“I want to go to school.”
“Good enough. But before that, Cuore needs some looking after, wouldn’t you say? Let’s take him to the doctor’s.”
He sounds kind of dejected, Lina thought. Something troubling must’ve happened to him while he was gone.
The wagon headed toward town.
-
When the members of the Vigilance Committee had gathered in the center of the compound, the horse bearing D galloped in.
With an impressive display of skill, the Hunter executed a dead stop about a yard shy of the men, who wore doltish expressions of astonishment. Not wasting any time, D said, “The girl must have been here. Where is she?”
“How the hell should we know?” Corma said, stepping to the fore. His voice brimmed with hostility. He’d just been thinking how they needed a little diversion. And now the perfect target had fallen right in their lap. “We was showing her a little bit of a good time,” he continued, “and she was sobbing and carrying on, but when we was done with her she sprouted wings and just flew right out the damn window. I reckon she’s at the school now.”
“The wagon tracks lead back here,” D said, in a strangely soft voice. Icy fingers of dread stroked up and down the spines of the ruffians. “How exactly were you showing her a good time?”
The gorgeous youth was standing in front of the men now, having dismounted without making a sound. A white sensation they couldn’t meet head-on buffeted their incipient faces. It was his eerie aura.
“What did you do to the girl? Answer me.”
Knowing D would not accept silence, Corma tried to bluff. “Heh. She just happened to be here when we came by. We tried to ask her a couple of questions about how she tied in to the Nobility, but the bitch wouldn’t play along. So then we took her inside and showed her a good time, naturally. Man, when we spread her legs and stuffed it in her, she was sobbing with joy. After that, we whipped her, and then all of us cleaned her wounds. Oh yeah, we cleaned them with our tongues!”
“Really?” D said with a nod, his voice not really soft but just low. Then, without another word, he turned his back and began to walk away.
“You freak!”
Carving a path through the air, the iron club swung in a downward arc aimed for D’s head.
The men’s gasp of surprise could be heard at the same time as the ring of iron meeting steel. At the base of D’s neck—or just a little bit above it—the iron club had halted, imbedded on the blade he’d partially unsheathed.
The men’s eyes bulged. More than the timing necessary to evade the skull-splitting attack of the club, more than anything, the men were shocked to see that D’s thin blade withstood the hundreds of pounds of pressure from the iron club.
But the real shock was yet to come.
Little by little, but without pause, D pulled the sword from its sheath. One-handed, of course. Behind him, the giant, who couldn’t have been less than two hundred and twenty-five pounds, gripped his hundred-pound iron club with both hands, trying with every ounce of might in his body to stop the unsheathing of the blade.
For those unaccustomed to seeing such a display, it had to be the most frightening sight in the world.
When he’d finished pulling his sword free, D slowly turned around. Unwilling to let go, Corma slid one hand down to the far end of the club—now the man was poised with both arms bracing the club up over his head. Locked together, neither the sword nor the club trembled in the slightest.
Though they could see no twinge of movement in D’s emotionless visage or the muscles of his beautiful, powerful hand, the men perceived the sinking of Corma’s hulking frame, and they were paralyzed with fear and awe.
The sweat pouring from Corma soaked his beard. His knotty muscles shook, and he couldn’t help sinking to his knees. His hulking form was forced down by a sword wielded single-handedly.
Without use of his trunklike legs, Corma had to rely on the strength of his two arms. When he turned his fearful eyes up at the foe standing over him, the boundless pressure was suddenly gone. Okay, he thought, I was just getting warmed up, you dirty vamp bastard.
However, in the next instant Corma lost himself in true horror.
D’s blade was coming down now!
Realizing that the steel was slowly slicing through his iron club, Corma was an instant away from total panic when he heard D’s voice.
“Where’s the girl?” the gorgeous god of death inquired.
Despite his present situation, Corma found himself intoxicated by the voice and the beauty of the one who gazed at him. “Meyer came . . . took her away in the wagon. Took Cuore with them, too . . . ”
D nodded, and then, with one slash, he split the iron club in half and Corma from skull to crotch.
Without so much as a glance at the body—sending out a bloody spray when it fell onto its back and split in two—D mounted his horse.
It wasn’t until the pounding of iron-shod hooves striking the plain had faded into the distance that the men, standing vacant-eyed as if in a daydream, could finally breathe again.
-
At the point where it could slip out of the forest and be at the entrance to town, the wagon made a sudden stop. Lina, who’d been in the back assiduously tending to Cuore, leaned forward into the cab and cried out in surprise, “Mr. Meyer, what in the—?!”
Standing in the road about five yards ahead of them was the dreaded figure in gray.
“We’ve got to get out of here, Mr. Meyer!”
“It’s no use. The horses won’t budge.”
“No problem. There’s a stake gun in the storage compartment!” As she spoke, Lina returned to the bed and armed herself with a long, slim weapon she pulled out of the box. With propellant smeared on the butt of the stakes surrounding the two-inch-thick stock, and a small motorized lighter for rapid firing, the weapon’s effectiveness tended to diminish over long distances. At close range, however, it demonstrated tremendous power.
“Stand back! This is nothing like the sliver gun I had last time!” Lina shouted, standing as tall and fierce as the temple guardians of yore.
The shadowy figure approached without a sound.
“Stay back! I don’t want to have to shoot you!”
“Shoot it, Lina!”
The sound of Mr. Meyer’s voice ever so slightly upset the power she put into her finger, which was already squeezing the trigger.
Leaving only a kick and a resounding bang in its wake, the stake pierced the shadowy figure’s heart.
Turning its body ever so slightly, the figure reached its right hand around to its back. Lina shuddered as she watched the butt end of the stack sucked through the figure’s body. Holding the bloody stake in his right hand, the figure leapt into the air.
He swung the stake down at Lina in the bed of the wagon. Rough wood slashed through the air.
Lina found herself standing in the road.
Without even giving her time to wonder how she had gotten from the wagon to the ground, the shadowy figure hurled the stake at her. Before she could scream, the wind-ripping growl abruptly stopped in front of her chest.
Lina gazed absentmindedly at the stake she’d caught as it flew through the air. Somehow it seemed like she’d become an altogether different creature.
“Don’t you understand yet?” the shadowy figure asked her from the bed of the wagon. “Your movements, your speed—you’re not the same old Lina any more.”
“You dolt, if you’re gonna start talking in your sleep, save it for nap time!” Effortlessly stopping the stake Lina threw back at him, the figure raised his right hand.
“D?!”
Seeing the gorgeous youth standing quietly off to the side, Lina was shocked.
“What’s wrong?” the figure asked. “Don’t you desire this man?”
As she heard the distant voice of the shadowy figure, Lina felt a sudden, hot, rapacious desire burning in her flesh.
I want D. I want those exquisite arms to hold me.
The low voice was pregnant with expectation. While she was aware this was a psychological attack, Lina touched her hand to D’s powerful, hard chest. His lovely lips panted.
D’s breath was sweetly fragrant.
I want to suck . . . Lina’s heart mumbled. I want to suck . . .
“I can’t!”
As soon as she’d desperately wrenched herself away, D became Mr. Meyer.
An enigmatic aroma wafted to her nose from the glass receptacle he cupped with both hands.
While averting her face from its color and scent, Lina heard another voice call out to her.
Drink. You must drink. It will set you free. Come back to me.
The container was proffered.
When it reached her mouth and the crimson liquid surged forward, Lina struck wildly at the cup with both hands. The glass shattered, and her field of view was stained deep red.
There was no one by her side. Her hands hadn’t been injured, either.
Lina started to run. She worked her legs without looking back. If she stopped, the shadowy figure would catch up to her. Worse yet, she’d be completely changed. That was her greatest fear.
The next thing she knew, she was at the edge of the forest.
She glimpsed the familiar school building. Though she got the feeling she shouldn’t go there, she had nowhere else to go.
“Lina,” the figure in gray called out, stopping the girl just as she was about to walk on.
She whirled around with a scream of terror, but, at the sight of a familiar face, her fear gave way to relief. Even if it was the most disagreeable of people, in her present state Lina was simply glad it was one of her classmates.
“What are you doing out here?” Callis, who was evidently on his way to school, asked. A flirtatious smile arose on his smooth, handsome face.
“Nothing really. Run along to school now.”
“That’s some greeting. And after how long I waited to catch up to you.”
“How long you waited?”
“Ever since the last time I saw you, you’re all I’ve been thinking about. Look, I picked these for you yesterday.”
A white bouquet was thrust before her.
The understated single flowers had been delivered on summer days and winter days, but this bouquet was one huge bunch, ripped up roots and all.
Lina remembered her window sill in the morning—the slight fluttering of her heart as she opened the window, thinking maybe today he hadn’t come. The white flower she hugged gently to herself, knowing that someone was looking out for her. All these things were a million miles away.
Taking the bouquet, she heard a voice that was not her own say, “Uh, Callis, I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it?”
“As I recall, your family processes beast carcasses, right? Don’t you have a warehouse around here somewhere?”
“That’s right.” Even as he knit his brow in suspicion, the lustful laughter that arose in his thin eyes didn’t escape Lina’s notice. Not that it mattered.
“Take me there. I want you to hide me for a while. On account of my father’s always doing these gross things to me.”
“Wow, I had no idea.” The young rake swallowed loudly, affected by Lina’s physical presence. She seemed like a completely different person from the one he’d seen two days earlier. “Sure thing. It’s not like they use it at all during the winter anyway. You wanna go right now, or after school?”
Lina turned toward the schoolhouse. Several students looked at them before disappearing through the gates. She got the feeling Viska and Marco were among them. Someone waved to her, and Lina lifted her hand a little in a half-hearted response. Almost as if to say goodbye.
Then, her decision made, she took Callis’s hand.
Lips that seemed visibly redder said, “Okay, let’s go.”
-
About the same time the girl and the bewitched boy disappeared into the depths of the forest, D arrived at the school. The wagon tracks that he had followed all the way from Fern’s place through the forest had come to a sudden end. Finding some signs of a struggle on the ground, he’d rushed to the schoolyard.
He entered the sole academic building. The high school classroom was the one closest to the gate.
Without knocking, he opened the rickety door. Instantly, countless eyes focused on him.
“Well, do come in. I haven’t seen you for a while.” Chalk in one hand, Mr. Meyer bowed a greeting.
At someone’s command of “stand for our guest,” the students rose in unison. “Bow.” Each head dropped simultaneously, without the slightest flaw in timing, then came back up again. Every one of them had Lina’s face.
No one told them to take their seats again.
D’s pupils emitted a weird and beautiful light.
A psychological attack. And I walked right into it. Reprimanding himself lightly, D tried to focus his senses on the source of the force field covering the area, but couldn’t find it. Perhaps having learned a lesson from the failure of the attack on the rainy night, the enemy was concealing its position by using diversions on a multitude of levels.
It’s not that the field couldn’t be penetrated by a concerted mental effort, but the effort itself would consume a great deal of time and psychic energy.
“Are you here to observe the class?” asked the Lina holding the chalk.
A forced smile skimmed D’s lips. Somewhere in that gelid psyche, capable of freezing all thought, there might have been a trace of the innocent lass after all.
Linas beyond number approached him. In their right hands, each held a rough wooden stake. Surrounding D, they swung their stakes in unison. D tried to leap away, but his feet were stuck to the floor, and a number of stakes drove into his chest, spraying blood everywhere.
In extreme pain, but without changing expression in the slightest, D leapt to the corner of the classroom. Since he’d weathered that first attack, much of the efficacy of his opponent’s spell had been lost.
That’s not to say there were really stakes stuck in D’s body. This whole battle was taking place within D’s mind. If his body—which was equivalent to his will—were to surrender, the real D could die without a single physical wound. Conversely, if he could hold out, the result would be a trenchant blade to turn against his assailant. It was a quiet battle.
Lina, Lina, and Lina hurled their stakes. Two were deflected, but the last one stuck in his shoulder.
With especially long pickets clutched at their waists, Lina and Lina rushed in. D drew his longsword and hacked through both of their necks.
The blade met no resistance, and the two pickets sank into his abdomen. Letting go of the pickets, Lina and Lina laughed sweetly.
D gazed at the blade of his sword. It was just an ordinary tree branch. Even if on the surface his consciousness was ordering him to butcher her, his subconscious was trying to save “Lina.”
Swiftly growing ever more enervated by massive blood loss and scorching heat, D grinned bitterly.
Lina leapt, swinging a stake down at him from over her head. His left hand caught her by the wrist, and he threw her back into the midst of the net of attackers closing on him. Though his pain had increased, mobility was returning to his body. His opponent was growing weaker as well.
Suddenly, there was a change in the world.
D stood on a section of ice field crossed only by the howling wind.
He didn’t have a mark on him. The sword in his right hand had returned to being his peerless weapon.
D shut the door more firmly than ever on the cage of his psyche.
His foe was gambling his victory on this image. They’d make every lethal effort to leave a beautiful corpse lying there, exposed to the wind on the fields of ice.
Shooting stars flew across the pitch-black sky.
D, someone called out to him. T
he voice twisted in the wind, became a desolate scream, and raced off across the icy plains. Again it cried, D.
Ahead of him at a distance that was impossible to judge—it might as easily have been a yard as a thousand miles—there stood a lone woman.
The long garment of pure white she wore wasn’t a dress, but rather a shroud. He couldn’t see her face, hidden as it was by her black hair. Much like D, she had nearly translucent skin.
D.
It seemed to be both a voice issuing from the woman, as well as the song of the wind.
D stood completely still, as if frozen solid.
From what part of D did his opponent pull such an image? Truly, the vastly spreading plains of nothingness were a world befitting this youth. On the other hand, the woman . . .
D, we meet at long last. The voice was like the wind sweeping the fields of ice. How I’ve waited . . . with just one thing I’ve been wanting to ask.
D’s whole body tensed.
Whatever question she asked, to grant that request would mean death for his psyche. His enemy’s trap was perfect.
I want to know the name of your father.
And so the question came. The question to which this woman knew the answer better than anyone else.
For the first time, a dark shadow resided in D’s serene beauty. The wind became even more insistent, and, as D grew ever colder, the icy plains dyed his shadow even darker.
Please answer me, D. What’s your father’s name? What is it? What is his name?
D’s lips parted ever so slightly. The tiny tremble in his cheek testified to the intensity of the battle of wills he was now engaged in.
What’s his name? What’s your father’s name?
The wind frayed the edges of his exceedingly grave words.
“His name . . . is . . . Dra—”
The fields of ice were buried by white light.
-
D had just opened the door to the classroom.
With chalk in hand, the middle-aged teacher turned a dumbfounded expression to him, and all the students were left breathless.
He had triumphed over the psychological attack.
Vampire Hunter D: Raiser of Gales Page 18
