Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four (6 page)

-

I

-

Indeed, it was D that stood there.

But how had he found this place? Or reached the rooftop? And how had he managed to sneak into the penthouse, of all places? Even with his senses blurred by the pink glow of lust, hadn't Balcon still focused on the sound of the footsteps behind him that reached the penthouse without him ever detecting anything out of the ordinary?

“Who—who the hell are you?!”

Although there was no way Balcon's windpipe could be crushed by a hand gripping the scruff of his neck, his face already looked purple. It was due to an incredible strength, and to the ghastly aura billowing at him from the face of unearthly beauty right before his eyes. One of D's hands released Balcon, and then there was a
swoosh
through the air as freedom was restored to all four of May's limbs.

Intense, ungodly—there was just no way to describe his skill with a sword.

Balcon wasn't even watching. Though agonized and on the verge of asphyxiation, he could only gaze at the gorgeous visage in adoration. It was at that point that he finally remembered the name of the young man.

“Such a . . . looker . . . It couldn't be—you couldn't be . . . D?”

“Besides her, there was supposed to be another ‘new girl,'” the young man in black said in a low voice.

To Balcon, the voice seemed that of a demon of darkness, immeasurably heavy as it echoed from the depths of the earth.

“Where is she?”

Did that mean that D had come for Taki and May?

Having been splayed out so indecently, May was still ashamed even now that she was free, and something hot spilled from her eyes.

“I—I don't know. There were some good girls . . . that's all I heard. A young one and one not so young . . . and when they asked which I wanted, I asked the ages . . . and chose the young one . . .”

“I know!” May shouted as she wiped away her tears. “They've taken Ms. Taki to ‘the castle.'”

A gasp squeaked from “Porky's” throat.

Putting more strength into the fingers around the base of the man's neck, D asked, “You know anything about that?”

“Well . . . uh . . . if you're talking about castles around here . . . Lord Vlad's is the only one. Come to mention it . . . he also has a real taste for . . . young girls' blood.”

And having said this much, Balcon gave a squeal and lost consciousness. D had finally pressed all the way down to his windpipe.

Making a light swing of one arm with the clumsily collapsing blob of flesh, the Hunter sent the man flying all the way to the far wall of the bedroom, which he crashed against before moving no more.

“Thank you,” May said as she stood up, already dressed in the clothes that'd been discarded by her pillow.

“Any injuries?”

Though D's question was clinically cold, his voice seemed to come from heaven above.

“Er, no.”

“Let's go,” D said, turning his back to her and walking toward the door.

Following after him, May stepped outside, where the strong nocturnal winds tossed her hair. The rustling from the trees to either side of the building rolled over them in waves. As the torch flames grew thread-thin, their flickering light revealed a figure in black lying on the ground halfway between D and the elevator. Balcon's bodyguard.

Aside from the fact that D had overheard talk of “new girls they just got in today” back at the Rivers Inn and had followed Balcon's carriage out here, the manner in which he'd managed to get up to the penthouse without drawing anyone's attention now became clear. To wit, there was a special wire thin as a spider's web stretching from a branch of one of those trees three hundred feet away and wound around the roof's railing, and the Hunter had come across it. It went without saying there was a grappling hook at the end of the wire. Throwing it three hundred feet through wild night winds was no great challenge for D.

The house was surrounded by a pair of moats and three sets of walls, with electronic eyes and human guards maintaining a strict level of security round the clock, and even for D it must've proved moderately difficult to sneak in, but there was no time to waste in taking care of the dirty old man.

However, he hadn't known Balcon would be going to the penthouse, and when he got over onto the roof, it was purely good fortune that he ran into the pig of a man coming out of the elevator. After the madam left, the Hunter had knocked out the bodyguard and followed the fat man into the penthouse. Only someone with D's ungodly skill could've kept Balcon from hearing any change in the sound of the footsteps to his rear.

But D's feet came to a sudden halt then.

Shocked, May leapt off to one side and hid behind the iron pillar of what seemed to be a laser antenna. Though she looked as hard as she could, she couldn't make out anything aside from the prone figure.

But then that shadowy figure got right up. The motion was so fluid, it almost seemed he must've laid down on purpose from the very start. Without a second to lose, there was a flash from his right hand. Although the knives flew with the speed of a swallow, it was perfectly natural coming from the bodyguard in whom Balcon had had such complete trust. But D batted one after another aside with his bare hands, catching the very last in his left hand and using it to split the bodyguard's head like a piece of bamboo before hurling it off into the darkness to one side.

Just before a cry of pain rang out, a cloudlike mass blowing into D's face was painted red by the torchlight. In a heartbeat D made a massive leap back, but it was too late to avoid the trails of the red cloud that streamed off his chest and other parts of his torso.

“How do you like them apples? I did it, D!” a voice called out from somewhere in the distance as a man in a cape stepped unsteadily from behind a row of gas cylinders.

It was easy to see in that haggard face so near to death the features of the man he'd once referred to as Crimson Stitchwort.

“Got you with my mist, didn't I? It can get through any kind of clothing . . . work its way into your body . . . And in no time . . . it'll take root, D . . .”

And then the man who'd been run through the heart finally gave up the ghost, tumbling forward to fall on his face.

No doubt he was the one who'd breathed new life into the unconscious bodyguard. Having escaped the
coup de grace
from D back in the Shabara Canyon, Crimson Stitchwort was caught in the massive collapse and injured almost to the point of death, yet to have his revenge on D and the baron, he'd latched onto Balcon and come all this way. But D had no way of knowing all of this. And since Crimson Stitchwort had surely never dreamed he'd run into D here of all places, it was yet another strange coincidence.

“D—are you okay?” May asked as she raced toward him.

“Stay back,” D commanded her sharply just as the elevator doors opened to spill light and human shapes out onto the rooftop.

The three men who swiftly fanned out in a semicircle around D and May were guards at the establishment. And behind them was an even larger figure that seemed to oppress the very darkness with his towering form.

“You've got real nerve and skill sneaking into Fisher Lagoon's. I don't suppose I could trouble you for your name before we tear into you?”

Having said this much, a certain astonishment suddenly seemed to fill the giant. And not just him, but the three guards as well.

Just then, a shift in the wind's direction sent the torch flames illuminating D's face off in another direction, allowing his handsome features to sink back into darkness. However, that had more than sufficed.

“My oh my, what a pretty boy we've got here,” the giant said, and then he suddenly realized something. “Oh, so you'd be—D? Ah, just goes to show you can't believe everything you hear, I suppose. You're about ten thousand times better looking than they make out.”

His words trailed off there.

As Lagoon stared intently at D, faint ripples seemed to travel through the giant's expression. Not even D could tell whether they were of surprise or puzzlement.

D quickly went into action. Although it invited a rapid loss of strength that caused him to stumble, all the guards' eyes reflected was an attack by this person of inhuman beauty. They were all paralyzed by the unearthly aura D gave off.

Their weapons groaned. A trio of arrows loosed by steel bowstrings that could bear five tons were absorbed by the gorgeous figure in black, two of them being deflected by one of his hands while the third and final one sank deep into the right side of his chest.

“Ah!” exclaimed May—and Lagoon.

D backed away unsteadily, grabbing hold of May with his right hand and pulling the arrow from his chest with his left before hurling it like a missile. It penetrated the forehead of the guard who'd shot D, killing him instantly.

While the heart was a different matter, the right side of a dhampir's chest wasn't a vital spot thanks to their Noble blood. Especially not after the arrow had been extracted—the wound would close almost immediately. But the unsteadiness in D's steps was troubling, as if that one arrow had unleashed all the sickness in his body.

Racing over to the railing with May tucked under his arm, he grabbed hold of something in the air with his right hand.

“Hey!”

“He's got something strung up there!”

Instead of firing a second volley of arrows, the guards saw D's unsteady steps and decided to take matters into their own hands, discarding their bows and drawing the bastard swords from their hips as they rushed him.

“Stop!” Lagoon bellowed, his gigantic form trembling with the cry, but it was unclear for whom it was intended.

Up on the railing with the hem of his coat spreading like the wings of some supernatural bird, D slid off toward the depths of the forest along with May. His right hand held May now, while his left had a tight grip on the steel line strung through the air.

Until he saw the naked blade D held in his teeth, Lagoon didn't know why the two men who'd charged him had toppled backward in a bloody mist. And by the time he got to the railing, the shapes had dissolved into the darkness. There was only the cry of the wind.

The gigantic bordello owner turned what could be called a strange-looking face toward the rustling forest, and his words sounded almost like an incantation as he muttered, “That face . . . It can't be, it just can't. We'll meet again, man called D!”

-

Around the same time D was arriving on the bordello's roof, the baron reached the gates of the opulent castle in the center of the village. On the way there, no hidden defenses had been unleashed on him, and precisely because of this, his heart truly burned with fretfulness at his inability to guess what the enemy—his father—might be planning. There was no chance the lord was unaware of his arrival. Despite the fact that the monitor eyes of the automated surveillance system had been trained on him ever since he'd crossed the double moat, the drawbridge had lowered into place, and when the baron reached the main gate, the sentries opened it without saying a word.

At some point he'd gotten out of his carriage, and now he stood alone in a vast hall within the castle. He no longer seemed fretful. Even if he actually were, he wasn't the sort of young man who would let it show on his face or in his bearing. He was gazing silently at the throne before him. Glittering with gold and jewels, it was the seat of the man he'd left behind some twenty years earlier. There was no sentimentality in this. He'd come here to do a job he never should've had to do.

“How good of you to come!” a voice called down to him.

This was the shape the father and son's reunion took.

“Or perhaps I should say, ‘How good of you to come back'? What's become of the Hunter guarding you?”

“Good question.”

That was the first thing he said to the lord of the land.

“I don't know,” he continued. “We parted company on the way here. After he performed his part splendidly.”

“What a pity. At present, I'm more interested in him than I am in you.”

There was no sign of his father. The dreary hall was devoid of so much as a single insect. And yet, the baron was gravely aware of the presence of the lord of the castle.

“State your business—though I know what it is without asking.”

“As I promised twenty years ago, I've come to take your life,” the baron said, a smile and murderous intent spreading across his beautiful countenance for the first time. The smile grew because he'd finally been able to say what he'd been thinking for so long.

“You still remember that? Oh, by the look on your face, it would appear you've gone through quite intensive preparation. I'm sure Yona and Frazetta would be overjoyed to see you.”

Those were the names of two loyal subjects who'd wept as they watched the baron's departure two decades earlier.

“Lord Vlad,” he called out to his father, “you made a promise to me not to lay a hand on them when I left the castle. Don't tell me you weren't true to your word.”

“Of course I was. Oh, don't look at me that way. That look in your eye is the very reason I would have you killed!”

“That's right—and you, my own father, at that. Father, now it's my turn.”

“I know. No need to get excited. Don't hate me just yet. I shall show you I'm a man who keeps his word. Come out, Yona! Frazetta!”

His cry ushered in a pair of presences. The figures who appeared in the baron's field of view seemed to suddenly materialize in midair. They were indeed the same old vassals whom he'd trusted more than anyone in the past, and who had loved him in return. However, as the baron gazed at the approaching pair, it was a tinge of grief that spread through his eyes.

When the pair stopped about six feet in front of him, the baron said nothing, but extended one hand. The pair reached out as well. And then, the instant their fingertips were about to touch, their heads fell off in a bloody mist, and in the span of mere seconds they were reduced to ashes in the pile of clothing they left behind.

As the baron quietly shut his eyes and bowed his head, mocking laughter exploded above him.

“I'll have you know I haven't breached our agreement. Those loyal to you were to remain safe until the day you returned to this castle with your head filled with nasty notions about killing me. Or was I a day early? Ha, ha, you'll have to restrain yourself and pardon such a tiny error.”

“Very well. I shall do just as you say. I will restrain myself,” said the baron. “But only until Lord Vlad shows himself before me. And let that be soon.”

Before the baron had even finished speaking, a flash of white light shot from the interior of his cape.

The streak of light that D's left hand had judged as faster than even the Hunter mowed around the perimeter of the hall, slashing through each and every one of the marble pillars and splitting all the intricate sculptures on the walls in half before they dropped to the floor. The rumblings and great crashes that followed were further adorned by shattering fragments of carved arms and legs.

Amidst the fray, the baron alone stood bathed in a blue light. Solitary and sad as a god of destruction.

When the rumbling in the heavens and earth quickly subsided, the baron then inquired, “Still won't show yourself?”

His blue eyes were crystal clear, and a smile even graced his manly and intrepid visage. Such a gorgeous god of destruction he made.

“Here I come now,” Vlad responded in a way that seemed to suggest he had little other choice. “However, before I do that, there's one other person I'd like you to meet. Come out.”

Perhaps the self-confidence in that voice allowed the baron to predict what would happen next. From behind a toppled statue, a pale figure appeared like a goddess of devastation, and her name spilled from his lips.

“Lady Miska—what are you doing in this accursed castle?”

-

II

-

“What did you do to her?” the baron demanded as he faced the heavens. “What have you done to this woman, Lord Vlad?”

“Not a thing—at least,
I
didn't do anything,” the voice replied. “What was done to her was the work of your old physician friend, Jean de Carriole.”

“Indeed, it was,” another voice remarked. It came from behind the baron.

This alone must've been enough for the baron to tell who it was, because he didn't turn to look at the strangely hunched mummy of an old man as he said to him, “So, you still live?” There wasn't a mote of emotion or concern in his tone.

“Milord, it is an incredible honor to see you once more,” the old man said with a deep bow as he expressed his sincerest excitement.

“What have you done to the lady?”

“Well, she has an extremely dangerous being dwelling within her flesh. No, not really in her flesh, but in her psyche.”

It was the same entity known to the baron as the Destroyer.

“And so?”

“After some discussion with the princess, she expressed her wish to have the Destroyer removed. And I have agreed to fulfill that desire.”

“You of all people should be up to the task. I've said as much myself. However, what worries me is what comes after that. Exactly what do you intend to do with the extracted Destroyer, Jean de Carriole? I don't want to hear that you removed it merely to have it return because it ‘has nowhere else to go.' And I don't think you're the kind to do such a thing anyway. So, what are you plotting?”

“This is most unusual,” de Carriole said as he circled around the baron, finally walking over to stand by Miska's side. “I have no intentions save offering the princess my assistance. The reason for her present listless condition is that I've anesthetized her so that I might safely perform the operation.”

“Then take her and go. But know that I absolutely will not tolerate a failure on your part.”

“Understood. Never fear,” the old man told him as he took Miska by the arm and left.

Though the baron may have seemed cold, there was a certain logic to his actions. First, any connection between Miska and himself normally would've ended completely with their arrival in the village of Krauhausen. Next, the baron had to acknowledge the painful fact that de Carriole alone could banish the Destroyer within Miska. And no matter what the human de Carriole might think of Miska, he wouldn't be able to do anything that might put the Noblewoman at a disadvantage—that was a rule that bound all who served the Nobility. All de Carriole could do was separate Miska and the Destroyer, and release her safe and sound.

“Lord Vlad, this has proved an interesting diversion, but that's more than enough for the first act. It's long past time we returned to the business at hand. Show yourself!”

“Before I do, I have one more bit of entertainment I'd like you to see.”

With a different ring to it now, the voice drew the baron's attention to the top of a heap of rubble. There, a figure in a bluish purple cape suddenly stood. At more than six feet eight, he stood a full head taller than the baron, but his figure looked perfectly square due to the unusual broadness of his shoulders. His lengthy face was black—not like that of a Negroid, but rather with a metallic luster to his skin that made the outline of his eyes, nose, and mouth all imperceptible. His naked chest was also pitch black, and against it swayed a medallion of jewel-encrusted gold. But even more conspicuous was the dazzling scepter clenched in the blackness of his right hand. The crimson stones set in its head glittered mysteriously.

“Lord!” the baron called out to him.

As if in response, one half of the cape Vlad had closed over his chest opened like a wing. The sight of the young lady it exposed, or perhaps even the suspicion that she would be found there, was enough to make a low rasp of breath escape the baron.

“I'm told Taki is her name. She was sold to a brothel, and thereby came into my possession. I hear she's a virgin. She certainly has an exquisite throat.”

“Don't touch her, Vlad!” the baron shouted as he stepped forward.

Smiling but not saying a word, Vlad pulled Taki close.

Perhaps under some spell, Taki remained just as she was with a vacant look in her eyes.

“What a fool you are to be Nobility, yet fear the taste of human blood. I procured this girl so that I might show you a true banquet of blood.”

A band of light split the speaker in two, lengthwise. The blinding streak that traveled from the crown of his head down his forehead and out again through the crotch was slowly working to push the two halves of Vlad apart. The thick band then became a thin thread. And it took less than a second for that thread to dwindle down to nothing and disappear.

The baron didn't unleash a second attack.

Black hands had wrapped around Taki's waist and pulled her right up against the Nobleman.

Seeing the black lips part, the baron caught sight of the deep red maw and white fangs, but there was nothing he could do. The lips obscured the nape of Taki's neck. A disgusting overlay of black and white continued for about two seconds, and then the lord took his lips away. They were damp and red.