“That you come along quietly with me back to my office. And if you have a problem with that—”
“—that’s where these guys come in?”
Strider opened his mouth. Pale blue flames spouted from it—it went without saying they were from the absinthe. Strider must’ve known some special trick to ignite it. Turning, he swept around a full three hundred sixty degrees. The man from the saloon, the bouncers, and even a distant section of the floor were engulfed in flames.
The saloon was ruled by shrieks of agony. Thrown into a crazed panic by the bouncers rolling around like human torches, the customers pressed en masse for the doors, with a number of them being trampled to death when they tripped and fell.
And the insanity those flames unleashed sparked another sort of madness—in the bio-man in the cage. His mind longed for slaughter, and the flames now compelled him to go berserk. The iron bars that had barely contained him twisted like taffy as he forced his way through them. Once out, he was a bloodthirsty beast on a rampage. Countless people and flames danced in his eyes.
She’d watched her target leave the Silver Castle. But even though she passed through the door not two seconds later, there was no sign of him. Entertainment district or not, the night was the world of the Nobility and monsters. Nobody walked around alone; people could be seen hustling toward different venues in groups, weapons in hand.
“Where’d he get to?” the female warrior mused, looking around, and then there was a dull sound to her left and a figure came flying through the air to slam against the ground. Judging from the thud he made, he must’ve been punched with terrific force.
Before Stanza could take another step, three more followed the first in succession, piling up on the ground. All in exactly the same spot. It was a work of art, the way each was struck with such precision that they landed in the same place and in the same pose as the first.
By the time the fourth one toppled over, Stanza had reached the turn into the alley from which they’d so mysteriously come. The alley ran down the side of the Silver Castle.
She halted. She’d heard a hoarse voice remark, “Using ranged weapons just isn’t right.”
Her right hand reached for the longsword on her hip—no, for pencil-like darts stuck through her belt. But before she did anything, her left hand drew a small mirror and held it around the corner.
Reflected in its surface was a giant of a man with both hands raised, and in front of him with a gun leveled was a skinny man with the look of a ne’er-do-well about him. The giant looked to be about six foot eight and nearly 450 pounds, with a beard draped across his triple chins. Neither of them looked particularly charming, and in light of the four men lying in the road, this wasn’t a friendly exchange. With a longsword hanging diagonally across that great continent of a back, spells to ward off supernatural creatures scrawled all over his leather vest, and an oversized pair of pants that would allow easy movement, the big man had to be a warrior. Most likely some drifting thugs had come after his money, and he’d underestimated the opposition—but it should be noted that those who’d set upon him must’ve been feeling quite sure of themselves. Though four of his compatriots had been put out of commission, the skinny man with the gun had more wrath than fear in his eyes.
“If you want my wallet, I’ll give it to you,” the giant said. His tone was calm. He was used to such situations.
However, this statement seemed unlikely to remedy matters.
“I’ll take it off your corpse. Then me and my friends will get the hell outta here. Okay, start crying and pleading for your life.”
Apparently that was why the skinny man hadn’t shot him right away.
“Stupid amateur,” Stanza suddenly muttered. Clutching a dart, her right hand rose.
It was at that very moment that the wall of the saloon beside the robber and his victim shattered with a terrific crash. Before any of the three knew what was happening, an enormous figure nearly ten feet tall and of inhuman proportions bounded out into the street. It was the same bio-man who’d broken through the cage and escaped—but before this dawned on them, the two men and Stanza noticed something on the creature’s misshapen face. There was a huge lump wriggling under the bio-man’s nose—actually, it was arms, legs, and a torso. He had a person in his teeth.
Flames shot out in the darkness, followed by a roar. The robber had fired his gun at the bio-man. Striking him squarely in the temple, the three-and-a-half-ounce lead slug bounced off.
The bio-man reeled, and the saloon patron dropped from his mouth. His right hand rubbed at his temple. Beneath the bullet hole, protective iron plating could be seen. That wasn’t an infraction—it was completely in keeping with the rules on upgrading combatants.
Confidence in the efficacy of the slug kept the skinny man from moving sooner. The speed of the bio-man’s movements was a factor as well. When he raised his fist, it looked like a lump of clay. But the instant it made contact with the skinny man’s head, it became a hammer. The man’s head and neck were neatly driven down into his torso. It was amazing how the rest of his body remained standing perfectly straight.
Saloon employees raced out through the hole the bio-man had knocked in the wall, armed with cattle prods to subdue him. Other people spilled into the street.
The bio-man howled. Pale blue waves of electromagnetism from the prods assailed his titanic form. There were sparks from short circuits in a number of places on his gigantic form. Though the voltage was high enough to render a lesser dragon unconscious, in the case of the enraged bio-man, it only served to whip him into more of a frenzy.
One sweep of his arm mowed the saloon staff down like bowling pins. The body that hit the wall of the hotel across the street was a corpse by the time it sailed through the air.
“We’ve got no choice—gun him down!” commanded a man in a white shirt and bow tie, apparently the one in charge.
However, before they could concentrate their fire on the gigantic figure, the bio-man extended the fingers of his right hand and drove them into the ground. His arm went in all the way to the shoulder, as if he were plunging it into water.
A saloon employee came at the bio-man with a raised longsword. Catching the gigantic creature at the base of the neck, the blade halted when it struck the iron plate, and the waves of electromagnetism that still surged through the bio-man coursed into the man holding the sword, killing him instantly.
By this point, the robber’s cohorts who’d been knocked into the street had picked themselves up and moved as a group to the entrance to the Silver Castle. Not that they were trying to get away. They were looking for a victim in the chaos.
Just then, someone behind them shouted, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
Turning, they found a dazzling light pulling away from the crowd at the entrance to the street and heading in their direction. It was Strider.
The four thugs exchanged glances that seemed to say, What’s this clown all gussied up for? but at the same time, there was a malicious gleam in their eyes.
What’ll we do? one whispered. That stupid getup is flashy, but by the look of him, he’s a warrior.
Kill him, another whispered. Just open up on him without any warning.
Nice, said a third. Don’t give him a chance to draw his blade.
They all reached for their guns in unison.
A sharp roar echoed down the night street.
Just as they were drawing the pistols from their holsters, the four thugs froze.
It was said that a genius at the art of war could knock a bird from the sky with a moment of concentrated resolve. Strider’s roar was equally powerful.
Leisurely walking over to the four thugs who’d become veritable statues and checking that no one else around was watching him, Strider reached into the coat pocket of the foremost robber with his right hand and pulled out his wallet. Quickly examining the contents, he said, “Sheesh, that’s just pathetic. I can see why they blew into town.”
I
gnoring the fact that his own actions were equally immoral, he checked the wallets of the remaining three. With each of them, he spat in disgust.
“Well, not much I can do about this, I suppose. Guess I’ll go back to my room and have a drink.”
Saying this, the warrior spun around—and stopped cold.
At that moment, the bio-man was running amuck in the alley, and a giant of a man had stepped in front of him. The vicious beast raised his right hand. Onlookers began to flee, and Stanza was about to put the right hand she’d raised again into action—and then everyone stopped. The bio-man, the giant, and Stanza.
Darkness was what they knew then. And the true nature of the unending terror that lay within it.
Strider’s ears caught a certain sound. The bio-man, the giant, and Stanza all heard it too.
The darkness was coming. Riding death’s black steed, with its iron-shod hooves.
Don’t look! their souls ordered them. Don’t look, don’t touch, don’t smell.
What was coming now, humanity was never meant to see. What was a human being? Something that had a soul. And that was why their souls commanded them, Just let him pass.
The horse and rider passed directly in front of the four thugs. They also went right by Strider’s side. None of them turned to look. Everyone else nearby had paused, as well—including Stanza. Darkness in the form of a rider and mount passed immediately behind her. Only the bio-man turned and watched. He alone bucked the rule of the darkness, for he and the darkness had touched ever so slightly.
The terror drove the bio-man insane. Crouching down, he became a massive missile as he launched himself at the horse and rider.
No one saw what happened. The gleam of light that split the darkness, the sound of blade cleaving flesh and bone, the last dying breath expelled from the bio-man’s lungs—no one caught any of these things. They heard the heavy thud of him hitting the ground.
Presently, the sound of the hoofbeats faded in the distance, and when the three warriors—who were ashamed that the spell of the darkness had frightened them—looked up, all they saw was a huge and horrible body lying in the street. Stanza and the giant were the first to race over to it. It was almost as if the sound of their footsteps, clearly of this world, was an indication that the spell of the darkness had finally been broken. They watched as the bio-man’s colossal body split lengthwise from head to crotch, exposing a cut that was as clean as polished steel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hideyuki Kikuchi was born in Chiba, Japan in 1949. He attended the prestigious Aoyama University and wrote his first novel, Demon City Shinjuku, in 1982. Over the past two decades, Kikuchi has written numerous horror novels, and is one of Japan’s leading horror masters, working in the tradition of occidental horror writers like Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King. As of 2004, there are seventeen novels in his hugely popular ongoing Vampire Hunter D series. Many live-action and anime movies of the 1980s and 1990s have been based on Kikuchi’s novels.
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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Yoshitaka Amano was born in Shizuoka, Japan. He is well known as a manga and anime artist, and is the famed designer for the Final Fantasy game series. Amano took part in designing characters for many of Tatsunoko Productions’ greatest cartoons, including Gatchaman (released in the U.S. as G-Force and Battle of the Planets). Amano became a freelancer at the age of thirty and has collaborated with numerous writers, creating nearly twenty illustrated books that have sold millions of copies. Since the late 1990s Amano has worked with several American comics publishers, including DC Comics on the illustrated Sandman novel Sandman: The Dream Hunters with Neil Gaiman, and for Marvel Comics on Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer with best-selling author Greg Rucka.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
POSTSCRIPT
VOLUME 19 PREVIEW
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God Page 16
