Dust’s travel pack was back with the Father so he couldn’t close the temple off with explosives and the like. And he needed to collapse it; more artefacts were in there, just waiting to be discovered. How many people could die if the temple was left open? It’d be another delay they couldn’t afford but a risk he wouldn’t take.
Shadows Fade noticed him staring back into the temple. “Don’t worry. We left a surprise for anyone still inside.”
“The dynamite?” Penelope asked.
The warrior sighed. “Yes, the dynamite.”
Dust laughed. Twice in ten minutes. He was growing to like Penelope.
Shadows Fade’s mouth tightened and she looked away. An unobservant man may have mistaken this for anger but Dust saw her lips curl upward into a smile. Godly Claw grinned as well with the Blood between her teeth, giving it away even further.
“Where’d you get it from?” Dust asked.
The warrior coughed. “I keep caches of dynamite around the Badlands, warded and hidden. Godly Claw brought it.”
“And they’re on a timer?”
“A long fuse.”
“Then we should be moving.”
“Yes, we should.”
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They moved quickly as they could; for all her bravery, Penelope was racked with pain and her muscles had atrophied. Dragging Dust’s unconscious carcass around couldn’t have helped. By the time they left the valley, Shadows Fade was half-dragging the poor girl.
Two minutes later the earth shook as a series of distant booms echoed through the valley and out into the Badlands, bringing with them soaring clouds of dust and earth. Dust listened carefully and heard the entrance tunnel crumble in on itself; someone’d have to be pretty determined to dig their way into the temple. And when mages and creatures saw the Wanted Man leaving it with an artefact like the Bond, they’d assume that there was nothing worth digging for.
They tottered to Crucifix over the next hour, stopping often to let Penelope work out some cramp or vomit onto a brush. Mild rain fell constantly. They moved without any light to avoid being seen, Dust or Shadows Fade leading the girl forward. The pauses meant Naismith would be gaining ground but Dust would’ve had to call for rests anyway for the first half hour. He appreciated being able to save face. Especially with distant eyes still paying him close attention.
“Where are we going?” Penelope asked during their fourth break.
“Crucifix,” Dust said, leaning against a small boulder with deep claw marks set into its crust. “A small town nearby. We based ourselves there and need to get our equipment before we head to the Solution.”
“The Solution? So they did send you?”
He gathered his thoughts on the Solution for a moment, thought through what their benefactor’s daughter being an Omnis worshipper meant. He had to wonder how she’d even got into that game; had she been corrupted by something from the geniuses’ labs or had she sold herself long before that? There’d have to be a big investigation if they could get there first, which meant a lot of questioning Dust wasn’t looking forward to and people he probably liked being hung like meat.
“Yeah,” he said. “The Solution sent us to rescue you after getting the cult’s demands, knowing they were up to something. Cults always pull these stunts; the leather bastard expected you’d stay once you were a Vessel. Even if you’d not turned and we’d brought them what they wanted, they wouldn’t have let you go.”
“Exactly. These events were about three things,” Shadows Fade said. “Getting their lost ‘Vessel’ back, adding another one to their ranks and capturing the Wanted Man. Eleanor Naismith came to ensure the last two would happen.”
Dust couldn’t figure out why, though. He kept his counsel for now.
Penelope blinked. “So they only ransomed me to capture you?”
“Yup.”
She shivered then and had no more questions.
They walked on. The rain started pounding onto them, cruel and unflinching. As time passed and the fatigue slowly drained from his muscles, Dust became more and more concerned by the things watching them; yes, he’d just destroyed a temple as far as they were concerned but he shouldn’t still be this interesting. By the time they broached the decline to Crucifix, the number of spells aimed his way had tripled.
Dust drew his other gun.
“I feel them too,” Shadows Fade said, speaking up to be heard over the deluge.
“Feel who?” Penelope shouted.
“There are monsters and people who can watch someone from distance with magic,” Dust said. He stopped scanning the horizon and looked at her. “Some are giving us the eye.”
“Are… are we going to be attacked?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “C’mon, let’s head down.”
Dust and Shadows Fade helped Penelope traverse the decline. The girl’s eyelids drooped now and her movement was slower, more clumsy; they’d need to settle in Crucifix for the night before moving on, even if she rode Horse. He cursed but there was no other option if he wanted to save her life.
When they got to the town’s limits, a voice called out “They’re here!”
The people of Crucifix rounded the chapel, a torn husk which’d need a good amount of repairing, and walked over to greet them. They were armed but that was only natural given what’d happened to them. Bright torches cast multiform silhouettes around them as they marched. Dust managed a small smile; a welcome might cheer them up after a long day.
“You’ve got some nerve,” one of the townsfolk said. It wasn’t a compliment.
He noticed their angry faces then, hardened expressions under pouring rain. This stank of Naismith’s treachery. Godly Claw’s hackles raised and she issued a low growl. Dust held out a hand to stop Penelope and Shadows Fade then put his other gun away. Any tiredness he’d been feeling was swallowed beneath his will.
“What’s the problem, friend?” Dust asked the man who’d spoken, their apparent leader. He had a rough bowler hat on. The raindrops burst on its rim as he glared.
The crowd gathered round Dust. Bowler Hat stepped forward, stood inches from Dust, and said. “You’re the problem. And I’m not your friend.”
“How could you?” a small, tough woman shouted.
“What did she do to you?” said a man stood just in front of her, presumably her husband. He tapped a lumpen hammer against his palm.
“Stand down,” Shadows Fade hissed.
“Or what?” the leader asked. “You’ll torture us too?”
Dust waved for the warrior to back off. He opened his palms to them and said “I don’t know what you think’s happened but whatever it is ain’t true.”
Bowler Hat laughed. “You expect us to believe that?”
“She was a wreck,” the small woman said. “You hurt her bad.”
“What’d she say?”
“Who are they talking about?” Penelope asked. She sounded drunk.
“Eleanor Naismith,” Dust said, a statement and a question.
Bowler Hat tightened his grip on a splintered length of wood. That was a yes.
“But you didn’t do anything to her?” she said blearily. “She escaped.”
None of Dustin’s memories had prepared Dust for the limitations, the weakness, fragility and coldness, of being a normal man; people get used to their limits, call it ‘human nature’ but Dust wasn’t human. But after experiencing human nature, Dust no longer blamed the crowd or anyone else for their fear of him. He ran his eyes over them and felt a fledgling compassion, one he’d have to show to defuse the situation.
Dust smiled, keeping a little warmth in the gesture so it didn’t provoke them. Particularly with Penelope talking of ‘escapes’. “Well, these people don’t believe that. They’ve been scared of me since I got here, questioning me, thinking I was as bad as the things that’ve been killing ’em for years. And naturally that fear, like any fear of something different, has been itching for an excuse to become anger. Eleanor gave ’em that excuse.
“Now I haven’t done a thing to you besides risk my hide to save yours. What you have is one person’s word against another, and that’s not enough for a court of law. If you step down, we can talk this through some. But consider this; if I were a dangerous monster, wouldn’t I have started shooting by now?”
Bowler Hat stepped back. The small woman didn’t look so sure of herself now and her husband looked back at her for direction. Others in this lynch mob – and that’s what it might’ve become if Penelope hadn’t been with them, given them pause – lowered their weapons a little.
They were stepping down. Dust nodded but collapsed his smile in case it were misconstrued.
“C’mon, you can’t believe that!” someone roared. A greasy man with drinker’s eyes and nothing to shield him from the rain pushed to the front of the crowd. He waved a knife Dust’s way. “We know he’s a monster. We can’t let him get away!”
Dust held his hands up, more to show willing than fear. “Ho there. If my words aren’t enough, why don’t we just get the Father out here?” he asked. “He’ll be able to-”
“No! Fuck no! You cast some spell over him with your heathen symbols and your darkie voodoo.” He looked at the rest of the mob. There was something odd about the way he moved, a hidden poise, a secret rhythm. “You know that’s true. Look at the Father; he’s tired as a dog after tonight. That never happened before. This bastard used his magic to drain him like a tick. Probably took control of his mind too.”
His words were a little too slurred, his movement too controlled, for this to be real. The drunk was acting. The mob bought his play though, raising weapons and baring teeth, but they bought it too cheaply for Dust’s liking. He ran his magical senses over them and felt a mere hint of a spell connecting them to this newcomer.
“I’m not the one who knows about controlling minds, friend.”
“What do you mean?” the mage asked, adding extra sway to sell the lie. But within the movement he traced a fortifying pattern with his hand, clear as water; he was still casting his spell!
Which gave Dust pause. A spell like this wouldn’t be simple to set up so why control Crucifix’s people? Then it clicked that Naismith had expected him to die in the temple. This angry group would likely have been made to give a bad account of Dust to the Solution, accusing him of all manner of things and tying up the loose ends in her story. This current charade was the mage making the best out of a bad situation when Dust unexpectedly rolled into Crucifix.
Penelope began to shiver, teeth chattering loudly over the rain. She held herself to try and quell it but to no avail. Shadows Fade put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and caught Dust’s eye, raised an eyebrow, to ask whether she should act.
“Have you done the same sort of thing to this girl?” the small wife hissed. “You beast.”
