BATTLING THE MOUNTAIN FOLK

CHAPTER 3

-

I

-

We just got in five new girls. If you’d be so good as to look them over,” the manager of the house said with head bowed when he came to Lagoon’s room.

As a massive pleasure complex, “Fisher Lagoon’s” had a constant need for fresh entertainment and women. For instance, the “shock bath” powered by electric jellyfish that gave off just the right voltage for the ultimate in sexual stimulation, or the “jelly dance room” made of a material as supple to the touch as female flesh—to provide special event rooms like these, there wasn’t a day this establishment wasn’t under construction, and new girls were added once a week. While scouts from his place visited neighboring villages and even went all the way to the Capital, many women also came knocking on their doors when they heard rumors he was recruiting. Of the five new arrivals today, two were from the former group, and three from the latter.

“Bring ’em in.”

Head still low, the manager quickly ushered in the women who’d been waiting outside, then left. In age they ranged from the teens to mid-thirties, each and every one of them an incomparable beauty, but out of them all, the thirty-ish woman named Ming and the innocent-looking Paige who said she was nineteen caught Lagoon’s eye. Apparently the women could tell, because Ming ground her hips purposefully in response to the master’s gaze, while Paige bashfully looked away.

“Having come to ‘Fisher Lagoon’s,’ you’re no longer like the women outside. Say good-bye to sweaty farmhands and unpolished sweethearts. I’ll see to it you have a life every bit as good as women in the Capital. What you’ll have to sacrifice in return is great, but if it gets to be too much for you, leave whenever you like. However, once you’ve tasted the waters of my house, don’t kid yourself that you’ll ever again be able to live an upstanding life in the outside world. Because you have become inhabitants of another world. From this day forward, this house is your home. Aside from where the manager tells you you’re not supposed to go, you’re free to go wherever you like and do whatever you want. Any rat bastard who’d harm you or make you cry will have to answer to yours truly. So relax and make some money.”

By the time he’d concluded the usual spiel, the women’s faces glowed with a mix of confidence, trust, and allure—as was always the case.

“Go.”

Once the women left at his command, Lagoon called in the manager and ordered that Ming and Paige be brought to him. Leading everyone into a waiting room for the time being, the knowing manager then brought the two girls back to Lagoon’s office after explaining the situation. Lagoon wasn’t there. After ordering them to take a seat and wait, the manager left.

“I wonder what he wants with us?” Paige said anxiously.

“Actually, it’s pretty obvious. The dove of good fortune has landed right in front of us. Not with white feathers, but with pink, and carrying a bed on its back.”

And saying that, Ming smirked.

“But I . . . It’s really . . . I mean, right off the bat like this . . .”

“You must be pretty stupid, kid. You came here to sign yourself on, didn’t you? Then show a little more gumption. If all goes well, you could be rolling in loot a hundred times faster than the other girls. Both of us could.”

Turning away as she said the last part, she then glared at Paige from the corner of her eye.

That was when Lagoon came back. Looking them both over from head to toe in a way that gave them chills, he said, “You girls aren’t snot-nosed little kids. You know this is the kind of chance that only comes once in a lifetime. What you make of it is up to you. Come with me, one at a time.”

“Both at the same time wouldn’t be bad either,” Ming said in a husky voice.

“No way,” Paige said, her cheeks flushing as she turned her face away.

“I’ll start with you,” Lagoon said, tossing his jaw to where Ming stood with a broad smile. After spending some “quality time” with her, he then led the reluctant Paige into his bedroom without any break at all. And on seeing his expression when he came out again a short time later, the smile was wiped from Ming’s face.

“Go get to work,” Lagoon ordered Ming frostily, and after she’d left in indignation, he came up behind Paige where she still stood and hugged her from behind.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“Of me? Well, you were still pretty intense.”

“No. Of the woman just now—Ms. Ming. She gave me such a look!”

“Just a jealous woman. Not much you can do about that. But all that aside—”

Lagoon must’ve been quite taken with this slender, innocent-looking girl, because his eyes were filled with a lecherous gleam as his rough fingers closed around a waist so thin it looked like he could snap her in two.

“No, I’m just not in the mood. This is all too fast,” Paige said, madly tearing free of the man’s hands to escape him.

She stopped in front of the door, and when Lagoon embraced her from behind once more, his hands were more forceful and more feverish than before.

“You’ve got nothing at all to fear. You’re so cute. So long as we’re in my place, I am king. I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you.”

“Really?” she asked, her face stiffening as she turned to stare at him with tears welling up. With huge, limpid eyes that seemed right off the cover of a fashion magazine, long eyelashes, a cute little nose, and lips like flower petals, the woman had such an unbelievable air of allure about her that Lagoon knew he just had to make her his own, and he seemed half-drunk as he pressed his lips to hers.

“You’re going to look out for me, then?” she asked.

“Of course so.”

“In that case, tell me everything about yourself. As proof that you’re my man.”

“No problem.”

You’re getting a little too big for your britches, miss, Lagoon thought, but he was surprised to find he was quite serious about her.

“But that’s gonna cost you—okay?”

Without waiting for her reply, he swept her delicate form into his arms and carried her through the doorway to the bedroom, where the starting pistol for a manly endeavor was about to go off.

Letting out a sad little cry as she was tossed down on the bed, Paige smirked so that Lagoon wouldn’t see it. For a second, a man’s expression rose in the cute face of the cute young lady.

The girl who’d sold herself into service in the pleasure quarter was actually one of Chlomo the Makeup Lover’s disguises. Only he hadn’t applied the cosmetics to himself, but rather to Sai Fung of the Thousand Limbs. He’d snuck into the place on orders from de Carriole. Based on what the lord had told him, the aged scientist decided Fisher Lagoon was plotting treachery, and he ordered his two henchmen to get him irrefutable proof of that charge. The reason Sai Fung alone had been disguised was because Chlomo had been given an additional command: “Find Lady Miska!” And with that, the two of them had gone off to their respective tasks. The matter of who would handle each had been decided by a game of rock-paper-scissors.

In the same warehouse hideout where Chlomo had made up the Baron, Sai Fung was made up at dawn before making his way on foot to Fisher Lagoon’s. As he was leaving, he saw Chlomo out in front of the warehouse looking around as if searching for something. He asked in a perfectly ladylike manner, “Whatever’s the problem?”

“Nothing. It’s just that when we took the baron and that Hunter that got in our way out of here last night, the bastard’s horse was tied up. It was too much trouble at the time, so I figured I’d deal with it later, but now it’s gone. Can’t help feeling like I probably lost out on that one.”

“Someone must’ve taken it,” Sai Fung—or rather, the country girl by the name of Paige—replied promptly. When Chlomo’s makeup worked its magic, Sai Fung’s basic will and personality remained the same even as his voice and physical characteristics were transformed into those of the woman he was modeled after.

“I suppose you’re right,” Chlomo agreed, gazing steadily at the compatriot whose very gender he’d altered. “I was sort of curious as to what his horse was carrying, but it’s too late to do anything about that now. Okay, go give ’em hell.”

All of this had transpired as the dawn began to be tinged with blue.

In the bedroom, Lagoon was totally under the thrall of Paige/Sai Fung. The woman Chlomo based his makeup on was a rare temptress—cute and a born nymphomaniac. She captivated hundreds of men and robbed them of their fortunes before she was eventually stabbed to death by the wife of one of the men.

“Stay with me,” he ordered her, and as Paige/Sai Fung smiled joyfully, she cursed her luck in her heart of hearts.

From what Chlomo had said, anyone who went to bed with this temptress—male or female—had their brain dissolve while going mad and becoming a slave who would blindly follow her bidding. Needless to say, she quickly realized that Lagoon’s incredible toughness was to blame for their miscalculations, but she/he didn’t have the strength left to pull him back into bed once again.

Pawing Paige/Sai Fung’s hair somewhat roughly, Lagoon said in a voice like stone, “From what I’ve seen, you’ve got even greater gifts than appearances would’ve led me to believe. At any rate, being my favorite, why don’t we take a stroll around the whole place. If you happen to notice anything out there, tell me about it later, and I’ll try to come up with the appropriate recompense.”

And then, with the most dangerous of women/men by his side, he set out on a tour of his establishment. She was introduced to the people who ran things, and she also met the girls. The eyes of the younger ones burned with flames of jealousy and repulsion, and while those of the old hands should’ve burned several times more ferociously, they were calm instead. They knew in an instant the position any girl in Lagoon’s company occupied. Once the personal introductions had been dispensed with, Lagoon showed the girl all the rooms in his establishment and explained how they were used. From the bordello to the casino, from the arcade to the offices and power center, Paige simply followed along meekly with her mouth agape. However, the one exception to this came in a bend in one of the corridors in the southern wing, where Lagoon would’ve been expected to keep going straight but instead made an awkward turn to the left.

“Um . . . What’s down there?” Paige started to inquire.

She was speared by an intense look, but his eyes soon returned to a milder hue.

“It’s under construction. Robot dogs are guarding it. Get too close and they’ll tear you to pieces,” he told her.

“I see.”

As Lagoon turned his broad back to her and she continued to walk after him, Paige’s lips twisted. But Lagoon didn’t notice.

-

II

-

As they were galloping toward the mountain stronghold, D prepared to open the glider wings once more. But he was stopped by a crisp, clear voice that issued from the mountain stronghold.

“The gate is open. There is nothing to hinder you, Hunter! Once you’ve entered the castle, find my immobilized form. However, you shall have to do it while you have the daylight as your ally. The evening will be long and dark, and for you, this night shall be your last.”

The voice had told the truth, and D held onto the wings as the great gates opened to either side and ushered him to a staircase connecting the castle to the ground below. Seen from below, the stairs seemed to dwindle to a fine thread as they ran up to the castle.

“There are three thousand steps,” the woman informed him.

D opened the wings above his head.

“Farewell,” the woman’s voice said, and the Hunter sensed the presence behind him departing.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“No. There are a million things I should like to see, but your corpse isn’t one of them.”

“Thanks for getting me this far.”

His words were suddenly thrown to the four winds. D rode that gust up the entire staircase, and at the head of it, the castle gate was open. The wind had been sent by Lord Vlad—he knew exactly what the Hunter was up to. It would’ve been easy enough to resist, but D played right into the enemy’s hands.

Cutting across a front garden so small it couldn’t begin to compare to those of the castle down on level ground, he was drawn into a hall. Suddenly the wind died and he dropped straight down to the floor. At the moment he landed, he trained a trenchant gaze straight ahead.

An old man hunched at the waist was just coming through a rough wooden door. Once the door had closed, he bowed his head deeply—so deeply, in fact, that it actually looked as if it had come free of his torso.

“I am a physician in the service of Lord Vlad; Jean de Carriole by name. I have been waiting for you . . . for the Hunter who was friendly with him.”

His face rose sharply. Red light glittered in it–it was the same mysterious cat’s eyes that’d made Miska and Vince his slaves. As they reflected the Hunter, D’s eyes were tinged with red as well, and both men stopped dead.

Two streaks of red light stretched through the space between the old man and the gorgeous youth, and in the center of that a terrific battle of wills gave rise to unseen flames.

“That’s an odd little trick you have,” a hoarse voice chuckled. “But it won’t work on my friend here.”

As D kicked off the ground, de Carriole clutched his eyes and reeled. D’s blade flew down at the top of his head—or started to, and then the Hunter turned around.

In front of the entrance doors stood someone he recognized.

“If it isn’t the baron!” the hoarse voice exclaimed suspiciously. “He’s acting funny. Better be careful.”

Before the voice had even finished speaking, de Carriole shouted, “Kill him!”

The baron didn’t move, and D also halted where he was.

Had one of them been immobilized by the murderous intent of the other? The intense concentration of ghastly emanations transformed even de Carriole into an icy sculpture.

A gap opened smoothly down the middle of the figure in blue. The instant the dazzling light burst from his cape and sailed toward D, the figure in black kicked off the floor. The light changed direction after slicing through D’s afterimage, and fifteen feet still lay between the baron and where D hung in the air with his sword raised high.

“Gah!” the figure in blue groaned. Lowering his prim and proper face, he looked down at the blade that’d sliced him from the left side of his neck down through all of his thoracic vertebrae and even now still pierced him.

Before the baron dropped, D approached him with powerful strides and reached for the hilt of his sword. As the baron fell, the weight of his body left the sword in D’s hand.

Without making a sound, D took his sword and pointed it behind himself.

As the tip of the weapon jabbed against de Carriole’s throat, a thin sigh escaped him.

“I knew it . . . I just knew it . . .”

The tip sank into his wrinkly neck, drawing red blood. This young man wasn’t the kind to pull punches simply because someone was old.

“Where is he?” D asked, strangely enough.

He wasn’t talking about the lord—he wouldn’t have referred to him as “he.” And the baron was now the inhabitant of a bright bloody world colored by the fluid spouting from his body.

“You saw through that as well? The baron is in a different location,” de Carriole replied.

The old man who seemed like he’d wear the same cold smile no matter what happened to him was now scared to the pit of his soul.

“Where?”

“A house . . . My house.”

“That’s a weird little dummy you had there. Even though the principal ingredient looks to be ectoplasm, its fighting ability’s only a hair behind the baron’s.”

De Carriole’s eyes shifted a tad toward D’s left hand, but froze when the blade jabbed in even further.

“Doesn’t look like a plain old homunculus or skill-transplanted body,” the hoarse voice continued. “What is it, an artificially-made doppelganger?”

“Where is Vlad?” D asked.

“I don’t know. There are simply too many parts of the mountain stronghold unknown to me.”

“Then I have no use for you.”

“W—wait! There’s something I must tell you. I have information regarding the great one!”

This was de Carriole’s ace in the hole. And he played it quickly because if he’d waited another tenth of a second, his head would’ve most likely been irrevocably parted from his body.

“And who would this ‘great one’ be?”

“The Sacred Ancestor.”

“What do you know?”

“Then you are interested, just as I suspected. It looks like my skin is saved. Come to my room. I shall share with you all that I know. Truth be told, I never had any intention of fighting you from the very start.”

“You go first,” D commanded in a tone that made it clear he didn’t need to hear any excuses.

Passing through the door at the far end of the hall, the pair traveled down a long corridor, presently arriving at de Carriole’s lab. Though it came as little surprise it was smaller than that in the castle down on the plain, it was every bit as well-equipped.

“Just as I thought,” the Hunter’s left hand muttered in a tone no one would hear, having apparently spotted something that tied into the baron’s other self they’d just encountered.

“Talk.”

De Carriole nodded at D’s low and pointed instruction. Although they had returned to the lab that could be called his private sanctum, he didn’t appear a speck more relieved or relaxed. D’s unearthly aura wouldn’t allow him to feel either.

“I doubt the man they call D would fail to notice something in his travels with Baron Byron Balazs. His father was not Lord Vlad. It was the Sacred Ancestor!”

And saying this, he leaned back against one of the ropes that hung from the ceiling, wrapped one arm around it, and looked up toward the ceiling. There was a tinge of sadness in his eyes.

D had heard the better part of the story that followed from the woman in the water—wife to Vlad and mother of the baron.

“However, in the end, the lord could not love this son who’d been given something by the Sacred Ancestor. Or perhaps it would be better to say he wouldn’t tolerate him. The lord treated the baron cruelly, ultimately plotting to take his life. But the baron was saved by his mother—Lady Cordelia. Thanks to her, he was able to escape with his servants, and today he follows the road to vengeance. However, the punishment Cordelia was given is enough to make anyone want to hide their eyes. For the Nobility, the fear of water is second only to that of the sun. The lord had Lady Cordelia’s body surgically altered so that, while her fear of the water still remained, she would be strong enough to live forever submerged in it.”

D saw that the aged scholar’s shoulders quaked. His shaking was neither from grief nor anger, but rather from both.

“Who do you curse?” D asked.

“Myself,” the aged scholar said, gnawing his lip.

“Who performed the operation on the lord’s wife?”

“Me. That was me as well.”

De Carriole gave a pull on the arm wrapped around the rope. A strident clang echoed from somewhere in the ceiling—the sole expression of suffering this old man was allowed.

“He wouldn’t permit me to use anesthetic during Lady Cordelia’s operation. Nobility or not, they still feel pain. Some of them even go mad from it. I swear to you, as I transformed her into a Noble that could live underwater, she surely tasted pain far worse than anything hell could hold for her. Moreover—”

The aged scholar turned around. The expression that surfaced on his waxy face wasn’t that of any human.

“Moreover—oh, D, have you ever met her? Lady Cordelia—ever calm, ever gentle. Even as my scalpel visited insanity on her, her face twisting in agony as she lost consciousness time and again, she never once blamed me, guilty as I was. Once the procedure concluded, I was weeping apologies to her when she took my hand. I can still recall the look in her eyes as she asked me to look after her husband. Alas . . . even now, the sweet Lady Cordelia remains in the water. Laden with pain and grief that shall know no end—and it is I that did it to her. I, Jean de Carriole. You shall pay for that, Vlad Balazs!”

At that last flabbergasting comment, a cry of “Oh-ho!” rose from the vicinity of D’s hip, but de Carriole didn’t notice as his narrow, teary eyes bored into D’s face.

“Lord Byron has returned. In all likelihood, he possesses the strength and skill of the Sacred Ancestor. The Sacred Ancestor has succeeded. But it will still take some time for his power to develop fully. And I shall buy him that time. However, before I do—”

The old man’s wrinkled mouth moved sluggishly, like a cut of meat trying to speak.

“D, kill Lord Vlad.”

No sooner had those words entered the ears of the youth of unearthly beauty than de Carriole cried, “Lady Cordelia, for you I now slay this Hunter!”

He’d specifically selected the rope from the very beginning. D and de Carriole rapidly drew apart, and a deep crevasse formed between them. The gap quickly grew wider, filled with the color of the sky and a deep green. Half of the room D was in had been blown outside by a jet engine set in the wall.

Slamming into the ground some sixty feet below, the room burst into flames.

D was in the air. The glider wings he’d kept close at hand had once again saved his life.

Avoiding the flames that shot up from the ground, the Hunter was soaring back up to de Carriole’s lab when something from below snapped tight around his leg—ropes the same color as the bushes below where half of the lab had fallen. Once the first one had wound around D’s ankle, scores more were swiftly tossed up from the ground, with a dozen of those coiling around the Hunter’s body.

The sword in D’s right hand slashed out.

Impossible—the ropes trembled, but weren’t cut! Not only that, but they were fighting the flight power of the flying beast’s wings as they began to pull D down toward the ground.

Who was manning the ropes? What kind of strength did they possess?

Seeing that it was no use, D finally let go of the wings. From a height of fifteen feet, he fell head over heels to the ground. But he landed on his feet.

He was in part of the forest that surrounded the castle. Each and every one of the ropes that bound him stretched off into the trees. The woods certainly seethed with madness and multiple presences. But why had they dragged their prey down to earth yet failed to attack immediately?

D’s head was lowered. There was nothing at all unsettling about his pose, and yet the Hunter’s presence seemed to freeze not only the air but even the rocks and trees—and when one of them did leap down from the trees, it was most likely because he could stand it no longer. He couldn’t bear D’s unearthly aura.

His physique was like that of a human being that’d regressed to some prehistoric era, and it was protected by a breastplate, gauntlets, and greaves that all had the same hue as the ropes and gave off the same sheen. In his hand a brutal hatchet glittered. Any form of resistance was useless, while his own attack would split open his prey’s cranium—his brain was imprinted with a vivid picture of this preset course of death.

A flash of white light whistled up from the ground. The blade that should’ve been deflected by the protective coating of mountain beast fat and sand effortlessly split his chest protector, then his muscles and organs, severing his spinal column before it protruded from his back. The body that slammed into the earth sent out a bloody spray as it broke into two chunks of flesh.

Caught in the blood wind, D’s form was stained vermilion.

Dead calm descended. Again. It was still. Truly still.

“What’s wrong? Come get me,” D was heard to say.

Beneath his lowered face, something red moved lithely. His tongue. He’d just licked off the blood that clung to his lips.

Slowly his face rose. His eyes had a glow more seductively red than de Carriole’s gaze or the blood of anything in the world.

-

III

-

What D had tasted wasn’t the blood of that sacrifice. He’d been wounded in the left shoulder by the copy of the baron. Just before he was pulled down to the ground, the Vampire Hunter had drunk the lifeblood that spilled from that wound, transforming into a creature all abhorred and he himself cursed. A vampire. And there was more to it—late the previous night at the hospital where Lagoon had led D and Taki, the man had a mixed look of terror and nostalgia in his eyes as he gazed at the beauty of that heavenly visage and answered D’s question.

“You know why I saved you? Because I get the same vibe from you as I did from the big guy. I gave him some help and got a ton in return. I’m still in his debt, you know. So I can’t really consider you a complete stranger.”

D still wasn’t free of the ropes. From a distance, he looked like a graceful black butterfly snared in a spider’s web. He seemed like no more than a creature waiting for the vile arachnid to rush in on unsightly legs with gnashing fangs as it attacked.

One of the ropes was given a sudden jerk. Though it was taut, D had no difficulty pulling it back.

Clearly shaken and loosing screams, a trio of figures made a murderous rush from the bushes around him in unison. Each was dressed exactly like the first man and wielded a hatchet and a sickle. D’s sword flashed out and, unable to withstand the assault, the first two men were reduced to gobs of blood. The third man planted both feet on the shoulders of the man before him, made a leap to the tree trunk ahead of him, and then hurled his trenchant sickle. With such speed and timing the average person wouldn’t have even been able to see them, as they attacked from unpredictable angles.

The sickle meant to decapitate D changed direction with a shower of metallic sparks, slicing the neck of the man in the tree with such speed he never even had a chance to move out of the way.

Suddenly, the ropes went slack. Cutting himself free of all of them with a single swipe of his blade, D stood alone on a narrow patch of rocky earth.

“These are the ‘mountain folk,’ I take it,” his left hand said.

They were a tribe that never went to the world below, but rather made their own world in high mountain peaks and desolate passes. Shunning contact with outsiders and interbreeding for generation upon generation, at some point they’d undergone physical and mental regression; and though they now resembled ape-men, some might say that their form was the best-adapted to their life in the mountains. Hating not only inhabited areas but all manner of human dwellings, perhaps the only reason they chose to live in the area around Vlad’s mountain stronghold was to take on the role of his dark enforcers in exchange for food and clothing. Vlad must’ve relocated to the mountain stronghold knowing that D would pursue him and be attacked by them. But if that was the case, his plan had failed.

There was a strange look in his eye as it tracked across the four horrible corpses—actually, so far above and beyond horrid they had an artistic beauty to them. D raised his blade into a high guard posture.

From the grove directly ahead of him echoed what sounded like a steam locomotive.

What appeared less than five seconds later was a machine that called to mind a huge green caterpillar the same hue as the mountainous terrain, but it was most peculiar how it didn’t snap even a single tree as it slowly advanced. In tighter spaces its body grew thinner as it twisted its way through, and its weight seemed to pose no problem for it at all—even though at fifteen feet in diameter and over thirty feet long, it had to weigh in excess of three tons. Conveyance or weapon of the mountain folk, it thudded to the ground beside a tree up ahead of D.

Out of bushes and trees figures leapt like monkeys, landing on the massive machine. The sides of it slowly split open and great folding scythes appeared. Easily twenty to twenty-five feet long, they were undoubtedly used for mowing through trees and carving through rock.

As the blades howled at him, D leapt over them and sailed backward. At the same time his form was slipping into a stand of trees, five or six enormous boles—each thicker than a man could fit his arms around—fell over, exposing perfectly smooth cuts. The earth trembled with the howling thuds.

A circle of flames shot up around D. Friction from the slices in the trees had caused them to catch fire.

No sooner had the Hunter’s left hand groaned, “This thing’s gonna be trouble,” than wide horizontal streaks of light assailed them from either side.

The way D’s sword bit into them and deflected them, it was almost too fortuitous to believe.

The green caterpillar of the mountains was preparing for its next onslaught, but when its legs stopped dead, a commotion broke out among the figures straddling its back. Each of the great scythes had been cut in half, with the severed portions now lying on the ground.

D closed the distance in one fell swoop.

Even more gripped with fear than the caterpillar, the men hurled their sickles and hatchets.

A flash of white light whined out to deflect every last one of them, and the men fell from the caterpillar’s back with blood spraying everywhere. Perhaps it was his vampire blood that made D mercilessly cut down all who opposed him.

Ignoring those who dove out of the way or jumped down off the insect, D got on the caterpillar’s back and reversed his grip on his sword before lifting it high above his head. The caterpillar may have sensed something, because the second it squealed shrilly and wriggled, the blade came straight down on it, sinking into a spot on the creature’s wrinkly back all the way to the hilt. Where it had struck would be the nerve center of a living creature or the power circuits of a machine, or perhaps both in this case. A lump of white-hot material formed within the insect, and it began to run amok as if it’d lost its mind. Perhaps it knew it would die there.

Not even D noticed that a crevasse yawned between the stands of trees. The way the creature fell in, it looked as if it’d dived into the gap.

Only a second earlier, D had sprung, a length of black rope flying from his right hand to wind around a branch on a tree before him. With the dwindling form of the still-writhing caterpillar below him, D swung in an arc like a pendulum and was about to leap to the far side of the crevasse when he suddenly sank. It was unclear exactly who’d thrown the sickle, but it’d severed the black rope.

Though the pale form of the caterpillar was still visible in the distance, as the gorgeous Hunter fell after it, he instantly melded with the pitch blackness, as befitted someone with his wardrobe.

-

Closing the iron door, de Carriole descended the stone staircases before him. He was in an underground burial chamber. The holes that opened in the majestically towering walls of stone were filled with a systematic arrangement of gorgeously adorned coffins. They were home to the witnesses to the Balazs clan’s history of death that stretched back into antiquity, though not even de Carriole knew the names or genders of the occupants. Passing through a number of gates distorted into shapes that were practically impossible in three-dimensional space, de Carriole presently came to a graveyard with an especially high ceiling. Atop a waist-high dais sat a luxurious coffin the likes of which wouldn’t be found even in the palaces of the Capital. It was Vlad Balazs’s grave.

“It would seem that D was swallowed by a crevasse in the earth,” he informed his master, bowing respectfully.

“Excellent. Then the mountain folk have played their part.”

“However, they also suffered numerous losses.”

“Give them more than adequate compensation. Furthermore, you’re to search the crevasse and locate D’s remains. Only then will this be over.”

“Understood, milord. But as soon as we have confirmation, I should like to hasten back to my abode, if I may.”

“Very well. However, you will have to wait a while longer. In addition to yourself, there is someone else whose loyalty must be put to the test.”

“Yes, milord,” de Carriole replied, bowing before he turned his back.

When he was almost to the point where the coffin would be swallowed by the limpid darkness of antiquity, a voice issued from it, saying, “Byron—I slew him, but I don’t get the feeling he was destroyed. Look for him as well.”

De Carriole was frozen in place for a brief time—he was trying to assess the true motives behind the remark. Byron Balazs was in his mansion at present. And it was for that reason de Carriole was in such a hurry to return home.

Holding his tongue and bowing his head, he then said, “Yes, milord,” and began to walk away.

The coffin’s occupant neither said nor did anything further.

It was shortly after de Carriole ordered his homunculi to search for the corpses of D and the baron that Lagoon arrived.

“Milord Vlad is in a lovely mood, I take it,” the giant said, bowing toward the coffin in that underground lair while the lord watched him silently.

“Do you know why it is that I’ve called you here, Lagoon? It’s been twenty years.”

“No, I’m at a complete loss,” the giant replied, head tilted to one side. His face sober, he inquired, “Let me guess—you’re going to compensate us for all the buildings in town that were destroyed last night?”

“Whatever could you be talking about?”

“So far as I know, no creature possessing that kind of power lives anywhere near the village. And if it’d come from outside, it would’ve left the same sort of devastation all the way to our village, but there’s no trace of that to be found. That ‘thing’ was a normal person already in town who either suddenly developed this monstrous power or was given it. I can hardly be blamed for thinking it the latter.”

“Hmm.”

“Well, who would do such a thing? de Carriole’s mansion lies in the direction it came from.”

Vlad said nothing.

While it was unclear what Lagoon made of the contemplative silence inside the coffin, he prodded, “Anything else?”

He didn’t seem at all frightened by the creature within the coffin. In fact, he even seemed to be making light of him. You could say his reaction was simply perfect.

“You know a Hunter by the name of D, do you not?” the voice said in a decisive tone.

“No.”

“Last night, he took a girl meant to slake my thirst from my manor down below.”

“Impossible—”

Lagoon’s surprise wasn’t completely an act. Though he knew about what D had done, on hearing about it from another person involved—particularly from Vlad’s own lips—he couldn’t help but be awed. As it happened, this was extremely fortunate for him.

“I sent Greed out to reclaim her, but he was rebuffed. This man they call D is indeed quite intense. However, he had someone aiding him.”

“Sounds like a real idiot.”

“That real idiot, I suspect, is you.”

“You must be joking!”

“Taking a variety of matters into consideration, it could be no one in the village save you. What’s more, I’ve never heard of D calling on compatriots before.”

“So, what do you intend to do?” Lagoon said, trying to cut to the chase. He was certain Lord Vlad’s suspicions weren’t easily aroused.

“The only human in the entire village who doesn’t have to swear fealty to me is you. And as per my promise to the great one, I can’t lay a hand on you. However, if you were to foment rebellion against me, that would be a different matter. Lagoon, will you swear fealty to me?”

“When pigs fly!”

“It’s just as I thought, then,” the voice laughed. “It would seem I have my proof of your treason, and now you must be wiped from the face of the earth.”

“Then do it, here and now.”

“I can’t. Even I don’t have the nerve to renege on a promise to the great one. Which brings me to another matter, Lagoon. Have you no wish to receive Noble blood?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb. I’m talking about life eternal. Although in return, you won’t be able to walk in the light of the sun.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“Take a good look,” said the voice from the coffin.

As if in response, the creak of hinges rang out behind Lagoon.

Turning, the giant shouted, “Telena!”

Out of the dozen or so girlfriends he had, she was his favorite.

“Last night, she became my maidservant.”

Like some pale, emaciated wraith who was somehow far more maddeningly beautiful than any healthy human, the woman approached Lagoon with a lethargic stride.

“How do you like her? Is she not even younger and more beautiful than when you loved her in your world? And that will not change for all eternity. What’s more—”

A crimson beam of light shot down from the ceiling, striking the back of the woman’s head and exiting again right between her eyes. Though white smoke rose from her, the woman never stopped walking, and the flames and wound on her forehead vanished almost immediately.

“—her brain can be cooked with a million-degree heat ray, and still she won’t die. Living by night can have its pleasures, too.”

“The Nobility have no life,” Lagoon said, arms folded as he stared intently at the lovely woman who stood right in front of him. “Pardon me, Lord Vlad, but in my opinion, everything that has form comes to an end at some point. Come here.”

Extending his left hand, he beckoned to the woman.

With a gorgeous and bewitching grin rising on her lips, the woman spread her arms wide.

Taking a step into her arms, the gigantic form was still in mid-stride when blue-black steel poked out through the woman’s back. Though her trembling fingers sank into Lagoon’s shoulders, he didn’t seem to mind at all as he worked the blade, then threw the woman to one side. The body that fell to the floor was already lifeless, its alluring beauty beginning to be replaced by the foreshadowing of death and decay.

“See? Look at that peaceful expression on her face. Sure enough, for humans, nothing beats a miserable human death,” Lagoon said pensively as he returned a broad-bladed knife to his chest pocket.

“You’ve killed my maidservant,” the voice groaned. “Now I have all the reason I need to rid myself of you. How do you intend to get out of here?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I only disposed of a woman who’d come down with a horrible affliction. And I couldn’t very well have her come running back to my establishment, now could I?”

“You call my kiss a horrible affliction?”

“Just a slip of the tongue, Lord Vlad,” Lagoon said with a grin. “Isn’t it below the dignity of the great Balazs family to get bent out of shape over every little remark a mere human makes? Besides, I’d like to give some thought to the proposal you just made.”

“Oh. In that case, why do that to the woman?”

“If anyone’s going to get the immortality of a Noble, it ought to be me alone.”

And with those words, Lagoon’s smile deepened.

The voice of the Lord wasn’t heard again.

A strange air of sympathy had begun to drift through the dimly lit tomb.