A REPORT FROM THE DEMON CASTLE

CHAPTER 1

I

__

The ash gray clouds piled up so heavy and low they nearly touched the ground, and from time to time the purple luminescence became a thin thread stitching heaven and earth together. And each time it did, a section of the ether glowed faintly, the light fading in hue as it spread in the distance, and then vanishing again in no time. Then another section did the same. This time closer.

The light beyond the window gave General Gaskell’s face the pale glow of a saint’s.

Turning, Gaskell said, “Welcome. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Luxurious was the only way to describe the reception hall, where no expense had been spared. If an artist or archaeologist from the Capital could see it, they’d cling to the intricate wall carvings and never let go for as long as they lived.

“Such was the agreement. I’m ever so grateful to have been brought back to life,” Baron Schuma said, his tone somewhat sarcastic as he raised the wineglass he held. “So, have the others arrived yet?”

“They’re all here. You, sir, are the last of my guests.”

“My apologies. So, when is the party where you introduce us all?”

“There won’t be one.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re fond of parties, are you?”

“Why, yes.”

The baron’s crestfallen reply brought a grin from the general.

Baron Schuma wanted to gasp aloud, but he desperately fought it back. When he first saw the general, his height and the breadth of his shoulders had seemed mountainous, but now he was normal size. But as a result, his impact had increased a hundredfold. On the right half of his face was a mask of silvery steel. While battling an expeditionary force from the Capital, he’d become too enamored of the slaughter and failed to notice the coming of dawn, and as a result half of his face was exposed to light shining from between the clouds. Though there was no choice but to read his atrocious nature from the remaining half of his countenance, there was no need to even observe that for long. Just a glance made it perfectly clear. His sharply rising eyes brimmed with malevolence, his nose was curved like an eagle’s beak, and the lips below it were so thick they looked like they alone would be enough to gnaw through bone. The occasionally glimpsed fangs seemed to have enough force to stop a monster in its tracks.

“My esteemed guests won’t be meeting face to face as long as you are in my castle, or even after your goal has been achieved.”

“Why is that?”

“Because there is nothing I loathe so much as a conspiracy.”

The baron’s lips formed a grin of surprise—and irony.

Whether the general noticed that or not, he continued in the same fierce tone, “All of you have been revived and have come here due to promises made in life. Your power must be focused against our foe. However, once that’s been done, what proof do I have that all of you won’t join forces?”

“For what?”

“To destroy me and take my territory and my power.”

“But that’s—”

“Don’t tell me that’s wild speculation, Baron,” the general said, his lips twisting to leave his fangs exposed. It would’ve been enough to give a child a heart attack.

Spinning his black cape around, he stretched his right hand toward the window. Lightning flashed again.

“Where did it fall this time? Most likely near the Hunter called D. That’s probably where he is.”

“He’s something else,” the baron said, his expression growing serious. For he had squared off against D.

“There are seven Nobles to face him—that is no small number. Each is exceptionally powerful. And all of them have their sights set on my life, my position, and my property. Don’t look so surprised. If they weren’t so vicious, they’d be of no use to me.”

“Well, you may have something there,” the baron conceded. “But that would mean we’ll have to go against D one at a time.”

“Precisely.”

“Forgive me for asking, but has the general ever done battle with that young man?”

“No.”

“I thought not,” Schuma said, and as he nodded his head, his cold eyes never left Gaskell, piercing him. Before the general could say anything, the baron raised one hand and said, “I know what you’re going to tell me. However, all I wish to say is that having crossed steel with him once gives you an entirely different perspective. If you could sense the will he shows to slaughter, or better yet feel even the breeze off his blade with your fingertips, General, I believe your preconceptions would be wiped clean. If you are truly intent upon destroying him, you should have all of those you’ve summoned to your castle working in concert. Even then, I don’t know whether he would be defeated or not.”

Although the Nobleman thought an objection would hit him like the blast from a bomb, the general fell silent. He then quickly donned a wry grin and stared at the baron. Something cold crept up the baron’s neck.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. Indeed, I have no way of knowing precisely how strong our foe is.”

“This is exactly what I would expect from General Gaskell,” the baron said, but as he bowed respectfully, his heart was filled with fear of his host.

Outside the window, lightning flashed again.

__

“So, the rain came with the thirtieth, eh? Well, it’s dangerous, but there’s not much we can do about that,” Juke said, his words surviving the roar of the fierce downpour to reach the other two in the tent.

Thirty was the number of times lightning had struck.

The tent that’d been pitched beside the wagon—which was easily spacious enough to accommodate ten or more people—was of the very latest style, and it set itself up at the pull of a single cord.

“This is a hell of a situation, isn’t it? What’s this ‘drifting domain’ D’s been talking about?”

In reply to Sergei’s question, Gordo said, “I suppose it means his territory can move to and fro. So we strayed into his domain without even knowing it.”

“Then you mean to tell me we can’t get out again? No matter how far we run, his territory will move after us!”

“We’ll leave that matter to D.”

At Gordo’s reply, the eyes of all focused on the tent’s still-open door—D had gone outside to check the area around the tent. As if in response, they heard another sound echoing out beyond the noisy patter of the rain. Footsteps.

“The wire net’s been strung,” Juke said, his voice tense. “Got juice flowing through it, too. See, that’s what D said to do.”

“Those footsteps—they’re not D’s!” Gordo said, pulling the gun by his side a little closer. The click of the safety releasing rang out unpleasantly loud.

“Yeah. There’s more than one of ’em.”

As Sergei got to his feet, he carried a bulbous flamethrower in his right hand.

The group closed up the fronts of the plastic raincoats they wore and put up the hoods. Covering them up past the mouth, the suits had pressurized gas cylinders built in to supply them with oxygen. These coats were indispensable when faced with creatures that gave off radiation, or when passing through areas choked with poisonous gases.

“Here we go!”

Juke was the first one out, followed by Gordo. Sergei remained in the tent.

As soon as they stepped outside, Juke and Gordo noticed blurry figures off in the rain. There were three of them—and they were staggering closer. Women clad in rags.

Juke tried to draw up a list in his head of all the supernatural creatures that might appear on their route across the Frontier, and then stopped himself. This was General Gaskell’s domain. Everything he knew no longer applied.

“Halt!” Juke shouted when the women had come to within twenty or so feet of them.

“What’ll we do?” Gordo muttered softly.

“At any rate—halt!”

At Juke’s shout, the women stopped cold.

“Who are you?” Juke asked, drawing a bead on the second and largest of the women. From the air about her, he took it she was their leader.

“Help us!” the foremost woman cried, reaching out with both arms. Waterlogged as she was, the gesture seemed somewhat calculated.

“Sure, we’ll help you all right. Once you’ve been straight with us, that is.”

“We were locked up in that castle—Castle Gaskell. A lot of our friends are still there.”

“Why didn’t they come with you?”

“They can’t move. They’ve all been bitten.”

And as soon as she spoke, the woman swooned. All of the feelings she’d repressed had burst free at once, and the physical and psychological balance she’d barely managed to maintain collapsed completely.

“Okay—show us your throats. We don’t have any proof you girls haven’t been bitten.”

The other two brushed away the hair that clung to their skin and turned first one side of their necks and then the other to the men. The pale flesh of both was free from injury.

“Okay, you check out,” Gordo said with apparent relish. Though he didn’t know exactly who these ladies were, they were young, curvaceous, and particularly attractive, which was wonderful since they didn’t have the mark of the vampire.

“Now, come right in! Don’t be shy!” Gordo told them in a leisurely manner in keeping with his nature.

Not surprisingly, Juke ordered him, “Check out the neck of the one that fell, too.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” Gordo said, quickly going over to the young woman for a look at her throat. “No freaking wounds. She’s okay, I—”

But even with these words, Juke’s expression lost none of its hardness.

“These are dangerous times. It’s easy enough to hypnotize yourself so you’ll have amnesia or take on a different personality. I’ve even heard you can make fang marks disappear,” he said.

“Then what should we do?” asked Gordo.

Still inside the tent, Sergei hadn’t made a move.

“There’s only one way to find out for sure if someone’s a vampire. And it’s easy, at that.”

“How do you do it?”

“With this!”

Juke’s hand flashed down to his belt, and a second later he pulled out something deep red. A crimson rose.

The women looked at each other.

“This is the result of the latest research in the Capital. It’s just an ordinary flower that blooms all over the place, but if anyone with Noble blood touches it, it’s supposed to wilt in seconds.”

Bending over the fallen woman, Juke set the flower down on the nape of her neck.

__

II

__

Thunder rang out in the distance.

It couldn’t have taken even three seconds for the crimson petals to lose their hue and wither away.

In his hand, Juke gripped a steel knife with a blade more than a foot long. As he bent over once more, he used the motion to bring down the knife at the same time.

The pale hand that shot up from below caught hold of his wrist—it was the young lady, who’d flipped over faster than the eye could follow. Her slanting eyes gave off a malevolent blood light, a pair of fangs protruded from her vermilion lips . . . and her pretty face had become that of a veritable demon.

Agony twisted Juke’s features, and from the wrist up the limb she clutched turned a deep purple.

If you get into a fight with a Noble, run. Failing that, don’t let them catch you—this saying was a perfect testimony to the brute strength they possessed. They could tear the limbs off a human in the span of a breath.

“Juke!”

“Keep your eyes on the women!” Juke yelled back, swinging the gunpowder rifle in his left hand toward his own right hand.

A roar shook the heavens, and an orange gout of flame blew away the right hand—of the woman.

Juke took a massive leap back, the gun in his left hand bellowing once more. The woman had bounded as if the pain of her right hand meant nothing, but then her head blew apart, scattering contents the same hue as those of a watermelon.

Wielding a rifle with a serious kick with just his left hand and still hitting her square in the head would’ve been a difficult feat for even an expert marksman. Juke must’ve trained till his hands bled.

“How about those two?” Juke said, his expression distorted by pain as he brought his gun to bear on the remaining women.

“Can’t say—but it looks like they’re okay,” Gordo replied.

“Come here. Scratch that—Sergei!” Juke called out, his eyes trained all the while on the women who looked frozen with fright.

Poking his head from the tent, Sergei too had a gun pointed at the visitors. Having read the situation from inside the tent was quite an accomplishment.

“Don’t take your eyes off these women. Gordo, there are some red capsules in the pouch on the back of my belt. Right near the middle. Take two and crack ’em open with your nails.”

Gordo swiftly went behind the other man and opened the flap on the pouch on his belt—it was crammed full of capsules and glass ampoules large and small. He soon located the crimson capsules. Pressing his finger down on one end of them, he pulled. Each capsule was transformed into a crimson rose. Apparently they’d undergone some manner of compression.

Without a word, Gordo threw them at the two women. Both struck them near the waist before falling. And as they fell, they decayed.

Baring their fangs, the woman attacked. Three guns belched fire. With blood streaming from where their heads had been, the women’s bodies dropped in the grass. The verdure changed to vermilion.

“Wonder if they can come back?” Gordo said.

“Their heads were taken off. Look at that!” Sergei said, pointing to where the women’s corpses were collapsing in on themselves.

“That’ll work!” he declared with a nod before adding, “Hey, Juke—what do you wanna do?”

But when Gordo turned to look, the other man’s eyes were lower than he’d expected. He raced over to Juke, who was now on his knees.

“What’s wrong?”

“My hand—”

Juke’s right hand was black and swollen. The cause was immediately apparent. The fingers of another hand were digging into his wrist—those of the woman’s severed limb.

“Goddamn freak!” Gordo spat, pulling the machete from his boot. With movements far more meticulous than would be expected from such a crude weapon, he chopped off the woman’s fingers. Though the hand fell to the ground, the fingers wouldn’t let go.

“She’s a persistent bitch, ain’t she?” Gordo said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Would you let me handle this?” Sergei said, having silently observed the situation up until now. He had a look in his eyes like he was watching something freakish.

“Is there anything that can be done?”

“I read something in a book. This is what they call ‘the nails of the dead.’ Once they dig into someone, they won’t let go until that person’s dead.”

“Can’t we try something?” Juke asked this time. His complexion was nearly ashen.

“Yeah. I don’t have time to explain, though. Will you leave it to me?”

“Good enough.”

“Hey, wouldn’t it just be quicker to cut his arm off?” Gordo asked, leaning forward. It might’ve sounded absurd, but the code of the Frontier said that losing an arm was preferable to dying.

Juke looked up at Sergei. “How about it?”

“If all goes well, we can get through this without taking your arm off,” Sergei replied, but his expression seemed somewhat lacking in confidence.

“Okay, then it’s in your hands,” Juke said flatly.

“Hey, are you sure about this?” Gordo said, eyes bulging.

Ignoring him, Juke said, “You always have been the scholarly one, haven’t you? I don’t know if you’re cut out for doctoring, but do what you can. Don’t leave me with one arm.”

“Understood. Just relax,” Sergei told him, his chest puffing. Now he was ready, too.

__

It was just after they’d carried Juke into the tent that D came back. Sergei explained the situation.

“Good enough,” D said, deciding to stand back and watch what could only be described as a questionable operation.

“D—you’ve gotta know something about these ‘nails of the dead,’ too. From what I’ve seen, this guy’s a complete piker. I haven’t a clue whether trusting him to do this is the right thing to do or not. Tell me what to do.”

“My job is finding and killing Nobles.”

Perhaps he simply meant Juke’s operation neither impacted nor interested him.

“Oh, you’re a cold one,” Gordo grumbled roughly.

“That’s only right,” Juke called out, as if to soothe his colleague from where he was strapped down to the table. “Just you wait and see. Hell, I’ll be better in no time. I’ve got a good doctor here.”

And after he’d spoken he inquired, “Is this Gaskell’s territory after all?”

“That’s right,” D said.

“So the area will be crawling with monsters he released. Damn it all!” Gordo said, slapping his gun.

But Sergei told him, “No, actually there should hardly be any.”

“How come?” Gordo snarled.

“He’s right,” D said softly. “Gaskell hated monsters. It seems that when creatures the other Nobles had spawned wandered into his territory, he slew them mercilessly, and then sent their remains back to their masters. The reason his battle against the Capital was such a lonely one was because he had no allies.”

“What a piece of work. So, you mean to tell me there were some who were even hated by their fellow Nobles?” Gordo said, tilting his head to one side.

The general consensus was that the Nobility had prided itself on a monolithic unity.

“But just now—” Gordo began, going on to relate the tale of the vampire women.

“If they were humanoid in shape, that was a different matter. Especially if they were female.”

“Say what? So, you mean to tell me he’s just a horny bastard?”

“Could be,” D said. Because it came in his usual tone, Gordo and Sergei couldn’t hold in their laughter, and even Juke grinned wryly on the table.

“No, it’s a fact,” Sergei said as he began laying the contents of his own personal medical kit out on the table. “The more you look at General Gaskell, the more you see what a unique individual he was. Actually, when they take a survey of those studying the ancient Nobility, he always comes in second for ‘Noble of interest,’ with third place not even coming close. And that’s not all. In the category of ‘Noble you’d most like to meet’ he also comes in second every time. Incidentally, there isn’t even a third place for that one. No one even wants to see any other Nobility.”

“Second place with a bullet, eh? Who got first?” Juke inquired in a low tone. It was immediately apparent he was fighting back pain.

Trying to keep his own expression from looking strained, Sergei answered, “The Sacred Ancestor in both cases.”

Seeming to accept that, Juke said, “I might’ve known. But he went to war with the Capital, which acted on the Sacred Ancestor’s will. Were they on bad terms or something?”

“No, every book on the subject says they were amicable.”

“Then those worthless books belong in the trash,” Gordo spat.

Just then, an unpleasant sound escaped Juke’s throat and his entire body went into convulsions.

“Damn—‘the poison of the dead’ has reached his heart. It’s going too fast,” Sergei said, worrying his lip.

“Do something, you damn quack. If not, I’m gonna—”

“Shut up!” Sergei shouted, his eyes closed. Quickly opening them, he pulled two bottles out of his medicine case, took a high-pressure injector out of the autoclave, and filled it with liquid from both bottles. The swift and steady movements of his hands left Gordo gazing at his profile in amazement. Without even a momentary pause Sergei pressed the tip of a drug-filled syringe into the vein in Juke’s left arm, and less than two seconds after the high-pressure piston went into action the agony drained from the man’s face. His sharp, shallow breaths quickly returned to normal.

Bringing away the hand that’d been checking the man’s pulse, Sergei let out a deep breath and said, “That should hold him for the time being.” Apparently the breath wasn’t one of relief. “However, since it’s reached his heart, there’s nothing more I can do for him. So—”

As his colleague was about to sink into a sea of his own distress, Gordo hurled his rage at him like a boulder. “Then wouldn’t we have been better off taking his arm off from the start? Well?”

Sergei gave a firm shake of his head. “At that point, it wouldn’t have mattered. But the poison spreading that fast—that was my mistake.”

“If we could all get away with calling everything a mistake, we wouldn’t need lawmen!” Gordo said, recalling an old saying. “So, what did you plan on doing? We lose even one man now and we’ll be in a world of trouble. There’s a ton of folks out there waiting for us to deliver our goods.”

“There is a way,” said Sergei.

“Oh, really?”

“There’s a kind of herb that has the same components as the antidote for the poison of the dead. If we could get hold of some—but at this rate, Juke might only last a day.”

“Where is it? Smack dab in the middle of the garden at Gaskell’s castle?”

“It’s in the middle of the inner courtyard at Gaskell’s castle.”

Gordo’s eyes bugged out.

“Sorry, but you two will have to look after Juke. I’ll go get it,” said Sergei.

“Oh, my!” a voice from the vicinity of D’s left hand exclaimed, but no one noticed.

“Are you an idiot or something? Just how in the hell do you plan on tackling the second most popular Noble? You’re not a reporter from the Capital going up there for an interview, you know!”

“I’ll think of something along the way, I suppose.”

“You’ll just lose another man,” D said, his words drawing the eyes of both men.

“But at this rate—”

“Rosaria’s also at Gaskell’s castle. If I get the herb for the antidote and destroy Gaskell, that’ll be the end of all of this.”

“Uh, I suppose so,” Gordo conceded with a reluctant nod.

“Hire me.”

“What?”

Though the turbaned man was astonished, Sergei’s face was suffused with joy. “That’s right—we’ve got D here. The greatest Vampire Hunter on the whole Frontier!”

“Damn straight,” said the feeble voice that drifted off the table.

“Juke?”

Juke still wore an intense expression on his face as he said, “You gotta . . . save the girl . . . and me, too . . . I’m begging you . . . In payment . . . I’ll give you my full wages from this run . . . How about it?”

“Make it the wages for all three of you,” a hoarse voice demanded.

The eyes of the other two went wide, but they responded soon enough.

“Hell, you got it.”

“We’re counting on you, D!”

And having been invested with their full trust, the Hunter said, “I’ve got one whole day, till noon tomorrow—but you two may have the harder part of this.”

The sound of rain mixed with D’s words.

__

III

__

Because many of the Nobility’s castles were based on those from Europe in the Middle Ages, the lay of the land and placement of the defenses could largely be determined by reading old plans and picture scrolls. During the millennia-spanning Human-Noble War, the human side had been served best during its daytime assaults by three-dimensional schematics created by analyzing those medieval strongholds. Years later, they were printed in a cheap paperback edition and distributed across the whole Frontier, and D kept a copy of this volume in his saddlebags.

Soon after he’d left the tent the rain had abated, but flashes of lightning occasionally lent the leaden sky a bluish tint.

When he took the book out and was about to flip through its pages, the hoarse voice needled him, saying, “Gaskell’s castle ain’t in there. That’s one strange man, all right. Never attended any gatherings of the Nobility, never called any either, just kept above it all. Maybe that was why the Sacred Ancestor took a shine to him. Gaskell’s eccentric behavior was most likely the Sacred Ancestor’s—”

As if to cut short a long-winded discourse, D asked, “How do we get in?”

Even without blueprints, the source of the hoarse voice apparently knew something.

The answer came quickly: “It’s no use. Its defenses were tight as a drum. No doubt they still are.”

Saying nothing, D tugged on the reins. His cyborg horse advanced through a bottleneck in the rocky mountains.

“So, you’re going right up to the front door after all? You’re a reckless cuss. That’s precisely what Gaskell wants!”

However, contrary to the left hand’s expectations, not a single attack came from the mountain fortress that loomed beneath the dark clouds. Had the general not taken notice, or was he simply going to draw them inside before tearing into them?

Through a world of thunder and lightning that would give pause even to one possessing greater-than-average courage, a young man of unearthly beauty rode in silence on his steed. The road remained a shabby, rock-strewn mess, but the way the Hunter handled his mount, he’d undoubtedly reach the castle in a quarter of the usual time—or in about two hours.

__

The interior of the castle was swimming in unrest. D’s approach was being transmitted via countless holographs and three-dimensional monitors to the guests who’d been called there that day.

“Oh, how beautiful!”

“Who’d believe he was a Hunter?”

While some innocently expressed their admiration, others expressed more violent views.

“He came to us all alone? This stripling is far too overconfident. I need no assistance. I shall tear him to ribbons and feed his entrails to the crows!”

Not surprisingly, in all of the conversations no one remained a voice of moderation, though one person did suggest, “Shall I go out and test him a bit before he arrives here?”

“Grand Duke Mehmet?” General Gaskell responded.

“Correct, milord. Why, this stripling has no more to offer than his good looks—though he is truly gorgeous. The very notion of him being a Hunter is ridiculous. He may be good, but he can’t be any more than a young upstart who’s slain two or three bumpkin Nobility. Once I’ve torn off one of his arms, he’s bound to scamper away with his tail between his legs.”

“I hope so, but that’s the same man who bested Major General Gillis.”

That was the name of the person in the darkness who’d fled from his battle with D.

“Well, that was Gillis. I, Mehmet, won’t allow such a shocking spectacle to be made of myself. I should like your permission to go toy with him a bit. Thanks to you, General, we’re able to walk in the sunlight, but the Noble blood that courses through him should leave him reluctant to do battle by day.”

“It isn’t my power that allows you to walk in the light of day,” the general spat. “But by the look of things, it is the power of his own blood that allows him to do so. Grand Duke Mehmet, wait here patiently for his arrival. Though he’s hardly a match for you, there’s no need to get flustered about this. He’s a strange young man.”

Grand Duke Mehmet didn’t conceal the snicker in his voice as he said, “The great General Gaskell. Was it only two centuries ago that we trembled at your reputation?”

“General,” a different voice called out. That of a woman . . . and surely she was lovely and young. A heavenly beauty. “Allow Grand Duke Mehmet to go.”

Her voice, which had what some might call a supple ring to it, hinted at thorns that would make anyone’s eyes go wide.

“Madame Laurencin, is it?” General Gaskell said, his voice carrying a trace of fear. “I don’t know about that.”

“General, you couldn’t possibly be afraid of that young man, could you?” Madame Laurencin said, her voice carrying cool laughter.

“Don’t be ridiculous. In my lifetime, there was no end to the number of fools who tried to get into this castle and take my head. Although I spotted all of them well before the fact, I never let any of them be killed before they reached the castle. Each and every one was invited into the forecourt, where they were treated to my own special brand of hospitality. Not one of them made it in any further. That is the way I do things. And I will hear no objections to it.”

His declaration was firm. Every one of the voices opted for silence.

After confirming as much, the general said, “Madame Laurencin, I have a request for you, my good lady.”

“Oh, me? It’s an honor, milord. Simply say the word,” she replied in a voice that made it easy to picture how lovely she’d look with the hem of her dress spreading across the floor like the tail of a peacock.

“I’ve abducted a certain young lady. One of those whom the lowly humans refer to as a victim. I should like you to take charge of her.”

“Why do you ask this, milord?”

“The fact of the matter is, I myself don’t fully understand why it is that I took the girl.”

This conversation was of the utmost secrecy and didn’t reach the ears of anyone aside from the two of them.

“You told me yourself but a few hours ago that you would make her an addition to your clan, General.”

“My intent was to make her an addition—it would seem.”

Madame Laurencin’s voice fell silent for a while. “So, you brought her to this castle without even knowing why?” she finally asked.

“At first, I thought it was to restrict D’s movements. However, it seems that such is not the case.”

“It seems? General, do you not understand the reason for your own actions?”

“Actually, yes.”

The Noblewoman was at a loss for words.

“I say this to you alone, milady. Why was I brought back to life?”

Silence descended on a universe of amazement. The general had just stated quite plainly that all of his actions were guided by memories the Sacred Ancestor had imparted to him.

“There’s only one reason that I know of at present.”

“What might that be?” After a brief pause, the Noblewoman continued, “How incredible. Could he really be so formidable?” Her amazement was tinged with just a hint of rapture.

__

There was no need for D to halt his horse when he reached the castle gates. Studded with black hobnails, the great iron doors made an unspoken threat that things would only get worse as they split down the middle and swung open. Not hesitating in the slightest, D rode in.

“Impressive,” said the female voice that rang out as the gates shut themselves behind D and the Hunter continued on into the center of the forecourt garden.

While no expense had been spared, there wasn’t a trace of the medieval castle garden that had served as its model. Enormous trees had merely been planted haphazardly, turf had been laid, and a cobblestone path put through it, giving it a certain bluntness. It was clear at a glance: This was the castle of a soldier. More than anything, what caught the viewer’s eye were the fanglike castle walls, the countless arrow slits and loopholes for guns, the prism sights of heat rays concealed in innocuous-looking statues of beasts, and the murderous intent of wind-pressure sensors standing in a far-too-insistent gale.

“My name is Madame Laurencin. I’m one of those who were called here,” she said, her voice like a blossom—a blossom made of ice. “General Gaskell intended to meet you himself, but I managed to coax him into allowing me a taste of you first. Therefore, if you wish to go any further, you shall have to slay me first. The young lady you seek is in my custody.”

“Where is she?” D asked as he looked up at the sky, which had begun to take on a richer blue.

“On the top floor of the eastern tower—for what it’s worth. Getting to those stairs will prove no easy task. Not the sort of thing a lowly Hunter of Nobility could achieve as long as he lived.”

Saying nothing, D continued forward. Here and there he spied the paths that led from the spacious forecourt to the various gardens in different parts of the castle.

“This was all for naught,” Madame Laurencin sneered. “Lasers, strike him down.”

Murderous intent coalesced in the devices in the forecourt.

D advanced mutely. The blue pendant on his chest was giving off a dazzling light.

“What’s wrong? Shoot him!” the Noblewoman cried, her voice full of surprise and anger. But it quickly became a spiteful laugh. “It would seem our machines are malfunctioning. In that case, how does this suit you?”

Suddenly, the scene in the forecourt shifted. The location of the trees and path remained the same, but everything was tinged vermilion. The ground and the castle walls were all coated with fresh blood—in fact, the ground couldn’t even be seen. Mounds of countless corpses filled D’s surroundings. The remains were those of fallen soldiers wearing helmets and armor and carrying longswords and chemical pistols. How many days had passed since the lifeblood had flowed from those bodies with their chests gouged, throats split, or heads torn off?

A maddening stench filled the forecourt. Those corpses at the bottom of the heap had already putrefied, the eyeballs rolling out on strings of goo and insects working the flesh free from the bones—it seemed that even the blue sky overhead would be corrupted by this rank scene, with its foul miasma and eye-watering stink.

But there were still some who would describe this tableau as beautiful, due solely to the presence of the young man in black astride his steed. All the ugliness and brutality of death was erased by D’s good looks. Before this young man, would death itself not blush?

The dead and their blood began to lose their color unexpectedly. As they lost their shape and hue, the stone walls and sculptures of the present became visible right through them, and in no time the scene was that of the garden where D had started.

“You possess a mysterious power,” Madame Laurencin remarked. This time her tone was much livelier and the direction was clear.

D’s face rose slightly. Thirty feet remained until the gate leading to the central courtyard. Atop the gatehouse, a lovely woman in a long white gown was looking down at him. Naturally, her visage was elegantly beautiful, but her skin in particular was every bit as stark white and smooth as her dress. Between fingers wrapped in long white gloves, a delicate pipe crafted from ivory let off swirls of purplish tobacco smoke.

“I am Madame Laurencin. And you are—D.”

From the black-gloved hand that gripped the reins, a voice whispered, “This Noblewoman was destroyed three thousand years ago! How interesting. She was so wicked and cruel, the Sacred Ancestor himself presided over her trial before carving her heart out. Looks like nothing but rebels have gathered here.”

“It would seem that the source of your power lies in that pendant and your left hand,” the woman said, grinning as if she’d found him out. From between her vermilion lips, there poked a pair of pearly fangs.