Vampire Hunter D

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “D ...”

  What an utterly heartless tactic. The bonds had already begun working their way through his clothes. As the boy writhed in agony, D gave him a few powerful words of encouragement.

  “This’ll just take a minute.”

  Meaning he would take care of them in fifteen seconds each?

  “O … okay.”

  Unlike the bravely smiling Dan, the four men were livid.

  The ring formed by Rei-Ginsei’s three henchmen began to tighten like a noose. All of them were painted by the vermilion rays of the setting sun, but the palpable lust for blood rising from each seemed to rob the light of its color.

  “Now, let’s show him what you can do one by one. Golem, you go first.”

  As his boss gave him the command, not only Golem but all three henchmen began to look dubious. After all, the initial plan had been for all four of them to attack at once and kill him. But a moment later, Golem’s massive brown body raced toward D with the silent footfalls of a cat. The broad blade of his machete glittered in the red light. There was a loud clang! His machete was big enough to chop a horse’s head off, but just as it was about to hack into the Hunter’s torso, D drew his blade with lightning speed, bringing the tip of it down through Golem’s left shoulder. Or rather, it looked like it was going to go right through his shoulder, but it bounced off him.

  Golem the Tortureless—a man with muscles of bronze. His body had even proved itself impervious to high-frequency wave sabers.

  Once again, Golem’s machete howled through the air, and D skillfully dodged it with a leap that carried him yards away in an instant. And once again, the giant went after him, closing on the Hunter.

  “What’s wrong? You said fifteen seconds each!”

  Like a cry to battle borne on the wind, D’s angry roar shook the grass and filled the mortar-shaped depression in the earth.

  ..

  Doris awoke from her nap as someone gently shook her shoulder. A warm, familiar face was smiling down at her.

  “Doc! I must’ve dozed off while I was waiting for you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’re exhausted. It took quite some time to take care of my patient at Harker’s, and I’ve just gotten back here myself. I swung by your place and no one was there, so I hustled back with the sneaking suspicion I might find you here. Did something happen? Where’s Dan and that young fellow?”

  All her memories and concerns flooding back to her, Doris looked around. After D left, she’d helped the nurse deal with the patients, then she’d stretched out on a sofa in the examination room and fallen asleep.

  There was no sign of the nurse, who’d apparently gone home, and the rows of houses and trees beyond the windowpanes were all steeped in red. The curtain was set to rise on her time for terror.

  “Well ... the two of them are hiding out in Pedros. I figured I’d join ’em there once I’d paid my respects to you …”

  As she attempted to rise, a cool hand came to rest on her shoulder. Pedros was the name of a nearly deserted village the better part of a day’s and a night’s ride from Ransylva. Even at that, it was still their closest neighbor.

  “Even though you’ll have to get through at least one night before you arrive?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  As he peered at her face with an uncharacteristically hard gaze, Doris unconsciously looked down at the floor.

  Giving a little nod, the elderly physician said, “Very well then, I’ll press the matter no further. But if you’re really going to go somewhere, there’s a much better place for you.” At these surprising words, Doris looked up at the old man’s face. “I found it on my way back from Harker’s place when I decided to go through the north woods.”

  Dr. Ferringo pulled a map out of his jacket pocket and unfolded it. The passing years had dulled his memory, so he often used this map of Ransylva and its surroundings anytime he had to travel far to treat a patient. It had a red mark on it in part of the north woods. It was a huge forest, the thickest in the area, and not a single soul in the village knew their way around the whole of it.

  “Part of a stone wall caught my eye, and when I hacked away the bushes and vines covering it I found this place—ancient ruins. It appeared to be the remains of some sort of place of worship. It’s pretty large, and I only examined a small portion of it, but I guess you could say luck was with us, because that stone wall was inscribed with an explanation of the site. It seems it was constructed to keep vampires at bay.”

  This left Doris completely speechless.

  Now that he mentioned it, she could recall her father and his Hunter friends gathered around the hearth sharing stories about this place when she was a child. They said that far in the distant past, long before the Nobility rose to power in the world, people who’d been preyed on by vampires were locked up in a holy place and treated with incantations and electronics. Perhaps what Dr. Ferringo had discovered was one such facility.

  “Then you mean to tell me if I’m in there, he can’t get at me?”

  “In all likelihood,” Dr. Ferringo replied, smiling broadly. “At any rate, I imagine it’s better than trying to reach Pedros now, or holing up here in my house. Shall we go out and give it a try?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Less than five minutes later, the two of them were jolting along in Dr. Ferringo’s buggy as it hastened down the dusky road to the north woods. They must have rode for nearly an hour. Ahead, tiny walls of trees blacker than the darkness came into view. This was the entrance to the forest.

  “Woah!”

  Once they were in the buggy, the elderly physician hadn’t answered her no matter how she tried to get him to talk, but suddenly he’d given a cry and pulled back on the reins.

  A small figure stood at the entrance to the forest. The face was unfamiliar to Doris, but with paraffin-pale skin and ivory fangs poking from the corners of her mouth—it had to be Larmica.

  Doris grabbed the doctor by the arm as he prepared to lash the horses again. “Doc! That’s the Count’s daughter. What in the name of hell is she doing out here? We’ve got to get out of here, and fast!”

  “That’s odd,” Dr. Ferringo muttered in an uncertain tone. “She shouldn’t be here.”

  “Doc, hurry up and get this thing turned around!”

  Seemingly frozen, the doctor didn’t move at her desperate cries, while the woman in the white dress standing up ahead came toward them, smoothly gliding through the grass without appearing to move her legs in the least. Doris had already pulled her whip out and was on her feet.

  She felt a powerful pull at her hands, and before she knew it her whip had been taken from her. Taken by Dr. Ferringo!

  “Doc?!

  “So I was known until yesterday,” Dr. Ferringo said, fangs sprouting in his mouth.

  Come to think of it, the hand he’d placed on Doris’ shoulder back at his hospital had been cold. And he was wearing a turtleneck shirt, which wasn’t like him at all! The instant hopelessness and fear were about to wrack her body, a fist sank into the pit of her stomach, and Doris collapsed into the shotgun seat.

  “Well done,” said the lovely vampire, now hovering beside the buggy.

  “Larmica, I presume. You honor me with your praise.” With bloodshot eyes and a hunger-twisted mouth, Dr. Ferringo’s smiling countenance was now that of a Noble. The previous night, he’d been attacked by the Count and made into a vampire. The call on Harker’s home, and the ancient vampire-proof ruins, were complete fabrications, of course. Taking his orders from the Count, he’d concealed himself in the basement by day, appeared in the evening at a time when D would already have left, and played his part in luring Doris out of town. If separated from D, Doris would surely turn to the doctor—the Count’s assessment had been right on the mark.

  “You’re to bring the girl to my father, are you not? I believe I shall accompany you.” Even though she was a fellow vampire, Dr. Ferringo donned a wary expression at Larmica’s formal speech and t
he frigid gaze she turned on him.

  He’d been commanded to bring Doris into the heart of the forest and to the waiting Count, but he hadn’t heard that Larmica would be coming. And yet she suddenly appeared at the entrance to the forest and said she would go with him. Why wasn’t she with her father? But the doctor had only just become the Count’s servant, and it would be unpardonable for him to question his master’s daughter. Opening the door to the buggy’s backseat, he bowed and said, “Be my guest.”

  Larmica moved into the vehicle like a mystic wind.

  The buggy took off.

  “Rather fetching for a human, isn’t she,” Larmica mumbled, peering at the face of the unconscious Doris.

  “That she is. When I was human, she was like a daughter to me, and I never had occasion to view her in any other light. But when I look at her now, she’s so beautiful it’s a wonder I never tried anything with her. To be quite frank, I intend to ask a favor of my lord the Count and see if he won’t allow me to partake of a drop or two of her sweet, red blood in return for all my hard work—although I would not be so bold as to seek it from her throat.”

  These were the words of the kind and faithful old physician? Now he was lost in fantasies of slowly sucking the blood from the very girl who two days earlier he’d risked his life to protect. His teeth ground together greedily.

  He heard Larmica’s cheery voice behind him. “For the time being, allow me to give you my reward.” Without even allowing him time to turn, she took the steel arrow she’d kept concealed and thrust it through the elderly physician’s heart, killing him instantly. Tossing his body to the ground, Larmica sailed gracefully through the air, landed in the driver’s seat, and quickly brought the horses to a halt. Taking a furtive glance at the woods, she said, “I dare say Father will be furious, but I simply cannot allow a lowly human worm to be made a member of the glorious Lee family—and I most certainly won’t welcome one as his bride.” When she turned her eyes on the still-sleeping Doris, they had the most lurid light to them. A wolf could be heard howling out on the distant plains.

  “Human, I shall show you your place now—as I rip you limb from limb before delivering you to Father.” She reached for Doris’ throat with both hands. Her nails shone like razors.

  In the middle of the wilderness, with no one to protect her, hemmed in by the darkness, the girl remained in her stupor, oblivious to the very real danger she was in.

  That was the moment.

  A weird sensation shot through every inch of Larmica’s body. All her nerves were being pulled out and burned off, each and every cell was decaying with incredible speed. Black ichor squirted out through holes in her melting flesh, and she felt her intestines twist with the urge to vomit, as if the entire contents of her stomach had started to flow in reverse. That’s what the sensation felt like.

  It was almost as if the night that had just begun had suddenly become midday. A familiar scent struck Larmica’s nose.

  She had no idea how long it had been there, but a tiny speck of light burned in the darkness to her back. Apparently someone had heard Larmica’s anguished cries, and there was the sound of cautious footsteps coming closer through the grass. In its hand, the figure held Time-Bewitching Incense.

  ..

  Having dodged a third horizontal slash of the machete, D once again took to the air.

  To anyone watching, it would have looked like the act of a beaten man. Every time D went on the offensive, the bronze giant kept his eyes—clearly his only weakness—well covered with his massive club of a forearm.

  “Give ’em hell, D!”

  Golem dismissed Dan’s feverish support with a laugh. “Look, you’re making the little baby cry—” The sentence went no further.

  The four pairs of eyes on the two combatants bulged in their sockets. None of the spectators had any idea what had happened.

  D had his right leg out behind him for balance, and his sword ready and pointing down at the ground. The way his blade moved was like a jump cut in a film. The part where it slashed through the air was missing, and it skipped straight to where it went into Golem’s mouth, wide with laughter.

  Though this freak could control the density of his musculature on the surface, an inch below, his body remained as soft as any other living creature’s. D’s sword slipped in through the only real opening in his defense aside from his eyes, and drove up to the top of his skull in one smooth thrust.

  D must’ve been aiming for that ever since he discovered the giant’s flesh couldn’t be cut, but the way he found an opening at the end of the giant’s chatter, and made the thrust literally faster than the eye could follow, was nothing short of miraculous.

  “Gaaah—”

  It was actually rather humorous the way the scream didn’t escape the impaled giant until several seconds later. As his massive form dropped backwards, its toughness fading rapidly, D stepped closer and split the giant’s skull with one emotionless slash of his sword. This time the giant didn’t make a sound. The sight of their staunch friend falling—sending up a bloody mist a shade more crimson than the setting sun—snapped his spellbound compatriots back to their senses.

  “Looks like you did it, punk. I’m up next,” Chullah said in a voice that sounded crushed to death, but as he stepped forward he was checked by a human awl—Gimlet.

  “What speed. Kid, I’m willing to put my life on the line to see which is faster—my legs or that freaking sword of yours.” He was in front of D in a flash, like he’d ridden the wind over there, and he had a world-beating grin on his lips. Was it due to self-confidence, or was it the thrill in his bandit blood at meeting his worthiest opponent ever?

  D held his sword at chest level, pointed straight at Gimlet’s heart.

  In an instant, his opponent vanished.

  Dan gasped.

  Looking in the brush to D’s left, at the feet of a statue diagonally behind him, right behind his back—there was now a circle of countless Gimlets fifteen feet from him in any direction.

  Gimlet—the man was as streamlined as the tool he was named for. As a result of a mutation, he was capable of superhuman bursts of speed in the vicinity of three hundred miles per hour. His body didn’t sport a single hair, and his face was relatively free from sharp features; it was nature’s way of reducing wind resistance during his superhuman sprints.

  However, moving at super speed wasn’t his only talent. He would run a few yards, pause for an instant, and then run some more. By doing this over and over, he could leave afterimages of himself hanging in midair.

  The foe right before you would multiply and be to your left one second, to your right the next—what warrior wouldn’t be distracted by that? Show him an opening for even an instant, and all the Gimlets to the front and to the rear, to the left and to the right, would brandish their bowie knives and move in for the kill. Taking on Gimlet was the same as engaging dozens of opponents at the same time.

  It came then as little surprise that quick-draw master O’Reilly hadn’t even freed his precious pistol before he was dropped from behind.

  D’s gonna get himself killed! Tears glistened in Dan’s eyes. Not so much tears of fear as of parting.

  As he raced around doing his special technique, it was actually Gimlet who was horrified. It’s not that this bastard can’t move, it’s just that he won’t let himself be moved!

  That’s right. Eyes half closed, D stood without making the slightest movement. Gimlet knew better than anyone that D’s tactic was the only way to negate his disorienting movement.

  His powers could be used to their best advantage when his countless other selves made his enemy change their stance, forcing them to leave themselves open. Nevertheless, the gorgeous young man before him didn’t look at him or change his stance. Gimlet was little more than a clown prancing around in circles.

  “What, aren’t you coming for me? Only three seconds left.”

  When that icy voice pushed him over the brink, was it despair or impatience that
launched Gimlet at D’s back? His murderous dash at three hundred miles per hour was met by the blade of Vampire Hunter D—who’d taken down a werewolf running at half the speed of sound. A flash of steel shot out, cutting Gimlet from the collarbone on his left side to the thoracic vertebrae on the right. Sending bloody blossoms of crimson into the air, the streamlined body of the runner hit the ground with incredible force.

  The next battle was truly decided in a heartbeat.

  “Look out behind you!”

  D turned even faster than Dan could shout the words, and found a black cloud eclipsing his field of view. A massive swarm of minute poisonous spiders was pouring out of Chullah’s back, riding the wind to attack him. No matter how ungodly his skill, D’s sword couldn’t possibly stop this.

  However, Dan saw something as the wind roared.

  D’s left hand rose high above his head, and the black cloud that covered half the depression became a single line that was sucked into the palm of his hand. The roar was not the sound of a wind blowing out, but rather of air being sucked back in.

  The cloud was gone like that.

  D raced like a gale-force wind.

  His head split by a silvery flash of light, Chullah fell backwards—but from the moment his beloved spiders had been lost, he’d been nothing more than an empty husk with the shape of a man.

  “Forty-three seconds all told—nicely done.” Rei-Ginsei watched D with fascination as the Hunter walked toward him, holding his bloody sword and not even breathing hard. Taking a shrike-blade from his belt, for some reason Rei-Ginsei slashed through the bonds that held Dan.

  “D!”

  Dan ran over to D without even bothering to rub his bruised arms and legs, and the Hunter gently put the boy behind a statue for safety’s sake before squaring off against the last of his foes.