had a puzzling look in his eye as he gazed down at her. A lock of hair had fallen across her forehead. His left hand reached out and stroked it back into place. Then he raised his face and stared off into the darkness before him.

A trio of silhouettes suddenly appeared. It was Granny and the Bullow Brothers.

“I’ll look after her tonight,” D said.

Granny twisted her lips at that, and Clay snapped in a deep voice, “You’ve gotta be shitting me! Would anybody leave a girl alone with a sex fiend like you in the dead of night? Behind that iron mask of yours, you’re just looking for some fast action, you bastard!”

Her eyes shifting from the girl to D, Granny said, “It just occurred to me—isn’t this going to wake her up?”

D’s left hand came to rest of the back of Tae’s head, and then came away again quickly.

“That won’t be a problem now,” the Hunter told her.

“I see,” Granny said with a nod. But it was unlike the nod she always gave. “I think that rather than having the two of them live in misery, it’d be better for one of them to lead a regular life. You know what the best thing to do would be,” Granny said, her right hand going for the jar on her hip. “You know, my sand paintings can even picture the insides of a person. I’m going to do this,” the crone said, her voice trembling. But the quavering only served to make the strength of her resolve all the more apparent.

Gently setting Tae down on the ground, the Hunter in black slowly straightened up again. “Leave her alone,” he said. Though his tone didn’t hold so much as a hint of a threat, it froze not only Granny, but the Frontier’s greatest warriors as well. D’s eyes were glowing deep red—the color of blood.

“See . . . You see that?” Granny said, the words spilling from her trembling lips. “Would you look at your face now? That’s what Tae’s kid will be like, too. No matter how handsome he might be born, or how much stronger than a human being, in the end he’ll always show that face. And every time he does—mark my words—every time it happens, everything he’s managed to build up ’til then is finished. Not just once or twice. Every time. How many times have you worn that face so far? How often have you had the face of a Noble?”

“Leave her alone,” D repeated.

“No, I won’t stop. You may be a dhampir, but you’re a man. How could you know the least bit about how a woman feels?”

The bloody hue rapidly left D’s eyes. Staring at Granny, his expression was calm as he said, “You’re a dhampir, aren’t you?”

Time seemed to stop.

Granny was mired in a perplexity she couldn’t begin to conceal. “What?” she exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

“Back in the desert, Clay came to lead you and me away. But Lance and Tae he carried off asleep.”

“Pure coincidence is what that is.”

“There’s more. Except for the first glance you caught of the marker I set up on the grave, you wouldn’t look at it at all. Because it’s a shape you have trouble with. And why is it that when you came here earlier looking for the girl, your shoes were white with dust but you weren’t breathing hard?”

D stared at her. The silence following the question was a hundred times more fearsome than any enraged shouting could’ve been.

Granny shook her head feebly from side to side. “Lies,” she said. “You’re making this up . . .”

“I have one more piece of evidence I couldn’t have made up.” D dealt the coup de grace.

“What . . .”

“The hatred you have for dhampirs. Only another dhampir feels that strongly.”

“Stop it!” Granny exclaimed. As she shouted, she raised her right hand high in the air. Sand billowed from between her fingers.

A shot rang out.

The crone’s right hand was thrust as high as it could go, and the sand in it scattered vainly in the breeze.

As he watched D dash toward the falling crone, Bingo called out, “Clay!” His voice may have been sleepy, but his orders were sharp.

“I’m on it!” Clay replied as his massive form vanished in the direction from which the shot had come.

There was never a second round fired.

D inspected Granny’s wound; it went right through her heart. It must’ve been the work of a firearm of some sort. While it wasn’t exactly a wooden stake, surely the only reason she was still alive was because she was a dhampir.

“D—” the old woman rasped.

“Don’t speak.”

“Don’t boss me around.” Granny took a shallow breath. “Don’t know who the blazes did this or why, but there’s no saving me now. That’s okay. Let me go. And don’t you dare think about waking up the girl. I wanna go out smooth. Say, would you mind holding my hand for a bit?” And as soon as Granny said that, she grabbed hold of D’s hand herself. “Come on, it’s not like we’ve got a lot of time. Ah, just as I thought—a cold hand. That’s okay. It’s a dhampir’s hand. There’s not much anyone can do about it. Oh, it’s been decades.”

D looked down at her face, the paleness of which was evident even in the darkness.

“You know . . . I had a child,” Granny said with a laugh. “The mother was a dhampir, so her son was bound to be one, too. That’s why my man ran out on me. I must’ve worked ten times as hard as anyone else bringing up my boy. If he had to be a dhampir, I wanted him to at least have a good dhampir life. But in the end there wasn’t anything I could do. The night before his wedding . . . he went and sank his fangs into the throat of the girl he loved and was set to marry. Cried tears of blood, I did.”

Granny turned her gaze toward Tae.

“Looks pretty while she sleeps, doesn’t she?” the old woman remarked. “Tonight may be the last night for that. You know, other people always used to tell me the same thing. They’d say they’d never seen anyone look so hurt and angry in their sleep. It shouldn’t be that way. I never wanted her to have to go through what I did. I still don’t think what I was about to do was wrong. There are dhampirs who live like you do. Well, maybe I was in the wrong after all . . .”

Suddenly, Granny’s complexion became more pallid.

“Oh . . . goodbye . . . Looks like peace is mine at last,” the old woman said, her head dropping sharply to one side.

D peered down at her.

“Ah, that’s right,” Granny said as she opened her eyes. “I forgot to ask you to say some last words to me. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to tell me you love me or anything. Just say something.”

“The girl’s child won’t run off.”

“Is that a fact?” Granny said, breaking into a smile. “Great . . . If you can guarantee me that, everything will be fine.” The old woman laughed heartily, and her head lolled to one side. After that, she moved no more.

Putting his hand to her temple, D folded her wrinkled hands on her chest.

“Is she dead?” Clay asked. He was standing next to his brother again.

“What about our duel tomorrow?” Bingo asked.

“Push it back to noon,” the Hunter replied. “I’ve got a funeral to attend.”

“If we’ve gotta postpone it, we could make it for the same time the next day instead.”

“Think your employer would want that?” D asked, gazing at Bingo. Bingo turned to Clay, but Clay looked away. “Tell him I’ll be paying a call on him a little past noon,” D said in a bloodcurdling tone, and then he turned to Tae.

Tomorrow the girl would have to start her life all over again. But for now, her breathing was serene as she slumbered.

.

At noon the next day, a black carriage set out from a funeral parlor on the edge of town. Carrying the coffin, it would typically make its way through the major streets of Barnabas, with those in mourning for the deceased walking along behind it. Relatives, friends, and acquaintances alike had a chance then to bid farewell to the departed. Apparently, the person being buried that day didn’t have a peaceful death. The driver of the carriage was still a young lady, and the lone mourner in tow was a gorgeous young man in black raiment.

There were remarkably few people on the streets in the strong light of midday. Those who were there watched the lonely funeral procession suspiciously. Ordinarily, even townsfolk who had nothing to do with the deceased would join the procession—that was simply Frontier courtesy toward those who died without family around. But not a single soul did so today. The previous night, certain facts about the nature of the driver, the deceased, and the lone mourner had blown through town like a hurricane. And the woman who’d whipped up that storm had left town early that morning with her husband.

Out in the white sunlight, there was no sound save the creaking of the wheels on the black carriage as the woman and man went by. The girl had lowered a black veil over her face, and the young man held his wide-brimmed traveler’s hat over his heart. An almost imperceptible wind tousled the hair of both.

Before long, the procession passed by a three-story building. In one of the rooms there, three men were looking out the window.

“Perfect timing,” the lawyer Thornton said, snapping his pocket watch closed with a crisp sound. Looking back at the men behind him, he said, “The time necessary to report Granny’s death, the criminal investigation, and the arrangements for the hearse were all taken into account—there’s no better time than high-noon for the dead to make that final journey. Don’t you think so?”

There was no reply. Bingo Bullow and Clay Bullow—two of the Frontier’s greatest warriors—looked rather displeased as they stared at their employer’s back.

“Statistics say that for a dhampir, doing battle in broad daylight means a 40 percent drop in combat effectiveness. Don’t look so unhappy,” Thornton told the brothers. “It’s not like I wanted to have to do this, either. Hell, if she hadn’t been the grubby little people-finder she was, I don’t think I would’ve used her like this at all. But to be perfectly frank, this all springs from your failure to get rid of him out in the desert.”

As the lawyer needled him in that sore spot, Clay shrugged his shoulders. Bingo was looking down at the floor—though, of course, he was neither deeply impressed nor conscience-stricken.

“Desert crossing or not, this job isn’t done until you kill the Hunter. And until then, I don’t get my due, either. See to it you kill him today for sure.” With these words, Thornton shut his eyes—one had to wonder just what sort of compensation he’d requested. The lascivious and arrogant expression he wore was unique to a certain sort of person, and it spread across his face like an oily film. His plump hands lovingly massaged the back of his own neck.

---

---

Clay leaned forward a bit. The creaking of the approaching carriage had reached the second-story window.

“Well, now. This warrants full marks for effectiveness—he certainly looks like he’s in pain. It would appear I haven’t lost my knack for judging characters. Not only is the Hunter seeing her off at this hour, he’s actually got his hat off, too. It only goes to show you can’t believe all those rumors you hear about some people being heartless and cold.”

The two brothers silently watched the passing carriage.

“You could take him now. Go to it,” Thornton said, his voice vested with a strength that would brook no resistance.

Turning their backs on him, the pair walked toward the door.

Coming out of the building’s entrance, the Bullow Brothers went right out into the street; the carriage and D continued to move along about forty feet ahead of them. The pair walked quickly. At a point about two yards from D, they slackened their pace. Neither D nor Tae turned around. Both brothers took off their hats. Holding them gently to their hearts, they followed along behind D. Now there were three mourners.

.

An hour later, the carriage halted at the communal cemetery out behind the same funeral parlor where its journey had begun. The gravedigger and undertaker were waiting by the hole they’d already completed. The group gathered around the grave, the coffin was lowered into the earth, and the undertaker began to recite a prayer. It was a short one. Tae chewed the words over in her mouth.

The ceremony ended, and the gravedigger began shoveling dirt back into the hole.

“Well, then,” Clay said in a way that suggested the time had finally come to square accounts. “There’s an open spot over that way. Let’s settle this there.”

“I just don’t get it,” Bingo said in a sleepy tone. “The night we first met, we were ready to kill you . . . But to be honest I really don’t feel much like doing it now.”

D started walking straight ahead. He got the feeling he heard Tae’s voice.

Leaving the rows of gravestones, the trio squared off in an almost circular section thick with grass. They were ten feet apart.

“I have to thank you,” said D.

“What for?” the smirking Clay replied. Making a massive leap away, he went for his harp with his right hand.

D made a dash for Bingo.

As proof that his foe had expected as much, the sleeper spat dream bubbles from his mouth. But spitting was exactly what D’s left hand did, too. Strings of black blood attacked the cloud of bubbles with the suppleness of a whip, but slipped between them. The bubbles had skillfully avoided the attack.

“Good work, bro!” Clay howled. As long as Bingo was locked in battle with D, he couldn’t let his deadly ultrasonic waves fly, but it looked like his older brother was doing pretty well.

Dodging the bubbles that came at him, D flung strings of blood at Bingo from his left hand. A new dream glittered into being in the sunlight to meet that attack. Every bloody thread broke against the surface of the bubble—blocked off completely. But once that bubble was gone, Bingo’s expression showed agitation for the first time—his face filled with a forced vitality. Having spit up all of his dreams, the dreamer had awakened.

Using a melody of unearthly beauty to change the black shape that hung high in the air for a second like a mystic bird to dust, the younger Bullow gave a shout. Dazed, Clay then swayed unsteadily as he saw the naked steel that protruded from his brother’s back. It’d dawned on him that what his harp had destroyed had merely been the Hunter’s coat, just as D had raced across the ground and impaled his brother. His fingers went for the strings as his warrior training made him prepare a second attack reflexively, but then he stopped dead. D was on the far side of his brother. A split second of indecision—

As Clay stood there, a wooden needle whined through the air and sank into his forehead, dropping him. Due to the time necessary to extricate the Hunter’s blade, Bingo didn’t hit the ground until after his younger brother.

Two corpses lay in the white sunlight. The battle was done.

The wind blew by. For a time, D gazed at his two foes. Suddenly, he ducked as something hot whizzed over his head, followed by the delayed report of a gun. It came from the direction of the graveyard.

Crouched down and about to sprint into action, D heard a faint melody slip past his ear.

A cry of agony arose in the graveyard.

When D turned and looked down, Clay was lying there smiling. His harp trembled at the end of his outstretched hand.

“So . . . does that even the score?” Clay said, blood spurting from his forehead as he spoke.

“It was more than enough,” D replied.

“Was it . . . really? Well, here’s some interest on it. The guy that hired us . . . was Thornton. And that character just now . . . was another one of his killers.”

“I know.”

“In that case . . . let’s finish this . . .”

The warrior’s harp rose, then swiftly fell again.

“My luck is crap,” Clay said, and then he closed his eyes.

D turned around.

Tae was standing there. That was why Clay hadn’t used his harp.

.

The girl’s face was pale with fright.

“Scared?” D asked.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t let your child become a Hunter.”

“That’ll be up to him or her,” the girl replied in a trembling voice that was charged with power. “But even if my baby doesn’t grow up to be a Hunter, I’ll raise him or her to be like the Vampire Hunter I saw.”

“It’s almost time for your ride to leave,” D said as he took a quick glance at the sun.

“You give me money and buy me a ticket for a coach . . . and there’s nothing I can do to repay you?”

“Just see to it that I hear rumors that you’re doing well.”

Tae’s eyes sparkled. “I’m sure you will,” she said with a nod. Taking a bundle of white fabric from the bag she carried, she unfolded it. It was a tiny garment to swaddle a tiny life. “This is what I made on the sewing machine,” Tae said, as if lost in reflection. “Now I have a feeling I’ll be able to get by somehow. And it’s all thanks to Granny. She did nothing but help me, and we weren’t even kin.”

“I still have business here in town,” D said as he gazed at the girl’s face. “Godspeed.”

“You take care, too.” Tae watched as he turned his black back to her and went off into the white light. Her womb was filled with the movements of the tiny life within her, and felt warm. Just as they parted, she’d seen a smile rise on D’s lips. And for a long, long time after that, through days of intertwining joy and sadness, the girl would recollect how she’d been the one to put it there. She would tell the tale to her only child with a touch of pride. It was just such a smile.