IRENE

CHAPTER 4

—

I

—

Strider and Stanza both curled up to escape the blast, then spread their arms and legs against the ground on landing. That was the best way to distribute the force of the impact. Above them, white-hot shrapnel, shards of melted glass, and globs of silicon flew through the air. A number of them landed on the armored plates on the warriors’ backs, which managed to protect them.

As soon as the blast and the threat of falling debris had passed, Strider and Stanza picked themselves up. Shielding their eyes against the still-eddying dust and wind, they looked for D and the motorcar. Off in the distance, the hem of the Hunter’s black coat fluttered. D was already beside the toppled vehicle.

“He got the drop on us again? I hate it when that happens!” Strider growled.

Glancing at the factory that’d been reduced to flaming wreckage as they broke into a run, they finally reached D just as the girl was crawling out from under the toppled vehicle. Though the face framed by her golden hair had gone pale and a trickle of blood came from her left temple, there was no disguising her youthful vigor.

The first thing Stanza asked was, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” the girl answered in a faint voice, staring at the three of them. The emotions coloring her face were hardly suited to someone who’d just been rescued. They showed distrust and suspicion.

“You folks—are you Hunters?” This was the second thing she said.

“The smirking bastard behind me and I are both warriors. But the guy in black’s a Hunter.”

“Thank you—I’m glad I came back.” Though she’d finally gotten around to thanking them, she didn’t sound particularly grateful. “You came from Bossage, didn’t you? Get me back there as quick as you can.”

“Well, aren’t you the impatient little lady! Fill us in first. You know, you’re not the only one we came out here to rescue.”

“That’s right,” Strider said, grinning at the girl whose expression had turned to stone. “I’m Strider, and this scary lady is Miss Stanza.”

He noticed a change come over the girl. Her blue eyes opened wide, and her expression seemed to melt with rapture. It went without saying that it was the young man in black that was reflected in her glazed eyes.

“And you’re . . . ?” she asked in a voice that sounded as if she could weep.

“D,” he simply replied. “Tell us everything you know. Then you can head back to town.”

“Okay . . . if it’s for you.”

“Hey!” Strider snapped. “I’ll have you know he wasn’t the only one involved in rescuing you, missy!”

Grabbing his arm to restrain him, Stanza said, “You’re wasting your breath. He didn’t use hypnotism or anything, but the girl’s soul belongs to him. You’ve got us beat there, D. But you’d better share her intel with us.”

“Not a chance.”

“What did you say?”

“We’re not partners.”

“Hey, wait a minute!”

“Yeah—don’t push your luck, D!”

The Hunter told the flustered pair, “Right now, the two of you have formed an alliance. But you’re not allied with me. That’s all there is to it.”

The pair fell silent, and D didn’t seem to even see them anymore.

“Get on,” he said, indicating his cyborg horse.

The girl gave a meek nod. Apparently staying with the gorgeous Hunter would be even better than going back to town.

“Just a second!” Stanza said, making the girl halt in her tracks. “You’re not even going to tell the people who saved your life what your name is?”

The warrior’s hands hung easily by her sides. But it went without saying that she had deadly darts concealed behind her extended fingers.

“We’re not going to let you hog all the glory, D!”

“Damned straight!” Strider added, circling around behind D. As the warrior reached for his longsword, his face was filled with a dark and unconcealable will to kill.

They were both ready to follow through. If D responded in kind, there would certainly be a breathtaking battle to the death. And D was almost certain to respond.

In a part of the wasteland where winds of death gusted clouds of dust, all the figures were frozen solid by an overwhelming killing lust. But it was one unexpected word that brought them back to the world of normalcy. “Okay,” someone had said. And that someone was D.

Stanza looked puzzled. Strider’s eyes were wide. The killing lust had vanished without a trace—in part because the two warriors were reluctant to fight D.

“For the time being, we’ll stick together.”

Strider gave a hearty nod at D’s words, hiding how shaken he was. “Fine, as long as we’re clear on that. Now, let’s go somewhere and hear her tale.”

“I already told you to take me back to town!” the girl said in an exasperated manner. Apparently the killing lust had broken D’s spell over her.

“How about introducing yourself first?” Stanza said, glaring at the young woman.

“I’m Irene. Irene Slocum.”

“You’re part of the farming family that sent word to the mayor about the mercenaries coming back to life?”

“That’s right.”

At this point, the same thought popped into all three heads: Wasn’t the girl concerned about her family?

“At any rate, we should get moving,” Strider said, looking at the smoldering remains of the factory.

“Not far from here, there’s an emergency bunker in case of things like tornadoes or volcanoes. I don’t think anyone would have any complaints if we let ourselves in.”

—

The high end of the bunker where the entrance was located was a pile of cyclopean stones. Its door was an iron plate. A heavy lock hung on it.

“We’ve got trouble. The lock is keyed to fingerprints,” Strider clucked.

Such locks weren’t extremely rare, and they were used from time to time in important places like storehouses for a village’s food or treasure. The fingerprint that opened it would belong to the acting mayor, and if he or she died, the fingerprint would be updated.

“This chain’s too heavy—I guess we’ve got no choice but to blow it, eh?” Strider continued. “The combat jeep’s a loaner from the town of Bossage, but it’s carrying some dynamite.”

An exquisite hand reached out in front of the warrior—D’s left hand. The other three saw it close around the lock. Their eyes were saying that he was an idiot and this would never work. Even after they heard the lock click, the gleam of doubt didn’t immediately fade from their eyes.

Ignoring the dumbly staring trio, D took off the lock and chain, and then effortlessly opened the iron door.

“Are dhampirs freaking monsters or what?” Strider could be heard muttering behind the Hunter’s back.

The bunker had a central chamber large enough for a good three hundred people to sleep there, plus stores of food and water, and toilets. While this was the Frontier, assistance from other towns or villages would still reach them within ten days.

In the central chamber, Irene began to tell them her story. Although it was obvious that she wanted to go back to town right away, she hadn’t been able to sway the other three.

According to the girl, about thirty minutes before he sent word to Bossage, her father was making his morning rounds when he spotted odd troops coming down the highway and raced back. After sending word to town, he’d loaded his family into a trailer and fled, leaving one of them behind.

“Me,” Irene said in a self-deprecating fashion.

“Why, were you too slow or something?”

“I guess so.”

“That sure was cold of your family. I don’t care if they were in a hurry—they should’ve noticed right off they were shy one person. And they didn’t come back for you?”

“I guess not.”

Strider said mockingly, “I don’t suppose you’d be the black sheep of the family by any chance, would you?”

“Oh, you’re right on that account. But what’s it to you? I’ve still got a home and a family, anyway. At least I’m not some killer vagrant going around murdering people for money!”

“Come again?” Strider growled, the look in his eye changing.

Though Irene was obviously frightened, she didn’t back away. “You got a problem with me?” she replied, baring her teeth.

This wasn’t the sort of thing the average farm girl would do. But if she were average, she clearly wouldn’t have been able to steal a car from right under the supernatural soldiers’ noses and make her escape, either.

“While I was getting my stuff together, everyone else took off, so I headed toward town on foot. Then those jerks came, and they captured me.”

Putting her in the old-fashioned motorcar she was driving earlier, the supernatural soldiers had brought Irene back to the abandoned factory. On seeing its interior, Irene had been stunned. When she was little, she’d gone out to the abandoned building any number of times and peeked inside, but now it seemed like an entirely different place. The rusting, derelict machines and power transformers had all vanished, and now gigantic devices of unknown purpose were being assembled. Electrical discharges coursed through the air, striking some soldiers during their labors and knocking them to the floor. Most likely they’d been constructing a reactor or something similar. The terrible devastation the group had witnessed lent credence to this.

Irene had been brought to a room within the factory.

“Oh? And what happened to you there?” Strider jeered. His expression as he licked his chops made clear the perversions he was imagining.

The girl’s gaze bored through his face. Her eyes were like fire.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what I said,” Strider replied, his tone even more mocking now. “Those guys had no damned need to keep you alive. Which means they could only have one use for you. You’ve got a tight little body there, you know.”

Irene started to pounce as soon as she noticed that the warrior’s eyes were focused on the impressive mounds straining against her shirt. However, before she could strike Strider in the chest, he gave her wrists a little twist and the girl let out a scream.

“You’re kinda tough, but don’t let that go to your head, missy. If we have to, we’ll be only too glad to hand your ass back to those lousy soldiers.”

But the warrior’s reprimand abruptly halted.

Stanza turned around with such speed, it was as if she’d just received an electric shock. Following her gaze, Strider’s eyes also went wide with terror.

What radiated from D was a hair-raising air of the supernatural.

“She didn’t finish her story,” he said, his voice that of a gorgeous specter. Perhaps that was exactly how he appeared to everyone else there.

“Well, I just thought this cheeky little bitch needed to be—”

“Later,” D replied curtly.

A short response would suffice. But what if it was the wrong response? What if the warrior wouldn’t cooperate?

“Sheesh,” Strider spat, letting go of the girl.

As the girl turned her malice-tinged eyes toward him, D told her, “Continue.”

—

II

—

The rest of Irene’s tale was brief. After being kept in the room and provided with food and water for five days and nights, she’d finally managed to escape.

“One of them forgot to lock the door. What an idiot!”

As Irene wore a look of contempt on her face, the other three rapidly fired questions at her. Most important among those were the questions of who’d resurrected the supernatural soldiers, and for what purpose.

Irene’s response was three simple words: “I don’t know.” She told them the soldiers hadn’t said a single word about it.

“Did anyone other than you survive?” Strider asked.

“When I was pretending to be asleep, I heard the two guards outside my door talking about somebody fleeing to the grand duke’s castle. I don’t know how many fled or who they were. I just pray it wasn’t my family.”

“If they escape to the castle, the soldiers won’t follow them. It’s a kind of sanctuary.”

No one there disputed Strider’s statement.

“Okay, that settles what our next move is. It’s off to the castle.”

As Strider got a reckless look on his face, Irene’s color drained, and she asked him, “Why do we have to go all the way out there? Wasn’t the plan for you to bring me back to town?”

“We can’t do that, missy,” Strider replied, giving her a strangely gentle pat on the shoulder. “See, our job is to rescue everyone who’s escaped the soldiers’ clutches. We can’t put that on hold just for little old you.”

“But I’m one of the people who escaped from them! Take me back to town, already!”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to go back alone.”

“That’s crazy! What am I supposed to do if I run into those creeps?”

“Don’t worry. Pretty boy there and the two of us got rid of them all.”

“No way am I going back all alone. If they were to catch me again . . .”

An intense fear drained the blood from the girl’s face.

“Then come with us.”

“What?”

“It’s not like you have another option. You’re one of the people we’re supposed to rescue. I’ll take real good care of you.”

“Who in their right mind would want you to—”

“Let’s go,” Stanza said to her. They were the first words the woman had spoken since reaching the bunker.

“But I—”

Irene was confused. She had no confidence in the chances of returning safely on her own. But if she went on, they’d be diving right into the thick of the supernatural troops. Still, she’d probably be better off with these three than by herself. As the girl’s eyes honed in on D, they seemed to melt away in rapture again.

D said, “Go back alone.”

“Excuse me?” Strider exclaimed stupidly.

Stanza merely gave D a look of suspicion. “Why?”

“She’ll just be in the way,” D replied, getting right to the point.

“But this girl’s one of the people we’re supposed to rescue!” Strider said.

“That’s right.” Stanza agreed. “Our reward covers her, too. I’m not about to let it go to waste.”

“We’ve already rescued her. There are no soldiers behind us. She could make her way back with her eyes closed.”

“No, not on your life!” Irene said, backing away. Circling around behind one of the cylindrical pillars, she continued shaking her head.

“If you run into the enemy on your way back, just chalk it up to bad luck.”

As D pelted her with one heartless remark after another, Irene could only stare dumbfounded at his lips. This man was about to abandon her, yet she couldn’t hate him. The young man’s beauty was such that it undermined her emotions with confounding ease.

“My mind is made up. I’m going with you.”

“Yeah, you should do that,” Strider said with a nod.

“Make her go,” said D.

“We’re all supposed to be on the same team,” Stanza interjected. “So that makes it two votes against your one. Majority rule.”

Silence flowed by.

“Do as you like,” D said in a resigned tone. He had two “partners,” and more baggage. In all truth, it probably didn’t matter either way. “But you two are responsible for looking after her.”

“Understood,” Stanza said before turning to face the girl. “You don’t have any weapons, do you?”

Not even waiting for Irene to shake her head in reply, she pulled an old-fashioned gunpowder revolver from one of her coat’s inner pockets and put it into the girl’s pale hand.

“Just pull the trigger and you can get off six shots. It’s got a pretty good kick to it, so take aim well. For a beginner, about fifteen feet’s a good range. Let them get close before you fire. Don’t be scared—got it?”

Nodding, Irene tucked the weapon through the belt on her slacks. Perhaps she was at peace with the weapon, because her movements were calm.

“Let’s get a move on,” Strider said, getting to his feet.

D was already headed toward the door.

Just then, heaven and earth shook. Cracks shot through the concrete-reinforced ceiling and walls, and pieces of them started to rain down.

“Wh—what the hell is going on?” Strider stammered, batting away falling concrete with the tip of his longsword’s sheath.

“Bombing, I take it,” said Stanza. Her eyes were turned up toward the ceiling, as if evaluating its strength. “I heard something about that a long time ago. They say the ancient mercenaries who covered the Florence Highway attacked the enemy from the sky. They’re doing it again, I guess.”

At that very moment, the biggest blast yet knocked D back from the doorway. The lights in the ceiling faded. Shock waves plowed across the central chamber.

In the darkness, a light sparked to life. Was it the work of D, or one of the warriors?

Actually, it wasn’t any of the three.

“Is everybody okay?” Irene asked. Though she still lay on the floor, her right hand was raised, and it held a lit fire cord.

“More or less,” Strider replied.

“It’s a good thing you had that with you,” Stanza called out from not far away.

“Nights on the Frontier are too dangerous not to have some source of fire. I had it stashed in my shoe. Can you walk?” the girl asked, and just then another blast assailed them.

The ceiling made an unsettling sound. Cracks formed.

“If we don’t hurry up and get out of here, we’ll be buried alive!” Strider said, his shadowy form getting back up.

“The enemy intends to do just that. And if we go out, they’ll kill us!” said Stanza.

As if to deliver the coup de grâce, a voice of iron informed them, “The entrance has been sealed off.”

“What are we supposed to do, then? Isn’t there any other way out?”

The question was directed at Irene.

“No.”

“Shit!”

“At least, not a regular way.”

Irene’s form and the flame flowed along. Away from the entrance.

Where the floor met the wall, there was one spot that had a natural-looking bump. When Irene reached out for it and applied pressure, it easily spun around, sliding back into the depths of the wall. The eyes of the four were greeted by a new cavern just big enough for an adult to squeeze through.

“Go,” Strider said, giving Irene a push.

Perhaps used to doing things like this, the girl quickly scurried into the hole like an insect.

“See you,” Strider said, smirking as he made his way in.

With a wry grin, Stanza remarked, “Aren’t you the gentleman. Are you set?”

Shrugging her shoulders at the silent D, Stanza slipped into the hole.

On the other side of the hole was a slanting passageway. It was rather steep. Crawling forward on hands and knees, the warrior immediately began to slip. Just then, there was a roar behind her and she felt the blast.

“D!” Stanza shouted, just managing to turn her head, but she saw only a cloud of dust blowing in, and then she slid down the steep incline. Unexpectedly, it opened up before her. Below, she could make out figures.

I’m gonna fall, Stanza thought, and she curled into a ball at that instant. She could judge the height of the fall by the distance of the figures. Doing a flip, she executed a remarkable landing.

Seemingly chasing her, dust rained down from overhead. Leaping out of the way, Stanza looked up. Apparently it was coming from a hole in the wall about ten feet above her. Whether going head or feet first, the average person probably would’ve been injured by the fall. But her skills as a warrior had saved her.

They were in a cylindrical chamber that was about fifteen feet high.

“D didn’t make it in time?” Strider asked, his voice beside her.

Stanza nodded. She then changed gears. Turning to where Irene stood next to an elliptical hole, she asked, “Where are we?”

“I don’t know. My grandfather told me this was here back before the emergency bunker was built. He said it was the home of some ancient race that used to live nearby.”

Stanza surveyed their surroundings. Though she’d thought the walls were made of stone, on closer inspection, she found they had the smooth surface of black earth. She’d heard that in civil engineering projects they used chemicals to harden the dirt and prevent cave-ins, but in this case the soil literally seemed to have been turned to stone. She touched it. Her fingertips found the surface cold and hard. It was definitely stone. Stanza couldn’t imagine what kind of technology could achieve such a result.

“There’d be no surviving that. Not even for a dhampir. Let’s get going,” Strider urged them.

The trio began walking toward the hole. Above them, slight tremors traveled through the ground. Apparently the supernatural soldiers even now continued their bombardment.

—

III

Leaving the chamber, they found a passageway tall enough to stand in that ran on and on. Like the chamber, the walls, floor, and ceiling here all gave off a glow, so visibility was no problem. When the soil had been transformed into stone, some luminescent substance had undoubtedly been added to it.

“This is gonna get us outta here, isn’t it?” Strider said skeptically.

Up in the front, Irene bluntly replied that they’d be fine. After this, she didn’t answer any more of his questions.

“What now?” Strider groaned.

Irene had halted. A stone wall loomed before her. It was a dead end.

“Hey, what the hell are you trying to pull?” the warrior said, his hand going for his longsword’s scabbard, but Stanza clapped him on the shoulder to stop him.

“She wouldn’t have taken us this way if she couldn’t get out.”

“Right you are,” Irene said, breaking into a grin. “There’s no regular escape route, but there happens to be a special one.”

Picking up a rock at her feet, she threw it as hard as she could at the wall to her left. The part that began to recede was about six feet high by six feet wide.

“Climb through there and you can get out. Get going.”

Taking a single step, Strider halted and said, “Get going? What are you gonna do?”

“Don’t worry about me anymore.”

The pair of warriors finally noticed something strange about the girl’s tone of voice. But it was a kind of strangeness that they understood.

“She’s possessed,” Stanza said, looking to all sides of them. Quiet was returning to the passageway.

“Ever since we came in here, I’ve felt this tingling in my spine—hey, what are you gonna do?”

“You can get out through there. But if you do, you’ll have to leave the matter of the girl completely to me,” said Stanza.

“I really can’t do that.”

“In that case, tag along behind us.”

She said this because Irene was leading the way. Wondering what to do next, the female warrior stared at the girl’s face, which retained some of its youthful innocence.

Finally, Irene reached out her left hand and touched the wall of earth turned to stone. This time, it didn’t open up. Instead, Irene walked toward the wall. When her body sank into its surface, the pair she’d left behind realized the magic at play there. Without hesitation, they headed for the earthen wall. They met no resistance as they passed through it.

“The wall’s an illusion?”

“There has to be a holographic projector around here somewhere. That ancient race must’ve been pretty scary,” Stanza replied, but she didn’t look scared at all.

The pair began walking down a passageway just like the one they’d been in. Presently, the sound of rushing water became audible.

“Is that an underground river?” said Strider, his words like a moan.

They came to another chamber. The bodies of both warriors were bathed in a white glow. If there’d been heat to accompany it, they’d have known it was from a form of combustion.

“What’s this?” Strider mused, his voice dissolving in the white light.

Oddly enough, he could gauge distances quite well now. Irene stood about ten feet ahead of him. Another fifteen feet beyond her was the source of the light, a light that didn’t stop at merely providing illumination.

“It’s moving,” Stanza muttered, as if she were talking in her sleep.

The light was flowing. Clearly possessing mass, it shifted from left to right. It made the pair of warriors think of the strange metaphor of a rushing torrent of viscous soup. What’s more—

“There’s something inside it!” Strider pointed out, almost whispering.

Stanza nodded. “People!”

Now the eyes of the pair were catching the delicate shifts in the glow the light produced. The light gave rise to forms. And those forms were human in shape.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Strider said, giving voice to his question.

The answer wasn’t verbalized.

This is a subterranean energy flow. The words that echoed in the brains of the two warriors came from Irene’s psyche. The plant above it only succeeded in tapping a small portion of its power, but this is its main concentration. By now, the two of you must realize what it is.

The pair of warriors nodded. It would be safe to say they’d never been more certain of anything in their lives. This was a rushing torrent of rancor. The quality of the energy that pierced their armor and sank into their flesh told them as much.

This subterranean energy had been created by something that lived here before the Nobility built their society, probably even before the birth of human civilization. Obviously that race was well versed in the darkness harbored by the human psyche, and the power it could produce. And that was why they’d created this. Over tens of thousands of years, they’d taken hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of lives as sacrificial offerings. All had been killed in the cruelest manners imaginable. There had been no honor or pride in being an offering to a god, merely a painful and protracted death. And it was safe to say that it’d proved successful.

All the people they’d tortured to death had been full of malice: For those who were taking their lives. For the compatriots that survived them. For their families. For a god that wouldn’t save them from a hellish death. For every other living thing. Undoubtedly the death bringers had possessed the means of transforming that malice into energy. The rancor of the dead then became a subterranean energy flow that benefited the ancient race. It burned the enemies who descended on them, leveled mountains to crush the living, and froze heaven and earth alike to take the lives of hundreds of billions of creatures. Battles ultimately come down to attrition. But loss had no meaning when dealing with a hatred that couldn’t be erased. Enemies that stormed in with superior numbers were all slain, and the race took pride in their invincibility.

Even after that race was no more, the torrent of malice and rancor coursed relentlessly through the bowels of the earth, occasionally erupting on the surface after tectonic shifts and drowning those it met. Thirty thousand years before, a certain group learned of the existence of the malevolent force, and after a thousand years and many generations, they finally succeeded in sealing it away, and the energy had flowed deep in the earth ever since. A mining facility that’d been built on the surface not long ago managed to tap a small portion of that trapped energy, but with no way to control the rancor, the facility had ultimately been destroyed.

And now a girl and two warriors had come into contact with the fearsome flow. They heard it. The angry voices of all those sacrifices. Cries of anguish from their death throes. A swollen hatred without a focus. And delight.

The voices told the trio to join them.

Irene turned around. Her hand came up. From the wrist to the fingertips it slowly curled and uncurled.

“She’s beckoning to us,” Strider said in a fuzzy tone. The look in his eyes had changed. “This is serious . . . We’ve gotta run for it.”

“You’re right.”

They couldn’t even converse in an ordinary fashion any longer.

Irene was calling to them. Behind her, figures beyond numbering had come into view. And as they flowed by, they called out. They beckoned. Come to us, they said.

This is bad, Strider thought in the depths of his brain, keeping himself from speaking.

Mustn’t go, Stanza heard herself say. Despite that, her legs were moving. Her body was no longer under her control. It was a strange feeling, one she’d never had before.

And so they both walked toward the light. They took their place beside Irene.

A smile rose on the girl’s lips. It was difficult to imagine that such an evil grin could lurk in the depths of a human heart.

The two warriors returned the smile. Their grins were equally wicked.

Together, the three stepped forward. Into the light.

They sensed something behind them . . . and it wasn’t a single presence. They were supernatural troops, gray figures clad in bizarre armor. Obviously their bombardment had opened a hole into the subterranean system. On seeing the trio, they quickly raised their blowguns to their lips.

Black darts whizzed through the air, striking the soldiers right between the eyes.

Shoving their way through supernatural soldiers who were tumbling back with half their faces gone, fresh opponents brought long, thin tubes to bear on the warriors.

A heartbeat later, all of those soldiers dropped with faces shattered like pomegranates. Though the last of them managed to get off a shot, the blow dart sailed right over the trio’s heads.

With the ability to drop a dozen opponents in less than a second, Stanza was truly formidable.

Now that the wave of attackers had broken, the trio began walking again. They’d gone three paces when a new opponent appeared behind them. Stanza turned, and her right hand flashed into action. Her darts flew at speeds in excess of Mach 1, but each of them was deflected with a beautiful ting! The oblong iron plates the soldiers in the fore had raised had served as shields against the darts. From between those shields, dozens of blow darts flew. The silent barrage of needles was met by a swipe from a lone blade. Shortly after, the shields and the soldiers behind them toppled one after another.

Shots rang out. Stanza and Strider reeled simultaneously, clutching their chest and shoulder, respectively. Ordinarily they’d have sensed the shots a split second before they were fired and moved out of the way, but at present their brains and nerves were under the control of another.

Cries were then heard. But they didn’t come from the two warriors. Something had happened on the other side of the hole. There were alternating gunshots and flashes of light, but it soon grew quiet.

The figure that stood there with a lowered blade was as beautiful as anything from a dream. The soldiers he’d destroyed had left only bits of something like ash. Callously trampling through it, D quickly approached the trio.

As the pair of warriors stared at him in a daze, sense returned to their faces as the pain of the shoulder and chest wounds broke the strange spell that’d bound them.

“Get going,” D said, tossing his chin in the direction of the hole.

“How on earth did you—?”

Strider had begun to ask how the Hunter had escaped being buried alive, but then he stopped. For a man that gorgeous, nothing seemed impossible.

“You’re something else,” Stanza said, her words sinking.

D caught her falling body with his left hand and effortlessly threw it over his shoulder. Then he pressed his right index finger into the neck of the still-advancing Irene, rendering her unconscious. He piled her on top of Stanza, as if he were building a sandwich.

D started off after Strider, who was still clutching his shoulder, then halted and turned toward the energy torrent. It almost looked like someone had called out at him to stop.

“It’s no use. Even if I were to join you, you’d still have no choice but to meet your end,” the Hunter said in a low voice, no doubt in answer to something.

The shadowy figures beckoned to him. Come, they shouted.

“You’ll see soon enough,” D said, once again seeming to answer an unheard question, and then he turned around.

Standing right by the entrance to the hole, Strider asked him, “What the hell was that all about?” A sanguine flower had bloomed from his right shoulder down to his waist.

As they headed back the way D had come, the Hunter told him, “A blow dart that missed you three struck the malevolent torrent. That was enough to upset it.”

“What do you mean by upset it?”

“Its energy is getting out of control. There’s no saying what’ll happen.”

—

When the two men arrived at the surface, a dull concussion reached them from the bowels of the earth. Having lost its singular purpose, the once-systematic flow of energy had begun running amuck.

Although the place where the group came out was about a thousand yards from the emergency bunker they’d originally entered, the bombardment had left the ground brutally cratered.

D whistled. Though he hadn’t been particularly loud, he didn’t have long to wait before the ring of iron-shod hooves could be heard approaching from the direction of the bunker. It was his cyborg horse.

“Damn, it’s a shame about that jeep,” Strider muttered with a pale face.

Instead of replying to him, D looked up at the sky.

From the direction of the highway, a number of airborne shapes were flying their way. There were about a dozen of them.

“They gonna bomb us again?”

“Stay right there,” D told the warrior, setting down the two women and drawing his blade.