Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God (8 page)

D didn’t reply. He simply stared straight ahead.

“Hey!” Jan snapped in an angry tone.

D gave a toss of his chin in the direction they were headed. Something white was moving toward them. A bank of fog. But the sky was clear.

“We’ll be there soon. Beyond that fog lies the fortress.”

Though D’s tone was the same as always, his words sent ice water down their spines.

-

The raft floated into the fog without incident. It was so dense, the fog of the previous night couldn’t begin to compare. Maria held a handkerchief over her mouth and nose in spite of herself. She had the feeling they were drifting through a poisonous cloud.

The whiteness filled their field of view, erasing the shore and the cliffs. The only sound was that of the water. Everyone was staring at D—though they could only make out a faint figure. In addition to helplessness, this time their eyes also held anger. Though they’d agreed to the condition D had stated—that he would take care of his job first—now that the fog had robbed them of their vision, leaving them uncertain of where they were headed, it was only human to blame him for leading them to such a place. The only ones who remained calm were D and Bierce.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

“Hey, I’m not kidding. If we don’t do something for her, this old lady’s in serious trouble!” Jan shouted out, but his words were swallowed by a black hole that appeared unexpectedly.

“Where are we?” Mr. Stow asked in a frail voice.

“We’ve entered the fortress’s waterway. We’ll be landing soon,” D responded.

Jan and Maria cheered at this.

“Well, we’re going ashore, kid,” Maria said, giving Toto a hug. He was surprisingly hot. It was small wonder—for a mere child, being put on the aircraft all alone and then crashing would’ve been enough of a shock, but then he’d gotten soaked to the skin on the raft. On top of that, they’d been attacked by monsters. It would’ve been strange if he hadn’t been a mess both mentally and physically. And yet, the boy hadn’t grumbled at all or groaned in pain even once.

Maria thought he couldn’t be gloomy straight to the core—her woman’s intuition told her as much. This was the same child who’d asked D to save them all. Though he kept his head low, somewhere inside him there lay a great, burning courage. And Maria believed that even if a man were gloomy, even if he were a criminal, when the time came, that courage would shine through.

Apparently they were traveling through an enclosed waterway, and droplets of water fell incessantly from the ceiling. The walls to either side looked quite high, and the ceiling quite wide.

“Huh?” Bierce could be heard to say a little way off, and Maria reflexively turned her eyes forward. She intently focused her gaze on the depths of the white fog.

There’s a light. Something luminous is floating up ahead. There are two of them. But what could they be?

As she was wondering this, they slowly rose up.

That’s the sound of water dripping. It’s pretty far off in the distance. Yet they still seem so big. How large could they really be? How could they rise so high? Why are they staring at us like that? We’re moving toward them. Closer and closer every second!

She rose to her feet unsteadily. The glows were above her now—almost directly overhead.

Okay, they’re coming down. There’s a warm wind coming off them. It’s hitting us.

At that instant, Maria jerked as if she’d received an electric shock. From behind, she could sense an intense and unearthly aura bearing down on her. Gripped by an indescribable fear, Maria collapsed on the spot. Violent trembling assailed her. Meanwhile, the thing or things overhead rapidly faded in the distance. After a short time, she heard a splash to one side of the raft. It sounded as if something quite large had been swallowed up.

Although she wasn’t sure exactly what’d happened, she got the feeling they’d been saved. From here and there, sighs of relief rang out. Jan asked what the hell that thing had been, and the transport officer replied he was damned if he knew.

Once her trembling had subsided, Maria looked at their savior. The Hunter who’d driven away that unknown thing with his air of murderous intent alone was visible as no more than a black shadow behind the wall of milky whiteness.

After another hour passed, this time without incident, the fog abruptly cleared. The raft had started moving to the right, toward an enormous stone quay. Bringing the raft to a stop next to one of several rocky protrusions that looked like jetties, D announced with a coolness and brevity befitting the young man, “Land.”

-

III

-

More than desolation, it was an air of death that lay thick around the group. Aside from D, all of them seemed on edge, with the stagnant air and bits of rock falling here and there only making it worse. Devastation robbed one of energy, but death filled one with terror. Though they were sealed away in this stone fortress, it was filled with a grayish light that frightened the group.

“What’s going on here?” Jan asked D after they’d gone up the rock wall and he’d checked his footing several times. “Since we came here, the fortress has gone back into operation. I thought you said the Sacred Ancestor’s army trashed this place?”

“This is powered by another source.”

“What?”

D led the group to a fifteen-foot-wide entrance in the rock wall. The members of his party could only stare at the gigantic iron gate that towered over them. Its rusted surface was studded with hobnails the size of a child’s head. It stood more than thirty feet tall.

“It’s like a door for a giant,” the transport officer groaned.

When D stepped up to the gate, it opened down the middle without a sound. The group advanced into a room that was the size of a small castle courtyard.

“What’s the story here? There are no windows or doors! And that ain’t all. There’s a God-awful smell,” Jan said, his nose twitching.

Maria added, “I wonder if someone or something wandered in here since the place was wiped out.”

“Nobody’s been in here for five thousand years.”

Maria looked at D in surprise. The voice had come from his direction, sure enough. But why had it sounded so hoarse? At any rate, the voice’s words erased any other questions about it.

“Five thousand years? And this smell hasn’t faded in all that time?”

D raised his right hand. But not by way of a reply.

The gate through which they’d entered had slowly begun to shut. Though both Bierce and Weizmann trained looks of concern on D, he didn’t so much as arch an eyebrow of his inhumanly handsome visage. For about five seconds after the gate closed, no one said a word. They were waiting for D’s reaction.

He didn’t move a muscle, but the gates opened again. Seeing the scene beyond them, the group cried out. It wasn’t the quay, but rather a hall at the end of a seemingly endless corridor. The chamber they’d entered had been an elevator.

There wasn’t time to be surprised by this as D stepped out into the corridor. He went over to one of the iron doors in the stone wall, and it opened perfectly naturally.

As if coaxed along by D’s relaxed stride, the rest of the group entered. Maria cried out for joy. The stone room was ten times brighter than the last, and at a glance the woman recognized the medical equipment assembled there.

“This was a treatment center for their human servants. Unfortunately the machines have all been destroyed, but there may be some medicine left. The beds are next door. All of you need to wait here.”

“What do you mean, wait here?” Jan asked. “Until your job’s done? Or until whatever monsters are chasing us show up? How do we know it’s safe in here?”

D went over to a white desk to his left and held his left hand out over the black sphere that sat on it. A diagram appeared on the wall.

“Here’s a map of the fortress. It should be safe enough to look for food. But once the sun goes down, you’re not to set foot out of this room.”

“Just a second there!”

“This facility is equipped with devices to protect the humans receiving treatment here. Relax.”

“Protect them from what?” Weizmann asked.

“From their god,” D replied, heading for the door. The people assembled behind him were no longer his concern. Now it was time to be a Vampire Hunter.

-

After putting her three charges into bed in the neighboring room, Maria returned to the treatment center.

“How’s it look?” Jan asked.

“All three of them are showing early symptoms of pneumonia. All we can do is keep them warm, get some nutrients into them, and get them into a hospital later.”

“As far as food goes, the delivery boy and Bierce went off to look for some. But this sure is a hell of a mess we’re in. Right about now, I was supposed to be in a hotel in the Capital snoring my brains out. Instead, I’m stuck in this mystery shit hole watching over a suckling. Makes me wonder whether there’s really a god.”

I believe there is.

“Huh?” Jan said, glancing at Maria, but she looked just as puzzled as he did.

Could it be? he wondered.

God is all around you.

That’s it, he thought. It’s the same voice that spoke to me on the raft.

It continued, saying, Is this the situation you want to be in? I don’t see how it could be. Do you know why this has happened to you? Because you’re a mobster with nothing but strength to your credit. And the others—that woman, the old people, even the child—all look down on you.

Who are you? he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t say the words. Dazedly, yet in a way that Maria wouldn’t notice, he listened to the voice. And its next words were to strike him hard and burn themselves into his heart.

God can change people. Make you something greater, stronger, more deserving of fear.

Bullshit! he meant to sneer, but the word never came out. It was a terribly attractive offer.

If you want to become all those things, slip out of this room tonight and come to me. I’ll give you my location when the time comes.

-

“Dear . . . can you hear me?” Mr. Stow heard his wife say to him from the next bed, but he ignored her. He was chilled to the bone and exhausted. What’s more, he was sick and tired of listening to the old woman’s disconsolate tone. He decided to just keep breathing steadily.

“You’re asleep, then. Good.”

He was relieved to hear the resignation in her voice, but then she continued.

“I’m sure you probably know this already, but even if we go to Pare’s, he won’t be happy to see us. Yes, it’s just as you said. To our children, you and I are nothing more than the wrinkly old people who raised them. They have no special feelings for us at all. Pare told me something a long time ago, right before he left home. He said it was natural for parents to bring up a child. And while it wasn’t strange for children to see their parents, it was natural for the parents to die alone instead of putting a burden on their children.”

Beneath his blanket, Mr. Stow’s blood ran cold, but his ears caught the old woman’s voice, ringing out doleful and sweet.

“When he said that, I just resigned myself to it. When the children left home, our job was done. But you don’t see it that way. You always said we did this or that for those children, so they should do the same for us without giving us any argument. Our children all knew it. And Pare came out and said it. When he left, he said he hated you. Said they never asked you to give up your life for them. So they didn’t want you or me interfering in their lives, either.”

The old man’s body trembled. The nerve of that boy! And the nerve of his wife, repeating these things! He knew all too well that his children didn’t welcome them. He understood things hadn’t gone well between them for a long time. But to say this to him now, in this of all places, even if she thought he was sleeping—

You’re right.

It wasn’t his wife that said this. The voice that reverberated in his head was much deeper and stronger than that of the woman who’d shared his toil for exactly fifty years. The old man couldn’t ask who it was. But he knew whom the voice belonged to.

Your dissatisfaction is natural. What terrible sons you have. Do they think you shouted at them and beat them because you wanted to? A farmer’s lot is hard. At times, he can get in a foul mood. At times, he might also want to lose himself in drink. Everyone gets drunk and knocks their wife and children around. And taking a hot poker to a child who doesn’t do what he’s told or locking him outside in winter with no supper are both part of establishing discipline. Everything you did was justified. If they can’t see that, that’s their problem. You know, I believe those ingrates need to be punished. Very, very severely. But first, you’ll need to be stronger.

The old man no longer asked who it was. It’d already said. Naturally, his wife didn’t seem to have heard it.

“How will I get stronger? How can I have my vengeance—I mean, how can I punish the ingrates?”

Tonight, wait until everyone is fast asleep, and then go outside. You can leave the rest to me.

-

For the boy, having this high fever was actually rather pleasant. He was able to stay in bed. It’d been years since he’d been able to just lie around like this. At the monastery, he hadn’t been allowed to miss work, no matter how high a fever he had. It was on account of that rule that Eurina had died spitting blood, and Pol had fallen and never gotten up again, dead before anyone knew it. For breakfast they’d had cold soup and a piece of bread, one of only two meals a day. Forced to labor in the fields for twelve hours straight, children didn’t last long. Just catching a cold was enough to have them dropping like flies. A few winters ago, ten of them had fallen at the same time, making the garden seem like a quiet battlefield.