From the left-hand side, a pale little figure had suddenly stepped right out into the middle of the road.
“We’ve got trouble here!” Quinn shouted, his whole body tensing.
“Help . . . me!” cried a tiny voice that echoed in the depths of their ears.
“She’s just an ordinary girl!” Rosaria called over to D in the driver’s seat.
They were less than thirty feet from her.
“Stop the car!”
The girl turned in their direction. With smooth, rosy cheeks, wavy black tresses, a dress torn in a number of places, and an absolutely terrified expression on her face as she sought succor—she was so cute, it wouldn’t have been strange for even the most cold-hearted deity to make an exception in the case of this girl.
The vehicle kept heading right for her. It hadn’t slowed down yet and showed no sign of ever doing so.
“Don’t!” Rosaria cried, picturing the girl being crushed horribly beneath the black wheels of the vehicle.
But a second later, the girl was flying through the air. The instant she’d risen as high as D’s forehead, her right hand flashed into action just as the Hunter’s sword raced out of its scabbard. Without a word from the girl, her body split down the center, and something like white petals rained onto the black ground.
“What was that?” Rosaria shouted from the back. “When she flew up, she had the scariest look on her face. She was a monster, wasn’t she?”
“You just figured that out, you dolt?” Quinn sneered. “What are the chances of a girl just happening to be out in the road at this hour waiting for someone to drive along? Of course it’s a monster! It was simply waiting for some kind heart like you to get all sentimental and stop her car. It’d tear us to shreds with its fangs and claws. What the—”
Suddenly they picked up speed, and Rosaria grabbed the leather strap beside her. Quinn narrowly managed to maintain his balance.
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked as he leaned over the driver’s seat.
“We’re being followed.”
D’s quiet reply only served to instill all the more fear in him.
Quinn and Rosaria both looked out the back window.
“What?”
“No way!”
Something pale in the air was chasing after them. Despite the darkness, they could see everything with perfect clarity, just as they had before. The black hair, the pink skin, the cute face—it was the same girl.
However, needlelike teeth jutted from the mouth that now rent her face from ear to ear, and the claws that stretched from her fingertips looked to be about as long as her arms. More than anything, what dug talons into the hearts of both were the green flames that burned in her eyes. Her hatred made fire shoot from them. While the way she reached out with one hand and wriggled her body as if swimming through the air looked rather cute, she was also ten times more horrifying than any ordinary monster.
“She’s gonna catch us!” Quinn shouted.
The distance between the vehicle and the girl was most definitely shrinking. A supernatural creature versus a product of civilization—in this world, the former always won.
Quinn reached for the broadsword on his right hip—and groaned. His arms were still broken, after all.
And that was when Rosaria gasped, her eyes startled.
The girl’s body began to slip apart right down the middle—that was the only way to describe what was happening. Rosaria saw that her left half had fallen about a hand’s width behind her right.
“She was cut by D!” she exclaimed.
Precisely. The body of the flying girl had tasted D’s blade, and now, perhaps having lost its ability to rejoin, it split in two.
The girl wrapped her arms around herself. On her face, as plain as day, were bottomless malice and loathing—and a hint of pain.
“Hurry!”
Rosaria’s cry almost seemed to reinvigorate the flying girl. Her distance from the car decreased even further, until the girl was just outside the window—they could’ve reached out and touched her. Blazing eyes were trained on the two of them. Her left hand reached out with its claws.
There was a hard clack against the glass. The tips of her claws had struck it.
Rosaria curled up in a ball.
But not a second later, the flying girl suddenly pulled away. Perhaps her power was spent, because the last thing the two of them saw was the two halves of her adorable form flying apart in midair.
FANGS OF RUIN
CHAPTER 2
I
__
Relief surged into the hearts of both the man and the woman—but it vanished again immediately. Not only did the vehicle show no signs of slowing down, it was actually gaining speed. Fierce vibrations shot through the pair from the soles of their feet all the way to the tops of their heads, and through the window glass the snarling echoes of the wind clawed at their eardrums.
Still hanging onto a hand strap, Rosaria said angrily, “Hey! If we keep zipping along at this speed, won’t we catch up to those murderous friends of yours?”
“We might, I suppose. So what if we do? You thinking about settling a score with ’em?” the bearded man sneered back at her.
“Yeah. I’ll drain every last one of them dry,” Rosaria replied, baring her teeth.
Quinn’s smile disappeared.
Every inch of the young woman was tinged with an air of rage. Pointing a finger at Quinn, Rosaria declared, “Just remember this: you’ll be the last to get it!”
“You don’t say!” Quinn replied, a nasty look on his face. “In that case, there’s no need to wait till we catch up to them. Settle up with me here and now!”
“Oh, that sounds like fun. You think you can handle me without your grubby little hands?”
They weren’t joking, and this wasn’t an act. Murderous intent radiated from every inch of Quinn, and Rosaria’s eyes gave off a red gleam as she stood with her fingers curled like claws in front of her chest. The fight that ensued would be the real deal, and it would be to the death. But it was preempted by the tortured shriek of the brakes. This time, they weren’t braced for it. Both of them went flying forward, slamming into the divider between them and the front seat.
“What the hell? You drive like shit!”
“Yeah! Are you trying to kill us?” they snapped, their deadly battle now forgotten.
But what the Hunter said in a far lower and more tranquil tone silenced them: “This is the wrong way.”
Somehow managing to fight the feeling he was being taunted, Quinn turned to the divider and shouted, “Are you sure you’re really D?”
The skill with which his colleagues had been dispatched gave him the answer to that question. Better yet, Quinn needed only to consider his own two arms.
“Stay there,” they heard D say.
“Hey, open the door!” Quinn ordered Rosaria, who was rubbing her shoulder.
Giving him a look that could kill, the young woman replied, “What gives you the right to order me around like a king? Why don’t you open it yourself?”
“Because I can’t move my arms.”
“Really? In that case, I’ll move them for you!”
“Gaaaah!” Quinn exclaimed, bending backward in pain. A kick from Rosaria had connected with his right elbow. In the narrow confines of the vehicle, there was no way he could’ve avoided it.
Looking down frostily at the man as he writhed in pain, Rosaria spat, “Do you get it now? In this world, the strong survive. And I’ll give a taste of the same to your friends shortly. Just like they did to the villagers.”
And then she opened the door. The first thing that caught her eye was the glowing moon. The disk was nearly full, and its light seemed to exist solely to emphasize the beauty of the young man in black standing beneath it. Perhaps it was that beauty that drew Rosaria out of the vehicle. The air was sweet and fresh—much sweeter and fresher than by day.
Taking in her surroundings, she waited a bit before saying, “Where
are we?” She sounded unsettled as she made her query.
At some point, sheer walls a hundred yards high had surrounded them. Their rock surface had a jewel-like luster in the moonlight. They were at the bottom of a ravine, yet it was strangely spacious—the rich black earth must’ve covered at least an acre.
D waited in a spot about fifteen feet from the vehicle, though it was unclear what he was looking at. All the young man had to do was stand in the moonlight with the wind blowing around him—which probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do given their current situation—and he created a scene worthy of a picture scroll. A skilled artist might’ve even been able to depict how the wind swooned when it touched him.
Even Rosaria forgot about their predicament. I just want to stay here like this, she thought so intensely it hurt.
“Go back,” D said.
His cold tone shocked Rosaria back to her senses, planting seeds of anger at the same time. “Why?” she asked, and she was in the process of sidling up to the Hunter when the ground by her feet moved violently.
When her eyes turned down in shock, they spied a black shape pushing its way up out of the sand. The way one end of it appeared first made it look like a submarine.
“Isn’t that—a coffin?”
A black-gloved hand wound around the waist of the dumbfounded Rosaria, and the Hunter dashed with her toward the vehicle. Ahead of them, sand was erupting, and with each burst a black wooden box appeared as if to block their path.
Surveying her surroundings with fear-filled eyes and realizing that the rising black coffins covered the entire bottom of the ravine, Rosaria was horrified.
“What on earth’s going on here, D?”
Though it may come as a strange compliment, she truly was a victim. Her voice didn’t even tremble as she spoke.
“This is where victims make their home.”
“Huh?”
Now wide with surprise, her eyes reflected a new scene. The lids of the coffins opened in unison. Without a second’s delay, those inside sat up. Pale faces with vacant eyes and vermilion lips that looked painted with blood—they were indeed victims of the Nobility. However, there were some among them shriveled more like dead branches than mummies, their eyes, noses, and mouths seemingly buried beneath wrinkles.
Pointing at one of them, Rosaria asked, “What’s the story with that stick figure?”
“That’s a victim from the earliest times,” D said. “They gathered here in this valley to try to lead an existence that was neither life nor death. Victims who don’t turn into Nobility can live without seeking human blood, and they age at a far slower pace than they would ordinarily. Surely that’s one who’s spent all this time in the valley without slaking the thirst for blood.”
“How horrible . . .” Rosaria murmured, her words tinged with sympathy.
“D,” she started to say, the expression on her face announcing she’d come to some sort of decision.
But just then, a hoarse voice laced with cracks said, “There’s a man . . .”
“And a woman,” another voice was heard to say off in the distance.
“Humans have come here. Where is my father?”
“How about my mother?”
“What of my beloved?”
They looked all around them before dejectedly turning their gazes back on the pair.
“There’s no one else here . . . except those two.”
“No one else, eh?”
“No one.”
“In that case—”
“In that case—”
“In that case—”
Their voices called to mind a chorus composed of every trick the wind had ever played.
“In that case—give us blood!”
All extended their arms simultaneously. Slowly, vainly, they curled their fingers, opened their hands, then curled those fingers again as they drew the hands back. They stopped when their hands reached their chests, poised to snatch and rend.
Nearby, someone snarled like a beast. Turning, the girl saw that sharp incisors poked out from the lips the being was licking. A few of them were just shy of turning into Nobility.
Four or five of the closest attacked D and Rosaria with unbelievable speed. Silvery light danced out. Black blood swirled in the wind. The victims fell to the ground, clutching their throats.
With the same blade that’d tapped fountains of blood still in hand, D glanced at the shadowy figures behind the fallen. Poised to latch onto something, the victims staggered back. Their foul aura was being beaten into submission by the Hunter’s air of beauty.
“Get back in the car,” D said, giving Rosaria’s back a shove.
After stumbling forward three or four steps, Rosaria froze in her tracks.
The car was less than ten feet away, but between her and it were a coffin and a person. A woman. Swaying black hair hung down to the waist of her filthy shroud. Though she had the withered face of a crone, on closer inspection she was actually still young.
Rosaria’s legs wouldn’t move. Something hot welled in her eyes.
The woman opened her mouth. It was as empty and black as a cavern. Withered like a dried persimmon, her gums didn’t hold a single tooth. Except for a pair of fangs, that is.
“You . . . you’re . . . I’m . . .”
As the girl groaned, a withered pair of hands reached for her. The pain of those fingers digging into her was horribly acute. A hint of emotion surfaced in the woman’s muddied eyes, and her hands came away from the girl’s shoulders. With fresh blood spraying from her throat like the spouting of a river whale, the woman tumbled backward.
“D—”
Even before Rosaria saw the handsome young man with sword in hand, he’d wrapped a powerful arm around her waist, easily carried her back to the vehicle, opened the door, and then roughly tossed her in like so much baggage. The door was then closed.
Springing back up, she peered out the window. What she saw was the mob of victims pressing closer and D’s back as he faced them.
“This is a freaking nest of victims,” Quinn said, turning a tense face to her. “And nasty ones at that—they’ve all nearly turned into Nobility. Gathered here to lure in humans and drain their blood, I’d say.”
Staring at Rosaria with an expression somewhere between scorn and rage, he continued, “You sure you sickos didn’t already know about these things and just let ’em keep right on doing it?”
“No,” Rosaria said. “They’re not like that . . . Those people—”
“They ain’t people.”
“They are, too!”
Bloodshot eyes met teary ones—and sparks flew in the air. Catching something out of the corners of their eyes, both of them looked out the window in surprise.
“I’ll be damned!” Quinn exclaimed.
Rosaria swallowed hard and couldn’t say anything.
His black coat fluttering out in the moonlight like a cape, D was coming back. His sword had already been returned to its sheath, and there wasn’t a single victim left standing behind him.
Upon seeing the vast number of men and women lying there, Rosaria groaned in a hoarse tone, “That’s horrible!”
D got back into the driver’s seat without even glancing at the pair in the vehicle, and with a ferocious pistoning sound, the car began retracing the route by which it’d come.
__
II
__
Returning to the highway, D stopped the vehicle, turned to the pair, and said, “Wait here.”
“You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me! I ain’t about to be left here in the middle of the night with a bunch of pseudo-Nobility. I got no use of my arms. And on top of that, those things back there will probably come after us!”
“Who the hell would want to go after a jerk like you?” Rosaria spat at him, and then she turned a wrathful gaze on D. “You know, folks like that might not be human, but they’re not monsters either. So why’d you kill them so horribly?”
“He didn’t kill them.
”
“What?” Rosaria said, turning around.
A thin smile surfaced on Quinn’s lips as he put his index finger to his throat. “Slashing victims open here is the best way to keep them off their feet. You’re one of them, and you mean to tell me you didn’t even know that? By now the wounds will have closed and they’ll be bumping around in that murky valley none the worse for wear.”
Rosaria turned to D again, slack jawed.
Quinn resumed his complaint, saying, “Which is why I said I ain’t about to be left here. Why didn’t you just go ahead and wipe ’em all out?”
“There’s no need to do that. Victims will—” Rosaria started to say, but then she held her tongue. Because anything she had to say about the victims would also pertain to herself.
“What’s the problem? Just come out and say it!” Quinn sneered at her while leaning against the back of the driver’s seat. “Victims will drink their own—”
A hard crack reverberated from the man’s jaw.
“D?” Rosaria said, staring at his hand as he pulled it back into the front seat.
“Have you ever heard of them leaving the valley?” D inquired as he got to his feet.
“No.”
“How about travelers going missing?”
“No.”
“They’ve been living in that valley. But there are times when their desire for blood makes them lure passing travelers down there. Bright moonlit nights like tonight, for example.”
Rosaria said nothing, but nodded. Feelings of empathy she didn’t fully comprehend kept her from speaking.
The truth that everyone knew yet none would speak. That something human beings found repulsive was simply one means of survival for victims—drinking their own blood. Or that of their fellow victims.
Though in many cases victims resigned themselves to their fate and awaited their hour of destiny in a quarantine area on the outskirts of their village, more than a few still clung to life and decided to escape. Perhaps it was some sort of supernatural power they gained while being transformed into Nobility that allowed them to meet up with others of their kind. When two of them happened to cross paths and headed off together to find some forsaken place to live, other victims in the same situation would collect there as if blown by the wind, and they would form a community. If the human portion of their mind was strong they might subsist off farming and hunting, but the Noble blood that flowed in their veins wouldn’t allow their hunger to be sated by the blood of animals. They needed the blood of something else. And while this terrific struggle took place between the human and Noble within them, each of them realized the same thing: their own blood remained human. As did that of their compatriots.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Parts One and Two Page 3