Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Parts One and Two

by Dark Road (Parts 1

  “Or maybe a meteor missile some Noble shot over here? They have bases in the asteroid belt, but it’s been thousands of years since anyone alive was able to control them. Still, I’m surprised they were able to punch a hole in the repository’s shields.”

  Sergei also got the impression that a great part of history was coming back to life.

  “Where we’re going next, no one else has ever been. No one, that is, except for its creator, General Gaskell—and the Sacred Ancestor.”

  To Sergei, it looked as if D nodded at the hoarse voice’s words.

  THE STORED WORLD

  CHAPTER 5

  I

  __

  What’s this? Kinda cold, isn’t it?” Gordo asked as he squatted by the fire.

  Juke had just finished walking around the wagon, and Gordo offered him a tin cup full of hot coffee. After taking a sip, Juke grimaced. The dried coffee travelers used was nicknamed “black chili peppers.” Nevertheless, they drank it because its natural properties made it act as a stimulant but without any side effects.

  Popping a piece of candy into his mouth to get rid of the taste, Juke crunched on it as he said, “Come to mention it, it is kinda nippy for this time of year.”

  And having spoken, he turned his eyes to the watchlike module he wore on his right wrist. At the touch of one small button the device switched from the standard Frontier time to a display of his present coordinates or his vital signs. Machinists in the Capital could only produce ten of them a year, making these units exceedingly difficult to get out on the Frontier. Since a person might wind up being killed for it, those that owned them seldom let anyone else see them.

  Setting it to thermal mode, he remarked, “Thirty-eight degrees? Normally it should read fifty-five. That’s odd.”

  “You don’t suppose the villagers are up to something, do you? You know, like letting us freeze to death so they can snag the rest of our goods?”

  Gordo’s words only met with a snort from Juke. “You think they’ve got a climate controller or anything like that in this village? It’s probably just some supernatural aura.”

  “A supernatural aura?”

  “If this cooling isn’t from a climate controller, that’s all it could be. Even the villagers changed into their fur coats.”

  “By supernatural aura, you mean a monster?”

  “I don’t know. Seems too strong to be any animal.”

  “Just perfect,” Gordo said, throwing another branch on the fire. Sparks danced upward.

  “Yeah, at a time like this, we could use every man we’ve got. I know about Sergei, but what’s going on with D?”

  “Good question.”

  “He kinda gives me the creeps. He might have skill and good looks, but in the end he’s still a dhampir, and when he’s nearby the air seems . . .”

  Cold, just like it was now. The pair exchanged glances. They were getting goose bumps, and not merely due to the night air.

  “Hey,” Juke said, turning his face to the right and furrowing his brow. “You hear that?”

  Closing his eyes, Gordo listened intently and gave a nod. “That’s the sound of a carriage.”

  “You don’t mean that one?”

  “That’s right. The one that Noble named Schuma took. It sounds just like it did back at the station.”

  “Well, I trust your ears, then. What’s he been doing up until now? I’d thought he’d long since hurried off to the domain of that long-dead pain-in-the-ass general,” Juke cursed, his ears now distinctly catching the ring of iron-shod hooves pounding through the darkness. From the south to the north.

  “He’s coming,” Gordo said, getting to his feet. Cocking the multi-

  barreled rifle he’d scooped up off the ground, he pressed the selector and set it to fire all barrels in unison. If struck by all thirty-two of the quarter-inch slugs at once, even an enormous monster would be killed instantly.

  The sound grew louder. Partly it was because it was drawing closer, but all other sounds had also died out. The village had noticed it, too! Fiendish footsteps approached through the deep, dark night. Juke put his hand on the grip of the bolt gun he wore on his hip, checking that it was still there.

  “Fifty yards,” Gordo said. The sweat rolling down his brow glittered in the moonlight. “Forty . . . Thirty . . . Twenty . . . Ten . . .

  Here he comes!”

  At the same time, the horses halted outside the gate. The sounds of hooves and carriage wheels came to a dead stop. Graceful was the only way to describe the manner in which the carriage had halted so suddenly.

  While listening to the pounding of their own hearts, the pair of transporters stood stock still in the darkness.

  “I am Baron Schuma,” a crisp tone informed them. He had to be using a microphone, but it sounded like his unaided voice. “I have business with the Vampire Hunter in this village. Open the gate. If not, I’ll have to come in.”

  It wasn’t a threatening tone at all. But the way the night air suddenly froze attested to the fact that it left the villagers terrified.

  “I shall do nothing to the village. My business isn’t with its inhabitants. I merely wish to see the Hunter. Or would you be so kind as to come out instead, Vampire Hunter?”

  Juke closed his eyes. Now they were done for. In a situation like this, he knew only too well how the villagers would react.

  “I shall give you three minutes. If I receive no response in that time, I can’t be held responsible for what comes next. You had best be prepared for the accompanying casualties.”

  Before the baron had finished speaking, voices and sounds rang out in various places in the darkness. A door opened, and there was a stampede of feet toward the square—along with angry shouts.

  “Where the hell are those guys?”

  “In the square!”

  “Let’s chase ’em out right now. And if they’ve got a problem with that, we’ll kill ’em!”

  At the cries of the approaching mob, Juke and Gordo looked at each other and grinned wryly. Not that they weren’t scared, but you got into trouble like this when you hauled merchandise all over the Frontier.

  “Oh, hell!” Juke exclaimed, downing the rest of the coffee.

  “Ready now? I suppose you’ve got a will all made out, right?” Gordo inquired.

  “You write one?”

  “Don’t be stupid. When would I have time to do that?”

  “You must’ve had plenty of time to do it.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I write one up for every run. Don’t want all my earthly possessions going to you guys, after all.”

  “Hmph!”

  Around them, waves of villagers were already closing on the pair. Hostility splashed from those waves. And through all that a conversation was taking place.

  “So, you haven’t written one, then? You haven’t, have you?” Juke continued as he looked out over the mob.

  “No, I haven’t!” Gordo finally snapped. “Why? You trying to say I can’t sign on to a transport party without writing a will or something?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. But why didn’t you?”

  “Juke, you dirty dog, you know perfectly well, don’t you?”

  “Know what?” the man replied, finding his bearded compatriot’s behavior disturbing.

  “That I don’t know how to write!”

  “Shit! I didn’t know that.”

  Bending backward in an exaggerated manner, he executed a flip with the flexibility of thin steel. Seeing how both hands hung down by his side—he hadn’t exhibited any killing lust or given them an opening for a second—the enraged villagers halted their advance. Those in back, however, didn’t stop, so there was a bit of pushing and jostling.

  “Well, looks like everyone’s here—what can we do for you?” Juke said with a grin.

  “Don’t play dumb. Send out the Hunter. The Vampire Hunter.”

  “He was the guy driving the wagon earlier. Where’d he get to?”

  In the hand
s of the villagers there gleamed mattocks, spades, sickles, drum-fed rifles, old-fashioned pneumatic pistols, and gunpowder weapons. The second their murderous intent collided with the villagers’ malice and sent sparks flying, the pair’s fate would be sealed.

  “As you can see, there’s no one like that here,” Juke said, feigning innocence.

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  An unsettling silence took over the villagers, and then a second later their ring tightened.

  “I honestly don’t know. A Vampire Hunter couldn’t do his job too well just hanging around us. But he’ll probably be back just as soon as he catches the scent of that Noble,” Juke said with a toss of his chin in the direction of the gates. “He’s a Vampire Hunter, sure enough. You’ve probably heard of him. D is what they call him.”

  A clamor went through the villagers. One word was enough to buoy the selfish human psyches. That one word was D.

  “D, is it?”

  “A Vampire Hunter.”

  “They say he’s never been beat!”

  “I’ve never seen a man so beautiful. That’s just not human. And if he’s not human—he could even kill a Noble.”

  “Damn straight!”

  “Call in D!”

  “Do it soon. Where is he?”

  Juke nodded gravely at the faces and voices before him filled with selfish hopes and expectations. “Just leave it to us. He’ll be here soon.”

  A particularly rousing cheer went up. But it was coupled with a new announcement: “You have one minute left.”

  Chilling the blood of all of them, the Noble’s voice issued from beyond the gates. The looks on the villagers’ faces underwent yet another change.

  “Where’s D?”

  “Hurry up and get him out here.”

  “The village is done for. We’ll all have our throats torn open and our blood drained!” a girl exclaimed, her cry splitting the night. It wasn’t the loss of her life she feared, but the defiling of her soul.

  “Thirty seconds left,” Baron Schuma said, his voice sounding pleased.

  “He ain’t gonna make it in time. I guess we’ll have to send you two out after all.”

  The mob descended.

  “Hey, Juke!” Gordo called over in a muted tone. “I’m more scared of a human mob than I am of the Nobility.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Twenty seconds . . .”

  “Get out of here! Both of you, get going!

  The cries of the villagers overlapped. Though the content differed, they all sounded the same.

  “Ten seconds.”

  The villagers pressed closer. Their faces were no longer human. Tinged with madness and fear, they were the faces of demons.

  “Five—four—three—two—one.”

  Like a great wave crashing, the villagers drove forward. But they halted at the neighing of a horse—and a cry of surprise.

  “Who—who are you?” And after a short pause, this was followed by, “Wait! Where are you going?”

  The cries were clearly those of Baron Schuma. The last thing he said was trampled by hoof beats and the creak of carriage wheels. They were dwindling at an incredible speed.

  “He’s gone off!”

  “We’re saved!”

  As the villagers cried out with joy, it came as little surprise that Juke and Gordo looked at each other.

  “Where the hell did that bastard run off to?”

  “And before he did, just what—I mean, who—did he see?”

  __

  II

  __

  A piercing light penetrated the inky darkness: Baron Schuma’s gaze. He was leaning out the carriage window. The reason he’d turned so easily from meeting D and destroying the village was somewhere out in that darkness. Though he couldn’t see it, the molecular changes could be measured, and a particular sensor that could locate them showed a green shape on its screen. What he pursued was traveling through space in what might be described as a terribly dilute gaseous state. However, he had no idea as to why his carriage—racing along at a speed of seventy-five miles per hour—showed no signs of closing the gap. Perhaps what he chased was driven by a firm intent?

  The better part of a mile from the village, the baron did a double take. The green shape had vanished from his sensors.

  “Did it turn into nothingness?” the baron muttered after getting back in the carriage. He then turned to his golden bracelet and ordered, “Stop the carriage.”

  He was on a moonlit road through the forest. The silhouettes of the trees interlaced with each other. When the baron climbed down from his carriage, he had no shadow of his own at his feet. He took a deep breath of the night air.

  “I can go into a frenzy wondering where it’s gone, but if I don’t know then I guess I don’t know. At any rate, I suppose I should fill my lungs with this sapid air and return to that vile hamlet—where D is.”

  Suddenly the baron looked down at his feet, and then bent over to examine something. In the grass there swayed a blossom whose name he didn’t even know. Picking it up and bringing it to his nose, he sought the perfume of the night. However, before the baron could accomplish this, he discarded the flower, which was now just a stalk. Its lovely petals had begun to wither the second his hand touched it, and by the time he’d lifted it up, they’d all crumbled.

  “The only ones we can smell are the ones we make ourselves, eh? That may be the Nobles’ fate, but I find it a disconsolate one!” he muttered sadly.

  Something white stood before him.

  “But you’re . . .”

  The reason he stared at it not with shock but rather in a daze might’ve been because the form of the girl who appeared like a trick of the night was far too real. Suddenly materializing before him in front of the village gates, then vanishing, the girl had appeared three times in the distance on the road, enticing the baron—but where was she trying to lead the Nobleman?

  The baron’s outstretched fingertips touched the girl’s arm. The sensation he got was certainly that of skin, soft and real—as was the warm blood that flowed beneath it. Focusing his strength, the baron seized her arm. He then knit his brow. It felt like whatever was between his fingers was melting. The baron squeezed his fingers. But the girl wasn’t there.

  Moonlight continued to fall on him like a faint drizzle. The baron blinked. The girl was farther down the road, as if that was where she’d been all along. A black shadow fell at her feet.

  “You’re trying to tell me to take this road?” the baron said, finally understanding. “Fair enough. As you wish, I shall travel through the night. This may be a dream and the trip may be contrary to the wishes of General Gaskell, but I have no fear.”

  Spinning around, he returned to the carriage. Leaving particles of light brushed from his shoulders whirling in its wake, the carriage sped off.

  __

  When the baron halted his carriage once more, it was in part of the ruins. Spotting the two cyborg horses, he climbed down from the vehicle. A silvery cloud eddied beyond the steeds. Boring through the darkness, the eyes of the Noble then began to sparkle.

  “So that’s it, then? The reason he didn’t reply to my summons was because he wasn’t there after all. And is this cloud the repository the general mentioned? If so, I wonder what sort of world lies within it. I’ll have a look.”

  The baron’s glittering eyes scanned the ground. Finding two sets of footprints, he began to walk after them and was quickly swallowed by the silver cloud.

  __

  More than an hour had already passed since they’d begun navigating the sea of clouds. And more than twenty minutes had elapsed since they’d entered the area where the hoarse voice said none but General Gaskell and the Sacred Ancestor had ever set foot. Only the steel plain spread beneath them, with what looked like equally steely mountain ranges appearing from time to time, but aside from that there was no sign of anything moving. Light had long since faded from the horizon. />
  Wondering just how wide this world stretched within the cloud, Sergei began to sense something disturbing. Even though he wanted to ask about it, D had his back to the man as he remained facing forward, and his unwavering solemnity made it impossible to pose any question.

  Was this the Nobles’ civilization? Admiration was synonymous with horror here.

  Without warning, the blue grew deeper. A forceful impact threw Sergei to the floor.

  “So it’s still alive after all, is it? It’d be dangerous to keep going like this.”

  The man looked up desperately at the source of the hoarse voice. D still stood in the same place.

  On the wildly bucking floor, the man felt his bile rise. When the voice spoke of something still being alive, it must’ve meant the defensive systems. The slumbering machinery found in this new foe wanted an opportunity to display its might.

  “You mean to tell me this thing we’re riding in doesn’t belong to the repository? Whoa!”

  A reddish hue challenged the blue of the room. It was a spark. For some reason, Sergei was relieved.

  Then a hoarse voice was heard to say, “Oh, my! Looks like the identification devices are malfunctioning. At this rate, we’ll be blasted out of the sky!”

  “Do something!” Sergei exclaimed as the floor tossed him upward. Apparently it’d taken a hit.

  “We’re going down!” the hoarse voice said.

  Had their vehicle been blasted out of the air?

  “We’re there.”

  “Huh?” Sergei said, his eyes bugging out even as he covered his head. Not a second had passed. The figure in black before him began walking from right to left.

  “What are you lying around for? Get down off that. You’ll be killed!”

  Sergei got up like a man possessed. Though his spine and his left shoulder hurt terribly, he didn’t have time to worry about it. There was no sign of D. Sergei rushed over toward the left wall. Suddenly, he was suffocating. There was no oxygen. Sharp breaths were impossible, his lungs panted frantically, and his heart groaned.

  “Damn—that guy’s just a plain old human.”

  As the hoarse voice spoke, something cold was blown into the man’s mouth—and his breathing immediately became easier. It was only after D’s left hand came away from him that he coughed loudly.