Though vast subterranean crypts were standard, countless other resting places had been constructed: in dense forests, on desolate mountains, at the bottoms of frozen lakes, and in every other place imaginable. Some Nobility would even climb into modified coffins to slumber far from the earth in stations hovering high in the stratosphere. Even those who prized the ancient traditions used not only three-dimensional phantasms, hallucinatory zones, and labyrinths to try to stop the persistent defilement of graves, but also electronic devices, chemical weapons, and biological weapons—in fact, for a period of time, the Nobility’s scientific elite focused solely on this problem.
Perhaps as a reaction to the time they’d been ruled, the humans grew extremely tenacious in their searches and investigations, but they ended with several targets on their lists never being located. When Nobles had an ace up their sleeve like the ability to access extra-dimensional spaces, it came as little surprise humanity couldn’t beat them. Perhaps Vlad, too, had mastered such dimension control.
The resting place was tinged with blue. The shadows burnt by the lightning shooting straight at D made the subterranean world look for a moment like a land of shadowgraphs. The hue was horribly transient.
D pressed forward at full speed. His sword reduced the lightning to sparks, but his black garb burst into flames when it took a direct hit.
Giving a guttural cry, Greed sprang. Bringing both hands together in midair, he concentrated the lightning that’d been coursing all across his body into the tips of his fingers. A hundred billion volts—it didn’t seem any living creature would be able to withstand that much.
The purple-blue streak seemed to seethe as it enveloped D. Everything glowed starkly blue, and in the midst of this strangely calming light, a gorgeous figure in black bled through like something out of a dream. His shape darkened, and the glow rapidly grew fainter. No, it was actually being inhaled. By the palm of D’s upraised left hand. By the tiny mouth that had formed there.
Perhaps due to how ineffectual the attack that harnessed all his power had been, Duke Greed showed no sign at all of trying to dodge D’s blade as the Hunter sprang up over him. A split second later, a vermilion line was scribed from the top of Duke Greed’s head down to his chin, and he fell limply to the ground—landing on top of Lord Vlad’s coffin.
-
II
-
Landing just after Greed, D gazed at the fallen forms of his two defeated foes. However, his black garb had been charred and even now was still burning, and it seemed fairly unlikely his warped and half-melted blade would fit back in its sheath. Though he stood there as still as a sculpted temple guardian, no one would’ve found anything strange about his horrible form.
“Damn it all! You tricked me!” came the groan that drifted from Chlomo down at his feet. “Never would’ve thought . . . you’d snapped out of it . . . Did I ever screw up . . .”
What Chlomo had seen was D resting after his narrow escape from the fiery hell the ancient subterranean ruins had become, understandably exhausted from the exertions of the previous night. Guessing that the Hunter was unconscious in his muddy and bloodied condition, he’d walked over with cosmetic case in-hand without incident. But when he went to apply the lipstick first, the hand he extended was caught firmly by the wrist. The rest probably went without saying. He’d been forced to do a harmless makeup job and serve as D’s guide into the mountain stronghold. Of course, it helped that Chlomo couldn’t really be described as a great Vlad sympathizer in the first place.
“Damn it . . . Just one more time . . . I’d like to do my thing . . . as I see fit. Let them see the great Chlomo’s skill with cosmetics . . .”
As his cries of pain rolled across the ground, they were joined by someone calling out D’s name.
D turned to face Duke Greed.
“D . . . kindly remove my mask . . . I can’t see a thing.”
The figure who’d stood there motionless then walked over to the one lying down, extending a hand to remove the face plate.
“I’ll be damned!” a hoarse voice declared.
The face, now free of its armor, was that of a young woman. Her neatly trimmed blonde locks glistened in the gloom. The shadow of death already hung heavily on her paraffin visage.
“You . . . sound so strange . . . Be silent . . . and listen,” she said, both words and blood spilling from her parted lips. “I am Siun Greed . . . Duke was my husband’s title . . . Two hundred years ago . . . I was abducted from one of the western Nobility’s masques by Vlad . . . I have been his guard . . . ever since . . .”
“What about your husband?” D asked.
The woman smiled thinly.
“How kind of you to ask . . . He came to rescue me . . . and was destroyed by Vlad . . . And now . . . at last . . . I may go to join him.”
Raised abruptly, the woman’s hand caught hold of D’s ankle.
For some reason, D didn’t move.
“Tell me, do I . . . do I still look okay? My love . . . Will he laugh when he sees me?”
“You’re fine.”
“That’s a lie . . . I’m covered in blood. Come to think of it, these last few centuries . . . I haven’t worn any makeup . . . I had no one to look good for . . . At the very least . . . I should try to look presentable . . .”
Bending over and taking the woman’s hand from his ankle, D then walked over to Chlomo.
“You said you wanted to do one last makeup job. Come over here.”
And saying this, he grabbed the man with one hand and dragged him back to Siun. While in-keeping with the young man’s character, it was still an extremely rough way to handle things.
“Great. Leave it to me,” Chlomo said with his eyes agleam after lifting his torso up off the floor for a brief look at his model. “Just leave everything to me . . . I’ll give her the best death makeup . . . ever. Even one muscle spasm . . . can ruin the whole job . . . and I don’t have time to fix it. My last gig . . . Hold still now.”
Opening the cosmetic pouch he wore on his belt, he began to carefully work on Siun’s face.
Both the artist and his client were half dead, and each was tormented by the agony of their death throes. However, in this world of darkness reeking of blood, the man who moved his hands as if he’d lost everything and the woman who lay there with a peaceful expression seemed to have far transcended their human situation to become something divine.
It was hard to say whether an incredibly long time passed or no time at all.
“Okay, I’m finished. It’s my finest work,” Chlomo could be heard to say.
Taking out a hand mirror, he held it out before Siun’s face. Though the thin thread of breath she exhaled fogged it, it did nothing to extinguish the glow of what it reflected.
“This is . . . I’m so . . .”
Closing her eyes with clear satisfaction, Siun then looked at D once again.
“Thank you . . . I look a bit . . . like you now.”
And then she was gone.
At the same time, Chlomo slumped forward and moved no more.
The burial ground greeted its two newest residents with stillness.
“Where’s Lord Vlad? Looks like we’ve still got our work cut out for us, eh?”
Seemingly unbeknownst to the source of that hoarse voice, D touched the brim of his hat. Perhaps that was his way of bidding farewell. And then he quietly turned his back on the land of the dead.
-
More than the light that spilled in through the chapel windows, it was the blue fog enshrouding the coffin that spoke of a different caller. The coming of night—the time of the Nobility.
Heaving a sigh, de Carriole fell to his knees on the floor. Soon the baron would awaken. And overseeing that was his daily ritual. At least it had been, long ago.
When Byron Balazs was a boy, and later a young man, the old man had been his most capable servant, his teacher, his mentor. The sagacious youth had been gifted with a dignity and a magnanimous spirit to rival any
Noble in the Capital. How he’d loved the young man who wanted to attend the funeral of villagers killed by a landslide. However, the reason the old man had been so devoted to the young Nobleman’s education was because she had always been there. Now in the twilight of his life, de Carriole could plainly admit as much. As Byron sweated away at fencing practice, his mother had been close by, quietly watching her child. Her golden tresses swayed softly in the moonlight, with one or two locks resting sweetly on the pale nape of her neck. His heart grew feverish with the futile satisfaction that the proud look in her eyes as she watched over her child was also pointed in his own direction. And because she could live only by the light of the moon, he’d cursed the midday sun and refrained from going outdoors until evening. Even now his dreams were filled with the emotions he felt watching her furtively, loving her from afar as she strummed on the harp for Byron.
Now that time drew near once again, and though he stood and waited before Byron’s coffin, how different the world had become. Why had he lived such a long, meaningless life and grown so decrepit, he wondered.
Before he could even utter a prayer he noticed that the chapel’s door had opened. He knew of only one man who could make it all the way inside without tripping any of the profusion of security devices installed in his mansion. No, make that two.
“Is it you, D?” Jean de Carriole asked.
There was no answer.
The darkness seemed to swell in density.
“Concerned about Master Byron, are you? His circumstances are similar to your own.”
“Where is Vlad’s resting place?” said a steely voice that flowed through the twilight.
“That’s impossible to say. At least, for me.”
“There is someone who knows.”
De Carriole turned, a bitter grin on his lips.
“Is that what you’ve come for? If you’ll but wait a moment, the baron should be awakening soon. And though the good baron would hesitate to do so, there is something I must say to you. D, slay the great Vlad.”
“Having a little change of heart?” a hoarse voice said, but the remark was directed neither at D nor at de Carriole.
“And help transfer the one who drifts in the waters of eternal torment to the accommodations that I’ve prepared. Please. Come.”
Without waiting for a response, de Carriole rapped the cane in his right hand against the floor at his feet. The marble surface shook like a mirror. Reflected there was a great volume of crimson water.
“This solution has the same composition as blood. There is nothing I can do to ease her suffering even a whit, save to let her bathe in this. The red lake I’ve constructed beneath my mansion waits for her even now.”
One of the aged scholar’s hands balled into a fist while the other waved his cane. One tap of it against the ground made the vision of the lake vanish, while the second blow sent a spiderweb of cracks the color of darkness racing across the floor.
“I cannot stand to see Byron forced to slay his father. D, you must fight Vlad and destroy him. Toward that end, I shall offer any aid that I may.”
“What I wish to know is the location of Lord Vlad’s coffin—that’s all I need.”
A shade of bewilderment flickered through de Carriole’s eyes.
“I do not know that.”
“How about you, baron?” D called out.
The question had been directed at the coffin. The Nobleman was still injured, but the coffin replied.
“I believe I know. I probably know every last thing about the bastard.”
“My good baron—so, your five senses have awakened before the sun has even set? As is to be expected from one for whom the great one had such hopes—”
“Hold your tongue, de Carriole.”
“Aye, milord,” the old man sputtered in reply, prostrating himself as if he’d been leveled by an electric shock.
“That may have been the start of all this trouble. D, I don’t know what has transpired since my arrival here, but leave the matter of Lord Vlad to me.”
“I’ve been hired to do it,” D said.
“By whom? A victim of the lord?”
There was no reply. D didn’t say that he’d been hired by May, that he had to save someone, or that that someone was Taki. As a Hunter performing his duty, none of that mattered.
“de Carriole?” the baron said, his tone rather insistent.
“I do not know who his employer is . . . but Vlad’s mouth sullied a girl by the name of Taki.”
A silence descended that could freeze blood. It was broken by the first sound of the Nobility’s time—the creak of hinges that announced the coming of the world of night. The cover of the coffin was slowly opening.
Rising like a ghost, the figure who stood there was Byron Balazs by name.
“D—wait one night,” the Noble in blue said in the voice of evening. “I swear by my name I shall slay my father—Vlad Balazs. And let that be proper atonement for what’s happened to Taki.”
“Where is his resting place?” D asked. He, too, had the voice of evening.
“I can’t say. And if I were to tell you, you still wouldn’t know it. Even the Balazs clan has but a hazy recollection of it. D, go back to Taki.”
The Hunter said nothing.
“You mustn’t underestimate the man known as Vlad Balazs. Do not think him the same as ordinary Nobility. He may already be on his way to visit his victim. I shall investigate the other possibility. But come what may, Vlad Balazs must die by my hand.”
Gazing for a time at the figure in blue with whom he’d traveled, D then turned around.
“You have my thanks,” said the baron.
“And you have just one night,” came the stern reply from the depths of the darkness.
And that time was starting right now.
DISTANT SHANGRI-LA
CHAPTER 5
-
I
-
In her room, May got the feeling she could hear furtive footsteps. Those who lived on the Frontier occasionally felt this way. Coming down the corridor. From quite a distance. Oh, now it was on the other side of the door. Even the knock sounded furtive. It shouldn’t be Lagoon. The only ones who could walk in such a way as to not stir the stillness of night were the people of the night.
She didn’t call out to ask who it was. May stared at the door—just at its golden door knob. She couldn’t even tell whether it turned or not.
The door opened.
Though the figure wore a white dress, May got only the most indistinct image of her, and she searched for the reason for this. She had no shadow. No doubt the light of the moon was insufficient.
“Have you been well?” Miska asked.
“Yeah,” May replied, feeling relieved. “But what are you doing here? Didn’t you go to that scholar guy’s house or something?”
“No, this is where I meant to go. My grandfather entrusted an item to Mr. Lagoon long ago. I came to examine it,” Miska said, gazing softly at the human girl.
“You don’t say. Must’ve been really important. Was it safe?”
“Yes. It was here, surely enough. It’s just a tiny censer, though.”
“That’s great, Miska. That’s really great,” the girl said, clapping her hands. “Stuff like that gets broken so easily. How nice. I’m sure your grandfather must be overjoyed, too.”
The girl wore a docile smile.
Miska diverted her gaze. And like that, she said, “The censer contained a map. Where I was to go after losing my parents and everything else I had.”
“Wow,” May said, her eyes going wide. “Now that sure is something. So, where will you go?”
“I don’t yet know. Someone shall bring me there. At present, he waits in another room. May, will you not go with me?”
“Me? No way!”
The Noblewoman turned a shocked expression to the girl who swung her head so vehemently from side to side.
“Why not?”
“Well, there are still a
ton of things I wanna see in this world. And a million things I’ve gotta do, too.”
“I’ve heard your mother and father are deceased.”
“That’s right. But a lot of other people are in the same boat. My mother, my father, and basically everyone older than me will probably die before I do. Well, when it happens a little too early like with my parents it makes me sad, but there’s no helping that. I’ll just have to live a good life and do all the things they didn’t get to. If I were them, that’s what I’d be thinking as I died.”
After a short pause Miska inquired, “For someone your age, is life not painful?”
From her tone, she was expecting a certain answer.
“Of course it’s painful,” May replied in an exasperated manner. “Who wouldn’t be hurt to be my age and have lost their parents? Only once in a blue moon does anything good happen to me.”
“If such is the case, why go on?”
“Because once in a while something good does happen!”
Miska fell silent. The answer this girl of such a tender age had given was beyond her ability as a Noble to comprehend.
“Not everything in the world is good, but not everything is bad, either. It’s the same for everyone. I have my hard times, and I’m sure even a Noble like you has some hard times, too. But somehow muddling through them is probably what life’s all about. Thirty years from now, I’m sure I’ll look back fondly on all the things that troubled me. That’s the kind of person I wanna be. And I’m sure I’ll remember you and the baron the same way and tell folks about you.”
And then May looked Miska straight in the face and beamed. It was a most heartfelt smile.
“But it’s nice that there’s someplace so wonderful. You’re hurting worse than I am. I can’t go, but thank you for inviting me anyway. Let’s go. I’ll see you off.”
Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four Page 22