Using all her might to escape the old woman’s grip, Meg stared at something on the chest of her lurching attacker. A wooden harpoon was embedded in it. A harpoon the girl had drawn with her left hand while they were spinning in circles.
“Me-e-eg!”
There was the sound of footsteps running toward her through the fog, which then took the form of d’Argent.
“You okay?” she asked.
“More or less.”
“What about the old-timer?”
“Damned if I know,” the former teacher replied. “I just heard a voice that sounded like it was in pain.”
“He was stabbed through the heart and he wasn’t destroyed—what the hell kind of creatures were they turned into?”
“Ageless and indestructible,” d’Argent murmured.
“Huh?”
“The experiments carried out here were intended to turn humans into another form of life. I’m ageless, but not indestructible. Maybe the old man got the reverse.”
Indestructibility. The owner of a body that could take a stake through the heart and not be destroyed—that would be a true undead, a true nosferatu.
“Gaaaah,” the old woman cried, turning toward them.
“Her, too?!” d’Argent exclaimed, eyes bulging.
“No. That’s where her lung would be. I missed her heart!” said Meg.
“She’s getting even wilder!”
The old woman seized the harpoon in her chest and yanked it out. When she slammed it against the floor, the pair broke into a run.
Meg quickly halted and said, “No, this way!”
“How do you know?”
“Never mind that, it’s this way!”
Apparently d’Argent wasn’t too sure of himself, so he said no more and started running.
Meg’s mind kept replaying the same question d’Argent had asked. How in blazes do I know where the exit is in all this fog?
Just as the girl was about to turn her attention to the matter, she sensed a presence on the left.
“Look out!”
Faster than Meg could say that, there was a dull thud of impact from the vicinity of d’Argent’s head. Something warm flew at the girl’s face. Though she dodged most of it with a speed that surprised even herself, some stuck to her right cheek.
A mass of black came out of the fog. Ducking down so it passed right over her, Meg then sped over toward d’Argent. He lay some twenty to twenty-five feet away.
“I’m just—”
He couldn’t finish what he was saying, and Meg shut her eyes. Her nostrils prickled at the thick stench of blood. D’Argent was missing the right half of his face.
“I’m just fine,” he said feebly through the half of his lips that remained. “At least, that’s what I’m supposed to tell you, but I’m not so great. Looks like I won’t have to go through my whole life saying I don’t want to grow old, but this is no good—I don’t want to die.”
Meg heaved a sigh. A great weigh sat on her chest, and it was all she could do to fight back the tears. After all, wasn’t she the one who’d dragged this man from a stable existence? The bounty hunters, Wesley—why had she brought a curse on all of them?
“Don’t let it get to you,” the man said. “More importantly, something’s coming.”
Meg nodded and got to her feet. From head to toe she burned with sorrow—and the rage it whipped up.
Something black was approaching from the depths of the fog.
“Step right up. Come and get it,” Meg said, her lips twisting. This wasn’t her anger suppressing her fear, but rather an innate confidence in her own victory that raced throughout her body with her blood flow.
Mr. Ulmer appeared out of nowhere.
Meg’s eyes bugged. The old man’s face had gone beyond a look of agony and all the way to a rictus. His upper body was stained red, and a slender wooden harpoon was planted right in the middle of his chest.
“Found you!” the old man said. His right hand had been behind him, but now it rose, still gripping his mallet. As Meg stood poised for action, her ears caught a hard clang. The old man had dropped his weapon. His forefinger was aimed at Meg.
“Wha—aren’t you gonna fight?”
The old man’s lips held a smile that gave the girl chills. It was the kind they called “death’s grin.” A smile that evil was the last thing you saw before they sent you to hell.
“I’ve no intention of fighting. Meg . . . I . . . I’ve come to tell you something,” said the old man, his teeth chattering and blood dripping from the corners of his mouth.
“Tell me what?!” Meg asked, a cloud of anxiety staking a black claim to her heart. There was no way it would be good news.
The old man pointed to the harpoon with his left hand.
“The instant you ran this through me . . . I knew. But you don’t know . . . the most important thing . . . Meg, you’re . . .”
Meg was about to shout at him to stop. She had the feeling she absolutely couldn’t hear what he was going to say. Though she slapped her hands over her ears, her eyes never left the old man.
Mr. Ulmer tumbled forward and fell to the floor, but even seeing that didn’t surprise the girl much because it all seemed so unreal, like she was watching a single frame from a silent movie. Even before she concluded the old man must’ve run out of power, his body had turned to ash.
“Meg,” d’Argent called to her from down on the floor.
She dropped to one knee beside him.
“What did he . . . want with you?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the only answer she could give.
“Instead of killing you, he tried to tell you something . . . What could be so important . . . ?”
“I really don’t know. Forget that. Can you stand?”
“Nope . . . Carry me on your back, please.”
“Sure thing.”
Meg swiftly put down the other knee and turned her back to d’Argent.
“Up we go!”
With that, the man’s arms looped around Meg’s neck and the two of them timed it so they tried to stand in unison.
D’Argent’s breath struck the nape of her neck. Meg felt like she’d been touched with a piece of ice, and her body froze, too.
“D’Argent—not you, too?”
“Sorry, Meg. That old man fed on me just now. I tried to hold it in, but when I saw your naked skin and felt the warmth of your body, that was it.”
Meg trembled. Lips had just touched the nape of her neck.
“Meg,” the former teacher said, and she felt his accursed mouth open.
“Nooo!”
Meg’s elbow shot back. When some drunk had thrown his arms around her at a village festival years earlier, her reflexive action had been identical. The result was also the same. D’Argent let out a low groan, and his hands came away from her.
As Meg tried to dash away, a cold hand snared her ankle. She fell face-down, but immediately twisted herself around so she was facing up. D’Argent’s face had crept to about thigh level on her.
“Stop it!”
“It’s no use, Meg,” d’Argent said. “I can’t fight it. And you’re out of harpoons, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m out . . .”
D’Argent crawled closer, his hand touching the swell of her breast.
“But I do have something else!” the girl cried.
A blistering beam of light punched through d’Argent’s chest and out his back. Throwing the man’s weight off her, Meg got to her feet and took aim with the hand of destruction.
“Right, you still had that? But I thought . . . you wouldn’t use it . . .”
“It’s best to be practical,” Meg said even as she choked back something that was rising within her.
“Hurry up . . . and shoot,” d’Argent told her. “Half my heart’s still left.”
The world glowed.
She could see clean through the six-inch hole that’d been opened in d’Argent’s chest.
Black smoke mingled with the fog.
“Ordinarily, I’d have vanished . . . Mustn’t have been enough energy. Like me, that weapon’s . . . on its last legs.”
“Hang in there. You can’t die, right?”
“How many times do we have to go over this before you get it right? I’m ageless . . . not indestructible.”
“Whatever the case, you’ve got to survive. But we’re through as a team.”
D’Argent laughed. It was a lighthearted one.
“You’re a sweet kid. Strong, too. Be careful out there. The Noble outside should be able to help you.”
“I’m so sorry,” Meg said, wiping her tears. Pulling off the hand of destruction, she tossed it down by d’Argent’s side. “I’ll leave that with you. You can finish yourself off, right?”
“Sure.”
“Good-bye.”
Meg turned her back to him.
“Meg,” d’Argent called to her.
She looked back.
The barrel of the hand of destruction was trained on her.
“D’Argent?!” she cried out in despair, and at the same time the weapon spit fire.
Rhapsody in “Blood”
chapter 8
I
Blistering heat skimmed past Meg’s waist and chest. The girl turned around. Standing there was a woman dressed in Auntie Mabel’s clothes. The reason her identity couldn’t be absolutely confirmed was because everything from the neck up was missing. A massive hole also gaped in the left side of her chest.
Not even glancing at the body as it fell like dead wood, Meg turned once more toward d’Argent. Wearing a wonderful smile like she’d never seen on him, he lowered the hand of destruction. Meg didn’t say anything.
“Hear that?” d’Argent asked in a hushed tone.
Meg nodded.
Countless footfalls were drawing closer from behind the man. There had been more than two vampires on those tables, after all.
“Hurry up . . . Go! Leave them to me . . . I’ll hold them. Got enough energy left . . . for that.”
It was unclear if the former teacher was referring to himself or his weapon.
D’Argent sluggishly swung around so that he was facing the direction of the footsteps.
“This time, for real—good-bye.”
His voice was bursting with a firmness and righteousness the girl hadn’t heard from him before.
This was no longer the place for Meg.
“Good-bye,” Meg said, starting to walk toward the doorway. After she’d gone a short distance, she turned back and shouted as loudly as she could, “Good-bye, teacher!”
It was unclear whether or not her words reached d’Argent’s ears. Nothing came in return from that world, already sealed away in milky whiteness.
Stepping out into the corridor, the girl shouted, “To the front hall!”
The scene around her didn’t shift.
“What’s wrong?! Take me to the first-floor lobby!”
Though Meg stomped her feet, the world maintained its motionless silence. Some force was at work, halting all energy-based transportation in the enormous facility.
Countless corridors up ahead ascended, descended, and intersected, all of them being drawn into the depths of the blue light. No matter which one she chose, Meg got the feeling she, too, had no choice but to become a part of that blue world.
“In that case, I’ll take this one!”
Planting her first foot in a corridor continuing in a straight line, Meg started running. Because just then, she’d noticed a strange presence approaching from up ahead.
Reaching for her hip, Meg clucked her tongue in disappointment. She wanted to look for a place to hide, but even the black wall of the room she’d just escaped had vanished. She was like someone who’d been abandoned naked in a wilderness teeming with wolves.
Before the girl could start to think about what she should do, the presence took shape. It was quite a few figures who formed a circle as they headed that way. One of them sailed into the air, lashing out with a stark blade in midflight. A cry of pain rang out—and was gone. Falling to the floor in a bizarre pose, the figure instantly disappeared.
Several more figures charged into the center of the circle, reeled backward, and vanished. But now Meg saw the cause. The edge of the ring had closed to about fifteen feet from Meg, but from part of it that’d broken she got a full-length glimpse of the foe they challenged, who was destroying all comers. He was dressed in black, and his looks were so gorgeous he seemed to glow like a jewel in this world of blue.
“D?!”
Shadowy figures leapt from all sides. From what Meg saw, their incredible bounds were every bit as skilled as they were powerful, yet artless swipes of D’s sword left their heads sailing helplessly through the air and crashing to the floor with sprays of blood, playing out the poetry of death.
Meg counted seventeen foes reduced to dust, and then D sheathed his bloody blade and stood before her, but the girl remained there stiff as a statue. The fight had been so fiercely one-sided it’d left her stunned. Even wounded, a dhampir would be able to slay his foes. However, to all appearances D hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch.
Since the girl said nothing, the Hunter asked, “What are you doing?”
The instant that icy voice entered Meg’s ears, the spell over her was broken.
“Actually—” the girl began, not really telling him the situation so much as rattling on about it. The instant she finished her account, a terrible shame swept over Meg and she turned bright red. She was embarrassed to have exposed so much about herself to this exquisite man.
For all the girl’s wondering what he’d say to her, it ended up being, “Get out.”
“What?”
“I’m going to destroy this facility,” D told her. “Hurry up and get out of here.”
“No! Folks from my village might still be here.”
“It’s too late for them.”
“Th-th-that’s not for you to decide! H-h-how do you know that?!”
“Because that’s the nature of the Nobility, and I reviewed the operational data for the facility. There are no longer any regular humans here.”
“That can’t be,” Meg murmured, and her ears caught the sounds of several sets of footsteps. She didn’t know whether or not it was same ones off the tables, but a number of people were running that way.
“All the facility contains is former humans,” D said.
Meg got goosebumps. She knew what he had to mean by that.
“Go, or you’ll see things you’ll wish you hadn’t,” D said, his eyes no longer trained on Meg but rather gazing past her head and into the darkness behind her.
“No, I’m staying here!”
D stepped forward without a word.
The events of the next few seconds were a nightmare for Meg. The figures came running, each with a sword or beam cannon in hand, but they were reduced to stains on D’s blade without ever landing even a single hit on the Hunter. Meg knew a number of them. The rest were probably members of the party of settlers. He wasn’t the sort of opponent newly changed Nobles could handle.
As D sheathed his blade, he saw the girl sobbing, one corpse cradled in her arms while she clasped two others by the hands.
“Your family?” he asked.
“Dad . . . and Mom . . . and my little sister!” Meg clamped her jaws together. Nevertheless, her voice forced its way through her teeth. “You killed them . . . You left me . . . all alone in the world . . . What are you gonna tell me they did?”
“It’s what they would’ve done next. They’d have become bloodthirsty demons and attacked humans. Just as you saw.”
“Yeah,” Meg said, squeezing the word out in a mournful tone.
Her father, mother, and sister had all sported fangs when they attacked D. They had been nothing but beasts starved for blood. And that wasn’t all—on noticing Meg, her mother and sister had closed in on her, and even now they had their hands out in front of their c
hest as if to pounce. They seemed to say, We want your blood, Meg.
“If they’re allowed to reach the human world, the number of pseudo-Nobles will increase geometrically,” D explained. “Their line must end here.”
“Oh . . . just do whatever you want,” Meg said in a dazed tone. “But I’m bringing the bodies of my family back with me. I’ll take ’em back to the village and bury ’em there. Don’t try to stop me.”
D stepped forward without a word.
The door there was still open. Slipping in quietly, D looked all around. Beyond a doubt, this was one of the Nobility’s labs. Once upon a time, tens of thousands of humans had been sacrificed there in bizarre experiments. On learning that, the Hunter had crossed over to the island and destroyed all its facilities. Nobility and humans alike had been relegated to the flames. But all that had been resurrected. Toward what end, Mizuki Dandorian? Why did you and your staff have to rise from the dead now?
No, there was more to it. Behind D’s eyelids, there floated a ridiculously large figure in black. Was it you? he asked. Are you the one behind these resurrections? Do you intend to make the same stupid mistakes all over again?
D pressed on to the back of the laboratory, coming to the control panel for the energy furnace 6,200 miles below.
When D came back out less than a minute later, the scene that greeted him was one of gray dust dancing vainly in the breeze, and nothing more. Both Meg and her family’s bodies had vanished. Saying nothing, D went back down to the first floor—the same as the lobby.
II
That wasn’t where Meg had come in. D had probably entered the building without encountering Lord Danae. When they went outside and saw the view, it was indeed different. Meg couldn’t begin to guess where in that vast site Danae might be.
“Tired?”
The sudden question made her flinch. Even if heaven and earth switched places, the gorgeous young man didn’t seem likely to say such a thing. Looking at this young man, you could tell that beauty and humanity were absolutely incompatible. Meg immediately felt a trembling building within her.
“Not at all,” she replied. Though the girl wanted to show his concern was appreciated, the truth was she actually didn’t feel the slightest bit fatigued.
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