Demon Deathchase (18 page)

However, Borgoff’s gaze was not trained so much on the structures themselves as on
the ground beneath his feet. There were white things scattered about—a skull staring
fixedly at him with gaping black sockets, a femur that looked like it would make an
improvised ax, ribs, a humerus . . . They were all bones. Most of them were from species
Borgoff recognized, the rest were from birds and beasts he wasn’t familiar with, but
the human bones were certainly easy enough to spot. Despite all the remains, the air
here didn’t have the slightest stench of decay. It was as if something had stripped
them of their flesh and blood.

Leaving only his startled exclamation of “Whoa!” in his old position, Borgoff jumped
forward a good six feet. He landed without disturbing the moss. At the spot he’d just
leapt away from, there were a number of creatures that looked like black grains of
rice scurrying around. “Sorry, I can’t afford to be dinner for you guys just yet,”
he called back to the minute creatures. “So long.” There was something horrifying
about his voice as he spoke, and then, when he was about to make another bound, a
shudder ran down his spine. In that instant, he realized who he was going to be up
against. The distance to the foe he sensed was twenty-five feet ahead and a little
to the right, with the eerie model of the Capital lying dead in the middle.

All the power drained from Borgoff’s body. Preparing for battle, he struck a pose
that would let him use his muscles just as he wanted. The tension others might feel
when a fight to the death was imminent meant nothing to a Hunter of Borgoff’s class.
Crouching to escape the fierce, unearthly aura shooting through him, Borgoff let an
arrow fly with lightning speed. He already had another arrow cocked and ready.

The unearthly aura died out.

The Hunter didn’t know where his arrow had gone or what effect it had. But from the
way there was no sound of leaves or twigs swaying, he could well imagine.

The air stirred by his right cheek. He jumped forward for all he was worth. What had
just split the air and then stuck itself into the ground was the arrow he’d fired.
While the fact that someone had stopped his shot with their bare hands didn’t surprise
him, the awesome power with which it’d been hurled back gave Borgoff goosebumps. Any
stone or branch out there might become a deadly weapon in the hands of his enemy.

Up ahead of him, the Hunter sensed someone moving. Picking himself up and preparing
to loose a second arrow, Borgoff stiffened. There against the backdrop of blue darkness,
a figure in black suddenly stood. Borgoff’s Hunter-sharp eyes caught the pair of fangs
poking out from the corners of his foe’s proper mouth.

“So you’re my prey then? We meet at long last,” Borgoff said in a tone brimming with
delight as he aligned the neck of his deadly arrow with his foe’s heart.

“I have no words of greeting for a stray dog out prowling for human flesh and blood,”
the figure garbed in black said quietly. “However, I have no desire for needless conflict.
If you put your tail between your legs and scamper off, I won’t do anything to you.”

Borgoff laughed. “That’s kind of you to offer.” The direction his arrow was aiming
was gradually changing. Towards the sky. “But I’m afraid I can’t!”

What Borgoff did next was nearly miraculous. At almost exactly the same time as the
two arrows he shot vertically left his bowstring, he took two more from his quiver
and launched them at his target. The speed of his attack was so great, the Noble—Mayerling—was
clearly shaken. Another shaft flew through the air as if to block Mayerling’s way
after he barely blocked the first two and moved to the right. The Noble had to twist
in midair to avoid it. The instant he landed, two more arrows thunked into the ground
at his feet in rapid succession.

Mayerling leapt backward. A shout of rage split his lips. How could a mere mortal
with no more than a primitive bow and arrow put him in such peril?!

However, one last surprise remained in the trap Borgoff had laid. When Mayerling tried
to twist out of the way of the whining menace dropping from above, his eyes caught
sight of a black light knifing though the darkness. No matter where he leapt, he’d
be under fire! And, when his movements stiffened for an instant, two arrows dropped
out of the sky on an almost perfectly vertical path and pierced both of the Noble’s
shoulders with what seemed like calculated precision.

Groaning in agony, Mayerling went to pull the arrows out, but his hands wouldn’t move.

“It’s no use,” Borgoff chortled. “I don’t care if you’re a Noble or not, you ain’t
gonna be able to pull them out. For starters, you can’t raise your arms. So, how do
you like my chaser arrows bit?”

Borgoff’s confidence-choked laughter was certainly fitting praise for his own masterful
skill. Taking into account where the first two arrows he fired would drop, he’d driven
Mayerling there with his relentless waves of attacks. However, Mayerling had been
free to move as he liked. What could possibly rope in someone with several times the
speed and strength of a human, and herd him right into the target in the instant the
arrows fell? Borgoff’s ungodly skill—and the chaser arrows—could.

At that moment, something about the scene changed. The ground at Mayerling’s feet
suddenly had a blackness to it. Something like an inky stain was surging forward,
headed in his direction. When he tried to jump out of the way, callous steel whistled
past him on either side.

Shrilly, Borgoff asked, “Well, what’s wrong? Aren’t you gonna run away? Can’t escape
now, can you? If you move, I’ll put an arrow through your heart. Of course, them mints
have caught the smell the blood, and if you stand there you’ll be their next meal.”

He was right. The wave of black steadily approaching Mayerling’s feet was in fact
a large swarm of fearsome flesh-eating ants, otherwise known as mints. This spot so
reminiscent of the Capital was indeed a metropolis—a cathedral for hundreds of millions
of the smallest and fiercest of creatures.

“Well, well, well. You don’t have time to think it over,” said Borgoff. “What’ll it
be—one right through the heart, or are you gonna wind up in the belly of them mints
with nothing but your bones left behind? Nobility or not, you can’t come back from
just bones. What’ll it be?”

When Borgoff had slowly pulled his bowstring taut, he saw the Noble’s hands go into
motion.

—

Who the hell are you?” asked Leila. The man didn’t look like someone she’d need anything
as heavy as the sliver gun against, and she held her javelin casually as she stood
in front of the huntsman. It was only when Leila caught sight of the charring on Mashira’s
stomach that her face hardened.
I’d swear that’s a wound from one of Groveck’s power rays
, she thought.
And yet, this guy’s still—

“That’s not him,” the girl cried out in a quavering voice. “Originally, he was one
of our bodyguards. But he transferred himself into a different body. He’s got this
other face on his stomach that—” Before she could finish, the girl doubled over like
a shrimp, as if victim to agonizing stomach pains.

Unsure what was happening, Leila let the javelin fly. Her “shoot first, ask questions
later,” Hunter habits had come to the fore. The man didn’t move. The javelin should’ve
sunk into his stomach, but, when the tip of it was stopped by a sharp clang, Leila
leapt back. As she leapt, her right hand grabbed hold of the sliver gun at her hip.
The handle of the weapon shooting back out of the man’s stomach knocked the gun out
of her hand.

“Knock it off already,” the man said. Apparently he could manipulate the nerves and
vocal cords of a corpse, and this threatening outburst from the mouth of the deceased
huntsman coupled with the raised barrel of the high-caliber rifle rooted Leila to
the spot. “It’s been a good while since I ran across a scrappy little hellcat like
you,” the huntsman said in the countenanced carbuncle’s voice. “That’s just perfect.
I’ll make both of you my women. Come on.”

As if beckoned by that evil voice, Leila took a few steps forward. The huntsman’s
free hand lifted his shirt. Seeing the human face that swelled up on his belly, Leila
cried out in surprise. Its lips pursed, and a terrifying brown ligament shot out at
Leila’s stomach.

A scream arose. It belonged to neither Leila, nor the girl. It’d been loosed by the
countenanced carbuncle. There was a single needle of rough wood stuck right through
the middle of the brown umbilicus the countenanced carbuncle apparently used to transfer
itself. When the pain-wracked huntsman spun around in search of his foe, more needles
pierced him through the heart and right between the eyes. Of course, the corpse didn’t
fall.

Though she didn’t know exactly when he’d appeared, Leila launched an impassioned cry
of “D!” at the rider and mount pausing in a shower of brilliant moonlight.

Watching as the dashing Vampire Hunter got off his horse, the huntsman didn’t move.

“D, that’s really . . . ”

Nodding faintly at Leila’s words, D reached back over his shoulder with his right
hand. He hadn’t let the countenanced carbuncle get away. The needle sticking through
the transfer membrane also prevented it from sinking back into its body.

When the whine of a blade leaving its sheath rose from D’s back, the huntsman’s stomach
suddenly bulged. With a
splat
like a stone thrown into a muddy ditch, a gray mass flew from the huntsman’s abdomen.
Blood and viscera streamed after it. The mass disappeared into the bushes with alarming
speed.

“Oh, now this is a surprise,” said a low voice issuing from around D’s waist. “I didn’t
think any of my kind could fly through the air. What fun, what fun!”

Sheathing his naked steel, D didn’t say a word as he walked toward Leila and the girl.
Recovering from the sunlight syndrome took days, and, usually, the tougher a dhampir
was, the longer it took for him to recuperate. But D already seemed to be over it,
and the eyes he trained on the two young ladies swam with an impossibly black spirit.
Perhaps this youth was no average dhampir after all.

“Oh ho ho. It looks like both of you are safe. You ought to thank me for spotting
that light. Pretty boy here was still snoozing at the time.” The faint voice from
the Hunter’s hand didn’t reach the ears of Leila or the girl.

Following D’s line of sight when she realized it wasn’t on herself, Leila saw that
the girl was slumped on the ground. She ran over in a panic. “C’mon, snap out of it!”
she shouted.

D came over and bent down by the girl’s side. Laying his left hand on top of the hands
she had pressed against her own solar plexus, he asked, “Is it that
thing
we just saw?”

“Yep.” At the answer emitted by his left hand, Leila’s eyes went wide. “There’s still
time to save her if you do it now,” the voice added.

D nodded. He lay the girl flat out on her back in the under-growth, and gently placed
her hands back down by her sides. His gorgeous hands went into action, exposing the
girl’s stomach.

Leila stifled a scream. In the center of that smooth, porcelain stomach, an ugly human
face was rising to the surface. Its features were exactly the same as the one that’d
been attached to the belly of the huntsman just moments earlier.

“All his little pals look the same,” D’s left hand stated. “What’s more, they’ve got
a collective consciousness. The thoughts of one are immediately transmitted to the
others. These things can be a real pain in the ass.”

“Why would it infect her?” asked D.

“Out of lechery, pure lechery. These critters have an appreciation for beauty and
the finer things. On top of that, the dirty little bastards enjoy sex through the
senses of the humans they inhabit. I imagine that’s what he wanted to use her body
for.”

A naked blade glittered in D’s right hand.

Perhaps realizing what D intended to do, the startled face was about to magically
sink back into the girl. But the blade D thrust at its forehead lanced down into the
oral cavity of the countenanced carbuncle with matchless precision. Screaming in anguish,
it rolled its eyes back in their sockets. Streams of blood erupted from either side
of its mouth before it started to fade back into the girl’s body.

“That should do it! Now I guess it’ll just be assimilated by her normal organs,” said
the voice.

Whether the procedure had been painful or not was unclear, but the girl had fainted.
D stood up.

“What’s the story with your left hand, D?” asked Leila.

D only replied, “You were bitten by that woman, weren’t you?”

Leila nodded, her expression gloomy.

“Then that’s someone else I have to put down.”

“Huh?” Leila said with surprise.

“I repay my debts.” D replied succinctly. He knew about the deadly struggle Leila
had joined.

—

When the Noble’s hand reached not for the corresponding shoulder but for the opposite
armpit, Borgoff grew pale. Forgetting to fire his next deadly shot, he watched the
impossible happen.

Getting a tight grip on the arrowhead sticking through his armpit, the Noble pulled
it right out with one yank. Not up, but down. The other end, of course, was fletched
with vanes to make it fly straight. Just like the shafts and heads of all Borgoff’s
arrows, the vanes were made of steel. Gouging flesh and shaving bone, the vanes went
in the one direction that’d give the Noble his freedom again—they were pulled
down
. The Noble’s actions and his supernatural strength flew in the face of logic.

Now he’ll go for the other arrow . . .
But just as Borgoff was thinking that, something whizzed through the air. The arrow
the Noble had just removed.

An acute pain seared through Borgoff’s abdomen. The arrow his foe had just thrown
back at him had been going faster than those Borgoff shot. Borgoff stared dumbfounded
at the end of the arrow that went in through his belly and jutted out his back. Blood
traveled down the shaft in dribs and drabs. He heard the Noble address him.