by Nick Cole
She bites me in the hand.
I have to pry her jaw open to get it loose.
“Stop it!” I shout. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”
I have her pinned now beneath me on the carpet next to the bed. But she’s struggling for all she’s worth and it feels like I’m riding a wild horse that will never be broken. I saw a movie about that once…
“I told you I’m not with them,” I try again.
Finally her strength begins to fade and she settles for spitting in my face. “Prove it,” she hisses.
We’re both scratched and bleeding.
I’m breathing heavily. Her too.
I can’t think of how I can prove that I’m not going to hurt her.
Burning coal-black eyes stare dark hatred at me.
“Are you…” I try as I sit up. It takes me another second to catch my breath as the adrenaline begins to fade. “Did they abduct you and force you to be here?”
That seems to shock her. As though that’s the most alien idea she’s ever heard. Her brow furrows, and she’s instantly indignant.
“No.”
My only guess, up until she denied it, was that she was somehow here against her will.
Now… that isn’t even the case.
“Well…” I begin, “why ever you’re here… I have no intention of hurting you or… forcing you… to…”
She gives me a contemptuous smile that turns her eyes brimstone-laden, indicating she doubts I’m capable of forcing her to do anything.
“What do you think of Rashid?” she asks quietly.
I run my hands through my hair and look for the knife. It got loose in the fight. Probably a good idea to control its location.
“I think he’s an ass,” I say absently because it’s late, I’m hungry, tired, burned out, and I’ve just almost been stabbed to death by a girl I find to be the very definition of beautiful.
Nothing has changed on her face when I look back at her. The look of cool appraisal remains, as does the smoldering hate in her eyes.
“I think he’s a very bad guy,” I confess. “To tell you the truth…” And I have no idea why I’m about to tell her the truth. Maybe it’s because I’m so tired. Maybe it’s because her nakedness and beauty make me want to be as honest and as vulnerable as she is. As if that’s somehow a comfort. Or maybe I’ve finally realized the truth that’s been bothering me ever since I crossed the border into this hellhole.
The people I’m working for are bad people. That’s why they pay so well.
“If I had known who he was… what this place was… I’d never have taken the job,” I say finally.
“You’re not from here.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement. And she says it like it’s a truth known to all.
“No,” I admit.
I spot the knife. It’s just beyond her grasp. I look at her and she looks at it. Then I reach for it, pick it up, and place it in her open palm covered in the blood she drew when she raked her nails down the side of my face.
I watch her to see what she’ll do next.
She watches me to see what kind of man is hiding under my skin.
I stand. Find a black lace robe that won’t cover much and hand it to her. Then I sit on the low bed.
“I’m not with these people,” I whisper. “I’m tired. And I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m not that kind of person.”
She sits down next to me.
We both stare at the knife in her hand.
“Who are you?” she asks softly.
I don’t know.
I watch my hands suddenly fling themselves open… as though the answer is there. As though I’m suddenly required to defend myself. Except there is no defense. Not in this situation. Not in Calistan.
So my mouth remains closed.
Then: “I play video games for a living. I won the Super Bowl last week. It was kind of a big deal.”
I don’t know why I say that last part. No. I do. I do know.
Because she’s beautiful.
“So you’re not part of his inner circle? Are you going to tell Rashid…” She hesitates. “That I tried to kill you?”
I shake my head as I stare at the carpet.
“I’m just tired,” I say.
She stands up. She walks to the head of the bed and lies down on her side. She pats the bed next to her. “Come.”
I lie back next to her.
She strokes my hair and watches me.
I close my eyes and we talk. She tells me she came to kill Rashid. That she intended to kill me, then she’d go after Rashid later. When he was asleep. Close to dawn. When the world was asleep and there was a chance she could disappear with the coastal fog.
I tell her about the guards outside his door.
I tell her she’d get killed. Now isn’t the time for an ambush. And it would be a shame for her to die. Because she’s beautiful. And strong.
She kisses me. Once. Slow. Her lips full and inviting, and then she bites mine a little.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “I don’t trust you. But thank you.”
I have no idea why she’d be thanking me. I tell her that.
“Because the truth is dead here in Calistan. And to tell it is an act of bravery.”
And for the first time… in a long time… I feel some kind of peace. Or maybe it’s a wanting to belong to something I never knew existed. Her. Or maybe it’s just the last real thing in a country full of illusions.
And then we sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the valley. In the dark. In the mad hermit’s hollowed-out tree, I find treasure. A potion. A ring. A dagger.
The potion is clear and silvery.
The ring is made of brass. Yet it feels comforting. I slip it onto my finger. I feel… more secure. It’s a magic ring. I know that. But I don’t know what it does.
The dagger is an ancient curving blade. Strange runes swim across its dark surface. Its ivory handle is cold and yellowed with age. A gleaming green gem is set in the pommel. I know the dagger, too, is magic.
There’s also a sack of coins. Strange gold stamped with an imperious face.
I stare at them in the moonlight and wonder how much there is and who the face had been.
Something moves in the trees above.
I raise Deathefeather and wait. Watching the darkness. And then I see it. A great cat. A dark jungle cat watching me from up there. I see its two eyes burning like sapphires.
I back away from the tree with my treasures, keeping the blade between myself and the watching cat. And in time, I have withdrawn into the forest deeps and I know it will not follow me. For now.
Later, in the dead of the night after the moon has gone down, I build a small fire using the dead wood that’s everywhere on the forest floor. Some flint and steel strike a spark and give it life. I had these tools in my simple roll. I knew they were there. And how to use them. As though those are the most natural things to know.
I sit by the small fire in the midst of a small copse of twisted trees. Eating some of my rations. The cheese. The apple. Cold water.
And then I sleep.
* * *
At dawn I awake. I can smell the smoke of my dead fire mixed with the leaden fog. The forest is lit by a soft and diffused light. The trees look like the fingers of skeletons clutching at the sky.
I can’t remember the dream I was having. But it was so real, it seems now as though the dawn is the dream and the dream… the dream was what was real.
I drink more cold water and keep my hand on my katana. It lies next to me in its sheath. Waiting. Always waiting. I don’t like this part of the forest. It seems dead. Lifeless. And yet I know there’s something there, out in the dark areas of its length. Something evil, mindless, roaming shadowy halls. Searching for anything it might devour.
A lone bird breaks the silence. Calling out in the gloom.
Once.
And then it’s gone.
Spooked, I g
ather my things together. Stowing my treasures from the night before. Studying the coins and the mysterious dagger, and the strange potion. Before I put them all away.
Looking for long moments at them.
Having to remember these things are not the reason I am here. These are just treasures that happened along the way.
William Alucard is who I’ve come for.
The Priest of Chaos.
I have come for him.
I set out once more, heading out with the sun into the west. Bearing what must be north. Above the dead trees, iron-gray peaks of distant mountains rise, jagged and sharp against the wan morning sky.
For hours there is only the sound of my sandals breaking deadfall. And my breath alone in this maze of a forest.
And then there is the sound of a horse. A horse on a road at full gallop. Off to my right.
I wait and listen.
Then I run as fast as I can through the dead forest. Dead limbs catch at my robes and I hear the small tears they make. But I run. I run toward the sound of the galloping horse.
I run because the last time I saw Alucard he was on a horse. And maybe this horse is his horse. And maybe he is on the horse.
And there is something about him, about killing him, that leads me to believe there will be an answer to a question that I need an answering to. But no one has promised such a thing. And so I run because it’s the only way forward.
I break from the forest and find a lonely old road.
It leads off to the west. And far down the road I see Alucard riding like the devil on his black horse. He disappears as the road curves off into the distant forest.
I wait, listening. Listening to the sound of the hooves until they have faded into nothingness and all that remains is the overwhelming silence of this dead place he has only recently passed through.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The trail of the horse isn’t hard to follow through the quiet forest. I keep up a steady pace and soon the dead forest gives way to a greenery that, though still silent, returns to something familiar. In the distance I see rolling hills rising above the trees.
A few hours later I come upon a sign. The wood is rotting and old. The weathered scrawl in black proclaims the faded word Hommet. Another small road intersects this road, but it is clear the horse and rider have gone on to Hommet.
I continue, and after another hour I see two small hills, and between them lies a small village. Farther on, in the distance, some kind of ancient fortified structure rises above the trees, but I can make out little of it.
Nearing the village, I smell death. It’s suddenly overwhelming and its scent rises with the heat of the day.
I approach the outer buildings. The bodies I see are like the people back at the keep. In that they are people. Townspeople. Except now they look like the girl Alucard rode down in the street.
They look like discarded rag dolls.
Near a stable yard I see the corpse of some sort of dogman. The body is human. The face is dog. He wears battered armor. His snout is frozen in a permanent snarl. The whites of his eyes have rolled toward the sky. Toward heaven. Beside him lies a long pole with a bloody axe head at the top.
The nearby body of a man has been hacked to pieces. Other bodies, women and children, also have been done to death in similar violent fashion. All along the dirt track leading through the center of this place.
Smashed doors have been thrown outward. Nothing moves. No one calls out. Metal is not beaten and there is no murmur of conversation. All I hear are bone chimes rattling in the barest breeze.
I step through a smashed door and into some kind of shop. Everything that has not been smashed has been taken. Whatever was once here, is gone. Whatever this place was… it is ruined forever.
I step back out and continue through what remains of the town. There is no shock, or horror. Not as I know I must feel seeing all the dead bodies in the street. More dogmen. And a few humans who wear dark robes. Flies have gathered but the corpses aren’t rotting just yet. The blood still lies in congealing pools.
This must have happened recently.
No, there is no horror. Not even shock. And yet what is this? A game? Something else? And… ’Oo am I?
A growing nothingness defies me, no matter how badly I want to feel something. Because I know I should feel something. But I don’t and so I proceed on to the ruined structure beyond the edge of town. It stands gray and black against the warm sun and blue sky. In the fields nearby I see dead sheep and lazy sunflowers. Along the trail I spot the pawprints of large dogs. Many of them. And mixed in among I find the occasional boot, and once or twice the hoofprint of a horse.
I reach the ancient fortified structure. But I can see the old place is ruined. Falling into disrepair. In places its old gray stone is crumbling. The timber on the rooftop has fallen in great sections. A wall surrounds its grounds, and there is a place for a gate, but the gate itself has long since fallen to pieces.
With my hand on the hilt of my katana I step through the wide portal and into an overgrown courtyard that stands before some kind of manor house, looking more haunted than anything I have ever seen. Wide crumbling steps, overgrown with dry dead weeds, lead up to a pile of stone and rotting wood where the walls are lifeless and beaten.
To my left is an old tower that once watched over the gate. It still has a door. And…
I can hear something in there in the dead silence of this forsaken place. The sound is low. Very low. Almost like a chittering clickety-click. Or a constant snapping.
I move to the door of the tower and test it. It’s not locked, but it doesn’t want to budge.
The chittering clicking from within suddenly ceases, and the silence in its absence is ominously overwhelming. Like an unspoken warning that should be heeded if one wishes to go on living.
I step back and smash the door with a kick. Perfectly executed, as though I have performed this strike a thousand times a day for ten years in the becoming of this samurai. It is sudden, sharp, and violent. The wood is dry and rotten and gives way with a dusty smaff.
I pull a few slats away and peer into the shadowy darkness within the small ruined tower. At first I see nothing more than shadows cut by beams of dusty light. And then I see her.
How do I know it’s a her?
Because the torso that rides atop the giant bulb of the spider’s swollen body is that of a woman. Her once platinum-blond hair is now a hoary, deathly white, and even that cannot compete with the cadaverous drowning-victim paleness of her skin that should be bronzed and tan.
Her teeth are fangs.
She snaps them and comes scuttling for me, her eyes popping like the flash of some ancient camera. The instant flashes cause strobes in the darkness, illuminating the red hourglass of the black widow’s mark stamped onto her swollen back. Her eight legs are long and delicate, and they scramble her down out of her ancient webs, the claw-like hands attached directly to her torso reaching for me greedily.
Snap. Flash. Snap. Flash. Snap. Flash.
I stumble back from the door and draw my katana in one wide sweeping motion. I know I’ll only get one cut before she overwhelms me with sheer bulk. So momentum and speed will have to meet timing.
But she’s too swollen to make it through the narrow door. She forces her body in strange contortions but manages only to squeeze her corpse-like torso through into the bright blaze of noon in this deserted place beyond the edge of the slaughtered town. She shrieks horribly at the injustice of her weight and bulk. Her face is huffing and apoplectic.
And yet she still wants to suck the marrow from my bones. Needs to. And… I can almost understand her high-pitched chittering crooning that sounds inhuman and otherworldly.
She shrieks some phrase that has meaning. Or once did. But not anymore. She shrieks and reaches for me with one of her necrotic white hands.
“I’ll give you the night of your life!” As if pleading for me to believe this is possible.
I weave Deathe
feather like a fan in front of me. Once. Smooth. Effortless. Its shiny flash passes through a reaching arm which now lies in the weed-choked courtyard amid dust and rubble.
She shrieks that alien and yet once-familiar phrase again. And then…
“Immanmaerican!”
And that’s familiar to me in a fleeting moment until I realize it’s meaningless to the samurai.
Her horror-show face is nothing but stunned rage as she shuttles back within the squat dark tower that has long been her abode. Preying on birds, insects, and misbehaving children who were told never to go poking around this old place. Shrieking at me over and over again and again as she recedes into the darkness…
“Immanmaerican!”
“Immanmaerican!”
“Immanmaerican!”
Pleading.
Hissing.
Begging.
From the shadows.
She withdraws into the darkness of the crumbling guard tower.
“Immanmaerican!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I am alone in the ancient courtyard now. Walls are battered in sections. Stone crumbles inward. I see the swampy forest and stream beyond these gaps. It seems as though long ago this place was sieged by some attacking force, or ravaged by the villagers one angry mob night. Or perhaps it collapsed from some other weight it could no longer bear. Time. Sorrow. Evil. All such things are hammers. And only the anvil of eternity defies their blows.
I turn and face the wide stairs leading up to the shadows of the main building. The old doors have gone missing. As have the people who once made this place the center of their lives. There were probably festivals here, dinners, dances, weddings… life things. And now there is nothing. Just dust and ruin.
If the dogmen and Alucard came this way—along with those others in the dark robes whose bodies were left bloating in the sun back along the village paths—they are in there somewhere.
I wait in the silence, listening for some clue that does not reveal itself just yet.
Deathefeather is out of its sheath, held out and away. I know that if anything comes for me I will draw it across my body in a quick defensive slash. Then I will regain my footing, raise it once more in the blink of an eye, and strike for a kill. All this is as natural and as known to the samurai as any other action my body might ever perform.