A MAN NAMED LAGOON

CHAPTER 6

-

I

-

There was a man who had flames of hatred and longing burning in his eyes. Long hair covered half his face, yet he made no attempt to push it out of his field of view. The man was on a horse. Though his features could be described as handsome, all who passed him turned away with disgust on their faces due to his eerie paleness—the complexion of someone deathly ill. Glimpsed in the dark of night, the man was a veritable ghost. However, behind the man rode a boy who looked to be seven or eight-years-old and was the very picture of health, and the way he had his hands around the man’s waist would be enough to set people’s minds at ease.

Soon after entering the village of Krauhausen, the man went into the all-night bar in a hotel and asked the middle-aged bartender if he knew about a gorgeous young man visiting those parts recently. That was the quickest way to get information in a village you’d never visited before.

“I believe I do,” the nodding bartender replied without ever asking the young man his name. “Word is he drove a carriage into Lord Vlad’s manor, but met with violence. Rumor has it his corpse was thrown in the river; but, sad to say, Chlomo the Makeup Lover apparently pulled it out again.”

“Chlomo? What happened then?”

“That’ll cost you extra,” the bartender said, turning away in a snit.

“Hmm,” the pale man said, giving it some thought before adding, “If I were to, say, try and beat it out of you, I suppose your bodyguards would be all over me before I could leave the hotel, wouldn’t they?”

His voice was as gloomy as damp, stifling rain.

“That they would,” the bartender replied calmly, for they probably got a lot of this sort of customer in the hotel.

“And if that were to happen, I’d have to put up a fight. What do you think would happen then?”

“Good question.”

A wide blade jabbed the end of the bartender’s nose, making his features stiffen.

“Before you press your little alarm—watch this.”

And saying that, the man put the blade to the base of his own neck and made a powerful slash.

“What the—?!” the bartender gasped as his bulging eyes confirmed that not a single drop of blood fell from the gaping wound.

“Okay, take a good look,” the man said as he grabbed his own hair and pulled back, opening and closing the wound that cut half way through his neck like a mouth. “Now, how do you think your bodyguards would fare against a man who can do this?”

When he returned his head to the proper position, the wound swiftly closed, leaving a thin thread of a line that in turn vanished almost instantly.

“Don’t tell me . . . You’re that Vampire Hunter . . . Vince . . . aren’t you?”

Having finally realized who he faced, the bartender found his face colored by the resignation and fear of one whose fate had already been decided.

“There are those who call me that. So, what became of that pretty boy?”

The sweat dripping from the bartender made it clear he’d suddenly become completely honest.

“If Chlomo put makeup on him, he should be back at his place. It’s one of the abandoned warehouses on the west edge of town.”

“Thank you,” Vince said, clapping the bartender on the shoulder as his right hand flashed out. The tip he’d laid down earlier was back in his hand.

“Hey! That’s a dirty thing to do.”

“The best thing a man can do is to make an honest living. You’re the kind that preys on the poor and gullible, aren’t you?”

Grinning like a ghost, Vince exited the bar. As he walked toward where he’d left the boy sitting on his horse, he heard footsteps echoing behind him. Walking along undeterred, a pair of figures circled around in front of him. Two more were behind him.

“You guys bodyguards?” Vince asked as he halted.

“You had a lot of nerve pulling that in front of us,” said one of the men to his rear—a guy with a beard. He kept opening and closing his right hand, which clenched something that resembled a big hairball. “But if we just sit back and let you leave, come tomorrow, we ain’t gonna be drawing a salary anymore. So you’ve got your choice of either trotting back in there and apologizing, or throwing down with us.”

Patrons and employees that’d followed them out of the bar had already formed a circle around them.

Vince chose a third option. He walked toward his horse.

Perhaps that figured into their plans, because the two ahead of him drew their longswords and started closing on him without a word. They didn’t even have to think about what would come next. Slicing through the wind from either side, the blades should’ve cut diagonal paths through Vince’s body. Their swords did, in fact, go right through him. The two of them stumbled in their respective locations. Having met so little resistance, the swings left them off balance.

On finally reaching his horse, Vince grabbed the old gunpowder rifle strapped to his saddle. The deafening reports left the spectators unsure of which way to run, while the two bodyguards hit the ground with half of each man’s head missing.

Before Vince could bring the muzzle to bear on the other two, what seemed to be a fine net drifted down from the heavens and enveloped him completely. There was an explosion of light. Caught in the pale electromagnetic waves, his body looked like a rag doll as it blazed in the darkness.

“Half a million volts. That’d lay out even a fire dragon,” the head bodyguard said, still gripping one edge of the net as he bared his yellowed teeth in a smile. Both the ultra-high-energy generator and discharge device were strapped to his right wrist.

Once Vince’s body fell with bluish smoke rising from it, the man swung his right arm around. The daunting electric net quickly became a single ball again in his hand.

“Clean that mess up,” he ordered the other bodyguard, and he was just starting back toward the bar when he noticed the expressions on the faces of the spectators. It was as he was turning around that something impossibly cold ran down his spine.

Vince was standing there. Though bluish smoke still rose from him, his skin had the pallor of a corpse, not blackened in the least.

“S—sonuvabitch . . .”

The rifle put a piece of hot lead right through the forehead of the paralyzed man.

Vince told the other immobilized bodyguard, “Clean that up,” before mounting his horse and riding off to the west.

When the people finally began to gather around the corpses, one man still stood by the door to the bar, his gaze trained in the same direction in which the horse had ridden off.

“So, we’ve got another weirdo on our hands, do we? Looks like things are gonna get shaken up in town for the first time in ages.”

These remarks were muttered by a figure in a dapper suit who was not only the owner of the bar, but the most prominent villager—Fisher Lagoon.

-

It took less than twenty minutes to reach the cluster of warehouses. Tethering the horse that carried the boy to a tree a short distance away, Vince began to walk between rows of half-fallen structures. He immediately recognized his goal. Several serviceable warehouses still remained, and a light burned in one of them.

After dashing over to the door without making a sound, he said, “Chlomo the Makeup Lover? That’s an odd name.”

The door wasn’t locked. This wasn’t a sign of carelessness, but rather it made manifest the owner’s confidence that no one would come out there. The air that gusted out with that faint light had such a ghastliness to it, it actually sent chills through the invincible Vince.

Once through the door, there were seven-foot-high panels directly ahead lined up to form a partition and hide the depths of the warehouse from any visitors. In one spot alone a space wide enough for a single person to fit through had been left open, and the glow of an atomic lamp trickled out through it.

From where Vince was, he couldn’t see anything. Keeping his footsteps muted as he approached the panels, Vince cautiously poked his head through the space and squinted.

In the room oddly filled by a glow close to natural light, more people than he could count lay on the floor or slumped against the walls, some alone, others stacked on top of one another, so that it looked like this was some sort of farmer’s market where human beings were for sale. That alone would’ve been an unsettling sight, but what left Vince shaken was that every person’s face had been covered with makeup. And each to a horrendous degree. Thick eyebrows sloping up, eyes ablaze—some burning with malice, others with lust—yet no one so much as moved a muscle.

From the midst of these motionless people, something like humming could be heard. Vince had already noticed the pair of figures seated on chairs in the center of the room. One of them—the rougher one—was running some sort of brush across the face of the other, who had a powerful and attractive build.

The Makeup Lover—Vince’s eyes lit up. He began to walk forward, forgetting to keep himself hidden. Though he did continue to at least keep his footsteps muted, his behavior was to be expected from someone with supreme confidence that there was nothing his opponent might do to slay him.

The made-up people didn’t move an inch.

When he finally stood in a spot where he could discern the face that’d been coated with the black of shadows, Vince gasped. Although he’d never seen the man applying the cosmetics, the one on the receiving end was—

“Baron Balazs . . .”

The same gorgeous prey he and the others had pursued for so long. However, while his clothes remained the same, his features had changed markedly. Bluish shadows had been painted on his skin, and the black circles that delineated his eyes gave them the dismal glow of a wraith, while his lips alone remained as red as some poisonous herb. At first glance, even those who’d been well-acquainted with the baron wouldn’t have recognized him.

Though he stood there dumbstruck, Vince quickly sensed a mysterious phenomenon beginning to unfold in his heart. It was the cruel beauty of the baron’s features—as Vince concentrated his gaze on them, he realized that the shocking impression the makeup had left was fading away. Just as those who stayed to watch an unsightly philosopher deliver his oratory for some time were left unable to deny the noble spirit within him, so the baron’s heaven-sent beauty swiftly pierced the repulsive mask he’d been given, allowing him to shine once more.

The humming stopped.

Halting the hand that held the brush, the stern-looking man let his shoulders drop disappointedly.

“Ruined again. Lord Vlad, your son is someone to be feared.”

Knowing nothing of the horrifying nature of this man’s ability, Vince had a little grin on his lips as he said to him, “Are you Chlomo?”

Surely he’d been entirely focused on the baron’s makeup, body and soul. The man turned and looked in amazement. Every bit as rough as his build, his face didn’t look at all suited to someone in a field that demanded as much skill and refinement as cosmetics.

“Who are you?”

“Vince. I’m a Hunter. You’re Chlomo the Makeup Lover, aren’t you?”

“What do you want?” Chlomo inquired, his confidence now fully reclaimed.

“Him—we’ve been hunting that man. I’ll take him from you.”

After a quick glance at the baron, Chlomo said, “You went after someone I can’t even put makeup on? Then it comes as no surprise you failed to run him down.”

As the makeup lover smirked, his eyes reflected Vince’s expression, which instantly became that of the devil himself.

-

II

-

“Oh, that’s an interesting look you’re giving me,” Chlomo said as he stuck out his jaw. “My makeup would be simply perfect on someone with such a wicked expression. I can hardly wait.”

Vince said nothing as he closed the distance between them. Though he didn’t know what sort of ability his foe had, Vince had regenerating cells that could deal with any kind of wound, and this opponent shouldn’t be able to deal a lethal blow to him. If this guy had such a keen interest in makeup, then the Hunter would rip his limbs off to get him all fixed up for a trip straight to hell.

Vince tightened his grip on the dagger he wore at his breast. It was a heartbeat later that movements became perceptible all around him. Keeping a fair portion of his attention focused on Chlomo as he spun around, Vince knit his brow. From the floor and wall, people in makeup were rising and slowly but determinedly heading toward him. There was no intellect in their vacant gazes. That in itself was extremely disturbing.

“Die!” Chlomo cried, and his voice was their signal.

The men closed on Vince with strangely stiff movements before piercing his neck and abdomen with longswords. Paying no attention to that the wounds, Vince slashed open the men’s throats with the dagger in his right hand—and was shocked. The blood gushing from their carotid arteries didn’t splatter across the floor, but rather it hung like a vermilion fog around him. It certainly was beautiful arterial spray. The color instantly drained from the men’s complexions, but instead of falling, they leapt at Vince.

“Shit!”

Slipping through their hands and getting his back against the wall, Vince finally realized the gravity of the situation. He was invincible. But at the same time, so were they.

“You son of a bitch. You can do the ‘deathless makeup.’”

Chlomo smirked.

The “deathless makeup” that Vince had mentioned was actually nothing special. In funeral rites performed widely across the Frontier, it was often applied to the face of the deceased to revitalize it. Though it could more accurately be called “renewing” rather than “deathless,” it came as little surprise that those seeking to profit from the product had, like people in any day and age, changed the name to the more marketable “deathless makeup.” Despite that, it shouldn’t have made those who wore it immortal, but in Chlomo’s hands, it could resurrect them as undying creatures of unearthly beauty.

Fanning out into a semicircle, the men prepared to once again assail Vince, who had longswords, daggers, and other weapons jutting out of countless parts of his body. A small black sphere rolled around at his feet.

A deafening explosion rocked both heaven and earth, blowing the artificial immortals to bits. The sphere had been a bomb.

“You—you bastard!”

As Chlomo stood there bolt-upright in shock and anger, the smoke-shrouded Vince pointed to his own chest and said, “Look.”

“Oh shit!” Chlomo shouted, and he could hardly be blamed.

A foot-wide hole had been blown in Vince’s chest, and you could see right through to the other side. But with one touch of Vince’s hand the wound vanished without a trace, thanks to his amazing regenerative cells.

While his other hand toyed with a red sphere, Vince declared mockingly, “No one but me can fight like this. So, by all means, keep sending them at me.”

Made up with the “deathless makeup” or not, there was no way the others could repair their damaged regions. The blasted bodies of men with arms torn off and chests shredded still wriggled, attempting to rise again.

Before Chlomo could give an order to the rest, three explosions occurred. An enormous hole opened in the wall, and the men went sailing through the air. Countless chunks of shrapnel bit into Vince’s body, but they were quickly covered by new flesh. It took his body only about a minute to break them down.

Flames shot up here and there. Frozen in the lamplight, Chlomo looked like any other person paralyzed by a sudden twist of fate.

Vince kicked off the ground. When the Hunter landed right in front of Chlomo, he raised his right hand and prepared to bury his dagger in the Makeup Lover’s chest. A golden light that’d come from behind Vince lanced through the Hunter’s chest instead. Cells evaporated at the nearly one million degrees of heat, and were instantly replaced.

Turning to the warehouse entrance, Vince found a silver-haired old man standing there unassumingly. Although he had a cane to support his upper body, which was stooped over parallel to the ground, the light that filled his narrow eyes was so intense it would leech the color right from the face of even a professional warrior.

“I received your messenger pigeon. And after hastening here without a moment’s delay, what should I find but this raucous affair. You really have gone too far this time.”

“Dr. de Carriole!”

Not so much as glancing at Chlomo, the old man gazed at Vince, his eyes sparkling all the while with a curiosity so fervent it seemed to swell like a tidal wave.

“I’ve never seen a human being able to make such effective use of regenerative cells. Hmm. Could it be I’ve finally found that new receptacle?”

Vince paid no attention to the old man’s words. In part it was because the Hunter couldn’t understand what he was talking about, but it was also because a cold wind had stroked the nape of his neck.

The diminutive figure hobbled over, halting about a dozen feet shy of Vince.

The dagger limned an arc in Vince’s hand. Taking hold of the blade, Vince prepared to hurl it at the old man. But his body stiffened in the blink of an eye. It was unclear if he saw the pure vermilion light emitted by de Carriole’s eyes at that very instant.

When the old man turned to Chlomo, his eyes had already returned to normal.

“Useless oaf!”

At the naked contempt in his voice, Chlomo hung his head without saying a word.

“Put out the fires,” de Carriole ordered as he approached the baron.

Throughout the deadly struggle, the young Nobleman had sat there without moving a muscle.

“Chlomo!” the old man bellowed to his subordinate, who had a fire extinguisher in one hand.

“Yes?” he said as he turned, and then the wooden cane seemed to sink halfway into his face.

As Chlomo’s body tumbled backward, blows rained down on it, and he let out a scream as he rolled around on the floor. It seemed positively incomprehensible that a hunched old man could strike with such power and accuracy. Chlomo was numbed to the very brain.

“Do you know who this gentleman is, vermin?”

The old man was livid. His roar was like that of a lion.

“I fear I must inform you it is Master Byron Balazs—Lord Vlad’s own legitimate offspring. To think that a wretched louse like you could make him, him of all people, your plaything—damn you, get those vile cosmetics off him this instant. What’s taking you so long? I’ll beat you day and night until Master Byron is back to his old self!”

Some idea of the force behind the cane he raised came when he brought it down, and Chlomo lost consciousness.

Catching his breath after the beating he’d just delivered to his subordinate—who was sprawled on the floor—de Carriole then prostrated himself at the baron’s feet.

“Allow me to apologize from the bottom of my heart for my attempts to take your life—though you may not know that I did so—and for that lowly wretch laying his hands on your person. Please rest at my humble manse until such time as you feel better. This old fool de Carriole knows too well your lofty goal, milord. While it’s out of the question at present, I give you my oath I will aid you in visiting your dear mother in the immediate future.”

And then, the devilish eyes of the old scientist, possessed of such a bizarre character flooded with feverish tears that were completely genuine.

-

D had noticed that the wind had begun to carry hints of a certain air. He was coming. The Noble who’d drunk Taki’s blood was rising from the sanguinary depths of the darkness to slake his thirst.

A whinny arose from the cyborg horse outside the hut. The men in the black masks hadn’t noticed anything yet.

“D,” Taki called through the iron bars.

D turned around.

“I’m sleepy. Really sleepy. Something’s . . . strange.”

Without even waiting for D’s reply, the girl collapsed to the floor.

“This is a rare case,” a hoarse voice brimming with curiosity said from the vicinity of D’s left hand. “I’ve never, ever heard of a victim going to sleep like that. Especially when this girl’s—”

“Think the enemy planted her with us?” D asked.

“Damn straight. No doubt that lousy magician set something up in her brain that even the girl herself didn’t know about. I just hope her getting the kiss of the Nobility hasn’t set it off. If that were to happen, it’d be bad news. We’re talking a fire dragon at the front gate, and a water demon at the back. Should we set her right now?”

Approaching the bars that divided them, D stuck his left hand between them and touched Taki’s face. After confirming that the breathing of the sleeping Taki had grown even deeper, D then stood up.

“I wonder what kind of dreams you have when you get knocked out on top of being asleep.”

Leaving the thoughtful mutterings of his left hand behind, D stepped outside. An inky wind fluttered his black hair too forcefully. One could hardly say the moon was bright or the wind tranquil. D alone knew about the eerie aura knifing at them from the distant east—the direction of the manor.

One of the five shadowy figures that stood before him asked, “Any time now, would you say?”

“Stay out of this,” D said.

“Afraid we can’t do that. We’ve signed on to protect you at all costs. But we’ll try to keep out of your way.”

All of the shadowy figures standing in the moonlight looked daunting.

D said, “Let’s hear your names.”

“I’m Bross.”

“Zecca.”

“Schuma.”

“I’m Byrne.”

“Clarice here.”

The last voice was that of a woman.

“We’re dying to see Vampire Hunter D in battle,” Bross told D before turning to his compatriots and saying, “Assume free-form deployment pattern.”

Five shadowy figures, himself included, melted into the darkness.

“Kind of early, eh?” said a hoarse voice. The voice flowed out smoothly in the moonlight. “For the dead travel fast . . .”

And then, after about a minute had passed, the unmistakable sound of iron-shod hooves reached D’s ears.

“All alone, right? Knowing what you’re capable of—he seems pretty damned cocky. Either that, or he’s just crazy about the girl’s blood.”

Not replying to the voice from his left hand, D concentrated his gaze on the depths of the darkness.

Even after entering the ruins, there was no change to the sound of the hoofbeats.

“Six hundred feet,” the left hand said. “Four hundred fifty.”

A crisp sound raced through the night. The ring of steel on steel was joined by the sound of flesh being hewn, and then there was the thud of something heavy hitting the ground. The hoofbeats never faltered as they drew nearer.

“Three hundred feet.”

D’s field of view had already closed on the huge mount and rider bulling their way through the darkness. The horse looked as if its head and body were connected by a savage, inky brush. The rider on the horse’s back was a mass of dark clouds. Through the endlessly expanding and contracting swirl of darkness, a great black root of an arm could occasionally be glimpsed, and something like eyes and a nose could definitely be made out in the area that would correspond with a face. Pale blue lightning flew from the cloud, making the inky material that clung to its surface stand out starkly. Blood.

The mount and rider that surged forward like a jagged wave came to an impressive stop about fifteen feet from D. The bridle wrapped around the horse’s head was fashioned from thick chain. The ends of it disappeared into the cloud, and the hands that worked the reins couldn’t be seen. Even the feet planted in the stirrups were shrouded in dark clouds. That must’ve been the knight’s armor.

“Are you D?” asked a voice that called to mind the distant rumble of thunder.

D didn’t answer. He had already noticed that the foe before him wasn’t Lord Vlad.

“I am Duke Greed,” the cloud announced, introducing himself with a flash of lightning.

-

III

-

“Where is Vlad?” D asked.

Despite the arrival of this new foe—and given the fact he’d been dispatched to deal with this situation, as he was most assuredly a man of substantial ability—the Hunter’s tone didn’t carry any deeper emotion at all.

“That’s ‘Lord Vlad’ to you,” the black cloud knight—Duke Greed—bellowed.

“Where is Vlad?” D repeated.

Blue lightning bridged the space between them. Tiny flames rose from D’s left shoulder.

“Lord Vlad told me you were far from common; but I wonder, are you so great that something like that last attack didn’t even faze you? Or are you so terrified you’re left unable to speak? I warrant it’s the latter.”

The flames on D’s shoulder cast a blue light on his profile. Shifting shadows only made his heavenly beauty seem all the more exquisite. Perhaps even Greed was dazzled by it—that may have been what left such a gap between his attacks.

“Damnation!” the black cloud exclaimed in a tone of amazement when D closed on him, coming right up to his mount’s muzzle.

The black horse reared up. Half beast and half machine though it was, it seemed even a cyborg horse could be enthralled by D’s beauty.

In the split second it took for the entire length of D’s sword to slash through the black cloud as the Hunter pounced, there was nothing Duke Greed could do.

However—the instant D felt a complete lack of resistance from his blade, rebounding shock waves transformed his body into a black mass flying through the air. Just as he was about to slam into the ground, black wings opened—the spreading of his coat.

As the young man smoothly sailed down poised for his next attack, the approaching black horse and rider were almost right on top of him, looming like a mountain. D or not, he wouldn’t have time to deliver a fatal blow through that bizarre dark cloud of armor.

Lightning formed a spear that zipped toward D’s chest. Just as it seemed to pierce him, it was sucked into his left hand, and naked steel split the moonlight in a straight, horizontal slash.

“My word!” the black cloud exclaimed on realizing that he was being pitched forward by the sudden impact. D’s horizontal slash hadn’t struck the cloud armor, but had instead hewn off the black horse’s forelegs. Based on the speed and timing of his fall, it looked as if the rider was fated to slam against the earth.

Diving to one side to avoid the horse that sent out a bloody mist as it dropped, D saw something. The black cloud that’d sailed forward had hit the ground and was rolling like a ball toward the hut.

D ran, the wind swirling in his wake. And as he ran, his left hand rose. A small mouth opened in the palm of it, and then the air was drawn into it with a savage roar.

Just as the edge of the black cloud began to stream back toward the mouth, the rest of it impacted on the door of the hut. The way the hut collapsed, it looked as if it’d been caught in a massive tempest.

And then, a glowing ball of light fell from the sky as if drawn to the black cloud. The instant it made contact, it exploded into sparks, and a fog-like material was scattered across the surface of the cloud.

“Oof . . .”

The grunt of pain had definitely come from the cloud—and Duke Greed.

But who on earth was responsible?

Before either of them could ponder that question, D caught up to the cloud mass and drove his blade through it with all his might. He felt it make contact.

A scream rose into the sky, accompanied by a geyser of black blood.

Like a bird in flight, D sailed beneath the black light that shot out, ready to deliver a second blow. But a new sphere of light had been drawn to his blade. It exploded, and while he dodged the blast with both eyes shut, the dark cloud sailed far off into the darkness. Lightning flew two or three times, and then that too vanished.

Wiping both eyes with his left hand, D then looked off to his left. It was from that direction that he’d caught the sound of an engine drawing nearer.

What appeared was a stocky vehicle reminiscent of a beetle. The moonlight sent cold, hard ripples across its metallic surface. The wind.

Was this a friend or foe? Whichever it was, D should’ve been terribly curious about it. However, he only gave it a glance before going over to the hut.

Although it had collapsed, it hadn’t merely been knocked over. Wreckage was scattered in all directions. Locating Taki was actually rather easy. She lay in essentially the same place as before, and in the same pose. The problem was the iron grate that lay on top of her. Though it weighed nearly five hundred pounds, D grabbed it with his left hand and effortlessly heaved it away. The bars jabbed into the ground right in front of the beetle, forcing a sudden stop. The squeal of hydraulic brakes split the night.

D didn’t turn to look, but rather checked on Taki’s condition. The effects on a human body would be very different depending on whether the iron mass had simply fallen on it or been hurled at it by an explosion.

Bright blood dripped from Taki’s mouth. Her internal organs had undoubtedly ruptured. It was strange that no hint of pain could be gleaned from her expression.

Sliding his left hand from the top of Taki’s head to the back of it, then from her neck to her spine, he touched her waist and thighs before ending at her toes.

“Two thoracic vertebrae are busted,” a voice was heard to say from the palm of his left hand. “On top of that, her stomach and part of her small intestine have been damaged. She’s hurt bad. Good thing she’s not aware of it.”

“See to it she holds on long enough to get her to a doctor,” D said.

“I’m already on it. I’ve dropped her metabolic functions as far as they’ll go. Call it a kind of hibernation, if you will.”

In the meantime, a section of the beetle had lifted like the wing of a bird, and out stepped a figure so massive he called to mind a wall. From head to toe, he was neatly sheathed in silvery garb. Although its luster suggested it was metallic, it didn’t have so much as a single joint to it, yet as the man walked closer, the action was perfectly smooth.

The massive form halted about fifteen feet away.

Rising, D turned to face the silvery giant.

“I’m the one who hired those five,” the man said in a voice without inflection, having passed it through some kind of device.

“And are you the one who interfered, too?”

While D was referring to how Duke Greed’s attack had been blocked, at the same time he was referring to how the man had also hindered his own parting shot.

“I suppose you could say that.”

The giant grinned wryly. His metallic mask was featureless, like the perfectly smooth face of some monstrosity, but when he smiled, his nose and lips had clearly risen to the fore. Undoubtedly it was liquid metal.

“Man alive! Don’t hit me with that killing lust. You’ll make my heart burst.” The giant backed away, saying, “I may have interfered with you, but you’ve gotta at least be able to tell I’m not your foe. Hear me out. But before any of that, we’d better get this girl to a doctor. Got anyone in mind? If not, we can take her to someone I know. How does that sound?”

After a few seconds, D said, “It’s in your hands, then.”

It wasn’t clear whether or not he believed what the glittering giant had said. Taki’s welfare was his primary concern. And he didn’t ask who or what the giant was because it really didn’t matter anyway.

“Follow me,” the giant said as he walked back to the beetle with a quick gait.

By the time the door had been shut and the engine had begun to snarl, D was on his horse. He had Taki across his knees.

The beetle started a leisurely run. After following it for a step or two, D wheeled his mount around without warning. Galloping almost five hundred feet in another direction, he then stopped.

Five cool bodies lay on the black earth like stones. Bross. Zecca. Schuma. Byrne. And a short distance off, Clarice. Although the armor that covered her from the neck down had been charred black, the face that was turned upward didn’t have a mark on it. Her loose red hair swayed dolefully against her cheek.

D changed direction without saying a word. The stars were shining. But this young man had no words to send the departed on their way.

The beetle slowly pulled out of the ruins. And after it came the horse and its exquisite rider.

There were three hours until daybreak.

-

The dawn-loathing darkness was now about to raise the curtain on an abominable play at the manse of one Jean de Carriole. The scene was the vast laboratory that occupied the topmost floor of the tower. On stage were de Carriole, Chlomo, Sai Fung, and a trio of golem assistants. In a massive tank of water set in the center of the room floated a Noblewoman—Miska. And there was one other person present.

De Carriole was completely absorbed in giving commands to his golems, adjusting the cycles on the generator, and personally checking the tank’s ionization field. Sai Fung looked askance at him and muttered, “Please, give it a rest already, boss.”

Chlomo stood beside him, and on hearing that, he added with a calculated empathy, “I hear Lord Vlad’s manor was a complete shambles.”

“Oh yeah. Boss, you’d have to be out of your mind to want that to happen again. I swear, this time it’ll be the death of us.”

“Come now. You should be looking forward to seeing this.”

“I would, if I could watch it from outside the tower,” Sai Fung replied.

“Excellent! The preparations are complete,” the old man proclaimed, his tone unusually triumphant as his words spread throughout the laboratory. “Quickly now—bring out our final subject.”

A pair of golems jerkily yet hastily went over to a well-like structure on one side of the room. The rope that hung from a rail set against the ceiling disappeared into the darkness. One of the golems took the end of the rope that was secured to a cleat on the floor and gave it a pull. The pulley turned, and soon a figure thoroughly bound in rope came out of the well and into the light.

“Who the hell have you got there?” Sai Fung inquired.

“A Hunter named Vince. He was caught after coming out to my place to try and get the baron.”

“Did you say Vince?”

Having forgotten his anger at being slapped awake in the middle of the night, Sai Fung now wore a look of understanding.

“I’ve heard rumors about him. They say he can instantly regenerate from any kind of wound at all. It seems Vince is a nickname he takes from ‘invincible.’ So, boss, you’ve got one hell of a scheme cooked up.”

“You comprehend what it is that I attempt, do you?”

“More or less. Hey, we’d better hurry up and get the hell out of here. If it goes wrong this time, we’ll be dead men!”

As he spoke, Sai Fung began backing toward the door, but Chlomo grabbed him by the arm. “You might be out to save your own skin, you bastard, but that’s not the way it’s gonna go. Like the saying goes, we’re all in the same boat here.”

“What are you two blathering about over there?” de Carriole bellowed abruptly, and his two henchmen snapped to attention. “I’ll have you know, you are privileged to have been chosen to witness an unprecedented feat of science. Composure, lads. Try to show a bit more composure.”

“Yes, I’m terribly sorry, sir.”

“Ditto.”

Though Chlomo didn’t yet grasp the situation, Sai Fung’s voice was coated with despair.

What did de Carriole intend to do? Hunched over at the waist as always, he waddled over to the water tank that restrained Miska and pulled a large lever set to one side of it. And once he did, every last window in the room opened in unison, and a wind laden with an unspeakably eldritch aura gusted in, racing around the chamber in a most unsettling manner.

As they tried to turn their faces from the wind that practically slapped at them, Chlomo and Sai Fung’s thoughts quickly raced back to something that had struck them as incongruous since first entering the room—the beautiful woman adrift in the tank of water. Water was anathema to the Nobility. Nobles were robbed of their consciousness when they were trapped in it, and thus subjected to an endless sleep.

“Lady Miska has been sealed away,” de Carriole muttered as he studied the lovely woman in the shifting waters of the tank. “As has the other entity. So long as it resides within a Noble, it should have difficulty dealing with water. And by ‘it’ I mean the Destroyer.”

He rapped on the floor with his cane. From the tank of water, tubes beyond number looped out onto the floor, and they rose like serpents preparing to strike, raising their needle-tipped ends before moving toward where Vince dangled above the well.

On seeing the needle tips sink deep into every inch of the Hunter’s body, Sai Fung clutched his throat and remarked somewhat uncharacteristically, “I think I’m gonna puke.”

Another elbow jabbed against his.

“What the hell was that for?!” Sai Fung snarled, his teeth bared.

“Look,” Chlomo said, pointing to the tank.

A blue light had begun to spill out into the water from Miska’s mouth.

“The Destroyer,” Sai Fung said, unable to keep the tremors out of his voice.

-

IV

-

The insane doomsday weapon the Nobility had brought into being—a monster so terrifying it would bring madness not only to our world but to this entire dimension—was once again trying to get free. However, on leaving the body of Miska—who was, in a manner of speaking, its “host”—the blue light twisted in obvious agony. As it dwelt now in the flesh of a water-loathing Noble, the Destroyer itself had become hydrophobic. Writhing and eddying, the blue light was drawn toward the tubes that had just gone into one end of the tank. The tubes themselves weren’t sucking it up. In its pain, the Destroyer sought a means of escape. Miska’s mouth continued to disgorge light, and now all the tubes were tinged with the pale blue as they carried the flow into Vince’s body. And Vince’s invincibility had only been bolstered by an immersion in the well, which had been filled with a liquid that enhanced cellular regeneration.

A minute. Two. And still the infusion continued.

When the last of the blue light had been disgorged by Miska’s mouth, Vince’s eyes snapped open. They were blue glows in the shape of eyes.

“No—it’s too soon!” de Carriole shouted as all the tubes sprang away from Vince’s body in unison. Each and every one of them returned to the tank, and the waters were instantly tinged with blue.

The rope snapped, and Vince’s body fell to the floor. No. Look—the floor sank in a conical shape as cracks shot out from it in all directions. He was now an invincible Destroyer.

“It’s not accustomed to that body yet,” the aged scholar remarked. “It should stop presently.”

The trio of golems closed on Vince, and the second they touched him, they were reduced to dust that fell in piles on the floor. When Vince reached for the ropes that still bound his body, they came loose easily, coiling like whips in his hand.

A hot wind that could’ve been a miasma, or an unearthly aura, or sheer insanity assailed the room, blowing the door down.

Sai Fung and Chlomo hit the floor without any further squabbling.

However, something horrible happened a second later. The tank shattered without a sound, and Miska went down toward the floor along with all the spilled water. But she didn’t fall. Standing on her own two feet as water dripped from every inch of her, she stared at Vince.

There was nothing left in the water that covered the ground.

Miska opened her eyes. And they were choked with blue light.

“The Destroyer that remained in the tank has returned to Miska,” de Carriole cried, his words carrying heartfelt fear and despair. “Yet neither has been fully assimilated by its body. Here! Here they shall fight. It’s the end of the world!”

De Carriole spread both hands and dashed between the two blue-eyed beings. But his actions weren’t prompted by thoughts of saving the world—as his next outrageous statements made clear.

“Destroyer! Hear me out. I have transferred you into an invincible form so that you might rid us of Lord Vlad.”

Down on the floor, Sai Fung and Chlomo stared at the old man in amazement, and perhaps that was why neither of them noticed the ghostly figure who came in through the door just then.

Something awesome hung in the space between Miska and Vince. When it reached the saturation point, the world would most likely be obliterated.

Perhaps de Carriole couldn’t do a thing there in the entity’s sights, for the second he finished an arcane gesture in front of his own chest, the blue beams of light that surged from Vince’s eyes sent him flying, smashing him against the wall.

Rousing his force-shielded body from the floor, the aged scientist cried, “Oh, my!”

And the gasps from Chlomo and Sai Fung mirrored his.

“You were sleeping down on the floor below—have these blustering auras brought you to the battlefield, milord? Yes, of course—you are a Noble, through and through.”

The Nobleman to whom de Carriole’s remarks were addressed—Baron Byron Balazs—had an utterly blank expression as he listened to the old man’s words, which surpassed mere admiration and bordered on overwhelmed.

-

The beetle guided D and Taki to a room in a building that towered in the middle of the pleasure quarter. The door read “Lubeck Clinic.”

“After she’s been treated, we’ll move her to another location,” the giant told D.

Once he’d knocked on the door, a woman in a long white lab coat appeared and invited the little group inside.

“I’m Mireille Lubeck,” the woman said, a hollow ring to her voice as she introduced herself naturally due to her having seen D.

D told her about Taki’s condition and requested treatment.

After thirty minutes had passed, including the initial exam, Mireille told them she was finished.

“She needs complete bed rest for a month. Or that’s what I’d normally tell you, but she’s already half-recovered. That’s par for the course for a girl who’s received the kiss of the Nobility. I suppose another two days will be sufficient for a full recovery.” Then, shifting her gaze to the silvery giant, she said, “Is this the ‘pretty boy’ you had them out looking for?”

“That’s right.”

“Why would you do that?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

At that, the doctor shrugged her shoulders.

“But when you get right down to it,” the giant continued, “I don’t suppose there’s any point in me keeping up the act anymore. I’ll have to come clean with you sooner or later. Should I tell you who I really am?”

A small spot formed at the top of the giant’s head, and then the silver armor coursed down him like water, revealing the man beneath. With only one good eye, the face was one D had seen before.

“Well, I’m Fisher Lagoon.”

D’s complete lack of reaction apparently betrayed Lagoon’s expectations.

“What? Did you know that?” he asked somewhat suspiciously.

“We met once,” D said. “No two human beings have exactly the same build.”

Shifting his eyes to his own torso, Lagoon gazed down intently for a few seconds, then said, “There are some scary folks out there in the wide world.”

“I owe you for bringing us here. Let’s hear what you have to say.”

“Oh, don’t make it sound as cold as all that,” Lagoon said with a thin smile.

Though his expression was cruel, he also looked terribly human. In the presence of someone of such unearthly beauty, surely anyone would act the same way.

“Ordinarily, somebody would ask why it was I helped them out.”

“If you’ve got nothing to say, then I guess I don’t owe you anything.”

“Hold up,” Lagoon said in a composed tone. “I’ve met the big guy.”

For the first time, emotion surfaced on D’s face.

“When and where?”

“What was it, some thirty years back now? I was just a fresh-faced little punk, and it was right here in the village.” Drawing a breath, he continued, “You know of anyplace else where there’s a Noble’s manor and the people can still raise such a ruckus at night? You see, not even Lord Vlad can raise a hand against me. Because the big guy has laid down the law.”

“Laid down the law?”

“Firstly, the villagers aren’t to be drained of their blood. Secondly, so long as Fisher Lagoon is in charge of the nighttime amusements, he’s to be given free rein. There are others, too.”

“Why is that?” D asked.

The expression that surfaced on Lagoon’s face beggared description. Perhaps this man had had unrivaled good fortune, but no human could’ve been unhappier.

“Before I tell you that, D, could you show me just how good you really are?”

The gleam of liquid that crept up from the tips of his toes transformed him into a silver giant.

“Mireille, blast me with that bad boy,” the giant said, his finger pointing to the gunpowder rifle that stood in the far corner of the room.

Perhaps the lady doctor was accustomed to his odd behavior, because she didn’t hesitate at all, walking over to get the double-barreled weapon, then checking that it was loaded before shouldering it.

“All set,” she said.

“Fire.”

There were sparks as the deafening reports shook the room.

An armored man who’d asked to be shot in a doctor’s examining room, a lady doctor who was only too happy to oblige, and a dashing young man who watched it all without raising so much as an eyebrow. This was just the sort of outré world conjured up by dream demons.

Two holes opened in Lagoon’s chest. Strangely enough, ripples spread across the surface as if a pebble had been dropped in the water, and the bullet holes disappeared as if they, too, were water. Lagoon gave his right hand a shake. Ripples crossed the palm of his hand, and the pair of slugs were ejected to fall to the floor.

“No weapon can get through this. Except, that is, for a sword in the hands of the person I have in mind. Now it’s your turn, D.”

As he spoke, there was a silvery flash of light.

“Hot damn!” Lagoon exclaimed as he reeled backward, surprised that the attack had been so abrupt.

From the top of his head to his crotch a clean cut had opened up, but it quickly vanished.

D had already sheathed his blade.

Dr. Lubeck let out a sigh.

“I guess maybe I was wrong,” Lagoon said, his tone cold.

And then he exclaimed, “Sonuvabitch!”

As his astonishment gave way to that cry, the line that appeared once more sent the liquid armor spilling to the giant’s feet in a heartbeat.

Neither Lagoon nor the doctor could speak.

“So . . . it’s just as I suspected,” Lagoon said after a little while, his face lit up with a childlike delight. “Now, after thirty long years, a man has finally come along that I can tell my secret to. I’m glad. So glad I could cry.”

The man’s emotion was obviously rooted deep in his personal experience. Yet he had to choose his audience carefully.

“Let’s hear your story,” said a steely voice.

Apparently understanding, Lagoon gave a nod, then set right to his explanation.

“When I met him, the big guy seemed to be all wrapped up in certain experiments. After one look at me, this is what he told me: I want your seed. To fertilize Noblewomen and create a new form of life!”