“Goodness, don’t make such a puss. I’m the kind to forgive and forget, after all. When I look at your face, I don’t think back on old grudges. So why don’t you try smiling for a change?”
“I was born like this.”
“Wow! That’s the first time you’ve said anything about yourself.” She giggled. “Do you feel sympathy for me? That’s not like you at all.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about it.”
When D said this, the bluish light filling the room was extinguished abruptly.
Without even time to think that somebody had done that on purpose, Lina was grabbed from behind with great force and dragged toward the wall.
“D!”
Something like a strangely sticky, cold palm stopped her shout-widened mouth, but the instant she saw a silvery flash race through her field of vision, a thunk like the sound of bone being severed resounded and she was set free.
A wail arose that made her want to slap her hands over her ears, and every time D’s longsword sheared through the air there was the sound of something being cleaved and falling to the ground—a sound that was to be heard over and over again.
At last it dawned on Lina that she was encircled by unknown creatures.
A dusky conjecture choked her heart. What she’d just felt touching her was beyond doubt a human hand. And that would mean, it had to be—Tajeel. But there was certainly more than one of them out there in the dark.
Dreamily, Lina sifted her memory for some recollection of Tajeel as he had been in his boyhood. She remembered the look of his swarthy face trying to appear sullen, as he handed her flower necklaces he crafted more skillfully than she could, though he still griped about how boring it was picking flowers. And it was Tajeel who had come running with nails in one hand and an arc welder in the other when the roof of her house blew off in a gale, then worked half the day to fix it. It was only natural that the thought of him doing these things out of love for her made her hold both pride and conceit in her little seven-year-old heart. More than even his own parents, it was Lina who had grieved over the loss of him.
“Stop it, D! Stop it!”
As if waiting for just that shout, a blue light threw Lina’s shadow onto the stone floor.
A few paces ahead, D was putting his longsword away. In place of the grotesque figures she expected to see, there was a profusion of deep red fluid spread across the stones of the floor. Blood. When she strained her eyes, a number of the thin, red streams ran to a rock wall to one side of the chamber. Instinctively racing closer, she asked, “What is it, D? You must’ve got a good look at it.”
D didn’t answer, but as he locked his gaze on the rock wall in question he muttered, “Strange, it wasn’t alone.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The answers lie behind the stones of that wall. We could press forward, but now that we know something’s down here, I’d say for today our best bet is to go home. When these things get a hand chopped off they leave, carrying everything but the blood.”
“But what the blazes—it couldn’t be Tajeel . . . ”
She received no reply, but, looking askance at D as he turned his ever-frosty form toward the shutter, Lina was struck by a deep emotion more puzzling than dread. She continued to keep her eye on the rocky wall.
-
Without so much as exchanging a word, the pair made their way back down to the base of the hill.
The Hunter’s beautiful profile betrayed not a hint of a tremble at the eerie monstrosities they’d so recently encountered. Lina stole glimpses of D’s face, terrified by his implacable silence.
There were a million things she wanted to ask him: the reason why it had been so easy to find the subterranean laboratory; what he had noticed there; what those monsters really were; where Tajeel was; and, more than anything, what had been done to her and the others down there a decade ago.
As she gazed at the young Vampire Hunter’s profile—one some might call melancholy—her curiosity about all those things dwindled away and something warm covered her heart.
Was she really tagging along with D in an attempt to shed some light on the shadows of a decade earlier? She had her doubts.
“I’m going to take a ride around the village,” D said suddenly. Lina noticed they were standing by her wagon. Not far away, D’s horse was nibbling the grass, paying them no heed.
“Well then, I’ll go with you . . . ” Lina said reflexively, but disappointment slapped her heart.
“We part company here. And in the future, I’ll thank you not to interfere with my work.”
Neither his expression nor his tone differed in the least from the usual, but Lina felt the biting cold like a sudden frost. Out of habit, she started to refute him, only to have her voice vanish down her throat.
“Go to school or head home, but don’t make any stops along the way. And don’t let your guard down even with those you know,” D said from astride his mount.
Yeah, right. Meanie. What do you care how anyone else feels?
Suddenly trying to look sullen, her cheeks stiffened. She tried to say something back, but no words came. Making matters worse, the corners of her eyes grew hot. No, she couldn’t start bawling this early in the day.
At this point the air abruptly grew tense. It was due to the lurid aura D emanated. She could feel every inch of her skin rising in gooseflesh.
The sensation was so eerie Lina couldn’t even ask what was the matter, but could only turn her face in the direction D was now gazing.
A lone cyborg horse was coming down the trail from town. With its familiar chestnut hue and type ten energy tank slung from its abdomen, Lina saw it was the sheriff’s mount. Coming on at a full gallop, horse and rider came to a halt with a small shower of earthen clods.
“Thought I’d find you here. You’d better come with me.” The sheriff’s face and voice were tinged with impatience.
“How did you know where we were?” D asked softly.
“A farmer saw Lina’s wagon headed for the hill. Cuore’s run off.”
“I thought someone had been put in charge of watching him.”
“One of the guys from the Vigilance Committee dozed off while the kid was still asleep. Can’t help that. We’re only flesh and blood.”
“Maybe if you tell that to the next Noble to attack you they’ll just make their apologies and be on their merry way.”
The sheriff didn’t respond to the Hunter’s bitter sarcasm.
“Where did he go?” D asked.
“Don’t know. But I’m afraid if we don’t find him fast we’ll have a lynching on our hands. See, since Cuore was at the scene last night, the whole Vigilance Committee’s got the idea that he’s not the culprit but he’s still in cahoots with it. We’ve been keeping an eye on where Cuore lives, but it looks like he hasn’t been back there. Which would leave the forests. I’ll check in the north woods. I want you to take the south.”
Without giving a reply, D wheeled his mount around. All he knew of the local geography he’d learned in a single glance at a map the mayor had given him a day earlier.
“Hurry on home,” he said to the motionless Lina, just as he was about to gallop off. “You’ve got a date with the Capital.”
By the time the girl had raised her face in consternation, D was racing like a scythe through the wind.
The sheriff hastened after him.
As he gave pursuit, the lawman watched with disbelieving eyes. Despite his own speed, the gap between them rapidly grew. It wasn’t on account of D’s horse. Due to his line of work, one of the first things the sheriff noticed about any outsider was their mount. He’d found that if he had some idea what sort of beast everyone was riding, it made it that much easier to come up with some strategy in the event he had to chase them down. D’s horse was just the standard, run-of-the-mill type that could be picked up in any village. Even tuned up, it shouldn’t be able to match the sheriff’s custom grade steed, two miles per hour faster and twenty p
ercent more durable than the average. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
What the blazes . . . Does this guy use magic or something? I thought I heard something about him being a dhampir . . .
Finally, some idea of the uncanny power of the Vampire Hunter—abilities he had only heard rumors of—began to seep into the lawman’s understanding.
Pulling far ahead of the sheriff, D entered the south woods. Halting his horse, he shut his eyes. A moment later, he pointed his mount at a grove of trees to his right. Had he heard the words of the wind, or caught some presence tingeing the air?
Before another minute had passed, he met some vigilantes with odd expressions running deeper into the forest.
“Watch it!” cried one.
“Whoa there!” shouted another.
The flinching, scattering men watched D’s rein-handling as he sharply halted his hitherto galloping steed.
“Where’s Cuore?” At the sound of the Hunter’s voice, which could rightly be called soft, nearly a dozen roughnecks froze as if stitched in place. D trained his gaze on the man heading the pack, their apparent leader—the one who had been at the site of the disturbance the night before.
“He…uh, he’s alright. We ain’t done nothing. Yeah, we was gonna knock him around a little bit I suppose, but when we found him Mr. Fern come by.”
“Fern? Was he out looking for Cuore, too?”
The man shook his head with uncomfortable haste.
They’d set out on a search for Cuore that Fern had no part in, and had found the former standing stupefied in the middle of the forest. Determined to make him spill his guts, they’d surrounded him and were just starting in on their threats when Fern showed up. A brute of a man who ordinarily would’ve been the first one in line to lay into Cuore with a whip, Fern had been like a changed man, sticking up for Cuore and leading him away to stay at his own house. Or so this man said. That certainly helped account for the bewilderment gracing the faces of the men.
“Did Fern have anyone else with him?”
“Nope.”
“How long ago did they leave? And where did you find Cuore?”
The man pointed back behind them.
“Go straight and you’ll know it when you get there. The spot’s got moss all over the place and there should be plenty of footprints. It couldn’t have been ten minutes ago.”
The ring of iron horseshoes mixed with the man’s words.
D first headed in the direction of Fern’s home. In less than five minutes his eyes lighted on a structure which looked like split logs set in the ground—the guard beast kennel. A wooden palisade rimmed the perimeter, and a pair of people—Cuore and Fern—stood before the oddly shaped gate.
“What’s your business?” Fern asked, even as his expression registered surprise at D’s sudden stop.
“What did you go into the woods for?” asked D from the back of his horse.
Fern grinned devilishly and put his hands to the baskets at either hip. “I take it you don’t know what line I’m in. Fact is, I went out to get some of the moss and bugs I feed my guard beasts. I don’t know what you’re trying to get at asking a question like that, but I’ve two of them right here. You wanna see if I’m telling the truth or not?”
Just then, Fern got the impression that an instantaneous white light flashed between him and D. Fern blinked his eyes.
D ignored the provocation. “I want the boy back.”
“Oh, you sure have a funny way of putting things. Here you are talking to me like I’m some sort of sneak-thief. Well, he’s a lot better off here at my house than with some half-assed attempt at a Hunter from who-the-blazes-knows-where. There’s a woman’s touch here, and I don’t think it would hurt him none to learn how civilized folks live.”
“Suddenly overcome with love for your fellow man?” D inquired, an eldritch aura condensing about him. In a low tone trenchant as the finest blade he asked, “What happened in the forest?”
Fern was silent. His face was solemn, brimming with murderous intent, and his bony fingers crept to the lids of the baskets. D didn’t move. But one had to wonder how he hoped to fend off a pair of beasts from atop his mount, restricted as his movements would be.
A large figure suddenly interrupted the ghastly flow of bloodlust between the men.
Cuore stood before D, blocking his way. Eyes pleading, he shook his head and pointed to the gate. Was he trying to say he wanted him to go?
Shortly thereafter, D wheeled his horse about.
“Heading home already? Next time you show up here, you’d better have that pig-sticker of yours drawn. See, I’ve got all kinds of ‘goods’ here of the scary-bad kind. Like these!”
Fern’s confidence-stoked voice faltered. The lids hadn’t come off his baskets.
The face he raised, now paled by the knowledge that tapered needles of unfinished wood skewered the lids and baskets, was pounded by the hearty laughter of hoofbeats.
-
Racing all the way back to the forest, D dismounted in the malice-shrouded bog. Just as the man from the Vigilance Committee said, there was a confusion of tracks. This was where they’d encountered Cuore, yes, and the place where just previous to that Fern and his daughter had met with the vampire’s baleful fangs.
It is debatable whether this youth, too, was apprehensive of the unpleasant heat, but D set foot into the kaleidoscopic world without so much as a knitted brow.
From D’s lightly clasped left hand a malicious, drifting voice suggested, “Things are starting to get interesting.”
“How so?”
“That Fern character—there’s something funny about the way he’s acting. Then there’s the kid, who must be seriously wet behind the ears. Why on earth would he want to go with that guy? Ol’ basket-pants is in charge of the guys who beat the stuffing out of him, ain’t he? So what’s the story? You seem like you’re on to something already.”
“That boy wanted to go with him more than anything.” A rare teasing tone had entered D’s voice. “Try to read my mind about the rest. Which reminds me—if you’ve got your strength back, I need your help with something.”
“Still far from recovered. Can’t you spare me another two or three days to recuperate at my own pace? When the time comes, I’ll have a hell of an interesting tale for your ears.”
“I can hardly wait.” Halting his stride, D terminated the conversation. Strangely, it was at just the spot where the ashen figure had attacked Fern’s daughter.
D looked to the ground before his feet.
A multicolored carpet already concealed all signs of the struggle. The growth rate of these fungi was remarkably swift.
His intently scanning eyes gradually gave off a red brilliance. The miasma around him eddied suspiciously, and his gorgeous visage became that of a vampire.
His vermilion gaze halted on a certain piece of ground. Drawing a translucent cylinder the size of his little finger from a pouch on his belt, D knelt on the ground.
What could he be searching for that would necessitate becoming a vampire? Putting what appeared to be a piece of ground into the tube, D slowly surveyed his surroundings. As if beckoned by that ominous gaze, a black cloud surged from the distant sky.
-
NIGHTMARES ON A RAINY NIGHT
CHAPTER 4
-
As the last period was finishing, droplets began to hammer the window panes, and, by the time the teacher left school, it had really started coming down. The sound of rain rebounding off his hooded slicker was nearly deafening.
Put just a mite too much grease on this one, Mr. Meyer ruminated as he walked the muddy path. The thicker the were-tiger fat they treated the heavy moose hides with, the faster it dried, and, in the fierce squalls particular to the region, the stiffened coat made a sound like cheeks being slapped.
Not five minutes after passing through the school’s front gate, the noise became all the more intense, and the teacher began to regret his haste to return home. He couldn’t see
fifteen feet in front of him.
Be that as it may, to villagers menaced by the bloodsucking Nobility, rain was one of the most welcome sounds. As one would expect from legends of vampires’ inability to cross running water, statistically speaking the incidence of attack on rainy days was, for all purposes, nil. Though they might be grimacing, these Frontier people were gleeful as they hustled homeward.
“What on earth . . . ?” Spying a shape moving with inhuman speed through the sheets of falling droplets, the teacher came to a stop. It definitely looked very much like a man, but its bizarre gait, somehow different from that of an ordinary person, cast a foreboding pall over his heart.
All the water demons and vicious river sprites that loved to come out on rainy days had been exterminated years ago, and the talismans mounted at strategic points around the village should have kept the area safe from more of their kind until the end of time. But if that was true, what could the figure be . . . ?
Recalling that there was a lone farm off in the direction the figure had vanished, Mr. Meyer turned back toward the school. He hoped to get help. But it wasn’t much more than a quarter mile to the farmhouse. More than enough distance for the fear in his heart to become reality.
Hesitating momentarily, Mr. Meyer went after the shadowy figure.
A narrow footpath ran between fields planted with gargantuan produce. The soft topsoil was gouged by the driving rain, sending up an uninterrupted spray of yellow. Here and there, the sharp crack of vegetable leaves snapping from their respective stems could be heard.
The figure had long since left his range of vision. Without a doubt, it was headed for the farmhouse. Mr. Meyer picked up the pace.
His fears had been well founded.
When the silhouette of the farmhouse floated into the rain-soaked world, a scream split through the roar of the rain. There was the sound of something breaking, then it was lost beneath a bellow that couldn’t be attributed to man or beast.
The teacher sprinted, stripping off his coat. He fished in his blazer pocket as he ran, and clumsily pulled out a buckshot-firing tube intended for self-defense.
Vampire Hunter D: Raiser of Gales Page 8
