Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane (6 page)

“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

.

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.”