“So what happened to the flowers?” Doris asked with obvious interest.
The boy’s mouth twisted into a delighted grin.
“Chopped ’em up in the disposal unit, mixed in some compost, and fed it to the cows!”
Doris gave a deep, satisfied nod. “Good job. Today’s a big day. We’ve got company, too.”
The boy, who’d been sneaking peeks at D even as he spoke with his sister, now smiled knowingly at her. “Say, he’s a looker, ain’t he? So, this is how you like ’em, eh, Sis? You said the robots were in such lousy shape you were going out to look for someone to replace them, but it looks to me like you went out hunting for a man.”
Doris flushed bright red.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Don’t talk that foolishness. This is Mr. D. He’ll be helping us out around the farm for a while. And don’t you be getting in his way now.”
“There’s nothing to be bashful about,” the boy chuckled. “I know, I know. One eyeful of him, and old Greco don’t look much better than a man-eating frog. I like him a heck of a lot better, too. Pleased to meet you, D.”
“The pleasure’s mine, Dan.”
Showing no signs of being bothered by the emotionless tone D used even when addressing a child, the boy disappeared into the main house. The pair followed him inside.
.
“I’m sorry, he must have really gotten on your nerves,” Doris said in an apologetic tone when dinner was finished and she’d finally managed to drive Dan off to his bedroom, ignoring the boy’s protests that he wasn’t sleepy yet.
D passed the sword he normally wore on his back from his right hand to his left as he stood at the window gazing at the darkness beyond. Thanks to the clear weather that had persisted the past four or five days, the solar batteries on the roof were well charged and glittering light showered generously on every corner of the room from lighting panels set in the ceiling.
Apparently there was something about the inhospitable stranger the boy liked, and he’d planted himself by the man’s side and wouldn’t leave, imploring him to talk about the Capital, or to tell him about any monsters or supernatural creatures he might have slain in his travels. Then, to top it all off, he created quite a commotion when he said his sister was being a pest and grabbed D by the arm to try and bring him back to his room where they could talk man-to-man all night long.
“You see, he gets like that because travelers are so rare. And we don’t usually have much to do with the folks in town, either.”
“It doesn’t bother me. I take no offense at being admired.”
As he spoke, he made no attempt to look at Doris sitting on the sofa, wearing the shirt and jeans she’d changed into earlier. His tone was as cold as ever. Closing his eyes lightly, he said, “It’s now nine twenty-six Night, Frontier Standard Time. Since it has already fed once on the person it’s after, I don’t imagine it’ll be in that much of a hurry, so I suppose after midnight will be the time to watch. In the meantime, could you tell me everything you know about the enemy? Don’t worry; your brother is already asleep. I can tell by his steady breathing.”
Doris’ eyes went wide. “You can hear something like that through the door and everything?”
“And the voice of the wind across the wilderness, and the vengeful song of the spirits wandering the forest shade,” D murmured, then he came to stand at Doris’ side with the smooth strides of a dancer.
When she felt that cold and righteous visage peering down at the nape of her neck, Doris shouted, “Stop!” and pulled away without thinking.
Though the abhorrence was quite evident in her voice, D’s expression didn’t change in the least. “I’m just going to have a look at your wounds. To get a general idea of how powerful a foe I’m up against.”
“I’m sorry. Go ahead, take a look,” she said, turning her face away and exposing her neck. Even if the slight trembling of her lips was a remnant of her reaction seconds earlier, the redness of her cheeks was caused, no doubt, by the embarrassment of a virgin having her flesh scrutinized by a wholly unfamiliar young man. After all, in her seventeen years, she hadn’t so much as held hands with a boy before.
Seconds later, D’s expression had a distant air to it. “When did you run into him?”
Doris breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of his voice, which was entirely without cadence. But why was her foolish heart pounding so? Unaffected by her racing pulse, and gazing raptly at D’s face all the while, she began to recount the tale of that terrible night in the most composed tone she could muster.
“It was five nights ago. I was chasing a lesser dragon that’d slipped onto the farm while we were fixing the electromagnetic barrier and killed one of our cows, and when I finally thought I’d finished it off, it was already pitch-black out. To make matters worse, it was near his castle. I was all set to hightail it home when what should happen but the dying beast suddenly spits fire and burns the back half of my horse to a cinder. I’m thirty miles from home, and the only weapons I’ve got to speak of are the spear I use to kill lesser dragons and a dagger. I ran as fast as I could. I must’ve run for a good thirty minutes when I noticed something, like there was someone running along right behind me!”
Doris suddenly fell silent, not only because the memory of that terror had become fresh again, but also because a fiendish howl had just pierced the darkness from somewhere very close. The breath was knocked out of her as she turned her beautiful face in that direction, but soon enough she realized it was only the sound of some wild animal. Her expression became one of relief. Though rather dated, an electromagnetic barrier that had cost them a pretty penny sealed the perimeter of the farm, and within it they had a variety of missile weapons set up.
She resumed the account of her horrid experience. “At first I thought it was a werewolf or a poison moth man. But there was no sound of footsteps or wings flapping, and I couldn’t even hear it breathing. Yet I just knew there was someone right behind me, no more than a foot away, and moving at exactly the same speed I was. I finally couldn’t take it any more and I whipped around—and there was nothing there! Well, there was for a fraction of a second, but then it circled around behind me again.”
Memory was sowing terror across the girl’s face. She gnawed her lip and tried to force her trembling voice out. D said nothing, but remained listening.
“That’s when I started shouting. I told whoever it was to stop hiding behind me and come out that instant. And when I’d said that, out he came, dressed in a black cape just like I’d always heard. When I saw the pair of fangs poking over his mean, red lips, I knew what he had to be. After that, it’s the same old story. I got my spear ready, but then my eyes met his and all the strength just drained right out of me. Not that it mattered much, because when that pasty face of his got closer and I felt breath as cold as moonlight on the base of my neck, my mind just went blank. The next thing I knew it was daybreak and I was lying out on the prairie with a pair of fang marks on my throat. That’s why I’ve been down at the base of that hill each and every day, morning till night, looking for someone like you.” Her emotional tale over at last, Doris slumped back onto the sofa exhausted.
“And he hasn’t fed on you again since?”
“That’s right. Though I do wait up for him every night with a spear ready.”
D’s eyes narrowed at her attempt at levity. “If we were merely dealing with a blood-starved Noble, he’d be coming every night. But, you see, the greater the interest they take in their victim, the longer the interval between attacks so they can prolong the pleasure of feeding. But the fact that it’s been five days is incredible. It seems he’s extremely taken with you.”
“Spare me the damn compliments!” Doris cried. No trace of the spitfire who had challenged D to battle at twilight remained now. She sat there, a lovely seventeen-year-old girl trembling in fear.
As D surveyed her coolly, he added words that only made the hair on her neck stand higher. “The average interval between attac
ks is three to four days. More than five is extremely rare. He’ll come tonight without a doubt. From what I can tell from your wounds, he’s quite powerful, as Frontier Nobility go. You said something about ‘his castle.’ His identity is clear to you, is it?”
Doris gave a little nod. “He’s been lord over this region since long before there was any village of Ransylva. His name is Count Lee. I’ve heard some say he’s a hundred years old, while others say he’s ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand years old, eh? The powers of a Noble grow with the passing years. He could prove a troubling adversary,” D said, though his tone didn’t sound particularly troubled.
“The powers of a Noble? You mean things like the power to whip up a gale with a wave of the arm, or being able to turn into a fire dragon?”
Ignoring Doris’ query, D said, “There’s one last thing I need to ask you. How does your village handle those who’ve been bitten by vampires?”
The girl’s face paled in an instant.
In many cases those who’d felt the baleful fangs of a vampire were isolated in their respective village or town while arrangements were made to destroy the culprit, but if they were simply unable to defeat the vampire, the victim would be driven from town or, in the worst cases, disposed of. This was the custom because a night fiend, crazed with rage at not being able to feed on the one it wanted, would attack anyone it could get its hands on. More towns and villages than anyone could count had been wiped out for just that reason. Ransylva had similar policies in effect. That was the reason Doris hadn’t asked anyone else for help, but had privately sought a Vampire Hunter. Her failure to confide in her brother was for fear that his conduct might tip off the villagers if they happened to go into town. Had she no younger brother to consider, she’d surely have gone after the vampire on her own, or done away with herself.
Vampires dealt with their victims in one of two ways. Either they drained all the blood from their prey in one feeding and left them a mere corpse or, through repeated feedings, they turned the individual into a companion. The key point in the latter was not the number of times the vampire fed but rather something D had touched on earlier: whether or not the vampire took a liking to its victim. Sometimes a person joined their ranks after a single bite, while other times they might share the kiss of blood for months only to die in the end. And it went without saying that those transformed into vampires had to bear their destiny as detestable demons, wandering each night in search of warm human blood, living in darkness eternal. For Doris, and for every other person in this world, that was the true terror.
“Everywhere it’s the same, isn’t it,” D muttered. “Accursed demons, ghouls from the darkness, blood-crazed devils. Bitten once and you’re one of them. Well, let them say what they will. Stand up, please,” he said to Doris, who was caught off-guard by the one remark meant for her. “It looks like the guest we were expecting has come. Let me see the remote control for your electromagnetic barrier.”
“What, he’s here already? You just said he’d be here after midnight.”
“I’m surprised, too.”
But he didn’t look it in the least.
.
Doris came back from her bedroom with the remote control and handed it to D.
In order to keep all kinds of strange visitors from sneaking onto the farm while both Lang children were away, they had to have some way to erect the force field from the outside. Acquired secondhand off a black market in the Capital shortly after their father’s death four years ago, the barrier was their greatest treasure except, of course, for the rare occasions when it broke down. Their losses to the wraiths and rabid beasts that wandered the night were far less than those of other homes on the periphery; to be more exact, their losses were practically nonexistent. But the purchase came with a price. After they bought it, they were left with less than a third of their father’s life savings.
“How are you gonna fight him?” Doris inquired. It was a question that sprung from the Hunter blood flowing in her veins. The fighting techniques of Vampire Hunters, who were rare even out on the Frontier, were rumored to be gruesome and magnificent, but almost no one had ever witnessed them firsthand. Doris herself had only heard of them in tales. And the youth before her now was completely different from the rustic Hunter image conjured up by those stories.
“You should see for yourself, and I wish I could let you, but I need you to go to sleep.”
“What—?”
The youth’s right hand touched Doris’ right shoulder, which was taut with swells of muscle while still retaining some delicacy. Whatever the technique or power he now employed, as soon as Doris noticed the frightening cold charge coursing through her body from her shoulder she lost consciousness. But just before she did, she glimpsed something eerie in the palm of D’s left hand, or at least she believed she did. She thought she saw something small, of a color and shape she couldn’t discern, but whatever it was it clearly had eyes and a nose and a mouth, like some sort of grotesque face.
Apparently confident in the efficacy of his actions, D didn’t even bother to check if Doris was actually unconscious before leaving the room with his sword over his shoulder. The reason he’d put her to sleep was to prevent her from interfering in the battle that was about to begin. No matter how firm their resolve, anyone who’d felt the vampire’s kiss once could not help but heed the demon’s commands. Many were the Hunters who had been shot from behind or had their hearts pierced by the very women they sought to save from cursed fangs. To guard against that, veterans would give the victims a sedative or confine them in portable iron cages. But the extraordinary skill D had just displayed with his left hand would have been viewed by even the most veteran of Hunters as impossible in all but dreams cast by the Fair Folk.
Once out in the hall, D opened the door to Dan’s room. The boy snored away peacefully, oblivious to the deadly duel about to ensue. Quietly shutting the door, D slipped through the front hall and down the porch steps onto the pitch-black earth. No trace of the midday heat remained now. The green grass swayed in a chilled and pleasant night breeze.
It was around September. It was to the great credit of the Revolutionary Army that they hadn’t destroyed the dozen weather controllers buried beneath the seven continents. If not by day then at least by night the most comfortable levels of heat and humidity for both the Nobility and humans were maintained all year round. There were, however, still the occasional violent thunderstorms or blizzards, written into the controller’s programs by some uniformity-hating Nobles to recreate the unpredictable seasons of yore.
With a graceful stride that was a dance with the breeze, D passed through a gate in the fence and went another ten feet before coming to a stop. Before long there came from the depths of the darkness, from the far reaches of the plain, the sound of horse hooves and wagon wheels approaching. Could it be that D had heard them even as he talked with the young lady in that distant room?
A team of four horses and a carriage so black it seemed lacquered with midnight appeared in the moonlight and halted about fifteen feet ahead of D. The beautifully groomed black beasts drawing it were most likely cyborg horses.
A man in a black inverness cape was seated in the coachman’s perch, scrutinizing D with glittering eyes. The black lacquered whip in his right hand reflected the moonlight. By the light of the moon alone D could make out a touch of beast in his face and the terribly bushy backs of his hands.
The man quickly alighted from the driver’s seat. His whole body was like a coiled spring; he even moved like a beast. Before he could reach for the passenger door, the silver handle turned and the door opened from the inside. A deep chill and the stench of blood suddenly shrouded the refreshing breeze. As D caught a glimpse of the figure stepping down from the carriage the slightest hue of emotion stirred in his eyes. “A woman?”
Her dazzling golden hair looked like it would creep along the ground behind her. If Doris was the embodiment of a sunflower, then this woman could
only be likened to a moonflower. Her snow-white dress of medieval styling was bound tight at her waist, spreading in bountiful curves reaching to the ground. The dress was certainly lovely, but it was the pale beauty unique to the Nobility that made the young lady seem an unearthly illusion, sparkling as she did like a dream in a shower of moonlight. But the illusion reeked of blood. The flames of a nightmare crackled in her lapis-lazuli eyes, and her beckoning lips were red as blood as they glistened damply in D’s night-sight, calling to mind a hunger that would not be sated in all eternity. The hunger of a vampire.
Gazing at D, the young lady laughed like a silver bell. “Be you some manner of bodyguard? Hiring a knave like you for protection is just the sort of thing a lowly human wretch would do. Having heard from Father that the girl who lives here is not only of a beauty unrivaled by the humans in these parts, but that her blood is equally delectable, I came to see her for myself. But as I expected all along, there is no great difference between these foolish, annoying little pests.”
Ghastliness rushed into the girl’s face. The pearly fangs that appeared without warning at the corners of her lips didn’t escape D’s notice.
“First I shall make a bloody spatter of you, and then I’ll drain the humble blood from her till not a drop remains. As you may well know, Father is inclined to make her part of our family, but I will not stand by while the blood of the Lee line is imparted to a good-for-nothing that would stoop to a trick of this sort. I shall strike her from the face of the earth into the waiting arms of the black gods of hell. And you shall accompany her.”
As she spoke, the young lady made a sweep of her slender hand. Her driver stepped forward. Murderous intent and malevolence radiated from every inch of him like flames licking at D’s face.
Vampire Hunter D Page 2