CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
-
I
-
I, too, am—
What had Valcua been about to say? Before anyone could figure that out, the black-garbed vision of beauty hung in the air above his head. This young man gave no consideration to the inner workings of those to whom he must deal death. The wind swirling in his wake, the Hunter brought his sword down hard enough to sever this very same wind. However, the Ultimate Noble was able to stop it in a shower of sparks that turned night into stark day.
But look! D’s blade and Valcua’s longsword—neither one pushed forward nor was driven back, but as D came back down to earth, his trim form seemed to take on the weight of a boulder, driving one of the Ultimate Noble’s knees to the ground. Gripped with the Hunter’s right hand alone, the blade was slowly but surely driving Valcua’s longsword down with its overwhelming might.
However, while their blades locked together in the form of a cross, the Ultimate Noble smirked beneath them. Stretching from ear to ear, his smile was a malevolent one.
“Although it’s not like me, I seem to have been too occupied by my thoughts. D, you’re the first one to ever drive me down on one knee through sheer force.”
Valcua’s smile grew deeper. His blade had stopped moving.
“And you shall be the last!”
Not only did the longsword come shooting up, but as D was thrown into the air he saw that Valcua was now standing tall like one of a temple’s guardian deities.
Was the Ultimate Noble really that powerful?
As soon as the figure in black landed, however, he broke into a run. The deadly thrust that would’ve sunk into Valcua’s chest was batted aside by the Nobleman’s blade, but D maintained his stance and made a second slash—a horizontal swipe that left the Ultimate Noble staggering even as he parried it.
It was Valcua who had to fly away with the swiftness of a swallow to escape yet another thrust. The golden robe clung lovingly to his body. His shoulders heaved as he caught his breath.
“I should’ve expected as much from a man who would enter Valcua’s castle alone. I’m sure the Sacred Ancestor must be quite satisfied. I haven’t begun yet in earnest, either. D, see if I don’t accomplish my goals elsewhere. We shall settle this then.”
And with these words, he retreated.
D followed him, his footsteps equally silent.
As he was on the move, Valcua shut his eyes.
“O magical sword, Glencalibur! You must send a truly fitting opponent into another world now without first getting to spill his blood. Make that portal for me, my blade!” he murmured as if in prayer, and then he swung the sword in his right hand down with a sharp whistle.
“Uh-oh—fall back!” the hoarse voice exclaimed, its cry streaming forward like water. And D’s body did the same. A second later, as if ensnared in the snarls of the howling wind, the figure in black was sucked into empty space—into a dimension slashed open by Glencalibur.
As he listened to the jagged wind whistling into the gap like a lullaby, Valcua raised his longsword once more.
“If left unchecked, it would suck all the air out of the world. D, keep yourself alive until we meet again.”
He made a cut in precisely the same spot. The first slash had cut it open, while the second sealed it—and the wind died out immediately.
The Ultimate Noble, Lawrence Valcua, wore a daunting smile as the wind that whipped across the steely world howled at the top of its lungs about how the living dead had proved victorious.
-
Sue left Matthew’s room after about ten minutes. But what had transpired in the room, and what had she seen? Sue had screamed. And though tinges of exhaustion and terror remained on her face, she also seemed to have a bit of a rapturous glow.
“Do you see now, Sue? You understand what kind of place I went?” Matthew said, and although his tone was calm, his eyes blazed mysteriously—with flames of expectation. They were fueled by a dangerous self-confidence.
Sue shook her head. The indecent flush had faded from her.
“But that’s . . . not right. Letting them give you the power of a Noble . . . Whispering honeyed words . . . It’s no good, Matt . . . It’s just not right.”
“That’s not what your head’s saying, Sue,” Matthew said, laughing weirdly. His tone never got rough. Its calmness only made his words that much stranger.
“It’s no good . . . Matt . . . Don’t show me that again.”
“No, you’ll see it again tomorrow. You’ve gotta understand. Accept the fate Lord Valcua has chosen for us.”
Taking his sister by the chin, he made her look up. Sue didn’t fight him. The way her pink lips trembled was rather cute. Matthew sucked them up. It was a long, strange kiss.
As Sue shut her eyes and her breath grew ragged, he told her, “See you tomorrow, Sue.”
And with that, he went back into his own room and closed the door.
It was then that the surveillance cameras inside the car began recording the scene properly.
Sue went back to her room, too.
“Nothing out of the ordinary, eh?” Count Braujou murmured, never taking his eyes off the image of Sue that was projected in midair.
And then he asked that electron image, “Anything wrong?”
“Nothing, sir,” a female voice responded from thin air. It was the synthesized voice of the computer, of course.
“Hmm,” the count said, folding his arms on his huge bed.
“Do you suspect something, sir?” the voice inquired.
“From what I’ve seen, the two of them have made up. Sue and Matthew were chatting about old times in his room, holding hands and forgiving each other for everything that happened. Isn’t that right?”
“Indeed it is.” Before the computer gave this response, it had run a check of those events.
“After that, Sue left the room, and Matthew gave her a kiss on the cheek as he saw her off. There’s no mistake about that, is there?”
“No, there is not.”
“What happened then?” the Nobleman asked.
“Matthew returned to his room, and Sue immediately retired to her own accommodations.”
“Anything wrong with that?”
“No, sir. All these events played out just as described.”
“Any chance you’ve been deceived?”
“No, sir.”
“Not even an infinitesimally small one?”
“When taken to that degree, anything is possible.”
“Then there is a chance—thank you,” Braujou said appreciatively, unfolding his arms before he began rubbing his chin.
Sue’s face filled his brain. The girl was given to strong emotions, so when her brother kissed her on the cheek, she got a look akin to embarrassment. But the kiss had come just as she was walking out the door. Her expression at that instant—it wasn’t the same one she wore once outside.
Was it the time that was off, or was it the space?
“Her brother’s brain was full of ether for a while. And he spoke with Valcua’s voice. Though her brother’s brain may be back, that doesn’t mean Valcua’s psyche doesn’t still linger,” the Nobleman mused. “Hey!”
“You called, sir?” the female voice responded.
“I’m not entirely sure about this. Are you able to run checks on yourself?”
“So long as my power isn’t cut, I do so constantly. The process never ends.”
“Raise the level of your check,” Braujou told the computer.
“I shall have to reconfigure myself.”
“Will that take long?”
“No, it’ll be completed nearly instantaneously.”
“In that case, do it.”
“Understood.” After saying that, the female voice continued, “Very well, then—this is farewell.”
“Excuse me?” the count said, furrowing his brow. “Ah, that’s right—how long have we known each other now?”
“A little over seven thousand years.”
“I shall miss you a bit.”
“Thank you.”
“You have a name, don’t you?”
“Long ago, you dubbed me Eve.”
Closing his eyes, the count nodded. It’d been so long ago, he’d forgotten.
“And now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Silence settled over the vehicle. But only for a moment.
“Pleased to meet you,” a female voice said. It hadn’t changed in the least. “From this day forward, I will be in your service. I believe it might be convenient for you to give me a name.”
“Eve.”
“Thank you. That’s a lovely name.”
“Follow the last instruction I gave you.”
“Understood,” Eve responded. “Some change can be detected in Sue’s expression. Her physical and mental reactions to her brother’s kiss differ from the data we have.”
“I thought as much,” the count said, a thin grin surfacing on his lips. “Good work,” he told the computer. “He’s a danger after all, is he? A viper in our bosom—but we can’t very well kill him. I wonder how to set him right again . . .”
-
A figure in a golden robe was walking down a long, long corridor. The floor, walls, and ceiling were covered with intricate carvings—unicorns sporting graceful horns and other creatures with far more than one, sprites wearing shawls that were like smoke, sphinxes with human faces and beastly bodies. And all of them were gazing at Valcua.
Presently, he halted before a black door. The portal was so lustrous, it didn’t seem that it could be ordinary metal. On its surface danced flames from candles set in the wall to either side of it. He muttered something, and the door slid to the right to welcome him. Behind him, the door closed again. Fifteen feet ahead loomed another door just like it. After making his way through it, he came to a third.
Having passed through the triple doors, he finally reached a vast chamber. The path traced a gentle curve down to the floor about ten feet below. The room was filled with blue light. Thick stone slabs were arranged there, some rectangular, others triangular, square, or trapezoidal. As if in complete disregard of geometrical order, on the edge of one rectangular slab an isosceles triangle was delicately balanced on just one of its points, while a square stone slab set in a circle was supported by nothing save a single rhombus.
Halting on the floor, Valcua turned to the right. A young man in black stood there, basking in the blue light. And as he stood with his elegant longsword in hand, he emanated such murderous intent that anyone but Valcua would’ve been forced to turn away.
“D!” the Ultimate Noble called out.
-
II
-
Glencalibur whistled from its sheath.
Charging forward, D was black and beautiful death incarnate.
The grand duke couldn’t parry the blow. He felt the impact all the way up to his elbow. Keeping his weight behind the blade, he sliced down at his opponent’s shoulder.
Limning an arc that deflected that blow, D made a thrust. Even as he felt something cold on the nape of his neck, Valcua trapped D’s blade under his left arm—only the Ultimate Noble’s reflexes made that possible. Without a second’s pause, Valcua’s body spun around like a top. And with no time to let go, D was also whipped around in a circle. After spinning one hundred eighty degrees, Valcua relaxed his arm.
Even the immovable swordsman couldn’t weather this. Sent flying, D was completely off balance. And when Glencalibur’s blade zipped at his heart, it pierced him to the hilt, poking out through his back. D’s body went flying in the same direction as the longsword, slamming into a stone slab behind him. Pale blue light engulfed his body, and once it had vanished, there was no sign of the vision of beauty.
The look of disappointment never leaving his face, Valcua walked over, grabbed his beloved sword where it was stuck in the stone slab, and pulled it free.
“Kima!” he called out.
“I am here, milord,” the figure in the long crimson robe replied.
Not bothering to turn and face him, Valcua said, “Was that the same D I fought earlier?”
The Nobleman was clearly choking back his rage.
“Surely you jest,” Kima responded with a respectful bow. “I suppose that might be about a third of his true power. But then—”
“Yes,” Valcua said with an appreciative nod, anticipating what the other man would say next.
“No one in the world knows for sure just how powerful D is—probably not even that splendid man himself. Thus, there’s no way to judge the strength of that impostor.”
“I shall soon learn how strong he is. And when I do, I will triumph over him. He, left in this world as the Sacred Ancestor’s own—”
“Lord Valcua!”
“I know,” the Ultimate Noble said gravely. “To speak of that would invite terrible misfortune. Is that damnable Sacred Ancestor monitoring me from somewhere even now? But enough about that. What are those humans doing?”
“They are waiting, milord, just as you instructed.”
“I told them to wait, but I never said they should do nothing at all. Tell Seurat and Callas they’re to get the two descendants and bring them to me forthwith.”
Bowing deeply, Kima disappeared.
“And now,” Valcua said, looking up into the air.
D appeared. A bizarre pathway spread in front of him.
The screen projected in midair became a three-dimensional computer model of the building. It vanished immediately. When the words Impossible to display appeared, Valcua’s expression became a grin befitting the devil himself.
“Nevertheless, you must go on. Whether you return or not, your true nature will be laid bare, and I will triumph over you.”
He laughed aloud. After a while, Valcua wondered how many years it’d been since he’d laughed like this. How long since he’d guffawed hollowly over nothing at all?
-
“It’s King Minos’s labyrinth,” the hoarse voice remarked in a deeply troubled tone. “Not only can that sword Glencalibur, or whatever he calls it, cut open a dimension, but it looks like it can also connect it to any place he thinks of. This labyrinth is where a half man, half bull called the Minotaur, a creature born to the king’s consort, was locked away before written history. It was built by the legendary craftsman Daedalus in ancient times, and only the Sacred Ancestor could’ve reproduced it so faithfully. I’d heard this place was destroyed when the Nobility’s civilization collapsed, but here it is.”
“Let’s go,” D said.
“Waiting here would be the best strategy,” the left hand retorted. “No one who’s ventured into the labyrinth has ever made it back out. I’m not so sure my sense of direction can be counted on. It’s enclosed by something other than four-dimensional space.”
“Staying here would be no better,” D said, his eyes seeing through the abnormalities of the passageway that spread before him. Like a living creature, it was closing on the Hunter. Not waiting for it to make contact, D started walking.
This was no ordinary path. Taking a turn to the right, D began to move vertically against gravity, and he saw that the lower-right portion of the floor had become a wall. When they started down a stone stairway, the steps went on forever, while a stairway going up was soon running down into the ground. Not only human beings, but also Nobles or monsters with highly developed senses of direction would find the workings of their semicircular canals thrown into disarray here, until they were left incapable of telling where they were or how they stood.
“How’s it going?” the hoarse voice asked after a while. “Sad to say, I think I’m gonna puke. Don’t be a showoff now!”
“The exit is close,” D said.
“What? You can tell?”
“More or less. The path changes moment by moment. New passageways are constantly being formed and incorporated into the labyrinth. That was the secret of Daedalus’s design. But there’s still a path that leads to the exit.”
“If there weren’t, the Minotaur never would’ve been able to get his tasty young sacrifices, I suppose.”
The labyrinth of King Minos was built as an endless dungeon to hold the Minotaur. Every year the Minotaur had demanded beautiful women and men in the flower of youth for sustenance, until finally the hero Theseus, with the aid of a ball of thread brought in secret by one brave beauty, was able to conquer the maze and find his way to slay the creature with his sword.
Even without a ball of thread, D claimed to know the way to the exit.
“Here it comes,” D said unexpectedly.
“Where is it?” the left hand said, apparently still unable to get its bearings. A pair of eyes appeared on the back of the Hunter’s hand and busily scoured their surroundings.
The path ran vertically up a wall. It was more than two hundred yards to the floor below. Anyone with a fear of heights would’ve suffered a hundred heart attacks in this situation.
Overhead, a black sphere was moving vertically, running parallel to the wall as it closed on him.
D ran.
Crossing over D’s head, the sphere rose up, landing about fifteen feet ahead of him. For some reason, its gleaming surface didn’t reflect D—as if his beauty were so great, it made the sphere itself afraid.
D’s left hand flashed out and rough wooden needles knifed through the wind. It seemed like they would be deflected, but these perfunctory challenges sank into the sphere effortlessly and disappeared from view, as if they’d been swallowed up.
On the surface of the sphere, points of light appeared, one for each needle. Without a sound, white streaks of light raced out through the murky world from the front and back of it, to the left and to the right. Anything they touched instantly vanished from D’s field of view.
“This is bad. This thing’s a path eraser!” the left hand shouted. “It’s said the path erasers only exist in the Sacred Ancestor’s labyrinth. It’ll make a mess of this maze.”
The ceiling disappeared, as did the walls. The sphere rolled wherever it liked, intent on erasing everything.
Apparently determining something from the movement of those lights, D made a mighty bound off the floor. In the hundredth of a second between the time the glow pulled free of the sphere and it started rolling again, the figure in black unleashed a stark flash with his right hand.
What kind of swordplay did he engage in?
The sphere trembled, then split in half, the light spilling from it to swiftly erase the passageway a few seconds after the leaping D had raced off.
-
“The first barrier breached—0 percent possibility of course completion. The copy will be given several additional layers of verisimilitude.”
At the computer’s voice, Grand Duke Valcua’s body twitched fiercely. He was like an anthropomorphic bug snared in a colossal spider’s web. Valcua was completely naked. The silver threads that seemed to be wound around his body were all cords, and the ends of all of them were planted in the flesh of the Ultimate Noble.
“Production initiated on the copy—power enhancement initiated on the subject.”
At the same moment the voice spoke, a beastly howl flew from the grand duke’s mouth.
What was being channeled into him through those cords?
His body lost its color, becoming like paraffin, and then turning a dark purplish hue.
Nobles felt pain—even the Ultimate Noble. But this must’ve been agony beyond a level human beings could conceive. To describe it, a whole new lexicon would be necessary.
Valcua suffered through it. With one flick of his arm, he could’ve disconnected all the cords . . . yet he endured the agony anyway. There would have to be some compensation for all this.
As the pain blurred his field of view, a single human form took shape in it. Pale blue electricity was discharged into the air as the outline formed, then arms, shoulders, a waist, and the rest of the lower half followed. The hem of his flapping coat, the wide-brimmed traveler’s hat, the longsword that was already gripped in his right hand, just waiting for the time to slaughter . . .
It was D.
Was this what it’d meant by a copy? Did that mean the D Valcua had slain earlier was also a copy? Here he endured unimaginable agony like a martyr, but what did he hope to gain from it?
“Copy complete. Power enhancement complete.”
Thunderous echoes rang out as Valcua fell to the floor. All of the cords had come out of him in unison. Unable to stand, he lifted his head with its exhausted face.
Look. Purplish smoke rose from his mouth and his nostrils, his ears and eyes, even from his anus. Undoubtedly his organs had been horribly charred.
Nevertheless, the grand duke got up. Using his left arm to lift his upper body, he raised his right knee, and then braced his right arm against that for strength. By the time he got to his feet, the magical sword Glencalibur, which he’d left on the floor, was in his hands.
D was walking toward him without a sound. When he broke into a run, his longsword came up on his right side like a baseball bat—and as the Hunter passed Valcua, his blade zipped toward the Nobleman’s waist, slashing open his abdomen.
D kept on running—as a decapitated body.
Not even bothering to look at the Hunter as he vanished a second before he could fall to the floor, Valcua put his hand against his own wound. The cut was about eight inches long. With one rub, it vanished without a trace.
“I wouldn’t exactly say I won,” he said, his words mixed with a bitter grin. “This man has chilled me to the bottom of my soul, but Valcua shall surpass him. D, every time you break through one of our barriers, we get a clearer picture of your power, and I become even stronger.”
The grand duke raised both hands above his head. From the ceiling and floor innumerable silver cords wriggled out like snakes through the grass, sinking into every inch of his body.
-
III
-
Pafume didn’t know who’d made the decision. However, he had no choice but to follow orders. That was the way organizations worked. While it might not be as efficient as in the Nobility’s day, things went very well here. Matters were settled effectively, and objections or questions seldom came up. Still, it bothered Pafume. While he didn’t know that a government head and his second in command had argued heatedly in some distant meeting room—with the second in command questioning whether they really intended to destroy the entire Frontier, and the head responding that it was the only possible way to slay the Ultimate Noble—even someone as fundamentally lacking in imagination as Pafume could easily envision the result of the act he was about to perform.
He was the only one in the control room. His superiors hadn’t ever planned on using this monstrosity again. The people who felt a sense of responsibility and pangs of conscience at the same time were few and far between, but they had made this judgment in good conscience. When he’d received the order from top people in the government to begin preparing for fire, the lights in the room had switched to emergency red. When they returned to normal again, the matter would undoubtedly be concluded. In other words, not only would the entire Frontier be wiped out, but the whole northern hemisphere might cease to exist as well.
Pafume, who had some knowledge of the situation that had developed in the northern Frontier, wondered to himself if this might be the will of his god.
Even if half those reports were false, I’d have to throw the switch. Even if they were nothing more than rumors, I’d throw it if it’d make them go away. Forgive me, my god. I’m betraying you, and I don’t have to think twice about it.
Just then, the lights switched to blue. An indicator light in the center of the panel began blinking madly. Not hesitating, Pafume mouthed a short prayer to his deity, smashed the protective cover over the light with his fist, and pressed the red button beneath it with full confidence.
-
Roughly sixty million miles from Earth—in what is commonly known as the asteroid belt—a blinding light shot from a little rocket nozzle on a relatively insignificant chunk of rock about three hundred feet in diameter, slowly changing its orientation. This same rock was on a trajectory to crash in the northern Frontier.
-
Sue’s hopes of going outside were dashed by a flat denial from the count from inside his coffin. Dawn had already come, and her surroundings were filled with its faint light.
“Until D returns, no one gets in or out of this car.”
Sue remained insistent. She really wanted a breath of fresh air, even if only for five minutes.
“Very well, then,” the count conceded. He’d caught the tears in Sue’s eyes. “But just for five minutes. And stay right by the car.”
“Oh, thank you!” Sue gushed, bowing to him.
As soon as she was done, the count ordered, “Send the guardroids with her. If Matthew threatens her in any way, kill him on the spot.”
-
The scent that most often fills the morning air is that of fresh grass. However, the air on the black-steel plain that stretched as far as the eye could see smelled of metal.
Dragged by Matthew, Sue had quickly gone a hundred yards.
“This spot should do,” Matthew said, his eyes still facing straight ahead.
Was that a tree? If so, it was an iron one. It had the drooping boughs and wispy foliage of a willow, but it was made of a black, lustrous metal. Perhaps it was a fitting form of life for this inorganic world.
Going under it, Matthew pulled a knife out of his pocket.
“Matt . . . What are you doing?” the girl asked, her body tensing.
Matthew smiled at her. It was the sort of smile that would make anyone want to look away.
“Not a thing. I’m just gonna give your feeble mind a little backbone. There’s nothing to be scared of. See, it won’t hurt a bit.”
Sue noticed that as Matthew spoke in that wheedling tone, he had a reverse grip on his knife. Unbuttoning his shirt, he exposed his chest.
“Matt?”
Ignoring his sister’s puzzled cry, he pressed his knife against his own chest. Without a second’s pause, he made a vertical incision that was four inches long.
“Now, give me a kiss, Sue!”
Bright blood bubbled up, but less than she expected. It welled up in the wound but didn’t drip out.
“What are you doing, Matt? Stop it!” Sue cried, about to back away, but then she noticed he had her by the scruff of the neck. Grabbing her hair, he yanked her closer. Her brother’s blood was right under her nose.
“You get it, don’t you, Sue? This is an important ceremony. It will help you understand what I saw. And then you and I will understand the lord of this great land much better.”
“No, I don’t want to—stop it!”
“Sue!”
Another yank, and the girl’s darling little lips would’ve tasted her brother’s sullied blood. However, Matthew didn’t manage to perform that perverse deed. A crimson beam of light pierced his nose from right to left.
Kill him if he tries to harm Sue—those had been the count’s orders, and the faithful guardroid was now approaching them. However, when the Dyalhis children turned toward it in amazement, the misshapen automaton let its head loll to one side and stopped dead. Beside it stood a bewitching woman.
“Callas the Diva?”
It was within the siren’s abilities to drive an android to a figurative death with but a single song.
Only two of the assassins known as Valcua’s seven remained—but even if there were only one, it still would be a foe to be feared. And now one of them had caught up to them.
“It looks like you’ve begun an interesting diversion, you strange little children,” Callas said, smiling enchantingly. “I figured the time to take out a sleeping Noble was by day, but then I come out here and find you playing this ridiculous game. Now, both of you will be coming with me. I can make you understand this world far quicker than that nonsense.”
“Stay out of this. She’s my sister. I’ll take care of her one way or another.”
“Both of you are our foes. Now come quietly.”
When Callas stepped forward, the children joined hands. A chill froze them to the bone, and the two of them shivered.
“What?” Callas exclaimed, pulling her arm back. Her arm had been split open just below the elbow, revealing pink meat. Though the wound closed quickly, the diva’s expression immediately grew more threatening as she stared at Matthew, who held his knife ready in one hand.
“It seems it would be best to put you to sleep first, boy. Listen to this.”
Knowing that he mustn’t hear her voice, Matthew went at Callas with his knife, but as he still held onto Sue, the diva dodged it with consummate ease, and then a stream of strange but beautiful nonsense began to flow from her lips.
Matthew halted.
Callas sang a love song that would put anyone who listened to it into a trance. The siren’s pale hand reached over to catch Matthew by his sun-bronzed wrist. But then a crimson beam of light burst through her shoulder.
Turning her eyes in its direction, Callas cried out, “Oh, so there was more than one guard?”
And then her lips disgorged a deadly tune.
A new streak of light pierced her throat.
“Damn you!” Callas cursed with superhuman indignation, and then she raced westward across the plain.
Seeming to steamroll right past the Dyalhis children, the guardroid appeared, sending laser fire after the dwindling form of Callas. After two strikes, the siren bent backward and then was seen no more.
“Looks like she got away,” Matthew said. He started after her, but then went back to Sue.
“Matt . . .”
“We didn’t get off to a very good start this time. Let’s call it a day. We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow.”
Having shown good forethought, Matthew rebuttoned his shirt. Since he’d used a handkerchief to stop the bleeding, it didn’t even stain his clothes.
“Matt!” Sue called out. She wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were trained on the direction they’d originally come from.
“What?”
Noticing something, Matthew quickly turned around.
While they were fighting Callas, they must have gone quite a distance. Three armored transport vehicles passed the two of them less than a minute later, and then stopped. The morning light glinted off the bodies of the vehicles.
The Dyalhis children were frozen in place, waiting for someone to climb out.
“These wagons belong to that survey party,” Sue said, finding the answer after tracing back through her memories.
The dinged bodies of the vehicles were motionless in the stark light. Not a trace of movement could be detected within them.
“That’s odd,” the girl said.
They looked at each other, and Matt immediately said, “Let’s go inside.”
He went over to a door.
“Don’t, Matt. There’s something funny about this. No one’s up in the driver’s seats. Stopping like this in the morning sun just ain’t right.”
Grinning, Matthew said, “Then they’re just like the count’s car. So there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Already used to riding in one strange conveyance, the young man might’ve guessed these were similar.
Swiftly climbing up to the higher vantage point of the driver’s seat, he peeked in and said, “They’re not in there.”
He then went over to the vehicle’s entrance. Reaching for the knob, he gave it a twist.
“It’s locked from the inside, so there’s no way to get it open. Hey!”
Sue turned around.
About sixty feet away, the unsightly form of a guardroid was gliding toward them.
Apparently the boy harbored no ill will over being shot through the nose, because he smacked the palm of his hand against the vehicle and told the android, “Okay, do something about this door.”
Matthew really couldn’t guess just how far the count’s androids would obey their commands.
Suddenly, a crimson beam of light penetrated the doorknob. In less than a second, the brief glow had faded.
“Now that’s more like it,” Matthew remarked, smirking as he reached for the knob.
“Ow, that’s hot!” he exclaimed, pulling his hand back.
In the end, the task fell to the android. The fingers of its metal-alloy arm reached skillfully through the still-red-hot hole and pulled it open.
“Step aside already!” Matthew ordered, but as he peered into the vehicle, he grew tense.
“Matt?”
Seemingly nudged ahead by Sue’s voice, he climbed the steps into the vehicle.
Reading something that resembled delight in him from behind, Sue was terrified. And yet, she also couldn’t help wanting to take a peek herself.
“Excuse me,” she said to the android, moving in front of it from one side as she went for the steps. Suddenly her body trembled. An ineffable chill had come over her. It was the same sensation she’d had when they first met Count Braujou and Duchess Miranda.
It can’t be! Sue thought, intending to back off the steps. But her feet kept climbing the stairs.
The walls to either side were strung with hammocks, and aside from a narrow space that served as a path, the floor was covered with sleeping bags. She saw all this by the light coming in through the door. The windows had been painted black.
The room was already dark. Had they wanted to make it even darker?
She recognized the faces of the men that poked from the sleeping bags. They now looked slightly different. Their complexions were waxy, with strangely red lips, and from them jutted pairs of lengthy fangs.
“How in the hell . . . I mean, what . . .”
As the girl murmured this, her foot brushed one of the sleeping bags on the floor. It held the one they’d called Kenny, if memory served. His lids snapped open. The eyes beneath them blazed vermilion.
Gnashing his fangs, Kenny groused, “Don’t go waking me up when I’m trying to sleep!”