Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne (25 page)

And the baron probably wasn't exempt from those emotions. Though he was indispensable where this trip was concerned, taking orders from D the dhampir had to be more than a little humbling to his psyche. Miska's actions were most likely prompted by this unease as well. And yet, the Noble couldn't help but wonder if the young man wasn't something far greater than even he could imagine. The baron had to consciously push back this thought when it suddenly popped into his mind.

“What was your attacker like?” D asked as they were walking.

“Someone made up of flowers.”

“Flowers?”

Not long after D had gone off in pursuit of Miska, a golden pollen-like dust had blown in on the wind. Immediately holding his breath, the baron had seen a figure in all the colors of the rainbow standing just beyond the eddying swirls of yellow. The cape that shrouded the tall figure had spread wide. The reason he seemed to have every imaginable hue was because the body beneath that cape was covered with lovely flower petals. The dust—or pollen—flew from one of those varieties.

The baron had taken cover behind his carriage. A split second later, more madness assailed him from above. He'd narrowly escaped, though his shoulder was rent wide in the process. The only thing that'd allowed him to get off so lightly was the superhuman reflexes he possessed as a member of the Nobility. He'd quickly looked up to the sky, but even with the lyncean eyes of a Noble, he hadn't been able to discern any more than a shadowy winged figure flying off to the south at incredible speed, and the multicolored assassin had also vanished.

There had been two foes.

“Do you know them?” asked the baron.

“The flower character? Yes.”

“Oh, really?”

“He's known as ‘Crimson Stitchwort,' and he's a famous Vampire Hunter in the eastern sectors. Mario, who I ran into, is one of the top-three out west. It would seem you've got every half-decent Hunter on the Frontier out to get you.”

“Do you suppose I have someone spooked?”

“Only you'd know that.”

The baron smiled thinly, but didn't say another word all the way back to camp.

 

 

Hideyuki Kikuchi was born in Chiba, Japan in 1949. He attended the prestigious Aoyama University and wrote his first novel,
Demon City Shinjuku,
in 1982. Over the past two decades, Kikuchi has written numerous horror novels, and is one of Japan's leading horror masters, working in the tradition of occidental horror writers like Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King. As of 2004, there are seventeen novels in his hugely popular ongoing Vampire Hunter D series. Many live-action and anime movies of the 1980s and 1990s have been based on Kikuchi's novels.

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Yoshitaka Amano was born in Shizuoka, Japan. He is well known as a manga and anime artist, and is the famed designer for the Final Fantasy game series. Amano took part in designing characters for many of Tatsunoko Productions' greatest cartoons, including 
Gatchaman
 (released in the U.S. as 
G-Force
 and 
Battle of the Planets
). Amano became a freelancer at the age of thirty and has collaborated with numerous writers, creating nearly twenty illustrated books that have sold millions of copies. Since the late 1990s Amano has worked with several American comics publishers, including DC Comics on the illustrated Sandman novel 
Sandman: The Dream Hunters
 with Neil Gaiman, and for Marvel Comics on 
Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer
 with best-selling author Greg Rucka.