Shadows and dust - Purpose of time: Volume 1

Chapter 3

The knife twirled over and over in his hand, the point resting on the pad of the first finger.

I should have chased him down, Katcher mused as the campfire's flames flashed on the freshly wiped blade.

There was no doubt luck had spat on him earlier that evening. He was certain the pursuit of that ol' bastard Butterfields would've been short, but even predators need to watch their backs and as he'd chased the mass of the taker had crash down over the bar. A dust-powered onslaught speared by a jagged bud bottle or Butterfields' own discarded knife was imminent, so there was a pressing need to deal with the scarpering barman quickly.

The throw was true, sure as shit, but the knife was crafted to cut through flesh, not air. It over-rotated and smashed into the back of the fleeing man's knee handle first. Katcher had needed it to stick.

He now stabbed the tip of the same knife into his meat. Boiling blood dropped to the fire below and fizzed.

A few more minutes.

He studied both ends of the thoroughfare while he waited, camped at the northernmost entrance to the tavern's patch. Wind and piss all else advanced over the hardened earth.

The tavern's three-stall stables provided the shelter he needed. Since blood was spilt, the tavern had long-since emptied. Katcher briefly considered hunkering in there for the night, before deciding an unobstructed view of the surrounding land was more important than a good night's sleep. He was still on the trail of the 'Laficium and if anyone was gonna try visiting the tavern in the dead of night, he'd want to see them before they saw him.

However, it looked like there would be no midnight encounters tonight. Still best to keep the fire low, though.

Katcher plucked the knife from the flesh and rotated the spit. He wiped the blade on the knee of his trousers and lay it to rest by the red embers.

Incapacitating the big taker was the work of seconds as he came whirling through the doorway after Katcher. His shank was ponderous and way off the mark. Katcher ducked and had plunged his second blade into the dusttaker's hamstring as he spun round behind his foe. The man folded to the floor and into Katcher's periphery. Now Katcher focussed on Butterfields as the maimed bartender dragged himself over to the knife which had knocked him to the ground, his fingernails clawing at the shit-crusted wooden floor with a deafening and inevitable metronomy.

The barman held out the knife briefly in a faux act of defiance as Katcher turned on him. Katcher loomed over him, but the point disappeared upwards piercing the man's lower jaw before the full distance of the corridor could be closed. The old bastard gave himself enough time to smirk before the light in his eyes went out he turned the ground crimson.

The interrogation of the stricken taker was relatively fruitless, it's always is when they're half on the Other Side. Katcher wasn't prepared to wait for the majic to fully wear off. He'd hurried things up, alright.

The man's screamed the same ill-founded street rumours about the origins of dust that Katcher had heard a thousand times before. Shady types? Ha, that was 90 per cent of the Mother-fucked population! The man, like every other powder-pacified, rot-brained sheep from here to the Double 0, did not have a slug in the desert's chance of aiding his mission.

His knowledge of Butterfields wasn't exactly extensive either.

By the heat of the fire, Katcher patted his jacket and felt the hard shape of Jyra under the warm leather. The predictions were becoming increasingly vague. He may need to intervene soon.

The trail had gone cold and even if he had managed to bound Butterfields before his bud-diluted blood cascaded from his body, Katcher suspected he wasn't going to find the shadowy strings of the Malificum animating his grubby little actions and schemes. A few insignificant questions may have been answered under careful application of razor-sharp pressure and searing torch light, but Butterfields was gone and his customer had needed to do his talking for him.