Although it seemed like the baron had been killed instantly, at that point a second spear sank into his solar plexus with a dull thunk! The baron didn’t so much as twitch.
A dozen seconds or so passed—and then, from the depths of the darkness where not even the birds sang, a human figure suddenly drifted to the fore. A man dressed in black. The face illuminated by the moonlight looked horribly pale, and it had nothing to do with the source of the light.
“I finally got my turn. Never thought it’d be this easy, though,” a voice entirely lacking in vigor muttered as a man approached with a gait equally devoid of vitality.
When he’d come within ten feet of the baron, the figure in blue sat up with lightning speed and hurled the short spear that’d pierced his chest. Blazing through the air, the spear went right through the man’s heart, just as intended, leaving him standing stock still.
“Oh, so you’re still alive?” the baron said as he got up, pulling the other spear from his abdomen before approaching the man with long strides. “You almost had me there for a second, sir. I should like your name.”
There was no stain on the chest of the Nobleman’s blue garments, for the baron had caught the deadly short spear in flight and cradled it in his armpit.
“Vince,” the man replied, and a mysterious odor began to fill the air simultaneously.
Just then, something strange, or rather very unusual, happened. The baron slowly put his fangs into the neck of the man—Vince—and drank his blood. While this wasn’t at all abnormal for a member of the Nobility, it was something that never should’ve happened in a place like this.
Several seconds passed—and then a cry of agony rose to the night sky.
“Your blood . . . It’s acid . . .” the baron gasped, bringing his hand to his throat and backing away while white smoke rose from his mouth. His lips, mouth, and tongue were all burning.
Smirking at the foe who’d pierced his heart, the man said, “Precisely. It’s also loaded with garlic extract. The first smell was something I was finally able to synthesize—something that would attract vampires alone. You wanted to drink blood so badly, you brought about your own demise.”
“Why . . . won’t you die?” the baron said, his mouth disgorging both the words and a large quantity of blood. The acid had begun to dissolve his internal organs.
“I introduced myself, didn’t I? My name is Vince. As in ‘invincible.’ No mere spear is going to kill me. That’s why I’m able to synthesize poisons in my own body.”
“How informative.”
Saying this, the baron spat out a mass of blood at his feet. When he turned toward the astonished Vince, the Noble’s face was still just as pale, but it was filled with a much greater vitality than before.
“Impossible! You mean to tell me the garlic extract had no effect on you?”
“No, it had an effect. But at present the situation’s not quite so favorable. I’m out of my mind with rage now. And that’s far more powerful than your poisons.”
There in the darkness, a pair of lights began to glow like flames—the eyes of the baron.
“This is simply unforgivable. If you are invincible, as you boasted, none of my attacks should have any effect on you.”
An amber flash of light shot out at the young man from the interior of the blue cape. Without time to dodge it, his head was separated from his body and went sailing through the night air. At the same time, iridescent smoke rose straight up out of the stump of his neck, smothering the moonlight.
Unable to remain upright this time, Vince’s body tumbled to the ground, and shortly thereafter the baron fell to his knees. The poisonous smoke had taken its toll. But only briefly, as the baron soon staggered back to his feet. Considering the potency of the poisonous smoke, he exhibited physical and mental strength that would’ve caused even other Nobles to marvel.
“Where did he go?” the baron muttered. He was referring to young Hugh, of course. “The scent of blood remains. What happened here?”
This was indeed the spot where the boy had slammed into a boulder he didn’t see and fallen to the ground. Although catching the scent of blood that’d seeped into the ground hours earlier was one of the Nobility’s preternatural abilities, it was curiosity about the fate of the missing boy that’d stirred the baron’s ire and made him weather Vince’s attacks.
“I’ll find him if it’s the last thing I do . . . even if it’s just his remains.”
Not long after the baron vanished into the darkness, from the direction Vince’s head had disappeared, a vacant voice distinctly lacking in vigor could be heard to say, “I can see now why one of his own kind would want to murder a Noble like that—this’ll take more than ordinary measures. Of course, I’m not all that easy to kill myself . . .”
†
__
D and the three women set up camp in the woods on the outskirts of town. All the lights in the post town had gone out, and not even the cries of the night-singing birds could be heard.
Consoled by Taki, May had finally calmed down a bit, but from time to time, she looked at D with inexpugnable traces of sadness and anger in her eyes. The flames from a fire built with branches they’d collected illuminated her face.
As he leaned back against the blue carriage a short distance away, D stared off into the darkness before him. Though his lips didn’t move at all, that didn’t mean he wasn’t having a conversation.
“Not exactly the most comfortable place to be, is it?” a hoarse voice from the vicinity of his left hand said in a mocking tone. “Even if you finish this job, it’s gonna be a pretty painful one. I mean, it’s not like you’re not worried about the kid, and on top of that—”
Cutting off the voice, D said, “Where are you going?”
His question was directed at the figure who’d just opened the door to the white carriage and stepped down to the ground.
“That’s my own business. Or so I should like to say, but I don’t imagine that would suffice for you, would it? If I told you I was going for a walk, would you give me permission?” Miska said, turning away indignantly. Her right hand carried a fairly large box. The jewels that studded it glittered in the moonlight.
“Don’t go anywhere near the town.”
“I understand that,” the woman in the white dress said before her form dwindled into the depths of the moonlit forest.
“There are no houses over that way. Must just be an ordinary stroll. After all, for them, it’s like the middle of the day,” his left hand remarked. “But all that aside, there is one thing that has me wondering.”
“I know,” D responded.
“That guy back at the arsenal—he got taken out much too easily. I mean, any way you look at it, it doesn’t seem like the kind of monster that’d be feared even by the Nobles who created it.”
There was no reaction from D.
__
Miska maintained her pace for about ten minutes before stopping.
She was in the middle of the forest. Although devious shapes and crimson eyes moved through the branches and behind the trees, none of them approached the pale woman who seemed like some sort of forest nymph. No matter how great her beauty, they could tell she was a Noble.
The place where Miska halted was a circular clearing. Mere coincidence hadn’t formed it. Judging from the faces of what looked to be stone sculptures poking from the ground here and there, it had apparently been a place for rituals of some sort in ancient times.
Standing in the middle of the clearing, Miska looked up at the heavens. As she took a deep breath, the crisp night air and the perfume of nocturnal blooming flowers flowed into her.
“It’s a nice night,” the woman in the white dress said, setting the box she carried down on the ground and gently opening its lid. Extending both hands, she pulled out a single golden disk. The box was a player.
The antique platter seemed like it must have been several millennia old, and Miska gazed at it dolefully as she put it into the player
. The three seconds it took before the fifty-thousand-micron memory particles began to play back were by far the most melancholy for this Noblewoman.
A burst of noise enveloped Miska. The pensive melody of a violin rang in her ears. Why did the accompaniment of a waltz always have to be that way? The aroma of an understated perfume filled her nostrils, and the next thing Miska knew, the eyelids she’d held closed had opened quite naturally.
“Hello there!” Baron Krolock said, one hand raised in greeting.
Though he had the avian slimness of a crane, his razor-sharp nails could have killed an armored beast instantly. There was no one more learned in the field of Humanity in the Middle Ages.
Behind him, the couple Mircalla and Adam Karnstein chatted away. Apparently they’d just come back from a trip through the stratosphere in an ion ship shaped like a swan. After another five centuries or so, the two of them were talking about having their coffins put into orbit around the earth.
So many figures glided elegantly above Miska, for the ball had already begun. White dresses and black formalwear spun in graceful circles as blue lighting rained down, and the flowers that adorned the crystal tables swayed in the breeze blowing through the hall.
A handsome young man stood in front of Miska and bowed. It was a son of the Zollern clan. The high, straight line of his nose was to Miska’s liking. Both the way he slipped his fingers into hers and his steps on the dance floor were impeccable. What followed was the sweet strains of a waltz and blue light.
In the distance, there was a woman’s voice. Why is it that we cast no shadow? Glasses, marble pillars, and carriages all throw a shadow on the ground, so why not our kind?
You’re drunk, a different voice said soothingly.
That is the very proof that we are Nobility, yet another voice asserted.
In the blue light, a dance for the people of the night went on and on. They lived outside the passage of time, knowing no springtime of youth and no decay.
Miska turned around suddenly. Quickly pulling the player closed, her left hand hit the old-fashioned kill switch. The shrill notes faded. The hall faded, too. Even the people faded away.
In the clearing in the night woods, Miska stood alone. But not really—in front of the thicket to her left stood a trio of figures. D and the two girls.
“What do you want?” Miska asked softly.
A hot mass was rising from the pit of the Noblewoman’s stomach. Whether it was anger or something else, even she couldn’t say. This wasn’t something to be seen by humans. That was why she’d come out here.
D didn’t answer her.
“He invited us to come out here with him,” said May.
“What is the meaning of this? Did you follow me out here knowing I’d come to relive dreams of long ago?”
If D had thought Miska was going to be in danger, he’d never have brought the girls with him.
“I saw the player,” D replied.
Miska first knit her brow, then laughed haughtily.
“Kindly refrain from your jests. This is a priceless item bestowed upon my grandfather by the Sacred Ancestor. There’s no way the likes of you would know anything about it . . .” she said, but her voice petered out and her eyes quickly opened as wide as they could go.
Left as horribly shocked as if she’d taken a blow to the head, Miska stared at the gorgeous Hunter.
“Is this truly the same player? Why don’t you tell me the name it was given?”
Miska’s field of view was occupied not only by D, but by the two girls as well. And by the look they gave her. It was one of sympathy and understanding. However, that was precisely what invited Miska’s fury.
“Answer me! What was this possession of the Sacred Ancestor called?”
The madness that gripped her was something she herself couldn’t fathom, and it caused her fangs to poke out over her crimson lips.
D put his hands on the two girls’ shoulders. As the three of them turned, the Noblewoman was just about to call out to them—
“It’s ‘Shin-ai,’” a hoarse voice said, stopping Miska from shouting anything further.
That was the correct answer.
“Shin-ai . . .” Miska said, rolling the word around in her mouth. It was bitter as a pill, and sweet as molasses.
Just before they vanished behind a stand of trees, Miska saw the little girl turn and look at her as clear as day. She had the same look in her eye again.
“Shin-ai—how ridiculous!” the Noblewoman spat with rage.
In the language of a country that’d long since been destroyed, that name had meant ‘beloved.’
__
III
__
“Has he finally gone?” a tree whispered in the darkness sixty feet above the earth. On a large branch near the top of the tree, a pair of figures stood blended with the shadows. “Even watching him from way up here is enough to give me goose bumps. You sure are lucky to have fought him and lived to tell the tale.”
It was Mario.
“Yeah, I just realized that myself. I thought that if he got in the way when we tried to grab that Noble, we’d just take him on, but then I suddenly didn’t feel like coming down out of the tree.”
Wiping the sweat from his face with the edge of his brown cape was the man D had referred to as Crimson Stitchwort. From what he’d just said, they had planned to abduct Miska and had apparently hidden up on a branch toward that end. But the real question was how they’d made it out here.
Actually, they’d circled ahead. Back before Hichou was slain in the swamp, they’d used the same kind of flight pack he had to cross the swamp, and then waited for his return. Instead, it was D and his group that’d arrived. The death of their compatriot had angered them, but the fiends had exchanged unsettling grins. Any danger of Hichou earning the whole reward for himself had passed.
Knowing D’s fearful strength, they refrained from launching a massed attack on his party and simply watched them go, so that they could learn their route and head them off. When they’d confirmed that the party had entered the Talos arsenal, they’d clucked their tongues and thought that would be the end of it, but when they saw everyone leave again without harm, their fear of this formidable foe only increased. They knew in the marrow of their bones that any haphazard attacks would be futile. The only thing that would slay the Nobles and D was an exhaustively detailed plan with an assault that was swift and precise. And having reached that conclusion, the assassins had hastened to the next post town to buy themselves enough time to come up with a strategy. That was how they’d managed to avoid becoming embroiled with the monstrous cloud and the great flood D and his group had encountered.
On the other hand, they also didn’t realize that D’s party was going to be late, so the pale young man whose turn it was to attack next had grown impatient and gone out to scout for them. Though he’d taken the main road, D had elected to use a riskier but comparatively shorter back road. And that had been so he could drop Taki and May off in town.
Of course, the other three who’d remained at the inn knew that D and his group had paid the town a visit. And from the trip so far, they could well imagine where the Hunter would stop for the night. Then Crimson Stitchwort and Mario had watched the group camping out from the top of a big tree. The preparations had been made. Though their plans were upset when the baron doubled back on the road they’d taken there, it still looked like the assassins could slay D and the Noblewoman.
However, the elderly priest who was supposed to be the next attacker—Yoputz—had suddenly vanished, and that only further complicated their plans.
And that wasn’t all. While they continued their surveillance, they couldn’t believe how harsh D’s unearthly aura felt as he drew closer. Filling with chills, they made excuses about how it wouldn’t be right for them to skip Yoputz’s turn while he was gone, and then decided they should just remain observers.
And then the female Noble had left D and gone deep into the forest. Given this per
fect opportunity, they’d followed after her, but D and the girls had soon appeared, and it seemed that their attack on the Noblewoman wasn’t meant to be. However, D had soon left.
The pair’s conversation continued.
“Are we gonna do it?”
“Of course.”
“Well, Yoputz is gonna be pissed. He’ll be all over us for going out of order,” said Crimson Stitchwort.
“The Noblewoman’s of no consequence. From the very start, she wasn’t covered by our contract, so anyone can do whatever they like to her. It’s a hell of a lot less trouble than trying to have a go at D. Besides, when our turn comes up next, it’ll be a lot easier to handle D and the Noble in blue if we’ve got a hostage.”
Oh, so these two were saying they intended to abduct the female Noble?
Far below the pair’s gaze, Miska stood alone, her mind in a haze.
“Well, let’s get to it. We’d better act fast, before D gets wise to us,” Mario said, and with that, he sat down cross-legged on the branch and closed his eyes. Apparently focusing his will on something, he looked as sublime as a monk earnestly endeavoring to grasp the truths of the universe.
Around Miska, black forms came into view less than a second later. Needless to say, they were dolls under Mario’s control. Ordinarily, they would serve as a distraction so the real Mario could attack and slay his opponent. However, even when the shadowy figures approached, Miska stood in a daze, not even bothering to look at them. Although someone clucked his tongue in the distant treetop, that sound didn’t reach Miska, of course.
The next instant, a foglike mass drifted out in the moonlight. Settling neatly over Miska’s pale figure from above, it was clearly a net made of a fine line that was nigh invisible. In less than the time it took to draw a breath, Miska had been hauled into the air.
Once he’d pulled Miska all the way up to the branch, Crimson Stitchwort secured her like an insect in a cocoon.
“She can’t talk now, right?” he asked Mario, just to be sure.
“Yep,” the puppet master said with a nod, his meditative state already broken. “That net’s woven from the same string that controls my dolls. The instant it wraps around something, it sinks right into the flesh and keeps them from even breathing. The woman should be out cold.”
Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts One and Two Page 14
