OUT IN THE NIGHT

CHAPTER 2

I

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Why the hell don’t you do something, Bazura?!”

Though his voice was hoarse, the mayor actually didn’t completely comprehend the current state of affairs. His mind couldn’t conceive of anything except the sword tip that’d appeared before him in a split second. He didn’t have the faintest inkling why the members of the town guard targeting D hadn’t shot him with their bows yet.

Bazura didn’t move. He thought he’d reply, but his voice wouldn’t come out. A warm fluid was spilling in vast quantities from a cut that went halfway through his neck. Without time to raise the rapid-fire crossbows from either hip, or rather, before he could even think of doing such a thing, his subordinates had had bows and fingers carved from their hands, and his own throat had been slashed open. But more than that, more than anything, he was stopped by the unearthly aura that gushed from the handsome young man before him. He finally understood that this opponent was from an entirely different world.

“What do you intend to do with me?” asked the mayor.

“Never meddle in these affairs again,” the Hunter told him.

“Oh, whose affair is this?”

The tip of the sword brushed against the base of his nose. And no sooner had it done so than the end of his somewhat hooked beak was sliced off neatly. With a scream the mayor reeled backward, falling back against the ground headfirst—right on top of the same bag of gold he’d thrown down.

“I—I see. I’ll never do it again!”

The mayor frantically brought his hand up to his nose, where fresh blood quickly seeped out between his fingers.

Ignoring the howling men on horseback, D turned and headed back the way he’d come. It was strange how not a single one of the mounts whinnied as he left.

More than malice, more than anything, it was fear that colored the eyes of the mayor and Bazura as they watched the Hunter go.

“Like I tried to tell you, he’s Vampire Hunter ‘D,’” Lyle said to them somewhat snidely.

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Once the mayor’s group retreated in their sorry state, Lyle got on his horse and galloped off the same way D had gone. His sulfur car had been left back in the village. However, the only reason he’d been able to follow the mayor and the others out to the old woman’s house, then beat them to the swamp using a route known only to himself, was because of all the long days he’d spent driving through the area in his vehicle.

At the edge of a small pond he found D. The Hunter was bent over, picking the broad leaves of a plant that grew in profusion near the shore. But what would he do with them?

In no time D went down to the water with a number of them under one arm and threw one out onto the surface. And then he took a steady step onto it. The leaf was a foot in diameter. Though it might’ve been capable of supporting a small animal, there was no way it could ever support the weight of a human being. And yet the leaf didn’t sink at all, but merely trembled a bit. One after another D threw the leaves out in front of him and moved across the path—and the water’s surface—like a weightless illusion.

The tenth leaf brought him to the center of the pond. Peering down at the surface by his feet for a few seconds, the figure in black then sent up a spray and left a set of ripples as he dove into the water.

Racing down from the path to the pond, Lyle began to count the seconds instinctively.

Ten seconds . . . Twenty . . .

Although there was no evidence that the Nobility had once had a mansion in this area, in his boyhood Lyle had repeatedly heard the elders relate fantastic stories about seeing the dark sorcerers who slumbered in the middle of the swamp gather en masse on a misty night, when the water suddenly cleared and allowed them to glimpse a palatial mansion in its depths. Could it be that was what D had seen?

Two minutes . . . Three . . . Five . . .

Despair tinged Lyle’s heart. He knew that D was a dhampir. Those descending from Noble blood lost half their strength in running water. If D were to be attacked by the freshwater octopus’s brethren in force . . .

One of the leaves plopped out of sight. Beginning with the ones closest to shore, they were sinking.

Nine minutes . . .

The last leaf vanished . . .

Ten minutes.

A black figure bobbed to the surface. Before the boy could even confirm that it was D, the Hunter began doing the breaststroke back toward shore. The hundred feet took him less than five seconds. On seeing Lyle, he remained expressionless and wiped his face.

“Was there anything in the water?” the mayor’s disowned son asked.

“The sun will be down soon,” D replied.

Though it didn’t address his question in the least, his reply was good enough for Lyle. After all, the girl was going to be locked out in the sacrificial hut on the village outskirts all alone tonight.

“What are you gonna do?” Lyle asked D as the latter walked off toward his white horse. “If you keep an eye on Cecile, the Noble will probably show up. Kill it and your work will be done, right? Come on! Go out there with me.”

D galloped off without a word.

As the gloomy figure rode away without a backward glance, the boy shouted at his back, “You’re cold-blooded! And an ingrate! I came all the way out here just to warn you that you were in danger!”

His vain howls of rage echoed for quite some time.

__

Although she’d had every intention of waiting until Lyle got there, it looked like he wouldn’t make it in time. When the group from the town guard came to her house to “escort” her, she thought she was ready, but her legs still trembled terribly. Her adopted father said nothing, while her adopted mother alone stepped outside and bade her farewell as the tears welled in her eyes. The only thing that kept Cecile going as she was loaded into the carriage and driven out to the hut on the outskirts of the village was the knowledge that in return for her sacrifice, the village would give her parents enough to live on for the next ten years.

The hut was furnished with nothing save a table, a chair, and a bed. Once the men had Cecile safely inside, they then locked the door and left. This wasn’t intended to keep the Nobility out. It was to prevent Cecile from running away.

Not long after the men’s footsteps faded, Cecile smelled the odor of blood in the night air. The men had spread it around so the presence of the sacrifice might be known.

As the minutes passed, Cecile’s mind slipped further and further into panic. There was no way a girl of eighteen could sit calmly and wait for her own demise. There were only two reasons she didn’t smash the chair against the door in an attempt to break it or flip over the table—because the furniture was too heavy, and because she was still thinking about the couple that’d raised her. Instead, the girl crouched on the floor and pounded the bed with her fist as she sobbed.

Just how much time passed she couldn’t say. Cecile suddenly lifted her head. She was horribly cold. The tracks of her tears were freezing. The depths of her ears froze.

There was a harsh rasping sound on the far side of the door. Like a key turning.

Cecile felt like her heart had shrunk down to nothing. Just when it seemed like she could take no more, another sound dealt the final blow to her heart, closing around it like a fist. The creak of hinges. The door was slowly opening.

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II

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The girl reflexively moved to the wall opposite the door. Though she wanted to let out a scream, it caught in her throat. She’d never seen a Noble. While their appearance and actions in the elders’ tales had always been incredible, those had always been mere stories that ended with the telling. Or so she’d thought. Now a deep fear came back to her from the marrow of her bones, from the depths of a darkness she never could’ve imagined, climbing the long, long stairway to the underside of her soul.

It stood in the doorway. And it came as little consolation that it was a girl about her age but far more beautiful. Her face had nigh-translucent skin, and at its center glowed a pair of red lights. The ground rustled dryly. It was the sound of the hem of her blue dress dragging across the floor.

From behind the woman, the autumn night breezes billowed into the hut through the doorway. Somewhere out in the forest, men and women from the village would probably be talking of love again.

The girl closed her eyes.

Nothing happened.

Unable to stand it any longer, she opened them again. The woman stood before her. Just as she noticed the white fangs in that mercilessly gaping mouth, the girl also saw leaves blow in through the open door. As Cecile’s mind was about to plummet into the abyss, she sensed that the woman had stopped.

“Hold it right there, you bastard—or bitch, I guess,” Lyle shouted, adjusting his grip on his harpoon as he stood in the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing, woman? Back to the cursed pages of history with you!”

“A man?” the woman seemed to say to herself as she pulled away from Cecile’s body. “A woman’s blood is sweet but thin. A man’s is bitter but thick. And that’s what I like. I believe I’ll feast on you first.”

The face that turned in his direction was ferocious in its beauty. A lock of black hair had slipped free of her dazzling jewel-encrusted hair clip and fallen across her face, and the fangs that peeked out over her grinning crimson lips were razor-sharp. Was this a Noble?

Even as terror froze the blood in his veins, Lyle raised his harpoon and said, “If it’s me you want, come and get me. But not in cramped quarters like this—I’ll take you on outside.”

“You would have me leave the girl? I’m afraid that won’t happen.”

As if pushed by the woman’s sneer, the door behind Lyle slammed shut.

“Damn it all,” he growled.

“I like confined spaces. Your screams echo in such places, and the shadows of your death throes dance on the walls. This way, I can savor the experience. Drink your blood leisurely. I want the girl to watch your humiliating end.”

“Shut your yap!” the boy bellowed, his words shattering his own fear.

Capable of sticking in rock, the harpoon flew with unerring precision at the left side of the woman’s chest and actually imbedded itself in the stone wall behind her.

The woman grinned. Not so much as a single drop of blood stained the wound. What’s more, the very shredded fibers around the tear in her blue dress seemed to knit themselves back together and repair the garment.

“Had enough fun and games?” she asked. “That’s all the resistance your kind can offer mine. You had your nerve to think you could ever rule the world in our stead.”

“It’s just the natural flow, you antiquated bitch,” Lyle shot back as icy sweat clung to every inch of his body. “Your era’s over. And I’m gonna drive that point home now!”

The woman closed on him. Her gait brimmed with confidence.

As he backed away, Lyle pulled out his final weapon. Although it would be dangerous to use it indoors, he had no alternative. Come what may, Lyle would rescue Cecile or die trying. If he couldn’t save her, he wanted to die right along with her.

The black bottle he waved drew a stare and a sneer from the woman. But before her very eyes, white smoke began to rise. The bottle contained a powerful acid. Left completely exposed, the woman’s eyes were seared by it. And the white smoke was proof that her skin was dissolving.

Slipping past the woman as she clutched her face without speaking, Lyle raced over to Cecile and scooped her up. Her throat was free of injury.

“Serves you right!” the boy said as he slipped by the woman once more with Cecile in his arms. But as he did so, his shoulder was caught in a terrific grip. Flesh and bones compacted beneath its force. The boy couldn’t even cry out.

Grasping Lyle’s shoulder with one hand, the woman used the other to cover her face as she quietly got to her feet.

“That was the last straw. I have no need of your blood. First I shall tear your legs off, and then as you thrash about in agony, I’ll allow you to watch as I do the same to the girl.”

“Let go of me . . . Dammit!” Lyle screamed, his words painting an arc across the room. Even after slamming into the far wall, the boy tried to shield Cecile as he fell to the floor, but the woman bounded toward him to seize him again.

A streak of white light burst through her chest from behind, and the figure in the blue dress barely maintained her balance as she dropped to the ground. The first thing the woman did was look at her chest. A bloody flower now blossomed there.

Seeing the face of the person in black who stood in the doorway, the woman thought that he was the only one who could’ve possibly managed such a thing.

“What . . . what are you?”

Her voice was like a cry of pain, but it also held a kind of fascinated praise.

“What are you?” D said, repeating the very same question. “Last night, two people had their throats torn open on the east edge of town. Was that your doing?”

“Suppose I said it was?”

White light traced a cross in the air.

When the table she’d kicked across the room had been sliced to quarters, the woman retreated to the wall to her rear. As both her palms came in contact with the wall, cracks raced across it like the threads of a spider web, and then her form slipped through the newly made hole into the darkness with a rough wooden stake hurtling from D’s left hand right behind her.

There was no response.

Becoming a black wind, D slipped through the hole.

A gunshot rang out from somewhere in the woods.

As D ducked, hot lead whizzed right over his head and bit into a distant tree trunk.

D could feel the woman’s presence melting into the stillness of the forest. As he twisted around, he let a rough wooden needle fly toward where the shot had originated.

A man’s scream rang out, and another shot flew off into the heavens.

Concealed behind a tree some fifteen feet away, a gentleman who looked to be a middle-aged farmer was slumped on the ground clutching his right wrist. A two-shot rifle lay by his feet. Undoubtedly the shock of the needle’s impact had been enough to make him drop the weapon.

“You . . . you damned monster! Don’t you lay a hand on my Cecile!”

That cry made the person’s identity clear.

Hearing the voice, Lyle dashed out while still nursing his hip.

“That’s Cecile’s father,” he called out, putting a stop to any further trouble.

After Cecile had been seen off, her adopted father had spent a long time grumbling to himself before he finally loaded his rifle and headed off to save his beloved child. Cecile’s parents knew better than anyone what thoughts occupied their daughter’s mind when she’d quietly accepted her fate.

Once D revived Cecile and she’d opened her eyes, she and her father threw their arms around each other and wept.

“So, what are we supposed to do now?” Lyle asked D, dabbing at eyes swollen by contagious tears. “She’s safe for tonight, but come tomorrow, the village goons will splash more blood around. We can’t leave her here. And if she goes back to her house, they’ll catch her right away.”

“Leave her here.”

“What did you say?!” her father exclaimed, the color draining from his face. He had no intention of letting her be offered up as a sacrifice a second time.

It was Cecile that vetoed the idea of relocating her family, saying, “If we were to move somewhere else and they found out about me, they probably wouldn’t take us in. Besides, my father and mother are too old to be starting over someplace new.”

Even if they were to break the edicts of the village and run off, their likenesses would be communicated to all the neighboring villages, and in most cases local rules would bar them from entering any other community. In order to start a new life, a fugitive had to travel far across the Frontier.

“Leave her here and guard her by night. Then destroy the Noble by daylight and everything will be fine.”

Lyle clapped his hands together at D’s assessment, saying, “That’s a great idea! Let’s go with that.”

“Good luck then,” said D.

“What do you mean? You still don’t feel like helping us out?”

“There’s reason to fear the Nobility could go looking for other victims. If that happens, both you and the girl’s father will be in danger since you helped rescue her.”

“I suppose you have a point there,” Lyle said as he went pale.

Whether or not they actually believed offering a sacrifice would limit the damage done by the Nobility, if Cecile remaining unharmed caused others to be victimized, the mayor and his cronies wouldn’t take it quietly. The responsibility wouldn’t fall solely on Cecile, but also on Lyle and everyone else who’d aided her. Even if the sheriff tried to intercede, a lynching might be unavoidable.

“You might be the great Vampire Hunter ‘D,’ but even you can’t keep an eye on the entire village. For better or worse, we’ve gotta find that Noblewoman while the sun shines and pound a damn stake into her.”

Pulling his harpoon out of the wall, Lyle donned an anxious expression.

“I put this right through her heart and it still didn’t matter a bit to her. Noble or not, something’s just not right about that.”

“There are all kinds of Nobles,” D said, his reply surprising Lyle. “Fearing slaughter at human hands, some replaced their flesh with machinery. Some can change their molecular structure at will, becoming a mist or a rainbow. Others literally have muscles of steel. But the woman who was here tonight was unlike any of them.”

“A foe the likes of which you’ve never even heard of? This is utterly hopeless,” Lyle remarked as he folded his arms.

“You don’t suppose that Noble will attack anyone else, do you?” Cecile inquired anxiously.

“It’ll take her at least two days to recover from the needle I put through her. She’ll be in no position to attack again. Tonight should be safe.”

And leaving them, D stepped outside.

Lyle followed after him. Mouth bent in a frown, he said, “I’m through asking you for anything. Just watch—I’ll keep Cecile safe all by myself.”

“Good for you,” came a voice from D’s hip as he sat in the saddle.

For a second, Lyle was stunned.

“That voice really doesn’t suit you. Stop talking like somebody’s granddad. But I want you to remember something. Me and you might end up going after the same thing. If that happens, I don’t wanna hear any talk about me being in the way or screwing things up. Because I’m gonna protect Cecile my way.”

D began to ride away without saying a word.

Behind him, Lyle waved one arm and shouted, “Thank you. I’ll never forget that you saved her. Your face might be an iron mask, but you’re a good enough guy.”

Then the boy sighed, “I may not be crazy about my father, but he is the mayor. Guess I should call a meeting with him.”

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III

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“Where are you going?” the reins seemed to ask. The section gripped by his left hand, to be precise.

Getting no reply, the voice continued, “The pond? With your eyes, underwater at night would still be bright as day, I suppose. Was there some lead on the Nobility inside what you found yesterday?”

D didn’t answer—his elegant visage merely stared into the darkness ahead. The wind stroked his hair and fluttered the hem of his coat.

“That woman—she must’ve been the one responsible for what happened last night,” his left hand continued. “In which case, I guess she’s not your run-of-the-mill Nobility. Looks like we’ve got a real pain in the ass on our hands. You figure going down into the pond is gonna solve this mystery? Granted, there seems like there’d be some connection between this and the Nobility’s ‘research.’”

Holding its tongue for a while, the voice then said, “The wind is cold. And it smells like apples and plums. It sure is fall. This is just the sort of season that’d rouse a romantic Noble. You have to wonder if the timing is a coincidence or—huh?”

Just before the voice let out that final cry of surprise, D had pulled tight on the reins.

The road left the forest and ran off across the plains. Up ahead the ground rose, and at the very crest of the hill there suddenly stood a pale figure. At the moment, the moon was right over her head.

If the age most befitting this season was seventeen or eighteen, then that’s how old the girl in the white dress must’ve been. If the color most appropriate to this season was a muted green, then that was the color of her hair. And if fallen leaves were the most appropriate thing in this season, then that’s what danced at her feet.

“She’s a Noble, right?” the left hand asked, conviction in its voice.

Had more than one Noble been lured out by the fall night?

A second later, D charged forward on his cyborg horse.

Though it was the sort of fierce gallop that would’ve prompted even a good-sized man to leap out of the way, the girl stood and waited without so much as twitching. Eyes the same color as her hair reflected D, and her expression suggested she was lost in contemplation, spinning a eulogy for D and the fall.

From up on his mount, D brought his right hand around. Just as it had back in the swamp when it sliced through those surrounding him, the flash out of his scabbard painted an impossibly long arc. But D’s blade gave him no indication it’d made contact.

D saw a white mist moving away, driven by the wind his naked steel had stirred. Soundlessly drifting dozens of feet, it collected at the base of a grove off to the left and took the form of the girl.

As she turned to flutter away, D raised his right hand. The blade of his sword was now grasped between his teeth.

A yellowish hue zipped across his field of view.

Barely missing the girl’s back, his needle sank into the tree trunk beside her.

“We’ve got all kinds of things popping up,” a hoarse voice remarked. It didn’t sound like it was teasing him now.

Moonlight swathed the black rider and white mount as if to further ornament the autumn night. D turned his gaze to his left hand. His fingers now clutched a yellowed leaf. When he put his strength into his fist, fragments of the withered leaf scattered in the wind.

“Did that leaf get in your way?” the mouth that’d formed in his palm muttered. “It finally makes sense why they’d wake up now—these Nobles have the fall for an ally, don’t they? That could present a bit of a problem.”

Naturally, there was no reply. It almost seemed as if the warrior in black with his heaven-sent beauty was a captive of autumn thoughts.

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That night, there were more strange occurrences than had ever happened in the history of the village. At the time the Vampire Hunter was facing the girl in white out among the fields, dozing old Helga suddenly woke in her little house and tried with almost no success to fathom the dream she’d just had. At about the same time, a couple that’d been in a neighboring village on business returned home to find their daughter sitting in a chair in the living room instead of sleeping. On shaking her by the shoulder, they suddenly found that she was dead. Shortly after that, Mayor Murtock was pulled back to reality and his bed by an argument between one of his servants and his son, who’d forced his way into the house in the middle of the night.

“Since you’ve been disowned, you’re not his son any longer. It’ll simply have to wait until tomorrow.”

“In the eyes of the law, we’re still father and son. And this is urgent,” Lyle blustered back, and then he laughed aloud at the sight of his father with bandages wrapped around his nose.

“This is probably the happiest I’ve ever been to see you,” said the boy.

“State your business.”

“I want you to give the guards the following orders: Look for the Noble’s hideout by day, patrol around each and every house in town by night, and if they see a Noblewoman in a blue dress, they’re to get in touch with us.”

The mayor gazed at his son in disbelief.

“So, you’ve seen a Noble, have you? Then I guess you went out to Cecile after all. Tell me it isn’t so—you couldn’t possibly have gone and interfered with the Nobility!”

Though the mayor’s surpassing rage made him cringe, Lyle didn’t back away.

“It wasn’t interfering. At any rate, Cecile safely made it through her first night. Did you understand everything I just told you? You robbed me of my mother. The least you could do is try and make up for it.”

“She died because of those damned bandits. Instead of acting like a good son, you’ve been nothing but trouble up till now. So don’t try playing the victim.”

“When those bandits attacked your wagon, mom would’ve survived if you hadn’t cut the horse free and taken off with them on your own. Don’t let anyone else die now.”

“. . . So, Cecile is fine. And this proposal of yours—I take it you didn’t come up with that on your own. That Hunter’s in on this, isn’t he? Well, he hasn’t heard the end of this yet!”

“Before you make any crazy plans about revenge, we should take care of the Nobility first. I’ll protect Cecile. All the rest of you have to do is find the Noble. And then the pretty boy will do the rest. You’ve seen what he can do, I’m sure.”

The mayor fell silent. Lyle’s words had gone right through the bull’s-eye. When the mayor lost the tip of his nose, his heart was filled with fear and anger—and a hope that was almost a prayer that maybe this young man would be the one.

“Okay, that’s all you have to do. There’s no need for your people to battle the Nobility. All we need is enough manpower to find the thing,” Lyle said, pressing the issue now that he saw the promise in his father’s reaction.

“Oh, we’ve got the manpower—to kill D, that is,” Bazura said as he pushed his way through the doors. In his arms he held a girl with death sealed on her paraffin pale face.

“What’s all this?”

To the mayor, who’d just risen from his chair, he said, “It looks like your kid has really gone and screwed things up for us. This is Shakero’s daughter. Her parents got back from the neighboring village a little while ago and found her like this.”

“It can’t be . . .”

Two stern gazes poured down on the stupefied Lyle like boiling water.

“It appears it’s the Hunter we’ll be searching for. And you won’t be getting off scot-free either, Lyle. Where is he?” the mayor asked, once again in the well-practiced role of the obstinate old man free from even a shadow of a doubt.