HUNTING THE HUNTER

CHAPTER 3

-

I

-

Indeed, it was D that stood there.

But how had he found this place? Or reached the rooftop? And how had he managed to sneak into the penthouse, of all places? Even with his senses blurred by the pink glow of lust, hadn’t Balcon still focused on the sound of the footsteps behind him that reached the penthouse without him ever detecting anything out of the ordinary?

“Who—who the hell are you?!”

Although there was no way Balcon’s windpipe could be crushed by a hand gripping the scruff of his neck, his face already looked purple. It was due to an incredible strength, and to the ghastly aura billowing at him from the face of unearthly beauty right before his eyes. One of D’s hands released Balcon, and then there was a swoosh through the air as freedom was restored to all four of May’s limbs.

Intense, ungodly—there was just no way to describe his skill with a sword.

Balcon wasn’t even watching. Though agonized and on the verge of asphyxiation, he could only gaze at the gorgeous visage in adoration. It was at that point that he finally remembered the name of the young man.

“Such a . . . looker . . . It couldn’t be—you couldn’t be . . . D?”

“Besides her, there was supposed to be another ‘new girl,’” the young man in black said in a low voice.

To Balcon, the voice seemed that of a demon of darkness, immeasurably heavy as it echoed from the depths of the earth.

“Where is she?”

Did that mean that D had come for Taki and May?

Having been splayed out so indecently, May was still ashamed even now that she was free, and something hot spilled from her eyes.

“I—I don’t know. There were some good girls . . . that’s all I heard. A young one and one not so young . . . and when they asked which I wanted, I asked the ages . . . and chose the young one . . .”

“I know!” May shouted as she wiped away her tears. “They’ve taken Ms. Taki to ‘the castle.’”

A gasp squeaked from “Porky’s” throat.

Putting more strength into the fingers around the base of the man’s neck, D asked, “You know anything about that?”

“Well . . . uh . . . if you’re talking about castles around here . . . Lord Vlad’s is the only one. Come to mention it . . . he also has a real taste for . . . young girls’ blood.”

And having said this much, Balcon gave a squeal and lost consciousness. D had finally pressed all the way down to his windpipe.

Making a light swing of one arm with the clumsily collapsing blob of flesh, the Hunter sent the man flying all the way to the far wall of the bedroom, which he crashed against before moving no more.

“Thank you,” May said as she stood up, already dressed in the clothes that’d been discarded by her pillow.

“Any injuries?”

Though D’s question was clinically cold, his voice seemed to come from heaven above.

“Er, no.”

“Let’s go,” D said, turning his back to her and walking toward the door.

Following after him, May stepped outside, where the strong nocturnal winds tossed her hair. The rustling from the trees to either side of the building rolled over them in waves. As the torch flames grew thread-thin, their flickering light revealed a figure in black lying on the ground halfway between D and the elevator. Balcon’s bodyguard.

Aside from the fact that D had overheard talk of “new girls they just got in today” back at the Rivers Inn and had followed Balcon’s carriage out here, the manner in which he’d managed to get up to the penthouse without drawing anyone’s attention now became clear. To wit, there was a special wire thin as a spider’s web stretching from a branch of one of those trees three hundred feet away and wound around the roof’s railing, and the Hunter had come across it. It went without saying there was a grappling hook at the end of the wire. Throwing it three hundred feet through wild night winds was no great challenge for D.

The house was surrounded by a pair of moats and three sets of walls, with electronic eyes and human guards maintaining a strict level of security round the clock, and even for D it must’ve proved moderately difficult to sneak in, but there was no time to waste in taking care of the dirty old man.

However, he hadn’t known Balcon would be going to the penthouse, and when he got over onto the roof, it was purely good fortune that he ran into the pig of a man coming out of the elevator. After the madam left, the Hunter had knocked out the bodyguard and followed the fat man into the penthouse. Only someone with D’s ungodly skill could’ve kept Balcon from hearing any change in the sound of the footsteps to his rear.

But D’s feet came to a sudden halt then.

Shocked, May leapt off to one side and hid behind the iron pillar of what seemed to be a laser antenna. Though she looked as hard as she could, she couldn’t make out anything aside from the prone figure.

But then that shadowy figure got right up. The motion was so fluid, it almost seemed he must’ve laid down on purpose from the very start. Without a second to lose, there was a flash from his right hand. Although the knives flew with the speed of a swallow, it was perfectly natural coming from the bodyguard in whom Balcon had had such complete trust. But D batted one after another aside with his bare hands, catching the very last in his left hand and using it to split the bodyguard’s head like a piece of bamboo before hurling it off into the darkness to one side.

Just before a cry of pain rang out, a cloudlike mass blowing into D’s face was painted red by the torchlight. In a heartbeat D made a massive leap back, but it was too late to avoid the trails of the red cloud that streamed off his chest and other parts of his torso.

“How do you like them apples? I did it, D!” a voice called out from somewhere in the distance as a man in a cape stepped unsteadily from behind a row of gas cylinders.

It was easy to see in that haggard face so near to death the features of the man he’d once referred to as Crimson Stitchwort.

“Got you with my mist, didn’t I? It can get through any kind of clothing . . . work its way into your body . . . And in no time . . . it’ll take root, D . . .”

And then the man who’d been run through the heart finally gave up the ghost, tumbling forward to fall on his face.

No doubt he was the one who’d breathed new life into the unconscious bodyguard. Having escaped the coup de grace from D back in the Shabara Canyon, Crimson Stitchwort was caught in the massive collapse and injured almost to the point of death, yet to have his revenge on D and the baron, he’d latched onto Balcon and come all this way. But D had no way of knowing all of this. And since Crimson Stitchwort had surely never dreamed he’d run into D here of all places, it was yet another strange coincidence.

“D—are you okay?” May asked as she raced toward him.

“Stay back,” D commanded her sharply just as the elevator doors opened to spill light and human shapes out onto the rooftop.

The three men who swiftly fanned out in a semicircle around D and May were guards at the establishment. And behind them was an even larger figure that seemed to oppress the very darkness with his towering form.

“You’ve got real nerve and skill sneaking into Fisher Lagoon’s. I don’t suppose I could trouble you for your name before we tear into you?”

Having said this much, a certain astonishment suddenly seemed to fill the giant. And not just him, but the three guards as well.

Just then, a shift in the wind’s direction sent the torch flames illuminating D’s face off in another direction, allowing his handsome features to sink back into darkness. However, that had more than sufficed.

“My oh my, what a pretty boy we’ve got here,” the giant said, and then he suddenly realized something. “Oh, so you’d be—D? Ah, just goes to show you can’t believe everything you hear, I suppose. You’re about ten thousand times better looking than they make out.”

His words trailed off there.

As Lagoon stared intently at D, faint ripples seemed to travel through the giant’s expression. Not even D could tell whether they were of surprise or puzzlement.

D quickly went into action. Although it invited a rapid loss of strength that caused him to stumble, all the guards’ eyes reflected was an attack by this person of inhuman beauty. They were all paralyzed by the unearthly aura D gave off.

Their weapons groaned. A trio of arrows loosed by steel bowstrings that could bear five tons were absorbed by the gorgeous figure in black, two of them being deflected by one of his hands while the third and final one sank deep into the right side of his chest.

“Ah!” exclaimed May—and Lagoon.

D backed away unsteadily, grabbing hold of May with his right hand and pulling the arrow from his chest with his left before hurling it like a missile. It penetrated the forehead of the guard who’d shot D, killing him instantly.

While the heart was a different matter, the right side of a dhampir’s chest wasn’t a vital spot thanks to their Noble blood. Especially not after the arrow had been extracted—the wound would close almost immediately. But the unsteadiness in D’s steps was troubling, as if that one arrow had unleashed all the sickness in his body.

Racing over to the railing with May tucked under his arm, he grabbed hold of something in the air with his right hand.

“Hey!”

“He’s got something strung up there!”

Instead of firing a second volley of arrows, the guards saw D’s unsteady steps and decided to take matters into their own hands, discarding their bows and drawing the bastard swords from their hips as they rushed him.

“Stop!” Lagoon bellowed, his gigantic form trembling with the cry, but it was unclear for whom it was intended.

Up on the railing with the hem of his coat spreading like the wings of some supernatural bird, D slid off toward the depths of the forest along with May. His right hand held May now, while his left had a tight grip on the steel line strung through the air.

Until he saw the naked blade D held in his teeth, Lagoon didn’t know why the two men who’d charged him had toppled backward in a bloody mist. And by the time he got to the railing, the shapes had dissolved into the darkness. There was only the cry of the wind.

The gigantic bordello owner turned what could be called a strange-looking face toward the rustling forest, and his words sounded almost like an incantation as he muttered, “That face . . . It can’t be, it just can’t. We’ll meet again, man called D!”

-

Around the same time D was arriving on the bordello’s roof, the baron reached the gates of the opulent castle in the center of the village. On the way there, no hidden defenses had been unleashed on him, and precisely because of this, his heart truly burned with fretfulness at his inability to guess what the enemy—his father—might be planning. There was no chance the lord was unaware of his arrival. Despite the fact that the monitor eyes of the automated surveillance system had been trained on him ever since he’d crossed the double moat, the drawbridge had lowered into place, and when the baron reached the main gate, the sentries opened it without saying a word.

At some point he’d gotten out of his carriage, and now he stood alone in a vast hall within the castle. He no longer seemed fretful. Even if he actually were, he wasn’t the sort of young man who would let it show on his face or in his bearing. He was gazing silently at the throne before him. Glittering with gold and jewels, it was the seat of the man he’d left behind some twenty years earlier. There was no sentimentality in this. He’d come here to do a job he never should’ve had to do.

“How good of you to come!” a voice called down to him.

This was the shape the father and son’s reunion took.

“Or perhaps I should say, ‘How good of you to come back’? What’s become of the Hunter guarding you?”

“Good question.”

That was the first thing he said to the lord of the land.

“I don’t know,” he continued. “We parted company on the way here. After he performed his part splendidly.”

“What a pity. At present, I’m more interested in him than I am in you.”

There was no sign of his father. The dreary hall was devoid of so much as a single insect. And yet, the baron was gravely aware of the presence of the lord of the castle.

“State your business—though I know what it is without asking.”

“As I promised twenty years ago, I’ve come to take your life,” the baron said, a smile and murderous intent spreading across his beautiful countenance for the first time. The smile grew because he’d finally been able to say what he’d been thinking for so long.

“You still remember that? Oh, by the look on your face, it would appear you’ve gone through quite intensive preparation. I’m sure Yona and Frazetta would be overjoyed to see you.”

Those were the names of two loyal subjects who’d wept as they watched the baron’s departure two decades earlier.

“Lord Vlad,” he called out to his father, “you made a promise to me not to lay a hand on them when I left the castle. Don’t tell me you weren’t true to your word.”

“Of course I was. Oh, don’t look at me that way. That look in your eye is the very reason I would have you killed!”

“That’s right—and you, my own father, at that. Father, now it’s my turn.”

“I know. No need to get excited. Don’t hate me just yet. I shall show you I’m a man who keeps his word. Come out, Yona! Frazetta!”

His cry ushered in a pair of presences. The figures who appeared in the baron’s field of view seemed to suddenly materialize in midair. They were indeed the same old vassals whom he’d trusted more than anyone in the past, and who had loved him in return. However, as the baron gazed at the approaching pair, it was a tinge of grief that spread through his eyes.

When the pair stopped about six feet in front of him, the baron said nothing, but extended one hand. The pair reached out as well. And then, the instant their fingertips were about to touch, their heads fell off in a bloody mist, and in the span of mere seconds they were reduced to ashes in the pile of clothing they left behind.

As the baron quietly shut his eyes and bowed his head, mocking laughter exploded above him.

“I’ll have you know I haven’t breached our agreement. Those loyal to you were to remain safe until the day you returned to this castle with your head filled with nasty notions about killing me. Or was I a day early? Ha, ha, you’ll have to restrain yourself and pardon such a tiny error.”

“Very well. I shall do just as you say. I will restrain myself,” said the baron. “But only until Lord Vlad shows himself before me. And let that be soon.”

Before the baron had even finished speaking, a flash of white light shot from the interior of his cape.

The streak of light that D’s left hand had judged as faster than even the Hunter mowed around the perimeter of the hall, slashing through each and every one of the marble pillars and splitting all the intricate sculptures on the walls in half before they dropped to the floor. The rumblings and great crashes that followed were further adorned by shattering fragments of carved arms and legs.

Amidst the fray, the baron alone stood bathed in a blue light. Solitary and sad as a god of destruction.

When the rumbling in the heavens and earth quickly subsided, the baron then inquired, “Still won’t show yourself?”

His blue eyes were crystal clear, and a smile even graced his manly and intrepid visage. Such a gorgeous god of destruction he made.

“Here I come now,” Vlad responded in a way that seemed to suggest he had little other choice. “However, before I do that, there’s one other person I’d like you to meet. Come out.”

Perhaps the self-confidence in that voice allowed the baron to predict what would happen next. From behind a toppled statue, a pale figure appeared like a goddess of devastation, and her name spilled from his lips.

“Lady Miska—what are you doing in this accursed castle?”

-

II

-

“What did you do to her?” the baron demanded as he faced the heavens. “What have you done to this woman, Lord Vlad?”

“Not a thing—at least, I didn’t do anything,” the voice replied. “What was done to her was the work of your old physician friend, Jean de Carriole.”

“Indeed, it was,” another voice remarked. It came from behind the baron.

This alone must’ve been enough for the baron to tell who it was, because he didn’t turn to look at the strangely hunched mummy of an old man as he said to him, “So, you still live?” There wasn’t a mote of emotion or concern in his tone.

“Milord, it is an incredible honor to see you once more,” the old man said with a deep bow as he expressed his sincerest excitement.

“What have you done to the lady?”

“Well, she has an extremely dangerous being dwelling within her flesh. No, not really in her flesh, but in her psyche.”

It was the same entity known to the baron as the Destroyer.

“And so?”

“After some discussion with the princess, she expressed her wish to have the Destroyer removed. And I have agreed to fulfill that desire.”

“You of all people should be up to the task. I’ve said as much myself. However, what worries me is what comes after that. Exactly what do you intend to do with the extracted Destroyer, Jean de Carriole? I don’t want to hear that you removed it merely to have it return because it ‘has nowhere else to go.’ And I don’t think you’re the kind to do such a thing anyway. So, what are you plotting?”

“This is most unusual,” de Carriole said as he circled around the baron, finally walking over to stand by Miska’s side. “I have no intentions save offering the princess my assistance. The reason for her present listless condition is that I’ve anesthetized her so that I might safely perform the operation.”

“Then take her and go. But know that I absolutely will not tolerate a failure on your part.”

“Understood. Never fear,” the old man told him as he took Miska by the arm and left.

Though the baron may have seemed cold, there was a certain logic to his actions. First, any connection between Miska and himself normally would’ve ended completely with their arrival in the village of Krauhausen. Next, the baron had to acknowledge the painful fact that de Carriole alone could banish the Destroyer within Miska. And no matter what the human de Carriole might think of Miska, he wouldn’t be able to do anything that might put the Noblewoman at a disadvantage—that was a rule that bound all who served the Nobility. All de Carriole could do was separate Miska and the Destroyer, and release her safe and sound.

“Lord Vlad, this has proved an interesting diversion, but that’s more than enough for the first act. It’s long past time we returned to the business at hand. Show yourself!”

“Before I do, I have one more bit of entertainment I’d like you to see.”

With a different ring to it now, the voice drew the baron’s attention to the top of a heap of rubble. There, a figure in a bluish purple cape suddenly stood. At more than six feet eight, he stood a full head taller than the baron, but his figure looked perfectly square due to the unusual broadness of his shoulders. His lengthy face was black—not like that of a Negroid, but rather with a metallic luster to his skin that made the outline of his eyes, nose, and mouth all imperceptible. His naked chest was also pitch black, and against it swayed a medallion of jewel-encrusted gold. But even more conspicuous was the dazzling scepter clenched in the blackness of his right hand. The crimson stones set in its head glittered mysteriously.

“Lord!” the baron called out to him.

As if in response, one half of the cape Vlad had closed over his chest opened like a wing. The sight of the young lady it exposed, or perhaps even the suspicion that she would be found there, was enough to make a low rasp of breath escape the baron.

“I’m told Taki is her name. She was sold to a brothel, and thereby came into my possession. I hear she’s a virgin. She certainly has an exquisite throat.”

“Don’t touch her, Vlad!” the baron shouted as he stepped forward.

Smiling but not saying a word, Vlad pulled Taki close.

Perhaps under some spell, Taki remained just as she was with a vacant look in her eyes.

“What a fool you are to be Nobility, yet fear the taste of human blood. I procured this girl so that I might show you a true banquet of blood.”

A band of light split the speaker in two, lengthwise. The blinding streak that traveled from the crown of his head down his forehead and out again through the crotch was slowly working to push the two halves of Vlad apart. The thick band then became a thin thread. And it took less than a second for that thread to dwindle down to nothing and disappear.

The baron didn’t unleash a second attack.

Black hands had wrapped around Taki’s waist and pulled her right up against the Nobleman.

Seeing the black lips part, the baron caught sight of the deep red maw and white fangs, but there was nothing he could do. The lips obscured the nape of Taki’s neck. A disgusting overlay of black and white continued for about two seconds, and then the lord took his lips away. They were damp and red.

The baron watched this outrage without comment not because it was simply the Nobility’s everyday manner of “feeding,” but because the display had a traumatic effect on him due to his genetic makeup and personality. But the instant Taki’s head jerked back and he saw the pair of raw and swollen wounds at the base of her neck and the vermilion stream that spilled from them, he ran toward the pair like a wild horse.

It was a split second later that the ground beneath his feet, or rather, the floor of the entire hall, suddenly sank. Unable to do a thing, the baron fell dozens of yards. What awaited him was cold water. Gurgling loudly, it sucked him under and shoved him away.

The legends spoke of this. How vampires weren’t able to cross running water.

As the baron desperately worked his arms and legs, his ears caught a haughty laugh, and voice bellowed down to him, “If you are in fact any part Nobility, you can drown down there. But if you should happen to be spared, you shall be cursed for all eternity!”

-

D and May were out on the edge of town in an abandoned shed that housed a water wheel. But though the enclosure might be described as a shed, it was hardly on the scale for merely using the water wheel to mill flour. The wheel itself was easily three hundred feet in diameter. It literally stretched up into the heavens like God’s very own lathe. Beside the shed, the river that even now kept that great fifteen-feet-thick disk in perpetual motion flowed by at an appreciable pace. It would’ve been more correct to call the shed where D and May were a power station. Although the village had switched over to more efficient solar power two decades earlier, the vast interior of the building still contained everything from enormous energy transformers to countless machines, tools, and even living quarters.

It was on one of the beds in the aforementioned accommodations that D lay. After rescuing May, he’d raced out to the edge of the village and entered this place when they happened upon it. May had gone into the kitchen to look for some tea, and putting the kettle on an electric heater there was fortunately still enough power to run, she’d returned for a moment to find D lying down. Since he was hardly the sort of young man who’d take it easy and let a little girl do all the work, May decided to peek in on him and see what he was up to, and she was shocked by what she saw. From the chest of D’s black raiment, three plants with crimson blossoms had sprouted. This Frontier maiden immediately realized they were the color of blood. The flowers drained D’s blood so they might gain that mysterious luster.

The girl was frozen in astonishment when D ordered her, “Go someplace else.”

Seeing the slim scalpel he held in his hand, May raced over despite herself, shouting, “No, we’ve got to get you a doctor!”

“A doctor can’t cure this,” D said. “Besides, if we take too long, our pursuers will catch up with us. And Vlad has probably heard about us by now.”

The Hunter explained the situation to the eleven-year-old girl. That in itself was proof that he viewed her not as a child, but as a woman who dwelt out on the Frontier.

“And you plan on taking care of that—alone?”

“Go,” D told her.

“No, I wanna help!”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“Even if there were, would you tell me?” she shot back, not even sure why she had spoken. Perhaps it was some feminine instinct that compelled her to rise to the challenge and not let this gorgeous young man get the better of her. “You just hold on a minute. I’ll go fetch some hot water.”

Hastily returning to the kitchen, she transferred the steaming fluid in the kettle to a larger pot, added water from the tap, then wrapped both arms around it and staggered back to where a truly ghastly scene was unfolding.

D had already carved one of the stalks out of his own flesh with the bloody scalpel and was about to start in on the second. The roots of the flower he’d thrown down on the floor looked to be nearly three feet in length, and when she thought about them burrowing through his body, May nearly dropped the pot. What’s more, the blood that leaked from the roots had collected in a small puddle on the floor.

Saying nothing, D moved the scalpel through the flesh around the second stalk as if he were merely sketching a circle. May’s eyes were riveted. As if fearing what would come next, the red blossom’s petals trembled. Grabbing hold of its roots, D yanked it right out.

An indescribable cry assailed the girl’s ears. A scream unleashed by the flower.

“Wait,” she called out to D as he was about to set to work on the third stalk, and once she’d set the pot down on a simple table, May fainted dead away.

The next thing she knew, she was lying in bed. Though the lights had been extinguished, a watery light filled the room, and there were birds singing outside. It was dawn.

Realizing that she must’ve been unconscious all night, May got out of bed. Although the bed on which D had lain and the floor were both soaked with blood, the pot was gone. The girl thought he must’ve carried it off again so that she wouldn’t see anything more unpleasant than necessary when she returned to her senses.

“D?!”

Exiting the living quarters, she found the door to the shed open. May scurried out into the still-feeble light. Wooden steps ran from the main entrance down to the riverbank, and the girl was surprised to find a figure in black standing by the side of the loudly gurgling flow. The wind fluttered the hem of his coat.

“D!” she called out to him, but on finally noticing the massive shape above her, May looked up and froze in her tracks.

She’d ridden the great Ferris wheel at the sprawling amusement park in the western Frontier—but this was five times its size. A cold, wet mist struck her face—spray sent out by the water wheel. Once the sun rose high enough, she wondered if the shadow of the water wheel would cut across the whole village of Krauhausen, or even cover it completely.

It was soon thereafter that her attention shifted from that imposing sight to the young man by the water’s edge. Though the Hunter didn’t even turn to look at the girl as she ran toward him, May neither thought that he disliked her nor that he was cold. No matter how he might comport himself from day to day, hadn’t he raced to her aid like a genie when her life was in danger? Having been there right by his side, she knew better than anyone how he’d risked his life in doing so, for the pain he’d suffered from the bloody blossoms the night before was something he’d been subjected to in the process of saving her. And although she wanted to thank him at the very least, she couldn’t find the words. The young man in black had a sternness about him that blocked any attempt to approach him. May wasn’t exactly sure why that was the case.

D suddenly turned in her direction. His chest was covered by his black raiment, as if nothing had ever happened.

“D . . .”

That was the only word she could form. There were a million things she wanted to say. However, the gorgeous young man was there, as powerful as any mountain. And the rescue, the monstrous flowers, the blood that had been sucked from him, the intense operation he’d performed—none of that mattered.

“Something flowed past here last night,” D said.

“Huh?”

“By the time I got out here, it’d already gone by, though—”

Eyeing the glittering water, D then started back toward the shed.

May didn’t follow him. She wanted to let the morning breeze blow over her.

As he was disappearing into the shed, the sunlight shone onto his beautiful form. On the opposite side of the river—from the far depths of the forest—the morning sun was beginning to rise. For a second, it occurred to the girl that perhaps D had been out there waiting for the dawn. And although she had no particular reason for feeling as much, May found that notion profoundly sad.

-

III

-

The village of Krauhausen was bisected by two rivers, one running from east to west and the other from north to south. Flowing, oddly enough, in almost straight lines, the two rivers intersected at Vlad’s ancient castle. The crystal-clear waters were drawn underground beneath the heavy ramparts, the river from the east exiting to the west and that from the north coming out again in the south. As might be imagined from the proportions of the water wheel, the current was quite strong, and not a year went by without a number of people drowning not only out between the mountains but also in the village itself. The villagers had dubbed the river running north to south the Pierce, and the one from east to west the Spear.

Downstream along the Pierce, a bizarre little booth had been set up since early in the morning. A pair of chairs sat on opposite sides of a folding table. Although this was a common arrangement for fortunetellers, there wasn’t the customary crystal ball or astrological charts. The only thing that sat on the table was a small mirror.

There were quite a few travelers either hastening into Krauhausen or merely passing through in the wee hours of the morning, and they couldn’t help but notice the booth. At first, most would get a look in their eyes that said, What’s the story with this? but on noticing the person who stood beside the booth, they’d be taken aback, staring rather intently at the proprietor’s face until their eyes met. At that point, their expression would once more be one of shock, and the travelers then wasted little time in leaving.

In the hour or so since dawn, ten travelers and three wagons had passed the booth, and all of them had displayed the same reaction. And then the eleventh and twelfth came along—a father accompanied by his daughter, by the look of them. Though the father was about to keep right on going, his daughter stopped in her tracks and pointed at the man who stood beside the booth.

“Look, Papa. That man—he’s really pretty!”

Having business that night in another village, the father was clearly in ill humor as he turned to look from further down the road, but as he did so, his eyes went wide. Was he dreaming? The man who stood there was wearing a coat that borrowed all the colors of the rainbow. Since the father knew that Krauhausen was a bustling village, the sight of a man wearing such an insane riot of hues didn’t make much of an impression on him, but the face was another matter. Quite long—to the point where some might describe it as a horse face—it was still graced by round eyes, a nice high nose, lips as long and thin as blades of grass, and nigh-translucent skin. No matter how you looked at it, it was a face that was the very embodiment of youthful beauty. Knowing all the while that it wasn’t the kindest thing to do, he began to compare him to the daughter by his side. However, his daughter didn’t mind in the least, as she was completely absorbed by the man’s performance.

His performance?

In one hand the man had a three-tiered cosmetic case, while he gripped a brush between the fingers of the other and was in the process of making up his own face.

“Voilà! Finished!” he said as he took the brush away from his eyelashes.

The father and daughter gasped.

On closer inspection, his eyes were too narrow and their lids were weirdly broad. Although his nose ran in a nice sharp line, his nostrils were permanently flared out to either side, making his nose seem like a naked figure sitting cross-legged in the middle of his face. And his lips looked like plump sausages that’d been glued onto him. Yet he appeared to be the most dashing lad in the land.

That was the power of makeup. Eye shadow that looked positively moist cast shadows, and foundation that duplicated subtle skin tones had been spread to make the three-dimensional lines of his nostrils lie flat in two dimensions. Needless to say, those faint wisps of lip came from the way his lipstick had been applied.

“What do you say, miss?” he said, gesturing to a seat, which the girl then headed for with unsure steps.

“Hey! Joanna!” her father shouted in an effort to stop her.

“Never fear. I’m Chlomo, a makeup artist who works exclusively with travelers heading into town. My whole purpose is to make your lovely daughter even more beautiful. As far as payment goes—I don’t want any money.”

“No charge?” the father said, a penurious grin flitting across his lips, but he quickly wiped it away, adding, “I don’t know . . .”

“I wanna do it,” his daughter pleaded, staring at the tough-looking man wearing makeup.

Under greater scrutiny the true face of the man—Chlomo—became apparent. And it was for this very reason that the wondrousness of the makeup he’d applied put her feminine instincts into overdrive.

Up until now, every traveler who’d passed by had been male.

While there was some insistence along the lines that it would be fine and it was free, the father still found the guy vaguely unsettling, but on reconsideration he knew this couldn’t be some kind of monster out first thing in the morning. Ultimately, he had no choice but to let the girl do as she wished.

Having the daughter take a seat, the artist settled into the chair across from her and set to work. Her makeup was complete in under a minute. In addition to being executed at an alarming speed, the job was also peerless in its precision. The eye brush flashed out; the powder puff sprinkled iridescent powder.

“How do you like it?” Chlomo said as he held a mirror out for her, having returned to his own unadorned horse face. No doubt he’d decided that as a dashing young man, he’d be hard pressed to impress the girl no matter how much he improved her appearance.

“It’s incredible!” the girl exclaimed with delight. She had to wring the words from her throat. With eyes of peerless allure and cheeks as pink as cherry blossoms, the face reflected in the mirror could be none other than that of Venus newly born from the foam of the sea.

“What do you think, sir?” Chlomo said, but the girl’s astounded father was unable to form a reply. He appeared dumbstruck by his daughter’s transformation, or, worse yet, filled by an emotion of an entirely different sort.

“My . . . It certainly is something . . . That you could make her so . . . so sexy . . .”

Both his gaze and his voice were vacant.

“It’s just wonderful, Papa. Look—I’m the most beautiful woman in the world!”

Grabbing the hem of her skirt, the girl twirled around.

Chlomo followed right behind her, and when they were a short distance from her father, he asked her in a hushed tone, “Do you like it, miss?”

“Of course I do. Thank you. You’re the greatest makeup artist in the world!”

“No, I’m just someone with a love of cosmetics. But miss, your face is actually based on a beautiful model.”

“A model? Well, that’s okay. There shouldn’t be any harm in there being two people this good looking.”

“Of course there wouldn’t. However, there’s more to consider. Said model was actually an exceptionally wicked woman.”

“A wicked woman?” the girl said, stopping in her tracks and gazing at Chlomo with uncertainty.

“Yes, indeed. So conceited with her own beauty that she made men support her, dumping them in a heartbeat when their money ran out, stealing her acquaintances’ boyfriends, and eventually ordering men to rob banks, steal livestock, kidnap, and commit murder—she could make them do anything. But the worst thing of all was—”

From a short distance away, the father watched Chlomo whisper something to his daughter. Just as he was thinking, Something ain’t right about all this, his daughter turned in his direction. For all her newfound beauty, her face was now far stiffer than it had been seconds earlier.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked in spite of himself, feeling rather unsettled.

“Oh, nothing,” his daughter replied with a shake of her head, and then she drew the knife she wore on her hip for protection and drove it into her father’s chest.

“Y—you . . .”

When the father fell without another word, Chlomo raced over to take his pulse, gave a nod, then felt around inside the father’s shirt pockets until he pulled out a fat wallet. Admiring its weight once or twice, he then slipped it into his own coat pocket before turning to the girl standing there dazedly with a bloodstained knife in one hand.

“The worst characteristic of the model I chose was that she always killed the men she’d used. The father who’d raised her was in particular danger. Here endeth the lesson,” he remarked with amusement.

Then circling around behind the girl, he rested one hand gently on her shoulder and whispered into her ear once more, saying, “If we were to let such an utterly wicked individual live, there’d be no room for law and order in this world. And we couldn’t have that.”

A second later, the girl bent backward. A steely tip poked out between her breasts.

Putting one foot against her back as she convulsed, he simultaneously pulled his bastard sword out and kicked the girl’s body into the river that ran under the road.

“Well, that’s the end of your makeup,” the dashing young man said, grinning as the splash of the water reached his ears.

Once the spray she’d created had sent ripples great and small traveling out across the river, redness spread through the water a short distance away and the slight form bobbed to the surface, floating off with the water’s mighty current. Her father’s body was promptly sent after hers.

“I made more than I expected. I can close up shop for the day.”

How did those words sound to the corpses as they flowed off into the distance with heads hanging low and blood trailing behind them like swaths of red fabric?

Raising his gorgeous face suddenly and furrowing his thin eyebrows, Chlomo looked upstream and muttered, “Oh, looks like someone else has been up to my tricks.”

His eyes had gone right back to the surface of the river. In one area, the river grew much wider, and as it did, the flow became more sedate than in narrower parts. Thanks to this, all kinds of junk got hung up on wooden piles or trees that’d toppled at the water’s edge. About fifteen or twenty feet upstream from where he’d disposed of the father and daughter, he’d spotted someone’s arm snagged on a branch of a fallen tree, while the rest of the person was underwater. His remark about someone being up to his tricks was merely a joke in poor taste about there being another corpse in the water. Or it was only supposed to be a joke, but as Chlomo stared at the body, his eyes shone with amazement. In a cape so blue it called to mind the depths of the sea, and with a form that looked manly and strong even swaying beneath the water, there was no way this was a human. It was a Noble. And considering the matter that had the only Nobility in Krauhausen in an uproar of late—for he’d been working for de Carriole and Vlad—he knew it had to be him. The highborn scoundrel who’d come to assassinate their lord was none other than Baron Byron Balazs.

But what would he be doing out here?

The answer was simple: last night he’d paid a visit to the castle and met with an ambush. Chlomo didn’t think that it served him right. Although he was one of Lord Vlad’s mightiest three—along with Zanus and Sai Fung—the other two had originally been working under de Carriole, so their loyalty to their lord wasn’t especially great. In particular, the reason Chlomo could leave it to Zanus and Sai Fung to stop Byron from attacking while he was out robbing and murdering first thing in the morning was because he planned on taking off anyway and leaving Lord Vlad to fend for himself if things started to go poorly—to put it plainly, he was a self-centered bastard or, worse yet, a psychopath.

What fun! Nothing like a little murder in the family, he chortled in his heart of hearts.

At that point, the only thing sticking out of the water—the baron’s pale hand—twitched. Actually, the baron’s hand hadn’t been hit by direct sunlight, but rather it had lain in the shadow the leaves of this toppled tree cast on the water’s surface. However, if the sun were to rise even a tad higher, the shadow would recede, leaving the back of his hand exposed to the rays of the sun. And it had just risen that little bit. Despite being covered by clothing and the armored back of his glove, the Nobleman’s skin reacted quite sensitively to the sunlight. His immortal flesh had now begun to voice a protest against the force that kept him from shielding himself.

“Interesting,” Chlomo muttered as the evilest look of amusement surfaced on his face.

Quickly walking over to where the toppled tree lay, he placed a hand on one branch and leaned out over the river. And just as he was about to grab hold of the baron’s wrist, his own wrist was instead caught tight in the baron’s fingers.

“Holy!”

Judging from the way the cosmetic-obsessed freak squealed, he was actually something of a coward. Nevertheless, once he’d seen that the fingers that’d caught hold of him would go no higher, he seemed to consider himself safe, and using all his might, he hauled the baron’s body up onto the fallen tree. However, the log was already exposed to direct sunlight. The baron didn’t say a word, but his body convulsed. Wisps of white smoke had begun to rise from the damp beauty of his countenance.

“This won’t do one bit.”

On seeing that the Nobleman had collapsed, Chlomo slung his body over one shoulder and dashed into the dense forest nearby as fast as his legs would carry him. In less than two minutes, he had set the baron down in the bushes in the deepest depths of the darkness, where not even a sliver of light made it through the branches. Panting to catch his breath, he once again looked at the face of Byron Balazs.

“What a good-looking man. Truly worthy of making up. Now, to get this done before he comes to.”

And having said that, he took out his makeup supplies, the bizarre nature of which had been amply demonstrated in the horrible murders that had just taken place.

In this corner of the forest that was like the darkest depths of an urn, what sort of makeup job would he perform on the baron? And what were his intentions?