Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane (14 page)

“I couldn’t help it, you know,” Tae said. The girl thought she sounded like an old
lady. “What could I do? Either of them could’ve killed me with just one finger. I
had no choice but to do as they told me.”

“When did you realize it?”

“Back when I was still in the castle. Do you know what month it’ll be born? Ordinarily,
it’s supposed to take ten months and ten days for a baby.”

“Yes, ordinarily. In the case of this child, it’ll be about six months after you noticed
the first indications.”

As if to distance herself from something unseen, Tae took a step backwards. “What
do you mean, ‘in the case of this child’?”

“If it’s
his
child, your baby will be no ordinary dhampir.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Let’s go back.”

“No. Tell me. What’ll my baby be like? It couldn’t be,” Tae mumbled. “It couldn’t
be . . .” The second time she said it, she tried to invest the words with nothing
but horror. But something had welled up inside her. Although she wasn’t even aware
of it, Tae was now hopelessly in its power, under the sway of a sad yet mysterious
delight. “Just like you . . .” she continued.

Something cold touched her cheek. Before Tae realized it was D’s left hand, her consciousness
had become one with the darkness.

“An awful tale it is, but interesting still,” D’s left hand muttered as it caught
the collapsing girl. “I wonder what road the girl will take? Anyway, those characters
you faced just now have been keeping tabs on you ever since you were down by the water.
That’s why you drew them out here, isn’t it?”

“That was a test, I imagine. For me.”

“Testing your abilities? What for?” asked the voice.

“Don’t you know?”

“Nope,” the voice said, its reply vested with laughter. Malicious laughter. “Come
now. You know just as well as I do. This desert has a real nostalgic feel to it.”

D put Tae over his left shoulder.

“Just when and how did things get so crazy?” the voice continued. “I remember something
a woman we met once said. She wanted to know why something so good had to end so badly.”

“Do you think this is something good?” the Hunter asked.

“I don’t know.”

D started to walk back. And the voice wasn’t heard again.

.

III

.

By the time D came back with Tae over his shoulder, the fight between Clay and Lance
had ended. Lance lay stretched out by the edge of the lagoon, spread-eagle. His face
was swollen to nearly twice its normal size, and his nose was a bit crooked.

Detecting the Hunter as she washed out a cooling cloth, Granny raced over to him.

“She’s fine. I just put her to sleep. She’ll come around in about ten minutes,” the
Hunter said. A light flip of his black shoulder put Tae’s body into the air, and an
agitated Granny caught her. Taking a quick glance at Lance, D remarked, “He won, didn’t
he?”

“I’m surprised you could tell,” Granny said with a grin. “That fool Clay is laid out
in the bushes over yonder. The farmer gave it to him pretty good. But Clay’s not all
bad, either. He fought bare-handed to the very end.”

“Get everyone into the wagon. I’ll stand watch,” D said, his eyes on the flow of the
waterfall all the while.

“You mean those two yahoos, too?”

“You can have them sleep outside if you like,” D told the old woman.

“I’ll do just that. Good luck with the guard duty.”

As Granny carried Tae in both arms and walked unsteadily toward the wagon, Lance got
up. His face was a mess. “Is she okay?” he asked.

“You needn’t concern yourself with her, you useless thug. The nerve of you, going
off like you’re something special and getting your good-for-nothing face beat purple
in a fistfight. And just so you know, I won’t hear of you asking me for the day off
tomorrow,” Granny snarled.

Even after the old woman had vanished into the wagon with Tae, her ill-tempered remarks
still hung in the air.

“It seems you beat him,” the Hunter commented.

Raising his head, Lance looked at D with a strange expression on his face. He couldn’t
believe the young man would bother to say that to him. “Back in the old days, I was
a little hellion,” he said. “Besides, you can’t beat a farmer barehanded. Hunters
and warriors came to my village a lot, and they taught me some fighting moves, too.”

“Sounds like he bit off more than he could chew,” D said as he turned toward the bushes
Granny had mentioned. The head of a shadowy figure was listlessly rising from them.
“Was this about the girl?” D asked Lance.

“Yeah.”

“You really went at it, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t just stand there and let him beat the hell out
of me.”

“Well, that may be a bit of welcome news,” said D.

“For who?”

“There’re not a lot of men who’d get their face blown up to twice its normal size
for someone else. I bet the girl’s never met anyone like that before. I’ll tell her
what happened.”

“Don’t bother. That’s not what I had in mind,” Lance said, sighing.

An arm sheathed in black was offered to the young farmer, making his eyes go wide.
Grabbing it by the wrist, Lance pulled himself upright.

“So there you are, you lousy sodbuster!” Clay roared, his massive body being carried
closer by an uncertain gait. When his face came into the light, it was nearly twice
as swollen as Lance’s. “What do you say to a rematch? I ain’t taking no for an answer.”

“Maybe later,” Lance said, smiling for some reason.

“Shut your hole!” Clay bellowed, and he was about to grab hold of the smaller man
when an arm in black restrained him. “What do you think you’re doing?! Let go of me!”
he shouted at the Hunter.

“Let him go, D,” Lance said as he rubbed the back of his neck to loosen it up. “I
thought I’d settled this once and for all, but if he hasn’t given up yet, there’s
not much else I can do. Okay,” he told Clay, “now swear to me again that if I win,
you’ll stay the hell away from the girl.”

“No problem, and Vampire Hunter D is my witness.”

The figure in black stepped away from them.

Shouting something, Clay took a swing at Lance. The warrior was stumbling over his
own feet.

After ducking the blow, once Lance heard it whistle through the air above him, he
rammed himself headfirst into Clay’s stomach.

Ouf!
With a howl more akin to an explosion, the warrior’s massive form flew into the air
with ease, and Clay landed on his back in the same spot by the water where Lance had
been lying. The ground rumbled.

Leaping into the air, Lance slammed his elbow down on his opponent’s solar plexus
with the full weight of his body. Something resembling water sprayed from Clay’s mouth;
his body shuddered, and the battle was over.

“There won’t be any more rematches.”

Lance nodded at D’s remark. Clay didn’t move a muscle.

Getting to his feet, Lance looked down at his vanquished foe. In a matter of seconds,
the same grin he’d worn moments earlier covered his face again. For although Clay’s
fierce countenance was contorted with pain, it was also etched with an undeniable
smile.

.

Two hours passed.

Even the activities of the fungi might’ve been governed by biorhythms, for a deep
blue filled the darkness and enveloped the party by the water’s edge.

D set his saddle down by the campfire and rested his head on it as he reclined there.
The men with the badly swollen faces lay covered by blankets a few yards away. Had
the moon been out that night, it was so silent that they would’ve heard its beams
raining down.

D mentioned the incident with the spider people to no one. His eyes were shut. The
Hunter might have considered himself to be the only one they were after, or perhaps
he was confident that if they attacked him there he could carve his way through them.
Whatever the case, as his gorgeous form lay at rest, there was no hint of tension
about him.

The wagon’s door opened without a sound and Granny peered out from the driver’s seat.
She was about to say something to D down on the ground below when a rusty voice beat
her to the punch.

“Get some sleep.” Most likely, the Hunter had caught some otherwise imperceptible
creak from the door.

“Well, I can’t,” Granny said, wearily muttering encouragement to herself as she hobbled
down from the wagon and headed over to D rather nonchalantly. The jar on her hip swayed
back and forth. Though she gave the impression of being fiercer and more determined
than the average old lady, seeing the way she walked just then with her wrinkled cheeks
and bleary eyes was like catching a glimpse of some gorgeous dancing girl’s true face
laid bare when the makeup comes off back in her dressing room. Surely there were nights
when the crone felt an acute longing to open that fabric store.

Circling around behind D’s back, she took a seat. “Have some?” she asked, thrusting
a jug of liquor at his refined countenance. It was the cheap sort of fruit spirits
that could be found in great quantities at the general store in any post town.

“No.”

Curt as D’s reply was, it was odd that it didn’t seem at all intended to offend the
listener.

“Oh, that’s right. I must’ve mistaken you for someone else,” Granny said. Pulling
out the cork, she took a swig. Three times her throat bobbed, and after pulling the
jug away, the crone wiped her lips with the back of her hand. A long sigh escaped
her. “About some of the things that were said to you today—don’t take it personally.
And I don’t just mean what I said. From what I hear, Tae had some pretty harsh things
to say too, right? Well, I’d like to make up for that. Kindly accept my apologies.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Honestly?” Granny said, breaking into a broad grin like a little kid. “Ah, I’m glad
to hear you say that. I didn’t think you were a petty man or anything, but it’s still
a relief. We’ve got a long ways to go yet. And we really are counting on you.”

“You should get some sleep.”

“Stop trying to get rid of me,” the old woman replied. Wrapping both hands around
her knees, Granny watched the endless ripples on the water’s surface. “You know, don’t
you?” she said after some time passed. “You know about the girl—that she’s pregnant.
And that it’s probably a Noble’s baby. If someone doesn’t fix it, she’ll be having
that kid sooner or later.”

Saying nothing, D continued to lie there with his eyes closed. As to what sort of
thoughts passed through his mind, no one could say. “What’ll you do?” D then asked,
muttering the question.

“What’s this? You’re actually interested in someone else’s fate? I’ll take her home,
of course. That’s my job, after all.”

“In that case, you didn’t need to bring it up at all.”

“Well, there are times I just feel like doing or saying something funny. I bet you
get the urge sometimes to just lie out in the sun and get a tan.”

“She’s not going to be very welcome, even back at her own home,” D said, returning
to the topic of Tae. “Especially not if she’s going to have a Noble’s baby. And she
won’t be able to hide that. It doesn’t matter how strong anyone says she is; strength
probably won’t be enough to resolve this problem.”

“You trying to tell me not to take her back?” Granny said in a tone charged with defiance.
“Because that’s the one thing I simply can’t do. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say
it again—this is my job. No matter what happens later, everyone’s overjoyed at first,
and there’s coin in it for me. What comes next—well, forget it. I’d just be repeating
myself. You’ve already heard my spiel on the matter, and hearing it again ain’t gonna
make it any more interesting.”

“How’s her sewing?”

“She seems to have a real knack for it. She was rattling away at it earlier, too.
Not that I have a clue what she’s making,” the old woman said. “So, what do you suppose
will happen with her kid? It’ll be a dhampir, won’t it?”

“If it’s a Noble’s child.”

“I was wondering if maybe you couldn’t look after it . . . you being a fellow dhampir
and all. You could teach it all it needs to know from the very start. I mean, you’re
Vampire Hunter D, after all. It’s not like you couldn’t afford to feed a girl and
her baby. I’m sure you of all people could find some way of making a living besides
being a Hunter, couldn’t you?”

“Is that what you think?” D asked.

“Yes, indeed.”

“Then why am I still a Hunter?”

Granny nodded gravely, as if she’d been waiting for him to say that. “Because you’re
too awkward. Your pride won’t allow you to mix with normal people and live the slow
life. That Noble blood is tricky stuff. No matter how you might bend your principles
or how much you might try to accommodate the world, you couldn’t allow yourself to
do that. I suppose it’d take, say, a hundred years before you’d settle into it.”

“Why a hundred years?”

“What I mean to say is, if they tried at it hard enough for that long, even a Noble
could wind up being agreeable to their situation. Of course, I’m not sure there’d
be any guarantees where you’re concerned.”

“Why do you think that?”

Granny gazed at D intently. “You’re out looking for something.” She said this casually
enough, but the words were tough as steel. “People are always making a big deal about
‘Hunters this’ and ‘Hunters that,’ but if you ask me, they’re all just a bunch of
muscle-bound social misfits. There’s only one thing any of ’em care about—being good
at killing. When it comes to the worst of the lot, the killing is the whole point
of it. Some have wound up plying their skills on upstanding folks; others have been
killed by fellow Hunters. Take a peek into their dreams sometime. They’re all either
pitch black or blood red. And out of the lot of them, there’s only one word you’ll
never find in their heads. I’m sure you know what that is?”

“I don’t know. What?”

“‘Tomorrow,’” Granny said with quiet confidence. “But you have it in you. Heck, it
doesn’t even matter whether you think you do or not. And it doesn’t even have to be
the word
tomorrow
. . . it could be
dream
or hope or
rainbow
. . . or even
love
. Don’t laugh. I tell you, there’s a huge difference between those who’re looking
for something, and those who’ve never had it. But in your case, I get the feeling
it’s something altogether different.”