Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four (24 page)

The mocking remarks stopped abruptly.

“Where in blazes did you come from?”

The lord's shocked tone seemed to command the angry waves to be still.

The instant the bronze boat stopped on the water's graceful surface as if it'd remained that way all along, a black figure had shot up like a mystic bird from the water off the starboard side.

“D?!”

The lithe figure swept his left hand toward the unseen ceiling, executed a flip that sent his black raiment fluttering out around him, and then by some unguessed means landed feet-first on the surface of the water. Like some graceful black waterfowl, he didn't sink. The heels of his boots were only slightly dampened as he stood straight up on the water's surface.

Perhaps it was in response that the figure in deep purple came down from on high. He, too, stood straight on the surface of the water, causing only the faintest of ripples. And then, with a single wave of his right hand, he sent three fiery orange streaks coursing toward D.

Catching them, D's left hand was enveloped in flames, but those disappeared abruptly. Needles of rough wood the Hunter had thrown had been hurled back at nearly the speed of sound, and their friction with the air had made them burst into flames.

The beauty of that countenance by firelight made Lord Vlad woozy.

“D, what are you doing here?” the baron inquired.

“I tailed you,” he replied, his answer reasonable and succinct.

Smiling wryly, the baron told him, “Stay out of this.”

“I will if you can beat him.”

“I'll beat him.”

The baron no longer had any purpose save this battle.

Two transparent disks landed next to the boat—D had thrown them. The baron had no way of knowing they'd been cut from thick plastic panels the Hunter had found at de Carriole's mansion. D had prepared a second set for the baron because he understood the Nobleman's thoughts well enough to know he would call on his mother in the subterranean lake, and he reasoned there was a very good chance it was there that the battle would take place.

Though the circular disks lacked foot straps and didn't seem like they could support a rat, much less a human being, the baron stepped onto them completely naturally.

Now three men floated on the water, and the baron walked toward his father Vlad with a determined pace.

“Not feeling so well, are you, Father?” he asked. “No matter how great you may be, Father, the water is a detestable foe to the Nobility. However, to
me
—”

The Nobility feared running water, but the blood that coursed in Byron Balazs's veins had no terror of it.

The devilish face above the great purple robe twisted its lips.

“That in itself marks you as a freak. My son, may you be cursed for all eternity!”

Vlad swung the golden scepter in his hand down toward the baron's feet. An opening fifteen feet in diameter and of indeterminate depth was created, yawning there to swallow the baron.

But the baron was in the air. Ignoring the great chasm beneath him, he bounded toward Vlad's chest.

“What's this?!” Vlad exclaimed, finding this development so unexpected he forgot to brandish his deadly scepter.

Placing pressure on the lord's right arm that paralyzed it from the elbow down, the baron then twisted it around behind him sharply while wrapping his left arm around his father's neck. It felt like the root of a tree twisting around him. In the faint light, Vlad Balazs's face flushed bright red, then turned a more muddied purple.

“A choke hold, eh? That's a good approach,” a hoarse voice commented from the vicinity of D's left hip.

Even if they were to suffocate, an immortal Noble would return to life in a matter of minutes, but that would be more than enough time to pound a stake through their heart.

One shadowy figure remained clinging to the other, the trembling stopped, and then another ten seconds passed. Just when the unexpected technique seemed about to deliver a somewhat disappointing denouement, Vlad's left arm—which was in the baron's grip—dropped unexpectedly. Not that it'd run out of power. Rather, it twisted around behind the lord's back, grabbed the scepter from his right hand, and sent it whistling into the water at his feet.

“What—?!” came the heartrending cry of pain from the pale figure who'd drifted under them at some point.

A red silk gauze of a cloud spread through the water.

“Lady Cordelia?!” de Carriole exclaimed.

And only a heartbeat later, the baron shouted, “Mother?!”

His voice and his physical form both sailed over Vlad's head as the lord bent over far, sending the young Nobleman arcing toward the water's surface.

A splash went up.

Vlad raised his right hand above the shadowy form of the baron, who'd sunk underwater. A crimson jewel glittered in the pommel of his slender dagger. Sinking or rising, the baron wouldn't be able to dodge it.

The flowing flash of silver and the explosive shower of sparks came at almost the same time. Going into a stroke right out of the sheath, D's blade came down on Vlad's left elbow—and was stopped by the arm the Hunter had supposedly taken from him once.

“My titanium alloy arm!” the lord gloated as he showed them the sheen of oxidized silver. “Better than my old one, and more powerful. Your sword will never get past this, D.”

As if to test that, the Hunter brought down a second blow from the high posture.

As would be expected, the lord countered that with his left arm, then dipped the same hand into the water and squeezed it into a fist.

A single jet of water pierced D's chest as he still hung in the air. That was no ordinary water. Vlad's artificial arm actually had a mechanical force of fifty tons. Less than a millimeter in diameter, the stream of water reached a speed of Mach three. It burst from D's back, knocking him back some fifteen feet in the process.

Flames bursting from his chest, D sank into the water.

Without even bothering to verify D's death, Vlad turned his eyes to his son. His scepter protruded from the chest of the pale woman who drifted underwater.

Grabbing hold of it, the baron called out, “Mother—”

“It's no use. I took her straight through the heart—even if she's still breathing, she won't last long.”

As Vlad stood there laughing like some guardian demon, the baron gazed fixedly at him. The water that shrouded his blue form was stained red.

“A-ha, you've finally got that look in your eye, Byron. However, you shouldn't feel that way. I've destroyed the woman who tried to harm you before I ever did. You should thank me.”

“You're right, Vlad,” the baron said, touching his hand to the woman's cheek. He didn't address his father by his title, but merely by his name. “The woman who would've murdered me in my infancy is dead. Now she lies here, truly my mother. I must thank you, Vlad. You are my real foe.”

“And how will you slay that foe?” Vlad said, bending down to let the baron see his white teeth. “You're a traitor, descending from my blood but given another man's strength. Try using that strength to defeat me. What's wrong? Can't stand on the water?”

Once again a naked blade glittered in Vlad's right hand. But it halted in midair as he twisted around in amazement.

A figure in black was approaching in a mesmerizing fashion across the water's surface, a sword gripped in one hand.

“Interfering again, Hunter? No matter how many times you try, the same thing will—”

Discerning that D's blade was limning the exact same arc as before, Vlad donned a sardonic grin. Then his eyes bulged in their sockets. His titanium alloy arm had been severed at the elbow again.

Water dripped from every inch of D. But the stream of water that coursed by his lips had a dim vermilion tint.

“You filthy bastard . . .”

“I cut the same place,” D said.

For the first time, Vlad looked with fear into the eyes that gave off that blood light. Was the gorgeous young man enjoying his terror?

“You bastard . . . So, your vampire blood has awakened, has it?”

Though the lord should've been frozen in place, reflex made him take a step back, and though he should've been able to narrowly avoid the blade coming down at the top of his head, a bloody mist suddenly shot out.

As the massive form staggered, the black cyclone dashed forward.

“Stop, D!”

Was the sword blow that could sever even steel thrown off by that cry, or was it the fault of the strange undulations that suddenly assailed the world? Up became down, and down became up.

And just as he felt as if gravity itself had been reversed, D saw something. He saw a different scene reflected in the depths of that vast expanse of water. A number of figures stood at the border between here and there—Miska, May, Hugh, and a hooded figure in a long gray robe.

-

III

-

Led by Miska, May and Hugh walked down a disused corridor beneath the pleasure complex. Mortar from the walls and ceiling had fallen to cover the floor, and the only light to speak of came from candles that burned in the candelabra Miska carried. She was like a restless ghost walking the rotting halls of some haunted castle. But both Hugh and May were cheery because they were together with Miska again. The conflict between the human race and the Nobility—although it was a filthy morass that would last forever, these two flexible psyches had easily escaped it armed with the experience of a few days spent together.

“Wow, Miska, I can't believe you're going someplace so cool!”

Not even bothering to glance at Hugh as he made this sudden exclamation, Miska walked on silently.

From what the boy's sister had told him, Miska was soon to depart for a distant Noble paradise. And they were to send her off.

“I sure hope you'll be happy there. I envy you. But it's kinda sad.”

“Sad?” she said, her pale visage suddenly turning toward him. “How so?”

“Well, we have to part company with you, Miska.” the boy said crossly. “Didn't we spend days together on the same dangerous journey? It's hard to just say, ‘Well, see ya,' like we'd only shared a ride across town.”

“But—I'm a
Noble
.”

“Heck, I know that,” the boy coughed. Something had welled up and blurred his eyes. “So you're a Noble. But you didn't drink our blood. As a matter of fact, I get the feeling you helped us out.”

“I helped? Helped you?”

“Sure. I'm a guy, so I'm always ready for a bit of trouble or danger. Heck, my sister is too, because we've been out in the cold, hard world. Both of us have knife marks on our behinds. But you're a Noblewoman, Miska. You wear all that pretty white finery, and your hands are so soft. You've probably never had to lift anything heavier than a spoon or a fork. Yet a princess like you braved the same dangers as the rest of us. That made me think I had to hang in there, too.”

“Finery? Princess?
I am a Noble
.”

Miska grew confused. The reason she reiterated her point about being a Noble was to stress that she was something better and stronger than a human being. While daytime was another matter, with the coming of night the Nobility could see in complete darkness, had the strength to uproot even enormous trees, could float through the air like a bird, had the stamina to run sixty miles without resting, and worst of all, they had hypnotic abilities that could freeze their prey in place with just one stare. The human race couldn't even begin to compare with all that. Yet how did this human boy view her?

“Noble or what-have-you, you're still a woman. And with a woman giving it her all, I couldn't just sit around on my duff.”

Hugh gave Miska a look that implored her not to make any more protests he couldn't understand. However, in the course of their journey, he himself had been beset by bizarre dragon creatures in the swamp, had been abducted by the magician, and after passing into Vince's hands he'd then spent several days unconscious and stuffed in a bag. When the farmer found him, he was nearly dead from hunger and thirst. But after just one day of sufficient food and rest Hugh was back to his old self, and that was something that could only be attributed to his youthful constitution and sunny disposition. As far as this boy was concerned, humans and Nobility were no different. And that's why he was sad. He would be parting company with Miska—a Noble.

“Say, Miska,” May called out to her. “I'm gonna miss you, too.”

Miska was speechless.

But that quickly came to an end. Before the trio, the hall entrance that'd been left open yawned like a great black maw. Inside, lamplight flickered. Candles burned in a tall candelabra in the center of the desolate hall, and beside it stood a figure in a long gray robe. His right hand was held behind his back.

“Is that the Guide? He's weird,” Hugh said, expressing his opinion with a child's candor.

May merely tilted her head to one side.

“Come,” Miska said, giving a push to the two children's backs and bringing them before the figure in the gray hood.

Not surprisingly, May found something disturbing about this and looked up at him cautiously, but Hugh merely greeted him with, “Hi there,” then looked around the place somewhat restlessly.

“You're setting off on your trip from down here? Where in the world are you going, anyway? Ow!” the boy then exclaimed, clutching his right ear as he leapt up. “Hey! What do you think you're doing, you prick?”

Not even glancing over at the little outraged face, the Guide gazed down at the machete he'd concealed in his right hand, then licked the boy's blood that clung to it.

“Gross! What the hell is this freak up to?!”

“It is indeed the blood of a child under twelve,” the Guide said with a nod. “Does the same hold true for that one?”

May looked up in surprise.

“Yes,” Miska replied, her blossom of a face nodding assent.