The Stuff of Dreams (18 page)

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Some called this town the journey’s end; others, its beginning. Mighty gales blew across the sea of golden sand that stretched from its southern edge, and when those winds hit the great gates of steel, pebbles as big as the tip of a child’s finger struck them high and low, making the most plaintive sound. It was like a heartrending song sung by someone on the far side of those sands to keep a traveler there.

When the winds were particularly strong, fine sand drifted down on the streets in a drizzle, amplifying the dry creaking of things like the wooden sidewalks and window frames at the saloon. And on very rare occasions, little bugs were mixed in with the sand. Armed with jaws that were tougher than any titanium alloy and stronger than a vice, the bugs could chew their way through doors of wood and plastic as if they were paper. Luckily, the petals of faint pink that always came on the heels of the insect invasion killed the bugs on contact—something that imbued the whole encounter with a kind of elegance. As the order and timing of the arrival of these two forces never varied, the homes in town had to weather the ravages of the tiny killers for only three short minutes.

And yet, on those rare nights when there were great numbers of the bugs, the town was enveloped by a strident but beautiful sound, like someone strumming on their collective heartstrings. The sound of the bugs’ jaws did no harm to humans, and before long, all would be touched with the flavor of a dream, and then vanish as surely as any dream would on awakening. Some considered it a song of farewell or even a funeral dirge, and people in town grew laconic as the fires in their hearths were reflected in their eyes.

No one knew where the faint pink petals came from. While more than a few had headed off into the desert that was burning hot even by night, not a single traveler had ever returned. Perhaps they’d reached their destinations, or perhaps their bodies had been buried by the sands, but no word ever came from them. However, people in town who’d chanced to meet such travelers once would occasionally raise some fragmented memory tied to a vaguely remembered face, and then turn their gaze to the gritty winds that ran along the edge of town.

This particular day, the song of the bugs was much sharper than usual and the faint pink rain seemed a bit late, so the townspeople looked out at the streets in the afterglow of sunset with a certain foreboding. The funeral dirge faded, as the time had come for those performing it to die.

And that’s when it happened. That’s when the young man came to town.

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I

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The sound of the bugs grew more intense, and the men encamped around the tables and seated at the bar turned their fierce gazes toward the door. Grains of sand became a length of silk that blew in, and then almost instantly broke apart to trace wind-wrought swirls on the floor. The door was shut again.

Eyes swimming with indecision caught the new arrival. Was this someone they could take in, or should the newcomer be kept out?

It took a little while before the floorboards began to creak. Time needed to decide which direction to creak off in. Done.

The piano stopped. The pianist had frozen. The coquettish chatter of the women petered out. The men’s noisy discussions ceased. Behind the bar, the bartender had gone stiff with a bottle of booze in one hand and a glass in the other. There was curiosity and fear about what was going to happen next.

A table to the left of the door and a bit toward the back was the newcomer’s destination. Two figures were settled around it—one in black, the other in blue. Wearing an ebony silk hat and a mourning coat with a hem that looked like it reached his ankles, one evoked a mortician. The deep blue brimless cap and the shirt of the same color that covered the powerful frame of the other were undoubtedly crafted from the hide of the blue jackal, considered by many to be the most vicious beast on the Frontier. Both men were slumped in their chairs with their heads hung low. They seemed to be sleeping.

The source of the creaking footsteps surely noticed something very unusual about the situation. All the other tables around the pair were devoid of customers. It was as if they were being avoided. As if they were despised. As if they frightened people. Another odd thing—it wasn’t a whiskey bottle and glasses that sat on the table before them. Black liquid pooled in the bottom of their brass coffee cups, which still had swirls of white steam lovingly hovering over them.

Even after the creaking stopped, the two of them didn’t lift their heads. But every other sound in the place died when the footsteps ended. Several seconds of silence settled. Then a taut voice shattered the stillness.

“We don’t take kindly to folks with no manners, kid!” the figure in blue said.

And immediately after that—

“Your mistake, Clay,” the other one remarked, his very voice so steeped in black it made everyone else in the small watering hole tremble.

“Well, I’ll be,” the first man said, his blue cap rising unexpectedly. The eyes set in his steely face were even bluer than his attire. Though he’d called the person he heard walking over a kid, he was only about twenty years old himself. His face looked mean enough to kill a timid man with one glare, but he suddenly smiled innocently and said, “Well, I’ll be! And to think they say you can disguise your face, but you can’t do a thing about how old your steps sound,” the man grumbled.

“Too bad, sonny,” the newcomer said. His voice spilled from his lips like dried-out clay, as cracked and creased as the rest of his face. More than the countenance so wrinkled that age could no longer be determined, more than the silver hair tied back with a vermilion ribbon, it was the slight swell in the gold-fringed vest and blouse that gave away the sex of the speaker. “I happen to hate being ignored,” she continued. “I don’t care if you’re the biggest thing to ever happen to the Outer Frontier, I think you still ought to show your elders the proper respect. Don’t you?”

The rest of the customers remained as still as statues, but even so an excited buzz went around the room. Someone said, “That old lady’s looking to start a fight with Bingo and Clay Bullow!”

“What do you want?” Clay asked in an incredibly light tone.

“Well, tomorrow, I’m heading across the desert to the Inner Frontier. And I want the two of you to come with me.”

Clay’s mouth dropped open. Without taking his eyes off the crone, he said, “Hey, bro—some old hag I don’t even know says she wants us to keep her company on a trip through the desert.”

“There’d be a heap of pay in it for you,” the crone told him. “I’d like you to watch out for me and another person, you see. With you two along, I figure we’d get there in less than a week . . . and alive, to boot.”

“Bro—”

“You don’t know her, you say?” another voice said. Calling to mind rough-hewn rock, his tone didn’t exactly match his spindly, spider-like limbs. “Little brother, you’d best jiggle that memory of yours a bit more. We might not have met her, but we know her name. You’ll have to pardon me,” he told the old woman, “but I’m asleep at the moment. Wish I could greet you properly, Granny Viper, People Finder.”

The silent saloon was rocked. She was Granny Viper. The chances that the Inner Frontier’s greatest locator of those who’d been hidden would run into the Outer Frontier’s greatest fighters had to be about ten million to one. They were really in luck.

“I couldn’t care less about greetings. So, how about it? What’s your answer?” the old woman chirped like a bird.

“We’re waiting for someone,” the face beneath the silk hat said.

“Whoever it is, I’m sure they’ll be dead before they get here.” The crone’s mouth twisted into an evil opening. Her maw was a black pit—without a single tooth in it. “And if they do make it here, they’re gonna have a little run-in with you, I suppose. Either way, it’s the same thing, am I right?”

“Without a doubt,” Clay said, throwing his head back with a huge laugh. “But this time, we’ve got a real job cut out for ourselves. Depending on how things go, we might end up—”

Staring at the back of the hand that’d appeared before him without warning, Clay caught himself. “I know, bro—I’ve said too much already.”

Bingo’s right hand slowly retracted.

“Sure you’re not interested?” the crone asked in a menacing tone.

The man in the silk hat didn’t answer.

“Sorry, but I just have to have you two along,” Granny insisted.

The wall of men and women around the trio receded anxiously. The eyes of all focused on the hands of the old woman and the two brothers. In light of what was about to happen, it was a completely natural thing to do. Their eyes were filled with consternation. Even an old woman like her had to have some sort of “weapon” if she lived out on the Frontier. Her lower back looked like it’d snap in two if someone even touched it, and just below it she wore a survival belt with a number of pouches on it, but she had no bowie knife or machete—the most basic of equipment. But what everyone’s eyes were drawn to was a large jar that looked like it was ceramic. It had an opening that seemed wide enough to easily accommodate the fist of a giant man, but it was stoppered with a polymer fiber lid. And although it looked like it would be fairly heavy even if it were empty, the old woman walked and stood as if unconcerned with its weight. One of the taller spectators had been up on the tips of his toes for a while trying to get a good look at it, but the lid was the same gray color as the jar, and its contents were completely hidden from view.

Similarly, the weapons of the two men were every bit as eccentric as hers. What hung at the right hip of the younger brother, Clay, couldn’t have been any more inappropriate for him—a golden harp strung with silver strings. As for the older brother, Bingo, what he had was more surprising than anything. He was completely unarmed.

Granny Viper the People Finder, and the Fighting Bullow Brothers. Getting a sense that an otherworldly conflict never meant for human eyes was about to be joined between some of the Frontier’s most renowned talents and the weird weapons they possessed, the saloon patrons were all seized by the silence of the grave. The crone’s right hand slowly dropped to her jar. At the same time, Clay’s hand reached for the harp on his hip. Bingo didn’t budge an inch. And just as the three deadly threads were about to silently twist together . . .

The black bowler hat flew up in the air. The wrinkled face of the crone looked back over her shoulder. The gaze of the youth in blue was there just a second later, at the door. Still closed since the crone had entered, the door now had the eyes of all three of these rough customers trained on it. There was no one there—at least, not in front of it. So, what were the three of them looking at?

It was at just that moment that the doorknob turned. Hinges squealing as they bit down on sand, the door became an expanding domain of darkness on the wall. Perhaps the figure it revealed had been born of the very night itself. The saloon patrons backed away. The hue of the black garments that covered all but his pale and perfect countenance made it seem that he blew in like
a fog of fine sand. As if the countless eyes on him meant nothing, the young man shut the door behind him and headed over to the bar. What they were dealing with now was something even more unusual than the Bullow Brothers or Granny Viper the People Finder. With every step forward the figure in black took, grains of sand dropped from his long coat. To the women there, even those grains seemed to sparkle darkly. As soon as the young man stopped at the bar, the people heard him say in a voice like steel, “There’s supposed to be someone here by the name
of Thornton.”

Swallowing hard, the bartender nodded. Though he was big enough to serve as the bouncer, too, the man’s colossal frame grew stiff, and it sounded like he was barely squeezing the words out as he said, “You’re Mr. D . . . aren’t you?”

No reply was needed. Though the bartender had only heard about one characteristic of the Hunter, this was unquestionably the man who stood before him.

“He’s out back right now,” the bartender said, raising his right hand to point the way. “But he’s having himself a little
en
tertainment
at the moment.”

In many cases, the saloons in little Frontier towns also doubled as whorehouses.

D walked off in the direction the man had indicated. He’d gone about a dozen steps when someone said to him, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

It was Bingo.

“Bingo Bullow is the name. That’s my younger brother, Clay. You might’ve heard of us. I was thinking we might get to know the greatest Vampire Hunter on the Frontier.”

Bingo looked at the back of the figure who’d stopped there. Like his body, the elder Bullow’s face was extremely thin, and his chin was covered by a wild growth of beard. Seemingly hewn from rock, his expression shifted just a bit then.

As if he’d merely stopped there on a whim, D started walking again.

“Well, shut my mouth!” Granny Viper exclaimed in an outrageously loud voice, indifferent to all the other spectators. “This
is
a surprise. I didn’t know there was a man alive who’d turn his back on Bingo Bullow when he offers an invite. I like your style! Indeed, I do!”

“Hold it, you!” Clay shouted as if trying to destroy the old woman’s words. He jumped to his feet. His cruel young face grew red as hot blood rushed to his head and he reached for his elegant weapon. Suddenly, the thinner hand of his brother pressed against his stomach.

“Knock it off,” Bingo told him.

His older brother’s word must’ve been law, because the younger Bullow didn’t utter a single complaint after that, and the anger that radiated from his powerful form rapidly dispersed.

“I’ll be waking up soon,” the elder Bullow informed him. “We’ll have to wait until the next time I’m asleep to pay our respects.”

Out of the countless eyes there, only those of the crone sparkled.

The door to the back room opened, and then closed again, swallowing the darkness given human form in the process.

The cramped room was filled with a lascivious aroma. Long, thin streams of smoke rose from an opening in the metallic urn that sat on the round table. It was an aphrodisiac unique to the Frontier sectors, and all who smelled the scent—young or old, male or female—were transformed into lust-crazed beasts. On the other side of the table sat an ostentatious bed that’d been slathered with the gaudiest color of paint imaginable, and on that bed something terribly alluring wriggled—a knot of naked women, all of them dripping with sweat. It was probably the influence of the aphrodisiac that kept them from so much as turning to look at the intruder.

Perhaps wondering what was going on outside the intertwined flesh, a raven-haired head popped out of the middle of that pale pile of femininity even as feverish panting still filled the air. From the man’s face, it was impossible to tell whether he was young or middle-aged. He must’ve been the only one who’d responded to D’s knock. Roughly pushing his way free of the women clinging to him, he finally stopped what he was doing and stared directly at D.

“Well, I’ll be . . . Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you hear, I guess . . . Your looks are so good, my hair’s practically standing on end.” And then, as he hastily began shoving the women out of the way, he told them, “C’mon, move it!”

Although his squat form looked to be less than five feet tall, he had a considerable amount of fat on him—evidence of days spent in pursuit of culinary delights. He didn’t bother to cover himself as he slipped on his underpants, but once he was wrapped in a robe, he actually looked quite dignified. Digging a thick pair of glasses out of his coat pocket, he put them on. He almost looked like he could pass for a scholar from the Capital.

“This isn’t exactly the most appropriate place to receive a guest who’s traveled so far, but, you see, I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.” Glancing then at the electric clock on the wall, he added, “Actually, you’re right on time. But back at the hotel, I heard that a cloud of moving miasma had shown up on the road here, and that no one would be able to get through for a couple of days . . . Guess I should’ve remembered I was dealing with Vampire Hunter D.”

In what was surely a rare occurrence for the young Hunter, he received a somewhat sheepish smile from the other man, but when the man in black failed to move even a single muscle in his face, Thornton shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, I suppose I should tell you about the job, then.”

The reason he averted his gaze at this point wasn’t so much to change the tone of the conversation, but rather because he’d reached the point where he could no longer stand looking at D head-on. Regardless of gender, those who gazed at the young man’s gorgeous visage for too long began to hallucinate that they were being drawn into the depths of his eyes. Actually, the women the little man shoved out of the way had been ready to voice their dissatisfaction, but then D entered their field of view, leaving them frozen with their mouths hanging open.