“I know,” Raya replied.
Just then, the door to the next room opened roughly and the smell of liquor hit the noses of all. The middle-aged man who appeared with a ruddy face was Raya’s father.
“Go on and get the hell out of here already,” her father bellowed despite the fact he could barely work his tongue. “If Raya sticks around, there’s no telling when more of them freaky bastards will come barging in. That kind of trouble I can do without! Thanks to them, the whole village must think I’m the lowest of the low. When I heard you wanted to take my girl with you, I was genuinely relieved. So why the hell are you still hanging around?”
“Actually, sir—let’s discuss the matter elsewhere.”
After Brewer had disappeared to try and get the father to go along with the story he’d told D, Raya remained staring sadly at the Vampire Hunter.
“What’s wrong?” asked D.
It was rare for this young man to show any interest in others—actually, it was more like an earth-shaking event.
“Nothing. I just thought it would’ve been nicer if you’d come alone—”
“He’s my employer.”
“I realize that. He’s going to take me back to the Capital.” And then, as if cradling a certain expectation, she suddenly asked, “Will you be going with us?”
“I don’t know.”
The color that’d suffused Raya’s countenance for an instant swiftly faded away.
As she got to her feet, she said, “I’m sorry. I haven’t even offered you tea.”
Disappearing into the kitchen, she quickly reappeared with a steaming kettle and a teacup. Pouring the contents of the kettle into the cup, she said, “Here you go.”
Her eyes were turned down as she offered him the drink.
Taking the cup in hand, D said, “Could I trouble you to put some tea leaves in it?”
With a stunned look she peered down at the cup, her face swiftly growing more and more flushed.
“I can’t believe I did that—I’m sorry.”
Opening the lid of the tea canister, she pulled D’s cup closer.
Still looking straight down, she said, “There you are,” and then set the cup before him once again.
D looked down emotionlessly at the cup filled to the very brim with black leaves, then brought it to his lips without saying a word.
“Oh, no! I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”
Her dumbstruck expression twisting, Raya covered her face with both hands and dashed outside through the front door. Her sobs streamed out behind her. Dashing down to the end of the porch, Raya cried out-loud. She didn’t know exactly why. Her tears spilled down into the snow that was piled as high as the floor of the porch, digging a tiny but deep hole.
After about five minutes, she returned to the house.
Still in the same spot as before, D was just taking the cup away from his lips. The tea leaves had been left on the table.
“This is delicious tea,” said D.
“Huh?”
“I’m not just saying that to be polite.”
“Honestly?” Raya asked, her eyes still aimed at the floor.
D nodded. Though he said nothing, Raya knew exactly what he meant.
“I’m glad,” she said, her eyes turning to D naturally. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”
“Does it pain you to have to go off to the Capital?”
Though the question actually had no bearing on what Raya had just done, it did serve to lighten her load.
“It’s not a problem,” she said as she took a seat. Her voice was flat, devoid of intonation. “I—Well, it just doesn’t matter. I could stay here and keep living like this, or I can go work in the Capital. Papa sold me, but I don’t mind. He’ll be able to live off that money, and it’ll be easier on me, too. Once I’ve gone to the Capital, there won’t be much point in me worrying about him any more. Tell me—how old do I look?”
Raya looked up at D as she said that. The earnest expression the girl wore seemed to have come completely out of the blue.
“I’m seventeen,” she told him. “Do I look it? Everyone says I look over twenty. And everyone’s always surprised when I tell them my real age. Does that sound right? Am I that much of an old hag? I can’t take it anymore. Having people ask my age, then getting that look on their face. I’ve had it with hauling water from the well day in and day out, tilling the fields with a hoe, and scorching myself trying to keep the electric fences up against the monsters. I was relieved when Papa sold me to that guy. If I go to the Capital, if I go anywhere but here, I’m sure it can’t be as bad as all this.”
D listened quietly as she confessed emotions she’d probably never shared with anyone before, but then he said, “It probably hurts your father to do this.”
All the strength ebbed from Raya’s body. The violent emotions of the moment had passed.
Looking down, the girl said in a flat tone, “I suppose you’re right. But he’ll forget about me soon enough. After all, that’s what happened when my mother died.”
“Is that when his drinking got out of hand?”
“Yeah. He’s been that way for more than ten years.”
“Perhaps he can’t get by without drinking. Not everyone can pick themselves up from any disappointment.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Are you sure you’re the only one who thinks it’s best for you to go to the Capital?”
Raya slowly turned to face the door to the next room. Her expression had grown stiff. Then she shook her head ever so slightly.
“No, that’d be a lie,” she replied, the words carved deep in the silence.
__
III
__
Three days passed. Snow fell relentlessly, reducing all the colors of the world to black and white. Some men who apparently worked for Brewer were at the house from sunrise to sunset, and since they took over the farm work, Raya was able to start doing needlepoint. As she listened to the sound of the snow piling up, she would suddenly look up and always find D in her field of view. And each and every time, the graceful black shadow was staring out at the snow-covered landscape. Raya couldn’t help but wonder if the young man was going to disappear at some point into the harshness of winter.
That night, something happened. One of Brewer’s young associates came back covered in blood and told them he’d been attacked by the trio on the northern part of the farm. His wounds were real enough.
After sending D out to investigate, the flesh trader had Raya loaded into a wagon.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“The Capital, of course.”
Brewer’s reply left her stunned.
“But—we’re leaving without Mister D?”
“You’ll be fine without him. Those three freaks won’t be back again. You see, D’s off chasing his own tail. I’ll stay here and explain everything to him. You’d best go on ahead with these boys. See you later!”
“Wait!” she wanted to cry, but there wasn’t even time for her to say it before the wagon raced away in a spray of snow.
The world of white sped by as they left the farm and got on the road through the forest. Wind and white snowflakes lashed Raya’s face, but suddenly both ceased. The wagon had stopped.
The young man in the driver’s seat let out a scream. Back by Raya, the two others turned in his direction and gasped aloud.
The heads of both horses were missing from the shoulder up. As it dawned on the young men that the heads had been removed without the sound of severed bone, a black form skimmed through the group for an instant. Though the headless torsos of the animals remained in the same pose they’d held in life, they toppled over to one side, spraying geysers of black blood.
On the snow to the right side of the wagon, Raya saw a black beast fling the three human heads it’d just bitten off.
“Now that is an example of my true ability.”
And with that remark from the opposite side of the vehicle, Sabey cl
imbed in to join the girl.
“We couldn’t get near that miserable flesh trader while he had D around, but fortunately, he was kind enough to do our work for us. Although you may not realize it yet, Miss, he will be coming soon. We must hurry and get you properly prepared.”
“What are you talking about? Just who the hell are you, anyway?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Sabey said with apparent relish, baring his white teeth.
Throwing the corpses from the wagon, he settled into the driver’s seat. A mass of obsidian muscle whistled into the seat beside him. As the black beast licked its chops, Raya averted her gaze.
Despite the fact that both horses lay on their sides, Sabey took the reins in one hand and made a sweeping gesture with the other. A reddish powder settled over the horses like a mist. As the decapitated bodies staggered back up, Raya thought she must be having a nightmare.
“This isn’t part of my power, and it can’t do much more than make the horses run, but it should do for now. Off we go,” he said with a shake of the reins.
Shrouded in a ghastly air, the hideous horses began to gallop once more.
“What’s this?” Sabey said, his eyes bulging.
The stark-white scenery wasn’t moving. Actually, the wagon wheels weren’t even turning.
The scenery shifted. Vertically. As the wagon was incredibly hoisted into the air, Sabey and the beast alighted without a sound.
“Who the hell are you?!”
“Oh, it’s one of you guys,” said a voice that rained down on Sabey. The words fell from the head of the titanic figure that’d lifted the wagon and left the horses’ legs kicking vainly in midair.
“So, we meet at last,” he chuckled. “I just got into town, but I’m glad I came straight here instead of stopping off for a drink. See, I came out of the forest real quietly while you folks were going at it and hid myself under here. Did I surprise you a little?”
If what the giant—Dynus—said was true, then even the black beast had failed to note his presence.
Perhaps due to his surprise, Sabey stood there stock-still for a moment as if lost in his thoughts. Then his whole face flushed vermilion as he commanded, “Kill him!”
A flash of black lightning raced across the ground, halting in midair.
Moving at super-speed, the vicious beast had removed the heads of three people and a pair of horses in the blink of an eye, yet a gigantic hand had effortlessly closed around its throat to hold it at bay.
“This little pup of yours has a face only a mother could love,” Dynus said, but his words were accompanied by a harsh snap.
The beast’s body twitched for a few seconds before it moved no more, at which point Dynus tossed it back lightly over his shoulder as if he were discarding a little piece of trash. Limning a smooth parabola, the corpse sailed over a stand of trees that was eighty to a hundred feet high and disappeared in a testament to the unbelievable brute strength of the giant.
“Okay, now we’re getting down to the main event. Just relax and make your move. I think I’ll stick with this.”
And with these words, the giant took the hand he’d used to slay the beast and put it back against the bottom of the wagon.
Sabey’s expression was one of indignation for a heartbeat, and then his lips curled into a satisfied grin. At the same time, a deathly stillness radiated out around him.
“Welcome to the land of the beasts!” he said.
It was a second later that a pair of gargantuan forms pounced on Dynus from behind.
“Whoa there!” the giant said, barely managing to keep himself from tumbling forward as grizzly bears more than six feet tall mauled him mercilessly with fangs and claws.
Blue sparks flew from his chest and the base of his neck.
“What a joke,” the giant muttered shamelessly, adding a shout of, “Here you go!”
And with that, Dynus hurled the wagon at Sabey, horses and all. The impact caused snow to fall from the stand of trees, while Raya was thrown free of the wagon and struck her head hard against the ground, rendering her unconscious.
“Just watch this,” Dynus said to Sabey as he leapt away, then he wrapped one arm around the trunk of each of the massive bears.
Each weighed a good ton. But by the look of things, that was light for him. He quickly squeezed their torsos down into an hourglass shape, and then there was a hearty string of snaps as their bones shattered. The beasts were spitting up blood as the giant slammed their heads together to finish them off before he made an easy leap into the air.
Sabey didn’t even have time to run. Just as the giant landed, he struck the man in the head with a fist the size of a boulder, killing him instantly. Bright blood spattered across the snow and Dynus’s face.
“Well, that takes care of one of them. I guess that just leaves the one I’m here for. Ah, that should be a piece of cake.”
Dynus then turned around to face the way the wagon had come and added, “A handsome man against a snowy landscape? Talk about a freakin’ work of art!”
As he stood there book-ended by pure white forest, the young man in a coat blacker than the darkness looked like nothing less than a sculpture hewn in heaven itself.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE
CHAPTER 3
I
You’ve been there a while, haven’t you?” Dynus said to D, but the Hunter advanced without speaking.
He didn’t race forward in a hurry. As the giant suggested, he’d been following the wagon from the very start. He’d seen Brewer’s scheme coming a mile off.
“Hey, there! Wait just a second,” the giant said as he stuck both hands out—although technically, he was sticking them down. “I have no intention of throwing down with you. Don’t wanna use up all my strength before the main event. I’ll give you back the woman safe and sound.”
“From the way you say it, the girl was what you were after.”
“Spare me. I don’t wanna kill someone who doesn’t even know who they are.”
“She doesn’t know who she is?”
“That’s right. Because I don’t have that tingle running down my spine. If I were to fight her now, I’d just be tearing apart an innocent girl. Could you bring yourself to do something like that?”
“No.”
“Wow,” Dynus replied, boldly baring his gleaming white teeth in a smile. “Knock it off. If you smile at me like that, you’re gonna make me all bashful. You lady-killer! Well, hurry up and take her back home so you can get her patched up. Huh?”
As he turned to where Raya had been thrown, his eyes went wide. An elliptical depression had been left in the snow, but the girl’s body had vanished without warning. And without D even noticing.
“I didn’t do it,” Dynus declared with a frantic wave of his hands. “And I’d say you didn’t, either. You suppose it was one of that guy’s cronies? Nah, I’d have noticed if it was one of them. Then it’d have to be—”
“Do you have some idea where she could’ve gone?”
“Let me see,” the giant said, bringing his hand to his chin as he deliberated. “I’d say she’s at her castle.”
Turning toward the forest, D gave a whistle. Climbing onto the cyborg horse that came galloping out, he said, “I’ll show you the way.”
“How am I supposed to get there?”
“You’ve got a wagon.”
“You’re not exactly mister personality, are you? But I see your point. The girl’s in such rough shape, she could freeze to death out here. I guess I’m still half asleep. Just give me a second.”
Dynus wasted no time in returning from the woods carrying the usual log with the cloth bundle tied to one end, quickly righted the wagon, and lashed the headless horses that even now kicked at the earth in hopes of fulfilling their role.
As they rode along side by side, D said to the giant, “I’d like to hear about this situation.”
“Yeah, sure—though to tell the truth, I don’t know much about it either. At any rate
, that woman and I are apparently hereditary foes. We’ve probably been set up as proxies in a war between Nobles. Only, I knew where she was right away, but she doesn’t seem to have awakened yet. That’s why the flunkies got here first.”
“Why don’t you just stop the fight?”
“I can’t do that. Or, to put it another way, I was made so I can’t even think that way. And once she comes around, she won’t be able to either.”
“And if she never comes around?” asked the Hunter.
“That’s a thought. If possible, that’s the way I hope it’ll go. I’m made not to fight anyone I don’t view as a foe. So that’d probably be best for the girl, too.”
“You’re a strange warrior.”
“There’s more to being a warrior than just fighting. There’s a little thing called fair play,” Dynus said, his voice rising in a laugh.
Startled snow plopped down from the trees by the road.
“Sure is pretty,” the colossal warrior said as he squinted his eyes. “The world’s such a beautiful place, but it’s just somewhere for me to fight. Something’s just not right about that. Why’d those bastards in the Nobility ever get it into their heads to make something like me? It’s tragic to be good for nothing but killing. I want to be of more use to the world, you know?”
The pair came out onto a plain. At some point the snow had stopped falling, and now the moon was out with a silvery glow. By its light, the snowfields glittered like a mirror that seemed to stretch on forever.
Suddenly the scenery changed. Blue light colored the pair as a desolate, snowless plain bare of even a blade of grass exposed itself.
“This way.”
Dynus drove the wagon through a region studded with one fantastic rock formation after another—they must’ve continued on for the better part of a mile. From off in the distance, rows of spacious buildings that certainly seemed to be ruins crept into view. The castle walls, the domed ceilings, the stone columns, the great foundation—and a huge reactor and electronic barrier larger than most villages made it seem as if there was still life in these ruins that were the size of a great city.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne Page 16