Chapter 23
Dust felt The Badlands stirring with interest as they ran to Claw of the Gods, a thousand eyes and consciousnesses giving them cautious initial glances and weighing up their options. The death of so many of their kin would always attract notice, let alone when he was the one to do it, and this attention gave Dust extra impetus to finish their business quickly.
Not that he needed any.
Naismith was behind him, her rifle in one hand and the torch he’d handed her flaming in the other. Ruining their night vision and giving their position away was unfortunate but having Naismith blind and defenceless was not an option. The fire showed her face had hardened with determination, the earlier tears were just a memory.
They were moving slowly and that was Dust’s fault. His legs were leaden and his lungs felt two sizes too small; recovering from his wounds had drained Dust good. He didn’t push himself for fear of emptying a well he might need to draw from soon. That and he trusted Shadows Fade to deal with anything that might come her way. Really, it was that comfort that allowed him to hold back.
It took them more than ten minutes to get to Claw of the Gods. The Spirit Wolf watched them with feral impatience as they clambered up to meet her then ran north the moment they crested the rise. She left the rifle in her wake. It dripped with the blood magic he’d felt before.
Dust wasn’t quite ready to start another sprint. “Woah there,” he wheezed.
It didn’t hear him. Naismith shouted “Hey! Wait!”
The Spirit Wolf turned and whined. It pawed at the earth again and kept looking north but stayed put.
“Are you alright, Dust?” Naismith asked.
He bent over, rested his hands on his knees. “Just need to… catch my breath.”
“Really?”
Her incredulity made him laugh, which didn’t help his breathlessness none. But he didn’t mind as he regarded Naismith with more endearment now despite her having the caused his troubles. Or, rather, because of it. That and her having shown another crack of decency beneath her spoiled shell.
“Really. Not even I can take a beating like that and come away Scot-free.”
“I… it is just that the stories suggest that you are invincible…”
He smiled and took a deep breath. Two more and he stopped wheezing. The tiredness washed through him, leaking out from his boots like piss.
“Course they do. Only two kinds of people tell stories about me, Naismith; those who survived me and those who’ve never met me. If they survived me, they exaggerate. Especially if I’ve handed them a beating. And if they’ve never met me, they make the story interesting as possible. No-one’s impressed by or interested in a man getting sore after a fight so that never comes up.”
She blushed. “I must confess that I hadn’t thought of it like that. Of course, that makes a great deal of sense.”
Dust stretched out and felt his bones creak. “You ready to go?”
“Yep.”
With that Dust started jogging toward Claw of the Gods, who broke into a sprint.
Seconds later, they ran past the bloody corpse of a small Mexican wearing cheap, dirty clothes, one with only the faintest hint of magic about him. He had a gun in each hand and most of his throat was missing, having been torn out by Claw of the Gods. Drag marks trailed away from his feet, suggesting that he had been killed elsewhere, perhaps from the vantage point he’d shot at Dust from.
“One down,” Dust said.
Naismith looked pale even in the light of her torch. She refused to look at the corpse.
They ran on, an amber spot on the dark night. More and more things watched them, scrying spells and supernatural senses bombarding the group like rain in a storm. A few eldritch creatures were nearby, their taint dancing on Dust’s own senses, but they wouldn’t risk stepping out into the open.
Just to be safe, Dust straightened and ran as normally as he could.
Soon they passed another harrier. This one was much taller and wider, a formidable man when he’d been alive. His arms were splayed out by his sides and he stared wide-eyed at the overcast night sky with his tongue lolling. A broken rifle lay by his side. Three stabs to the chest seemed to have done for him, Shadows Fade’s handiwork.
“That’s two.”
Dust noted that there wasn’t nearly so much blood soaked into the earth as there ought to be. He checked the wrists and saw deep, badly-tended cuts; he’d been bled before the fight and was probably the first one to die.
“Please, Dust,” Naismith said, her voice small and weak.
“What?”
“They were still men, despite what they did.”
“He willingly worked with people who worship the Triangle. And not even for faith but for money. He’s as bad as any monster we might face.”
Naismith couldn’t look at him, like he were the harrier’s corpses. “I don’t know if I can think like that.”
More unexpected softness. Though this time it was a weakness. “If you’re to take over the Solution, you’d better work out how,” he said, not unkindly.
They ran on in silence, Claw of the Gods presumably leading them to Shadows Fade. Dust wished again that they hadn’t had to bring a torch; he’d be able to see what the Spirit Wolf saw if not, would know what he was after and what was after him.
It was odd that Claw of the Gods was leading them and not Shadows Fade; the Father had said there were a few harriers so perhaps Shadows Fade was fighting the others. He hoped that were the case, not that she’d come up against something stronger.
After maybe ten minutes of running, of Dust getting progressively slower and Naismith having to hold back so she didn’t get too far ahead, Claw of the Gods howled and sprinted even faster. They must be close for her to leave them behind, head round the base of a craggy and looming colossus of brown stone and out of sight.
“We’re here,” Naismith said.
Dust didn’t have the energy to respond. He kept on, concentrating on not embarrassing himself by walking the last half mile, and just about maintained a jog. Naismith still rounded the outcrop well ahead of him.
When he got there, he saw Shadows Fade idly sitting on a lithe man with a strong tint of magic. His arms and legs were bound with coarse rope and a length of cloth gagged him. He struggled against the bonds, though the knots were so strong he’d never have a chance of escaping.
Dust leaned against the outcrop and allowed himself to gasp for air. “Number three,” he whispered.
Shadows Fade stood and asked Naismith something, presumably what had made Dust so tired. The girl looked down at the ground and mumbled a reply, telling the warrior what’d happened back at Crucifix.
In hindsight, his plan had been a failure. Not that Naismith was solely to blame; Shadows Fade hadn’t thinned out the herd enough to save Dust this pain. Thoughthat might’ve just meant there were a hundred creatures originally and she’d killed as many as was possible. At least they’d managed to protect the chapel, that counted for something. The Father probably wouldn’t be troubled for the rest of the night and no one in Crucifix would have to die for the Word.
His breath slowly returned to him, like a reluctant husband guilty about a night of drinking. But capturing one of the harriers more than made up for his state as it gave them a lead.
“He said anything yet?” Dust asked.
Naismith asked. Shadows Fade shook her head.
“Let’s get that gag out then.”
The harrier moaned and wriggled against his bonds even harder; he’d likely just worked out who Dust was.
Once the order was passed on, Shadows Fade leaned down and sliced his gag away. The rough cloth fell two inches to the floor where it curled like a rattler and their captive breathed deeply, enjoyed the air.
“You know who I am?” Dust asked.
The harrier nodded slowly. He looked like he’d been a handsome sort before he’d clashed with Shadows Fade.
“What’s your name?”
The captive said nothing. Shadows Fade, knowing he’d been asked something, cut across the back of his neck to make him talk. He held back a roar of pain by gritting his teeth and breathing hard, sweat-drenched hair swaying.
“Your name,” Dust said.
“Kaspera,” he replied, deciding that information wasn’t worth protecting.
“A Mexican,” Naismith said disdainfully. “That explains it.”
The harrier couldn’t see her but cast a dirty glance in her general direction, having worked it out from his shadow in the torch light.
“You’re not a popular figure, Kaspera,” Dust said, “what with you having spent the last few days attacking the innocent people of Crucifix.”
He lolled his head over to Dust. “It was just a job.”
“Ridiculous,” Naismith barked. “How could you do something like this for money?”
“That’s easy for someone who’s always had money to ask,” their captive replied.
She frowned. “What makes you think I’m wealthy?”
Kaspera laughed. “When you work for rich people for as long as I have, you come to recognize the way they talk.”
Shadows Fade watched their back and forth with idle curiosity, knowing this was nothing she could be involved in.
“Well I-”
“You done?” Dust asked Naismith.
She tutted. “Yes.”
“Not much of an interrogation so far,” Kaspera said.
Dust took a deep breath. “No. Not really. But you know I’m the Wanted Man so you know what I can do to you; are the cult you work for paying you enough to go through all the pains I can put you to?”
“No,” their captive said, his face hardening. “But that’s not why you’ll get nothing from me.”
Dust carefully gave no reaction.
Kaspera waited a moment, allowing the power to switch between them a little. “I know what you are. But you’re nothing compared to the… people paying me.”
“And who are they?”
He closed his eyes and rolled onto his back. Dust gave him a wry smile he’d never see; the bastard knew how to handle interrogators, was more of a professional than Dust had expected. He’d probably been the leader of their little group.
Shadows Fade looked to Dust for confirmation she should cut him again. Dust nodded. She knelt down and began slicing; Kaspera panted and growled, tears escaping him, as Shadows Fade cut him half a dozen times with her sharp, cruel knives. Surface wounds, each perfectly placed to hurt like a bitch. Blood flowed freely from his pains, soaking into the earth. But still Kaspera did not speak.
Dust held up his hand for Shadows Fade to stop. She gave him two more cuts, much deeper than any before, then halted.
“This can continue for hours, Kaspera. I’m sure you don’t want that. Just tell us about your employers.”
“Fuck you,” Kaspera said.
Dust was about to let Shadows Fade continue when he sensed a ripple of dark magic. He looked past Shadows Fade and saw a man in dark clothing step out from behind the outcrop and throw a spell at them. At Shadows Fade. A powerful, malicious spell designed to rip a person’s soul free from their body and burn it away.
“Watch out!” Dust shouted.
Shadows Fade looked back quickly then jumped away, language no barrier when panic was involved. The spell roared past where she had been… and into Kaspera, its true target. The Mexican screamed as his soul was torn from him. Then his soulless body fell silent, a state it would never recover from. There was no messing around from magic that dark.
“The cult are here!” Dust roared.
He drew and shot at their aggressor. Naismith also brought her rifle to bear. But Dust was tired and Naismith couldn’t really see her target so both attacks missed comfortably so the cultist raced toward them unharmed, zigging and zagging as Dust had back in Crucifix. And he was racing at a speed Dust would barely be able to match at his best. Dust’s other gun bellowed white death again but the shot even didn’t come within a foot of the man.
Shadows Fade growled something. Claw of the Gods howled back. The warrior had her weapons ready, the Spirit Wolf bared her teeth; both were merely awaiting the right moment to strike back at him.
“What is he?!” Naismith screamed in a panic.
“Kaspera’s employer,” Dust said, still firing. He couldn’t be sure beyond that.
“Then what do we do?”
“We f-”
Their aggressor interrupted him by leaping forward at an even greater speed, knocking Claw of the Gods away with a swipe of his pearl-white hand. In the torchlight, Dust saw him as a pale man in dark leather, a wide-brimmed hat and an elaborate mask. His tattoo’s senses told him this was a person drenched in the power of That Which Sins, someone who had given themselves to the god body and soul.
All this came to him in the flash between Claw of the Gods crashing against the outcrop with a yelp and Dust shooting again. The bastard dodged the shot mid-flight, his head moving at an unnatural speed to avoid being pierced, and then slithered away from two shots from Naismith when he landed.
Shadows Fade roared at the cultist daring to strike her Spirit Wolf and stabbed at him with her knives. But he was quicker even than her; he leaned back, spine curling like it was cloth, and pushed her hands aside. This made her over-extend so much the pale bastard got two good shots in the side of her head. Each blow sounded like a hammer against an anvil as their powers collided.
But the cultist was that bit stronger and so knocked the warrior off balance, stunned her. In that slim opening, the cultist was able to nip under her defences and wrap his arms around her in a death grip.
“The Wanted Man,” the cultist said, calm and in control. To punctuate, he tightened his grip on Shadows Fade, making her grunt in pain. “Drop your weapon.”
Shadows Fade struggled back but couldn’t free herself.
Dust raised his other gun, levelling it for a better shot. “Why would I when I’ve got the drop on you?”
Blank silver eyes stared at him from under the dark hat. “Very well.”
Corrupted magic then crawled over the cultist’s pale skin like a host of hurried maggots. They scrabbled down to fingertips buried deep in Shadows Fade’s skin and into the warrior. Shadows Fade screamed and her eyes went black as the unleashed horror overcame her defences once more. Her body writhed and kicked as the magic ripped through her system, tearing her flesh apart.
Dust took his shot but the cultist was still fast even when gripping someone, sunk his shoulders like they were set in quicksand so his head dipped away from the attack.
“Shadows Fade!” Naismith screamed.
The cultist withdrew his shoulders from his flesh and released the warrior. Shadows Fade pitched forward, landed face first on the floor. Claw of the Gods got weakly to its feet and howled once, an aching and pained sound, before disappearing.
Dust knew they were both dead.
The cultist laughed like a hurtling train and raced toward Naismith. The girl squealed and ran. Dust took another shot and clipped him on the shoulder. The magic tore his jacket, sprayed his dark blood onto the desert floor, and almost knocked the bastard from his feet but he dug his heels in and merely skidded.
The laughter stopped. His silver eyes were no longer apathetic; they were filled with rage.
Dust took two more shots, one of which tore the muscle in the cultist’s arm but didn’t break through to his torso. If anything, it powered the man and he caught up to Naismith in seconds, knocking the rifle from her hand and holding her in another death grip.
Her rifle and torch hit the floor at the same time her scream pierced the air.
“Now, shall we do this again?” the cultist shouted, bleeding from his arm and shoulder. His calm had disappeared as he walked Naismith back toward the outcrop. “Put your weapon down.”
Dust levelled his other gun at the cultist again. He stopped still. Those silver eyes widened, though not nearly so much as Naismith’s. His tattoo didn’t warm; Resistance wanted him to take the shot.
“Dust, what are you doing?” Naismith screeched.
“If I kill him now, it’s over,” he said.
“You won’t be able to. But, if you try, I will kill her,” he said. Dark magic surged along his skin once more, stopping just short of Naismith’s face. “I guarantee it.”
Dust lightly stroked the trigger, close to blowing a hole in the cultist. He looked into Naismith’s eyes and saw terror, abject horror that she was about to die. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d sacrificed an innocent to do the right thing. But there was something about that look, about the fear of a youngster who had relied on him, that made pulling the trigger impossible.
He lowered the other gun. Dust’s tattoo flared like a bonfire, commanding him to kill the cultist while he had the opportunity. Dust would not do it. He couldn’t, not when she’d only just shown contrition for the first time, now she had promise. The pain escalated but Dust gritted his teeth, made no move.
The cultist smiled and dispelled the magic on his skin. “Good. Now you’re coming with me.”
Resistance wouldn’t accept this; his arm went numb, begin to move without his permission. Before it could make him shoot her, Dust threw the other gun over to the cultist.
That unlocked a new level of punishment.
Dust screamed; he had not defied Resistance so openly before and the god’s fury felt as though Dust’s veins were filled with boiling water and his flesh had become an angry mass of biting ants. He didn’t fall into unconsciousness, that would have been too easy. Instead, he fell to the floor and could not move without escalating the pain even further, even when the cultist walked over and hauled him across those dark leather shoulders like he were a hog.
“That Which Sins promised me I would have you,” the cultist said, his voice a whisper over Resistance’s punishment. “And She was true to Her word. You were a fool to follow Resistance rather than Her.”
At that moment, blasphemous and horrible as the thought was, Dust had to agree.
“Girl, follow us. If you get more than five feet from me you will die. Understood?”
Naismith must have nodded because the cultist set off in silence. Dust could see only the Badlands’ floor in the darkness. Resistance’s punishment increased with each step the cultist took but he would not be granted the sweet absence of unconsciousness. Dust closed his eyes, screamed out his pain and hoped he’d done the right thing.