Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four (21 page)

“Just a slip of the tongue, Lord Vlad,” Lagoon said with a grin. “Isn't it below the dignity of the great Balazs family to get bent out of shape over every little remark a mere human makes? Besides, I'd like to give some thought to the proposal you just made.”

“Oh. In that case, why do that to the woman?”

“If anyone's going to get the immortality of a Noble, it ought to be me alone.”

And with those words, Lagoon's smile deepened.

The voice of the Lord wasn't heard again.

A strange air of sympathy had begun to drift through the dimly lit tomb.

-

I

-

Dwas in the hole. When he turned to look, the crack stretched above his head like a bolt of lightning—it must've been a sheer vertical drop of at least fifteen hundred feet. Just as the Hunter was about to slam into the earth, he'd spread his coat like a pair of wings in a braking maneuver. Nevertheless, the impact had been substantial, and although broken bones and ruptured organs had been unavoidable, there was no longer any sign of such injuries. His left hand and his Noble blood had seen to that.

“Hell of a place, ain't it?” his left hand remarked somewhat wearily.

A pair of tiny eyes formed in the palm of his hand, and they burned with curiosity as they studied their surroundings—although there was really only one direction where they focused. For this was no ordinary hole in the earth. The ground D's boots trod was covered by bricklike stones that had been highly polished, and though they'd been overrun by subterranean moss and grasses, it was clear they were the remains of human activity.

D advanced to the right.

Ahead of him lay a tunnel—and beyond it loomed a wall of stone that'd been carved with unknown patterns. Still further in lay wall upon wall on the brink of collapse, and what were apparently fallen pillars could be seen heaped on the stone floor. From the style of the pillars, these ruins represented the height of the civilization.

“These remains are ancient. Roughly thirty thousand years old—they must've been here since before the age of man.”

D touched the wall gently. The spot in question fell away like sand, and then the rest of it collapsed like a fragile confection, the remains spreading at his feet.

“This is dangerous. Gotta watch out for the ceiling, too. I wouldn't go this way.”

“Would you rather climb out of the hole?”

“Nope.”

Regardless, D kept going forward.

The ceiling to the left had collapsed, blanketing the floor with rock and black earth. What had initially supported it hadn't been able to weather shifts in the earth's crust. However, the ceiling itself was fairly high, and the higher it went, the larger the hole seemed to grow.

Though they were in the darkness where the light spilling down from the crack in the ground would no longer serve them, neither D nor his left hand seemed to be bothered at all.

“Ropes, pulleys, cranes . . . By the look of it, this was a probably a factory.”

At the left hand's remark, D halted.

“There's still life in it, too.”

“What?!”

The left hand's cry of surprise was answered by a base growl. A pair of green lights burned atop a length of pipe up ahead that ran off at an angle. Eyes.

The instant the creature pounced, D's blade flashed out, and the two chunks of meat it'd been reduced to skidded across the ground.

“From the feel of it, it was some sort of homunculus. Probably the factory's watchdog.”

“As far as others go—there aren't any. Let's go,” said D.

This time, they didn't even have to advance another thirty feet. When D stopped, a huge object lay on its side directly in front of him.

“You know, this thing kinda looks like that last critter,” the Hunter's left hand remarked in the darkness in a tone that sounded quite impressed.

The
thing
enshrined atop the vast dais looked as if every part of it that could move was enclosed in a skeletal framework.

“Unfinished goods? No, that's not right.”

D nodded at what his left hand said, stating, “It's finished.”

Just then, he sensed something approaching him from behind that shouldn't have been there. Not bothering to turn, D let his left hand shoot out, and a stark needle snagged it in midair. Falling to the ground with its torso pierced was a homunculus that looked like a little demon with a pair of wings.

“It's got a TV eye set in its chest. We've been spotted,” the left hand said with some relish. “Down in the bottom of this hole, we can't do a thing. They could fry us or boil us if they wanted to. So, how do you figure they'll come at us?”

Leaping up onto the dais, D climbed into the device.

“How many seconds?” he asked.

“Roughly thirty . . . twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight . . .”

It counted off the seconds until the enemy would respond.

On top of a box that called to mind an engine sat a cockpit made of stone. Most likely it was slightly oversized to leave room for a seat and back cushions. Apparently it was controlled by the steel levers that protruded from the cockpit floor. Maybe it was a unique property of the steel itself, or perhaps it had undergone some special treatment, but the levers didn't have a speck of rust on them.

D pulled a lever forward one position.

The stone gears in its locomotive section bit together, scattering sparks.

“Twenty-one . . . twenty . . . nineteen . . . eighteen . . .”

There was a tiny explosion inside the box. Giving three shudders in succession, it then halted. D returned the lever to its original position, and then pulled it again. This time it started. The explosion became a protracted and unwavering growl. The body of the vehicle shook.

“Fourteen . . . thirteen . . . twelve . . . Oh, my!”

The left hand's eyes shot a quick glance upward.

“Is that the sound of a missile I hear? They're a little quicker than I thought. Nine . . . eight . . .”

D's hand was reaching for the next lever.

“Seven . . . six . . .”

At the entrance to the tunnel, a flash of light welled up. The shock wave that surged from the light swallowed everything, rending and crushing all in its path as it surged forward. Pillars and walls dissolved like shadows, and then vanished.

The crushing surge of light was repelled by the device's hazy outer skin. The light waves coursed around it with seeming regret, snarling and eddying. However, the outer skin was also giving off smoke.

“This thing wasn't finished after all. It won't be able to handle a second hit! We've gotta reinforce it.”

Apparently the source of the voice already understood how to operate the vehicle. But would they be in-time?

Precisely two seconds later, a second missile exploded at the bottom of the hole.

-

Soon after Lagoon left for the mountain stronghold, Paige/Sai Fung went into action. Her/his goal was the same south wing of the building where Lagoon had broken off the tour. After leaving Lagoon's room, she/he encountered a number of men and women on her/his way there. On sensing their approach, her/his body would climb straight up the wall and cling to the ceiling like a gecko. Surprisingly enough, this didn't require the use of either hand or either foot. As if using unseen limbs covered with suction cups, she/he stayed on the ceiling while the men or women passed below, and then continued on. She/he even crawled down from the ceiling at the destination and hung upside-down while opening the door. None of them had been locked, and all the empty rooms were merely being used for storage.

Finally frustrated by the search, she/he was standing there absent-mindedly when suddenly someone asked, “What are you doing?”

She/he turned in astonishment, but not because the question had come from a young girl. Rather, the surprise came from her/his not noticing the girl sooner. Chlomo's makeup had made Sai Fung into another person, and his own senses and reflexes had come in part to reflect those of the woman he imitated.

Her/his eyes were filled with a look that could kill, but on noticing something, they looked instead with kindness on the young girl.

The girl was May.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked, suspicion on her childish face.

“Oh, nothing. I just went and got myself lost is all. See, I'm new around here.”

“You work in the cathouse, then?” May asked unworriedly. For those who lived out on the Frontier, working in a brothel or any other sex trade wasn't necessarily evil.

“That's right.”

“In that case, you're in completely the wrong place. It's that way,” she said, pointing her finger.

“You know, a couple of minutes ago, I saw someone around here. A really, really handsome guy. He was just so gorgeous, I simply had to go find him.”

“Oh, that's—” May was about to say his name, and then she bit her tongue.

“So, you know him, then?” Paige/Sai Fung whispered. She spoke for all the world like some sweet, gentle country girl. And the murderous whore that inspired the makeup had no doubt acted this way in her daily life.

May was easily taken in.

“No, it couldn't be him,” she said with a shake of her head, but the gesture said that it actually was.

Paige smiled like an angel. “Okay, then. In that case, I'll just go on looking for him. Go about your business.”

“Was he really here?” May asked this time.

Having parted company with D at the water wheel hut around noon the previous day and traveled here in secret with the warriors Lagoon had hired, she'd only seen the Hunter and Taki once since then. At present, Taki slumbered in the subterranean isolation chamber, while D had invaded Lord Vlad's castle, and even if he made it in, he might not make it out again. And though she wondered what would become of the two of them, there was something else that bothered May even more, troubling even her sleep. Hugh.

Her younger brother had gone missing during the trip, but where was he now? Instinctively she knew that D was the only one she could send to look for him. But now even D was gone. Unable to bear the anxiety, she left her room. Since she'd been forbidden to go outside, she'd intended to hide if she ran into anyone, but she was simply hanging around when she spotted Paige. The only reason she'd called out to her was because the woman had seemed even more lonesome and helpless than herself. She had no way of knowing that beneath that disguise was one of the pair that'd gotten her sold to Lagoon in the first place. That's how remarkable Chlomo's makeup was.

“Yes, I'm sure of it.”

Once she had spoken, May's desire to see D again rose past the point where she could restrain herself.

“Where did you see him?” the girl asked.

“Around here—at least I think it was here, but I can't find him at all.”

“It could be—”

“Huh?”

“Oh, never mind. Well, I'd better be going.”

“Wait. Who are you, anyway?”

“May.”

“I'm Paige. I sure hope we meet again.”

“Me, too.”

As the girl with the apple-red cheeks waved at her, the young woman waved back. However, once the girl had disappeared around a corner in the corridor, Paige/Sai Fung once again went up the wall, clinging to the ceiling as she began to follow May without making a sound.

Where May halted was the end of a corridor that Paige/Sai Fung had already finished investigating. A wall loomed at the end of the dead end. Taking a step forward, the girl melded with the wall. For the wall was some kind of holograph.

“I see.”

Grinning sheepishly at her/his own failure to try that earlier, Paige/Sai Fung slipped through the wall up at the ceiling.

“Wow!” she/he said in spite of herself/himself when it became evident how tight the space was on the other side. There was room enough to conceal perhaps three people if they were packed in like sardines. At the real end of the hall, there was a door set in the wall that seemed to belong to an elevator, and it was in front of this that May stood.

There was something down below. No, someone. Odds were it was the girl named Taki. Though the mere discovery of May made Lagoon's treachery clear, if she/he could find out if he was harboring the other girl, her/his duty to de Carriole would be more than fulfilled.

Time to roll
.

Paige/Sai Fung's eyes had a sinister gleam as behind her/his back, unseen fingers cracked one set of knuckles after another.

The elevator door opened. Not noticing that death was poised above her in the form of a country girl, May took a step forward. Paige/Sai Fung was about to leap—but then halted unexpectedly.

Footsteps were approaching from the corridor to her/his rear. While she/he was momentarily distracted, May stepped into the elevator and the door closed. Clucking disappointedly, Paige/Sai Fung returned to the corridor's ceiling. She/he would see who the intruder was, and depending on the circumstances, she/he might then lay into them with a blade.

Standing there was a strange man. With a gray hood completely covering his head, the rest of his body was garbed in a robe of the same hue. The cord tied about his waist served as the sole accent to his wardrobe. On the roll of what might've been either paper or parchment that protruded from the chest of his robe, Paige/Sai Fung spied patterns that appeared to be part of some sort of map.

Tension knifed through every inch of her/him.

That guy . . . I saw him in picture books when I was a kid.

Fear brought the memories back with startling clarity. A tragic scene spread across the open pages. A hooded figure with its right hand raised high and left hand pointing back over its shoulder, and at its feet there knelt a Noble, offering prayers of thanksgiving. In the window behind it, golden mountain peaks and a palace could be seen. What the Noble sought and the hooded figure provided was the white strip of road that stretched from there. Come to think of it, the hooded figure was— And the boy's and girl's severed heads were upraised and the bloodied, decapitated bodies lay on the floor because—

What the hell is he doing here?

As Paige/Sai Fung froze like an insect pinned to the ceiling, the hooded one turned to look up at her/him. A creak of a voice said, “Don't lay a hand on the girl. If you do, I shall be the one to decide what road it is you take.”

And then the hooded figure walked away.

Barely clinging to the ceiling, Paige/Sai Fung didn't have even the faintest intention of following him, as her/his dripping beads of sweat and the next words she/he uttered made perfectly clear.