Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Part Three (9 page)

“Well, I finally manage to get that vampire bloom out of me, only to find this odd turn of events. They said something about trading three lives; all that leaves is Gillis, Lady Ann, and me. I don't know who's going to be spared, but I think it would be best if I took my leave as soon as possible.”

—

III

—

The scene in the village was far worse than Juke and the others had ever imagined. For lack of a better word, it was hell. The ground, the houses, the well, the stables—everything was stained with blood. Inside and out, villagers dyed vermilion had fallen, and regardless of whether or not they still drew breath, thin geysers of blood gushed from each and every one of their pores like some sort of parlor trick.

Having no choice but to leave the dead where they lay, they went around injecting those who still lived with the medicine. Even for a village the place was still pretty big. They'd only covered a third of it by twilight, and the group had no choice but to depend on lanterns and the lights on their wagon to continue their work. Even after they'd given the people the injections, most of them were too far gone and died. On seeing the corpse of a baby that couldn't have been more than a few months old, Gordo and Sergei sobbed out loud.

Keeping away from the group while they were absorbed by their ghastly task, Lady Ann stood outside the wagon. She heard Gordo cursing and Sergei crying inside a crude house. The cute little girl couldn't understand what made them so sad.

Human beings grew old and died. She understood that. But what about a Noble like herself? Lady Ann had already lived nearly eight centuries looking exactly the same as she did now. And she would probably stay that way forever—so long as she didn't take a rough wooden stake through the heart or decay in the light of the sun. Wasn't that wonderful?

As a Noble, it was extremely difficult for Lady Ann to comprehend the grief humans felt in the face of death, and it gave her a slight feeling of superiority—or it should have. And yet, for some reason, a desolate wind blew through her heart. The way the dead girl that shared her name had looked remained now in Lady Ann's brain. Ann would never move again—she would never come back to life. How pointless. How frail. That's what it meant to be a human being. For those who died and those they left behind, death seemed something unspeakably cruel. Yet that girl—the other Ann—had worn a peaceful face in death.

Someone had once whispered something into Lady Ann's ear:
I envy human beings. Because they live as hard as they can, and die still wanting to live some more.
Come to think of it, all the Nobility Lady Ann knew were shrouded in a kind of indolent ennui. Splendid masques and solemn plays in golden opera houses all drifted by like a lazy summer's afternoon reeking of blood and death, but for all their laughter, the Nobility were weary. They were tired. Oh so tired. But what would come next?

From the very start, Lady Ann couldn't be expected to understand the beauty of mortality, but what she did feel was vague anxiety and a pang of futility. Despite this, a ten-year-old human girl had died looking satisfied. Is that what it meant to live as hard as you could?

Gordo and Sergei's words faded into the distance, and Lady Ann felt as if she'd been cut off from the world. There weren't any stars in the sky. There wasn't even a moon.

“Lady Ann,” someone called out to her.

She turned, but there was no one there.

“You can't see me in the darkness. Because the night is a world made from the shadows.”

“Major General Gillis?”

“None other.”

“Where are you?” the girl inquired raptly.

“At your feet.”

Only darkness lay there. But if the major general said so, it was probably the case. She had no particular dislike for the man.

How did you get here?
she was going to ask, but she stopped herself. For the man they called “the Dark One,” night and the darkness were his own personal kingdom.

“What do you want?” she inquired out of reflex. “Don't tell me you're out to take D's life . . .”

“In the end, yes,” Major General Gillis replied. “But at present, there's a more pressing matter. It concerns a woman very dear to me.”

“What might that be?”

“General Gaskell has abandoned us. In exchange for the lives of three of us, he intends to dispatch a more powerful assassin. Lord Rocambole.”

“Oh my,” Lady Ann said, and then she lost her voice. “Of all the dastardly things to do . . .”

“You must run away.”

“What?”

“I came here because of you. Your name is one of the three on his list.”

“And who are the three?”

“Baron Schuma, Grand Duke Mehmet, and yourself.”

Lady Ann raised a delicate eyebrow. “Which list are you on, Major General Gillis?”

“Fate will decide that.”

“You alone have found favor with the great General Gaskell, it would seem.”

Though young, Lady Ann had a fearsome ability to analyze and draw conclusions.

“Wait. Hear me out.”

“No.”

Saying this, the girl stuck her right hand into her golden hair, plucked out a number of strands, and jabbed them into the ground without any further discussion. The hairs became trenchant needles. Pulling out one that had sunk a good eight inches into the ground, she shouted as loud as she could, ”Come right out here, you coward!”

“Calm yourself, Lady Ann.” This time she heard him quite clearly. “I was merely concerned about your well-being—”

“You think that everyone will absolve you of your guilt, don't you? I won't be your tool!” Lady Ann exclaimed, driving one of her hair needles into the spot from which she thought his voice had come.

The following replies came in a sincere tone, each from a different spot.

“Stop it!”

“Listen to what I have to say.”

“I can help you.”

Though both of them lived in the world of darkness and night, the man known as the Dark One proved as elusive as the day was long.

Finally, Lady Ann shouted, “D!”

“Well, I wanted you to come along peacefully, if at all possible. I'll have to make you listen to me the ‘shadow' way.”

His voice faded, and a few seconds later, Lady Ann turned pitch black from the feet up, and then the lovely little Noblewoman sank right down into the ground . . . or rather, into the shadows.

Several seconds later, D rushed over to that silent region. Though he looked as hard as he could with Noble eyes that could turn darkness into midday, he could detect nothing in the gloom that spread across the ground. Moving no further, he did something strange. Drawing the longsword from his back, he thrust it into the ground in front of him. Then turning his back on the blade, he asked the darkness before him, “Can you hear me?”

After a while, a voice responded, “Yes.” It was impossible to tell whether the voice rained from the heavens or rose from the earth. “I was under the belief I'd concealed my presence, but you saw through that, did you? You truly are a man to be feared. But your ability earns you my name, at least. I am Major General Gillis. They call me ‘the Dark One.' We've met once before.”

“What happened to the girl?”

“I've taken her. Fear not. I shall see to it that she escapes.”

“Escapes?” a hoarse voice asked.

“You see, the great General Gaskell . . .” the voice began, going on to disclose the bizarre three-for-one exchange and the names of all those involved. “Well, I have my own reasons for taking the girl. It's my intent that the two of us flee together. Before I went, I thought I might take your life, but that won't be so easy after all. Thanks to that sword, I can't attack you from behind.”

At D's feet, something suddenly rose like a fog, covering him all the way up to his head. Light flowed out—a gleam that shouldn't have been visible in the pitch-dark night. Two streaks of light cut through the fog, and then sank into the figure in black that leapt from it just after that. The fog vanished, and the sword was in D's hand.

Somewhere in the darkness, a voice reminiscent of a cry of pain was heard to say, “Not even my surprise attack works on you? There's more than just
this
in the Dark One's book of tricks, but I'm finished with you here and now. I'll thank you to pray for my happiness with the little lady.”

The voice dwindled in the distance, disappearing before long.

D turned his gaze to the blade in his right hand. In an unusual turn of events, there was still blood on it. One swipe threw the gore to the ground at his feet. The instant it struck the earth, it spread and vanished in no time. Apparently, it was the shadow's blood.

“Lord Rocambole, of all people?” groaned a voice that wasn't D's, from near the Hunter's hip. “There's a fiend to make any Noble regret being born a member of the Nobility—a born mass murderer. Rumor has it he's the crazy bastard son of the Sacred Ancestor. And they called in someone like
that
?”

Catching its breath, D's left hand continued, “Things are gonna get a whole lot more complicated. This trip has been the worst.”

—

The treatment continued until early the next afternoon, and the transporters were left with only eight villagers who looked like they would pull through.

“Given four or five days' rest, you should make a full recovery.”

Everyone nodded at Juke's words.

“What should we do next?” one of the older villagers asked, and utter silence descended.

The village was completely cut off. No matter how the transporters might assert that the villagers had been cured of the plague, there was no way they'd be believed. Those blockaders intended to see the entire village of Hardue eradicated.

“So if they go out looking for help, they'll just get gunned down?” Juke mused, folding his arms. “In that case, there's only one thing we can do. Eh, boys?”

Gordo and Sergei both nodded.

Turning to the villagers, who'd stiffened into lumps, he said, “Relax. We'll bring you someplace safe soon enough. Are all of you ready to leave this village behind and make a new life?”

They all looked at one another. The five men and women past middle age looked anxious, but the three children had a sparkle in their eyes as one of them said, “Sure!”

Juke and D stepped outside.

“We've finally managed to save them,” Juke said, sounding quite emotional.

“It's because they could see the future,” D told him.

“Ain't that the truth. Children are the strength of tomorrow. I'm just trying to give them a hand.”

“Get them in the wagon,” D said unexpectedly. “I smell oil. Gasoline.”

“What?” Juke exclaimed. As he crinkled his brow, he turned his gaze in the same direction as D's.

In the distance stood the palisade that surrounded the village, and from beyond it flew a rapid succession of arrows. Streaks of white trailed after them—flaming arrows. The instant they sank into the ground or roofs, flames spread for dozens of feet in all directions. Arrows rained down from all sides. No human being could possibly do all of this—they had to be using some kind of launchers. Those surrounding Hardue had decided to burn the village to the ground.

Since the transporters' wagon was packed with cargo, the villagers had to travel in a local wagon.

“It's no use. The first one that hits it will be the end,” Sergei moaned. The fire was building, and the air was terribly hot. “Let's dump our cargo.”

“We've got a job to do. We're transporters. Even if his own kid just died, a transporter delivers that cargo.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I'll go with them,” D said as he headed for his horse. “Don't mind us. Just go—and be quick about it.”

Juke stared long and hard at the young man in black. In a voice as tight as a fist, he said, “We're counting on you, then.”

“Count on us,” a hoarse voice said.

By the time three flaming arrows had hit the house where the townsfolk had been treated, the wagons were racing at an incredible speed toward the village's gate. The houses and streets were already a sea of flames, and arrows continued to rain down. But not one of them reached the wagon that carried the villagers. D was covering the wagon's back, and each time his blade painted a gleaming arc, an arrow split in two, was batted away, or fell to the ground. There truly was nothing to worry about.

“The gate's shut!” Gordo shouted.

“Leave that to me,” Sergei said, pounding one hand against his chest while he used his other hand to raise something.

The cleaner made a faint noise, and then the gate suddenly vanished, the waiting band of men scattering as the two wagons raced off down the road.

Ah! A little light shined through. Sunlight burst through the leaden clouds to share its blessings with them.

—

I

—

After they'd raced three miles to the south, Juke finally halted the wagons. Everyone—even the villagers—turned to D. Though rapture glazed their eyes, this time there was more than one cause of it: his good looks—and his sword.

“We managed to break out, but the real problem is what comes next,” Juke declared. “The surrounding villages have probably been notified that victims of the horrible fountain plague have escaped—meaning they can't go anywhere. If they were to go to another Frontier sector, everything would be fine, but we don't have time for that. So, what do we do?”

They all just tilted their heads to one side.

On the Frontier, people simply didn't like strangers. Even if they were to make a new village, as soon as they were discovered, the flaming arrows were sure to fly. If they couldn't settle anywhere, they'd be left no choice but to become drifters, but travelers were checked quite strictly, and people would be ready to deal with them no matter where they went.

“We have to get other villages to recognize that they've been cured,” D said.

Sergei nodded and added, “Yeah. If we could do that, they could find some free land and start over again.”

“There is a way.”

Everyone held their breath at this, and then let out a cry of something like joy. If this young man said it, then they all believed it.

“The Frontier Medical Corps from the Capital is supposed to be making the rounds in this part of the Frontier. If they were to check these people out, they could send guarantees to all the villages ahead that there's nothing wrong with them.”

“Yeah—the Medical Corps!” Gordo said, pounding his beefy chest. “That'd fix everything. If we told 'em about the situation, they'd know how to handle this.”

The villagers hugged one another, and their tears began to flow.

Watching them out of the corner of his eye, Sergei whispered to Juke, “But where's the Medical Corps? We can't fall any further behind in our deliveries.”

“If everything goes smoothly, we should reach the post town of Cactus by this evening,” said D.

“Yeah,
if things go smoothly.
”

“Then we'll leave that to heaven above,” Juke declared.

Leave it to heaven above
—these were usually famous last words on the Frontier.

—

The next thing Lady Ann knew, she was lying naked on the ground. There was rope around her hands and feet. She focused her strength on the amateurish bonds, but they wouldn't budge. It wasn't a matter of the rope being resilient, but rather a case of having lost her strength.

The location seemed to be an abandoned hut for huntsmen. The stench of the blood and gristle of beasts clung to the walls and floor. Through the broken windowpanes, a tired excuse for sunlight filtered in.

Lady Ann guessed it was shortly before dusk. She grew alarmed. The membrane the general had given her to protect her from sunlight should be losing its efficacy about now. Though she took a panicked look at her hands and feet, they weren't burnt or decaying. There weren't even any indications of such a thing starting to happen.

Just as relief came over her, a voice from the left end of the room said, “It seems you're awake.”

“Major General Gillis. You certainly have some nerve,” the cute little girl said, her countenance becoming that of a demoness.

“It's no use. Look at the shadows.”

“What?”

Looking down at the floor, the girl was astonished. Although the light from the window illuminated her exposed abdomen and thighs, they cast no shadow.

“ ‘Shadow stealing' is a Dark One trick—since ancient times, it's been believed that taking someone's shadow takes her life. You can't move.”

“You're right. Give it back, you coward.”

“Regrettably, I can't do that. If I were to let you out of here, you'd no doubt go right back to that Hunter named D.”

“Of course I would. He's my beloved, after all.”

“That pains me. The truth is, I've had a thing for you since the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

Lady Ann may not have been too happy to hear this outlandish confession. A few seconds later, she gasped as she looked down at her own nakedness.

“I see. So that's why I'm like this. Pervert! You're just an old lecher. Give me back my clothes!”

“Oh, I suppose I'll be able to do that a little later,” the voice said in a reluctant tone. It came from the shadows at the end of the room. They had a somewhat human form to them.

“What do you mean by
later
? Oh, now I see. Seven hundred years ago, it was
you
that was spying on girls in the bath in the Capital's residential quarters and stealing their underwear, wasn't it? I'll make you pay!”

“I haven't done anything for which I need to pay, nor have I stolen any underwear. I'm just enjoying myself a little.”

“Pervert! I'd sooner die than let you have your way,” Lady Ann said, her eyes filled with a stern determination as she glared at the shadow at the end of the room.

The shadow looked a bit rattled by this.

“Well, what I'm doing—it's not like that. I have no intention of being imprudent, so be at ease. For my soul has been captivated by your innocent beauty.”

“You've done this a lot, haven't you?”

“I'd prefer not to dwell on that matter.” Coughing once, the voice then suggested, “So, would you be so good as to run away with me?”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Listen to me. Our great general has decided to revive Lord Rocambole by sacrificing three lives, including your own. If you escape, the lord will have no choice but to fight D in a less-than-optimal condition. In other words, you would be doing something to help save the man you love.”

“By joining hands with you, right? I'd rather die. Besides, even if Lord Rocambole were to destroy me, you think he could ever beat D?”

“Love is clouding your judgment in that matter.”

“Shut up!” Lady Ann exclaimed, writhing.

Perhaps finding her somewhat difficult to handle, the shadow at the end of the room said, “You're a terrible little shrew. Though I must say that's part of what I like about you. If you're opposed to running off with me, I guess there's nothing more I can do. I shall have to go alone.”

“Brilliant idea,” Lady Ann told him, and then her eyes grew wide.

From the shadow at the end of the room, what was clearly the silhouette of a hand had slid up the wall, carefully avoiding the sunlight as it drew the blinds.

A feeble darkness ruled the hut.

“Since it's come to this, there's nothing else I can do. Rather than let a young man like him have the girl I love, I'll have my way with you right here before I reduce you to ash, which I'll put into a lovely little bottle and keep with me always. I'm sorry, but you'd best prepare yourself.”

“Wait. Please, stop!”

In her panic, the girl had slipped back into polite speech. On the floor where the shadows were dense, one particularly heavy black shadow glided toward her, and the silhouette of a hand reached out to embrace the naked beauty.

“Help!” Lady Ann shrieked like a little girl, and her cowering clearly twisted the shadow's features into an expression of delight.

“Excellent!” he chortled. “Your fear is driving me wild. A mature woman in the same situation couldn't do that for me. There's nothing cute about
them
at all. Go on. I need more fear! More terror!”

The shadow's hand crept across the girl's pale thigh, moved to her waist, and then rose to her youthful breasts.

“No! Stop! Don't! Father!” Lady Ann sobbed on the cold wooden floor.

The sexual deviant couldn't have asked for a more arousing sight. His other hand slid around to her derrière.

“Stop it!” she shouted, but her mouth was covered by that of the black shadow.

Lady Ann looked like some small, unfortunate animal caught in the coils of a perfectly flat serpent.

A second later, the Dark One—Major General Gillis—cried, “Oof!” as he leapt away. It wasn't so much a leap back as it was a matter of the shadows on the floor retreating, but something else moved: a single crimson bloom. Lady Ann's skill with supernatural flowers still worked. It pierced the two-dimensional shadow in a three-dimensional manner.

“You—you little minx!” the shadow bellowed. His anger was prompted by an undisguisable agony. “You shall pay for that. I'll tear you to pieces before I have my way with you!”

“We'll see about that, you pervy bastard,” Lady Ann jeered.

Though the unclad girl looked to be only ten, she was a peerless warrior who'd risked her life for centuries in battle.

“Lucky for me you didn't know what my power was. Did you think I was just a naked little brat? I have one more kill to my credit than my father did! Now be a good little boy and let my flower feed on you.”

Gillis groaned in pain.

The bloody bloom grew out of the floor, its petals turning blacker and blacker. It was drinking, absorbing the shadow's blood.

And then the light within the hut faded rapidly. Something huge had passed by the window outside. Major General Gillis's shadow melted into these new shadows—and by the time sunlight had returned to the window, a reddish black flower lay on the floor.

Lady Ann bit her lip. She had a foreboding of Gillis's next attack. However, she heard no triumphant laugh or angry shouts. It appeared that wherever he lay in the hut's shadows, the Dark One now focused his attention on someone other than Lady Ann.

The wooden door opened. And the form so massive it made the interior of the hut seem cramped was that of none other than the great General Gaskell.

General!
Major General Gillis was about to cry out, but apparently Gaskell already knew where he was, because he looked to the north wall of the room and said, “While you are in my domain, there's nowhere to run from me, Major General Gillis. We've taken Grand Duke Mehmet's life, but I don't know where Schuma is. Even factoring in the Duke of Xenon's child, we're still short one.”

“My good general—you wouldn't,” the major general said, his voice choked with fright. He understood very well what Gaskell was driving at. “It was
I
who came up with this whole idea. Great general though you are, if you were to do such a thing to me, your name would live in infamy for future generations.”

“It already does,” Gaskell said with a wry smile. In that respect, there was something strangely human about him. “But there is something to what you say. Let's do this, then. Go find Baron Schuma. Do so, and it will keep you off the list.”

“With pleasure,” the shadow said.

Then, as if something had suddenly occurred to him, he asked, “What will you do with this girl?”

—

II

—

You could say the matter the transporters had left to heaven above had been left in very good hands.

In the evening light, the group arrived at the post town of Cactus to learn that the Frontier Medical Corps had arrived about three hours earlier and had set up a temporary hospital on the outskirts of town. Bringing the eight villagers there, the transporters explained the situation, and while the men in the corps were astonished at first, the villagers were now in the hands of doctors who traveled the Frontier. Quickly performing examinations, the doctors gave within thirty minutes their expert opinion that all of the villagers had been completely cured of fountain plague. Putting the survivors up in their hospital, the doctors also said they'd send word of their findings to the surrounding villages.

Juke and the others happily shook each other's hands, while the eight villagers wept for joy.

Returning to their inn in high spirits, they found someone in a second-story window calling down to them, “Hi, folks!”

Looking up, all of them—including D—had surprise in their eyes.

Leaning out of a roofed passageway, wearing a pair of pink pajamas and waving to them, was Baron Schuma.

Five minutes later, they all met in the lobby. Aside from D, the group was bristling with murderous intent, but the baron told them to settle down and asserted that he no longer had any intention of fighting them. The reason, according to the baron, was “because the great general is out to take our lives.”

When D asked if he was talking about Rocambole, the baron couldn't conceal his surprise.

“My, but you are good. Grand Duke Mehmet was killed before my very eyes. Lady Ann and I will be next. Like the saying goes—where there's life, there's hope.”

“What are you doing here?”

At D's query the Nobleman shrugged his shoulders. “No matter how I might try to run, I can't go beyond a certain range. I must be caught in the general's drifting domain. If that's the case, there's no point losing my head about it. Besides, the hot spring at this inn has quite a reputation.”

“This is one odd bird,” Gordo remarked.

“As long as I remain in the general's domain, Rocambole will come for me sooner or later. I don't intend to die easily. D—will you help me?”

“This is all too convenient,” said a cool voice that carried not the slightest concern for the life of a foe.

“I thought you'd feel that way,” the baron said, smacking the back of his neck a few times and getting to his feet. “After bringing us back to life, he has no problem with disposing of us once we no longer suit his needs. Who in the world decided that was to be our fate?”

The baron left with a desolate hue coloring his eyes.

D went outside. He intended to take in the night air. Shadow and light—this young man belonged to both, but given his Noble blood, it came as no surprise that the darkness of night brought the most out of his good looks.