The two of them were rendered speechless. They remained so all the way back to the meeting house.
Just as they were about to dismount from their cyborg steeds, Bligh and Josette involuntarily cried out in disappointment.
D hadn’t halted, but rather was continuing on straight toward the main entrance to the village.
“Hey, just a second there! You mean to tell me you’re leaving?!”
“It’s no use,” said the woman. “You can’t get out.”
Though he seemed to be walking at a leisurely pace, D was putting distance between them like a speed walker, and they couldn’t let that stand. The two of them knew perfectly well that their fates depended on the beautiful young man.
“I’m gonna go after him and try talking some sense into him,” said Bligh. “You should head back.”
“Okay. See if you can do something.”
“Just leave it to me,” he replied with a thump of his chest, but they both knew it was a show of false bravado.
Bligh galloped along on his horse until he was alongside D. Immediately dismounting, he took a place by D’s left. “Okay, just hear me out,” he began, giving the young man a brief recap of the situation up until now and informing him of their own failed attempts to escape. The only interest D showed was in the part where a woman had saved Bligh from a muddy snare.
“What sort of woman?”
“Well, you see, she had on this pure white dress, with black hair all the way down to her waist—and in the end, she rode off on a huge goddamned bat. I shit you not!”
At that point, a hoarse, raspy voice that hardly seemed like it could belong to D said from somewhere, “Duchess Heldarling?”
“What?” Bligh said, looking all about in spite of himself, but there was no one else around.
In that case, was that D just now? And him with a face like that! Is this what they mean when they talk about Nobles going back to their true age an instant before they die? The question was just about to flop from his mouth like too much bread and ham he’d bitten off, but of course Bligh wasn’t stupid enough to actually ask it.
“Could be,” D replied.
As the man had thought, there was definitely a second presence here, but where was he—or it?
“So, just who’s this Heldarling?” the man inquired, and then gunshots echoed behind him.
It wasn’t the conventional crack of a rifle. Rather, it was the sound of a burst of fire from a high-caliber minigun. It died down. And then—another burst.
Shadows Lurking in the Village
chapter 3
I
As soon as she set foot in the meeting house, Josette noticed something was wrong. No one was there. The heater was still blazing. Blankets were spread out where Beth and Emily had lain, and damp clothes hung over chairs by the heater. Everyone’s bags sat in the first place she looked—meaning they hadn’t been touched. The room was warmer than it’d been when they left. If they’d all gone somewhere, or made good their escape, it had to have been a good while ago. Or had they simply disappeared? The phrase spirited away flashed through her brain.
Where could they have gone, leaving all their baggage behind and not even bothering to turn off the heater?
Josette shifted the high-caliber minigun down by her hip. While flicking off the safety, she simultaneously activated the box of ammunition on her back, creating some slack in the ammo belt so she could fire without it jamming.
The strangeness of this occurrence drove deeper into Josette’s heart with each passing moment. If the group had encountered some hostile force, her husband wouldn’t have gone without leaving some signs of a fight.
Were they really spirited away after all?
Bolstered by her impatience, Josette’s ears caught a faint thump. Turning on reflex, she ended up facing the door that led to the adjoining room. It was closed. She heard something again. Footsteps. She listened intently. They were approaching the door. They stopped just shy of it. And didn’t move.
“Who’s there?” Josette asked in a low voice.
There was no reply.
“It’s me,” said the woman. “I’m back now. Nothing’s wrong, so come on out.”
Shifting the barrel of her weapon from the door to the wall about a yard away, Josette hit the firing button. Even the touch of a baby’s finger would’ve been enough to trigger it. The minigun shook. The flexible arm absorbed the vibrations. Even at the full auto setting of two thousand rounds per minute, she could keep a bead on a foe a thousand yards away—although the enemy would be shredded.
The ten-round burst opened a ten-foot-wide hole in the wall. Through it, a white figure could be glimpsed bolting to the right.
“I saw that!”
The words were accompanied by another barrage, but it had already occurred to the woman that she shouldn’t kill whoever this was. Relenting after a second ten-round burst, she returned the minigun to her back and drew the pistol from her hip. She was facing the back of the meeting house. Nobody was there. No one at all.
“Whoever you are, come on out!”
Although Josette didn’t notice it at the time, on the floor about six feet to her right a pale man’s hand appeared stealthily, and it slowly began knifing across the stone floor as if it were water, bound for her ankle. Opening and closing in an unsettling manner, the hand’s fingers were just about to touch her boot, but grabbed empty air instead.
There was a man’s cry from the hall, and Josette began walking in that direction, saved by the veritable hair’s breadth.
The hand curled its fingers in regret, and then once more sank through the stone floor.
“What’s going on?” asked the pale-faced Bligh.
“See for yourself!” Josette replied, going on to tell him of everyone’s disappearance. On hearing that the target of her fire had been a white figure, Bligh looked as if he’d been run through the heart.
“What is it?”
“Er, nothing,” the man replied. There was no point in telling her about it now.
“We were brought here because they needed people, weren’t we?”
“Could be,” the man conceded.
“So, what happened to D?”
Seeing the way Josette’s face fogged over with rapture, Bligh wasn’t disgusted, but rather acknowledged that it was only natural.
“I ain’t never seen anybody so pig-headed before. Even after hearing the gunfire, he just kept right on going.”
Josette heaved a sigh. Bligh sensed this was due not so much to the disappointment of him not joining them as to his failure to say goodbye.
“We ain’t safe here, either. Think we oughta relocate to a house somewhere?”
“Would we be safe there?”
“Nope,” Bligh said with a grave shake of his head. “Still, it’d be better than here. Let’s get going. Luckily, our bags are still here.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Josette replied with a nod, acquiescing with startling ease. But such was to be expected from a warrior’s wife.
Gathering up everyone’s baggage, the two of them went outside. Josette, who stood at the fore, drew a deep breath.
A black figure was approaching through the blurry curtain of rain.
“I’ll be damned,” said the woman, her voice carrying tension and fear—and expectation.
That expectation was met. About six feet shy of the pair, the figure took shape as D.
“You folks moving house?”
Josette was about to lose her mind. D’s voice had been so hoarse, he sounded like a hundred-year-old codger.
On seeing how she was looking all around, Bligh felt a small sense of satisfaction.
“Everyone’s vanished on us. Only their bags were left. I saw something white and opened fire on it, but it ran off before I could find out what it was. So we figured we’d hole up somewhere else.”
“Got someplace in mind?”
Now, it was relief that nearly drove Josette out of her mind. For D had spoken
in his normal voice.
“No, but I was thinking maybe we’d pop in to a nearby farmhouse or something.”
Saying nothing, D turned.
Following his lead and noticing what it was he faced, Josette and Bligh gasped and swallowed hard.
Due to the increased impetus of the rain, they could make out no more than a hazy shape, but it was—the fortress.
“Oh, come on! That’s a Noble lair!” Bligh said, and he spoke for Josette, too.
“If you’re talking about their lair, the same could be said of the entire village,” D said before eyeing the two of them in silence.
Josette shut her eyes. She felt so sad she could die.
“Hey!” Bligh exclaimed, elbowing her and giving her a look of contempt. “You’re a real sucker for pretty boys, ain’t you, lady? I’ve been giving you too much credit!”
“Watch how you talk about me,” she shot back, jabbing him with twice as much force. “And I’ll thank you not to keep calling me lady. The name’s Josette, mister.”
“Gotcha,” Bligh replied with a hearty nod. This was no time for squabbling. “Anyway, D’s right. Still, I don’t know if I could just go up to a Noble’s castle and—”
“To get outta this village, you gotta learn the Nobles’ secret. Isn’t that why you two went up there?”
Feeling like she was about to lose her mind again, Josette rubbed her temple. It was that damned hoarse voice again.
“It would save a lot of trouble.”
That came from D. Josette felt as if she were listening to some nightmarish comedy skit.
“Okay, let’s do that. That fine by you?”
At Bligh’s question, Josette nodded.
Just then, D turned and looked back.
Bligh strained his eyes.
There were four of them—a quartet of shadowy figures fanned out behind them. Each was tall. They wore sopping wet clothes. Humans—or humanoid, at the very least. However, there was something odd about them, something that couldn’t quite be nailed down.
“You folks from the village?” Bligh said, trying to establish a friendly rapport. “We were staying at a nearby inn. Came here to escape a massive landslide. Where is everybody?”
The four of them advanced suddenly. The sun was still high. Yet they seemed locked in darkness.
The second figure from the left extended his right hand. It was at that instant the others realized what was odd. Dozens of bluish-black tentacles burst from the cuff of the figure’s shirt, sticking to Bligh’s face. Latching onto them with his hands to try and pry them off, Bligh was dragged forward. Out into the rain—into the world of the shadowy figures.
A glint of light pulled the man back.
At that moment, Josette looked at D. The blade he gripped in his right hand was wet. That was all she knew.
A heartbeat later, the tentacles were severed with an explosion of blood the same bluish-black hue, and Bligh first stopped in his tracks, then backed toward his companions. Tentacles rained to the ground from his face.
“OSB?” D asked.
“An OSB/human composite,” the hoarse voice responded. “Goddamned Sacred Ancestor—it’s downright scary how he never tired of this shit.”
In the meantime, the shadowy figures had readied for their next attack. All had drawn pistol-like weapons from their belts and had them trained on D. From the way they moved, they’d definitely pulled the triggers. However, there was no muzzle flash, but D kicked off the ground without a sound, his sword flashing out, and four heads sailed up like ripe fruit, bathed in a fountain of their own blood as they rolled across the terrain.
Looking down at the one that stopped by his feet, Bligh cried out and jumped back. He’d been sure it was a human head, but it swiftly decayed, melting away into slime of a hue that was not of this world that was then washed away in the rain.
Neither Bligh nor Josette could speak at first. More than the fear of a new attack by their enemies, it was D’s swordsmanship that’d left them dumbstruck. He had beheaded a quartet in the blink of an eye, and while there was a chance the rain had washed it away, there hadn’t been so much as a drop of gore on his blade.
Here was someone from a completely different world than theirs.
“Er—” Bligh said, trying to speak to the Hunter, but D had already started walking toward the fortress. The very picture of solitude, he became a shadowy outline—then slid off to one side. No one could’ve imagined it. The beautiful fiend who’d dispatched four foes in an instant had feebly toppled at length.
“Wh-what the hell happened?”
When the two of them dashed over, a hoarse voice explained, “Nothing. Just got sleepy all of a sudden.” Before it had been nothing save unsettling, but now it seemed like a voice from heaven on high. “Lately, we’ve been working out in the strong light,” it continued, “and them flames earlier took a toll, too. The castle’s not gonna happen now. Get us into that farmhouse.”
Not entirely sure of what was going on, the pair still knew in an instant that those instructions were for the best. With Bligh putting D over his shoulder, and Josette taking the two cyborg horses by the reins, they started walking toward the farmhouse that loomed to their right.
No one was witness to this save the other three heads that still lay in the downpour, giving off white smoke. By the time Bligh, D, and Josette had passed through the farmhouse door, these too had decayed—featureless, eyes melted, ears fallen off. All that remained in the street now of the humanoid quartet were four sets of clothing, leaking the virulent-colored sludge that’d once been their bodies—which the pounding rain quickly dissolved as well.
II
D’s violent decline was the result of “sunlight syndrome.” A condition exhibited solely by human/Noble half-breeds—dhampirs—it could render them unconscious without warning, and no amount of trying would rouse them. Having no recourse but to wait for him to awaken on his own was a horrifying proposition, and that might take a few seconds or a few years—and in some cases, even a few centuries. It was impossible for any physician to say how long it would take—or for the dhampirs themselves, for that matter.
On hearing this from Josette, Bligh grew pale. Without D, they were afraid to go up to the castle—at some point, they’d become psychologically dependent on the Hunter. Could just the two of them leave D there and go on to the castle? Not a chance.
“Since we don’t know when he’ll wake up, we can’t stay here forever!” Bligh insisted, smacking his fist into the palm of his other hand.
“Excuse me, whoever that other voice is. But where exactly are you?” Josette inquired amiably.
“Let’s just keep that a secret. See, we’re surrounded by enemies.”
“Well, your voice will be enough. Give us some good advice. All our people have vanished, and you can see what’s become of our great hope. Plus, the enemy’s come at us in daylight—so, what do we do?”
“You gonna do as I tell you?” the hoarse voice said in a strangely confident tone. “If so, I might have a few pearls of wisdom to drop on you.”
“Don’t go acting so important, you son of a bitch,” Bligh snarled, rolling up his sleeves. “Start talking. If you don’t, I’ll find you for sure and tear you to pieces!”
“Oh, give it a shot, you countrified thug. One look at me and you’ll feel a lot better.”
“See if I don’t!” Bligh shouted, reaching for the survival tool known as an s-device, but Josette stopped him.
“Knock it off. Right now, staying alive is our first priority. We’ll do as you say. What should we do?”
“Oh, leave it to the lovely lady to see the light. First off, lock this place down. Seal up every last door and window. You should find the stuff to do it in the general store.”
“Must’ve had yourself a good look around,” Bligh spat, but the warrior’s wife got to her feet.
“The general store, eh? Let’s get going.”
Their destination had been less than a hundred y
ards away. The shop was as quiet as everyplace else, and there they found rows of merchandise waiting for them. Hammers and nails were easy enough to locate. As Bligh looked around for anything else they might need, Josette said to him, “You know, those things earlier weren’t really human or Nobility. Think they were OSB, like D said?”
“Yeah, probably. They were crazy strong. And humans or Nobility don’t look as creepy as all that.”
“They were human in shape, though.”
“Maybe that’s the sort of experiments they run in this here village.”
“What do you suppose the Sacred Ancestor wanted to do?”
“I’ll be sure to ask him if I ever run into him,” Bligh replied. “Oh, now this is a find! ‘Scent of Norak’ from the Norak Soap Company. They went out of business more than five hundred years ago, but the stuff’s legendary for how good it was at getting out dirt and the way it smelled after. Who’d have thought we’d find some here. That’s a keeper!”
Ebullient, the man grabbed one bar, then two more, then still more until his hands were so full he dropped one.
“Oops.”
As he squatted down to retrieve the soap, Bligh noticed something. There were the sandal-clad feet of a woman beside him. Straightening up in amazement, he was greeted by Charlotte’s pale visage. It was only natural that he let out a cry of surprise and stood bolt upright. He even blinked his eyes. Still, Charlotte didn’t fade from view.
“Dear me, why so surprised?” Charlotte said with a smile.
His eyes must’ve been playing tricks on him just now, because her color was normal. Bligh looked over at Josette. She wasn’t there. He quickly understood why every hair on his body had risen on end. The door to the back room was hanging wide open. She’d gone off in search of something.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, is there?” Charlotte said with a flirtatious laugh.
“Well, I guess not,” Bligh had to confess. He then asked, “What about everybody else?”
That was the real question.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 27 Page 5