Tale of the Dead Town

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  Other Vampire Hunter D books published by

  DH Press and Digital Manga Publishing

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  Vol. 1 Vampire Hunter D

  Vol. 2: Raiser of Gales

  Vol. 3: Demon Deathchase

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  VAMPIRE HUNTER D 4: tale of the dead town

  © Hideyuki Kikuchi, 1986. Originally published in Japan in 1986 by ASAHI SONORAMA Co., Ltd. English translation copyright © 2006 by DH Press and Digital Manga Publishing.

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  No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. DH Press™ and the DH Press logo are trademarks of DH Press. All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Yoshitaka Amano

  English translation by Kevin Leahy

  Book Design by Heidi Fainza

  Published by

  DH Press

  a division of Dark Horse Comics

  10956 SE Main Street

  Milwaukie, OR 97222

  dhpressbooks.com

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  Digital Manga Publishing

  1487 West 178th Street, Suite 300

  Gardena, CA 90248

  digitalmanga.com

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

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  ISBN-10: 1-59582-093-0

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59582-093-8

  ePub ISBN: 978-1-62115-490-7

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  First DH Press Edition: May 2006

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

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  JOURNEY BY NIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

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  I

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  On the Frontier, nothing was considered more dangerous than a journey by night.

  Claiming the night was their world, the Nobility had once littered the globe with monsters and creatures of legend, as if to adorn the pitch-black with a touch of deadly beauty. Those same repugnant creatures ran rampant in the land of darkness to this very day. That was how the vampires bared their fangs at the human idea that held the light of day as the time for action and the dark of night for rest. The darkness of night was the greatest of truths, the vampires claimed, and the ruler of the world. Farewell, white light of summer.

  That was why the night was filled with menace. The moans of dream demons lingered in the wind, and the darkness whispered the threats of dimension-ripping beasts. Just beyond the edge of the woods glowed eyes the color of jasper. So many eyes. Even well- armed troops sent into devastated sections of the Capital felt so relieved after they’d slipped through the blocks of dilapidated apartment complexes that they’d flop down right there on the road.

  Out on the Frontier it was even worse. On the main roads, crude way stations had been built at intervals between one lodging place and the next. But, when the sun went down on one of the support roads linking the godforsaken villages, travelers were forced to defend themselves with nothing more than their own two hands and whatever weapons they could carry. There were only two beings that chose to travel by night. The Nobility. And dhampirs. Particularly if the dhampir was a Vampire Hunter.

  Scattering a shower of moonlight far and wide, the shadowy form of a horse and rider climbed a desolate hill. The mount was just an average cyborg horse, but the features of the rider were as clean and clear as a jewel, like the strange beauty of the darkness and the moon crystallized. Every time the all-too-insistent wind touched him, it trembled with uncertainty, whirled, and headed off bearing a whole new air. Carrying a disquieting aura. His wide-brimmed traveler’s hat, the ink-black cape and scarf darker than darkness, and the scabbard of the elegant longsword that adorned his back were all faded and worn enough to stir imaginings of the arduous times this traveler had seen.

  The young traveler had his eyes closed, perhaps to avoid the wind-borne dust. His profile was so graceful it seemed the Master Craftsman in heaven above had made it His most exquisite work. The rider appeared to be thoroughly exhausted and immersed in a lonely sleep. Sleep—for him it was a mere break in the battle, but a far cry from peace of mind.

  Something else mixed with the groaning of the wind. The traveler’s eyes opened. A lurid light coursed into them, then quickly faded. His horse never broke its pace. A little over ten seconds was all they needed to reach the summit of the hill. Now the other sounds were clear. The crack of a gun and howls of wild beasts.

  The traveler looked down at the plain below, spying a mid-sized motor home that was under attack. Several lesser dragons were prowling around it—more “children of the night” sown by the Nobility. Ordinarily, their kind dwelt in swamplands farther to the south, but occasionally problems with the weather controllers would send packs of dragons north. The migration of dangerous species was a serious problem on the Frontier.

  The motor home was already half-wrecked. Holes had been ripped in the roofs of both the cab and the living quarters, and the lesser dragons kept sticking their heads in. The situation was clear just from the smoking scraps of wood, the sleeping bags, and a pair of partially eaten and barely recognizable human bodies lying in front of the motor home. Due to circumstances beyond their control—most likely something to do with their propulsion system—the family had been forced to camp out instead of sleeping in their vehicle like they should. But words couldn’t begin to describe how foolhardy they’d been to expect one little campfire to keep the creatures that prowled the night at bay. There were three sleeping bags. But there weren’t enough corpses to account for everyone.

  Once again a gunshot rang out, a streak of orange from a window in the living quarters split the darkness, and one of the dragons reeled back as the spot between its eyes exploded. For someone foolish enough to camp out at night, the shooter seemed well informed and incredibly skilled with a gun. People who lived up north had usually never heard where to aim a kill shot on southern creatures like these lesser dragons. But a solution to that puzzle soon presented itself. There was a large magneto-bike parked beside the vehicle. Someone was pitching in to rescue them.

  The rider tugged on the reins of his cyborg horse. Shaking off the moonlight that encrusted its body like so much dust, the horse suddenly began its descent. Galloping down the steep slope with the sort of speed normally reserved for level ground, the mount left a gale in its wake as it closed on the lesser dragons.

  Noticing the headlong charge by this new foe, a dragon to the rear of the pack turned, and the horse and rider slipped by its side like a black wind. Bright blood didn’t spout from between the creature’s eyes until the horse had come to a sudden halt and the traveler had dismounted with a flourish of his cape. The way he walked toward the creatures—with their colossal maws gaping and rows of bloody teeth bared—seemed leisurely at first glance, but in due time showed the swiftness of a swallow in flight. All around the young man in black there was the sound of steel meeting steel time and time again. Unable to pull apart the jagged teeth they’d just brought together, each and every one of the lesser dragons around him collapsed in a bloody spray as gashes opened between their eyes. And the dragon leaping at him from the motor home’s roof was no exception.

  The young man’s gorgeous countenance seemed weary of the cries of the dying creatures, but his expression didn’t change in the slightest, and, without even glancing at the two mangled bodies, he returned
his longsword to its sheath and headed back to his cyborg horse. As if to say he’d just done this on a lark, as if to suggest he didn’t give a thought to the well-being of any survivors, he turned his back on this death-shrouded world and tightened his grip on the reins.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” a masculine voice called out in a some-what agitated manner. The young man stopped and turned around. The vehicle’s door opened and a bearded man in a leather vest appeared. In his right hand he held a single-shot armor-piercing rifle. A machete was tucked through his belt. With the grim countenance he sported, he’d have looked more natural holding the latter instead of a gun. “Not that I don’t appreciate your help, bucko, but there’s no account for you just turning and making tracks like that now. Come here for a minute.”

  “There’s only one survivor,” the young man said. “And it’s a child, so you should be able to handle it alone.”

  A tinge of surprise flooded the other man’s hirsute face. “How did you . . . ? Ah, you saw the sleeping bags. Now wait just a minute, bucko. The atomic reactor has a cracked heat exchanger and the whole motor home’s lousy with radiation now. That’s why the family went outside in the first place. The kid got a pretty good dose.”

  “Hurry up and take care of it then.”

  “The supplies I’m packing won’t cut it. A town doctor’s gotta see to this. Where are you headed, buddy? The Zemeckis rendezvous point?”

  “That’s right,” the young man in black replied.

  “Hold on. Just hold everything. I know the roads around here like the back of my hand.”

  “So do I.” The young man turned away from the biker once again. Then he stopped. As he turned back, his eyes were eternally cold and dark.

  The child was standing behind the biker. Her black hair would’ve hung past her waist if it hadn’t been tied back by a rainbow-hued ribbon. The rough cotton shirt and long skirt did little to hide her age, or the swell of her full bosom. The girl was a beauty, around seventeen or eighteen years old. As she gazed at the young man, a curious hue of emotion filled her eyes. There was something in the gorgeous features of the youth that could make her forget the heart-rending loss of her family as well as the very real danger of losing her own life. Extending her hand, she was just about to say something when she crumpled to the ground face down.

  “What did I tell you—she’s hurt bad! She’s not gonna last till dawn. That’s why I need your help.”

  The youth wheeled his horse around without a word. “Which one of us will carry her?” he asked.

  “Yours truly, of course. Getting you to help so far has been like pulling teeth, so I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you do the fun part.”

  The man got a leather belt off his bike and came back, then put the young woman on his back and cleverly secured her to himself. “Hands off,” the man said, glaring at the youth in black as he straddled his magneto-bike. The girl fit perfectly into the seat behind him. It looked like quite a cozy arrangement. “Okay, here I go. Follow me.” The man grabbed the handlebars, but before twisting the grip starter, he turned and said, “That’s right— I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m John M. Brasselli Pluto VIII.”

  “D.”

  “That’s a good name you got there. Just don’t go looking to shorten mine for something a little easier to say. When you call me, I’ll thank you kindly to do it by my full name. John M. Brasselli Pluto VIII, okay?” But, while the man was driving his point home, D was looking to the skies. “What is it?” the biker asked.

  “Things out there have caught the scent of blood and are on their way.”

  The black creatures framed against the moon were growing closer. A flock of avian predators. And lupine howls could be heard in the wind.

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  Expectations to the contrary, no threat materialized to hamper the party’s progress. They rode for about three hours. When the hazy mountains far across the plain began to fill their field of view and take on a touch of reality, John M. Brasselli Pluto VIII turned his sharp gaze to D, who rode alongside him. “If we go to the foot of that there mountain, the town should be by. What business you got with them anyway, bucko?” he asked. When D made no answer he added, “Damn, playing the tough guy again I see. I bet you’re used to just standing there doing the strong, silent type routine and getting all the ladies, chum. You’re good at what you do, I’ll give you that—just don’t count on that always doing the trick for you. Sooner or later, it’s always some straight-shooter like me that ends up the center of attention.”

  D looked ahead without saying a word.

  “Aw, you’re no fun,” the biker said. “I’m gonna gun it the rest of the way.”

  “Hold it.”

  Pluto VIII went pale for a minute at the sharp command, but, in what was probably a show of false courage, he gave the grip starter a good twist. Uranium fuel sent pale flames spouting from the boosters, and the bike shot off in a cloud of dust. It stopped almost as quickly. The engine was still shuddering away, but the wheels were just kicking up sand. In the dazzling moonlight, his atomic-powered bike was not only refusing to budge an inch despite its five-thousand-horsepower output, it was actually sinking into the ground. “Dammit all,” he hissed, “a sand viper!”

  The creature in question was a colossal serpent that lived deep in the earth, and, although no one had ever seen the entire body of one, they were said to grow upwards of twenty miles long. Frighteningly enough, though the creatures were said to live their entire lives without ever moving a fraction of an inch, some believed they used high-frequency vibrations to create fragile layers of earth and sand in thousands of places on the surface so they might feed on those unfortunate enough to stumble into one of their traps. These layers moved relentlessly downward, becoming a kind of quicksand. Due to the startling motion the sands displayed, those who set foot into them would never make it out again. To get some idea of how tenacious the jaws of this dirt-and-sand trap were, one had only to watch how the five thousand horses in that atomic engine strained themselves to no avail. For all the bike’s struggling, its wheels had already sunk halfway into the sand.

  “Hey, don’t just stand there watching, stone face. If you’ve got a drop of human blood in your veins, help me out here!” Pluto VIII shouted fervently. His words must’ve done the trick because D grabbed a thin coil of rope off the back of his saddle and dismounted. “If you screw this up, the rope’ll get pulled down, too. So make your throw count,” the man squawked, and then his eyes went wide. The gorgeous young man didn’t throw him the rope. Keeping it in hand, he started to calmly walk into the quicksand. Pluto VIII opened his mouth to howl some new curse at the youth, but it just hung open—and for good reason.

  The young man in black had started to stride elegantly over deadly jaws that would wolf down any creature they could find. His black raiment danced in the wind, the moonlight ricocheting off it as flecks of silver. He almost looked like the Grim Reaper coming in the guise of aid, but ready to wrap a black cord around the neck of those reaching out to him for succor.

  The rope flew through the air. Excitedly grabbing hold of the end of it, Pluto VIII tied it around his bike’s handlebars. The rest of the coiled rope still in hand, D went back to solid ground and climbed onto his cyborg horse without saying a word.

  “Alright! Now on the count of—” Pluto never got to finish what he was saying as his bike was tugged forward. “Hey! Give me a second. Let me give it some gas, too,” he started to say, but he only had a moment to tighten his grip on the throttle before the bike and its two riders were free of the living sands and its tires were resting once more on solid ground.

  “Bucko, what the hell are you anyway?” Pluto VIII asked the mounted youth, with a shocked look on his face. “We’d be lucky to get away from a sand viper with a tractor pulling us, never mind a cyborg horse. And here you go and yank us out without even working up a sweat . . . I thought you was a mite too good-looking, but you’re not human after all, are you?” Smacking h
is hands together, he exclaimed, “I’ve got it—you’re a dhampir!”

  D didn’t move. His eternally cold gaze was fixed on the moonlit reaches of the darkness, as if seeking a safe path.

  “But you don’t have anything to worry about,” the biker added. “My motto is ‘Keep an open mind.’ It don’t matter if the folks around me have red skin or green—I don’t discriminate. So long as they don’t do wrong by yours truly, that is. Naturally, that includes dhampirs, too.” Pluto VIII’s voice had the ring of unquestionable sincerity to it.

  Suddenly, without glancing at the biker who seemed ready to burst with the milk of human kindness, D asked in a low voice, “Are you ready?”

  “For what?” Pluto VIII must’ve caught something in the Hunter’s disinterested tone because his eyes went to D, then instantly swept around to the left and right, to the fore and rear. Aside from the piece of land the three of them were on, little black holes were forming all over the place. As sand coursed down into them the way it does into an antlion pit, the funnel-shaped holes quickly grew larger until one touched another, encircling the trio like the footprints of some unseen giant.

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  II

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  Son of a bitch . . . Don’t seem like this freakin’ sand viper aims to let us out of here alive,” Pluto VIII said, the laughter strong in his voice. Sometimes a bit of cheer came to him in the midst of utter despair, but that had nothing to do with Pluto VIII’s laugh, still full of confidence and hope.

  But how on earth could they get themselves out of this mess? It didn’t look like even D, with all his awesome skill, could get out of these preposterously large antlion pits. Especially since he wasn’t alone. His traveling companion had a young woman strapped to his back, and, since she was suffering from extreme radiation poisoning, time was of the essence.

  “Hey, what do we do?” Pluto VIII asked, looking extremely interested in the answer.

  “Close your eyes and duck!” came the harsh reply.

  Pluto VIII didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on, but the instant he complied the whole world filled with white light. Under the pillar of light stretching down to the bottom of the colossal funnel, grains of sand grew super-hot, bubbled, and cooled almost instantly into a glassy plain reflecting the moon. The pillar of light silently stretched to the sky time and again, and, as D squinted ever so slightly at this mixing of light and darkness, his face was at times starkly lit, at other times deep in shadow. It seemed to go on for ages, but it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds. Aside from the dim, white depressions gleaming like water, the moonlit plain was just as it’d been before—deathly still.