THE ONE WHO GETS TO LEAVE

CHAPTER 2

-

“Lina, you have something on your mind?”

Sensing the ring of suspicion underlying his mild tone, Lina hurriedly turned her attention to the teacher before her. His youthful, gentle face wore a smile. Who would have believed a boy that disappeared into the ruins of a Noble’s castle for a fortnight would grow up to be such a man?

“I called you into the teachers’ room because you’ve been staring off into space all day long, and then you go and pull the same thing in here—what the heck’s going on? We haven’t got the official word yet, but the exam board from the Capital will be here in less than a week.”

Along with Lina, he was one of the three children who’d returned safely after the four of them had disappeared—Lukas Meyer. Following in his father’s footsteps, he worked as a teacher for the Department of Higher Education in the village. He was Lina’s homeroom teacher, though there was actually only one class in the department of higher education and less than fifty students in that.

“It’s, uh, nothing . . . really.” Lina pawed at her hair and worked at concealing the blood rising in her face. Wild horses couldn’t drag out of her the fact she’d taken a fancy to a certain man.

“I certainly hope so,” Mr. Meyer said with a nod as he held his hands over the decrepit atomic heater whining before them. Suddenly, both his tone and the look in his eyes became grave. “You mustn’t forget the responsibility you bear,” he said.

His earnest pitch left Lina in reverent silence.

“You’re the hope of the village. When winter’s over, you’ve got to take your chance to leave. We’re all pulling for you, you know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, the test itself shouldn’t be a problem, but have you decided what it is you’ll study at the academy in the Capital?” Mr. Meyer’s tone had changed. He knew the answer, and though it was a field he’d helped choose, he asked as if not wanting to know.

Lina made no reply.

“Mathematics, wasn’t it?” He uttered the words like an admonishment.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s fine. You can’t allow yourself to be distracted before the day of the exam. Better you just focus on the future,” the teacher said cheerily. Lina smiled as well. There was a knock at the door. Her classmate, Harna, came in.

“What is it?”

The girl’s face was flushed crimson, and her eyes were glazed with dreams. Mr. Meyer rose instinctively from his chair of hardwood and hides. For some reason, Lina snapped to attention.

“There’s someone here to see you. Someone . . . Well, he’s very good-looking . . . ”

That meant nothing to the teacher. Knitting his brow for a moment, Mr. Meyer told Harna to send the visitor in. Looking at Lina, he said, “Well then, be careful on your way home. What, is there something else?”

“Not really. It’s just the weather’s so nice today.” Standing by the windows, which had been specially treated to block the blinding glare from the snow, the girl tried to think of some ploy to remain in the room.

“No more so than usual.”

“This room’s filthy. I could start tidying it up for you today.”

When Mr. Meyer’s expression became one of deepest concern, Lina thought, Damn! A tall figure came through the low doorway, though in doing so he was nearly forced to stoop.

Lina gave a gasp of wonder and caught an involuntary round of introductions while they were still deep in her throat. Watching her, the reason for her suspicious behavior and her scheme to linger became apparent to Mr. Meyer. Sending off Harna, who stood absentmindedly in the doorway, Mr. Meyer inquired if their guest was an acquaintance of Lina’s.

“I’m enjoying the hospitality of her home,” D said, as he stood by the wall. He was exactly the sort of visitor unwelcome by an educator entrusted with coeds. “I’m D. A Vampire Hunter. And I suppose you can guess from that what brings me here.”

Not surprisingly, Meyer’s warm, intellectual countenance stiffened. As he invited D to have a seat, the look in his eyes was one he might give to any envoy dispatched to lay bare the dark secret he’d long concealed in his heart.

“No thanks,” D said tersely, declining to take a seat. His manner was curt but not entirely disagreeable.

“Lina,” the teacher said urgently. What was set to begin was not a tale for a young girl to hear. Lina glanced imploringly at D, then, with a slightly sullen look, she left the room, displeased by D’s indifference.

As soon as the door shut, Mr. Meyer looked gravely at D. There was nobody else in the room.

“If you’re staying at Lina’s, then I guess you’ve heard all the particulars from the mayor. To be honest, there are a few things I’d like to know myself. Personally, if there’s some sort of connection between these recent events and what happened to us in the darkness-shrouded days of our youth, I want to be there when you find out who or what’s behind it all. That’s just the way I feel.”

Somehow D managed to parry his earnest tone.

“If you have any memory of what happened ten years ago, I’d like to hear it. I only know what the mayor told me.”

That he nodded without hesitation testified to the fact that Mr. Meyer’s hard expression was in fact without substance.

“I’m sorry to say it, but what you heard from the mayor is probably all there is to tell. One day ten years back we were all playing at the bottom of the hill. Lina said she wanted to pick flowers and make some garlands, and I remember Tajeel—that would be the boy who still hasn’t been found—being against the idea, saying it was no fun. In the end we boys had to give in—even at that age women just have this strength—and we set to our irksome task. Even I got a bunch and handed them to Lina, and then . . . ”

“What then?”

“I wandered off someplace else, picked a bunch more, and then turned around. That’s it. Next thing I knew it was two weeks later and we were halfway down the hill and headed for the bottom. You’re aware that every conceivable technique was used to try to restore that portion of our memories, aren’t you?”

“There’s something I’d like you to have a look at,” D said, changing his location for the first time. Approaching a sturdy-looking desk made of thick logs, he took a harpy-quill pen from a penholder fashioned out of a greater dragon’s fang. He also tore a page from the block of recycled notepaper.

“What is it?”

“Just something I have trouble with, too.” D’s expression didn’t change as he made two swift strokes with the pen, then thrust the stiff recycled sheet before the teacher’s eyes.

“What . . . what exactly is it?” Mr. Meyer turned to give D a dubious look.

“It’s nothing. Sorry about that.” D balled up the memo page on which he’d scribed a huge cross and tossed it in the trash. The barrel was also of greater dragon bone. A beast like that was sixty or more feet of unrivaled ferocity, but not a bit of bone or a single tendon went to waste when they fell into the human hands. In a small village like this, the greater dragons were seen more as a way for the villagers to earn their daily bread than as a threat to their lives.

“Have you been up the hill since?”

“No, not me. Nor have I discussed the incident with Lina.”

“One more thing. Cuore Jorshtern went mad. Is there anything unusual about you?”

Mr. Meyer forced a smile. “Perhaps my students could give you a more credible response to that. I believe myself to be an ordinary person, but, to be perfectly frank, I can’t prove I wasn’t at the scene of these recent crimes. I live alone, and it’s possible I’ve been slipping out at night without knowing it. Once the deed was done, I could’ve destroyed all evidence of my crime, then returned to being an average schoolteacher asleep in his bed till morning. I can’t say for sure that’s not the case. If Nobility who can walk in daylight really do exist, the victims of such a Noble would have the same physiological characteristics as the assailant—isn’t that so?”

D nodded.

When a human fell to the vampire’s baleful fangs and was transformed into a demon of the night, common sense dictated that by and large the victim would inherit the characteristic abilities of that Noble when they rose again. The victim of a Noble with the power to assume lupine form would likewise be able to take that feral quadruped shape at will; the Noble who could command certain savage beasts would gain a new servitor with a mastery of animals.

However, just as a newborn baby isn’t a carbon copy of one of its parents, there were certain obvious differences in the genetically linked powers. A victim couldn’t remain transformed for as long a duration as their master. In addition, while in that altered form physical attributes such as speed, strength, and regenerative ability would all be several ranks lower. These newly made vampires weren’t true Nobility, but rather they were little more than pale imitations.

As far as the people of the world were concerned, the most important thing about these pseudo-Nobles was that, whenever one was captured, they could be used to discern the full strength of the true threat—the real Noble. A hundred and fifty years earlier, an official named Summers Montague investigated several hundred cases while traveling across the Frontier. During his investigation, Montague divided the victims of the Nobility into different classes, and also left behind precise statistics relating to the powers of their masters. Another tome on the subject, Methods of Discerning Nobility Levels Via Victims and Defensive Countermeasures by Nobility scholar T. Fisher, was widely read and handed down by the Frontier people, despite the fact the Capital’s Revolutionary Government had banned the book.

However, the threat of the Nobility now assailing this small village would add an astonishing new page to humanity’s shared knowledge; or, rather, the threat was so grave, it would shake the most basic beliefs people held about the Nobility, undermining the sense of security that allowed people to go about their daily lives. Nobles who walked by day!

“I’m aware that Vampire Hunters have their own special techniques of identifying and classifying the Nobility. I’ll spare no effort to assist you. Ask what you like, or try what you will. You see, I still want to know happened up there on the hill, just as much as you do.”

There seemed no cause to suspect the sincerity of the young schoolteacher.

D’s left hand moved.

The teacher pulled away reflexively as the hand moved toward his brow. The movement was stopped when a knock sounded and a girl with golden tresses came in without waiting for a response. The tray the girl carried was simply a cross-sectional slice of a tree trunk. A pair of metal cups sat on it.

“What’s all this? If you’ve finished cleaning up, go home.”

As if the dubious words from Mr. Meyer had flown right past her ears, the girl set the cups on the table, saying, “Here you go.” The profile she showed D was flushed carmine.

“I’d say your behavior as hostess leaves something to be desired,” Mr. Meyer said in a slightly discontented tone. “Why the blazes is there such a huge difference in what you poured us? I’ll have you know the money for the brew we have here at school comes out of my own pocket.”

D’s cup held more than three times as much drink as the teacher’s.

In this village where single-digit temperatures were commonplace in winter, there were no taboos about consuming alcohol during class.

“Umm, well, this was all there was,” the coed said, absorbing D in a series of fluttering glances of infatuation. “You’re a pretty heavy boozer, Mr. Meyer, and you’ve drunk our share on the side. And beside, we don’t hardly ever get visitors, so we all put our heads together to come up with a plan and I won the draw . . . What a handsome young man.”

“That’s enough of your rubbish.” Mr. Meyer rose with a look of disgust and herded the young lady toward the exit. Just as he pulled the door open, an avalanche of girls thumped to the floor, and the teacher’s eyes nearly shot out of his head.

“What’s the meaning of this? Your rudeness amazes me. The lot of you’d better get out right this minute. And tomorrow, it’s thirty strokes with the strap for the leader of this little ring!”

“Make it forty for all we care,” said one. “Please let us talk with him, too. We want to hear about the world outside, about the Capital.”

“No fair, Mr. Meyer,” another protested. “You being in here all alone with this gorgeous hunk of man—there’s something awful suspicious about that.”

“He— hey, don’t talk crazy!” Not surprisingly, the normally calm and composed Mr. Meyer lost his head. After all, he was still young. Ordering them to get out, the teacher shut the door in the face of the far-from-cooperative coeds, who were still clamoring as politely as they could for an autograph from D, at the very least.

The teacher mopped his brow and returned to his seat, but his eyes were calmly chuckling despite everything. “I’m sorry you had to see that ugly bit of business. I hope you don’t take offense.”

Strangely, D gave a shake of his head. The Hunter’s mind was something rarely made manifest. Not only that, but even the eerie aura of a dhampir that usually emanated from every inch of him seemed to have waned.

Mr. Meyer was apparently sensitive enough to detect this change, and his tone became infused with familiarity. “You see, it’s pretty rare that a traveler calls on our village. Apparently there’s something wrong with the weather controller in this sector; spring and summer are fine, but as soon as fall comes the snow flies. And on account of that I don’t suppose there’s been a visitor—well, a trader or other traveler—that’s stayed more than a couple days any given winter. For girls getting to that age, this village is really a pretty harsh place.”

“Not just here,” D said softly, even as he admired the azure sky beyond the window panes. “It’s like that in every little village. But spring will be here soon.”

“Yes, spring will come, but they won’t leave.”

For the first time, D noticed what a gravely dark gaze the young teacher had.

Frontier villages were tiny and poor. Even the smallest shift in population could be disastrous. The life of wringing crops from the nearly depleted soil, and fending off monstrosities that lay in wait with hungry eyes fixed on human prey, required the strength of every available person, right down to the last reasoning child. The Revolutionary Government in the Capital made reclamation of the Frontier a major item on its agenda; prohibiting any movements of population pending word from the government was an appropriate measure. So, in addition to the snow, another barrier, invisible to all eyes, shut off the wintry village.

“Here’s an idea,” the teacher said, watching D with new resolve. “If you have some free time while you’re in town— ”

“I’ve got other work.” The Hunter’s reply was icy cold. “I’ll finish this as quickly as possible, and leave the village as soon as I’m done. That’s all there is to it.”

Mr. Meyer said simply, “I see,” then drained the contents of his cup. He didn’t appear in the least bit resentful. Because teachers were very rarely permitted to move, many of them gave themselves up to alcohol and hallucinogens to escape the despair of the future and the coldness of the present. But, even with the difficulties of the profession, Mr. Meyer was a truly grand individual. “I was asking too much, I know. But before you investigate me, there’s one thing I’d like to ask of you.”

“What’s that?”

“Could you please just leave Lina out of this?”

“She’s one of the children who came back, too.”

“She’s going places.”

D’s brow crinkled ever so slightly. This, too, was rather uncommon. As if to draw him in further, the teacher went on. “I’m sure you’re probably aware of the system whereby once a year the government singles out the most promising child from a given village in that Frontier sector for instruction in the Capital’s educational system. This year our village has been selected. I dare say it may never happen again. The whole place was in such a state you’d think the carnival had come to town. After months of skill tests, Lina was the unanimous choice.”

“I see.”

“We’re just a poor little village struggling to survive, but she’s a shining star rising for the Capital. Rumor has it the government might even be planning to launch one of those galactic energy propulsion ships to another planet. If she’s picked for something like that, she might well become a star in every sense of the word. Imagine . . . a girl from a village locked in long, dark winter for half the year and graced by the sun for a scant spring and summer might travel to the stars. Can you understand how proud that would make us, what a boost it would be?”

“If the selected child makes such a contribution, the village is due remuneration of some sort. That much I understand.” Saying this, D fixed his eyes on Mr. Meyer’s face. “Do you think you serve the best interest of the village, too?”

As Mr. Meyer’s proper countenance hardened at this unanticipated query, a ghastly aura gushed from every inch of D.

“Huh?!” Frozen by what seemed a brutal assault on his deepest psyche, the teacher followed D’s gaze, caught by the sight of a pupil rushing for the gate to the school, which was visible from the window. Beads of sweat clung to the boy’s face. His hands were stained scarlet.

The teacher understood in an instant.

When he rose to follow D, who had already slipped through the doorway, he heard a bizarre, hoarse voice say, “Put on hold again? It’s just one interruption after another today.”

-

A dozen minutes later, Mr. Meyer was scampering through the woods. There was neither sight nor sound of D, who’d gone before him.

The well-drained road was dry and bare but for the occasional chunk of remaining snow, so the Hunter’s running was unhindered and his speed was superhuman. Entrusting the blood-smeared youth to one of the elementary schoolteachers who’d joined him out on the school grounds, Mr. Meyer had gone after D. Having left the building ahead of the teacher, the Hunter had raced off after exchanging a few words with the boy. At that point he’d been less than ten feet away. Even the wind itself is afraid to stand in the way of this gorgeous youth, the teacher thought.

Here and there, bloodstains dotted the black road. These had dripped from the hands of the boy. He was the son of a huntsman who lived in the woods not far from the edge of town. Fooling with a homemade crossbow on his way home from school, he’d accidentally shot a quarrel into a thicket. He found it soon enough, and with it something else. The next thing he knew he was at the gates of the school, he said. He didn’t know when he’d managed to get blood all over his hands. He was just a boy of nine.

Mr. Meyer could see the thicket ahead. Crimson snow sat on the boughs. Finding a narrow break, Mr. Meyer forced his way through.

His legs froze.

Before he knew it, his whole being was being hammered by an aura lurid to the extreme, awakening a primeval fear in each and every one of his cells. Though his mind demanded he move forward, his body rebelled. Man was not an animal of unified spirit and flesh.

Roughly ten feet ahead of him stood D.

And another six feet beyond the Hunter lay a corpse, face down and clad in red fur. He couldn’t see the face, but from the long, ponytailed hair he knew it was a woman. There was nothing else, and no one else, to be seen.

Despite that, the teacher got the distinct impression that the body itself emanated the unnerving sense of evil that was crushing him like a vise. He wondered if D, too, had fallen victim to it. But no . . .

D had already unsheathed his longsword. The pose he took, with the tip of his blade low enough to prick the end of his right foot, was so unnatural it could hardly be called a fighting stance. But by extension, it suggested that whatever tact he took next was going to be positively unearthly.

And then the teacher noticed something that made joy buoy up in his withered heart. While the malicious aura was eddying all about D, it hadn’t so much as touched the Hunter.

He wasn’t the least bit afraid of it!

The evil aura over the girl moved. It pounced!

D flew through the air, too. He was the veritable image of a graceful hawk, chiseled in all its majesty in the chill air.

The teacher saw only a silver flash.

Space and time twisted—at least that was the way it felt.

Something slipped by the teacher’s side, burst through part of the thicket, and vanished. Mr. Meyer ran toward D, who had landed by the girl’s side. The spell was now broken, and only an air of cold tranquility spread through the area. They could even hear the chirping of birds again.

Going down on one knee beside the girl, D took her pulse. His expressionless face didn’t so much as glance off to where the thing, whatever it was, had fled. And his sword was in its scabbard. The teacher felt like he was looking at an entirely different form of life. Though the youth was gorgeous enough to make even another man like Meyer swoon, the Hunter seemed even more fearfully unsettling than the thing with its aura of malevolence had been.

Dropping the girl’s hand, D rose. He pressed the palm of his left hand to his right arm. When the teacher asked him if he’d been injured, he shook his head. “Seems we got here just in time,” the Hunter said.

Relief spread through the teacher’s chest. “You think that thing was what you’re looking for?” he asked hopefully, but consternation quickly knit his brow.

“No,” D said. “Judging by the temperature of the body and her drying blood, she was attacked this morning. What’s more, that nasty just now left no teeth marks on her throat. It seems I ran across it almost as soon as it found the woman.”

“What the blazes was that thing anyway?”

“I don’t know. But this is the second time I’ve run into it.”

“What?”

“Never mind that—this woman, would you happen to know her?”

At last Mr. Meyer could be of some small use. He rolled the woman, who had two threads of vermilion trailing from the nape of her neck, onto her back. Seeing the small basket lying nearby, he nodded.

“She’s married to a farmer by the name of Kaiser. Must’ve been out picking aluminon blossoms for salves when she was attacked.”

“And where were you this morning? You don’t have to answer that. We’ll know who the culprit is soon enough.”

“We will?”

“Based on her wounds, whoever attacked her is the sort that gets very attached to its prey. It’ll probably go after her again tonight. I’ll keep watch. If it doesn’t come . . . ”

Feeling that he should be terrified by the sentence D left unfinished, the young teacher said in a hollow voice, “If it doesn’t come what?”

“Then it would have to be someone who knows I’m here. Those students who saw me earlier were unaware of my profession, so that just leaves the mayor, Cuore, Lina, . . . and you.”

Even though the season was so near to spring, Mr. Meyer’s face had all the color of someone who’d died of exposure.

-

Before long, the sheriff and mayor hurried to the scene and carried Kaiser’s wife off after a purely perfunctory investigation. The sheriff stared at D with suspicion, but he said nothing. For his part, D made no mention of the invisible entity.

D alone remained at the scene. When all the others had taken their leave, he said to the palm of his left hand, “What kind of shape are you in?”

“Not too good, as you might expect,” came an exhausted voice in reply. “That was a hell of a lot of psychic juice to get hit with at once. I won’t be back up to snuff for four, maybe five days. As for me getting down deep into those three returnees, that’s completely out of the question. I couldn’t get an order through to their subconscious, or even to the uppermost layer of their consciousness for that matter.”

“That’s a problem.”

“If it is, it’s your own fault for always driving me like a slave. Sometime today or tomorrow you’ll need to feed me the big four.”

“How about now? Is that why you’re still hanging around?”

“Hmm . . . think I’ll take a little nap first.”

“Fine.”

The bizarre dialogue concluded and D left the scene of the tragedy. The winter sun was still high. D chose the shade as he walked. That there wasn’t even a tinge of weariness marring his beauty was truly astounding.

Irrespective of the weather, during the daylight hours those of vampire lineage craved rest at a basic physiological level. If it were merely a matter of remaining conscious, they could do so for up to eight hours if they confined themselves to a place where the sun virtually never shone. But if they engaged in any walking or standing around in sunlight, after four hours they’d lapse into a near-death state. Super Grade A Vampire Hunters could barely manage five to six hours of full activity. Their exhaustion was entirely different from that felt by a human working all night long, and it was solely because of this major weakness in the Hunters that the human wish to have all the Nobility exterminated remained unfulfilled.

Nearing the edge of the forest, D’s steps came to a sudden halt. There was Lina, waiting for him in a wagon. D silently took a seat riding shotgun and the wagon sped off.

After a while D said, “If you’re headed home, you’re going the wrong way.”

“Not a problem. See, we’re headed for the happiest spot in the whole village.”

Presently the wagon left the far end of the village and came to the highway, where it halted before a tiny shack facing the road. A sturdy-looking but rough wooden bench had been crammed into the space, and snow had drifted into the lampless interior.

“The bus stop,” Lina said brightly. “It’s the only station leading out of town. The winters are impassable, but in another five days the electric bus will be by. And that morning, I’ll be on the first one out of here.”

“Seems you’re bound for the Capital.”

“Aren’t you happy for me?!”

As the glint in the black pupils trained directly on him, D made a slightly awkward expression. “You certainly are an odd girl. Why would you say that?”

“How should I know?”

D looked puzzled.

“Just kidding,” Lina said, after the fashion of a sister explaining the workings of a sleight-of-hand to her bewildered kid brother.

D was silent. The warrior who evoked shudders from the bloodsucking Nobility was completely at the mercy of a girl barely seventeen years of age. There was nothing he could do. If Mr. Meyer or the mayor of the village could have seen him then and noticed how the terrific unearthliness which was rightfully his had faded, their eyes would have popped right out of their heads.

“Hey, how come you don’t smile? Do you think it’d kill you to laugh?”

At this coquettish query, D once again was at a loss for a reply. This young lady was a severe challenge.

“But you do cry, don’t you? There must be a lot of hard times, aren’t there. I just know there are.”

With some difficulty he managed to say simply, “Yeah.”

Lina suddenly became very serious. “You’ve got some sort of connection to the Nobility, don’t you? You don’t have to say anything; I just know. The mayor wouldn’t tell me anything, but not so much as a bird goes near you. And look! Even though you walk normally, the tracks you leave in the snow aren’t a third as deep as mine. Then there’s the ruins . . . ”

Lina faltered.

“What about the ruins?”

Watched by icily gleaming eyes, Lina realized that her cheeks had suddenly become hot. As if she was just now noticing that the youth before her was a man of such beauty it made her hair stand on end.

“I hid behind you, remember?” Even her tone of voice had a blush to it. “The first time I saw you I was really scared, but as soon as I heard what you said I shook it right off. ‘While it’s impossible to halt the progress of time, you would do well to show some respect for what’s been lost’—when you said that, you seemed so sad.”

This young lady must have heard the echoes of another world, echoes that no one else could hear.

“You’ve got good ears and an excellent memory,” D said in his usual tone, looking to the highway. “The sun will be down in a little while, so we’d best be on our way. It’s about time for the fiend to make another move on the woman from this morning.”

“Hey,” Lina rasped in a tone entirely inappropriate to the situation, poking meaningfully at D with her elbow. “Could you get your work done in the next five days and leave the village with me? I’ve got an awful bright future ahead of me.”

“Maybe. Better get in now.”

The pair clambered into the wagon and D took the reins in hand.

Stealing glances at his profile, Lina sported a mischievous grin. “You really don’t want to lose that scowl, do you, you big worrywart? I’m going to make a prediction for you.”

“A prediction?”

Perhaps knowing how D’s eyes glinted and perhaps not, Lina ceremoniously shut her lids and twitched her nose as if tasting the air. “That’s right. See, mine are almost always right on the money. Let’s see . . . okay, I got it.”

Then, gazing upon the beautiful profile beside her as if entranced, she said, “You’ll definitely be wearing a smile when you leave this place.”

-

Eight faces surrounded a single cot.

There was the sheriff and mayor, Mr. Meyer and Lina, three strapping members of the Vigilance Committee, and standing all alone with his back to the wall was D.

“Haven’t you caught that Cuore yet?” the mayor asked the sheriff in very ill humor, and the sheriff looked in turn to the powerfully built individual who seemed to lead the local vigilantes. His name was Fern.

“Well, he’s not holed up in his usual rat’s nest,” Fern stated. “But we got the Vigilance Committee and Youth Brigade out in full force, and I expect we’ll have him in no time.”

“If we have him here and a vampire shows up, it should clear up any doubts about the three of them. Get it done,” the mayor added, hurling an arrogant look at Lina and Mr. Meyer. Fern nodded deeply in agreement and looked over at D. Glaring hatred eddied like a whirlpool. He must’ve heard about the two minor altercations with Haig and his Youth Brigade.

“Visiting hours are about to begin. You’ll all have to step into the next room.”

While the others rose at D’s bidding, all three vigilantes turned their sullen faces away. His gelid gaze focused on them, and, though their eyes never met his, the way they suddenly left their seats suggested their backs had turned to ice.

“You can count on us to keep an eye on these other two. But are you sure you’ll be okay on your own?” The sheriff’s words sprang from the fear that if by some chance D was defeated, the curse of the undead wouldn’t just claim the woman, but that more victims would follow as well.

It really didn’t matter what happened to the woman. The treatment of vampire victims varied from village to village, but here they were promptly driven out of town and left to their fate. Her husband had gone off to a neighboring village, but he was bound by the same laws they all were, so the sheriff didn’t have to worry about any censure.

However, this new Vampire Hunter planned to use the woman as bait to draw the demon. What’s more, the Hunter didn’t want the trio still under suspicion in the same room, but rather asked that they all wait together close by.

If not for the support of the mayor, the sheriff surely would have railed against this. There had been more than a few cases in the past when similar plans had failed, and those lying in wait hadn’t been the only ones to fall to the baleful fangs—whole villages had gone vampire. But, above all else, there was the salary the sheriff drew from the Capital to consider, a sum nearly five times what the average villager earned. It wasn’t the sort of job he’d just hand to someone else.

“Trust me, Sheriff,” the mayor said, clapping him on the shoulder. “After all, I called in just the man for the job.”

In his mind, he muttered, You called in the last Hunter, too. But, without wasting another word, the sheriff led the whole group into an adjacent room.

As soon as the click of the lock died, D curled his right hand into a loose fist, put it to his mouth, and aimed the scant opening at the lamp on the side table. With a puff of his breath, the flame burning within the glass of the hurricane lamp was extinguished. The room fell to the mastery of the dark.

Lowering clouds obscured the moon this eerie night, as wintry gales incomprehensible so near to spring rattled the window frames.

The woman lying in the cot was the same one who had been attacked earlier. Though she’d been unconscious since they’d found her, with the deepening of night her skin had lost its rosy hue; her face was now strangely imbued with the luster of paraffin. In that darkness unmarred by any spark of light, D could discern even the paling blood vessels lacing the woman’s cheeks.

Suddenly he spun toward the window.

There was naught but the rattle of the wind’s incessant blows to be heard, but D’s ears must have caught some other sound.

At the same time, his gaze returned to the bed.

From the nape of the woman’s neck—and the wound known as the Kiss of the Nobility—two vermilion rivulets began a trickling flow.

The tension was like a line snapped taut.

Something jet black pressed against the window pane. A face with both nose and mouth mashed flat was peering into the room, vested with a grin that was not of this world.

With a dull flutter, something thick flew through the air. A blanket.

D’s gaze was drawn to the door that was the boundary between this room and the next. That was where the nightshirt-clad woman was headed. Eyes as red as blood shone on D. The call had come from her master.

A vampire could beckon to its prey without actually going to see them, moving their victim by sheer will alone. It was a commonly used ploy. However, normally the victim would leave by a window. The vampire certainly wouldn’t send the victim all the way to the front door, where they’d most likely run into other people. What’s more, there had been a lurid figure outside the window. Was that a diversion?

The woman took a step back and made ready to ram her way through the door. D sprinted. With a piercing shriek, the window panes flew outward in shards and a sudden gust of wind rushed in.

Screams arose in the next room.

D could discern each and every individual noise. Even before the woman could smash herself against the door, something in the next room made the door buckle out from the inside. Screws shot from the hinges. A concussive blast erupted, and splintery chunks of the door ripped into the wooden floor, blowing shards of the broken windows outward. All without a sound.

The woman was now in a corner of the room. A guttural cry had been heard, but it had died in the shadows of a black coat. Just as the door splintered, D had taken the woman under his arm and leapt to safety. And it had taken less than a second for the buckling door to fly to pieces. His speed was ungodly.

It seemed that it had appeared for a third encounter with D.

The room swam with intense psychic power as the thing sought out its opponent with a raging, unvoiced howl. Strangely enough, D could even make out the thing’s body.

The head faced D and the woman.

Coagulated malevolence. Raising itself on all four limbs, it charged forward menacingly.

Looking askance at the woman rendered senseless by the ramming, D drew his longsword. What followed was an unanticipated ending.

With a scream that thundered outside the window, the malevolence was utterly dispelled. The growls of the night wind reverberated, but D just stood there confused in the normal winter air.

This just wasn’t right. It was impossible for such a fierce aura to disperse, to just disappear. Fragments of it—the remaining energy alone—should’ve hung in the air like gaseous clots. But there wasn’t the faintest trace of anything like that left in the room. The best course of action, at this point, would be to believe the thing hadn’t existed in the first place.

Instead of mulling this over, D sprung to work. Running his eyes over the devastated door and fallen woman, he hurled himself out the window.

The source of the cries was lying on the ground just below the window ledge. The Hunter rolled him over, revealing Cuore’s pale countenance. His chest rose and fell faintly under his bedraggled garments. Though there was no bleeding or wounds, his colossal frame looked withered from head to toe. His cheeks sank haggardly, starkly tracing the bones beneath. It looked as if the very essence of life had been torn out of him.

D was just about to scoop the man up when the Hunter’s body flew instead through the air and back into the room.

An ash-gray figure entirely bound in dark fabric clung to the woman. A scarf of rough cloth shrouded the figure’s face, and, from the core of that countenance, eyes the color of blood stared back at D. The woman didn’t move in the slightest. An expression of rapture at the taste of otherworldly pleasure suffused her waxen visage, and her ample and now naked breasts were mashed against the chest of the shadowy figure. Yes, even her supple thighs had been bared and were now twined around the figure’s legs. The ravager and the ravaged painted an image of secret lasciviousness.

The instant D spied the pair of fangs jutting from the corners of the creature’s detestable lips—the only part of the figure clearly visible as he nosily lapped at the blood bubbling from the wounds on the woman’s throat—the Hunter’s right hand unleashed a volley of white light.

As the sound of five wooden needles sinking into the planks of the wall was heard, those bloody lips formed a grin. Not a single change had occurred in the figure’s twisting embrace of the woman. Without moving a muscle, the creature had avoided the needles D had hurled.

D bounded from the floor.

The wan body of the woman flew up, and averting it introduced a delay of a mere hundredth of a second in his attack. A flash of silver slashed the sleeve of the ashen cloak, and D and the figure swapped positions.

An air of desolation filled the room.

At long last he’d met a worthy opponent. In any battle, the most important factors were, primarily, speed and, secondarily, strength. In terms of speed, at least, the shadowy figure was D’s equal.

However . . .

From the throat of that figure, a moan which could never be mistaken for human came as if borne on the wintry wind itself.

A splash of black seemed to make a smooth streak from the upper edge of the figure’s scarf down to the chin. The rent fabric fell away to either side, draping over the shadowy figure’s shoulders. It was the work of D’s blade, which in truth should have split his opponent’s body in half. Not losing a second, the figure shielded his face with his hand and leapt out the window.

D ran as well.

The distance between the two remained unchanged.

A shooting star in silver!

With one of the most exquisite sounds in the world, D’s blade was parried by the longsword the figure wielded. Like the scattering sparks, the two faces grew fainter and farther apart.

At the same time they landed, a series of noises echoed in the space between them. Iron caltrops the figure had launched in midair as he gripped his sword in his teeth had intercepted the needles thrown by D.

Each caltrops was a mass of iron spikes radiating out in all directions. Though traditionally spread across the ground by ordinary huntsmen or Hunters specializing in land-bound beasts, with practice they might be used as missiles. An expert could hurl three in a single second and pack them in a two-inch-wide bull’s-eye from a distance of some thirty feet. When coupled with the horrendous strength unique to the Nobility, caltrops could achieve the stopping power of a magnum gun—a weapon renowned for its ability to pierce the armor of greater dragons.

A streak of crimson coursed down D’s left cheek.

But the shadowy figure who’d dealt the wound slammed on the brakes as well. He backed off. Perhaps the moon finally peeping through the bank of clouds had revealed to the figure the fact the left hand he held over his face had lost its thumb clear down to the base.

The opponents held their longswords at eye level, in the tradition of Asian fencers. Preparing for battle, neither moved.

Borne on a wind that howled of winter’s imminent demise, no one could say how long this battle to the death between a superhuman and a demonic fiend would go on.

A deafening report called a sudden close to the duel.

D’s upper body jolted ever so slightly. The tension was broken. About to make a thrust, the figure halted. An instant later, the figure leapt through the air, cleared a stone wall, and melted into the darkness with a speed that shamed the wind itself.

Not that the figure feared the gunfire which had just put two rounds into D’s body. Rather, the figure had seen D take the massive slugs through the side of his chest without letting the point of his sword quaver in the least bit.

The especially strong wind scattered all trace of the enemy, so D limned a fluid arc of silver that returned his longsword to its sheath. On the right flank of his coat the material was rent wide, marking the spot where a magnum gun had scored a pair of direct hits, but there was no trace of emotion whatsoever in his exquisite face.

A tangle of angry shouts came from the direction of the window. The voices of Lina and the mayor churned against vehement protests from the sheriff that it had been an accident that his shots had gone wide.

D approached Cuore’s weakened body and lifted the boy effortlessly. Though the most distinguished Hunters were renowned for never using their sword arm unless it was absolutely necessary, D coolly disregarded that convention.

“No use giving chase,” he said to keep the sheriff from clambering out through the window. “What about the woman?”

“She’s still alive,” Lina replied from her place at the bedside of the sleeping woman.

D climbed back into the room without a sound.

“Get this boy to bed.”

“Weren’t you hit?” the sheriff asked as he alternated his stares between the weapon in his hands and D. Without responding, the Hunter passed Cuore into Lina’s arms.

“D, you’re bleeding!”

“It’ll heal soon enough. What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Shaking her head, Lina looked at the sheriff. He seemed unharmed. There was a large lump rising on the mayor’s forehead. “Something happened, that’s for sure—all of a sudden we’re floating in midair, then the next thing I know we’re dropping to the floor headfirst. Believe you me, I’d like to know what the hell that was all about!”

“What about Mr. Meyer?”

“Over here . . . ” The speaker was slumped by the threshold of the shattered door, breathing heavily. There were a number of scratches on his cheeks. Judging by the way he held the back of his head, that was the severest of his injuries. “At least this should get rid of any lingering doubts about me and Lina,” he muttered, then his eyes went wide as he saw Cuore.

The trio of vigilantes tottered toward them, and, in the wild confusion of the room, D could be heard murmuring as if nothing at all had occurred. “So we’ve finally flushed it out, have we?”

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