Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane (5 page)

And in keeping with the crone’s haughty talk, tongues of flame licked out in all directions
as helpless butterflies fell like blazing scraps of paper. Not quite so conspicuous
due to Granny Viper’s furious battle, Clay and Bingo nonetheless were engaging the
butterflies about forty feet away. The odd thing was, the butterflies really weren’t
doing anything. There was no sign of them injecting some solvent to melt the travelers’
flesh or clogging their windpipes to suffocate them; they merely kept going after
them.

“Damn! No matter how many we fight off, they just keep coming. At this rate, there’ll
be no end to it, bro.”

There was no answer to Clay’s remark—Bingo’s entire body was draped in black cloth.
While the younger Bullow struggled to pull the insects off his own face, his older
brother sat on his horse without moving a muscle. As a result, it looked like he’d
grown twice as fat.

“Damn you little pests!” Clay shouted through the airborne butterflies that eclipsed
the darkness. And then a beautiful note rang out that sounded like someone strumming
a guitar. But what happened when that sound melded with the darkness, and then became
a wave that rippled out?

The swarm of butterflies that appeared to float on into eternity all disappeared within
a ten-foot radius. Another note resounded: every time the mellifluous sound rang out,
the maddening black swarm of insects that rushed in to replace their fallen comrades
disappeared. And in the center of the gap that’d opened so suddenly was Clay. His
right hand was on the harp he wore on his hip. He kept one eye on his older brother.

“Bingo’s fine,” the younger Bullow told himself. “The old bag’s giving them a hell
of a fight, too. Now where the hell’s that Hunter gone off to?”

While Granny was indeed on top of the situation, Clay’s older brother was blanketed,
mount and all, with black butterflies. What was fine about that?

At that very moment, the swarm of butterflies smoothly drifted away. Because the creatures
did no harm but merely trailed along after them, Granny and Clay found them all the
more disturbing, and their expressions stiffened accordingly.

Gasps of surprise slipped from two pairs of lips at the same time.

The butterflies had begun to glow. So like the darkness in hue, first the contours
of their wings and then their entire forms had suddenly begun to take on a silvery
light.

“What the hell . . .” Clay muttered as the silver butterflies formed several thick
bands before him that then intertwined and began to leisurely eddy about.

This wasn’t merely some pattern formed by the capricious flight of the creatures.
It was clearly a configuration purposely orch-estrated by some higher intelligence.
Straight lines and curves, polyhedrons and circles all existed in the same place and
time, twisting together and pulling apart again. Yet for all that activity, the swirling
figures remained focused on a single point in space.

While they weren’t sure how long they’d watched, Granny and Clay felt like they were
being pulled into the center of that vortex, and the two of them frantically shut
their eyes. A few seconds passed.

“Looks like it’s over,” said a cold voice that sounded equidistant from the pair as
it set their eardrums trembling. Opening their eyes in unison, they found a man on
horseback stopped about fifteen feet from them. It was D.

“I just knew you’d be back,” Granny exclaimed with joy, still holding a nozzle that
dripped liquefied fat.

“Looks like he came back once he found out the butterflies were harmless,” Clay muttered
scornfully.

“I just came to tell you something,” D said dispassionately from the back of his horse.

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“A tornado has sprung up nearly a mile ahead of us. Not a very large one, but enough
to pick all of us up. It’ll be here in about five minutes.”

Of course, Granny and Clay must’ve wanted to know how the young Hunter had eluded
the swarm of butterflies, and whether or not he’d watched their dizzying display until
the end, but the threat of natural disaster took precedence over all else. As she
stowed the flamethrower again, Granny asked the young man apprehensively, “You’ll
be going with us, won’t you?”

Needless to say, his reply was the same as always: “You’re free to follow me if you
like.”

.

II

.

While a pale ash colored the east, light began to rain down at the same rate the darkness
dissipated. It was dawn.

The group had moved about three miles west from their first encampment and was sheltered
behind a sand dune. When the wagon door opened quietly, a pale and reserved-looking
face peered out. Roaring snores crept from the vehicle’s interior—the whole group
had gone to bed about three hours earlier. Tae looked around sleepily at her surroundings,
but they weren’t particularly terrifying. Behind a dune to her right lay a lumpy blanket
where the toes of a pair of boots jutted from the end. Apparently, that was Clay.
There was no sign of his older brother, and his horse wasn’t with Clay’s, either.
There was no telling where a man like that could’ve gone. Sweeping another seventy
degrees, Tae’s eyes then halted. A figure in black was reflected in her widened pupils.

D was on the crest of a dune, staring off to the west. His form was reminiscent of
the most exquisite sculpture, and as he focused solely on the direction they were
headed, he had an air of intensity about him that suited the situation perfectly.

Tae climbed down from the wagon and headed for the dune. For a girl who seemed to
have lost her own will and who was manipulated like a doll by the old woman, this
was an unbelievably purposeful course of action. Climbing the dune, she was a few
yards from the Hunter when she came to a halt. It was the words that came over the
back of his black coat that stopped her.

“What brings you out here?” he asked.

Tae didn’t answer.

“There’s no telling what’ll come at us next out in this desert. Go back to the wagon.”
His voice was soft, but it allowed no debate.

Tae closed her eyes. Her head still hung low, and her thin, bloodless lips trembled
with fright. “I . . . I thought I might . . . answer your question . . .”

Back at the cheap hotel, D had asked the girl the name of the Noble who’d abducted
her. Now it was a different question he put to her. “Do you want to tell me?” he asked.

Tae looked up at D with an expression that betrayed her surprise.

“Why have you decided to talk about it? If you don’t want to, don’t force yourself
to do it.”

The girl didn’t know what to say.

“Did Granny put you up to this?”

Tae looked down again. It took a few seconds before she could speak again. “If you
didn’t feel like helping . . . she said none of us would make it across the desert
alive . . . that’s why . . .”

“Your parents are in Barnabas, aren’t they?”

Several more seconds of silence followed.

“It seems both of them are dead,” the girl replied. “But my big brother got married
and took over the house.”

“In that case, you needn’t burden yourself unduly for the rest of the trip. I can’t
take you there, but you’re free to follow me.”

Tae looked at D strangely. The black expanse of his back spoke volumes on loneliness
and complete isolation. Somehow, she got the impression that the young man had nothing
more to say to her. Tae backed away a few steps; she was too afraid to just turn around.
Right as she was about to go, the girl hesitantly said, “I don’t remember anything
at all. Just . . .”

Just what?

“In the darkness, there were always these two red eyes, blazing like rubies . . .
watching me . . .”

The Hunter hadn’t turned toward her, and the girl then turned her back to him, too.

Not long after the sloping dune had hidden the tracks she left in the sand, another
voice—a hoarse one—could be heard where D seemed to be alone. “Well, it looks like
he
got a taste of her after all,” it said with a chuckle. “In which case she’ll never
know happiness no matter how she might try, eh? So, what do you suppose he did to
her?”

There was no reply. D just kept his eyes trained straight ahead at the cold world
of sand that seemed shrouded in gray light.

The voice laughed with amusement. “She may be behaving herself right now, but he isn’t
crazy enough to snatch a human girl just so she can be his maidservant. Sooner or
later, that girl’s bound to show her true colors. Our foes aren’t on the outside,
but rather—”

“There are some girls that nothing happens to,” D finally replied.

“Sure, but that’s maybe one in ten thousand,” the voice shot back ruthlessly. “And
just think about the miserable end this world has in store for all the rest of those
girls—and I don’t just mean the ones
he
took.”

If that comment had been directed at anyone but D, they would’ve grown pale as they
tried desperately to strike the answer from their brain, or perhaps they would’ve
frozen on the spot from the overwhelming horror of it.

For
the hidden
, the tragedy really began when they were found and brought back to the world of humanity.
There were girls who might suddenly sprout fangs and tear into someone’s throat the
very day they were reunited with their parents. There were boys who might live uneventfully
for months, or even years, before going mad without any warning whatsoever. There
were actually records of a case a dozen years or so earlier where such children abandoned
their parents again to live someplace in the mountains, but even there the madness
in their blood set them to killing each other, until in the end they were all dead.
You could say both the beginning and the end of
the hidden
’s tragic tale was penned when the children disappeared.

“You know how it is,” D’s left hand continued. “In the end, nothing good can come
of that girl going back to her family. At first, her parents will weep for joy. They’ll
probably want her to live with them, even if it means hiding her from the neighbors
or moving to another region. But after a while, they’ll get to wondering if maybe
her eyes don’t have a strange glint to them. Not that you can blame them. To eyes
that have peered into the darkness of the other side, this world is a hollow reflection.
And could anything shy of the sights of hell ever move those kids again? No, not till
the end of time. And there’s the first act of the tragedy. The very parents who would’ve
died to have their kid back now can’t even look at them. They lock the kid in their
room. And then one day the two of them pack up a wagon and take off out of the blue,
leaving just their kid in the house.”

The voice broke off there; D was squeezing his left hand into a fist. He did so with
such force it wouldn’t have been surprising to hear the bones cracking.

But from his fist, a tortured voice said, “I suppose you could say the kids that get
left behind are the lucky ones, though. Some parents are more . . .
thorough
. The same parents who spent their last dalas searching for their kids one day start
whittling down a piece of wood and putting a point on the end of it . . .”

Something red had slowly begun to seep from between D’s fingers.

“Oof . . . No one can really say . . . who it’s harder for . . . the parents or the
kids . . . But I can tell you this . . . If that girl there never goes home . . .
no one . . . gets . . . hurt . . .”

At that moment, D quietly turned around. Seemingly following Tae’s tracks, he went
down the dune. After mounting his cyborg horse, he wheeled around in the direction
of Clay and the wagon.

“There’s a tornado approaching,” the Hunter declared. “We’re moving out.”

After just enough time to contemplate his words, the blanket rose and the door to
the wagon opened. Both the old woman and the warrior had been awake for some time.
They certainly weren’t average travelers.

“What, again?” Clay complained.

“Seriously?” Granny Viper asked, just to be sure. “I mean, it’s not like that sort
of thing springs up all the time. So, I take it this is a different one from last
night, right?”

“No, it’s the same one,” D said flatly.

“Meaning all of
what
, exactly?” Clay asked, his lascivious expression twisting into a sneer. “Are you
trying to tell us ol’ Mr. Twister’s out looking for us or something?”

Ignoring him, D started riding to the east.

“Son of a bitch,” Clay growled, hatred in his eyes, as he hustled after the Hunter
and toward his own horse.

Granny made haste, too.

No sooner had the wagon taken off than Clay did something rather strange. Looking
all around, he cupped one hand by his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could, “Bro,
I’m going on ahead. You catch up with me later, okay?”

Though Bingo didn’t seem to be anywhere within range of Clay’s cries, it seemed like
his younger brother might have been able to see him. Saying nothing more and not seeming
at all anxious, the warrior lashed his horse into action. As he galloped toward the
wagon that was already twenty or thirty yards ahead of him, he looked over his shoulder.

“God, that’s unbelievable,” Clay said, the words spilling from him like a trickle
of disbelief.

Distance-wise, it must’ve still been a couple of miles away—a line that looked like
a twisted metal wire tied the heavens to the earth. It was bizarre the way that either
end was blurred, seemingly dissolving into the sky at one extreme and the ground at
the other. As far as Clay could see, it just kept growing thicker and thicker.

Riding full-tilt, the younger Bullow pulled even with the wagon. Granny Viper also
wore a look of desperation as she gripped the reins. She recognized the tornado for
what it was now.

The door opened, and Tae’s face appeared.

“Don’t come out here,” Clay barked, but it was the old woman’s expression, instead,
that stiffened at the remark. Tae remained as devoid of emotion as ever.

Clay rode up on D’s right-hand side. For a split second the desire to take a shot
at the Hunter from behind surfaced in his brain, but it quickly faded again. “What
the hell’s the story with this tornado?!” he shouted. “It’s following us! A while
back, I joked it was looking for us, but this is just—”

“It’s a strange desert, isn’t it?” D said in a rare response.

“Damned if I ever heard of a tornado chasing travelers all night long. But we managed
to give it the slip once already. We’ll just do it again, right?”

Giving no reply, D flicked his gaze to the rear.

Imitating him, Clay looked back as well…and groaned despite himself.

The tornado looked like it was three feet thick now instead of a thin wire. The distance
was dwindling; it wasn’t a mile away now, or even five hundred yards.

Shouting something, Clay kicked his horse’s flanks. As he shot away from D, he heard
the Hunter behind him say, “The wagon’s going to be sucked in.” His voice was cold,
like a machine’s. Clay quivered, as if an electrical current had just shot through
his powerful back.