Greylancer cried out in astonishment.
D looked over at the prototype, which stood still as a statue. The Hunter sailed into the air again, but when he tried to cut his foe down from overhead, his opponent was swallowed up by the earth as if it had been a mirage. It was unclear whether or not the Hunter had glimpsed the pair of hands that’d seized the prototype’s ankles at that moment.
Not bothering to stab his blade into the ground, D was instead staring at Greylancer already.
III
“You’re an astonishing man,” the giant groaned, as if unable to bear the weight of his admiration. There could be little doubt this Nobleman hadn’t had cause to speak like that in his life. “That was a biological weapon made by combining an OSB with a human. I’m not sure even I could’ve fought it off so easily. For you, it was so simple. I’m sure the color has drained from the duchess now that she realizes what an incredible man she’s meddling with.”
“You’re next,” D said. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“But of course. Ah, but it’s been so long since I had an opponent worth fighting. I shall truly enjoy this!”
His long spear swept toward D, wind and rain swirling in its wake—and at that instant, his body was swallowed up by the ground.
Sheathing his blade without a word, D started walking toward the castle. Greylancer’s strange disappearance seemed to have made no impression on him.
From behind him came a cry of “Please, wait!”
Looking at the figure, Bligh bugged his eyes and said, “Arbuckle?!”
The somewhat aged physician/procurer of women walked toward D, looking like a drowned rat. He seemed to have appeared from thin air. The truth was, he had.
“Wait, please. If you go up to the castle now, everyone they caught will be slaughtered.”
After a short time, D asked, “Which would you prefer?”
“What?”
“To become one of them, or to die?”
Arbuckle fell silent. He probably hadn’t anticipated such a question.
“The Nobles in the castle hope to collect subjects for their experiments. What did they do to you?”
“What do you mean, what did they do? I’m human. The proof of it is that I’m out in the daytime,” Arbuckle said, spreading his hands.
“So was the guy who was just here,” said D. He was referring to Greylancer.
Arbuckle had nothing to say to that.
“The ones who were abducted have no special meaning to the Nobility. So they’d have no cause to hesitate. As soon as they captured them, they’d use them in their experiments.”
Such cruel reasoning. Both Arbuckle and Bligh were at a loss for words.
“Did you escape?” D asked Arbuckle.
“No, they told me to try and persuade you. They haven’t finished their preparations for capturing you. At any rate, everyone’s lives depend on you.”
Before he’d even heard the last of the man’s words, D had already started walking the path up the slope.
“Don’t let your guard down around him. Sometimes people are pawns of the Nobility without even knowing it.”
Bligh seemed to react to the Hunter’s words. However, he made no move toward attacking Arbuckle, but rather stood out in front of D with his arms spread wide.
“Don’t go. If what he says is true, you’d be murdering those people!”
Never halting, D replied, “My job is hunting the Nobility.”
“Your job? You’re a pro Hunter, right? You get money and a request to cut down some Noble, right? So, who asked you to do this?”
D stopped in his tracks.
Got him, Bligh thought to himself. “That’s what I thought. In that case, it ain’t your job. Just don’t do it, okay? Let’s just wait a little longer and see how this plays out.”
“Then you’ll be stuck here for the rest of your lives.”
Bligh was stunned for a moment, but searched desperately for words nonetheless. “That’s why we need you to come up with a plan with us, okay?”
D’s lips began to move. No doubt he was going to say it was no use. But before he could speak, a new interloper appeared. A horse and rider that’d crossed the bridge behind the Hunter slipped past him to take a place alongside Bligh.
“You again, lady?” the man sneered.
“That’s Josette to you!” the warrior woman corrected him from her seat high in the saddle. “I caught your conversation with a listening device. Please, D, don’t do this. They might still be alive. They might still be human. Don’t let your actions ruin that.”
“She’s right,” Bligh added. “The least you can do is wait till your left hand gets back. C’mon. What do you say we do that?”
Both of them were desperate. Their words were soon lost to the sound of the rain, but the two of them were resolved not to move from where they stood, rain bouncing off their stiff bodies.
D said, “The only one who can stop me is my employer.” And then he started walking again.
“Okay, okay!” Arbuckle shouted out from behind him. “D, I’ll be your employer! I’m hiring you to save us all from the Nobles in the castle.”
“A meaningless request.”
Those words made the hair of the other three stand on end.
D didn’t halt.
Growing flustered, Arbuckle continued, “Then I’ll change my request. You’re to confirm everyone’s safety, and if it’s too late then so be it. Please, destroy the enemy and get us out of here.”
When D turned around, the feeling of relief almost bowled the three of them over.
“Request accepted.”
And saying that, D thrust his blade into the ground and started walking back in the direction from which he’d come. His sword plowed a trough in the mud. Though the rain should’ve quickly filled it again, it didn’t disappear.
“Walk the line,” D said.
All of them understood that this was to prevent them from being dragged underground by the unholy hands.
Arbuckle, Bligh, and the mounted Josette started following the line D had drawn, keeping that order. Even when D crossed the stone bridge, his blade had no trouble carving a shallow line in its surface.
The group reached the same farmhouse where they’d started.
“It’s okay,” said D. By that he probably meant that the shield his left hand had erected was still in effect.
“Oh, that’s right,” Bligh said, smacking his hands together and turning to Josette, who’d led her cyborg horse indoors. “What happened to your hubby?”
“I left him behind.”
“Left him?”
“I heard you folks talking and said I was going to go help stop D. But all he did was snort at that.”
“Well, imagine that—his woman’s more chivalrous than him. Hard to believe, ain’t it.”
“Then believe what you like,” Josette told him. “My husband and I will be working separately until this whole business is settled,” she stated flatly.
“You sure about that, now? Partway through this, don’t go saying you miss your hubby after all, and that you’re still his wife, and then go running out on us!”
As Bligh stepped forward with a wrathful expression, Arbuckle stepped in between him and Josette, put his hands up in a calming gesture, and said, “Does this seem like the time to be picking a fight? We’re all fortunate survivors—and valued compatriots. We need to work together.”
“Understood,” Josette said softly. In the same tone she continued, “But the next time you speak to me like that, I’ll lop off one of your ears. With the words going straight in, you’ll probably hear a hell of a lot better.”
“You do and I’ll—” Bligh began to reply, but Arbuckle reached around from behind him and covered his mouth.
“Would you act your age? If not, I’m likely to surgically remove your remaining ear when she’s through!” the flesh peddler/doctor barked, and he was serious.
Bligh nodded reluctantly.
&
nbsp; Letting go of him, Arbuckle said, “Now, for the sake of those held underground, let me tell you what I’ve seen.”
“Before you do, you’ll have to let us check you out.”
Everyone stared at D.
“Don’t tell me you still suspect me of being—”
“—in league with the Nobility,” There was no mercy to be found in D’s words. “It may be that you’ve been implanted with memories to make you think you’re still human.”
“Hmph. Well then, how will you tell whether I’m human or a servant of the Nobility?”
“Come here,” D said, beckoning to him.
When Arbuckle came over, the Hunter raised his right hand about as high as his shoulder. As a natural reaction, Arbuckle’s eyes followed it. Once he was focused on it, D accomplished his aim.
All Josette and Bligh saw was bright blood squirting from Arbuckle’s neck, and all they heard was the ching! of a sword hilt against its scabbard. D had drawn and struck in a single motion.
As the stunned Arbuckle stood there, D extended his right hand to the man’s neck and pinched the severed artery. The bleeding ceased. The recuperative powers of human cells were incredibly strong, so that severed limbs, if aligned perfectly and immediately reattached, might heal right down to their very nerve cells and operate no differently than they had before. However, that was only possible with the most skilled use of the very latest medical technology. The way D’s fingers had closed the carotid artery and stopped the bleeding with a single pinch was a startling phenomenon far beyond human or Noble ability. What’s more, when his hand came away, there wasn’t so much as a drop of blood on it.
“D, what did you just—?” Josette asked.
“When a slash is made at a Noble’s carotid artery, it winds up being off by a thousandth of a millimeter, no exceptions. In his case, he was cut exactly where I aimed.”
“Pretty brutal test you’ve got there,” Bligh said in a hollow, almost mechanical tone.
“Let’s hear what you have to say,” D told the doctor, making a wave of his right hand.
All Arbuckle’s arterial spray had fallen to the floor. The echoes of steel being sheathed left all of them trembling.
The Black Dragnet
chapter 6
I
So, it’s positively no use?”
“Essentially,” Greylancer said in a voice like creaking iron.
Not disguising her disappointment, the duchess said, “In that case, I most definitely want him. What if we were to threaten to kill the hostages one by one if D doesn’t turn himself over to us?”
Her question was directed not at Greylancer, but at the thing on the floor.
“Now that is what you’d really call useless. The only reason he protects humans is because it’s his job. When it’s not, he’s the kind of guy who could have a massacre happening right in front of him and walk by without raising an eyebrow.”
“Well, isn’t that something,” Greylancer said with a sarcastic grin. “I don’t believe it though. But if a part of his body says so, there’s no reason for me to say otherwise.”
“Then we have no choice. We shall go with our last resort,” the duchess said, her tone changed.
Realizing that her remarks were directed toward itself, the left hand trembled. In fact, it backed away a good foot.
The time finally came when the others knew for sure that, even shut behind the clouds, day had still existed. The hues of the village were being tinged with blue, and the light was failing.
D was gazing out one of the hall’s windows at the rain, which had let up just a bit. Naturally, not only his eyes, but his ears and his very skin had undoubtedly been honed to deal with the threat of the Nobility, but as he gave off his ghastly air—or rather the jewel-like radiance of his uniquely heaven-sent beauty—those who’d just returned from another room melted away in rapture.
Arbuckle and even Bligh were entranced by the Hunter, while Josette reflexively turned her face away, making no attempt to even look at him. Finally, she looked out the window and said to him in a somewhat absent-minded tone, “It’s not going to stop raining, is it?”
“What about your husband?” D asked.
“Huh?” she blurted out at the completely unexpected query. But she immediately realized he wasn’t inquiring as to the health of her husband or her own state of mind. “You’re wondering whether or not he’s been attacked by the Nobility, aren’t you? I’ve been to see him since we got here, but he says he doesn’t want to throw in with the rest of us. That’s just the sort of person he is.”
“Surely he realizes it was the Nobility that constructed this village. Why isn’t he concerned for his own well-being?”
“I don’t know. But he’s a born misanthrope.”
“He was with you.”
“Somehow or other, we got along. I used to work in a saloon. He came in one day. When I heard he was a warrior, I asked him to take me away with him. After a job in that saloon, I thought I could stand anything.”
“Why’d you let him go his own way?”
“Because we weren’t going to be together forever,” Josette replied, heaving a sigh. “He spared no effort to teach me every last thing about being a warrior, from the ground up, but he only did it to make his own life easier. Before I’d even mastered the use of my weapons, he had me fighting the enemy in his place. Once I somehow managed to knock them flat, he’d come out and finish them off.”
“I’m surprised he let you go.”
“I pumped a round into his right leg before I left,” Josette said, stroking the barrel of the minigun.
“The Nobility will go after him.”
“That’s fine by me now. Forget him. Besides, it’s not like you care what happens to him. Why the sudden interest?”
“Long ago, I met a warrior about the same age as your husband,” the Hunter replied. “He said he wanted to run into a Noble before he got too old.”
“So he could say he’d taken out at least one?”
“He said he wanted to become a Noble.”
Josette shut her eyes and somehow kept herself from collapsing. Rubbing hard at her temple, she said, “It can’t be,” but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“I’ve heard the same thing from four people, male and female alike. All of them were warriors.”
“Why?”
“Those who fight for a living desire immortality more than anyone.”
“But still . . . becoming a Noble . . . ?” Suddenly realizing something, she gazed at D. Before rapture could overcome her, Josette said, “You don’t mean to tell me—my husband wants that, too?”
“You don’t recall ever hearing him mention it?”
“Not a word. However . . .”
“You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?”
Josette was assailed by a feeling like heaven and earth had just turned topsy-turvy. Before she could even deny it, it forced her to say, “Yes, I have. I’ve thought so time and time again. Every time I’ve had to fight and fight until I was covered in blood. I wish I were a Noble, I’d think to myself.”
Josette wished she could deny what she’d just said, and desperately endeavored to change the subject, asking, “If you think that’s what he’s up to, why leave him to his own devices?”
D just kept staring out the window. It seemed as though he hadn’t moved a single muscle since Josette had come over.
“Even if he becomes a Noble . . . you wouldn’t be scared of him, would you? After all, he’s only human, right?”
D’s reply was, “Someone’s coming.”
“Huh?”
Shooting over to the window so quickly she seemed likely to burst right through it, Josette peered out through the blue air.
A beautiful woman in a white dress was walking toward them from the river.
“She’s carrying something. I think—it’s your left hand?!”
“I believe you’re familiar with this, are you not?” the woman
said, holding the thing high with her right hand in a spot not far distant—less than thirty feet from the farmhouse. “I am Duchess Heldarling, and I oversee this facility. We have this part of your body in our possession. If you’d like it safely reattached, D, you should come to us peacefully.”
The part about being reattached would’ve undoubtedly caused the left hand to laugh.
D went outside.
Josette slammed the chair beside her against the wall. First Bligh appeared, then Arbuckle. Josette gave a toss of her chin—and the two of them pressed their faces to the windowpanes. They wore looks of desperation.
The rebounding rain outlined D’s form in white.
“Is it okay?” D inquired.
“Of course. It’s right here.”
“I have no time to fool around with illusions. I’ll head right up there.”
“Well, that settles matters quickly enough.”
“However,” the Hunter continued, “I have a condition. Those in this farmhouse, the other man, and the ones you abducted are all to be safely released from the village.”
“That’s a substantial condition, but are you in any position to be making such demands?” the duchess said with a sarcastic grin. But her smile immediately froze. For she had sensed the unearthly aura emanating from every inch of D.
“Do you agree to that?” asked D.
“Very well,” the duchess replied, though it took her a second to do so.
The trio inside the house exchanged looks.
“Okay, then release them immediately. As soon as I see that happen, I’ll join you.”
“Good enough,” the duchess said with a nod.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 27 Page 10
