“Anyone else want to stay behind?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Weizmann said, his face pale as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Okay, let’s go, you two,” Maria said to the old woman and the boy.
They both got up.
-
Because the elevator had stopped working, the group had no choice but to climb the stairs. After two floors the old woman was exhausted.
“I knew it. I can’t do this. Please, go on without me.”
Ignoring the old woman’s weary and sorrowful plea, Maria let go of Toto’s hand, bent down, and offered her back to Mrs. Stow.
“It’s okay. If you’re dead on your feet after two floors, there’s no way you could climb up all the way. It’s great that you made it this far.”
“But I . . .”
The old woman’s mournful expression was eclipsed by a figure in black. Black arms wrapped around her slim waist, easily lifting the old woman and tossing her into the air to land on D’s back. Not only Maria but the other three as well stood in a daze as D began climbing the stairs without a word, the stunned old lady on his back.
Turning to Toto, Maria asked him, “Can you walk?”
“Sure,” the boy replied.
“Come what may, that guy will protect us. But you can’t depend on others to do everything for you. The only one who can take a helping hand from him,” Maria continued, lowering her voice, “is the old lady—got it?”
The boy nodded.
“Okay, let’s go then.”
“Sure thing.”
The two of them began to climb the stairs. They made no attempt to look back at the pair behind them.
Exchanging displeased glances, the men started up the stairs a moment later.
-
When they reached the third floor, something white began to creep around D’s feet.
“Fog,” Maria murmured behind him.
It was billowing up through the floor.
“Be careful,” D said succinctly. Any remark from this young man, even a terse one, was a red alert. They knew perfectly well this wasn’t the kind of weather that gave rise to fog.
“Maria,” D called out.
“Uh, yes?”
“Catch!”
Now no more than a shadow, D went into motion, and Mrs. Stow flew through the air. It would have been a crazy way to pass her under any circumstances.
Barely making the catch, Maria was sent reeling by the old woman’s momentum.
“Back downstairs!”
Turning back down the staircase on D’s directions, the woman saw white fog climbing eerily.
“It’s no use, D. There’s fog down below, too!” Maria cried toward the cloud that had enveloped D, but then she gasped.
The fog was turning red.
“D!” she shouted, but Weizmann grabbed her by the arm.
“Hey! We’ve gotta go up!”
“No, D’s in the fog—go help him!”
“Head up,” Bierce said, clapping Maria on the shoulder. “And leave D to me . . .”
Maria saw Weizmann draw his motor gun. A look of disbelief spread across her face.
When the officer raised his weapon high, Bierce reacted to the killing lust. The warrior used his left hand to stop the barrel that was pointing at him. Its terrific impact was like a jackhammer. Still in the same pose he’d used to stop it, Bierce was driven to his knees. The scrawny government official had knocked the warrior down.
Delivering a light kick to his side, Weizmann sent Bierce sliding down the hall.
“You—you’re . . .”
“Come with me. All three of you,” Weizmann laughed.
A pair of fangs poked menacingly from his bright red lips.
-
III
-
D felt the fog seeping into every inch of him. It was at that instant that his circulation changed. Spilling from his veins with terrible force, the blood gushed from his pores—or rather, it came out between the lining of his individual cells. Blood robbed him of his vision. His own blood.
At that moment, a vicious killing lust erupted up ahead of him. There was a metallic, eardrum-piercing clang and a shower of sparks as something vaulted over D’s head and landed somewhere in the corridor. It was a foe whose surprise attack had been narrowly parried in the pitch blackness by a dreamlike stroke of D’s blade right out of the sheath.
“Not bad,” an almost-mechanical voice told the Hunter. “But you’re looking at a man who fought a god. I won’t be defeated by anything as weak as a human being. The god lost its blood, its sight, and one of its arms in this fog. The three of us were selected from the Sacred Ancestor’s army for this very day.”
As D listened to his foe’s determined words, the blood was flowing out of his body. If anyone had been there to see him, D would’ve looked like a blob of red in the shape of a person. He fell to one knee, and then used his sword to stand again.
From up ahead of him . . . no, from behind him . . . then from his right or his left, his foe asked, “Can you see me?”
Something surged toward D without a sound.
Just then, the Hunter replied, “I see you.”
It wasn’t clear if his opponent actually caught that voice, like a withered bole that could chill the rest of the forest, but a cry of pain that echoed with something strange and inhuman flowed down to the floor, sliding along for several yards before it was silenced.
D spun around. Poised for action against the presence he’d sensed behind him, he still had both eyes shut tight.
“It’s me, Bierce,” the voice called out to him in a pained tone. “Weizmann’s been changed by the god thing. He made off with Maria, Toto, and the old lady. Sorry, he caught me with a shot while I was off guard. I’m guessing they’re hostages.”
“There’s another possibility,” D said, giving his blade a shake. Blood spattered across the floor. Usually, not so much as a drop of gore clung to his sword. This time, his blood loss had left him so weakened it’d affected his swordplay.
“What’s that?” Bierce inquired. His face was barely discernible. The demonic fog was leaving.
“They’re a sacrifice.”
The warrior was speechless.
“The god still can’t move. The one hand it finally managed to free was cut off. In order to resume its reign as a god, it’ll need life. Did they head up?”
“I think so.”
“Talk about useless.”
Out of reflex, Bierce angrily thought, What? before reconsidering. The voice isn’t the same, he told himself, but by that time D was already unsteadily heading toward the stairs. The shadow that fell at his feet was painted in bright blood.
-
“Above us is the roof,” the transport officer said, looking up toward the heavens as he cleared the last step. His right hand gripped Maria’s, his left, Toto’s, and on his back he carried Mrs. Stow.
“So, this great god of yours is waiting up there, is it? What’s it going to do to us?” Maria said, glaring at Weizmann.
“Ask the god that.”
“Well, looks like you got to do your job after all. Right now, you’re transporting us.”
“You think so? At any rate, I sure showed up those other two guys.”
“Oh, is that why you let Mr. Stow—” Maria started to say, but on noticing the old woman, she continued, “—why you let that god thing make you its slave?”
“Why else?”
Maria used her free hand to wipe her face, saying, “You were in such a miserable state, you were willing to let the Nobility make a pet out of you.”
“That doesn’t bother me. I’m from a distinguished family up north. Didn’t you recognize the Weizmann name?”
“Not really.”
Realizing that she was trying to antagonize him, Weizmann grinned savagely. His exposed fangs gave Maria chills.
“My family’s produced judges and lawyers for generations. My grandfather was on the Supreme Court of th
e Frontier, and my father was the chair of the Grand Jury. He was succeeded by my oldest brother. The next oldest became a lawyer and started a practice in the Capital.”
“Weizmann the lawyer—I’ve heard of him. That’s your brother? Why didn’t you ever amount to anything?”
“Do your worst. There’s nothing you could say to me now that I haven’t already heard from the people around me. They like to say the youngest Weizmann’s a screwup, or talk about how he ended up an officer transferring prisoners, of all things. My father disowned me ages ago.”
“I can imagine.”
“But no one’s going to talk to me like that anymore. Once I’ve left the fortress, I’m going to the Capital. After I’ve shown my father and brothers what I’ve become, I’ll rip their heads off. A godlike being is entitled to do things like that.”
“Yeah, godlike,” Maria said, staring intently at the face of the spoiled brat turned madman. “In that case, whatever’s up on the roof can’t be any kind of god. Who’d ever give any power to a kid like you, all screwed up with weird ideas about your own pride? You remember back on the raft, when you used that gun of yours to save us all? I thought you were the best then.”
Turbulence shot across Weizmann’s face.
“Don’t speak to me of the time when I was merely human. Besides, didn’t the rest of you listen to those whispers from the suckling and Mr. Stow?”
All three of them—including Mrs. Stow on Weizmann’s back—looked at each other.
“Are you playing dumb, or have you not yet noticed your power? I didn’t realize it until a short time ago. Well, it doesn’t matter—let’s go.”
“You know, this kid tried to save us all. I don’t know whether or not you’re a godlike being, but aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“She’s right,” Mrs. Stow said from Weizmann’s back. “Even if a human being doesn’t care, anything that calls itself a god should know what’s truly important. Kindly set me down. I’ll walk on my own.”
And saying this, the old woman jumped down—both Weizmann’s hands were occupied—and coughed.
Maria tried to shake free of the man’s hand, but she had little success.
It was almost painful to watch the old woman’s movements as she got to her feet and said, “Goodbye, Maria. I’ll choose for myself where I meet my end. Take care.”
And with that, she walked back the way they’d come. There was no place for her to meet her end here. Nevertheless, the old woman stood tall, her gait infused with power.
Maria was free now. Weizmann had let go of her hand. She was about to run toward the old woman, but then she stopped herself.
It had come to her in a flash. Turning, Maria prepared to pounce, but Weizmann already had the barrel of his motor gun pointed at the old woman’s back.
“Stop!”
Maria’s scream seemed to change the killer’s mind. Using centrifugal force to send Toto flying, Weizmann spun around and pulled the trigger on a figure that stood facing him some thirty feet down the hall.
As bullets slammed into him a hundred times a second, the boy in a turban and toga smiled back innocently, saying, “Let’s play.”
Weizmann opened his mouth. The pair of fangs was painfully conspicuous in his fiery red maw. But just as he was about to kick off the ground, his legs were torn free at the pelvis—that was the only way to describe the way they came off.
Walking over to the “godlike being” who unleashed a beastly howl, the boy took the legs he’d ripped from the doll and threw them in Weizmann’s face.
“Can we play some more?” the boy asked, his eyes reflecting the image of Maria and Toto.
The boy raised his doll high. Apparently it was fashioned from clay, and though the doll’s face had been that of Weizmann, it transformed in the blink of an eye to Toto’s.
“You see, this is how I tore off the god’s arm,” the boy said proudly, reaching for the neck of his doll of Toto.
A vision of what would occur next filling her brain, Maria shut her eyes.
There was a pop like a paper bag exploding, betraying the woman’s expectations.
The boy wasn’t there. Where he’d been, there was a great serpent of a tentacle that reminded her of tanned black leather, curled into a ball. Beneath the ball, a pair of legs could be seen. Blood immediately began to drip from them.
“My god, how good of you to rescue your poor—” Weizmann began to groan from his spot on the floor, sounding close to tears, but a heartbeat later the tentacle balled around him.
There was the sound of bones snapping.
Thinking she could hear the transport officer screaming, Maria covered her ears. It sounded like he’d said, “My god, why have you done this to me?”
The tentacle was drawing closer. Hugging Toto, Maria shut her eyes. Something soft wrapped around her torso—or so it seemed, and then a breeze struck her cheek. The bonds on her torso had disappeared.
When Maria opened her eyes again, she was on the roof. To either side of her lay rows of golden tanks and radar domes for interplanetary communication, but what caught her eye was the huge pile of tentacles that occupied two-thirds of the rooftop. The thing had lost one arm, and if the tentacle that brought her and Toto there was the other one, it had to be impossibly long. Though she strained her eyes to try to see its body, she saw nothing aside from the mountainous coils.
“Oh . . . Maria,” she heard Mrs. Stow say behind her. Apparently the tentacles hadn’t let the old woman escape.
“I’m fine. Where’s the exit?”
“Right behind us. We can’t be ten paces from it.”
Though Mrs. Stow’s voice was shaky, her grasp of their situation was firm enough. The old woman rose even higher in Maria’s estimation.
“Well, when I say the word, I want you to run for it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Maria considered the timing. While the mass of tentacles writhed perversely, she couldn’t find its head.
At any rate, I guess we should try to get away, she thought. She found it strange that looking at something so disturbing hadn’t left her immobilized.
“I’ll count to three. One . . .”
She put her strength into her legs.
“Two . . .”
Now.
“Three!” Maria said as she turned around.
Something pulled hard at the boy in her arms. With a tortured cry from Maria, he was down on the floor, still squeezing the fingers of her left hand.
“Make a run for it!” she shouted.
“We can’t do that.”
Having chilled the blood of Maria and Mrs. Stow—who’d halted—the boy slowly smiled, revealing the fangs he’d kept concealed until then.
-
IV
-
“Toto—not you too . . .”
It was all Maria could do to squeeze those words out. Her very blood was frozen.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Toto said, his tone just as timid and gentle as it’d been before. That was probably the only thing that kept Maria from fainting dead away. “I’m not going to just offer up the two of you. I’ll go there with you.”
“Let go of my hand. That might be fine with you, but I want no part of it. Now, I have to take Mrs. Stow and get out of here. Don’t try to stop us.”
The boy crinkled his little brow, saying, “It’s funny. Didn’t you hear those two whispering to you?”
“Yes, I did, truth be told.”
“Then why didn’t you accept their offers?”
“Fat chance of that happening. All that talk about how unlucky I was to have my own family turn on me and sell me to traveling gypsies was a lot of hot air. See, you can’t live your life if you let every little thing like that get under your skin. When they were getting rid of me, I bit one of my parents’ fingers off, and anyone who ever bullied me—I don’t care if it was a man or a woman, one of my superiors, or someone rich—they all got it back in spades. I’m not gonna say it didn�
��t hurt me, but I’ve lived as I like and I’ve got no regrets about it. And thanks to that, I don’t hate anyone. I’d be damned if I’d take them up on a pitiful offer like that. But then, I can’t speak for anyone else.”
“I envy you, miss,” Toto said.
“If that’s the way you feel, let us go. Or you could come with us instead. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”
As the boy stared at Maria, his eyes filled with a glow that was terribly calm. It was the same glow Maria had carried in her heart until just now.
Maria felt the boy’s fingers release her.
“Don’t be stupid—come with us!” the woman said, but as she reached out for Toto, he drifted away without moving his legs.
“Child,” Mrs. Stow said, extending both hands.
A thin smile rose to Toto’s lips. Though he still had fangs, his grin was that of a human.
A black mass burst through his chest from behind.
“Toto!”
“My dear child!”
With the cries of the two women as his only parting gift, the boy was lifted by something that seemed too enormous to be called a tentacle and hurled into the distance with incredible force. Leaving only a streak of blue blood through space, the boy vanished into the watery light. He would fly many miles before he fell back to earth.
“I can’t believe you, doing that to a nice kid like that!” Maria said, wiping her tears away.
The tentacle loomed before her. It was more than a colossal pillar; it called to mind a tower. Though she thought about simply standing there and glaring at it until it impaled her as it had Toto, there was still someone she wanted to save.
“Back away slowly,” Maria whispered to the old woman behind her.
“Okay.”
“We’re gonna run for it, okay?”
“Yes.”
“Now!”
Maria turned around. There was no exit before her. A wall-like tentacle barred the way.
No, we’re finished! she thought, despair sinking its teeth into her heart.
Come, said the same voice she’d heard down below.
“Sorry, Mrs. Stow—this is the end of the line.”
“Please, don’t apologize. You really did great.”
“Mind if I ask you something?”
“What might that be?”
Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God Page 13