Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne

by Dark Nocturne (v5. 0) (epub)

  “. . . and that’s the long and short of it. That accursed spell knocked me flat on my back, and by the time I came around again, half the day had passed. But I sure am glad I came out here in the hopes you might’ve survived.”

  The two of them got into her wagon.

  “At my house, you can get your horse and ride.”

  “Did you have any luck with your spell to find where the Noble is?” D asked as soon as they were on their way.

  “Not really,” the old woman said as she lashed the horse.

  The conversation ended, and as soon as they reached the crone’s house, D got on his cyborg steed.

  “Be careful. And whatever you do, find some way to save her,” the old woman said as she waved her hand, but her voice swiftly faded away.

  His handsome features were assailed by the autumn wind. Through the chilling moonlight he went. D didn’t follow the road. He knew where Cecile was.

  Tearing through the forest, his horse raced up a rocky hill.

  “Was there anything out of the ordinary about Helga’s physiology?” the Hunter asked as he came to the bottom of a second hill.

  “Not really,” a hoarse voice could be heard to say from the vicinity of where his left hand gripped the reins.

  “I didn’t find any irregularities either. She’s just a plain human being.”

  “Well then, what’s the story with what you saw at the bottom of the pond?”

  “I don’t know,” the Hunter replied, his words crumbling under the thunder of the iron-shod hooves.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, the voice asked, “What’s wrong?”

  D was looking off to the left. Less than ten paces away, a girl in a white dress was running along at exactly the same speed. The pale green hair that fluttered in the breeze carried the scent of fall, and the hue of her skin resembled moonlight.

  The rider leaned over to the right. At the same time, his horse bounded. As soon as it came back to earth, it wheeled around sharply. Hooves gouged the ground.

  The girl’s feet continued their sprint, while the light of the moon seemed to well up beneath them. Her lithe figure went straight up—and the girl was suddenly in midair.

  And above her was D—although when he’d kicked up out of the stirrups was a mystery.

  The wind snarled. The blade met proper resistance as it slashed downward, and in its wake, the girl showed her white teeth.

  As D straightened up again back on the ground, his eyes caught the white figure slipping into the forest off to the left.

  We’ll meet soon, said the voice that came to him, riding on the wind. The fall wind. Soon, you gorgeous creature. Very soon.

  D sheathed his blade.

  “You sure have messed up a lot today,” said a voice by his left hip. “Must’ve been the wind’s fault.”

  Apparently, the source of the voice was aware of how the force of the wind had diminished the power of the Hunter’s stroke when he brought his sword down on the girl.

  “Where did the girl come from?”

  D turned to the spot a short distance away where his mount had halted.

  “Seeing how she’s showed up practically on top of us both yesterday and today, she’s probably following our movements,” he responded in a leaden tone.

  “In that case, she’d be close at hand, right? How about at the old woman’s house? What if the Noble made it her hiding place without the old girl even knowing about it?”

  “You think a Noble would live in a human’s house?”

  “Not really,” the voice replied flatly, adding, “But I’m actually more intrigued by something else.”

  D straddled his horse without saying a word.

  “Now, why do you suppose that woman’s gone to all the trouble of appearing to us twice now?”

  Once again the horse began to tear through the autumn evening. This was the beginning of a long night.

  SONG OF THE FALL

  CHAPTER 4

  I

  __

  Sent scurrying back to the guard barracks in full retreat, Bazura pounded on the door. Though he’d used the medicine and bandages in the survival kit he always carried to patch himself up, he hadn’t been able to close the wounds at all, and the lifeblood running down his cheek left a vivid impression on him. Having burrowed through the ground until he reached the road, then running the rest of the way, he felt like his heart was just a tattered bag ready to explode.

  I’ll get you for this, D, he thought, swearing vengeance even as he slumped against the door anemically. The problem was, the door wouldn’t open.

  “What in blazes are they doing?!”

  Circling around for a peek through one of the windows that had light spilling from it, he gasped in horror. There were four or five men lying on the floor, covered with blood. After turning away and taking a deep breath, he looked in again.

  “What the hell?!”

  Apparently the combination of exhaustion, fear, and anger had played a trick on his eyes. His men were all sitting there diligently maintaining their weapons.

  When he opened the door and stepped in, the place was pervaded by a strange chill. Perhaps it was just his imagination, or maybe it was nerves, but everyone looked paler than usual.

  “Something happen?” someone asked as they all noted his injuries.

  “You could say that, I guess. D’s still alive,” he replied as he set his crossbow down on the table.

  “We know,” one of them replied.

  It took a second for the warrior’s eyes to bug at that remark.

  “You know? How the hell is that?”

  “Someone told us,” someone else said.

  Why are these jokers bunching up around me?

  “Yeah? Who?” Bazura asked them.

  Shit! Jock’s got between me and my bow.

  “Her.”

  All their eyes were trained on something behind him.

  When Bazura turned his gaze to follow the others’, his eyes were etched with the image of a woman in a white dress.

  “Who—who are you?” he stammered.

  The girl’s face was right in front of him. Her breath was cold and had the perfume of an autumn night.

  “So, we meet again,” whispered a young lady he’d never seen before.

  __

  “We’ve got trouble!”

  Sensing the urgency in the shouts of Cecile’s father, the sheriff raced back into the holding area.

  In one cell, Lyle was clutching his chest.

  “What’s the matter?” asked the lawman.

  “The kid had a knife hidden on him. He was trying to use it to pick the lock when it suddenly slipped and he stabbed himself by mistake. The mayor’s gonna be furious!”

  More than anything, it was the last remark that robbed the sheriff of his composure.

  “Damn fool,” he muttered as he hastily unlocked the door, but the second he opened it, the wheezing figure on the floor pounced on the sheriff and drove his fingers into the lawman’s solar plexus.

  “Well, I’m off,” said the boy.

  “We’re counting on you. Rescue her, then the both of you better take off for someplace else.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll come back for you.”

  Reaching through the bars to give the girl’s father a firm pat on the shoulder, Lyle then left the holding area. Of course, the sheriff had been locked in the cell previously occupied by the boy.

  Stepping into the office, he grabbed a rapid-fire crossbow and about fifteen arrows and left with them strapped to his back.

  “Hold on, Cecile! I swear I’m gonna rescue you,” the boy declared, hope and determination blazing fiercely in his heart.

  Using the sheriff’s horse, it took him twenty minutes to get over to the same place as the previous night. It reeked of blood. Though he knew it’d been splashed there on purpose, Lyle still went pale.

  “Cecile—are you okay?” he cried out as he hammered on the door like a man possessed.

&nb
sp; “Lyle! What are you doing here?” a feeble and astonished voice replied through the door. “I’m begging you, just leave me be. If you fight the will of the village any more, they’re going to kill you and my father.”

  “Then I’d rather be dead!” Lyle exclaimed as he tried to pry the lock off the door with a massive knife. “They give up one person to save somebody else. If that’s what I had to do to survive, I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up for the rest of my days. What do you think will happen if they do this every time a Noble shows up? I just can’t let this same thing keep happening to girls like you until all the Nobility have finally died out.”

  “The sun’s gone down. The Noble will be coming soon. Hurry up and get out of here.”

  “Don’t worry. D said it himself. You’ll be safe for two days. We’ll take your parents with us and get plenty far away from here.”

  “We can’t. My mother and father would never be able to leave their home.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ll make it easy enough for them to live elsewhere.”

  The lock came off. When he shoved the door open, Cecile stood just beyond it, her face a complete mess. As Lyle approached his sweetheart, she took a step backward.

  “I, I don’t . . .” the girl stammered. “What should I do?”

  “For starters, let’s get out of here.”

  Her warm body pressed against the grinning Lyle’s chest with an intensity that seemed to promise she’d never leave him again. As she hiccupped, Lyle gently stroked her back.

  “Okay, let’s go!” he said, and then he turned around.

  At any rate, he’d get Cecile out of town and come back tomorrow to fight the Noblewoman. He wasn’t too concerned about what would come after that. Though he couldn’t allow Cecile to be sacrificed, his own code of ethics as a villager wouldn’t allow him to just run off without taking some responsibility for what would happen in the village. He’d have to do something in return.

  But it seemed he was a little too late.

  Too much strength went into the hand he had resting on Cecile’s shoulder. Noticing this, the girl looked up and gasped in a low voice.

  But well within hearing of that cry stood the woman in the blue dress. And the deep red blossom on her chest was surely the work of D’s needle.

  __

  II

  __

  “She’s back already?”

  Pushing Cecile out of the way, Lyle readied the crossbow off his back. Once he’d switched off the safety mechanism, the hammer that’d strike the firing caps rose.

  “You smell delectable,” the woman said as she licked her lips.

  A blur of black streaked toward the woman’s face. The first arrow was snatched from the air by her hand. The second arrow was deflected.

  The woman halted—Lyle’s third shot had gone through the back of her hand. As she stared at it with disbelief, a steel arrow whizzed toward the left side of her chest, and this time it sank into her all the way to the fletching. Surely the woman hadn’t been able to dodge it, since she’d appeared there despite the wound D had dealt her.

  Reaching with her other hand for the arrow that’d just pierced her squarely between the eyes, the woman had no sooner taken hold of it than she collapsed on her back in the bushes.

  “I did it! Those dark clouds are breaking!” Lyle exclaimed, putting all his feelings into his words as he gave a little jump for joy.

  “It can’t be . . . You mean . . . I’m saved . . . ?” Cecile mumbled absent-mindedly as the boy pushed her up onto his horse.

  “We don’t have to worry about anyone giving us any trouble now. Let’s head back to town.”

  “Sure.”

  Even the fall breeze seemed warmed by their jubilation.

  Astride the horse, the couple started down the road back to the village in high spirits.

  As the rows of houses became dimly visible by the light of the moon, the girl said, “Someone’s coming!”

  But Lyle already had his gaze turned in the direction Cecile was pointing.

  “No problem. We don’t have a damn thing to worry about anymore. To the contrary, I should get a reward for this.”

  So full of confidence and joy, Lyle had forgotten something Cecile’s father had pointed out while they were locked in the jail. To wit, the possibility that there might be a second Noble involved.

  The shadowy rider that was approaching them halted.

  “It’s me. Lyle. I took care of the Noble,” he declared triumphantly.

  “That’s great. Come with me,” Bazura replied. He was accompanied by his men.

  __

  †

  Discovering the remains of the Noblewoman out in front of the sacrificial hut, D got off his horse. Not even glancing at the arrow that’d sealed her fate, he examined the wound left by his needle instead.

  “So, she came out even though she hadn’t fully recovered? Guess she must’ve been mighty hungry,” a hoarse voice said, the latter remark coming in a sarcastic tone. It didn’t believe that for a second.

  “The legendary lady-in-waiting,” was all that D said.

  She’d gone after Cecile knowing full-well how weakened her condition had left her. The only possible explanation was that her mistress had ordered her to do so.

  Entering the hut and confirming there was no one there, D then returned to the corpse. Pulling a dagger out of his coat, he pressed it between the woman’s breasts. Sinking into her flesh like a weapon of another sort gliding into a woman’s sheath, the blade gave off a glittering beam of light. No, it wasn’t the blade—the glow spilled from within the woman’s body.

  The radiance adding new allure to his handsome features all the while, D split the woman open from her chest to her groin. The flesh buckled out with internal pressure, and in lieu of blood, a dazzling band of light was thrown up into the autumnal sky.

  What had she been?

  What D saw within her were a number of glass tubes filled with a crimson liquid that seemed to be blood and a chunk of machinery that resembled a heart. And beyond those things—oh, that was the source of the light. A tiny sun, and tens of millions of stars set in the blackness that surrounded it.

  The light grew more brilliant.

  Like an illusion, D leapt back a good fifteen feet. Before his eyes, the dazzling luminescence consumed the corpse. No doubt this was the result of it coming into contact with the outside world. The extinction of this inner cosmos was so silent and peaceful it betrayed all expectations.

  The whole world glowed with an impossibly pale light.

  As one form faded away, a new silhouette came to the fore.

  “We’ve met twice already,” said the girl with autumn tresses. “Let’s make the next time the last. I’ll be by the edge of the pond. Come before dawn. I have the young couple.”

  Light scorched D’s retinas, and when it quickly dimmed again, there was no trace of the mistress of fall.

  __

  Having been notified of Lyle’s escape by the sheriff, the mayor gave the lawman a ninety-minute tongue lashing before returning to his den alone. As the sheriff was leaving, he said he’d try to get in touch with Bazura and join forces to search for the boy, but at any rate they wouldn’t be able to start until after daybreak.

  “That little idiot. If he runs off with Cecile, it just means some other girl gets put out in her place,” the mayor grumbled bitterly as he sank back in his recliner.

  However, his voice carried an unmistakable element of relief.

  “Well, you just keep right on running. You’d best cross the Frontier to somewhere no one’s ever heard of, and make yourself a life together.”

  “Is that what you think?” a voice like iron was heard to say from the feeble darkness that collected by the window. The den was only illuminated by a single small standing lamp.

  “What, you?! You’re still alive?”

  “The Noble’s dead,” D said tersely.

  “Are you serious?”

  “It wa
s Lyle’s doing. Be sure he’s rewarded.”

  “If what you say is true, of course he will be. After all, there’s no greater service he could possibly render to the village. Where is he? And do you have any evidence of this?”

  “Once day breaks, I’m sure he’ll be back. And don’t forget about Cecile and her parents, either.”

  “Understood,” the mayor said, knowing in his heart of hearts what was right. “I’ll have to make amends to Helga as well. I do try to keep my job as a representative of the village in mind.”

  The darkness beyond the window panes and that of the silhouette overlapped.

  Once he knew the Vampire Hunter had left, the mayor slowly stretched out in his recliner, this time truly relaxing. This was the perfect occasion to open that special bottle of wine he’d been saving. Of course, the mayor didn’t realize it was a little too early to be celebrating.

  __

  III

  __

  The night was filled with scents—the smell of the grass and foliage just about to head into a long slumber, the aroma of fruit—and that of the moonlight. Perhaps even the rising atmosphere could be numbered among the scents. Billowing up from the waters of the half-drained pond, it was more like a miasma that choked the air and seemed to warp the very light of the moon.

  A gnarled giant of a tree towered by the side of the pond, and among its roots a number of figures had gathered. There was no conversation. All kept their mouths shut. These shadowy figures were far removed from the raucous air that always seemed to spring up whenever people gathered. Though their hearts still beat, they weren’t breathing. And the blood that flowed through their veins was cold.

  “Damn you—let us down!” an all-too-human voice shouted from a place that didn’t very well suit a human being—a spot halfway up the tree trunk.

  Cecile and Lyle were hanging from one of the branches that protruded from the tree—and the cry had come from the boy, of course.

  “You fucking stooges of the Nobility! You should be ashamed of yourselves!” he shouted, but the men who’d died and risen again didn’t even seem to notice.

  Bazura alone glanced up at the pair, speaking in a tone that seemed to rise from the bowels of the earth, “Truth be known, we don’t really need you. We only brought you along because Cecile threatened to bite her own tongue off if we laid a hand on you. We’ll finish you off soon enough, so keep your pants on.”