Vampire Hunter D Volume 22

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “That’s just insanity. Nobles are ageless and immortal—meaning you could remain in pain forever?”

  Jeanne donned an odd expression. “Does that bother you? I should think a human would rejoice at the thought of a Noble in pain.”

  “Not when it’s my patient. I’m a doctor, you know!”

  Vera tried to remove the woman’s chest plate, but couldn’t even understand how to work the clasps.

  “I can’t do anything for you here. Is my medicine in this room?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And this armor—can you get it off?”

  Jeanne gave a small nod and reached for the armor with her left hand. Her painfully slow movements spoke volumes about the depth of her wound.

  “Hold on,” Vera said, getting back up and turning toward the door. Heavy footsteps and what sounded like voices had rung out behind her.

  “What?”

  Only the astonished Jeanne down on the floor turned to look, as Vera was paralyzed.

  Fifteen feet behind the doctor, a shadowy figure stood at the other end of the corridor. In its right hand it carried a long spear, and when a fist that looked like a mass of intertwined wires twisted in the opposite direction, the weapon grew another six feet in length.

  “But . . . you’re . . . ? When . . . did you . . . get out?”

  The object of Jeanne’s groaned query stood almost six feet eight inches and was covered by a tangle of silvery-gray wires. Although generally human in appearance, there was one difference—this thing had four arms. On its back it had something resembling a crossbow, there was a longsword on its right hip, and on the left hip was a weapon that could only be a pistol with a grip mounted on the front. Its head and neck were covered by a domed mask. Perhaps it was this mask that lent the creature its inhuman sense of menace; there wasn’t a single bump or recess on it. Apparently its mask was responsible for sight, hearing, and the other senses.

  Jeanne groaned, “Get back . . .”

  The figure didn’t move. This mysterious warrior who would not follow a Noble’s commands in a castle of the Nobility was a creature from another world. Its spear pointed at Jeanne.

  Jeanne twisted herself around. Her right hand moved toward the sword on her hip. Her movements felt like those of a tortoise with a million miles of road before it.

  The figure didn’t even move its hand, but the spear flashed out to pierce Jeanne. It seemed that certain death would result.

  Black stars winked in the young woman’s face: her pupils. Pulling herself up, she grabbed the sword at her side without hesitation and headed for the door.

  “Better now, are you?” a hoarse voice said with admiration. Jeanne knew the masked figure grinned, even though she couldn’t see its expression.

  The deadly spear stretched. And then it stopped.

  The shadowy figure turned and looked. It faced the opposite direction from which the two women had come.

  “You’ll have to deal with me!”

  Face pale, lips alone strangely crimson, and baring beastly fangs was the warrior woman now made a compatriot of the Nobility, Lilia, reaching for the longsword on her back with her right hand.

  Assassin from Another World

  chapter 2

  I

  To be honest, Lourié was wandering willy-nilly. The place was just too huge, and he had no idea where Vera and Dust might be. A vast hall without a single person in it spread before Lourié. A small airfield would easily fit inside it. On all sides of him was stone—but the surprising thing was that there wasn’t a single seam in the walls, floor, or ceiling. This place had been hollowed out of the rock. He’d thought about turning back, but the door had shut just seconds after he entered, and now it wouldn’t budge at all. This was a one-way street—the room didn’t allow you to exit again.

  Shaking his head, Lourié cleared it of all thoughts of going back. Right up until the time he vanished, his father had kept telling him, “Don’t look back, son. Taking the long way around is fine. But don’t look back. If you look back, you’ll want to turn back. And that keeps you from moving forward. The important things always lie ahead.”

  Along with Crey, the boy had been brought back outside. The cells had been opened and the two of them freed by a shadow cast on the floor. Or perhaps it would be better to describe it as something like a shadow. As it had no substance, it was difficult to make that call. Two parts of the black mass had stretched like hands through the bars to grab both of them by the ankles. An instant later, they were both outside the castle. Their backpacks had also, generously, been left there. The snowstorm had abated, and stars blinked in the darkened sky. If they wanted to make a run for it, it looked like their chances were good.

  However, that’s not what the two of them had done.

  “I’m going back in,” Crey had murmured as he gazed at the towering castle walls about a hundred yards away, seeming to gnaw the words off. His right hand gripped a knife. Whether it was the one he’d been carrying or a new one that’d been stashed in his belongings was unclear.

  “Squirt, get while the getting’s good. I’ll raise a ruckus so no one goes after you.”

  At Crey’s words Lourié had shaken his head, saying, “I’m going back, too.”

  “Why on earth . . .”

  “Mr. Crey, are you going to go rescue Miss Vera and Mr. Dust?”

  When those clear, innocent eyes looked straight at him, the outlaw grew embarrassed. “Well, actually—oh, you know how it is, right?”

  “So you won’t go look for them, will you?”

  “Aw, don’t say it like that. It’s just—”

  “That’s why I’m going back.”

  “Hey, we didn’t come up here to rescue anyone! That’s just their fate. In a situation like this, you’ve got to think of yourself first, am I right?”

  “Mr. Crey, why are you going back to the castle?”

  “Well—I’ve got reasons a kid wouldn’t understand, you little dope.”

  “If you’re going back into that castle, Mr. Crey, I think it must be a pretty important reason. Do what you have to do. But I can’t leave those two behind.”

  “Squirt, how can you feel so much responsibility when you’re still just a little kid? The weight of it’s gonna crush you. Besides, what do you think you can accomplish going back to that castle alone?”

  “It’s better than doing nothing.”

  Crey glared at the boy. He quickly said, “Okay, do as you like. I’ll stick with you till we’ve snuck in. But if you run into that shadow that saved you, you be sure to thank it all proper like, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  And so the two of them returned to the castle.

  The nearest wall had a rusted iron door set in it.

  “Guess I don’t have much choice, do I?” Crey said, drawing his knife. “Don’t screw with me, you two-bit Noble.”

  His right hand flashed out. All the boy saw was a white streak like a shooting star. The lock portion of the iron door was cut out in a neat square.

  As soon as they were in, the pair split up.

  “I’m going upstairs. Wanna come along?” Crey invited the boy, but he shook his head. Though he had no way of knowing for sure, he suspected the prison could only be underground.

  Descending staircases and getting on moving sidewalks, Lourié traveled down farther and farther. And now, after stone walls and corridors as far as the eye could see, he was in an empty hall. There was no point in just standing around. Lourié began walking toward the center of the room. The enormous weight of the rock seemed to press down on his diminutive form from all sides, and time and again Lourié had to take a deep breath.

  When he’d more or less reached the center, Lourié saw a rectangular hole open in the floor before him. A section fifteen feet long and ten feet wide had suddenly subsided—that was the impression he got. Though he was poised to run off at any moment, his eyes were drawn to the hole.

  –

  He’d found
no escalators or elevators, and the stairways simply went on forever, so Crey finally sat himself down cross-legged in the middle of the stairs. Sweat dripped from him in endless streams—but he didn’t even have time to spare for noticing how unpleasant that felt as his lungs gulped for air.

  Someone was coming down from above.

  Wiping his sweat-stung eyes, Crey looked up the stairs to where they dissolved into darkness.

  A faceless creature with four arms was coming down. Its mask and garments, even its body that looked like intertwined wires, were all silvery gray, with its cape alone being crimson. The inscribed baton it carried to its right drew Crey’s gaze. It was a weapon. Power instinctively flooded into the outlaw’s legs and drained from his upper body.

  Just twenty steps above him, the figure in the crimson cape halted. The baton in one of its right hands grew with a swish. It was a long spear. Tension knifed through every inch of Crey, becoming a will to fight that set him ablaze. Aware that his breathing was growing heavier, he turned his body into a spring and bounded off to his right.

  “Come and get me!” he shouted.

  –

  D stood before the door. His gait hadn’t faltered once as he traveled there, as if this had been his goal from the very start.

  “I don’t know either. What’s behind this thing?”

  The words of his left hand were overlaid with the sound of a door opening and closing.

  D went inside.

  It was a vast hall. Save for a few exceptions, it was a plain of stone as far as the eye could see. The exceptions were clustered near the center of the hall. There were three figures. A short one was sandwiched between a taller figure squaring off against a giant. Two of them the Hunter recognized: the short one—Lourié—and the figure in the golden cape that towered before him.

  “What’s that bastard Gilzen doing here?”

  No sooner had the hoarse voice muttered that than the figures, who’d been halted like a movie still, went into motion in unison. The one on the other side of Lourié—a figure in a featureless mask wearing a green cape—made a horizontal sweep of its right hand. The baton grasped in a fist that looked like twisted wire grew to over fifteen feet in length, mowing through Gilzen’s neck. Sparks flew. Gilzen’s right hand—and the gold scepter it carried—had parried the blow. Both actions had occurred with a speed imperceptible to the naked eye. D alone had caught them.

  The gleam of the opponent’s weapon drew back, then came at the Nobleman again—this time falling from above as if splitting firewood. Gilzen dodged it, changing his stance. But a split second before he did so, the long spear slashed up at him from below. It looked as if the Nobleman was constantly on the defensive. The movements of the two were succinct, with crimson sparks glowing incessantly in the gloom. Minute piled upon minute, with Gilzen always on the receiving end.

  “His opponent’s not bad, either. It’s keeping the same Gilzen who defeated you on the defensive!” the hoarse voice said, making sure to place special emphasis on the “who defeated you” part. But then it let out a gasp of surprise.

  Changing his footwork, Gilzen halted for a moment. Not missing that chance, his foe whipped its long spear around in a flashing arc—which Gilzen dipped at an angle to avert, his bizarre rib sword then bursting from his torso and stabbing into his opponent’s abdomen at an angle. Letting out a cry that fell short of words, the Nobleman’s foe swung its long spear, severing the stark implement of death before the creature made a great leap back.

  “Looks like the tide has turned,” the hoarse voice said, its words surging forward.

  Gilzen pursued his foe, while Lourié remained where he was. Like a swallow in flight, D dashed over and scooped up the diminutive figure, pulling him back out of the heat of battle.

  II

  “So, you came, D?” Gilzen said to the Hunter without turning to face him. “Looks like your DNA responded to the alien presence after all. Yes, this is an invader from far beyond the Milky Way! As you are no doubt well aware, since Earth was first created, countless aliens have visited it. Of them all, none ever held more sinister intentions than these.”

  His opponent hauled back its long spear, then hurled it at Gilzen. Easily batting it aside with his scepter, the Nobleman aimed the black jewel adorning the scepter’s top at his foe. The beam it unleashed was black as ink. It bounced off his opponent’s chest, melting the floor by D’s feet and sending up scalding vapor. It was an insanely powerful beam.

  “This light can penetrate three floors—punching through a hundred feet of rock,” said Gilzen. “It looks like I have a foe unaffected by beam weapons.”

  “When did you get that weapon?” the hoarse voice inquired. “Ten thousand years ago, the Nobility might’ve been physically far superior to human beings, but I never heard their science was equally advanced. The technology they’ve got now is the result of ten millennia of progress. You were asleep all that time, yet you’ve got command of a science beyond modern levels. Is that alien technology?”

  “Indeed.”

  Gilzen bent down. A crossbow-like weapon on his foe’s back had just popped up over its shoulder. There was a sound like the dull hiss of escaping gas, which was then coupled with the strident clash of iron on steel.

  “Oh?” A cry of surprise escaped the Hunter’s left hand.

  Pressed to the left side of his chest, D’s fist held a black arrow. It’d been fired at Gilzen, who’d deflected it with his scepter and sent it to assail D, to his rear.

  The golden cape danced out. Spreading in the air above his opponent’s head, it looked like a gold cloud. His foe’s right hand reached for some kind of gun. A crimson beam pierced the gloom and the gleaming cloud. Flaming, the cape hit the floor—but when the foe realized it was only the Noble’s cape and turned, its body was pierced from behind by an arcing, scimitar-like rib sword. No doubt imagining the scene to follow, his foe tried to flee. But its body was pinned by the rib and held fast. The scepter brought down from overhead smashed the foe’s head and sent orange brains flying in all directions.

  “Cause me trouble, will you?”

  Looking down at the titanic form that lay at his feet and confirming that it was dead, Gilzen turned his eyes toward D. There was a loud snap by the Nobleman’s chest. The arrow D had hurled had been caught by Gilzen’s chest, stopping it dead.

  “So, the man called D favors cowardly acts?”

  “You did it first,” the hoarse voice shot back.

  The fact that the arrow Gilzen deflected had gone straight at D was no coincidence.

  “At any rate, the technology in this castle was obtained from these creatures. When they came to Earth ten thousand years ago, it was not the human race that tracked them down and fought them off, but our kind. Although the science of their weapons was more advanced than our own, none of their weapons could slay immortals. We destroyed their spaceships and exterminated hundreds of their kind, taking fewer than ten of them captive. The Sacred Ancestor ordered that they should be disposed of immediately, no doubt because he was loath to have anyone but himself acquire their technology. I was entombed deep in the earth because I stood at the fore in the battle against the Sacred Ancestor, but also because I disobeyed him in this.”

  In Gilzen’s fingers, the metal arrow twisted as if it were made of rubber. His eyes were burning red, as if running to ground the memories of the past.

  “Yes, the Sacred Ancestor buried me in the cold, dark earth. He said our minds weren’t yet ready to acquire the technology of an alien world. Such preening. If we had adopted that technology then, the Nobility could’ve ruled the world without waiting for nuclear war first. I have read the record matrix stored in this castle that remained here aboveground but disassembled, and I know what has passed in the last ten millennia. The Sacred Ancestor is a fool! Had we done things my way, we would’ve ruled over the humans while their power was still intact, and could’ve avoided our present decline. D, do you know what kind of future he wanted?”r />
  The fearsome scepter was pointed at D, but he didn’t flinch in the slightest.

  “To a degree,” he said.

  “Then this should be easy to explain. To tell the truth, the Sacred Ancestor and I adopted the same approach. However, unlike him, I also used the aliens.”

  Lourié, who was clinging to D’s waist, suddenly looked up at the Hunter.

  “So they were sealed away in this castle and subjected to memory analysis? But it seems that wasn’t enough.”

  That came from D.

  Gilzen lowered his scepter and grinned bitterly. “You’re right. I believed we’d adopted their techniques perfectly, but there was some flaw in the way we put them to sleep. They escaped, and now they wander the castle searching for a way out.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Four—now three remain. They’re formidable. What do you say, D? Will you give me a hand?”

  “This has nothing to do with me.”

  “Nothing to do with you?”

  Lourié’s body flew a good fifteen feet, where the boy landed on his ass on the stone floor. One sweep of D’s arm had done that.

  “I was hired to take the contents of that coffin alive—or failing that, to destroy it. Gilzen, will you accept that you’re on the road to your own destruction?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The Nobleman’s right hand rose, and then a terrific spray of sparks exploded in front of his face. The distant stone walls shook from the impact. His scepter had parried D’s blade, striking in the same motion the Hunter had drawn it.

  “Are you in a hurry to die, D?”

  As Gilzen leapt back ten feet, he aimed the black jewel in his scepter at D. But the strange beam that could carve through a hundred feet of rock didn’t fire. With D approaching right before him, Gilzen projected his scythe-like ribs from his sides. It looked as if the one his opponent had lopped off earlier had returned as well.

  A sweet-and-sour stench assailed Lourié’s nostrils. A sword for a pen, and blood as the ink? In this hall where the stink of alien blood had begun to waft, they would write of a new battle, a new tale of life and death.