II

II

The cathedral, in which remodeling work would begin tomorrow, was completely deserted that night.

The silence that hung in the magnificent hall was exactly as he'd remembered. The gracefully arched vault, the colors of the old stucco paintings on the walls, and the candles lined up on the gilded altar all looked the same.

Notre Dame Cathedral.

Silently repositioning his beloved sword on his back, Hugue looked up at the altar.

The moonlight shone through a stained glass window, making the triptych that spread beyond the altar glow white. The light fell on the center of a picture depicting a lamenting crowd lowering the corpse of Christ from his cross. However, as mesmerizing as that painting was, the robed swordsman was staring at the picture hanging below it.

The artist depicted Mary, pregnant with Jesus, lovingly stroking her round stomach. When they'd first visited this cathedral almost twenty years before, the sight of that painting had made Hugue and Jan confused. Although Mary had received God's blessing and carried the Christ child, she had married Joseph as though nothing had happened. After she safely gave birth to Christ, she had other children with her husband. What in the world had she been thinking?

A little girl, who always followed those two boys around like a loyal knight, had said nonchalantly, "A woman's love is complex. Women never love only one person."

The two boys had looked at each other as if to say, "Who can understand women?"

A faint noise roused the swordsman from his bittersweet memories. "You came?"

His jade-green eyes regained their sharp sparkle. He could hear multiple footsteps coming from the church's entrance. Hugue drew his beloved sword and carefully counted the steps.

Twelve men?

That was a little unexpected.

That traitor. Hugue wasn't naive enough to think Jan would appear alone. Twelve people weren't enough to stop him, though, and they both knew it. Maybe it was a trap to tempt him to underestimate Jan's treachery. After all, Jan was the chief inspector. On top of the anti-terrorism elite corps and military police squads, he could mobilize regular policemen throughout the Four City Alliance. He had plenty of men to command for this ambush.

Hugue cautiously hid in the dark and glared at the figures that appeared beyond the doorway. One was short and slender. The two that followed were stout. He would have to kill them in the same instant he unsheathed his sword, so they wouldn't have time to cry out.

"Did you see him here?"

When the clear voice reached his ears, Hugue's heart stopped beating for an instant. No, it wasn't his heart that stopped; time itself froze.

"A woman's love is complex. Women never love only one person."

The moonlight illuminated the face of Rachel van Maylen, the chief inspector's wife. She turned to her two companions. "The priest is in this cathedral?"

"Yes, unmistakably. The priest you're searching for is certainly here. I saw him go in with my own eyes," a man with a scar on his cheek answered in a coarse voice. He was one of the city's many ruffians. He and his large, red-haired partner gazed at their surroundings.

Rachel, why are you here?

Hugue suddenly understood. These men were police informants. If the commissioner's wife was here . . .

Involuntarily biting his lip, Hugue looked at his former fiancée. She had the pale skin and golden hair characteristic of the lehento—city nobles. Her clear emerald eyes looked the same. Nothing about her had changed in ten years' time—except for the ring on her left ring finger, which told Hugue she was far beyond his reach now. Yes, his former fiancée was another man's wife. She was married to a man he hated and would kill in revenge.

In the dark, Hugue ducked down.

He hadn't intended to speak with her. Soon, he would have to kill her husband and avenge the family that Jan had destroyed. How could he face her knowing that?

"Thank you for your help. Please, have something tasty to eat on me!" Rachel said, putting some coins into the ruffians' hands.

Hugue slowly retreated so as not to be caught in the flickering light of Rachel's lantern. He threaded his way through the pillars close to the corridor.

"Wh-what are you doing? Take your hands off me!" Rachel's flustered voice reached him.

"Missus, this is hard to say, but isn't this amount too little?" The man with the scar gripped the lady's hand. He brought his face close enough to breathe on hers and whispered in a menacing tone, "Didn't we hurry here as a favor to the chief inspector's wife? Can't we persuade you to give us a little more than this?"

"If that's the case . . ." Unable to hide her fear, Rachel tried to take out more money.

The ruffian grabbed her lace purse and laughed in a nasty way. "A married lady like you, wandering around the city to search for a priest in the middle of the night — it isn't proper. If your husband knew, what would he do?"

"Are you threatening me?" Rachel's voice got louder for a moment, but then she whispered, "What . . . ?"

"What will happen to you?" Wearing vulgar smiles, the two ruffians edged up to the lady.

"Let go of me!" Flinching from the stench of their breath, Rachel desperately struggled to escape.

Grinning as if he enjoyed her resistance, the scarred man called to his partner, "Johann, you hold her hands tight. Don't let her go."

However, Johann didn't answer. Eyes downcast, he merely stood there.

"Huh? What's wrong, Johann?"

Johann's large body collapsed.

"That's far enough, if you still value your life," Hugue quietly warned, his iron rod at the ready.

"Wh-what? Th-that priest!" The scarred man groaned, disconcerted by the priest who had appeared like a ghost. He drew his pistol at once. "Where are you hiding?"

"I warned you." A clear, metallic sound echoed throughout the cathedral.

When he tried to point his weapon at the priest, the scarred man noticed something was wrong. The gun no longer had a muzzle. "Huh?"

Grasping the broken weapon, the ruffian's mouth gaped open. A beautifully arced blade was thrust at the tip of his nose. The blade had skewered his gun's muzzle.

"Is this what you're looking for?"

"Eek!" The scarred man threw away his handgun and fled the church without looking back.

"It's simply terrible to abandon a comrade." Hugue smiled sarcastically, gazing at the large man and the ruins of the iron rod on the floor. He kicked away the iron rod, which could explode at any moment.

"Hugue?" Rachel's shaking voice stopped the swordsman in his tracks. "Hugue. It is you, Hugue."

"You have the wrong man." Commanding his body to turn away, Hugue wiped clean his expression. "I'm a wandering priest, not that person. Excuse me."

"Hugue!"

The priest tried to run away, but he couldn't manage to shake off the soft, slender arms that tenderly embraced him. A low sob and hot tears soaked into the back of his robe.

"Why? Why! If you were alive, why did you leave me all alone?"

Hugue couldn't open his mouth. There were too many things he wanted to say. He couldn't say them to her in this place. The most he could get out was: "Are you getting along well with Jan? Is he good to you?"

"Yes." The face pressing against in his back nodded after a short hesitation. "He's very kind. We have a daughter, Marie; she'll be five next month."

"I see," Hugue muttered, turning his crying eyes toward Mary on the altar. "You're happy, aren't you?"

"Yes." This time, Rachel nodded immediately. Behind him, he heard a slight rustling noise. Is she wiping away her tears? He turned around to see.

"Why did you come to Antwerp, Hugue?" she whispered.

He couldn't tell what she was thinking, because her beautiful face lacked expression.

Her voice trembled. "Not something to do with my husband? You were with him in the mansion today, right? Could my husband have something to do with what happened to your family?"

"No." Every single heartbeat seemed to last an eternity. Hugue shook his head. Indicating the robes he wore, he explained nonchalantly, "As you can see, I'm with the Vatican now. Do you know about the murder in the old Amsterdam church a few months ago? I was ordered to investigate it. I went to Jan thinking I could get some information from him. It had nothing to do with what happened ten years ago."

"But, today ..."

The way both men had faced off in her husband's study couldn't have looked like old friends apologizing for falling out of touch. The priest lightly shrugged his shoulders, but Rachel's suspicious expression didn't change.

"I didn't go through proper procedures, so the chief inspector refused to share information. It got a bit . . . complicated. He's always been a stuffy man. He hasn't changed."

"I see." Her shoulders sagged and she let out a big sigh. The color came back into her beautiful face, which had been pale and tense. Rachel lowered her eyes as if relieved. There was clearly a note of urgency in her voice, though. "Hugue, leave this city at once."

"What?"

The lady repeated herself. "Leave this place. If it's information you want, I'll take care of it. Leave this city tonight and don't come back again."

"What do you mean, Rachel?"

"Don't ask me why. Please, Hugue, promise me!" Grasping her former fiancé’s robes, Rachel shouted hoarsely, "Don't come near this city anymore!"

"I can't do that." Why is she so upset? Looking perplexed, Hugue shook his head. "I have a job to do. I can't abandon my responsibilities."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what. What's this all about, Rachel?"

Through the folds of their clothing, he could feel her heart pounding. Sealing away the desire to hold his former lover until she calmed down, Hugue asked again, "Why is it a problem if I'm here? Do you know something?"

"I . . ." Her beseeching eyes gazed at him. Faintly trembling, Rachel said, "When you're near, I ..." Her words were spoken so softly, it was difficult to hear. Regardless, it was clear what she was requesting.

"No, Rachel."

Hugue tried to avert his gaze. She wouldn't allow it. Her slender hand gently captured the swordsman's face. Sighing, she softly pressed her lips to his firmly closed mouth.

The sound of someone clapping interrupted them. "Oh dear, oh dear." The shadow of a slender man silently took form inside the church. "Oh, merciful night, blessed by the pale moon, full of darkness that resembles death. How very short the lovely night is."

"Who are you?" Frightened, Rachel clung to Hugue.

---

---

Hugue instantly perceived his opponent's true form. He bitterly repented his own carelessness, letting a vampire get this close!

"I'm Hans Memlink. People call me the wandering poet." (He called himself that, but he was the only one—and he hadn't wandered anywhere; however, the young vampire fancied his prey to think it was true.) Sharp fangs descended from his mouth, piercing a rose bud that matched the color of his tuxedo.

"One of Count Four, I am the Count of Antwerp. Ah, we're Count Three now, aren't we? Father Hugue de Watteau, you killed one of us."

Ten sinister shadows stood up all around the church. Sharp sparks spewed from their mouths.

"Now then, it is the height of boorishness to interrupt someone in the middle of a tryst, but there's something I must ask the priest. Please, come with me; bring that beautiful lady, too."

"What a coincidence. There's something I want to ask you, too, Hans Memlink." Gazing into the vampire's purple eyes, Hugue laughed provocatively. "There's no need to change locations. I'll have you versify right here, you hack poet."

'"Hack poet'?" Metal ground against metal as the vampire rubbed his barbed fingernails together. "How dare you call me a 'hack,' you damned Terran?"

"Maybe I should have said 'would-be poet'?" Hugue deliberately shrugged his shoulders, casting a sideways glance at Memlink. "I'd already heard of a strange vampire in Antwerp who heedlessly spews out bad poetry; the real thing is worse than I'd imagined."

"Damn you!" Memlink disappeared. He'd leapt away at unstoppable speed. With the grace of a feline, he sank his fangs into the priest's neck. "Got you."

Hugue's hand pressed a small switch he'd been gripping secretly. White smoke burst up, and a pungent odor assaulted the vampire's nostrils.

"Uh, whoa!" Memlink's sharpened senses became a liability for him. The count and his minions reflexively covered their faces against the white smoke that rapidly filled the church, temporarily halting their attack.

"Run, Rachel!"

The bombs Hugue had set in preparation for Jan's and the police's expected assault suddenly exploded. Hugue grasped his former fiancée’s hand. He began to run, dragging her along.

"I won't let you escape, priest!"

A crimson shadow danced before his eyes. Brandishing fifteen-inch claws, Memlink tossed back his hair and howled, "Who's a 'hack poet'?"

"You are," Hugue chided, twirling the iron bar in front of his body. Parrying the vampires barbed claws, he suddenly remembered the words of the nun he'd met in Amsterdam a month before: "A noble with chestnut hair and light purple eyes."

The description of the vampire who had attacked the old Amsterdam church and killed all the workers there matched the features of the self-styled poet before his eyes. His appearance also was in keeping with the testimony Carrel van der Verf had given in Amsterdam before he died.

"This vampire attacked Oude Kerk. Rachel, you stay there. Don't move at all."

"H-Hugue?" His former fiancée anxiously looked up at him.

Seeing his own gruesome reflection in her eyes, Hugue coldly said, "Rachel, the man you knew doesn't exist anymore. He died ten years ago. Upon seeing his family butchered and his house burned down, he died in shame. The man before you . . ." With admirable stealth, the priest drew the iron rod to his hip. "I'm merely an angel of death."

There was a piercing scream. One of the vampires who had been sneaking up on them was cut in half. His severed corpse hit the floor. A cloud of blood rose up, and the blade in the priest's right hand shone with a sinister, crimson glow.

"What the hell is that guy doing?" Memlink's eyes bulged out. He didn't bother to wipe his comrade's blood off his face.

The priest's blade revolved again. A beam of rainbow-colored light flashed, and another vampire, who had leapt at Hugue from the right, bent back in agony, his heart pierced through.

"So fast? Or ... slow?" Watching the blade rupture the other vampire's heart, Memlink was struck dumb. The reaction speed of a Methuselah was ten times faster than a Terran's, which made Hugue's movements seem slow enough to bore a vampire to tears. So how was he killing Memlink's brethren so easily?

"Do you know what 'optimization of motion" is, monster?" The swordsman smiled thinly as he sent a third vampire's head flying. "When I make a certain motion—for example, the simple act of moving my hand up and down—without fail, there is a waste of time and energy in that motion. The subtle shaking from left to right, muscle strain, eyes tracking things, making corrections while executing the movement—this normally accounts for thirty percent of the total effort."

Light flashed for the fourth time. Memlink, as if he were trapped in a nightmare, heard his minions' screams overtop the sounds of flesh being torn apart.

"Certainly, a human's nervous system does not relay signals from the brain with a speed equal to a vampire's nervous system. However, your reflexes are about thirty percent faster than a human's. If I am efficient when I adjust my movements, your advantage is no more than two or three percent. In the end, when I brandish my sword, if I can predict my opponent's movement, I can optimize my motions one hundred percent."

A fifth vampire was trying to bite Hugue's neck. His scream was cut short as the priest's blade sliced through his brain.

"It's extremely easy to beat you when you waste your speed."

"Dammit!" Memlink's face twitched. He turned around and abandoned his hard-pressed comrades. The fleeing vampire tried to accelerate into haste mode, but he wasn't fast enough.

Hugue was about to make mincemeat of the Count of Antwerp's head; however, at that instant, a gunshot rang out and a fierce pain lanced through his shoulder. "Ugh!"

The point of his sword missed its target, but he managed to slice off a lock of the Methuselah's hair. In severe pain, Hugue barely could shake his head. He saw Rachel, pale and on the verge of crying. In her hand was a ladies' Derringer pistol. White smoke trailed out of its tip.

She'd probably been trying to cover him—but an amateur couldn't hit a vampire. Holding his shoulder, which was gushing blood, Hugue shouted, "Rachel, don't shoot! At your skill level, you won't be able to aim accurately! Go hide somewhere."

"Look away for a second, and I have the advantage, Father!" Memlink roared, attacking with his claws out.

Hugue reflexively tried to draw back, but a second gunshot rang out.

The priest stumbled as the bullet gouged his flank. Memlink sideswiped him when he was vulnerable. He made an effort to parry, but he couldn't match the vampire's strength, which was equal to that of a polar bear. His blade flew through the air and clattered against the wall.

Blood gushed from Hugue's mouth, which was open in a soundless scream. He slid down the wall and rolled to the floor.

"Serves you right, Father!" Memlink laughed. He stood tall over the groaning priest, preparing to thrust his barbed claws into Hugue's throat.

"Hugue!" Rachel screamed. She couldn't help him because another vampire had taken hold of both her hands.

The poet chuckled unpleasantly as he lifted Hugue's chin by the tip of one claw. "You gave us considerable trouble. Indeed, / killed the priest and framed that idiot, Carrel. Nevertheless, I don't understand: Why did you come to Antwerp? After you cleaned up that Oude Kerk priest and killed Carrel, why didn't you go back to Rome?"

"Cleaned up?" In pain, Hugue stared dimly at the vampire. Memlink's hands were delicate, like a woman's. They were white, soft, and stainless.

Without one stain? He recalled the sister's words: "Something in the palm of his hand . . . like a tattoo of a flower." Hugue's green eyes opened wide. It's not this guy!

"Nobody move!" someone roared.

The cathedral doors were flung open forcefully. Dozens of human forms carrying floodlights invaded the church. Armored men with heavy weaponry closed in.

"A mobile police squadron!" Memlink's eyes opened so wide that they nearly fell out. "This is ridiculous! Why are they here? You can't have betrayed us, Maylen!"

The vampires bared their fangs and screamed, but the high-pitched sounds of machine guns drowned them out.