Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four (13 page)

Fanning out into a semicircle, the men prepared to once again assail Vince, who had longswords, daggers, and other weapons jutting out of countless parts of his body. A small black sphere rolled around at his feet.

A deafening explosion rocked both heaven and earth, blowing the artificial immortals to bits. The sphere had been a bomb.

“You—you bastard!”

As Chlomo stood there bolt-upright in shock and anger, the smoke-shrouded Vince pointed to his own chest and said, “Look.”

“Oh shit!” Chlomo shouted, and he could hardly be blamed.

A foot-wide hole had been blown in Vince's chest, and you could see right through to the other side. But with one touch of Vince's hand the wound vanished without a trace, thanks to his amazing regenerative cells.

While his other hand toyed with a red sphere, Vince declared mockingly, “No one but me can fight like this. So, by all means, keep sending them at me.”

Made up with the “deathless makeup” or not, there was no way the others could repair their damaged regions. The blasted bodies of men with arms torn off and chests shredded still wriggled, attempting to rise again.

Before Chlomo could give an order to the rest, three explosions occurred. An enormous hole opened in the wall, and the men went sailing through the air. Countless chunks of shrapnel bit into Vince's body, but they were quickly covered by new flesh. It took his body only about a minute to break them down.

Flames shot up here and there. Frozen in the lamplight, Chlomo looked like any other person paralyzed by a sudden twist of fate.

Vince kicked off the ground. When the Hunter landed right in front of Chlomo, he raised his right hand and prepared to bury his dagger in the Makeup Lover's chest. A golden light that'd come from behind Vince lanced through the Hunter's chest instead. Cells evaporated at the nearly one million degrees of heat, and were instantly replaced.

Turning to the warehouse entrance, Vince found a silver-haired old man standing there unassumingly. Although he had a cane to support his upper body, which was stooped over parallel to the ground, the light that filled his narrow eyes was so intense it would leech the color right from the face of even a professional warrior.

“I received your messenger pigeon. And after hastening here without a moment's delay, what should I find but this raucous affair. You really have gone too far this time.”

“Dr. de Carriole!”

Not so much as glancing at Chlomo, the old man gazed at Vince, his eyes sparkling all the while with a curiosity so fervent it seemed to swell like a tidal wave.

“I've never seen a human being able to make such effective use of regenerative cells. Hmm. Could it be I've finally found that new receptacle?”

Vince paid no attention to the old man's words. In part it was because the Hunter couldn't understand what he was talking about, but it was also because a cold wind had stroked the nape of his neck.

The diminutive figure hobbled over, halting about a dozen feet shy of Vince.

The dagger limned an arc in Vince's hand. Taking hold of the blade, Vince prepared to hurl it at the old man. But his body stiffened in the blink of an eye. It was unclear if he saw the pure vermilion light emitted by de Carriole's eyes at that very instant.

When the old man turned to Chlomo, his eyes had already returned to normal.

“Useless oaf!”

At the naked contempt in his voice, Chlomo hung his head without saying a word.

“Put out the fires,” de Carriole ordered as he approached the baron.

Throughout the deadly struggle, the young Nobleman had sat there without moving a muscle.

“Chlomo!” the old man bellowed to his subordinate, who had a fire extinguisher in one hand.

“Yes?” he said as he turned, and then the wooden cane seemed to sink halfway into his face.

As Chlomo's body tumbled backward, blows rained down on it, and he let out a scream as he rolled around on the floor. It seemed positively incomprehensible that a hunched old man could strike with such power and accuracy. Chlomo was numbed to the very brain.

“Do you know who this gentleman is, vermin?”

The old man was livid. His roar was like that of a lion.

“I fear I must inform you it is Master Byron Balazs—Lord Vlad's own legitimate offspring. To think that a wretched louse like you could make him, him of all people, your plaything—damn you, get those vile cosmetics off him this instant. What's taking you so long? I'll beat you day and night until Master Byron is back to his old self!”

Some idea of the force behind the cane he raised came when he brought it down, and Chlomo lost consciousness.

Catching his breath after the beating he'd just delivered to his subordinate—who was sprawled on the floor—de Carriole then prostrated himself at the baron's feet.

“Allow me to apologize from the bottom of my heart for my attempts to take your life—though you may not know that I did so—and for that lowly wretch laying his hands on your person. Please rest at my humble manse until such time as you feel better. This old fool de Carriole knows too well your lofty goal, milord. While it's out of the question at present, I give you my oath I will aid you in visiting your dear mother in the immediate future.”

And then, the devilish eyes of the old scientist, possessed of such a bizarre character flooded with feverish tears that were completely genuine.

-

D had noticed that the wind had begun to carry hints of a certain air.
He
was coming. The Noble who'd drunk Taki's blood was rising from the sanguinary depths of the darkness to slake his thirst.

A whinny arose from the cyborg horse outside the hut. The men in the black masks hadn't noticed anything yet.

“D,” Taki called through the iron bars.

D turned around.

“I'm sleepy. Really sleepy. Something's . . . strange.”

Without even waiting for D's reply, the girl collapsed to the floor.

“This is a rare case,” a hoarse voice brimming with curiosity said from the vicinity of D's left hand. “I've never, ever heard of a victim going to sleep like that. Especially when this girl's—”

“Think the enemy planted her with us?” D asked.

“Damn straight. No doubt that lousy magician set something up in her brain that even the girl herself didn't know about. I just hope her getting the kiss of the Nobility hasn't set it off. If that were to happen, it'd be bad news. We're talking a fire dragon at the front gate, and a water demon at the back. Should we set her right now?”

Approaching the bars that divided them, D stuck his left hand between them and touched Taki's face. After confirming that the breathing of the sleeping Taki had grown even deeper, D then stood up.

“I wonder what kind of dreams you have when you get knocked out on top of being asleep.”

Leaving the thoughtful mutterings of his left hand behind, D stepped outside. An inky wind fluttered his black hair too forcefully. One could hardly say the moon was bright or the wind tranquil. D alone knew about the eerie aura knifing at them from the distant east—the direction of the manor.

One of the five shadowy figures that stood before him asked, “Any time now, would you say?”

“Stay out of this,” D said.

“Afraid we can't do that. We've signed on to protect you at all costs. But we'll try to keep out of your way.”

All of the shadowy figures standing in the moonlight looked daunting.

D said, “Let's hear your names.”

“I'm Bross.”

“Zecca.”

“Schuma.”

“I'm Byrne.”

“Clarice here.”

The last voice was that of a woman.

“We're dying to see Vampire Hunter D in battle,” Bross told D before turning to his compatriots and saying, “Assume free-form deployment pattern.”

Five shadowy figures, himself included, melted into the darkness.

“Kind of early, eh?” said a hoarse voice. The voice flowed out smoothly in the moonlight. “
For the dead travel fast
. . .”

And then, after about a minute had passed, the unmistakable sound of iron-shod hooves reached D's ears.

“All alone, right? Knowing what you're capable of—he seems pretty damned cocky. Either that, or he's just crazy about the girl's blood.”

Not replying to the voice from his left hand, D concentrated his gaze on the depths of the darkness.

Even after entering the ruins, there was no change to the sound of the hoofbeats.

“Six hundred feet,” the left hand said. “Four hundred fifty.”

A crisp sound raced through the night. The ring of steel on steel was joined by the sound of flesh being hewn, and then there was the thud of something heavy hitting the ground. The hoofbeats never faltered as they drew nearer.

“Three hundred feet.”

D's field of view had already closed on the huge mount and rider bulling their way through the darkness. The horse looked as if its head and body were connected by a savage, inky brush. The rider on the horse's back was a mass of dark clouds. Through the endlessly expanding and contracting swirl of darkness, a great black root of an arm could occasionally be glimpsed, and something like eyes and a nose could definitely be made out in the area that would correspond with a face. Pale blue lightning flew from the cloud, making the inky material that clung to its surface stand out starkly. Blood.

The mount and rider that surged forward like a jagged wave came to an impressive stop about fifteen feet from D. The bridle wrapped around the horse's head was fashioned from thick chain. The ends of it disappeared into the cloud, and the hands that worked the reins couldn't be seen. Even the feet planted in the stirrups were shrouded in dark clouds. That must've been the knight's armor.

“Are you D?” asked a voice that called to mind the distant rumble of thunder.

D didn't answer. He had already noticed that the foe before him wasn't Lord Vlad.

“I am Duke Greed,” the cloud announced, introducing himself with a flash of lightning.

-

III

-

“Where is Vlad?” D asked.

Despite the arrival of this new foe—and given the fact he'd been dispatched to deal with this situation, as he was most assuredly a man of substantial ability—the Hunter's tone didn't carry any deeper emotion at all.

“That's ‘Lord Vlad' to you,” the black cloud knight—Duke Greed—bellowed.

“Where is Vlad?” D repeated.

Blue lightning bridged the space between them. Tiny flames rose from D's left shoulder.

“Lord Vlad told me you were far from common; but I wonder, are you so great that something like that last attack didn't even faze you? Or are you so terrified you're left unable to speak? I warrant it's the latter.”

The flames on D's shoulder cast a blue light on his profile. Shifting shadows only made his heavenly beauty seem all the more exquisite. Perhaps even Greed was dazzled by it—that may have been what left such a gap between his attacks.

“Damnation!” the black cloud exclaimed in a tone of amazement when D closed on him, coming right up to his mount's muzzle.

The black horse reared up. Half beast and half machine though it was, it seemed even a cyborg horse could be enthralled by D's beauty.

In the split second it took for the entire length of D's sword to slash through the black cloud as the Hunter pounced, there was nothing Duke Greed could do.

However—the instant D felt a complete lack of resistance from his blade, rebounding shock waves transformed his body into a black mass flying through the air. Just as he was about to slam into the ground, black wings opened—the spreading of his coat.

As the young man smoothly sailed down poised for his next attack, the approaching black horse and rider were almost right on top of him, looming like a mountain. D or not, he wouldn't have time to deliver a fatal blow through that bizarre dark cloud of armor.

Lightning formed a spear that zipped toward D's chest. Just as it seemed to pierce him, it was sucked into his left hand, and naked steel split the moonlight in a straight, horizontal slash.

“My word!” the black cloud exclaimed on realizing that he was being pitched forward by the sudden impact. D's horizontal slash hadn't struck the cloud armor, but had instead hewn off the black horse's forelegs. Based on the speed and timing of his fall, it looked as if the rider was fated to slam against the earth.

Diving to one side to avoid the horse that sent out a bloody mist as it dropped, D saw something. The black cloud that'd sailed forward had hit the ground and was rolling like a ball toward the hut.

D ran, the wind swirling in his wake. And as he ran, his left hand rose. A small mouth opened in the palm of it, and then the air was drawn into it with a savage roar.

Just as the edge of the black cloud began to stream back toward the mouth, the rest of it impacted on the door of the hut. The way the hut collapsed, it looked as if it'd been caught in a massive tempest.

And then, a glowing ball of light fell from the sky as if drawn to the black cloud. The instant it made contact, it exploded into sparks, and a fog-like material was scattered across the surface of the cloud.

“Oof . . .”

The grunt of pain had definitely come from the cloud—and Duke Greed.

But who on earth was responsible?

Before either of them could ponder that question, D caught up to the cloud mass and drove his blade through it with all his might. He felt it make contact.

A scream rose into the sky, accompanied by a geyser of black blood.

Like a bird in flight, D sailed beneath the black light that shot out, ready to deliver a second blow. But a new sphere of light had been drawn to his blade. It exploded, and while he dodged the blast with both eyes shut, the dark cloud sailed far off into the darkness. Lightning flew two or three times, and then that too vanished.