NIGHTMARES ON A RAINY NIGHT

CHAPTER 4

-

As the last period was finishing, droplets began to hammer the window panes, and, by the time the teacher left school, it had really started coming down. The sound of rain rebounding off his hooded slicker was nearly deafening.

Put just a mite too much grease on this one, Mr. Meyer ruminated as he walked the muddy path. The thicker the were-tiger fat they treated the heavy moose hides with, the faster it dried, and, in the fierce squalls particular to the region, the stiffened coat made a sound like cheeks being slapped.

Not five minutes after passing through the school’s front gate, the noise became all the more intense, and the teacher began to regret his haste to return home. He couldn’t see fifteen feet in front of him.

Be that as it may, to villagers menaced by the bloodsucking Nobility, rain was one of the most welcome sounds. As one would expect from legends of vampires’ inability to cross running water, statistically speaking the incidence of attack on rainy days was, for all purposes, nil. Though they might be grimacing, these Frontier people were gleeful as they hustled homeward.

“What on earth . . . ?” Spying a shape moving with inhuman speed through the sheets of falling droplets, the teacher came to a stop. It definitely looked very much like a man, but its bizarre gait, somehow different from that of an ordinary person, cast a foreboding pall over his heart.

All the water demons and vicious river sprites that loved to come out on rainy days had been exterminated years ago, and the talismans mounted at strategic points around the village should have kept the area safe from more of their kind until the end of time. But if that was true, what could the figure be . . . ?

Recalling that there was a lone farm off in the direction the figure had vanished, Mr. Meyer turned back toward the school. He hoped to get help. But it wasn’t much more than a quarter mile to the farmhouse. More than enough distance for the fear in his heart to become reality.

Hesitating momentarily, Mr. Meyer went after the shadowy figure.

A narrow footpath ran between fields planted with gargantuan produce. The soft topsoil was gouged by the driving rain, sending up an uninterrupted spray of yellow. Here and there, the sharp crack of vegetable leaves snapping from their respective stems could be heard.

The figure had long since left his range of vision. Without a doubt, it was headed for the farmhouse. Mr. Meyer picked up the pace.

His fears had been well founded.

When the silhouette of the farmhouse floated into the rain-soaked world, a scream split through the roar of the rain. There was the sound of something breaking, then it was lost beneath a bellow that couldn’t be attributed to man or beast.

The teacher sprinted, stripping off his coat. He fished in his blazer pocket as he ran, and clumsily pulled out a buckshot-firing tube intended for self-defense.

He stood rooted before the farmhouse door. The door itself was undisturbed, but in the mud wall beside it a huge hole gaped like a blackened maw. It was large enough for a full-grown man to pass through with ease. The teacher’s legs turned weak at the thought of the brute strength needed to make that hole.

Another scream. This time it was a child’s voice. Fear was banished in an instant by a powerful sense of professional duty, and Mr. Meyer flew in through the entrance. The teacher couldn’t have imagined the scene he would glimpse in that first heartbeat, a sight that replaced his sense of mission with a kind of numbness.

-

His field of vision was filled by a broad room and the body of a woman prone on its dirt floor. On top of the Rubenesque form of what was apparently the farmer’s wife squirmed a thing with disheveled locks. The thing, whatever it was, was roughly the size of a child seven or eight years old.

An ample breast spilled from the woman’s shredded clothing, and across the breast crept a scarlet tongue. There was the sound of licking, but it wasn’t the sort of sound that came from the loving play men and women engaged in. The thing was lapping at the redness that coursed down the woman’s bosom, running from the base of her throat.

The ebony head moved over the woman’s breast and her body twitched. It raised its visage gingerly to face the teacher. Weirdly jutting cheeks it had, and sunken eyes. Not a sliver of humanity was to be found in its bloodshot orbs, and its lips, uncommon only in their size, warped in an evil smirk at the appearance of fresh prey. With a wet thud, it spat something out on the earthen floor. One didn’t need to see the thing’s bloodstained teeth to know that what it spat was the well-gnawed tip of a breast.

The side door creaked open. In Mr. Meyer’s eyes, what came out of the back room looked like a werewolf with the body of a child in its jaws.

He still had the buckshot tube in his hands, but he didn’t bring it to bear on either of the creatures. Not only was he a teacher, but he was a Frontier person as well. Demons and monstrosities dwelt all around them, and he knew ways to deal with them. On two previous occasions he had fended off attacks with the weapon in his hands—by a harpy in one case and a man-serpent another time. But this time he didn’t move.

Realizing where his mind was starting to lead him, the teacher trembled violently.

The one that had been gnawing at the woman’s corpse rose, while the creature crawling about on all fours dropped the child’s body. The monsters closed in . . .

“Hold it. Don’t come near me.” The words barely escaped his throat. Side to side the buckshot tube wavered without fixing on a target.

Two creatures, the teacher tried to impress upon himself. Two things. Not people.

Eyes crazed solely with murder burned like flames, and blood-smeared lips hauled back to expose rows of teeth. Teeth that were average and human.

These things are just like me, the teacher mused.

From the front and flank dark shapes pounced.

Stop it!

A deafening report and thirty balls of shot stifled the teacher’s cry.

Outside, the squall grew stronger.

-

While that small but fearsome battle was taking place at one end of the village, Lina was already back at her home. After what had happened in the ruins it was no surprise she couldn’t focus in class, but the cause of her singular depression was what D had said.

Don’t follow me around anymore—that’s what she’d been told. In light of how she had fancied herself the young Vampire Hunter’s assistant, D’s order was a grievous wound to her pride.

Can’t allow myself to fly off the handle. Gotta get him to take that back.

Keeping these two sentiments in mind, Lina dropped her book bag in her room, then burst into D’s abode—the barn. D’s horse was tied up in one of the stalls. Goody, she thought. He’s in.

“Now I’ve seen everything,” she exclaimed, her amazement at this unforeseen tableau forming the words of its own accord.

She had heard from the mayor that D was a dhampir. And she had some knowledge about their nature. Though she had been certain that he would either be sleeping or feeding, D had in fact found a wooden desk and chair that had been moved out to the barn years ago. He was at them now, shaking what looked like a little flask.

Approaching dumbstruck, Lina saw the instruments laid out on the desktop. Her eyes went wide again, and this time wider than before. Not only were there a number of silvery cylinders and medicine bottles filled with draughts of unsettling shades, there was also a rack of flasks with pale vapors rising from the flasks’ openings. Unless her eyes deceived her, besides the rack a microcomputer hummed dully and gave off flashes of cyanic light. “Wow! Can all Vampire Hunters do chemical analysis?”

Though he’d probably long since noticed his visitor, D made no move to face her. But there wasn’t necessarily any enmity in that.

“Hey,” she called out, firming her shoulders for a struggle.

“I thought I’d dismissed my assistant.”

“Yippee!” Lina snapped her fingers. A smile spilled from her.

“What are you so happy about?”

“It looks like I get to be your assistant again. Oh, now don’t try and talk your way out of it. I see some hope for me yet in the way you phrased that. See, I’m a mind reader, too. I know full well where your mind’s headed.”

Really just yours and no one else’s, Lina thought.

D turned to Lina and said, “If I say it some other way will you get out?”

Her body trembling with chill at something carried in that soft tone, Lina shook her head as gaily as possible. “Not on your vampire-hunting life.”

She wondered what she’d do if her words offended him, but D returned to his desk expressionless.

She wasted no time going over to him. Shifting her eyes to the computer, she said, “An estimated 14.3 grams per 100 cubic centimeters, 4.5 million in a cubic millimeter—that’s the amount of hemoglobin and blood count for a woman you’ve got displayed there. Has someone else been attacked?!”

D turned to her and said, “Good call.” He wasn’t referring to the disturbing incident, but rather to her take on the numerical data displayed on his computer.

“What do you expect from a prodigy?” Lina chuckled, puffing her already ample chest. A second later, she slipped her cheek in by D’s face. “Your assistant would like to know something, Boss. Whose blood is this?”

D met the mischievous girl’s look with his sparkling eyes, then turned the other way.

Humph, that was an unexpected move. Does he think I’ll call it quits so easily? “Fine,” said Lina. “Don’t tell me. I guess I’ll just have to tag along and do my own thing. Wherever you go, I’ll be there on my own little agenda. So try not to get bent out of shape when I trample all over your precious evidence.”

“Do what you like.” End of discussion.

Of course, throwing a sulking fit wouldn’t sway D. And it would be galling to go now with things the way they stood. Lina wound up hovering over the computer.

Once, several years back, she’d seen a computer that a traveling merchant had brought to town. A legacy of the Nobility’s vanished scientific culture, computers were few in number, and rarer still were people who could use them. Clearly this must be one of the most powerful models, with a built-in ability to draw inferences in addition to the usual data-analyzing functions. Still, it was hard to believe a Vampire Hunter was used to using such a device.

D’s fingers gently brushed the magnetic ball and the display changed.

“That’s 16 grams of hemoglobin, blood count of 5 million—that one’s a man’s. D, you don’t suppose—”

“There were drops of the woman’s blood in the middle of the woods where Cuore was found. Thanks to the high humidity, it hadn’t dried completely. It still had its scent, too. I’ve added some blood from the woman last night to it.”

Just as Lina was about to jump for joy at finally receiving a civil reply, the computer began to display something other than numerical data. Top and bottom, left and right, the pale spark dragged its tail.

“Oh, I get it. From saliva mixed with the blood of its victim you can deduce who the Noble really is. Sensational!” Lina trained a gaze of fear and curiosity on the display.

Where the randomly flowing flashes made contact, a cluster of luminous points formed and shifted locations in a manner that was momentarily dizzying. In no time, a single face had been rendered on the dark-green display.

Lina swallowed her spittle.

“Recognize this?” D inquired.

Lina shook her head. The screen was filled with a three-dimensional image of a man she’d never seen. D’s hand moved and the perspective of the “face” changed several times, but Lina couldn’t recall seeing it. “It’s no one from the village. Not Tajeel, either. That’s a relief . . . ”

That seemed to dispel some of her doubts. The sound of falling rain came clearly to her ears.

“Why are you crying?” D asked, switching off the computer. The sample of blood he’d collected in the forest had since dried, making it impossible now to deduce the identity of the woman who had been bitten there.

“Hmph,” Lina snorted, turning the other way and dabbing at her eyes. “Rainy days are supposed to make you sentimental, you know. What kind of girl would I be if they didn’t?”

She hoped D would pick up the conversation, but instead he looked out of the entrance, commenting on how it was really pouring down.

“Why is it the Nobility have problems with the rain?” Lina had wondered about this for years. When she was little, it seemed any time there were rumors of Nobles appearing in some distant village she’d only been allowed outdoors on rainy days.

As he replied, “I don’t know, either,” D’s face became mysteriously pale. He was questioning why he bothered answering each and every question the girl posed. “From a biological standpoint, a number of mysteries remain about how their metabolisms work. The question of why they can only move by night, or how their bodies can heal wounds from bullets, or why they can be destroyed with a single wooden stake. The same can be said for their inability to cross running water, or the way rainy days prevent them from venturing outdoors. It’s rather ironic that so many defects remain when they’ve attained what’s believed to be the pinnacle of biological evolution—true immortality.”

“Looks like the all-revealing light of science isn’t perfect after all,” said Lina, eyes alight with inquisitiveness. “I wonder if the Nobility themselves ever solved those mysteries.”

“So far as I know?” D shook his head. “Biological weaknesses are linked to some defect of the species. If they had seized on some clue, some explanation, I doubt the day when men ruled the earth would have ever come. The Nobles vanished from history without even knowing why they were doomed. All told, I suppose they were rather good sports about it.”

“A fundamental defect of the species,” Lina muttered, deeply moved by what D had said. “The Nobility died off, while mankind remained. But even now we’re terrified of some vision of those who’ve gone. Doesn’t that seem sort of pitiful for the supposed rulers of the earth?”

D kept his silence as he moved to the entrance, then put his hand out into the cascade pouring down from the eaves. As he did so, his eyes fixed on a spot outside. Lina tilted her head in consternation and followed after him.

Beyond the blurring gray membrane they could see the profile of the hill and a number of human silhouettes. People swinging hoes up and down. They could hear the whine of atomic tractors, too. If you didn’t mind getting a little wet, this was the finest weather one could ask for to put in some extra hours in the fields without the threat of the dreaded Nobility.

“If I were to go out now, my body temperature would drop nearly four degrees,” D said, watching the droplets smashing against his outstretched hand. “My running speed would fall by thirty percent, you see, as my whole metabolism slowed down. On the other hand, your kind . . . ”

Reading the faraway look in D’s eye, Lina felt pained by the destiny the gorgeous youth bore. What was it like to spring from Noble and mortal blood? When stalking one of the two, what went through his heart?

Lina took D’s soaked arm.

“What the . . . ?”

Clasping everything from the wrist up with both hands, she pressed it to her cheek without saying a word. His hand’s so cold, but maybe I can warm it up just a bit. Maybe it’ll make me his temperature. Lina shut her eyes and heard only the sound of the rain.

Suddenly the eeriest sensation struck her countenance. Goosebumps rising all over her body, Lina let go of his hand. D’s gaze hadn’t moved in the least; his profile still pointed in the same direction. But what stood before the girl wasn’t the same young man, gorgeous, solitary, and proud.

“Don’t leave this spot.” His parting words vested with an authority that made them impossible to disobey, the Vampire Hunter stalked out into the falling droplets. It took a minute before Lina realized he also carried his longsword in his left hand.

D’s speed didn’t appear to have dropped the least bit below normal. A hundred yards took him less than six seconds. He didn’t even close his eyelids against the wind-whipped rain lashing his face.

Easily clearing the fence, he entered a field. This didn’t cause even the slightest delay. Not even the mire would think of catching the youth’s feet or making him slip.

He arrived at his destination some fifty yards distant in another three seconds flat.

The farmers had formed a ring, but they whirled about as the ghastly aura struck them. Their faces were fearful as they cleared a path.

D planted his knee by the side of the thing lying on the ground.

The creature had a diminutive body and was crowned with a head of lengthy hair. Its flesh was as pale and blue as a drowning victim, but something red leaked from it. Apparently there was still some life in it.

D had no difficulty flipping the body over. A murmur ran through the assembled farmers. The chest and flank of the creature bore a number of entry wounds. Probably left by buckshot, judging from the spread.

“Which way did it come?” D asked without turning.

“Over yonder . . . from the direction of the school,” a tremulous voice answered.

“Relax. It won’t be moving anymore,” D said, pointing at the creature. “Carry it back to the mayor’s barn. Or if you don’t feel like touching it, summon the sheriff.”

“You . . . you do it. Ain’t that your job?” someone on the other side of the group protested. “If we touch that there abomination, our hands will rot and drop off. Hell, I say one monster should clean up after another.” The boldly blurted words became a shriek and the farmer dropped on the spot. Nothing had happened, aside from D standing up again. But as the wind and rain unexpectedly grew wilder, the men saw something blazing with a brilliant red light.

D’s eyes.

“I said carry it.” His tone hadn’t changed at all—if anything, it was calmer—but the men seemed to sense something in it and they jostled to be the first to the corpse of the creature. Without sparing them another glance, D returned to the barn with the same speed he’d come.

Lina and the mayor stood in the doorway.

“What the blazes is going on?” the old man asked. His wrinkle-rimmed eyes had a glint approaching madness.

Replying simply, “I don’t know,” D swiftly moved inside and made the necessary preparations. He donned his coat and traveler’s hat. Around him and only him the flow of time seemed different. From where the mayor and Lina stood, the clothing seemed to move to D’s body as if magnetically attracted. Less than ten seconds after returning, D passed the pair again on his way back out.

A considerable while after the thunder of shod hooves faded into the far reaches of the rain, the farmers came into the barn carrying the remains of the thing.

-

Going on for a mile and a quarter, D halted his horse. Mortal eyes would have seen nothing but rain, but D could discern the black shape of the schoolhouse wavering some five hundred yards ahead.

“Lost the scent. Your turn,” he said to his left hand. His palm puffed and swelled into a masculine face that needed no introduction—the ghastly countenanced carbuncle.

In a tone of undisguised displeasure it said, “Sheesh, and right in the middle of a good dream. Oh, raining, is it?” No sooner had he said this than he opened his tiny mouth to greedily gulp down a share of the torrential downpour.

“What about the scent?” D pressed him. There was a frigid anger in his voice.

“Keep your drawers on. Just because I’ve been asleep don’t mean I haven’t worked up an appetite. East of here. Four hundred yards, give or take a smidge.”

It seemed both of them—D and his companion in his palm—were able to catch the bloody scent of the beast that’d disappeared in the heavy rain. In less than a minute, D was making his way through the entrance to a lone farmhouse—the same home where a mere hour earlier Mr. Meyer had encountered tragedy.

The thick stench of blood assailed his nose.

On the room’s earthen floor lay the bodies of the farmer’s wife and child. Confirming that both had expired, D knelt by the entrance to the room.

Lifeblood was spilled across the packed earth, and the stains crept outside like a serpent. Probably blood from the monstrosity. Just as he had in the forest, D sealed some bloodstained soil in a glass vial from a pouch on his combat utility belt, then retrieved another object with his right hand.

The buckshot cylinder. It was the one Mr. Meyer had used, but D didn’t know that. Holding the muzzle to his left hand, he asked, “How about it?”

“Fired an hour ago, more or less.”

“From the look of those corpses, this wasn’t the work of a Noble. There were two of them. One being was the thing in the field, I take it. So whose blood is this—the weapon’s owner or whatever the owner shot?”

“Can’t say. But there’s no one here anymore.”

D stood up again and went outside. Once more the wind and rain covered his dashing profile. “No need to involve myself with anything aside from vampires, but those things . . . ” D muttered as he was about to place his foot in the stirrup. Suddenly, his body tensed.

There was nothing anywhere near him. Nothing and no one.

Despite that, D didn’t move a muscle. Perhaps he couldn’t move; then again, maybe he wouldn’t be moved.

Somewhere behind him, neither near nor far, a certain presence had gushed into being.

D, it called. Not with a voice, but the presence itself. I thought you’d come.

“You were here, weren’t you?” D’s voice was almost mechanical. From the way he phrased it, he seemed to be acquainted with whoever the presence behind him belonged to. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

Most likely failed, the presence muttered gravely. Best you come once again to the computation center. I’m always there.

D’s right hand moved. A lethal swipe mowed through the air.

Most likely failed.

Rain spattered against the naked longsword as D whirled around.

I’m in the computation center.

As if blown to the four winds by the silently speeding needle of wood, the presence was swallowed by the darkness.

D stared at the empty point in space while the rain, rebounding off every inch of his body, sounded like derisive laughter.

-

The mayor’s home was being battered by stormy waves of the supernatural. Nobles that walked by day were more than enough to send shivers through the entire village; now a new type of monster had appeared and attacked a farm. The disappearance of another villager only added to the mayor’s woes.

After hearing D’s account, the sheriff and a party from the Vigilance Committee visited the scene. Based on the other corpses and the vast quantity of blood spilled on the dirt floor, the consensus was Mr. Meyer had most likely been slain. His identity had been established when a member of the Vigilance Committee verified that the buckshot cylinder D brought back belonged to the teacher.

The corpse of the monstrosity was carted to the village physician for dissection, but the news from this hadn’t been particularly bright either.

It wasn’t a creature but rather a human being, though it differed from them in terms of its skeletal structure, musculature, and intestinal regions; all told, nearly two hundred distinct disparities had been noted. No incision had been made in the head, but from the shape of the skull the doctor concluded that its brain was exceedingly small. Its intelligence would be reduced proportionally. As for why the head hadn’t been opened, the government stipulated that, when new forms of life were discovered, the brain was to be properly refrigerated and shipped to the Capital, skull and all.

At that point, D, who happened to be present, made a surprising request. He wanted them to loan him the corpse and viscera for the evening.

“What the blazes for?!” the mayor shouted, knitting his brow. Like the physician, he was highly skeptical.

“I’d like to examine them with my own instruments. No disrespect intended.”

Perhaps the infamous eldritch aura gently brushed the nape of their necks, for the physician paled and held his tongue while the mayor nodded reluctantly. After all, he’d summoned D to their village, and, though the results so far could hardly be called favorable, after witnessing the nightmarish might of the vampire the previous night he knew in the marrow of his bones that this gorgeous youth alone could slay it, whatever it turned out to be.

“Have it your way. But just for the day. Tomorrow it goes off to the Capital. But I’m more interested in what you plan on doing with the woman.”

The woman in question was Kaiser’s wife, who’d been attacked by a vampire twice and now lay in bed dangling between life and death. A young man from the Vigilance Committee stood watch over her night and day with stake in hand. Her husband still hadn’t returned.

“No problem there. Bring her to the barn along with the cadaver.”

And so it came to be that D was going to spend the night with a pair of corpses.

With all that had happened—monstrous new creatures appearing, then encountering that presence in the downpour and seeing his lethal blow slashing through empty air—D’s nerves must have been extraordinary for him not to display any tinge of either excitement or concern.

When he got the news from the sheriff that the exhaustive search of the town had turned up nothing, D was composed, perhaps, because he hadn’t expected anything from the start. And when they told him Mr. Meyer hadn’t returned home, D didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.

Left alone in the barn, D stood by the bench that bore the monstrosity. By its side were a number of jars with its organs in formaldehyde, the glass glinting harshly with light from a mercury lamp on the ceiling. Both the body and the jars had been brought from the physician’s home. Outside, the rain made a considerable din.

“You there?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yup,” his palm responded. The face was already surfacing.

D held his left hand over the cadaver. The eviscerated abdominal cavity sagged pitifully. And, on the neatly sutured incision on the flank, the stitches of cauterizing thread on the flesh were unusually grotesque.

From the clawed tips of the thing’s swollen toes the left hand crept slowly to the twisted ankles, then to the badly bowled thighs. Naturally, D had his eyes trained in that direction, too, but, as he held his hand close to the cadaver, the way the countenanced carbuncle in his palm continued to survey the unmoving patient with the gravest of expressions was more comic than spooky.

Moving his left hand over the flanks, chest, and face, then finally lightly touching the hair flowing from the crown of its head, D said, “Well?”

“Hmm, just as you expected. But at the moment it remains dead.”

D nodded. What exactly did it mean by “at the moment it remains dead”?

“When will it awaken?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions. From ancient times the demons have always gathered at three Morning. On another note, while I was dozing I overheard talk about some teacher named Meyer gone missing. Think this one’s playmate got him?”

Apparently the countenanced carbuncle could still see and hear what went on in the outside world while deep in the palm of D’s hand.

“Probably,” D said. “But there’s still one thing about this case I can’t figure.”

“Hmph,” the other voice snorted derisively. “No doubt the key would be in them ruins. You could always go up there alone and check it all out. Bringing the girlie along would be safe enough, too, I suppose. That is, so long as you-know-who is up there.”

The chiding voice died abruptly. D had clenched his left hand in a tight fist. He did it with such strength his flawless young flesh shook, and, along with the hoarse groan of agony, a trickle of bright blood spilled from between his curled fingers.

“Him,” D muttered, sending his gaze to the wide open doors. “It all started with him. All the dreams, and all the tragedies.”

A fierce wind gusted in through the doorway, setting the ceiling lamp swaying. In that light D’s face became a devilish one.

-

“Stop it . . . ”

Fishy lips sucked up the girl’s entreaty as the mayor pressed his face against hers.

When the impassioned breath and tongue invaded her ear, Lina let out an involuntary moan. Beneath her pajama top a wrinkled hand kneaded her breast.

“Please . . . just stop . . . I don’t want this.”

“Why is that?” Enjoying Lina’s refusal, the mayor pinned her white arms against the sheets. “Because that Hunter’s here?” he asked, letting a faint smile rise to his lips. “Can’t say as I blame you. I’m a man, and I have to confess his looks make even my heart beat faster. Well, that’s fine and dandy. Once in a while, it’s nice to get a piece of tail from someone with a little fight in ‘em.”

His lips attached themselves to her breast. Lina twisted her body, but there was nothing she could do. Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, dampening the white sheets.

After a bit, the old man took his lips away and said, “You’re mine. It was me that saved you from becoming the village plaything, who adopted you, who kept them from doing anything against you. Soon you’ll be leaving town. Afraid there’s not much we can do about that. But until you do—hell, even after you’re in the Capital, I won’t let any other man have you. And I won’t have you falling for anyone, either.”

His voice was charged with obsession. Lina averted her face.

“I’ll see to it you don’t forget about me. I’ll hammer my memory into your body. Like so.”

The old man’s face sank below her waist, and Lina bit her lip to keep from voicing the fruit of that torment. A bony hand crept along the exposed whiteness of her thigh.

She looked to her pillow in desperation. Under the pillow she spied a single white bloom. It pulled the passion from her frame in an unbelievable way. Thoughts of the face of someone she’d never seen came to Lina.

Noticing a slight change in the way the girl’s body was responding, the old man increased the pace of his tongue, and yet the expression Lina wore was mysteriously serene.

The face conjured in her heart of hearts bore a striking resemblance to the Vampire Hunter.

-

Winds joined the torrential downpour, and the level of the river continued to rise. Although the flow had been intense to begin with, it couldn’t keep pace with the cresting waves whipped up by the wind. At the angry tone of the muddy tributary, now surpassing even the piercing sound of the rain, the residents along the riverbanks exchanged anxious looks.

Two figures moved at the foot of the bridge. Both were men from the Vigilance Committee. In their black raincoats, they were reminiscent of the creatures of the night they so feared.

“Looks like trouble. Could be she’s gonna give way.”

Hearing the opinion of the bigger man, the smaller one stood on the incline shaking his head. “Nah, it rained just as hard last year. The bridge’s girders have been reinforced, and they even built up these embankments. Nothing to worry about. Of course, I don’t know what’ll happen if it keeps up like this for another day or two more. And how many times have I got to tell you not to grab hold of my legs like I was your own personal ladder?”

A silence fell between the pair. Actually, the bigger man was above the little man on the embankment.

It took a long time for the little man to summon the nerve to look down at his ankles.

The arm wrapped around them belonged to a man whose upper body jutted from the black water.

“You, you’re . . . ” The little man recalled the face of the Vampire Hunter who’d fallen off this very bridge, coffin and all, not so many days earlier. Pale face expressionless, the Hunter drew a stake from his belt and drove it through the little man’s heart. Death spasms wracked his short frame. Lifeless, he tumbled into the water and was quickly washed away.

Climbing the embankment coolly, the reanimated Hunter came to stand before the petrified giant.

Just before the pale figure’s upraised stake stabbed into the big man’s chest, he saw the dark shapes of men and women creeping one after another from the black surface of the water and up the slope. Something long and round stuck in the heart of each. They were all the victims of the Nobility who had been disposed of at the river.

So this is how I die, the big man thought. With a stake through the heart from this freak. The stake sank into his chest. He saw a bloody spray billow out with a poof.

An unexpected wind blew against the gigantic body that rolled halfway down the embankment, ruthlessly tearing off his coat. There was no bloodstain to be seen. What’s more, neither the chest of the big man nor the heart of the little man had been pierced by a stake. And there wasn’t a trace of the horde of corpses that had risen from the watery depths.

-

At two fifty-nine Morning, D rose from his bed of hay and turned the light controls on, keeping the solar lamp dimmed as much as possible. A faint darkness ruled the barn. Strange things, creatures and phenomena alike, had a strong aversion to light.

Returning to his resting place, he stared at the corpse on its hastily improvised bed and at the woman who was neither living nor dead.

The matter of the woman herself didn’t seem so urgent. If it wanted to, the vampire that had gorged itself the previous night could hold off for an interval of several days. What’s more, because the vampire knew what D was capable of, the vampire wasn’t likely to make a casual call on his victim. Despite the slim chances of attack, D had taken custody of her because he’d surmised what would happen if she were to be summoned.

Victims who fell under a vampire’s spell came under a kind of long-range hypnosis and could unleash brutal attacks even on the people who were trying to protect them.

The most fearsome thing about this hypnotic state was the way it could surpass the subconscious limits humans imposed on their own flesh. Trying to hold down a victim thrashing about with the full power inherent in the human body—roughly seven times their normal strength—was a difficult task for a team of five men of like physiques. A graceful maiden shattering the shinbone of a professional combatant wouldn’t even be considered news on the Frontier. Before it came to such a struggle, those attending to the victim would do their best to make merciless use of a stake. Those who should be protecting them became their murderers—was that a tragedy or a comedy?

But if that was the case, toward what end had D appropriated the creature’s corpse? And what was the meaning of his weird conversation with the countenanced carbuncle?

The change came at exactly three Morning.

D’s eyes shone mysteriously.

Without any extraneous action, the cadaver slowly raised its torso.

The dead body got up now and slipped off the table, its face alone remaining set in the blank mask of death. But, for something with all its internal organs extracted and a great subsidence in its abdomen, it possessed a tenacious, even mysterious, vitality.

“Just as I thought,” D muttered.

The living corpse went to the jars and began a hair-raising activity. Skillfully removing the spring-loaded cap from one and plunging its hand in, it extracted the dripping entrails, ripped open its sealed wound, and lovingly pushed inwards, shoving its intestines back into their rightful place.

This activity, the sight of which might have driven anyone but D to madness, continued for some time. Having reclaimed its heart, lungs, stomach, and other parts, and naturally heedless of the great lump of viscera that had collected in its abdomen, the cadaver ran its muddy pupils over the surroundings. It began to move toward the entrance with an awkward gait.

D got up, too. The sheath of the longsword on the back of his coat shone dimly. Not a single bit of hay stirred. With muted footsteps he followed after the reanimated monstrosity.

The small silhouette went out through the entrance.

D stopped, and seemed to consider following it. He had no fear of the lashing rain, of course, but all of his dhampir senses detected a mass of powerful mental energy thronging to the back of the barn. Whatever it was, he couldn’t yet see it.

From D’s back rose the sound of his blade unsheathing. After that, there was no movement at all.

The presences—a horde of soaking corpses—surrounded him, young ladies and lads with stake-pierced hearts, their burial vestments vividly dyed with their own blood. They were the corpses of all who had fallen under the pernicious fangs of the Nobility and been thrown into the rushing waters since this village was first incorporated.

However . . .

“A psychological attack? They’re using rather advanced abilities.” D had already noticed that the rows of corpses cast no shadow.

“Long time no see, D. Never thought I’d find you here.” The bloated corpse of a drowning victim, the only one that had been spared a staking, stepped forward. It was the Vampire Hunter Geslin. Could the enemy be trying to use some memory of this man as a way in, to project their illusions into D’s mind?

“How about it, D? Can you cut us down?” Geslin’s right hand moved, and white lightning brushed D’s cheek. Raindrops spattered the running blood. “You can’t cut us with that sword of yours. But we can stick you with our stakes.”

Wedges of wood glistened in the bloodied hands of the dead.

The needles of plain wood flying from D’s right hand passed through the bodies of the dead and stuck in the barn wall behind them. Geslin chortled. “What do you make of that, D? Is this the best you can do? Just try it. Can’t you cut us down?”

“I can cut you.”

“What?!”

D’s eyes gave off a fierce red glare. Parrying all the nonexistent stakes roaring towards him with a graceful movement, D charged into the very center of the besieging horde of dead.

Geslin’s head was split it two, the expression of shock still plastered to his face. The head flew off a youth who had a stake held high and was ready to strike. Naked steel penetrated the bosom of a woman who was retreating in screams. A pair of fangs jutted from D’s mouth. Who could have stood to look directly at that ghastly visage? This was no less than the slaughter of the dead by a demon of a man.

Rain splashed off the silver blade.

Amidst the wind and rain and darkness stood the lonely figure of D.

There was no one there. Just as it always was.

Even the cut on his cheek had disappeared. The whole battle had taken place in his mind.

“That’s a relief. No matter how many times I see it, it’s always an intense show,” came the thoroughly disgusted voice from D’s left hand. The Hunter had already regained his paraffin beauty and was scanning the area. “Can’t fight your blood, I say. At any rate, that threw quite a monkey wrench into your scheme to see where that beastie was going to hook up with his cohorts. The question is, was it a coincidence or not?”

“If it was a coincidence, then that creature and the attacker yesterday are unrelated. If it was intentional, then all our mysteries are coming together around a single point,” D said, brushing the raindrops from his shoulders at the door to the barn. Raven hair clung to his nigh translucent skin, and a desolate unearthliness hung over him, but still his beauty was beyond description. Surely even the most dazzling of women would pale before this youth.

Why, even the voice of the left hand seemed rapt as it said, “Heh, it’s hard to believe you’ve gone all this time and never once turned your fangs on all the women and men who pursue you. I bet the most gorgeous princess on earth would offer you her smooth white throat if you just said the word. I have to give you credit for the strength of your will, if nothing else. So, what do you plan on doing?”

“Concerned about me?” D asked softly.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I was just asking if you were going up to those castle ruins. I’ve got a vague inkling of what went on there. Might even be that creature came from—”

“I know.” D’s words cut the grating voice short.

Exactly. Ever since he’d laid eyes on the creature lying in the field, D knew it was just like the things that had attacked Lina and him in the dark depths of the castle.

“Guess we’ve got to go then. Since his highness is up there, too.” Down on D’s palm, the countenanced carbuncle bared its teeth in an eerie laugh.

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In the middle of a dim room, several shadowy figures gathered.

The room was filled with such a sense of the unearthly, it made the snarls of a multitude of beasts coming from very close at hand seem stripped of energy.

“I failed,” one of the shadows moaned. But, despite the import of its words, it didn’t seem perturbed. The voice was all the weirder for its serenity. “If that Hunter can parry a psychological attack, he’s a man to be feared. A dhampir, no doubt. And no average half-breed, either. What do you think?”

The shadow it addressed was silent.

“Forget I asked then,” said the first shadow, fairly spitting the words.

Surprisingly, the voice was still young. Judging by the way he spoke, this was the leader of the group—the ashen figure in gray. And, if that were the case, might the remaining two be his victim Fern and the boy Cuore? Even that young man wouldn’t have been safe for long in a den of vampires.

“Whatever the case, we can’t allow him to remain in the village any longer. Or to find out who we are.” The shadow’s arm extended, and he pointed to the third shadow. “Tomorrow, collapse the entrance way. Let me say this now to be perfectly clear—I will not allow him to interfere again. Next time, it’ll be you that gets taken care of, regardless of what you are.”

The shadow he’d indicated shook as if frightened, but it said nothing.

Something small moved over by the wall. All eyes focused on the entrance, catching the diminutive creature that entered to the creaking of the heavy door. From its strangely protruding abdomen up to its clavicle there ran a raw black surgical incision.

“Is this the only one to come back?” the shadow leader asked. “It would’ve been better to catch them right away when they got loose, but that was beyond our control. With the scent of fresh blood and meat everywhere, it doesn’t matter that they don’t have to eat or drink—they’re going to want to run wild. Oh, well, soon enough this village, no, the whole Frontier will be in our hands. It all happens tomorrow.”

The shadow’s foreboding laughter was full of confidence. Pregnant with horror and mystery, darkness alone covered the downpour-drenched village.

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