The Stuff of Dreams

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  In midair, the two shadows passed. As the figures came back to earth a few yards apart, one of them wobbled badly and fell against the gravestone beside him. “If they change me again . . . will it change this me, D?”

  “I don’t know,” the Hunter replied.

  “Either way . . . I don’t want to get up again . . . Godspeed to you.” Braced against the gravestone, Krutz quickly grew weaker in his movements. As the sheriff slid down the stone, a softly mumbled word could be heard.

  “That was a name, wasn’t it?” D’s left hand muttered. For once, his tone was incredibly serious. “So, what did he say? Ai-Ling, or Sybille?”

  D didn’t answer. The flames painted his face with ghastly shadows and colors.

  Even if there were others still who didn’t want the girl to awaken and planned to continue to act on their beliefs, it was safe to say that here the curtain had fallen on at least one of their attacks on D. But what awaited him next?

  D was about to walk away when suddenly a presence stirred around him. Every single gravestone began to shake. D stopped.

  Whump! One of the gravestones fell over. The sound was heard time and again. Even when the first figure got up out if its grave, the sound of the falling monuments didn’t stop.

  “D,” Dr. Allen called out.

  “D,” Mrs. Sheldon called out.

  “D,” Ai-Ling called out.

  The hotel manager politely asked him to stop.

  Clements told him not to do it.

  Bates groaned at him not to let her wake up.

  Tokoff was there, too.

  All the villagers were there. Everyone was pleading with him. They told him not to let her awaken. With pale hands outstretched, the herd closed in on D.

  The young man had never been one to show mercy to his foes. With a potent aura emanating from every inch of him, D readied himself to attack. The wave of humanity surrounded him like a tsunami, but, at the very instant they were about to break, something split the air.

  Some didn’t make a sound, others keeled over screaming, but all of them had the ends of black iron arrows poking out of their chests or throats. In their final moments of life, those who didn’t die instantly continued toward D with vindictiveness fixed on their previously vacant and pallid faces. The steel arrows raining down dropped them one after another until finally the last of them fell. As D stood in a world strewn with corpses and choked with the stench of blood, he suddenly noticed a man and a woman standing at the edge of the cemetery. The archer in black, and Sybille in white.

  The dream of the Sybille within the dream had finally become reality in this world. And it was probably only in a dream that a lone archer could drop hundreds of villagers.

  “We won’t kill you,” Sybille said, boundless hatred and grief hanging in her voice. “Because you’re going to kill me.” Her pale finger pointed at D.

  The man drew back on his bow. A steel arrow sliced through the wind.

  D saw that single arrow become multiple shafts in midair. The hem of his coat flew up to counter the attack. Deflected arrows sank into the ground, but still others pierced D’s shoulders and abdomen.

  “How was that?” Sybille asked with a smile as D dropped to his knees in pain. “Still not in the mood to kill me? And here I thought the one called D was supposed to deal death to all who challenged him. I beg of you—kill me.”

  Arrows jutted out all over D’s body, but his expression was no different from usual.

  Tears glistened in Sybille’s eyes at the Hunter’s stern refusal.

  The archer in black notched another arrow. Before he had finished, D raised his chest. “Don’t,” was all the Hunter said.

  If the next shot went through his heart, the wound would be fatal.

  The bow released with a twang!

  At the same instant, a silvery gleam shot from D’s hand. He’d thrown his longsword. Faster than the arrows, it pierced the heart of the man in black, and he fell to the ground with a force that knocked the scarf away from his mouth.

  As Sybille stood there stunned, unable even to speak, D staggered toward her. “Do you still want to die now?” he asked.

  “Yes,” the girl replied joyfully, neither nervous nor distraught.

  “You were one possibility,” D said softly. The bright blood dripped from countless points on his body and stained the earth. “A certain man chose you to entrust with his hopes. Here in your village—in your world—humans and Nobles lived together in mutual understanding. This was through your power.”

  “And it was a wonderful thing, but it truly pained me . . . Always sleeping . . . Forever dreaming, and nothing else. Never knowing joy or sorrow or pain . . .”

  D looked at the corpse in black by her side. The scarf had flown out of the way, and he could see the face clearly. It was Sheriff Krutz. Choosing the man she loved more than any other as her protector was probably a natural move on the part of her heart.

  The saddest of melodies came to D’s ears. The ground became a highly polished floor. He could tell without even looking that the figures swirling around him were dancing a waltz. The ball was in full swing now.

  “D . . .”

  As Sybille called out his name, a certain emotion seemed to echo in it. In her pale hand, a knife glittered coldly.

  Sybille advanced. Their bodies overlapped into a single form. As if pierced by pure delight, Sybille shut her eyes and shook with ecstasy. Her tears gleamed with blue—and then all movement stopped.

  After D pulled his blade from the sheriff’s chest, he ran it through Sybille.

  The girl’s knife was still tight in her right hand. The real question was whether D knew she’d never intended to stab him.

  The weight of her body against him suddenly vanished. He turned around. The dancers stood like phantoms, then vanished just the same. And Sybille’s face . . . was that of Nan. The girl who’d slept forever in this world must’ve transferred her consciousness to Nan so that she might live a life. Both D and Sheriff Krutz had probably known. After all, when the vision of Sybille had appeared before them for the first time, she was wearing the same clothes as the girl.

  Staggering, dragging one leg behind him, D went around behind the girl. He looked at the face of her partner. It was Sheriff Krutz. And it was D. It was both, and it was neither. The man she’d danced with for three decades under the blue light of the moon, and the man summoned to wake the slumbering princess.

  D’s eyes dropped to the sheriff/archer’s face. Pulling all the arrows from his own flesh and throwing them to the floor, the Hunter headed for the door. Even as he pulled the arrows out and walked away, his expression remained immutable—just as

  it was when he stabbed Sybille.

  Nan was in her room, lying on her bed, when she realized the awakening had come.

  Old Mrs. Sheldon was out on her porch in her rocking chair.

  Ai-Ling was staring up at the night sky.

  Dr. Allen was watching over Sybille as she faded from existence.

  All was still. It was a truly quiet night.

  .

  D opened his eyes. The rays of dawn were bleaching the world. He was in the middle of the forest. Considering the position of the sun and the time he’d gone to sleep, no more than two hours could’ve passed. D still remembered every detail of the strange dream. This was the same vacant lot where the mansion had been located.

  And then he noticed something. His position had changed. The tree he’d been resting against towered from a spot some forty feet to his left. His cyborg horse was over there, too.

  “A hell of a dream that was,” a mocking voice said, although it sounded somewhat weary, too.

  The reason for this new location was immediately evident. A lone corpse lay at his feet. Hidden in the high grass, it showed every sign of having been there for many long years. It must have been there at least—

  “Thirty years,” the voice said. “There’s a stab mark on the chest. Well, now we know.”

&nbs
p; The real Sybille had been banished from the village and discarded in this forest. Thirty years—perhaps it was only natural that as she lay there all that time, lashed by rain, shivering in the wind, dreaming of a perfect community of humans and Nobles, her heart had taken measures to find peace for her, as well.

  D headed for his horse. He’d been summoned to a village, and had to be there by the end of the day. Loading his gear up behind his saddle, D was about to mount up when a spirited voice called out to him.

  “Say, you there—isn’t there supposed to be a village around here?” As the woman on the wagon gazed raptly at D, she added, “I don’t know—maybe it was just my imagination. But I had this dream about it last night, and it all seemed so real. Hey! What are you looking at?!” she asked the young man.

  “Nothing,” D replied, giving a slight shake of his head.

  “Then I’ll thank you kindly to spare me the funny looks. I may not seem like much, but everyone in these parts knows Maggie the Almighty. But, you know what?” the woman began, knitting her brow, “now that I think about it . . . Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

  “No. Never.”

  “No, I guess not. If I’d seen a looker like you before, I sure as heck wouldn’t forget it. And yet . . .” the woman started to say, looking astonished as she gazed at the young man on horseback. A rosy glow quickly suffused her face.

  In the end, she never actually knew that she was responsible for the smile etched on the lips of the young man in black as he rode off into the distance, but for a long time after that, her feelings of good fortune took the form of the young man who visited her dreams each night.

  POSTSCRIPT

  .

  Do vampires dream? And if so, what manner of dreams do they have? This Vampire Hunter D novel was the product of just such speculation. If vampires dream, then theirs would be the dreams of the undead. But if their dreams were to be superimposed on those of the living, what shape would these new dreams take? Nobles who dance in the daylight? Humans who stride silently through a world of darkness? Whatever the case, it would certainly be something beyond human or Noble imagining. I’ll have to wait for the reaction from you, my readers, before I’ll know whether this volume conveyed that effectively or not.

  Japan, the land of my birth, has developed a culture quite different from that of the English-speaking world. And after living nearly sixty years in such a place, I suppose that even when I use something like the European vampire theme in my work, it differs fundamentally from what might be created in your world. Perhaps that’s what makes the Vampire Hunter D series so enjoyable.

  In the postscript to the previous volume I touched on England’s Hammer Films and their production Horror of Dracula. As I watched that movie in a theater in my hometown, I trembled in my seat and came under the thrall of the vampire as surely as one who’d felt its bite. In Japan, there are no legends of humanoid creatures that drink human blood. This is because blood here isn’t surrounded by the same air of sanctity. Therefore, vampires—as creatures that intermingle elements of life and death and ultimately achieve immortality through blood—were horribly attractive. Add to that the fact that their immortal existence carried an eternal curse, and you could essentially say they were made just for me. To wit, it wasn’t my blood but rather my very soul that was consumed by the film Horror of Dracula.

  At the tender age of eleven, however, it wasn’t Christopher Lee’s Count Dracula I wanted to be, but rather Dr. Van Helsing, as portrayed by Peter Cushing. As a child, I didn’t wish to be a fiend, you see. And I can’t really blame myself for wanting to switch to the vampire-slaying side back then. After all, I was simply too terrified of Dracula to think of becoming like him. The reason I chose to make D a Hunter who destroys vampires even though he’s related to them probably had something to do with that trauma in my youth.

  Unlike the various ghosts and spirits in Japan that can appear virtually anywhere and follow whomever they choose, and also quite different from the Count Dracula of legend who lived in the same land as the rest of the people, talked about the same things, was carried around in his coffin by a horse-drawn carriage, and had to slip into other people’s houses through doors or windows, the Dracula that Christopher Lee embodied seemed entirely too real to me as an eleven year old. The idea of him certainly remained with me. As a child, fearing a visit from the Count, I fashioned a cross from a pair of chopsticks and slept with it by my pillow.

  Horror of Dracula was a huge hit in Japan, and it was adapted into comics, plays, and movies. I was surprised by a comic that used the story just as it was, but shifted the setting to Edo-era Japan. Although Dracula in this tale is a vampire who’s come over from a foreign country, the Dr. Van Helsing character is a young Japanese warrior schooled in Western matters, Harker is a friend from his school days, Mina and Arthur Holmwood are his parents—and his father is a samurai, of course. As you may know, Christianity was prohibited here during the Edo era, so the crosses normally used against Dracula are Japanese talismans instead, the wooden stakes are replaced with Japanese swords, and Dracula is turned to dust by the talismans and the rays of the sun. Now, doesn’t that comic—Ma no Hyakumonsen—sound like something you’d like to see?

  .

  Hideyuki Kikuchi

  March 17, 2006,

  while watching The Revenge of Frankenstein

  PROLOGUE

  .

  Some called this town the journey’s end; others, its beginning. Mighty gales blew across the sea of golden sand that stretched from its southern edge, and when those winds hit the great gates of steel, pebbles as big as the tip of a child’s finger struck them high and low, making the most plaintive sound. It was like a heartrending song sung by someone on the far side of those sands to keep a traveler there.

  When the winds were particularly strong, fine sand drifted down on the streets in a drizzle, amplifying the dry creaking of things like the wooden sidewalks and window frames at the saloon. And on very rare occasions, little bugs were mixed in with the sand. Armed with jaws that were tougher than any titanium alloy and stronger than a vice, the bugs could chew their way through doors of wood and plastic as if they were paper. Luckily, the petals of faint pink that always came on the heels of the insect invasion killed the bugs on contact—something that imbued the whole encounter with a kind of elegance. As the order and timing of the arrival of these two forces never varied, the homes in town had to weather the ravages of the tiny killers for only three short minutes.

  And yet, on those rare nights when there were great numbers of the bugs, the town was enveloped by a strident but beautiful sound, like someone strumming on their collective heartstrings. The sound of the bugs’ jaws did no harm to humans, and before long, all would be touched with the flavor of a dream, and then vanish as surely as any dream would on awakening. Some considered it a song of farewell or even a funeral dirge, and people in town grew laconic as the fires in their hearths were reflected in their eyes.

  No one knew where the faint pink petals came from. While more than a few had headed off into the desert that was burning hot even by night, not a single traveler had ever returned. Perhaps they’d reached their destinations, or perhaps their bodies had been buried by the sands, but no word ever came from them. However, people in town who’d chanced to meet such travelers once would occasionally raise some fragmented memory tied to a vaguely remembered face, and then turn their gaze to the gritty winds that ran along the edge of town.

  This particular day, the song of the bugs was much sharper than usual and the faint pink rain seemed a bit late, so the townspeople looked out at the streets in the afterglow of sunset with a certain foreboding. The funeral dirge faded, as the time had come for those performing it to die.

  And that’s when it happened. That’s when the young man came to town.

  THE HIDDEN

  CHAPTER 1

  .

  I

  .

  The sound of the bugs grew more intense,
and the men encamped around the tables and seated at the bar turned their fierce gazes toward the door. Grains of sand became a length of silk that blew in, and then almost instantly broke apart to trace wind-wrought swirls on the floor. The door was shut again.

  Eyes swimming with indecision caught the new arrival. Was this someone they could take in, or should the newcomer be kept out?

  It took a little while before the floorboards began to creak. Time needed to decide which direction to creak off in. Done.

  The piano stopped. The pianist had frozen. The coquettish chatter of the women petered out. The men’s noisy discussions ceased. Behind the bar, the bartender had gone stiff with a bottle of booze in one hand and a glass in the other. There was curiosity and fear about what was going to happen next.

  A table to the left of the door and a bit toward the back was the newcomer’s destination. Two figures were settled around it—one in black, the other in blue. Wearing an ebony silk hat and a mourning coat with a hem that looked like it reached his ankles, one evoked a mortician. The deep blue brimless cap and the shirt of the same color that covered the powerful frame of the other were undoubtedly crafted from the hide of the blue jackal, considered by many to be the most vicious beast on the Frontier. Both men were slumped in their chairs with their heads hung low. They seemed to be sleeping.

  The source of the creaking footsteps surely noticed something very unusual about the situation. All the other tables around the pair were devoid of customers. It was as if they were being avoided. As if they were despised. As if they frightened people. Another odd thing—it wasn’t a whiskey bottle and glasses that sat on the table before them. Black liquid pooled in the bottom of their brass coffee cups, which still had swirls of white steam lovingly hovering over them.

  Even after the creaking stopped, the two of them didn’t lift their heads. But every other sound in the place died when the footsteps ended. Several seconds of silence settled. Then a taut voice shattered the stillness.