The purplish smoke and needles pursued D.
D put his left hand against the door to the inner courtyard.
“That door won’t open for anyone but the general,” Madame Laurencin jeered from overhead. “And I’ll have you know that all the technology in his castle was the Sacred Ancestor’s very own—oh!”
Letting out a gasp of astonishment, the Noblewoman launched herself into the air. She was a lovely white blossom in human form. As Madame Laurencin landed, she watched the deadly smoke and needles disappear through the doorway.
Turning, she called out a command: “My carriage!”
From a nearby stand of trees there appeared a white carriage shaped like a swan, and it halted beside the Noblewoman. It was drawn by a team of four black horses. Their manes glistened in the midday sun.
“Does he think I’d let him get away? This man has got the better of my deadly smoke and loving needles—but I’ll see to it he dies by my hand.”
“Take your hand, milady?”
After clinging to the white-gloved hand the driver extended and climbing into her seat, the beautiful demoness suddenly took the long needle she held in her right hand and drove it through the base of the driver’s skull. There was no reason for it—it merely served to vent some of her frustration. The man went into convulsions before he could utter a word, but as she kicked him from the driver’s seat and took up the reins, the face she wore was that of the devil himself.
One lash of the reins. The black horses dashed down the cobblestone path. Up ahead, the door was closing.
“Of all the nerve!”
A plume of purple smoke stretched from her pipe, and when it struck the door, it became like mummified wood, collapsing at the mere tremors from the iron-shod hooves. Bursting through the dust that hung there like a cloudbank, Madame Laurencin entered the inner courtyard.
At the center of this vast if somewhat parched area was a plaza where combat units and weapons might be mustered, while off to the right was a verdant section adorned with lush plants. That’s what D now faced.
“So, in keeping with your looks, you’ve come to pick flowers? I can’t allow that!”
As if the Noblewoman’s tenacity had been conveyed to them, the horses galloped down the stone-paved path toward D. Their iron shoes sent sparks flying.
Thirty yards . . . Twenty . . .
The darkness spun. When the carriage closed to within ten yards, D turned around. Both hands hung easily by his sides, as if he were receiving a visit from a friend, yet a chill went down the spine of the fiendish Madame Laurencin.
A semitransparent cover shielded both the driver’s seat and the area for passengers. A force field.
D didn’t move. He was a gorgeous statue, black and mysterious. The black horses surged forward like dark, angry waves—and ahead of them, D crouched down.
What Madame Laurencin saw was a momentary flash. The two lead animals went down abruptly. With no time to apply the emergency brake, the second pair of horses collided with the first, tripping and sending the carriage sailing into the air. A split second before the horses’ hooves could fall on him, D had leapt to the left. And in the process, he’d struck out with his sword. The blade had done a splendid job of severing the forelegs of the first two cyborg horses at the knees.
Ignoring the cries rising from the horses in their death throes, D looked up at the sky. Madame Laurencin’s laughter rained down from a height of some fifteen feet.
“It was said that making oneself stroll across the sky was something only country bumpkins did,” the Noblewoman said, closing her eyes absentmindedly. Reminiscence leant her elegant visage a vague wistfulness. “But I loved it so. Rivers flowing in the moonlight, strolling lovers, the rhythm of the waltzes, and dance parties that could go on forever—it was a good time.”
The thread of murderous intent that linked the two of them went slack for an instant. Suddenly, a soft voice spoke clear words in Madame Laurencin’s ear.
__
Knowing neither life nor death
Therefore, I call thee by this name
Thou art the Distant One
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Eyes open wide with surprise reflected D’s face. High in the air, the Noblewoman who should’ve been sneering at him was thrown off balance.
“That song . . . It was performed only for a chosen few among the Nobility at the Sacred Ancestor’s manse—and it was written by someone not even we ever saw . . . one who they say was his wife. How could you know it?”
Madame Laurencin closed her eyes. Even with them shut, the unearthly beauty of D’s countenance was burned into her retinas. Somewhere in the chaos that was her memory a tiny light sparked. The light grew no brighter, but the Noblewoman let what it’d revealed fall from her lips.
“Those eyes, that nose, those handsome features . . . You . . . Your highness is . . .”
D was right before her eyes. Neither the Noblewoman’s reminiscences nor the troubling mental state that caused her to call him “your highness” meant anything to the Hunter in black. Bringing his blade down from the high position as he bounded, he split Madame Laurencin lengthwise, then brought his sword around again to pierce her through the heart. Her golden hair and her dress soon turned to gray dust that crumbled in midair, but by then D had landed and was headed once again toward an area by the stand of trees.
“Ah, a medicinal herb garden,” the hoarse voice remarked, sounding impressed.
That section of the inner courtyard was in fact a vast expanse of trees and plants stretching so far in every direction that all of it couldn’t be taken in at the same time, with the blooms arranged into red, blue, yellow, purple, and white in a dazzling display that was both splendid and sweet.
“That’s jupon de la neel—a flower so poisonous it kills any creature that comes within three feet of it. Oh, are those bones I see scattered all around it? Over there’s what they call gatgaya cherian, a kind of luring herb with a scent that controls the minds of living creatures. I hear it played quite a large role in the battle with the Capital. And across from that—”
Paying no attention, D stepped into the center of the flower garden, entered a part where the dense green growth was nearly knee high, and after looking around pulled up a few of the plants at his feet.
“That’s the stuff!” the hoarse voice said with apparent satisfaction.
As D put them in one of his coat’s inner pockets, the voice continued, “At any rate, you’ve got what you came for. Now you just have to rescue Rosaria, so—”
D turned around.
Blurs of silver came to an unexpected stop—one in each of his eyes. They were glittering silver roses. In a heartbeat they were batted down, shattering into countless silver needles when they struck the ground.
Though not even D had taken notice, Madame Laurencin’s ashes had risen on the wind, eddying in midair to form a pair of roses. Perhaps they were a manifestation of the Noblewoman’s last bit of will, for they drifted through the air, closing to within an inch or two of D.
He covered both eyes with one hand. From between his fingers, streams of blood appeared.
“Did she get your eyes?” the hoarse voice inquired, and it was little wonder it couldn’t disguise how surprised and shaken it was. After all, the handsome Vampire Hunter had been robbed of his vision just as he was about to embark on the most difficult of rescues.
“I’ll get rid of the poison. But as for your sight—that’ll take three whole days to fix even using the purifying flame. No choice in this situation but to fall back.”
This seemed the appropriate course of action.
D said, “I was hired to do a job.”
“That you were,” the voice agreed easily.
D’s character didn’t drive him to do it—it was debatable whether D’s character ever moved him at all. But he’d taken a job. Whether he could see or not, he’d get it done. And his left hand was merely acknowledging his cold code of ethics as a professional.
> “Then, shall we go? Just be real damn careful not to let me get lopped off.”
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“Duke of Xenon.”
On hearing his name called, the Nobleman turned his eyes to the high ceiling.
“It is I, Gaskell. Madame Laurencin has been slain,” the voice quickly continued.
“I see,” replied a man who was naked aside from a pair of white briefs. He’d been standing by the window for some time with arms and legs outstretched, basking in the sunlight—since just after daybreak. Though he’d come to the castle the previous evening, he’d essentially spent the entire night awaiting the dawn, then disrobed.
True to the manner in which the general had addressed him, his name was Roland, Duke of Xenon. He appeared to be thirty-four or thirty-five years old, but his actual age was in excess of three thousand years.
While toying with his golden chest hair, he said, “That old bag was defeated by this man called D—it seems he’s not a Hunter in name alone. So, what do you want?”
By all appearances, this was a man not prone to nervousness. In fact, for a Noble, his lack of refinement was a far cry from both the elegance of the Capital and the dauntlessness of the Frontier, as was manifest by his sagging belly and his demeanor toward the general. Seeing that he was a sunbathing Noble, there really could be no mistake.
“Well, I must choose who will go next, and I should like to ask you to do it, sir.”
Gaskell’s words came less as a request and more as pure coercion, yet the Duke of Xenon scratched his head and asked, “Does it really have to be me?”
He didn’t seem to be taking this very seriously.
“No, there’s no special reason why it must be you, sir,” the general said, bewilderment in his voice. Apparently the great general found this middle-aged Nobleman difficult to manage.
“Then could you maybe have one of the others do it instead? As you can see, I’m really enjoying myself in this stuff they call ‘sunlight.’ My, but it feels wonderful. Indeed, I wish to thank you, my good general, for so graciously making this opportunity possible.”
“That is all well and good, but if you decline the request, sir, I shall be forced to send someone else. For instance, the holy knight Lady Ann.”
There must’ve been something crafty about the general’s tone as he said that name, for his voice had a despicable ring to it, and sure enough the duke, in nothing save his briefs, sat right up.
“That won’t do—that won’t do at all, General! Oh, this is a dirty trick. Very well, if you would send that child into battle, then I shall go.”
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“You did an excellent job of convincing him, General.”
When Baron Schuma said this from where he lay on a nearby couch, General Gaskell let his distaste show on his face. No matter how urbane the speech of these Nobles was, each and every word bristled with venomous barbs. Those he’d assembled had proven themselves exceptional individuals in the past—each with the kind of power that might be found in perhaps one out of ten thousand—yet it appeared they didn’t care a whit about Gaskell. Though they didn’t commit any overtly hostile acts, the looks they gave him, the way they addressed him, and their overall bearing had given Gaskell a glimpse of them in two short days that drove him mad with rage, but also left him rather melancholy.
In the past—actually, even at present—the mere perception of derision or provocation directed at him would’ve been enough to make him tear the perpetrator limb from limb on the very spot. Although it might not prove so easy as doing so to his own vassals, Gaskell was confident that he could indeed manage. However, this time things just weren’t going right. More accurately, he simply couldn’t do it. And he knew the reason why. The only power that could force him to do anything was at work. But toward what end?
At the sight of Gaskell about to plunge into an uncharacteristic confusion, Baron Schuma donned a malicious grin, but as if just making sure, he asked, “Incidentally, you do intend to use the holy knight, don’t you?”
Warped with suffering as it was, Gaskell’s face formed a devilish smile. Finally he had returned to his old self—a fiend who feasted on the pain of others and delighted in screams for mercy more than the most heavenly music.
“That goes without saying,” the general replied, giving a stately bow entirely in keeping with his infamous, bloodcurdling tone of voice.
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II
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Going from the inner courtyard to the tower where Rosaria was imprisoned was simple enough, as there weren’t any soldiers or other obstacles.
At this show of complete indifference the left hand cursed, saying, “He’s a cunning bastard.”
Along the way, a tiny mouth in the Hunter’s left hand had sucked in air and drunk D’s blood. And each time it consumed one of those elements, a pale blue flame blazed deep in its maw. With the energy it received, it replenished D’s stamina and set about healing his wounds—at present, it was working on his eyes. However, the poison the millennia-spanning sorceress Madame Laurencin had used was indeed virulent beyond all compare, and it would take extended care to undo the damage. For three more days, D would be forced to meet the foes descending on him in his blinded state, with nothing to rely on but his left hand and his own instincts.
“You know, this is just too easy. It has to be a trap!”
D had begun to ascend a spiraling stone staircase. Climbing to a height of roughly fifty yards, he reached the highest floor . . . but there wasn’t even a guard posted. On one wall was a crude circular window, and across from it was a stone wall with a door in it. D effortlessly tore off its old-fashioned but sturdy lock. Although all attacks by electronic devices and automated security systems could be averted—and there were few of them to begin with—old-fashioned trapdoors or dropping ceilings were still a concern as D quietly opened the door.
Though as much could be told from outside, the room was fairly spacious. Light streamed in through a small window in the wall and a skylight in the ceiling, announcing that it was nearly dusk. Rosaria lay on a bed in the center of the room. This was not the time for her to sleep.
“Rosaria,” D called to her, but still she didn’t move a muscle. Some spell or drug had put her to sleep.
From around the bed came the sound of running water. It coursed through a channel about six feet wide. It was more like a small river than a ditch.
“Oh, my,” the left hand groaned. “It figures a Greater Noble would use a handy trick like this.”
The fact that vampires couldn’t cross running water was common knowledge, passed down since time immemorial. There were examples of drunken Nobles falling into rivers where children could play in safety and subsequently drowning in the knee-deep water. One of the simplest ways to keep the Nobility away, it was utilized far and wide across the Frontier, but up until now there’d been no known case of a Noble using it in his own home. For that alone, General Gaskell could be said to possess a bold and frightening vision.
Halting at the door, D turned his face toward the circulating water, quickly extended his right hand, and rubbed his thumb against the first joint of his index finger. Perhaps due to the strength of his nails, the skin broke on his index finger and fresh blood instantly welled to the surface. He swung the finger.
The drop of blood didn’t leave a trail behind it as it fell into the center of the flow. The instant it made contact, the water’s surface seemed to boil and a number of what looked to be two-and-a-half-foot-thick eels raised their black, snakelike heads. Their mouths couldn’t be discerned, but near the end of heads that tapered seamlessly back into their bodies were a pair of gleams—apparently their eyes, shining like twin lights. Seemingly possessed of the ability to catch the scent of blood in the air, they turned in unison toward the Hunter. In the depths of those gleaming eyes a fiercer spark was born, flickering restlessly. The eyes had originally served to lure prey to them in the lightless depths of the water, but it seemed they’d undergone certain modi
fications, as the left hand promptly said, “Oh, so they can use hypnotism, can they?”
D had already stepped forward. With a quiet gait he headed toward the flowing water.
The glowing, blinking eyes awaited him—waiting for the arrival of their mesmerized prey. When D’s feet came within a yard of the water’s edge, the faces of the black pseudo-eels split lengthwise, revealing pink maws and tiny white fangs. Already three feet out of the water, the heads rose higher and higher. At a height of fifteen feet, they halted. Did the saliva drip from their mouths due to hunger, or did they comprehend D’s beauty?
A heartbeat later, they hissed like snakes and struck down at him from above. Their mouths appeared to tear into D’s face, head, shoulders, and abdomen—but at that moment a silvery glint flashed out. The sight of the eels sinking their fangs into D’s body had been nothing more than an illusion. Every one of their heads passed through D’s form or missed him entirely, hitting the floor still poised to attack. Following this, bright blood fell like rain.
D had moved by them at an unbelievable speed. Now the headless bodies twisted weakly, and then quickly grew motionless. Though creatures of this ilk usually lasted quite a long time even after being fatally wounded, the blind D’s swordplay didn’t allow for that.
The running water had already been stained red, but it seemed that no other guardians remained there.
D reached the water’s edge. Since starting his advance, he hadn’t paused for a second. What’s more, in severing over a dozen heads, he hadn’t been hit by even a drop of their blood. In light of the fact that he was currently blind, it was a hint of how utterly fearsome this young man was.
He plunged the blade in his right hand into the flow.
“Thirty feet deep,” his left hand said. “Swimming it’d be tough. Jump it.”
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Parts One and Two Page 16