Vampire Hunter D Volume 22

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The door behind him opened.

  As stunned as Lourié was, his body still went into action. There was a space between two racks. Ever since entering the room, he’d had his eyes open for someplace he could hide. Children who lived on the Frontier were wise enough to know there was no telling when or where death might open its maw for them. Hiding himself, he held his breath. His eyes stared straight ahead. If you wanted to look at something too badly, your foe would detect your presence—and that could mean your life.

  Heavy footsteps entered the room. From behind them came another set—this one fairly light. The steps of an ordinary human.

  A burning curiosity needled Lourié. And it was coupled with fear.

  Who the heck is it? Are they with one of those things?

  The answers came from the new arrivals.

  “This place . . . It’s an arsenal?”

  It was a man, his breathing so feeble it seemed it might give out at any moment. It had to be—

  “Mr. Crey?”

  The blood chilling in his veins, the boy slapped his hand over his own mouth. Where he’d heard the footsteps, he now sensed a malevolent presence. And immediately, the footsteps headed straight for him.

  Lourié wasn’t about to sit there and silently await his fate. He dashed farther into the gap. The sound of footsteps continued. His heart seemed like it was going to explode. He could see the far end of the gap. Though he couldn’t be sure, the exit seemed better than staying where he was.

  The boy burst from the gap like a person possessed. A black wall loomed before him. The faceless figure had just drawn its longsword with its right hand and what looked like a pistol with its left.

  “Lourié? That’s you, isn’t it, squirt?” he heard Crey say behind him.

  Why didn’t the boy feel the tiniest bit of relief? Why did he think, Don’t come near me?

  The pistol-like weapon was trained on his face. Green glass was set in its barrel. This was a weapon the alien that Gilzen defeated hadn’t used—and when it went off, it would be the end of Lourié. The barrel of the gun whipped to the side. Light the same hue as the glass shot out, making a circular stain on the floor about fifteen or twenty feet beyond the boy. The stain was glowing. Once the light faded, the floor had been burned through in the shape of the stain. The barrel was jerked back toward him, and Lourié was paralyzed. However, his foe returned the weapon to its place on its belt.

  Lourié understood his foe’s intent. It was trying to intimidate him. It pursued its prey and frightened it, and when its prey was then powerless to resist, the thing would probably bring its sword down with evil satisfaction.

  The enemy fell back. It speculated that it had the boy thoroughly cowed. Turning its back to him, it went over to a rack of rifles, took one down, and braced it against its shoulder. It was weird how close to a human it was in its movements.

  “Don’t do it.”

  As those words were spoken, the figure that stepped between Lourié and the barrel of the gun grabbed the weapon and twisted it upward.

  “Mr. Crey?”

  “Run for it!”

  Though the face that turned toward Lourié was much paler than he remembered, it was definitely that of the outlaw he knew so well. The enemy used the second arm on its right side to draw the sword from its hip.

  “Go!”

  Lourié ran like mad for the door. In the doorway, he turned and looked. The faceless figure was just stabbing its blade into Crey’s chest.

  “Mr. Crey!”

  Closing his eyes, the boy dashed out the door. After that, he didn’t really remember what happened. His nose slammed into something. Lourié could feel blood gushing from it as he fell flat on his back. He was in a corridor in the castle.

  The boy opened his eyes. Another of the faceless figures stood there. That wasn’t all that strange. This was their “home,” after all. Without the slightest hesitation, the creature thrust the sword from its hip down toward Lourié’s face.

  –

  “Return,” Gilzen chanted before setting the summoning charm shaped like a reverse swastika on the table. He took a deep breath. This was the result of his extreme state of concentration. He sensed a presence moving behind him. Turning, Gilzen looked down by his feet. There was only one being who could enter his research center despite the guard sensors.

  “Mother dearest—what brings you here?”

  The shadow replied in the voice of an old but still sharp woman, saying, “Where has that man gone?”

  “Are you referring to D?”

  “Indeed I am—ah, that you say that name so flippantly! Your confidence always runs to excess.”

  “I do not take the man lightly.”

  Selecting a test tube from the equipment and tools littering the large table, Gilzen held it up by his eye. It was filled with a dark red liquid. Something a Noble could never mistake—blood.

  “That is why I work so feverishly to accomplish my great desire in an expedient fashion. This serum should take care of everything. My dreams—and those of the damnable Sacred Ancestor.”

  The shadow fell silent. It was a heavy silence, as if she’d lost her voice from the very start.

  Her next words were unveiled as Gilzen opened the locker beside him and took out a syringe. “Do you intend to repeat the same foolish sin, Duke? I came to stop that. Stop already. The Sacred Ancestor saw success but once. All of his later efforts were ultimately in vain. Not even you can hope—”

  “The Sacred Ancestor was too fixated on human beings.”

  Gilzen raised the syringe full of blood before his eye and gazed before him. He stared not at the syringe, but at the black curtain that loomed behind it.

  “He met with a single success,” said the Nobleman, “but that was no more than the result of a coincidence. Therefore, he was never able to accomplish it again. His ideal cannot be reached with humans, you see. That’s what I always asserted. We must seek the possibility outside, I said. What good fortune we had—they came to us, did they not? Like so!”

  As if crazed, Gilzen grabbed the cord that hung by his side and pulled it. The black curtain that towered before him parted down the middle.

  Behind it was a glassed-in room. A bizarre figure was hanging from the ceiling. Suspended by wires, the body of the four-armed creature was stained with a hue that could only be described as bluish green, though that was far from accurate. Its body closely resembled that of a human, but its muscles were braided like wires and the location and form of its joints were hardly what we would call normal. That probably determined the directions its limbs could turn. Its face was as long as a horse’s, but sunken in the center. Compared to its strangely large and almost perfectly circular eyes, its nose and the cruciform split that was apparently its mouth were very small, like a baby’s, so that while the teeth visible in its maw were keen as a beast’s, they could actually be termed cute due to their tiny size.

  “With no help from anyone, I captured these invaders from outer space. Even now we don’t know where they’re from, but I saw the tremendous value in them. Their value not as invaders, but as volunteers from the stars to help us carve open the future.”

  Gilzen rapped mightily against the glass with the scepter in his hand.

  “This is blood. We Nobles aren’t a new race that suddenly came into being ten thousand years ago. Our origins go back far earlier, to the time of Earth’s creation, making our kind ancient in comparison to the human race. I don’t know if it’s because of that or for some other reason, but at that point in time ten millennia ago, our species was already losing its vitality. Only the finest among us noticed it: myself and him. That is, the Sacred Ancestor. However, he and I took the possibilities of the Nobility in different directions. He tried to create a fusion of human and Noble, while I wished to mix our blood with that of aliens. My experiment had begun with their arrival. And for a while I was successful. Nobles injected with the alien blood I developed exhibited strength unimaginable in our kind
.”

  “And the Sacred Ancestor couldn’t forgive you for that,” the shadow woman said. It was the tone of one recounting a bitter memory. “He was ready to dispose of all the new Nobles you created and to hurl you and this castle into the pits of eternal destruction.”

  “Before he could, I used superadvanced technology acquired from the aliens to seal the castle away in ‘memory time,’ and the Sacred Ancestor changed my punishment to entombment deep in the earth.” Gilzen looked down at the shadow at his feet. “All because of something you said. Mother, the Sacred Ancestor complied with your wishes. Why was that?”

  “Ah,” the shadow said, writhing as if it quaked. “Please don’t ask me that. That I cannot tell you. I merely tried to save you. I am thankful to the Sacred Ancestor.”

  “What’s done is done. I thought it was something like that. But then he came. The potential they call D. He shakes me from my principles.” Gilzen chuckled. “You must fall, D, if I am to keep my hand on the rudder and steer the Nobility into the future.”

  “I’m frightened, Gilzen. My son, I have such fears. The instant I beheld that gorgeous youth, I thought I would faint. Ah, has the Sacred Ancestor reappeared? I thought to myself. If that is the case, Gilzen, that young man has come to bring about your end. Cast all this aside, and you and I can go somewhere where there are no humans or Nobility—out among the stars.” Her tone was nearly pathetic.

  And in response to his mother’s heartfelt concern for his well-being, the son replied with this: “Leave me.”

  No desperate plea came from her. Instead, she said, “I have set explosive charges on this floor. In less than ten seconds, this accursed laboratory will be destroyed, Gilzen.”

  At her horrifying words, an evil grin came to Gilzen’s lips. That was all.

  “What a foolish act for my mother to commit. It would appear you’ve grown not a speck wiser in ten thousand years.”

  Gilzen brought the syringe in his hand up to his neck—and drove it into his carotid artery.

  The instant he finished injecting its crimson contents, the heavens and earth rumbled. Gilzen smirked. The smile was still frozen on his face as the floor and ceiling of his laboratory collapsed, and both he and the shadow were swallowed up by the chaos.

  II

  Destruction ran tooth and nail through the castle’s interior, and in accordance with the building’s strange construction, it struck in the most unlikely places. Two floors below the laboratory not so much as a speck of dust stirred, yet the underground prison took a direct hit. The next thing Dust knew, he was outside the prison. The wall before his eyes was split open, with pitch blackness filling the gap. One after another, cold specks struck his cheeks. Snowflakes. There was a snowstorm raging. His right shoulder hurt him terribly. Though he turned back for a look at the prison, he couldn’t see it for the mountain of rubble. There was some question as to whether the prison had actually been there or not.

  He put his hand against his shoulder. It was clearly broken, a critical injury for a bodyguard. Getting up, he turned his eyes toward the crack. As soon as he was through it, he rolled off to one side. His left knee felt like it was burning from the inside out. There was a fragment of something stuck in it. He intended to cool it off with the snow. Sticking his leg in the snow, he reached for his shoulder with his left hand. He had no intention of fleeing. As long as Vera and Lourié were in the castle, his job guarding them wasn’t finished.

  After he’d put snow on his shoulder a number of times, the sound of snow under foot reached his ears. The being that’d saved them from the mountain folk flashed to his mind. They didn’t know yet whether that was a friend or a foe, and the footsteps might also be those of the mountain folk. He didn’t have a weapon. Dust picked up a chunk of rock that lay at his feet.

  The snowstorm was fairly strong. Up ahead, a gray figure came hazily into view. He couldn’t tell the range. It was probably twenty yards or more away.

  Sleepiness suddenly assailed him. The snow that dulled his pain had numbed his consciousness.

  If I go to sleep, I’ll die. This is no good.

  He tried to snap out of it, but his consciousness started to slide away. He put his strength into his right arm. An acute pain, like his shoulder was being ripped off, restored his focus.

  Dust opened his eyes and followed the shadowy figure with them. It stood right in front of him. Displaying a wild growth of hair and beard, the man wore an old pair of goggles and battered clothes that were like animal skins knotted to a parka. The bow he carried and the quiver on his hip made Dust tense up.

  “Are you . . . Lourié’s father?” the bodyguard asked.

  The pair of vacant eyes in that deeply snow-burned face reflected Dust. Suddenly, they burned red.

  –

  D halted. Since leaving the hall, he’d been wandering the castle’s interior for more than an hour. Even his left hand’s sense of direction had become befuddled.

  “The castle’s layout is like a labyrinth,” it said. “If it were one of the Nobility’s mazes I could manage something, but it uses alien laws of physics. Probably technology those faceless bastards brought with ’em. From what I hear, that clown’s got a rivalry with the Sacred Ancestor, and he aims to make another you! With Gilzen’s combat abilities trumping yours and stuff from wherever those UFOs call home, he could probably do it.”

  “Where has Gilzen’s chamber shifted to?”

  “See, the thing is, the blueprints I memorized keep changing, over and over. Now—it’s kinda indistinct. It’s vanished from the blueprints.”

  “I can’t just keep walking around.”

  “I know that. But where are we supposed to go?”

  Suddenly the floor beneath the Hunter began to move. It was the moving sidewalk Vera had ridden. D stayed on it. With no set destination, there was no need to get off.

  He jolted along for about five minutes but encountered no one.

  “Too damn big,” the hoarse voice said, and its impression was right on the mark. Wherever the skirmishes were taking place, they hadn’t spread to where D was.

  In the next ten minutes of riding the moving sidewalks, D changed the section he was on three times. Even the hoarse voice was quiet. It was the Hunter who seemed to choose the path to their destination.

  At times disembarking from the moving sidewalks, at other times boarding them, before long he came to see an enormous door up ahead. Though one characteristic of the ancient Nobility was having every imaginable place covered with carvings and sculptures, this door over thirty feet wide and fifteen feet high was utterly devoid of ornamentation. Before that glossy bluish-black surface D stepped off the moving sidewalk. Flames burned in iron braziers to either side of the door.

  “Here?” the hoarse voice inquired. It too seemed to understand this was the new destination. “There must be some vortex of supernatural air here that drew you all this way. Only the tiniest portion of it is escaping, but look at me—I’ve got goose bumps! Do you hear that?”

  D nodded. His eyes gave off a red glow. And look, peeking from the corners of his trembling lips—the fangs of a vampire.

  “You hear them, don’t you—the noises those inside are making?” the left hand said. “They sense you, too. Your presence. They’re scared, and in high spirits, and filled with joy. At the thought of eating you up, that is. Don’t do it. I ain’t saying they’re more than you can handle, just that it’s a waste of time. That, and there’s the concern that your psyche might get warped. Oh, those eyes, and those teeth of yours—and what’s with that blood? So excited you’ve chewed through your own lip? I don’t care how cool and collected you are, so long as you’ve got Noble blood in you, you can’t fight the thrill of battle. Okay, let’s move along now!”

  D’s right hand went for the hilt on his back.

  “Stop! Don’t do it!”

  The left hand’s shouts stretched out to the side. At the same time D let out an insane cry and drove his sword into the great steel door.
There was smoke. Still poised as he’d been when he struck with his blade, D didn’t move. The blade of his sword was stuck in the steel, and his left hand reached for the brazier. Little by little, the flames burned his hand. Suddenly letting out his breath, D allowed the tension to drain from him. As he stood up straight, he pulled his blade back out, then brought back his left hand. He closed his melted fingers tight. He’d stuck his hand into the flames of his own volition. The heat of his flesh burning had returned him to his senses. His blade hadn’t cut very deeply into the door.

  “You’re crazy,” his left hand told him. D’s fingers were already back to normal. “We really escaped by a hair’s breadth that time. The cut may be shallow, but I can’t believe you managed even that much. You truly are his own—”

  “What’s that?”

  D, why do you have to ask that in a way that makes the blood run cold in all who hear your query?

  His left hand fell silent.

  D’s eyes turned to the far end of the moving sidewalk. A second sidewalk ran in the opposite direction, parallel to the first. Far down it, a number of figures appeared. All were on their knees or leaning on what appeared to be spears, having the air of the wounded about them. In fact, the men actually were covered in blood, and their breathing was faint. They were soldiers of the same Sacred Protector Knights D had fought. But they weren’t just returning from a battle with him—those who’d turned a blade against D were left worse than wounded.

  Suddenly the soldiers turned around. Letting out cries of fear, they leveled their weapons.

  A tall figure was coming down the moving sidewalk with long strides. It was one of the faceless, four-armed creatures. One of its right hands held some sort of pistol, and one of the left ones a sword. Apparently it’d lost its long spear and crossbow in the course of the battle.

  One of the soldiers got up and hurled the sword he held. His foe’s left hand shot out, and the weapon was deflected with a sound of unearthly beauty, piercing the heart of the soldier who’d thrown it. The remaining soldiers didn’t choose to flee. Taking weapons in hand, they charged their enemy en masse. A split second before they did, one at the very back of the group turned in D’s direction. Their eyes met. It was only for a moment. The soldier then followed the others.