Record of the Blood Battle (13 page)

“Sis—the darkness is coming this way!” the boy shouted in amazement as a black, heaven-and-earth-engulfing shape approached, swallowing everything in its path.

“Run for it, Piron!” Leda cried out, her body quivering. “They were all swallowed up by that thing!”

“That thing—what
is
it?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get out of here already!”

Once Piron had grabbed a pistol, the two of them bolted outside. Though the wind and rain lashed every inch of them, they paid no heed. They turned toward
it
. The darkness had already closed to within five yards!

Not needing to say anything, they broke into a run in unison, but Piron didn’t get two paces before he tripped and fell.

“Piron?”

“Run for it, Sis!”

His scream of despair was bleached white. The siblings shut their eyes because the stark light burned them—and also from terror.

Nothing happened.

The siblings opened their eyes. A figure in black cut through their white-hot field of view.

“D?”

Before him lurked the darkness. Perhaps it was mesmerized by the beauty of the figure standing before it with sword ready, or perhaps it was frightened by the ghastly aura that emanated from every inch of his body. The man who’d been swallowed by the lightning sucker had returned with a flash of lightning. He stepped forward. The darkness backed away. His blade danced out.

The two of them saw the darkness split apart. Piron gasped.

The darkness spread all around the cut, melding together to restore the blackness. A heartbeat later, it lunged at the gorgeous young man like a wild animal.

chapter 7

I

—

T
he Hunter’s black raiment was swallowed up by the darkness. It was a moment of despair.

The siblings saw it. They saw the single streak of light that zipped from the heavens down to earth. It split the darkness. To be precise, it was the gleam of a white-hot blade struck by lightning that cleaved the darkness. Covering their ears, the boy and his sister crouched down. For they had heard a voice that wasn’t a voice—a scream that was not of this world. Even after it faded, there was no saying how long the vile chill it’d inspired persisted.

When they looked up, they saw the gorgeous features of the figure in the black coat. That alone was enough for Leda to lose herself. The continuing rain, the cold wind, even the shadow of the fear that’d just been erased all seemed to fade into the distance. She didn’t really get a sense of how wonderful he seemed. The young man’s beauty brought a human’s emotions right up to the point of madness.

“D!” Piron called out.

“What?” asked a hoarse voice.

The boy bugged his eyes. “Ah! The little baldy!”

“Oh, shut up!” the baron said, his lips pursing as he stood beside D.

“Where’d you go? You ran off and left us!” Leda said, the corners of her eyes rising irately.

“What are you giving me that look for? Is that any way to treat the person who saved your lives?”

“Saved our lives?” the siblings said in unison, not surprisingly. That sounded impossible—and astonishing. But their eyes were to go wide once again.

“That’s right,” D assured them.

While the two of them were still reeling, the baron said, “You supposed I just ran off and left the two of you to your fate? Don’t treat me like I’m one of your fellow humans. I left because I had some serious thinking to do. Besides, I even warned the two of you to run for it!”

“What was that, anyway?” Leda said in the endearing tone of a young girl.

“Telepathy. That’s not the sort of thing just any Noble can do. But it’s the kind of power I possess.”

“And you kept it a secret from us?” Piron said, suddenly kicking the baron in the shins and drawing a cry of pain from him.

“Stop,” said D. A faint smile was on his lips. “It’s thanks to this Nobleman that I returned.”

“Really?”

As the baron hopped all around the astonished pair, he said, “Now do you see? I went off to bring this fellow back.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Leda said, folding her hands in front of her chest. She was an actress, plain and simple. “Forgive me, my dear baron. I had no idea. And I never thought you the sort of man who’d run off and leave the two of us behind.”

“Well, he’s not really much of a man,” D said. This time in a hoarse voice.

Finally finished bouncing around, the weeping baron sputtered with tears in his eyes, “Wh-what’s that you said?”

“Actually, you did manage to bring him—I mean
me
—back. But what’s the story with that darkness we just saw?”

“Wh-what do you mean, ‘What’s the story’?”

The Hunter’s left hand rose. Somehow, the movement didn’t seem to be D’s doing. “Oh, don’t give me that. That darkness was a creature you created to capture humans for your experiments.”

“
What?
” Piron exclaimed, eyes bulging. Using both hands, he jerked the barrel of his gun around, training it on the baron.

“No, don’t! Stop it!” the Noble cried. “Didn’t your parents teach you anything? You’re not supposed to go around pointing guns at people.”

“Stop it, Piron,” Leda said.

Although Piron lowered his weapon, he wasn’t entirely convinced. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said. “Explain it to me, mister.”

“This is the area where the shrimp had his vacation home,” the hoarse voice said.

The siblings’ eyes were drawn to its source—D’s left hand, hanging easily by his side.

Unbothered, the voice continued. “But we’re talking about more than five thousand years ago. While he slumbered, there were massive shifts in the earth’s crust, swallowing the whole place. Which included a horrifying research facility. Well, the shrimp found the entrance to it and called this guy—I mean,
me
—back.”

“Would it be as easy as all that to find?”

“It was my castle, you simpleton! I could find a way into it in any day or age.”

Turning, D looked down the street—the direction in which the darkness had left. A hoarse voice said, “Well, let’s head in, then.”

“
What?
” Piron gasped, eyes nearly popping from their sockets.

“It hasn’t been finished off,” the hoarse voice told the boy. “That thing will be back. It looks like it has the ability to repair itself automatically.”

“Then you can’t kill it?”

“We’ll leave that to
him
.”

Speared by the gaze of the other three, the baron took a quailing step back. “I never gave it the ability to repair itself. Someone must’ve modified it in the last five thousand years.”

“Are you trying to tell us somebody could alter one of your devices?”

“Strike my last comment,” the baron said brazenly, folding his arms. “That it knew of my awakening after five millennia and powered up again is all well and good, but this self-repair ability—hmm. It might’ve acquired the ability to evolve . . .”

“It’s coming,” D said.

Abandoning his train of thought, the baron said, “It can’t be helped. Follow me.” He tossed his chin in the direction of the general store.

A second later they dashed for the building, D alone composed, the others frantic. As soon as they were in the store, the baron crashed right through the doors to the back room. Barreling through them, they found themselves in an office. Continuing straight, they turned to their right when they came to a dead end. An elevator door was set in the wall there. The baron pushed the down button. The doors immediately opened, and all four piled in.

The baron touched his finger to a button with a downward-pointing arrow. They rapidly descended further and further.

Less than five seconds had passed before Piron said, “The panel only shows one floor, but we’re going down so far and so fast. What’s going on?”

“At present, we’re a thousand yards down—and we’ll be there soon.”

The baron’s statement proved correct. Roughly thirty seconds later, the elevator halted.

“Three thousand yards down. That was a hell of a shift in the earth’s crust.”

The door opened and the baron stepped out. As Piron followed after him, the boy could only murmur, “What in the world is going on here?”

It was strange that an elevator in a store operating on the surface would lead to a facility that’d sunk into the earth five millennia earlier. Now, the very walls of the white corridor appeared to be giving off light.

“Sis, aren’t the homes of the Nobility supposed to be made of stone? This is like something from another world.”

“That’s the sort of thing bumpkin Nobles go for. Continuing the traditions of our forebears? Sheesh! That musty stuff turns my stomach!”

After walking for less than a minute, the baron halted, and an elliptical entrance opened in the wall before him.

It was a strange room. Piron’s remark summed it up nicely when he said, “What the hell? This is even smaller than the store. And it doesn’t even have any tables or chairs or anything.”

“There are tables. There are chairs, too. Have a seat over there. I’ll expand the place now.”

Taking three steps to the center of the room, the baron waved his hands to either side. Seeing the walls recede without a sound, Leda’s eyes widened. Piron was backing away unconsciously when his rear hit something, sending him tumbling back with a cry, only to be caught by a soft chair that’d risen from the floor.

“Wh-what is this?”

Ignoring the cry that might’ve been of either shock or delight, the baron began to run his fingers over the control panel that’d also risen from the floor. As he looked at a screen that couldn’t be seen from where Piron and his sister were, there was a fierce turbulence in his eyes.

“This is bad, D. You know what I mean?”

Standing behind him, the young man in black said, “It’s coming, isn’t it? Can you control it?”

Already moving both hands feverishly, the baron turned and said, “Oh, no!” in a dialect the siblings had never heard before. “Gaining control of it is impossible. When you cut into it earlier, it caused a malfunction, and the shock of the shift in the earth’s crust made its logical processor go crazy.”

“Lousy piece of crap,” the hoarse voice said.

The siblings finally went over to the others and peered down at the screen. Leda swallowed hard. Piron was speechless.

It showed the elevator doors. And they were opening. No—where the two doors met, something black was seeping out. That dark shadow.

“It came after us, eh?” the baron said, and for some reason he looked at the two children and licked his lips. “Okay, are both of you going out there, or do we just offer it one? It doesn’t matter which one of you is sacrificed. Ah, there is no greater love than this!”

His words suddenly became a cry of pain. D’s fist had delivered a blow to the Nobleman’s bald pate.

“Oooooh,” the baron groaned, his eyes spinning from what surely had been a powerful strike. However, when the Hunter grabbed him by the collar, hoisted him into the air, and shook him violently, the baron cried, “Hey, you’re making me dizzy! Unhand me!”

“That bastard was fine all along,” Piron grumbled.

“At this rate, it’ll swallow the research facility too,” D said.

Not only the children, but even the baron sighed with relief. D had spoken in his own voice.

“What’ll happen if it swallows us?” Leda cried out shrilly.

The shadowy mass on the screen had begun advancing down the corridor. The walls and ceiling were being stained with black.

Pursing his lips, the baron replied, “That’s a secret.”

Beside him, D asked, “Can it be stopped?”

“No, it’s gone haywire now. It’s not the same thing that I built,” the baron said, puffing his chest. Piron came up behind him, kicking him in the ass and sending him flying.

“Don’t leave this room,” was all D told them before leaving through the exit that formed in the wall.

“What a man,” Leda moaned. The girl’s face was glowing with rapture. “He’s truly a man among men. D! I’ll remember that name as long as I live!”

“What’s a punk kid like you doing getting all damp in the crotch? He might be tall and handsome, but he’s not a real man. He’s a born swindler. Now, a real man’s more like meeeeeh!”

Leda had hurled a shoe, hitting the baron square in the face and sending him reeling, but the children ignored him, fixing their attention instead on the screen.

—

II

—

The darkness proceeded down the corridor.

I wanna see
D
, Leda wished with all her heart, and at that instant the screen split in two to show D standing in front of a wall.

“He’s out of his mind,” the baron groaned, his words hammering the children’s ears. “When I first put that thing together, it used to bring the humans it caught back here. But now, I can’t imagine what it’ll do. Maybe it hurls them into the depths of space or transports them to another dimension. Earlier, it had its guard down, but that won’t be the case this time. The only one who could destroy it is—”

Leda turned. “Who?” she asked. Her tone was doleful.

“There’s only one person in the world who could do it. Perhaps not even that.”

“Then D . . .”

As the girl stood there, dumbstruck and reeling, Piron put a hand on her shoulder and shook her. “Here it comes,” he said. “They’re gonna collide!”

The screen returned to a single image—D and the darkness that spread before him. Even through the screen they could feel the terrible killing lust of the darkness, which had halted. And for his part, D was a true combatant. The gorgeous figure in black basked in the aura of malice, totally unaffected.

“Impossible,” the baron murmured again. “My
darkness
—it’s afraid?”

At that instant, an unintelligible scream rang out in the room. The darkness had once again assailed D. This time, he didn’t have the aid of the lightning.

There was a flash. D’s blade.

The world was ruled by darkness.

“Oh, no,” the baron said in a tone that was nearly a mumble. “If it swallows him . . . Too late.”

“It can’t be!” Leda shouted. “There’s no way he could be defeated. If you even suggest it, I’ll tear you limb from limb!”

“Sis, what’s that?”

Turning, Leda stared in the direction Piron’s finger pointed. A black stain was spreading across the wall at the door. The darkness had come!

There was a shriek, which came from the baron, of course. Not saying a word, the children backed away. Before their very eyes, the walls and ceiling were stained pitch black.

“Sis?”

“Piron!”

Above the heads of the children, the darkness loomed like a gigantic wolf. The two of them felt an immense power wind around their bodies. And then—nothing happened.

Piron opened his eyes.

Leda screamed.

Suddenly, the grip on them was broken.

Diverting his gaze and sulking, the baron murmured, “Defeated.”

What he referred to lay at the trio’s feet. The darkness. It’d halted eight inches from the end of Leda’s foot, and Piron gave the edge of it a light kick. A black mist covered him up to the ankle, but it quickly dispersed across the floor. Piron went down on one knee, gazing intently at its particulate remains. He soon put his hand to his chin and said, “Sis, this thing’s a machine.”

“Huh?” Leda said, looking at him, but that was all she managed to do.

“Look.”

Holding out his index finger, Leda’s brother brought a collection of the black particles up to her eye. Focusing her gaze, she could see that they were indeed metal.

The two of them slowly turned. The baron was whistling and trying to act nonchalant. Piron was about to say something, but Leda stopped him.