Demon Deathchase (14 page)

“I sure hope they notice that and come for me,” he muttered anxiously. When he started
toward the horse tethered in front of the saloon, he heard the sound of hoofbeats
and a car engine coming from one end of the long, central street.

Without even time to hide his horse, Bengé leapt across the street into the shadow
of what looked to be a cyborg horse repair center. He had to wait but a few seconds
for the body of a bus he’d seen before to appear from the other end of the street.
The drivers must’ve installed some sort of non-reflective glass in it, because he
couldn’t see through the windshield.

The wheels ground to a halt right in front of the saloon, the door opened, and a pair
of men stepped out. It was the guys he’d toyed with on the road through the mountains
a day earlier. Hunters after Mayerling.

A killing-lust welled up, filling Bengé’s entire being. The shadows of the buildings
fell across the street. Between them and the men’s shadows lay open ground. “Come
on. Closer. Come to Bengé,” he muttered to himself. If even part of one of their shadows
touched that of the building where he concealed himself, he could slip into theirs
in an instant. He’d become Death, invisible and inescapable.

The giant who called to mind a rock drew closer, with bow and arrows in hand. For
an instant his shadow touched that from the tip of the roof of a building. Bengé’s
form faded away. The younger Hunter set his eyes on the other side of the street,
and, when the giant changed direction and the shadow spun to his rear, the shade-like
figure in black that silently rose behind the bigger man had the base of its neck
covered with what looked like fine silvery feathers.

Faster than the giant’s arrows in their indiscriminate flight, a swish of white knifed
through the Barbarois’ body as it first reeled back with an anguished cry, then went
quickly into a face-first drop. Sending black blood out in all directions, Bengé’s
body split in half just above the waist. The two parts of his body quickly thudded
to the ground.

“Is this the guy, Leila?” Borgoff called in the direction of the bus as he checked
out the back of the enemy’s head and its glistening feathers—needles from the sliver
gun.

The driver’s window slid open, and Leila’s face and the leveled sliver gun appeared.
“Yep. I got my payback.”

Anticipating that they’d run across the foe who’d attacked her earlier, she had the
window open a crack from the very beginning and had kept her brothers covered. And,
while Bengé had by no means forgotten about Leila, his scorn for a girl he’d abused
once already and his overwhelming confidence in his own abilities had dug his grave.

“No doubt about it—this is one of the threesome Grove mentioned. What the high hell
was he doing out here?” Kyle said, spitting on the corpse.

“Dammit, how am I supposed to get any sleep now,” Borgoff muttered. “Well, we’ve killed
one of them, at any rate. Where I see he’s got a horse tied up there and all, I’d
say he’s the only one here. But just to be sure, check out the area. Once we know
it’s clear, we’ll take a little break, then head out again.”

“Hold on, Borgoff. Can we afford to take it easy? We gotta gain all the ground we
can while the sun shines,” Leila called out from the window, but Borgoff swept her
words away with one hand.

“See, he’s got two drivers now that daylight don’t bother. Besides, we’ve heard that
it’s the Claybourne States he’s headed for. Well, if that’s the case, I know a couple
of routes we can take to head them off, so there’s no need to get all flustered. To
the contrary, I wouldn’t mind letting D go on ahead to see if that Noble and him can’t
kill each other. I say it’s a lucky thing we hit this town looking to bed down under
a roof for a change.”

Naturally, the oldest brother didn’t catch the shade of emotion that rushed into Leila’s
face at the mention of D’s name.

“Still, bro,” Kyle began, as he used a finger to wipe the gore from his crescent blade,
“you know, a long time ago, that the Claybourne States used to be a space port. There
ain’t nothing there but rows and rows of trashed rockets. What the hell could they—No,
you don’t think they could be planning to go to another planet, do you? Maybe for
their honeymoon?!”

Even as she heard Kyle explode in laughter, Leila shut the window.

—

The road was constantly bombarded by the chirping of little birds from the woods to
either side.

In the spring sunlight, D raced on. Compared to when he’d chased the shadow carriage,
his speed had decreased somewhat, but that was unavoidable. D’s rein handling forced
the cyborg horse to gallop at speeds far exceeding its abilities. The knee joints,
metabolizers, and other parts already exhibited signs of severe stress. There was
some question as to whether the horse would last another twelve hours, even if D eased
back to his usual pace.

He had no choice but to wait for a nearby village or motorized mobile shop, but that
was a faint hope.

The time was eight Morning. Could he catch up to Mayerling’s carriage now that it
could run by day as well? The prospects looked bleak. Still, he had to go on. It is
the destiny of the huntsman to chase his prey.

How would his opponent react? Surely the Noble was aware that D and the Marcus clan
were in pursuit. There was no way the Noble would just keep running. He’d definitely
strike back at them. But when, and how?

Aside from the obvious psychological edge, those giving chase weren’t necessarily
always at an advantage when both parties were on the move. If the pursuers ran into
an ambush, the tables could be turned. And there was nothing fiercer than cornered
prey baring its fangs in its own defense.

The features of the young Noble skimmed across D’s heart. The Noble wasn’t lying when
he said he wouldn’t do anything to the human. D could almost picture the face of the
girl in the carriage, and the look she’d have in her eyes.

The scenery before him suddenly changed. Gone was the constant greenery, replaced
by a rough desert plain. In various places, the land was fused into a glassy state,
and eye-catching machines and vehicles of titanic proportions jutted from the ground.
There were heaps of pitiful, mechanical corpses left on the field, each and every
one red and crumbling with rust. They seemed to stretch on to the ends of the earth,
and the disturbing, ghastly air they had about them didn’t seem in the least bit like
that of anything mechanical. When night came, would the bitter voices of single-minded
machines echo pathetically across the plain?

This was one of the ancient battlefields where, long ago, machines that’d evolved
into sentience fought each other out of hatred. Even now, a number of them still hadn’t
ceased functioning, their bodies squirming around on a pale and feeble current, wandering
night after night in search of their enemies.

The ambush could come any time now. That was the feeling D had. As day broke, he’d
seen the flash of what seemed to be a Hunter’s signal flare in the dawn sky to the
rear. Undoubtedly it was the signal from Bengé, reporting his mission had failed and
that D was still in pursuit. Of course, the remaining pair of guards would see it
and take the necessary countermeasures. The question was, would some of the party
keep moving? Both of the Barbarois probably wouldn’t come after him, but one of them
might attack.

Then there was the other group to consider. No doubt the Marcus clan had noticed the
flare, too. They had much more detailed knowledge of this area. There was every reason
to worry about them taking some little-known shortcut to head off the carriage. And,
in the world of day, swimming with the song of life, even D couldn’t possibly hear
their footfalls. Would they let him go on ahead? Or would he fall prey to one of their
ambushes?

D’s face clouded ever so slightly. Perhaps he’d been thinking about the youngest,
the little sister. About the girl with the big, round eyes who said she couldn’t live
any other way but as a Hunter. If she let her hair down instead of pulling it back
she’d probably look a good two years younger. With a touch of rouge to her cheeks
and some lipstick, she could pass for a regular girl from any old town. She wouldn’t
have to cry out for her mother, tortured by fever.

D’s countenance lost its shade of humanity. Far ahead of him, he’d sighted a toppled
column of mammoth proportions. Running in a straight line across the fifteen-foot-wide
road was a gigantic, rusted forearm.

—

Just before D had intruded on the ancient battlefield, there’d been a woman by the
side of the road in what was just about the center of this vast expanse of land. She
was combing her hair in the morning breeze. The dress she wore was bluer than the
bluest sky, and the voice spilling from her lips in song was as beautiful as any jewel.
If only she didn’t have those spiteful red lips. However, a black shadow fell clearly
across the cylindrical generator against which the woman was leaning. The demons of
the night weren’t supposed to have shadows.

It was unclear how long she’d been there, but the woman seemed to be absorbed in toying
with the golden thread that was her hair. Suddenly, she looked up. Her gaze went in
the direction from which D’s hoofbeats echoed.

“Ah, someone’s coming,” the woman—Caroline—laughed, but her rose-like beauty soon
grew tense. “Those hoofbeats don’t sound like any human’s horse. It’s D. Now there’s
a man to be feared . . . ”

Even now, the image of D’s swordplay in the village of the Barbarois was burned into
Caroline’s retinas. But, an instant later, her blue eyes blazed with a lust for blood
and battle. A smile warped her ruby lips.

“It seems it was worthwhile waiting here to get some rest and lay an ambush. I will
make this your grave . . . ”

And, with that muttered declaration of war, Caroline scanned the surrounding machinery,
nodded once, then approached one of the devices. Rust coated its surface, and a number
of jumbled pipes ran out of it. Caroline laid her hands on one of those closest and
nestled it lovingly to her cheek, but, before long, her expression grew terribly lurid.
Her mouth opened. Inside, her mouth was the same bloody red as her lips. Two of her
canines were exposed, and, when they came in contact with the rusty pipe, the tips
sank effortlessly into the metal.

Slowly, twin streams slid down Caroline’s luscious throat, leaving a damp trail as
they coursed to her ample bosom. The beauty’s throat pulsated, and she drank as if
ravenous. Over and over, gulp after gulp.

Before long, Caroline pulled back, and the fluid leaking from the holes mysteriously
stopped. The Barbarois woman stepped away from the machine like a petal drifting off
in the breeze. Showered with sunlight, her red tongue played along her lips. “Ah,
that’s what I like,” she purred. “Now listen well to what I have to say.”

The machine moved. Painfully slow. Its five fingers clawed at the sand. Each digit
at least a yard long. Measuring thirty feet overall, the device she’d chosen was a
robotic forearm that’d been broken off at the elbow.

—

Dhalted his steed. The arm was sixty feet away. It was like an exquisite piece of
sculpture; even the shapes of the muscles and the lines of blood vessels remained
discernible through the rust.

While the great machine battles had primarily been contests of combat ability, a sort
of conflict between bizarre aesthetic sensibilities had also existed. In response
to the geometrical orderliness of their rivals—epitomized by designs that were conglomerations
of planes and spheres simplified to the extreme—some uncouth machines had taken the
imitation of the human form to a level of beauty and perfection surpassing even the
classic artistry of antiquity. Whether or not true “artists” existed among the machines,
they not only accurately reproduced human hair on their androids, but every last pore
as well.

Unofficial historical accounts kept by the Nobility reserved a special place for the
earth-shaking contest between Apollo, with a thirty-foot sword in hand, and Hercules,
armed with three hundred feet of spear. The surpassing destructive power unleashed
in their clash changed the shape of mountains, wiped away valleys, and stopped the
course of rivers. Had the limb now blocking D’s path belonged to one of those famed
combatants, or was it a remnant of some nameless Goliath?

A figure in blue frolicked on top of the wrist. The morning breeze rustled her golden
hair and bore the aroma of her sweet perfume. Only D could detect something else.
The foul stench of blood that drifted with it. “I am Caroline of the Barbarois,” she
said. “And I can let you go no further.”

In D’s pupils, which reflected only a void, the woman’s image laughed coldly. Her
body swayed wildly. The arm beneath her feet jolted as it changed direction, pointing
toward D. Power coursed into the fingers, and they dug into the soil. Once they were
embedded, the arm used them as a fulcrum and started to slide forward like an inchworm.
It moved roughly, but with surprising speed.

D was motionless. Perhaps the surreal phenomenon of this rusted arm coming to life
had robbed him of his nerve.

When the arm had come within fifteen feet of him, spread its fingers wide, and slammed
against the earth, D charged on his horse. The colossal arm hung in midair. It’d sprung
into the air from the force of the fingers striking the ground. D might’ve discerned
the time and location of impact from its position, because, as the titanic arm’s ten-foot-wide
palm made the earth tremble, he slipped out from under it by a hair’s breadth.

The fingers slammed shut, tearing up soil. Turning toward D, it lifted just its wrist
until it was perpendicular to the ground. The fingers were still clenched. When it
flopped forward, it opened them at last. A brown mass flew straight for D and his
horse, more than sixty feet away. That distance rapidly diminished.