Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts One and Two

by Pale Fallen Angel (Parts 1

  “You are the first guests I’ve had in five thousand and one years, two hundred and ninety-eight days. And such a regal visitor; I must prostrate myself before you. Kindly convey your every wish to me.”

  “I’d like you to calculate the gross weight of those in the carriages in the main hall plus the two of us and prepare a suitable aircraft. Posthaste.”

  “Understood.”

  “One thing more. A cyborg horse of the highest grade.”

  “Understood. Please return to the hall. All shall be prepared in accordance with your instructions.”

  As they were headed back to the transport, Taki called out somewhat impatiently, “D—who or what are you? You get the run of the place in an area where even VIPs can’t go. The main computer obeys your every command without so much as an ‘if’ or a ‘but.’ No ordinary Noble could do that.”

  Not saying a word, D gestured to the transport.

  Obviously the motion indicated she should get in, but Taki wouldn’t move. Her visions of D’s true nature had even made her forget how afraid she should be of disobeying him.

  “Dhampirs have a Noble as one parent . . . D, could it be that your parent was—”

  “Get in,” the Hunter said, his tone of ice and snow crushing Taki’s will to pieces.

  __

  III

  __

  When the pair returned to the hall, they were greeted by the baron and Miska. Ordinarily, when the actual time was day, Nobles couldn’t even move around in darkened places. Although it was clear the baron was somewhat special in that regard, Miska may have been aided by the power of the Destroyer.

  Taking a peek into the other carriage, Miska saw that May wasn’t there.

  “Before I came out, she said she was going to have a look around and got out of the carriage,” said the baron.

  “That’s not good. I’ll have to go look for her,” said an apprehensive-looking Taki.

  To which Miska remarked with loathing, “What pleasure could a lowly human find in exploring the Nobility’s complex? Either she shall soon be back, or else she’s lost her way and is blubbering somewhere. Why don’t you go find her so the two of you can enjoy a good cry together?”

  Taki was glaring indignantly at the pale beauty when a female voice from above inquired, “How may I assist you?”

  Lowering his left hand, D said, “A human girl has wandered off in the complex. Do you know where she is?”

  “She is in the outer terminal. Go outside and proceed north for approximately fifteen hundred feet and you should find her headed in the same direction.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “Don’t be absurd. Please feel free to call on me for whatever you require.”

  The voice faded, leaving only astonishment in the hall.

  “This is quite a surprise,” the baron said with great relish. “That was the voice of a special class-A computer. They have as much pride as any person. She’d never be so subservient to ordinary Nobility. D—who are you?”

  Naturally, there was no reply, and even Miska could only stare at D in an absent-minded daze.

  D went outside without saying a word. In a landing space about three hundred feet ahead of him, a silver craft lay on its side. Although its stocky exterior could never be described as sleek, the ion engines slung beneath the little wings jutting from the craft spoke volumes about its flight capabilities.

  D headed north on foot. And he did indeed see May about fifteen hundred feet ahead of him. The only thing that didn’t jibe with the computer’s description was the fact that she wasn’t moving. She was rooted in place, and before her stood a figure in black. A bit larger than D and a head taller—you could say it was a giant.

  Sprinting forward, D left the wind churning in his wake.

  May was quickly scooped up. In the giant’s hands, the girl’s form looked heartbreakingly tiny and frail.

  D halted about six feet shy of the towering figure.

  There was no murderous intent. Nor was there any tension. Between the two of them lay a void immeasurable to anyone else.

  “It can’t be . . .” a hoarse voice muttered, but whether that reached the ears of the pair was open to debate. “Could it be . . . him . . . here?”

  The voice streamed in a gentle arc before stopping. D had raised his left hand and extended it to May.

  The gigantic figure didn’t react immediately. The almost imperceptible wind rustled his wild jungle of hair and tore mercilessly at the sleeves of the black coat that nestled May, exposing the garment’s red lining. Looming over D like some tremendous mountain, the figure seemed rooted to the expanse of concrete.

  The giant’s upper body trembled slightly, and then May was resting in the crook of D’s left arm.

  At that moment, D heard footsteps behind him.

  “D! What’s the matter?!” Taki asked the Hunter as she halted beside him and caught her breath. She’d come out in search of May.

  Taking his eyes off the endless expanse of the arrival terminal, D passed May to the young woman. There was a melancholy to the young man that anyone who knew his usual demeanor would’ve found unimaginable.

  “D, the baron’s—” she started to say.

  “You go on ahead,” said D. His voice held a flat rejection in it. He didn’t even seem conscious of his own words as his beautiful eyes remained concentrated intently on the spot where the massive figure had been before it disappeared.

  Taki left without saying another word.

  After they’d gone about fifty yards, she asked May what, if anything, had happened.

  “This big person picked me up! And then Mr. D came.”

  “Was it a Noble?” Taki asked, the color swiftly draining from her countenance. If there were more Nobility at the terminal than just the baron and Miska . . .

  “I don’t know. But he was really big! And I wasn’t the least bit scared.”

  “In that case . . . I guess he must’ve been something else.”

  Just as Taki turned to look at D despite herself, the girl blurted out the strangest thing. And after saying it, it was May herself who was surely the most upset. This was a result of Taki’s expression and tone of voice when she turned to face the girl again.

  “What did you just say?”

  The young woman’s voice had a ring to it that made it seem like she, too, had been transformed into a Noble, and it frightened the girl.

  What May had said was, “I couldn’t see his face, and he wasn’t the same type at all—but somehow, he seemed just like D.”

  __

  And there was one more thing that left Taki terrified as well.

  When the two girls returned to the hall, there was no sign of the carriages, the baron, or Miska. They’d suddenly disappeared.

  __

  Soon after the two girls had gone, D’s left hand asked, “Was it him?”

  “Probably.”

  “Probably? You mean to tell me you don’t know your own—”

  The voice was cut off there.

  His left hand still balled in a tight fist, D asked, “Where did that man go to just now?”

  The reply came immediately.

  “Whomever could you mean?”

  “Do even the computers here play games?”

  “Pardon me, but I cannot comprehend your question.”

  Saying nothing further, D returned to the hall. And there he found that everyone—Taki and May included—had vanished.

  “Where did they go?” he asked, but there was no reply. “Answer me!”

  “I cannot disobey that order. I shall give you an answer. They’ve been imprisoned in a given location,” the computer replied, the adoring tone of the voice making the information it conveyed all the more shocking.

  “Why?”

  “In order to keep you here in this terminal.”

  “How long?”

  “Forever.”

  “If I’ll stay, will you let the rest go?”

  “I promis
e.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Actually—” the female voice said, the words vanishing into space. She hadn’t decided against finishing the reply, but rather it had been cut off by an impossible swell of emotion. She was moved.

  D noticed someone approaching from the depths of the hall. It was the same gigantic figure again. Disheveled was the best way to describe his hair, and as always, it fluttered in the wind. It almost looked as if the winds were generated by the violent emotions the giant kept in check. Lips that seemed lacquered with darkness opened. And surely enough it was darkness that packed his maw.

  D appeared to be waiting for the words that would spill from it.

  The wind howled. The giant had just expelled the air from his lungs.

  Like someone speaking for the first time in his life, the giant coughed. It was a short time more before a creak of a voice escaped him.

  “D . . . D . . .”

  When D bounded, it looked as if it were out of anger at having his name said that way.

  “Wait!” said a voice that belonged to neither of the men, and the giant leapt back a good fifteen feet without making a sound, his cape spreading wide in the process.

  D crouched reflexively, the blade he’d just brought down now held out perfectly straight in front of him. Around them, the walls and doors collapsed like something out of a dream. The winds whipped up by that cape had the power to corrode anything. Just before the wind could hit the Hunter it was hewn in two by his blade, while D waited for the moment the giant’s cape stopped moving to hurl a rough wooden needle. While the giant caught it in one hand, D leapt forward with his sword, and this time he split the other man from the top of his head to the end of his chin. Astonishingly enough, this seemed to be enough to destroy the behemoth. His form distorted, twisting, and by the time it hit the floor it no longer resembled anything human, transformed instead into an amalgamation of countless substances.

  “Synthetic proteins, reconstructed muscle—the internal organs are all artificial, too. I’m surprised this thing was able to dodge your first blow,” a hoarse voice remarked with amazement.

  “Not so surprising for him,” D replied.

  The hoarse voice’s silence signaled its agreement, for the source of that voice was also well acquainted with the man they referred to only as “him.”

  Sheathing his blade, D asked, “So, do you have any more of him?”

  There was silence.

  “Answer me. Where are the others?”

  His face was bleached white—the false night had been lost. The lighting faded, and the true sunlight threw a lengthy shadow of D across the floor.

  “Lousy computer!” the hoarse voice snapped. “Looks like it’s cut its own circuits, eh? You know the saying, dead men tell no tales.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “In the main control room, I suppose. You know, five hundred stories up.”

  Ignoring the sarcastic tone, D walked toward the door in the back.

  “That was just a cheap copy of him,” the voice continued without flinching. “But it wasn’t the same one you ran into the first time. Watch yourself. Seems there are more of him around.”

  “Why are they after me?” D muttered as he halted in front of the elevator.

  The voice fell silent at that, as if dumbfounded. “Why, that’s easy—because you’re—”

  Here it took a deep breath.

  “But wait—You know, come to think of it, he’s never made a move against you. And then to go to all the trouble of making them look just like himself, it’s really—”

  D’s left hand was crushed against the power circuits for the elevator system, for which D had found and opened the compartment. Pale blue sparks flew, and the infusion of this external power made the elevator control system ignore its instructions from the computer and go back into operation.

  Several seconds later, D got off on the five hundredth floor.

  __

  IV

  __

  The room that had been swimming in light was now submerged in a feeble darkness. Looking around from the doorway, D then proceeded to the center of the room. Apparently he could discern the layout of the control center at a glance.

  The end of a four-inch cylinder was set in the middle of the floor.

  “Can you do it?” asked D.

  “You got dirt?”

  Taking black earth from his coat pocket, D piled it in the palm of his left hand. The soil was quickly inhaled, and the tiny mouth that appeared from below it let a satisfied belch escape.

  “Next comes the water, you know.”

  Raising the hand that had both eyes and a nose, D put his index finger against his right wrist and pulled. The fresh blood that spouted from him was sucked up to the very last drop.

  “Not much we can do about fire and wind. But I suppose I’ll manage somehow.”

  Before the dissatisfied voice had finished speaking, D pressed his left hand to the end of the cylinder. In about two seconds there was light.

  “Okay! The circuits are connected. Now to check out the plans of the place.”

  A pale blue tint mixed with the white light. It came from the wall to the right.

  Staring at the map rendered there by luminous lines and dots, the Hunter said, “I see. Break out the schematics of the computer’s circuitry.”

  “Aren’t you the slave driver.”

  At the same time as his left hand made its remark, the diagram changed. The circuitry schematics seemed like they’d be indecipherable even to a computer, but after scanning them for a few more seconds, the Hunter said, “Link the North 289450772 and the South QB lines both to D-XII, D-XX, and D-Z04.”

  “Aye aye!”

  The lights flashed unexpectedly.

  Poised with his left hand still pressed to the floor, D turned and looked at the door.

  The flickering lights made the giant stand out starkly and melt into the darkness by turns.

  __

  “It would appear the computer’s playing tricks on us,” said the baron.

  Beside him and looking up at the heavens, Miska nodded, while May and Taki glanced at each other. Even their horses and carriages were there.

  The whole group was sealed away inside a cylinder of light. Though it was bright, the glow that illuminated both the earth below and the heavens above was gentle, never harsh enough to hurt their eyes.

  All the lighting in the hall had gone out at once, and the floor beneath them had seemed to shake ever so slightly, and then they were here. First had been the baron and Miska, while Taki and May had joined them twenty minutes later.

  Another thirty minutes had passed, and after trying a number of things, they’d come to understand their prison for the most part. When they touched the light, it would push far back. And it wasn’t merely one section of the wall that stretched, but rather the entire space grew in a perfectly circular fashion. In theory, if the space kept expanding the further they went, then sooner or later they should be able to get out. And that’s precisely what they thought. When Taki touched it, the glowing wall expanded as if fleeing from her. However, the young woman returned again after about ten minutes. There was no end to it. The baron then got into his carriage and raced off, only to learn the same thing.

  “It seems we’ve been imprisoned in an omnidirectional pocket. The glowing wall forms a three-dimensional space and prevents us from being sucked into that multidimensional region. In a manner of speaking, it’s not so much a wall to keep us in as it is a stronghold to protect us.”

  “There must be some way out, is there not?” Miska asked, adding, “And who on earth would do such a thing?”

  Her eyes glowed with malevolence.

  The answer to that question was the same thing the baron had said a short time earlier.

  “What leads you to believe this?” asked the Noblewoman.

  “Who aside from us would want to do such a thing? If it wasn’t D, then there’s only one o
ther thing around here that possesses a will of its own. And though it may belong to a machine, it is a consciousness just the same.”

  “So you mean to say we shall be stuck for as long as it suits the computer?”

  “I’m afraid so,” the baron said with an impassive nod. “But I’m not out on a leisurely excursion where I can just sit here and wait for help to come. We must escape.”

  “How shall you do that?”

  The baron looked up at the ceiling. His face was bleached by the light that poured down.

  “Even when the borders expand, the center remains the same. Let’s try focusing our energy on that point.”

  “You mean that of the carriages, do you not?”

  “No. While they may have power, it doesn’t have the right quality. What we need is the energy of the Nobility. That alone can cause a computer built by the Nobility to capitulate. However, in order to do that—”

  When the baron’s eyes slid past Miska to focus on Taki and May, the two girls backed away without saying a word.

  For it was their throats that drew the baron’s gaze.

  †

  __

  “Ah, D!” the giant in black called out. His pronunciation of the name was far crisper than that of the one the Hunter had destroyed.

  “What are you?” D inquired softly. This was the tone of voice he used with a foe he’d never seen before.

  “Why have you—awakened me?”

  “Me?” D replied, seeming to find the question strange.

  “I should have slumbered here forever. And yet—”

  “What are you?”

  The giant had no reply to that.

  “Who made you? The computer?”

  “D!” the giant shouted, kicking off the ground. His cape spread like wings, making him look like some enormous black bird out of the underworld.

  D’s blade made an effortless slice through his foe’s body. However, D didn’t even turn to see what became of the giant as he touched down behind him, and a red mist enveloped the Hunter. It was bright blood spraying from every pore on his body.

  The giant took a smooth step forward to prepare for another leap, and D spun around. His left hand was still set against the floor. His pose left him at a terrible disadvantage.

  “Stop it,” a female voice cried from nowhere in particular. It belonged to the computer. However, it wasn’t the same female voice as before.