Chapter 14
Dust had hoped to find something… straightforward at the telegraph line; something unequivocal and simple, one big fight and then they find Penelope safe and sound. So he was a mite disappointed when they crested a sandstone peak beside the line and found only that one of the poles had been downed. The line was unbroken and unmolested for miles either way; no creatures, no magic and no hint of corruption. Dust could sense no eldritch activity around them either; presumably the Paints had picked the area clean whilst they marshalled the line. All they found was that one pole knocked a dozen feet from its brethren, the wires it had once held scattered like matted, uncombed hair.
Dust held back a sigh. “Let’s check it out,” he said before heading down a rough track carved into the peak long before the eruption of the Badlands.
The sun was in full force as they descended and, with no wind and no hint of cloud in the fierce sky, the land was baking like a rotten apple pie. It was turning out to be a fine day.
After half an hour, they got to the wounded pole. A roughly-cut trunk, some cheap wood from the north. Its various fittings were attached well enough though, suggesting good labour made up for poor materials in the TTC. With no residue, no markings and no tracks, the limit of the story the pole had to tell was that sheer brute force had knocked it down.
“Doesn’t look like anything special,” Dust said.
Naismith nodded, turned her ride round and went to examine where the telegraph pole had come from, a splintered and wretched stump hiding forlornly amongst its unmolested brethren. Shadows Fade, who showed no signs of fatigue despite having walked for hours under the unremitting sun, knelt and ran her hand across the rest of the pole. Claw of the Gods sniffed the area like a trained hound.
Dust took a slow draught from his water skin and watched them search.
He hated fighting cults. The Triangle’s creatures were complex in form and power but simple of motive; they just wanted to spread the power of their God. Once you understood that, fighting them became a test of wills which was relatively easy. Even criminals had been simple back when he was a Ranger. But cultists? Cultists brought complexity both devious and unnecessary; their motives could be selfish or selfless, debased or divine, and they usually added their own spin to whatever their God asked of them. Working through their plans, translating the evidence they leave behind, like this pole, was awkward as picking a rope from a knot of rattlesnakes.
He was so deep in his thoughts that he jumped when Shadows Fade stood and said something. Claw of the Gods was the only one beside Horse to notice; its eyes flashed what might have been amusement.
Naismith took a moment longer examining the stump before looking up and replying, probably clarifying what’d been said.
Shadows Fade nodded, pointed to the pole and repeated herself.
Dust slipped his water skin back into his pack and dismounted. This seemed important. “What is it?”
Naismith walked across and leant over the pole. “Well, I’ll be. I certainly hadn’t expected her to be right. Look, do you see?”
He followed Naismith’s – and therefore Shadows Fade’s – direction and nearly slapped his forehead when he saw what she’d found; he’d looked at it a few times but not registered its importance. Frustration must’ve clouded his thinking, which was unacceptable. His tingling tattoo, now on his shoulder, was none too happy either.
For embedded into the wood, just above where the pole had splintered from its roots, was a man’s footprint. The cheap wood had accepted the impression like dough, letting the toes, arch and ball set deeply into its skin. The footprint was quite tall, too tall to be a woman’s. And whoever’d done it had had seven toes, two of them big.
“Someone kicked this down? What do you suppose that means?” Naismith asked.
“Nothing good,” Dust said.
Shadows Fade said something. Naismith nodded.
After a moment, Dust asked “Anything I should know about?”
“Nothing good,” Naismith replied.
So they were back to that. Great. Dust turned and searched the horizon for Claw of the Gods, to see if it had picked up a scent but mostly to avoid snapping at Naismith. He spotted the wolf half a mile down the line, trotting toward them with something in its maw; something that crackled and twisted with each step it took.
Dust shielded his eyes from the sun and could see a dark mass of necrotic flesh with a dozen rolls of wiggling fat in the wolf’s teeth. It looked like a grub or a maggot. The form’s stillness meant it was dead but its dark magic continued to earth itself against the wolf’s blue mane, crackling like fireworks. The wolf ignored each shock, grimly carried on toward them, which Dust found interesting but ignored for now.
No, the grub was more important. That energy mean it was probably a Bloat, a parasitic by-product of the Badlands; Bloats formed when insects ate honey from the wrong flower or flesh from the wrong corpse and were filled with corruption, became addicted to it. These insects would then seek out other flowers or corpses like the first and absorb more dark magic, fending off rivals and growing large and fat on the energy until they gained a God’s notice. It was good that Claw of the Gods had killed it; the Solution would not have liked facing what it might eventually have become.
Shadows Fade watched her Spirit Wolf approach with interest. He wanted to ask if she’d felt it kill the Bloat but decided that might not be polite.
He would take charge of the corpse though; when the wolf was closer, he stepped forward and held out his hand, made it clear it was to give him the Bloat.
Claw of the Gods stopped and looked from him to Shadows Fade as if for guidance. None was visibly forthcoming. After some deliberation, the wolf trotted over and dropped the corpse into his palm with a liquid squelch.
Dust didn’t relish holding it; its humours were dark, sticky, and they stank like sewage. It didn’t look much better, a pussy mass of grey-green flesh with a circle of thin, razor-like teeth protruding from a triangular mouth. There was still some blood on the teeth; likely the blood of a TTC engineer who hadn’t been quick or lucky enough. But the bulbous, pocked flesh behind the teeth confirmed he was definitely holding a Bloat.
Again, this would not help them find Penelope, but it was good to know Claw of the Gods would hunt these things when bored; he would sleep a little better now. So he thanked the wolf with a quick stroke, which brought a gasp from Shadows Fade.
“Is she alright?” Dust asked, frowning.
Naismith asked. Shadows Fade replied.
“People are not supposed to touch her wolf.”
He looked back at the warrior and bowed his head. “Apologise for me.” Then, remembering Naismith was being pissy, he added “Please.”
She passed on the apology but Shadows Fade shook her head and repeated herself, gesturing to emphasize her point.
“Oh, it seems I didn’t quite get what she said,” Naismith said, sounding intrigued. “No, she meant that people are not supposed to beableto touch her wolf. She says she hadn’t expected such from even the Wanted Man.”
Dust raised his head again; if he wasn’t supposed to apologise, he didn’t know what else to do. He waited to see if Shadows Fade would say anything more but she didn’t.
He turned his attention back to the Bloat; it had so much energy still. Maybe the insect it’d once been had fed on a great creature deep in the earth, had been ‘lucky’ enough to get at the monster’s heart. Who knew? And who but the Triangle cared? What mattered was that this magic would remain for weeks if left unchecked, attracting things eager to feed on it and be fuelled in seeking glory for their masters.
Dust had to make the grub safe.
“Naismith, stand back,” he said.
“Why?”
“Please just do it.”
Naismith sighed but took a few steps back. Horse had already moved, having recognised what he was about to do, and Shadows Fade and Claw of the Gods were far enough that it wouldn’t be dangerous. He was good to start.
Closing his eyes, Dust pleaded with his tattoo to help purge this threat. It required four pleas before it granted him the most valuable of his abilities; the power to manipulate the Triangle’s dark and twisted magic.
He smiled and thanked the awkward thing; four pleas was generous for his tattoo.
“What are you doing?” Naismith asked.
“I’m making this corpse safe.”
With his mind, he reached into the Bloat and grabbed a thread of its energy, a strong artery which circulated the magic around its corpse. Then he slowly started to pull, carefully extracting the artery so it wouldn’t erupt upon exposure to the Badlands air; it was a delicate process but one he could do quickly. like a field medic sewing a wound shut in seconds or a seamstress unpicking a bad seam.
Once he’d safely removed the artery, he moved on to the largest attached vein and started again. Then the second-largest vein. And the third. After a few minutes of deep concentration he had picked every strand of magic from the Bloat and held it in his mind. Metaphorically.
He opened his eyes, double-checked the job and then dropped the corpse. It hit a shrub below him with a wet sound and rolled a foot away.
“Is it safe?”
“Please, let me concentrate?” Dust asked. He kept his voice kind as he could with the magic twisting within him.
He waited for a response and got none. Dust then transferred all the magic to his right hand, gripped it tightly. A dark sphere with purple flecks that hissed like a field of rattlers appeared in his palm, one that roared at him and begged to be used.
Naismith gasped but made no further comment.
Normally Dust had two options; release the magic or feed it to his tattoo. However, seeing as releasing this much magic would alert every eldritch creature within a mile to his whereabouts, he really only had one option.
He took a deep breath. Then he slapped his right hand and the hissing magic against his shoulder. There was a high-pitched whine as tattoo and energy fought for dominance but there was only going to be one winner; three seconds later, his tattoo began absorbing the energy.
Centipedes with sharpened feet started to crawl across his skin and liquefied flesh pour down his throat as the magic was taken from the world. His fingers numbed from the vibration and friction and the whining battle tore through his ear canal. But this had to be done so he endured, pressed his hand even harder against his tattoo.
It took several uncomfortable and horrible minutes but eventually his hand was empty. Dust slumped slightly when his palm touched his shoulder and tried to stop the world from spinning.
He wasn’t too out of it to hear Shadows Fade whisper something. Claw of the Gods seemed to nod in response.
“She said,” Naismith started, expecting Dust’s question or perhaps taking pity on him, “well, she swore and then said she never thought she’d see the Wanted Man doing such good. Now, she clearly understands what just happened but I am afraid that I am left clueless by all of this; what did you just do?”
Dust took a deep breath and straightened, squared his shoulders. Already, his aching muscles were returning to normal. He clapped his hands together to regain some feeling in them and said “I took the corrupted magic from that Bloat’s corpse.”
“And then?”
“Got rid of it.”
“Into your tattoo?”
Dust nodded. “Into my tattoo.”
Naismith threw her arms out. “Jesus, Dust. And the Solution just allow you to do this? They let you feed on these monsters?”
“I’m not feeding on them but yes, General Ryman allows it.”
Old Dick had made the geniuses perform all manner experiments on him first though. Not for Dust’s sake, mind, but for America; Dick had wanted to know Dust wasn’t feeding the Triangle whenever he did it. After a few weeks of Dust playing with corrupted magic, Dick had been satisfied and Dust had become pretty good at it so it all worked out for the best.
Naismith turned to the wide Badlands vista, the dust and the handsome miles of horizon. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “So are you a monster too?”
“I am no monster,” Dust snarled.
Shadows Fade whistled Claw of the Gods. Maybe it was his tone or the flare of his tattoo but she’d clearly decided to leave ’em to it. The Spirit Wolf gave Dust a nod then followed his or her master on another hunt. Not that he welcomed the gesture; Shadows Fade probably thought they were family or lovers.
He hoped she didn’t; both thoughts were unbearable.
The warrior’s unsubtle flight gave Dust time to prepare for the conversation though. Naismith preferred it too; her shoulders relaxed and her breathing slowed once Shadows Fade was out of earshot. Dust wondered if it was because she viewed Shadows Fade as a rival or him as her toy, something she didn’t want to share. It could be both.
“There are files that I can’t get access to no matter how much I beg my father or try to browbeat the clerks and most of them are full of details about you.” Naismith started stalking round Dust as she talked. “What are you, Dust?
“What does it matter?”
She steepled her hands before her chest and looked at him, still walking. “Well, I would rather like to understand more about the ‘man’ who is protecting me during this mission, to know what I can and can’t expect from you. And how safe I should feel.”
Dust hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. “Shouldn’t you have thought about that before you insisted on coming on this mission?”
His tattoo warmed a threat.
“Don’t you dare get cheeky with me,” Naismith hissed. “It’s not like I’d expected to get put out here with you. I was not prepared for it.”
“That wasn’t what you said the other night.”
“I don’t recall that,” Naismith said, crossing her arms, still marching.
He couldn’t help but smile; fabricating her own versions of events was just another tactic Naismith used to get what she wanted. He was tempted to resist further, let her tie herself in knots, but she did deserve to know a bit more about him.
That and he had to keep her sweet if he was ever going to talk to Shadows Fade again.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll explain what I am. First, tell me, how many Gods are there?”
“Four,” Naismith replied straight away, the smug satisfaction of her knowledge overriding her anger momentarily. “That Which Sins, Melting Flesh, Omnis and the Lord, Jehova.”
She was right on the number but not in the naming. “The Triangle and the Christian god. Except you missed one; Resistance.”
Naismith nodded. “I’ve read texts that theorise about a potential fifth god,” she said, her voice quickening with excitement. “One that the Indians discuss and worship. You’re saying that it definitely exists?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
He patted his shoulder, the tattoo. “Because I’m a part of it.”
She blinked. Her mouth opened. Then it closed again.
“Pardon?” she managed.
“I’m part of Resistance. Or, more accurately, my soul has been permanently linked with it.”
Naismith licked her lips. Her hand started playing with the rifle across her back. “And the Solution are aware of this?”
“They’re the ones who told me.”
“What?!” Naismith exclaimed.
“Keep your voice down. We’re still in the Badlands, remember?”
Naismith looked around. She had forgotten her surroundings for a moment. Dust was not pleased but he’d been remiss with the footprint in the pole so forgave her this time. “That’s a bit… That’s just a bit surprising is all. How did they know?”
Dust shrugged. “They never told me that.”
“They never told you? So it might not be true?”
He shrugged. It had occurred to him that the Solution might be wrong or lying. But about three weeks after his first mission, an Indian medicine man named Thundering Rain had confirmed what he was. Dust figured he’d been a better judge of whether Dust was part of Resistance than anyone else and every Indian he’d met and everything he’d learned since had confirmed it.
Naismith resumed her pacing. “So what’s he like, this Resistance? What does he believe? What does he want?”
“I don’t know,” Dust said honestly. He looked down at the former Bloat and punted it across the Badlands. “It doesn’t talk to me; there’s just a link to it within me. All I know is that I have my tattoo and my abilities.”
The Bloat landed with another squelch.
“Strength, speed, and limited magic including, apparently, the ability to absorb corrupt energies,” she said, almost absent-mindedly. There was something on her mind but the thought was interrupted. “Wait, if you can do that, manipulate and absorb magic, why didn’t you do it for Luke?”
Dust shook his head. “That would have been much crueller death than a bullet in the head.”
Naismith continued walking round him.
“If you’re worried,” Dust said after she’d circled him twice, “you could talk to Shadows Fade; she’ll be able to tell you more about Resistance. And she could corroborate my story.”
“I might just do that,” Naismith said. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Thank you. Sorry, I just need to work this through in my mind. It’s somewhat… unexpected.”
She turned to get Shadows Fade but stopped herself. “I do have one more question. What do you make of the name that the Indians gave you?”
That was a good question; he had hoped she wouldn’t be able to pick up on it. “The Wanted Man? I don’t know,” he said, keeping his face straight and his tone light. “I presumed it came from the Indian who found me; that he told the mercenaries who kidnapped me that I was a wanted man and the nickname stuck and grew. Why?”
“It’s just that the Wanted Man is a mistranslation,” Naismith said.
“It is?” he said, faking surprise.
She nodded. “Yes. It’s a subtle translation, as many of their terms can be, but the Indians actually call you The Wanting Man.”
He wished he could give her credit for noticing but he had to keep that aspect of his nature a secret; nobody white, not the Solution, not even Dick, knew that his tattoo punished him for giving in to his desires and impulses too easily. Dust wanted to keep it that way. And he definitely didn’t want Naismith to find out.
He gave Naismith another shrug. “Must be language difficulties.”
She wasn’t satisfied with the answer but she took it.
Their palaver done, Dust saddled back up. Naismith did the same.
“Come on,” Dust said. “Let’s move on, check out this town up the line.”
“Alright,” Naismith said distractedly. Then she shouted for Shadows Fade, who appeared from a patch of scrubs and fell in beside them.
On the journey, Naismith began a conversation with Shadows Fade, presumably about him. As they spoke words he could not understand, he wondered what Naismith might learn that even he didn’t know and couldn’t help but wish he’d had more time to talk to Thundering Rain before the Omnis creature attacking his band had killed him.