Tale of the Dead Town (19 page)

Wanting to say something to him, the director realized he really had nothing to say.
There were no words to address a shadow. When the door finally closed, the director
wasn’t completely sure that he’d actually met the young man.

On his way through the lobby to the exit, D passed a man. He was middle-aged and dressed
in a cotton shirt and trousers and, while both garments were clean, they’d also been
patched countless times. His rugged face had been carved by the brutal elements. Anyone
could easily picture him out working the soil to earn his daily bread. With a weary
expression, he quickly walked past D.

Slipping once more through the feverish gazes of the nurse and patients, D exited
the lobby. Silently riding down the slope, he came to a little road. It wouldn’t be
much farther to the main road. But, just as he was going around a curve at the bottom
of the hill, he found a dragon-drawn wagon coming from the opposite direction.

Not all of the supernatural creatures and demons the Nobility had unleashed were necessarily
ferocious beasts. Though extremely rare, there were certain species, like sprites
and smaller dragons, that humans could keep. Some of these creatures could howl for
flames in freezing winter or summon the rains that were indis-pensable for raising
produce, while others could replace machinery as a source of cheap labor. The beast
before D now was a perfect example of the latter.

The dragon seemed to have sensed D even before it saw him. Its bronze flesh was covered
with bumps that manifested its fear, and not even the whip of the farmer in the driver’s
seat could make it budge.

After lashing the beast a number of times, the farmer gave up, throwing down the whip
and drawing the electronic spear from a holster beside his seat. As he hit the switch,
it released a spring inside the handle. A three-foot-long spear suddenly teles-coped
out to twice that size. At the same time, the battery kicked in and the steel tip
gave off a pale blue glow.

The weapon was far more powerful than its appearance suggested—even if it didn’t break
the skin, the mere touch of it would deliver a jolt of fifty thousand volts. According
to the
Complete Frontier Encyclopedia
, it was effective against all but the top fifty of the two hundred most vicious creatures
in the midsize class. While jabbing a beast of burden in the haunches with it might
be a bit rough, the technique certainly wasn’t unheard of. The dragon’s hindquarters
were swollen with dark red wounds where it’d been stabbed before. Electromagnetic
waves tinged the sunlight blue. The farmer’s eyes bulged from their sockets, but the
dragon didn’t budge.

No amount of training could break a dragon’s wild urges. Cyborg horses were something
the dragons loved to prey on, but, even with one nearby, there wasn’t the slightest
glimmer of savagery in the beast’s eyes. It remained transfixed, and tinged with fear.
It couldn’t pull away . . . It stood still as a statue, almost like a beautiful woman
enthralled by a demon.

As D passed, the farmer clucked his tongue in disgust and pulled back his spear. Since
his cart was so large, there were fewer than three feet left to squeeze by on the
side of the road. The point of his spear swung around. An instant later, it was shooting
out at full speed toward D’s back.

-

III

-

The blue magnetic glow never would’ve suspected that at the very last second a flash
of silver would drop down from above to challenge it. D’s pose didn’t change in the
least as his right hand drew his blade and sent the front half of the spear sailing
through the air.

Still leaning forward from his thrust, the farmer barely managed to pull himself straight.
The farmer, after only a moment’s pause, made a ferocious leap from the driver’s seat.
In midair, he drew the broadsword he wore through the back of his belt. When he brought
the blade down with a wide stroke, a bloody mist danced out in the sunlight.

Looking only for an instant at the farmer who’d fallen to the ground with a black
arrowhead poking out of the base of his neck, D turned his eyes to what he’d already
computed to be the other end of that trajectory. There was only an expanse of blue
sky . . . But the steel arrow stuck through the farmer’s neck had flown from somewhere
up there.

The stink of blood mixed with the almost stifling aroma of greenery in the air, and,
as D sat motionless on his steed, the sunlight poured down on him. There wasn’t a
second attack.

Finally, D dropped his gaze to the farmer lying on the ground, just to be sure of
something. The bloodstained arrow was the same deadly implement the man had used to
attack him in his dream. Perhaps the arrow had flown
from
the world of dreams.

Putting his longsword back in its sheath, in a low voice D asked, “You saw what happened,
didn’t you?”

Behind him, someone seemed to be surprised. Just around the base of the hill, a slim
figure sat astride a motorbike of some kind, rooted to the spot. The reason her long
hair swayed was because her whole body was trembling.

“Uh, yes,” she said, nodding slowly. It was the same young woman who’d told him to
go to the hospital.

“Tell the sheriff exactly what you saw,” D said tersely, giving a kick to the belly
of his horse.

“Wait—you can’t go. You have to talk to the sheriff,” the girl cried passionately.
“If you don’t, the law will be after you until the whole situation gets sorted out.
You plan on running the rest of your life? Don’t worry. I saw the whole thing. And
don’t you wanna get to the bottom of this mystery? Find out why everyone dreamed about
you?”

The cyborg horse stopped in its tracks.

“To be completely honest,” the girl continued, “that wasn’t the first time I’d seen
your face, either. I’ve met you plenty of times. In my dreams. So I knew about you
a long time before everyone else did. I knew you’d come for sure. That’s why I came
after you.”

Up in the saddle, D turned and looked back at her.

Though the girl had no idea she’d just done the impossible, her eyes were gleaming.
“Great. I’m glad you changed your mind. It might be my second time seeing you, but,
anyway, nice to meet you. I’m Nan Lander.”

“Call me D.”

“Kind of a strange name, but I like it. It’s like the wind.” Though she’d intended
that as a compliment, D was as uncongenial as ever, and, with a troubled expression,
Nan said, “I’ll hurry off and fetch the sheriff.” And with that, she steered her motorbike
back around the way she’d come.

Due to urgent business, the sheriff wasn’t in, but a young deputy quickly wrapped
up the inquiry. D was instructed not to leave town for the time being. The deputy
said the farmer who’d been killed was named Tokoff, and he had lived on the outskirts
of the village. He was a violent man prone to drunken rages, and they’d planned on
bringing him in sooner or later, which explained why the matter of his death could
be settled so easily. Even more fortunate was the fact that he didn’t have any family.

“But for all that, he wasn’t the kind of man to go around indiscriminately throwing
spears at folks, either. If we didn’t have Nan’s word for it, your story would be
mighty hard to believe. We’re gonna have to check into your background a wee bit.”
The trepidation in the deputy’s voice was due, no doubt, to the fact he’d already
heard D’s name. But that was probably also the reason why he’d accepted the surreal
tale of Tokoff being slain by an arrow fired from nowhere at all after attacking the
Hunter.

Nan said she’d show D the way to the hotel. The two of them were crossing the creaky
floor on the way to the door when D asked in a low voice, “Did you dream about me,
too?”

A few seconds later, the deputy replied, “Yep.” But his voice just rebounded off the
closed door.

With Nan at the fore, the two of them started walking down the street, D leading his
horse while she pushed her bike. The wind, which had grown fiercer, threw up gritty
clouds that sealed off the world with white.

“You . . . you didn’t ask him anything at all about Tokoff,” Nan said as she gazed
at D with a mournful look in her eye. “Didn’t ask the name of the man you killed,
or his line of work, or if he had a family. Don’t you care? Does it just not matter
now that he’s dead? You don’t even wonder why he attacked you, do you? I can’t see
how you can live that way.”

Perhaps it was her earnestness rather than her censure that moved D’s lips. “You should
think about something else,” he said.

“I suppose you’re right,” Nan replied, letting the subject go with unexpected ease.

On the Frontier, it was taboo to show too much interest in travelers, or any concern
for them. Perhaps it was the enthusiasm all too common in girls her age that made
her forget for a brief instant the rule that’d been borne not out of courtesy, but
from the very real need to prevent crimes against those who would bare their souls
to strangers.

D halted. They were in front of a bar. It was just a little before twelve o’clock
Noon. Beyond the batwing doors, women who looked to be housewives could be seen clustered
around the tables.

Under extreme circumstances or in impoverished Frontier villages that lacked other
recreation facilities, this one institution—the bar—often played a part in essentially
everything the villagers did. The bar served a number of purposes—a casino for the
men, a coffee shop and chat room for housewives, and a reading room and a place to
exchange information on fashion and discuss matters of the heart for young ladies.
It wasn’t even frowned on when the tiniest of tots tried their hand at gambling. For
that reason, the bar was open all day long.

Nan watched with a hardened expression as D wrapped the reins around a fence in front
of the building. “Aren’t we going to your hotel to talk? I wouldn’t mind. It’s not
like I wanna be a kid forever.”

Giving her no reply, D stepped up onto the raised wooden sidewalk. He didn’t even
look at Nan.

The girl gnawed her lip. She wanted to look him square in the face so she could glare
at him. All the anger she could muster was directed at his black-clad back, but the
wind that came gusting by at that moment lifted the hem of his coat to deflect her
rage. When she pushed her way through the doors a moment later, she found the figure
in black was already seated at a table right by the counter.

From the far left corner of the bar, where all the housewives congregated, D was being
bombarded with whispers and glances. Every gaze was strangely feverish, yet filled
with fear at the same time. Everyone could tell. Everyone could see this young man
belonged to another world.

Feeling a certain relief at D’s choice of table, Nan took a seat directly across from
him. Telling the sleepy-eyed bartender on the other side of the counter, “Paradigm
cocktail, please,” she looked at D.

“Shangri-La wine,” was all D said, and the bartender gave a nod and turned around.

“You know, you’re a strange one,” Nan said, her tone oddly gloomy. “You can watch
someone get killed without even raising an eyebrow, but you won’t take a woman back
to your room. On the other hand, you did get me a grown-up seat here. Are all Vampire
Hunters like you?”

“My line of work was in your dream, too?”

Nan nodded. “Even though you didn’t come out and say it, I just knew. And I knew you’d
come here, too. Though I didn’t know exactly
when
it would be.”

“You know why you had that dream?”

Nan shook her head. “Can anyone tell you why they dream what they do?” Quickly donning
an earnest expression that suited a young lady, Nan added, “But I understand. I saw
that you were just walking on and on in this blue light. Where you came from, where
you were going—no, scratch the first part. I only knew where you were going. To see
Sybille. And there’s your answer.”

Was she trying to suggest the sleeping girl had summoned him? Why would Sybille do
that? And why had only Nan seen D over and over again? The mystery remained.

“Thirty years ago, she was bitten by a Noble. The doctor said it was only natural
you’d tell me to go to the hospital. Why are you so concerned about her?”

“Why did Sybille call you here, for that matter? How come I’m the only one who’s dreamed
about you more than once? I’m going to be honest with you—I’m so scared, I can’t stand
it.” There was a hint of urgency in Nan’s voice. “No matter how scary a dream may
be, you can forget it after you open your eyes. Real life is a lot more painful. But
this time, I’m just as scared after I wake up. No, I’m even more scared . . . ” Her
voice failed.

The millions of words embedded in the silence that followed were shattered with D’s
next remark. “This village is the only place where humans and Nobility lived and worked
together on equal terms,” he said. “I hear they aren’t around any more, but I’d like
to know what it used to be like.”

For a second, Nan focused a look of horrible anger at the Hunter’s gorgeous face,
and then she shook her head. “You won’t get that from me. If that’s what interests
you, old Mrs. Sheldon could tell you plenty.”

“Where can I find her?”

“The western edge of the village. Just follow the orchards, and you’ll find the place
soon enough. Why? Is something going on?” Nan asked, leaning over the table.

“Hell, we’d like to know that, too!”

As the rough voice drifted across the bar, a number of figures spread out in the room,
too. The batwing doors swung wildly, hinges creaking.

“Mr. Clements.”

Nan’s eyes reflected a man baring his teeth—a man who looked like a brick wall someone
had dressed in a leather vest. It wasn’t just the material forming the contours of
the secondhand combat suit he wore that made him look more than six and a half feet
tall—the massive frame of the man inside the combat suit was imposing in both size
and shape.

A killing lust had taken over the bar. The housewives were a sickly hue as they got
to their feet. In addition to the man called Clements, there were six others. All
of them wore power-amplifying combat suits.