Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four (30 page)

-

I

-

The wind raced by, and it was heavy. It had weight because it bore molecules of what was termed a killing lust.

Two shadowy figures squared off on a desolate patch of earth. Whenever it passed them, the wind grew furious.

The sky was as dark as the afterworld.

Suddenly, one of the shadowy figures pounced. As he rose ten feet straight up, he swung both arms down.

Two spiteful flames erupted from the black earth, shooting straight for the figure still on the ground. Like lines drawn by a talented artist, the fiery streaks came together on the figure.

Silver flashes crossed. Two of them.

If fire is a physical phenomenon, it has mass and substance. Thus, it's possible for a greater mass and harder substance to deflect it.

The light from the flames bouncing off the stark cutting edge became a sword rising into the air. A simple leap made the second figure a sparrow in flight.

Faster than the figure in midair could rise to greater heights, the sword came straight down on him, splitting him from the crown of his head to the base of his neck.

The wind was stained red. When it slapped bright blood against the black earth, the two figures had landed on their feet a dozen yards apart. One of them collapsed, while the other stalked across the ground.

Not even bothering to wipe his blade, the victor returned it to the sheath on his back. There wasn't a speck of gore on it. There was nothing special about the blade, but its speed had prevailed over the cohesive powers of blood.

The wind had a flattering glow to it as it blew across the shadowy figure's face: deep, dark eyes gleaming beneath the wide-brimmed traveler's hat, the line of a nose that was sure to send tens of millions of artists into despair, lips that quietly brimmed with a will heavier than anyone would ever know—

The wind had a request.
Tell me your name
, it said.

“D . . .” a voice called out.

The figure with his head split in two had called to him. Already a death mask, his face wore a smile.

“D . . . Listen to me,” he said, even his voice that of the departed.

The heavens and earth roared, and the hem of the black coat hid D's face, as if to shield him from the words of the dead. As if to keep him from hearing.

There was a sharp slap. A hand in a black glove had knocked his coat out of the way.

“Oh . . . so you intend to hear me out . . . One word will say it all . . . Of course . . . for you . . . that one word . . . might send you to hell.”

The figure on the ground was an old man with white hair and a white beard. The long robe he wore was woven from metallic threads in a wide range of hues, and its distinctive color scheme declared that even among the Nobility, he was a necromancer of some stature.

The beautiful figure stood there without saying a word. As if he'd heard these words ten thousand times before.

The bisected and bloodied face split to either side, and the old man raised his hands to hold it together again.

“Go to . . . ‘Muma' . . .” he said, his voice sounding like it came straight up from hell.

And as he finished speaking, he took his hands away, and something that might've been blood or brains oozed from the reopened split.

A life that'd lasted who knew how long had ended.

Only the wind growled across the wilderness until a new voice was heard, saying, “Did he say ‘Muma'?”

It sounded like it came from D's left hand, which hung at ease by his side.

“What's that mean?” D asked.

Signs of surprise seemed to rise from his hand for a second.

“Damned if I know,” the dried, cracked voice then responded. “Just the babbling of some guy about to die. A little memento to mess with you.”

The voice then mixed with groans of pain. D had squeezed his left hand into a tight fist.

“D-don't . . . do . . . anything . . . stupid . . .”

The fist trembled. Finger and finger pressed together, and nails broke through skin and muscle. A thin red stream had begun to drip to the ground.

“Answer me,” D said.

“About what? Ow! I don't know . . . anything at all . . .”

“What is ‘Muma'? A person? The name of a place? Or is it . . .”

“I . . . don't . . . know . . .” the hoarse voice said, its manner changed so that it now sounded like it might throw up.

He gave his fist one more squeeze. Silence resulted. After maintaining that fearsome tension for several seconds, D opened his fingers. The blood that covered the palm of his hand was scattered by the wind.

D squinted. He had no memories of this word
Muma
. And yet, his body told him of subtle changes. His blood was coursing faster—by a thousandth of a second. D's body knew when something that small had changed.

Was it his heart or his genes? He'd felt a mysterious excitement from the second he'd heard the word
Muma
.

D turned his gaze to the far reaches of the gloom-shrouded plain.

Something roiled like smoke all along the horizon. A mob of countless figures shaken by the wind. Their vile forms were evident to D's eyes alone. Arms like withered branches, fingers tapering into claws, skin that seemed born of corruption, cloudy eyes reminiscent of a dead fish, bodies covered with pustules—all of these creatures had been summoned from their graves deep in the earth by the necromancer who'd just been slain. Even D didn't know what they actually were. Nor did he know what they were supposed to accomplish. Their overlord had just been reduced to a blood-soaked cadaver.

D gave a brief whistle. Somewhere, the sound of iron-shod hooves approaching rang out. Before the white cyborg horse could come to a stop, D was in the saddle. As he took up the reins, the horse went right into a gallop—in the opposite direction from the mob of misbegotten dead. And most likely toward the hell the necromancer had mentioned.

-

It was after midnight when the white horse and black rider blew into the village of Gilhagen like a monochrome cyclone. Street lamps glowed through the weighty darkness of the wee hours.

Atop a hill that was rather high even for a village in the rolling terrain at the foot of a mountain, the house with roof and walls painted black squatted like the darkness. It didn't have windows, either. It was impossible to tell if it had a door or not, but D stood in front of the house and brought his fist down just once.

A thin crack of light spread through the dark. The door that'd opened in response to that single knock couldn't even be seen.

Standing there with a soot-stained lamp in hand was a gray-haired crone. She had a face that looked like leather pasted on a skull. The black leaf that covered her left eye must've served as an eye patch.

Opening a crack of a mouth, she said, “To be calling on the home of Origa, the greatest sorceress in the southern Frontier, at this hour, you must be prepared to sacrifice your life . . .if not your very soul.”

Her voice was like a chill wind gusting from a dark grotto.

“I will, if that's your wish,” D said.

Just then the sorceress's eyes snapped wide open.

“That voice—” the crone said, blinking vigorously behind the light. “Yes, and that beautiful face—It can't be . . . You're—”

“I've come because there's something I'd like to ask Origa the Sorceress.”

Before D had even finished speaking, the door opened wide.

A few minutes later, D sat at a heavy table and the sorceress brought him a hot cup of tea. As she turned a mysterious look at a countenance so gorgeous it seemed to drink up darkness and light and even sound, she asked, “What can I do for you?”

“I've heard Origa the Sorceress specializes in memory regression.”

“That's right. Humans, horses, birds, flame beasts, shadow-eaters—hell, I can slip into the memories of any supernatural creature and make 'em recall the past. But—”

After stopping there, Origa had the expression wiped right off her face, as if she'd just committed some unpardonable sin. A face of unearthly beauty was right before her. The woman's next words would be a betrayal—a betrayal of a beauty that couldn't possibly be human.

“But . . .” the old woman sputtered, trying desperately to retain her pride, “but . . . I won't for you. Be on your way. I didn't meet anyone tonight. Didn't see anyone, no matter how gorgeous. I'll believe that to my dying day.”

“Why are you afraid?” D asked from the other side of the little round table.

“I'm not afraid of anything, I'll have you know.”

“I don't believe we've met before. Or have we—”

“Hell, I've never laid eyes on you before. At any rate, kindly be on your way now. Or if you won't leave, I will!”

“Please, restore my memory.”

The crone quaked at D's words as if struck with palsy.

“I already told you . . . No more of this foolishness!”

“I'll pay you ten times your normal rate. And I'll do you a favor as well.”

“A favor?”

“I'll give you a look into your own past.”

“You're talking nonsense!” the crone said with a low laugh.

The laws of nature had decreed that sorcerers who could restore the memories of others couldn't go back through their own.

D wasn't smiling.

The crone stopped smiling, too. Licking her puckered mouth, she said in a parched, cracked voice, “You mean to tell me . . . you could do that? No, you could . . . I believe you could . . . you of all people. Nearly thirty bandits were cut down before my very eyes . . . back when I was five—and that's the only thing I remember from my past.”

“How about it?”

As that question was put to her, the crone suddenly turned her gaze to the vicinity of D's left hip. She'd gotten the feeling the hoarse query she'd just heard had come from there.

After a bit of consideration, the crone nodded and said, “Okay, my beautiful demon. My normal fee will suffice . . . that and the return of my past. Not that I doubt you or anything, but would you be so kind as to show me a little proof you can really do it?”

D's left hand rose before the crone's eyes, which were rocked by puzzlement. There was no glove on it.

At the moment he reached across the table and touched that hand to her right temple, the crone's body arched in her chair. Her expression changed. The changes came at intervals of a fraction of a second. Anger, hatred, fear, joy, and finally sadness skimmed ruthlessly across her deeply wrinkled face, hammering her, teasing her, and then leaving.

Somewhere, the lid of a pot rattled quietly. Apparently she was boiling medicinal herbs. Before it rattled a second time, the crone sat back in her chair normally. Her whole body was suffused by a mysterious kind of peace unconnected to the relaxation of her muscles, and tears rolled from her eyes.

What had she seen?

Blinking repeatedly to stem the flow of tears, the crone then focused her gaze on D.

“You pass muster, D,” she said in a perfectly clear tone. “I remembered all manner of things. But instead of thanking you, I'll see to it I give you what you want for certain. Come this way.”

Rising with the lamp in one hand, the crone began to walk toward the doorway, and then stumbled. Falling to the right before she could even regain her balance, she was caught by the figure in black. D.

“You're a surprisingly good person at heart, D. Right this way.”

Stepping through the doorway and walking down the dark corridor a bit, the crone opened a door at the end.

The room was a dreary affair, with nothing but a metal bed and a chair.

“Lie down,” the crone told D, gesturing to the bed.

She then took a bamboo flute out of a niche in the wall.

“This is called the returning flute. It has a unique construction that allows it to extract memories from the brain. To date, I've used it on nearly twenty thousand people and supernatural critters, and not once has it failed.”

And yet, she hadn't wanted to use it on D. The incredible swordsman the crone had seen when she was five must've been him after all. But what was it she feared she might glimpse in his past?

“Lie back,” Origa said, pointing to the bed and readying the flute.

In no time at all, the thin strains of a melody echoed from the instrument, moving to the ceiling and walls as it flowed through the room.

“First layer of the subconscious—passed,” Origa muttered in a low tone, although how she managed that with the flute still to her lips was a mystery.

The melody changed.

The secret of the famed flute that could restore lost memories was inner mechanisms that made memories replay and this tune known only to the sorceress's clan.

D didn't move. Was he sleeping? Was he even breathing, for that matter?

As if entranced by his handsome visage, the crone said, “Second layer—no, let's just dive straight down to the mystic layer.”

There was a ghastly ring to the voice of Origa the Sorceress, like she was sick with the smell of blood.

The mystic layer—that was a mysterious zone of the human mind only those of her line could reach.

Adjusting her grip on the instrument, Origa began to pipe a short, strange rhythm wholly unlike what she'd played up to this point. Accompanied by light, the arrows of sound slipped into the ears of the gorgeous Hunter—no, they battered his brain directly.

Origa's features grew indistinct. They'd been blurred by the sweat that covered every inch of her in a split second.

Look what kind of misery had to be endured to call back lost memories! The body of the sorceress contorted and grew dehydrated, and she might shed as much as a tenth of her weight. And in exchange for that fearsome price, the notes produced by the magic flute seemed enough to make even a rock shudder, echoing an eerie melody like the marching tune of a demonic army, orderly and awe-inspiring.