Roughly thirty feet away, a figure that appeared to be female was standing in the shade of a grove of trees. After further scrutiny, it turned out to be a girl of twelve or thirteen who wore a lemon yellow dress. Pulling back her long black tresses, she tied them with a ribbon the same color as her dress. From the look of her, she had to be one of the traveling performers. But what made Toto’s eyes open as wide as they could possibly go was neither the girl’s features nor her overdeveloped bust line. In one hand, she disinterestedly toyed with something shiny. Bouncing it in her palm, she let it fall on the back of her hand, then let it walk, one by one, down all five fingers. Without a doubt, it was the very bead he sought.
More than questions of why some girl he’d never seen before should be playing with it, more than anything, it was shock and jubilation that filled Toto’s heart. There’d be no need to go to D now—all of his hard work was about to pay off right here. He could gain the girl’s confidence—or slug her if that became necessary—and simply take the bead from her.
Toto didn’t actually know what the bead was worth—that was why he hadn’t answered Su-In the night before when she asked him about it. The only reason he was going to such lengths to try and get the bead was that his instincts as a thief told him it actually had tremendous value. The constant problems that’d been springing up ever since he first met Wu-Lin back at that inn only served to reinforce that feeling. And the people that were involved here were so incredible, he’d never run into their like in his long career as a thief, and didn’t think he was likely to do so ever again, either.
Toto’s spirit had been stoked. There was a fortune to be made here, too. But more than that, he felt his reputation as a thief depended on his beating out all the others and getting the bead first.
I’ll do it. I’ll give it my best shot, he told himself.
But while Toto had decided his course of action, the reality of the situation was a bit harsher. D was always around the bead. From what Toto could see, the Hunter was tougher than any of the others—just unbelievably powerful. As proof, the thief hadn’t been able to do a thing even while his skillful disguise got him into Su-In’s house. If that’s all there’d been to it, he still might’ve managed something, but as he patiently studied D’s behavior, a strange feeling came over him. The Hunter’s beauty was of the kind that would only occur once out of all the boundless possibilities, but an untamed shadow and an undefined sadness hung heavily on his features. At some point, Toto was shocked to discover that he’d started following D around along with all of the women. Toto had left the house both because he sensed his disguise might be seen through eventually and because of this strange psychological state. After that, he’d considered various things and plotted at length before finally deciding to kidnap Su-In.
But now all that’s finished, Toto thought, licking his lips.
When he went to wheel his horse around in the girl’s direction, her vivid splash of color vanished between the trees without warning.
There’s someone in there, Toto decided instantly, and he got off his horse. Crouching down, he raced off in the same direction that the girl had gone. The way he could make the sound of his footsteps and every other hint of his presence vanish was pure artistry. Even an insect resting on a leaf wouldn’t notice this man racing by less than four inches away.
He heard a voice. Standing behind a thick tree trunk, Toto poked half of his face out to watch.
The girl was facing a well-groomed middle-aged man with a mustache. Surprisingly enough, the pair was more than thirty feet away from Toto. This wasn’t a forest in the deathly still of night. It was a boisterous summer morn, with birds singing and insects chirping in the grass and bushes and trees. His frighteningly good hearing was one of the things that’d helped earn Toto his reputation as the greatest thief on the Frontier.
Seeing that the bead was no longer in the girl’s hand, Toto felt relieved.
“Now, don’t forget what we agreed on,” the girl said pedantically. “Cash in advance.”
The man held out his hand. From it, something shiny spilled into the girl’s palm. Gold coins, no doubt.
“You’ll get the rest when the job is done,” he told her.
“Okay.”
“Before we get started, could I have a demonstration of your ability, just to be sure?”
“Oh, aren’t you the cautious one. Be my guest.”
The girl closed her eyes, and the man roughly pressed his right hand to her round forehead. And then—
What a sight it was. In no time at all, the girl’s face became that of someone else. And that wasn’t all. Her height and build also changed, and in the span of two breaths, the person who stood there was—
“Su-In,” Toto said despite himself, though he was ordinarily a master of concealment.
Yes, she was Su-In.
Did that mean the girl was a traveling performer who could change into anyone the man told her to? Not exactly. Toto had already noticed there were some minor differences between this transformed Su-In and the real thing, because the girl had never actually seen Su-In. And yet the only reason she’d been able to mimic the woman with more than ninety percent accuracy had to be because her information on Su-In had come from the bearded middle-aged man—Gyohki. The image he had of Su-In was transmitted from his brain to the girl, where she then began transforming at a cellular level. Needless to say, that image had been transferred through the hand he’d touched to the girl’s forehead. In a manner of speaking, the girl was a metamorph whose shape could be determined by external forces.
“Remarkable,” said the man. “On closer inspection, there are some differences, but from a distance this should suffice. Now, would you say something for me?”
“I won’t be in any danger, will I?” said the girl.
Toto was amazed to hear she sounded exactly like Su-In. If she had a photograph of whomever she was trying to duplicate, she could’ve impersonated that person for the rest of her life without anyone around her ever noticing.
Toto grew tense. The man with the mustache wasn’t your average person.
“Relax,” said the man. “Do I look like someone who’d lie to you?”
“Yes,” replied the girl—or Su-In—with a nod.
The pair soon got on a cyborg horse that was tethered there and rode off to the west, while another horse and rider followed after them at a distance of sixty feet.
.
D lay inside the barn. A blanket was spread on the ground, and his upper body rested against the wooden box of life jackets while his legs were stretched out. His longsword was cradled on his left shoulder. He was sleeping.
Descending from both humans and Nobles, dhampirs could operate by either day or night, though for the most part they chose to sleep during the day. The reason for this wasn’t so much that they often worked in a field where they had to do battle with demons by night, but rather because the Noble disposition of their blood prevailed over their human tendencies.
The night before, D had gone to both their hiding place and here after Su-In was abducted, and he’d found the remains of one of the Twins buried out back. Though it was unclear what he thought when he saw the handprint that remained on the man’s neck, the Hunter stopped his search then and went into the barn to sleep.
To look at his handsome countenance, no one would’ve ever thought he still drew breath, but the fact that his features didn’t retain the slightest stress from all of his deadly battles of late was truly shocking. Pain and even death itself were unwilling to mar the young man’s beauty.
His eyes opened. They were already completely focused.
Without making a sound, he got up. The light filtering in through gaps in the wooden door turned the dust he stirred into dancing flecks of gold. Shifting his sword to his back, D left the barn. Looking at the steep road that continued down to the beach, he then went straight over to the main house. His left arm hung naturally by his side.
An iron arrow was st
uck in the door. Around the center of it was wound a piece of white paper—obviously a letter. Raising his left arm, D smiled wryly before using his right hand to pull out the arrow. Holding the edge of the paper with his teeth, he skillfully untied the string that held it in place, discarded the arrow, and uncurled the letter.
I have the woman. If you want her back, bring the bead to “The Black Lagoon” on the western edge of town at precisely 1:00 Afternoon. This all depends on you.
It was from Gyohki. His plan had been set in motion.
Staring down at the end of his left arm, D said, “Worthless little bugger,” with a straight face.
.
That worthless little bugger was writhing on the floor as the first light started creeping in. Of course, the limb hadn’t really started moving until Toto had left; up until then, it’d played dead.
Su-In had noticed it, too. Still under the effects of the drug she’d been given, she couldn’t move her body, though she could still think, and her eyes, ears, and mouth were all working fine. At first, she’d thought it was a rat that looked like it’d been impaled on something had come back to life. But as the light swelled with the dawn, she realized she’d been mistaken.
Pinned to the floor by a foot-long iron stake, the thing writhing as madly as a rat looked like it was someone’s left hand, of all things! A fear that surpassed description filled Su-In’s chest with ice, but then she suddenly understood. When D had come to see her, he’d kept his left hand stuck in his coat pocket the whole time. Though she hadn’t thought to ask him about it, she had to wonder—did that left hand belong to him? But even if it was—
“Hey!” someone suddenly called out to her.
It took a while for her to realize the voice came from the hand. Stranger yet, she could recall hearing the same voice before.
“Hey, Su-In! Can you hear me?”
“Was that you? You’re some kind of talking hand?!” Su-In exclaimed. At some point, her fear had evaporated, and now she just found it funny. She certainly had plenty of pluck.
“You got something against talking hands?”
“Not at all,” the woman replied. “It’s just—you’re D’s hand, aren’t you?”
“Well, I’m thinking about trading up one of these days.”
“I knew it. What are you doing here?”
“That’s a hell of a question to be asking,” said the hand. “Do you have any idea how much you owe me, you little ingrate? It should be pretty obvious I’m here because I was worried about you. I’m quite conscientious, you know. I try to keep my landlord’s position in mind.”
“You’ve been following me?” asked Su-In. “Since when?”
“Well, I was the one who saved you when that butcher disguised as your granddaddy was about to shave your nose off.”
“So, it was you that killed him then?”
“Hey, I didn’t kill him. I saved you.”
“Okay,” said the woman. “What did you do after that?”
“I was in your bag the whole time. Down on the beach, I was ready to catch a ride on the priest’s back, but he was good enough to bring the bag along when you folks made a run for it.”
“Oh, then that rat I saw last night was really you—”
“Well,” the hand said, “I got out of the bag before he went through it. But he’s a hell of a shot for a lousy burglar. It’ll take quite a bit of work to get me free now. Give me some help here.”
“It’s no use. I got a shot of something and now I can’t move.”
“You worthless little bugger,” the hand spat, using the same words as its master while it twisted wildly.
Running through the hand from the base of the middle finger to almost the center of its palm, the stake was sunk a good four inches into the hardwood floor and wouldn’t budge in the slightest.
“Damn,” the hand continued. “Haven’t had anything to eat but wind lately, so I can’t get my strength up. If I only had some dirt or water. Hey, spill some blood or something my way!”
“I’d help you if I could,” Su-In said in a sincere tone. “But you’ll just have to manage something. If you’re really his hand, I find it hard to believe you’d be so stupid or good for nothing.”
“Couldn’t you phrase that a little more gently?” the hand said indignantly. “If I just had one drink of water, I could melt this damn thing or freeze it solid. Shit! I’m useless like this! Doesn’t anyone ever come out here?”
“Not a chance. This is pretty far off the beaten path, so folks rarely pass this way.”
“There’ll be big trouble if we don’t do something. We’d be better off if the thief came back,” the hand remarked. “I hope he gets back before sundown . . .”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the woman.
“He didn’t notice it, but something dangerous is sleeping near the temple. I can tell. I can smell it. When the sun goes down, they’ll get up and they’ll come here.”
Su-In’s mind became ten times more focused. “When the sun goes down . . . You mean Nobles or their servants?”
“Yes, damn it! And not fifteen feet from here. It might take all night for that drug to wear off you. While for my part, I’m malnourished.”
“You’ve gotta do something!” Su-In said in a deadly serious tone. She realized she sounded pathetic. But that’s how strongly humans feared the Nobility.
The hand twisted again, but it didn’t look like it would work itself free in ten years’ time, let alone before sundown.
.
II
.
D arrived at the Black Lagoon at the appointed time. It was an untamed spot about three miles west of the woods where the festival was being held. As the word “lagoon” implied, in days of old it’d been filled with crystal-clear water, but now the land eight inches lower than the road only showed a slight slope down to a circular area about three hundred feet in diameter, and at the very center it looked like a muddy bog. Of course, that was only a trick of the mind—the lagoon’s waters had dried up more than a century ago, and its bottom was now covered with summer grass. Almost in the center of the lagoon there was a small island-like rise about fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, the remains of what must’ve been an actual island long ago. Now it was completely overrun with trees and high grass.
Stepping off the road, the Hunter’s mount took seven or eight steps around the edge of the former lagoon before a voice called out, “Hold it!”
A figure suddenly appeared from the trees that had grown up to swallow the road on the opposite side of the lagoon.
Turning in that direction, D squinted. “King Egbert” had a scarf wrapped around his neck, and he gazed at D with a kind of dazed sadness in his eyes. The summer days were long.
“Glad you could make it. I suppose you thought you could come here and take all of us down at once, did you?”
Not replying to that remark, D asked, “Where’s Su-In?”
“Before we get to that, you got the bead?”
When Egbert spoke, D knew that his foe wasn’t working with Shin on this. “One of your colleagues has the bead,” the Hunter replied. “Shin, I believe the name was.”
“He’s dead. Are you the one that arranged that?”
“At any rate, I don’t have the bead. Where is Su-In?” D inquired.
“You know a guy by the name of Professor Krolock?” Egbert said. Not waiting for a reply, he continued, “Well, it would seem he’s the one that killed Shin. So you mean to tell me he’s got the bead, then?”
D was silent.
“The woman’s right here,” a voice could be heard to say from the island in the center of the lagoon.
Su-In and Gyohki stepped out from between the trees. Of course, the young performer who’d assumed Su-In’s shape didn’t have the right clothes, so to prevent that from giving away their deception, she was dressed only in her underwear.
“As you can see, we have Su-In. But if you don’t have the bead, there’s no reason for
us to let her go. Or were you going to ask us to give her up in exchange for something else?” Grinning, Gyohki added, “Come on out here. I’m sure we can manage something. This used to be a lagoon, but now it’s dry as a bone. Nothing for even a dhampir to worry about.”
He beckoned to the Hunter.
Nothing to worry about? It was obviously a trap.
Seeing that D hadn’t made a move, Gyohki pressed his right hand against Su-In’s throat. Black claws that resembled scythes stretched from his fingers.
“Don’t you care what happens to your employer? You’re a disgrace to Hunters everywhere,” said Gyohki.
Although Su-In grew pale, it was all just part of the act. The girl was doing this for the ample reward she’d been offered, and because she’d been assured it was all just an illusion. It never occurred to her that Gyohki would be more than happy to kill her if the situation called for it.
While it wasn’t clear if he took the transformed girl for Su-In, D then calmly rode his horse down off the path and onto the dry lagoon. The ground under his horse’s hooves felt like parched soil. Not seeming to be in any hurry, the Hunter advanced slowly, and high above his head, clouds streamed by sedately. Knowing nothing of the killing lust that was coagulating in this wild patch of land, they were simply part of nature’s great bounty in the blue summer sky. But the question now was whether or not D had noticed the black ditch that’d been made all the way around lagoon.
Just another fifteen feet to the island.
Gyohki shouted, “Now! Do it, Egbert!”
At the same time, the girl screamed and dropped to her knees where she was. In the stand of trees, branches snapped off at the trunk, and one struck the barely standing Gyohki in the shoulder. Even D’s horse planted its feet, trying to brace itself against the amorphous pressure that suddenly assailed it.
Egbert had altered the gravity in his “kingdom.”
The girl cried out as her torso snapped forward.
With a heavy whooosh!, the whole bottom of the lagoon collapsed. Obviously the foundation had been weak from the very beginning. Deep black cracks appeared on the surface, and in no time at all they swallowed the earth, claiming the entire lagoon. A split second later, D and his horse were unfortunate enough to find themselves sinking up to their necks. Black spray shot up around them. Water.
Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Part 2 Page 16
