Vampire Hunter D Volume 27

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “Seems pretty damn risky. The guy admits to being a vampire!” Bligh said, riddled with anxiety.

  Josette smiled at him and extended her right hand. Once she’d taken the flask and unscrewed the lid, Bligh went over to Arbuckle and jammed the tip of his spear against the man’s throat.

  “If anything strange happens to her, you’re gonna wish you’d never been born!”

  “Don’t worry,” the man reassured him. “I’m still human.”

  The pair’s exchange was punctuated by a scream.

  Josette had performed the final treatment. White smoke rose from beneath her left hand, which was pressed to the nape of her neck.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

  She let out a long wail of pain. It grew thin and hoarse, and then Josette slumped across the sofa.

  III

  Bligh raced over, brushed aside the woman’s hand, and looked at the additional burns.

  “You son of a bitch!” he snarled, but when he whipped around, Arbuckle had suddenly vanished.

  “Oh shit,” Bligh said his eyes leaping to every corner of the room as he slapped Josette on the cheek. When she opened her eyes, he let out a sigh of joy and relief.

  “You okay?”

  “I’ll survive.”

  Her voice was steady. Her complexion was like that of a corpse. Warrior training or not, she was still just a woman of flesh and blood. Her strength was rapidly fading.

  “Two hours more,” Bligh said, swallowing the words, Think you can last that long? He fell silent, but quickly said, “All right.”

  “What’s going on?” Josette inquired dubiously.

  “I’m going up to the castle.”

  “Huh?” Josette said, so surprised she tried to sit up, but immediately slumped back again.

  “It’s all the fault of the folks up in the castle you wound up like this. They must’ve come up with some way of helping you.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ll never make it back alive!”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. After all, D’s up there, too!”

  “But there’s no guarantee you’ll run into him!”

  “But if I stay here doing nothing, you ain’t gonna last till daybreak! Okay, just hear me out. Get down in the basement. Down there, all you’ve gotta do is shut one door and they ain’t gonna be able to get in. Just wait for me there.”

  “A basement? How do you know the place’s got one?”

  “Earlier, when I was in Jan’s room, the carpet on the floor slid to one side and I saw a trapdoor.”

  “I see. But you’re—”

  “Hey, don’t worry about me,” Bligh said, the pain that’d rapidly risen in his heart written all over his face. “I had me a lady and I couldn’t save her. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna feel that way ever again.”

  Before Josette could think of anything else to say, powerful arms looped around her back and behind her knees, easily scooping her up.

  The thing that floated up was greeted by fog and waves and lightning. Aside from its strangely beefy chest—which was actually like a boulder covered in black skin—the rest of its body was exquisitely proportioned. Though its small face and head were also colored jet black, beads of water slid across the surface of arms and legs the same hue that weren’t the least bit monstrous, but rather as limber and muscular as those of an athlete.

  “Both U-taker and the prototype are gone,” the thing said, the words issuing from its black mouth. “Their flesh and blood have become my body. Now to venture outside and make the world tremble. The strong will soon gather beneath my banner. Better yet, I can remain alone and do away with the remaining Nobility.”

  He began to walk across the water with confident strides. Surely he never could’ve imagined that another figure would appear with a burst of bubbles from the water’s surface twenty to twenty-five feet ahead of him.

  It was a giant who stood a head taller than the thing but was only half as wide, and in his hand he held a crimson long spear.

  “Greylancer, you yet live?”

  The giant laughed aloud, saying, “D survived. So I had to, too.”

  “I am not meant to face you. Will you not join forces with me?”

  “Join forces to do what exactly?”

  “Dismantle the world, and build a new one in its place.”

  “Together?” Greylancer sneered. “Besides, once all the humans and Nobility have been disposed of, there won’t be anything left of the world. What are you and I supposed to do, spend our golden years playing cat’s cradle or throwing javelins together?”

  “Once all life on this planet is extinct, we need only go to another planet. And do the same thing there.”

  “So, we’d be berserkers? Are you what the Sacred Ancestor was trying to create?” Greylancer said, his eyes giving off an angry blood light.

  “Precisely,” the thing replied, thumping its chest. “That is what I was born for. U-taker and the prototype have become my flesh. They’re somewhere inside of me. And they work toward the same purpose.”

  “Rubbish,” Greylancer spat, looking toward the heavens. “Duchess, are you listening? With one pull of a lever, you’ve created this misguided individual. Is that what you desired? Was this the Sacred Ancestor’s dream? Nay, I say it is neither.”

  The thing blinked its black eyes. Every inch of Greylancer was enveloped by hellfire. That was the will of a Greater Noble.

  “When you were born in these black waters, you made a mistake somewhere. Was it your human blood, your Noble mind, or your OSB flesh? You’re out of your mind. And accordingly, I shall do away with you in the name of the Sacred Ancestor.”

  Down around Greylancer’s feet, the black water began swirling. The long spear rose. A thin dribble of water linked the spearhead to the surface of the water. Suddenly, the water twisted, becoming a drill more than three feet in diameter that pierced the upper body of the thing. No, the three-foot-wide drill actually ripped the thing in two.

  Even after the water drill had vanished, the thing still didn’t fall. For a string of blood thinner than any thread connected its two halves. That one string quickly became two, became ten, a thousand, ten thousand strings knitting together a body.

  “I suspected that might happen,” said Greylancer. Of course, he was fully aware this was not only a formidable foe but an incredible one. Still, the giant was above that, the daring and self-confidence never leaving his face. For this man was renowned as “a Noble among Nobles.”

  The head of the long spear began to turn red. The water gave rise to waves, their crests white and fractured. From the wind.

  “Ah, it’s been so long since it flowed through me. The power of this planet—nay, that of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, perhaps the entire Milky Way. One wave of my lance was enough to repel an entire OSB fleet, and now you shall taste its might.”

  And as the Nobleman spoke, a flash of light linked the long spear and the thing. Heaven and earth alike turned stark white.

  From the depths of the light, a voice was heard to say, “It’s no use, Greylancer. Just as you can wield the power of the Milky Way, I have been given the power to destroy the same galaxy. And now I use it to absorb power. Pour more into me. Make it hotter and more intense. All of it becomes my power. See, it’s more than enough.”

  The light still linked the two of them. Greylancer shook. For he had felt the blistering energy pouring into every inch of his body.

  “You’re sending it all back at me? I should expect no less,” said the Nobleman.

  At that moment, astronomical observatories and stellar research facilities around the world noted a sudden drain of energy from the Milky Way that threw them into a panic. And just as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

  The thing had spread the fingers of its right hand and held its palm out high before Greylancer’s watchful eyes. What was that inscribed in the gleaming gold of the object it held?

  “The crest of the Sacred Ancestor?!” Greylancer exclaimed
in astonishment, backing away. “The king of the Nobility—the Absolute Ruler. Why would you have that?”

  “Would you defy me, Greylancer? Any who bear this crest are to be afforded the same respect as the Sacred Ancestor—it’s the ironclad rule, the very first line of the Law of the Nobility. I am the Sacred Ancestor!” The fierce voice raced across the surface of the water like a storm across the seas, declaring, “Stand down, Greylancer.”

  At the same time, another voice, quiet and gorgeous, said, “Stand down, imposter.”

  Before the location of the second speaker could even be discerned, the surface of the water between the two of them split. Leaping from it was a young man of unearthly beauty garbed in black, and he had a longsword raised to strike. His blade, which had cleaved wind and wave, came down, splitting the thing from the top of its head all the way down to its crotch.

  The thing’s expressionless face twisted into a smirk. After D’s blade had passed completely through it, not even the line of his cut still remained. Who was this, who had rendered Greylancer’s long spear useless, and now deflected D’s unholy blade?

  “You absolutely, positively cannot cut me. Only one who could cut the Sacred Ancestor can cut me down.”

  The thing arched backward and laughed. Bending down, it stuck its right hand into the water, then slowly raised it. Here was something D would undoubtedly recognize. What appeared from the black water was a sword belonging to the warrior Lyle Brennan.

  D said, “Human, Noble, and OSB—in a way, I suppose you have accomplished what he planned.”

  In some ways, Greylancer was more astonished as he looked at the young man before him than he’d been when he saw the crest of the Sacred Ancestor. Who did D mean by he? This Hunter couldn’t possibly be—?

  “What did you say just now?” the thing inquired, thrusting its right hand straight at D. For the same surprise had seared its body. “Who do you mean when you say he? You couldn’t possibly mean—the Sacred Ancestor?”

  “No one can say,” D replied. His voice was as beautiful as his features. “No one knows if his plans were correct, or if the results were right. Not the humans, not the Nobility, not the OSB, not even he himself.”

  “Don’t say that!” the thing with Brennan’s voice cried, making a horizontal slash with its blade.

  Still poised to deftly parry it, D sailed backward. When he landed, the thing closed on him. The sword he brought down like a man possessed left D shrouded in bluish sparks.

  “All that parrying does nothing to slay me! D, only one in the image of the Sacred Ancestor can wound me.”

  The thing with Brennan’s voice left a cut on D’s brow with his blade. The blood that dripped down from it touched D’s lips. His deep, dark eyes gave off blood light.

  What are you, D? Where do you come from, and where are you going?

  The figure in black leapt. As the Hunter brought his blade down from directly overhead, the thing shouted, “Look!” and thrust out his right hand.

  The sound of bone being cut traveled across the surface of the water. The thing’s right wrist rose higher and higher, coming down in the water far off in the distance.

  D ran without making a sound.

  His wrist still gushing bright blood, the thing that spoke as Brennan prepared to stand against him. Even now, his confidence in his own immortality was unshaken.

  There was an acute pain at the back of his head. Something had been pulled out of it! And now the energy that could control the galaxy was leaking out from the same spot!

  “Now!” a hoarse voice shouted, its cry spreading as the sea surged and snarled.

  The sword the thing had raised to parry the blow broke like it was a slip of paper, and his head was split down to the jaw. His whole body blurred by a bloody mist, the thing fell flat on his back, sending up splashes of water.

  Several minutes later, D and Greylancer encountered someone unexpected in the center of the laboratory. It was Bligh, blood-soaked and covered with wounds from head to toe, and riding on his shoulder was the Hunter’s left hand.

  The hand turned its palm toward D and said hello. “I’ll have you know,” it continued, “that it was yours truly that drove a four-inch-long needle into the back of that bastard’s head while he was being upgraded! And me that latched onto him and yanked it out again, too.”

  “He was the one who threw you,” D said, turning his gaze to Bligh.

  “It was most fortunate the two of you ran into each other,” Greylancer said, making no attempt to hide his incredulity.

  “Well, I went down in the elevator and was kinda wandering around when these weird monsters jumped me. Thought I was a goner, but just then this thing dropped down from the ceiling and saved me. Never thought I’d owe my life to a severed hand. But enough about that—”

  Bligh went on to tell them what’d happened to Josette, and asked about a cure.

  “That won’t be a problem. I got all the info from the computers about the abilities of the things they made here,” the left hand assured them.

  Following its directions, the group prepared medicine and dashed back to the farmhouse, but what they found in the basement were the bodies of Arbuckle and Josette, dead by each other’s hands. The man had taken a short spear through the heart, while the woman’s neck had been torn halfway through by sharp claws.

  “The bastard must’ve snuck down there before Josette went in,” Bligh said, sounding like he could hardly bear it. For it was Arbuckle who’d given Josette the “magic water.”

  “You die alone, eh?” he murmured.

  Those had been Josette’s words.

  Looking out the window, Greylancer said, “It would appear the rain has let up, too.”

  The patter of raindrops had died away, and a watery blue light had begun to fill the eastern sky.

  “I guess it’s about time for me to leave,” Greylancer said, looking at the others and giving D a grin. “A long, long time ago, a human girl taught me a saying. I’m not exactly sure if this is the sort of time to use it, though.”

  “How did it go?” asked D.

  “You only go around once, they say. Apparently it means sometimes, you never meet again,” Greylancer replied, his gigantic form gradually becoming transparent. “I suppose you already know this, but both I and the duchess are illusions temporarily given physical form from data recorded in the computers. But what a pleasant time I’ve had, D. I’ve gone across time and met an incredible man.”

  “Godspeed to you,” said the left hand. D only gave a faint nod.

  The Noble among Nobles faded away.

  The others went outside.

  “What the hell?!” Bligh alone exclaimed. “The village—it’s all rotting away. It’s like the ruins of a place from a thousand years ago.”

  The farmhouses had collapsed, only the pillars of the watchtower still stood, and all that was left of the river that’d flowed there was a dry bed.

  “When the dreams of the Nobility rotted away, that was the end of everything,” the hoarse voice said in a tone that carried an appreciable sense of pointlessness.

  “So, everything is just a dream?” D said, somewhat uncharacteristically.

  “That’s right. Some might ask if we’re not just a dream, too.”

  His left hand had a ring of indefinable sadness to it.

  By the time they’d buried Josette’s remains and exited the village, it was nearly noon. Taking the highway west, they came to a tiny village where Bligh halted his cyborg horse and said, “This is the place. So long.”

  “Where are you going?” the left hand inquired, apparently more interested in other people’s doings than D was.

  “The grave of a woman I left behind when I ran off, actually.”

  “Oh, you don’t say.”

  Just three years earlier, Bligh had gotten caught up in some trouble gambling in a nearby village and found himself on the run from the local thugs. Though he’d fled with the female gambler he was working with, it was
here that their pursuers had caught up to them. Driven by fear, he’d left the woman behind and fled alone, having no news of her after that.

  “So now it’s bugging you after all this time, and you’re gonna bring her a flower?” said the hoarse voice. “You’re a sad individual.”

  “Say what you like. So long!”

  Bligh hitched his steed to a nearby sapling, then walked east from the highway down a narrow side street. Halting after fifteen or twenty feet, he found cobblestones piled by the side of the street. There were two small graves. Pulling a single bloom of infinity weed from the inner pocket of his jacket, he placed it before the graves. It was a nice white flower.

  D probably understood why there were two graves.

  The man lingered at the graves for quite a while, and by the time he turned around, the Hunter had already wheeled his steed around and headed west.

  End

  Postscript

  As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve traveled to Transylvania twice The first time was on my own dime. The second was for a television program. As we traveled by van, what caught my eye in the ever-changing scenery outside the windows were the little villages. That was the basis for the setting of this Vampire Hunter D tale.

  Isn’t a village in a foreign land in itself enough to form a fantasy? When you think about it, fantasy is basically rooted in the tales of the forests, streams, and mountains at the edge of civilization. I suppose this Vampire Hunter D story continues that tradition.

  D’s tale is based in fantasy and Westerns. While both genres are set out on a frontier, they’re still like oil and water. The Western, with its setting in dusty, wind-whipped badlands, is a far cry from the haunted forests and lakes that form the cornerstone of fantasy. It would be strange to find a gunfighter with a pair of six-shooters stuffed in his belt wandering through a deep forest. In a movie it would be jarring, but fortunately a novel can make it work. D is someone who walks in two worlds—a knight from a foreign land, in a manner of speaking. The setting may be a tiny village, but it could hide cosmic secrets. I hope you’ll enjoy that aspect of the book.