No, a pained voice responded.
Even after D left without saying another word, the three faces brimmed with dissatisfaction while golden light showered in on them as if to chase off the rapidly dwindling patter of the rain.
THE FRONTIER ILLUSIONIST
CHAPTER 6
I
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An hour had passed since they’d come down from the hill. Savaged by the monster cloud and the flood, nearly half of the landscape had been erased, and it was less than three hours before the group was swallowed by the blue mountain that lay ahead of them. This wasn’t to say they were completely out of danger. When traveling out on the Frontier, the plains and mountains could be riddled with fiendish creatures. And yet, in keeping with human nature, the interior of one of the carriages was filled with an air of relief as the vehicles rolled forward in peace for the time being. Needless to say, the cheeriest of all was the boy—Hugh.
“Tell me, miss, where do you hail from?”
At his query, Taki squinted. Sifting through her memories, she soon replied, “I don’t know.”
“What?” said May, her eyes wide.
“Strange as it is, I truly don’t know. Actually, I’d never given it any thought before.”
“How’d that happen? What’ve you been doing up till now?”
“I was a magician’s assistant. To a man known as Lord Johann, the Trail Magician.”
“Never heard of him. So, why did you run off, miss?” asked the boy.
May winked at Taki, but her younger brother didn’t notice.
As the boy continued to badger her, Taki smiled wryly and replied, “My boss was kind of a pain in the neck. He tried to get me to follow in his footsteps.”
“Really? But that doesn’t sound too bad, being an illusionist.”
“Maybe not, if you’re making your money honestly.”
“Huh? You mean to tell me he was a cheat?”
“That’s right. Sleight of hand is his specialty, after all. It was easy enough for him to borrow people’s wallets and replace the contents with worthless fakes. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that.”
“Of course you couldn’t. He sure is scum!” the boy said, his eyes ablaze with righteous indignation. “So that’s why you hightailed it? Can’t say that I blame you. You’d do well to get as far away from him as fast as you can.”
“But I’m still worried,” said Taki.
“Why is that?”
“My boss is a scary guy. I bet he’ll come after me. If I stay here with the rest of you, I’m sure to cause problems for everyone.”
“Ha ha ha,” the boy laughed with his chest thrown out. “Not to worry, not to worry at all. We’ve got that guy out there, don’t we?”
“Hugh!” the boy’s sister snapped, the corners of her eyes rising wrathfully.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? The way he looks and the things he does may seem cold, but he’s really a lot kinder than you think. I can tell. It’s not in his nature to just desert someone who’s in trouble or in pain.”
“You shouldn’t say that. He—he’s a dhampir! There’s Noble blood in him,” his sister said, and her body quaked with good cause.
“So what if there is? He’s half human, isn’t he?”
“And half Noble! That’s why he’s so handsome, and so powerful. The Noble blood in him must be stronger.”
“So what if it is?”
“Sooner or later, he’s sure to turn his fangs on us.”
“That’s idiotic!”
“No, you’re the idiot! Now that you know he’s half Nobility, are you scared of him or not?”
After these words, the girl held her tongue. The expression that’d surfaced on her younger brother’s face was beyond description. It was a look she couldn’t help but regret having caused.
“You think I’m scared?!” the boy cried out in a loud voice, as if to fend off his own thoughts.
As he pressed his lips closed, something dark ran across his face. A shadow. As if following its path, the boy turned his eyes to the other side of the vehicle—and the window that was set in the door.
No longer in the driver’s seat, D looked up from the back of his horse.
He saw a gigantic multiwinged flyer. With two powerful engines equipped on each of its twin pairs of wings, it could carry three hundred passengers. The Nobility’s flying machines had made use of antigravity or magnetic fields, while the human race had devised other kinds on their own. Judging by the craft’s ungainliness, it was clearly one of the latter. Fifty or sixty years earlier, airfields were completed that linked the Capital and the Frontier, and business flights had begun. In fact, aircraft production hadn’t been able to keep up with demand, so those still in the air were dilapidated and had been that way for a good long time. Perhaps that was why the aircraft gliding along off to the left of the carriages seemed to be drawing ever closer to the ground.
It was Hugh that shouted, “It’s gonna crash!”
Most likely the pilot had done all he could do to choose this plain. The craft had too much speed. The massive canvas-covered body tilted downward a bit, and the bottom wing on the left side was the first thing that made contact. It effortlessly snapped off at the base, due to the fact that the wings didn’t run clear through the body of the craft, but rather each one had been independently welded to it. The upper-left wing followed the lower’s example, and, bouncing high into the air, the body of the aircraft rolled to the left in compliance with some unknown principle of physics. Since the forward momentum still remained, these two forces combined to throw the aircraft in an unfathomable angle, and, skidding noisily against the ground, it slid off diagonally into the woods to the group’s left.
Even after the rumbling of the earth subsided, D didn’t halt the vehicles.
“Mister—stop the carriage!” Hugh exclaimed as he hung out the open window. “The flyer crashed! Look, you can see the smoke from it. We’ve gotta go help them before it explodes.”
“There’s a village nearby,” D responded coolly. “I’m sure a rescue party will race out here. We’re in a hurry.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding! That had a lot of people onboard. They could be dying. We’ve gotta help them. If you can’t be bothered to, mister, then I’m going! Stop the carriage, you big coward!”
Before D could turn in that direction, the door opened.
“Hugh!” his sister cried.
“Stop it!” Taki added.
However, the cries of the two girls only seemed to propel him forward as his diminutive form shot out of the vehicle. Landing with a spectacular roll, he stood up and shouted, “You go on ahead. I’m gonna wait here for the rescue party!”
While it wasn’t clear who that cry was intended for, that was all he left them with before dashing straight into the black forest.
“Hugh!” May cried, and she would’ve gone after him if Taki hadn’t held her back. “Let go of me! I’m going, too. Wait for me, Hugh! Let me go already!”
But even as D listened to the girl disgorging these words like she was spitting up blood, he swatted his mount’s hindquarters with the flat of his hand.
__
Hugh was close enough to see the remains of the aircraft, but no explosion occurred. He wondered if it’d run out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing.
The body of the aircraft was badly battered. It looked like some sort of monster that’d been butchered for its meat. The outer skin was torn as if it’d blown free, and through the rips, the infrastructure jutted out in all directions just like real bones. There was no sign of anyone moving.
“Gotta hurry and get them out of there fast. If the fire spreads, that’ll be the end of them.”
If carnivorous monsters were to catch the odor of burning flesh and converge on the site, the boy could well envision the hellish frenzy that would ensue. Checking to see if anyone had been thrown free, Hugh approached the aircraft. He peered into it through the nearest rip.
�
�Holy!” he groaned in disgust, the word coming out on its own.
Although he hadn’t been able to see anything from the outside, the interior of the craft was a mound of corpses. Most were still belted in and had slumped forward, apparently killed by internal injuries.
“Is there someone—anyone—still alive?” Hugh shouted out before checking.
There was no reply.
Climbing into the aircraft just to be sure, he certainly was a courageous child.
Going over to the nearest body, he put his hand on its shoulder and shook it.
“Huh?!” he exclaimed at the strange way it felt. “Holy smokes!”
As Hugh froze in amazement, the grisly scene around him changed completely.
He was outside. The body of the aircraft was right in front of him. However, it was only a model of a biplane that couldn’t have been more than three feet long.
“What in the world . . .” the boy muttered as he fearfully picked up the plane and folded back the tattered cloth. He wished he were back in the carriage.
The inside of the model was just what Hugh had seen. The passengers were all slumped forward. But each was a wire figure less than half an inch tall. A thin cotton thread tied each wire figure into its cloth seat.
“You mean to tell me what I saw—was this?!”
“Very astute,” said a cheerful voice that caused the boy to jump.
Turning, Hugh found an old man in a black silk hat and tuxedo grinning right in front of him.
“Mister—are you Lord Johann?”
The words came out reflexively, and made the old man bug his eyes in surprise.
“Taki told you about me, did she? It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said with an exaggerated bow before offering his right hand.
Given the cordial atmosphere, Hugh looked back and forth between the man’s drawn face and his hand before extending his own.
“Do you know why I’ve done such a thing?” asked Lord Johann.
The hand that clasped Hugh’s had all the gentleness of someone dealing with a child.
“I—”
“It was actually my wish that another person would come. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say a person. A dhampir.”
“You mean Mister D?”
“Yes, indeed I do.”
“Well, he won’t. He’s not coming at all.”
“You’re right. If an aircraft were to crash, any normal person would rush to the rescue. However, it appears I’m a poor judge of character. He truly is a hard man.”
Hugh tried to pull his hand away, but it wouldn’t budge at all. The magician’s hand remained as soft and powerful as ever.
“But I was fortunate. At least one person couldn’t ignore others in their hour of need and ran out here. How good of you it was to come! You really must stay a while.”
“No! Let me go!” Hugh cried, taking an unexpected step forward.
In Lord Johann’s fist, the little wrist twisted forward with a pop, and a heartbeat later, the dislocated wrist easily pulled free of the confines of the magician’s fingers.
“Why, you little—” Johann growled as he reached for the boy, but Hugh spun once, then a second time, flying away with a series of graceful somersaults.
“I just knew you had to be a bad guy. I’m gonna go tell Mister D right away!” the boy shouted, and he was just about to run back the way he’d come when his body suddenly rebounded with a thud.
“Ooooh,” Hugh groaned, bright blood gushing out between the hands he’d brought to his face. Tripping over his own feet, he fell flat on his back.
Looking with satisfaction at the path—and the boulder that’d suddenly appeared to bar what had been a straight run back to the road—Lord Johann toyed with the flowing beard he was so proud of as he expounded, “The secret of sleight of hand is to focus concentration solely on that which should be seen.”
__
II
__
It took two hours to reach the next inn. After halting the carriages in front of the sheriff’s office, it went without saying that D was met by the wrathful gaze of May when he opened the door.
“I’m gonna go look for him,” the girl declared resolutely.
“The sun’s going down,” was all D said, but it froze her tiny form.
It would be no exaggeration to say that for anyone who lived out on the Frontier, the movements of the sun meant the difference between life and death. Dawn brought life, and twilight invited death.
“Yeah? Well, what’s gonna happen to Hugh, then?”
D glanced over at one of the carriages. At some point the door had opened, and beside it stood a figure in cobalt. The deep ocean blue of his raiment was truly suited to the twilight that tinged the Frontier.
“You should go for him,” said the Nobleman. “Or that would be my suggestion, but you aren’t about to trust us by night. I should be glad to accompany you, but that would still leave Miska. Even I can see there’s something wrong with her condition. You should keep an eye on her.”
“What?” Taki said, her mouth dropping open as she stood beside May.
“I shall go in search of her brother,” the baron said softly.
The fact that the half-crazed May had her mouth agape at that and even D knit his brow only went to show just what a shocking pronouncement it was.
“I’ll be damned,” another voice muttered, and a beat later Taki gasped and looked around, but she didn’t see anyone who could have made the remark. The voice had been hoarse.
Turning to D, the baron said, “I won’t break our agreement. Rest assured.”
“Fine,” D responded, consenting easily.
“No! Not on your life!” May protested. “You can’t let a Noble go out there. He’ll drink Hugh’s blood!”
“What did you just say?”
Although they’d noticed the door to the sheriff’s office opening, no one had ever imagined that the lawman himself would come walking out with a rivet gun in hand.
Seeing the group lined up on the street and realizing that they had some unbelievable intruders, he discarded his rivet gun and shouted, “Hey, Calco! Get my stake gun!”
A deputy came flying out and handed him a rifle with a magazine of thick stakes projecting from its underside, then quickly ducked back into the building.
“Gutless wonder,” the lawman snarled, his face as red as a devil’s as he held the rifle at the ready. The undisguised hue of terror on his face notwithstanding, he certainly had pluck.
“We only came to drop these two off. We’ll be leaving right away. A large aircraft crashed on the plains about two hours by carriage to the west of here. You should go help,” D said, but that wasn’t the right thing to say.
The sheriff’s eyes were filled with the image of Miska, who’d just opened the door to the white carriage and stepped out. By her side stood Baron Balazs. It wasn’t the sheriff’s fault he got the wrong impression about just who the two being dropped off were.
As soon as he had the weapon against his shoulder, he pulled the trigger. Since the stake gun utilized a powerful spring, its force was most effectively displayed at close range. The stake had an instantaneous speed that was seven-tenths the speed of sound. No god or demon could protect itself from the projectile.
Two blinding streaks of light flashed out like bolts from the blue.
Sliced into three pieces, the remnants of the stake spun harmlessly through the air.
One of the two streaks of light resolved into D’s longsword, which was now pressed against the base of the sheriff’s throat.
The sheriff was already as pale as a corpse when D whispered into his ear, “Don’t interfere with us in any way. We’ll leave the girls here and go.”
But why did the lawman’s cheeks seem to flush?
“Okay,” the sheriff said with a nod of his sweat-slicked face. “But you’d best give up the notion of leaving the women here. Take a look—the whole town’s watching! Even if I tried to protect them, they’d get torn to
ribbons just for traveling with the Nobility.”
D quickly nodded. “I see. We’ll take them with us. But see to it there’s no more funny business.”
Though the sheriff’s teeth were chattering, he did manage to say, “I swear it. No one here wants to end up a damned slave to the Nobility.”
As soon as D stepped away from him, the sheriff slumped to the ground. It was then that the Hunter in black realized the baron was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s flown the coop,” said a low voice no one else could hear. “But, I tell you, he sure is a piece of work. From the Nobility’s point of view, he might be a weakling and a human lover, but when he was cutting down that stake just now—he was faster than you!”
__
It was an hour later that the baron arrived at the crash scene. Granted, it was now night, but the fact that he’d covered a distance that’d taken the carriages two hours in half that time had to be attributed to something other than just the powerful legs of a Noble. Needless to say, there was no one there. There weren’t even any fragments of the aircraft.
“An illusion? But who would’ve staged it?” the baron mused, having seen through the deception on the spot.
He went on to thoroughly investigate the area where the aircraft seemed to have fallen, not that he’d expected to find Hugh when he raced out there. Since the boy hadn’t been headed toward town, he was either hiding somewhere or he’d been killed. In either case, at least some trace of him should’ve remained. The baron was conscious of how clever the child was.
After a few minutes, the baron halted. He seemed to have found something, and it was actually at this very spot that Hugh had—
A tremendously chilling aura enveloped the figure whose cape remained blue even through the darkness. Someone with special eyes would’ve undoubtedly seen the demon fires blazing up.
The air whistled sharply.
Before the baron even had time to turn and look, black steel had gone right through his chest. Staggering, he fell flat on his back.
The weapon that’d pierced him could be described as a short spear. Roughly two feet in length, about half of it was taken up by the flat spearhead. But who in the world had hurled it?
Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts One and Two Page 13