Vampire Hunter D (30 page)

“The blood ... ”

“What?”

“The blood ... Not me ... ”

Perhaps he was trying to lay the blame for this massive bloodshed.

D’s left hand touched the young man’s sweaty brow.

Cuore’s eyelids drooped closed.

“What did you see in the castle?” D’s voice sounded totally unaffected by the carnage surrounding them. He didn’t even ask who was responsible for this bloodbath.

However, could even his left hand pull the truth from the mind of a madman?

A certain amount of “will” seemed to sprout up in Cuore’s disjointed expression.

The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, preparing to spill a few words.

“What did you see?” D asked once again. As he posed the question, his reached over his shoulder with his right hand and turned.

The half-dead men were just getting up.

“Possessed, eh?” D’s gaze skimmed along the men’s feet. The gangly shadows stretching from their boots weren’t those of any human. The silhouette of the body was oddly reminiscent of a caterpillar, while the wiry, thin arms and legs were a grotesque mismatch for the torso. Those were pixie shadows!

A single evil pixie who’d been kept here must’ve escaped and remained hidden somewhere in the factory all this time. Unlike the vast majority of the artificially created beasts the Nobility had sown across the earth, most varieties of pixies were exceptionally amiable. But other varieties, based on goblins, pookas, and imps from ancient pre-holocaust Ireland kept the people of the Frontier terrified with their sheer savagery. The redcap variety of pookas lopped off travelers’ heads with the ax they were born holding, then used their victims’ blood to dye the headgear that gave them their name. Few types possessed the ability to manipulate half-dead humans, but with proper handling they could help make otherwise untamable unicorns clear vast tracts of land or boost the uranium pellet production of Grimm hens from one lump every three days to three lumps a day. In light of this, some of the more impoverished Frontier villages were willing to assume the risks of breeding these sorts of creatures. The blood-spattered and still unconscious men were being animated by an individual of the most atrocious species.

The shadow held an ax in its hands.

Smoothly the weapon rose.

The men each raised a pair of empty hands over their heads.

As the non-existent axes whirred through the space D’s head had occupied, the Hunter was leaping to the side of the room with Cuore cradled in his arms.

With mechanical steps the shadow’s marionettes went after him.

Unseen blades sank into the wall and dented the roof of an iron cage. Cutting only thin air, one of the men fell face-first and set off a shower of sparks a yard ahead of him.

This was a battle for control of the shadows.

A stream of silvery light splashed up from D’s back, then mowed straight ahead at the invisible ax one of the unconscious men raised against him.

There was no jarring contact, but a breeze skimmed by D’s cheek and something got imbedded in the wall.

These weapons weren’t invisible, they were nonexistent.

Three howling swings closed on the Hunter, all from different directions. The blades clashed together, but D and Cuore flew above the shower of sparks that resulted.

Twin streaks of white light coursed toward the floor.

The men went rigid and clutched their wrists. Thud after thud rang out in what sounded like one great weight after another hitting the floor. Actually, it was the men dropping their weapons.

Having already sheathed his longsword, D headed over to one of the men who’d collapsed in a spray of blood.

Going down on one knee by the man’s side, he asked, “Can you hear me?”

As the man’s feeble gaze filled with the sight of D, his eyes snapped wide open. The fallen man was none other than Haig.

“Dirty bastard ... ” Haig said. “How the hell did you—?”

His pitiful voice, which hardly matched his rough face, ground to a halt when he noticed something on the floor.

Now pinned to the stone floor by two stark needles, the unearthly shadow stretching from Haig’s feet was rapidly fading from view. Stranger still, it wasn’t just the twice-pierced shadow that was affected. The shadows of the other men contorted and writhed in the throes of intense pain. And yet the movements of all remained perfectly synchronized!

It must’ve taken incredible skill to hurl those needles from midair and nail the shadow precisely through the wrist and heart, but it seemed doubtful someone like Haig could manage the amount of focus needed to perfect such a technique.

Because, amazingly enough, the needles stuck in the stone were made of wood.

Soon enough the disquieting shadows vanished and those of the men returned.

“I’m hurting ... Damn, it hurts! Hurry up, call the doctor ... please ... ”

“When you’ve answered my question.” D’s tone conjured images of ice. Not surprising, when he was dealing with the same guys who’d already tried to gang-rape an innocent girl. “What happened after you got Cuore in here?”

“I don’t know ... We was thinking one of them’s to blame ... So we planned on taking ’em one by one, smacking ’em around a little to see if we was right ... And then ... ”

The light in Haig’s eyes rapidly dimmed.

“And then what?”

“How the hell should I know ... Get me a doctor ... Quick ... As soon as we got in here and had him surrounded ... all I could see was blood red ... like something was hiding in there ... ”

The last word out of Haig’s mouth became a leaden rasp of breath that rolled across the ground. He wasn’t dead. Just unconscious. As the rest of them undoubtedly were. Though thin trails of fresh blood leaked from their ears, noses, and mouths, their condition was quite bizarre given they showed no signs of external injuries.

D turned around.

Cuore stood groggily in the doorway, but much further outside there was the sound of numerous footsteps getting closer. Either Lina or one of the villagers who’d seen the Youth Brigade with Cuore must’ve summoned the law. Apparently the bullying these young men did was far from appreciated in these parts.

D glanced at Cuore, then quickly spun to face the hole blown through the wall.

“What’s wrong? Aren’t you gonna keep grilling him? You’ll never get to the bottom of this mess if you’re afraid of stepping on the sheriff’s toes,” chided a villager.

Naturally, this didn’t faze D in the least as he and his black coat melted into the morning sun.

..