GENES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

CHAPTER 5

-

D awoke when cold light filled the barn to the eaves. He’d slept perhaps all of three hours. To a dhampir like him, it didn’t matter whether he worked by night or day, but even his body demanded the occasional respite and sleep. Perhaps the shadow clinging to his exquisite countenance was due to the strain of having to work solely by day of late.

A fog had moved in, it seemed, and the whiteness slipped into the barn through the entrance and cracks around the windows, but it was not so thick as to hinder action. All the more so because in D’s eyes this was no different from midday in fine weather.

Making his preparations with characteristic superhuman speed, he exited the barn.

His stride was smooth. More like a shadow than a cat. If stealth was an innate characteristic of the Nobles, they could hope for no greater silence than D possessed.

Entering a stable a short distance away, D stopped cold. Seven or eight yards ahead of him, the stone walls of the main house reflected the morning sunlight. Dressed in a white nightgown, Lina opened one of the windows and leaned out into the street. Right below the sill there hung a small window box. Stretching out her hand, Lina snatched up something white that lay in it.

D saw it quite clearly. It was a single white blossom. Though he didn’t know what it was called, this tiny expression of life was a common enough sight along the roads of the Frontier. Who could’ve left it?

Pressing it to her breast, Lina looked down the road with an expression bordering on tears. The girl gazed for an eternity down the white road, hazy with fog.

Before long, the window shut quietly. D went into the stable, came out with his mount, and pointed it towards the ruins. Oh so quietly, as if trying not to make a sound, as if trying not to shatter a young girl’s dream.

As soon as D was off the mayor’s property, he started to gallop at full speed. The horse tore through the mist. The crusted remains of snow flew in all directions. Mist devils out to ravage crops were startled by this early morning rider and drifted down to see what he was all about, but they were crushed before they could even touch him, and were left swirling in his wake.

Racing through the village, in less than twenty minutes he had climbed the hill and arrived at the entrance to the ruins. Hitching his horse to the edge of a shattered stone wall, the Hunter entered the courtyard.

Fog permeated the ruins.

Passing from the corridor to the hall, D was going to make straight for the entrance to the laboratory, but he came to a stop almost in the center of the hall.

He looked back at a picture on the wall. It was the same painting that put a sparkle in a young girl’s eye as she stood before it, saying she wanted to study history.

The instant he turned back around and began walking deeper into the ruins, the ceiling and the wall around the door cracked. A red flash of light and savage gaseous energy came from the crack, headed for D. The time it took D to see this and make a conscious choice of how to avoid it would be the difference between life and death.

The impact swept D’s feet out from under him and slammed him into the wall to his rear. Thick chunks of stone went flying, and the roar echoed through the hall.

Now a mountain of rubble lay in front of the entrance. It would be impossible to get into the rooms beyond without bringing in motorized equipment.

D was on the floor, his upper body resting against the base of the wall. The flap of his longcoat was caked white from the dust that rose from the impact. There was no way he could move. He had taken a blast of energy that destroyed hundreds of tons of rock in the walls and ceiling, and he had been smashed headfirst into a stone wall. Of course, an ordinary person would’ve been killed instantly by internal injuries alone.

To say the least, it was an unhappy coincidence that D happened to be passing through the place when the project to block the entrance the figure in gray had mentioned the night before was underway.

-

A lone traveler advanced on horseback through a forest road a few miles from the village. Bristles covered his rocklike chin, and the atrocious gaze he wore complimented his face perfectly. His look, and the rivet gun at his waist, gave clear testimony to the nature of this man. He was one of the outlaws that roamed the Frontier.

When there was even a little money to be made, this man would stoop to blackmail or extortion, and he had no qualms about murder, either. The skin beneath his thick, electrically heated coat was carved by countless wounds from bullets and blades, and his right earlobe was missing, though horrible traces remained where it had been ripped off. While he was strangling a young lady in some village way up north, she’d torn it off in her death throes.

These last few days, he’d been hard pressed to find either good grub or a woman. Chances were he was imagining the pleasures that awaited in the next village, because a vulgar smile surfaced on his filthy lips.

“What the—?”

Before he pulled back on the reins, the man found himself doubting his own eyes. Fifteen feet or so ahead, a young lady stepped out from behind some trees and onto the road. That was enticing enough. But her curvaceous figure burned into the man’s retinas.

The girl was stark naked.

What’s this . . . a Frontier whore? Pro or not, I can’t figure why she’d be out running around like that . . . Maybe she’s wacko?

Although his mind had plodded along that far, the crass thug’s reason melted away in an instant, and his brain became occupied solely by deeds that might be done with the girl. Still, he waited a moment, scanning the surroundings with a caution he’d learned through his numerous bloody encounters.

No one around? If so, this honey’s a nut job all right. I can have her every which way, and kill her when I’m done. Way out here I won’t have to worry about anyone finding her till she’s nothing but bones.

His plan, however, didn’t prove quite so easy.

When the man dismounted with a disarming grin, the girl looked back over her shoulder and, giving him a seductive glance, dashed off into the forest. The curves of her backside drove him crazy—round and firm as a succulent fruit ready to explode, as only a young lady’s could be. Hitching his horse to a nearby tree, he took off after her. into the woods, into a world of darkness from which there would be no return.

He gave chase for perhaps all of five minutes, the breath rasping loudly from his nostrils.

Plunging through the same luxuriant foliage that swallowed the naked form, the man suddenly jolted to a halt.

The girl was lying in the meadow right in front of him. His gaze was riveted to her breasts, turning up to remarkable rosy knobs, and her damply glistening thighs. The girl moaned and twisted her lower half. There was precious little chance he’d realize her intent was to show more of her ass than was really necessary. Her pale skin was strangely bloodless, and yet her lips alone were weirdly crimson, but the thug did not notice.

He fell on that white body like a black hunk of stone. Sucking and twisting her lips, he forced his tongue into her mouth. And the girl responded.

This is fantastic!

Raising his eyes in delight, he glimpsed the face of the girl.

She was laughing with the face of a devil.

As he tried to jump off, one frail arm held his body down, and the fingers of the other sank into his right hand as he made a grab for his rivet gun.

When the lips that curled back to reveal fangs closed on him, the man finally screamed. And long though it lasted, the deep woods drank it all.

-

When they were informed that Mr. Meyer was absent from school, Lina felt the eyes of the whole class needling her.

The village had learned of the incident the night before.

A monster of hitherto unknown type had broken into a farmhouse near the school, killing and eating a mother, child, and someone who was just passing by. To top it all off, one of the Vigilance Committee members who’d gone missing after he went to check the water level was found dead this morning under the bridge, and the confirmation that the body had been completely free of wounds caused quite a uproar.

That much might have been excusable, but when the mayor learned of this and headed straight for the barn, there was no sign of either D or the corpse of the monster there, just the woman sleeping as soundly as ever, but with a mark like a “t” on her forehead. Lina still wasn’t sure if it had been drawn in blood or something else.

Of course the mayor was outraged, and he lambasted the Vigilance Committee for their negligence. On one hand he’d told them to ascertain D’s current whereabouts, but he’d also admonished them to keep this information secret. But it was a very small village. By the time Lina and the others headed off to school, a sketchy version of the events had made the rounds to almost every home in the area. The fact that Mr. Meyer was the one who had apparently been carried off by the monster was probably leaked by one of the Committee members who had visited the teacher’s house the night before.

Even though the secondary school instructor who came to inform them of their teacher’s absence pretended the absence was due to a cold, there was no chance of that shaking the dark conviction that flowed between the students.

Oh, not again. I hate this, thought Lina, sighing with grief.

School wasn’t always a warm, nurturing place, partly because of the incident that occurred a decade earlier. Abducted by the Nobility, the children had returned after some horrible things had been done to them; in a Frontier village, that alone was sufficient cause for exile. The humiliation of the examination Lina underwent over the next few weeks opened dark wounds on her soul that still lurked, somewhere, even now. The strain had killed both her parents in rapid succession, and, even after the mayor adopted her, she hadn’t been allowed to go near the other children for another two years. During that time, no matter where she went or what she did, the gleaming, probing gaze of the mayor or Vigilance Committee was locked on her every move.

They all know what’s going on between the mayor and me, I bet.

Lina wanted to blubber like a baby.

Most likely they didn’t know how he had forced himself on her on her seventeenth birthday, but knowledge of their immoral relationship had spread throughout the entire village.

Some rather iniquitous relationships were commonly permitted in Frontier communities. Villages that could be cut off from the outside world by rain or snow needed a guaranteed labor force—that was their greatest concern. If it weren’t purely in the pursuit of pleasure, then any relations—be it between a man and someone else’s wife, a mother and her own son, or a father and his daughter—could be termed valuable in so far as it might sow the seeds of new life.

In this era, mental defects and other problems traditionally caused by inbreeding no longer existed. For some reason, the Nobility had chosen to share the fruit of their genetic engineering expertise with the human race. Hereditary diseases were a thing of the past. Even the names of the diseases were no longer remembered by humanity.

No doubt it was the shadow from ten years earlier that made Lina’s spirit sink like lead.

Cuore had never recovered from his dementia, and that fact alone was enough to terrify the villagers. And then, at the opposite extreme, examinations had determined that both Lina’s and Mr. Meyer’s intelligence had risen to a startling degree. That was the reason the mayor had adopted Lina; it was also the reason why all her classmates abhorred her relationship with him.

A woman made clever at the hands of the Nobility.

And yet, Lina wasn’t openly teased or shunned, thanks to the brightness of her disposition, her splendid bearing, and the efforts of Mr. Meyer, who’d endured the cold shoulder from the villagers and did an excellent job of passing the circuit committee’s test to become a teacher. It was impossible to say how much strength Lina drew from seeing him—a weakling and a crybaby in their childhood—standing up to the bullies and protecting her now.

Even Cuore, who started aimlessly wandering about the village after his parents’ premature death, had saved Lina from harm. His decline in intelligence had done nothing to change his innately courteous and gentle character. Lina could still clearly remember how reliably his hulking form had shielded her from the stones other children had thrown.

And now she no longer had either of them to protect her. Although Cuore was in Fern’s care, Mr. Meyer’s disappearance was more than sufficient to earn Lina the evil, suspicious glances of the whole class.

“Well, Lina, we finally know the real reason you were chosen to go to the Capital,” her worst enemy, Viska, said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I don’t know what went on up in that castle, but you didn’t have to keep all the rest of us living in terror for the past ten years. As soon as you’re gone, things should be pretty peaceful around here again.”

“Yeah, but there’ll be hell in the Capital!” a member of Viska’s clique said sarcastically, laughing shrilly.

Oh, that does it. I might have to smack someone now, Lina thought, about to arm herself with one of her leather slippers. But she restrained herself because she knew the remarks reflected what everyone in the class felt. The others just didn’t say anything because they still counted her as one of their own.

That being said, it was undeniable that the whole class had become exceedingly distant since it had been decided Lina would go to the Capital. When one considers the import of getting to leave the Frontier, there were those who would never understand why the person representing the village was someone with a connection to the Nobility.

Well, let ‘em say what they will.

Just as Viska was about to say something else to Lina, who was now in a fresh and easier state of mind, the substitute teacher from the secondary school came in and the morning’s tribulations were at an end.

Advancing vapidly through math and physics, the school day was just about to enter third period when an unexpected siren resounded.

“Hey, what’s that all about?”

“Three successive blasts—it means to assemble in the square!”

“Maybe they captured a Noble alive?”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“Quiet,” the teacher ordered. “I have to go out. Your class representative will have to accompany me. The rest of you will have a free study period.” But he knew the students had ignored him.

When he’d gone, and taken Callis, the class rep, with him, everyone else busily prepared to leave—this was just what they’d been waiting for. There were some who rattled around in the lockers full of weapons kept in case monsters attacked, and others who raced to get their lunch boxes to bring home; in no time, the sound of the activity grew to quite an uproar, and a second later the students had all vanished, leaving the windows and doors still shaking.

Seeing how even the eyes of Marco, the shyest boy in class, gleamed with anticipation, Lina wanted to laugh. On the diversion-starved Frontier, children were more inclined to be excited rather than frightened when fearsome beasts ran amuck, so long as they didn’t directly harm the village. Aside from the giant behemoth or roc or other colossal monsters of legend, arrangements had been made to defend against most everyday creatures.

Plenty of adults were bustling down the street, but they said nothing when they saw Lina with her schoolmates.

The square was just about in the center of the village. Even if every one of the village’s nearly one thousand inhabitants were to assemble there, from 120-year-old Gramps Shakra down to the baby born some four months earlier, the square still boasted more than enough space to accommodate them all. Whether it was a festival or an exhibition of merchandise by traveling vendors, this was just the place for large-scale events of any kind.

When the students arrived with mud flying from their feet, some sort of bizarre show was just about to begin up on the wooden stage that’d been dragged into the square.

There, beside Vigilance Committee leader Fern and his haughtily puffed chest, was a type-three electrified cage—an iron enclosure that could contain supernatural beasts or savage, human-sized birds with high-voltage current. This in and of itself was not in the least bit unusual, but on seeing the prey it contained, the eyes of one and all went wide.

It was a human. However, what plunged every last one of them into the deepest depths of horror wasn’t the threatening physique or countenance of this apparent outlaw, but the pair of fangs jutting from his greasy lips.

A vampire that walked by day.

Is this their leader? This thought screamed in the minds of all of them. The rain had abated near dawn, and the gray clouds that had masked the sky had finally broken. Waves of tranquil light tinted everything a pearly hue, but this square alone was congested with dark, night-evoking fear. Jostling through the elders who were settled before the stage, the mayor climbed a set of folding stairs to stand by Fern’s side. He made a great show of ignoring the man in the cage gazing out at him with malicious eyes.

“Good people of Tepes . . . ” he started to say in a voice much louder than necessary, then paused as he took up the wireless mike he’d just noticed on the floor. Not a snicker escaped from his listeners. Whether it was a Noble or one of their victims, they were looking at a nightmare creature that couldn’t possibly exist—a vampire that could act without restraint in the sunlight. The gravity of the situation deeply shook them all.

“Good people of Tepes . . . ” the voice of the mayor finally echoed to their stupefied ears through the ultracompact speakers set about the square. “As you know, in our recent trouble with the Nobility four from our village have died, and I’ve burdened our meager finances by hiring not one but two Vampire Hunters. But in the end, that was for naught—happily, it seems they are no longer needed. To be more precise, early this morning Fern here caught this thing on the northern road. The leader of our very own Vigilance Committee has good reason to brag—taking a vampire alive is something few out on the Frontier have done.”

Seemingly frozen by the sight of this vampire scanning his surroundings with blood-soaked eyes, the villagers were finally returned to their senses by the mayor’s somewhat coercive compliments. The audience mustered a smattering of applause. Of course, none of them could see the sardonic humor in the situation.

Fern took the mike in turn and told how, when the search perimeter had extended beyond the village, he’d run into a man in the woods who attacked him before he could say a word. With the help of his guard beasts he’d managed to take the attacker alive.

Everyone knew far too well the power of guard beasts, but still those creatures wouldn’t do much good against a Noble, or even against one of their victims. Yet those normally inclined to doubt had proof positive right before their eyes; as the leader of the vigilance committee finished his war story, a tumultuous applause broke out.

“That’s great, Lina. Now you’re in the clear.”

Turning toward the encouraging voice, Lina was taken aback. The class rep Callis was smiling at her. A born leader and first-rate organizer, he was clear-headed and quite handsome. But Lina despised the coolness that lurked like a shadow behind his bright, smiling face, and she’d rarely spoken with him. For his part, he was used to the other girls in the village making a big fuss over him, which made approaching Lina a waste of time.

“What do you mean? Were you worried for me?”

“Of course. After all, we’re classmates, aren’t we?”

At his honeyed words, Lina wretched in the cockles of her heart. How stupid can this jerk be? Here he comes, sidling up a little bit closer.

“Hey, the mayor’s getting ready to slather another address on us,” Lina said, as she pinched the palm that’d stealthily been placed on her hand.

“It’s almost certain the fiend in this very cage is the cause of all our recent troubles. That being the case, I propose we slaughter it now and pray that this offering will give us peace. What do you say to that?”

By this point, convinced that the true source of their terror had been captured, the villagers put their hands together as one, and the square was buried in vocal approval. In Frontier villages, it was not uncommon for animals to be sacrificed when praying for a bountiful harvest or safety in the coming year.

“That’s horrible!” Without noticing the meaning of the words that spilled from her own lips, Lina felt her heart stop when Callis’ shocked expression turned toward her. It was the first time she was ever aware of feeling that way.

Do I pity a vampire?!

Suddenly, purple sparks flew from the iron bars of the cage, and the man within shrank back with a scream.

“Okay, Fern, finish him off.”

With a bow to the triumphantly nodding mayor, Fern stepped forward. The long wooden stakes he held in either hand were more like spears. The other members of the Vigilance Committee moved in and surrounded the stage.

The vampire in the cage seemed frightened and backed away, only to receive a massive electric shock. Discerning unrest and fear in that atrocious face, the people loosed mocking laughter and catcalls.

“You like that? Go on, try and run away again!”

“Ha ha, I think it’s gonna start bawling. Some Noble you are!”

“Fern, don’t kill ‘em with one shot. Do it slow, real slow!”

As if to acknowledge the cheering, the Vigilance Committee leader waved to the crowd. Intoxicated with pleasure by this murderous show, the villagers couldn’t see that his lips were redder than normal and that something eerie lingered in his smile. Nobody questioned his assertion that this vampire was indeed a Noble, and that the vampire was the cause for the village’s woes.

The spear lunged forward.

The vampire twisted out of the way. Sparks leapt from his right hand, and his exposed back was pierced by a quick thrust of the tip into his right shoulder.

Cheers rocked the square.

With a faint smile rising on his lips, Fern poised his spear again.

Lina pushed forward from the very back of the crowd. Sending mud flying everywhere, she shouted, “Stop!” Shoving people out of the way as she ran, she finally got to the stage.

“What the hell you think you’re doing, Lina? Keep out of this!”

The girl didn’t flinch at the mayor’s words. Beautiful face and softly curved body trembling with rage, she opposed everything that was happening here.

“You’re the one who should keep out of this, mister Mayor. I can’t believe you’d do something so cruel. You’re dealing with a human being.”

“It’s not ‘mister Mayor,’” the old man bellowed. His gray hair fluttered more from anger than from the wind. “I’m your father. Why can’t you call me that? Keep out of this, you little idiot! I’ll whip the tar out of you later!”

“I said no, and I mean no,” Lina replied, and mentally she tossed her head in defiance. I couldn’t even stand by and watch an animal slaughtered now. Why have these feelings come over me? As if to push those thoughts back into their hiding place, she said, “Don’t you think this is awful? If you were human, you’d be ashamed of yourself for torturing an unarmed person to death, and one locked in a cage no less!”

Restraining the mayor, who was about to explode with rage, Fern leaned down off the stage. Thrusting the bloodied point of the spear right under Lina’s nose, he said, “Oh, I see. Then what you’re saying is, it’d be better if we gave it a weapon before we do it, right? Fine by me. Why don’t we let you do the honors, little chatterbox? You’ve had some training with swords and spears, haven’t you?”

On the Frontier, where life and death existed side by side, it was customary for women to learn how to use weapons. Although it wasn’t necessary to master gunpowder firearms, crossbows, and laser guns like it was for men, all of them could wield a short spear, a lighter version of a longsword, or a whip.

When the head of the spear was thrust before her, Lina grabbed it without hesitation. The wrath she felt toward the mayor and Fern and the villagers—for the entire human race for that matter—wouldn’t allow this girl of seventeen to be cowed.

The mayor went pale, and a clamor ran through the inhabitants of the village.

At that moment . . .

A beautiful, rusted voice raced across the ground, leaving the wind twisting in its wake. “That’s my job.”

-

Every face—even that of the vampire in the cage, who seemed to forget the pain of his wounds—turned to the young man in black astride his horse. Each face took on an expression of wonder. With the sunlight spilling through gaps in the clouds for his backdrop, this youth of a beauty rarely seen in the world glared down at them from his mount.

The instant they set eyes on his beauty, the men burned with envy, and the women became slaves of desire. However, in the next instant, those higher emotions were effortlessly blown away, and an ineffable terror took hold of the dark recesses of their psyches. It was a terror instilled by the unearthly aura of the Nobility.

The crowd parted, and D arrived at the stage without meeting so much as a second’s delay.

Easily taking the spear from Fern and Lina, who’d both retained a steady grip on it, he asked, “So, what do we do?”

“Oh,” Fern responded, his bonds of paralysis finally melted by D’s voice. “I don’t know where the hell you’ve been up till now, but it sure is nice to see that at least you didn’t run off with your tail between your legs. This is just perfect. No matter how you slice it, you were gonna be out of a job anyway. If you’re a Hunter, then act like one and give us a show before you’re on your way. Right, Mayor?”

The mayor hemmed and hawed. D’s steadfast gaze bored through him. The pressure Fern put on him couldn’t begin to compare to the unearthly aura radiating from that youth.

“It, err . . . Well, it was me that called him here . . . And his work’s not quite finished yet . . . ”

“That’s right.”

The next instant, D leapt easily from the saddle and onto the stage. He exhibited remarkable recuperative powers for someone who’d met with an intense explosion mere hours earlier, but his stamina was probably due, at least in part, to the thing that lived in his left hand.

Seemingly heedless of Lina’s infatuated gaze, he went over by Fern and clicked off the power for the electrified cage, having already removed the electronic lock.

“Hold it,” came the cry from what sounded like the sheriff, but, seeing the door to the cage swing open smoothly, the hitherto paralyzed crowd gave a scream and retreated.

The loud thud reverberating behind D was the sound of the fleeing mayor tumbling down the stairs.

D tossed the rough wooden spear to the vampire sluggishly slipping out of the cage.

“It’s strange meeting like this, but this is our destiny, hunter and hunted. Come on.” As he said this, he didn’t reach for the longsword over his shoulder.

The vampire started to move slowly to the right. Unable to use his right hand, he held the spear with a single finger of his left, his whole body boiling with flames of murderous rage.

Without a single telltale movement, the spear became a streaking blur in flight. Seeing it pierce D’s chest, which was exactly where it had been aimed, Lina had the breath knocked out of her. The vampire leapt at Fern, grabbing the rivet gun at his waist. The muzzle, as thick as a man’s thumb, pointed skyward with a speed that escaped the naked eye.

D was in midair. What Lina had witnessed was an afterimage left when he flew up with superspeed.

Along with a roar, high-energy gunpowder sent a stream of iron tacks racing at D’s heart.

With one of the most glorious sounds in the world, the iron tacks were deflected.

Before he even realized they’d been parried by the drawn longsword, the vampire’s gun-wielding hand was chopped off at the wrist by the naked steel slashing down from above. A backward thrust of the blade penetrated the deepest reaches of his heart.

Not sparing so much as a glance at the massive form as it fell in a bloody mist, D started to walk toward where Fern had frozen in his tracks.

Noticing that it was his left hand that held the bloody blade now pointed at Fern’s throat, Lina knit her brow. The girl didn’t understand that because of his opponent’s injured right shoulder, D had fought with only his left hand.

“You got what you wanted. Next time, you’ll be the one doing what I say.”

His voice was low, but would brook no resistance. Fern’s pale face bobbed negligibly up and down. D thrust his left hand right in front of it.

Seeing the red cross limned in the middle of that powerful palm, Fern’s eyes shot wide open. For a few seconds, a wind pregnant with bloodlust cut across the square.

D’s hand came down, and Fern let out a sign of relief. There was nothing, it seemed, out of the ordinary.

The crowd stirred again.

“So, what are you going to do?” D called down from the stage to the mayor, cleaning the blood from his longsword with one shake and gracefully returning it to its sheath. He must have meant what were they going to do about him.

Pale faced and still holding down the lump on his forehead, the mayor said, “I know what I said a moment ago . . . But, well, I believe we’ve pretty much accomplished what we set out to do. Needless to say, you’ll be paid the amount we agreed on. Good work.”

“Fine,” said D, nodding impassively. “But I can’t leave the village just yet.”

“What?!”

“There’s something I still have to look into. Or is there some reason you’d want me gone?”

This time it was the sheriff’s turn to shudder as that gorgeous countenance turned his way. “At the moment . . . no,” he said with great difficulty. “But if your being here causes us any inconvenience whatsoever, we’ll have to run you out of town.”

“Agreed. I’ll tell you one thing—if this man was responsible for your difficulties, then the female victim we have should be regaining consciousness right about now. We should check on that.”

When the mayor and his group arrived at the barn, however, the woman they’d left there had a rough wooden stake hammered deep into her breast, and the dirt floor practically seemed to drink the lifeblood dribbling from the sleeves of her formerly white clothing, now soaked with red.

“Who could’ve done such a thing?” the mayor moaned, looking to the heavens.

“Don’t know who it was, but someone in the village must’ve gone off half-cocked. I don’t care if having her around gave people the creeps, there was no need to put her down like this.” Saying this, Fern turned his eyes up at D. “How do we know it wasn’t you? If that other guy wasn’t behind all this, you still stand to make some more money . . . ”

Fern’s tough talk vanished in the back of his throat. Shifting his gaze from Fern back to the depths of the barn, D moved away from the group and started to put a saddle and saddlebags over his shoulder.

“Hey, wait. Where do you think you’re going?” the mayor asked, running over to him in a fluster.

“You’re a suspect in this murder. We can’t just let you leave town whenever you please. After all, you were here with the woman until this morning.” There was a tone of fretfulness in the sheriff’s voice.

Silently, D pointed in a certain direction.

The mayor and sheriff followed his finger with their eyes, then turned back to him. “So that’s where you’re headed?” said the lawman. “The abandoned waterwheel mill’s out there on the edge of the village?”

“If you want me, that’s where I’ll be. I’ll be back later for my pay.”

The men just watched in a daze as D galloped off.

When Lina’s classes had finished and she was getting into her wagon, Callis was waiting near the gate to the schoolyard. This was a rare occurrence, perhaps even a first.

When she rode past oblivious to him, he ran after her in a state.

“Please, wait up, Lina. I thought maybe we could go home together.”

“What’s gotten into you? You suddenly feel all friendly toward me? Tina and Miria and all the rest of your little friends will be none too happy with you.”

“Spare me. They just have this one-sided thing for me!”

Presumptuous as it was, he got his foot up on the step of the wagon, and, after quickly taking a seat, this optimistic Romeo even went so far as to try to take the reins. Lina slapped his hand and made a disapproving face. “Don’t try anything funny. Why don’t you just climb back down.”

“Oh, you’re a cold one. I was waiting because I wanted to talk to you. Say, wanna go into the woods?”

“And what, pray tell, would we do in the woods? Earlier, you grabbed my hand in front of everybody. I can’t imagine what you’d try if you were alone with me. If you so much as lay a finger on me, I’ll knock you flat.”

Facing him squarely to lay down the law, Lina swallowed her words. Something resting in Callis’ breast pocket glittered in her eye.

A single white blossom.

The one at my window this morning . . . It couldn’t be.

“Oh, this? I picked it just for you. Here.” The sharp-eyed playboy had read Lina’s reaction like a book and made his opening move.

She didn’t say a word.

This courageous girl was too kind to call him a liar. The flower passed into her pale hand.

“We’ll do the woods some other time,” Callis said, nearly in a whisper.

A dozen minutes later, as the boy watched the wagon disappear through the gate to the mayor’s home there arose in his eyes a look of cunning and self-confidence not at all appropriate for his age.

-

The wrath of the mayor awaited Lina at home.

As soon as she’d closed the door to her room, it was thrown open again. Lina’s cheek rang with a slap as she whirled around, and the girl fell to the floor.

“What do you think you’re doing? That hurts, you know.” Knowing what she’d expected had come, she still put up some spirited resistance.

The mayor was furious. “You . . . you stupid little girl. Embarrassing me like that in front of everybody. Standing up for a Noble . . . a damn vampire. You little . . . ”

Lina stuck her red tongue out at the old man as his ugly face congested with rage.

“Nobility or not, what’s wrong with trying to stop someone alone in a cage from being killed like a wild beast? Did you have some kind of proof he was even a Noble? He was probably just a plain old victim. If so, he wasn’t that way because he wanted to be. If the Nobility made me one of their kind, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go out that way. And since I wouldn’t want it done to me, I couldn’t let you do it to anyone else. You gonna lock me in a cage and have Fern stab me to death, too?”

The mayor’s eyes were bulging in fury. Though his Adam’s apple was moving, no words came out.

However, even though she’d gotten off her little rant, Lina questioned her own position. Really, what’s wrong with locking a Noble in a cage and torturing them to death?

Before Lina was born, a group of Nobles had assailed the village and claimed nearly twenty victims before they were done. The tragic tableau ended with fathers driving stakes through their daughters’ hearts, or husbands through their wives’. What the children later heard was a tale of tragedy between loved ones told with tears of blood, and they learned a deep hatred for the Nobility. In the hearts of these people, the Nobility were vicious beasts to be slaughtered—a feeling that the severe Frontier life helped foster. If by chance one were to be taken alive, anyone would think it perfectly natural that it would face the same fate as the vampire in the cage.

“You bitch, you. So you side with the Nobility, eh? You lousy little ingrate. You won’t get away with this. Hell, no!” The mayor had the look of a madman.

“What makes me an ingrate?” Lina shot back. “The whole reason you adopted me was because you knew what kind of mind I had and wanted to send me off to the Capital, wasn’t it? You were looking forward to the reward the village would get. And that’s not all. You had your way with me when I didn’t know anything. Who is it that comes sneaking into my room every night even now?! Even the Nobility don’t act like such filthy beasts. Even your touch makes my skin crawl.”

Silence descended. Lina watched somewhat unnerved as the mayor’s face swiftly paled.

“Is that so? Can’t even stand my touch? Good enough. I’ll touch you with this then!”

A black whip glistened in the mayor’s right hand. Threads of drool hung from the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were laughing. The change was extraordinary, as if some darkness lurking within him had suddenly gushed to the surface.

Before Lina could turn and make a break for the window, the mayor’s hand caught the collar of her shirt, tearing it open with a loud rip.

“Stop it. Have you lost your mind, you old fool?!”

A sharp crack turned her angry protests into screams. Lina fell, and in seconds, black and blue welts were rising on her back, their number growing with each snap.

Pushing the howls that had risen to the top of her throat back down with all her might, Lina endured the beating. She’d decided she didn’t want to let the likes of this man get the better of her.

She tried to think about the white flower. Her expression became calm.

The mayor discarded his whip and climbed on her from behind. His dark red tongue licked at her wounded flesh.

“Quit it,” Lina protested, writhing.

“Not a chance,” said the mayor, getting her struggling hands out of the way while he kneaded her shapely breasts. “Does it hurt? I bet it does. But I’ll make it better now. I’ll make you feel good all over with this tongue of mine.”

A clammy, lukewarm sensation crept over the nape of her neck, and Lina’s whole body squirmed wildly. The mayor continued speaking, even as he took pleasure from the young body struggling in his arms. His voice was like coagulated obsession.

“I could keep at this and screw you to death now if I wanted to. Getting you run out of town would be child’s play, too. But I can’t do that. After all, you’re going to the Capital for the sake of our little village. Mr. Meyer’s vanished, and Fern’s taken custody of Cuore. No doubt he’ll spend the rest of his days as no more than a dim-witted errand boy. But you’re special. I can’t get rid of you. On the other hand, I can’t let you get away, either. And I’m gonna keep having my fun with you till the day you have to leave town.”

The mayor’s mouth clamped onto the nape of Lina’s neck. A forbidden act. Unable to stand it, Lina let out a scream. Because kiss marks on the nape of the neck were far too reminiscent of the marks left by the Nobility, it was taboo for even married couples to do this. The cruelty in the heart of this old man rivaled that of the very Nobility.

“No, don’t, stop! Please . . . D!” she screamed with all her might.

The old man’s lips pulled away from her. With evident bitterness he said, “Oh. So that’s how it is, eh? That punk’s caught your eye? Well, he’s not around. I sacked him. Right about now he’s setting up house all by his lonesome in the old mill. That’s the perfect place for a drifter with the blood of the Nobility.”

When Lina’s head sank forward, the old man tried to push the girl down on the floor, and, for an instant, the strength went out of his arms. She swung her head right back up, smashing into the old man’s nose with a terrific whack.

He fell over, squealing. Vivid blood gushed from between his cupped fingers. “Bitch! Now you’ve gone and done it!”

Lina grabbed the vase off the table and smashed it over the mayor’s head as he attempted to rise. Fashioned from the ribs of a fire dragon, the container was light, but it had sharp protrusions jutting from all sides. Quite a few fragments lodged in his head, and the old man’s face was stained with blood. Giving a cry, he collapsed again.

Lina’s blood boiled. Now their situations were reversed. And, to Lina, it was a pleasant change. ’She pulled back her foot to kick him where it counts, but, true to form, she thought better of it and stopped.

As she gave the door an energetic slam, her litany of curses carried right through it. “Screw you. I won’t be coming back here any time soon. I hope your head wound gets infected and you die.”

-

Lina headed off to the mill in her wagon. The past few days these streets had seen little pedestrian traffic, but apparently everyone felt safer since that vampire had been killed, and a number of faces now watched with astonishment as the wagon raced by.

She was there in about twenty minutes, but, taking measure of the old, dilapidated mill, she saw and heard nothing but the squeal of the waterwheel and the base growls of its hydroelectric motor. D’s things weren’t even there.

Maybe he’d already left town?

Anxiety quickly withered Lina’s spirit. A chill that she hadn’t felt in the least when she left her house now seeped into her through her pores. Looking up, she saw the sky was still dark.

The world was rife with fear.

Lina left the shack.

The wind whistled over her head. Though the wind should have borne some foreshadowing of spring, it was colder than she ever could have imagined. It invaded her leather coat through the collar and sleeves, stabbing at her exposed back.

“Damn. Of all the lousy luck. Wonder if I should go back home? But then, I don’t much fancy another beating. What to do, what to do . . . ”

Deciding to wander around a bit while she mulled it over, Lina went back to the wagon and took a sliver gun out of the storage compartment for self-protection before setting off on foot down the path.

It seemed that even Lina was comforted by the death of the vampire this afternoon. She was as yet unaware that the female victim had been killed, so the possibility that the vampire in the cage had been guilty still had a strong base to work from.

When she’d gone so far the outline of the mill was no longer visible, the wind called her name.

She turned, but could sense no one around her.

The new grass fluttered in the wind.

Tightening her grip on her weapon, she started walking again. Before she’d gone ten steps, she heard it.

Lina.

This time there was absolutely no mistaking the sound.

“Who is it, and where are you?” she turned around and shouted, and the wind responded.

Lina, Lina, Lina.

“Come on, where are you already? Seriously, I’ll shoot.” Heedless of the contradiction in that, the girl was overtaken by fear.

Awaken, Lina, the wind said.

It was a voice she’d heard before. Lina sifted through her memories intently.

Still don’t understand, do you, Lina? Awaken. You must awaken.

The voice danced all around her. It laughed beneath her feet, whispered at her ear, bellowed above her head. Lina, Lina, Lina.

“You’re starting to piss me off, mystery pest!”

When she raised the sliver gun, still lacking a target, a particularly powerful gust of wind smacked her between the eyes. Her balance was gone in a flash. The hand she was certain she’d set on the embankment beside her swept right through the air without meeting the slightest resistance. Lina fell headfirst to the bottom of a benighted pit. Judging from the impact, the drop couldn’t have been that great.

Looking back the way she’d fallen, she saw a circular opening about seven feet above her. The soil banked up toward it, forming an incline. Surmising that she’d be able to climb out somehow or other, Lina gave a sign of relief.

Lina, the voice cried out. Without a doubt it was a man’s voice, and this time it was very close.

Fixing her gaze before her, Lina was enveloped by surprise.

Ahead of her lay an unsettlingly spacious area—a subterranean chamber. The depths were shrouded in darkness, but in the light stabbing down through the hole above her she could see it was quite vast.

On the boundary between darkness and light stood a gray figure—the source of the voice.

“Damn, that hurt . . . ” Starting to rise, Lina pressed her hand to her hip. Desperately garbing herself in an air of calmness, she wrung the words from her throat. “You’re that character from the night before last. I just knew the guy they caught this morning was someone else. So, is it supposed to be my turn now? If you come near me, I’ll shoot!”

She aimed the sliver gun at him, but the shadowy figure didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed. In a leaden, low voice he asked, “Don’t you understand? Seeing this place, don’t you recall anything?”

“What is with you?! You just keep saying the same damn things over and over,” Lina said angrily. “This is the first time I’ve ever fallen into this blasted hole. No reason why I should remember anything. So stop your yammering and reach for the sky. I’ll shoot!”

The figure raised one arm. Just as she was admiring this docile display, he swung it in a wide arc.

“Take a good look. At this place. At this lab. Remember. Remember what happened ten years ago.”

Finally Lina noticed that the scene before her was the interior of some sort of room. It was apparent at a glance that destruction had ravaged this place, leaving a mountain of rubble on the stone-paved floor, but the toppled tables and the shapes of what seemed to be colossal machines looming motionless in the depths of the darkness testified that the gray man spoke the truth.

However, there was something strange about the scene.

Although the place where Lina stood was a dirt floor in a hole in the ground, the boundary between that and the room was terribly indistinct.

The room looked so close she could reach out and touch it, but it was in fact preposterously far away—at least that was the impression she got.

However, it was something else entirely that shocked Lina now. The shadowy gray figure whose face D’s computer had revealed—someone she was sure she had never seen before—knew about what’d happened a decade earlier!

“Don’t you remember, Lina? Very well then, how about this?” Disregarding Lina’s astonishment, the shadow made a sweep of his hand.

Ripples ran through the depths of the darkness, eerie things defying any attempt at metaphor.

“Well, Lina, how’s that?”

“I . . . I don’t know. What are these things? Keep . . . keep away from me . . . ” Her voice cut out. As if a white scalpel had sliced open her brain, fragmented memories blazed to life.

That’s right, this is where . . . And where they . . .

The vision faded away abruptly.

“I don’t understand. Don’t come near me!” Anxiety and relief hung in her cries, and her finger worked of its own volition.

Fired off with a sigh-like snap unique to highly pressurized gas, a tiny tungsten needle pierced the heart of the shadowy figure. The figure smiled silently.

The eerie things continued forward.

Lina’s pupils opened wide, like one who has peered into the abyss at things no one was meant to see.

They—the eerie things approaching—had called her name. Lina, they said.

There was a flash. And another. Light knifed in through the incisions in her clouded mind. All these people are . . .

Suddenly, the shadowy figure looked upwards.

The things raised a commotion. And yet, she couldn’t hear their voices.

A problem has cropped up. We’ll meet again, Lina, the dwindling shadow said.

A fear completely different from what she felt before now assailed Lina. Dropping the sliver gun, she started to scale the incline without so much as a backward glance. She had the feeling that as soon as her hands reached the lip of the hole some seven feet away the vision would vanish.

The forest awaited her.

What Lina crawled out of was a small hole in the ground just over a foot and a half in diameter. The grass grew thick and wild around it, and even the most concentrated gaze would be hard pressed to discover the opening.

Lina swiftly brushed the dirt off herself.

Taking a deep breath, she set off back down the road. After she’d walked forty or fifty yards, she heard the echo of hoofbeats closing on her from the rear.

Was this the problem the gray man been talking about? If so, that shadowy figure must have been able to discern this sound several hundred yards away, and through the ground no less.

Having stepped to the side of the road, when Lina turned around her face was quickly suffused with joy.

“D!”

Unsettlingly beautiful, he gazed down at Lina from his horse. “What are you doing? What brings you out here?”

Lina paused for a moment, then made a quick answer. “Well . . . actually, I was out looking for you. Would you be so good as to put me up this evening?”

An inquiring glance from D.

Lina told him she’d left after a falling out with the mayor. Without asking the reason or any of the petty details, D silently offered his hand, then pulled her up on the back of his mount. Before the horse had taken a step, she stammered, “Er . . . umm . . . ”

“What is it?”

“Is it okay if I put my arms around your waist?”

“You’d fall off if you didn’t, wouldn’t you?”

“Yep.” Her cheek pressed against his back. Hard and wide, the firmness of the skin beneath came right through his coat. She’d heard that the bodies of dhampirs were much colder than those of humans, but that didn’t seem to be the case with D. He was warm.

Before she knew it, tears spread across her cheeks.

“Are you crying?” D asked. He inquired in the same way one might ask for directions on the street.

“So what if I am? Everyone gets the blues from time to time. Don’t keep badgering me about it.”

Lina didn’t know that it bordered on miraculous when this youth asked anyone anything about themselves.

D fell silent.

“Say, D . . . the ruins are off the way you were coming. Were you up there again?”

“That’s right. Looking for another entrance.”

“Another one? What about the usual one?”

“It’s been sealed. No one can get in that way now.” Giving a little shake of his head, he said, “You can forget about all that stuff. Shouldn’t you be studying or something?”

“Killjoy,” Lina replied, butting D’s shoulder with her head. “With a brain like mine, it’s not like I need to do any more studying at this late date.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re the girl genius.”

“That’s me all right.”

The horse arrived at the mill, and the pair crossed a bridge over the fairly swollen brook before going into the shack. Perhaps due to the evening almost upon them, the wind bore a chill, but it was a far cry from the harshness of the white season.

As Lina watched him from behind with a mystified expression, D asked the girl, “Is it so strange that I crossed running water?”

“Er . . . yeah. After all, you’re a dhampir, right? Oh, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

“To be sure, water poses a problem for me. Nobles have been known to drown in water less than waist deep.”

“I wonder why that is? The biology of the Nobility is so mysterious.” Her questions seemed completely at odds with her innocent voice and naive countenance. For some reason, Lina had an intense curiosity about the Nobility.

Giving no answer, D went to the corner of the dusty shack and set down the saddle and bags he’d brought from the horse, then pulled out a blackish palm-sized package. With a tug on the protruding cord, the package rapidly expanded into a very comfortable-looking sleeping bag.

“You’d better sleep in this. It has a built-in heater. You should get through the night without catching a cold.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll be resting outside. Being down against the earth suits my nature more. Don’t give it another thought . . . I’ve never even used that before.”

“But . . . ” She was about to say more, but she noticed D concentrating his senses on something outside.

“It seems they’ve come for you,” the Hunter said.

“No way. I refuse to go back there.”

Before long, nearly a dozen men on horseback had arrived at the far side of the brook. Both the mayor and the sheriff were there, and the rest were members of the Vigilance Committee led by Fern. Each and every one wore a strangely stiff expression. What they had to do—and the thought of who might stand in their way—made them look tense. Their opposition was standing in front of the shack.

The blue glint of the pendant on his chest made the men uneasy. Perhaps the horses sensed something, too, for there was no end to their whinnying. Atop their mounts, the men shook ever so slightly.

“State your business,” D said softly. His was a tone well suited to the tranquil afternoon light, but the horses halted at once. Did their riders realize they were frozen with fear?

“As if you didn’t know already,” sneered the mayor, who now sported a black hat, and he jabbed out one arm to point to one of the shack’s windows. “We’re here to take Lina home. No use trying to hide her. If you don’t hand her right over, we’ll make you wish you had.”

“It doesn’t matter to me either way, but I don’t know what she’ll have to say about it.”

Suddenly the wooden shutters of the window swung open, and Lina poked her head out. Well prepared, she had her tongue sticking out already.

“Screw you. Who’d be stupid enough to go back there? I’ll be staying here a while. I’m practicing up on surviving in the wilderness. Kindly keep out of the way, Daddy. Oh, did you know your face looks kind of swollen?”

The special spitefulness she saved for the last bit was delicious. The distended purple face of the mayor donned a look five times more crimson than his wounds. With a glance to his side, he said, “What the hell are you doing, Sheriff? What we got here is a case of a father trying to get his daughter back. We’ll take her back by force if necessary, right?”

“Well . . . ” the sheriff began hesitantly. The rest of the men looked the other way. Every one of them had witnessed D’s swordplay in the village square. “Well, if she says she doesn’t want to go, there’s nothing we can do. And I believe your parental authority over Lina ran out the year before last, to boot.”

Parental authority expired—in other words, an individual became responsible for his or her own actions at the age of fifteen in most communities on the Frontier. Their environment demanded independence.

“Oh, you worthless sack of dung. You’d just stand by and let this half-breed drifter ruin my daughter? Your ass is fired. When we get back to town, the first thing I’m going to do is convene a council meeting.”

The sheriff shrugged.

“Okay, now will somebody . . . ”

“Leave it to me,” Fern said to the mayor, his voice brimming with self-confidence as he leisurely dismounted.

Resting both hands on the baskets on his hips, he had a steady stride as he headed over to square off with D.

“Knew it’d come down to this sooner or later.” He sounded like his position was well covered. “It’s too late, so don’t even think about saying we can have her now.”

D didn’t make a move. He had the air of a young poet listening to the song of the wind.

It seemed as if even the voice of the brook had been silenced.

“Watch yourself, D. He’s got guard beasts in those baskets.” Lina’s words injected tension into a situation that wasted no time in exploding.

Pale flashes shot from D’s right hand, and the baskets still attached to Fern’s waist fell to pieces. Two creatures fell to the ground—a weird spider and a lightning-discharging cloud. As the legs of the spider were free from injury, either it’d regenerated already or this was a new beast.

Fern egged them on with eerie syllables.

A jolt of purple shot through the spot where D had stood, spraying the wall of the shack with sparks; the needles launched by the airborne D stopped halfway between him and the monsters. The instant he realized billowing white threads were twisting around him, D mowed through the wind with the longsword in his right hand.

“Oh,” Fern exclaimed. He’d just watched the adhesive liquid that’d held not only behemoths but the figure in gray cut to shreds like so much cotton thread.

However, D’s body veered appreciably as he tried to leap the brook in a single bound. In the next instant, he landed waist-deep in the current with a splash.

Who, if anyone, had actually seen the tentacle that’d shot from the water and wrapped around his ankle like a whip?

And there wasn’t just one—the second D hit, a number of identical tentacles flew up and wrapped around both his wrists as tightly as possible. Something with what looked like a striped carapace broke the current ahead of D.

“I thought as much—not quite as sharp in the water, now are you?” Fern laughed, showing a lot of teeth. “See, when I heard we’d be going up against you, I went back to my house and picked up one of my aquatic guard beasts. From what I hear, dhampirs are as weak in the water as the Nobility. Okay, so now you get your pick—stay where you are and drown, or let the sparks from my electric cloud shock you to death.”

“Stop it. I’ll go back!” As Lina screamed these words, the cloud and spider approached the water’s edge.

“Don’t do it, Fern!”

“Never mind that, kill him!”

The conflicting shouts of the sheriff and mayor were effaced by an awe-inspiring sight.

The purple bolt aimed at the immobilized D bounced off the oval carapace bursting through the water’s surface.

All of the spectators felt their eyes bulge from their sockets. Who could have believed that the gorgeous youth was rising from the water along with the beast that held him? The one who’d been dragged down was doing the dragging.

All of them had just witnessed the monstrous power of the Nobility, what many said was the strength of fifty men, and now, before their watchful eyes, D’s left hand flashed out. Extending his five fingers and making a slashing motion, every tentacle his hand touched was severed. Free from his bonds, D sailed through the air like a mystic bird.

A silvery light deflected the flash of purple, then bisected the body of the cloud, swinging back with a speed the eye couldn’t follow to sever the head from the giant spider, as well as the web of threads it dropped on him.

The sound of the brook returned to the ears of the onlookers.

Throwing the gore from his blade with an elegant flick, D turned his back as if nothing had happened.

“Too much for you, boys? See how tough my bodyguard is?” Lina jeered in a voice bursting with joy. The men had lost even the will to say anything as D walked away.

-

After the aborted battle, their rude visitors had gone on their way.

The dark of night seeped between the trees, and the pale moon came out.

Lina heated some synthetic coffee over a small electronic traveling lamp. She’d brought the beverage from her wagon. The lamp belonged to D. A silver cylinder six inches high and two inches in diameter, the lamp could also serve as a thermostat and heater, or as a refrigeration unit. And, obviously, you could cook on it, too. Travelers couldn’t be bothered carrying around a lot of bulky items.

Deftly lowering the heat-absorbent silicon pot, she poured the contents into two cups made of the same material, then called out to D.

“It’s ready.”

“I thought I told you I didn’t want any.”

“Oh no you don’t. Drink it. It’ll warm you up. Oh, what a beautiful moon.” Going to D’s side, she forced him to take hold of the cup. “I’ll cut us some jerky, too.”

“I don’t want any.”

“And what are you supposed to do if you don’t eat?” But even as she said this, Lina withdrew the offer. “Well, fine then. I don’t have much appetite either, today.”

“Is your stomach bothering you?” D asked without turning around.

“Let me think. I’m not always like this—anyway, dhampirs are really awesome.”

Nothing from D.

“A little while ago, I took a look at the corpse of that guard beast out in the middle of the river. The marks on its tentacles almost made it look like they’d been bitten off. Surprised the heck out of me.”

D was silent. Lina closed her eyes softly and drank in the perfume of the moonbeam grass wafting in through the window. The wind was singing in the trees. Maybe D was listening to it.

“D . . . that’s an odd name. What’s the D for? Devil, death, danger? Any of them would fit you to a T.”

“Tomorrow, you go home,” D said in a subdued tone.

“No way.”

“Surely you know what I am by now. If anyone tells the exam board about this, it’ll probably spell the end for your dreams of the Capital.”

“I don’t care,” Lina giggled, taking D’s left arm. “If that happens, I’ll go off with you. The wife of a Hunter . . . now wouldn’t that be a life of thrills galore?”

When D turned his rightfully dumbfounded face to her, she added, “Just kidding, that was a joke. Just say I can go with you, and that’ll be fine.”

“Quit your nonsense and go to bed. I have to leave early tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll have lunch waiting for you,” Lina joined her thumb and forefinger in the okay sign. She even winked at him. “Give ‘em hell . . . hubby.”

D heaved a sigh. It was a long sigh, the kind that hadn’t once escaped as he battled monsters or the Nobility. It seemed even this youth, who was like clockwork crafted from ice, was subject to the occasional malfunction.

“Tell me, D, where do you come from?” Lina asked with a sober expression. “Where did you come from, and where are you going? Or the Nobility? Or even mankind?”

D turned and gazed at Lina. Perhaps he had caught a certain minute anxiety in the words of the girl. “Tough questions.”

“Don’t you know? Even someone like you, who knows both worlds, even you don’t have the answer? What is it to live by both day and night, what is it to be human, what is it to be a Noble . . . don’t you know?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I really want to know. Tell me.”

The aroma of moonbeam grass wafted around the two of them.

D moved to the door without a word, then leaned his body against one wall. Lina took a seat on a piece of framework hanging a foot off the ground.

The world of the night lay before their eyes.

“To be a Noble, most likely, is to live by night,” D began softly, with his longsword in his right hand and a cup of steaming coffee in his left. “The potential power inherent in the darkness of night and the shadowy influence it has on the Nobility down at the very molecular level are mysteries today—even during the Nobility’s golden age of science, they couldn’t begin to unravel them. The question of why the flesh of the Nobility is invincible, the secret of how they can live eternally, ageless and immortal so long as they’re spared from sunlight or a blow from a stake, or the riddle of why that blow has no effect whatsoever unless taken through the heart. It’s nothing if not ironic that they, the first creatures in the history of the world to reach a measure of longevity that could never be surpassed, were anguished as no others by trying to discover the secret of their powers.”

“I wonder if the field of genetic engineering could’ve offered some clues? Although I did hear the information from every possible gene was collated in the Nobility’s computers.”

“The process of decoding the information contained in every single gene was completed more than five thousand years ago. But that’s not where the problem lies. Once they’d discovered the gene that prevented aging, they must have asked themselves why such a gene had come into existence.”

“Where do we come from, where are we going? I guess that remains the eternal question for all of us. Noble and human alike. But what did the power of darkness you just mentioned have to do with any of this?”

D nodded and brought the cup to his mouth. Noticing how Lina smiled, he scowled and took a drink.

“Is it any good?” Lina asked in a buoyant tone.

“Yep.”

“I’m glad.”

Clearing his throat, D began to speak again. “It’s common knowledge that the vital functions of the Nobility all center around darkness itself. This gave rise to a certain hypothesis. It suggested that the darkness of night might hold the primary cause of the powers of the Nobility, or the gene responsible, if you will. That is to say, perhaps the Nobility absorbed some ghostly information belonging to the very darkness in the form of this gene, or so the theory went.”

Lina’s eyes were sparkling, shining with the expectation and anxiety held solely by those who wrenched open the heavy door of the unknown and beheld the light of truth spearing freely forth. Sparkling relentlessly.

“That’s the gene of darkness, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“If only we could understand the structure of it, the riddles of the Nobility would be solved. ‘Where do we come from, where are we going?’ And the answers would apply to mankind, too. D, didn’t they ever form this hypothesis—that humans are furnished with the gene of light?”

The moonlight caused their neat profiles to stand out stronger and whiter. The song of the wind, the aroma of grass.

“That’s right,” D said. “To be human is to live in the light. When you consider the length of their respective life spans, humans don’t amount to much when compared to the Nobility. From a physiological standpoint, they’re terribly frail as well. But when you take the potential energy of the race as a whole—”

“Light surpasses darkness,” Lina muttered softly.

That was one sort of destiny.

“But the Nobles we’ve been seeing now . . . ” Lina was about to say more, but hemmed and hawed.

In the cockles of her heart, someone was crying out to her. Don’t say it, they said. She got the feeling the dark voice was somehow connected to her fate.

“Nobility who walk in the daylight . . . ”

D brought the cup to his mouth again, and gazed at Lina. Shaking her head as if to reassure herself, she said, “There couldn’t be any such thing.”

Something shiny rose in Lina’s eye. Before it could spill over the rim, Lina threw herself around D’s waist. Sobs rocked her shoulders.

She didn’t understand what made her so sad. She didn’t know what she was afraid of, either.

She felt helpless, like she was alone at night walking down the road. And that night would see no dawn, for all eternity.

D set his cup on the floor and stroked her hair softly.

I just want to get out of this village, Lina wished with all her heart. I want to go to the Capital with him. Just the two of us, together forever.

The song of the wind could be heard. The pair didn’t move for the longest time.

Unexpectedly, tension raced through D’s body.

Lina fell to the floor, still posed as when she’d clung to him.

D stood by the babbling brook.

There was no change to the surroundings.

Perhaps D’s sense of them alone had changed.

Why haven’t you come yet? It was the same presence from the rainy night. I’m waiting for you. Waiting there.

Where is “there”? What’s the significance of those ruins? D asked this without uttering a word, without even thinking.

That was the only rule in this conversation.

I may have failed, the presence said. If so, I must dispose of them all. There isn’t much time. I’m waiting.

Waiting for what, or for whom? D asked. What do you mean by waiting?

There was no answer to those questions.

Come quickly. I must go. This has gone on for such a long time, but it’ll go on so much longer. Much longer . . . So much longer . . .

Somewhere within D, the presence suddenly vanished.

So, it’s the ruins after all then? D looked back at the shack. Lina was standing in the doorway. D’s eyes narrowed.

An expression that was not quite fear nor wholly anger occupied Lina’s face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he approached her.

Lina shook her head. “It’s nothing . . . really. You took off so fast . . . I was just a little scared, that’s all.”

Pausing a bit, D then nodded. “You should get some rest.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Lina wasted no time in returning to the hut and getting into the sleeping bag. It was so warm, thanks to the thermal sensors that read the external air temperature and body temperature and maintained the level of warmth most conducive to sleep.

D’s presence faded away. I bet he’ll sleep with the darkness and the song of the wind for companions, his ear to the ground, Lina thought. Or does he have trouble sleeping at night? What are the dhampirs anyway?

Behind her closed lids, an ash gray figure floated, and it spoke in a weird voice. Remember what happened ten years ago.

Lina shook her head ever so slightly.

Another voice. I must dispose of them all.

Lina had heard the voice of the presence, too.

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