The millions of words embedded in the silence that followed were shattered with D’s next remark. “This village is the only place where humans and Nobility lived and worked together on equal terms,” he said. “I hear they aren’t around any more, but I’d like to know what it used to be like.”
For a second, Nan focused a look of horrible anger at the Hunter’s gorgeous face, and then she shook her head. “You won’t get that from me. If that’s what interests you, old Mrs. Sheldon could tell you plenty.”
“Where can I find her?”
“The western edge of the village. Just follow the orchards, and you’ll find the place soon enough. Why? Is something going on?” Nan asked, leaning over the table.
“Hell, we’d like to know that, too!”
As the rough voice drifted across the bar, a number of figures spread out in the room, too. The batwing doors swung wildly, hinges creaking.
“Mr. Clements.”
Nan’s eyes reflected a man baring his teeth—a man who looked like a brick wall someone had dressed in a leather vest. It wasn’t just the material forming the contours of the secondhand combat suit he wore that made him look more than six and a half feet tall—the massive frame of the man inside the combat suit was imposing in both size and shape.
A killing lust had taken over the bar. The housewives were a sickly hue as they got to their feet. In addition to the man called Clements, there were six others. All of them wore power-amplifying combat suits.
“Mr. Clements, we don’t want any trouble here . . . ” the bartender called out fretfully from behind the counter as he loaded glasses onto a tray.
“Go out back for a while, Jatko,” the giant said in a weighty tone. There was a little gray mixed in his hair, but he looked like he could strangle a bear even without his combat suit. “Tally up yesterday’s take or something. We’ll pay you for anything that gets broken. Nan, you’d best run along, too. You start getting friendly with these drifter types, and you’re not gonna be too popular around town.”
“I can talk to whomever I please,” Nan retorted, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Well, we’ll discuss that matter later. Move it!” Clements tossed his jaw in Nan’s direction, and a man to his left went into action. An arm empowered with hundreds of times its normal strength grabbed Nan by the shoulder.
Suddenly, her captor’s face warped in pain. Oddly enough, neither the men there nor even Nan had noticed until now that D had stood up.
A black glove held the wrist of the man’s combat suit. The man’s body shook, but D didn’t move in the slightest. It looked like his hand was just gently resting on the other man. But what was gentle for this young man was cause for others to shudder.
The Hunter moved his hand easily, and the arm of the combat suit went along with it as it limned a semicircle. “This young lady came in here with me,” the Hunter said. “It would be best if she leaves with me, too.” And then D calmly brought his hand down, and the sound of bones snapping echoed through the quiet bar.
Clements looked scornfully at his lackey, who’d fainted dead away from the pain. “Beat by a damn Hunter. That really makes me sick,” he spat, gazing at D. “Stanley Clements is the name—I head up the local Vigilance Committee and breed guard beasts. I’m a big deal in these parts, if I do say so myself. You remember that when you tangle with me.”
D was silent.
Perhaps mistaking silence for fright, Clements continued. “We hear tell you killed Tokoff. For a lousy drifter, you’ve got a lot of nerve laying a hand on a clean-living villager,” Clements said, his voice brimming with confidence.
“That’s not how it was, Mr. Clements. I saw the whole thing. And Bates agreed, too. He’s not the one who shot that arrow, I tell you!”
Ignoring Nan’s desperate explanation, Clements sneered, “I don’t know what the hell that deputy told you, but you’re gonna leave town quick. After we have a little fun with you, that is.”
It seemed Nan had a good deal more courage than the average person. The girl reprovingly interjected the comment, “Orders from Mr. Bates are as good as orders from the sheriff. You know, you’re all gonna catch hell when he gets back.”
“Shut your hole, you little brat!” Clements barked as rage gave a vermilion tinge to his already demonic visage. “Go ahead and take ’im!”
With that command, three men in combat suits charged at D. They didn’t give the slightest consideration to the fact that he had Nan with him.
No sooner had D pushed the girl away than he was swallowed by a wave of orange armor. Nan’s eyes were open as wide as they could go. Look at that. Didn’t all three Vigilance Committee members just sail through the air and slam against the floor with an enormous crash? Weren’t they supposed to have the strength of five hundred men in that armor?
If by some chance there’d been a super-high-speed camera there to film this scene, it would’ve caught D as he slipped between the jumbled forms of the trio and twisted their wrists behind their backs with secret skill. The wrist and shoulder joints of every last man were shattered beyond repair. Of course, even a dhampir was no match for the strength of a combat suit. In addition to the ancient technique he used to turn his opponents’ strength and speed against themselves, he must’ve called on all his inhuman strength. But executing those moves with absolute perfection was something this young man alone could’ve done.
“Well, ain’t that something,” Clements groaned, growing pale as he did so. But he hadn’t yet lost the will to fight. He still had two lackeys left. Slowly, they inched forward.
It was then that a composed voice declared, “That’ll be enough of that.”
“Sheriff!” Nan shouted with delight. The men in orange stopped what they were doing and closed their eyes. The fight that’d burned in them like a madness left like a dream.
“Who started this, Nan?” asked the tall shadow standing in front of the doors.
“Mr. Clements.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Krutz,” the giant growled, vehemently refuting the charge as he turned to the lawman. “You gonna believe this little bitch? I swear to hell, I’ve been true to my word to you.”
“In that case, I want you to resign as head of the vigilance committee right this minute,” the man in the topcoat said. The silver star on his chest reflected Clements’ anger-twisted features.
“C’mon, Krutz, I was just—”
“Take your men and clear out of here. You should thank him for throwing your boys so neatly. Today you get off without paying any damages.”
Hesitating a bit, the giant started to walk out with his head hung low. The other two men followed closely behind him, with their four injured cohorts leaning on their shoulders for support. They banged out through the doors without a parting remark.
“Welcome back, Sheriff,” Nan said, joy and trust suffusing her countenance as she greeted him. “You take care of that case already?”
“No. Truth is, I was just on my way home now. Have a little work in the fields that needs doing, you know.” The sheriff’s stern visage smiled wryly, and then he nodded to D. “Just glad I was able to keep this acquaintance of yours out of trouble.” To the Hunter, he added, “Though there could’ve been a hundred of them up against you and they still wouldn’t have had a chance.”
The first time D had seen this man, he probably hadn’t realized the other man’s position, as Krutz hadn’t been wearing his badge then. His face—placid, yet imbued with strength and iron will—belonged to the man the Hunter had passed in the hall back at the hospital.
With a polite tip of the head to D, he said, “I heard about the situation from Bates. Though I need you to stick around for a while, I’d like you to keep out of trouble if you can. I’ll put the word out, but every village has a couple of characters who like to beat up folks on the sly.” And then, his magnificent facade broke a little as he added, “Of course, any cuss stupid enough to go after you won’t live long enough to regret it.�
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Nan was watching D as if waiting for some favorable reply, but the Hunter was as emotionless as ever when he stated, “I have no business here in town. I’ll thank you to be fast about confirming my identity.”
“Already done,” Sheriff Krutz said, as he watched D with a calm gaze. “You can’t very well live on the Frontier without knowing the name of Vampire Hunter D. I’ve met folks you helped before. What do you suppose they had to say about you?”
The black shadow slipped between the sheriff and the girl without a sound. “I’ll be in the hotel.” That was all they heard him say through the batwing doors that swayed closed behind him.
“Wait,” the sheriff said, his gnarled fingers catching hold of Nan’s shoulder as she was about to go after the Hunter.
“But I have to talk to him. It’s about my dreams.”
“You think talking’s gonna solve all this?”
Nan suddenly let her shoulders drop. Her obsessive gaze stayed trained on what lay beyond the door. The sunlight swayed languidly. It was afternoon light.
“You keep away from him, understand me?” Nan heard the sheriff say, though he sounded miles away. “That’s one dangerous man. Getting close to him won’t bring you nothing but misery . . . Particularly if you’re a woman.”
“You said you’d met people he’d helped, didn’t you?” Nan said absentmindedly. “What did they have to say about him?”
The sheriff shook his head. It was ominously slow as it moved from side to side. “Not a thing. They’d all just keep quiet and stare out the door or down the road. That must’ve been the way he’d gone when he left. And it’ll be the same when he leaves our village, too.”
“When he leaves here . . . ” Nan’s eyes were dyed the same color as the sunlight.
The sheriff pondered the next thing she said for quite a while after that, but in the end he still didn’t understand what she meant.
“Before he could leave, he had to come,” Nan said. “Had to come here, to this village.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hideyuki Kikuchi was born in Chiba, Japan in 1949. He attended the prestigious Aoyama University and wrote his first novel Demon City Shinjuku in 1982. Over the past two decades, Kikuchi has authored numerous horror novels, and is one of Japan’s leading horror masters, writing novels in the tradition of occidental horror authors like Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King. As of 2004, there were seventeen novels in his hugely popular ongoing Vampire Hunter D series. Many live action and anime movies of the 1980s and 1990s have been based on Kikuchi’s novels.
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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Yoshitaka Amano was born in Shizuoka, Japan. He is well known as a manga and anime artist and is the famed designer for the Final Fantasy game series. Amano took part in designing characters for many of Tatsunoko Productions’ greatest cartoons, including Gatchaman (released in the U.S. as G-Force and Battle of the Planets). Amano became a freelancer at the age of thirty and has collaborated with numerous writers, creating nearly twenty illustrated books that have sold millions of copies. Since the late 1990s Amano has worked with several American comics publishers, including DC Comics on the illustrated Sandman novel Sandman: The Dream Hunters with Neil Gaiman and Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer with best-selling author Greg Rucka.
Tale of the Dead Town Page 19