Vampire Hunter D Volume 27

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “They’re fine. They’ll be back soon.”

  “Back from where?”

  “Somewhere far, far away.”

  A smile rose on Charlotte’s lips.

  Ah, Bligh thought to himself sadly.

  “Say, would you bring me back where you’re staying? I’d like to leave the village with you.”

  “Nope,” Bligh replied, shaking his head.

  “Why not?” Charlotte asked, taking a step closer and draping a pale arm around his neck. “Why won’t you look at me?”

  “’Cause your eyes are awful red.”

  “Come on. Give me a kiss.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause your eyeteeth are longer and sharper than before.”

  “Oh dear. So, you noticed?” Charlotte laughed. She hid her teeth no longer. “You should be like me. It feels so good!”

  Power surged into her arm. Pushing back against it with his left hand, Bligh said, “Sorry about this,” and swung the s-device he’d drawn with his right at her decisively. It struck Charlotte at the base of the neck and sliced her diagonally clear down to the vertebrae.

  As Bligh pulled the weapon out again, Charlotte stood there, her lips twisting into a grin.

  “That didn’t hurt one little bit.”

  “And the others—is everybody like you now?”

  “Nope,” she replied languidly, her head swinging from side to side with a seductive look. “They’re different. I’m the only one who ended up like this. Now, give me a kiss.”

  “Back!” Bligh exclaimed, brandishing his weapon again, but Charlotte’s hand touched his. Though she only appeared to brush him, Bligh felt frozen down to the bone and couldn’t move.

  “Now, then,” Charlotte said, her smile nothing if not bright and cheery as she pressed her lips to the nape of his neck.

  Bligh quaked with despair at his fate.

  Without warning, the lips came away from him. As the woman pulled back, her face was quickly chiseled with a look of pain and anger, and Charlotte planted both hands on his chest and shoved him back, then turned around. The tip of the short spear that took her through the back and burst from the top of her breast was wet with fresh blood.

  “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “There was someone else with you.”

  “Right you are.”

  As Charlotte turned, Josette pointed the minigun at the woman’s chest and gave her a nod.

  “There are a ton of things I’d like to ask you. If you’ll surrender quietly, I won’t do anything to you.”

  Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. There was a sadness to the gesture.

  “Sorry, but it can’t be that way.”

  Bright blood spilled from her mouth. To keep it from getting on her face, Josette raised one hand to block it, and at that instant Charlotte made a powerful kick off the floor. While in midair, her body was torn apart, scattered into countless chunks of bloody flesh. And a number of them left splotches of red on Josette’s face.

  III

  Leaving the scene of the tragedy as it was, the pair returned to the farmhouse. Perhaps sensing the aura of despair that radiated from every inch of them, the hoarse voice met them with the query, “Oh, something happened, eh?”

  “Yeah, something—and it went like this.”

  Once Bligh had related the particulars, he got as his reply, “I see.”

  Seeing as the hoarse tone wasn’t particularly surprised, Bligh had to wonder. “You seem pretty used to all this, don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah,” the hoarse voice laughed. “It’s an old story. Only the components have changed.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Josette asked, and it came as little surprise that her tone had changed. There was the shock of their vanished compatriot returning as a servant of the Nobility, plus the fact that Charlotte had appeared in the daytime.

  “Mix a Noble and a human and you get a dhampir, like our friend here,” the voice said. By Bligh’s estimation, it was coming from the vicinity of the Hunter’s left hand. “There are other dhampirs, too. But it’s pretty much safe to say none of ’em have this guy’s power. So it looks like the Sacred Ancestor’s trying to make a different version of him.”

  “Mixing human beings with Nobility?!” Josette cried out incredulously.

  “But given there isn’t anyone who’s fueled the rumor mill like this guy, I don’t think his efforts have paid off. Maybe he keeps experimenting in vain even now.”

  “But the Sacred Ancestor has long since—”

  “Yeah, there are a number of rumors he was destroyed. But there’s no proof any of ’em are true. That’s why he’s a legend.”

  “Wait a minute. If the Sacred Ancestor’s still alive, how do you explain the Nobility going into this slide for the last three thousand years?” Bligh inquired.

  “That’s why I’m not saying he’s alive, either,” the hoarse voice countered. It carried a faint laughter. “Dead or alive? Whatever the case, what you see is probably no more than an illusion of the Sacred Ancestor. Hell, it might be the Nobility’s whole civilization is one, too.”

  “You think an illusion’s got us trapped in here, jackass?” Bligh snarled.

  “You know, it seems Charlotte said the others hadn’t become vampires yet. We’ve got to hurry up and save them.”

  “Zzz . . .”

  “Really—are you pretending to be asleep?!” Josette exclaimed.

  “Pervy bastard! Hell, you and D are both useless!”

  “It’s sunlight syndrome,” said the hoarse voice.

  “You little bastard!”

  Narrowing his search down to the vicinity of the Hunter’s left hip, Bligh was about to pounce, but nothing lay there but D’s left arm.

  “The sun will be going down soon,” Josette said as she watched the dull light fading through a window. “Let’s get down to boarding the place up.”

  The farmhouse proved larger than expected, and securing every opening save a window in the living room took more than four hours. Furthermore, they moved what furniture they could—cupboards, dressers, and the like—to block off every door but the front one, and when their work was finally finished, the two of them plopped down on the floor drenched in sweat and wheezing for breath.

  While they’d been working, there’d been a gusty little sound like someone using a fogger coming from D’s room, but it ended before either of them even heard it.

  “Hey . . . Isn’t D . . . up yet?” Bligh called over between breaths.

  “Not yet.”

  “When will he wake up?”

  “Don’t know. Zzz . . .”

  “You little bastard!”

  At that point, Josette raised her sweat-streaked face.

  “What’s wrong?” the man asked.

  “Quiet.”

  Silence descended, but it was immediately shattered.

  On her chest, Josette had a gold pendant shaped like a bell out on top of her armor, and it was giving off a ring that was clear, if faint as smoke. Before fortifying the place, Bligh had seen Josette scattering something shiny around the house, coming back, and then scattering some more three times in total.

  Could it be they were bells like this? When something touched them, did they make a sound that somehow resonated through the one around Josette’s neck as well? No sooner had this rationale occurred to the man than Josette explained, “I scattered the same sort of bells around. If someone touches them, the sound’s transmitted to this one.”

  “Someone like who?”

  “I don’t know. Just stay on your toes. Charlotte showed up out of nowhere, right? And since they can hear the bells, too, they may stop trying to walk around quietly.”

  “Great,” Bligh groused, spear in hand as he looked all around.

  “Relax,” the hoarse voice called out to them. “While the two of you were nailing things down, I put a shield up inside the house.”

  Such words would always be welcome, even in that
voice.

  “A shield? How’d you manage that?” Bligh inquired.

  “Zzz . . .”

  “Screw you. At any rate, we don’t have to worry about ’em suddenly popping in through the windows, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That in itself will be a big help,” Josette remarked, her tone one of complete faith in the source of the hoarse voice. In their present situation, she had to believe if she wanted to keep from losing her mind. Faint as it’d been, now they’d lost the rays of sunlight that watched over the world and chased the darkness away. And a long night was beginning. It was the world of the Nobility—a world of evil.

  “How many are there?” Bligh asked, his words heavy and clinging.

  “One,” Josette replied, closing her eyes and listening intently. “Five yards out . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Right outside the door now.”

  A knock rang out. It wasn’t a thoughtless hammering. Rather, it was the rapping of a considerate guest.

  “They’re here,” the hoarse voice said.

  Turning her minigun toward the door, Josette asked, “Who is it?”

  Though low, her tone burned with fighting spirit. But that determination soon pitched wildly.

  “It’s me.”

  Amazed, the woman cried out, “Dear?!”

  Bligh heard it, too. The voice was that of Lyle Brennan—Josette’s husband. He’d come back. A warrior, tested in the fires of a hundred battles.

  “Please, just hear me out,” Brennan continued. “I managed to escape. But they’re after me. Hurry up and let me in.”

  Fighting back his own rashness, Bligh looked at Josette. Dark flames burned in her heart. The fire showed in her eyes. As murderous intent.

  “We can’t do that, dear. Come back after dawn,” Josette said with determination.

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. I’ve got people on my tail. They could kill me at any minute. You’re my wife, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know about anything,” Josette replied, her words gnawed over by fangs of pain.

  Bligh came to her aid, saying, “It’s me. Bligh. You hear me, Brennan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hate to say it, but I got attacked by Charlotte. She was a full-on servant of the Nobility. We can’t trust you, either. Answer a question for me.”

  “You think I’ve got time for this shit?!”

  The door jolted violently.

  “If you don’t open the door, I’ll bust it in!”

  “Stop it, dear—if you come in, I’ll have to open fire on you!”

  “Josette, is that any way to talk to your husband? Forget shooting me, and shoot that jerk!”

  Bligh shouted, “What happened to all of you? Where’ve you been all this time, and what’ve you been up to?”

  “They’re coming,” Brennan said, his voice quavering. “Open up! Hurry!”

  Josette looked at Bligh.

  “No can do. He could be lying,” said the man.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He never would’ve suspected the minigun she held down by her hip would swing around to slam him in the back of the head. Sparks shooting across his eyes, Bligh blacked out.

  He quickly regained consciousness.

  Josette was by the doorway. The door was half open. She was thrusting the barrel of the minigun at it, trying to dislodge the board she’d shot through.

  Bligh got to his feet and was about to dash forward.

  “Stoooooop!”

  His tongue failed him. His feet got tangled, too. Pitching forward, he felt a pain from the back of his head, and then it went dark again. When he desperately tried to get up again, Brennan came through the door.

  “Over there,” Josette said, pointing to a spot, and then she began replacing the board she’d removed. Her right hand held a hammer.

  “So, you the one who kept me from getting in here?” Brennan called over to Bligh, still laid out on the floor. The warrior stood there like a wrathful god.

  Despite his headache, the man had no trouble reading the hatred in that voice. This is gonna be ugly, he thought.

  “Save your venting for later. We need every hand we’ve got.”

  Even as Brennan listened to Josette, he drew the sword from his back.

  “Dear?!”

  “This hoodlum thought he could decide whether I lived or died, did he? I won’t sit still for that.”

  The warrior raised his blade.

  They heard the whistle a split second before the steel was about to sink into Bligh’s chest.

  “What’s that?”

  Swinging his head around with incredible speed, Brennan turned his gaze to the door to the adjacent room. The room where D lay. Like a man pursued by fear he leapt into the next room. And there he saw D lying in bed. He only halted for a moment in the doorway due to the shock of the sleeping Hunter’s good looks.

  Going over to the bed, the warrior looked down at D, whom he’d never met before, and said, “So, this is him? He’s handsome, I’ll give him that. Damn, if I keep looking at him, I’ll lose the will to kill. Now, to get rid of him.”

  Holding his sword up along the right side of his head as if it were a bat, he was just about to bring it down on D’s neck when someone said, “Doesn’t seem like he’s possessed after all.” It was a hoarse voice he absolutely wouldn’t have thought was the Hunter’s, so Brennan bugged his eyes and started looking all around.

  “Who’s that? Where are you?”

  He got an answer.

  “Right here.”

  It was at that moment that D’s left arm reached for Brennan.

  Swinging the sword was pure reflex for the warrior. The way the hand went flying from the wrist down left him feeling slightly puzzled. His aim had been a little higher than that. The limb flew through the air, struck the door, and fell to the floor.

  “There’s no blood,” Brennan said, squinting his eyes to look at the wrist, but he quickly thought better of it and raised his sword once more.

  This time, he was interrupted before he could swing it. Brennan arched backward. A short handmade spear was stuck in his back.

  “Knock it off, you son of a bitch! You really did get yourself turned into one of the Nobles’ lackeys, didn’t you?” Bligh bellowed from the doorway.

  For all his shouting, Brennan hadn’t been hurt badly.

  “No, it’s not like that. He made the first move on me.”

  The warrior reached back and pulled out the spear. A bloody flower swiftly blossomed on his back.

  “Get back on your feet and take your medicine. You tried to kill D just now, didn’t you?”

  “No. He attacked me.”

  “Shut up and die already!”

  Bligh raised a second short spear to strike, but at that moment his ears caught these words: “It’s like the clown says.”

  “Huh?!”

  Poised as he was to hurl his weapon, Bligh was knocked off balance and stumbled forward.

  “Dear,” Josette said, rushing over, and, on seeing her husband’s condition, she gave Bligh a horribly vengeful look. If Brennan hadn’t told her just then to stop, she might’ve opened up with the minigun and reduced Bligh to a thousand bloody chunks.

  “You’re all making a big mistake. We’ve already got to the bottom of this misunderstanding. Focus on what’s outside,” the hoarse voice said.

  “I didn’t see anything,” said the woman.

  “No, they’re coming after me.”

  Josette was about to refute that when her ears caught a dull impact that sent vibrations through every inch of her.

  The OSB Era

  chapter 4

  I

  They’re here!” Brennan told them in what was almost a groan, but Bligh still eyed him distrustfully.

  “You sure this bastard ain’t one of Nobles’ lackeys?”

  “I guarantee it. And my word is D’s word,” said the hoarse voice.

  “D?” Brenn
an made a puzzled face. As if he’d suddenly suffered amnesia, he murmured, “D? Did you say ‘D’? As in that D?”

  “Yes—that D,” Josette reassured him.

  “I—I just tried—to kill D . . .”

  The house shook. And then it was rocked again. And while it wasn’t on account of those tremors, Brennan got weak kneed and slumped to the floor all the same.

  Turning to face the front door, Josette said, “I wonder if that’s the price for forgetting your place—anyway, hang in there. I’ll be right back!” And then the woman dashed off.

  Bloodied short spear in hand, Bligh followed after her.

  As they charged into the front hall there was a crash, and off to their right an east-facing window shattered, giving a glimpse of a black hand between the boards that’d been hammered over it.

  “Get lost, asshole!” Bligh shouted, hurling the short spear from ten feet away. Its wrist bones shattered, the hand pulled out again.

  Josette was aiming at the front door.

  Just as he picked up the fallen short spear, Bligh heard the sound of breaking glass from a western window and turned to look. A different hand appeared, breaking its way through the boards. It was black, too.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Charging over, Bligh jabbed out with his weapon. He slipped past the side of the hand, taking aim at the intruder’s face. It made contact. A low voice rang out, and the hand pulled back.

  “How’s it going over there? There’s just no end to this shit!”

  “The door can’t take much more of this. Look at it.”

  “All right,” Bligh said, gripping his short spear as if it were his last friend in the world.

  Brennan managed to get to his feet, then lay down on the sofa, groaning, “Shit, I can’t stop the bleeding. That goddamned thug.”

  “It’s a freaking scratch. Lie on your stomach and get a load of the face.”

  Though Brennan searched for the source of the hoarse voice, he found neither hide nor hair of it.

  “D’s face—look at it!”

  Feeling that he couldn’t fight that command, the warrior complied. The instant that gorgeous visage entered his field of view, the hardened combatant forgot the piercing pain. He learned then for the very first time that beauty could strip away all sensation and emotion. He didn’t even notice that something cold had been applied to his back. Nor that the pain there had vanished.