Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four (23 page)

-

I

-

In her room, May got the feeling she could hear furtive footsteps. Those who lived on the Frontier occasionally felt this way. Coming down the corridor. From quite a distance. Oh, now it was on the other side of the door. Even the knock sounded furtive. It shouldn't be Lagoon. The only ones who could walk in such a way as to not stir the stillness of night were the people of the night.

She didn't call out to ask who it was. May stared at the door—just at its golden door knob. She couldn't even tell whether it turned or not.

The door opened.

Though the figure wore a white dress, May got only the most indistinct image of her, and she searched for the reason for this. She had no shadow. No doubt the light of the moon was insufficient.

“Have you been well?” Miska asked.

“Yeah,” May replied, feeling relieved. “But what are you doing here? Didn't you go to that scholar guy's house or something?”

“No, this is where I meant to go. My grandfather entrusted an item to Mr. Lagoon long ago. I came to examine it,” Miska said, gazing softly at the human girl.

“You don't say. Must've been really important. Was it safe?”

“Yes. It was here, surely enough. It's just a tiny censer, though.”

“That's great, Miska. That's really great,” the girl said, clapping her hands. “Stuff like that gets broken so easily. How nice. I'm sure your grandfather must be overjoyed, too.”

The girl wore a docile smile.

Miska diverted her gaze. And like that, she said, “The censer contained a map. Where I was to go after losing my parents and everything else I had.”

“Wow,” May said, her eyes going wide. “Now that sure is something. So, where will you go?”

“I don't yet know. Someone shall bring me there. At present, he waits in another room. May, will you not go with me?”

“Me? No way!”

The Noblewoman turned a shocked expression to the girl who swung her head so vehemently from side to side.

“Why not?”

“Well, there are still a ton of things I wanna see in this world. And a million things I've gotta do, too.”

“I've heard your mother and father are deceased.”

“That's right. But a lot of other people are in the same boat. My mother, my father, and basically everyone older than me will probably die before I do. Well, when it happens a little too early like with my parents it makes me sad, but there's no helping that. I'll just have to live a good life and do all the things they didn't get to. If I were them, that's what I'd be thinking as I died.”

After a short pause Miska inquired, “For someone your age, is life not painful?”

From her tone, she was expecting a certain answer.

“Of course it's painful,” May replied in an exasperated manner. “Who wouldn't be hurt to be my age and have lost their parents? Only once in a blue moon does anything good happen to me.”

“If such is the case, why go on?”

“Because once in a while something good
does
happen!”

Miska fell silent. The answer this girl of such a tender age had given was beyond her ability as a Noble to comprehend.

“Not everything in the world is good, but not everything is bad, either. It's the same for everyone. I have my hard times, and I'm sure even a Noble like you has some hard times, too. But somehow muddling through them is probably what life's all about. Thirty years from now, I'm sure I'll look back fondly on all the things that troubled me. That's the kind of person I wanna be. And I'm sure I'll remember you and the baron the same way and tell folks about you.”

And then May looked Miska straight in the face and beamed. It was a most heartfelt smile.

“But it's nice that there's someplace so wonderful. You're hurting worse than I am. I can't go, but thank you for inviting me anyway. Let's go. I'll see you off.”

“No, stay here,” Miska said, resting a hand on the girl's shoulder. “I shall need more than one to send me off.”

“Huh?”

As Miska receded, May gazed at her sadly.

The sound of a hard knock made the figure in white step off to one side.

“Sis—it's me, sis!” a quarrelsome voiced exclaimed.

May jumped up.

“Hugh—is that you, Hugh?!”

Scampering like a scared rabbit, she opened the door. And who should be taking cover behind Lagoon's enormous back? It was none other than Hugh.

The two of them embraced. As the siblings' cries rose like a thunderclap, Lagoon looked down at them for a while without saying a word.

“On the way back, my mount threw a shoe. I borrowed another horse from a nearby farmhouse, and that's when I got hold of him. Late the night before, the farmer was passing by the warehouses on Thornton Street when he saw a horse tied up there with a bag loaded on its back that was moving. He opened it up, and this is who he found. After listening to his tale, it turns out he was abducted by some villain. So he wasted no time in running off with the kid. And we won't pry too deeply into why he felt the need to make off with the horse at the same time. Apparently the farmer intended to bring him to the sheriff or me tomorrow.”

After that clipped explanation, Lagoon gave an uncharacteristically warm smile.

“Tonight, you two get reacquainted. D should be back soon.”

And saying that, he left.

It was then that another figure stood behind the pair, who held hands.

“Now that there are two of you, you could see me off,” Miska declared, and it was to the pair's great fortune that they didn't turn and see the gleam that filled her eyes.

-

After leaving May's room, Lagoon headed toward Miska's hidden chamber. The events of the previous night replayed vividly in his brain.

Suddenly appearing before dawn, Miska had ordered Lagoon to produce the item her grandfather had entrusted to him a decade earlier. Long ago, when Miska's grandfather had desired a meeting with Lord Vlad, human assassins set their sights on him, and Lagoon had served as the Nobleman's guard at Vlad's behest. Seeing how reliable the man was, Miska's grandfather had entrusted him with an ancient metal censer, instructing him that if someone were to come for it with proof of their kinship, he was to hand it over with due haste and render what aid he could. And giving the man a vast sum in precious metal along with those directions, the Nobleman had then left.

Having received the censer, Miska then demanded a room where she might light it and that Lagoon accompany her there.

Halting, Lagoon caught his breath.

The black smoke that rose from the censer once it'd been lit didn't frighten him. It didn't spread, but rather stopped at human height, and even when he noticed that some kind of unknown chemical reaction must be taking place, he wasn't afraid. He wasn't even scared when it took the form of a person in an ash-gray hood and robe. But every hair on him stood on end the instant that person stated in a human tongue, “I am the Guide.”

A Guide. Who would've thought they actually existed? Oh, if only D were here—or Lord Vlad
.

He didn't want to think about what had come next. But he remembered anyway. His ears, his brain, his eyes all remembered.

“Take me away. Take me to the other side.”

And to Miska's request the Guide had replied, “We shall require two children below the age of twelve.”

That was the source of his horror. The great Fisher Lagoon stopped in his tracks, trying desperately to get a grip on the terror welling up within him.

The Guide required children, though that wasn't necessarily a rare occurrence. Until a century earlier, every village had done the same thing. However, the Guide was a different matter. What they
did
to children . . .

Oh, why did I have to read that book about them? Why did I have to be there with her? I've gotta stop her. No matter what happens, I can't let her seal the deal with the Guide.

It took several minutes for him to feel like himself again.

When Lagoon finally made it to Miska's room, he was shocked. She wasn't there.

“Damn it! Has it started already?”

-

The water seemed to spread forever. No one who saw it would've thought there could be any end to it. Visually and mentally, the surface of the water left just such an impression of vastness. And on it, a small boat came across from nowhere in particular. Standing almost at its center was the baron, and behind him was the robed form of Jean de Carriole. The two of them had slipped into the castle through a secret passageway that even de Carriole hadn't known about. This was where the baron wanted to go before doing battle with his father once again.

The boat stopped. de Carriole had cut the engine.

“Here?”

“Yes, milord,” de Carriole said, his head bowed respectfully as he remained motionless so that the baron's eyes might be the first to look upon the woman who'd just then drifted to the water's surface.

“Byron.”

The aged scholar plugged his ears, and the baron in blue turned a quiet look of heartfelt emotion to the pale and wavering figure in the water.

“I have returned now,” he said. “Although you could say this is my second trip back here.”

“I know,” the woman in the water replied, looking like a mirage. “When you were defeated by your father and thrown into the waterway, did you think I wouldn't notice? Did you think I would do nothing?”

The baron was at a loss for words.

“I was constantly watching you. And I entrusted you to the flow of the water.”

“Why?”

“I, who gave birth to you, knew better than anyone that it would take more than mere ‘running water' to claim your life. So long as you were underwater, you would be safe from destruction by sunlight. And that being the case, I thought it would be best if you kept going and flowed right out of these lands. I tell you this in the full knowledge that, now that you've returned once more, nothing I say can dissuade you. Byron, my son—please, just leave the castle. Nothing can come of your battle.”

“I am quite aware of that, mother.”

From the very start, there was nothing to be won in this fight. A son would kill his father. Was it so the abused and banished son might be avenged, or so that his mother, who'd been relegated to a subterranean lake, would be vindicated? Whichever it was, it was so horrible it was deserving of the Nobility's most scornful expression—“oh so human.”

“Byron,” his mother said, her voice carrying a certain intent.

Your mother is going to share a great secret with you alone. Listen carefully
—It was just such a tone.

“Your father despised you. Because you, who should've continued the family line, had been changed into something else. Your father did not refuse the great one's request. He was delighted to hand you over. And that was no mistake. However, I must tell you now that before your father, there was someone else who hated you and tried to destroy you.”

The baron closed his eyes. He had always done so, accepting everything and bearing it quietly. For he was not a human being.

And that was why he inquired softly, “Was it de Carriole?”

“No.”

“The great one, then?”

“No.”

“Who then—?”

“Me.”

-

II

-

There was nothing to disturb the silence. The water around the boat didn't move with even a hair of a ripple, and the baron was motionless as a rock. Apparently tragedy had frozen him.

“Impossible,” the baron said, retaining his composure.

“Kindly ask de Carriole,” the woman in the water said.

“Is this the truth, de Carriole?”

“Yes, milord,” the aged scholar answered in a tortured tone.

For the first time, waves rocked the sides of the boat.

The baron let all the tension out of his body.

“At the behest of your mother—Lady Cordelia—it was I that drove a stake of ash into your chest. Had it been anyone but you, Master Byron, the stake would've left a substantial scar.”

“He was unsuccessful. And I regretted doing it. For the instant your cries filled my ears, I awoke from a nightmare. To one school of thought, my being left trapped here in this condition through de Carriole's assistance was the wrath of heaven.”

Byron Balazs, the baron in blue loathed by his father and nearly killed by his mother, stood there and didn't say a word.

“If you would slay your father, first you must kill your mother. That's all I wanted to say to you, Byron.”

The baron and his mother and the aged scholar—each of the three seemed to have their thoughts take shape, flickering in and out of visibility in the faint light.

Suddenly the baron turned to the right. de Carriole raised his face. The woman swayed. All three of them had sensed a presence of staggeringly immense proportions. It became a booming voice that was drawing closer.

“Has your tragic episode reached its conclusion, my lovely wife and child?”

It was the voice of Vlad Balazs.

Though the baron focused every fiber of his being on the source of that voice, he was ultimately unable to pinpoint it.

“Well, I'm sure you've heard what your mother had to say for herself, my freakish son. Your father has come down here to do battle with you again. From the very start I was watching from up above as you came. And though I can't imagine what you're feeling now, since you are out to take my life, I can't let you leave here alive. Have no fear. Before the son can slay his father, the father shall destroy his son.”

Suddenly the boat rocked like a fallen leaf. A tremendous shock wave struck the surface of the water, and seeking an outlet for its anger, the water surged violently.

“Ha ha! Can you see me, Bryon, my son? If not, you shall find slaying me to be most—”