Snow and wind broadsided the Hunter. The whole cave had been an illusion.
“That was a close one, eh?”
On the snowfield off to the right, a figure swaddled in a winter coat had just gotten up. He identified himself, saying, “It’s Crey. Remember me?” When he showed the Hunter the knife in his right hand, it was wet with fresh blood. Apparently even his thick gloves didn’t impede its use. He pulled off his goggles and tugged down his muffler, and sure enough, there was the face of the outlaw.
“Did you collapse on the way up here?” D asked. The man’s sudden rise from the snow must have garnered his interest.
“That’s a hell of a way of putting it. I came this far on my own ’cause you told me I was outta luck. Not bad, eh? My coat’s got a thermostat, and you can even toss on the hood and use it as a sleeping bag. Hell, you could sleep out in cold like this for twenty-four hours straight, no problem. It’s the latest thing, ordered special from the eastern Frontier. Speaking of which, you’re not wearing a winter coat, are you?”
Pounding the chest of his own bulky coat, he continued, “It’s bad enough that illusion beast pulled you in, but I’m surprised you can even walk in a snowstorm like this without a winter coat, goggles, a muffler, or anything. You guys with Noble blood are a breed apart!”
“Are you the one that killed it?”
They were alone on the snow-whipped expanse. Nevertheless, a grin rose to Crey’s lips at that odd question.
“Damn straight. Only it wasn’t just me. It was them, too.” The outlaw gave a toss of his chin to the snowy trail to D’s rear.
Before D could turn and look, three figures came into view—in a perfect line of small, medium, and large sizes. To be precise, there were actually four of them. A tiny figure bundled in a winter coat was strapped to the back of the giant, Dust.
“That was a close call, D.”
Her mask was pulled down, but Dr. Vera still clutched a rifle. Judging by the size of the sighting mechanism, it was undoubtedly equipped with a digital-imaging virtual scope. Just point it in the right direction and it would deliver an image clear of fog or gusting snow—making a precise sniper shot possible even when those factors reduced visibility to less than three feet. It was unclear whether or not D had noticed the bullet hole that had appeared in the head of the illusion beast.
“You owe us, D,” the tall, lithe figure beside the doctor—Lilia—said patronizingly.
“It’s okay. Think nothing of it.” Vera smiled at him. “I’m a doctor, but I was forced to take a life.”
“Don’t sweat it, Doc. Our selfish friend Mr. Sexy Pants here brought it on himself. He tried to be cool and go up alone, but he just ended up walking right into an illusion beast’s mouth and needing his bacon saved. Sure you haven’t forgotten the basics, D?” Lilia said, staring daggers at him through her goggles.
II
The sound of a running shower could be heard, mixed with a whistled melody.
“That’s ‘The Nobles’ Moon.’ A very popular tune in the Capital more than a decade ago.”
As she shared that tidbit with D, who was leaning back against one wall, the doctor trained a look of boundless compassion on the face of the tiny figure lying in bed. Lourié’s face was red and puffy, and his breath as hot as fire.
“I’m amazed one so small climbed as far as he did in this snow. He set out before dawn. Must really have had a good reason, wouldn’t you say?”
Apparently Lourié hadn’t told the doctor about his father yet. No doubt his poor equipment and his exhaustion had brought on his high fever.
“By the look of him, he’s coming down with pneumonia. I have some medicine with me, but it’s not likely to work on something this serious. Now it’s just up to his own strength.”
“This is one of the Nobility’s portable refuges,” D said in a flat tone. Vera’s cheeks flushed. The young man’s voice was that gorgeous. “It should be stocked with medical supplies.”
From off in the distance, Lilia called out in reply, “I bought this refuge from a traveling merchant. The medicine and weapons were sold separately. Too rich for my blood.”
Vera dropped her gaze. She had an uncommon number of wrinkles for her age, and her expression suggested she was about to earn more.
Merchants who specialized in buying and selling the Nobility’s things—everything from everyday goods to weapons and magical apparatus—met several different kinds of welcome out on the Frontier. In impoverished villages, the merchants might be killed or at least robbed of their wares, while in wealthy villages they would be paid whatever price they asked. The merchants were also in the habit of changing their goods in an effort to maximize profits. Take this refuge, for example: some merchants might throw in the weapons and medical supplies at no extra cost.
“In any case,” the doctor continued, “why did he come up here all alone? If nobody tried to stop him, there’s not much we can do about that, but if someone goaded him into it, I’ll curse them for as long as I live.”
“Will he make it?” D inquired.
“As I just said, it all comes down to the boy’s constitution. If we had just one of the Nobility’s nutrient supplements, he’d be all set in five minutes’ time, but all we can do here is sit back and watch.”
Vera’s gaze skewered D.
“Say, you have Noble blood in you, don’t you? Isn’t there anything you can do? Are you carrying any fortifying drugs or anything?”
“It’s no use, Doc,” Lilia spat coldly from the depths of the seven-hundred-square-foot refuge. “It’s great that you work as a doctor out in a Frontier village and all, but how could you be so misinformed when it comes to the Nobility, I wonder? That’s the problem with book smarts. You see, the Nobles’ blood is blue. And it’s cold enough to freeze anything it touches.”
“My, but aren’t you well informed,” Vera said, turning to find the tall woman in a combat bodysuit, white steam still rising from her.
As a warrior’s first layer of protection, the bodysuit was what kept their skin from harm, with most composed of fire-dragon scales or the hides of iron men. Judging from the luster of the one the girl wore, it was one of the more affordable lightweight metal-alloy types referred to as “smith made.” Still, it would deflect rounds from a high-caliber rifle as long as two didn’t strike the same spot, and no amount of biting from the fangs of rock serpents, lesser demons, or the like would harm it. Put second and third layers of combat gear over that, and it was said even an infant could serve as a warrior.
However, what protected this young woman’s body was of considerably less interest than the heavenly gifts beneath it. Full breasts bulged from the chest protector, and as if to emphasize the richness of her other assets, she had an hourglass waist and beautiful legs exposed by the merciless slit of the suit’s skirt. Every inch of her flesh was pink and steaming, and to make matters worse, she gave off an indescribable perfume. If some masculine foe were to suddenly attack now, he’d most likely lose the will to fight and succumb to her counterattack.
As her alluring scent spread mercilessly in all directions, Lilia’s eyes flashed with malice. You might even call it a glint of madness.
“My parents and two brothers were all drained of blood by the Nobility, then had their heads cut off. They had no problem feeding on them, but didn’t want them joining their ranks, I guess. My big brother was nine, and my little one, six. That’s what Noble blood really means. That’s what flows through him. No point asking him to do anything for humans. Don’t forget, this is the same man who left behind a moaning, feverish child.”
“That was only because he knew I was coming.” Perhaps fed up with the winds of hatred that billowed at her, Vera had risen to the bait.
“I wonder about that. Tell me, D: if the doctor or I hadn’t been there, would you have seen to the kid? Of course not!”
Her look of hatred faded away unexpectedly. D had gotten up.
“You may not have any medicine to treat p
neumonia, but you have something I want. Can I have it?” he asked the doctor.
“Oh, could my meager equipment be of some use, I wonder?”
“Just a heat pack. They only had one at the general store. Apparently they’ll be getting more in tomorrow.”
“Well, I’ll be—I had no idea you were so sensitive to the cold. Will ten hold you?”
“One will be fine.”
“Aren’t you polite!”
Producing the red package from her pack on the floor, the doctor gave it to D, who then did something unexpected. He rolled up his left sleeve. An identical heat pack was wrapped around his wrist.
Both Vera and Lilia donned expressions that seemed to say, What’s pretty boy up to now?
Taking off the old heat pack and tossing it down a nearby garbage chute, he tore open the new one and wrapped it around his left wrist. As the two women inundated him with looks of suspicion, the Hunter made a fist, then opened it again.
Apparently no longer able to bear it, Lilia said, “What kind of hocus-pocus is this?”
“I’m sensitive to the cold.” As he said that, D bent his wrist back far, then slammed the palm of his hand against the wall hard enough for them to hear a snap. A low groan rang out. The eyes of both women, wide with astonishment, followed the source of that voice and came to rest on Lourié.
D headed for the washroom. It was located beside the bath. The reason there was such an amenity here although the Nobility inherently loathed running water was simple: they were for human women who hadn’t yet been turned into vampires. In one era, Nobles had brought human beauties with them like pets. They were a kind of status symbol.
He passed his left hand under the infrared water faucet, palm up. Water flowed from the faucet. Boiling-hot water. D peered down silently at the palm of his hand as transparent droplets bounced off it and steam wafted up. Ten seconds passed, then twenty—there was only the endless sound of running water, and D himself seemed to dissolve into the very flow of time. When three minutes had passed, the palm of his left hand had only turned slightly pinkish, but ripples passed through it and a tiny pit opened. The hot water flowed into it. Another thirty seconds passed, and suddenly there was a choked cough, like a living creature spitting up water, and warm water shot back up.
And then a hoarse voice drawled, “What . . . are you doing?”
“Nobles target their victims while they’re asleep.”
“Hmm.”
“Awake yet?”
“Not yet . . . Cold . . . So cold . . .” Here it let out a big yawn.
By the look of things, the countenanced carbuncle in the Hunter’s left hand had trouble with the cold. For that reason, it made sense that as he climbed in the fierce blizzard, D had fallen into the illusion beast’s trap.
“I have a job for you. Drink a little more to clear your head.”
Once again the hot water sprayed everywhere.
“Knock it off! Would you quit it, already! I’m already sharp as a tack.” These tiny shouts rang out mere seconds later.
“I simply can’t believe it,” Vera said, making no attempt to mask the admiration in her voice or in her eyes.
Just a few minutes earlier she’d watched with her own eyes as D put his left hand to the boy’s chest, and the child’s temperature had dropped rapidly, his breathing had returned to normal, and his perspiring had ceased. There were things from the days when the Nobility’s sorcery and witchcraft held sway that even now the strictest of doctors wouldn’t acknowledge. However, the phenomenon she’d just witnessed was impossible from the standpoint of physics—in other words, it could be called a miracle.
“Dhampirs can do things like that?”
D met the query from the stunned doctor with silence. Perhaps he meant that seeing was believing.
Lilia and Dust had already gone to bed. Only the two of them remained in the refuge’s living room.
“Even at my age, I still don’t know much about the Nobility,” said Vera, slumping back against the sofa wearily. Slapping the polished ebony armrest with her palm, she continued, “It all looks so real—this sofa, the table, and you.” From between chapped lips that hadn’t been adorned with lipstick for a long time, a thin breath escaped. “I mean, this refuge has ten more rooms to it! But with one press of a switch, it folds up smaller than an umbrella. Honestly, instead of hating the Nobility for their deeds, I’m more impressed by this—oh, do you mind if I smoke?”
Taking a crinkled paper pack from the chest pocket of her coat, she pulled a cigarette out before putting the rest away. She rubbed the end of the cigarette against the armrest, and it sparked to life.
“You a heavy smoker?”
Vera coughed furiously. The voice had been hoarse. Striking her chest a few times to get her breathing back under control, she said, “You’re quite the ventriloquist, aren’t you? But I can’t say I care for your tastes.”
D squeezed his left hand into a tight fist. The low voice was cut off.
“I went to college in the western Frontier, where I studied medicine and physics. As a result, I believe I know a little something about the scientific level of what the Nobles left behind and the substance of their civilization. The world may be guided by the will of the living, but it’s science that supports those efforts. Even hundreds of thousands of years from now, human beings probably won’t have reached the same level as the Nobility. Yet those same Nobles are now in their sunset. Are civilization and science such fleeting things? No, even with eternal life, they can’t stop the end of the world. What, then, is the meaning of life?”
“What do you think?” D inquired softly. Vera’s form was reflected in his deep, dark eyes.
The doctor hesitated a bit, taking a long drag of her cigarette, then slowly exhaling it. The smoke swelled like a mushroom, then quickly faded. Gazing at D, Vera said, “The meaning of life is . . . dying.”
Nothing from the Hunter.
“Or perhaps it would be better to say that being limited gives life purpose. It means people have to find a purpose for their own life. Even if they don’t always find one.”
“Everything finite comes to an end someday,” said D. A faint look of desolation flitted across his handsome visage. “In that respect, there’s no difference between humans and Nobles.”
“No, there’s a fundamental difference. Human beings can create life. For all their ageless immortality, the Nobility can’t do that. All they can do is drain humans of their blood and add them to their ranks. But they’re—”
“That, too, is a new life.”
Vera fell silent. She’d encountered similar situations before. That experience allowed her to choose the best response in a heartbeat.
III
“I don’t really understand what you’re saying.”
In the span of that one remark, the doctor’s brain was cycling through thousands of questions and answers. What are you saying? What do you mean by new life? New in what sense? How is that considered life? The answer came from a pitch-black region of the mind yet unmapped by cerebral physiology.
“D, do you mean to say becoming one of the Nobility is a form of living?”
“Perhaps it’s a new life.”
“Don’t kid me.” Vera smacked her right fist down on the armrest. Though a sharp pain ran all the way up to her shoulder, she didn’t notice it. Her whole body was hot. She wasn’t even aware that this was due to her anger. “And just how did you reach that conclusion? Those who are bitten by Nobles and join their ranks—they share the same loathsome thirst for blood, and seek it out. If that’s not a demon, what is?”
“Your kind also dines, do they not? Nobles drink blood—where’s the difference?”
“There’s a huge difference. They drink human blood! The person they feed on dies once. Then they become one of them. They’ll never know rest for all eternity.”
“Dying and then rising again. You wouldn’t call that a new life?”
“It’s not life. Nobles and their
former victims aren’t alive, but they’re not dead either. They’re known forever more as the living dead.”
“What of the Nobles, then?” D inquired in a tone that remained as still as a winter’s night.
“They’re—” Vera began, but she had nothing after that.
“Do you know whether or not they too have died and come back? Have you ever considered this: if they were dead from the very start, yet they moved, and thought, and even created a civilization, wouldn’t you consider them a new form of life?”
The doctor shook her head vehemently. Her thoughts wouldn’t gel. D expressed a view that she couldn’t deny had occurred to her before. However, now she would give anything to crush that heretical doctrine.
“Nobles can’t walk in the light of day.”
“There are exceptions.”
“Nobles sleep through the day in coffins.”
“And humans sleep through the night in beds.”
“They drink blood.”
“Humans eat meat. But when they take a life, it can’t rise again.”
“The life that rises again is cursed! Just like the Nobility!”
“Condemning the existence of the Nobility without understanding them isn’t the sort of thing anyone who professes to be a person of science should be doing.”
“I know the Nobility better than anyone.” Vera’s voice suddenly became low. “My mother was employed in a Noble’s mansion. They paid her salary, and they promised her that no one would suck her blood. The master of the house kept that promise. But the first time one of his guests laid eyes on my mother—well, she tried to run, but her throat was torn open, and she died. I’ll never forgive the Nobility.”
“My, my!” a hoarse voice remarked in amazement.
In the clever eyes of the doctor, hatred swirled in dark whirlpools.
Instances of Nobles hiring humans for a set period of time and then returning them to their homes were extremely rare outside the Capital. In the present era (when the meanings of the terms BC and AD had been lost), records existed of the contracts entered into from the year 5000 to 7500—with the stipulation that blood not be drunk—and the number of humans employed by the Nobility in that time frame totaled 7,628 for the entire Frontier. A large number of contracts were destroyed by Noble-hating humans, so precise numbers weren’t available, but roughly ninety-five percent of those contracts were satisfactorily completed—a fact that was in those days (and in the present as well) a major blow to scholars of the anti-Noble faction. At that time, the traditional view that the Nobility saw human beings only as food was badly shaken. However, for all the scholars of the pro-Noble faction who asserted that the Nobility’s cruelty and blood drinking were an inescapable destiny imprinted in their very DNA, some twenty-three hundred years later new excavations had unearthed truths that came as a great shock. Thanks to other contracts and the journals of Nobles from that same time frame, it became known that for every contract completed satisfactorily, three times as many had been horribly breached. After that, the anti-Noble faction’s predominance was unshaken, and continued so in the present day. As far as humans were concerned, the Nobility were demons who’d ruled over them for nearly ten millennia.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 22 Page 5
