Vampire Hunter D 16: Tyrant's Stars

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The duchess backed away two or three steps, as if her strength were spent.

  “I realize this woman’s been rude to you, but her power will be indispensable in the fight ahead. Without her, I may well fall to Valcua.”

  Perhaps on account of these words, D dispelled the eerie aura and turned his eyes toward the eastern sky. “It’s nearly dawn,” he said.

  Knitting his brow, the count replied, “But it’s still night. We’ll set out right away.”

  Braujou turned around. Up to the point where he was swallowed by the darkness, his massive form moved without the sound of a footstep.

  Watching him go in a daze, Matthew suddenly turned and noticed that there was no sign of the duchess, only a white fog billowing down the road.

  He ran over to the four fallen thugs. When Adele joined him, she gasped. Could a Noble do this to someone without biting him, with just a touch? The quartet had possessed a vicious youthfulness, but now they were all withered old men with gray hair—they looked almost like mummies as they lay on the ground.

  Behind them, the speechless pair heard footsteps heading toward the house. Matthew was just about to follow the Hunter when Adele stopped him.

  “What is it, Mom?”

  “He has Noble blood in him, too. I don’t want him in the house.”

  “But—”

  “It’s the giant he’s after. As long as the giant’s guarding us, he’ll stick around, too. That’s bad enough.”

  Adele wasn’t mistaken in her appraisal. Less than two minutes later the pair watched D straddle his black steed.

  As the gorgeous rider turned in silence, Matthew could no longer restrain himself, and he impulsively shouted, “That was pretty impressive, you know! You sure are tough, mister.”

  Though the boy got the impression the Hunter shot a quick glance in his direction, D said nothing as he slowly rode away.

  Certain that they hadn’t seen the last of him, the boy still had feverish winds of emotion wreaking havoc in his heart. He called out, “What do you have to do to become a Hunter? To be a Vampire Hunter, I mean.”

  Before his mother could turn a look of shock and horror on him, D had gone off into the darkness.

  Adele and Matthew were left standing there, shrouded in a desolation they couldn’t even begin to describe. But it felt as if they had just learned they were the last two people left on Earth.

  Matthew’s mother pressed her face against his chest, and her lips began to tremble.

  “What are we supposed to do now, Matthew? We’re not cut out for anything but working in the fields. Now we’ve got no choice but to do like these Nobles tell us and leave our farm. I’m so scared,” the mother said, her words giving way to sobs.

  Matthew was gripped by a quiet surprise, but not because this was the first time he’d seen his mother this way. Rather, it was because he remained so incomprehensibly cool.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” the boy said, gently clapping his mother on the shoulder. “We’ll get by. Sure, we’re leaving now, but we can always come back. And we can make a go of it anywhere.”

  A faint glow began to seep like water into the world. From the same direction the other three had gone—from the east.

  CHAPTER 5

  I

  After giving first aid to the four barely breathing thugs, the Dyalhises brought them to the hospital. It was late the next morning before they were ready to head out. Their last piece of baggage was still in town.

  Having treated all four of the boys by herself, Adele was exhausted and didn’t talk much. When the hospital and the sheriff’s office wanted to know about the quartet’s eerie medical condition, Matthew maintained that they’d been found like that near his house. Apparently word of what had happened had gotten out, as every person the family passed gave them suspicious looks. There’d never been a case of any creature in the world sucking the life out of people without leaving a mark on them. From the state these four were in, the prime suspect was the Nobility. So why hadn’t the Dyalhis boy testified to that effect?

  The wagon that carried the mother and children took the main street through town, halting in front of the village’s only inn. This is where the barmaid their father was so smitten with rented a room.

  “Go get this stuff at Mr. Garnish’s shop,” Adele said, handing Sue a list before she climbed down from the wagon.

  “Mom, you want me to go with you?” Matthew called out to her.

  “If I had to bring my son along to drag out my drunken husband, I’d be a laughingstock. Whether you’ve got that shopping done or not, be back here in twenty minutes.”

  Her husband wasn’t there. Seeing Adele walk past the counter and toward the staircase, the innkeeper told her Baird wasn’t in. He said at this hour, her husband would be in the bar or at the coach stop, looking for handouts from travelers and acquaintances.

  Closing her eyes and thanking him, Adele headed over to the bar. He wasn’t there.

  The coach stop was on the western edge of the village. Not everyone coming into town was necessarily an upstanding person. There was no guarantee a traveler wasn’t an illusion beast that could read people’s minds and take the shape of someone they knew, a camouflage creature called a magai, or a servant of the Nobility with orders to scout for fresh prey. Allowing coaches carrying all sorts of passengers to ride into the center of town might cost the villagers their lives—or their souls. Therefore, armed officials at the Somui coach stop checked every traveler.

  When the stop, which looked like a large barracks, came into view further down the road, the coach that was halted in front of it tore down the path, leaving a cloud of fine dust behind. After Adele had walked on for another five minutes and was about thirty feet shy of the coach stop, men’s shouts assailed her ears.

  “There’s no damned reflection!”

  “Fire!”

  Even though she couldn’t see what was happening, she knew in an instant what it had to be. One of the travelers hadn’t cast a reflection in the mirror held by an official.

  The roar of an old-fashioned firearm overlapped their cries. Another thunderous shot rang out.

  A man who looked like a fanner in his baggy coat and trousers had just come around the corner of the coach stop and into view.

  He was running straight at Adele. Behind him, she could see two officials stained with crimson. One of them raised his gun and shouted, “Hit the dirt!”

  As Adele leaped to the right, to her left the man screamed and leaned backward. The report from the gun reached her a split second later.

  Still tilted backward, the man advanced another five or six paces, then dropped to his knees and toppled back as if forming a bridge.

  Adele had already jumped up. Like a good Frontier woman, she held the bolt gun she carried for self-defense in her right hand. The man shuddered feebly, but he soon became motionless.

  “You’re not hurt, are you?” asked the official who came over, dragging one leg behind him, his gun trained on the man all the while.

  “I’m all right. You got it worse than me.”

  Realizing that the man stained with gore from the waist down was alone, Adele turned toward the coach stop. The second man had slumped to the ground in the same spot where she’d seen him before. Doubled over like a snapped twig, his upper body seemed to be bleeding, and the blood dripped from his knees to stain the ground. The god of the soil would feed well.

  By the time Adele turned her gaze back to the figure at her feet, it had finished dissolving with a foul stench. Its dissolution had come through a chemical reaction that took only seconds.

  “This is a new one—some new kind of monster," the official beside her said, finally lowering his rifle. “I’ll go get help. Don’t suppose I could ask you to look after that fella, could I? See, that thing tore his chest to ribbons with its claws, and he’s not gonna last long. There’s no one else around.”

  “Sure.”

  Parting ways with the man, Adele hastened over to t
he coach stop. The man who sat there was dead. The wounds in his chest were more like punctures than slashes, reaching into his heart and lungs. It was a miracle he’d even made it that far.

  “I bet he had some final words he wanted to say.”

  Kneeling, Adele clutched the rosary that hung around her neck and recited a prayer. There were a number of gods in the area. Instead of the one governing the colossal beech tree that stood next to the coach stop, Adele selected the one that represented the towering rock five or ten feet away. She felt that when it came to protecting someone called to heaven, the god of a rock would be much better suited to the task than that of a gentle tree.

  Before the woman could end her prayer by calling out the god’s name, she noticed somebody was coming up behind her.

  No, it can’t be. Please, God, anyone but him.

  “Hey, Adele.” There was no mistaking her husband’s voice. “Fancy meeting you here. I sure am lucky it’s you. Would you just shut your eyes for me for a sec?"

  Averting her face from his boozy breath, Adele got up. Once more she wanted to close her eyes. Over the past twenty years, there’d been a number of times she wished she couldn’t see anything, but never had she wanted it more badly than now.

  She could see her husband clearly. The face puffy and pale from too much drink, the lifeless eyes of a dead cow, the scraggly growth of beard, and arms so scrawny the veins bulged from them. Her husband was already dead to her. She knew that well.

  “What are you up to?” she asked as if she were interrogating a criminal.

  Sheepishly avoiding her gaze, her husband replied, “Isn’t it obvious? This guy’s probably got some stuff on him he’s not gonna need anymore.”

  Adele gazed at his profile. It was the face of a man who knew what he was doing was wrong and wanted to stop, but had done it so often that no matter how badly he wanted to change, he never would. He apologized, but went right ahead and stole anyway. He could swear it would only be this once, then turn around and kill someone. Her husband had become a monster.

  Adele backed away a step.

  Unconcerned, her husband wiped his sweaty hand on his tattered coat, straddled the dead man, and began going through the pockets of his leather vest. The left one was empty, but Baird found something in the right one. Opening the leather bag, he grinned. Pushing it into his own pocket, he said, “This’ll keep me in drink for a while, I suppose. It’ll be our little secret, Adele.”

  When he turned to look at his wife, Adele drove her knife into his belly. As Baird backed away, he clutched the hilt of the knife with both hands. He made an effort to pull it back out, but his face contorted with pain and he stopped.

  “What the hell was that, Adele?” her husband said, his tone still sharp.

  “Don’t think that it was on account of what you just did, dear,” Adele said, standing still as she spoke. “See, while your four little friends were being looked over, I heard what happened. Seems you had them all set to rob us as payback for what went on yesterday. And you told ’em if things got hairy, you didn’t give a damn if they killed the lot of us and burned the place down when they were done. You must be out of your mind!”

  “No,” her husband said, his now-purple lips trembling as he denied the accusations. “That’s a lie. I didn’t say anything like that. Adele, you’ve gotta believe me. They’re my kids . . . I’m their father!”

  Her husband thudded down on the road, his face twisting with the shock.

  “Only on the outside. Inside, you’re a whole different person. The you the kids and I knew died ten years ago.”

  “Adele . . . Oh, Adele . . . her husband called out feebly, his upper body bending backward until he lay flat on his back. He was nearly at an end. The knife handle jutting from his solar plexus shuddered with each sharp breath.

  “You can’t go with our kids. But this is the least I can do. Better you be sent to your reward by me instead of being murdered by some Noble. Don’t worry, though. Once I’ve seen that our kids are safe, I’ll follow along behind you. After all, on the other side, you’ll

  probably be back to your old self.”

  Adele turned her gaze toward the village. There was no sign of anyone.

  “I’m so sorry. It’s time to go,” she told her husband, and then she put his body over her shoulder and jogged toward the path to her left.

  It was a shortcut that would bring her to the general store without running into any villagers. She ran for all she was worth—she had to get out of town with Matthew and Sue as soon as possible. If she were to hide her husband’s corpse somewhere off this path, no one would find it for a while.

  Suddenly Adele had a strange sensation. Although she was progressing down the familiar path, it felt at the same time as if she were on another route. Stopping, she checked her surroundings, and it was the right path. The scenery to either side of it was familiar. And yet, something in the back of her mind whispered that it was different. Her husband’s shudders were transmitted through her shoulder.

  Going off the left side of the path, Adele slipped into thick woods. Suddenly, she came to a clearing. Nearly circular, the empty lot seemed to cover between one hundred fifty and two hundred square feet. Adele was sure she’d never seen this place before .. . nor had she ever laid eyes on the figure that stood at the center of the clearing. He wore a dark brown hood and a long robe, but whether the two were a single garment or not was unclear. About the same height as Adele, he didn’t have a particularly muscular build, and the great ax he held with its blade resting on the ground seemed completely disproportionate.

  What’s he doing out here dressed like an old-fashioned headsman?

  Not even a second after this question occurred to her, so did an answer.

  Has he been waiting for me?

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. Though he had the look of a man in his late forties or early fifties, his voice was terribly hoarse— much like the voice of an old man she’d met long ago who’d said he was a hundred and twenty. “My name’s Jessup. I do all Lord Valcua’s beheading.”

  “Valcua ..

  Suddenly the name that had been part fantasy became a hard reality slamming down on Adele’s mind.

  “It’s all true—isn’t it?”

  “You and the man you have over your shoulder belong to the family of an old enemy of my master, Lawrence Valcua, for which you must be executed. I don’t care which of you we start with, but someone better come over here and put his neck on the block,” said Jessup. His left hand wasn’t touching the ax handle, but pointed down by his feet.

  He stood near a U-shaped stand that looked like an iron plate bent from both ends with terrific force, supported by a sturdy pedestal about a foot high.

  Realizing its purpose in an instant, Adele was terrified. Instinctively she tried to turn, but her feet wouldn’t move.

  “There’s no point in trying to flee. You came here precisely so you might die by my hand. You walked the road to the beheader,” Jessup said, his mocking gaze trained on Adele’s feet. From his feet to hers, and over the ground Adele had just covered, lay a red cloth a foot and a half wide that ran down the path like a river of blood. She couldn’t remember walking on it.

  “Having set foot on it, you can’t get away without my ax passing through that wrinkly neck of yours. Come here.”

  Perhaps there was some mystic power to his voice, or perhaps it was the bloody path she’d trod. Showing no signs of resistance, Adele began to walk toward the assassin in dark brown.

  II

  Of course, that’s not to say she advanced of her own free will. But it wouldn’t have been correct to say that she was fighting it the whole time, either. Perhaps the best description of the way she walked would be to say that it seemed natural—or even inevitable. Adele had fully accepted that she was walking toward her own death.

  She stood before the chopping block. In this clearing that wasn’t supposed to be there, sunlight draped through the gaps betwee
n branches like gorgeous lengths of fabric.

  “Stick your neck out.”

  Adele set her husband down, knelt, and put her collar on the block with the semicircular scallop.

  Seeing the woman’s powerful, suntanned neck, Jessup’s eyes narrowed with satisfaction.

  “Here we go,” he said in what was actually a somewhat pathetic tone, and he raised the great ax. He staggered a few times under it, a ridiculous counterpoint to his earlier boasts. Reeling under the weight, his body jerked from side to side as he swung the great ax toward the ground and regained his balance. A tree growing nearby got chopped halfway through its twenty-inch diameter trunk.

  “Damn, that’s embarrassing,” Jessup said, cursing himself like someone in a comedy as he braced himself a little better this time and managed to pull his ax free. As he walked over to Adele, his gait was steadier, but still somewhat uncertain. Giving a huff, he cried out to focus himself as he raised the great ax high.

  It was unclear what Adele was thinking, but she made no attempt to flee. Perhaps that was the true power of the bumbling beheader.

  He raised the ax high, and then swung it down with all his might. A heartbeat later, a pale, thin stake flew out of nowhere and pierced his right shoulder.

  “Waaaagh!” he shrieked, staggering and dropping the ax that was his very raison d’etre.

  As he pulled the stake out, he looked around and sputtered, “Wh-wh-who the hell did that?”

  He needn’t have bothered. On the red road to the beheader that ran through the trees stood a figure in black of inhuman beauty.

  “That hurts, damn you. And I’m bleeding. What did I ever do to you, you bastard?”

  But the cries he spewed suddenly died. He’d noticed how handsome his foe was. With golden light from between the branches shining on his face, the young man was not of this world.

  “Who—who are you?” the beheader stammered.

  “D,” the man replied in a voice that could make the light freeze.

  “Are you trying to—to stop me or something?”