“Okay, get back over here. I’m not finished working on you boys yet,” Garance informed them.
However, the men ignored him. They remained crowded at Toma’s feet. No matter how reckless they were, they couldn’t help but be concerned as death drew near. It was only natural that they were afraid. But there was a chance for them to escape it. And it was very close at hand. Their leader was a pseudo vampire, and anyone he bit would become a pseudo vampire too. That was a promise of eternal life.
“I’m begging you, Boss, drink my blood.”
“Mine, too! Mine, too!”
“I don’t wanna fucking die! Please, save me!”
Though miserable beyond belief, their supplications carried a certain raw desire that needled Toma. And how would he respond to his poor underlings? Staring intently at the men inching in around his feet, he finally said, “Okay, you’ve made your point. I swear by the darkest god, I’ll grant you your wish.” His eyes were aglow as he looked over the whole group. It was blood light they gave off. “But listen well. Know this: death is security. It’s the only peace a human being’s allowed. Call it true release, pleasure, or rapture, if you like. And you’ll be throwing all that away! All for the worthless, base, slobbering pains of the flesh. Just suck it up. Hold it in. Keep fighting. If you can’t do that, go ahead and die. That’s what it is to be human. But if you really can’t take it anymore, if you’re afraid of unknowable death and the darkness it invites, then fine.”
Bending down, he grabbed one of them by the chin and hauled him up.
“Swear to me, Sumatro. Swear you’ll never complain about this.”
“Boss . . .”
“Swear it, Sumatro. You won’t last two minutes more.”
“Save me . . . I swear it. No matter what happens . . . I’ll never . . . complain.”
“Good. Very good. The rest of you, swear it too. Swear it by the eternally unending dark, by the pitch-black solitude, by the devil of the void.”
“I swear it.”
“I swear.”
“You’ll get no complaints here.”
“I’ll never complain.”
“I swear to you.”
“No complaints.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Toma said, puffing out his chest. “Then I’ll grant your wish. The loftiest and most ignorant thing a person can wish for in this world. First, Sumatro and Dacia.”
Garance saw their leader reach down, grab his men by the throat, and lift them up. He heard a beastly growl. Toma bit into Sumatro’s neck.
“Shiiiiiiiiit!”
Was this the cry that usually escaped the pitiable victim of a Noble? No. In fog-shrouded forests, on night highways bright with moonlight, or in bedrooms serenaded by a gypsy violin’s doleful nocturnes, victims who felt ivory fangs drive into their blue veins let out the sweet moans of sexual climax. But this was a scream. It was the voice of the damned tasting the agonies of hell. This positively wasn’t the sort of initiation one should have into the Nobility.
Tossing the twitching body of his underling to the ground like it was a dishrag, he said, “Dacia’s next.”
The figures around Toma began to inch away. In the moonlight, their faces were as pale and expressionless as Noh masks. They were afraid. A fear that surpassed the hellish torment had taken root in them. In other words, dying would be better than this.
“Where are you going?” asked Toma. He’d lifted Dacia up high, his grip tearing open the man’s throat, and now he drank the lifeblood that spilled out as if it were beer. The dripping blood spattered his pale face and stained his body with something like a map of insanity. “Where are you going?”
“Help, Boss!” his followers cried. The wording of their plea was exactly the same, but the meaning completely the opposite.
“We don’t mind dying now. Spare us!”
“I don’t want my stinkin’ life!”
“I wanna die human!”
Each mouth spouted words that were very human in perspective.
One man’s face burst like a watermelon. Blobs of a substance more viscous than blood went flying in all directions, like a scream. As another man turned in amazement, his face smashed like a tomato. And another—this one like a pomegranate. And another. And another.
Before long, a gunshot echoed in the moonlight. Those trying to flee looked toward the sound and halted. They saw what they had desired. Sumatro stood framed against the disk of the moon. As he loaded a fresh round into his smoking rifle, the man who’d risen from the dead stated proudly, “Look at me. The rest of you want to be like this, don’t you? And you can be. You don’t have to die now. Just look at me. I used to be lucky to hit anything two times out of ten with this rifle, and now I can hit the mark every damned time. Hey, Garance—take that gun of yours you’re so fond of and try shooting me.”
A dark tinge of anger colored the face of the second in command. Sumatro had occupied the very lowest position among all the gang members. “My gun was made for better things than shooting some asshole that just got made into a second-rate Noble.”
“What are you talking about? Don’t be so full of yourself, Mr. Second in Command. You’re just a normal human now. And me? I’m an heir to the Nobility!”
“Don’t make me laugh, you lousy fake.”
As luck would have it, at the very same time, Lyra was saying almost exactly the same thing at the main gates to the village.
“Come again?” Sumatro snarled, eyes burning deep in his skull.
But behind him, someone called out, “Hey!”
When he turned, gleaming black steel slashed through him at an angle, entering at the left nape of his neck and exiting again at his right hip.
“Gaaaaaaaah!”
Dropping his rifle, he reeled backward, his top half sliding down along the diagonal slice.
“Boss—why’d you do that?” Sumatro wailed, teeth bared.
Sheathing his sword on his back, Toma asked him, “Does that hurt? Are you in pain?”
“Of course. Of course it does. Hey!”
The man held both arms out in front of himself. The upper half of his body slid down the slope of the diagonal slash, then halted. Sumatro pushed it back, heaving a heavy sigh once he finally had it where it belonged. His whole body was covered with blood and sweat. It was a harsh price to pay for proof of indestructibility.
“Don’t you all get it? This is how I am now. I’m one of the Nobility! This is the power of a vampire. If I get wounded, it still hurts. But I won’t die. I won’t grow old, either. Come on, everybody. Have the boss make Nobles out of you!”
The receding tide once again changed direction.
“Boss, drink my blood!”
“Drink mine!”
“Make me a Noble, too!”
“And me!”
Life and death were the only proof a human being had that they were human. Now, they were trying to evade the laws of the universe.
Looking down at the bloodied faces of the wriggling mass of men at his feet, the leader said, “Okay. Leave it to me.” After this masterful remark, none of them caught Toma’s next words: “Throw away your humanity like idiots.”
Ten minutes later, his underlings’ wishes had been granted, and that was all that was required. A huge smile on his face, Toma slapped his hands together. “Let’s go! Get a move on, you fakes! Fakes, just like me! We’ll test your new strength with a night attack. I sent three along ahead of us. After disposing of them, the village of Geneve will have their guard down—so let’s get over there!”
There was a battle cry that seemed to rise from the bowels of the earth. “Yeeeeeeeeah!” they shouted as one. All eleven of them.
THE WORK OF A MURDERER
chapter 6
I
—
Perhaps the moon was mourning. Lamenting the fact that it was such a beautiful moonlit night. Wondering why humans were always killing one another. But the moon’s grief was somewhat misdirected. The eleven shadowy figures now dashi
ng across the wilderness couldn’t be called human. Each had eyes tinged blood red, and from between lips twisted in deadly rapture there poked ferocious fangs—fangs that gnashed, showing just how these men trembled with expectations of blood and slaughter. They had no need for horses. Their legs carried them three times as fast as they had when they were human, and they never tired. Those crimson eyes could see through the darkness of night as if it were midday.
The saplings and high grass ahead of them swayed with the night breeze. They were about to leap over them without the slightest hesitation when everyone halted ten feet shy. That they came to a dead stop without even breaking form was testament to their amazing new physical prowess. There wasn’t even a sound when their feet hit the ground.
All eyes turned in unison to the front of the pack. Their run had been cut short by an object that had rolled out in front of them. A skull.
Who threw that?
Their eyes shot to the bushes. At that instant, there was the sound of something else landing behind the brush. Not surprisingly, it was another skull, pale in their night vision.
All eleven saw the same thing simultaneously—a stark pillar of flame reaching up into the heavens behind the bushes. After a second, they leaped back, recognizing the white pillar for what it was. It wasn’t there. There were no flames, no fiery column. All there was at present was something that caused icy-cold beads of sweat to form on the brows of the eleven men—an eerie aura that was not of this world.
“I’ll be damned,” Toma murmured. “I remember this place. I should’ve finished you off so that you’d never have to hear the song of the dead a second time. No, I don’t suppose stabbing you once more would be any different, would it?”
“Let’s go, boss,” one of them cried. It was Sumatro. A deadly automatic rifle stretched from his right hand.
The men said nothing, their stunned faces turning to Toma as one. They’d expected him to instantly give them the command to move out.
“Let’s roll!” one of them urged testily.
Just then, they heard the exquisite voice of the darkness, filled with inhuman ecstasy, coming from beyond the bushes. “Come,” it said.
“D,” Sumatro groaned as if his mouth were gnawing on the inky blackness.
“D,” Dacia said, the darkness he bit off staining his teeth.
“D,” someone else said.
“D!”
“D!”
“D!”
But how did they all know that name?
Though they knew who it was, the shadowy figure in the bushes remained melded with the darkness.
“Boss?” Sumatro said in a voice choked with the terror of someone who’d realized the truth.
Toma was frightened. A fear beyond mortal ken clearly clung to his hardened features. What was he afraid of? Wasn’t the Nobility just another name for the rulers of the night? Fear not; the night is your world!
A change came over his face. Little by little, his lips twisted into a new shape. A smile. He jabbed a misshapen finger in the direction of the bushes. “Go!” he yelled, as if he himself were leading the charge.
Sumatro pulled the trigger. A fireball exploded in the darkness—a bullet from a gun that would never miss again.
“Go!”
Six of the men charged into the brush, the wind swirling in their wake. Their palpable lust for slaughter rapidly moved forward—then vanished unexpectedly.
Toma’s face froze, as if at the bidding of the darkness. What had awaited them? Was this stillness their fate? There was no echo of blade against blade, no shots ringing out, just the moonlight. No, something else drifted through the night. Toma sniffed at the air.
“The smell of blood,” he said, his voice quavering. His shoulders, his head, his entire body also trembled faintly but quickly. Bones cracked in his tightly balled fist. “Blood! Blood! Blood! How many died? Tell me that, D!”
The darkness kept its silence.
“Boss?” one of remaining men inquired. “Should we, uh, go?”
He shook his head. “What a fine stench.”
“Huh?” the man said, unable to understand his superior, who gazed raptly up at the moon.
“Don’t you think so? The blood is life. And life is sweet. The founts of life for half a dozen men—ah, I was right to send them in there.”
Bewildered, his underling stammered, “Boss . . . you mean to tell me . . . you purposely sent them to . . .”
Toma called into the bushes, “You can hear me, can’t you, D? I’m going to fight you again now. But I must rise to the occasion. Kindly return the corpses of the six men you cut down—those fresh, still-dripping dead.” He extended both arms, beseeching his unseen foe.
“Boss?” The underling aimed the long spear he carried at Toma. “How could you? Those were our guys—and my kid brother!”
Toma stared back at the man’s face, ablaze with murderous intent. “Get that spear up!” he told him.
“What?”
“Everyone, spears up! If you don’t have one, raise your guns. Point your swords to the sky!”
Something threw a shadow across the moon. It was said there were canals on the lunar surface dug by the Nobility. As if hurled from those same canals, a black form sailed through the air, impaled without warning on an underling’s long spear. Another man had a long spear. Two others had rifles. Three corpses fell, skewered on them as if by magic.
Toma drew both his swords. Bodies fell on each of them, too. The last deliveries from the heavens were Sumatro and Dacia. As if testing the weight of the dead, Toma thrust both arms toward the sky with all his strength.
“Oh, they don’t have heads,” he practically moaned.
The air instantly grew dense.
“What the—”
Perhaps he’d been standing there all along. It didn’t seem strange that a figure of otherworldly beauty stood in front of the bushes. A man that gorgeous could work miracles. He moved forward smoothly.
The outlaws couldn’t fathom what was about to occur; perhaps their newfound immortality made them complacent. Before they could knock the corpses from their weapons, they saw gleams of light sinking into their own chests.
Without a glance at the falling dead and their crumbling remains, the death dealer in black walked toward Toma.
“Take that!”
Toma swung both arms down. The corpses flew from his swords and struck the approaching figure in the chest and hip but bounced off him. At the same time, Toma was sent flying. Crashing into a stand of trees fifteen feet away, he came to a halt. A heavy object slammed into his stomach. When it fell to the ground, he saw that it was Dacia’s severed head.
Catching his breath, Toma jumped back, but at that instant a sword blade slashed deep into the nape of his neck. Falling over clumsily, he struggled desperately to his feet. The shadowy figure was bearing down on him like a great mountain, his sword raised to strike. The squeal the outlaw let out as he prepared to parry the blow was one of terror.
The figure swung his one sword down at the two the leader held over his head. A clang rang out. The sword was stopped—but only for a heartbeat. The steel of Toma’s two blades shattered easily, and his head split in two. As the outlaw leader sank limply, the blade that had just been pulled from him made a ruthless thrust into his chest.
Look at me, D. Look at the expression of supreme bliss I wear! the leader thought briefly, and then he was swallowed by the darkness.
A breeze blew by as if to appease the incredible silence of the moonlight.
“I’m at a loss for words,” said the hoarse voice that rose from the death-strewn wastes. “It took me a full day to regenerate. Did being dead that long make you this crazy? Or was the problem that as soon as you came back to life, all these wannabe Nobles came along, stinking of blood? Whatever it was, you sure let loose on them! If I had to choose one word to describe it, it would be brutal.”
The shadowy figure said nothing as he sheathed his sword. The mysterious empt
iness that came to the victor at the battle’s end coiled mercilessly around the young man.
“At any rate, the threat to the village of Geneve is gone. Without their leader, they’re just a flock of crows. They couldn’t make it a thousand yards before scattering to the four winds. I think we can call this a job well done—huh?” the source of the voice exclaimed, noticing that D hadn’t taken his hand from the hilt of the weapon he’d sheathed. “What is it? Are there stragglers, or some kind of monster?”
D made no reply, remaining poised for deadly action, but before long he brought his hand away from his weapon, saying, “Let’s go.”
Once he began walking, there was no further hesitation. Never looking back, the elegant silhouette melted into the darkness.
And then in a section of the wilderness where death alone lay, the moonlight shone down and the wind blew in feeble sobs. Time passed, irrespective of death, and when a presence appeared, it seemed to come from the same stream of time. It had no form, no color; it was merely a presence, so tremendously large it covered the wilderness, driving the darkness mad and making the moonlight sing a requiem for the dead. The presence seemed to creep over to Toma’s remains.
Do you want to live? it seemed to ask.
There was immediately a response. No . . . not anymore. Please, just leave me at rest.
Fine. I’ll make you live. Live as a true Noble.
That was all there was to it.
From Toma’s left eye, a single crimson thread slowly began to rise into the air. On closer inspection, the same threads rose from all the corpses that lay there, tingeing the moonlight with red.
This is the thread of life, unknown to all. All that remains is to tie it once more, the presence chanted in the void. This isn’t over yet, D!
—
II
—
“Old man!” someone called to him. In the dark cloud of his besotted consciousness, the cry spread like a liquid, forming a crack from which the voice issued. “Wake up, old man. It’s me!”
Old Man Roskingpan used his hand to pry open his crusty lids. His eyes were bloodshot from drinking. The old man lived in a house that stood alone on the western edge of the village. Though he frequently went out, no one really came to see him. These days, he couldn’t even recall the faces of the wife and child he’d lost to a mountain tsunami years earlier. He’d also forgotten how he’d burned the photograph that sat on his desk, because it caused him nothing but pain. As he looked all around, he thought that he must’ve been dreaming.
Scenes from an Unholy War Page 10