Vampire Hunter D (7 page)

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From the farm he rode hard north by northwest for two hours, until he came to a spot where a massive ashen citadel towering quietly atop a hillock loomed menacingly overhead. This was the castle of the local lord—the home of Count Magnus Lee.

Even the shower of midday sunlight changed color here, and a nauseating miasma seemed to come from the morbid expanse of land surrounding the castle. The grass was green as far as the eye could see, and the trees were laden with succulent fruit, but not a single bird could be heard. Still, as one would expect around noon on a sunny day, there were no signs of life in the vampire’s castle. Constructed to mimic the castles of the distant middle ages, the walls were dotted with countless loopholes. The dungeon and courtyards were surrounded by broad, stone stairways that linked them together, but there was no sign of android sentries on any of them. The castle was, to all appearances, deserted.

But D had already sensed the castle’s bloodied nocturnal form, and the hundreds of electronic eyes and vicious weapons that lay in wait for their next victim.

The surveillance satellite in geo-stationary orbit 22,240 miles above the castle—as well as the uncounted security cameras disguised as fruit or spiders—sent the castle’s mother-computer images so detailed that an observer could count the pores of the intruder’s skin. The photon cannons secreted in the loopholes had their safety locks switched off, and they were drawing a bead on several hundred points all over the intruder’s body.

As the Nobility was fated to live by night alone, electronic protection during the day was an absolute necessity. No matter how much mystic-might the vampires might wield by night, in the light of day they were feeble creatures, easily destroyed by a single thrust of a stake. It was for precisely this reason that the vampires had used all their knowledge of psychology and cerebral biology in their attempts to plant fear in the human mind throughout the six or seven millennia of their reign. The results of this tactic were clear: even after the vampire civilization had long since crumbled—it was rare to catch even a glimpse of one about—they could take residence in the midst of their human “foes” and, like a feudal lord, hold complete mastery over the region.

According to what Doris told D before he set out, the villagers in Ransylva had taken up sword and spear a number of times in the past, endeavoring to drive their lord off their lands. However, as soon as they set foot within the castle grounds, black clouds began swirling in the sky above, the earth was rent wide, lightning raged, and not surprisingly, they were ultimately routed before they even reached the moat.

Not giving in so easily, a group of villagers made a direct appeal to the Capital and succeeded in getting the government’s precious Anti-Gravity Air Corps to execute a bombing mission. Because the government was afraid of depleting its stores of energy or explosives, however, it wouldn’t authorize more than a single bombing run. The defense shields around the castle prevented that single attack from accomplishing much before it was forced to return home. The following day, villagers were found butchered with positively unearthly brutality, and, by the time the villagers had seen the vampires’ vengeance play out, the flames of resistance were utterly snuffed.

Home to the feudal lord who would taste D’s blade, the castle the Hunter approached was the sort of demonic citadel that kept the world in fear of the now largely legendary vampires.

Perhaps that was what brought a haggard touch to D’s visage. No, as a Vampire Hunter he should’ve been quite familiar with the fortifications of the vampires’ castle. As proof, he rode his horse without the slightest trace of trepidation to where the drawbridge was raised. But against the lord and his iron-walled castle, crammed with most advanced electronics, what chance of victory did a lone youth with a sword have?

Blazing-white light could have burnt through his chest at any moment, but a tepid breeze merely stroked his ample black hair, and soon he arrived at the edge of a moat brimming with dark blue water. The moat must have been nearly twenty feet wide. His eyes raced across the walls as he pondered his next move, but when he put his hand to his pendant the drawbridge barring the castle gate amazingly began to descend with a heavy, grating noise. With earth-shaking force, the bridge was laid.

“It is a great pleasure to receive you,” a metallic voice called out from nowhere in particular. It was computer-synthesized speech—the ultimate in personality simulation. “Please proceed into the castle proper. Directions shall be transmitted to the brain of milord’s mount. Please pardon the fact no one was here to greet you.”

D said nothing as he urged his horse on.

Once he’d crossed the bridge, he entered a large courtyard. Behind him came the sounds of the drawbridge being raised again, but he advanced down the cobblestone way toward the palace without a backward glance.

The orderly rows of trees, the marble sculptures glittering in the sunlight, stairways and corridors leading to places that couldn’t be guessed—all gave the feeling of scrupulous upkeep by machines. Though no one could say how many millennia ago they’d been planted or sculpted, they looked as fresh and new as if they’d been placed there only yesterday. But there were no signs that life went on here. The machines alone lived, and their mechanical eyes and fiery arrows were trained on D.

When his horse halted before the palace gates, D quickly slipped out of the saddle. The thick doors dotted with countless hobnails were already open wide.

“Enter, please.” The same synthesized voice reverberated from the dark corridor.

A hazy darkness bound the interior. Not that the windowpanes were dampening the sunlight—this effect was a result of the artificial lighting. In fact, the windows in the vampire’s palace were no more than ornamentation, impervious to the slightest ray of light.

As he walked down the corridors guided by the voice, D noticed that each and every window was set in a niche in the wall. It would take two or three steps up the scaffolding to climb to the window from the hallway: one couldn’t walk over to the window, but would rather pop up in front of it. The design had been copied from German castles in the middle ages.

The predominant element of vampire civilization was their love of medieval styles. Even in their superiorly advanced, tech-filled Capital, the designs of many of the buildings closely resembled those of medieval Europe. Perhaps something in their DNA cried out for a return to the golden age that lived on in their genetic memory, a time when superstition and legend and all manner of weird creatures prevailed. Maybe that explained why so many detestable monsters and spirits had been resurrected by their super-science.

The voice led D to a splendid door of massive proportions. At the bottom of the door there was an opening large enough for a cat to come and go as it pleased. This door opened without a sound as well, and D set foot into a world of even deeper darkness. His haggard air was gone in an instant. His nerves, his muscles, his circulation—every part of him told him the time he had known had suddenly changed. The instant he smelled the thick perfume wafting throughout the room—which appeared to be a hall—D knew the cause.
Time-Bewitching Incense. I’ve heard rumors about this
stuff
. When he sighted the pair of silhouettes hazily sketched by wispy flames at the far end of the vast hall, his suspicion became conviction.

The silhouettes gave off a ghastly aura that made even D’s peerless features stiffen with tension. Beside a slender form—which he knew at a glance to be female—stood a figure of remarkable grandeur dressed in black. “We’ve been waiting for you. You are the first human to ever make it this far in one piece.” From the corners of the vermilion lips that loosed this solemn voice poked a pair of white fangs. “As our guest, you deserve an introduction. I am the lord of this castle and administrator of the Tenth Frontier Sector, Count Magnus Lee.”

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Time-Bewitching Incense could be called the ultimate chemical compound born of the vampires’ physiological needs.

For the most part, the information and rumors people passed along about the physiology of these fiends—the various stories told since time immemorial—were essentially true. Outlandish tales about transforming into bats, turning themselves into fog and billowing away, and so on—stories that there were vampires who could do such things and others who couldn’t were taken as fact. Just as in human society ability varied according to an individual’s disposition, so too among the vampires there were some demons who freely controlled the weather, while other fiends had mastery over lower animals.

Many aspects of the vampire’s fantastic physiology, however, remained shrouded in mystery.

For example, the reason why they slept by day but awoke at night remained unclear. Even enveloped by darkness in a secret chamber that blocked out all possible light, a vampire’s body grew rigid with the coming of that unseen dawn, their heart alone continuing to beat as they fell into death’s breathless slumber. Despite a concerted effort at explanation spanning thousands of years and investing the essence of every possible field of science—ecology, biology, cerebral physiology, psychology, and even super-psychology—the damned couldn’t shed a bit of light on the true cause of their sleep. As if to say, those who dwelt in the darkness were denied even the rays of hope.

Born of the vampires’ desperate research, Time-Bewitching Incense was one means of overcoming their limitations.

Wherever its scent hung, the time would become night. Or rather, appear to be night. In a manner of speaking, normal temporal effects were so altered by this chemical compound, the incense made time itself seem hypnotized. In the glistening sunlight of early afternoon, the night-blooming moonlight grass would open its gorgeous white flowers, people would doze off and remain asleep indefinitely, and the eyes of vampires would shine with a piercing light. Due to the extreme difficulty of finding and combining the components, the incense was very hard to come by, but rumors spread to every corner of the Frontier about Hunters who forced their way into a vampire resting place when the sun was high only to be brutally ambushed by Nobles who just happened to have some on hand.

There, in the false night, D faced the dark liege lord.

“Did you come here expecting to find us asleep, foolish one? As you managed to stop my daughter, I believed you to be a more stalwart opponent than the usual insects, and I allowed you this meeting. But, where you sauntered into the blackest hell without even suspecting the danger awaiting you, I may have erred gravely in my assessment.”

“No,” said a voice he’d heard before. The figure at the Count’s side was Larmica. “This man doesn’t exhibit the least trace of fear. He’s a thoroughly exasperating and deliciously impudent fellow. Judging by the skill he demonstrated this past evening when dealing Garou a grievous wound, he could be nothing save a dhampir.”

“Human or dhampir, he remains a traitor. A bastard spawned by one of our kind and a mere human. Tell me, bastard, are you a man or a vampire?”

To this scornful query, D gave a different answer. “I’m a Vampire Hunter. I came here because the walls opened up for me. Are you the fiend that attacked the girl from the farm? If so, I’ll slay you here and now.”

For a moment, the Count was left speechless by the gleaming eyes that bored through the darkness at him, but an instant later he seemed indignant. He laughed loudly. “Slay me? You forget your place. Do you not realize the sole reason I allowed you to come this far is because my daughter said it would be a shame to kill a man such as yourself, that we should persuade you to join us in the castle and make you one of our kind? I have no idea which of your parents was of our kind, but judging by the speech and conduct of their son, it was obviously a buffoon without an inkling of their own low station. This is a waste of time. Dhampir, shame of our race, prepare to meet your maker.” Having roared these words, the Count raised his right hand to strike, but was stopped by Larmica’s voice.

“Please wait, Father. Allow me to speak to him.”

Fluttering the train of a deep blue dress quite unlike the one she wore the previous night, Larmica stepped between the Count and D.

“You spring from the same noble blood as our family. Regardless of what Father said, no son of a humble-born vampire could ever possess such skill. When I caught the missile you hurled at me, I thought my blood would freeze.”

D said nothing.

“What say you? Will you not apologize to Father for your boastful speech and join us here in the castle? What reasons have you to dog us? Is being a Hunter a job worth wandering the untamed plains in such shabby apparel? And what of the human wretches you’ve protected—what manner of treatment have you received from the humans who should be grateful to you? Have they accepted you as their fellow man?”

In the unknowably deep twilight of the hall, the voice of the beautiful young woman flowed without hesitation. Her haughty and domineering mien was unchanged from the night before, but one had to wonder if D noticed the faint shadows of entreaty and desire that clung to her.

Dhampir—a child born of the union between a vampire and a human. There could be no existence more lonely or hateful than that. Normally, dhampirs were no different from humans, relatively free to work by the light of day. When angered, however, they lashed out with the unholy power of a vampire, killing and maiming at will. Most detestable of all were the vampire urges they inherited from one of their parents.

Based on their innate and intimate knowledge of vampires’ strengths and weaknesses, many chose to become Vampire Hunters in order to make a living in human society. The fact was, they demonstrated a level of ability head and shoulders above merely human Hunters, but outside of hunting, they were nearly completely ostracized by humanity and kept their distance. Occasionally, their vampire nature would awaken so powerfully they themselves couldn’t suppress it, causing them to crave the blood of the very people that depended on them.