CONSPIRACY OF DARK DEATH

CHAPTER 6

-

I

-

The legendary city cast its reflection deep in the rapt eyes of the Noblewoman.

Did the groans of the young brother and sister rising plaintively from her feet not reach her ears? Could Miska not fathom the suffering of these children who’d taken her at her word about setting off on a journey of hope, going underground with her because the least they could do was send her off, and even going so far as to say how painful it would be to part company with her?

Her dignified face twisted in an ugly display of selfish joy, and she even licked her vermilion lips. The two children were already covered in blood.

Just then, the black surface of the water was pushed off to either side as a lone strip of white road appeared from the sea.

“That is the road to your Utopia. However, you can’t cross it without my guidance. You would do well to consider yourself fortunate.”

Even if those words reached Miska’s ears, it was impossible to tell if her brain could make sense of them. Fixated on escaping reality, all the young Noblewoman did was stare at the distant land mass.

“Now, step onto the road,” the Guide said, clutching Hugh’s face and rolling him over onto his back. The tip of his blade brought a circle of blood.

“Stop it!” May cried out in a thin voice.

D wasn’t there. Nor Balazs, nor Lagoon. That only left one person—

The machete that rose so smoothly halted in midair at that moment. It wasn’t merely the physical stop required prior to striking with it. A slim, soft hand had seized the Guide’s wrist.

“What is this—?” he asked Miska quite gently as he turned around.

Twisting his arm around, Miska sent the Guide flying, and then stepped in front of the children. Oh, who could’ve imagined the young woman in white shielding those two?

And then she shouted, “Flee!”

The emotions stirred by her voice and the sight of her gave the two bloody children strength. Rising unsteadily to her feet, the girl grabbed her brother’s wrist and dashed toward the door.

As he watched all this, the Guide did nothing, but once the pair had vanished from his field of view, he turned to Miska and said, “You know what this means, do you not?”

Miska didn’t reply, didn’t even nod. Her blue eyes were filled with a powerful conviction that showed her the truth and a staunch determination to defend the others.

“Once a contract has been entered, if it is broken, both the sacrifices and the contractee shall be cursed for eternity. Your punishment will be dispensed immediately.”

As he approached Miska, he raised the machete high. It was a terribly impudent combat pose when facing a Noblewoman, but for some reason, Miska didn’t move. Although nothing could be seen within the hood save deep black darkness, now a pair of glows—incredibly profane gleams—transfixed her. The Guide’s eyes. At that instant, Miska retained the ability to think, but lost control of her muscles and nerves. Even her heart stopped.

Whistling through the air toward what some might describe as the forlorn nape of the woman’s neck, the machete sank deep into it. Blood gushed out. And though spasms rocked Miska’s body, she didn’t make a sound due to the pain. A blow from the Guide hurt thousands of times more than one from anyone else.

Jerking the gore-stained weapon back and forth to free it, the Guide then raised it unceremoniously for another blow to the top of Miska’s head. The eyes in his hood gave off a particularly vile light. But the right one unexpectedly vanished.

As the Guide pressed one hand to it, a small rock fell at his feet. And at the same time, the grip of his evil gaze seemed to wane.

Letting out a horrible wail of pain, Miska fell to the floor.

A small red figure rushed over, pulling her up as he said, “Hold on, Miska!”

It was Hugh. The boy hadn’t fled and left the woman to her fate.

However, before they’d even gone ten feet, the ash-gray figure stood before the pair, blocking the way.

“You may have been freed, but the pain the Guide has given you won’t fade. My job, you see, also involves guiding pain.”

The machete was swung.

Executing a back flip and narrowly dodging the blade, Hugh let the rock he held in his hand fly from midair. Although it was an exquisite display of acrobatics, the amount of speed Hugh’s wounded and bleeding body put behind the missile wasn’t enough to keep it from being effortlessly avoided.

The Guide approached.

“Stop,” Miska called out feebly.

He brought the blade down—but luckily, the acrobatic Hugh was able to get out of its way.

“What’s this?!” the Guide gasped in astonishment.

Hugh’s position was at the boundary between the real world and the weird sea. Taking a step back, the boy’s foot slipped toward the ocean, and Hugh fell headlong into the black water.

Both the spray and the sound of the waves were the real thing.

At that instant, a dimensional rift formed. The otherworldly sea summoned by the Guide sought something similar on this side, here in our world. The expanse of water filled with a sense of the bizarre.

Desperately thrusting his head from the sea, Hugh saw a reddish-black figure standing before him and exclaimed, “D?!”

Yes, D. What’s more, D had just finished cutting off Lord Vlad’s metallic arm.

The subterranean lake and the seawater had been mixed.

“Stop it!” the Guide shouted as he reached out for Hugh.

His strength and will both spent, the boy had latched onto the road across the sea—the path to Shangri-la—and pulled himself up.

Everything was stained blue and white. And in the midst of what could be described as calming colors, a human figure thrashed feebly.

-

The next thing Hugh knew, he was lying on the floor of a hall. Beside him lay the blood-soaked Miska, who May was looking after. And looking down at them was the gorgeous Vampire Hunter.

“D—I was . . .”

“I heard.”

Getting the impression D had given him a little nod, the boy felt rewarded.

“Er . . .” he started to say, but he caught himself because both D and Miska were looking at the back of the hall—and the black sea.

But there was no sea there. The flames of the candelabra illuminated the baron in blue and woman in white on the cold stone floor. The woman lay there with what looked to be some kind of scepter jutting quite far from her chest. Yet the woman’s dress remained white because all of her blood had apparently left her body and been diffused in the water. Clearly someone was bidding farewell to one who wasn’t long for this world.

At that point, the woman in white opened her eyes a crack, despite the fact that her heart and lungs had already ceased functioning and not even a faint thread of breath whispered from her paling lips.

“In the end . . . it comes to this,” the baron’s mother said, her voice quiet and clear. “I can no longer do anything. Do as you like. While drifting underwater, I saw the stars. Your stars and your father’s stars. They’re completely incompatible. You and your father . . . No matter how you battle, eventually it will come to an end. But . . . what kind of end will it be? Byron, my son . . . I’m terribly afraid.”

“Mother . . .” the baron murmured. One who knew what fate had in store could say no more than that.

“Please, don’t follow along after me,” she said, a hand damp with water rising to touch the baron’s brow. “And please . . . forgive me. Forgive your mother . . .”

Her arm was about to slip away, but the baron caught hold of it and held it in place. His shoulders didn’t quake, nor did he shed a single tear. Beneath his blue glove, his mother’s arm lost its definition and turned into brown dust. Even then the baron didn’t break his pose. For the longest time he remained as he was.

“D,” he called out after even more time had passed. “Is de Carriole here?”

“No.”

“Right now, it is he that I would like to see more than anyone,” he said in a tone without cadence. “Lady Miska is here. With de Carriole’s assistance, the Destroyer within her could be transferred to me.”

“He stayed back at the underground lake. If Vlad’s in his right mind, he’ll probably have him executed as a traitor. Also—”

“What is it?”

“I think the gray hooded figure was a Guide. He’s there with Vlad, too.” Turning to the fallen Miska and the siblings, D said, “And she broke her contract with the Guide. No matter what, he won’t give up until he’s delivered the death penalty.”

“You think he’ll join forces with Vlad?”

“I don’t know. My second blow split your father’s head open. He’s seriously injured, but he won’t die.”

The baron got to his feet. From his hands and his lap brown dust spilled, spreading across the floor. Not even looking down at it, the baron took what remained in his fist and put it in a pouch in his cape before stating, “I’m going to de Carriole’s mansion.”

“What’ll you do there?” D asked.

“I intend to bring Lady Miska with me and transfer the Destroyer on my own.”

“Even the Destroyer was powerless before the Guide.”

“At the very least, I’ll slay Vlad. Or battle him on equal terms. This is my fight. Once again, I ask that you stay out of this, D.”

“And you intend on doing this even without de Carriole?”

“It may surprise you to learn I’ve always been quite good with machines. So long as there’s a manual, I may be able to do something.”

“Have his apprentice do it,” D said, stepping to the right.

Smiling thinly, the baron said, “Now there’s a thought.”

As he spoke, a band of light shot from the interior of his cape. For a second, white illumination flashed across the surprised faces of May, Hugh, and Miska, and then the band of light turned right at the doorway.

A cry of pain rang out. It was followed by the sound of footsteps.

Having already broken into a run, D gave chase. He didn’t need to run far.

Thirty feet ahead, the country girl with flowing blond hair had halted dead in her tracks. Standing before her, blocking her way like a wall, was the massive form of Fisher Lagoon.

“What are you doing down here, Paige?” he asked.

“Not a blessed thing. I was walking on the floor above and heard a strange sound, so I came down here, when all of a sudden . . .”

Seeing the wound that’d been opened on her right shoulder, Lagoon then turned his gaze to D and asked in a gruff tone, “You responsible for that?”

“No. But it’s a hell of a disguise. Chlomo’s makeup, is it?”

“What are you saying?!” the understandably shocked Lagoon exclaimed.

Before him, the girl shook her dainty, doleful face from side to side, saying, “No. It’s not like that!”

“So—so that’s how it is, eh?” Lagoon said in a hoarse voice that sounded utterly crushed. “Chlomo’s makeup could make a woman out of a man. It’d even turn a nutsack into a woman’s goodies. And if he used a real slut of a model . . . Hell, I fell for the wrong damned woman. People will be laughing about ol’ Fisher Lagoon for the rest of my days, I bet.”

Paige realized nothing she said would make any difference now— she was actually Sai Fung of the Thousand Limbs. As soon as the makeup was taken off, he’d be back to his old self. After seeing the Guide, he’d figured something was brewing and wouldn’t let May out of his sight. As a result, he’d followed the trio she formed with Hugh and Miska and saw everything that happened thereafter from start to finish. He would’ve been better off not knowing that his presence had been detected.

“Out of my way,” he said in a woman’s voice, but with a man’s mannerisms.

“So, we’ve seen through your disguise. I don’t know who the hell you are, but I’ll see to it you pay for making a fool of Fisher Lagoon.”

“Shut your trap!” Paige said, kicking off the ground. With a woman’s legs.

She would’ve been lucky to get two or three feet of vertical rise. But she just kept going. As she’d kicked off the floor, one hand had made a fist and wiped the makeup off. The leap had the power of a thousand limbs—the thousand arms and legs that Sai Fung possessed.

As he easily sailed over Lagoon’s head, one of his unseen limbs landed a blow to the back of the giant’s head that staggered him. Landing, Sai Fung turned. The kick that’d been intended to crush the man’s skull had met something hard instead.

“Huh?!” the martial artist exclaimed.

Lagoon was no longer just an ordinary giant. The glittering silver that covered every inch of him was liquid metal armor. Moreover, it only took a thousandth of a second to don it.

For a heartbeat, a boundless animosity glowed in Sai Fung’s evil glare, but he must’ve decided he was better off not testing his luck against this unknown material, because he stood up and tried to make a run for it. Before him, the massive silvery form landed after vaulting over his head. Behind him was D.

As he glided toward Lagoon, Sai Fung had a smile that brimmed with confidence pasted to his lips. His unseen hands had dispatched a stone colossus with just a single blow.

Both of Sai Fung’s feet were absorbed by the silvery chest. A flying kick that could shift a fifty-ton boulder sent him sinking waist-deep into Lagoon’s breastbone. Yet he didn’t come out through the man’s back.

“Is that liquid metal, you filthy traitor?” the man asked in a blaze of hatred, livid at having encountered such a resilient opponent—or rather, the material that covered him.

“Not quite what you’re used to, eh?” the faceless silver figure mocked. “This time, I’ll play your game. I won’t dissolve anymore. Now, come get some!”

It was an open invitation.

Sai Fung didn’t move. There were loud thuds as Lagoon’s chest and stomach were dented. In the blink of an eye they’d taken hundreds of unseen kicks and punches. However, the bottom of the dents bubbled back up like water from a spring, quickly smoothing out again.

“That’s not gonna work. It just won’t cut it.”

As if pushed by Lagoon’s voice, Sai Fung backed away. His face was warped by pain—a number of his unseen hands and feet had been broken. It was like pounding on the ramparts of some titanic citadel. The liquid metal that encased Lagoon’s body could alter its molecular arrangement at will, absorbing shocks at times like water, while at other times becoming ultra-hard armor to repulse blows.

“Is that the best Sai Fung of the Thousand Limbs can do? Then I guess it’s my turn now.”

The faceless giant extended his arms. His palms spread like a bolt of cloth and wrapped tightly around Sai Fung.

“Go on, just try to escape. That is, if the ‘thousand limbs’ in your nickname aren’t all just hot air.”

Pulling the man closer, the giant looked ready to crush him. It was the sort of half-playful action one might expect a drunk to pull on a hostess.

However, Lagoon cried out, “Oh!” despite himself.

Both his arms were slowly but steadily being pushed back. And he was putting enough strength into them to crush a boulder to bits.

“Now that’s what I’d expect from the Thousand Limbs,” he muttered, and at that instant both his arms were thrown open like a pair of wings, knocking his massive form off balance.

The way Sai Fung twisted his body, it looked like he was poised for a judo shoulder throw. Yet his hands didn’t have a hold on anything, and there were still eight or twelve inches between him and Lagoon.

“Hi-yaaaah!” the martial artist cried, his earsplitting shriek a perfect companion to the enormous arc Lagoon’s form traveled in.

The giant hit the stone floor back-first. A split second before he did, all the armor on his back spread across the floor, forming a cushion to absorb the impact. By the time he’d bounced back up to his feet like a human spring, Sai Fung had already dashed some thirty feet away.

A black figure closed on him from the rear. It was D. His eyes gave off blood light. The longsword he struck out with in a drawing cut came right down on the top of Sai Fung’s head, blunt side first. When D called upon that power, those thousand hands and feet apparently counted for nothing and the blow landed easily, sending Sai Fung down to the floor still dressed in women’s clothing.

-

II

-

Astride a borrowed horse, the baron turned to Lagoon, who was seeing him off, and told him, “You have my thanks.”

They were in the courtyard of his establishment, where May and Hugh were receiving medical treatment from the physician. Sai Fung was strapped to the horse’s back. By the baron’s side was a second mount that he also held the reins to, and Miska rode on that. Even by the dark of night, there were heavy shadows of pain on her. Nevertheless she had accepted the baron’s proposal. She would cooperate with the effort to transfer the Destroyer within her to the baron.

“Come on. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ve heard a lot of talk about you. Can’t really consider you a stranger.”

Noticing the focus of the baron’s gaze at that point, the giant turned toward his establishment and added, “D’s gone to stay with that girl named Taki. The night’s still young. Your father might stir up more trouble yet. But that Hunter sure is a cold one, isn’t he?”

After exiting the hall, the young man in black and the one in blue had parted company without exchanging a single word.

“The fight between you and your father has nothing to do with him. But if you slay your father, Taki will be saved. If it’s the reverse, she’ll be a target again. When you look at it that way, he really can’t afford to be getting his nose out of joint. Always gotta do things his own way, I guess.”

“It’s fine,” the baron said softly, wheeling his horse around to face the distant gates.

The moon shone up above like a silver platter. Off in the distance, birds sang.

“People gotta be cutting each other up all over the place on a nice night like this,” Lagoon muttered. Those were the words with which he sent them off.

Just in front of the gates, an enormous camphor tree challenged the heavens. Beside it stood a figure in black raiment that seemed to dissolve into its shadow.

Even as he came to the shadowy figure, the baron didn’t halt his horse. But as he passed, he turned and said, “I would’ve liked to have met you by day.”

There was no answer. Instead, a black-gloved hand gently touched the brim of his traveler’s hat.

The rider in blue went by with the two horses. Once he’d passed out of the Hunter’s range of perception, D stepped away from the camphor tree and walked off to where Taki was. He had a job to do as a Hunter. What’s more, the battle between the baron and his father had no bearing on him.

-

For some time now, the vast and lavishly appointed sitting room had been swimming in awful moans that sounded like they might’ve come from the spirits of hell.

“The drugs . . . won’t work . . . Why not? Why won’t the wound close? Does the bastard have some kind of special sword . . . de Carriole?”

After exhausting every possible means, the aged scholar stood beside an operating table stained vermilion smelling the stench of blood. He was about to reply but stopped himself, admiring the skill of the Hunter in black in his heart of hearts.

Vlad’s face was swathed in bandages from the top of his head down to his chin, and he’d lost his left arm at the elbow. Though de Carriole had taken the arm off because it would only be in the way during his procedure, he hadn’t been able to close the lord’s head wound, and no matter what kind of anesthetic he gave the Noble, the pain wouldn’t abate.

The ageless and immortal Nobility usually recovered from shallow cuts almost instantaneously, while graver injuries might take a few hours to heal fully. And aside from the instant in which they were wounded, they almost never felt any pain. Writhing in agony for the last two hours and having soaked the better part of the vast sitting room with his own blood, Vlad was an exception even among exceptions.

“De Carriole . . . you know what it is, don’t you . . . Traitorous scientist . . . you have betrayed my trust. If by some chance something should happen to me . . . my underlings won’t sit still for it . . . They’re likely to tear you limb from limb . . . and throw you where the birds can pick your bones clean while you still live.”

“I am aware of that. However, I have done my very best. The Hunter who goes by the name of D is indeed no ordinary person.”

“D . . . D!” Vlad bellowed, his eyes snapping open to glare into space.

The look in them was so intense, it seemed as if the empty air might burst into flames.

“If only he weren’t here . . . No, not him. de Carriole, this wound will heal, won’t it? You can close it, right?”

“I shall do my best.”

“Don’t forget that your life hangs in the balance.”

What a despicable way to behave, the aged scholar clucked to himself. Sooner or later, the wound should close and the pain subside. Until then, the best thing to do would be to simply leave the wound alone. Still, that Hunter called D—what on earth was he?

Bowing, he told the lord, “I must go and concoct a sedative.”

As the old man walked to the door, a figure in gray rose to his feet at the head of the bed. He’d completely forgotten that the Guide Vlad had invited there from the subterranean lake had been sitting there. It certainly seemed as if the old man wished to drive every thought of him from his head. And although it might’ve been best if de Carriole had beaten a hasty retreat, he remained bound to the spot. As a profound scholar not only of science but of sorcerous inquiry, he wasn’t about to miss any conversation between those two.

And apparently the Guide meant de Carriole no harm.

“Would you like me to heal that wound?” the hooded figured asked.

“Oh, that would be great—it was well worth bringing you along . . . Please . . . by all means. Let me . . . fight him . . . fight D one more time.”

“You shall have to pay me in return.”

For a second, not only de Carriole froze but Vlad did as well. What sort of payment the Guide would require—the mere thought of it was enough to stop their hearts.

“Wh-what do you intend to ask for as payment?” de Carriole inquired in spite of himself.

“That you become one with me.”

Needless to say, the Guide was talking to Lord Vlad.

de Carriole turned in amazement. The way these coincidences overlapped—if you could call them coincidences—left him stupefied. To slay his father Vlad, the baron sought to become one with the Destroyer. On the other hand, here was Lord Vlad about to become one with the Guide. Father and son would finally become diametrically opposed forces.

Holding his breath and straining his ears, de Carriole was eager to hear what Vlad’s reply would be.

“You would enter into me . . . and what would happen then?”

Although the lord’s question bore a crushing weight of anxiety, that was only natural.

“Our power would be doubled . . . well, that’s supposing that you and I were the same level.”

“Ah, in that case—”

“However,” the Guide interrupted him, “if your strength was far below my own, you would be killed in an instant. Or, as you Nobility say, ‘destroyed.’ And I would be left alone to slay the one who betrayed me.”

Vlad fell silent.

I’m not surprised that’s enough to make even you timid, de Carriole thought without any malice. And just then, he heard a rumble and felt a shock as if there were tremors deep in the earth. He soon realized it was an illusion. Nevertheless, none of his physical senses could be convinced that it wasn’t real.

It was Vlad. Lord Vlad had made up his mind. The rumbling in the earth had been the harbinger of his decision.

As he glared at the figure in the long ashen robe with glittering eyes, his intensity and his ghastly air were not those of a man who’d been screaming moments earlier about how his head was split open.

“So, I would be destroyed? Hmm. Have you ever considered that my power might surpass your own? Very well, then. Enter me. If my flesh isn’t destroyed, the psyche that controls it would of course be that of the stronger of us, would it not?”

“That is correct.”

“Then enter me. I shall be most interested to see whether you claim my strength or I take control of yours.”

He wasn’t bluffing. Nor was he desperate or self-destructive. Though bloodless, Vlad’s face was filled with such an overwhelming confidence it seemed liable to turn anyone he looked at to stone.

What was going to happen?

De Carriole was staring so intently at the two unearthly creatures, it looked like he might faint dead away from the strain. What if the Guide won and Lord Vlad’s psyche was defeated? Or what if Lord Vlad triumphed, erasing all of the Guide but his strength? Whichever happened, a god of destruction with power beyond imagining would undoubtedly spread a whirlwind of slaughter across the face of the planet. Even supposing the baron were to be joined with the Destroyer, and D were to be on his side, it was uncertain whether or not they could stand toe-to-toe with the most vicious, evil fiend the world had ever seen.

As de Carriole watched the figure in gray leaning over Vlad’s bed, he let himself slip into a tranquil despair.

-

III

-

“Think he’ll come?” the hoarse voice asked.

The Hunter was in front of a set of bars. Behind them, Taki could be seen sleeping soundly.

“He’ll come,” D replied.

“I concur. But if he does come, he’ll probably be three—no, five times as strong.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just once, a long time ago, I saw it happen. A Guide taking possession of a Noble, I mean,” the hoarse voice said wearily. “The Noble lost and the Guide won. As a result, three villages were utterly destroyed. Fatalities topped two thousand.”

“What happened to it?”

“It was taken care of.”

“By you?”

“Could be,” the hoarse voice replied evasively just as Taki began to stir behind the bars.

It was the middle of the night. In a room deep underground.

As she climbed out of bed and turned toward the Hunter, her body had a far more sensuous and alluring aura than ever before.

Why was it that women who’d been bitten by the Nobility lost all sexual inhibitions—the conclusion reached in answer to this seemingly eternal debate was that the actual sucking of blood set a woman’s libido free, amplifying the sensual possibilities of her flesh. But why from something as simple as blood drinking? There was still only one answer to that: It was unclear. However, nothing could begin to compare to the sensuousness and debauchery of a woman who’d fallen into that state once, and it was said that among the decadent artists and religious cults in the Capital, there were those who secretly called in Nobility to drink the blood of their wives or female believers so they might admire the women who plunged into the beauteous hell of that corruption.

“D,” Taki called out, pressing her face and ample bosom to the bars.

She extended a pale hand. The man she sought remained motionless, like a black mass of steel in human form.

“I’m so scared, D. Hold me!”

Though somewhat nasal, her sweet, lewd tone clung to D’s body.

“That’s funny,” the hoarse voice could be heard to say from the palm of D’s left hand.

“What is? “

“The way she’s acting. For someone who’s only been bitten once, she’s in way too deep. Why is that?”

“Why won’t you come over here?” Taki panted, eyes narrowing and mouth half open. Her red tongue wriggled in a mouth that looked upholstered in soft silk. “I’m begging you, hold me. I’m so scared and so cold. Please.”

Sliding over her chest, Taki’s left hand undid the buttons on her blouse one by one. The way she moved her hand and undid them was that of a she-beast skilled at arousing men. The alluring white swells peeked from the fabric as if they were about to burst right through it. Undoing the last button, Taki stared at D. Her expression, so filled with confidence and wanton lust, became a look of rage.

“Why won’t you hold me? Don’t you desire me? You pathetic, dickless Hunter!”

Seizing the bars with both hands, she rattled them with all her might.

“Kill . . . Kill the bastard already!”

At some point, the door behind D had opened from the outside. Two figures bounded in, firing rivet guns at D. What the lumps of iron they propelled at a thousand feet per second pierced was the hem of his coat.

Ducking, D delivered a blow to each in the shins with his still-sheathed sword, and the two of them toppled backward and stopped moving. The sheer pain had made them black out.

Taki gnashed her teeth behind the bars.

“She’s quite a piece of work. What did she do, seduce the guards outside with her voice alone? D, this isn’t normal at all.”

D looked at Taki. His eyes were deep and dark.

Taki averted her gaze.

About to say something to her, D suddenly turned his head and looked up.

“He’s here,” his left hand said.

Saying nothing, D turned his back to Taki and walked away. Securing the two guards well with wire restraints that were on hand for making arrests, he then slipped through the doorway.

Just as he was about to close the door, someone called out, “D!”

Taki’s cry was not that of a seductive harlot. And her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Save me, D!”

D turned around and closed the door.

The strength fled Taki’s lower half, leaving her hanging from the bars by just her hands. Her fingers then sadly slipped off them. The young woman’s ass hit the stone floor and she wept. Who could’ve known that it was partly out of relief? Just before he closed the door, D had responded to the girl’s lucid cries with a slight but powerful nod.

-

The moon seemed to glow a whole notch more intensely than usual. Above the trees and rocks of the courtyard, moonlight swirled like silvery clouds. D stood at the edge of a glimmering circular pond nearly in the center of the garden. That alone was enough to make both the moonlight and all the artistic sculptures shipped from the Capital pale by comparison. The wind that stirred the water’s surface ever so slightly swerved around him, embarrassed to look upon the young man’s face—at least that was the impression it gave.

Lagoon’s massive form was approaching from his establishment.

“Does it look like he’ll be coming, D?” he asked as he looked toward the gates.

“Stay inside,” the Hunter told him.

“Hey, don’t be like that. I mean, this is my land.”

“That’s why I say it.”

Blinking his eyes in surprise, Lagoon gazed intently at the emotionless Hunter and asked, “So, what do you think? Can you take him? If you like, I’ll give you some of my younger guys to help out. Not a man among them loves his life too dearly.”

“When you lose your life, it doesn’t matter whether you loved it or not,” said a strangely hoarse voice, and it caused Lagoon to involuntarily stare at the Hunter’s left hand.

“Under no circumstances are you to get involved,” D ordered him sternly.

“Okay, I follow you,” Lagoon said, still looking back and forth between D’s handsome features and his left hand as he made that reluctant nod. “The least I can do is stick around and watch you in action.”

“I said stay inside—”

“Hey, now!”

As Lagoon leapt back a good ten feet, his body gleamed with silver in the moonlight. He’d donned his armor.

“We can’t have you fanning your sword at anyone who tries doing you a favor. Hell, I might be your daddy. Huh?!”

Just then, he actually did feel the breeze of a blade narrowly missing his face. On realizing that it’d gone right through his armor, Lagoon was terrified. Cold sweat gushed from every inch of him. To think that anyone could swing a sword like that without evincing the slightest hint of murderous intent or premeditation.

“You’re a freaking monster . . . The big guy might’ve collected my seed . . . but there’s no way in hell you’re my kid!”

Putting his sword back in its scabbard with a crisp click, D headed for the entrance.

“Back then . . . I asked him a question, you see,” Lagoon continued. “I asked if he was collecting human seed to make human/Noble half-breeds. He didn’t answer, but I kept dogging him about it. Asked him if it could really work. Asked if it’d ever gone well. And then he answered me.”

D stood there like a black sculpture.

“‘There has been but one success,’” Lagoon said in a probing tone. “Hey, D, look out at the pond. My reflection’s clear as day, but yours is fuzzy. Is that a dhampir’s lot? A cross between a human and Nobility—was that you he was talking about? “

Wary of the next attack, Lagoon was already poised to leap at any second. But it never came.

A bizarre sensation froze the moonlight.

“He’s coming,” a hoarse voice informed them. “But there’s something strange here. Though I sense his presence, I can’t say just where he is . . .”

D made a quick move to the left, just in front of the gates.

The black shape of a horse with a hunched-over rider came barreling into the courtyard. In a sumptuous robe that stretched all the way to the ground and clutching a scepter in his right hand, the rider had the form of none other than Vlad Balazs. But what was on the inside?

“Is the girl down below?” said a voice that seemed to blow from the icy caverns of the northern extremes.

The tone was that of Vlad. The strength of the Noble’s will had gained control of the Guide.

“Don’t interfere! Out of my way!” he said, then added with a lick of his lips, “On second thought, stay right there. I’ll pay you back now for what you did to my arm and head. Lagoon, are you in league with this scoundrel?”

“D-don’t be ridiculous.”

The same man who hadn’t given an inch while talking with Vlad the other day at his mountain fortress had dropped his armor to stand there exposed in a show of obedience, so he likely sensed something was not the same as before.

“Well, it matters not. I’ll see to you later.”

Exhaling sharply, the rider then lined his horse up directly across from D. The barrel and legs of the black steed were covered with titanium armor.

The scepter stretched toward D—and D’s right hand reached for its shaft.

“Wait!” someone shouted, but it was unclear if it was Lagoon or the hoarse voice.

And it was at that very instant the earth rumbled.

“Did they come from below ground, too?”

Even as D realized what that cry meant, his body sank.

The black steed had gone into a charge. A flash of light ran straight under its iron-shod hooves.

Look! Vampire Hunter D’s drawing cut was a technique that all who’d witnessed spoke of—and that same skill took the horse’s forelegs off at the knee, sending them flying. As the horse thudded forward, a dazzling glint parried the moonlight as it danced out in into space.

A black cyclone flew from the ground.

Where the two men met, there was the cold ring of steel on steel, and then a splash went up from the nearby pond. The pair had dropped into the middle of it.

Lagoon ran over and prepared to throw himself into the water when he noticed something.

“Damn!” he exclaimed, dashing off in a determined fashion to the chamber where Taki slumbered.

The pond was sixty feet deep and set up so that bathing beauties could put on a show for patrons in a subterranean viewing room. But what kind of deadly battle was now being waged at the center of that normally pleasant stage? What Lagoon had seen on the moonlit surface of that pond was a deep red cloud of blood that called to mind a dark destiny.