Scenes from an Unholy War Page 9

  “Well, I’ll be. Give your father, the mayor, my regards.” At this point Rust noticed she was gazing intently at him, and so he asked, “What are you looking at?”

  “Oh, nothing. Would it be okay if I had a seat?”

  “Sure.”

  Sitting down across the table from him, Sheryl set down her basket and said, “There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for some time now.”

  This was the thing Rust feared the most. Nevertheless, he asked in return, “What’s that?”

  “When your term’s up here, where will you go?”

  “You mean, do I have somewhere special I’m headed?”

  “Yes,” said Sheryl, never taking her eyes off his face.

  Wishing he could escape her gaze, the lawman replied, “There never has been, and there never will be.”

  Sheryl looked down at the floor. “Good,” she said. She seemed to savor the word. “In that case, you could stay here, couldn’t you?”

  A terrible calm flowed into Rust’s heart. He’d earned the right to just soak in it. He was just about to tell her that was right, but then his ears caught something—the mother shouting out beyond the gates.

  “No,” Rust said, shaking his head. That’d been a close call. “I don’t wanna seem rude, but I’m not like you people. I can’t live here like the rest of you do.”

  “Why not?” Sheryl asked, leaning forward.

  The intensity of this girl, who usually spent her days by her father’s side with eyes lowered, telling him his schedule or scribbling notes, left Rust more than a little surprised. Her earnest gaze was trained on him. Rust looked away, as if to escape it.

  “A person’s path in life is set when they’re born. It’s a legacy from their fathers. Step off that path, and there’s no getting back on it again. The next thing you know, you’re lost in a fog. Out there, there’s a cliff called ruin, but you never know it till you’ve fallen from it.”

  “And you—you’ve fallen, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, just once. And ever since, I’ve been lost.”

  Closing her eyes, Sheryl said, “Maybe your path led you here. Isn’t that conceivable?”

  Rust was going to say no, but instead he told her, “Thank you.”

  “Wouldn’t you be good enough to give me a straight answer? The mayor wants to know, too.”

  “Someday I will.”

  “When might that be?”

  “Don’t look at me that way. I don’t know what to do when you look at me like that.”

  “I just want an answer.”

  “You’ll get it when this business is settled. Judging from the size of last night’s explosion, the enemy will be delayed a few days in getting here. But that’s all. They’ll be coming for sure. Since D, Gil, and the others haven’t come back, you could say we’ve lost more of our strength than the enemy has. Still, the villagers and I have to fight them—and you do, too.”

  Sheryl gazed at him softly. She didn’t see the face of a sheriff gripped by anxiety. It was the face of a hard man who seemed chiseled from stone. “You’re right. I got a little ahead of myself. I’m sorry.”

  As Sheryl was leaving, Lyra came back in. Following her out the door with her eyes, the warrior woman told Rust, “Sorry, but I could hear you from outside. That girl could be in some danger—the danger being that she likes you.”

  The sheriff said nothing.

  “If I were your enemy and I saw how tough you were, I’d use someone important to you to get some leverage.”

  “You’re right.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Lyra asked bluntly.

  “It’s obvious. Once this job is finished, we move on. My path is already set.”

  Lyra nodded. “I’ll be the one that puts you down. Don’t worry about that.”

  “See that you do.”

  The two looked at each other and laughed for the first time in ages.

  Just then, the siren that alerted villagers when an emergency had occurred resounded through the night sky.

  —

  II

  —

  When the pair dashed outside, a guard from the main gates who’d raced there on horseback informed them that Josh and Palau had been spotted. He also said Gil and D weren’t with them.

  “What could’ve taken them a full day?” Lyra mused, her lovely features becoming those of an intrepid combatant.

  It was clear what she wasn’t saying. A party that had gone off to fight a pseudo vampire had returned a day later under darkness of night. It would be odd to think that they were still okay.

  Hopping onto the horse tethered in front of his office and speeding to the main gates, Rust inquired, “What about the woman and her child?”

  “Apparently she gave in, since she left just five minutes ago.”

  “Bad luck. She’ll run right into them, won’t she?”

  “That’s right,” the guard replied as they scrambled up to the top of the gates.

  The highway had been twisted to run not fifty yards from the gates, and a road thirty feet wide connected it to the village. There were three lights atop the gates that illuminated the ground forty to fifty feet away. It looked like the pair had just stepped from the darkness into the enormous circle of light. No, not a pair—there were four people. Palau had Toic’s wife in his arms, while Josh held the three-year-old boy.

  When the four of them had closed to about thirty feet, Rust put a megaphone to his mouth and ordered, “Hold it right there!”

  The villagers and mercenaries lined up to either side of him were already drawing a bead on the hearts of the four with bows and firearms.

  Palau and Josh halted. Squinting his eyes as if blinded by the light, Josh said, “This is a fine welcome we get! You must’ve seen the damage we managed to do last night. Is this how you greet your heroes?”

  “What have you been doing all this time?”

  “My horse got taken out,” Palau said, shrugging his shoulders. “The wilderness is crawling with all kinds of monsters. We had to fight our way through them the whole way back. It wouldn’t kill you folks to show us a tad more kindness.”

  “You guys know the rules of the Frontier. We’ve gotta check you for wounds. Set those two down first.”

  Rust had been able to read the mother’s and child’s expressions. Shivering as if with an ague, they had faces slick with sweat and taut with fear. They looked like death warmed over. They could tell. They knew what the two men with them were now. They knew because the men’s bodies were cold as ice. They weren’t breathing. When the bright light bleached their faces, their lips alone were strangely red, with stark fangs peeking from between them.

  “Set those two down and submit to a check. If everything’s fine, you’ll be drinking like fish tonight.”

  The two pale warriors looked at each other.

  “Did you hear that, Josh?”

  “That’s mighty cold of ’em, Palau.”

  “So, we gonna do like they say?”

  “It ain’t like we’ve got a choice.”

  Palau nodded. “We’re setting ’em down now. Get ready to give us that once-over.”

  A collective sigh of relief escaped the group on top of the gates. And then, the horror started all over again. Palau’s eyes gave off a red gleam, and the warrior bit down hard on the neck of the trembling woman. It was clear from Josh’s startled expression that his compatriot’s action was unexpected.

  Later, examination of the mother’s remains would reveal that she’d badly hurt both hands while pounding on the main gates and trying to get back into the village. Her skin had broken, exposing the raw flesh beneath. Fresh blood had seeped from the wounds as well. Perhaps Palau had been fighting the urges brought on by the red hue of blood from the mother’s hand and the scent that lingered in the air, until finally he’d reached a point where he could restrain himself no longer.

  The woman’s shouts pierced the night, her far-from-slim body twitching in her death throes. The peopl
e watching from the gates were frozen. For the first time ever, they were witness to the legendary terror. The Nobility’s hegemony over the Frontier had long since ended, and though people saw the victims they left behind, no one but the very eldest had ever witnessed anyone being drained of their blood. But was this how a Noble would feed? No, they drove their fangs in and drank up the lifeblood that spilled out—Palau, however, gave his head a shake that helped him bite halfway through the woman’s neck. Bright blood spurted out.

  Letting out screams that left the others wanting to cover their ears, the mother flailed her arms. Blood splashed wildly in the brightly lit circle. Palau’s face was a nightmare—eyes crimson, fangs stained with blood, cheeks trembling with rapture. Spitting out a chunk of the woman’s flesh, he once again drove his face into the gaping, bloody wound.

  A gunshot rang out. A small hole opened in the middle of Palau’s forehead, and half his face blew off.

  Up on the gate, a woman named Miriam shouted, “Got him!”

  However, Palau didn’t fall. What remained of his mouth twisted into a smile. Flesh swelled in the devastated section, and bone formed. A new eyeball gleamed. Such were the regenerative powers of a vampire.

  His fangs once more sank into the woman’s neck. They could all hear the sound of him gulping down mouthful after mouthful.

  Josh had been standing there looking at his compatriot as if he were an idiot for betraying himself, but at this point his eyes also began to give off a demonic gleam. The face of a carnivore leered at the child. Fangs thirsty for fresh blood went for the pale throat of the boy, who was so completely terrified he couldn’t make a sound.

  Something whistled through the air and impacted the man’s right shoulder. It was a short wooden arrow that sent Josh spinning. He let go of the child, who fell to the ground. Howling, the man prepared to leap, but a second arrow took him through the back of the neck, poking out through his chest. Even writhing on the ground, he still seemed like a wild beast. Though the plain wooden arrow hadn’t fatally wounded him, it could hurt Nobility and their ilk ten times worse than conventional weapons.

  “Stay up here,” Rust told those around him before jumping. As soon as he landed, he nocked a third arrow and trained it on Palau. Suddenly, Palau lifted the mother’s body up to use as a shield. Though he knew she was beyond saving, Rust didn’t fire.

  “Out of the way,” the sheriff heard a familiar voice call out behind him. For a woman to speak in such a tone, she must’ve had a heart of stone, muscles of steel, and nerves of ice.

  “What are you here for?” Rust asked.

  “If you’re not gonna shoot, take the kid and get out of the way,” Lyra, the warrior woman, told him.

  Before he could stop her, her lithe figure calmly moved forward like a blossom swaying in the breeze. Not so much as glancing at Josh, she made directly for Palau.

  Firing his third shot into the writhing Josh, Rust dashed over to the child, scooped him up, and fell back to the gates.

  Lyra bounded. With a mocking laugh, Palau lifted the still-twitching mother over his head. He stared in amazement as a blade pierced the woman through the heart and sank into his forehead. Lyra was a woman who was willing to stab even an innocent victim to get at the enemy.

  “That hurts!” Palau groaned. With his words, bloody foam spilled from his mouth. “It hurts so bad. That’s not right! I’m a Noble now!”

  With the longsword impaling both of them still in hand, Lyra landed in front of the man. Her right index finger went for her left hip—and the little gold ring that jutted from it.

  Still holding the mother’s corpse, Palau spread his arms as if posing a query. It was an overly dramatic gesture. “Hey, bitch—I’m a Noble. I even drank this woman’s blood. It was sweet. I didn’t think anything could ever taste so good! That’s proof I’m a Noble, right? So why does plain ol’ steel hurt so bad?”

  “Because it’s been baptized,” Lyra said coldly, “in the church back in my hometown, wherever that was. Grade-thirteen berenith steel soaked in holy water and hammered ten million times by the swordsmith. Now consider yourself honored and beg for your life.”

  Palau charged her. His mouth snapped open wide, his lips and maw both stained bright red.

  Something whistled through the air. Lyra had stepped out of the way, and Palau ran by her on the left. But he was running only from the waist down. During five or six more steps, there was an explosion of blood, as if the legs had just splattered against a rock, and then they fell over. The upper body had fallen by Lyra’s side. Its eyes were wide open, looking up at her as if she were beyond belief, but death quickly spread across the face. In the beam of the searchlight, it looked as if a line the color of blood arced into the woman’s hand, but it quickly disappeared.

  Lyra turned around. Crawling on all fours like a dog, Josh seemed to take note of his foe, because he lifted the upper half he could barely support.

  “Dooooiii?”

  “Dooooiii,” Lyra mimicked. Gory blade in hand, she walked over to Josh. Her gait made it clear she was free of hesitation or any hint of mercy for this person who’d been a colleague until a day earlier. “Are you going to fight me, too?” she asked.

  “Of course—as sure as I’m a Noble,” he declared, his face glowing with bliss.

  “You’re a fake,” was all Lyra said, and she swung her sword down.

  Josh wasn’t poised to dodge it. The keen sound that rang out didn’t seem to be that of cleaving flesh.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  Josh hadn’t fled. Still down on his knees, he’d merely let his upper body fall again. Lyra’s blade had been parried by the rifle across his back. As the warrior woman took a new stance, he swung the weapon around to point its barrel at her torso.

  “I didn’t wanna have to take you out this way,” Josh said, as if apologizing to her.

  “Then don’t,” Lyra replied, ducking down. Her left hand went for the toe of her left boot.

  The barrel of the gun followed the movement.

  “Nighty-night, warrior woman!”

  “Nighty-night, faker.”

  A long, long stream of fire angled down toward the ground. Rust alone noticed that there were actually two streams, not one. Not only did the forty-millimeter antitank round split in two directly in front of Lyra, but the halves also changed direction, striking the ground in the distance. A ferocious pair of fiery pillars soared up to the heavens. Devoid of noxious flames or black smoke, they were rather lovely.

  The people who’d turned to look at them turned back again at the sound of dying screams. Standing bolt upright, Josh had taken Lyra’s blessed sword through the throat, with the blade running clean through the crown of his head.

  “Adaa . . . adaa . . . adaa . . .”

  Managing to sputter something that was not actual words, the giant of a man was slowly being lifted. Who would’ve thought the woman could achieve such a thing with one slim arm?

  Bending her fully extended arm ever so slightly, Lyra gave the massive form a push. As all of Josh’s 450 pounds lay suspended over the ground, Lyra swept out with both hands. The traitor was reduced to four chunks of flesh in midair, which fell to the ground with a torrential downpour of blood.

  Giving her longsword a single flick to clean off the gore before returning it to its sheath, Lyra walked back toward the gates. When the great doors opened, the space behind them was filled with villagers. Rust was there, as was Sheryl, who held Toic’s son. Halting in front of them, Lyra brushed her hand against the child’s cheek.

  “Miss,” the boy said, breaking into a smile.

  Lyra had no idea what sort of expression she wore. Immediately bringing her hand away again, she turned to Rust and told him, “Once dawn comes, exile him to a neighboring village.” Her expression was that of a stern and callous warrior.

  —

  III

  —

  No matter where they looked, they saw the Grim Reaper spreading his wings across the w
asteland.

  “Oh, it hurts!”

  “Gimme some water!”

  “I’m so hot . . . I’m burning up, I tell ya, burning up! Please, help me . . .”

  “Boss . . . you gotta do something . . .”

  As the underlings’ pleas and cries of pain blanketed the earth, those wings slowly and gently bore Death to those most gravely wounded. Thirty-two of the sixty were dead on the ground, seven severely wounded, and eighteen slightly injured, plus three more had been killed earlier at the farmhouse—in other words, every member of the Black Death gang was dead or wounded.

  There was only one unscathed—one who wasn’t counted in that sixty. It wasn’t for the sake of the wounded that he was still hanging around. You could tell by the way he took a much deeper breath than normal and blew it out again through pursed lips.

  “Boss!” the man tending to an injured outlaw on top of a mound of dirt called out. He was, in a manner of speaking, Toma’s right-hand man—Garance “Bad Hand” Borden. His left arm was an artificial limb. “You can’t be coming over here. The scent of blood is everywhere, and these guys—”

  It was too late. Just the word boss had been enough to stir up activity among the hitherto-motionless figures around him. Crawling across blankets, digging their fingers into the earth, and staring up at the heavens, they came to Toma.

  A bloodied hand missing its pinky finger grabbed the cuff of his trousers.

  “Please . . . help me . . . Boss . . .”

  Another latched onto him.

  “Me too . . . Don’t leave me here . . . I’ll do anything . . . I’d kill my own mother. Just . . . save me!”

  Another said, “I’m getting cold. And I can’t feel my legs no more. I’m begging you, Boss—save me!”

  And then they suddenly became a chorus.

  “Drink our blood. We don’t care if we’re not the real thing. Please, just make us Nobles.”

  “Now there’s a heartwarming refrain,” Toma said, grinning wryly.

  “Sorry,” Garance said, his head hung low. “But you can’t really blame ’em. None of these slobs ever imagined getting messed up this badly.”

  Toma looked down at the underlings who groveled at his feet. He was like a god looking down upon humanity.