Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne (22 page)

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The volume
Dark Nocturne
is the only collection of novellas in the entire Vampire Hunter D series. What's more, aside from the most recent book in Japan—
Throng of Heretics
—it's also the only one that was originally serialized. At the time, Asahi Sonorama (which unfortunately was dissolved last October) was publishing a literary magazine called
Shishi-Oh
, and that's where all the novellas in
Dark Nocturne
were serialized. Up until that point, the Vampire Hunter D series had been exclusively full-length novels. Not that I was dissatisfied with that, but I always had the feeling I'd like to write some stories that wouldn't work in the regular novel length. So that was why when series editor Mr. Ishii suggested, “How about a serialization?” I responded, “Yes, yes, yes!” [
laughs
].

For whatever reason, it seems that authors fall into the category of “novelist,” “short story writer,” or “can do either.” You often hear people say, “He specializes in novels,” or, “He can only write short stories.” Although it's naturally best to be well-rounded and able to write both long and short works, that doesn't necessarily suit every author's temperament. To be honest, when I was still an amateur, I aspired to be a short story writer. I hadn't written anything novel-length myself, and I was enthralled by short stories by the likes of Ray Bradbury, Jack Finney, Fredric Brown, Richard Matheson, and Theodore Sturgeon—strange and frightening, stylish and intelligent, and beautiful tales, to boot. Even now I think the whole reason I became a writer was to try and write gems like those. However, the gilding tends to come off in the cold, harsh light of reality.

At present, it's extremely difficult for an author to specialize in short stories here in Japan. The field of “otherworldly tales”—horror and science fiction—is particularly brutal. For starters, there are no magazines to carry such stories. Unless it's some kind of special edition, a monthly periodically might carry at most two or three short stories in an issue. And there are times when there are none at all. Their readers like stories that cleave to reality (such as mysteries or romances). At that rate, it would take years to get enough short stories for an anthology, and even if you got such a volume printed, the number actually sold would be surprisingly low. There are no Bradburys in Japan.

Fortunately, I had the ability to write novels (whether I write them well or not is another matter). And I've even managed to pull off some short stories. (Though there's little call for them. The reason for that should be clear by now). According to a more experienced writer, “A novelist is an artist working in oils. The short story writer is a watercolor artist. Although an artist who uses oil paints can quickly adjust to using watercolors, the watercolor specialist can't necessarily make an oil painting.” I think there may be some truth to that.

It would give me great pleasure to someday show my English readers a collection of my short stories. I wonder if you'd be interested in a tale that combines Japanese swordplay and specters?

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Hideyuki Kikuchi

November 5, 2007

While watching
Dracula's Daughter

I

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Though the moonlight should've been entirely impartial, that road alone seemed to stand out like a blue snake—it was surrounded by darkness. The leaves rustled restlessly. The wind was picking up.

The road was really a highway. A relatively high number of people and vehicles traveled it by day, but with the coming of night, it became a kingdom of the weird prowled by such famed creatures of the western Frontier as shape-shifting humanoids and matter-changing bugs.

Apparently an unfortunate traveler had invaded their domain tonight. Five or six bizarre silhouettes surrounded a tall figure in front of a carriage way station that sat by the side of the highway. The way station contained bolt-firing pistols, short spears, and longswords that might be used in an emergency, but the figure showed no sign of taking them in hand as he remained soaking in the hungry gazes of eyes aglow with a green phosphorescence.

What seemed to keep the fiendish forms from immediately pouncing on the man was the cruelty the Nobility had fostered in their creations—the desire to keep their prey in terror until the moment of its death. But just then, the voice of the darkness turned that theory on its head as the man asked, “Why do you not come for me?”

By the sound of it, it wasn't the monsters who were waiting, but rather the traveler.

“Then I shall have to make it easier for you to approach. Come!”

With that last word, another light took hold in the darkness: streaking glows of crimson. At that instant, shadowy forms sprang at him from either side. One was an altered insect. Resembling a giant preying mantis, its body began to transform into something denser in midair, from something organic to inorganic—to steel.

The light of the moon shot up from below. A body that was intended to repel any kind of attack split like a rotten vegetable, spraying an oily substance as it fell to the ground.

The bloodsucking moth-man who'd simultaneously pounced from the opposite side had phosphorescent flecks of gold flying from his wings as he was ripped right down the center. The scythe-like claws of the former and blood-siphoning proboscis of the latter had never managed to strike home.

“Come!”

In response to the traveler's second invitation, a thunder beast firmly planted all six of its paws on the ground as it turned its helmet-like head to the heavens.

Pale bolts of lightning struck the figure. The air was ionized, and white smoke curled from the earth. Again and again lightning struck the man.

The figure raised his right hand. In it, he grasped a black blade with an elegant curve. The sword had a sheen unlike any weapon local travelers, soldiers, or fighting men would ever carry, and from the instant he pulled it out till he held it aloft, it absorbed the lightning continuously. And even after he drove it deep into the thunder beast's chest, the creature likely never knew what had happened. Lightning crackled around the blade and, as if reading its wielder's mind, leapt from its tip to the thunder beast's face.

Spasms gripped the monster. Using electrical discharge in the air rather than from its own body to electrocute its opponents, the creature didn't actually have any defense of its own against electricity.

With a pale glow still clinging to the sword, the man raised it, and then brought it down in a stroke. Though his arms already seemed fully extended, the blade that split the thunder beast's head in two reached a foot further than it should have.

“Two to go—I wish I could tell you to attack me, but the one I've been waiting for has come. Away with you!”

And with that command from the figure, the surviving creatures that'd been frozen in place as if awaiting their fate each gave a low growl and immediately vanished into the darkness to either side of the road. They were so incredibly fast that it almost looked as if they'd teleported away.

Flicking the gore from his blade with a single shake, the man slowly looked over his shoulder. At the far end of the highway that ran down from the north, the silhouette of a horse and rider had just come into view. Though the moonlight was bluish, the man on the steed seemed to be garbed in a hue far deeper than the darkness. Beneath his wide-brimmed traveler's hat, a pair of oddly glowing eyes gazed at the figure.

Stepping over the thunder beast corpse that lay at his feet, the man moved forward. A blue domain came into being in the middle of the darkness–at least, that was how it seemed. For the man was covered from the shoulders down by a cape the color of the deepest sea. The click that came from the vicinity of his hip was apparently his blade being returned to its sheath.

“Balazs?” the black rider asked from his mount's back.

“Indeed. How like the greatest Hunter of this day and age to be so punctual,” the man said, although he didn't seem to consult a watch.

However, the rider had indeed appeared exactly at the appointed time.

“Though I must say,” the man continued, “my body trembled the instant you approached. Otherwise I never would've let those last two creatures get away.”

The rider had approached without the man on the ground even noticing his presence until the last moment.

“From the time I turned onto the highway, you should've been able to detect me. I wasn't really trying to go unnoticed,” said the black rider.

From that remark, the man on the ground was made to be a liar even though he knew all along who he was dealing with—though it appeared he'd actually been paying a compliment to the rider.

Which of them was right?

“State your business,” said the figure in black.

“Will you not dismount at least? I have the most wonderful liquor.”

There was no reply.

Not seeming to take any particular offense, the man continued, “Then I shall tell you. I wish you to see me to the village of Krauhausen.”

The village was on the far edge of the Frontier—a hundred and twenty miles to the west. And it really was the edge, with an ominous chain of mountains miles high towering just beyond it.

“You're fully capable of going alone,” said the rider.

“I'm afraid I can't do that,” the figure in blue responded.

His hair was golden and flowing, and his eyes were ultramarine—he possessed great beauty. The moonlight only added to his air of mystery, until it seemed that everything surrounding him would be reduced to a blur. Everything save one person—the rider still up in the saddle.

“There is someone in the village who wouldn't particularly welcome my arrival. As soon as I approach, I'm sure I shall be greeted with violence. Honestly, I don't believe I can make it on my own. I need your help, D.”

“Tell me why you want me to accompany you. And don't say it's because you're not confident in your own abilities.”

“
One reason
should already be clear to you. The other I cannot say. But the one who awaits me in the village is a Noble. I want you to destroy him. And that will have to suffice for now.”

D said nothing as he gazed at his strange would-be employer. While it was certainly understandable that someone might want him to dispose of a Noble, refusing to disclose the reason was a grave breach of protocol. From the very start, D's attitude had been somewhat unusual. He turned his back.

“Please wait,” the figure in blue—Balazs—called out. “I had no desire to expose the shameful actions of my own parents, but it's unavoidable. The name of the Noble who waits in Krauhausen is Vlad Balazs. He's my father.”

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The horse wheeled around once more.

“Do not ask me why I would have you execute my father,” Balazs said in a hard tone. “I must see to it that he is destroyed. That is my sole purpose. I can't allow my power to be whittled away by needless opposition. Although it may be unheard of for a Vampire Hunter to enter the employ of a Noble, I beg you to break with tradition. Will you not accept this assignment?”

There was no sound—even D couldn't help but fall silent at this explanation. For a vampire to seek assistance from someone whose very purpose was to destroy them, and furthermore to have as the target one's own parent was not only completely unheard of, but it was truly bizarre. What sort of thoughts flitted through the mind of the young man of unearthly beauty?

Presently, D replied, “Okay.”

He spoke from horseback to the other warrior.

“Many thanks,” said the man clad in blue. “I haven't been out of my castle much. I thought it would be best to leave everything to your judgment for the duration of our journey.”

“Fine.”

“Splendid! Now, for your compensation—”

The figure he mentioned was exactly a hundred times the accepted rate.

“Here's an advance.”

Pulling a small bag out of his cape, he tossed it to D.

Catching it in his left hand, D didn't even look inside before saying, “Okay.”

The coins were a precious metal worth a hundred times their weight in gold.

“—While you're with me, I won't allow you to feed on humans. If you should happen to break this condition, I will destroy you on the spot.”

“Understood,” Balazs said flatly. Somehow, his voiced resembled that of the man in black. “Oh, I must be forgetting my manners not to have introduced myself properly. I am Byron Balazs, son of Vlad, the regulator of the western Frontier.”

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II

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Viewed objectively, this really was an odd journey—although the term “earth-shattering” might've been more apropos. The employer traveling with the Vampire Hunter was one of the very bloodsucking Nobles he was supposed to destroy. Needless to say, Balazs could act only by night. This was the reason the baron said should be apparent to D. By day, he rode in a blue carriage drawn by a team of four horses. The vehicle had been parked off in a nearby forest when he fought the monstrous creatures. Apparently the four cyborg horses had been told to comply with D's commands, and they followed him meekly.

However, it was plain for all to see that the vehicle belonged to the Nobility. As they went down the road by day, travelers and pedestrians stopped in their tracks with their eyes bugged. Many got off the road and hid. Some even readied their weapons. What's more, the young man who seemed to be acting as a guide possessed a heavenly beauty that no human could hope to equal no matter how they tried. It was perfectly natural that the same thought should pop into the heads of everyone along the road.

There goes a Noble and their servant.

There were some who served the Nobility that were still living, breathing humans. In many cases, it was someone whose blood they'd stopped drinking just before the person was about to join their ranks—people who'd dropped off into a kind of hypnotic state highly open to suggestion. However, there were also those who retained their senses and still swore fealty from the bottom of their hearts—in a word, “traitors.” D must've appeared to be one of the latter. But the people who thought that naturally had their expressions tinged with perplexity due to D's incredibly good looks.

Ordinarily, such a pair would travel back roads by day where they wouldn't draw much attention and take to the highway by night. Or else they'd sleep somewhere deep in the woods by day and move solely in darkness. If one were to follow the Nobility's natural disposition, the latter made more sense. However, D went right down the highway while the sun was shining, and stopped at night.

“Why don't we go when it's dark?” the baron asked on the third evening of their journey.

“Are you in a hurry?”

“No.”

“Are you bored?”

“No,” Balazs replied once more.

Undoubtedly the interior of the baron's carriage was furnished with amusements unimaginable by D. Although the Nobility's scientific prowess may not have unraveled the secrets of time, it had essentially mastered matters of space.

“In that case, deal with it.”

“You're in charge. I don't mean to complain, but considering both our physiologies, wouldn't it be far less taxing for us to travel by night? It would also be that much easier for you to keep tabs on me.”

Gently raising the brim of his traveler's hat, D looked at the baron.

Transfixed by that gaze, the vampiric Noble shuddered at the hue of the eyes that threatened to suck him in.

“Do you want me to keep tabs on you?” asked the Hunter.

A thin smile seemed to skim the baron's lips.

“No.”

“I don't want you to get the impression I trust you,” D added in a voice like ice. “My job is getting you to the village of Krauhausen. And if I were a foe who knew you were coming, I'd certainly choose to attack you by daylight.”

“I see. That makes perfect sense,” the baron remarked with a gorgeous grin. Though beautiful, his smile also bordered on ghastly. “Although you may not trust me, I have consummate faith in you, Vampire Hunter ‘D.'”

And saying that, he added, “However—”

Just then, the creak of what sounded like wooden wheels could be heard to the north of the woods where they were—coming from the highway. The sound of engines then came in due course—a number of them.

“There are five, counting the carriage,” said the baron. “They're more than a half mile from here.”

Though the wheels and the engines surely raised quite a din, only the ears of a Noble would be able to isolate each individual sound over such a distance.

“Would you mind if I went?” the baron asked, having already risen to his feet.

“Do as you like,” D replied.

Although he knew there were no homes in the area before he ever spoke, in light of the powers the Nobility possessed, it would be hard not to consider the Hunter's response indifferent or even irresponsible.

Once the baron's blue cape had vanished into the darkness, D pushed his hat down over his eyes and sat back against the roots of a massive tree to sleep.