Part thirteen
He stood on the hillside overlooking the rec room. The simulated sun shone brightly above him but it generated no heat upon his back. Liam sat at a card table a couple feet away, playing a hand of poker with a blonde man whom Vash first thought was his brother but upon further inspection saw it wasn't his twin after all. The two men both dressed in black and bet not with poker chips but tiny, rainbow-colored balls.
"I'll see your two green M&M's and raise you three blue ones," Liam said, throwing the disks into the center pile. "Is it the blood?"
"It's always the blood," his companion said agreeably. "Double or nothing?"
"You're on."
Knives lounged on the grass behind them, a pair of black wraparound sunglasses perched on his nose, obscuring his eyes. A pale, dark-haired woman danced around him, dangling a broken doll in front of his nose.
"Do y'know what she says?" she asked, shaking the doll. "She says the stars sing of a hole in the moon."
Knives sighed. "It's day, princess."
"Lovely weather." Rem stepped up beside him. She wore a leather ball gown, scarlet in color, the top fitting her tightly and accentuating her curves while the bottom flared out into a full skirt. She twirled a wooden stake in her hand.
He nodded. "Yes, it is."
"Time to lay 'em on the table, Will," Liam announced. Both men spread their cards and Will grunted in disappointment as Liam claimed his prize.
"Angels with clipped wings are dangerous," Rem remarked. "But they can always fly again."
"How can you be so certain?" Vash asked.
"Because there is a pattern."
"I don't understand."
"Don't worry, you will." She gave him a brilliant smile. "It's how destiny works."
Vash woke.
He sat up stiffly, back cracking as he moved. The hard cell bench had made an uncomfortable bed, but tired as he was, it had hardly mattered.
He ran a hand through his hair, which had fallen out of its customary spikes and now hung in stiff clumps around his face. He idly brought a strand in front of his eyes and frowned at it.
Vash didn't dream as most did. Although his nightly imaginings were often chaotic and jumbled, they were rarely just a series of non sequitors. Each one had a meaning of some kind, whether it was actual memory or symbolic interpretation, and each one would stay with him long after waking.
This one was no different, even if its message wasn't immediately apparent.
Al l right. What was his subconscious trying to tell him?
Rem, wearing something she'd have never owned in life. Liam and the blonde man playing high-stakes poker. His brother and that woman. Everything was interwoven in some way. Rem said it was a pattern; events, people, history all repeated.
A hint of déjà vu tingled at the edge of his senses and he grasped at it, franticly trying to figure out why this was all so hauntingly familiar.
And, just like that, he knew.
A hot bus ride. A stop in the desert. A most unusual priest, simultaneously aggravating and drawing him in. A ship, old, abandoned, still trying to fulfill its duty even long after its masters had died and turned to dust.
It was so stupidly obvious. He knew exactly where the monsters had been hiding. And why he feared them so.
He rose to his feet just as Buck burst through the cellblock door, an angry scowl directed towards the outlaw. "Where the hell are they?"
Vash blinked. The sheriff couldn't have known this entire time. "What-?"
"The women," Buck spat. "Your damn insurance girls knocked out my deputy and took off. Where'd they go?"
"I-I don't know." The news caught him off-guard and he tried to reassert the persona he'd established. "Why you asking me? They're *women.* I don't keep track of what goes on in those fool heads of theirs."
It sounded forced even to Vash and the sheriff's eyes narrowed. He took a step forward but still remained out of reach of the outlaw's arms. "Know what I think?"
"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me."
"I think you've been working together from the beginning, played us all for damn fools. And now I've got to track down two killers while you sit there and laugh at us from your cell."
"You believe what you want, Sheriff, but I'll tell you one thing." He was practically a blur as he rushed the bars, slamming into them. Buck automatically stumbled back and Vash gave him a grim smile. "I don't go around ripping out little girls' throats. This town's troubles started long before I got here."
Buck swallowed. "You don't scare me."
"Better hope I do. Otherwise, a lot more people are gonna die and neither one of us will be able to stop it."
The sheriff held his gaze a moment longer before abruptly walking out without another word. Vash managed to make it back to the bench before his knees took a holiday.
Meryl and Millie escaped, that was good. Part of him hoped they ran as far away from him as possible. But another colder, more practical part sincerely hoped they'd gone back to Alexis and Liam.
Because, god help him, he needed the Slayer.
End part thirteen