THE FALL VILLAGE

CHAPTER 1

I

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There were villages that shone in one season beyond all others, and in the case of Shirley’s Door, it was the fall. The community of less than two thousand was situated roughly in the center of the Landau Plain, and when its deep green world began to take on the colors of the sunset, the strangest activity took place. The normally taciturn villagers would host travelers who were merely passing through in their very own homes, and many children who were normally cooped up in their houses would race around town while a unique serenity hung in the air. It was as if the fall had granted them special permission. And the people set benches out in front of their gates, listening to the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot on the red brick roads while they shared cheap wine and long conversations all day on holidays and from dusk until late at night on the days that they worked.

“Well, they sure do like the fall there,” their nearest neighbors in the village six miles away would say. While their own fall was quite beautiful in its own right, those villagers knew that it lacked something.

The fall people, the fall village, an anonymous poet who stayed in Shirley’s Door once wrote. And surely there must be a fall traveler as well. However, that is not my lot. It should be noted that the poet’s ode was never completed. The people and village of the fall could never surmise from the verse why the fall traveler was necessary.

But as it happened, that anonymous poet might’ve done better as a prophet. Because a few years after his uneventful departure from the village, the local inhabitants were to learn why it was they had need of a traveler. This fall, to be exact.

__

Driving along a lone road that ran through a forest where only traces of green now remained, Lyle slammed on the brakes. Sending out the sort of malodorous cloud that was a scourge on all around him, his sulfur-powered car halted. After exchanging looks with Cecile, who sat in the seat behind him, he then stared at the rider about to pass him on the right. The road forked about half a mile back on the way the two of them had came, but apparently some prankster had seen fit to remove the sign that pointed to town. The early autumn fields still brimmed with afternoon light. Even if the rider chose the wrong road, he’d probably have time enough to backtrack and reach the village before evening, but this kind-hearted pair still thought it would be an unfortunate occurrence.

When the forelimbs of the white cyborg horse lined up with the front end of Lyle’s car, he called out, “Hey,” then fell silent. His reaction was prompted by the realization that next to him, Cecile was melting into a senseless mass. She was enraptured, to put it plainly.

Yet the horse rode right by the side of the car without the rider saying a word.

“Hey, you—wait a second,” Lyle called out to him only after the rider was a good thirty feet away. Despite the cold reception, he hadn’t lost any of his kindheartedness.

The horse halted. The rather dusty coat of the white mount spoke volumes about the distance it had come.

Thinking better of raising his voice, Lyle muttered, “Here goes nothing,” as he backed his car over to where the horse and rider waited.

Between the wide-brimmed traveler’s hat and long coat was an almost translucent face that peered down at the boy and girl. Cecile began to melt again. The boy knew he had to make this quick.

“You know, there’s a split in the road up ahead that’s not marked. Go left and you’ll hit Shirley’s Door, right and you’re into the swamp. Get lost out there and it could be a problem. They say the Nobility had a mansion out in the swamp, and it’s pretty murky territory even by day.”

And once he’d spoken Lyle began blinking his eyes. If he didn’t, he thought he’d lose his mind, too. Looking at a face that beautiful would draw the wrath of Heaven.

“You have my thanks,” the rider in black said, raising his left hand casually. His voice had a patina to it that was painfully masculine.

The disparity between the face and the voice sent a chill down Lyle’s spine. It almost felt like a sensual shudder.

“I’d like to ask you something else as well,” said the rider.

“Sure. Please, ask away.”

“Do you know where ‘Helga of the Red Basket’ lives?”

Lyle looked at Cecile. The eighteen-year-old girl was still in a daze, so the boy elbowed her to return her to her senses.

“I know,” she said.

“So, you’re some acquaintance of old Helga, are you? Don’t tell me you’re the ghost of her husband!”

Although the boy thought it was a rather witty remark, he got no reply.

“Take the road to the right that he just mentioned and follow it into the forest,” Cecile continued. “Please be sure to keep your eyes open on the right. The first house you’ll see on that side is hers. If you’re not careful, it’s pretty easy to miss it.”

The rider touched his right hand to the brim of his hat. Cecile understood that this was the greatest sign of gratitude this traveler could show.

“Okay, watch yourself then,” Lyle said.

In a hurry to distance himself from such a character as quickly as possible, the boy let out the clutch. And the traveler’s horse began to walk away.

Some bittersweet impulse made the girl turn as they sped into the horizon.

“By the way, my name’s Cecile. And this is Lyle. Would you be so kind as to give us your name?”

The traveler in black turned to them. Although he was so far away they shouldn’t have been able to hear him, Cecile caught a fragment of his voice. Borne on the wind.

“D,” the fall traveler had said.

__

With her trademark red picnic basket stuffed full of plums, old Helga returned home. The scarlet-stained western sky was nicked by the silhouettes of trees. Even after noticing the white horse tied to the hitching post by her front door, the old woman wasn’t the least bit surprised. In almost a century of living, there’d been over a hundred things more amazing than a sudden caller, and this particular guest certainly wasn’t unexpected.

Putting her hand on the top of the horse’s neck, she enjoyed the feel of its artificial hide as she said to it, “Where’s your master at?”

A sharp crack came from out back.

“Out at the woodshed, is he?”

Setting her basket down on the front stoop, she had just finished turning the corner when she encountered a figure in black. Seeing the great bundles of kindling he had under either arm, she remarked, “It’s not every day that you see a Hunter chopping wood while his employer’s out. You’re Mister D, I take it?”

The young man nodded. The air stirred—even it felt his beauty.

As if it were a sight too terrible to behold, the old woman averted her gaze and stared at the wretched little hut out back. “Looks like there’s enough kindling to last a hundred years back there. How long you been splitting it, anyway?”

“I got here three hours ago,” said D.

“And in all that time you didn’t bother to go inside, but chopped wood instead? Some of them upstart Hunters would’ve gone on their way or forced their way into the house. You’ve had a darned good upbringing, haven’t you? Why, I can tell that just by looking at your face. At any rate, welcome!”

 

 

Old Helga’s request was a little out of the norm.

“Soon we’ll be full on into fall. And when that happens, the Nobility are gonna play hell with the village.”

Her request was that D take care of them. Ordinarily, someone who’d suffered an attack would hire him personally, or in cases where a whole community was plagued by the Nobility, a representative would handle his employ. It was unheard-of for an old woman who wasn’t a victim of the Nobility and seemed to have almost no chance of becoming one to hire an expensive Vampire Hunter for the sake of the entire village. Especially when she said the Nobility wouldn’t appear until fall.

“Do you have any proof?” asked D.

“Not really. But if you want to get technical, there’s always this.”

The crone put the contents of her basket on the wooden table. Several pieces of the black and rotting fruit rolled by D’s hands.

“It really became noticeable how bad they were getting about a week ago—the same day I contacted you. Now they’re all rotten. I’ve lived a hundred years, and I don’t think this is any accident of nature. I had given some thought about holding off until I was completely sure, but that would’ve meant waiting until victims started cropping up.”

“And what have you called me here for?”

“I’m getting on in years and don’t have much time left. And I want to do some good while I’m still here. If you can, I’d like you to keep my name out of this while you go about your business.”

“There probably won’t be any problems, you know.”

“If that were the case, you wouldn’t be sitting here now. But rest assured, I’ll pay you as agreed regardless. Besides, just getting to sit here staring at your face like this, I get the feeling it’d be worth it just to meet you. You want to know why?” the old woman asked as the silent embodiment of beauty flickered in her failing vision. After raising a steaming cup to her lips and taking a sip, she continued, “Actually, you’re a lot like my husband. Not your face, of course, but your general mood.”

According to what the old woman told him, her husband had joined a group trying to track down a Noble in a neighboring village about eighty years ago and had never returned. No body was ever found, but she never heard from him again, nor did the slightest rumor ever reach her ears. It’d been summer when he’d set off, so she’d believed he’d be back in the fall, and even now the old woman continued to wait. Fortunately, even eighty years later, she still experienced the season known as fall.

“The fall?”

“Yes, the fall. In our village, everything starts in fall. That’s when we gather our food for the winter, and when we collect the seeds we’ll sow in spring. It’s even when we store the water we’ll need in summer. Fall is when people pass away and when others are born—and it’s when handsome travelers come along, too.”

“I heard the Nobility had a mansion here,” said the Hunter.

“Yes, for about the last five hundred years. They say they just abandoned everything and disappeared a hundred years ago, but at any rate, there was no one out there by the time I was born.”

“Why did they disappear?”

“I wouldn’t know. They were real cruel Nobles, and had an awful lot of robotic servants. Apparently they were researching something.”

“There’s no sign of it out there. I wonder if I should’ve drained the swamp.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve already gone and had a look?” the crone said, her eyes going wide. “In the span of three hours you went out to the swamp and split a whole shed full of wood to boot? You really aren’t a blessed thing like the others, I guess.”

“Is it far to the village?”

“About thirty minutes if you gallop all the way. I suppose you could call this the outskirts.”

Helga asked him to hurry and at least check out the ponds if he could.

“I don’t suppose anything could’ve possibly been slumbering there for the past century, but just to be safe. And they’ve got a custom here in the village that has me worried,” the old woman confided.

“And that is?”

“They offer a sacrifice, a real fine-looking girl. And that’s how they get them to leave everyone else alone.”

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II

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The night air was comfortable.

The girl had gone out to pick apples. On the east edge of town in a spot known only to her was a tree that spread its branches like a folding fan. Since before its fruit was fully red and ripe, the tree’s bounty had been filling her mouth with its refreshing sweetness whenever she sank her teeth into it.

By the girl’s side was a young man. Ever since finishing secondary school the two of them had been inseparable, and the villagers figured in a few years the couple would throw a modest banquet and be together for all time. Under the tree in question the pair of bodies intertwined. But before the boy’s arms could draw the full strength of his passion, the girl pulled back and with just the sort of mischievous teasing unique to their age, she circled around behind the tree trunk. The scent of the fruit in the night air—the scent of fall—lifted the girl’s spirits. Tonight would no doubt be a special night.

The girl grabbed one of apples that swayed above her head and plucked it from the tree. Her lips were quite red despite their lack of lipstick, and as they closed around the fruit, her white teeth bit into it with a crisp snap. Mere seconds later, the girl spat out what she’d taken in her mouth. The bits that scattered at her feet and the fruit in her hand were rotten and black on the inside. Grabbing another one, the girl squeezed it between her fingers. The fruit cracked open and black juice dripped from it.

Driven by fear, the girl called out the young man’s name. But no matter how many times she shouted it, he didn’t come. Terror tightened its corset around her.

The girl circled back around the tree trunk. The young man stood exactly where she’d left him, and although it looked like he hadn’t moved an inch, there was something different about his pose. Both his arms were out in front of him, forming a rough semicircle. If the girl were to slip between his arms and his body, it would’ve made for a fiery embrace. However, that embrace was not for her.

Still calling his name, the girl touched the boy, at which point the seemingly faithless lover who’d forgotten all about her toppled over without a sound.

Why was it that her eyes were immediately drawn to his neck? Wrapped in a swell of powerful muscle, his throat had been split open like a pomegranate. It was easy enough for the girl to surmise that this was a fatal wound.

Without even trying to get him back up, the girl spun around and was embraced. Even before she felt the terrific force of the arms that wrapped around her waist, the nape of her neck was ripped open. As her hand clawed out in agony, it caught hold of an apple on one of the larger boughs. And when the fruit shattered in her wildly clutching fingers, sure enough, it was black to the core.

__

“It’s started!”

That’s what old Helga went into the barn to tell D around noon the next day, when she came back from town.

“Gall the carpenter’s daughter and the Sarayas’ only son have been killed. They were found lying in an apple orchard in the eastern part of town this morning by the orchard owner. From what Doc Harmon says, it seems it happened sometime between two and five last night.”

“Didn’t their families go out to look for them?”

“Well, no one noticed that they’d slipped out of their bedrooms. Anyway, it’s perfectly natural to go somewhere and chat with someone on a fall night.”

Fall—the season when quiet loves were spoken.

“Did you take an impression of the throat wounds?”

“I sure did.”

Picking up the piece of fast-setting clay the old woman produced from her basket, D stared at it intently.

“If their blood hadn’t been sucked, you’d never know from this it was the work of a Noble, would you? Must be one hell of a crude Noble, though. You reckon it was a servant of the Nobility or something?”

“It was a Noble,” D asserted softly. “However, there’s something odd about this.”

“How’s that?”

“This wound is rather strange. I get no sense of the life force of the one who bit them from it.”

“Huh?” the crone said, her eyes bulging in their sockets. “You mean to tell me there’s life in the Nobility?”

“Perhaps ‘unlife’ is the word for it,” D replied, his fingers playing across the surface of the clay like a physician searching for an injury.

“In that case, could it be a robot or something that bit them?”

“No, that’s not it, either. I’ve never felt a ‘presence’ like this before.”

“Damn,” said Helga. “And here I was thinking it was going to be the Nobility. Now don’t you think for a single minute about letting this thing get away.”

“I only do what I’m paid for.”

The crone struggled for words, finally saying, “I was positive it’d be the Nobility, but now we’ve got one hell of a surprise on our hands, don’t we?”

“Where are their corpses?”

“At this point, they’d be in storage—but in another hour, they’ll be off to the crematorium. By sundown, they’ll be ashes.”

And once she’d finished speaking, the crone backed away as if she’d received a terrible fright. D had just stood up.

“All that kindling . . . You didn’t chop that for me, did you?” the old woman said as she pointed to the pile. “Look how neat it’s split. Fact is, you sliced it, didn’t you? Practicing for a fight with the Nobility.”

The wind that blew in through the doorway made the Hunter’s long hair dance like the shadows.

The old woman realized she’d been mistaken. She’d thought things had started with the discovery of the first two victims. But that wasn’t the case. Now that this gorgeous youth was ready to make a stand, everything would begin. Nobility versus humanity—this was a matter of life and death the likes of which could be seen nowhere but in the schematics of battle.

__

D got off his horse in front of the morgue. In general, that would be adjacent to the sheriff’s office or the hospital, and in the case of Shirley’s Door, it was the former.

The sheriff happened to be in his office at that time, and at first he responded in a guarded manner. But on hearing D’s name, his demeanor quickly became warmer.

“So you’re D, are you? Never thought I’d meet the real deal. To be honest, we’re in a bona fide bind. Well, go on and look all you want. Of course, there are already a couple of folks in there ahead of you. They just got here, but they’ll be going soon.”

Leaving the sheriff’s office, D slipped in through the doors to the stone building that housed the morgue. An old man who seemed to be a deputy took one look at his face and bugged his eyes.

On opening the steel door at the end of the hall, he was greeted by a desolate space. Three of the walls had windows to let in the light, but aside from that, there was nothing in the room save the wooden tables directly ahead of him that held the corpses.

Before those tables, a pair of faces turned in D’s direction.

“Oh, you?” Lyle said with a touch of nostalgia while Cecile promptly felt a flush of crimson rise in her cheeks. “Fancy meeting you here. I didn’t think you were any ordinary customer, but, uh—you’re not a Vampire Hunter by any chance, are you?”

“Call me D.”

For an instant Lyle’s mind went blank, but he quickly reeled back with surprise. By the time he’d returned to his original position, his eyes were ablaze with adoration.

Nudging Cecile’s elbow, he said to her, “Hey, you hear that—he said he’s D. We’ve got the Frontier’s greatest Vampire Hunter right here! Now you’ll be safe as money in the bank.”

Cecile’s gaze clinging to him all the while, D went over to the corpses. Their rubber bags had been unzipped to the waist. Bloodless, the young man and woman’s bodies looked like puppets. Rigor mortis had already begun to set in. Even the suture that ran in a straight line lent them an air of the surreal.

As D touched his fingers to the horrid wounds of the dead, the living couple watched him. When D quickly stepped away from them again, the boy asked him what he was doing but received no reply, the figure in black heading straight for the steel door as if he’d forgotten all about the other pair.

“Hold up a second,” a flustered Lyle called out to him. “Would you just let me talk to you for a second? I’m sure it must be fate that’s brought us together like this. We need your help.”

“We’re begging you,” Cecile added, her head bowed.

D stopped and turned to the pair.

“I’ve heard that in this village, they’ll put out a sacrifice if this is the work of the Nobility. Are you it?”

As the Hunter asked that of the girl beside him, Lyle’s eyes went wide. “How on earth did you know that?” he asked.

“A minute ago, you told her she’d be safe as money in the bank.”

“I suppose I did, at that. So long as we’ve got you here, this can all be settled without Cecile having to be sacrificed. The bastards here in the village are a bunch of weasels. Every time there’s trouble, they leave it to one girl to bail them out and then decide to keep quiet about it later. Ha! Like they know for sure that’s gonna make the Nobility behave themselves or move on to another area.”

“When were you selected?” asked D.

“Not long ago—maybe an hour back.”

The mayor and all the other influential members of the community had come to her house and given her the news, the boy said. This very evening, Cecile would be left out in the place where the Nobility had the greatest chance of appearing, and she’d have to spend the whole night there.

“Would that be the swamp?”

“Sure enough,” Lyle replied. “And I’m gonna keep her company.”

“You mean this sacrifice isn’t sent out there all alone?”

“The village’s second mayor was a good enough person. He allowed the girls to have a single escort. And Cecile is an orphan, you see. She’s got no one to look out for her but me.”

The young man actually looked rather proud as D quietly gazed at him.

“We don’t know for sure whether or not the Nobility were actually responsible for this,” said the Hunter.

“You mean there’s a chance they weren’t?”

The boy and girl looked at each other.

“I’ve heard there are demonic creatures in the lands to the west that rip open throats and drink the blood. Why don’t you try telling that to the mayor?”

“It’s no use. He and all the rest of those pigs are already dead-sure this is the work of the Nobility. They won’t listen to anything anyone has to say.”

“Why don’t the two of you leave the village together?”

The pair exchanged looks of astonishment—they’d never even considered it an option. There was such solidarity in communities out in this cruel environment, no one could even think of leaving. A hue of hope tinged their faces, but it rapidly faded again.

“That won’t work.”

“I can’t,” Cecile said as she stared at D.

Though there was sadness in her eyes, they lacked the kind of baseness that would’ve clung to him for succor. Her limited stores of self-restraint were doing a remarkable job of keeping her fear at bay.

“My adopted mother and father still have to live here. If I were to run off instead of playing my part, the wrath of the whole village would come down on the two of them.”

“In short, the one responsible has to either be caught or killed,” Lyle said, slapping his hands together. “Come on, we’re begging you. Help us out here. We don’t have a lot of money, but we’ll do what we can to repay you.”

“I already have another employer,” D said, turning toward the steel door.

As the lovers watched, the door shut again. But at that very moment, the two of them could’ve sworn they heard a hoarse voice around D’s hip say, “Well, you sure ain’t the most accommodating guy in the world.”

__

At the fork in the road, D bore left. His destination was the former site of the Nobility’s mansion—the present swamp. The reason he’d gone to the morgue was so that he might examine the wounds left by the Nobility in person. But his fingertips had found nothing but failure. The bizarre information related by the clay cast was an accurate representation of the real thing. That being the case, there was nothing left to do but wait for his foe to appear.

Regardless of his situation, he’d be able to make the first move so long as it was still daylight. And so the white horse and its inky black rider followed the road down a hill to reach a gloomy region shrouded in a drifting miasma.

Covering roughly six square miles, the swamp was dotted with nearly twenty bodies of water of various sizes. Despite the local climate, bacteria in the water kept it from ever dipping below seventy degrees, and the toxin-laden murk not only killed any animal that approached, but also gave rise to freaks immune to its poison. Aside from those villagers who collected such monstrous beasts for a living, no one ever ventured there, even by daylight.

Leaving the path he’d visited the previous day, D dismounted by the shore of a small pond near the center of the swamp. Between the various bodies of water there were narrow roads and iron bridges that appeared to be from ancient times, but many of them had taken on a weird coloration or were hidden by thickets of trees.

On the left-hand side, D sensed an intense presence—a darkness that he alone would’ve felt.

“Damn it all!” cursed a voice he’d heard before.

“It’s that guy. Looks like he followed you. You intend to just abandon him?”

Not replying to the hoarse voice, D went back to his steed and brought it to a gallop. After racing along for five minutes, he could see Lyle struggling by the water’s edge. Spray was flying everywhere. The bluish-black hue of the water was no doubt due to the algae in it.

Lyle’s opponent was a creature that resembled an octopus. Nearly a dozen sucker-covered tentacles were wrapped around the boy’s limbs, and the creature was trying to pull him into the depths. Lyle was armed with a steel harpoon. Though he attempted to stab at the creature’s bulbous head, the blindingly quick movements of its tentacles always interfered and the boy had all he could do just to keep the weapon from being taken from him.

As D halted his horse, Lyle turned and looked at him. Even locked in this deadly struggle, he’d apparently had enough presence of mind to notice the sound of the approaching hooves.

“Stay back!” he shouted. “I don’t want this freshwater octopus getting anyone else on top of me. Just stay back and watch.”

“That guy’s a real scrapper,” said a voice that sounded thoroughly impressed as it came from the vicinity of D’s left hand.

D went down to the water’s edge.

“I told you to stay back!”

“You’re at a distinct disadvantage,” D noted in an uninflected tone.

“Not a chance. I’m just about to declare victory—oof!”

As his leg kicked into the air with a watery spray, there was a tentacle coiled around it.

Toward the bottom of the head, a pair of unblinking eyes glared at its prey.

“Damn! Hey, don’t even think of helping me,” the boy told the Hunter.

“If you drown, you’ll leave Cecile all alone.”

“Help me!”

D didn’t go into the water, but there was a flash from his right hand.

A tentacle was severed—the same tentacle that was wrapped around the harpoon. The head of the octopus quivered. Its high-pitched squeals became a clear cry of pain when the steel harpoon landed right between its eyes.

Pulling his weapon from the octopus’s head while the creature’s spasms continued and it sank into the pond, Lyle fell back into the water for some time and simply tried to catch his breath. But the one who’d been about to die in the depths soon wanted to get back on dry land. Apparently his heart was also made of steel. When he glanced up quickly, D was just getting back on his horse.

“Wait—wait just a second there. Hey! You trying to tell me you didn’t come out here to help us?”

Not answering the boy, D gave a kick to his mount’s flanks. At the same time, his left hand went into action. To the ordinary eye, it would’ve looked like a pair of arrows had suddenly materialized in his fist. But D had easily plucked these missiles flying with enough force to penetrate stone right out of the air with his bare hand.

“That’s what I came out here to tell you. The folks from town were following you—”

D was already facing in their direction.

On the opposite side of the lake, about a dozen riders had formed ranks on the high ground at the top of a good-sized hill. The bowmen at either end of the group had their second shots nocked.

“Don’t move. The next time we won’t miss,” the giant in the middle bellowed. Based on the armored chest plate and the gauntlets he wore, he must’ve fancied himself the toughest character in the village. His confidence was made manifest by the rapid-fire crossbows that hung from either hip.

“That’s the leader of the local guards. Bazura’s his name. Used to be a drifter and a mercenary, and he knows his stuff. He’s a lot better with a bow than what you saw just now,” Lyle said in a weary voice.

The rest of the group—with the exception of the elderly man to Bazura’s left—must’ve been members of the town guard. Once they saw that D wasn’t moving, the group raced down with a thunder of hoofbeats, surrounding the rider in black in under a minute.

“How did you know I was here?” D asked, not sounding the least bit tense.

“Well, I heard about you from the sheriff. First, we went out to old Helga’s place. She’s been going on for some time now about how the Nobility were coming. After we knocked her around a little bit, she ’fessed up to being your employer. As for why we came out here—well, call it a hunch.”

“We patched the old woman up fine. Rest assured,” the older man said as if interceding. “I’m Murtock, the mayor. I’d like to thank you for saving my boy. He might not be much, but he’s my only son and I love him.”

“For what that’s worth,” Lyle said, shrugging his shoulders in the water. “Well, I have nothing to do with these clowns. I swear it. You’ve gotta believe me.”

“You’ve always been such a bumbler. I told you the next time you crossed me I’d disown you,” growled the mayor.

“I haven’t had anything to do with you ever since mom died.”

“Why don’t you just act your age, kid?” Bazura told him. The remark seethed with malice, and Lyle spat at him in reply.

“Old Helga has already given her agreement. You’re to leave the village immediately,” the mayor told D.

“She hasn’t said anything to me.”

At D’s reply, tension scorched the air.

“Don’t try to bluff us, Hunter,” Bazura said as he rose in the saddle. “I’ve heard all about your skill, but no one’s ever half as great as they’re made out to be. It’s ten against one and you don’t have your sword out—and even if you drew it, we’d be too far away for you to reach.”

It seemed their leader was at least smart enough to recognize the difference between bows and swords.

Surveying the ten bows now turned on D, the mayor said, “We decide how things go in our village. And we don’t need any help from outsiders.”

Putting his hand in his coat pocket, the mayor pulled out a little bag and threw it down at D’s feet.

“There’s twice what Helga was going to pay you in there. Take it and be on your way!”

“Gee, I really wouldn’t do that,” Lyle said in a frightened tone. “You’re dealing with Vampire Hunter ‘D’ here.”

Before the boy had finished speaking, cries rang to the heavens. Two men—one positioned in front of D, the other behind him—had toppled backward holding their shoulders. The steel arrows stuck in each of them were the very same missiles they’d fired at D a short time earlier. And the instant that chilling realization dawned on Lyle, a white beam blazed across his retinas—a flash of light that danced across impossible distances. Bows and steely arrows flew into pieces. And that was only the start. The neatly severed fingers of the men who’d held them flew through the air as well.

“Huh?!” the mayor exclaimed as he stared down dumbfounded at the blade leveled at his nose.