THE MANSE OF THE CULTURED LADY

THE MANSE OF THE CULTURED LADY

chapter 4

I

—

It was daybreak by the time they reached the town of Nieto.

Apparently quite elated to be back in a human town after five millennia, the baron’s eyes gleamed as he said, “Hmm, things don’t seem to have changed much while I slumbered. Well, the human race reached completion at a fairly low level. Perhaps they don’t really want to change. Oh, that woman over there is simply stunning, isn’t she? My, just look at the size of her breasts! That hourglass shape! Mmmmm, and a derrière that sticks out like nobody’s business! That’s what I call progress. I retract my earlier statement.”

This Nobleman didn’t seem like he had anything to do with either the Sacred Ancestor or “progress.”

D first headed for the stables. His cyborg horse would need maintenance.

“Stick with me,” he ordered the baron.

“As if a Noble would enter some shack that reeks of horses! I’ll wait here,” Macula replied, steering clear of the entrance to the maintenance area.

And yet, when D came back, the hoarse voice said in disbelief, “He’s not here!”

—

Soon after the baron had exited the stables, the mocking laughter of children flowed in from the right. In the narrow alley, he was surrounded by at least half a dozen boys.

“This guy’s delusional!”

“Noble, my ass! Who ever heard of a Noble out in broad daylight? And look at that funny armor he’s got on. Hey, let’s throw rocks at it!”

“What are you talking about? This is the armor of a Noble. Can’t you see the grace and dignity in my features?”

The baron stood with his chest puffed out, but the boys only looked down at him with scorn. They all stood at least a head taller than him.

“You bald-headed liar! You’ve got a face like an octopus’s ass. Like hell you’re a Noble. Hey, unless you want the crap beaten out of you, you’d better give us some money.”

“What do you mean, you wretched human children? You should be thankful for the opportunity to meet a genuine member of the Greater Nobility. Try any foolishness, and you shall be severely reprimanded.”

“Just try it, you bald midget!”

The largest boy stepped in front of the baron.

“Ohhhh,” the baron said as he inched backward. “Stupid brats—are you familiar with the expression twenty-three skidoo?”

“No. What’s it mean?”

“This!”

For a moment, they were left stunned by the way the baron had suddenly turned around and sprinted away.

“After him!” the largest boy ordered, the whole group tearing off after the Nobleman and surrounding him again in short order. His legs weren’t nearly as long as theirs. That was followed shortly by a cry of “Let ’im have it!” The diminutive figure was immediately swallowed up by the mob of attacking boys.

“Stop that this instant,” a soft voice called out to them several seconds later.

The boys’ violence was stemmed both by the quiet dignity of the female voice and the knowledge of whom it belonged to.

“Lady Millian?”

Dressed in an elegant silk suit, the woman possessed a youthful beauty that hardly seemed to suit the title of “lady.”

The boys’ eyes turned to the man who stood behind her like a wall dressed in black. Judging from the buggy whip he held, he was likely both her coachman and her bodyguard.

“Save me,” the baron said, and as he took refuge behind the driver’s back, blood dripped from his head.

“You’re wicked children, aren’t you?” Lady Millian said, glaring at them. “Shall I tell the sheriff to make you spend the night alone out in the forest of the Nobility? The next time I see you doing this, you’ll not get off lightly!”

“Sheesh, what a hysterical bitch!”

“Dyke!” the boys said, pelting her with insults as they ran away.

“What little brats. They don’t feel the slightest bit of respect toward their elders. I should’ve expected as much from humans, I suppose,” the baron muttered to himself as the woman looked down coolly at him. She was reasonably tall.

“From the way you refer to them as humans, could it be that you’re—”

“Oh, yes, I’m a Noble,” he replied, puffing his chest, but he immediately deflated again. “No one believes me, though.”

“Understandable,” Lady Millian said, staring intently at the baron and biting back a laugh. “You cast a shadow on the ground, and above all there’s the matter of you standing in the sunlight. Have you some proof you’re a Noble? Could you transform yourself into a bat and flit around?”

“Those tricks are strictly for engineered Nobles. I, on the other hand—”

The baron’s voice halted there because of the blood flowing from his forehead. Running along the side of his nose, it’d reached his lips.

“As you can see, I’m the genuine article.”

The baron opened his mouth. A pair of fangs caught the woman’s eye. He now seemed like an entirely different person, and she froze in her tracks.

The great wall of a man lurched forward, but she said, “Totem,” stopping him. “A genuine Noble,” she murmured in astonishment.

“That’s right.”

“In that case . . . I have a request for you.”

The emotion choking her voice made the baron grin. Did his Noble senses tell him something?

“However, discussing it here would be somewhat improper . . . Would you be so good as to come to my home?”

“Are you sure that’s okay? I am a Noble, you know.”

“That’s precisely why I offer you this invitation.”

“Very well, then. But in return, you mustn’t hold whatever happens against me.” As he focused a look of unrestrained longing at the nape of the young beauty’s neck, the baron licked his lips. Though he had the three strikes of being short, fat, and bald against him, that craving alone was proof positive that he was indeed a member of the Nobility.

—

Deciding there was no point searching for the baron in the immediate vicinity, D walked straight down to the sheriff’s office. He told the stunned man behind the desk, “I’d like you to tell me who’s the most eccentric person in town.”

After some consideration, the sheriff replied, “That would be Lady Millian. She’s a widow who lives out in the forest on the western edge of town. Been a bit odd ever since her husband passed away two years back. It seems she’s been collecting data on the Nobility from all over the country.”

“Does she intend to turn her husband into a Noble or something?”

The sudden change in D’s voice brought the sheriff back to his senses. Glaring at the Hunter, he said, “Say something like that to anybody in town and they’ll string you up on the spot. I won’t even get there to stop ’em until they’re done lynching you. We won’t stand to have you doing anything to hurt or embarrass that lady.”

“Oh, really? She’s that beloved, is she?” asked the hoarse voice.

“Not just her. Her husband was also an outstanding person. He laid the foundation for development in this town, and led us through the hardest times. And as soon as the town had settled down, he gave up all his powers and positions of honor, and went back to living like an ordinary citizen. Even now, the whole town is pulling for the lady, and we won’t let her be ridiculed.”

“Well, I’ll be—gyaaaah!”

Stifling the hoarse voice’s mocking remark, D turned to leave. “Sorry to bother you.”

Beauty’s spell over the sheriff was finally broken.

“What did you come here for? Where are you going? If you try anything funny with that lady, I’ll—”

The door closed.

Growing pale, the sheriff raced over to the cage where they kept the carrier pigeons.

—

Alighting from the carriage and looking up intently at her manse, the baron gasped with surprise and turned a somersault.

That was close! the Nobleman thought. If anyone from town had been with him and could have read his mind, they’d have cocked their head to one side and wondered what had been close.

Awaiting the baron there in the sunlight was a fashionable chateau hemmed in by greenery. Uniformed butlers greeted them in the foyer, and the row of maidservants lined up in the grand hall bowed in unison while the baron walked proudly in the fore, head high and shoulders back as he strode down the corridor. In that regard, he was a Noble through and through.

At the end of a long corridor, he was given a guest room that was also opulently furnished. Almost everything in the house seemed to be made of glass and crystal. He excitedly looked all around, examined the furnishings, stuck his head out the window and shouted a greeting, and was jumping up and down on his bed when the lady and Totem came in.

Sipping from the glass the man brought him, the baron licked his lips and said, “It’s blood, isn’t it?”

“I thought our Noble guest should have only our finest hospitality.”

The baron was finally convinced the woman was crazy. She’d invited a Noble to her home, and offered him the thing he loved best. These were hardly the hallmarks of sanity. A smile naturally rose on his lips—the malicious grin of a Noble.

Setting down the glass, he asked, “And in return for this hospitality, you desire something?”

“Yes,” the lady said, nodding. “Please, save my husband.”

“Ah!”

The lady stood up. “Rather than tell you, I should first let you see him. My humble request can wait until after that.”

—

“We’re lost,” the left hand told the Hunter soon after they started down the road that led from town to Lady Millian’s chateau. They had crossed the brook and the bridge that were visible up ahead only a few minutes earlier. “If we keep going like this, it’ll just be more of the same. Could be something the Nobility set up, or a natural occurrence, or even some trick the humans are pulling—so, what do we do?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Hmph. Getting out’s easy enough, but I don’t think there’s any chance our short, bald Noble is having himself a grand old time. Serves him right. Why don’t we let things run their course for a while? It’d teach the little bastard a lesson for never listening.”

“If it only taught him a lesson, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll make us a path now.”

Taking his left hand from the reins, D let it fall by his side, where it opened naturally. A tiny face appeared in the palm.

“It’s one of the Nobility’s mazes, sure enough, but probably only for residential use. Wind alone should do, I suppose.”

Before it could finish speaking, the air started to howl. The trees to either side of the road shook, their branches and leaves all bending in unison toward the Hunter’s left hand. Toward the tiny face in the palm of his hand—and its even tinier mouth. It was sucking in air with terrific force. The wind was so great, the scenery became distorted. The wooden bridge collapsed, the trees tore apart—and then even the colors drained from the scene as it became a fog swallowed by the mouth on the Hunter’s palm.

The mouth closed.

Immediately, the wind ceased.

The cyborg horse whinnied. Rider and steed stood in the same spot as before, but the brook and the bridge had suddenly vanished. Only the road the cyborg horse was on stretched before them. In silence, without lauding the left hand for its efforts, D gave a kick to his steed’s flanks.

A gunshot echoed.

Bright blood and bits of his coat exploded in vermilion from D’s left shoulder.

—

II

—

D wheeled his horse around. Not a hint of pain colored the pale beauty of his heaven-sent countenance.

Down the road, a voice called out, “Ha! You did it!”

Just a hundred yards behind the Hunter, a man with a single-shot rifle was down on one knee with his weapon raised, while a number of men around him were slapping him on the back.

“That’s what he gets for trying some funny shit.”

“The carrier pigeon from the sheriff told us to set up the labyrinth, but look what happened to that. Well, this is what we do to anyone who wants to mess with the lady.”

“Oh, he’s still alive. Put another slug in him!”

Receiving another slap on the back, the man with the rifle slid back the bolt handle, ejecting a gleaming cylinder. A spent brass casing. Leaning the rifle against his shoulder, he pulled another large round from the ammo belt around his waist and loaded it into his weapon. Judging by how he had to focus on sliding the bolt back into place, he wasn’t a sharpshooter by trade. He merely happened to be the best shot among the group of men in the area assigned to operate the labyrinth.

At the same time he put the stock against his shoulder, he drew a bead. A cry of fear choked in his throat. D had closed to within ten yards of him. The gunman could tell it was the Hunter’s unnatural speed that’d rooted his stunned compatriots, leaving them unable to even call out to him. Plus, they’d looked at him. They’d seen D’s face, so handsome it could steal even a man’s soul. Still, the gunman got off a shot. Where that bullet actually went he’d never know, and the instant the cyborg horse sailed over their heads, the gunman’s right arm came off at the shoulder.

Startled by the cries that finally issued from their own mouths, the men plunged into the forest.

As the writhing gunman’s blood stained the ground, D quietly walked over. He’d already dismounted. He stood beside the man. The wind tossed the hem of his coat, and the tip of his longsword was thrust under the nose of his foe, who groaned in a sea of blood—such a vision of beauty there in the stark sunlight. How well the hue of darkness, death, and bright blood suited this man. D.

“If I don’t stop the bleeding, you’ll die.”

His voice was cold—and telling the truth in such a tone should’ve made it unsettling. But forgetting even his own hellish pain, the man looked up at D with eyes clouded with rapture. “Please . . . save . . . me.”

“I’ll fix you up. And then you’ll answer some questions.”

The man nodded. His eyes never left D.

Reaching out with his left hand, D touched the man’s wound. A second later the bleeding stopped completely, as if time itself had paused, and the man’s entire body felt at ease. His pain had faded.

The Hunter’s blade flashed before his face.

“Who is this Lady Millian? What’s her connection to the Nobility?”

The man let out a deep breath.

The room was swimming in light. It was a sight that surpassed even the guest room from which he’d just come. However, the light and the breeze that tossed the white lace curtains were difficult to reconcile with the shadow of death that hung over the room. In the center of the room was an opulent bed, and the baron looked down on what lay in it: a blackened, withered mummy, with scant hair remaining on its head, the skull pressing against the skin of the face, and teeth and gums exposed, all looking more unsettling in the light than they would in the darkness.

“This is my husband, Jaoul,” the lady said, her voice brimming with a sadness that was all too genuine.

“Hmm.”

Not seeming at all afraid, the baron waddled closer and touched his child-sized hand to the man’s face.

“Hmm.”

His brow furrowed dubiously.

“Come now,” he said, using both hands to pry the man’s jaw open. “What’s this?”

He opened one eyelid, which was like a crack in a rock. Though his actions seemed like horseplay, the baron’s eyes were deadly serious, his expression that of a scholar deep in thought.

“I see,” he said, striking the mummy in the vicinity of the abdomen through the bedcovers. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

The lady and Totem looked at each other, and then her eyes grew warm and damp. “Yes . . . and now,” she began, her voice choked with emotion, “and now . . . you have come. You, who can restore him.”

“Is he your husband, your boyfriend, or just a lover?”

“He’s my husband.”

“Why’s he such a mess?” the baron asked bluntly, but the lady didn’t display the least bit of anger. Her heart was already filled to overflowing with expectation and emotion.

It was Totem who glared long and hard at the baron.

“Ah, yes,” the lady began, nodding and wiping the corners of her eyes with a silk handkerchief. She appeared as nothing less than a widow who’d lost the love of her life. “You see, my husband was a researcher focusing on the Nobility. This chateau was once a Noble’s summer retreat. Five years ago, my husband borrowed the place from the town and began his research into the physiology and technology of the Nobility.”

As a result, he had uncovered certain techniques and learned how to use them. How to use space-warping technology to generate labyrinths, how to make photon weaponry, and how to give a body the superhuman strength of a Noble, among other things. He passed this information on to the populace, and received overwhelming support. He was even granted use of that chateau in perpetuity. The track Millian’s husband’s research took led him even further. Into a place deep in the bottomless darkness.

“My husband wanted to become a Noble.”

As he learned more about the Nobility, her husband’s interest had shifted from the civilization they’d built to their physical abilities. There were certain words that danced and tempted men like luminescent insects out in the darkness. Ageless and undying.

“Firstly, my husband tried to obtain immortality without actually becoming a Noble. And once he realized he’d failed, he decided to become a Noble rather than give up.”

“He was a fool,” the baron spat. “And this was the result? As a mummy, it takes almost nothing to sustain his life—he certainly could live a long time like that, I suppose. But he’d be no better than a motionless living corpse.”

“Please, restore him.”

“What?”

“Please, restore my husband to his former self.”

The baron responded to her doleful request with a simple, “Can’t be done.”

“Why not?”

“Though he was foolish, your husband actually lit on something rather good. I can’t fault his methodology or his practice. There wasn’t a single mistake—except for the fact that a human can’t become one of the Nobility without being bitten. What you have here is the logical conclusion. Leave him as he is now, and he should last another three centuries. But as a mummy that never drinks or eats, but merely breathes.”

“But . . . But you’re a Noble who can walk in the light of day . . . As such, you should be able to restore my husband . . .”

“Hmm . . .” The baron looked from the withered face in the bed to the beautiful woman, then suddenly took the husband’s jaw in hand and pulled back on it. “You’re quite an attractive woman. Come to mention it, unlike all the others of my kind, I have yet to taste the pleasures of a human female. I was always so absorbed in my research, you see. What the—”

His rotund form leapt back a good ten feet. Where he’d been, a terrific killing lust had coalesced in human form. It was Totem.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have insulted the head of the household in front of such a faithful retainer. However, you do get what I was driving at, don’t you?”

Totem was about to step forward, but the lady stopped him.

As she looked at the baron through half-closed lids, her eyes carried hatred—and a gleam of irrepressible sexuality. “I will comply. However, I don’t want my blood to be . . .”

“Understood,” the baron said, breaking into a salacious grin. He purred like a cat, “Your mistaken human beliefs to the contrary, we have other ways of sating our desire besides the sacred act of drinking blood. We’re fully capable of enjoying relations between men and women just as humans do. Do you hear that, you big lug? Now, come to me, woman,” he said, beckoning to her.

Eyes downturned, the lady went over to the baron and took his hand. “The bedroom is this way.”

“Goody,” the baron exclaimed without any embarrassment. He even rubbed his hands together. Though a smile that could be described as less than innocent if not downright scornful flitted across the lady’s lips, he didn’t notice, stepping ahead of her and reaching for the doorknob.

“Come with me, then.”

The instant the door opened, the baron’s back was given an incredibly forceful push. Though a Noble, his weight was no greater than that of a normal human being. He fell forward with a shriek, at which point the door shut, and he only had time to shout, “Wait a minute!” before losing consciousness.

Surrounded by an overpowering smell that would likely drive even a human mad, his senseless body writhed, convulsed, and vomited.

Some time after his crazed movements had ceased, each and every window began to open without a sound. The room that the baron had entered had been filled with the smell of the only thing humans knew to be effective against the Nobility—garlic. When the door opened again, a pair of figures stood there.

“That was easier than expected—who knew there were such stupid Nobles,” the enormous figure sneered.

“Walking in the light of day—that’s the one thing a Noble shouldn’t be able to do,” the lithe figure laughed.

—

The chilly air of winter filled the room. The unconscious Nobleman lay in the placid sunlight. There was only the laughter of the lady of the house and her servant, hers ringing out high, and his low. The next thing he knew, his brain felt numb.

Really did a number on my sense of smell. That was his first thought. Before he passed out, it’d been clear what’d been done to him.

Though the Nobility were immortal and possessed regenerative capabilities, it took at least three days to recover from this traditional attack. His nerves would be paralyzed for a whole day. And yet, perhaps erring on the side of caution, they had secured the baron’s body to the bed with three straps. The lights and equipment in the rock-walled room told him in an instant that it was an operating room.

A pair of figures looked down on the baron, one from either side. Despite the white gowns, surgical masks, and rubber gloves they wore, their eyes made their identities clear.

“You bastards intended to do this to me from the very start, didn’t you? You’ll pay for this!”

“Please forgive me,” the lady apologized. Both her voice and her gaze remained cool. “As my husband neared his final days, he wrote down what should be done to treat him. He said to give him a transfusion of blood from a Noble.”

The baron bugged his eyes, gasping and struggling. “Then it was all a pack of lies, was it? Lousy humans! I was going to cure him!”

“In exchange for me,” the lady said in a tone that cut as well as the scalpel she held. “To be honest, I was concerned about this, but you can see how smoothly it went. I thank you, dear Nobleman.”

“It’s nothing, really. But you shouldn’t need a scalpel for a blood transfusion.”

“His instructions were that after the transfusion, we were to feed him the frontal lobe of a Noble’s brain.”

The baron began to shout. “Okay, that’s where you’re mistaken! That’s a huge misunderstanding. It’s the very zenith of quackery!”

“Do you know what happens when a Noble loses their brain?”

“Why, yes, I do. You see, some Nobles develop neuroses. I was given permission to perform various experiments on them on the condition that I euthanized them. The brain regenerates.”

“Then I wouldn’t think there’s anything to get so excited about.”

“But you’re in hell until it does grow back. Depending on how much is removed, it can be three days and nights of screaming agony. And afterwards, they’re not quite right. Not for me, no, thank you!”

“But it’s for my husband.”

“Hey! Stop it!” the baron cried, and he began to thrash in earnest.

Listening to the creaking of his bed, the lady merely shook her head sadly. “Those bonds were made to withstand the unholy strength of ten Nobles. Please forgive me.”

The blade of the scalpel was placed against the baron’s forehead. Just as her hand started to make the incision, there was a faint sound from the windowpane.

—

III

—

Even before she gripped her wrist, the lady backed away and her scalpel hit the floor. From between her fingers, a rough wooden needle jutted.

Suddenly a shadow moved across the sun. The hue of darkness tinged the window that now was marred with a small hole. That darkness shattered the glass, taking the form of a young man in black who landed on the floor.

“D!”

The Hunter advanced without a word and the lady was frozen in place, but Totem stepped in between them. He threw a straight right punch at D’s face. D stopped it with his left palm.

“Oh, my!” The cry sounded for all the world like it came from his palm. D had been physically knocked back to the window.

“Watch it,” the baron shouted to him from the bed. “That thing’s a sorcerous machine man. He can’t be destroyed through physical means.”

Totem went over to the wall to his right. A longsword hung there. Though it served as a decoration, it was a real weapon. Drawing it, he made a swipe in the air. The wind it created rattled the windowpanes. Lunging forward, he kept his left hand raised for balance.

D’s sword whistled from the sheath on his back. Totem’s expression changed. D extended his right hand and raised his left. Neither made the first move, but their blades flashed into action simultaneously. The gleams crossed, with one of them slashing diagonally through the sunlight.

There was a thud against the floor. Still clutching the sword, Totem’s arm had been taken off at the elbow. And as was normal for a blow from D’s blade, the stump exposed gleaming metallic bone and a silvery bundle of wire nerves. Those wires dripped down all over the floor and the severed arm. At the same time, silvery filaments also shot out of the arm on the floor. And then they connected in midair, swiftly melding together to lift the severed arm and align it with the stump. This thing could revive its very nerves, something even the Nobility’s indestructible nature supposedly didn’t allow. And weren’t these inanimate wires? It was magic. The Nobility had developed sorcery that could give life and regenerative abilities to even inanimate objects.

“Looks like someone learned how to work sorcery on machines on the level of an overlord. If the woman’s husband found out how to do that, he was no ordinary—oh!”

Totem charged at the Hunter. His steely arm thrust at D’s chest with a speed on par with the Hunter’s. Right before his eyes, D’s body spun out of the way. The tip of Totem’s blade met air by only a tenth of a second, and the spinning D caught him in the side with a blow from his left fist. Letting out a low groan, Totem staggered. It was unclear exactly when D had pulled out one of his wooden needles, but it was now driven halfway into the machine man.

Was it D’s skill or his fiendish strength that allowed him to pierce, as if they were paper, skin and muscle renowned for their ability to deflect even bullets?

As the machine man turned to face his opponent again, he made another smooth and deadly thrust that tore through empty air, while the sword brought down from above cleaved him from the top of the head to the chin, and his massive form fell flat on his back. Tens of thousands of wires wriggled from either side of the cut like tentacles. Sparks flew. The wires that came together were knocked back viciously, then rose like cobras preparing to strike. They were never to be joined again, and it was only a few seconds later that the last pair of wires gave up the ghost, but D didn’t have time to waste watching to be sure. He looked at the baron.

The cause of the Nobleman’s pained cries became all too clear. The baron’s right arm was exposed, and from it a crimson tube ran into the withered branch of an arm on the man in the next bed. The lady stood motionless on the other side of that bed. Needless to say, it was the spell of D’s exquisite visage that flushed her face as red as blood.

“My dearest,” the lady said. It wasn’t a murmur to herself. It was a call.

D looked at the bed. The mummy had just finished sitting up.

“Watch . . . out . . .” the baron said feebly from the bed where he lay. His oily skin had dried out, his eyes were vacant, and he called to mind a slightly plump mummy. “This is a fellow . . . who ensorcelled a machine . . . And maybe his own . . .”

Not giving him the chance to finish what he was saying, the mummy leapt out of bed and jabbed his right arm through the Nobleman’s heart. D saw that from the wrist down his hand had become a sword. Pulling it back out of the baron, who’d fainted with an agonized cry, the mummy caught a reflection of D in his cloudy eyes.

“Dearest . . .” the lady cried out, running up behind him and throwing her arms around him.

Who would’ve believed that the mummy—her husband—would stab her through the side with his right hand?

The next time she said “dearest,” it was a cry of pain.

Without a glance at the falling woman, D struck with his blade. The same blade D had used to cut down a mechanism equipped with regenerative abilities was now parried by the mummy’s arms. The gleam sliced through them, sinking into the top of the mummy’s head. With a mellifluous sound, the blade was deflected in a heartbeat by the helmet the mummy’s skull had transformed into. A split second before the deflected blade’s second swipe could make contact with the mummy’s neck, it was covered by steely armor. The whole body had become lustrous and black, reflecting the sunlight.

“So, this is one of those ‘iron men’ I’ve heard about, is it?” the left hand murmured in a low voice. The skin, muscle, and bone of the mummy’s body had been transformed into the black armor. Even his face was covered by an iron mask, leaving only his eyes faintly exposed. Gazing into them, D said, “You’ve failed. Giving a human the abilities of a Noble is a biological impossibility. The only thing you gained was the Nobility’s cruelty.”

The mummy’s eyes blazed red. A blisteringly hot beam of crimson pierced D’s chest. His eyes were transmitters for some kind of thermal beam—probably using infrared rays.

D’s left hand went up. Once more the crimson flashes raced toward D’s flaming chest. The light would bear witness. It would see the tiny face that formed in the palm of that hand. Its mouth pursed. In a long, thin sigh, it let out its breath. But was it that breath that made the thermal rays blur?

The thermal rays angled down. The tiny mouth snapped open as far as it could go. The red glow was sucked into it like a stream of blood. But who ever heard of a mouth that ate rays?

“That’s a good hearty meal, there,” the mummy heard a voice say.

D’s chest remained engulfed in flames, but he became a black wind as he kicked off the floor. The blistering beams had been turned into life force by his body, making him look like a burning mannequin. There was no telling how much power he had behind the sword he brought down over the mummy’s head. The steely armor that should’ve protected the mummy was split from the top of his head all the way down to his crotch, and then another horizontal slash left him in quarters that dropped to the floor. No blood flowed from him. He hadn’t had any from the very start.

Sheathing his blade, D went over to the baron’s bed, where he heard a woman’s cry of “dearest” creeping across the floor.

“Where . . . did we . . . go wrong? You said you only . . . wanted to make secrets of the Nobility . . . serve humanity . . . And all I ever did . . . was cheer you on . . .”

“What’s this? The woman’s crawling over to her quartered husband!” the baron said from where he lay on the bed, his face pale but a gleam coming into his eyes. “This is the same man who stabbed her. What can she be thinking? Oh, she’s holding him close. Are those tears? Why’s she crying? Because you did such a beautiful job of chopping him up? Ouff!”

A savage blow from the Hunter to the baron’s mountainous belly silenced the Nobleman. D then gazed at the dead on the floor as if they were part of his job.

Pulling the pieces of the mummy’s corpse back together and hugging them tight, the lady breathed her last.

After delivering another blow to the baron’s stomach to rouse him again, then freeing the blubbering Nobleman, D left the room first.

Blue skies, a breeze, and his cyborg horse were there to greet him. To welcome the young man who’d caused three deaths.

As the baron unsteadily tottered out and got on the back of the Hunter’s steed, countless riders galloped in through the gates. “What’s the story with these clowns?” the baron asked even as he ducked down behind D.

A group of armed riders blocked their path.

“How’d it go with Lady Millian?” the sheriff asked from the back of his steed.

“She died,” D said in reply.

“Who killed her?”

“Her husband.”

A murmur went through the group. The men exchanged glances, a number of them reaching for the stake guns they wore on their hips.

D got on his cyborg horse.

The astonishment was plain on the men’s faces. In complete disregard of their orders, they opened a path to let the Hunter pass.

“Where are you going?” the sheriff asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Ordinarily, I’d have to detain you here until the circuit court arrived and we could get to the bottom of this.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” D asked, already advancing down the path the other horses had cleared.

“Get going,” the sheriff told him with a toss of his chin. “But in return, forget everything that happened here. The town of Nieto never heard of the two of you.”

As the steed and its two riders walked away in silence, it was unclear if they heard the next thing he said.

“Those two were the terror of the community. Nobles, if there ever were any . . . They sure as hell weren’t human.”

And then the lawman heard something. The smaller of the two figures, with a little smirk on his face, said, “No, they were human.”