A short while earlier he’d been hanging around the back of the wagons and Juke, who was lying down, had asked him what he was thinking about. “Tonight’s menu,” he’d replied, only to be met with a glare. That meal had since been finished and the night had begun to grow deeper, so it was now time to decide who would stand watch this evening.
“I’ll do it,” D offered.
“That’d be setting a bad precedent,” Juke said, so they drew straws and Gordo lost.
Transporters had to get an early start. Juke and Sergei hastened to their beds while Gordo and D remained outside.
Watch duty consisted of circling the wagon a number of times and making sure the fire didn’t die out. Around the middle of the night the understandably tired Gordo sat down by the campfire, poured a cup of coffee from what was over the embers, and began to drink it. The moon was so bright and pale it seemed to glow with its own light, and the wind that blew from the depths of the forest carried the baying of wolves.
“Care for some?” Gordo said to D, who was leaning back against the wagon.
“Sure,” D said, uncharacteristically taking the cup and downing the steaming-hot contents without another word.
“You gulped the whole thing down in one shot?” Gordo said, his eyes wide with amazement. “Sure as I live, you dhampirs are mighty different. I’m stunned. You know, I hear Nobility can drink molten lava and still be smiling just as pretty as you please, but is that really true?”
“Probably.”
“Why would a dhampir wanna be a Hunter of all things? That’s like killing your own, in a manner of speaking.”
Setting his cup down on the ground, D asked, “Do you hate dhampirs?”
“Yeah, they give me the creeps. Ol’ Juke likes to fight, so it’s his nature to respect someone when he hears they’re tough, but I just see things the way they really are. I don’t care if they hunt the Nobility; I don’t care what they do. Dhampirs are half Noble, and there’s no denying that. In other words, they’re half monster. You think someone like that can be trusted?”
“Good point,” a hoarse voice agreed.
Grimacing, Gordo said, “I’m begging you, knock if off with the ventriloquism. If you’ve gotta use a different voice, make it a sexy female one . . .”
The man’s unreasonable demand dwindled and was swallowed by the darkness. A lovely singing voice had rung out in the night air from nowhere in particular.
__
III
__
“Is that a land siren?” Gordo said, quickly pulling out his earplugs.
No one had ever seen the source of those sad, sweet voices that flowed through the midnight air. The men they lured into leaving the land of the living were always found as withered corpses the next morning. However, whatever it was that they saw in their final seconds, the dead always wore smiles of supreme bliss. Fortunately, all that was needed to resist the unholy singers who tempted those who traveled by land or sea was nothing more than earplugs. At present, experienced travelers were able to pass the night in peace, enraptured by the faint song echoing in the depths of ears plugged with cloth or paper.
However, what this pair heard wasn’t the song of an unholy creature. Rosaria was standing in front of the door to the living quarters.
__
Somewhere a shining windmill
Changes the wind when it hits
The scent the breeze carried becomes a song
Rushing to the village in spring
Only to the ears of my love
__
D was gazing at the girl who sang out in the moonlight. Gordo—and Juke and Sergei, who’d both poked their heads out of the open door—listened intently.
Her song finished, Rosaria gave a natural reaction to the applause she drew. Surprise flushed the girl’s cheeks. Going over by the campfire as if taking flight, she crinkled her brow and said, “Dear me, were you listening?”
“You’re something else. On top of your cooking, you had another weapon tucked away in your arsenal, did you?” Gordo said, sounding thoroughly enchanted. “Would you take a request next?”
“No. That’s the only one I know. One song is all Papa ever taught me.”
“Stingy old man, was he?”
“Don’t speak ill of my papa.”
Rosaria’s arched eyebrows got Gordo to hold his tongue, after which he said in a strangely pensive tone, “No, you’re right about that. It ain’t right to speak ill of someone’s father, sure enough.”
The campfire crackled—D had thrown a branch on it. The flames transformed the faces of the trio into a stage for dancing shadows. Mournful. Laughing. Angry. Crying.
“My father was a huntsman,” Gordo began. “He was good at it. I thought he’d always be able to take care of me, my mom, and my three brothers and sisters all on his own.”
Once again, there was the call of the wolves. Then the night quietly wore on.
“We all had a future. It was a rough existence out in the middle of nowhere, but we all dreamed of becoming a huntsman, or marrying one.”
And then one winter’s day a woman had come and begged merely to stay the night. His mother insisted there was something strange about her, but his father thought the winter’s night was too cruel and invited her in.
“But the next day the woman didn’t leave. She said supernatural creatures had attacked her village, separating her from her parents and leaving her on her own. My father told her she should stay until the snow had melted.”
It was the evening of the fifth day that the woman showed her fangs. When Gordo and his father returned from hunting, there was blood spattered all over the house, inside and out, and they heard the screams of his little sister. Bursting into the house, Gordo and his father saw his mother and siblings lying on the floor, their faces frozen in death. The shock was so great that the two of them were locked in a daze when something suddenly slammed down at their feet, sending up a bloody spray. His little sister.
“My father fired right away. It was a gunpowder rifle. The woman was left with only half a face. The left half, I think. But she grinned with that half and went for my father. Before she could tear his throat open with her claws, my father blew the other half of her face away. And do you think that was the end of it? No, the Hunter here knows different. Even with her whole head missing, the woman didn’t die. Reaching out with both hands, she started prowling around. Lucky for us she didn’t know which way she was headed. I grabbed a stake that was lying in the living room and jabbed it through the woman’s back.”
Gordo’s voice faltered. Apparently the memory remained sharp. Something glittered its way down his suntanned cheeks.
“The woman died. But she didn’t turn to dust, and she didn’t rot away either. She’d moved around by day, too, so she wasn’t no vampire. She was a victim. Bitten but not changed, she played innocent to get into my house, and then wiped out my family. You know, my mother was so kind. My little brother was smart, and my little sister was so sweet. And my father was strong.”
Roughly rubbing at his eyes with the backs of his hands, Gordo spread the fingers of both hands.
“Ever since that, I haven’t been able to handle a blade. See, in the palm of my hand, I can still feel what it was like stabbing into her. If you can’t carve your prey, you can’t be a huntsman. That much was clear, as a man can’t rightly live on the Frontier without being able to use a knife.”
“Why’d you decide to be a transporter?” D inquired.
This man who didn’t use blades had chosen a grueling career. Therein lay D’s question.
“Reverse psychology. I figured choosing a line of work where I’d be forced to use knives and swords against monsters might do the trick.”
“And if it doesn’t? What about those who have only you to rely on? Will you be able to pick up a knife when the time comes?”
“I don’t know—but I sure like to hope so.”
“If you can’t, your colleagues will die. Then you’
ll be a murderer. Don’t think getting yourself killed is the worst that can happen.”
Gordo’s body shook. D’s words had pierced his heart like a blade.
“What you’re running away from isn’t blades, it’s fighting with blades. The Frontier doesn’t need anyone who’s going to freeze up in a situation like that. Maybe you should go to the Capital.”
Letting out a long sigh, Gordo shook his head. Turning, he looked at Rosaria. His expression was kind.
“Your song got me talking some boring crap. Oh, I didn’t mean that as a complaint. Now I’ve gone and done it. You’re not gonna want to travel with us anymore, eh?”
“That’s not it at all,” Rosaria replied, wiping her eyes. As she’d listened to Gordo’s story, she’d been crying. “I’m sure you’ll get back to normal.”
“Really? Thank you,” Gordo said, smiling brightly. “If I do, I’ll become a huntsman.”
“You wouldn’t stay a transporter?”
“Are you kidding me? Who’d want this low-down, rough-and-tumble job?”
The two of them laughed together.
It was at that moment that part of the world was stained blue. The stillness was shattered by a high-pitched sound.
“Hide!” Gordo shouted to Rosaria. “Something tripped the warning sensors,” he cried into the living quarters as he ran to the back of the wagon.
During the night, electromagnetic waves coursed through an iron net that was set up around the wagon to defend against wild animals. A powerful but highly compact dynamo sent three hundred thousand volts of current through the net to fry any foes trying to get inside. Of course, it was of no use against heavily armored attackers or those with skin resistant to electricity. What’s more, from the showers of sparks, it had to be something big this time.
Coming around the vehicle, Gordo exclaimed, “Jeez!”
In front of the torn iron netting that was giving off purplish smoke stood D with sword in hand. At the point Gordo had started speaking to Rosaria instead of him, the Hunter had most likely noticed the presence of an intruder. Gordo’s body trembled with embarrassment and with amazement at the young man.
“What happened?” he asked, coming to a dead stop from his run.
Every inch of D radiated a ghastly aura that seemed to sear the man from head to toe. His blood and bones froze, yet Gordo realized he was catching only the tiniest bit. D’s aura was focused ahead of him—off to the right of Gordo. Though the man strained his eyes, he saw nothing.
An invisible beast? he thought. No, this isn’t part of their range. They’re always found—
At that moment the world exploded and Gordo shielded his face. A shock wave hit him right in the kisser. The multishot rifle he carried grew strangely heavy. Aside from that, all that remained in the moonlight was the gorgeous Hunter.
“You okay?” he called to Gordo, but the man couldn’t move right away, for he’d noticed that the grass by his feet was matted down. Apparently it was an unseen monstrosity that only returned to its original state in death. And it had fallen without making a sound.
The first thing that became visible was a flow of bluish-green liquid. As it bubbled up like a fountain, around it a paler version of the same color spread, exposing the lines of what had fallen. It was a creature about six and a half feet tall. Although the body on the whole resembled that of a bear, it had no fur and was much slighter in build. The most disturbing part of all was that the head alone was just like a human’s, but that wasn’t what froze Gordo in his tracks. The creature’s body was pointed toward him with both arms reaching out. Each hand had three fingers with claws eight inches long, and those claws were within a yard of his toes. Clearly the creature had decided to go after not D, but Gordo.
From behind them, Sergei and Juke ran up with weapons in hand. Eyeing the beast that’d been killed instantly, one of them cocked an eyebrow and said, “But isn’t that a—”
“It sure is,” Gordo said with a nod. “A joffo dragon. They’re not supposed to be around here. These monsters only live further north—in Gaskell’s domain. Even with all the Nobility’s power, making transparent creatures was no easy task. That’s why he only used them inside his dominion, to strike down invaders. But now it’s the invader.”
“What’s this supposed to mean? Their control mechanisms can’t handle them anymore?” Juke asked, tilting his head.
“You know something about this, D?”
At Gordo’s query, all eyes turned to D. His clear, deep eyes coolly drew in their gazes—and threatened to suck the very souls from them in the process.
“Tomorrow, you’ll understand when we reach the village of Krakow,” the exquisite Hunter said in the voice of the night. “Get some rest—it’s a long trip. And I believe I’ll stand watch tonight after all.”
Rage seized Gordo. “That’s my job,” he snapped like a hungry dog.
D looked him straight in the eye and asked him, “If you’d seen it, would you have shot it?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. It’s all too easy to miss the mark when you haven’t had enough sleep.”
“Yeah, let’s do that, Gordo,” Juke said to him. “Something’s just not right about this area. It’s not like it usually is. More things we have no idea about might show up. Tonight we’ll leave it to D, and then tomorrow we’ll choose a guard for the night again.”
“Okay,” Gordo grumbled with a reluctant nod.
The three men started to walk back to their sleeping quarters. After they’d gone five or ten feet, Gordo turned around, pointed a finger at D, and said, “Don’t ever tell me what to do again. I don’t care if you’re a Vampire Hunter, I don’t care how tough you are—the gloves will come off!”
THE DRIFTING DOMAIN
CHAPTER 7
I
__
There was fog early in the morning. The scenery just two or three yards away was enveloped in milky whiteness, so that nothing but outlines were visible. The mist was so heavy, it seemed like you’d hear the droplets fall if you brushed the grass or leaves.
As he pawed at his hair, which at some point had become drenched, Juke muttered in the driver’s seat, “Hell, even rain would be better than this.”
And saying this, he looked over at D, on his right. On horseback, Sergei ran along the left side of the wagon, while Gordo glared all around from atop the loading platform. Rosaria was in the living quarters.
“Thanks to you, no strange beasties have jumped us,” Juke told the Hunter, “but without these cyborg horses and their keen memories, we’d have long since lost our way.”
While there were a great many varieties of cyborg horse, they weren’t that different from ordinary horses. But what transporters found indispensable when hauling cargo was a cyborg horse’s innate ability to remember any road it’d traveled before. As these horses had been acquired out in the sticks, it was unavoidable that they weren’t as durable or sophisticated as those from the Capital, but the crone who’d taken care of them assured the transporters their sensors were like new and the steeds were equipped with instinctive circuitry that could choose a path even where there was no road to speak of.
Actually, the horses had advanced unerringly even through the heavy fog, but in the last thirty minutes they’d begun to exhibit some strange behavior before finally halting completely.
“That hag sold us some lousy nags! Just you wait. On the return trip, I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind. What was all that talk about them being able to gallop at full speed through a moonless forest without so much as brushing a single leaf?”
As Juke gnashed his teeth, Sergei called over from beside him, “I wonder if it might be due to this fog? It’s so heavy and strangely humid.”
Turning his gaze to the left shoulder of his jacket, Juke looked at the analysis plaque that was sewn to it. It was a flat piece of wood covered with a strip of paper that assessed the makeup of the atmosphere.
“I
t’s okay—it’s just regular mist. No weird components to it.”
“Then what’s the deal?”
Juke gave him no reply, but looked at D. “Do you know?”
D said nothing as he took up the reins. The horses whinnied. The reins snapped into action, striking their necks. The horses advanced ever so slightly, then halted.
“They won’t go even for you? Just what the hell’s going on?” Juke said, tilting his head to one side as he looked at the animals. “What, is there something scary up ahead? It couldn’t seriously be worse than you—sorry, no offense intended. The freaking horses just don’t look like they’re spooked.”
“They’re bewildered,” D said. “Because what’s up ahead isn’t where they were supposed to go.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There’s no road.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Juke rubbed his eyes, adding, “I can’t see it too well, but the road keeps right on going. From here it runs straight for the longest time, and even I know where it takes a turn.”
“The horses don’t know that.”
“Huh?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sergei called out, disquieted.
“Can you go?” D asked.
“What? Sure.”
Sergei cracked his reins. Then he gave a kick to his horse’s belly. Twice he repeated each of those actions. His horse didn’t move.
“What in the world?” Sergei muttered, but his words overlapped with a rustling in the forest.
The fog scattered in the wind, and Juke and Sergei turned their faces to avoid the gust. It soon abated. And as soon as they felt this happen, a hoarse voice declared, “A road’s been made ready.”
Turning their eyes forward and seeing the path that ran on through a break in the fog, Juke and Sergei looked at each other. Sure enough, there was the road that guided travelers to the village of Krakow.
__
Two hours later, the group arrived without incident at the stockade fence surrounding the village. In the lookout tower they saw a young man in a yellow shirt holding an old-fashioned gunpowder rifle.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Parts One and Two Page 12