CHAPTER 3

-

I

-

"Hey, Sue!” Matthew called out, and the girl, who had her hands around D’s waist and her forehead pressed against his back, lifted her head. She sensed irritation in her brother’s tone.

“You’re fine now, right? Get on that free horse.”

“I guess you’re right. Okay.” Before she could change her mind, Sue told D, “Stop, please.”

The gaze she trained on the Hunter’s back held a sort of dependence. But as she put both hands against the horse’s rump and started to lift herself up, D told her, “Wait.”

“Why?” Matthew asked, his lips promptly tightening in a scowl.

“You get over here, too,” D said.

“What?” Matthew exclaimed, sticking his chin out defiantly. “On your horse? Can it even carry three?”

“It’ll carry us. Come on.”

“You’re crazy. I thought you were only after Sue.”

Sue grew pale at her brother’s horrid remark.

“Matthew—what a thing to say!”

“Well, it’s the truth. Something’s been bugging me for a while now. You’ve gone sweet on him, haven’t you, Sue?”

“Matthew!”

“Now hear this: There’s no way in hell I’ll—”

Matthew’s tirade cut off. A black form had sailed through space, pushed him back, and taken a seat in the saddle. The horse broke into a gallop.

“Holy!” the boy managed to exclaim, frantically grabbing D around the waist. The Hunter held Sue under his left arm.

Behind them, a terrific flash of light exploded.

“Get down!” D shouted, ducking.

Not sure what was going on, Matthew followed suit.

A massive rock hit the ground in front of them. The instant they went around it, a wave of blistering heat struck Matthew’s back. Melted rock whizzed noisily through space.

“Where the hell are you going?” Matthew bellowed, because they were clearly galloping toward a cliff. However, had he looked over his shoulder, he wouldn’t have had any cause to complain. Behind the trio, flames and shock waves were closing on them. Again the blistering heat struck Matthew’s back, and a second later it burned the back of his neck and head.

“Holyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” he cried again, in fear of the reality that greeted his eyes.

They were falling. Flying off the cliff, the cyborg horse plummeted like a stone toward the water flowing fifty yards below. Matthew shut his eyes, and then he lost consciousness.

Wrapping his right arm around Matthew, D dismounted the cyborg horse in midair. He’d decided the load would be too much for the steed to bear.

Holding the siblings upright, the Hunter was just about to enter the water feet first when a terrific shock jerked up all three of them.

D let go of Matthew, and the boy fell the last three feet to the water without incident, instantly regaining consciousness. On madly rising to the surface, he saw that flames licked at the sky from the chunks of rock falling toward him. He dove underwater and swam down for all he was worth. A smoking piece of rock struck him square in the back. Matthew was the lucky one.

A thread had descended from the sky and wound around D and Sue. After releasing Matthew, D had grabbed his sword and struck the thread without being able to cut it, and now he and Sue were rising higher and higher at a speed of one hundred and twenty-five miles per hour. They’d already reached an altitude of six thousand feet, and showed no signs of stopping. Sue had fainted.

“Time for me to do something?” the hoarse voice from D’s left hand asked, trembling with expectation. “It’s been decades since I got to do a kissing scene. Hey, don’t cramp my style now!”

D gazed into space without saying anything.

They hit ten thousand feet.

Fifteen thousand.

Twenty thousand.

Thirty thousand.

Fifty thousand.

The sky had a deep purple color.

At an altitude so high it was impossible for human beings to breathe, D met a lone, spiderlike man hanging in midair.

“I’m Speeny,” the man said by way of introduction. His voice didn’t reach them. But D’s ears could catch the slight movements caused by the sounds. “Welcome to my battlefield. I hate to do away with such a handsome fellow, but let’s just call it my worldly obligation.”

Taking a quick glance at Sue, the spider man narrowed his eyes.

Although it would be impossible to prevent a human being from suffocating in the stratosphere without using some kind of mechanical device, D’s left hand was covering the girl’s nose and mouth.

“What a strange thing you’re doing there. I thought it would rattle you if I made the girl suffer, but it seems I missed the mark. You should be in a lot of pain, however.”

Even D couldn’t put up much of a fight in the stratosphere, where the temperature was sixty below zero and there was essentially no oxygen.

“If I did nothing right now, even a dhampir like you would die. If you were returned to the surface, you’d probably come back to life, but don’t worry—I’d stab you through the heart before that could happen. Do you think you can cut this thread? Well, you can’t. A very important person gave this grand thread to me. The only things that can cut it are the fingernails the great one bestowed on me!” Speeny said, holding his right hand in front of his face for the Hunter to see.

As ridiculously tapered as his arms, the nails had been filed to razor sharpness at the tips and along the edges.

“The line you’re hanging from comes from me. But you can’t tell where the line I’m on comes from. It actually stretches from the moon. I was born in a lab in the Nobility’s Lunar Palace. Of course, I only learned that when a messenger from the great one came to offer me a position as a bodyguard in the Lunar Palace. Up until that point, my mother and I had lived in the slums. I thought I was dreaming. I was sure I’d end my days in that lousy pigsty, but in a solid-gold room in the palace, the great one informed me of my pedigree and ordered me to serve as one of Valcua’s bodyguards. You understand what I mean by pedigree? I, the great Speeny, am the cream of an elite crop, manipulated from the time I was an embryo to be a superman. When I was just a kid in the slums of the moon, where they say only one in a hundred survives to adulthood, I got into murderous brawls of a hundred on one and never lost once, but I never suspected it was due to the power I’d received from the great one. D, you should consider it your misfortune to have made an enemy of him. But I can’t give any credence to what Curio said. What did the antiproton computer in the valley do? Granted, you did escape my meteorite attack. I can’t help but respect you for that. Oh your eyelids are getting heavier, are they? Okay, have yourself a peaceful sleep. When you wake up, both you and the little girl will be in a better place.” Speeny laughed mockingly.

His confidence sprang from the thread he used, one end of which was connected to a spot on the moon about two hundred thousand miles away.

“Ah, yes,” Speeny said, breaking into a truly evil grin. “I just thought of an amusing game. I’m going to throw some knives at you and the girl. Try to dodge them if you can with your head and body in that state. I suppose the game can go on and on until you’re both dead.”

Before he’d finished speaking, Speeny started hurling long, thin knives with a snap of his wrist. D knocked away three aimed at Sue and took care of three more intended for him, but the fourth one sank into his chest.

Speeny was ecstatic. He’d slain a foe Sigma couldn’t destroy and even Curio had feared. He danced for joy on the unseen thread, and then dropped smoothly down toward D. He was halfway to the Hunter when his own heart shrank with an audible sound. Even in the purple sky, he could see the black raiment spreading out.

He couldn’t possibly do anything in this cold, could he?

The question that flashed through Speeny’s mind was the last thought he ever had.

Grabbing the thread and making a leap, D drove his blade through the man’s brain and all the way down to his legs. Speeny shuddered violently in midair, then immediately grew still. The blood that gushed from him gave off steam, but it quickly froze.

Dodging those icy fragments as they fell, D swung his sword once more. The thread connected to the surface of the moon that Speeny said the great one alone could cut was easily severed, and the three of them fell back to earth at a ferocious velocity. The Hunter’s frozen coat and hat, instantly heated by friction with the air, started to smoke.

“Here we go!” the hoarse voice said with excitement, the words muffled by the fingers of the left hand D held clamped over Sue’s mouth and nose.

-

“That Speeny was a bold fool to challenge D on his own,” the missionary Courbet said, spitting the words like a curse.

“But the explosion that rocked us was undoubtedly caused by one of Speeny’s meteorites,” a woman’s voice remarked.

As if in response, everyone looked around. The walls were crumbling, there was a great hole in the ceiling, and dislodged beams stabbed into the floor. This seemed like no place for a human being to be, let alone live, but of course the group that was assembled consisted of people who were something other than human.

“Could even D take that kind of impact? If Speeny took the battle into the stratosphere, I think his odds of victory would increase to 80 percent.”

That claim was countered by a luxuriant and scornful laugh in a voice like a golden bell. It was Callas the Diva.

“You think an unsightly creature like Speeny could triumph over that young warrior? Surely you jest. A man like that only comes along once in a thousand years, perhaps even once in ten thousand years. A miraculous jewel born between heaven and earth, he’s not the sort to lose his life in Speeny’s world, of all places.”

As she spoke, Callas stared at a certain spot in the room. There was no one there—only a bronze decanter. It was a rusty water pitcher that had sat there from the time they’d taken this as their temporary strategy center.

A female voice came from it, saying, “With friends like you, who needs enemies? The moon that glows by night watches over Speeny. By now, D has been reduced to a fireball burning up as it drops back to earth from the stratosphere.”

Callas’s eyes glittered. Silence shrouded the air.

They heard a hard knock coming from the crack in the ceiling. There was the sound of something knifing through the wind.

“Out!” Curio cried.

The shadowy figures dashed for the windows and holes in the walls. Immediately after, an object that fell from the heavens punched through the roof of the dilapidated boarding house, scattering parts of the building in all directions like an explosion. The fiends were forced to take to the air or hit the ground to escape the wave of rubble flying at them.

After the dust settled, they went back to the smoking, flaming remains of the dilapidated building. There they saw a depression pounded into the earth and the charred portion of a corpse lying in it.

Once, Count Braujou had fallen from the stratosphere because of Speeny’s machinations, but the immortal nature of the Nobility saved him. This was not the case with the object that now rolled to the feet of the group.

“The dropper ended up being the one who was dropped—it’s like a bad joke,” Courbet groaned. He sounded crushed. “Perhaps they took each other out?”

“The stratosphere was Speeny’s kingdom. And since its king was defeated—well, it’s not entirely inconceivable, but I think it highly unlikely,” said Curio.

It was so still, even the flames seemed to have lost their sounds. Before long, Courbet murmured, “But Speeny got his thread from the great one—how could D cut it?”

“If anyone could do it, it’s him,” Callas said, her voice melting into rapture.

No one grew angry or contradicted her. The assassins, who’d just lost a second compatriot, lingered silently in the sunlight.

-

II

-

That evening, there was no one to see D and his companions off as they left the village of Marthias. When it was time for them to go, the villagers seemed to remember that these people had been the cause of all their trouble, and that they had also caused their mayor’s death. While they weren’t exactly being stoned, as D and Matthew gripped their respective reins, they got cold rejection in lieu of farewells. In place of parting handshakes, they received emotionless stares through doorways or from behind curtained windows.

“What’s their problem?” Matthew grumbled from the driver’s seat as he worked the reins. “They’re the ones who asked us to stay and help them in the first place. And now that they don’t need us anymore, they just toss us like trash?”

“That’s right,” D said from astride his cyborg horse, which was alongside the wagon. “You’re traveling with a dhampir and a Noble. It’s only going to get tougher from now on.”

Matthew spat and turned away in disgust. He’d never had much patience, a fact that had caused his mother to worry endlessly. It was something of a mystery that he’d never gotten sick of farm life and run away.

“Stop it, Matt. Mr. D’s right,” Sue said, coming out of the covered wagon and laying a hand on her brother’s shoulder as if to steady him. She’d heard the entire exchange from inside.

Pressing her cheek against her silent brother’s shoulder, she took a glance behind them and said, “Still—it is kind of sad.”

Was she referring to the fact that they had no well-wishers to see them off, or talking about the car beside them? She’d heard from D that its owner, Count Braujou, had been slain. Duchess Miranda was missing, and she might not be in perfect shape either.

“Sad, eh?” the left hand D wrapped around the reins said in an intrigued manner. “If ol’ Braujou could hear that, he’d probably weep bloody tears of joy. There ain’t a human in ten million who’d be broken up over the loss of a Noble.”

With the sound of creaking wheels, the wagon and car set off. In their wake they left only tire tracks.

When they were only about sixty feet from the edge of the village, a number of shouts and footsteps closed on them from behind. D turned, and a toss of his chin told Matthew and Sue to have a look. The two of them leaned out of the seat and looked back.

Nearly a dozen children stood in front of the defensive palisade waving their hands.

“Goodbye!”

“Mr. Hunter!”

“Take care!”

“I’m gonna be a Hunter, too!”

“Goodbye!”

The children shouted as loudly as they could, something sparkling in their eyes. This wasn’t a brief parting with someone who was coming back. They knew they’d never see him again.

Sue turned to D and said, “That’s for you, D.”

The exquisite young man just stared straight ahead. Sue knew he’d never look back.

As the wagon and car disappeared into the darkness down the road, the children left one or two at a time until only the last and smallest figure remained. It was the boy D had encouraged. Even when the blue darkness was painted over by a still deeper shade, the boy kept his eyes glued to the end of the highway. Perhaps he had a hunch that handsome young man would be coming back.

After a while, the boy’s mother appeared and tried to bring him home, but the boy cried and resisted her. Grabbing him by one thin wrist, she tried to drag him away. A hard, sharp pain shot through her hand, and she let go of him. The boy stood in a combat stance with the slim branch he’d picked up from the ground at his feet. It was the same stance the young man in black had taught him.

Clucking her tongue, his mother told him he’d be getting no dinner that evening. The boy stuck his tongue out. His mother cursed his unruly behavior as she left, and then the boy looked back down the highway, still holding that same stance.

There was no one there.

Shouting as loudly as he could, the boy made a thrust with the stick. After repeating that action three times and catching his breath, the boy focused his gaze again on the highway now sealed away in darkness.

-

Riding without respite, the group reached the boundaries of the village of Razin around daybreak.

Matthew had been twitching his nose for a while, and just as the defensive palisade came into view he could take it no longer, coughing loudly and saying, “What the hell is that smell?”

On his instructions, Sue had taken cover inside the wagon.

“Razin oil,” D said.

“What the blue blazes is that?” Matthew asked, glaring at D while the Hunter swayed in the saddle.

“A high-grade oil used in all the weapons manufactured in their village. You’ll get used to it soon enough.”

“Give me a break! My stomach’s turning somersaults!”

“Stay here,” D said.

“Huh?”

“If anything happens, give a shout. I’ll hear you.”

“Wh—where do you think you’re going?” the boy stammered.

“I smell blood mixed in with the oil.”

“What?”

Giving a kick to his mount’s flanks, D galloped off as Matthew watched in a daze.

Their map showed it was still five or six hundred yards to the village. And it was a windy day. Despite it all, D could detect the smell of blood.

“Sue, this is starting to scare me. Dhampirs really are monsters, just like the Nobility.”

At the clearing before the gates, D halted his steed. In the light of dawn, it looked like the village was sleeping. However, there was no sign of anyone in the lookout tower: a bad omen.

“That sure is one powerful scent of blood. We’re not talking one or two dozen people here,” the hoarse voice remarked, but it sounded amused.

D advanced on his horse.

Just then, the gates slowly opened inward. A horrendous stench of blood tainted the very molecules of the air.

A human figure appeared, about six and a half feet tall and covered in armor. His helmet’s steel mask shielded his face, his arms and legs hid beneath plates of riveted steel, and with every step the sound of metal grating on metal resounded from his joints. The right arm was equipped with a machine gun, while there was a sixty-millimeter grenade launcher attached to the left. The armor showed faint marks from welding. Anyone would recognize it at a glance as a combat suit. The best weapon makers in Razin had developed weight-absorption technology that made it possible for a human being to control a nearly one-ton mass of iron from the inside.

After halting at the gate, he spotted D. He paused for about two seconds, and then there was the clank of metal as he entered the clearing. The cold sunlight starkly illuminated the vermilion springs that shot from the chest portion of his armor. He was a little over twenty feet from D.

The man in the combat suit raised his right arm, training the barrel of the machine gun on D’s face. A black gale flew to one side, while the head of the cyborg horse was reduced to a bloody mist. The bullets ripped through the air and vanished into space.

The top half of the combat suit turned to the right, and the black gale raced directly at D. It was followed closely by a burst of flames. D twisted his body out of the way, as if he knew the path the fiery blast would take. His movements were far quicker and more agile than those of the combat suit’s motorized upper body. As the combat suit turned to face D, a diagonal slash of his sword cut through the shoulder and chest of its fifth of an inch of iron plate as if it were tissue paper.

The suit halted its movements for a second, and then its right hand made a jerky movement as it reached for its mask. Lifting it revealed the face of the person within. It was a young man with a drawn-out countenance. Neither his vacant eyes nor his slobber-covered lips showed a hint of pain. Yet D’s blade was apparently stuck in his body.

“He’s crazy, isn’t he?” D’s left hand said.

Just then the combat suit moved its left arm. The barrel of the grenade launcher turned to D, right in front of him. The madman grinned slightly.

A crimson beam of light pierced the suit through the chest from behind.

D jumped.

The burning-hot laser beam had gone through the ammo stored in the suit. A fireball much larger than the suit of armor ballooned out, along with a cloud of choking, oily smoke. Behind him, the Hunter heard the sound of more explosions and falling pieces.

When stillness returned and D picked himself off the ground, white smoke rose from the back of his coat in several spots. It had been kissed by flames and pieces of burning iron. D twisted his upper body, his coat whirled through the air, and the smoke vanished.

D’s eyes reflected a figure standing at the top of the palisade. He had short hair, a tanned face, and a black eye patch covering one eye. The brown fatigues he wore were the kind used by anti-Nobility guerrillas, and they were now a rare sight.

“You okay?” the man called down to him. “I don’t mean to tell you your business. But you should take off instead of getting any closer to this place. Razin’s a dead village now.”

D turned toward the gate without answering the man. As soon as he was through it, he saw a person lying in the road, and then another, and still more beyond that. Redness seeped from the bodies of the fallen.

“So, you came in anyway? Suit yourself,” the one-eyed man said from the lookout tower behind the palisade as he peered down at D.

“What happened?”

At the same time D posed this question, the man leaped down, landing right beside the Hunter. He touched down without a sound, as if he had wings. This was no ordinary farmer.

“I don’t really know. I’ve been in the Capital for a while, and just got back three hours ago. The fog was still heavy, so I couldn’t tell what was happening in town.”

He’d found it very strange that there was no one in the lookout tower, and ignoring the immovable gates, he’d climbed over the palisade. He’d gotten the impression the fog was tinged with red. There’d been that much blood.

“I knew straight away there’d been a whole lot of killing. The stink was so fresh, it had to have been within the last hour.” And with that, the man turned to D and introduced himself, saying, “I’m Greed—I work for the village as a warrior.”

-

III

-

D went back to Matthew and Sue and told them they’d be leaving right away.

“Hold on! We’ve been riding all night, and we’re beat,” Matthew protested. “Maybe I’d be all right, but Sue can’t take this. Let us get some rest.”

“It’s dangerous here. The village has been annihilated.”

Matthew’s eyes went wide. “That’s preposterous!” he said. “I’ve heard about this place. If it’s not the best-armed village on the Frontier, then it’s a close second. Bandits won’t even attack the place. No way could it get—”

“I saw it for myself.”

Matthew fell silent.

“Let’s go,” D said, wheeling his steed around.

“We can’t. Sue needs to rest!” Matthew yelled out shrilly after the Hunter.

Standing defiantly in the driver’s seat, the boy almost seemed possessed as he twitched from head to toe. Words flew wildly from his bloodless lips.

“She’s always been weak, since the day she was born. It’s a miracle she’s made it this far. I’ve got a responsibility to look out for Sue. I say we take a break here.”

Quietly watching the ranting boy, D said, “If we leave now, we can reach an outpost by night.”

“Outposts” were lodging facilities constructed by Frontier administrators to protect travelers from monsters and bandit attacks when the distance between villages was great enough to necessitate camping out overnight. They were stocked with food, water, and weapons, and in many cases they also had a caretaker.

“Sue can’t make it!” Matthew said, stamping his feet angrily in the driver’s seat.

“There’s something funny about this clown,” D’s left hand groused in a low tone.

“Stop it, Matt,” said the frail figure who appeared from the covered wagon’s interior. Though her dainty face certainly had a haggard look to it, it wasn’t the kind of patient-at-death’s-door look that would’ve warranted Matthew’s behavior.

“Mr. D is right. I’ll be fine. Let’s keep going.”

“But, Sue!” Matthew began to protest again. Sue leaned against her brother’s back.

“Please, Matt.”

“Okay,” Matthew said, patting the back of his sister’s hand and nodding.

Just then, there was a great rumbling sound in the distance. A short time after that, a shock reached them through the ground. It continued for a long time.

“That came from the highway,” the hoarse voice said.

But D had already told the pair, “Stay right here,” and dashed off.

Just a thousand feet from the village, the road between the community and the highway was buried under chunks of rock. Someone had blown up the cliffs by the side of the road.

Looking up at the top of the pile of boulders, each up to ten feet high, the man in the guerrilla fatigues scratched his chin.

Halting his new horse beside the man, the first thing D asked was, “Was that you?”

“Huh?”

Greed pointed to the top of the rock pile, then at himself, frowning and shaking his head.

“It was the same monster that slaughtered the villagers. I didn’t see any sign of it, but I had my suspicions, and this makes it pretty plain. This is the work of the Weapon Master.”

“The Weapon Master?” a hoarse voice inquired. It didn’t reach Greed’s ears.

“The lifeblood of the village is the weapons they craft here. Buyers come from all over the Frontier. To keep anything from happening to the goods, they’re all stored in a single location. And the Weapon Master is the one in charge of ’em.”

While Greed’s expression could be described as intrepid, he began to look a little pale.

“Not only had the villagers been forced into the center of town, but the warehouses and factories were torn apart, too. No one but the Weapon Master could do something like that. Gotta be hiding around here somewhere.”

“What’ll you do?”

“I’m gonna settle up accounts,” Greed said, smacking his laser gun. “Nothing to do with that murderer but have a hanging. Before I do, I’ve gotta hear why the hell it’d do such a thing. I’m a warrior, after all.”

“You don’t have an employer anymore.”

“I took the job, just the same.”

“How’s this Weapon Master armed?”

“That’s top secret in any village like this. No one but it and the mayor would know. From the rumors I’ve heard, it’s packing a sixty-millimeter particle cannon and two hundred guided pencil missiles, a pair of flamethrowers, and a needle gun, but apparently it’s also got a couple of secret weapons to be used against Nobility.”

“That’s a formidable opponent.”

“Damn straight,” Greed said, scratching his head. “So you shouldn’t just be strolling around out here. Since the road’s been blocked, the bastard must mean to kill you, too. The only reason it ain’t showed itself is because it got hit when we exchanged fire. If I get killed, you folks have gotta find some way to get outta here.”

“Come with me.” D indicated the back of his saddle.

After returning, with Greed, to the Dyalhis children, D explained the situation and told them to go into the village. Sue was to stay inside the covered wagon until he gave the word.

Not even asking why, Sue simply nodded.

Still suspicious, Matthew pointed to Greed and asked, “You sure we can trust him?”

“Hell, no,” Greed replied. “Do whatever the hell you like. I’ve got a job to see to. D, that’s one swell employer you’ve got there.”

And with that, he walked off. From the look in his eyes, it was clear he didn’t think much of Matthew.

Passing through the gates, Matthew gazed, dumbfounded, at the bodies lying around.

“This is just sick. Who’d do something like this?”

“Apparently it was someone known as the Weapon Master.”

“The Weapon Master of Razin?” Matthew said, apparently having some knowledge on the subject. “Tell me it ain’t so. If that’s the case, we’re in deep shit. D, we’ve gotta get outta here right away!”

“The road’s blocked. You have any explosives?”

“Well, I’ve got charges for blasting irrigation ditches. I’ll go get ’em.”

Climbing into the back of the wagon, he emerged with yellow cylinders in his hands. He had a dozen.

“They’re not all that powerful. They couldn’t blow a rock like that out of the way.”

“Find an inn.”

Saying this, D started forward on his horse.

“Wait. What do we do if it finds us? Shouldn’t we hide or something?”

“It already has found us. Apparently the Weapon Master’s equipped with high-powered radar.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

“Find the best place you can to roost.”

Matthew couldn’t say a word.

“Right now, the Weapon Master is repairing the damage Greed inflicted, but sooner or later it’ll be back. Until then, get some rest.”

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Matthew said, “Where are we supposed to look for a good place to roost when the whole town’s soaked in blood?”

Just then, Sue stuck her head out of the wagon. Seeing the scene around them, she grew deathly pale and shut her eyes.

“Get back inside!” Matthew shouted.

“No, I’ll be fine. I have to get used to things like this. Say, Mr. D, there’s a good inn.”

Looking at D, the girl had a gleam in her eye that made Matthew’s face turn to stone.

In front of the community center, the three travelers stopped the vehicles and horses. It hadn’t been destroyed, and there weren’t any corpses around. As the building doubled as a hotel, they knew it would have soft beds and fresh food.

Once the wagon and car had been deposited in the parking lot, D quickly appeared, racing off in the same direction from which they’d come.

Watching him go from the window of a spacious room, Sue said anxiously, “I wonder if everything will be okay.”

“It’s too late to worry about that. This is where you suggested we stay. There’s no one left, but it looks comfortable enough,” Matthew replied as he surveyed the surroundings.

“That’s not what I meant!”

On hearing this rare angry outburst from his normally reserved sister, the boy quickly turned in her direction.

“Don’t tell me—” Matthew began, his expression growing more intense. “You really are sweet on him, aren’t you? Sweet on that dhampir—that monster!”

“Stop it! He’s keeping us safe. Why don’t you grow up?”

“You’re the one who needs to grow up!”

Grabbing his sister’s wrist, Matthew spun her around so she faced him.

“What are you doing, Matt?”

Jabbing a finger at his terrified sister’s nose, he said, “I’m only saying this because I’m your brother. Don’t you ever make nice with that freakin’ dhampir again. You’ve gotta keep some distance from the hired help.”

“I don’t want to!”

Matthew became furious. His sister had never disobeyed him before. And he’d never acted like an overbearing older brother, either. Everyone who knew the two of them always sighed and said they couldn’t believe how well the siblings got along. But a young man of unearthly beauty had caused a split between them. Matthew struck out with his hand, as if he could bat the rift away.

A hard smack resounded from Sue’s cheek, and she fell.

Matthew had swung his fist at her.

“I’m sorry, Sue! Are you okay?” he asked, laying a hand on her shoulder, but it was viciously knocked away. “Sue?”

“Don’t touch me! I hate you!”

Suddenly, Matthew felt completely isolated, like he was all alone in the world. Everyone had turned their backs on him, leaving him far behind. His father, his mother, and now even Sue.

“Sue . . .”

When the girl at his feet looked up at him, his face was no longer that of his normal self. Extending both hands, he slowly bent down toward his sister.

Something was reflected in the corner of his eye.

The window faced the parking lot and the center of town, where little paths crisscrossed fallow barley fields. A bizarre object stood on one of those paths.

The simplest way to describe it was to say it was a lovely young lady riding on a black sphere about six and a half feet in diameter. Her long, blond hair was tied back, and she had the kind of refined good looks and pale skin rarely seen in farming communities—she was the kind of girl who’d undoubtedly make the hearts of the village lads beat faster. The high-necked yellow shirt that covered her pale nape still displayed her curvaceous figure. And the weapons mounted on the pylons that ran through the center of the sphere—a high-caliber beam cannon, flamethrowers, miniature missile-launcher boxes, a needle gun and its ammunition—were the sort of dangerous business that hardly seemed to suit such a person.

Matthew realized something instantly.

She’s it. She’s the Weapon Master!

The eyes of the lovely young lady on the sphere were devoid of anything that could be called life. She had to be a mere sixteen or seventeen years of age, but just one look at her beautiful face would’ve told anyone she was insane.

With the sound of meshing gears, a particle-beam cannon took aim at the community center.

“Don’t!”

Just as Matthew frantically clamored on top of Sue, a raging crimson stream streaked out under the blue sky to score a direct hit on the wall of the center, spreading a boiling-hot field as it ate its way through the reinforced plastic and concrete.

The cyborg horses that were tethered nearby went berserk, snapping the reins and galloping away with the wagon still behind them.

The beam cannon took aim at the pair on the ground.

A streak of white suddenly stretched from the girl’s temple: a needle of unfinished wood. Over a foot in length, it punched cleanly through her right temple to poke out below her left ear.

The girl turned her face to the side.

About thirty feet away, on the path to her right, darkness in human form sat astride a black steed. Was darkness born beneath a blue sky always this gorgeous?

“AnD yOu . . . WoUlD bE . . .” the impaled girl murmured in a robotic tone of rapture.

The lovely Weapon Master who’d destroyed an entire village was linked to D by a ghastly will to kill.

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FRIENDS AND FOES