Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne (16 page)

“And how would I do that?” D asked without even turning to face the man.

“Smashing one or two of those creeps into a pulp would've satisfied me, but you already took care of them all. So that only leaves me one alternative.”

Apparently the giant was unfamiliar with the concept of subterfuge.

Not even bothering to take the package of belongings from the end of his pole, he swung it straight down at D's head like he was working with a hoe. The bludgeon was a foot and a half thick and over fifteen feet long. Judging by the jagged condition of either end, it was probably safe to say this was a log that hadn't been cut with any edged implement but rather snapped off with sheer strength.

Its impact shook the earth, giving off a tremendous boom and sending cracks racing out in all directions—but the figure in black walked right by the fissures in the earth without the least concern.

“Oh, damn it!” the giant shouted in dismay.

Pulling his club out of the rift, he hastened after D.

The figure in black advanced across the quaking ground without flinching.

“Damn you!”

This time it looked like the giant was going to bring down another blow from above, but he easily changed the direction of the bark-covered log for a horizontal swipe.

D moved with the flow of the log. Riding the wind caused by the great bludgeon and arcing up, he appeared unsteady for a second before bounding to the giant's chest.

“Huh?” the giant cried, but before he could even get the words out he took a hard blow to the base of the neck from the still-sheathed sword and was knocked down.

The spot where D landed again still reverberated from the resulting crash.

“You're pretty strong, aren't you?” the giant conceded with clear admiration, though his face still held a grimace. “I'm no match for you. Okay, I give. I give already!”

And then he got right up, with blades of grass falling from his back—this after taking a blow from D.

“So, where are you headed anyway?” he asked, but D was already sixty feet away, mounting his cyborg horse where it'd been nibbling the grass.

His black finger indicated the narrow road that ran nearby.

“Oh, that's perfect. I'm headed north, too. At this time of year, I'm sure it's covered far and wide with icy blooms.”

Apparently the giant was something of a poet.

“Say, why don't we travel together? They say the company makes the trip, and I just love having someone stronger than me around. Makes it that much safer if we're attacked by bandits, you know.”

He was also honest.

D advanced on his horse without saying a word. Why the young man hadn't done away with this person who'd intended to kill him was the real question.

“Come on. Wait up! Just give me a second, would you?”

Following him as far as the road, the giant then apparently gave up. With arms akimbo he shouted, “I know we'll probably never meet again, so I should at least give you my name, pretty boy. It just came to me. I'm known as Dynus. I'll thank you not to forget it. Dynus, you hear? Dynus the wanderer!”

His voice trailed off into the distance. By the time it faded completely, the rider in black had disappeared down the frozen road. The flavor of winter was strong that afternoon.

That was how D and Dynus came to meet.

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III

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Snow had long since replaced the rain. The tiny white dreams that fell in disarray from the leaden sky made the sun show its dazzling smile for the first time in days. Even the village of Schlad that D was calling on belonged to the white world.

Though he took a room at the only inn in town, it wasn't because he planned on being there for any length of time. Rather, it was because the fatigue of traveling by day had caught up with him.

A dhampir's biorhythms peaked between sunset and daybreak. Although traveling was usually done by night, everyone knew that nocturnal journeys on the Frontier meant constant encounters with supernatural beasts and demonic creatures. A perfect example was the survey group that was traveling around the northwestern portion of the Frontier five years earlier. In the two hours following sunset they encountered five ghouls, a pair of demons that could suck the skeleton out of a man, a carnivorous blob, and a female specter—and half the party was lost in the process. D probably wasn't the only one who'd rather take to the road by day instead of fighting through the night.

Lowering the blinds to manufacture his own darkness, D soon fell asleep. After waking about four hours later, he went outside.

The sun was down. Night air on the Frontier brimmed with the aura of nature. The strength that oozed from the soil, the invigoration that billowed from the trees, the vitality of the beasts of the field—for those who'd been born with one accursed parent, these things formed an irreplaceable fount of life.

D walked quietly down the white streets. All sounds seemed to be absorbed by the snow. Although it was only about supper time, there were few people to be seen on the roads—snow was a perfect cover for certain dangerous creatures. Pedestrians carried sticks that they jabbed into the snow periodically, and about one time in ten the snow would tremble in response.

D entered a tavern. Doubling as a restaurant, the place swirled with the aromas of meat and liquor and cigarettes. The most dazzling glow in the whole rustic establishment came from the women.

Someone noticed D. Their coquettish chatter died instantly, and they concentrated gazes that beggared description on him. Even after he'd taken a seat at the end of the counter, the din failed to return.

Shutting his gaping mouth, the bartender with the handlebar mustache shook his head as if to rid himself of some thought and slowly ambled down to D.

“What'll it be?” he asked. His voice seemed to have sprouted wings.

“Wine.”

“I'll give you a glass of the best on the house, my treat,” the bartender said in a dim tone. “And once you've had your drink, I'll thank you to leave. With you here, the whole joint will be out of whack.”

He gave the young man a tin cup full of vermilion liquid. When D touched the drink to his lips, a sound like a moan of passion shook the room.

“Would you folks mind behaving yourselves?” the bartender shouted. Apparently he was the owner.

And with that, the spell was broken. The women went back to stroking the bald heads of the nearest dirty old men or holding hands with the younger ones.

It was just then that the door opened. The reaction this time was slightly different from when D had entered. Fright and confusion—these emotions replaced any drunkenness in the gazes that followed the girl who came in carrying a wicker basket and walked all the way to the bar with her doleful countenance aimed at the floor.

“The usual?” the bartender asked in a kindly tone.

“Please,” the young woman said with an equally modest nod. For some reason, she simply refused to meet the eyes that were trained on her. Her short red hair, the simple blouse and down coat, and even the long skirt were all those of an ordinary country girl.

“What's the matter, Raya?” one of the young men said to her in a voice dripping with scorn. He was drunk. “Without an escort tonight, are we? Am I right, your majesty?”

“Knock it off,” the guy next to him said, giving his elbow a tug.

Another friend of theirs said, “What happened to your big bad retainers, eh?”

“Hell, they don't scare us!” the first barked.

There were three of them, all told—and each had the build and the look of a local hell-raiser.

“Would you knock it off already?” the bartender told them as he gave the girl a green bottle. “Don't go starting trouble with Raya. It's not like she called those characters here.”

“How are we supposed to know that?!” one of the three shouted back as he wildly waved a liquor bottle. “Three guys without any connection to her whatsoever show up one day and decide to stay. And when a local boy just grabs her ass a little bit, he gets both hands torn off at the wrist. Then someone who goes out there to collect on a debt—and gets a little mouthy—gets his bottom jaw ripped off and his tongue plucked out to boot. Is that the sort of shit a complete stranger would do?! It sounds more like bodyguards or loyal retainers protecting their darling princess.”

“Maybe, but from what I hear, both Corda and Adinas were in the wrong. Didn't they both do or say something so bad Raya was trying to get away from them? So when they went after her to finish what they'd started, anyone who owed her family a favor would want to do something to help her, right?” said the bartender.

“So you think it's fine someone's gone and done that kind of damage to your fellow villagers?”

“Hell, everyone's always going on about what a little saint she is for taking care of that rummy of a father of hers, so they can't see squat through their rose-colored glasses. She's not as good as everyone makes out! Three men, I'm telling you. She's got three of them.”

“Thank you, sir,” the girl said in a feeble tone before turning around.

A distasteful air hung in the tavern, and knowing just who bore the brunt of it, one of the young men said, “Sheesh. Let's find a change of scenery,” as all three got up. Throwing some gold coins down on the table, they then went out of their way to stomp out of the tavern as loudly as possible.

“Worthless bastards. They're the dregs of the damn village,” the owner grumbled as a single silver coin was slipped into his hand. By the time he realized what it was for, the figure in black was casually heading out through the door.

D turned left—back the same way he'd come. His face had a dim glow from the light bouncing off of the snow. No matter how gorgeous, every face had at least one part of it that served as a reminder of the human way of life, but the only impression one got from this young man was that of pure beauty. Even under the closest examination, it would always make things such as his conversing with others, or eating, or sleeping, seem like activities belonging to a completely separate world. Even as he walked away, not a trace of the tavern's atmosphere remained on him. He was poetry in motion.

After a minute or two, D came to a corner. Towering warehouses stretched off blackly into the distance. Every village had a place like this for storing things such as food and agricultural equipment.

As he was about to go straight, he heard a jumbled mash of two kinds of voices.

“Please, let go of me! Stop it!”

“Quit your fussing and just come with us.”

“Don't be so stingy with your goodies. You must've let
them
give it to you, right?”

The figure in black kept right on walking. But five steps later he halted. The voices had undergone an incredible change.

“Wh—who the hell are you guys?” one voice stammered.

“And when in blazes—?”

The sounds that followed were something no one's ears but D's would've caught—the crunch of bones snapping, the sound of organs rupturing.

Before the long, thin scream had finished trailing through the air, D started walking again. He was a shadow with no relation to the events of this world.

When he'd gone about fifteen feet, a girl cried out in a distressed tone, “Someone! Anyone! Come quick!”

Sounding like the kind of farm girl you might encounter anywhere, it was the same young woman who'd left the tavern out of embarrassment.

As if caught in a whirlwind, D spun around.

Right after turning the corner, he saw several figures hanging around the door to one of the warehouses. One stood a head taller than the girl. He wasn't one of the young toughs from the bar.

When D had closed to within six feet, the man turned and looked at him. A tinge of amazement raced through the man's nondescript features, and the girl had a chance to slip free of his grasp.

“Help!” her round face cried as she clung to D's chest. “Terrible things are happening to those folks inside. You've got to stop it!”

D didn't even look at the girl. His field of view was occupied by the man who asked in a rusty voice, “What are you?”

Though the man was attired for work in the fields, an unearthly air inconceivable for any true farmer wafted about him.

Not answering, D advanced—and the man stepped back without making a sound.

“You lousy bastard . . .” a voice groaned.

The man's body sank unexpectedly, but not like he'd just sat down. Rather, he disappeared from his ankles to his waist. No, actually he sank down into the snow right up to his head. But even though there'd been a lot of snow recently, the pile couldn't have been more than a foot and a half deep. Strangely enough, it seemed he must've melted away.

D's gaze was drawn to the entrance to the warehouse. One of the door panels was open.

The interior was packed with darkness, and a chilling cacophony surrounded D. But he'd probably already known to expect that.

The contents of the warehouse consisted of more than just the tractors and farm implements that'd been shoved into one corner. The wooden crates that filled the darkness were all cages fitted with iron bars. Within them, eyes glowed like red pools of blood atop furry legs or root-like tentacles while groans that might've been hexes or curses were vented. These were supernatural beasts and insects to be shipped to the Capital. Their uses varied. Speed spiders for feeding the poisonous insects that cured contagious diseases, doppelganger lizards that could be turned into guard beasts for a whole household through one simple operation—these were the kinds of creatures usually considered fit for nothing but slaughter out in the wild. Needless to say, even now they remained extremely dangerous.

On a fairly wide patch of ground in front of the towering heap of cages, three figures lay face down—the young men from earlier. From the low groans escaping their lips, they hadn't lost their lives yet. They were probably fortunate to have gotten off with having their limbs left horribly twisted.