His last remark was filled with a determination that said he wouldn’t give her another inch.
“If you go back, you’ll do so alone. And if you want to destroy this man, you’ll have to destroy me first.”
Lady Ann’s reply showed a similarly obstinate will, and it made the lips hidden beneath her father’s beard quiver intensely.
“Do you still fail to see how I feel about you?”
“Ha! I can’t begin to imagine how the man who created a daughter like me would feel,” Lady Ann laughed. “Nor how a father who violates his own child feels.”
“What are you talking about? That was only—”
“Because you saw in me the face of my mother, who died so young? Mother also looked like a ten-year-old when she died.”
“Stop it!”
“Have you forgotten already? I remember it in vivid detail. What you did to me that time, Father, and what you called me. Alice, you said . . .”
All trace of emotion drained from the Duke of Xenon’s face. His lack of expression was more terrifying than any look of rage, but it was at just that moment that a grayish light covered his features. Not stopping at his head, it swept across his arms, chest, stomach, and legs, turning him into an entirely different person. The gigantic exoskeleton he wore probably consisted of a single continuous sheet.
Lady Ann looked up in silence at where her father’s head loomed at a height of ten feet.
“I could never hurt you,” he told her. “However, come what may, that man must be disposed of here and now. I hate that bastard for deceiving my beloved daughter. Tearing him to pieces won’t even begin to satisfy me.”
“I could say the very same thing about you.”
As the giant stood there paralyzed with shock, Lady Ann retreated further into the ruins.
“Ann!” the giant cried out, going after her.
If he wanted to, he could move without his footsteps making a sound, but he must’ve been extremely shaken emotionally, because the ground thundered under his massive form. The floor sank and the stone walls crumbled.
As the ruins were about to welcome new death and destruction, Lady Ann glided across the floor like a phantom.
The giant swung his right arm. A spear materialized in midair, jabbing into the floor right in front of Lady Ann.
Lady Ann narrowly dodged the weapon, but her shoulder struck it, throwing her off balance and causing D to drop from her arms. The entire floor had receded, and D landed in the lowest part on his back. Oddly enough, it was in exactly the same location where Ann had buried him.
Although fine dust drifted through the air, Ann didn’t so much as blink as she stared at her approaching father. No, the emotion that shot from her eyes wasn’t one to ever be directed at one’s own parent. It was quite obviously a hatred that burned like a flame.
Her bloodsucking flowers would no longer do her any good. Perhaps aware of this, she leapt to the bottom of the bowl-shaped depression in the floor and stood in front of D’s chest with her arms extended to either side.
A long spear whistled through the wind, shattering the stone altar in the back of the ruins. A warning shot.
Black cracks raced across the floor and the rock wall.
“This is your last chance. Out of the way!” the Duke of Xenon shouted, a new spear glowing in his upraised right hand.
“Go ahead and throw it,” Ann said. There wasn’t an iota of fear in either her tone or the look on her face. The girl was prepared to die. She would defend the man she loved as best she could or perish along with him.
The sight of her there could almost be described as divine, and it left the titanic warrior tensed in the blue light. However, this lasted only a moment—his patience and forgiveness for his recalcitrant daughter had long since run out, and the face of his inanimate exoskeleton conveyed an unmistakable indignation as the giant swung his right arm home.
But who could’ve foreseen what came a second later? Who could’ve guessed that a horrible scream would erupt from his mouth?
Turning around, Lady Ann gasped and reeled backward as well.
They saw it. It burned itself into their retinas, searing their very brains.
This was what the aged priest curled up at the base of the far rock wall had sought—ancient holy men seeking to protect it from destruction by the Nobility had concealed it in a natural pocket inside the rock wall, and the blow from the long spear had collapsed that wall and brought it into view.
In the light of dusk lay an entire stone cross with a tiny human figure nailed to it through both hands. On the figure’s head was a crown of thorns, and his expression of horrible pain and exhaustion was nonetheless filled with a boundless mercy and charity that was certain to touch all who beheld it.
What laid the fearsome, fiendish parent and child low was a stone crucifix that’d survived ten thousand years.
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III
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After so much time had passed, all memory of the ancient priests who’d tried to preserve it had been lost, and it had become a mere piece of stone. But then, what made something holy or unholy?
Before the little stone crucifix, the pair of Nobles lost their minds, the Duke of Xenon reeling wildly as he began to return to the entrance.
“Fall back, Lady Ann—we are no match for its power!” the duke shouted.
He withstood the agony that was building like a blaze in his body. A second later, its heat became a terrible cold and he quaked from head to toe with chills. Worst of all was the unfathomable fear rising from the depths of his heart. Not even listening for his beloved daughter’s reply, the duke fled the ruins in all haste, nearly tripping over himself in the process.
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†
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It was practically a miracle that Ann remained there. As hopeless as the situation was, she was concerned about D. If she were to try to take him out of there now, her father wouldn’t sit idly by. It might be best if they died together, but if she couldn’t have that, the least she could do was spare D from the present pain. For he, too, sprang from the accursed blood of the Nobility. In fact, D hadn’t awakened yet. Still, the holy had a power that assailed the unholy regardless of whether they looked upon it or not.
On top of D, Ann hugged his head, and her body trembled as if with fever. She knew pain and peace at the same time.
This will do, she thought. If I’m to die here with him, then this will do.
Something skimmed by her head. Although Ann didn’t see it, it was rather strange. A lone red insect had been hurled in through the entrance. It sailed straight to the back of the ruins as if flying under its own power, latching onto the center of the crucifix—and the neck of the person on it. It then stuffed the tail end of its abdomen into its round mouth and hung around the figure’s neck like a rosary. And then, strange as it seemed, there was a crunching sound from its tail as it began to devour itself. What had been a ring a foot in diameter swiftly dwindled, and even when it had become about the same thickness as the modest statue’s slender neck it kept eating, then suddenly it was gone. Literally nothing remained.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. In the center of the figure’s face, around the tip of his nose, there appeared a tiny black spot. A hole. A second later, it became a great black cavern about three feet across. Of course, it didn’t occur on the surface of the figure. Nor was it on the cross. It was an opening that suddenly appeared in space—a tunnel. While it was unclear where it led, it whined as it sucked the air from this side of the hole, as if the other side opened into outer space. And air wasn’t the only thing it inhaled—stone blocks and pieces of rock and anything else that would move were being sucked into that black space at a terrific speed. When a piece of stone larger than the hole came into contact with it, the hole grew wide enough to accommodate it, and then shrank back to normal again. At the rate it was going, one had to wonder if it wouldn’t swallow the entire ruins.
Ann floated into the air. As did
D.
At that moment, a second bug just like the first came flying from the vicinity of the entrance and was swallowed by the void. The hole abruptly vanished, and the pair dropped back into their original location.
The rubble that hung in the air fell, one piece after another. As the sound of it rang out, from the same direction where the two insects had come a calm voice was heard to say, “The only way to fill the hole a ‘space eater’ leaves is to throw another of the bugs in.”
Ann recalled hearing the voice before. Sitting up, she said, “Grand Duke Mehmet!”
“Indeed, it is I—you’re fine, I take it? I’ve been searching for you along with your father, whom I happened to meet now by chance. Your father’s still here, but he’s in a horrid state. I wish to ask that you return with us. Of course, that would be after D’s head has been removed from his torso.”
“I refuse.”
“I’m sorry to say I’m not as malleable as your good father. I will only tell you once. Step aside.”
“No,” Ann replied, her face flickering in the lamplight as she shook her head determinedly. Miraculously, the candle lit by the aged priest hadn’t gone out when it’d rolled her way. Ann’s hair and skirt fluttered in the wind.
“Then here’s another bug. Let the two of you vanish together into the void,” the Nobleman said, his tone frightening for its persistent tranquility.
Space eaters—in return for swallowing their own bodies, these bugs tore a hole in space that would swallow anything and everything. And Grand Duke Mehmet was able to control these dangerous creatures as he wished.
Not saying another word, he let one of the bugs go buzzing through the air. This time it arced right up over D and Ann’s heads. Beginning to devour itself in midair, it opened a hole above Ann’s head . . .
A silvery flash shot straight up from below. It resolved into a blade, the tip of which thrust into the hole that’d appeared. The instant bluish lightning spilled from the hole, the sword pulled back out of it. And the terrible bug hole disappeared.
A black-gloved hand, stretching out from the pit, gripped the sword that had made this vertical thrust.
“D!”
Next to Ann, a powerfully built body rose. The wide-brimmed traveler’s hat was at a slight angle, but that couldn’t spoil the frightening exquisiteness of his features. Let the holy and unholy be silenced in the face of this young man’s beauty. Rising smoothly in the still-raging wind to stand like a temple guardian was none other than D.
“When and how did you awaken?”
Ann and Grand Duke Mehmet had spoken simultaneously, both of their voices laden with terror. They didn’t see how this could be.
From the time Ann had pinned it to the ground, his left hand had been eating the black soil. When the contents of the priest’s bottle had coursed down the sunken floor, the left hand had been right in the path of the water. The wild wind, raging insistently, had suddenly died as if it’d been inhaled. And the flame from the candle that’d rolled down there had also been sucked into its mouth, quickly returning the shriveled hand to its normal proportions, after which it pulled itself off the iron spike and reattached itself to D’s left wrist. Earth, water, fire, and air—the instant the four elements that composed the world were combined in that tiny mouth, pale blue flames had erupted and D had come back to life. Of course, this alone wasn’t enough to overcome the malady unique to dhampirs. The time for him to awaken was probably approaching anyway, but there could be no doubting that his left hand had made the greatest contribution.
D stood. As proof that he remained blind, his eyes were shut. However, on seeing the valiant way he climbed up from the floor without even acknowledging Ann, who tried to cling to him, who would’ve thought he’d lost his vision? From the moment he awakened, his sole purpose for existence was to fight.
Evening dyed the world from blue to inky black—a fitting color for men doing battle.
“Grand Duke Mehmet, is it?” D called out.
In the darkness beyond the entrance there hung an enormous face. Through its eyes, the real grand duke, who was off drinking somewhere, looked at D.
“I’m surprised you know of me. This is the first time we’ve ever met.”
“I heard about you. Quite a long time ago.”
“I’m honored to hear that. I don’t have time to explain the present situation, but since you called out my name, I take it you’re prepared to meet your death.”
“I heard about the situation,” the Hunter replied.
Anyone who didn’t know about D’s left hand would’ve found this impossible to believe.
A look of surprise came to Mehmet’s face. When his mouth opened, there was a whir as a pair of space eaters came flying out.
D forged straight ahead. Before the bugs could eat themselves, they were bisected in midair and left to fall to the floor as ordinary insect corpses. Before another bug could be launched, D leapt.
Desperately dodging a thrust of ungodly speed, the false Grand Duke Mehmet retreated. As he bounded from the stairs down onto the road, not a trace of his haughty smile remained on the face twelve feet from the ground. While he exhaled lightly, a pitch-black figure of grandeur sailed down from above. Soaring like a mystic bird, D struck with his blade—and the arms Grand Duke Mehmet had put up to block it were lopped off at the elbow. Though it was impossible, at that moment D got the impression he heard the real grand duke scream somewhere far away. But if that were all it took to make the Hunter hesitate, he never would’ve attacked in the first place.
A third heroic blow that refused to be parried struck the right side of the machine man’s trunk. Fresh blood with the smell of oil spread through the air like changing maple leaves in fall. D’s blade had also ripped through Grand Duke Mehmet’s enormous torso.
Moving away from the gigantic form as it thudded to the ground, D spun around.
On the other side of the road stood the Duke of Xenon in his combat exoskeleton. At the very moment the point of D’s sword turned toward him, the Duke of Xenon bounded onto a massive bough some forty-five feet up in a great sixty-foot tree, circled around behind it, and vanished from sight.
“One down,” the hoarse voice remarked.
“Not quite,” Grand Duke Mehmet’s voice replied.
Not even turning to look, the Hunter slashed to the rear with his blade, but it became sandwiched between a pair of enormous hands.
“What’s this?” the hoarse voice groaned. After all, the fake Mehmet had just had both his arms cut off.
“Surprising, isn’t it? This machine man is a part of me—and so long as I don’t die, he can’t die either,” the grand duke laughed.
Not only were his arms back on, but his torso was together again as well.
“He can do everything I can, only with three hundred times the power. So, I think I’ll snap that sword in two before leisurely doing away with you.”
The grand duke put his strength into his arms. And the sword should have broken effortlessly—but it didn’t. The palms of the machine man’s hands were pressed together tight, but between them D’s blade slowly worked its way down to the little fingers. Astonished, the grand duke tried with all his might but could do nothing to move the blade.
As the grand duke gave an involuntary and all-too-real cry of fright, the sword sank into his brow, halting after it’d sliced his head in two. Spraying oil out into the twilight like blood, the fake grand duke leapt back. Just before he landed, a large black hole opened on the ground, and he fell into it.
“I see now why all of us were called together. Four of your compatriots are set to be executed tomorrow. Come to the execution ground if you like.”
After swallowing the machine man, the bug hole vanished.
Not even bothering to wipe off his sword, D returned it to the sheath on his back. But from the very beginning there hadn’t been so much as a drop of blood or oil on it. The blade itself was simple steel—it had to be something about his skill.
/> The Hunter looked in the direction of the village.
“Tomorrow morning, eh?” the hoarse voice said. “How will you save ’em? Or will you abandon ’em? Which would be more your style? There’s only one road here, but it runs in two directions.”
D began walking away. There was no emotion to it at all, and that’s what made it such a gorgeous gait.
“My love—D!” Ann called out in an earnest tone from the entrance to the ruins.
D walked off without even looking in her direction.
Falling to her knees on the stone staircase, Ann sobbed, “Where are you going, D? That’s the way to—”
The last of her words were swallowed by the night wind.
The stars were out. Perhaps they had a prediction to make about the day to come. They burned as blood red as rubies.
end
POSTSCRIPT
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As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve visited Transylvania twice. The first time was a private trip; the second to record material for a Japanese television network. There was a gap of several years between the two trips, and I think those years saw some very decisive change for the Romanian people. It was during this time that the dictator Ceausescu was overthrown. My second trip made me aware of the changes that’d occurred in Romania.
The first time I wanted to go to Transylvania, the taxi driver in Bucharest insisted he couldn’t go outside the city, so my lovely guide had to negotiate with him and tell him I’d pay extra. Somehow we made it there, but the second time the public broadcasting company was true to form and we had a college student who could speak Japanese as our guide. Renting a van, we were able to travel about as we pleased.
At any rate, NHK was doing a travel series that went all over the world, and this episode was about the Transylvanian warlord who was the basis for Dracula, Vlad Tepes. As the author of more vampire novels in Japan than anyone, I was singled out for the assignment. To be perfectly honest, the second time I wasn’t all that enthused about going because the first trip hadn’t left me with a very good impression.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Parts One and Two Page 27