CHAPTER 4

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I

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The eyes of three fearful faces were glued to the faces of three others who weren’t quite human. Gathered around the kitchen table were D, Count Braujou, and Duchess Miranda—and across from them, Adele Dyalhis sat alone. In terms of sheer might, the group had her outgunned to a surreal degree, although these three weren’t foes of her or her children.

Matthew and Sue stood side by side in the doorway leading to the living room, and just like their mother, they wore expressions that were a mixture of terror and courageousness—but the odd tinge of infatuation was due to the gorgeous Hunter, who stood closer than the others to the siblings.

Both of them knew his name. His legendary skill with a sword had been branded into their hearts and minds with the unrivaled fire of a child’s imagination. However, more than that, there was something else that made their hearts beat faster—his great beauty. Even someone who looked as exquisite and alluring as Duchess Miranda in the moonlight couldn’t begin to compare to him. He was in an entirely different class. Though the children weren’t staring, even a brief glance at him made their minds melt, and the world began to distort around them. D’s good looks were so intense that Matthew and Sue lost all knowledge of ugliness. Count Braujou seemed unmoved by his presence, but when D ordered the giant and the duchess—who was the very epitome of the Nobility—to discuss matters inside, the latter had frowned but complied, and the humans had to wonder if that complicity hadn’t been due to the Hunter’s beauty.

Their rapture was so great, the children nearly forgot the shocking and horrifying truths that Count Braujou and Miranda had shared with them by turns—as did Adele. With her pride and her sense of maternal duty to consider, she barely managed to keep her eyes off D’s handsome features and maintain her right state of mind, but her tightly clenched hands kept the front of the robe she wore over a fresh shirt closed. When D had appeared, her chest had been completely exposed. Perhaps it was on account of her embarrassment that she was able to exhibit a normal reaction to the Nobles’ tale.

The fearful truth that besieged her and her children in the middle of the night was the tale of a Noble who’d returned from the stars.

-

Five thousand years ago, the entire northern Frontier, as well as the eastern and western sectors, had been under the control of a single Noble: Lawrence Valcua.

“They called him the Ultimate Noble,” Count Braujou said, and though his expression could usually be described as rather mild, at that moment he looked like the devil himself. “A Noble among Nobles, he was one of the Greater Nobility, and no one dared challenge his power, his fortune, or his rank—he’d truly attained everything befitting someone of that title.”

Though many Nobles loathed serving in the Frontier sectors, he’d actively pursued such duties, converting a castle from a mysterious and ancient human culture in the northern extreme of the very worst part of the Frontier, creating fortifications to lay claim to half of the northern Frontier, and then making a grab for the domains of other Nobles in the east, west, and south. Naturally, fighting ensued, but those overseeing the east and west were routed in less than fifty years. Only a band of Nobility in the south offered him stubborn resistance.

“That was Miranda’s husband, Duke Harness; the great General Gaskell; and I. Though it pains me to admit it, none of us had a chance alone. In addition to his physical strength, he had the ability to construct bizarre and devastating weapons, and he had retainers who were far more powerful than we were. I can’t completely disregard the rumors that he was related to the Sacred Ancestor. After he was exiled, the person in charge of learning the principles behind the machines and armaments that remained became so engrossed he forgot to eat or sleep, until he finally went mad and ran into the sunlight. No one could imagine why Valcua created such things. All we do know is that he had an insane hatred toward every living person, human or Noble. And something served to reveal all the evil he’d kept hidden inside himself. You see, beneath his castle, they discovered the remains of five million humans and Nobles who’d been murdered in every manner imaginable.”

“Your memory must be failing you, Count Braujou,” Duchess Miranda said, her voice tapering off into what seemed to be laughter. “The corpses only numbered four million; the remaining million still lived. At least, they still lived as severed heads or disembodied hearts. A single tube from a store of life-preserving drugs in an unseen tank that was said to exist in the fourth dimension kept them from dying. Moreover, the drugs contained vast quantities of painkillers and nanomachines to prevent death or madness, and they also provided an ‘alternate reality’ that would make the psyche succumb to the most extreme isolation and despair. It was for this reason that Lawrence Valcua was dubbed the Ultimate Noble.”

But even Valcua found himself challenged by the combined might of the three forces from the south, and the battle stretched on for a thousand years. The Frontier was transformed into a wasteland, bloody rains created rivers and lakes of gore, battles with hex technology corrupted the earth down to the very magma core, and only a “dream” Duchess Miranda gave it left the land capable of sustaining life.

“Ah, what a time that was! It was the anniversary of an ancient holiday. We’d already tapped the power of magma and the ley lines to give Valcua a black eye, but we never imagined he’d pay us back with a shooting star.”

His missiles were small, metallic meteors summoned by remote control from an asteroid belt two hundred million miles from Earth. Moving at fifteen miles per second when they hit the atmosphere, the five hundred meteorites were greeted with fire from space cannons, but one of them managed to make it through the defensive net and strike the very center of the Frontier. For three hundred miles in all directions the ground rose up to the heavens, mountains vanished, and seas boiled away. The dead numbered thirty million.

This incident caused such fervor among the Nobility that an inquest was held to find out why the meteorite hadn’t been detected beforehand. The conclusion they reached was a simple one. Composed largely of darkness and radiation, outer space was something the Nobility loved like it was their own parent. It had never occurred to them that the majestic void might betray them, so they hadn’t seen any reason to keep an eye on the heavens. Who would dare to probe the secrets of their beloved parent’s heart?

However, they began to scrutinize space much more closely, and just five days later, they discovered a meteor six thousand miles in diameter—actually, a planet—flying toward Earth. Based on its shape and speed, they discovered this was one of the planetoids that orbited Alpha Centauri, and there was no way to stop it on such short notice. Not only had the Ultimate Noble managed to wrest a celestial body from its orbit in another solar system, he was also able to use it in a plan to wipe out another planet.

The black arms of despair embraced the three Nobles.

That’s when it happened.

“The Sacred Ancestor stepped forward. It was unclear how the planetoid had evaded the immutable laws of the universe to travel to within five million miles of Earth, but it suddenly changed direction and flew off into the depths of space. In a sense, we were still numb from having to accept our own imminent extinction, but then the Sacred Ancestor commanded us to take Lawrence Valcua alive.”

The greatest mystery of Earth’s near destruction five millennia earlier was that on the day in question, Valcua was back in his own castle having a banquet with lakes of alcohol and mountains of meat. Perhaps he had some means of escaping. However, when the three Nobles entered his castle without even a single soldier to accompany them, he was there to face them all alone in a great hall.

Nothing could match the ghastliness of a battle to the death between immortal Nobles, but Duke Harness was ultimately slain, and General Gaskell was wounded. Even the intrepid and resolute Count Braujou knew that his end was near, but just then a solitary human figure appeared through the same hole the three Nobles had used to make their entry, the pair of swords he carried forming a cross that he pressed toward Valcua’s forehead.

“Like this, you see,” the count said, reenacting the gesture with his fingers even as he averted his gaze. “That shape troubles us like no other. But realizing that makes it fade completely from a human’s memory—and I see you’ve already forgotten it, haven’t you? Before that simple sign, the Ultimate Noble would be no different from any Lesser Noble. The same would probably even be true for the Sacred Ancestor—at any rate, when it was pressed against Valcua’s forehead, he fell back, whereupon Gaskell and I seized him with a most disagreeable ease and left the castle by the same way we’d gone in.”

At this point, the count gazed quietly at Adele and her two children.

“That brave human was a man who’d been imprisoned in Valcua’s castle as a test subject but had managed to escape. Finding him by the side of the road suffering from a stomachache, I’d given him some medicine. I don’t know why I did that, but I suppose it may have been because I thought I was going to my destruction. He thanked me and said he’d be sure to return the favor. We simply laughed and said in that case, he should go with us to Valcua’s castle. After that, we didn’t give him another thought. But he didn’t forget the promise he’d made.

“When it came time to part company with him at the edge of Valcua’s domain, we wished to reward the man, so we asked him what he wanted. He thought for a little while, and then told us he had the ability to see the future. It rarely manifested itself, and because of this he was bound to end his days as a poor wandering scholar, but it was this same ability that had shown him the trick with the swords he’d used to repel Valcua earlier. Now, strangely enough, it had shown him another vision of a star falling to Earth. Undoubtedly that was to mean that after Valcua had been exiled to space, he’d return at some unknown date. If the two of us still lived when he did, the man asked that we protect his family or their descendants. We agreed to that. And when, just as he’d said, the Sacred Ancestor didn’t drive a stake through Valcua’s heart but rather sentenced him to exile in the vastness of space, we came to believe that the Ultimate Noble would indeed return.

“And now Lawrence Valcua has come back and our battle has begun again. You see, we must honor our oath to protect the descendants of the brave human who saved us by keeping his own word. That bastard Valcua left us with a threat. I won’t forget this. Mark my words. I will return to wreak a bloody vengeance the likes of which the devil himself could scarcely imagine on the two of you, and Harness’s family. And of course I won’t overlook the descendants of that meddling little human.”

Adele had turned to stone, but at this point she finally opened her mouth to ask, “Who was he?”

“He said his name was Winslow Dyalhis. And though it feels like it was just yesterday that I met him, I don’t doubt he was your ancestor from five millennia ago.”

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II

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Count Braujou’s assessment was correct—if not, there would be no accounting for the weird events of that very night. Though the man was an ancestor of theirs from five thousand years earlier, it was an incredibly long time ago, and they couldn’t recall ever hearing his name before. The Nobleman so tall he looked likely to go through the ceiling and the coldly amiable Noblewoman said that on account of their promise to that man, they would protect his family from the Ultimate Noble and his forces. Adele had the feeling that her family would have been far better off if none of the Nobles had come to save them.

Once the fantastic story had been told, Adele said, “I can’t quite wrap my head around it.”

Apparently the three visitors had expected such a reaction.

“That’s hardly a surprise. However, it’s all true. Take the spider man I fought in the stratosphere, or the water witch who pierced Duchess Miranda through the heart. I think it’s safe to say there are other fiends besides them who are after your family. And they’ve already slain the great General Gaskell. I’m not surprised that you doubt the truth of this, but your children are also in danger.”

The count’s words jabbed Adele in her weak point. After some contemplation, she nodded and said, “I see. But what should we do?”

“To start, you have to get out of here.”

“Leave our farm? But . . .”

“If you were to stay isolated with your children, it’d be akin to standing naked in the wilderness with arms spread wide to welcome the hungry wolves that prowl there.”

“But this is . . .” Adele wanted to shout at them, this is all I have to show for a decade of hard work, but she choked it back.

Her husband had been there for the first three years. He’d been a hard worker and the strongest guy in the neighborhood. Tilling the soil, he’d planted so much that when the right season came, they had more milk whistle grass and giant apples than anyone else. In winter, her husband went out hunting. So good with a long spear that he’d never been beaten at the village carnival, he’d taken down a number of the subterranean bull beasts and needle fiends that even professional huntsmen steered clear of, much to the astonishment of butchers and fur traders who called on the village. Gazing at the sweat glistening on her husband’s muscles as he worked the plow, Adele always had been reminded of his reliability.

One day ten years earlier, a bar had opened in the village. It was an establishment from up north, and their idiotic mayor had invited them to set up shop there in hopes of making their town more appealing. If it had provided only alcohol, that would’ve been one thing, but with it came gaudy costumes, coquettish voices, and youthful bodies that capitalized on the vulgar atmosphere. Her husband had gone into town to sell their crops, and after that he started to find more and more reasons to head out, until before long he stopped coming back. She didn’t know how many of the bar’s women he’d been involved with by now.

At first, the villagers and Adele’s neighbors—who lived a couple of miles away—had blamed the women who worked in the bar, but before long the blame shifted to her husband. Adele didn’t know how many times she or her children had gone to a woman’s room that reeked of face powder and cheap perfume and asked if Baird would come home. That’s fine by me, a heavily painted face had always sneered, but not by him. According to the villagers, her husband hung around the woman’s room all day. On the few occasions when he did go outside, he begged his acquaintances for change so he could buy himself a drink.

Adele hadn’t left him to his own devices. She’d shaken him awake in that woman’s bed, knocked him senseless with the butt of a rifle, and hauled him home against his will. But it was no use. When she saw him hit Matthew with a whip when the boy followed him in tears, something had vanished from Adele’s heart. She got the feeling it was the smile her husband had worn with Sue on his shoulders, or giving a huge, freshly picked apple to his son, or the sight of his powerful back as he’d washed away the sweat of a day’s labor on the farm with a bath in a steel drum.

From that day, Adele decided she would raise her children on her own. She’d hired men to work there time and again. Every time she did, they always ended up trying to sneak into her bed at night, and she had to get rid of them. Eventually, she abandoned that idea altogether.

But she already had a good man around. Although there was no way the seven-year-old could take her husband’s place, he grew up watching his mother in action. The weight of a hoe had made him stagger, but three years later he started doing the tougher work in the fields, and when three more years had passed, Adele realized she no longer had to do the hardest jobs. She remembered how she stood alone in the kitchen that night, staring down at her hands—big, tough hands. When she snapped a finger against the palm of one hand, it made a hard sound. Thinking of how these were the same hands that had once picked flowers to adorn the house every day, she was terribly embarrassed of their roughness. When a hand reached around her left side and gently took hers, she wasn’t quite sure what was happening. It was the hand of a young man. Far softer than Adele’s, it was still strong. That was the first time Adele realized her son was thirteen years old, almost full grown.

After that, Adele went out to work in the fields less and less, but Sue acquired a variety of skills in her place. When the two siblings came back from the fields, the table was laid with the kind of dishes that made their neighbors arrange to pass by at the right time to catch a whiff of them on the breeze, and the children’s torn clothing would be patched up by the next morning and hanging out on the clothesline with the sweet smell of soap. Someday her kids were bound to leave, but Adele consoled herself knowing these serene days would continue for a while yet.

But now she found herself sitting across the table from three Nobles (technically, one was only half Noble), discussing the situation. And they were telling Adele and her children that the hard and impoverished days, days that still had merit, were now at an end. She wanted to slam her hands down on the table and tell them, No! Why are you here? You bust in on a family and take it upon yourself to tell them it’s all over. And what’s the reason for all this? A promise you made one of their ancestors five thousand years ago! You tell them to get off their farm as soon as they can . . .

“I see,” Adele said once more, again getting the feeling she was losing something. “Pack your things, kids. It’s gonna be a long trip.”

Upon hearing these words, Matthew’s and Sue’s faces clouded. They wanted to scream and shout even more than Adele did. Nevertheless, the two of them responded, “Yes, ma’am.” For they’d already learned that life was all about dealing with the cheap shots fate could deliver unexpectedly.

Matthew was about to turn and walk through the doorway when he looked back and asked, “Mom—what’ll we do about Dad?”

“I don’t think we can just abandon him. Come daybreak, we’ll go get him. So, where is it we’re headed, anyway?”

“The central Frontier,” the count said.

“Central? I didn’t think there was such a place,” Matthew remarked, furrowing his brow.

Adele told him, “There was, a long time ago. Now it’s been nibbled away by the sectors to the north, south, east, and west, and largely forgotten, but part of it still remains. But what’s out there?”

The duchess provided the answer.

“The fortress we constructed,” she said. “Expecting that this day would come, we spent two millennia building a stronghold of unparalleled security. You should be thankful. All this has been done for you.”

“It’s not like I asked you to,” Adele said, and her flippant remark made the duchess raise her eyebrows. “The next time you say anything patronizing like that, we’re striking out on our own. I’ll thank you to keep that in mind. I wanna be perfectly clear that we still don’t trust the lot of you.”

“My, my,” the pale beauty replied with a sigh that made her shoulders fall. “It would seem five thousand years is more than enough time for humanity to grow ungrateful. In that case, I have something to tell you as well. From the very beginning, I’ve been opposed to showing you any mercy. If your ancestor hadn’t tried to meddle in our affairs, I believe my husband would still be alive. I’m only here to honor the ridiculous promise my husband’s allies made. Valcua is after me, too. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have been the least bit concerned about what happened to you. I would’ve remained in my own domain preparing my castle for attack. If you want to run from us, be my guest. The sooner you do, the happier I shall be. But don’t think we’ll be coming to rescue you again.”

The two women glared at each other with fire in their eyes. Matthew and Sue were frozen, and even Count Braujou wore a wry grin.

But just then, a voice said, “Someone’s coming.”

The count and Miranda, to say nothing of the three humans, couldn’t hide their surprise. That voice hadn’t come from where they thought it should. The young man in black was looking out into the darkness beyond the window, but even those with the superhuman senses of the Nobility hadn’t noticed his movements. It was probably Matthew and Sue who were most astonished. They hadn’t taken their eyes off D the whole time—actually, they couldn’t take their eyes off him. Even though all their nerves were focused on their mother’s conversation with the bizarre visitors, the Hunter’s heavenly visage seemed to sparkle in their eyes. Yet at some point he’d moved. The look on Matthew’s face was more amazement than terror.

“Four coming from the west. On horseback.”

“Indeed,” the duchess said with a grin, “and, the way they ride—they must be human. They’ve dismounted. They’re less than twenty yards from the house. From their voices, they’re just striplings.”

“Four young men . . .”

Adele and Matthew looked at each other.

“What the hell do those jerks want?” Matthew said, wearing a bleak expression as he slammed his fist into his palm.

“Kill the lights,” his mother told him. “They’re out to settle a grudge. And since they’ve stopped their horses so far from the house at this hour—they’re pretty serious about it.”

“Hmm. It would appear you have other problems, as well. You seem to be a person prone to misunderstandings,” the duchess said, looking out the opposite window. “Soon, I shall have to sleep. But before I do, I believe I’ll have some fun with these humans. And just so you know, I’m doing this for your sakes. As a wife, it’s my duty to keep my dear husband’s promise.”

Rising gracefully from her chair, she walked over to the door and slipped like smoke through the narrow opening.

Adele went pale, as if watching that unprecedented exit had sucked the soul out of her, but she quickly turned to Matthew and ordered him sternly, “Get going. We can’t let that woman attack those boys.”

Matthew hesitated. “But Mom, they’re—”

“I don’t care how rotten they are. They still deserve a better death than that. We can’t let a Noble tear ’em to ribbons. If we let it come to that, all of us will regret it for the rest of our days. Your father taught you that much.”

Saying nothing, Matthew clapped his hand on his mother’s shoulder, and then he got up to grab one of the stake guns they kept in every room.

Suddenly shock hung in the air. Adele had turned around and discovered the other Noble and the Hunter had vanished.

“When the heck did they leave? Sue?”

Standing by the door, her daughter shook her head, frightened. “When you said, your father taught you that much, the two of them went out . . .”

Still not sure what was going on, Matthew ran to one of the weapons.

III

-

By the time Matthew came flying out of the house, the action was half over.

About twenty yards from their back door, the duchess stood haughtily glaring at both the Hunter and the giant. From each of her pale and delicate hands dangled a pair of unconscious youths. The trio of inhuman beings gave off a fierce aura of the supernatural that made human flesh prickle, and Matthew had no choice but to stop.

All three turned toward him in unison.

“What may I do for you, my lovely child?” Miranda inquired coolly. The fangs that peeked from her lips glittered in the moonlight.

“Let go of them,” Matthew said. Even he thought he sounded pretty feeble.

“They’re your enemies. I can see that plainly.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t hurt them. I’ll take care of them myself. And another thing—I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me child.”

The pale temptress laughed aloud, leaving her throat exposed. “I’ve heard that humans enjoy playing the hero, and it seems that’s indeed the case. You should thank me for disposing of your foes without you ever having to get your own hands dirty.”

“I can’t do that. Humans deserve to die in a human fashion. Please, let go of them,” the boy said, his body taut with determination.

“Dear me,” the duchess said with a mocking grin. “What if I were to say I didn’t wish to do so?”

Her remark sent a shudder through Matthew. All of his resolve evaporated with the ease of a mist. It was natural for a human to succumb to a Noble’s demeanor.

Miranda’s smile changed again. This time it became a sneer.

“Kindly step back.”

It was a gentle but firm command from a Noble. Matthew backed away. And then he heard it. He heard the miserable, thread-thin voice from the end of one of the duchess’s arms croak, “Help . . . me . . .”

Strength flooded Matthew’s entire body. Although he hated the young man who was pleading for his life, the loftiest ambition a foolish human might have took hold of him. Never abandon the weak.

“Let ’em go,” Matthew said, leveling his stake gun.

“Do you actually believe a toy like that will destroy me? I came into this life another five millennia before that promise was made to your ancestor. I’m not about to meet my end by no more than a rough wooden stake.”

Matthew had personally witnessed proof that her confident claims were no lie when she’d battled that other pale woman, Lucienne. Even a wooden stake was only effective if driven right through a Noble’s heart. A stake through the abdomen or lungs, between the eyes or through the top of the head, would prove completely ineffective and could simply be pulled right back out. The only other place said to be effective was the throat, in keeping with lore passed down through the ages—that to destroy a vampire, you had to drive a stake through her heart, then cut off her head when you were done. Yet a stake through this woman’s heart wouldn’t do any good.

However, the boy was no longer scared or confused. The barrel of the weapon he’d raised didn’t move a hair as he kept it aimed straight at the duchess’s impressive bosom.

“Go ahead and shoot,” the duchess said, striking her chest with her left hand. She hadn’t let go of the two punks she held with it. She had monstrous strength—with every effortless movement of the duchess’s hand, the boys were tossed wildly.

Still, Matthew hesitated. The fact that the enchantress before him had come to save his family kept crossing his mind.

“Aren’t you going to fire?” the duchess asked, revealing her white fangs. “Well, I shall make it easier for you to shoot. Watch.”

Her hand had been lowered, but now the duchess jerked it back up, pulling one of the two figures who flapped about like pathetic dolls nearer and pressing her vermilion lips close to the nape of his neck.

“Please, help me!” he sobbed, and the light from the atomic lamp Matthew held against his chest shone on a face like that of a dead man—the face of Joppes Lallacksiski.

The instant Matthew saw the pair of fangs begin to press against the nape of the man’s neck, he pulled the trigger. Driven by pressurized gas at a speed of seventy-five miles per second, the projectile didn’t have the same range as a bullet, but from this close there was no way he could miss.

In front of the bosom of that white dress, a black form snatched the stake from the air. It went without saying who was connected to the arm that had reached over to make that catch.

“Why did you stop it, D?” the duchess inquired, and there seemed to be some amusement in her voice.

“We can’t very well have a savior fighting the person she’s trying to save,” D said, tossing the stake back to Matthew. “Leave those guys to him.”

“Oh, now you, too, would presume to interfere with me?”

“I won’t interfere. But if you hurt him, Count Braujou won’t stand idly by. And it won’t do me any good if the count is destroyed in the fight that will ensue.”

“You have a point there,” the woman replied, a scornful expression skidding across her pale and beautiful visage. “Your good looks almost made me forget you’re nothing but a hunting dog who lives by lapping up our life blood. You should just hold your tongue and watch. You make too much noise for a dog, but now I’ll silence your barking.”

The duchess’s eyes met D’s. Golden sparks formed in D’s dark pupils. Suddenly, they wavered, grew slimmer, and shuddered like a death rattle a split second before they disappeared.

“Stop it,” the giant called out to them; he’d sensed the unearthly aura emanating from every inch of D.

The duchess backed away two or three steps, as if her strength were spent.

“I realize this woman’s been rude to you, but her power will be indispensable in the fight ahead. Without her, I may well fall to Valcua.”

Perhaps on account of these words, D dispelled the eerie aura and turned his eyes toward the eastern sky. “It’s nearly dawn,” he said.

Knitting his brow, the count replied, “But it’s still night. We’ll set out right away.”

Braujou turned around. Up to the point where he was swallowed by the darkness, his massive form moved without the sound of a footstep.

Watching him go in a daze, Matthew suddenly turned and noticed that there was no sign of the duchess, only a white fog billowing down the road.

He ran over to the four fallen thugs. When Adele joined him, she gasped. Could a Noble do this to someone without biting him, with just a touch? The quartet had possessed a vicious youthfulness, but now they were all withered old men with gray hair—they looked almost like mummies as they lay on the ground.

Behind them, the speechless pair heard footsteps heading toward the house. Matthew was just about to follow the Hunter when Adele stopped him.

“What is it, Mom?”

“He has Noble blood in him, too. I don’t want him in the house.”

“But—”

“It’s the giant he’s after. As long as the giant’s guarding us, he’ll stick around, too. That’s bad enough.”

Adele wasn’t mistaken in her appraisal. Less than two minutes later the pair watched D straddle his black steed.

As the gorgeous rider turned in silence, Matthew could no longer restrain himself, and he impulsively shouted, “That was pretty impressive, you know! You sure are tough, mister.”

Though the boy got the impression the Hunter shot a quick glance in his direction, D said nothing as he slowly rode away.

Certain that they hadn’t seen the last of him, the boy still had feverish winds of emotion wreaking havoc in his heart. He called out, “What do you have to do to become a Hunter? To be a Vampire Hunter, I mean.”

Before his mother could turn a look of shock and horror on him, D had gone off into the darkness.

Adele and Matthew were left standing there, shrouded in a desolation they couldn’t even begin to describe. But it felt as if they had just learned they were the last two people left on Earth.

Matthew’s mother pressed her face against his chest, and her lips began to tremble.

“What are we supposed to do now, Matthew? We’re not cut out for anything but working in the fields. Now we’ve got no choice but to do like these Nobles tell us and leave our farm. I’m so scared,” the mother said, her words giving way to sobs.

Matthew was gripped by a quiet surprise, but not because this was the first time he’d seen his mother this way. Rather, it was because he remained so incomprehensibly cool.

“It’s okay, Mom,” the boy said, gently clapping his mother on the shoulder. “We’ll get by. Sure, we’re leaving now, but we can always come back. And we can make a go of it anywhere.”

A faint glow began to seep like water into the world. From the same direction the other three had gone—from the east.

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