These creatures wouldn’t leave until they saw their prey dead, and they swarmed in wave after wave. The only ways to escape were to kill them all, to remain concealed, or to suffer through sting after painful sting.
But D chose yet another course. He thrust his blade right into the heart of the buzzing insects through the wagon’s covering. When he pulled his weapon back inside again, the golden queen of the swarm was impaled on the tip of its blade. Now leaderless, the wasps immediately dispersed. Since he’d struck through the wagon’s covering, the Hunter couldn’t see his target. The only thing he had to rely on was the fact that the sound of the queen’s wings differed from that of the other wasps. Apparently, D’s hearing was so keen he could accurately discern that one sound out of the buzz of thousands of wings.
In the vicinity of the village, there were more than a dozen ruins. Vacation lodges for the Nobility, arenas for mechanical gladiators, dams to alter the flow of the river however they pleased—and standing alone amid these decaying heaps of ancient rubble floored in green grass, the young man in black truly looked like some beautiful illusion. But illusions ultimately vanish in time. What the boy and girl saw was nothing short of pure elegance and solitude given human form, a vision that would never be allowed to fade.
As D stood by a stone wall in a garden that had long since been reclaimed by the forest green, Ry walked over and quietly inquired, “You wouldn’t by any chance happen to be a dhampir, would you?”
“Can you tell?” asked D.
Ry nodded. “After all, the Nobility’s ruins just seem to suit you too well. So well it’s scary. For the first time in my life, I actually found myself thinking it’d be nice if more of the Nobility’s things had been left in the world.”
“What’s lost will never return. The sun has set on one world, and it won’t see another dawn. That belongs to a different time.”
“Are you talking about the Nobility and us?”
“Have you heard stories about the Nobility?”
“When I was a kid, I used to hear them all the time from an old chatterbox of a nanny,” the boy replied.
“And do you remember them?”
“Yeah. Every last one.”
“Were they all scary stories?”
“Pretty much. But there were some good ones, too. Stories about how some machine left behind by the Nobility had healed someone of an incurable disease, or talk about the moon and the stars.”
“Be sure to remember those,” the Hunter told him.
“Because that would’ve made the Nobles happy?”
“No, I don’t imagine it would’ve mattered to them. They never would’ve wanted that. Perhaps it was their wish to wither away without anyone even knowing about it.”
“Then there’s no point in remembering, is there?”
“Not where the Nobility are concerned,” D said, turning his unseeing gaze toward the castle walls. For a second, Ry thought the gorgeous Hunter might just disappear in that direction. “Reflecting and remembering only have meaning for those that do them. It’s not a matter of learning or knowing something, but merely recollecting things from long ago. Maybe you could call it ‘gratitude.’”
“Gratitude?”
Although Ry tried to divine the meaning of the word from what D had said, he had little luck. He posed a different question.
“Why did you follow me, anyway?”
D didn’t say a word.
Sensing something unapproachable in the Hunter, Ry went back to where Amne waited and was terribly surprised. The headstrong girl who headed the historical research society had tears glistening in her eyes.
“What’s wrong with you? You look like hell. If you go and get all weepy every time you see a good-looking man, people will take you for a bumpkin.”
“You ass,” was all the girl could say before she hiccupped. “Doesn’t it make you sad? Don’t you feel anything when you look at him? He’s carrying a burden that’s really, really old. The weight of what’s already been lost. And because of it, I’m sure he’ll never . . .”
“He’ll never what?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t find the right words. But you’ve gotta be able to see it, too. If you can’t, you must be a real blockhead.”
As the girl’s back shuddered again and again, Ry stroked it gently.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to call you a blockhead.”
“It’s okay. I’m used to it.”
“He’s going to go away.”
“Everyone does, you know.”
“You’re just a kid, so don’t just regurgitate platitudes.”
“But it’s true,” Ry told her. “Even if we don’t have any way of knowing just where it is we’re going. The Nobility didn’t know—and we humans don’t either.”
Just as Amne’s case of hiccups was getting especially bad, D came back.
“Did you make her cry?” asked the Hunter.
“No way,” Ry replied.
“You’re going to be quite a heartbreaker.”
“You’re the last person I wanna hear that from,” the boy retorted.
“Shall we go?”
“Sure!” Amne said with a vigorous nod, her eyes swollen from her tears.
__
II
__
There was no sign of the mayor at her house. When the servants were asked about her whereabouts, they said she didn’t appear to have left.
“I’m heading up to the mansion,” said D. “You two can come with me part of the way, and then head back to the inn.”
“At this hour, the sun will be down before we reach the inn,” Ry countered. “We’ll stay here. If I lock the place up tight, it’ll be fine. Plus, I’ve got earplugs. If the song was going to lure me away, I think it would’ve done so last night. But if you’re that worried about us, hurry back.”
“Understood,” D said after eyeing first Amne, then Ry. “Take good care of her, heartbreaker.”
The boy didn’t even have time to growl at that remark before D had gone.
Darkness quickly descended. The mayor didn’t come home. A servant showed the boy and girl to their respective bedrooms.
Right after Ry climbed into bed, he heard a knock. Going over to the door, he asked who it was, and a female voice replied, “Me.”
“What is it?”
“Open up. It’s so creepy being all alone I can’t get to sleep.”
Amne was dressed in pajamas. Ry recalled that twenty years earlier, the mayor had a child who’d been lured away by the song.
“Oh, a girl?” he said to himself.
“You’re damn right I’m a girl. Where have your eyes been?”
“No, I didn’t mean you.”
Amne seemed to be glaring intently at the boy, but then she suddenly threw herself against him and told him to hold her.
“What for?”
“I’m scared, you idiot.”
Though she clung to him despite his attempts to push her away, her zealous and feverish form made Ry think of something. Suddenly the boy said, “You know, I’ll be moving on soon, too.”
“Stop trying to be like Mister D. Back at our inn, we’re shorthanded and could use some help,” Amne said, putting her strength into the arms she’d twined around Ry.
Heartlessly prying his way free of the girl, Ry got to his feet. The severity of the gaze he concentrated on the door made Amne’s anger turn to fear.
“What is it?” the girl asked.
“Someone’s coming.”
“What?!”
“From the first floor. They’ll be coming up the stairs any minute now. And there’s a bunch of them.”
“Well, I don’t hear anything. And how come you know all this?”
But Ry couldn’t afford to let that question leave him reeling. The footsteps from the first floor were now climbing the staircase, and even Amne could hear them gathering just beyond the door.
“I don’t like this,” said the girl. “Who
on earth could it be? I didn’t think there were even that many people in the whole house.”
Just as Ry was considering an escape through the window, there was the sound of the lock being disengaged and the door slowly opened. The figure that waded into the feeble light was familiar to the two of them. As were the wraithlike figures that lingered to the rear.
“You’re still awake, it would seem,” the figure said.
“But you’re . . .” Amne began through chattering teeth.
“Madame Mayor . . .” said Ry.
__
D got off his horse in the courtyard. A crisp incandescence filled the ruined garden this evening. Moonlight. He looked at the window. A human figure melted into the fleeting lamplight.
D entered the mansion. As he walked down the ancient corridor, he seemed terribly well-suited to the mansion by night. More than anyone else, this young man was a perfect match for decay.
The door to the room was open. The beautiful figure that sat by the window turned to face D.
“A little late, aren’t you?” Price said mockingly.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting. For the singer, that is. I, too, grasp the beauty of the night.” Once the youthful warrior had confirmed that D had his eyes shut, his expression became one of amazement.
“And are you going to become a descendant of the night?” asked the Hunter.
“Why would you ask that? You know something after all, don’t you? Once again, I ask you the same question. Why have you come here, D?”
“But that’s not something for the singer to decide,” D continued in a leaden voice.
“Well, who shall decide then?”
“The will of the night—the one who created both the singer and the song.”
“And that would be—?” Price began to ask as he left his place by the window without a sound. His eyes were giving off a red glow.
The seat by the window was reserved for the singer. Price was dumbstruck as he gazed at the woman in the gossamer gown. Particles of light glistened in the folds of her dress.
“I have heard your song,” Price said in an absent-minded tone. “And that’s why I’ve come here. I finally realize that I was summoned.”
But there is need for only one of you, a voice chimed in his head—the voice of a lady. A voice so beautiful it would be impossible to judge what kind of woman she was.
“Then that would be me.”
There is one more. And he will surely come here as well.
“So, who gets to decide?”
The will of the night.
Price looked at D. The man who’d given the exact same reply as the phantasmal singer had solidified into a statue hued like the very darkness.
“Who are you?” he asked. “What are you supposed to be?”
His answer came quickly.
“I’m a Vampire Hunter.”
But D’s next words were directed at the illusion: “There’s more than one of you.”
Is there?
The voice in his head fell silent, and the figure by the window moved as if to display how shaken she was.
Perhaps you are correct. But who would know that there’s more than one of me? That’s something about which I myself am not certain.
“When will the other one be here?”
Soon.
On hearing that reply, Price turned to D with a terrible light in his eyes. “When that time comes, you’ll only be in the way.”
It was a challenge.
“I believe I’ll get rid of you now. However, doing it in here would be too unseemly. Let’s make it the garden.”
Under the pale moon the two of them squared off on a path paved with marble. A stand of trees was singing the music of the night. The wind.
Which of them would have the advantage here? D was blind. Price was unharmed. However, the warrior’s evil eyes would no longer serve him against the Hunter, and it didn’t seem likely he could defend himself from the swordplay of even a sightless D.
“Have at you!” Price said as he dashed to the right. His broadsword went undrawn as his finger raced across the surface of the remote control he held in his hand.
The marble blocks beneath D’s feet flipped over. Pushed up by flames, the stones were swallowed by the sky. Five gouts of fire went up.
He didn’t think that would be enough to slay D. From the cover of the decrepit fountain, Price surveyed his surroundings. The entire garden had been strung with wire finer than a spider’s thread, and if a certain amount of pressure was put on any of those lines, it would unleash a deadly attack.
The five crossbows he’d rigged sent iron arrows off to the right. When Price realized all of his missiles had been struck down with the most mellifluous sound imaginable, he quickly scattered smoke bombs all over the grounds and held his breath. The ability to completely conceal any sign of your presence was one of the hallmarks of an excellent warrior.
A black shadow suddenly coalesced right in front of him. As Price backflipped away, cold air knifed into his shoulder.
Gory blade in his right hand, D charged forward. But the singing put a stop to it.
The song came from the same warrior who had deep red blood spilling from the shoulder he clenched. It was impossible to ignore the Nobility’s nocturne.
In a split second, a wide blade pierced the chest of the spellbound D.
Without a backward glance at the reeling Hunter, Price raced toward the mansion. He’d noticed the hoofbeats of cyborg horses that’d entered the garden.
The other one—
The instant he passed D, a hoarse voice from the vicinity of the Hunter’s left hand said, “Oh, you’re a tricky one, all right,” but the warrior had no time to take pause as he headed toward the new arrival.
__
III
__
Ry climbed down from the carriage. The vehicle he’d taken from the mayor’s house was pulled by a team of six. Its rightful owner, Amne, and the inhabitants of the subterranean chamber were standing around it as well.
Price raced over to them. Glaring at Ry, he said, “You or me—which one of us do you choose?”
“It is not we that choose,” the mayor told him. “The one who arranged all of this set his plans in motion more than ten thousand years ago. I finally realized that just yesterday. Listen to the girl.”
Beside the mayor, a girl with black hair let a nocturnal grin rise on her lips. It was the daughter that’d been lured away twenty years earlier.
“You see, when the mayor’s daughter came back, she concealed the girl in that underground chamber. The basement of her own house is actually connected to the area below the concert hall. Her daughter and the other people lured by the song connected the two,” Amne said as if beseeching the warrior. This was the truth that could no longer go unsaid. “And all these people lived on. Without ever drinking blood; merely singing that song for all eternity—”
“The reason I was allowed to return was so that I could announce the chosen one and make the necessary preparations for this evening,” the mayor’s daughter said coolly.
From the way she looked at him, Price knew he’d lost.
“So it’s already been decided, then?” the warrior asked. It was an empty question.
“Yes. And it’s not you.”
“What’ll become of him?” Price asked, tossing his jaw in Ry’s direction.
“He’ll become an excellent singer, I suppose. That is the result of the experiments conducted at one time by the great one beneath the mansion. He’ll live forever without drinking blood. But he hasn’t been completely changed yet.”
“Then you mean he’s still not a Noble?”
“The Nobility have already perished. Now it is the human era. However, that is not to say it will always be so.”
“Why? Why choose him?”
“Because he came here without ever hearing the song directly. And that was the very purpose of the song. There are other reasons I coul
d give you, but there’s little point in it.”
“But what if—” Price began, his voice dipping horribly low. Fresh blood continued to spill from his shoulder.
“What if he were to die?” the mayor’s daughter said, throwing a sidelong glance at Ry. “In that case, it would probably be you.”
At that instant, Ry covered his eyes.
With the deadly glow still emanating from his pupils, Price launched himself at the boy’s chest. Drawing a dagger, he stabbed the boy in a single motion.
Amne let out a scream.
Ry staggered around in agony.
Leaving his dagger buried in Ry’s chest, Price smiled and said, “D died the same way. You can follow after him, while I stay here. Forever!”
The warrior’s body and voice convulsed in unison. Slowly lowering his eyes, Price gazed down at the naked blade that had sprouted from his chest.
“D . . .” Ry mumbled as he got up again, and no sooner was the Hunter on his feet than bright blood spilled from the mouth of the handsome warrior. The blade had been pulled out of Price.
Turning just his neck so he could sneer at the gorgeous young man in black, Price then returned his gaze to Ry and groaned, “You two . . . Both of you . . . with your eyes open . . . and run right through the heart . . . So that’s how it goes? I guess the song . . . really wasn’t for me . . . was it?”
The warrior’s last breath escaped him after he’d fallen to the ground.
An aura far more ghastly than Ry had once felt from Price issued from the people of the night.
“If they don’t drink human blood, I wouldn’t call them Nobility,” D said, staring at the mayor’s daughter. “Go on singing the song of the night. Leave the mayor and the other two children here, and the rest of you may go wherever you like.”
“But we’ve been waiting. Waiting so very, very long,” the mayor’s daughter said in a distant tone. “For me, it’s been twenty years. But for the great one . . .”
“Please just let me go, D,” said Ry. “Now I think I understand everything. In the mansion, in a lab you don’t know about, I’ll undergo the last stage. Please don’t interfere.”
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne Page 6
