D took out a light stick. One swing brought dazzling flames from the end of the eight-inch baton of concentrated chemicals.
Rosaria spoke. “They were all such good people. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life in this village.”
D might’ve been waiting for that. There were several seconds of silence—and then the fire was tossed.
The glow pulled their forms out of the darkness and danced across them. The flames were flickering. Burning at a hundred thousand degrees, the flames looked like a blinding mirage. And within them, the forms of the victims crumbled away without a sound.
“Goodbye, everybody,” Rosaria said, but she shed no more tears. She’d run dry.
Although she knew she wanted to say something, the words wouldn’t come out.
Instead, D said to her, “What will you do?”
If anyone who knew him had heard that question, it would’ve made them doubt their own ears. The very thought of this young man asking someone else’s opinion!
“Can’t stay here. I wanna go west. There’s this village named Valhalla. Ever heard of it? I don’t suppose you’d happen to be headed the same way, would you?”
“I am.”
“Really?” Rosaria exclaimed, her face instantly brightened by joy. “Well, in that case—take me with you.”
“I’m the same as those who killed your friends.”
“No,” she shot back. As she said the next part, Rosaria realized she actually meant it. “You’re different. I can tell. I like to think I can read people. You’re really scary. You’re probably a lot more merciless and terrifying than the ones who killed everybody, but you’re definitely not a bad person.”
“Go straight down this highway here. After about thirty miles, you’ll hit Dodge Town. Ask there about the rest of the way.”
“Say, you don’t mean to just leave me here, do you?”
“If there’s nothing wrong with your legs, you can walk,” D told her.
“Wait a minute. I—I’m a victim! A poor invalid. Don’t you wanna protect me?”
“As long as you can walk in the light of the sun, you’ll manage,” D said, turning his back to her coldly.
Gazing absentmindedly at his back as he walked away, fascinated as she watched him go, the girl turned after a while to the flames scorching the heavens and chanted a prayer, then began to hurry after him.
She caught up to him in front of the general store.
“You sure do walk fast, you know that?”
The girl was referring to the fact that even running as quickly as she could, she couldn’t match his pace. And it’d looked for all the world as if D was just walking normally. He wasn’t even taking long strides, yet she hadn’t been able to gain any ground on him at all. The only reason she’d finally managed to catch up was because D himself had halted.
“You know, you’re just being horrible! Leaving a girl my age to—” Rosaria had begun to shout when her tongue froze.
A cluster of lights was approaching from the direction of the gate.
Rosaria trembled.
There was a sound. Huff, huff, huff!
Before it’d stopped not three feet from her with a shrill gasp of steam, Rosaria saw what it was: a vehicle hung with a number of lights. The huffing sounds of steam came from the cylinder on the back half of it—a boiler.
The shadowy figures who clung to the vehicle like insects climbed down in unison. The air shook; there wasn’t a sound. And the only way to describe the men was to say they were remarkably athletic. Each wore a cotton shirt and a vest with a staggering number of pockets, and over their eyes they wore thick night-vision goggles.
“Are they there?” D inquired.
He was asking Rosaria whether or not the murderers were present.
“No, they’re not,” she answered him instantly.
Rosaria was peeking out from behind D’s back.
“But their outfits are similar, and their vehicle’s exactly the same.”
“Looks like our forerunners left one alive, I’d say,” one of the shadowy figures remarked in a cold tone. It was the sort of voice that made his cruel and callous nature perfectly clear. “We would’ve gone right on by, too, if not for those flames. But if we don’t wipe out every last one of the Nobility’s playmates, the good little villagers won’t be able to sleep all safe and sound.”
The men’s hands went in unison for the weapons on their hips. Bastard swords, short spears, stake guns, throwing knives—though all their weapons were nicked and grimy and spoke volumes of the hard use they’d seen day in and day out for quite some time, it still wasn’t proof they’d ever been used against the Nobility.
Nobles were something else entirely. A lot of punks called themselves Vampire Hunters, but when it came down to how many of them had actually gone toe to toe with the creatures of the night, it was less than 1 percent.
“W-what, you’d even kill a girl? To hell with that!” Rosaria cried. “See, I’ve got myself a strong bodyguard.”
“Well, he certainly is one hell of a pretty boy,” the man said, his voice having the ring of rapture to it.
Giving his head a good shake to drive out the impeding thoughts, he turned his eyes to D’s neck and said, “From the look of it, you’re not a victim. If you’re just passing by, you’d better beat it. I can’t say what’s gonna happen next will be a very pretty sight.”
“You know, they’re out to kill me!” Rosaria said, clinging to the hem of D’s coat.
Glaring at the men, she shouted, “Why would you kill us? What did we ever do?”
“Once your blood’s been sucked, you’re in with the Nobility. You get a whole bunch of you people gathering together, and upstanding folks can’t live in peace no more.”
“What makes you say there’s something wrong with us? We were just living here quietly without bothering anyone, weren’t we?”
“You’ve got the DNA of the Nobility in your blood. Everything might be quiet now, but there’s no telling when you might show your fangs. And no one likes to take chances. Just accept it already.”
The man drew a bastard sword from his hip. The blade was wide enough that it looked like it could behead a steer as well as a human, and it’d been so finely honed it appeared to have no thickness to it at all.
“I’ll make it real quick for you. Okay, come on over here.”
As the man beckoned with his other hand, he casually walked toward her.
“No! Help!” Rosaria cried, clinging to D’s back.
Clucking his tongue, the man laid a hand on D’s shoulder and tried to shove him aside.
D’s hand covered the man’s wrist.
The man had expected there might be trouble. As he raised his bastard sword, he did so with the joy of getting exactly what he’d wanted.
His blade halted in midair. The pain shooting through his wrist was more than anything he could’ve imagined.
He couldn’t speak, but in his stead, the others did.
“Son of a bitch!”
“You looking to get yourself murdered?”
Reaching for their respective weapons, the men behind him surrounded the pair without another sound. Their formation was exquisite—this didn’t happen without day after day of strict training.
Someone let out a gasp. It came from the man who’d had his wrist pinned, who’d just been tossed headlong in the direction D was facing. Two or three others caught him, but the man collapsed to the ground.
“Both his arms are limp as noodles!” another man shouted.
His arms were broken at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. But when? No one had seen it happen.
Once again all eyes focused on D, but they weren’t filled with the confidence and intimidation of conceited bullies. Confronted by the unknown, something deeper and stronger than fear prickled against their skin—actual terror. There were those who could do the same trick they’d just encountered. One of them had actually seen someone do it somewhere. However, all of the men sen
sed that the master who stood before them was a whole different creature from them.
Still, their firm will to fight got a handle on the fear in an instant. Adrenaline flowed into their veins.
“Back to your senses,” D said, but of course his words weren’t meant as advice.
Failing to grasp his meaning, the men took glittering weapons in hand and made a mad rush at him. Behind them, other men braced themselves for a deadly volley from their stake and rivet guns.
A second later, an ear-splitting scream rang out.
Four men reeled backward—all of them men who’d rushed D. Jabbed into their heads, necks, or shoulders were their own blades or those of their compatriots. Not only that, but at the instant their screams arose, cries had also rung out from those behind them with guns ready. For the bastard sword one of the staggering men gripped had split their throats open.
The flames illuminated only two men now. Ten people had been reduced to two in a split second. They weren’t quite aware of how incredible this was—they couldn’t be.
The deadly silence was broken by Rosaria’s enthusiastic cry of, “Get ’em, D!”
The survivors’ eyes were open as far as they could go.
What had the girl just said? D? It couldn’t be that D, could it? Not the Vampire Hunter D?
If the men had been ordinary Hunters, they probably would’ve either collapsed on the spot and wet themselves or else run off without a backward glance. However, the second their will to fight was lost to a terror that knew no bounds, a trick of the mind turned the two men into robots no longer governed by emotion.
Taking his short spear under one arm, one of them made a thrust with it, while the other simultaneously hurled his bastard sword.
If someone were to elaborate on the events that unfolded a heartbeat later, it probably would’ve gone something like this: Turning sideways to avoid the spear one man was thrusting at him, D used his left elbow to deliver an uppercut to the man’s chin. The blow came with such power that the man’s body, weighing more than 170 pounds, went straight up in the air. Perhaps D had calculated it so that the bastard sword flying at him would take the man right through the heart. The man was killed instantly, but a split second before he died, the Hunter took the short spear from him and hurled it at the remaining man. There was nothing the man could do to prevent that steel spearhead from piercing his larynx.
Before the men had even fallen, the fight was over. However, three thuds echoed from the ground. For the battle had proven so ghastly that, watching the situation from behind D’s back, Rosaria had fainted dead away.
__
III
__
The darkness that night was different from usual—it was filled with the glow of flames and the stink of blood. But only one person stood there in beautiful brilliance, the same one who’d unleashed the scent of blood into the air.
Without even looking at the deadly scene he’d created, D walked over toward where his horse was tethered in front of the general store. Even Rosaria was left behind. He hadn’t fought for her sake. The instant the man who’d been after her laid a hand on D’s shoulder, death had spread its black wings over the men’s heads.
After he’d gone two or three paces, a voice that sounded like someone dead and buried echoed up from the ground behind him, saying, “She called you D, right?”
It was the man with the two broken arms. Although he’d been the catalyst for this bloodbath, he was the only one of them who’d survived it.
“Always thought . . . I’d like to meet you someday . . . But this is what I get . . . eh? My name is Quinn. I work for Grays.”
D put the saddle resting near the horse on his mount’s back. He never even halted.
“Wait . . . please. This area’s got a lot of dangerous creatures. Take me with you . . . please.”
The Hunter and his horse began to walk away.
Somehow, the man—Quinn—managed to get back up again using only his legs.
“It’s true . . . These last six months . . . the number of monsters has increased like mad . . . This used to be a safe zone . . . but now . . .”
While the man was speaking, the rider in black and his white steed had gone to within a few yards of the gate.
The man’s shoulders fell despondently.
The clomping of hooves stopped. Halting, D soon turned back toward the village. His horse began to walk again.
Above them, a black shape bounded.
Fwiiish! the wind snarled.
The shadowy form was split lengthwise, and a black liquid that wasn’t the form itself spread in the air like ink. The halves of the form that lay on the ground were covered with black bristles and had trenchant claws exposed.
Quinn hadn’t been lying.
From D’s back there was the slight click of sword hilt against scabbard.
Advancing on his horse as if nothing had happened, the Hunter dismounted by Rosaria. With her unconscious form over one shoulder, he easily got back on his mount, this time heading straight for the gate.
“I’m begging you . . . It’s about my future . . . Please, just wait,” Quinn said, his voice seeming to creep across the ground. “I was always prepared . . . to die anywhere . . . but now I’ve got a reason not to die . . . In the village of Valhalla . . . I’ve got a girl. It’s been five years since I left . . . and I was on my way back there.”
How did it sound to D, hearing the name of a village he’d already heard once repeated now?
Halting his horse, he turned to the left—in the direction of the steam-powered vehicle.
At that point, what could only be described as a hoarse voice clearly rang out in the darkness from the hand that gripped the reins. “As always, you’re such a softy!”
The mocking voice left Quinn down on the ground feeling terribly relieved.
__
The car’s interior was both strangely cramped and strangely hot. There wasn’t room for more than two people to ride in it to begin with, and heat from the steam boiler intruded mercilessly. When over capacity, it must’ve been more comfortable for those who had to ride on the outside.
From the way D looked at the cockpit, Quinn had guessed that it was his first time driving, but on seeing how easily the Hunter mastered the controls after making only one or two mistakes, the man was quite naturally left dumbfounded.
The cyborg horse followed along meekly. It wasn’t tethered to the vehicle.
The common school of thought was that you didn’t travel by night. The darkness impenetrable to human eyes held numerous supernatural beasts and monsters filled solely with boundless hunger and murderous intent. However, no earthly school of thought applied to the handsome young man behind the wheel.
Rosaria soon regained consciousness. On seeing Quinn the eyes nearly popped out of her head, but Quinn explained his situation to her . . . only he left out the part about having a woman in Valhalla.
Sure enough, Rosaria tore into him.
“Why should we help a murderer like you? You deserve to get a taste of your own medicine and feel the same terror that everyone you killed felt. You’d know what that was like if we left you behind in the dark forest for about five minutes!”
“Shut your hole, little girl!” Quinn bellowed back, his own mouth open about as wide as it would go. “I make my living as a Vampire Hunter. Taking care of the half-dead who’ve been drained by the Nobility is my job. I’m warning you, you’d better not set foot outta this car so long as you’re traveling with me!”
“No, you shut up! What’s a no-talent bum like you supposed to do when you can’t even move your arms?”
Rosaria’s right hand raced toward his bearded face—and met with empty air.
“Take that! You . . . you . . . you . . .”
The slap didn’t ring out until her sixth swing.
Quinn staggered. Rosaria was a lot stronger than he’d expected.
“I knew it! You’re a monster bitch!” he howled with loathing.
“I knew you were part of the Nobility after all! Just try walking down a normal street with those marks on your neck. You wouldn’t last a minute. You’d be better off letting me kill you now.”
“The hell I would! Why don’t you try killing D, then? Think you could? After all, he’s a dhampir, you know!”
A second later, Rosaria turned in D’s direction and said, “Oh, no! I went and told him!”
His beautiful back to her, the Hunter didn’t move a muscle as he said in a low voice, “He must have known anyway.”
“Dear me!”
“Ha! This is one messed-up gang. Two Vampire Hunters and a victim. And two out of the three have the blood of Nobility in ’em,” Quinn sneered. “That being the case, traveling by night should be safe enough. It’s when the two of you do your thing, after all. Hey, don’t let me get in the way. Why don’t you find a little farmhouse hereabouts and go drink their blood?”
Rosaria was so incensed her whole body shook.
“You dirty bastard! D, say something!”
There was no reply.
“See? What did I tell you? I’m not surprised he knows his place. Now, you’ve also gotta—”
The voice of the night flashed out like a blade.
“Be quiet.”
That was enough to leave both of them with expressions like those of the dead.
“Have you ever walked the road at night until daybreak? If not, you’d better settle down.”
His meaning dawned on them both instantaneously—the man and woman were, indeed, residents of the Frontier. The two of them squeezed themselves into the narrow space between the seat cushion and the dashboard.
“What is it?” Quinn asked.
Rising to his feet unconsciously, he peered out ahead of them through the windshield. His goggles still worked. But right away, he groaned.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Parts One and Two Page 2