Demon Deathchase (12 page)

However, the one clear image that greeted anyone who looked back was the enraptured
expression of the angelic young man as he stood by the entrance to the square watching
the mad dance of the lights. It was inspiring how his face brimmed with joie de vivre
as he gleefully toyed with the deadly rays.

All at once, the square reclaimed its original hue. Perhaps it was an aftereffect
of the powerful white flashes, but the green trees and brown houses burned themselves
into the scene in almost painfully deep tones before gradually returning to their
natural colors.

Villagers creeping to the edge of the square—or in some cases crouched on the ground
watching where this supernatural phenomenon was headed—saw a pair of figures square
off with some thirty feet between them. One was a young man wearing an angelic smile,
the other was a Hunter as beautiful as the moon’s corona.

Which would prove faster, the racing figure in black or the coursing stream of white
light?

Everyone gasped as D fended off one white-hot attack but had two more streaks pierce
his body as he dashed forward. But what did the villagers really see and gasp about?

D had held his left hand out in front on his chest. The two bolts of light changed
direction right before him, became a single flash, and were sucked into the palm of
his hand.

The young man didn’t move. His smile still brimmed with pleasure.

D’s flashing blade flowed from the tip of his foe’s head down to his lower jaw. There
was no resistance. Still holding the pose from his downward stroke, D stood a little
closer to the edge of the square.

The young man had suddenly disappeared. Dim shadows that played across D’s face testified
this wasn’t the result of anything he’d done.

The old man ran over to him. “D—Are you injured, milord?”

Without answering, D looked back across the square. There was no sign of the carriage.
“Can I get down the back side of the mountain?” he asked.

The old man nodded. “There’s a passage known only to the villagers. Damn!” the old
man shouted, looking around desperately.

D knew why the Elder cursed. The three toughs Mayerling had retained were nowhere
to be seen.

—

Kyle pulled his hot lips away from the woman’s body now that resistance had given
way to moaning, as it always did. From a bunk that until now had been deathly silent,
there trickled the sound of shallow but urgent breathing.

“Dammit—he’s back pretty damn fast this time,” Kyle spat irritably and stood up. “Hey,
hurry up and get that IV ready,” he ordered Leila, who was still stark naked.

Glaring sharply at her older brother, the tracks of tears still fresh on her face,
Leila gathered her discarded clothing.

Glancing at the bruises on her skin and the purple teeth-marks from where he’d just
bitten her, Kyle clucked his tongue remonstratively. “You should’ve just behaved like
usual and done what I told you. I don’t know what got into you today, but that’s what
you get for being dumb and putting up a fight.” Chuckling, he added, “Of course, I
suppose it just made it that much easier to get ol’ Grove worked up.”

“Quit it!” Leila slapped away the hand reaching for her ample bosom. “Lately, the
gap between his normal attacks has gotten pretty slim, you know. If you keep forcing
Grove to have more on top of those, even though you know it’s shortening his life,
what do you think is gonna happen? If his energy goes wild, no one has any idea how
bad the destruction would be.”

“Shit, you think we can read that far ahead? We’ve got problems right now. We’ll know
how things went just as soon as Borgoff gets back. Nah, on second thought I think
I’ll try asking Grove first. Outta my way.”

Cruelly pushing Leila aside, Kyle went to the pillow of the third Marcus brother.

“Hey, bro, it’s me—Kyle. Tell me what you saw while you were . . .
in there
. Remember what I asked you to look into before you went?”

For quite a while the rasping sounds that escape from a patient at death’s door continued,
then ceased.

A sudden gasp. It hadn’t come from the man beneath the blankets. A pale thin hand
was wrapped around Kyle’s windpipe.

“Want to know, Kyle? You want to know?” Groveck wheezed. “You’re here having all the
fun with Leila . . . while you put me through the tortures of hell . . . And you want
to know?”

“Er . . . yeah. Sure, I wanna know.” It was all the younger Marcus brother could do
to answer, with the hand at his throat.

The hand quickly fell away. Groveck’s delicate voice practically sobbed, “Our prey
is heading for . . . the Claybourne States . . . ”

—

I

—

Twilight had begun to swaddle the woods at a fork in the gently snaking road.

Gently, the girl switched off an electric light patterned after an old-fashioned candelabra.
Blue darkness flooded the interior. The day that was hers alone was ending, and the
world that was both of theirs was beginning.

The girl liked the sound of the lid opening on the black coffin that lay in one corner
of the vehicle. Before long, his hand appeared and pushed the lid away. He stood up
and stretched once, as was his habit. And then, pulling a small chair over, he seated
himself in front of the girl.

Thank you.
That’s what he said. In appreciation of the fact she’d switched off the lights. He
would never think of telling her she should’ve kept them on.
Thank you.
That was all.

The couple’s romance had begun in the woods in spring. The traveler’s carriage had
struck the girl when she dashed out suddenly in pursuit of a bird, and the lone occupant
had tended her wounds—hardly a unique story, but because the principal characters
were a human and a Noble, it could only end in misery.

Sometimes, however, there were exceptions. The girl knew she was dealing with a Noble.
And the Noble knew he was dealing with a human. Yet there was neither fear nor scorn
between them. They simply fascinated each other.

Their walk through the woods was sweet. For once in her life, the girl didn’t fear
the darkness. He’d been good enough to teach her. He’d shown her that the night, too,
teemed with life.

The girl heard the flowing of a river. She saw the moonbeam fish leaping against the
lunar disc. She smelled the perfume of night-blooming jasmine. She heard the poetry
the wind recited, and a chorus of tiny, unseen frogs. The night was full of light,
too—and he was unfailingly by her side.

He felt as she did. A heretic among the Nobility, he was one who didn’t consider humanity
inferior. A baron who loved the day as well, but awaited his kind’s demise without
ever having seen the light of the sun. Finally, he’d seen a goal, an end to his aimless
wandering. The girl had given him that.

His travels had left a bitter taste in his mouth. Fleeing from villagers and Hunters
hell-bent on killing Nobles, he’d crossed a brutally cold glacier. He’d raced through
mountain trails whipped by howling, mad winds. All of which would’ve been fine if
his journey had been for some purpose. Though on the road to extinction, his own destruction
still lay a long way off.

And then he’d met the girl. A young lady flitting about a forest filled with living
things, soaking up the light of midday. What did rank matter? So what if they were
different species? They both knew who was important to them. That was all there was
to it.

This chance meeting of day and night began with a gentle gaze and the bashful, tender
joining of hands. The girl had just turned seventeen. He understood the hopes and
fears in her heart. That being the case, couldn’t a Noble and a human possibly stay
together? No, not in this world.

It was then he’d broached the subject.
Would you go away with me?

The girl nodded.
I’ll go anywhere. As long as I’m with you.

And then the two exchanged their first kiss. Devoid of lust for blood or the fear
of being fed upon, it was a feverish kiss, but also a demure one.

Tragedy struck the following night. He burst into her home, unable to watch the beating
the girl’s father gave her when he learned his daughter was going to run away. For
the first time, this Noble, propelled by hatred, sucked a human’s blood. However,
he failed to notice the father had a rare sort of constitution that reacted strangely
to vampire attacks.

Whether a bitten human became a bloodthirsty creature like the Nobility or was left
a mere mummy depended on the intent of the Noble that drained his or her blood. Though
exceedingly rare, there were also some cases where what happened to the victim ran
counter to the wishes of the vampire. A drained individual might be left as a human
incredibly low on blood, refusing to change. And an emaciated man left to die of blood
loss could come back as a vampire.

Everyone the girl’s father fed on had become the same sort of fiend with a single
bite. Those he attacked sought new victims, and, in the course of a single night,
the whole village was transformed into pseudo-Nobility. But the girl had been rendered
unconscious by the intense beating she’d received. She had seen none of this.

When she awoke, her love’s gaze greeted her. And that’s how their journey began. Their
journey to the Claybourne States.

—

Iaccomplished what I wanted to in the village, but it seems they couldn’t dispose
of him,” the Noble muttered as he reviewed the events of the day from recordings made
by the electronic eyes. “Most likely this other man with the strange powers has also
learned our destination. Given the speed of this carriage, it’s entirely conceivable
they’ll be lying in wait for us. We shall have to take the initiative.”

As the girl turned her questioning eyes on him, he informed her they’d be at their
destination before long. He left the vehicle. The pair of escorts riding alongside
the carriage bowed to him. One was on horseback, and the other—a woman—was in a small,
single-passenger buggy.

“Greetings,” the first guard said. “I’m Mashira.”

“And I am Caroline. I’ve looked forward to your appearance, Sire.”

“We seem to be one short,” Mayerling noted, his tone and bearing in keeping with his
Noble rank.

Mashira nodded. “Yes. He’s lying in wait for the enemy in the woods up ahead.”

“For the enemy?” the Nobleman asked. “Alone?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“There’s no need to fear,” Caroline said in a mysterious tone. Though Mayerling knew
nothing of it, the shoulder left bare by her indigo dress no longer showed even a
trace of a wound. Her gaze clinging to him as she climbed over to the coachman’s perch
of the carriage, she looked up at her employer and said, “He won’t do anything. He’s
simply gone to get a peek at the other Hunters you mentioned to the Elder.”

“The other Hunters?” Mayerling’s beautiful countenance became a grimace, and he stated,
“I’m well aware of the abilities of any other Vampire Hunters besides
him
. No, strike that—is the young man who ran amuck in your village one of them, too?”

“Most likely,” Mashira replied.

Caroline added, “That woman in the car you mentioned is one as well, sire. And there
may well be others. So to Bengé goes the honor of the first encounter . . . ”

Mayerling was silent. From his recordings, he’d learned about the girl who’d attacked
them while they were resting at the Shelter and her battle with the automated defenses.
He was quite sure she’d been gravely wounded back at the Shelter, but if she was still
alive then she’d prove a troublesome adversary. Even more so if she were in league
with that young man from the village square . . .

“Well,” the Nobleman said to the pair, “while he may be one of your fellow Barbarois,
I know only his reputation, not what powers he possesses. No matter how great his
abilities, it’ll be no mean feat to dispose of all the enemies on my tail. Especially
all alone . . . ”

His two bodyguards looked at each other. Mayerling may not have realized they were
smiling.

“Well, we’ll be arriving in the village of Barnabas shortly,” said Caroline. “Once
he’s returned there, perhaps you’d care to ask him about it yourself. But this alone
I can tell you. If someone’s already encountered him—or worse yet, is pursuing him—without
a doubt they shall die before this night is through.” Her words were backed with such
confidence that even Mayerling, Noble that he was, was perplexed for a moment. “But
all that aside, will you not do us the honor of introducing the guest you have inside?
Come what may, it could prove somewhat troublesome if we don’t know what she looks
like.”

“Absolutely,” Mashira said, nodding his agreement.

After a bit of consideration, Mayerling bent over and rapped lightly on the door.
“Kindly show yourself,” he said.

While it was unclear how she’d heard him inside over the roar of the speeding carriage,
the blue windowpane opened and a gorgeous countenance emerged. Her face was tinged
with trepidation from the darkness.

“Oh, my,” Mashira blurted out, and his words were not altogether empty flattery.

“Such a beauty,” Caroline added, but her burning gaze was concentrated on the person
in the driver’s seat.

“Thank you, my love,” Mayerling said, and the window closed.

At that moment, in a tiny voice even his Noble senses couldn’t detect, someone tittered,
mumbling, “Nice and pretty, just how I like ’em. Think I’ll make her mine . . . ”
It was clearly the voice of a fourth person, someone who could not be accounted for.

—

The clear weather of that afternoon had broken, and leaden clouds pervaded the night
sky.

A figure garbed in black sped down the street the carriage and its escorts had taken
a scant hour earlier. There was no moon, but the black-garbed figure was so beautiful
he virtually gave off a light of his own. With the speed with which he galloped, he
could gobble up that one hour lead in less than twenty minutes if all went smoothly.
Just as he was hitting the heart of the forest, however, he stopped sharply.

Though there were clouds, the darkness wasn’t complete. In D’s eyes, it was just like
midday. About thirty feet ahead of where D halted his horse, a gigantic tree branch
hung over the road, and one part of it in particular protruded sharply. Beneath that
protrusion hung a long, thin shadow. D alone saw it for what it truly was. One of
the trio of escorts—Bengé.

According to what Mashira had told Mayerling a short while earlier, their compatriot
had come here to meet D. And, given the work each had undertaken, an encounter with
the Hunter would mean a battle to the death. Bengé had already seen D in action, from
the skirmish in the village of the Barbarois and the way D protected Leila in the
clearing, and he must’ve been aware of how powerful D really was. The fact that Bengé
appeared to confront D despite all that he knew indicated that he had the utmost confidence
in his fighting abilities.

“Hello there,” Bengé called out, his slim hand raised in a cheerful greeting, but
his eyes weren’t laughing. “I regret to inform you that you can’t pass this way. Oh,
but this is the only road to take. Then it looks like one of us will just have to
wait by the side of the road—as a corpse!”

Bengé probably figured his conceited tone would draw some sort of reaction. But he
let out a shout of fright as he caught sight of D flying off his horse and up over
his head with lightning speed.

Indeed, talk was futile. D’s sword, which never returned to its sheath without first
tasting the blood of its foes, split Bengé’s skull in two before he could flee. The
reason D promptly spun himself around upon landing back on the ground was because
of the lack of resistance his blade had conveyed. There was no sign of the clearly
bisected Bengé, only a sheet of black cloth that fell about the Hunter’s feet. Cloth
that Bengé had been wearing.

A weird, stifled laugh struck the nape of D’s neck. “You surprise me, you fearsome
man. Were I anyone else, you’d have sliced me in two.”

D didn’t move. Even with his ultra-keen senses, he couldn’t tell where Bengé was.
As the saying went, Bengé’s voice came out of thin air.

“Well, then,” Bengé said, “I guess it’s my turn now.”

D’s right hand moved ever so slightly. Two flashes of light gleamed, and sparks flew
from the base of D’s neck with the most beautiful sound. Bengé had stabbed down at
D with a dagger after he suddenly materialized behind the Hunter, and the sparks resulted
from that dagger being parried by the sword that flew back with just a simple movement
of the Hunter’s hand.

The tip of D’s sword swept horizontally as he spun about, but there was no sign of
Bengé. D kicked off the ground. Leaping five yards, as soon as he touched down he
leapt again. Unable to detect anyone, he touched back down from his second leap. And
then he heard it.

“Heh heh heh . . . It’s no use, no use at all,” Bengé’s voice laughed. “As long as
the other you
is here, I’ll be here, too.”

In the forest ahead of him, a shadow rose silently. D’s left hand raced into action,
becoming white lightning blazing through the air. But the wooden needle he’d launched
only nailed a length of thin black cloth to a nearby tree trunk. Beyond the tree,
another shadow arose.

Is that an invitation?
the Hunter thought.
Fine.
D sprinted into the woods. An invitation to follow him from the road to the woods—just
what did Bengé have in mind?

The hot, humid atmosphere pressed him mercilessly from all sides. A sharp sound ripped
through the wind. The silvery streaks that flew in rapid succession from either side
of D were batted aside, one and all, by his blade.

“Oh, my. Not bad at all.” Bengé’s voice had a ring of admiration that wasn’t in the
least bit exaggerated.

“You said as long as I was here, you’d be here, didn’t you?” D said without concern.
There was no gloating over how he’d just thwarted the vicious attacks. “I see now.
I know what your power is—”

“What?!” Bengé shouted. His daggers flew, as if to cover his shock and indignation.
One came from straight ahead, the other from a thicket far to the rear of D—and they
were nearly simultaneous. Did the Hunter face multiple opponents?

Deflecting the attacks with ease, D bent down. The instant a flash of white whizzed
over his head, he swung his left hand back behind him. He could feel the rough wooden
needle it held bite into flesh.

There was a cry of pain.