Looking then at the bandits who’d splashed up blood and rain when they fell, he didn’t have a whit of emotion in his eyes. “Get in your coffin,” he said.
“D, there’s something I must tell you,” said the baron. “She didn’t take a drop of—”
“My rate just doubled,” D said as he walked toward the two carriages. “Which of you is going to pay the remainder?”
A hue of delight suffused Miska’s countenance.
“I will.”
“No, I shall pay it.”
And with these words, the baron took Miska’s shoulder and held her up while he quietly began to trail D.
Even in this gore-splattered world, D could see that the pair of Nobles had withstood the urge to drink human blood.
__
As the stark white ribbon of road continued on dispassionately through the ocher land, it seemed as if a lone magnificent flower had blossomed. A tent like the arc of a rainbow broken in two was set up by the side of the road—although it was actually little more than an awning. Inside, there stood a tall elderly man in a black tuxedo jacket and a silk hat. More conspicuous than the arrangement of red jewels on his bow tie was the man’s beard, which flowed all the way down to his chest.
Though the central highway was normally lightly traveled, because the villages in this area lived relatively close together there were many passersby, and nearly a dozen men and women had gathered around the tent. There were even two or three children.
“Well now, whether you’ve come here from far away or live close at hand, take a good look. Before you stands the world’s greatest prestidigitator—the road is my home, and people have come to call me ‘Lord Johann, the Trail Magician.’ Now you may enter and witness acts of legerdemain not to be seen in any village or town, nay, not even in the Capital, but only out on the road, and only for the price of one thin dant. Kindly pay the young lady.”
Only once he’d given his speech did the people notice the person off to the side indicated by his white-gloved hands.
A rumble churned through the crowd. Had that girl been there before?
She was pretty, and seemed oh-so-sad. As befit a magician’s assistant, the young lady wore a gold dress slit high up the side that gave tantalizing peeks of her pale thighs while she moved among the patrons and collected their coins in a second silk hat. The hair that hung all the way down to her waist was a hue of gold even more dazzling than that of her dress.
What was a woman like her doing by the side of the road out on the Frontier, working as the assistant to some petty little magician? That’s what the people wondered, but once Johann’s sleight of hand began, they were instantly captivated. His long white fingers flashed out, and between them, balls in four different colors appeared. With a single cry, they then transformed into four breathtaking beauties. Before everyone noticed they were the same girl who’d collected the money from them, the bevy of beauties became warriors clad in metal armor, and amid the cheers they then changed into a gigantic reptile that swallowed a nearby spectator whole.
It was all so incredibly real that the patrons were left silent and frozen in place. And at that very moment, the object of their terror vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed, leaving just the people and tent.
It was nearly noon. The heavy rains of the previous day were like a distant dream and the road was bone dry, leaving only the stark sunlight—and the creak of wheels. Almost everyone facing in his direction then caught the young man in black on a chestnut cyborg horse and the pair of carriages following along behind him from the corner of their eyes. The young man’s gorgeous features made them forget all about the golden maiden. Even the girl seemed enthralled by him.
“Did you all see that? Did you see that beautiful traveler?” Johann called out, his words accompanied by some exaggerated gestures.
Still facing forward, the young man in black rode off slowly.
Noticing that the pair of carriages trailing behind him apparently belonged to the Nobility, the people began to murmur a few minutes later, not because the impression the young man had left on them had become any weaker, but simply because their attention had veered from his unearthly aura.
As if that were precisely what he’d been waiting for, Lord Johann twisted a lock of his flowing beard as he told the restless spectators, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, do you know the secret to magic? The first thing you have to do is divert the audience’s attention away from the trick . . .”
__
About an hour after passing through a little village, D halted his horse. Ahead of them, the land took an ashen shade, and in scattered places there were glints of silver to be seen, like the tracks of a snail. The black trees crowding either side of the road became scarcer, and their silhouettes were stretched tall and thin like well-worn memories. Perhaps it was due to the miasma that gushed from the earth, but the most unsettling thing of all was the way even the very sunlight was warped, making distant vistas seem close at hand and things nearby so horribly distorted they slipped right out of view. This was a famous spot in this district, a vast swamp that stretched thirty miles east to west and a dozen north to south. It was said that poisonous gas issued from the ground in spots, and that monstrous fish large enough to swallow a grown man whole lurked in its waters.
Off to the left was a wooden pier that jutted out over the swamp. A pair of figures stood by it. D approached them. Without even glimpsing the faces of the rail-thin boy and the plump girl, the Hunter knew that they must be brother and sister. Each looked to be about eleven or twelve. Four battered suitcases rested at their feet. On noticing D, they both donned expressions that suggested they were lost in dreams, and when the Hunter dismounted, it only got worse.
On the wall of the rest house situated to the rear of the pier hung a metal plate with what was apparently a timetable. Though it was fifteen or twenty feet away and the print was so tiny it practically required a magnifying glass, D scanned it for a minute or two and then seemed satisfied.
“Um, excuse me,” the chubby girl said to him. Her face was flushed. “Which way are you going?”
Glancing down at her cheeks, which looked like they might fall off at any second from their own weight, D said, “North.”
Ordinarily, it was inconceivable that he’d answer a stranger’s question so promptly.
“Oh, so are we!” the girl said, fiddling with her hands in front of her chest. Stars glistened in her eyes as she gazed at D. Pattering over to the boy, she pointed to D as she said something, and then folded her hands as the two of them came back.
“That’s an awesome sword,” the boy commented in true male fashion. “Mister—are you a warrior? Or are you some kind of bodyguard?”
“Wrong on both counts,” D replied, his actions once again inexplicable.
“In that case—are you a Hunter?”
D said nothing.
“Holy! He’s the genuine article, Sis!”
Now there were two pairs of eyes filled with stars.
“Wow!” they both exclaimed with obvious appreciation as they began to circle around D. To anyone who didn’t know how hair-raisingly dangerous their actions actually were, this simply would’ve looked like a heartwarming scene at the ferry’s landing.
“Mister, we’re going to the Capital,” the boy said, his chest puffed out.
“What do you think we’re going to do there?” the girl then asked him.
“I can’t imagine,” the Hunter replied.
“This!” she exclaimed, her cry curling backward. Still wearing her heavy overcoat, the girl executed a perfect backward somersault.
And over her head flew a lithe figure clutching both legs—the boy. An instant before he landed, they both extended their arms, and the second they touched, the two of them flew up into the air together. Moving in spellbinding arcs as they passed each other, they then flew up higher. Even if there were something inside them that let them defy the laws of conservation of energy, it still would�
��ve been a stunning display of acrobatics. It almost seemed as if the siblings would never have to come back to earth again so long as their hands could touch.
Though their acrobatics seemed to be the work of angels, the performance was unexpectedly short. Piercing the mist, a massive hovercraft had appeared from the far reaches of the swamp. The jets of air shooting from the belly of the ship sent muddy water spraying wildly, and the craft’s speed was nearly sixty knots.
Coming back to earth without a sound from a height of thirty feet, the siblings raced over to D.
“How was that?”
“How was that?”
Both asked the same question at the same time. They certainly were brother and sister.
“Remarkable,” said D.
Although his reaction was far more miraculous than their performance, the children were frankly delighted.
Rolling closer, a white mist enveloped all three of them. The hovercraft—or swamp ferry—had plowed through the dank cloud as it pulled up to the pier. A sizable ship, it was large enough to accommodate up to a hundred people or twenty-five wagons and carriages. Onboard were four or five passengers that looked to be merchants, and as they disembarked, they bid farewell to the elderly ferryman who’d preceded them onto the pier. Their mouths all fell open when they saw D, but the way they paled on seeing the carriages behind him was truly a sight to see.
“All right, now, all aboard! Move along now! We’re off again in ten minutes!” the gray-haired ferryman called out in a raspy voice.
__
III
__
Less than ten seconds after they began to move, the rocks and pier had vanished behind a white veil. D was all the way at the stern of the ship, and his eyes were turned toward the pilothouse and the two children who were apparently talking to the ferryman.
Are we crossing a pond? a voice from the blue carriage asked him.
“A swamp. Get some rest,” D replied.
Shut in his coffin as it rode inside his carriage, the baron still seemed to be aware of the situation. If he were watching through a closed-circuit monitor, he never would’ve said anything about a pond, so he must’ve had some Noble extrasensory perception.
There are three other people here . . . and two of them are children.
Seeming to catch something in the baron’s tone, D got a hard look on his face as he told his employer, “Don’t go back on your word.”
I know. You needn’t worry, the carriage owner responded. It may go without saying, but this could be exactly what the enemy wants us to do. One of them flew.
“I realize that,” D replied, but his expectations remained a mystery.
This swamp was so deep in parts as to be practically bottomless, and if they were to fall off the ship, neither the carriages nor the coffins seemed likely to ever surface again. And skilled as D was, the morass surrounded him on all sides, and even he couldn’t have any way of combating an enemy who could attack from the air.
Just then, what had looked to be a fallen log floating some thirty feet ahead on their starboard side suddenly stood straight up like a proverbial jack-in-the-box and stretched right toward them.
The brother and sister shrieked with surprise.
Although it had appeared to be nothing more than a tree, it had a suckerlike mouth and a trio of eyes at one end.
“Oh my!” the ferryman shouted as he cut the wheel.
The ship veered to port, showering the creature with sludge in the process.
Which would be faster? The creature’s mouth rising over the boy’s head, or the ship’s turn?
Three figures sprinted into action. The two smaller ones flew back, the one in black moved forward, and then a flash of light surged out.
The creature’s severed head crashed against the deck with a booming thud, while its neck thrashed around like a whip. Suddenly, deep red blooms of blood formed in midair, but by the time they fell like an unseasonable winter shower, the ship was already pulling away at full speed, headed back the way it had come.
“What—what in the blue blazes are you kids?” the captain asked as he gripped the steering wheel, and his curiosity was completely understandable.
“We’re acrobats, as you can see,” the girl replied, spreading both arms wide and bowing in gratitude.
“We were invited to join a full-fledged troupe of performers in the Capital and left the little circus we’d been with up till now,” the boy said, putting his hand to his chest and bowing his head.
“The Capital, eh?” Doing a job like his, the old man must’ve had plenty of courage, so when he expressed his admiration, his tone was back to normal again. “That sure is a heck of a journey for a couple of kids out on the Frontier. What about your folks?”
“They died a long time ago,” the boy answered. There wasn’t a trace of gloom in his reply.
“Is that a fact? I suppose that wasn’t exactly the best thing for me to be asking,” the old man said with a grin.
“And you—” he said as he turned to D.
The boy and girl gazed at the Hunter with a look that surpassed mere respect—something that might even be called love.
Before the old man could continue what he was saying, D asked, “Aren’t we supposed to be taking a safe route?”
“Well, sure—it’s the same one as always. In a manner of speaking, that critter was the one that was off course. Very rare—doesn’t happen much at all, so you can put your mind at ease.”
“Is there a lair of dangerous creatures out here?”
“Sure. Further to the east. Not to worry, though. They’d never come out this way.”
“Is there any danger ahead?”
“Let me see—you mean the Sturm?”
“What’s that?” asked the Hunter.
“Nothing to be concerned about. We’ve still got plenty of time—” the old man was saying when his breath was suddenly taken away.
Ahead of them floated fallen black trees . . . and not just one or two. The swamp was filled with them for as far as the eye could see.
“That’s plain impossible! Their lair’s supposed to be way to the east of here!”
“Back away,” D said as he took the children by the hand.
“No time for that. We’ll have to pull through real slowly. Don’t talk. Don’t even breathe.”
Naturally that last request was absurd, but the look on the old man’s face made it clear he meant every word of it.
Now out in the middle of the black logs—or rather, the herd of long-necked dragons—the ship had cut its air jets and switched over to the low-speed mode of the gasoline engine and floats that jutted from the craft’s belly, creeping forward so slowly it wouldn’t raise even a ripple on the water’s surface.
While D was another matter, it came as no surprise that the children and the ferryman were pale faced and frozen with horror. But the boy and girl were truly people of the Frontier, and as such, they never took their eyes off the objects of their terror. Not even a yard away—their glistening black forms wiggled in the water and muck just a foot from the sides of the ship. Though they didn’t move much, occasionally one would twist itself a bit, and a number of others around it would writhe in response, bubbling the mud in a disturbing manner and even splashing some on the ship.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” the saying goes, but the only thing they hoped to win with this gamble was a chance to keep living—and this was like playing with marked cards. Not actually sure how much noise or movement it would take to wake the creatures up, the ferryman had the feeling that if the engine growled even a little bit louder or the waves from his vessel got just a tad stronger, the monsters would come down on them en masse.
The ship moved ahead. Their fate rested on the soft purr of the engine and the minor ripples it sent out.
Ten minutes passed . . . then twenty—and then the ferryman let out a faint cry of surprise.
Roughly a hundred yards ahead there weren’t any more of the mon
strosities. There were only expanses of black muck and silvery water for as far as the eye could see.
The brother and sister hugged each other without saying a word. The hands of both were still clasped by D.
“I’ll be damned!” the ferryman remarked, letting another cry of surprise slip out. But this time it had a different ring to it.
At the point where they would exit this unsettling waterway, a lone person was standing on the black mud. It was a man, and from the neck down, his body was hidden beneath a wine-red cape of some sort. His face was horribly gaunt. If the baron had been there instead of in his coffin, he would’ve seen that his worst fears had been realized. The night D had slain a subterranean foe, the baron had been assailed from the air by this very man.
“Are you an assassin?” D asked.
Though his question certainly seemed to reach the ears of the man up ahead, the siblings merely looked at D with an odd expression, and the ferryman didn’t even seem to notice that D had said a word.
“That’s right,” the man promptly answered. “My name is Hichou. I crossed paths with the owner of the carriage behind you before. This marks the second time—and there won’t be a third!”
“Did you have something to do with these creatures?” D asked.
They still had seventy yards to go.
“Right again. See, I left their favorite snack all along the ferry’s route. I’m surprised you made it this far. But this is the end of line.”
Hichou extended his arms, and his red cape spread out. It was a huge, wine-colored pair of wings.
The instant D saw the glistening cylinder the cape had concealed, he shouted, “Full speed ahead!”
They weren’t through the herd of monsters yet. Be that as it may, the ferryman followed his command as if under a spell. The hum of the engine changed, and at the same time it began to operate as a hovercraft again. A blast of air like a jet exhaust lifted the vessel three feet and propelled it forward at a speed of seventy-five knots.
The second the ship sped at the man, flames and white smoke flew from his cylinder.
Missing the ship by a hair’s breadth, the missile was swallowed by the water where the craft had been a second earlier, and then there was a roar as a pillar of water shot high into the sky.
Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts One and Two Page 7
