Vampire Hunter D 16: Tyrant's Stars

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  Crossing half the six hundred feet in the blink of an eye, he heard a woman’s voice ring in his ears.

  “You who spoke with Gaskell—who spoke with a corpse—I would have your name.”

  D galloped on as if he hadn’t heard the youthful voice, so like the peals of a golden hell.

  “The only people who can converse with corpses are Nobles. But that’s not what you are. You’re neither Noble nor human. That means you have no place in this world. You should die here and now!”

  The bridge dipped down. In a heartbeat, D was in the water. Churning its legs desperately, his horse was swept along by the mighty torrent. The only thing that allowed D to remain on its back was his skillful mastery of the reins, which kept his mount pointed in the right direction. For every ten feet they were pulled, they moved three feet closer to the opposite shore.

  The cyborg horse tilted backward. Looking behind him, D caught sight of a pair of pale hands stretching from the muddy water. The right one was holding his horse by the tail, while the left reached for its haunches. In the blink of an eye, it ripped the tail free. The hide over the mount’s haunches peeled off, some meat still attached to it. Metal-alloy bones were laid bare, and torn cables made contact with the muddy water, sending sparks shooting out. A hand slipped into the opening. When it grabbed hold of the colored wires that acted as the animal’s nerves, D’s blade flashed into action. He struck at the hand, but it felt like slicing through water. Without a single mark on it, the woman’s hand tore out the wires. Sparks flew more colorfully and violently than ever. The cyborg horse shuddered.

  The white hands sank smoothly back into the water. At precisely the same moment, a pale woman stood up about fifteen feet ahead of the Hunter. With golden hair that hung down to her waist and a tight white dress that suited her elegant beauty, the woman stood atop the madly flowing water. All but the head of the cyborg horse had already vanished beneath the surface as the beast was pushed along with D still on its back. The woman on top of the water followed D at the same speed. Her left eye was covered.

  “You’re not frightened, are you?” the woman said, her voice quivering with malice and surprise. “Those who live outside the water fear it. I should like to hold a great man like you tight against my bosom, but it would seem you pose a serious impediment to our aims. Though I don’t believe you are one of the other two Nobles whom Gaskell was left to await, I shall take it upon myself to dispose of you. Your handsome face and fine form shall sink into the muddy water. And as soon as my work is done, I shall find you and seal you away for all time in a crystal-clear lake.”

  “We’ll see about that,” a hoarse voice snickered, but it was unclear whether or not the water witch noticed.

  “Your name—I should like to have it. I am known as Lucienne.” “D.”

  The pale beauty’s one good eye snapped open wide. “You’re D? But of course. I knew you must be from the very moment I saw you. Ah, and yet I still couldn’t understand. You were far more beautiful than I’d imagined. I’ve heard about you hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Heard about the dhampir of a beauty rarely seen in this world, with a strength that makes both gods and demons grow pale.” The water witch—Lucienne—quivered with rapture.

  “This is a pleasure, D. I’m so glad to meet you—so glad to kill you. I’ll fill those exquisite lungs and stomach of yours with mud and let you rest forever beneath the water.”

  Her body sank seductively into the depths. With her lovely face alone breaking the surface, the woman twisted her lips into a wanton grin and glided straight toward D.

  How would D respond? The uselessness of his blade had already been made clear.

  When the distance between the two had closed to just six feet, Lucienne leaped up. As she broke the surface, the hem of her dress melded with the water, drawing a long ocher trail behind her. Her face glowed with the surpassing bliss of one seeking their love’s embrace, but then there was another flash of light, and her expression warped into one of intense pain. A silvery gleam passed through her from the top of her head down, and her body split lengthwise. Loosing a scream that defied description, Lucienne

  broke apart in midair, forming innumerable droplets that rained back down on the muddy torrent.

  As D allowed himself to be pushed along by the water that was now up to his chest, the left hand he had wrapped around the reins snickered with amusement. “She underestimated you. Lousy little water monster.”

  “I cut her, but she got away.”

  The laughter stopped.

  “Oh. Then we’d better come up with another way to deal with her."

  “I’ve got to cross this river first.”

  “Of course. If you don’t hurry up, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on the reward money for ol’ Braujou. Heck, it’s probably already too late.”

  D squeezed the reins. Half-dead, his horse gave a single whinny, and then began feebly paddling through the water once more with all its remaining strength.

  CHAPTER 3

  I

  In the village of Somui, the giant onions and hallucinogenic blue wheat had brought a hundred dalas. That would hold them a

  month. Around the middle of next month, they’d harvest twice what he had today, and that would be enough to tide them over

  until fall. Tapping the leather bag of coins in his coat pocket, Matthew Dyalhis hurried down the road that led to the edge of

  town. That’s where he’d left his covered wagon.

  Undoubtedly the fact that he’d pulled in twice as much as he’d expected had served to distract him from how harsh fate could be. No sooner had he spotted the black mass near the spot for parking wagons than it resolved into five separate figures. What made Matthew despair was that out of them, one of the faces was very familiar. The other four were considered ne’er-do-wells—he’d known them since he was little—but the familiar one was a good deal older.

  “Hi, Dad,” Matthew called out to him. Somehow he managed a smile. “Mom and Sue are worried about you. Hurry on home, would you?”

  “Aren’t you the cold one,” his father—Baird—said, letting out a belch that reeked of alcohol. “You’re not even gonna ask me to go back with you?”

  “Do you plan on going home?” Matthew asked, slipping past his father to reach the wagon. To his right were Otto Flanagan and Mizz Quarona, to his left Ogen Shaway and Joppes Lallacksiski— but aside from Joppes, who’d been practicing martial arts since he was a kid, they weren’t much of a threat to him. He’d taken the other three all at once before and whipped them, and the two or three times he’d squared off against Joppes, it’d been a good fight. He believed he would’ve won if no one had interfered. As a result, these four rarely gave Matthew any trouble. But one of these days, there would have to be a reckoning.

  As he reached for the driver’s seat, he heard, “C’mon, Matthew. Give your old man a little help here.” His father’s tone was pathetic—he always sounded that way when he asked for money.

  Stopping, Matthew heaved a sigh. Though he thought about looking back, he decided against it and raised his foot to the step. There was a dull thud behind him. It was drowned out by a cry of pain. He now had no choice but to turn around.

  Clutching his solar plexus, Baird was collapsing. Before he could do so, Joppes got his right arm around the man's waist. Ogen kicked Matthew’s reeling father in the stomach. When he tumbled forward, Otto and Mizz started kicking the hell out of him.

  “Please, just stop it!” Baird groaned, shielding his head.

  “How are you supposed to pay us back, you old shit?”

  “I don’t care if you have to peddle your wife and daughter; you get us that money!”

  With every word the two thugs spoke, there was the sound of them striking the man in the back or stomach.

  “Okay, take his right arm—and bust it!” Joppes ordered.

  Mizz, the biggest of the bunch, got on the man’s back. Poking out between the two figures, Baird’s arm w
as pushed up toward his head. He began to let out a long cry.

  Matthew turned around. He knew perfectly well what this would mean. If it hadn’t been his father, he would’ve kept going. First, he faced Otto: the thug quickly stepped over Matthew’s father and fled. Taking time to kick Baird in the hip, Mizz lost his chance to get into a stance, and Matthew landed a kick to his side. No matter how big or heavy Mizz was, his bones and nerves were no tougher than an ordinary person’s. When he let out a cry and landed on his ass, the end of Matthew’s boot caught him squarely in the middle of his face. That one blow sent him toppling backward.

  Not even bothering to watch Mizz’s landing, Matthew spun around. Joppes and Ogen were both waving him away to show they had no intent of fighting.

  Still tense, Matthew walked over to his father and asked, “You okay?”

  He heard whimpering for a response. It made him both exceedingly angry and sad.

  The boy looked up at Joppes. A curse on all of them rolled out of his mouth. He didn’t know how much they were owed, but this was more than just collecting on a debt.

  “Come and get it,” he said, standing up straight again. But the instant he felt power filling him once more, his legs were pulled out from under him.

  “What—”

  He fell face first, putting his hands out like he was doing a pushup to save himself from the impact. Joppes’s boot knocked his hands out from under him. Somehow managing to keep the kick that came at him from hitting him anywhere important, Matthew put his right hand against the ground, then swung it hard at Joppes and Ogen. Catching a face full of dirt, both stopped what they were doing.

  Matthew got up. A sharp pain shot through his right side. Swinging his right arm around, he grabbed his attacker by the scruff of the neck. He had a good idea who it was.

  “Gimme some money, Matthew,” his father said. His breath stank of liquor.

  “Sorry,” Matthew replied, and then he turned to Joppes and asked, “You’re all in cahoots, aren’t you?”

  Joppes shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “Yeah, I guess we are. It was your old man’s idea. Said he wanted to get some serious cash.” “Matthew,” the man said as pain encroached further into his son, “hurry up and hand it over. Are you gonna give it to me or not?” Baird twisted his knife, and his son fell into a sorrowful unconsciousness.

  The next thing Matthew knew, he was in the wagon and it was moving. He didn’t know whether he’d climbed in himself of if they’d put him in it. Knowing the way, the cyborg horses had started back toward the farm. The leather bag of coins was gone. Though he was lucky the wound to his side hadn’t extended to any of his internal organs, he hardly felt like celebrating.

  His surroundings had already been annexed by the dominion of darkness, and the road that led straight to their farm on the outskirts of the village stretched like a white ribbon across the hilly terrain. The moon was out.

  Fighting through his pain, Matthew put on his moonlight goggles. Magnifying the faint light of the moon to make the world seem as bright as day, such goggles were essential items for any traveler who might find himself on the road at night. Off to the left-hand side he could see a black depression. Though it was said to be a crater caused by a major earthquake about two centuries earlier, it was simply too vast—it must’ve been nearly a quarter of a million acres. Apparently local bandit groups used it to stash their loot, while a variety of avian creatures left partially devoured human remains there. Since it also hid marshes that gave off an eerie glow, fields where only poisonous weeds grew, and no dearth of strange creatures, Matthew thought it best to get past the great depression as quickly as possible and raised his whip toward that end.

  “What’s that?” he exclaimed, catching a speeding black object out of the comer of his eye. It was coming from the west at a good speed. A horseless carriage—a car, and quite a large one at that.

  “Don’t tell me that thing’s headed for our house!”

  Before he could turn his head, fear blew its frosty breath into his heart. No one owned anything like that car except the Nobility. And it was headed toward his very own house, at night.

  Just then, his fearful gaze was replaced by one of shock. Without slowing at all, the carriage, which must have weighed five tons, had floated up into the air. Matthew stopped his wagon in spite of himself. His eyes remained riveted on the vehicle, now stopped thirty feet off the ground, as he pulled out the first-aid kit under the driver’s seat. He had an intense desire to see what would happen next. But to do that, he’d need something for his pain.

  Rubbing an antibiotic ointment on his wound, he’d just popped a painkiller into his mouth when a figure descended head first from the heavens and stopped thirty feet from the front of the car. It was a man with limbs so long and gangly they looked like a spider’s. His tight brown shirt left the lines of his body perfectly clear.

  Matthew strained his ears. He caught fragments of a man’s voice.

  “Come out here and . . . Count Brau . . . Didn’t you . . . how General Gas . . . wound up?”

  On seeing the car’s roof open and a man appear from it, Matthew let out a gasp. It was a giant who had to be at least ten feet tall. The spear in his right hand was long and thick. It looked like one swipe from it would be enough to start a tornado.

  “Put . . . car . . . this instant,” the giant commanded, pointing toward the ground.

  “Why don’t. . . try . .. make me?”

  That was obviously an attempt to provoke the giant. Matthew had noticed that a thread of hostility stretched between the two of them.

  “I would . .. your name,” the giant said.

  “It’s Speeny.”

  The boy heard that statement clearly.

  And with those words, the spindly man extended both arms and sent white strands billowing from his fingertips toward the giant. It

  was a spider’s web—or so Matthew believed, since the man bore such a resemblance to a spider, and the streaks of white were like thread.

  The giant didn’t wait for them to make contact. Not moving from his position, where he’d taken a stance like a stern temple guardian, he shifted his grip on his spear to the very center, holding it up vertically as he spun it madly. The wind groaned. A colossal windmill appeared—the bottom of which just missed his toes, while the top reached far above his head as it spun in a blur. When the drifting threads struck it, they disappeared.

  “Oh!” Matthew cried out.

  As Speeny’s body was shaken by an unmistakable surprise, the count hurled his spear. It was a streak of black light that jabbed through the center of Speeny’s torso and out his back. With a disturbingly inhuman scream, the spiderish man twitched from head to toe, and then he moved no more. His limbs bent, pulling in toward his torso.

  All this had transpired in less than a minute. Though Matthew was in a completely safe place, the tension of the deadly battle left him paralyzed.

  For a short while the count stood like a wrathful deity on the roof of his vehicle in midair, with the impaled corpse swaying in the air before him, but then he unexpectedly made a remark that caused Matthew’s eyes to widen.

  “That’s quite ... playing dead.”

  Suddenly, Speeny’s arms and legs extended. His narrow eyes opened.

  “Ah... should’ve expected... Count Brau ... Well... this back!”

  Reaching for the spear with both hands, he smoothly pulled it out again. The man threw it easily, and the count caught it in midair.

  “It would ... you didn’t see ... General Gas ... The very least... is give you ... same death ..

  The moment Speeny finished talking, the long spear pierced his face, came out of the back of his head at an angle, and jabbed into the ground below him.

  Matthew gasped. When the spear was hurled for the second time, the car had already begun to rise, shooting up into the starry sky with such ferocious speed the count couldn’t leap off. On returning to his senses, Matthew turned his attention to the spiderlik
e man. It was unclear where he might’ve vanished to, and there was no trace of him anywhere.

  Feeling as if he’d just awakened from a nightmare, Matthew returned home. With one look at the bloodstained boy, his mother and sister set to patching him up without even bothering to listen to the tale of the bizarre battle he’d witnessed.

  Once she’d finished taking care of him, his mother told him, “The first aid you did closed the wound and stopped the bleeding. But just to be on the safe side, go in to Doc Freddy’s and let him have a look at you tomorrow.”

  Matthew nodded, and then said he wanted to turn in.

  Saying nothing, his mother simply stared at him.

  “What is it?”

  “You really mean to tell me those four were the only ones in your fight?” she asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, the way they stabbed you was pretty haphazard. Seems kinda—I don’t know—hesitant?”

  Matthew simply shrugged.

  “You know, every time I go into town, I ask around about your father. All I ever hear is that he’s still at her place, and that he drinks constantly. Seems he’s been over to Mr. Hamja’s general store a number of times to borrow money. He always apologizes and promises to pay after the next harvest. I wouldn’t put him above hitting up his own son, too. And if that didn’t work—I suppose he’d even stab you.”

  “Mom,” Matthew said reproachfully. He knew nothing he could say would do any good. Her eyes held the absolute determination of a woman who’d raised two children alone on the Frontier.

  “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  Matthew nodded.

  Clapping him lightly on the shoulder, his mother told him, “Take it easy for the next couple of days. Sue and I will handle the rest of the harvesting.”