“It hurts!” she groaned. Her voice sounded pained.
“Are you okay?” Matthew asked frantically.
There was no reply.
As clouds of anxiety blanketed his heart, Matthew picked up the girl. But another surprise awaited him. A wall of people blocked his wagon.
“What’s going on?” the boy said.
An old man in the front row of the crowd came forward with the aid of a cane and said, “I’m the mayor. We have a favor to ask.”
“A favor?” Matthew said, furrowing his brow.
“Forget it,” a voice like steel told the boy. “We’re in a hurry. Set that girl down and get back in the wagon.”
“But—” the mayor began, barely squeezing out the words, “that girl sacrificed herself to get you to stop. I beg of you—please, hear us out!”
“If she was a sacrifice, then it’s on your heads,” D said in a soft, cold tone. “Get back up there. We’re moving out."
Matthew didn’t know what to do. The girl at his feet had just groaned.
“We’re begging you. Please!” the old man said, somehow getting down on his knees. The villagers behind him touched their heads to the ground in unison. “Someone has told us that gods are coming to rid our village of a misfortune. And we’re certain he was talking about you.”
The hands the old man clasped together trembled.
“So I beg you, just hear what I have to say. As you can see, we’re down on our knees.”
The old man and the other villagers all prostrated themselves.
“Out of our way,” D said, his words raining down on them like a cold drizzle.
“D,” Matthew said, turning to look at the Hunter.
“We don’t have any time to waste. I have to honor the deal I made with your mother.”
“We won’t move!” one of the villagers shouted. “If you leave, we’re all dead. So if you’re going, you may as well kill us before you do.”
The villager was serious. He wasn’t going to budge, even in the face of death. However, principles and actually dying were two different matters. His heart caught in the talons of a terrific fear, he stiffened.
The young man on the black steed moved forward smoothly.
I’m about to get killed, the man thought. Riding before him was a grim reaper of unearthly beauty. Not about to take pity on him just because he was old, and not at all moved by the way this man was willing to risk his life, he was a gorgeous fiend who would think nothing of hacking his way through anyone who opposed him. The old man was in a kind of rapture as he imagined himself releasing a bloody mist beneath that sword. And that’s probably exactly what would’ve happened if Matthew hadn’t intervened.
“Stop it, D!” he shouted as if he were writhing in pain. “You said you had a bargain with my mom. Well, there’s no way she would’ve abandoned these people at a time like this. And I don’t want to, either.”
The black horse halted.
“Then we’ll hear them out,” the Hunter said.
“Thanks,” Matthew said in a terribly blunt fashion, and then he pointed to the girl at his feet. “Get this girl to a doctor.”
Villagers ran over and carried her away.
The boy then went over to the prostrate mayor and said, “Let’s hear what you have to say.”
III
Matthew, Sue, and D went to the mayor’s house. Though Matthew hadn’t wanted Sue to accompany them, D had maintained that it’d be dangerous for them to split up. The ever-present sound of carpentry slipped in through the open windows. Leaving Matthew and Sue in the care of the mayor and several other villagers, D stood in the comer with his back against the wall. No one noticed that he was in the shade.
What the mayor had to say was as follows: “This morning a traveling missionary came to the village church. He was no ordinary human being. This man arrived in town before daybreak, cleaned the chapel, and was ready to greet all of us by dawn. I got up pretty early myself, and there were others who were up all night in the saloon, too. And none of them heard him walk into town or any kind of commotion from the church. From the moment he called us together with the sound of the church bell, I knew what he really was. And on top of all that, he was so happy to tell us all about these strange ‘gods.’ ”
“Strange gods?” Matthew said, getting the feeling that this was going to be trouble. But it was his own impetuousness that had gotten them involved with these gods. What did any of this have to do with them, anyway?
“According to him, these gods are named Braujou, Miranda, and D. Though he did say we weren’t supposed to tell anyone that. Your name wasn’t mentioned, but if D works for you, you’d have to be even more important than a god.”
Having spoken, the old man finally showed them a smile. The others laughed.
D’s connection to the siblings had already been explained. The purpose of their journey had not.
Perplexed, Matthew turned to D. The young man in black had melted into the shadows in the corner like some dark, supernatural blossom given human form.
“What are they putting together?” the Hunter asked. He was referring to the carpentry.
“That’s the rub,” the mayor said, slapping his knee. “It’s a shrine to honor these gods. Of course, it’s no more than a plank-covered shack, but the missionary said that would be fine.”
“What’s his name?”
“Courbet.”
“So what the hell is he trying to do? He comes here this morning, says D’s a god, and tells you to build a shrine—what’s he got in mind?”
Matthew’s question made the mayor and villagers look at each other. Suffering and uncertainty flowed around their wrinkled features like a gas.
“Where is he?” D inquired.
The mayor, Matthew, and everyone else trembled. Sue even put her hand on her brother’s arm. She’d felt the unearthly air D’s soft tone had carried.
Matthew asked, “You think it’s them, D?”
“Yes.”
The mayor was reflected in dark eyes that could only be described as awe inspiring. The old man backed away as if trying to escape something, stopping just as he was about to fall over.
“I don’t know,” he said, his face like that of a dead man. “Before he left, he said he’d be back tonight. Told us to have the shrine ready for the gods by then. A number of us went after the missionary, but there was no trace of him.”
“And those were his only demands?”
“Yeah, that was it,” the mayor replied, lowering his gaze.
On noticing this, Matthew said, “He threatened you, didn’t he? What did he say?”
The mayor gnawed his lip. “If we don’t do as he’s asked, the curse of the Nobility will be on our village.”
“What kind of curse?”
“If you were to go to the church now, you’d find a bloodstain on the floor. A villager who laughed out loud was crushed when a piece of stone from the ceiling fell on top of him. And all that bastard had to do was wave the book of sermons in his hand. He laid it out for us. If we didn’t follow his instructions, the same would happen to everyone in the village. Then he added something else—said the only thing that could save us was these gods. And right then, we decided we had to come clean. To be honest, we don’t know what he’s after. We figure you folks would know more about that than us.”
“Where’s that girl from earlier?” D asked, oddly enough.
After a pause, the mayor replied, “In the town hall. We don’t have a doctor, but we’ve got medicine there.”
By the time he’d said this, D had already left the shadows and was headed for the door. He looked like a beautiful shadow. Matthew and Sue hurriedly stood up.
At the town hall some five hundred yards from the mayor’s house, they witnessed a miracle. The girl who’d fallen under the hooves was there with her mother. When D put his left hand against her forehead, her labored breathing was gone in a heartbeat and her fever passed. The girl recovered in seconds.
Dumbfounded, the mayor shouted, “Please, wait! We’ve been completely honest with you and asked you to save our village. If you leave now, we’ll be annihilated. He’ll get us. Do something about him. After all, you’re the reason he came here, aren’t you?” D looked at Matthew.
Thinking for a few seconds with the expression of a much older man, Matthew nodded and said, “If you were to put him down, it’d make things easier for us, too. D, let’s give it a shot.”
The young man in black remained silent as the group went outside. “I’m going to the chapel,” D told them, and then he started walking over to where they’d parked the vehicles.
Halting in front of Braujou’s car, he turned toward the door and said, “This concerns Matthew and Sue. Keep them safe.” His tone was the same as always.
When a hole opened in the seamless body of the vehicle, Matthew and Sue stared at it dazedly.
“Stay inside until I get back. No matter what happens, don’t let them out, Braujou.”
“Leave it to me,” Braujou responded in a sleepy voice.
The pair were shaking all over, but D somehow managed to get them into the vehicle, and once the hole in its side had vanished, he began to head back to the village.
Completely ignoring the group of people that had formed in front of the mayor’s abode, the Hunter went into the chapel. The villagers froze at the doorway.
The stone interior was quiet and cold. Crude stone statues stared at D with the faint outlines of eyes. Though the villagers believed in different gods, they apparently worshiped here together. Between the second pew and the wall, a bloodstain remained on the floor. A bloodied chunk of stone had been set beside the door. Putting the palm of his left hand against the stone, D raised it toward the ceiling.
“No doubt about it—it definitely fell from the spot right above him. The whole ceiling’s in terrible shape,” his left hand said. “But the piece that fell wasn’t rigged in any way. It seems like it was a complete coincidence that the only part to collapse was right on top of a nonbeliever. As you can probably tell, there’s no trace of any spell or telekinesis, either. That’s one weird trick he’s got.”
“You remember anything like this?”
“Not—” was all the hoarse voice managed before D’s hand was tightly squeezed into a fist and the Hunter went outside.
The sounds of carpentry echoed in the air without a moment’s respite. A number of colorful kites danced across the sky. It must’ve been some of the community’s few children amusing themselves.
“Hey! Where are you going? You’re not gonna saunter right into this trap, are you?” the hoarse voice asked frantically.
“The trap’s not very well laid.”
“Yeah, that’s true—but that’s no reason to jump into the lion’s den for the fun of it.”
Not replying to this, D took the road up a slope. As he came within view of the wooden structure that was nearly fully framed at the top of the hill, hurried footsteps and a taxed voice chased after him.
“Wait! Please, wait just a moment..
D turned, and the mayor finally halted in front of him, taking several deep breaths to calm himself.
“You don’t seriously .. . plan on . . . going into that thing ... do you? I thought I.. . made it clear .. . that it’s dangerous!”
The old man’s winded delivery only served to demonstrate his sincerity.
“It’s not finished yet. If it’s meant as an obstacle for us, perhaps I should destroy it.”
“If you were to do that now, the villagers would all be in danger,” the old man said, looking to D for agreement, but then he held his tongue. His expression quickly grew clouded with fear. “Oh, that’s right. . . You don’t give a rat’s ass about the people in this village, do you? All that matters is that the lot of you finish your journey safely.”
“That’s my job.”
“We told you everything, regardless of the danger we were putting ourselves in. Don’t you think leaving us to fend for ourselves would just be heartless?”
“The person who hired me asked me to protect her children with her dying breath. Nothing else concerns me.”
Leaving the mayor standing there awestruck, D walked away. Though only the frame was standing, this was clearly going to be a house. It was square, with each wall thirty feet long, and just a little bit taller. Five villagers hung from the wall and ceiling beams. As soon as they noticed D, two of them let out screams and fell to the ground, while the rest clung to the closest post or beam for dear life. The reason their compatriots had fallen was obvious: D’s good looks had robbed them of their souls. The other three soon ran over to pick those two up, and luckily they’d landed on their asses and were okay.
“At this rate, they’ll only have the outer walls done by tonight,” the hoarse voice said. “So, what do they hope to accomplish by sealing you inside?”
D looked back at the mayor.
The mayor was backing away, as if he’d seen something horrifying. His body sank unexpectedly—the earth had subsided. He sank down to his waist, and then stopped. The old man braced his arms and tried to pull himself free. But when the villagers started to race toward him, his screams made them stop. His hair stood on end, his upper body went into fierce spasms, and then his eyes rolled up into his head. At the same time, bright blood shot from his mouth and nose like a ruptured hose, sending up terrific splashes when it hit the ground.
Telling the paralyzed villagers to step aside, D moved forward. Ignoring the mayor, whose head had slumped limply to one side, the Hunter slowly started down the hill.
A quiet murmur from the villagers came after him. The bloodied mayor had jerked his face back up and then fallen forward. There was nothing left of him from the waist down. His body had been brutally sliced in two below his hips. The villagers’ terrified murmuring was reignited like a flame when the old man’s upper body dug both hands into the dirt and pulled itself toward D like an insect.
“Behind you!” someone shouted, but the upper body had braced itself in a pushup position, and then it sprang up over D’s head like a bug. It was unclear whether D noticed the single line that stretched between the torso and the ground.
The Hunter made a silvery sweep behind himself, while the mayor’s torso reversed direction in midair and landed with a thud on the ground. Ignoring the vain twitching of the fingers curled before its chest like claws, D took to the air like a supernatural bird, exquisite and black, coming down to assail its earthbound prey. Backed by the force of a leap that carried D from a spot fifteen feet away, plus the acceleration from his descent, the blade he gripped struck with precision. His longsword sank halfway into the earth, and as he pulled it free, a black fluid shot out of the ground with terrific force. No one there noticed it was blood.
D made a horizontal swipe to his right with his sword hand. The gleam collided with a black, sickle-shaped object that appeared
from the earth, making the strangest sound in the world. Fifteen feet long, the sickle made a tearing sound as it was cut free. When it was finally embedded in a boulder that lay by the side of the road, it proved to be indeed a giant, steel scythe.
“It’s a subterranean doll master!”
“No, it’s a corpse rider!”
It was difficult to say whether the terror in the voices of the villagers who’d witnessed this was inspired by the creature with giant scythes that had just expired underground, or by the young man in black who’d sheathed his blade and turned back toward the mayor’s remains.
Without a doubt, a fearsome subterranean creature had just breathed its last—a creature that burrowed underground, killing anyone who fell through the last bit of earth it left over its pit, then sending one of its “control lines” into the nervous system of its victim so it could be in command of the deceased and hunt for food up in the surface worl
d it was fated to never enter.
“Hmm. To be honest, I’ve had a suspicion all the villagers were under something’s control, but it looks like such concerns were groundless,” D’s left hand said in a voice that he alone heard.
When the Hunter walked toward the partially constructed hut once more, no one stood in his way. As if they were watching a demon that appeared in broad daylight, the villagers opened a path for D, and he stood in front of the hut. A wind was stealing up on him.
Raising his left hand, D caught something borne on the wind. A sheet of paper. The vermilion characters scrawled on it seemed to be written in blood.
If you lay a hand on that hut, the villagers will all die in horrible accidents.
There was no signature.
Before he’d finished reading it, D turned around. In the direction the wind had come.
CHAPTER 7
I
Roughly thirty feet from the road up the slope were remnants of , a stone wall that stretched for fifteen to twenty feet. It was more than six and a half feet high.
There was a silvery flash.
From the other side of the partition came an agonized cry.
D hung in the air. The stone wall he’d sliced through at an angle toppled over with a dull thud—and the Hunter landed beyond that piece without a sound, facing it. Between D and the wall was a figure in vestments clutching his right shoulder. Bright blood spilled between his fingers, leaving vivid red stains on the ash-gray fabric.
“Are you one of Valcua’s henchmen?” D inquired in a low tone. He didn’t ask the man his name. This was someone he had to slay. All that mattered was whom he served.
“N-no, I’m not...,” the figure in vestments replied with a desperate shake of his head, but his pale complexion said more than that.
D took a smooth stride forward. An instant later, two things happened. D’s stance shook ever so slightly, and from the sky high above him a colorful object swooped down. A flash of light danced out, and the form became a bisected kite that fell to the ground.
Ordinarily, the Hunter’s blade would’ve reversed direction and gone for the robed figure—splitting Courbet’s head open. However, his target flew away from the path limned by the tip of his sword. The man raised his right hand high, and his body floated up into the air, flying off into space at a speed D couldn’t hope to match. D hurled a rough wooden needle after him with his right hand, and the robed figure clutched his throat. His groans streamed through the air, but his form swiftly dwindled, becoming a speck that was swallowed by the blue sky.
Vampire Hunter D 16: Tyrant's Stars Page 12
