Demon Deathchase

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The girl’s eyebrows knit with reflection. In less time than it took to draw a breath, her pupils sparkled and the door handle spun. The girl stepped down into the meadow, and the darkness of the interior was scattered by the sunlight.

  His beautiful prey had finally played into the trap. Gently taking her by the hand, Mashira led her to the shore.

  “It’s so beautiful,” the pretty young lady exclaimed, proving that she was indeed a resident of the world of daylight. Where the little waves encroached on the shore, the girl knelt and reached out to touch the surface of the lake. Ripples spread, obscuring her gorgeous countenance. Pulling back the hand she’d put wrist-deep in the water, she searched for a handkerchief to wipe her face. The surface of the lake returned to calmness.

  Mashira was standing behind her. The front of his gray coat was open. Maybe the girl glimpsed something inside it, because she froze without saying a word. When she finally turned and Mashira’s hands grabbed her by both shoulders, something brown and tube-like stretched between their abdomens with unholy speed . . . out of Mashira’s gut and toward the girl. The girl squirmed, but Mashira’s hands never left her. Her well-formed body was pushed down into the brush without any real effort.

  “What are you doing? Let me go!”

  “Can’t do that,” Mashira said, grabbing the hand the girl levered against his jaw and twisting it up. “I’m crazy about you,” he continued. “You’re gonna be mine. If you just take it you don’t have to get hurt. I’ll take care of that jerk Mayerling, too.”

  “What are you talking about? Let go. If you don’t let go of me—”

  “What’ll you do? Out in the middle of the woods like this, you can shout but nobody will come. Now, why don’t the two of us get to know each other a lot better . . . ”

  A mouth burning with desire tried to close on her lips, which trembled with fear and anger. It was then that intense gunfire resounded. As Mashira jerked up his head, there were tremendous explosions of pain in his jaw and crotch.

  Grunting as she pushed his body off, the girl got up quickly. Behind the carriage, she spied what looked to be a huntsman with a still-smoking rifle thrown over his shoulder. There’d been someone around after all.

  The girl quickly ran for the carriage. The huntsman cut her off. Unsettling shadows clung to his scraggily bearded face. “Missy, what in the blazes are you?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. This here carriage’s gotta belong to the Nobility. Why on earth would you be trying to get into it?”

  “The truth is . . . ”

  As the girl hemmed and hawed, the huntsman threw a vulgar laugh her way. Suddenly, he grabbed her chin with one hand. With his substantial strength, the man exposed first one side of the girl’s neck, then the other. “No wounds . . . meaning you hooked up with a Noble of your own accord, didn’t you? You little traitor. Once I’ve taken care of that bastard, I’ll learn you a thing or two. And when you’ve known a real man’s touch, I’ll send you to join your bloodsucker.”

  An unbelievably fierce gale was blowing in the girl’s head. This man means me harm, too, she thought. The moment I set foot outside of the carriage, I meet with one misfortune after another. Oh, if only I’d stayed with my love . . .

  “Get your hands off her,” she heard Mashira say in a low but clear voice. Still smarting from the blow to his crotch, he remained somewhat hunched over as he came closer. His look had changed. He was so enraged now, almost nothing remained of his expression. “Get your stinking hands off her,” he repeated.

  “Ha! If you think you can make me, give it a shot,” the huntsman laughed scornfully. “I figure chances are pretty good you’re just a drifter who ran across this girl the same as me, but trying to rape her here was piss-poor planning. I’ll be sure to nail her once for you, too, though. Now run along to hell.” And, saying that, he threw the girl down in the opposite direction from the carriage and took the high-caliber gunpowder-rifle in his left hand.

  “Wait just a—” Mashira started to say, but with an explosive bang like a hammer striking steel plate an enormous hole opened right in the middle of his heart. His hunched body was thrown back over six feet. A scream rose from the girl, and the air was clouded by a vermilion mist.

  “Okay, now to deal with you,” the huntsman chortled. “After I’ve had my share of fun with you, I’ll drag you back to town for everyone to see.” And with that the huntsman turned around, and an alarmed expression arose on his face. The girl’s face had been flooded by a look of sheer terror. Following the path her eyes had taken, now it was the huntsman who froze.

  Mashira was coming toward them. Covered with blood, a gaping hole in his chest where he’d taken the high-caliber shell. There was no need to see how his eyes had lost their light when the bloodless face was that of a corpse. The way he walked was strangely stiff. Almost as if it was something he wasn’t accustomed to doing . . . The huntsman shouted something. His rifle seemed to howl in response.

  Mashira’s head exploded like a watermelon. It may well have been that his steps became swifter at that point because his load had just been made that much lighter.

  The huntsman couldn’t move. The nerves that drove his body had withered to nothing when the rifle he placed so much stock in had proved ineffective.

  The hands of the headless man reached out and grabbed hold of the huntsman’s powerful shoulders. “You know, I was just getting used to this body. Now I’ll take yours, you bastard.” There wasn’t even time to notice how this voice so unlike Mashira’s reverberated from his belly before something like a brown tube sank into the huntsman’s abdomen, rising from the same spot on the walking corpse. Several seconds passed. For the girl, it was a nightmarish eternity.

  “Heh heh heh—the transfer is complete,” the voice said from his new belly. The belly of the huntsman, that is . . .

  Without wasting time to watch the headless corpse tumbling to the ground, the girl, who’d long since reached her limit of horror, gave a scream and dashed off into the forest. Though the huntsman followed her with his eyes, for some reason he didn’t set out after her. “There’s no use in her trying to run,” he snickered, “but I only gave her a little of me, so we’re not quite ready to start either. Guess I might as well have myself a little game of hide-and-seek,” he muttered, starting after her at a brisk pace.

  —

  When the last scrap of canned beef had been safely tucked away in his stomach, Kyle threw the empty can into the street. The cylinder rustled hollowly for several bounces and then, as it hung in the air on another, a silvery flash of light split it in two before zipping back to Kyle’s waist.

  It was the main street of the ghost town. Kyle was sitting on the edge of the boardwalk that jutted from the front of the saloon. When rain soaked streets like these, the mire could be difficult for pedestrians to negotiate.

  Parked in front of the drugstore, the bus opened its door and Borgoff stuck his head out. He seemed on edge.

  “What do you wanna do, bro?” Kyle asked, getting to his feet.

  Borgoff made a concerned face. “Grove’s had another attack,” he said, looking up at the heavens. “A real bad one this time. His heart might not be able to take it.”

  “That ain’t good. We still might need him to do his stuff one more time if something comes up.” With a snort of laughter, he added, “Maybe me and Leila went at it a little too hot and heavy for him.”

  “You moron,” Borgoff bellowed, his face severe, but he soon folded his arms and donned a morose expression. “Of course, you probably ain’t far wrong. I mean, we knew it wasn’t any good for his health to force him to send his other self out like that,” he muttered. “Anyway, let’s roll,” said Kyle. “We’ll lose the daylight if we hang around here waiting for freaking Leila. The Noble’s making better time than we figured.”

  “Yep,” Borgoff replied, but his face was dark.

  This cruel clan had always managed to take care
of not only the prey they stalked, but their competitors as well. But now they’d lost their brother Nolt, Leila hadn’t returned, and even bedridden Groveck hovered near death.

  Leila’s failure to return didn’t necessarily mean she’d been slain, but, in light of the strength of their foes, the brothers couldn’t be sure. Worse yet, Borgoff harbored another fear about his little sister. That she’d fallen for D.

  When they’d picked their sister up after she’d been injured in her first engagement with the Noble, every chunk of shrapnel had already been pulled out of her, and Leila was resting peacefully. They’d asked who’d patched her up, but she said she couldn’t remember. It sure as hell wasn’t the Noble. Which meant it had to be D. In fact, there were signs two other people had clashed near where they’d found Leila. She hadn’t made any mention of that. But, given his sister’s temperament, it wasn’t inconceivable she’d keep it to herself. D was someone they were going to take out, after all. The fact that he’d saved her life would be nothing but pure humiliation.

  However, Leila didn’t seem in the least bit mortified. And that was just the start. Her expression was pained even while they strategized together, and she seemed strangely tired. Their clan wasn’t so soft they’d make a big deal out of that, but her condition seemed to have nothing to do with physical exhaustion. Considering all the facts, Borgoff realized she’d only exhibited these signs whenever they discussed what to do about D. Putting two and two together, he thought, Bingo!

  But in his heart of hearts, there was one thought Borgoff couldn’t get rid of, peerless Vampire Hunter though he was—the question of whether it was really D that’d saved Leila after all. At that point, D must’ve known for a fact that the Marcus clan should be considered his enemy. By all accounts, he wasn’t the kind of man to go easy on any armed opponent, woman or not. Even if half of what people said about D’s abilities, his battles, and the list of foes he’d slain could be discounted as idle talk, the remainder was enough to send icy fingers up the nape of Borgoff’s neck. He of all people had saved Leila? Borgoff found that hard to believe. And that’s why he hadn’t tried to stop his sister from going out on reconnaissance that morning.

  Borgoff swept away the tangled knot of ideas. “Let’s go,” he said. “If Leila’s okay, she’ll send up a flare or get in touch with us one way or another.”

  The two of them got back on the bus. Kyle took the driver’s seat, while Borgoff went into the bedroom. There wasn’t a single breath to be heard from Groveck’s bunk. Shriveled and dry like a mummy, you could’ve put your ear to his motionless chest and not even heard a heartbeat. Right now, this Groveck was indeed dead.

  When Borgoff looked down at the lifeless husk of his youngest brother, a pained and human expression crept into his supremely fierce face, and then the bus shook a little as it began to move.

  —

  II

  —

  Two women were walking through the forest. One of them—a gorgeous, shapely blonde in a blue dress—headed deep into the forest with her eyes fixed on one spot straight ahead. The other—dressed in a light shirt and slacks—looked like she was just out for a stroll in the woods, but from time to time she stopped and checked the ground or looked at how the brush was broken before walking on a little further. Though her eyes kept scanning the forest, she didn’t seem to be in the least bit lost. The eyes of both women sought the same thing. The young Vampire Hunter, defenseless in his makeshift grave.

  Leila stopped and wiped the sweat from her brow. After she’d fried the colossal hand Caroline controlled, she’d gone right after D. She had no definite reason for doing so, but, judging by the way he’d run off, it was clear something was wrong with him. It wasn’t like the great D to be nearly killed by a woman, no matter what sort of freak she might be. There was only one reason for that she could think of—sunlight syndrome.

  He would’ve taken off for the forest then, seeking Mother Earth. It was easy enough to follow the hoofprints. She’d even found the spot where he’d slipped into the woods. That was where the trouble started. The battle car couldn’t get through. Without regret, Leila had left her cherished vehicle behind.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what Caroline would do, but, judging by how the woman’s strength compared to that of Leila’s brothers or D, and in light of how much trouble she’d had trying to do away with the dhampir before, there was certainly a very good chance she’d be intent on killing D now. What’s more, the Barbarois woman possessed strange powers. She might’ve already beaten Leila to D. It was so easy to kill a dhampir suffering from sunlight syndrome, it made the super-human abilities they displayed in their chosen profession seem like a distant dream.

  With a javelin in her hand and the sliver gun shoved through her belt, Leila entered the forest. The hoofprints were fading fast, filled in by quickly growing moss. All she was left with were the instincts she’d refined in her life as a Hunter. The question was, would that be enough to make her a match for the Barbarois woman? Now that Leila had abandoned her beloved car, she’d be no more than a normal human girl to Caroline.

  Bearing right for a few yards, she suddenly came into a clearing. She saw the horse tethered to the branch of a nearby tree. D lay half-buried in the dirt by the horse’s feet. Choking back a cry of joy, she kicked up moss as she scrambled over to him.

  There was nothing out of the ordinary. His beautiful countenance—which sufficed to give her goosebumps even at this distance—was supremely wise and enduringly stern, and his eyelids were closed as if he was deep in contemplation.

  Leila’s shoulders fell. Something hot spilled past her eyelids, to her great surprise. The last time she’d cried was a distant memory. She seemed to remember wiping away her tears by the side of a blood-stained old woman whose face she could clearly recall even now. Who had that been? she wondered.

  Forcefully wiping her tears away, Leila laid herself down gently on top of D’s dirt-covered body. It was so cold. The chill she felt wasn’t from the soil. It was D’s body temperature. When Kyle had come along and found her after she’d been wounded in her battle with the Noble, he told her she would’ve died out there if someone hadn’t kept her warm. Of course there hadn’t been a heating unit around. D had kept her warm.

  It wasn’t as if she’d never had feelings for anyone before. She’d been proposed to a number of times. But all her suitors had left when they found out what her last name was. All but one. Leila drove him off. Because that night, she’d been violated by her brothers.

  “We’re not letting you go anywhere,” said Borgoff. Nolt whispered to her that he’d wanted to have his way with her for a long time. Kyle lost himself in the act without a word. As soon as the other three backed off and Groveck’s nearly mummified form mounted her, something in Leila’s soul flew away. And ever since, she’d been a colder killer than ever before.

  But now that special something had returned.

  “You saved me,” Leila fairly whispered to the gorgeous, immobilized man. “This time, I’ll protect you. I’ll defend you with my life.”

  A strange presence moved through the woods. Checking that the safety of her sliver gun was off, Leila took the javelin in hand and let the fighting spirit fill her. She rose to her feet.

  —

  He was lying on a hill of pure green. As he rarely got to go outside, each time, short though it was, was absolute bliss. Joy bubbled like a fount in his heart. Gentle gusts of wind, showers of sunlight, the scent of dense tufts of new grass, the blue mountain range stretching toward eternity—all these things made him realize what a pleasure it was to be alive. Now this is living! he thought to himself.

  It was Groveck, or rather, the “spirit” of Groveck that had escaped from the sickly body left in the Marcus bus. The sound of footsteps rose from the forest behind him. He turned to find a girl running toward him. The fear in her countenance spoiled his mood. Just when he was enjoying himself.

  “Help! Please, help me,” the girl cried out, circl
ing around behind him.

  He was perplexed. His forte was getting people to run away from him, not toward him. But the reason the girl had said what she did was soon apparent. Out of the woods stepped a man armed with a large rifle, apparently a huntsman of some sort.

  The huntsman looked around restlessly, but soon spotted him and the girl. The huntsman approached them with powerful strides. Grove heard screams of fear spill out from behind his back. For the first time in his life, he felt something unprecedented stirring in his heart. The other man stopped about a yard away and swung the muzzle of the rifle to bear on him.

  Grove was a bit surprised. Every inch of the huntsman’s body brimmed with hostility and self-confidence. Though he’d never seen this other man before, it appeared the huntsman knew who he was. “What do you want?” he tried to ask, but the other man didn’t seem to hear him, and not a muscle moved in his own face. That’s the way it always went. He gave up on ordinary communication.

  “Give me the girl,” the man ordered. His voice was cold. Any fool could well imagine what would happen whether he complied with the huntsman’s command or not.

  “If you don’t want to, fine,” the huntsman added. “I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna let you live anyway. Strange meeting you here, though.”

  Grove tilted his head. He just couldn’t recall who this other man was. His opponent, however, was kind enough to provided the answer.

  “But then, you wouldn’t know me in this shape, now would you?” the huntsman snickered. “I was part of the threesome over next to the carriage when you snuck into the village of the Barbarois.”

  Learning this, Grove was no less bewildered. He could, indeed, recall the trio in question. However, that middle-aged man, jet-black youth, and shapely beauty were all quite different from the huntsman now before his eyes.