Bounty Hunter

by Michelle E Lowe

  He’d heard that sandstorms only lasted a short while, and that the best thing to do was to hunker down until one passed. But, this was no ordinary sandstorm, not with a mass of bubbling methane gas beneath him. Pierce needed to find Jaxton, who couldn’t be more than a foot or two off. He highly doubted he’d moved from where Pierce had last seen him.

  The wind level rose, causing his scalp to prickle. Suddenly, an eerie feeling that he wasn’t alone crept up his spine. A face with no eyes. It shrieked loudly, and as it did, it crumbled into the sand that eventually carried the face away.

  “Fuckin’ hell!” he exclaimed, coming to a dead stop.

  More figures appeared, gliding in and out of the brown blizzard. Some heads were attached to grotesque bodies of bones and torn flesh that flapped in the wind like rags. These fluttering shadows of dull grey mist swept around him and against the tempest. Pierce’s heart nearly exploded with panic. Their wailing and shrieking rose over the sharp whistling of the winds, hurting his ears. Pierce winced at the dreadful sights and sounds surrounding him.

  He reasoned they were the poltergeists he’d been warned about, and unless he wanted to end up joining them, he had to keep his wits about him, which wasn’t easy to do. Anyone who could honestly look upon a disembodied specter without feeling faint had ironclad balls, in Pierce’s opinion. Whether they could physically harm him or not, that didn’t stop them from wreaking havoc on his nerves. It nearly caused his knees to buckle. He remembered Grandmother Fey’s protection spell. She knew a thing or two about spirits, and therefore, must have done something to prevent these dead buggers from touching him. He simply had to will his way through it.

  Pierce went on, doing his best to ignore the tortuous screaming that sounded all around. Hazy flashes of lightning strikes and deafening thunder clashes, boomed as loud as cannon blasts.

  Then Pierce saw him. A man. He was no ghost like the others, but a solid form, standing with arms crossed, unaffected by the sandstorm. He was tall, strikingly handsome, with a dark complexion and dark hair. He had sharp, almost parallelogram-shaped eyes fixed directly on Pierce. Pierce had seen him before at the square when he accused Tarak of causing the accident that pretty much got this whole bloody mess started in the first place. Why was he here? Was he there at all? Had Pierce finally lost his damn mind? Regardless, it caused Pierce to backpedal and trip over something behind him.

  “Ow!” hollered out whatever had stolen his footing.

  Pierce sat up. “Oi! Jaxton!”

  Jaxton had bunched himself facedown into a ball, with his back to the flow of the winds. “Pierce?”

  His whole body was covered in a layer of sand. Not an inch of him showed until he moved and rotated his head toward Pierce. Endless sand and grit blew off him, his eyes tightly shut.

  “Right.” Pierce swung his legs off and tucked them underneath himself. “The goggles.”

  He turned his back to the storm and leaned over the bag as he opened the flap. The man he’d thought he saw was no longer there, much to Pierce’s relief. He reckoned it was his imagination, stirred up by the fright of seeing the ghosts, which remained real.

  “What in God’s name is that noise?” Jaxton asked, referring to the foreboding screeches.

  “Hang on, lad,” Pierce exclaimed.

  He rifled through the rucksack. The dim light and the fact that his hair kept whipping around his face made seeing anything a difficult task. Finally, his fingers touched the clear lenses of the goggles and he snatched them out.

  “Here!” he said, putting them into Jaxton’s hand.

  The Australian worked fast and put them on. As he did, Pierce wondered how Itza-chu and Emma were holding up. He hoped they had managed to stay put so they could all easily regroup once the blasted storm had passed.

  After Jaxton slipped on his goggles, he got his first real look at the sandstorm and its ghosts.

  “What are those things?” he exclaimed fearfully.

  The sand spirits howled and swirled through the ever-moving storm. Pierce rose with Jaxton, about to tell him to stay calm. That changed the moment a flash of lightning, bright enough to blind, scraped across the land like a match over a matchbox striker. Flames burst straight up from the earth. The fire geysers closest to them sprang up high and blazed hot. Sweat poured from Pierce’s pores. His nerves snapped.

  “Run!”

  “Where?” Jaxton asked, frantically looking about.

  Running seemed like a good idea, a lot better than waiting to be a cooked goose while the ghouls taunted them. Pierce thought it best to run with the wind rather than against it.

  “This way!” he said, gripping Jaxton by the arm and tugging him along.

  He never let go of him, too afraid to lose him again in the sands. The only pitfall to this sprint was the amount of oxygen they were using.

  Goddammit, when will this bloody storm pass?

  More lightning flashed, triggering the flammable gas and lighting up the ground in a deadly inferno. One fire geyser shot up right next to Pierce, and then another on his other side. He couldn’t help but feel he was being targeted.

  You’re in serious trouble, Pierce. His grandmother’s warning echoed in his head. Do you remember what we spoke about at Joaquin’s wake? About your fate thread?

  If Pierce hadn’t met the Fates, he’d never have believed that most folks were tagged with strings that determined when they would die. Although the Fates had shown him and young Clover mercy by returning them from the dead, in Pierce’s opinion, having such power over people was pure bollocks.

  Every second inside the storm stretched into an hour. He feared it would never end.

  But then it did.

  Almost as suddenly as it had manifested, the winds were whisked away like a nightmare fleeing from memory. The grey light of the overcast day appeared, and the sands carried on toward the west. With the storm gone, the world returned to normal, clearing away the apocalyptic trauma of it all. Pierce looked over at Jaxton, still latched onto his arm.

  They had made it out. They had survived the storm. They were covered in sand and sweat and chilled by fear after facing ghosts and fires, but, fuckin’ hell, they’d made it!

  “I think it’s time to leave the Fire Field, yeah?” Jaxton said.

  Pierce lowered his mask and took in a large gulp of fresh air. “Aye. I agree.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Coyotes

  “How the bloody hell did they get all the way over there?” Pierce wondered out loud while standing with one boot off.

  In the distance, barely visible, the other half of the group was riding towards the hills. Even after the storm cleared, Pierce and Jaxton couldn’t immediately spot either Itza-chu or Emma. They did manage to locate some supplies that had fallen off Jaxton’s horse. The mount was long gone.

  “At least they’re together,” Jaxton commented, looking through Pierce’s spyglass. “They have your horse still.”

  Pierce patted out more sand from his boot and slipped it back on. “Aye, I saw.”

  Jaxton lowered the spyglass and looked over at him. “You can see them at that distance?”

  Pierce was blessed with supremely good eyesight, which came in handy.

  “C’mon,” Pierce ordered, wedging his foot into the boot. “They’re headin’ for the cemetery. Let’s gather the gear and catch up.”

  “Shouldn’t we try coaxing them over here?”

  “No time. They’re already a good distance off. We need to reach the hills before nightfall. It’ll be fine, eh?”

  Pierce tried sounding optimistic, which was a trial in itself. After what they had endured, he wasn’t looking forward to walking, much less hauling nearly all their supplies. They packed up what they had in Jaxton’s rucksack and wrapped the rest in their only bedroll.

  “We only have one canteen,” Jaxton pointed out.

  Pierce struggled to remain positive. “It’ll be fine, lad.”

  Pierce carried the rucksack on his b
ack along with his air tanks, while Jaxton cradled the bloated bedroll in front of him. He lugged it without complaining, which Pierce was thrilled about, seeing as he was carrying the heaviest load. There were fires burning here and there, fueled by the gas belowground. Jaxton stayed quiet, but Pierce sensed he was unraveling. After seeing the ghouls, it actually surprised Pierce that he and Jaxton hadn’t come out with their hair stark white.

  He kept expecting Jaxton to bring it up, but he never did, which suited Pierce just fine, for he really didn’t want to talk about it, either.

  * * *

  Gog gritted his teeth. His rage nearly caused him to burst into flames on the spot. Pierce possessed a powerful protection over him. If not for that shield, he would not have made it out unscathed. The spirits had failed to permanently damage his state of mind. Gog could do nothing against such a protective spell.

  He needed to think of another way to pry the man and Taisia apart. He thought back to the day before, when Taisia and her husband had spoken briefly about Emma. Gog had noticed Taisia’s deep concern and tasted her despair when Pierce left her without an answer to her question. She had barely gotten any sleep over it as her suspicions grew. Even now, Taisia was wondering what the two were doing together. With Taisia’s fears increasing, it would be all too easy to convince her that her husband had been unfaithful. And to Gog’s good fortune, he already had a witness at his disposal.

  * * *

  “We have to make camp?” Jaxton asked as they finally crested the hilltop.

  Pierce was utterly exhausted. He peeled off the heavy rucksack, which had only grown heavier during their journey, and moaned when he also removed the oxygen pack. The hike up the rocky hills wasn’t exactly difficult, but it prompted him to wonder how Itza-chu and Emma were doing with the horses.

  “It’s our best option,” Pierce explained, setting the tanks down carefully. He pressed against the small of his back and heard a crack. “We’ll set off first thing in the morning.”

  “But there’s daylight left and the border isn’t far, right?”

  “It’s not far, but we’ve been walking for hours and we have to rest. If we keep going at this pace, we’ll run the risk of night falling before we make it out. We need a fire, and we can’t exactly build it on top of ground bloated with methane gas, eh?”

  He checked his compass on his gloved hand.

  “That way.” He pointed east. “We’ll set off in that direction at daybreak and hit the cemetery almost immediately after leaving the Fire Field.”

  He shifted his eyes to Jaxton, who was holding onto the bedroll with the look of a scared child.

  “Listen,” Pierce sighed, “we’re fine up here. Once we get a fire going and put some food in our stomachs, we’ll both be more stable in the head.”

  “What about the . . . ?” Jaxton stopped to swallow nervously. He couldn’t even say it.

  “Aye. The ghosts. I don’t think they’ll be bothering us any-more.”

  “How do you know? What if another sandstorm comes?”

  Pierce wished he had an answer to give. All he could offer was a lousy shrug.

  “Shit!” the Australian exclaimed, throwing down the bedroll “This is just goddamn brilliant!”

  He stormed off and vanished behind a cluster of rocks and boulders.

  Pierce huffed. It’s gonna be a long bloody night.

  The sun set faster than Pierce had anticipated. He’d been keeping busy searching for firewood and a suitable place to set up camp. Being safely above the dangerous flammable gas was a touch of good fortune, but as Jaxton had reminded him, there were the ghosts and sandstorms to fret about. With that in mind, Pierce scouted about until he located a small gorge carved between the rocks. It was deep enough to shield them from the winds.

  He sorely wished Taisia was with him. He was so damn lonely without her by his side. She would have brought some levity to the situation. At that very moment, they could have been laughing about something. Taisia had a knack for making him happy. God, what a bloody fool he had been. He had to set things right between them.

  His hand shook as he scratched a matchstick across the matchbox. Although he didn’t believe the methane gas stretched all the way up the rocky hills, that didn’t keep the fear of having his face burnt off at bay. He held his breath as he touched the flame to the kindling. It took and crackled under the firewood where he’d placed it. Pierce leaned back with a sigh of relief and took a moment to admire the campsite. It didn’t look half bad. The only minor challenge was the tent. A pole had been lost in the storm, but the tarp was salvageable, and the guy lines were already attached to the tent itself. Pierce had managed to scrounge up a fallen tree branch to use as a makeshift tent pole. He unloaded everything and spread the bedroll flat near the fire. It was growing dark by the time he started on dinner.

  “This looks nice and cozy,” Jaxton remarked, walking down the short, narrow sandy pathway that led into the gorge.

  “Aye,” Pierce agreed, punching the curvy blade of his knife into the lid of a can and carving around it. “I daresay I’ve done a proper job of it.”

  Jaxton came over and stopped with arms crossed. The desert chill was settling in. He looked curiously at the pan Pierce had set down on a rock next to him.

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “Slop,” Pierce answered, tipping the can over the pan full of creamed corn and baked beans.

  Diced tomatoes slid out of the can and splattered in unappetizing clumps. Jaxton’s upper lip curled in a snarl.

  “Sounds delightful, mate.” He took a seat on the ground and warmed his hands by the fire. “Looks like you were right about the methane.”

  “Lucky for me, eh?”

  “Aye,” Jaxton agreed, eyes darting around the camp. “Sorry about my outburst earlier and leaving you to do all this alone.”

  “It’s fine, mate. It isn’t the first camp I’ve set up.”

  Pierce held the pan over the crackling flame. They had only plates to eat on. The forks had gotten lost. As long as the meal didn’t taste like complete rubbish, eating with their hands might not be too bad.

  “You have the bedroll out here?” Jaxton asked.

  “Well, we ain’t sharing it,” Pierce retorted. “I’ll be staying out here. You can have the tent.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting we share anything,” Jaxton responded.

  It surprised Pierce how defensive he’d become. He blamed it on Rupert. That cocker had reshaped Pierce’s thinking in ways that weren’t like him, and if he wanted to reverse it, only he had the power to do so. He needed to simmer down, for Jaxton had no idea what Pierce knew about him.

  Pierce huffed and went back to cooking.

  They ate the slop, and it didn’t taste too much like rubbish. They made small talk, but Pierce’s mind was too exhausted to keep up with the conversation. Soon after, he turned in for the night, keeping his Oak Leaf pistol lying across his chest. Who knew what lurked out there in the Fire Field when it was dark.

  The night was cold, causing Pierce to stir. Once in a while, he believed he heard things: a whisper, a cackle of laughter. He tried not to let it get to him.

  Finally, he fell fast asleep.

  Rupert Swansea was on top of him. Pierce was unable to escape with his arms shackled behind him. The feel of Rupert’s hands rubbing over his body and the bugger’s breath smelling of sauerkraut and tobacco turned his stomach inside out. Rupert grabbed Pierce between his legs.

  You need to be controlled.

  “Pierce, wake up.”

  He snapped his eyes open and Rupert stared back at him.

  “Get the fuck off me!” he bellowed, grabbing the fucker’s lapel and jamming the gun under his chin, ready to blast the cocker’s sadistic grin right off his face.

  “Whoa, mate! Hold up!” pleaded Jaxton’s voice.

  Pierce blinked several times before clearly seeing the Australian’s terrified expression. For a moment, neither of them moved.

  �
�Easy, Pierce,” Jaxton told him nervously.

  Returning to his senses, Pierce uncoiled his fingers from Jaxton’s collar and lowered the gun. The lightning bolt of fear and rage that had stuck him cooled.

  Jaxton stood with caution. “Jesus. What the hell were you dreaming about, eh?”

  Pierce wiped cold sweat from his forehead before noticing Jaxton offering him a hand. He slapped it away. “Don’t touch me.”

  Jaxton threw his arms up and backed off. “Fucking hell, calm down. I’m not going to attack you.”

  Pierce glared up at him. The dream that forced him to revisit one of the most dreadful experiences in his entire life had certainly put him in a foul mood.

  “What?” Jaxton demanded, noticing his hateful look.

  “Nothing.”

  “Oi. Do you actually think I would?”

  Pierce was in no mood for this discussion. He needed a few ticks to clear his head. The nightmare had come to him before, and he hated that it had come to him on this particular night. Perhaps the specters had messed him up worse than he’d suspected. Maybe it was Jaxton. Either way, it didn’t sit well with him.

  Jaxton’s face fell when Pierce gave him no answer. “You . . . you know about me, don’t you?”

  “The sun is coming up. We need to move out.” He set the gun down and moved to kneel beside the bedroll and roll it up. There was a deep silence that instantly irritated him. “I mean it, Jaxton. Help me break down the camp.”

  “Did it happen to you?”

  Pierce stopped and raised his head up to the sky. He sighed deeply and continued with his task. “Did what happen?”

  “Did a man force himself on you? More than one, perhaps?”

  Pierce hadn’t expected him to just blurt it out like that. The question disarmed him. He gritted his teeth and nearly told Jaxton to stow it, but he was too tired to hide anything. He threw down the bedroll and stood to face him.

  “It only happened once. Got it?”