PART 2, CHAPTER 7

Vampire Hunter D — LNCrawler · All chapters

CHAPTER 7

Sue instinctively tried to escape, but Curio’s hand caught hold of her elbow. She was numbed to her very brain.

Seeing his younger sister buckle at the knees and fall, Matthew went crazy. He dove head first at Curio’s waist. The robed figure was effortlessly bowled over. Carried by his momentum, Matthew went another five or six steps before he could stop himself.

Curio lay on the floor. Matthew went pale. When he’d struck the preacher, he hadn’t felt any signs of life from Curio.

“That’s just an empty shell, Matt,” Sue’s voice remarked. For some reason, Matthew didn’t turn and look. “Now I’ve taken his place.”

“Sue?”

“He died some time ago from D’s needles, you see. But if I enter him again, he’ll come back to life. Until then, I’ll just store him here.”

Matthew turned and looked.

Sue was on her feet. His sister was as bright, frail, and brave as always. However, there was something different about her.

“Well, I’m off, Matt,” Sue said with a respectful bow.

“W-where are you going?” her brother stammered.

“To see the man I love. But you must’ve known that.”

“Don’t!”

Sue was going to see D. Matthew jumped toward her. It was the only thing he could think to do.

“See you, Matt. Just wait here like a good boy. God, how my body burns!”

Matthew heard a vile stream of verbal abuse. He didn’t even realize it was coming from him. Shouting at Sue to stop, he wrapped his arms around her. Sue turned in his arms—but he didn’t have time to think before a fierce blow exploded against his right jaw, sending him flying. By the time his shoulder hit the floor, he was already unconscious.

Giving her sprawled-out older brother a look of surpassing cruelty, Sue grinned.

“I’ll tell you all about it later. You’ll get to hear how the little sister you want to bed dallied with the man she loves.”

“Okay, the repairs are complete—well, not really, but there’s no more time. Here we go!”

Up on the control panel, the disembodied left hand made a fist. What’s more, the hand then struck the fist. In terms of physics, the action bordered on impossibility.

“Oh!” it exclaimed in surprise. “Sigma, you sly bastard! Sent another terminal after us, did you? Damn! I was so busy with the repairs I couldn’t respond. Watch yourself, D. Sigma, now you have to deal with me!”

At that very moment, a tremendous electrical blast struck the left hand, blowing it off the panel. Falling to the floor, the hand gave off black smoke.

“Son of a bitch!” the left hand cursed, standing on its fingers and starting back toward the controls.

It was a surreal sight . . . although a severed hand that could curse was in itself rather surreal.

Nearby, the ground was shaking. Something massive was approaching. She thought about greeting it with a song, but neither her body nor her throat would respond. The rumbling of the ground soon halted, and she sensed something enormous peering down at her.

Someone called out her name.

“Callas.”

Her closed eyelids gradually began to open.

“That’s the voice of . . . ,” she began. Her voice was hoarse, but at least she could speak. “Valcua, milord!”

“Indeed. It is I, Valcua,” the voice said. “But I am not alone. Seurat is here as well.”

“That’s so . . .”

Something touched her brow. She thought it might be a hand. However, it was simply part of a bottomless abyss.

“Rest now,” the voice said gently. “Is that Courbet over there? Hmm. He’s burned to a cinder, but it was the wound to his back that proved fatal. That was your doing, wasn’t it?”

The diva said nothing.

“Have you fallen for D, for his beauty? Don’t try to hide it. It’s perfectly understandable.”

His tone could be described as tranquil; there was even a certain kindness to it. And yet, Callas couldn’t stem the fear and anxiety welling up in her heart.

“I have an interest in him as well,” the voice continued. “For an ordinary Hunter, he’s far too strong. He may prove to be the toughest opponent I’ve ever battled. However, he’s ultimately nothing but a filthy half-breed. I will triumph in the end.”

Something thick and incredibly dense wrapped around Callas’s body, nearly suffocating her. She knew what it was: Valcua’s mind.

“You’ll have to die for the time being, Callas and Courbet,” the voice of the Ultimate Noble informed them. “But you will live again, as new assassins for Valcua. In the meantime, I’ll teach those inside the fortress to fear me.”

Darkness flooded Callas’s brain.

Not fifteen minutes after D had entered the workshop, he came out again. It didn’t seem conceivable he’d assembled a sensor that wouldn’t obey Curio’s commands in such a short time. D saw a small figure coming down the corridor.

“D! D!” Sue cried, moving faster now. She clung to the Hunter for all she was worth. “I was so scared. I ran away. But my brother is still down there!”

“Who took you?”

“The count. He—he was possessed!”

“How did you escape?”

“I looked for an opportunity. I pretended I’d fainted, and the count and Curio both left.”

“What about your brother?”

“They put us in separate rooms. I wonder if they’re going to hurt him now because I ran off,” Sue said, tears glistening in her eyes.

“Where was this?”

“In this underground . . . ,” Sue began, but then she averted her face. Pink tinged her cheeks. “I can’t say it. Please, come with me.”

“You should stay here.”

“I don’t want to. Besides, what if the count comes around again—or what if whatever was possessing him jumped over to someone else?”

“Then stick close to me.”

Sue’s face was aglow with joy. Clinging to the Hunter’s left arm, she replied, “I sure will!”

After saying this, she looked down and smiled. It was the sort of smirk that showed just how evil a human being could be.

Putting Sue on his back, D ran down the corridor.

“This is it,” Sue told him when they came to a blue door.

D pushed against it. It opened easily.

A single glance made it clear this was a changing room. Metal baskets rested in cubbyholes in the walls. D’s nose caught the scent of fragrant herbs—clearly the air here had aphrodisiacs mixed into it. That might’ve had something to do with why Sue wouldn’t say where she had been earlier.

“Over there,” Sue said, pointing straight ahead.

Set in the marble wall was a bronze door. Nobles often elected to use metal with a nice patina.

D opened the door. He didn’t set Sue down. The fragrance became thick; that of the changing room couldn’t begin to compare.

“My brother should be in here,” Sue said, her voice like that of a full-grown woman.

The purpose of this room flashed into D’s brain. A glance at the fortress blueprints he’d borrowed from the count had allowed him to memorize the layout completely.

An ordinary person would’ve called this a bathroom. However, the person it was intended for was no ordinary being. On the marble floor rested a bathtub filled to the rim with green liquid. In consideration of those who would be using this place, there were no mirrors.

Swaying clouds of steam swirled around D, grew more substantial, and began to take on human form. Then beautiful women were standing there, stark naked and alluring. If D’s left hand had been present, it might’ve snidely remarked, So, this is how ol’ Braujou likes ’em?

The liquid in the tub also bubbled mysteriously, kneading itself like dough to form the ample breasts, thighs, and face of a gorgeous woman. In light of the Nobility’s aversion to water, the fluid was not bath water, but rather some sort of gelatinous substance with the ability to take on different shapes. Here, in this one room in the fortress, Count Braujou undoubtedly had enjoyed his privileges as one of the stronghold’s creators.

Pale arms entwined D’s neck, waist, and shoulders, while thighs wrapped around him—the steam women. D stood there without saying a word.

Oh, they’ll wring you out like a sponge! his left hand probably would’ve said.

But a heartbeat later, the pale women moved away from D, returning to the steam from whence they’d come.

On D’s back, the dazed Sue could be heard murmuring, “You know . . . I think I understand. You’re so beautiful they were embarrassed to be around you. What a man . . .”

“Where’s Matthew?”

As D asked this, Sue’s arm wrapped around his neck. Sensuous and tinged with a faint red, it most definitely wasn’t the arm of a fourteen-year-old girl.

“What do I care about him?” Sue said right by D’s ear, a seductive female ring to her voice. “Right now, he’s trembling in the armory. But enough about him. What do you think of me?”

Pale legs wrapped around D’s torso. The legs of a grown woman.

“This bathroom has the most wonderful effect! It can turn anyone, from a little girl to a hundred-year-old crone, into the type of woman the user has entered as his preference. So right now, I’m the kind of woman Count Braujou fancies. But how about you, D?”

D didn’t move.

“It seems I’m not your cup of tea. That’s unfortunate, D. Now I’ll have to go about getting you to love me in another way: through you.”

A faint spasm passed through D’s neck. Sigma’s fiendish product had transferred over to him.

Sliding off the Hunter’s back, Sue’s body fell to the floor.

Staggering over to the wall, D used one hand to support himself. A long sigh escaped his lips, followed by a second, then a third, but by the fifth his breathing had returned to normal.

Matthew widened his eyes.

The count had stood by the door glaring at him, and he’d remained in exactly that pose as he toppled forward like a felled tree. A sound louder than he could have imagined shook the air, but the floor didn’t tremble in the least.

At that moment, part of the fortress’s sensors and several dozen of the androids became inoperative, only to spring back to life a few seconds later.

Getting up, Matthew looked at his other foe—Curio. After confirming that the man wasn’t moving at all, the boy approached with trepidation. The man he rolled over had death indelibly stamped on his ashen face.

As Matthew edged closer to the doorway with the same fearful steps, the count’s body became a mountain on the move. Leaving a scream in his wake, the boy dashed toward the door, but it didn’t open, and unable to find the switch, Matthew could do nothing but turn and watch as the giant slowly rose.

In the heart of the fortress, a deadly battle was taking place unbeknownst to anyone.

“Well played, Sigma,” the left hand said to its distant opponent, its tone equal parts shock and admiration. From the wrist to the fingertips, it was charred black. “That’s some pretty tough protection you’ve got. But you’ve used too much power against me. We’re nearly finished—what’s this?”

Reading the lines of letters and numbers scrolling on the control panel, the left hand clucked its tongue.

“You’ve gotta be pretty beat, too. On top of that, you’re ready to send another terminal at us?”

Lights flashed above the charred form. The luminous points around it were in their death throes. Sigma’s attack hadn’t ended with the left hand.

Shapeless and colorless, with nothing to betray their presence, Sigma’s terminals could take possession of both people and machines, even bringing the dead back to life. If their numbers increased any more, it would clearly be more than D’s hand could manage.

With the limp form of Sue over one shoulder, D was leaving the bathroom when Count Braujou and a group of androids came by.

“Suddenly, all the sensors and androids were back to normal. That was your doing, I take it. Where’s Sigma’s pawn?”

D touched his right forefinger to his temple.

The count knitted his brow, and then a stunned look spread over his face as he leveled his long spear at D.

“In your head? You wouldn’t!”

“Your sensors are back online, aren’t they?”

It took the count a few seconds to understand what the Hunter meant by that.

“He’s dead, then?”

On seeing D nod slightly, the count said, “You let that thing possess you so you could destroy it in a battle of wills? D, what in the world are you?”

“Where’s Matthew?” D asked.

“In the underground armory. He’s with one of the androids disguised as me. It should be bringing him here soon. What happened to the girl?”

“She grew up a little too fast.”

The count looked blank, but shaking his head, he said, “Take her to the hospital. There’s a skilled physician there.”

Following the count as he led the way, D put his right hand into his coat pocket and touched the exposed circuitry of the sensor he’d put together in fifteen minutes. The first possessed person the device had revealed was Sue. Of course, the Hunter had only played along with her to allow Sigma’s terminal to transfer over to himself, where he could dispose of it. Though it would’ve been possible to render Sue unconscious, a problem would have arisen if he hadn’t gotten the entity to leave her. The question remained of whether the advances Sue had made while transformed into a grown woman were entirely due to the will of the entity possessing her.

Now on the back of one of the androids, Sue had started breathing serenely. Perhaps the girl was fortunate to be oblivious to the fact that as D looked at her, his eyes didn’t show even a flicker of emotion.

From the other end of the corridor, another Count Braujou appeared with Matthew.

It was at that moment that the lights went out. Warning klaxons resounded, and throughout the fortress a mechanical voice announced, “We are under attack from all sides. Range: five hundred yards. All personnel to battle stations. I repeat: we are under attack from all sides. All personnel to battle stations.”

III

Their foe appeared suddenly—quite suddenly. By the time the fortress’s three-dimensional radar confirmed their presence, ranks of soldiers in camouflage were already at the moat, working to construct the bridges that would be necessary to cross the water. An instant before the barrier was set up a dimensional-vortex missile launched from afar went into the fortress, sucking some of its storehouses into another dimension, but the barrier negated all other attacks. The warning D and the others heard came between that first shot and the rest.

Sue and Matthew got into an ultra-high-speed elevator with Braujou, with the impatient count telling D he would go on ahead to the operations center before the doors closed, leaving the Hunter behind. He was left with the faux-count android that had accompanied Matthew. Despite the fact that Braujou himself had constructed it, he couldn’t stand to have a copy of himself around, and he’d kicked the machine out of the elevator.

The android count stared at D, who approached without saying a word. Their eyes met.

D sensed something. He made a great leap to the right, while the long spear that came whistling down on the spot he had occupied struck with sufficient force to crack the stone floor.

D had his sword at the ready.

“So, you’ve been possessed?” he said indifferently. It didn’t seem to matter a whit to this young man whether he was right or not.

“You’re very perceptive,” the count replied, breaking into a grin. “While I was with Matthew, I became possessed. You’ll have to match steel with me, D!”

“Are you one of Sigma’s terminals?”

“Yes.”

D found nothing surprising about this third terminal—the “new” foe his left hand had identified. For this young man, foes existed to be slain—that’s all there was to it.

The “count” closed the distance between them—the possessed android had already discovered it was useless to try to play games with D. The spear thrusted repeatedly. Anyone could’ve seen its attacks weren’t lacking in power. If D had tried to parry one, his sword would have been broken or knocked out of his hands. But before the Hunter could do anything, he’d have to contend with the swiftness of those repeated jabs.

The android count made thirty thrusts a second, and D dodged or blocked them all. The Hunter’s parries were intense. Though it stood twelve feet away, the sentry couldn’t come any closer. Both its hands were numb—they’d lost some of their functionality. It made one more jab using all its deadly skill—but though it possessed the utmost speed and precision, its attacks followed a certain pattern.

Batting away the long spear with terrific force, D kicked off the ground. He became a black shooting star flying toward the giant’s chest. His blade bit deep.

When one of this young man’s strokes landed, it didn’t matter if his foe were human, Noble, or android. His sword had pierced a vital point—the section of the chest where the electronic brain was housed. Electromagnetic waves flew in all directions, tingeing D’s exquisite countenance blue.

For an instant, the world shook violently, and from above the heads of the pair a vast amount of stony rubble and other building materials rained down.

The barrier had vanished. One of the missiles had scored a direct hit on the same floor where D was doing battle.

“I did it!” the blackened hand exclaimed atop the half-melted crystals. “You see that, Sigma? You’re finished, so kiss your ass goodbye!”

The left hand made a fist and bounced up into the air, but around it the points of light were rapidly fading.

“Damn, did we get taken out, too? Well, we’ll be back online in two seconds. Hang on, D!”

It was during those two seconds that the missile exploded.

When D managed to extract himself from the mountain of rubble, there was no sign of the faux count anywhere. That it was pinned under the wreckage seemed the least plausible scenario.

Two seconds later, the barrier was up again, but during that time the enemy, in flying gear, had crossed the moat and gotten about thirty men into the fortress. Lasers, missiles, and particle-cannon fire greeted them. Before the might of a defensive system that incorporated the Sacred Ancestor’s technology, the enemy soldiers were slain one after another, and all of them were gunned down within an hour. The corpses of each and every enemy soldier were delivered to Count Braujou in the operations center. Taking one look at them, the count arched his eyebrows and snatched up a lifeless body.

“What’s this?”

It was a dead tree branch less than a foot and a half in length.

The android count staggered aimlessly down the corridor. It had been given a backup electronic brain that supported the one damaged by D’s blow, and this brain was allowing it to move its legs. However, its foe’s attack had been sharp and precise. The shock had damaged the backup brain, and the android ultimately toppled in an empty stretch of corridor.

It was waiting for a death from which there would be no waking, but just then an incredibly large and wicked presence spread out above it.

“Hmm. One of Sigma’s terminals, are you?” the voice said.

The speaker made no attempt to touch it.

“In that case, you should be able to possess people. Do you still have enough strength to transfer?”

Was this a friend or a foe? The possessed android couldn’t decide, but for some reason it didn’t feel like fighting. The being sapped even its electronic will.

“Seurat, put out your hand.”

The android watched as an enormous hand stretched out by its face. It was about as large as the possessed android’s own. But it couldn’t possibly belong to the source of the voice. It knew that much. No matter how large the hand might have been, it still belonged to a living creature from this world. However, the source of the voice was not—he was something else entirely.

Using considerable strength, the faux count brought its right hand up to the outstretched one. As always, the final transfer was far from dramatic.

“Good enough,” it heard a voice say once it was inside the persona of Seurat.

“Who are you supposed to be?” the count called out to the gigantic figure up ahead.

Halting, the shadowy form turned and looked.

“Dear me,” the Nobleman said in spite of himself.

With a frame about the same size as the count’s, the figure wore the blue shirt and black vest that were considered standard warrior attire, and stuck through the belt that girded his waist was a weapon—a longsword. The man’s gloves and slacks were also black.

“Who are you?”

“Seurat is the name,” the giant replied, putting his feet together and making a slight bow. His eyes never left the count.

“You’re one of Valcua’s seven, aren’t you?”

Braujou could recall hearing the name before.

“That is correct. And you would be Count Braujou. Just the man I was looking for. I slipped in here during that missile explosion, but I have no idea where the children in question are. Kindly tell me where I might find them.”

“Hmph! And if I refuse?”

“Then you’ll leave me no choice. I’ll resort to my sword.”

The blade glistened in the giant’s right hand. But when had he drawn it?

He was the last of Valcua’s seven—Seurat. Now he stood against a Greater Noble.

Outside, the battle still raged. But where was D?

end