Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane (19 page)

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.