Mercenary Road (8 page)

The two warriors returned the smile. Their grins were equally wicked.

Together, the three stepped forward. Into the light.

They sensed something behind them . . . and it wasn’t a single presence. They were supernatural troops, gray figures clad in bizarre armor. Obviously their bombardment had opened a hole into the subterranean system. On seeing the trio, they quickly raised their blowguns to their lips.

Black darts whizzed through the air, striking the soldiers right between the eyes.

Shoving their way through supernatural soldiers who were tumbling back with half their faces gone, fresh opponents brought long, thin tubes to bear on the warriors.

A heartbeat later, all of those soldiers dropped with faces shattered like pomegranates. Though the last of them managed to get off a shot, the blow dart sailed right over the trio’s heads.

With the ability to drop a dozen opponents in less than a second, Stanza was truly formidable.

Now that the wave of attackers had broken, the trio began walking again. They’d gone three paces when a new opponent appeared behind them. Stanza turned, and her right hand flashed into action. Her darts flew at speeds in excess of Mach 1, but each of them was deflected with a beautiful
ting!
The oblong iron plates the soldiers in the fore had raised had served as shields against the darts. From between those shields, dozens of blow darts flew. The silent barrage of needles was met by a swipe from a lone blade. Shortly after, the shields and the soldiers behind them toppled one after another.

Shots rang out. Stanza and Strider reeled simultaneously, clutching their chest and shoulder, respectively. Ordinarily they’d have sensed the shots a split second before they were fired and moved out of the way, but at present their brains and nerves were under the control of another.

Cries were then heard. But they didn’t come from the two warriors. Something had happened on the other side of the hole. There were alternating gunshots and flashes of light, but it soon grew quiet.

The figure that stood there with a lowered blade was as beautiful as anything from a dream. The soldiers he’d destroyed had left only bits of something like ash. Callously trampling through it, D quickly approached the trio.

As the pair of warriors stared at him in a daze, sense returned to their faces as the pain of the shoulder and chest wounds broke the strange spell that’d bound them.

“Get going,” D said, tossing his chin in the direction of the hole.

“How on earth did you—?”

Strider had begun to ask how the Hunter had escaped being buried alive, but then he stopped. For a man that gorgeous, nothing seemed impossible.

“You’re something else,” Stanza said, her words sinking.

D caught her falling body with his left hand and effortlessly threw it over his shoulder. Then he pressed his right index finger into the neck of the still-advancing Irene, rendering her unconscious. He piled her on top of Stanza, as if he were building a sandwich.

D started off after Strider, who was still clutching his shoulder, then halted and turned toward the energy torrent. It almost looked like someone had called out at him to stop.

“It’s no use. Even if I were to join you, you’d still have no choice but to meet your end,” the Hunter said in a low voice, no doubt in answer to something.

The shadowy figures beckoned to him.
Come
, they shouted.

“You’ll see soon enough,” D said, once again seeming to answer an unheard question, and then he turned around.

Standing right by the entrance to the hole, Strider asked him, “What the hell was that all about?” A sanguine flower had bloomed from his right shoulder down to his waist.

As they headed back the way D had come, the Hunter told him, “A blow dart that missed you three struck the malevolent torrent. That was enough to upset it.”

“What do you mean by
upset it
?”

“Its energy is getting out of control. There’s no saying what’ll happen.”

—

When the two men arrived at the surface, a dull concussion reached them from the bowels of the earth. Having lost its singular purpose, the once-systematic flow of energy had begun running amuck.

Although the place where the group came out was about a thousand yards from the emergency bunker they’d originally entered, the bombardment had left the ground brutally cratered.

D whistled. Though he hadn’t been particularly loud, he didn’t have long to wait before the ring of iron-shod hooves could be heard approaching from the direction of the bunker. It was his cyborg horse.

“Damn, it’s a shame about that jeep,” Strider muttered with a pale face.

Instead of replying to him, D looked up at the sky.

From the direction of the highway, a number of airborne shapes were flying their way. There were about a dozen of them.

“They gonna bomb us again?”

“Stay right there,” D told the warrior, setting down the two women and drawing his blade.

—

I

—

The forms dotting the heavens quickly became supernatural soldiers with cylindrical flight packs strapped to their backs. The devices may have operated on magnetism, since the scenery directly below them was distorted as if by a heat shimmer.

Here, too, the gap between their civilization and that of their former masters—the Nobility—was made manifest. In either hand the soldiers carried gourd-shaped bombs with fins attached to them. No doubt they’d be aimed with the naked eye.

“Help me up . . . I’ll drop the bastards!” panted a voice at D’s feet. It was Stanza. The right side of her chest was stained vermilion.

“You’ll just be in the way,” D countered flatly.

“They’re coming from the air. And I’m the only one with ranged weapons!”

“Can you even move your right arm?”

Not a word from the female warrior.

“Don’t let her do anything stupid,” D told Strider, and then he took off.

As the Hunter raced toward the fliers, leaving the other three behind, he asked, “Well?”

He seemed to pose the query to no one. But there was a reply.

“I’ll manage something.”

The hoarse voice made a sound as if taking several deep breaths. There was a faint
whooosh!
It sounded like flames springing to life.

Five of the fliers halted over D, and the remaining nine headed toward the other three members of his group. The supernatural soldiers took aim at the foe below. They started to release the bombs from both hands—and at that instant, the figure in black raised his left hand.

They saw his palm. Something was surfacing in it. Was that someone’s face?

It was at that very moment that a violent gust shot up at them. With their flight packs destabilized, they spun around, turning end over end. Their flight packs collided, and before their bombs could fall, the soldiers were propelled away. There were no screams. All of them were sent careening to the west—the explosions occurred in a spot just two hundred yards away. Those who’d gone after the other three members of his group were part of the crash.

Dropping to one knee, D fended off the shock waves with the hem of his coat.

“How’s that?” the hoarse voice inquired proudly.

“There are more on the way.”

Other figures were gliding toward the Hunter from the direction of the highway. There were three of them. This time they were flying nap-of-the-earth, blasting away with their guns as they came.

A cloud of dust enveloped D. The soldiers saw him fall face down, and they kept going, right over D’s head.

But the gorgeous fatality rose like a supernatural bird. His attack in midair was a smooth progression from flashing steel to bright blood. As D decapitated one soldier, he simultaneously landed on the man’s back. Manipulating the flight pack, he brought the headless corpse around.

From a mere sixty feet away, the other two soldiers indiscriminately sprayed lead at him. D’s body shook; the bullets were hitting the mark. However, D’s left hand was continuously spitting dark objects at the ground. Lead slugs. The Hunter’s wounds were healing, and even the holes the bullets left in the fabric were closing.

As D approached, the supernatural soldiers were powerless. His beauty captivated them. When he passed, bloody blossoms spread their petals in midair, then immediately became a scarlet shower that rained down on the earth . . . along with the severed heads of the spellbound pair. Still held aloft by the flying devices on their backs, the decapitated cadavers flew off into the distance.

As they watched D skillfully manipulate the dead man’s flight pack for a landing beside them, the two warriors looked as if they could see the very air itself. It was D. But even knowing this, the unearthly skill he’d just demonstrated was difficult to comprehend.

“What the hell are you, man?” Strider asked, his face strangely pale. “Are dhampirs really that incredible?”

Not replying, D put his finger against the neck of the prone Irene. Opening her eyes, she sat up, and the look on her face as she tried to get her bearings showed she was back to normal.

“Where am I? How did I get out here?”

On seeing the bloodied man and woman, the girl swallowed hard.

“We’ll fill you in on all the details later,” said Strider. “Hey, D, I’m gonna be okay, but the skirt here is in a bad way.”

“Keep your snotty remarks to yourself!” the warrior woman shot back, but her complexion was bloodless, like paraffin. Unable to hold her torso up, she fell over.

“So, she’s gonna slow us down?” Strider spat toxically.

“We’ll leave her,” said D.

Staring at his handsome features, Stanza nodded and said, “Good enough. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Suddenly, she coughed. The very action was devoid of strength. Blood spilled from her mouth.

“The lungs?” Strider groaned. “That ain’t good at all. Unless someone does something, she’s not gonna last twelve hours.”

“Sounds like . . . you’d love that . . . to happen,” Stanza said, her words creeping across the ground with her breath.

“Sure. One less hand means more loot to go around when we get back. I’ll take your share!”

As Strider grinned slyly, he noticed someone staring daggers at him. Turning to the glaring Irene, he asked, “What’s that look for?”

“You lousy animal!”

“Excuse me?” Strider replied, more stunned than angry. That was hardly the kind of thing he’d expect the self-centered girl to say.

“Give the fighting . . . a rest,” Stanza managed to say, almost sounding delirious. “Hurry up . . . and go . . . I’ll survive.”

“Hey—pull yourself together! You call yourself a warrior?”

There was no reply. Stanza had lost consciousness.

Irene looked up at D. Her expression was grave and troubled.

“You have to be able to do something. Help her!”

He didn’t respond.

“You just plan on leaving her here? She’s dying!”

“You got left behind, too.”

“You don’t have to remind me. And that’s exactly why I can’t just leave her here.”

“Are
you
going to look after her?”

Irene was tongue tied.

Never taking his eyes off the girl, D said, “You can go back if you like. What’s it going to be?”

Irene looked down at Stanza, then turned her gaze in the direction of the town. Lacking anything to focus on, her eyes revealed how torn she was.

“Okay,” she said as if the word were a curse, waving one hand in surrender. “I’m used to treating injured folks back at our house. But just so we’re clear on something, I’m not coming along because I wanna save her. I figure I’m safer sticking with the lot of you than going back to town alone.”

“Good enough,” D replied in a tone that suggested there was nothing good about it at all, and then he squatted beside Stanza. As she was face down, he rolled her onto her back and unfastened her armored chest piece. He then pulled up the shirt beneath it.

“What . . . are you . . . doing? Stop . . . it!” Stanza said, with nothing save a flimsy brassiere to secure her bloodstained and ample breasts.

“Hold it right there! I’ll handle this.”

Ignoring Irene’s flustered protests, D removed the undergarment. The woman’s bosoms spilled free. The bullet had entered at the base of Stanza’s left breast. The flesh had already closed around it.

Irene wore an expression that seemed to curse the Hunter as a pervert, but then her features stiffened when she looked at D’s profile.

The thumb and forefinger of his left hand probed the wound. Stanza twitched.

“This will hurt a bit. You can cry out if you want.”

Opening her eyelids a crack, she said, “You must be . . . joking.”

The girl and the warrior both watched as D’s fingers sank into the wound.

Stanza’s face twisted with the terrible pain. Actually, the agony shattered it. Her eyes, nose, and mouth were distended into inhuman shapes, and a series of spasms jolted through her body.

Irene simply stared at D’s pale visage. Her body wouldn’t move. It was as if someone far stronger was in her head, commanding her to train her eyes on D. To watch a man who could lay bare the chest of a writhing, bloodied woman and cruelly jam two fingers into a wound without raising an eyebrow . . .

He’s not human,
she thought.
No, a man that cold and beautiful couldn’t be human. I’m witness to something here that’s not of this world. That’s why I don’t need to cover my ears or shut my eyes. Even the stench of the blood isn’t making me sick. That unearthly beauty trumps everything else in this world.

Stanza stopped moving for a second, let out a little sigh, and then twisted her body again. D’s fingers had started to come back out. A startling amount of blood spilled from Stanza’s mouth, clinging to her chin and chest. Nevertheless, she didn’t make a sound. Irene wondered if the agony had been so bad the woman had bitten her own tongue off.

D’s fingers slipped out of the wound. Between them, he held a huge lead slug. Naturally, it was covered with blood. Setting it down by his feet, D said, “You didn’t need to cry out, did you?”

Though his tone was still cold, Irene widened her eyes. She detected a certain emotion in his words. Something resembling praise.

Without another word, D put his left hand over Stanza’s mouth.

Shaking violently, Stanza was about to spit up more blood when the strength suddenly drained from her body. Was she dead? As if this were what she’d been waiting for, peace returned to her pain-wracked features. It was almost as if D’s left hand had poured some miracle drug into her.

The Hunter’s left hand was quickly pressed against the wound on her breast. In the span of two breaths it came away again, and Irene heard both herself and Strider gasp in astonishment. Though the woman was still covered with blood, no scar or any hint of the wound remained.

—

II

—

Evening came. Spotting a service area to the right of the highway, D turned his cyborg horse in that direction. Ordinarily, dhampirs operated better at night than by day. On his own, D might’ve charged ahead and covered more of the distance to the abandoned castle, but with the lowly humans along that wasn’t an option.

Up until now, he’d ignored their wishes. All of them were riding on a single steed: Irene sat in front of D, Strider behind him, and Stanza was over his shoulder. As they galloped along, Irene’s and Strider’s asses had taken the bumps right through the bare back of the beast, with the wounded Strider in particular letting out a constant stream of cries of pain and invectives.

“Come on! Patch my wound up, too,” he pleaded with D, but the Hunter didn’t glance at him or even bother to tell the warrior to tough it out. The bleeding had been stanched by the first-aid kit the warrior always carried, but the bullet was still inside him. Though removing it himself wasn’t out of the question, D hadn’t given Strider time enough to do even that.

“Damn it, is this supposed to be some new kind of abuse or something?” the warrior grumbled, but his scornful gaze grew hazy and his mind was starting to slip by the time they reached the service area.

Actually, the service area was no more than a single building—a farmhouse that’d been converted into a combined cafeteria and lodgings, as the proprietor’s main occupation was farming. In a manner of speaking, it was a flophouse.

As expected, the interior had been laid waste. According to Irene, it was run by a family of seven, but not one of them was anywhere to be seen. As proof that they hadn’t fled, their wagon remained out back.

“I wonder what could’ve happened to them all?” Irene said.

No one answered her.

D set Stanza down on a sofa in the living room. Then he went to check out the rest of the house.

“A brat and two gimps—those are some real special traveling companions,” the hoarse voice jeered.

“Never mind them,” the Hunter replied. “What happened to that torrent of malice?”

“Oh, that? I thought it was gonna blow sky high, but it seems to have calmed down. That energy is a collection of hate, but it also has a will. I’m sure it despises all of you and the supernatural soldiers, too.”

“It’s biding its time, then?”

“Probably—it’ll wait for the perfect opportunity to kill us all. That thing’s trouble. It’s flowing around beneath our feet. It’s ever present. It’d be safe to say it’s wise to everything we do.”

“Industrious, isn’t it?”

“You can say that again,” the hoarse voice said, laughing haughtily.

After checking the house from attic to basement, D went outside. There was a barn out back. A deep blue tinged the air. To all appearances, it was the epitome of a peaceful evening.

D suddenly halted.

A sandbox had been set up in one corner of the yard, and in it lay a plastic pail and shovel. Nearby sat a child’s tricycle.

“Guess they’re gone now,” the hoarse voice said. “And they’re never gonna get to play in that sandbox again.”

Saying nothing, D turned to face the barn. It had big wooden doors that opened out from the middle, and they now stood open about a foot.

Right in front of the doors, the hoarse voice said, “Hmm.”

Opening the left side, D slipped inside.

After he’d gone three paces, a voice told him, “Okay, freeze!” It’d called down to him from the barn’s loft. A long ladder stretched up from the ground. Beside it stood a tall man, his old-fashioned repeating rifle trained on the Hunter.

“Zack Morrowbak?” D asked.

The man’s expression changed. “You’re a bounty hunter, ain’t you? Well, I’m gonna kill you dead, fucker!”

Flames of murderous lust clung to every inch of the man.

“Don’t do it, Zack,” called out a voice at ground level—from the far end of the barn. Beside the wagon, a bearded man stepped out with a crossbow leveled. He was around forty, older than Morrowbak.

“Yuri Tataika,” D said.

“My, it’s an honor having a looker like you say my name. Now, Zack, don’t you go looking at his face, you hear?”

“I hear that,” the other man responded in a rough voice, but it was already too late—his words carried a ring of intoxication.

“There’s one more of you, isn’t there?” D said, his eyes peering past the wagon where Yuri was standing.

“No, make that
two
.”

With that, a middle-aged man appeared from behind the wagon, a longsword on his hip. In his hand he held a knife. The tip of it was pressed against Irene’s pale cheek, drawing a trickle of red.

“Seems the little lady here was looking for something, D,” the third man said to the Hunter.

Though this was the same person who’d brutally cut down men and women back at the bank, oddly enough there wasn’t an iota of killing lust about him. Even his tone was that of an ordinary man.

“My name is Zenon. I may not be as famous as you, but some folks have heard of me.”

“You were a Hunter of Nobility,” D said in a voice like moonlight. Undoubtedly his sighs would be like the dust the Sandman scattered. “But now you’re known as a bank robber.”

A terrible sadness colored Zenon’s face. “We can discuss that later. There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

“We’ve nothing to discuss,” D said firmly. “Let the girl go.”

“How about joining forces with me?” asked Zenon. His tone was sincere. “As things stand, we’re pinned down. But if we had you along, it’d be a great help.”

“Because you think a dhampir is bound to know about the mercenaries the Nobles made?”

“That’s right,” Zenon said, nodding bashfully.

“More than me, it’s the girl you need. She knows shortcuts and things like that.”

“In that case, you’ll need her too. Let’s work together.”

“What are you asking him like that for, Zenon? I’ll blow one of his arms off, and then he’ll listen to whatever you have to say!” Zack shouted from the loft.

He was clearly mentally unstable. Quick tempered, wild, and impatient, he’d lived the kind of life those things embodied, and ultimately it was that which had brought him into contact with D.

“Simmer down, Zack.”

It wasn’t Zenon that cautioned the rifleman, but rather the man beside him—Yuri Tataika. While not as composed as Zenon, he still remained level headed.

“How in blazes are we supposed to keep cool at a time like this? We’ve got freaking monsters in front of us and behind us! There’s no way in hell of telling when they’ll attack. Now our ace in the hole, Zenon, isn’t worth shit. And to top it all off, we’ve got a party after us.”

“They’re in the same boat we are. Can’t you see that’s why Zenon’s saying we should join forces for the time being?”

“Shut your pie hole! What are you gonna do if they stab us in the back while we’re shaking their hands? Hell, I’ve see the kind of shit bounty hunters pull!”

The finger he had wrapped around the trigger was pulled back as far as it could go.

“Zack!”

The man being addressed simply went ahead and took things to the next level. Screaming like a lunatic, he pulled the trigger—but never finished. As he was shouting, Yuri had fired his crossbow at Zack. Bursting through the floor without losing any of its force, the arrow pierced Zack through the heart and came out his back. Even after the arrow had gone through him, the man’s impetus carried him forward. Like a marathon runner breasting the tape across the finish line, he sailed down to the ground. By the time he landed, he’d already breathed his last.