Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Part 1

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “Only during the summer,” the woman told him. “The only time he ever comes is in the week-long period that’ll be starting in three days—and that’s it. That’s all we get for a summer in our village. Do you know of anyplace else with a summer like that?”

  “Summer is short everywhere. Always, and for everyone.”

  “I guess that’s true,” said Su-In, sounding more like she was talking to herself. “You’re right. Anyway, as far as protective measures go around here, the Vigilance Committee and Youth Corps take turns standing watch. They used to dig pit traps on the beach and rig up nets where they thought the Noble might go, but they gave up when all they ever caught was other folks from the village.”

  “Are the corpses of those who’ve been bitten disposed of?”

  “After they drive a stake through them, they’re burnt and the ashes are scattered at sea. I suppose that’s not a bad resting place for fisherfolk, though. I hear a really good Vampire Hunter can tell how strong a Noble is just by looking at the wounds. If that’s really the case, it’s too bad none of them are still here,” Su-In said, biting her lip regretfully.

  “I don’t suppose you know why he only comes in summer.”

  “No, unfortunately.”

  “Could you tell me the history of the bead?” D said, tightening his grip on the reins. The coastline had disappeared, and the horse-drawn truck was about to enter the center of town.

  “Last summer, he came again. Four people were killed in three days. One really foggy night—and we get a lot of those around here when there’s suddenly a huge difference in temperature between the air and the sea—the Vigilance Committee had twice their normal numbers out, but it was no use. The last one was a woman who lived right next door to me. In the middle of the night, around 2:00 Night, her father thought he heard some commotion in her room, but when he knocked on his daughter’s door, she didn’t answer. As he burst in, a figure in black was just escaping through the window. There was a big racket then, and I raced over as fast as I could. The girl was limp on the bed, and her mother and father were crying and screaming. All of them were as pale as a sheet.

  “I could see right away that he’d taken off out the window, so I went after him alone. He’d crossed the street and gone toward the beach, so I knew for sure he must’ve come out of the sea. As I was on my way down to the shore, he suddenly vanished, and that was the end of it. Still, I searched all over the place, and I was just about to leave because the reinforcements had arrived, and that was when the waves brought something to my feet. It was that bead. I thought about showing it to everyone, but then I felt a bit greedy and decided they didn’t really deserve it.”

  Su-In’s eyelashes were trembling. Surely her thoughts had drifted to her younger sister.

  “Didn’t you try to find out what it really was?”

  “No. I just showed it to my grandfather.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Not a thing. He just got really pale and told me to get rid of it as quickly as I could, and to never touch it again. It started to give me the creeps and I considered tossing it like he said, but then I thought about how lucky I was that it’d washed up right in front of me—I guess I really shouldn’t have done that. But I think my grandfather knew something about it. Apparently Wu-Lin asked him some stuff about it too, but he didn’t tell her anything. He didn’t even seem to like having it lying around.”

  “Why was it brought to Cronenberg?”

  “That’s a sore subject,” Su-In said, embarrassment showing in her eyes. “You saw the inside of my house, right? We’re not so well-off that we could afford to have something lying around that might be worth some good money. My grandfather couldn’t get around very well, and Wu-Lin still wasn’t able to really pull her own weight yet. There was only so much I could make on my own. You know, a girl wants to be able to at least wear a nice dress in the summer.”

  “You mean you wanted your sister to have one, don’t you?”

  “I wanted one, too.”

  Both of them fell silent. Their vehicle was on a wide thoroughfare. This must’ve been the shopping center, because the rows of buildings were hung with signs for bars and illustrated placards for what seemed to be gaming centers. There were also a few souvenir shops designed with tourists in mind, and they had roe and dried fish displayed out in front. All had their glass doors shut tight, and their stony walls were laced with a mesh of tiny cracks.

  Out in front of the sheriff’s office, Su-In got down from the truck. “I think this’ll probably take a while,” she said. “There’s not much to see, but hang around.”

  Watching as Su-In went through the door, D then leaned back against the wall of the office. He pulled the brim of his traveler’s hat down low to fend off the sunlight. Although dhampirs could sleep by either day or night, the blood that flowed through their veins craved rest in the daylight hours. As long as they had to deal with Nobles, that particular characteristic was an extremely useful one.

  Several shadows fell at the Hunter’s feet. All of them belonged to young men in bulky wool sweaters. Judging from the way they were built, any one of them looked capable of easily wringing the neck of an eight- to ten-foot-long fish.

  One of them took a step forward and said, “Working up a sweat, I see, pretty boy.” The malice-laden tone belonged to Dwight. “Lucky for us Su-In ain’t here. See, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  D didn’t reply. He didn’t even bother to look up at them.

  Dwight’s lips twisted with displeasure.

  The men around him stepped forward.

  “Hold it. There’s only the one of him,” Dwight said as he raised one hand to stop the others, then scanned the surrounding street.

  Some passersby stopped and began to watch from a distance.

  “This ain’t really the place for making a racket, either. What say you head over there with me?”

  “My employer is in here,” D said, still looking down.

  “Then my question will keep till later,” Dwight said, interlacing his fingers before his chest. With due pretense, he cracked his knuckles loudly. “This village ain’t like the Capital or other warm places—it can get a little rough around here. Your average guy wouldn’t last half a day. So I’m gonna check you out and see for myself if you’ve got what it takes. Don’t worry—I won’t let my buddies lay a hand on you. See, I told them I didn’t need them, but they came along anyway. C’mon over here,” Dwight said, sticking one hand out with immense confidence. As he winked at the Hunter, he gestured at him to follow. “I’m gonna be bare-handed. Don’t go using that sword of yours now.”

  “Maybe I will use it,” the Hunter replied.

  “Spare me the jokes.”

  “You trust me, then?”

  “If I didn’t, you think I’d take you on one-on-one?” Dwight said, holding both his right and left fist out in front of himself. His arms were bent at the elbow, and he swept one fist in an arc as if beckoning his opponent forward. If he ever went to the museum in the Capital, he’d have seen that it was actually an ancient boxing stance. If he’d come up with this technique all by himself, he could be considered quite talented.

  D pulled away from the wall. Both arms hanging easily by his sides, he headed over to Dwight. The distance between them closed in no time.

  Dwight was a little shaken. He’d been sure the other man was going to keep his distance. Hesitating for a heartbeat to decide whether to back up or respond in kind, he ultimately made the decision unconsciously. The straight he threw at D’s face was picture-perfect. His fist was still in midair when he felt something lock around his wrist with incredible strength. The ground and sky switched places, and a heartbeat later his massive form flipped around and his back hit the ground.

  “Shit,” he groaned, but the way he got right back up again showed he was plenty tough. He hadn’t been hurt much at all.

  Too close, Dwight berated himself. Keep some distance and whitt
le him down. Build up some damage with some light hits, and then when the bastard stops moving, lay him out with the big gun. But first, a little intimidation.

  Dwight glared at D. It was said the mere look he could give people was enough to make him the leader of the Youth Corps. A second later, his whole body was enveloped in a chill that left him paralyzed. There was an unearthly and terrifying aura that emanated from the other man’s eyes, freezing his heart, his lungs, and his very bones.

  It’s those damn eyes, isn’t it?!

  The instant he realized that, he shut his own eyes and bounded forward in a way that showed his instinct and ability as a veteran brawler. When a sharp pain shot once more through the arms he was swinging blindly, Dwight knew he was beaten. This time the top of his skull took the impact as he was stood on his head and lost consciousness in that same pose.

  As D casually made his way back to his spot against the wall, he was surrounded by four more figures.

  “That was some freaky shit you just pulled. What the hell are you?!” bellowed a giant every bit as big as Dwight. The single T-shaped claw that curved from the end of his right hand was a gaff hook for landing fish. “Serves that dope Dwight right for showing off. I’m gonna gouge out one of this freak’s eyes. We’ll have this outsider packing in no time. Heh,” he snorted, “looks like we’re due for a change in leadership.”

  At that point he spat at Dwight—who’d finally lost his balance and fallen over onto his stomach—and closed in on D.

  In a matter of seconds, keen glints danced to the Hunter’s right and his left, before him and behind him. No matter which way he focused his attention, he’d be attacked from the other three directions. It was a skillful ploy.

  Each of them saw a flash of white light skim across his right wrist. There was the sound of a blade moving in its sheath on the young man’s back. Each screaming curses at him in their heart of hearts, the men swung their arms. But they were oddly light. Something felt wrong about the shape of them, too. Stopping in their tracks, they took a look. Their right hands were gone at the wrist. Blood sprayed wildly from the wounds and rebounded from the ground.

  Four screams raced down the street as the afternoon began to take a bluish tinge.

  After the cries of pain had streamed past like the tails of a kite, the sheriff came running out of his office. He had a potbelly that made it seem like he must’ve been raised on nothing but rye whiskey since the day he was born. The oversized revolver he had in his right hand looked as useless as a child’s toy. Growing pale at the sight of the blood-soaked quartet writhing in the street, he turned to the people around them and asked, “Who in the hell did this?!”

  “He did!” a young man shouted as he pointed to D, who was leaning back against the wall. “I saw it happen, I tell you. He did it!”

  “Is that true, fella?” the sheriff asked, sounding somewhat unnerved.

  The traveler’s hat slowly bobbed up and down.

  “Then I’ve got to take you in. Throw that sword over to me real easy.”

  “They made the first move on me,” the Hunter said.

  “That’s a lie!” a different man shouted. “I saw the whole thing. The five of them were just walking by, and this guy goes and cuts loose on them out of the blue. Hell, you think one man could take out five if he didn’t have the drop on them?”

  “You’ve got a point there. Okay, you over there—go fetch the doctor,” the sheriff ordered someone else, and then pointed the barrel of his gun right between D’s eyes. “Come with me,” he told the Hunter. “If things go badly, we’ll have a lynching on our hands.”

  But then another voice turned the situation around completely.

  “You’ve got the whole thing backwards, Sheriff.”

  The plump lawman bugged his eyes and said, “But Dwight—you’re supposed to be one of the victims here!”

  “I’m not a victim or a perpetrator,” Dwight replied, staring at D with a strange look in his eye as he rubbed his bull neck. “It was a straight-up fight, plain and simple. Me and the boys picked a fight with him, and he took us up on it. Fair and square, too. He was barehanded against me, but used his sword when the others had their gaffs—and that just plain makes sense. The only thing funny about it was it being four against one.”

  “Yeah, but still—he went too far. He cut folks’ hands off!”

  “And what would you have to say if one of those hooks had torn his throat open?” Dwight said as he stood up and knocked the mud from his pants. “You should be thanking him for not taking their heads off. Anyhow, I saw the whole thing from start to finish, even though I was on my head at the time. If the person who started the fight says so, you can’t get any more accurate than that. Isn’t that what happened, everyone?”

  Even though he’d just been laid out, the young man still had the power to cow the onlookers. The men who’d spoken out against D moments earlier had already taken off.

  “Looks like no one’s got any objections,” the lawman remarked. “Oh—here comes the doc. Hurry up and get these boys to the hospital, would you?”

  A number of bystanders raced over to the fallen youths and loaned them their shoulders as they helped the wounded up.

  “I’ll rule this as self-defense. This is your lucky day,” said the sheriff. Holstering his gun, he returned to his office.

  As Dwight began walking away still shaking his head, a steely voice called out from behind his broad back, saying, “Looks like I owe you one.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Dwight said as he turned and glared at D. “I just like to do everything fair and square, whether it’s fishing or fighting. If you don’t play it that way, you go from being a regular guy to being a run-of-the-mill thug. But that don’t mean you’re done with me yet. Fishermen settle things out on the sea. So you just sit tight till we get around to that, okay?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Taking a couple of steps, Dwight then turned as if he’d just recalled something. “It’s just a hunch I have, but I think Su-In’s all alone in the world now. I want you to look out for her. See to it she don’t get hurt any worse than she’s been already.”

  There was no reply.

  As the great bear of a man shuffled off down a road that was slowly taking the blue hue from the sky, the sheriff poked his head out again. To no one in particular he remarked, “That’s odd. Su-In’s not here.”

  “What?!” Dwight shouted with a start. “Hey—where’s pretty boy?”

  Two pairs of eyes peered over to where the Hunter had been, but they met only a vacant stretch of rock wall. Suddenly, all trace of D had vanished from the blue light.

  THE FIGURE BEHIND THE WAVES

  CHAPTER 5

  —

  I

  —

  Silently and with a somewhat mournful look on her face, Su-In climbed the slope behind the sheriff’s office. When multiple screams of pain sent the sheriff running for the door, Su-In had been ready to get up out of her own seat. It was at that very moment that someone else had appeared between her and the lawman—the sheriff had left without even noticing. An involuntary cry of surprise had nearly spilled from Su-In, but she’d managed to choke it back down.

  Wu-Lin?!

  The girl who’d died in a distant town was staring at her older sister with the same pretty face she’d had in life. While Su-In knew this couldn’t be, such thoughts had already been swept away by a torrent of joy and nostalgia. It was probably only natural that when Wu-Lin headed over to the back door and beckoned to her, the older sister followed along without the least resistance. Her sister opened the door, stepped outside, and closed it again. Su-In repeated the same actions. Of course, she had no way of knowing that she was actually the very first person today to open and close that door.

  As if mesmerized by the sadly beckoning Wu-Lin, her sister slipped out the back way and climbed the path up the mountain. There was no sign of anyone else. Before long, she came to a clearing that seemed to be part of a t
emple’s grounds. The surrounding woods only added to the darkness of the approaching night, though what looked like gravestones and the tip of a distant temple could be glimpsed at times through the rows of shadowy trunks. The light that seeped through the gaps in the leaves was almost bluish.

  Backed by the verdigris-flecked bronze gates to the temple, Wu-Lin came to a halt. “Now that we’re up here, we should be free from interruption,” she said.

  The voice that came from her cute little lips was that of an unbelievable temptress. And when Su-In heard it, her eyes grew fuzzy, and heartfelt tears rolled down her cheeks.

  The beloved deceased—surely both the most fondly remembered and the most difficult thing to resist in the entire mortal world, the very sight of whom made thought and reason crumble. Not only could this sorcery conjure up a realistic image, but it also allowed the user to make the phantasm behave exactly as he or she wished.

  The stark white figure that appeared beside the bronze gatepost like a challenge to the twilight was a beautiful woman garbed in dress as pristine as new-fallen snow. Yet as proof that her character was quite the opposite, the blue eyes below her finely shaped eyebrows were charged with an evil and ghostly glow as she stared at Su-In. The woman’s lips moved, as did the lips of Wu-Lin, whom Su-In alone could see.

  “How fortunate for me that I guessed the murder of your grandfather would eventually bring you to the sheriff’s office so I could lay a trap for you there. Nevertheless, that’s a fearsome bodyguard you have. I most certainly wouldn’t want to confront him directly. I was wondering what I could do when he actually left you easily enough.” Chuckling, the woman added, “I really should thank him for that. Now, I have a question for you—where is the bead?”

  But in Su-In’s mind, it became the voice of her sister, and it sounded like she said, “Where’s the bead at anyway? You can tell me, Sis.”

  Her younger sister would’ve known where she’d put it, but Su-In was no longer capable of such rational thought. “I gave it to D to hold,” she replied.