“I saw your flare and came. Where’s the rest of your clan?”
“In the bus. Try anything funny and they’ll come flying out here,” Leila lied.
“So they’re just sitting back watching their little sister do battle, eh? The Marcus clan has hit a new low.”
At D’s tone, which merely conveyed the truth without sarcasm, Leila became enraged. She staggered. The substantial blood loss she’d suffered had caught up with her. Her other wounds hadn’t healed yet, either. Glancing once more at the cold beauty of the youth staring down at her from horseback, Leila passed out.
—
The next thing she knew, she was lying on a bed. Before she had time to notice her bare skin was wrapped in bandages, Leila flipped herself over and looked toward the door. A black figure was just leaving. Without a sound.
“Wait. Please, just wait a sec!” Leila herself didn’t know why she called out to him so frantically.
The shadowy figure stopped.
Leila got up. She jerked the tube out of her right arm. The attached bottle of plasma rocked wildly. It was plain to see who’d gone to the trouble of setting up her transfusion.
“Go back to sleep,” he told her. “You’re liable to open your wounds and wake your brother.”
“Never mind him,” she replied. Yet, despite what she said, she peeked in on Groveck across the aisle. Confirming that his condition was stable, Leila felt relieved.
Suddenly the piercing pain returned to her body, and she let out a groan. “Don’t go,” she cried. “If you go, I’ll die.”
The young man headed for the door.
“Hold on. Don’t you even care what happens to me?” Leila didn’t know why she sounded so miserable as she said this. Could it be that she simply wanted him by her side? No, that thought didn’t occur to her.
She was going to follow him, but her foot caught on something and she tumbled to the floor. The scream that escaped her was no fabrication.
The youth walked over calmly and picked her up.
“My back—it’s killing me.” That was a lie. “Carry me as far as the bed.”
The young Hunter turned his back to her again.
“Wait! What was that thing? If you leave, it might come back. Please, stay with me.”
The youth turned around. “I’m the competition, you know.”
“You’re my savior. Mine and Grove’s. And if my brothers come back, I won’t let them lay a finger on you.”
“There’s something I should tell you first,” the young man continued without concern. “I cut down your brother Nolt.”
Leila’s eyes shot up to him. A wild rage spread through her body. It looked like she might leap at D, but instead she let her shoulders drop. “I see,” she muttered numbly. “So my brother got killed . . . I think I understand why. I mean, he went up against you, right? Wait, don’t go. I want you here by my side, even if it’s just for a little bit longer.”
Something besides her anguished cries must have stayed the stride of the icy youth. He returned to the bedroom. Leila lay down on the bed, and the young man put his back against the wall, looking down at her.
“Why did you save me, not once but twice now?” she asked.
“I had some time on my hands.”
“You’re not after the Noble then?”
“I’ve figured out where he’s headed.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t be kind enough to share that, would you? My brothers would be overjoyed.”
“Is that your sick brother in the bed over there?” the youth inquired softly. He made no attempt to look at Groveck.
“Yep. Fact is, he hasn’t even been able to walk or anything since the day he was born.”
“But it seems he can do something else instead.”
A look of astonishment raced across Leila face. Soon, her sober expression returned, and she said, “You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Saving the competition twice and all. Even though you had no qualms about killing one of my brothers. What, are you afraid taking down a woman would bring shame on your sword?”
“If you come at me, I’ll cut you down.”
At D’s impassive words, Leila grew pale. She knew he was serious. Here was a young man with the keenness of a mystic blade concealed behind his beauty. And yet, while their eyes were locked, she wouldn’t mind being slashed so long as it was D who did it. The thought that she’d even want him to kill her welled up in her breast like an enchanted fog, turning the contents of her heart and mind into slush. That must’ve been the power of a dhampir—the power of one descended from the Nobility.
“You’re a strange guy,” Leila said again. “You aren’t even gonna ask me where my brothers went? If I hadn’t woken up, you’d have left, wouldn’t you? Like a shadow. Like the wind. Are all dhampirs like that?”
“How long have you been a Hunter?”
Her own question unexpectedly brushed aside, Leila became a bit disoriented. “How long? For as long as I can remember. Besides, I can’t live any other way.”
“This isn’t a job for women. When it gets to the point you enjoy stalking your prey, that’s proof that you’re not a woman anymore.”
“How tactful of you to say so. Keep your opinions to yourself,” Leila said, turning away. Any other man would’ve had the palm of her hand or a knife headed their way. But because the youth spoke in that unconcerned tone of his—neither reproachful nor teasing—there was something in his words that shook Leila. “I can’t very well change my way of life at this stage of the game,” she continued. “I’ve got too much blood on my hands.”
“It comes off if you wash them.”
“Why would you say something like that? You trying to put me out of work?”
The young man made his way to the door. “The next time you see me,” he said, “you’d better forget the small talk and just start shooting. I won’t hold back either.”
“That’s just fine by me,” she replied. There was a grieving hue in Leila’s eyes.
“Your brothers wouldn’t make much of a stink over losing one little sister,” the shadowy figure said as it faded into the sunlight. “Any girl who cries out for her mother as she lays dying isn’t cut out for Hunting.”
And then the youth was gone. Like a shadow melting in the sun.
After he left, his words continued to ring in Leila’s ears.
The girl’s eyes bored into the closed door, and something in them blurred softly. Just as she was going for the door, a thin hand caught hold of her sleeve.
“Grove?!”
“Leila . . . you’re not gonna listen . . . to what that guy said, are you?” The voice from under the blankets sounded furtive and twitching. “You wouldn’t listen to that guy . . .go off and leave me and the others . . . now would you, Leila? Don’t you forget about . . . you-know-what . . . ”
“Quit it!”
The scrawny hand Leila tried to shake off held her entirely too tenaciously.
“Don’t you ever forget that, Leila,” Groveck rasped. “You belong to all of us . . . ”
—
III
—
The shadowy figures of Kyle and Borgoff clung like geckos to the rocky face overlooking the village of the Barbarois. The mountain, which was insurmountable to the average traveler, hadn’t served as much of a deterrent against this pair.
Sprawled on a flat rock and inspecting the village through electronic binoculars, Kyle raised his head and said to Borgoff, “Damn it, the carriage and whatever’s in it went into the forest, but they ain’t come out. You think maybe they’ve already slipped back out the same way they got in?”
“Don’t know.” Borgoff shook his head. “And it’s not like we can just waltz up and ask them, now can we?”
Kyle fell into silence. Somehow they’d managed to climb partway up the mountain without being detected, but even this pair of crafty devils were hesitant to sneak into the village. In fact, their Hunter instincts told them it’d be dangerous to get any closer
in broad daylight.
Even though Barbarois seemed like a run-of-the-mill hidden village, with no sign of watchtowers or lookouts, the fact was that in the nondescript shade of the rocks and groves there lurked those with sight as keen as swords.
Conversing only with their eyes, the brothers decided to sneak in by night, when the watch would slacken.
The Marcus brothers knew that the Noble who owned the carriage had called on this village hoping to retain some guards. If possible, the brothers wanted to finish him before he could do so, but, now that it’d gone this far, that was no longer an option. The two brothers weren’t at all confident they could slip into this mob of freaks—who were their equals or perhaps even their superiors in battle—and accomplish their aims.
Under the circumstances, there was no choice but to wait for the carriage to come out, but they had misgivings about that, too. They couldn’t imagine how the carriage had possibly been brought into the village, and the prospects of it slipping out unseen were extremely good. They wouldn’t know it had left until it was gone.
If only they knew the Noble’s destination they could at least head him off, but they didn’t even know their prey’s name. At the rate things are going, we’ll never land that bounty—the Marcus brothers grew impatient at that thought. And as they fumed, more of their precious time slipped by.
When they’d first got up to their lookout, the carriage was being moved from the square into a stand of trees. Even after they watched the people disperse from the area, it seemed there’d been some sort of a discussion. Common sense dictated that the Nobility slept by day, but then common sense didn’t seem to have much say about matters in this village.
So what had they discussed? Well, the Marcus brothers actually had a pretty good idea what’d been covered. They could guess how many guards the Noble had employed and what kind they would be, and maybe where they were headed, too.
The sun was nearing noon. The rocky surface went from warm to searing, and yet the brothers still lacked a good plan. A hue of impatience was just beginning to show on Borgoff’s face when he heard a sudden cry.
“Bro, is that who I think it is?!”
Checking Kyle’s surprised outburst with his firm, silent gaze, Borgoff felt the same shock as his brother. Off to their left, a figure had just leisurely slipped into the black cavern leading to the village—and it looked like it was D!
“That bastard should’ve drowned! What, ain’t he a dhampir?”
Borgoff didn’t answer Kyle’s question. He was having enough trouble believing it himself. “Then, I reckon that means . . . Nolt’s had it.”
Turning to his older brother for only a second, Kyle’s face was instantly colored by hatred. “That bastard . . . Killing off Nolt . . . He’s not getting out of this alive,” he growled. “Ain’t that right, bro?”
Though he nodded, Borgoff kept his silence. Difficult as it might be to accept, Borgoff knew that Nolt had to be dead and that D must have killed him. But killing a Noble with an escort of Barbarois would entail risking their lives. This young dhampir possessed an unearthly intensity even they couldn’t match, and making an enemy of him as well would be utter madness.
“I bet that bastard’s here to scope out the village, same as us. This is our chance. I’ll take him down from here with my crescent blades.”
As the younger brother was about to stand, Borgoff’s hand took a firm grip on his elbow. “Hold your horses, okay? Look, he’s headed straight for the gate. He ain’t staking it out. He plans on parleying with them directly.”
“You’re kidding me! Dammit, ain’t that even worse? If this keeps up, he’s gonna beat us to the punch!”
The words of the wild youngest brother held some truth.
As Borgoff glared fixedly into space, his face grew more and more sad, and sweat started to blur his brow. When his eyes opened, there was a ghastly hue to them. “We got no choice then. I didn’t wanna do this, but we’ll have to call on Grove,” he said.
“Wait just a minute there . . . ” Kyle said, his voice rigid. This was the same brother who’d earned a glare from Borgoff for suggesting they send Groveck to scout around the village of the dead they had entered two days earlier.
What kind of power lay in that shriveled mummy of a youth that could offer a solution to their problems?
“I’ll keep watch here, Kyle. Once you’ve given Grove a seizure, you come right back,” the older Marcus said.
“Good enough.”
Why was it that a lewd smile arose on Kyle’s face as he answered? Whatever the reason, it only lasted an instant. Flipping himself over atop the rock, his leather garments sparkled blackly in the gleaming sunlight and he came down the mountain with the light gait of a super-natural beast. Down he went, over extremely dangerous rocks—not one of which could be tread upon without setting off an avalanche. —
Coming within fifteen feet of the eerie gates, which looked to be wood and stone wired together and strung with hides, D halted his steed. As he looked up at the towering palisade ahead, his expression was redolent of a dashing young poet or philosopher.
The air swished to life.
Where on earth they’d been hiding was a mystery. No one could be seen or even sensed a moment earlier, but all of a sudden a number of people appeared among the rocks and trees. They surrounded D. The face of each was darkly intrepid, but some among them were pale to the point of transparency, or armored in ghastly scales. They were a band that would no doubt cow any traveler encountering them for the first time, yet, for some reason, with D they kept their distance. Once they had him surrounded, they made no move to approach him. On realizing that it was fear and wonder that arose on their inhuman faces, the Prince of Hell himself might’ve doubted his own eyes.
With a sharp glance from D, they staggered backward.
“I’m the Vampire Hunter D. I have business here. Kindly open the gates.”
At his bidding, the mysterious gates swung silently inward. Without another glance at the guards to his fore and rear, his left and his right, D rode leisurely in on his horse.
As soon as they were inside, a terrible aura enveloped D and his steed. Triggered by the eerie emanations D himself radiated, all the eldritch energies in the air seemed to shoot toward them as one. D’s expression didn’t change in the least, and his horse never altered its stride.
When they had gone a few steps, the strange roiling energies disappeared. The men, who remained positioned around D, exchanged startled looks. The Hunter’s unearthly aura had just beaten down their own disturbing emanations.
The village and its inhabitants flowed past D as he rode. The village had been established in a vast wooded region that’d sprung up in the middle of the mountains, and the homes were fashioned from timbers and stone. Most of the residents were self-sufficient as far as food and weapons went, and a building that looked to be a factory could be spied tucked silently among the trees.
While they were rather antiquated, there were high-caliber laser-cannons and ultrasonic wave-cannons visible within the palisade, indicating that the Barbarois were perfectly prepared to deal with their enemies in the outside world.
But what was truly astonishing was the appearance of the inhabitants of the village. Their clothing was the ordinary farm wear or work clothes found in any hamlet, but very few of the arms and legs and heads that protruded from said raiment had the form of anything human. A glimpse of red tongue could be seen flickering from what must’ve been lips on a face scaled like a serpent’s, while another visage was mantled in thick fur like a veritable wolf. Way in the back, an innocent young boy splashed water up from his pool. From the neck down he had the body of a crocodile, and the limbs to match.
There existed things in this world that weren’t entirely natural, the offspring of couplings between fiendish beasts and human beings. All who dwelled in the village of the Barbarois were the fruit of those abominable relations.
Most humans from the world below would’ve fa
inted dead away at the sight of these demons, but D rode past them silently, arriving at what seemed to be a central square. At the center stood the black carriage, along with a hoary-maned old man.
Halting his horse at the entrance to the square, D stepped to the ground.
“Oh,” the old man exclaimed, stroking that ground-sweeping white beard of his. “You dismount? I see you know enough to show respect for your elders. But you have me sorely puzzled. How did you ever manage to climb our mountain on horseback?”
Whether the words that seemed to slither along the ground reached him or not, D took hold of the reins and started walking towards the old man. He stopped six feet shy of him and gestured to the black carriage with his right hand. “I’d like you to hand over the two passengers in that carriage,” he said.
The old man smiled broadly—or rather, all the wrinkles on his face twisted up into a smile—but in the laughter that followed there was a hint of scorn. “Young man, you’ve come into our village in a way no one else has ever managed. I wish I could tell you the passengers in that carriage were yours, but it’s too late, too late. We’ve already sided with the carriage, you see. The contract is drawn, and we’ve been paid in gold. Paid with the fabled ten thousand-dala coins—ten of them. Could you afford that much?”
“If I could, would you sell out your clients?”
At D’s reply, soft as ever, the smile instantly vanished from the old man’s face. His wrathful mien was a sight to behold, and it looked like he might even take a swing at the Hunter with his cane. But he unexpectedly threw his head back in a way that almost seemed to straighten his spine, and he gave a hearty laugh. “Ho ho ho. Knowing as you do that this is the village of the Barbarois, that took nerve to say. Oh, what a treat, what a great treat! Why, the last time anyone spoke to me like that was precisely three hundred and twenty years ago . . . ”
A strange expression skimmed across the old man’s face. As if groping in the misty depths of forgotten memory with fingers that’d lost their sense of touch, he narrowed his eyes impatiently. When he threw them open again, a hue of astonishment spilled from his pupils.
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