Vampire Hunter D Volume 13: Twin-Shadowed Knight Parts 1 and 2 (3 page)

D tugged back on the reins.

A split second before her face hit his back, Mia swiftly turned it away, so that only her right cheek took the impact. She could feel the swell of his muscles through the fabric. For just a second, she grew dizzy.

“We're there,” D said.

“Okay.”

Taking away the hands she'd wrapped around his waist, Mia put them on the saddle's cantle and braced her body. Before D could dismount, she flew into action.

Not bothering to call out to the girl who'd hit the ground before him, D began to walk.

Their entire conversation up to this point had taken place on the back of his horse.

His left arm rose naturally, and from the vicinity of his wrist a hoarse voice most humans couldn't hear squeaked, “She's a hell of a girl. For one thing, you've got a little slip of a lass like her racing into a place like this. For another, she didn't even bother to wait for you to offer her a hand getting down from the horse. She's been schooled in how to live on her own. If you ever take a wife, one like that'll—”

The voice broke off there. D had made his hand into a tight fist.

As he walked quietly but gravely, ahead of him yawned the great subsidence that'd swallowed so many dead.

“This place is incredible, isn't it?” Mia remarked pensively as she peered down from D's right side.

Compared to the diameter of the depression, its depth wasn't great at all—only about a thousand feet. Blending with the sloping sides, the bottom was a chaotic mix of boulders and sand, with the red soil filling in the spaces between them.

“It's like a sea of blood,” Mia remarked as she rubbed her cheek with her right hand.

“You saying the dead can bleed, too?”

Mia looked at D's hip out of the corner of her eye, and then stared at his face. Perhaps aware of the rosy glow suffusing her cheeks, she swiftly averted her gaze, saying, “You do a weird little voice, don't you? Are you teasing me?”

Making no reply, D planted one foot at the edge of the incline.

“No, I'm serious,” Mia continued. “And I'll thank you to answer me.”

Saying nothing, D stared downward.

Piqued at being ignored, Mia undertook a reckless course of action. With unexpected speed she came up behind D and told him, “You're rude!”

She'd just aimed a kick at his ass. But it met with nothing but the empty space over the pit.

“Wha—”

As she reflexively put her strength into the leg that still supported her, the supposedly firm ground gave way.

The second she heard her own cry above her and felt the sensation of falling, her body suddenly stopped dead. Realizing that D's left hand had caught her by the collar, she madly reached around with her hands to latch on to him. Just as it dawned on her that she was floating through the air, her feet came down on solid ground. And no sooner had a feeling of relief flooded through her than the hand came away from her collar and Mia staggered.

As her eyes stared fixedly at D, they began to hold hints of a bottomless terror and rage—and a gleam of admiration.

“What do you think this depression's for?”

The voice that posed that question was tinged with trust—and even a bit of affection.

Once again there was no reply. But even though he didn't answer, no anger bubbled up in the girl.

“You said you were the daughter of a fortuneteller, didn't you?”

“Yeah,” she said, feeling silly for getting so excited because he'd turned the conversation to her.

“The dead left every graveyard in the region to throw themselves from here. There would've been thousands of them. Why do you think that was?”

There was a short pause.

The next thing Mia knew, she had one hand to her chest. Her heart was racing. She had to do something to slow it down.

Pressing a finger gently to one part of the heart—the left ventricle—she made her breathing as shallow as possible. Her heartbeat returned to normal immediately. But then, she was a strong-willed and courageous individual to begin with.

“Is it okay if it's pure conjecture?”

D nodded.

“I think they were a sacrifice.”

“That's it, all right.”

The hoarse response definitely sounded like it'd come from the vicinity of D's left hand.

Though she looked, naturally she didn't see anything.

“That's right.”

This time the reply came in a rusty, masculine tone—D's voice. So, was that other one just her ears playing tricks on her?

“Last time, corpses sufficed, but next time it'll probably be living people jumping in.”

“Thousands of them . . .” Mia muttered, her remark a question at the same time.

There was no reply, of course. You could say that was his answer.

“But . . . why in the world?”

“It's the will of the one down below this.”

“Down below?”

Mia couldn't help forgetting her present terror and peering down past the brink of the hole. But as she quickly recalled it again, she backed away, and then stared at D.

“You know what it is?” she asked.

Not answering her, D stood there like an exquisite statue, but then he told her, “Go home.”

And then, without further ado, he dove head first from the rim of the hole into its interior.

“D!” Mia called out in spite of herself, and she was paused at the very brink of the hole, ready to go after him, when something white got in her eyes.

Gas.

Covering her mouth, the fortuneteller's daughter made a great leap back.

It looked like the white pillars of smoke rising from the brink of the depression numbered in the hundreds. All those geysers of gas couldn't have suddenly erupted from the ground in unison. They'd been triggered mechanically. And the one who'd set them off was—

“D . . .”

Still unsure just what was in the gas, Mia took a deep breath and raced back to the rim of the hole. She turned her gaze downward.

He'd probably been crushed. Why was she so determined to find this young man? Because his actions were so extreme. Like what he'd done just now. She couldn't help thinking that whatever he really was, it was tremendously unsettling and of great importance—just as he'd appeared in the fortunetelling. And the last thing that occurred to Mia was something the girl tried vehemently to ignore so it wouldn't rise to the fore of her consciousness. Because he's gorgeous. More than anyone has a right to be.

Mia couldn't see D anywhere, and she had to back away again. The gas had grown thicker and jetted out even harder. Luckily for her, it was only intended as a smoke screen.

She couldn't go after him. Should she wait, or should she go back to the village?

That decision wasn't Mia's to make. From behind her came the thunder of approaching hooves. There were also the echoes of what sounded like a motor.

Mia turned around.

The figures she could see down at the far end of the highway halted before her less than ten seconds later. It was the same group of village peacekeepers who'd discovered the depression. And they'd brought a rare item with them.

The source of the motor sounds was an armored car. With iron plates riveted to a car chassis, the strangely rough-looking vehicle was apparently an antiquated model, with the edges of some plates starting to pull free, and both the sturdy turret and the forty-millimeter cannon that jutted a foot and a half from it were flecked with rust. The scorches and countless bullet marks that covered its armor plates were undoubtedly shining proof it had been fighting off aggressors, in the form of bandits and supernatural creatures, for decades. And it looked as if it was still more than capable of serving as the little village's guardian angel.

Mia's eyes were drawn to the wagon that rode alongside it. She could read the words High Explosives branded onto the sides of the wooden boxes piled high on it. Some kinds of munitions were often obtained from military installations and battlefields where the Nobility had fought their own kind, and it wasn't particularly unusual for towns and villages to have them on hand. Weapons that were especially easy to use, such as rifles and various kinds of grenades, could make an impressive show of force when the situation called for it. To the north of the village were wild plains and the ruins of what had once apparently been a testing ground for the Nobility, and no one normally dared set foot there.

The sheriff got down off his horse. As he moved toward Mia, he called over to the group forming around the wagon, “Get yourselves some explosives and line up along the drop-off. We'll be pitching them in soon.”

“Wait just a minute,” Mia called out as she dashed over to the sheriff instead of waiting for him to come to her. “What do you think you're doing? If you throw a bunch of bombs into this weird hole, there's no way of knowing what kind of reaction you'll get. Plus, someone just fell in there.”

“Someone? And just who might that be?”

“A man named D. He's a Hunter.”

Actually, Mia didn't know for a fact that D was a Vampire Hunter. But his good looks, the way he carried himself, and the way he called to mind ice and steel made her say it on impulse.

“Why'd he fall in the hole? No, before we get to that—who are you, anyway?” the sheriff asked, knitting his thick eyebrows suspiciously.

“Mia, isn't it? You're the daughter of a fortuneteller who lives up north. I had her tell my fortune before,” called out a young man who'd been staring at the girl all along from the driver's seat of the wagon. He wore a heavy wool shirt and had a red scarf wound about his neck. And as befitted someone so dapper, he was a good deal more attractive than the rest of the men.

“This fortuneteller up north—would that be Noa Simon? I've heard the name before. Seems quite a few people are in her debt,” the sheriff remarked, and, seeing a smile break on the lawman's face, Mia was somewhat relieved. “This Hunter you mentioned, is he some friend of yours? What in the blazes brings him here?”

Suddenly, the sheriff held his tongue.

In fact, everyone froze right where they were. Though white smoke poured over the brink of the great subsidence, covering everything up to three feet from the ground, they could make out a human shape emerging from the pit. The hem of a coat swayed around the knees of the powerfully built form. Mia alone could tell whose silhouette it was by the longsword on its back.

“D?”

How many of them heard her say that?

As Mia reflexively started to step forward, someone behind her grabbed her right arm.

“Don't go,” said the young man who'd been in the driver's seat.

“But—”

“When did he fall?”

“Not five minutes ago.”

“You think after falling in there it'd be that easy to get back up again?”

“Maybe if he got hung up on something halfway down.”

“Think that's what happened?”

“No.”

“Stand back.”

Pushing Mia out of the way, the young man put his hand to his waist. He had a gunpowder pistol in a special holster. After drawing it, he called out to the shadowy figure in the fog, “Hey, I'm from the village!”

At the same time, the color of the silhouette darkened—and a heartbeat later, it slipped out of the fog to stand face to face with the young man.

A rumble went through the crowd—murmured exclamations of rapture. The villagers had seen the face of the shadowy figure.

“D . . .”

Mia alone knew that name.

 

-

I

-

Those clothes, and, more than anything, that inimitable beauty—it was D beyond a doubt. Mia felt relieved. The fortuneteller's daughter didn't notice that her joy over the safety of a young man she didn't even know had given way to feverish excitement.

“Hey, you . . .” one of the young men called out to him, taking a step closer.

The scene that unfolded a second later was an enormous and terrifying betrayal of everyone's expectations. A streak of light flowed out. Where it started and where it ended, none could say. It simply flowed.

“What the—” the young man cried, and judging by the way he jumped back, he alone must've discerned the path of that light. Or perhaps he merely acted on reflex.

A mellifluous, soothing sound came from D's back.

Jogging back, the young man halted in front of Mia. When Mia saw that his eyes were filled with tears, she was a bit surprised.

“I . . . I'm Zoah,” he said somewhat uncomfortably. “Remember that . . . Zoah. Okay?”

Feeling something she couldn't fight, Mia nodded. “And I'm—” she was saying when the young man put both hands on top of his head as if to hold it down. A thin red line zipped across the base of his neck.

Without even knowing why, Mia cried out, “Mia! I—I'm Mia!”

A single tear fell from the young man's eye. A smile formed on his lips, and then he reeled backward.

Once his head had fallen behind him, bright blood shot into the air from the stark stump of his neck, and the occasional gusts of wind carried it toward D as if at his bidding, covering every inch of him. Soaked in blood—an exquisite figure in vermilion.

But even that sight held Mia spellbound and drew sounds of admiration from the men—in truth, groans of pleasure. However, that only lasted a few heartbeats before the men returned to their senses and the sheriff rapped on the turret of the armored car, shouting, “Prepare to fire! Draw a bead on that bastard!”

Wait, Mia thought, but she couldn't move. The ghastly demise of the young man who'd introduced himself as Zoah had had an explosive impact on her brain, crushing all other thoughts.

That streak of light had undoubtedly cut through Zoah's neck. However, instead of being slain on the spot, he'd lived long enough to give Mia his name, knowing all the while he would die. Were there even words to describe such a bizarre and superhuman feat? But all that aside, why would D do such a horrible thing? The question numbed Mia's mind. The handsome features now being dyed crimson by the vivid rain of blood had a cold beauty that dulled the very sunlight. He could murder his own parents—she just knew it. Knew it all too well. But even knowing that, in her heart Mia had still held a fiery little ember of conviction that he would never slaughter an innocent person so horribly.

Mia's mind was pulled back to reality by the harsh music of a motor and gears. The armored car's turret was turning toward D. The barrel of its cannon took unerring aim right at his face—dead center on his handsome visage. The marksman inside the turret was coolly taking aim through a little glass sighting window set in the armor plate. Crosshairs had been etched on the glass—and they came to a halt right between the eyes of their target.

Now! The index and middle fingers of his right hand pulled hard on the trigger. The rusty trigger was just about to pass the point of no return.

The gunner's field of view stained crimson. Or, to be more precise, the glass window did.

He'd seen D's upper body lean far back, and then snap forward again. But there was no way he could've imagined the blood that soaked every inch of D flying back at the armored car. It came with such speed, such force. The iron-plated vehicle shook when it struck.

However, its cannon belched fire. The forty-millimeter shell was true to its aim—then it flew wildly off course and made impact. Not with D's face, but with the ground at his feet. Sparks and black smoke mixed with a roar.

Mia stood entranced by the crimson D until the impact bowled her and the men over.

D was in the air. The bloody torrent had rocked the cannon just before it fired, and at the same time he had sailed into the sky. He drifted down and landed on the front of the armored vehicle, as if thirty-odd feet hadn't separated them in the first place. Without a second wasted, a silvery flash whisked through the turret. The armor plating could easily withstand forty-millimeter shells, but D's blade stabbed through it like it was paper, piercing the throat of the gunner within.

Pulling his blade back out, D looked down at Mia on the ground and grinned. Ah! He was like youth incarnate, gleaming with his own beauty and cruelty.

Mia was practically ready to faint.

Leaping easily through the air, D landed about fifteen feet from the group. Not a single drop of blood clung to his sword.

“Come,” he said, speaking at last.

On confirming that it was D's voice, Mia could taste only despair.

“Come,” he invited them once more.

The figures around Mia stalked forward. They were villagers. Each gripped a stake or spear in his hands. Full of fighting spirit—or so they looked, their expressions vacant as if some other force had possessed them.

“Don't go near him!” Mia cried, but that only served as a kind of cue to them.

Advancing a few steps, the villagers let out a cry that wasn't quite a word and charged at D en masse. Light streaked between them, becoming vermilion spray a second later. The lifeblood that then shot up from the decapitated men looked like the kind of entertainment one might find at a banquet in hell. There was a succession of dull thuds all around D—the sound of the severed heads landing. Stabbing one of them with his sword, D flung it toward Mia.

It fell about three feet shy of her. Mia looked down and gasped when it rolled to her feet. It was Zoah's head.

“That's the head of the man who loved you,” D said softly.

Unable to look at it, Mia raised her face frantically. D was right in front of her. She couldn't say a word.

Between the speechless Mia and the Vampire Hunter, Zoah's head rose. D had skewered it with his sword.

“From the look on his face, I doubt you could say he's resting in peace. Why don't you give him a kiss?”

How cruel! But as he thrust the horrible head in the girl's pale face, a hint of surprise crept into D's expression.

He'd intended to make Mia kiss the severed head. Mia recoiled, yet she was unafraid as the severed head seemed to sink into her face. The second the man's and the woman's faces seemed to overlap, Mia's body had passed through D's and come to stand behind him.

Looking over his shoulder in astonishment, D swung his sword down behind him. Mia was well within reach of his blade. And the instant the sword became a streak of light that split her body like a piece of firewood, she gave off an iridescent gleam and vanished.

“Ah!” a voice gasped from the vicinity of the armored car.

Wasn't that also Mia by the back of the vehicle, steadying herself with one hand on its body while she pressed the other to her chest?

“A diversion, eh? Not bad for a punk kid,” D remarked, coolly stepping forward. Astonishingly enough, the sword in his right hand still had Zoah's head on it.

With this beautiful fiend closing on her, Mia couldn't move. She couldn't recall ever having a decoy spell she'd put her heart and soul into broken that way. She'd learned from her mother that a spell could be broken only by another spell—and she had absolute confidence that things always followed that natural law. And yet, here it'd been broken by an ordinary swordsman and his blade. More than the physical trauma of having her illusion destroyed, it was despair that caused Mia to freeze up.

Once more the dead man's mouth was thrust toward her bloodless lips.

“Here, send him off to eternal peace,” said D. His lips held a smile.

As Mia turned her face away, cold lips struck her cheek.

“Now, why are you trying to fight it?” D asked, his query every bit as still and cold as a winter night.

The lips slid right after Mia's.

Mia's back struck the car, informing her that escape was now impossible.

Just then, the heavens and earth rumbled. Caught off guard, D staggered, while Mia was thrown more than six feet to one side. As the ground suddenly quaked like it'd been transformed into muddy slop, the iron vehicle and the corpses danced a crazed jig across it.

Trying desperately to maintain his balance all the while, D prepared to dash toward the brink of the subsidence.

“Looks like I might've underestimated him,” he muttered, although whom that comment was intended for was anybody's guess.

Suddenly, his shoulder split as if it'd met with some unseen blade. A bloody mist shot out.

Standing on the quaking earth, D twisted around and looked behind him.

Thirty feet away there stood a black horse.

“Aha,” he exclaimed, forgetting to staunch the flow of blood.

It was a cyborg horse. However, even cyborg horses came in varying qualities. The one that now stood perfectly poised in the distance, ignoring the noisy quaking of the earth, had a magnificent frame, lustrous coat, and fine musculature—everything about it attested to its being a model of the very highest quality and ability. Such a mount wasn't easy to obtain out on the Frontier.

And D's eyes were riveted to the blue figure astride that steed. He wore an indigo robe, and his lengthy hair, which hung like threads from the top of his head down to his waist in such a way that even his face was obscured, also had a somewhat chilling and mysterious indigo hue.

“Who are you?” D asked as he continued to defy the motion of the restless earth.

“I disposed of Origa,” the figure in blue told D, remaining completely motionless as he addressed the jostled swordsman. “Next, I'll take care of you.”

-

II

-

Origa was the sorceress D had called on to solve the riddle of Muma. She'd been hacked to pieces the night D met with her, and it seemed that it'd been the work of this rider in blue.

“Who are you?” D asked once again.

Though he was confronted by an opponent skilled enough to remain utterly motionless through this savage quaking, and despite the fact that the flow of bright blood from his right shoulder was unabated, he didn't seem at all surprised.

“Why are you after me?”

A sudden gust of wind stirred the hem of his coat.

The hair of the figure in blue streamed off to one side like a swarm of countless insects. And yet, his face wasn't visible.

“You found out. That alone is the reason.”

His words seemed to creep across the ground.

What had D learned, and how did the man in blue know about it? And why had he slain Origa?

“I suppose there's no point asking you anything else.”

D swung the sword in his right hand and sent Zoah's head flying.

The black horse and blue rider approached. Although the animal was most definitely treading across the ground, its gait didn't seem the least bit affected by the quaking that continued even now.

The instant the horse and rider sauntered within reach of his sword, D made a horizontal swipe with his blade without saying a word. He intended to sever the horse's front legs, and as his foe was thrown from the tumbling animal, a second stroke would catch him without a moment's delay.

The blade sliced. The black horse tumbled forward. Just as expected. And the rider in blue went flying. Just as expected. Reversing direction, D's blade handily bisected his opponent's torso.

At that instant the whole world was sealed away in blue. Out of the carved body of the man, a bluish hue sailed into the air. No, not merely a hue, but hair. Just how much hair did that rider in blue have inside his body? Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, no, easily a million strands flew everywhere, and every last one of them stabbed into the ground or the rocks or even the armored car.

D managed to deflect each and every one in the first wave. However, the blue needles assailed him without end. One pierced his left shoulder. He deflected dozens more without pausing to extract that one, then another slipped through and stabbed into his solar plexus, and when he not surprisingly reeled from that for a second, another needle got him through the right eye, coming all the way out through the back of his head.

Another storm of blue was about to assail his reeling, staggering form, but then white smoke surged over him from one side like a wave. Smoke—smoke roiling up from the bottom of the subsidence. While the wind had indeed shifted in that direction, the way it moved to obscure him like a bodyguard made it seem as if it were imbued with a desire to protect him.

And within that cloud, what kind of explosion of thought and deed took place? The roiling of the white smoke grew ever more turbulent, swirling, painting everything with a solid and disturbing hue of white as it began to roll thickly over the road.