Silas sighed. The boy reached out with his stubby dirty hand. Silas took it, and then, suddenly, they were out of that fetid garage. They stood next to the van and watched as the cardboard came off one of the windows, as glass shattered outward.

Kids, homeless kids, injured and alone, poured out of that window like water.

“Thanks,” the boy said. “I can’t tell you how much it means.”

But Silas knew. The boy didn’t yet, but Silas did. When he retired-no longer if. When-this boy would see him again. This boy would take him, gently and with some kind of majestic harmonica music, to a beyond Silas could not imagine.

The boy waved at him, and joined the kids, heading into the dark Vegas night. Those kids couldn’t see him, but they had to know he was there, like a guardian angel, saving them from horrors that would haunt their dreams for the rest of their lives.

Silas watched them go. Then he headed in the opposite direction, toward his car. What had those kids seen? The man-the creature-with his knife out, raving at nothing. Then stumbling backward, once, twice, the second time with a knife in his belly. They’d think that he tripped, that he stabbed himself. None of them had seen Silas or the boy.

They wouldn’t for another sixty years.

If they were lucky.

The neighborhood remained dark, although a dog barked in the distance. His car was cold. Cold and empty.

He let himself in, started it, warmed his fingers against the still-hot air blowing out of the vents. Only a few minutes gone. A few minutes to take away a nasty, horrible lifetime. He wondered what was in the rest of these houses, and hoped he’d never have to find out.

The clock on the dash read 10:45. As he drove out of the neighborhood, he passed a small adobe church. Outside, candles burned in candleholders made of baked sand. Almost like the churches of his childhood.

Almost, but not quite.

He watched the people thread inside. They wore fancy clothing-dresses on the women, suits on the men, the children dressing like their parents, faces alive with anticipation.

They believed in something.

They had hope.

He wondered if hope was something a man could recapture, if it came with time, relaxation, and the slow inevitable march toward death.

He wondered, if he retired, whether he could spend his Christmas Eves inside, smelling the mix of incense and candlewax, the evergreen bows, and the light dusting of ladies’ perfume.

He wondered…

Then shook his head.

And drove back to the casino, to spend the rest of his time off in peace.

DRUSILLA by Ed Gorman

In twenty-five years of full-time writing, Ed Gorman has published more than thirty novels and six collections of short stories. Kirkus Review called him “one of the most original [talents] around.” Late this year his collected stories, The Long Silence After, will be published in two volumes.

NOT EVEN THE heavy pelts Aarak wore could keep the wind from whipping through him, nor the snow from soaking him. At this point in his three-day trip, Lord William’s warrior wasn’t even sure he was heading in the right direction. His horse had stumbled in the thigh-high snow and broken a foreleg. Aarak had had to put him down with the tenderness that most warriors felt for their mounts.

Moonless nights. Screaming winds. Crude lean-tos built with frozen hands for a few hours’ rest. He ate whatever dead things he could find in the snow. One morning he came upon a frozen man in a small cave, but after resting there a few hours, he kept on going. He was not religious, something Lord William constantly criticized him for, but even he would not partake of human flesh, as some warriors were known to do.

Demons in his dreams. The demons that guarded the amulet that William’s brother Lord Stephen wore on a bloodstained chain around his neck. In the dreams, the demons ripped Aarak’s flesh the way vultures did the flesh of a corpse. He writhed with pain, cried out against the unending indignity, flailed fists in the snow-stabbed air. And then woke to the wind-screams. So cold in the middle of the moonless night that his golden stream of piss froze before it reached the snow.

Lord William was paying him well for this journey. No assassin in the realm had ever been paid so much. Aarak had assumed that killing Lord Stephen would be the difficult part of the task. He hadn’t counted on the hellish blizzard.

The village was a typical one. A tall, stone castle overlooking the walled village proper, carts, horses, people constantly going in and out of the guarded gates. Villagers never strayed too far because there were still raiding parties to contend with, fierce warriors who valued above all young girls who could be sold at high prices in the cities of England.

Aarak saw all this from the back of a rumbling wagon filled with reeking, bloody animal carcasses. The stench was only partially alleviated by the chill but not freezing wind. Aarak couldn’t remember when or how he’d gotten in the wagon, but he was thankful he had. And thankful that the blizzard hadn’t reached this far. Yes, it was cold here, and both the plains and the hills were winter-gray with death. But there was only a dusting of snow, and even that was mitigated by the merry streams of smoke curling upwards into the air. Chimneys, fireplaces, warmth.

“I thank you, my friend,” Aarak said, pulling himself from beneath the reeking pile of carcasses. The wagon had slowed so much that Aarak was able to jump off and walk beside the driver.

“You’re a lucky one,” said the man driving the wagon. He wore a double set of tunics over a set of heavy woolen clothes that fit his ample form tightly, and on his head was a squirrel-skin hat. At his side was an ax so huge it looked fit for slaying giants. “When I found you, you were near dead. All you could say was ‘Lord Stephen.’ Another piece of luck for you. Lord Stephen is the lord of my own village here.”

Inside the walls of the village, on battlement walkways, sword-wielding guards watched the wagon that brought Aarak to the long main street off which ran several much narrower side streets. Aarak was strong enough to gather himself and jump down to the ground. Shops of every description crowded this section of the village. Thatched-roof houses stretched in all directions on the off-streets.

Aarak quickly joined the crowd moving toward the northernmost part of the village. He had the coins necessary to making himself presentable. A barber could clean him up and, with his medical skills, help Aarak stand up to the cough the elements had inflicted on him.

Two hours later he wore the familiar sleeved tunic of the village. The woolen clothing underneath was footed so that all but his neck and head were covered. He was shaved and clean as well. He ate a spare meal of rye bread, gruel, and ale. He felt sorry for the peasants of this place. As Lord William’s official assassin, he was allowed to eat in the manor house, where the meals consisted of lamb, bacon, beef, cheese, and bread made from milled flour. Nobody at Lord William’s table ever drank ale. Expensive wines were always at hand.

Dusk came early, just after four, though the merchants and the craftsmen would work until the curfew bell that rang at eight o’clock in the evening. He left the village-making sure to talk to the guards on his way out, leaving them with a good impression of him-and walked to the Norman castle resting above it.

In the deepening shadows, Aarak saw that this was one of the newest types of castles. Built of stone because it could be made taller, less inclined than the wooden ones to be gutted by fire, and sturdy enough to repel most kinds of attacks. Melancholy lute music came from a lighted window in one of the towers, and laughter could be heard from somewhere within the lower regions.