“No.”
“They all went off. Even my own child.”
Lightning knifed through Ry’s spine. If this woman who seemed to be around sixty had lost a child, then the Nobility’s return twenty years earlier was more than just a legend.
“I was so busy with my housework that I completely ignored my child. I paid no attention to the angry threats about going off to the Nobles’ mansion. And ever since, I’ve lived alone.”
Somewhere, a clock chimed.
Patting her silvery mane, the mayor got to her feet.
“Join me for supper,” she said. “And once that’s finished, it’ll be time for you to go to bed.”
Even after they dismounted at the gates, the light didn’t go out. It burned at the far end of the mansion’s right wing—in a lone room.
“There’s no way they wouldn’t have noticed us. And whoever it is, they must underestimate us,” Price said sarcastically.
Although travelers might visit a Noble manor, no one would ever stay in one overnight. In any case, the occupant showed considerable courage.
“Circle around to the garden. I’ll go in through the door.”
“Check.”
Taking the silent and sullen Kurt with him, Price dashed off.
Once he saw the two men disappear, D stepped into the mansion. Casually making his way through the hall, he headed toward the corridor at the back. Turning at the end of it, he moved into the right wing. His gait was steady as always, and both his arms hung by his sides. Presently he came to a halt. Before him loomed an elaborately carved door. When his black glove pushed against it, it opened without the slightest resistance.
D silently stood in the flickering light. The canopied bed, the writing desk set by the bay window, the chic ebony cabinet, and the white lace curtains swaying by the windows were covered with a white dust. They were clearly the trappings of a woman’s room. D walked over to the little table with the silver candelabra resting on it—the source of the light. Someone must’ve made use of the things that’d been left here. The blue candles had burned down halfway in their holders.
A trace of the room’s occupant lingered in the air. An almost imperceptible chill—probably from the breath of a Noble.
D approached the bed. Taking two steps, his body suddenly became a blur.
Sinking into the ceiling with a mellifluous sound was a steel arrow.
With a single bound, D was back at the doorway. There was no one out in the corridor. The wall directly opposite the door now had three needles of unfinished wood sticking from it. All of them had been hurled by D just as his longsword swiped out to deflect the deadly missile. And none of them were missing. His opponent was worthy of kudos.
“Not too shabby,” said a hoarse voice. It came from D’s left hand, which had taken hold of a needle. After pulling all three out of the wall, D turned around. Perhaps the singer had been waiting for the night.
How many people knew what the word “nocturne” meant? It was a song that loved the night. A song for those awaiting a lover in the darkness.
The hem of the Hunter’s coat flashed out. A wind had blown from the corridor and into the room. D advanced without a word.
Light filled the space. Ignoring the very laws of physics, moonlight shone in through windows on three walls to focus on a single spot. And there was the singer.
__
You might say it was the instinct of a Frontier creature that roused Ry from his sleep. As soon as his eyes were open, they were drawn to just one thing. The doorknob. It was moving. Slowly turning. Even though the boy was sure he’d locked it.
Ry heard the creak of the hinges.
The figure that crept in crossed the floor and came all the way over to the side of the bed without the boy’s being able to move a muscle. Ry was too busy listening to the song. It issued from the mouth of the shadowy figure that was slowly leaning over him.
MELODY ON A WHITE MOONLIT NIGHT
CHAPTER 3
I
__
The moonlight passed right through the woman and bleached the floor. A number of the flecks of light glittered on her body, accenting the flow of her long hair and the pleats of her dress and making her look like something from beyond the grave.
“When did you return?” D inquired softly.
I never went anywhere at all, she replied, her voice resounding in D’s head. I’ve been here all along. The only reason none of you noticed me was because I didn’t sing.
“And that song—who taught it to you?”
I don’t recall, she answered immediately. There’s little point in asking who taught me it, or when. All I know is how to sing.
“Then let me ask you this—who decided when you’d sing? And how and why were the selections made?”
The woman turned to D without a sound—not even the air stirred. Perhaps both the woman and the room were mere illusions. Maybe even D himself was one.
What brings you here, you gorgeous man? Even my song will be no more than noise in your presence. I feel I may even forget how to sing.
“That song isn’t to be sung,” said D. At some point he’d taken a place by the woman’s side. “It’s a song that a certain man had his musicians compose, and he made a certain woman sing it. The effect it had wasn’t what the man intended. And that’s why it can’t be allowed to remain in this world.”
The woman’s sparkling eyes reflected D’s image. Through her dreamlike form, the window to her rear and even the very moonlight was visible.
Are you . . . ? the woman began, her thoughts swimming. Your face . . . Your bearing . . . So like him . . . You couldn’t be . . .
Without a single wasted motion, D drew his blade and slashed through the woman’s torso. The silvery flash left a trail through her body like the Milky Way, but it disappeared almost instantly.
D didn’t launch a second attack—the first had merely been a tentative strike. Although the woman existed, she wasn’t real. To cut an illusion given shape, even D would need a very special sword technique.
The woman’s outline rapidly grew hazy, like a dream as its dreamer is about to awaken.
I’m always here. Come anytime you like.
From behind D came the rasp of a sword being unsheathed. A few seconds later, another sound entered the room. It was Price and Kurt.
“Where’s the singer?” Price asked as he gingerly surveyed the room. The handsome young man must’ve heard her as well.
“She’s right there,” D replied, gazing at a spot over by the windows.
“I don’t see a damn thing,” Kurt spat venomously. “Sheesh, you let her get away. And after all the talk I’ve heard about you being the best Vampire Hunter on the Frontier. She never would’ve escaped if I’d been here, I tell you!”
His caustic remarks sprang from hard feelings over the arm he’d lost.
“I’m a tad disappointed in you,” Price said in a sarcastic tone.
There was a dull thud as the steel arrow fell at his feet.
“What’s this?”
“Which one of you does that belong to?” asked the Hunter.
“This thing? What are you trying to get at?”
“That arrow was fired at me earlier.”
As Price’s gaze fell upon him, Kurt lowered his eyes.
“I thought I told you not to.”
“Hell, an arrow like that could’ve come from anywhere,” Kurt retorted in an unsteady tone.
“We split up in the garden, but I didn’t think he was going off to take a shot at you. You have my apologies,” Price said before making an obsequious bow to D. “It won’t happen again. I ask your forgiveness.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me! There’s no reason you should be bowing your head to this joker. If I get half a chance, I’ll kill him for sure,” the man in the military garb blustered.
But an icy tone informed him, “You’ll never get another opportunity.”
It sounded as if it could freeze the very moonl
ight.
“You dirty—” Kurt started to say as his left hand reached for his chest. Arrows that’d been tucked in his uniform jutted out, becoming flashes of black concentrated on D. But all of them seemed to be batted away by a single streak of white light. The man’s left hand was about to unleash another assault when a naked blade made a diagonal cut through him. Sliced from the left shoulder to the right hip, the upper portion of Kurt’s body didn’t begin to smoothly slide off the lower half until after D’s blade was back in its sheath.
“Are you going to bury him?”
Freed from his paralysis by the Hunter’s question, Price could finally move again. “You—you’re not much for forgiveness, are you?” he stammered.
Though his remark invited side-splitting laughter, it rang with the brutal reality of what had just transpired. He hadn’t been able to so much as lift a finger while his comrade was slaughtered before his very eyes.
“You heard the woman’s song, correct?” D said as he faced the windows.
Hers had been a modest tone, and it didn’t seem the least bit likely to have carried all the way down to the garden.
“If you could hear it out there, it may have reached the village, too. Let’s head back.”
Even after the graceful figure in black had slipped through the doorway, Price had to stand there a little while longer before the spell over him was completely broken.
Shaken firmly, Ry reflexively tried to sit up. It took a few seconds for his retinas to confirm the presence of D and the mayor.
“What is it?” the boy asked.
In lieu of a reply, a black glove reached out to grab his chin, turning his face to the left and the right. Oddly enough, the treatment didn’t feel at all rough to him.
“There’s not a mark on him, is there?” the mayor said with apparent relief.
“What’s going on?”
A man so handsome to his sleeping eyes he had to wonder if he was still dreaming asked, “Did you hear the song?”
Narrowing his eyes, Ry traced back through his memories. “Nope. Although I was asleep, so I really don’t know.” But he couldn’t be sure if his answer was correct. To cover this, he asked ill-temperedly, “What the hell time is it anyway?”
“It’s the middle of the night. Go back to sleep.”
With these words, D returned to the living room. Price and Bijima were waiting there, although it wouldn’t have been at all surprising if they’d been on edge, the atmosphere was painfully commonplace.
“You must really be something to take ol’ Kurt out with one shot,” Bijima said, sounding more excited than anything. “Now I get a bigger share of what the mayor’s paying us. Thanks.”
“He didn’t hear the song,” Price said as his eyes knifed his compatriot.
“When the Noble sings, there’s some sort of selection,” Mayor Cobier said, pawing at her silver hair. “In the legends from two centuries ago, the only ones entranced by the song were young people around twenty years of age. The same goes for twenty years ago—”
“A Noble that only wants the blood of kids, eh? That’s a new one,” Bijima remarked.
Eyeing the door to Ry’s bedroom, the mayor continued, “However, that boy didn’t hear it. If there’d been anything else out of the ordinary, I’d have long since been notified about it.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t remember.”
Three pairs of eyes focused on D. The hue of surprise melted into infatuation, as was always the case.
Not surprisingly, Price was the first one to return to his senses. “You mean the boy? But if he didn’t go out to the mansion and there’s no trace of the accursed kiss left on him, I don’t see what the problem is.”
The mayor nodded her agreement.
“Actually, nothing strange happened to me, either. I think the song last night didn’t have the power of the Nobility behind it.”
D’s eyes swallowed Price. “Perhaps only one person was chosen.”
“Chosen?”
The mayor and Price looked at each other. The eyes of one of them filled with a horribly keen light as they bored through the young man in black.
“There’s something I’d like to ask, too,” said Price.
D was silent.
“What brings you to this village? Up until now, I thought it was merely a coincidence, but do you know something?”
“The singer is in the mansion,” said D. “That’s the only person who knows everything. We should get some rest.”
__
II
__
“Why are you so out of it?”
At this unexpected remark, Ry turned sideways. Amne was there. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a pair of thin slacks. The rather generous swell in her yellow blouse made the boy a bit nervous.
“Since you never came back, I just came to check up on you. Whether you use it or not, you’re still gonna have to pay for the room, you know.”
“I know that,” Ry said, leaning against a nearby tree trunk while his eyes fell on a glittering band some fifteen or twenty feet away.
Flowing from a mountain spring about twelve miles to the north, the river helped give the scene a grim majesty. The spray sent up by a collection of boulders allowed pure white blossoms to bloom, and countless rainbows sprang to life in the sunlit gaps between flowers. As proof that these were no ordinary trick of the light, when the silvery fish shot from the surface of the river and broke through them, their tiny mouths pulled multicolored bits from them, and the rainbows were clearly being whittled down. The roar of the river was reminiscent of a rumbling in the ground.
They were by the road that ran from the mayor’s house into the heart of town. There wasn’t any sign of travelers along the riverbanks.
“You’re not in very good spirits, are you? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, really.”
“It’s not nothing, I’d say. You seemed like a completely different person yesterday. Are you really such a brooder?”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say to one of your guests!”
“Okay, okay,” Amne said, pointing to the electric-powered wagon that was parked a short distance from them. “In that case, allow me to show our guest some hospitality. I’ll give you a guided tour of the Noble remains around the village based on a map drawn up by the Anise Historical Research Society.”
“Not interested,” Ry replied, pulling away.
“What’s this? Yesterday you were overjoyed to go for a ride. Oh, I get it! Now that there’s been a little excitement, you’ve lost your nerve, haven’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Coward.”
“I’m just a plain old traveler. I don’t have any interest in the damned Nobility.”
“That’s a lie. The interest you showed yesterday was certainly real enough. So, off you go to stay at the mayor’s house when I’m not looking—looks like you’ve got plenty of secrets.”
“You’ve got me all wrong.”
“Whatever. Come with me. After all, you’ll get to see the sights for free. It couldn’t hurt to look. And I’ll throw in something special to sweeten the deal.”
“Oh? What’s that?” the boy asked with no apparent interest.
To be honest, Ry was a bit anxious. In answer to D’s question, he’d said there was nothing out of the ordinary, but in truth he couldn’t remember anything about the previous night. His memories ended with him climbing into bed. It was unusual for Ry, who always stayed quite alert until the second he fell asleep. What’s more, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being followed by someone. When he’d woken up that morning, D, the two warriors, and even the mayor had already left, but one of the mayor’s servants had conveyed her orders that he stay at her house from that night on. He’d run into Amne as he was going off to collect his things and bring them back. One of those four was probably following him. Most likely it was Bijima, though he’d have to be doing a pretty sloppy job of it for Ry to notice him.
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“I’ll tell you what the bonus is if you get in the wagon,” said the girl. “I don’t want anyone else to hear.”
This would probably be a good way to lose his unseen pursuer.
“Okay. I’ll go with you,” Ry said reluctantly. “But in return, you’ve gotta forget about the charge for my room.”
“Hey, that’s a whole different matter!”
“In that case, count me out.”
“Okay, I get the point. You’re a real tightwad, aren’t you?” Amne said irritably, although his cheapness was only natural.
The wagon carried them south for about a mile and a quarter before it stopped. They were out in a field quite some distance from the main road. Though it looked as if flames of green were blazing across the grasslands as far as the eye could see, in spots here and there chunks of black stuck out like a sore thumb. These were clearly the remains of a massive structure.
“On this spot stood one of the Nobility’s research centers or factories. Lately, though, the opinion that it was another kind of facility has been gaining strength.”
“What kind of facility?”
“A concert hall!”
“You don’t say,” Ry replied as he looked up at the heavens. White clouds frolicked like kittens in the blue sky. “And just who’s voiced this theory?”
“Yours truly.”
“Give me a break!” the boy snorted.
“No matter whose theory it is, what’s true is true!”
At her passionate reply, Ry realized she had a point.
“Come this way.”
Doing as she said, Ry got out of the wagon and advanced across the grass to the largest of the ruins.
“Here it is!” Amne declared, standing there with all the excitement and emotion befitting a girl her age. But ahead of her, all Ry could make out was assorted piles of rubble from some unknown source.
“And where’s this supposed concert hall?”
“You can’t tell just from looking at this. The basis of my theory is this way.”
It took a good five minutes to circle around behind the massive stone ruins.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne Page 4