The members of the group let out a collective sigh of despair.
“What the hell? Then you mean we can’t get outta here yet? Well, I don’t care; I might just take off on my own. Floating down that underground river should do the trick.”
D turned and looked at Jan, who was grinning like a fool.
Jan threw out his chest with a hearty laugh. “What’s that look for? You think all you’ve gotta do is glare at me and I’ll get all scared, stud?”
But his haughty laughter quickly faded. D was still staring at him.
A little hoarse voice said, “He’s possessed.”
Though the people there looked dubious, the next thing D said would change their expressions.
“The suckling’s dead. Did the old man come back?”
“Yeah,” Maria said with a nod.
“Where is he?”
“Over there—in the bed in the back.”
Just then, the old woman called out, “Dear.” Sitting up in bed, Mrs. Stow clung to her husband’s arm as he got to his feet.
The old man was staring at the group with gleaming eyes. The light that came from them was crimson.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” D said in a low voice, taking a step toward the elderly couple like death in black.
THE CHANGED
CHAPTER 7
-
I
-
For every step forward D took, Mr. Stow backed away one. The old man pulled free of his wife’s hand. Once the Hunter considered someone his foe, the unlucky one’s age or sex no longer mattered—such was the young man called D.
“The suckling said he’d made arrangements to change everyone, to make them more like him. Are you what he had in mind?”
From the vicinity of D’s left hand, an unconscious chuckle arose, but no one else noticed.
“Dear,” Mrs. Stow called out sadly from her place on the bed. There was nothing the woman could do.
The old man and D both ignored her.
“Have you got it in you?” Mr. Stow asked, coughing. “Can you cut me down? Could you destroy a poor old man? Sure, I got the god’s power through the suckling.”
Behind D, the rest of the group exchanged glances.
“I should thank you, Mr. Hunter. For bringing me here—to the great god. You know what I’m going to do next? Once I make it out of this fortress, I’m going to the Capital. Then I’m going to kill my sons for living without a care in the world, instead of looking after their mother and father. These same ingrates have forgotten all about how hard my wife and I worked to bring them up, and they don’t even try to hide how inconvenienced they feel when we make our yearly call on them.”
The old man chortled. Coming from such an upstanding face, a laugh so malicious and despicable seemed unimaginable.
It was countered by a cry some would describe as heart wrenching.
“Please, dear! Don’t ruin everything we’ve made,” his wife said, climbing down from the bed. Her face still pale, her gait unsteady, she walked toward her husband, speaking in a hoarse voice.
“Our children have their own lives. Anything that tries to intrude on that is a disturbance. They’ve all settled into their own place in life, and there’s no room for their parents to fit in. We didn’t raise our children just so that they could repay our kindness, did we?”
Suddenly, the old man flew back. Because he hadn’t given any hint that he’d do so, D was a heartbeat too slow in drawing and striking with his blade. Dragged through a pale mist, the old man was swallowed by a distant wall.
“Franz! My dear . . .” Mrs. Stow sobbed, reaching out with both arms. “Where . . . where is this supposed god? Where can I find the god who did this to my husband? What kind of god would do something like that?”
Halting, the old woman turned and looked.
D was right there.
“This god the Nobles worshiped—what’s it like? I’ll kill it—just tell me!”
Mrs. Stow pounded D’s chest with both hands. Over and over she hit him, as hard as she could, with every ounce of rage and hate her body held. D’s chest shook only the tiniest bit. That was all she accomplished.
“Tell me! You brought us here—you led us to this god, didn’t you? Well, bring me to it. I’ll kill it!”
The sound of the fists striking began to fade. The old woman’s knees buckled, and she sank to the floor. But as she did, she continued to pound D’s stomach, then his thighs.
When the old woman’s hands finally fell by her sides, D turned to the group and asked, “When did her husband get back?”
“About three hours after we heard that voice.”
“Three hours ago.”
All that time, the god’s pawn had been with the group. Or rather, it might’ve been more accurate to say the group had been left with him.
“The suckling told me something. He said you were all going to become like him. That he’d made arrangements.”
“Just what are you trying to say?” asked Bierce.
Without replying, D sheathed his sword.
“Mr. Stow was changed by that god thing. You think we were, too?”
“We hardly talked to Mr. Stow at all; right, everybody?” said Maria.
“Damn straight,” Jan agreed. “The same goes for you, doesn’t it, kid?”
Looking at them from the bed, the boy nodded his little head.
When D looked at them, Bierce shrugged his shoulders, while Weizmann frantically waved his hands.
“I can tell you this much,” Maria said, her lips twisting. “This so-called god is sick. I think it’s rotten to the core. After all, this was one of the Nobility’s gods. It probably creeps into the weakest parts of you and starts boasting about its power. And then the god comes right out and tells you how weak you are. Not that anyone could deny that—human beings really are weak. That’s when it offers something really sweet, like suggesting it’ll perform a miracle or saying it’ll save you. That’s all it takes. After you’ve been shown in sickening detail how low you are, what utter scum, you would jump at the offer. After all, a real god is supposed to save you. That’s how Mr. Stow got changed. But is it necessarily his fault? Any one of us might’ve ended up the same way if that god whispered to us. So, I’ve just gotta say . . . what’s so bad about that?”
Maria was on the verge of tears.
No one responded to her words. There was no need to. They all knew what she’d said was true.
From the vicinity of D’s left hand, a voice he alone heard said, “Someone here’s not telling the truth. You gonna put them all down?”
Not replying to this, D said to the group, “Outside assassins still remain. And the god hasn’t been destroyed. I’m heading out again.”
“Give ’em hell,” Bierce told the Hunter. But there was a ring of fear to his words.
“What kind of god is this thing supposed to be? What’d the Nobles want from it?”
“Destruction,” D replied, and that reply in itself was a miracle.
“What?”
“The god in this fortress was a god of destruction. And the Nobles intended to enlist its aid in dying—or in their case, being destroyed.”
“You can’t be serious. Why would they do that?” Maria asked, her eyes wide.
“Ageless and immortal Nobles wanting to kick the bucket? I don’t believe that shit!” said Jan.
Seated on the bed, Mrs. Stow was also stunned.
D looked around the group. All of them turned away from his quiet, deep eyes.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to be a Noble?”
At this question, they all looked at each other as if their souls had been laid bare.
“Not a chance in hell.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Weizmann.
D continued frostily, “To never grow old, never die—those are the sort of things some humans would find attractive. However, for the Nobility, they seem in one sense to be
undesirable. Many Nobles noted in their writings that eternal life is nothing to be envied.”
“I don’t get it. Tell me: can an ageless and immortal creature die? Yes—all you have to do is stab them through the heart or cut off their head. So, why’d they need this god of theirs, then?” asked Maria.
“Apparently it’s not easy for them to destroy themselves,” said D. “This god wouldn’t destroy them, either—they were immortal, after all. But then something occurred to them. They could have their god destroy the world.”
“You mean . . . they wanted the human race to be annihilated, right?” Weizmann said, his lips trembling. “The Nobles, needing to drink human blood, would be wiped out, too. That’s the craziest idea ever. I can see why the Sacred Ancestor put a stop to them.”
“D, can you slay this god?” Bierce inquired anxiously.
He got an honest answer: “I don’t know.”
“Okay, I’ve had enough of this!” Jan shouted, consulting his wristwatch. “We can’t rely on this clown any longer. It’ll be dawn soon. The Sacred Ancestor’s army will probably rest by day. If so, we should get out of here. I’m going!”
“Gained some confidence, did you?”
D’s words froze not only Jan, but everyone there.
As looks that beggared description focused on him, Jan frantically replied, “What the hell are you all looking at me like that for? You think I turned into a suckling or something? Look! There isn’t a bite mark on me anywhere, see?”
Though he showed them his neck, the looks they gave him didn’t change at all. Once suspicions involving the Nobility were aroused by someone, even the smallest doubt was difficult to overlook.
A stark gleam flashed over the mobster’s head.
“Holy shit!” Jan cried, cowering as D’s sword halted literally a hair’s breadth from his skull.
When D sheathed his weapon, an air of relief surged into the suffocating space.
“You know, D,” Bierce called over to the Hunter, “I’m not gonna take Jan’s side or anything, but where we’re concerned, there’s definitely something to what he says. Waiting around any longer for you to slay this god thing just puts the rest of us in danger. Is there an escape route?”
“If there were, I’d have told you about it from the start.”
“That means we’d be left trying to slip through the siege army on our own. That’s a serious problem. Guess we’ll have to wait, after all.”
“You say that like it’s no big deal!” Jan shouted.
“Yes, what do we do if the Sacred Ancestor’s army invades? They’d break into this evacuation shelter in no time flat. Let’s get out of here,” Weizmann said, siding with the mobster.
“You think that will go any better?” Bierce said, his cold tone silencing the other two men.
There was a sharp sound. Someone had clapped her hands together. It’d come from the direction of the bed. Toto lay on it, while Maria stood beside it.
“It’s fine for you guys to make a run for it, but think about the kid and the old lady. You in particular, Mr. Transport Officer. Don’t you have a responsibility to these two?”
A slight shaking reached the group.
“The attack has resumed,” D said. “I’m heading out to take care of it. I advise you to wait here until I’m done. It’s up to you to decide whether you’ll do that or not.”
Silence descended.
“There is one thing you could do,” said D.
“What’s that?” Maria inquired, her eyes wide. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier, if that’s—”
“Do you want to come with me to go see the god?”
This time, every jaw in the room dropped.
-
II
-
Naturally, it was the hoarse voice that whispered, “They’ll just be in the way! You can see to the group after you’ve disposed of that god. No sense fretting over them now. You know, sometimes you really—”
In response to this, a voice from on high suddenly said, Most interesting.
Letting out a scream, Maria hugged the boy closer.
Everyone looked up at the ceiling. At some point it’d turned pitch black. Before it had been less than fifteen feet high; now all of them realized that the darkness stretched into infinity.
“The god’s come, has it?” Bierce asked, unsteady on his feet.
Well done. You have the same sort of power as the one who vanquished me. I shall keep my word to you as a god. At present, I’m on the roof of my sanctum. Come here. Whether you win or lose, I’ll transport the humans wherever they desire. However, it’s a hard road.
“You promised you’d fight me,” said the Hunter. “Send the rest of them away right now.”
Are you certain that’s what you want to do? Once you’re not around, the other two assassins might attack here. You see, they know that human gave you some assistance.
“You blabbed to them, didn’t you?” the hoarse voice said.
There were indications that whatever lurked in the depths of the ceiling’s darkness laughed at this without making a sound.
I’ll be waiting—whether you come alone or bring your companions with you.
The ash-gray ceiling reappeared. Streaks of black like the threads of a spider’s web shot through it.
“It’s cracking—get out!”
As D said this, chunks of concrete rained down.
-
Maria looked reproachfully at the entrance to the evacuation shelter while the floor still trembled, then turned to face the group.
“Our food and medicine were still inside. Guess now we’ve got no choice but to go.”
“Up on the roof, eh? Sounds close, but I bet it’ll take us a while,” Weizmann said, heaving a sigh. “Maria will have to look after the boy. Jan can take care of Mrs. Stow.”
“You’ve gotta be joking. Take care of her yourself!” Jan snapped, baring his teeth. “You were pretty quiet until a few minutes ago. What makes you so tough all of a sudden? Are you sure you’re not the one that old-timer recruited?”
“Come again?” Weizmann growled, his hand going for the motor gun by his hip.
Not to be outdone, Jan drew his broadsword.
Bierce clucked his tongue in disgust, but before he could come between them, Maria stepped forward. Even quicker, however, was the feeble voice that said, “Please, wait.”
Propped up against the stone wall, Mrs. Stow shot pained looks from one man to the other. The malice drained from their expressions.
“You needn’t worry about me. I’ll stay behind.”
“Don’t be silly, ma’am—we’re all going together,” Maria said, racing over to lend the old woman a shoulder to lean on.
Shaking her head, Mrs. Stow said, “You really do have a kind heart, don’t you? To be frank, I looked down on you at first. Working in a saloon, of all places! But you’ve been kinder to me than my own husband of fifty years. I don’t suppose you’ll believe me, but I just want to say that I really am—”
Maria hugged the woman’s gray head, saying, “It’s okay, I know. And now there’s no way on earth we’re leaving you behind. We’ll take you with us somehow or other. Can you stand?”
“Yes—I think so,” Mrs. Stow replied, nodding. Tears fell from her closed eyes. Obviously, she hadn’t really wanted to be left in such a place.
“Will you be able to walk?”
“Yes. At least, a little.”
“Then you’ll be fine. Okay, I’ll be taking Mrs. Stow. No one has a problem with that, do they?”
“No, that should be fine,” Bierce said.
“Do whatever you like. I’m having none of it,” Jan declared. “I’ve decided to light out of here by a different route than you folks.”
“Oh, and what route might that be?” Weizmann inquired.
“It’s a secret. I’ll be damned if I’ll have you, of all people, tagging along after me. At any rate, I’m going alone—you got anything to say about that, Mr. D?”
The mobster shut his mouth and watched as the figure in black slowly approached him.
“Wh—what the hell? You got a problem?”
“We can’t be sure you haven’t been given power by this god. And destroying the god is my job.”
A heartbeat later, Jan was twenty feet down the corridor. Everyone was left bug eyed by the superhuman bound.
“Just as I thought,” said the hoarse voice.
Jan’s eyes gave off blood light, and sharp fangs could be seen in his open mouth.
“You’re damned right. Thanks to the suckling and that old-timer, I’m better than ever. All you bastards treated me like some little piece-of-shit hoodlum. I was gonna circle around behind you and pick you off one by one, draining you dry. But now that you’re onto me, I have no choice. I’ll have to get rid of a couple of you right here and now.”
“Think you can?” the hoarse voice said with amusement.
“Oh, just watch me!”
After jerking back his broadsword, the mobster swung it down. His body glided forward. Or rather, his body stayed right where it was, but a pale duplicate of Jan slipped from it like a ghost. Though D’s blade mowed through its torso, the copy never stopped, striking with its broadsword at D’s left shoulder.
The blow was parried. The broadsword that should’ve stopped went right through the Hunter’s blade and sank into the base of D’s neck. Though not a drop of blood was shed, D fell to one knee.
The new Jan grinned viciously. D ran right through him. His blade flashed out for Jan’s actual form, standing straight behind the ghostly one.
Letting out a hair-raising scream, the new Jan flipped through the air with one hand still outstretched, and then vanished. Split in twain from the top of his head to the crotch, the real Jan fell to the floor in two pieces a moment later.
D sheathed his sword.
The rest of the group stared at him, their faces blank. Far more than Jan suddenly baring his fangs, it was D’s skill with a sword that terrified them.
However, D was down on one knee again.
“What’s wrong?” asked both Maria and Bierce.
“An illusion dealt this wound, but the pain seems real enough.”
“Unbelievable!”
As if in response to Maria’s remark, D got up again.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God Page 12