Winds of Flame and Blood

Winds of Flame and Blood

chapter 5

I

Can you sense which of us was correct?” Gilzen asked the doctor. “Me, or him? The boundless potential of the universe? Or a tomorrow propped up by those who crawl upon the ground like insects? Well, it matters not. There’s little point in asking you this. But why not let you slake my thirst?”

When Gilzen faced her head-on, the impact was intense. Vera got the feeling the whole world was going to pieces.

As Gilzen took a casual step forward, he reached out his left hand.

“Stop . . . Don’t come near me!”

Everything around Vera became an illusion. Skewered as she was by fear, only she and Gilzen were real.

“Stay back . . . You can’t! I just knew it . . . You Nobles . . . You really are the devil!”

“No, I am the messiah.”

As Vera retreated, her back hit a stone wall. There was nowhere else to run now.

Gilzen’s hand came to rest on her shoulder.

“Oh, what’s this?” the duke exclaimed with surprise, pulling his hand back.

The doctor’s body was a blur, and the Greater Noble’s fingertips had felt a blistering pain. When Lilia had been about to give Vera the kiss of the Nobility back in Jeanne’s quarters, the doctor had undergone this mental and physical transformation—and now it was happening again.

Gazing with satisfaction at the doctor as she lost her human form, Gilzen said, “Fascinating. I can only recall witnessing this once before, and after the transformation the psyche also changed in extremely odd ways. How will she be changed, I wonder?”

It must’ve interested Gilzen greatly, but he didn’t get a chance to see for himself. Perhaps noticing something, the Greater Noble of the darkness spun around in a fashion that left the air swirling in his wake and proceeded to the door of the room where he’d just perpetrated that cruel slaughter.

Two figures stood there, one on either side of the corridor: an armored alien warrior and Crey.

“So, you’ve come after all, have you? You know where to find me. Because you have my blood mixed with yours.”

Gleaming with an unnatural light, Gilzen’s eyes reflected the pair.

“Aliens don’t react the same way humans do,” the Nobleman continued. “However, they are still my servants. Shall we see who is the master and who the slave?”

“Me first,” Crey said, stepping forward. The weapon in his right hand might’ve been an alien knife. Pointing to the alien, he said, “My master’s power has changed me. Now I can fight you on equal terms. Face me—and my Deadman’s Blade.”

“Foolish insect!”

And with that tired epithet Gilzen’s scepter stretched. Its beam caught Crey in the chest, which absorbed it the way sandy soil sucks up water.

“Hmph!” Gilzen snorted. “So, you’ve been coated to absorb beam weapons? That’s certainly something their technology could accomplish.”

The scepter in his fist grew even longer. Swinging around neatly, it sped down at Crey’s head. It only appeared to be swift—yet the blow was also powerful enough to shatter a boulder. As the scepter slashed down at Crey, the outlaw’s body darted out of the way like a fish swimming through the rapids.

The scepter came back with a whine. Gilzen was in no hurry. His opponent had backed off.

The Nobleman’s neck was split halfway through. Fresh blood gushed from it like a fountain. Making no effort to close the wound, Gilzen tilted his head back. His own blood poured down on him like rain. Mouth open wide, he let it soak him. And look at the rapture on his face! The way he smacked his lips. He was drinking. His own blood was a fountain, and he was drinking it dry.

Both Crey and the alien were rooted in place by this most unsettling scene, but only for a moment, and then Crey’s right hand flashed out. Gilzen’s neck was cut halfway through on the opposite side.

“Ha ha ha!” the Greater Noble laughed, but how he produced the sound was a mystery. Grabbing his own hair, he jerked his head up, pulling it clean off with only a few bits of muscle and vein still trailing from it.

“This ‘Deadman’s Blade’ of yours is impressive,” the head dripping lifeblood told Crey. “Is its edge thanks to the aliens? At any rate, if it doesn’t slay me, it’s all rather pointless—as long as you’re bound by the musty old legends that all you have to do is cut off a Noble’s head.”

Gilzen returned his head to his shoulders. A streak of black lightning slammed into his face, blowing brains out the back of his skull. Pulling back the long spear that had been driven through the Noble’s head, the alien never took his eyes off Gilzen. The misshapen mass of flesh and bone began to swell. Flesh formed flesh, veins knitted together, and red blood pumped through them.

Clicking his tongue in disappointment, Crey shut his eyes. He was focusing his concentration for another go with the Deadman’s Blade—with the alien technology on his side, he might’ve stopped Gilzen’s regeneration.

However, he wasn’t able to do that. Behind him, he heard a voice say, “Let go of me, you idiot!”

When Crey turned in astonishment, his eyes were greeted by two figures. One looked exactly like his “master,” and it held Lourié—who was thrashing his limbs in an attempt to gain his freedom! Deep beneath the castle the boy had seen the alien mother ship, and after being pursued by an alien who’d returned to it with Crey he’d been captured by another alien—but why had he been brought here, of all places? The reason went without saying. This alien had been bitten by Gilzen, and unlike its compatriots, this one had become his servant.

As Crey stood still, rooted with amazement, the black scepter pierced his abdomen. Shuddering with an agonized death rattle, the outlaw’s body was hoisted into the air.

“Oooh,” Crey groaned, the sound causing spasms in the gloom, while Gilzen’s laughter hammered the stone walls.

Using just the strength of one arm, Gilzen dashed the assassin’s body against the stone floor. He fell right at the alien’s feet, but during all this time it had been paralyzed, offering Crey no help at all. Needless to say that was due to tension and shock at the fact that Lourié had been captured by one of its own kind. This was what happened when someone was forced to fight another that knew all their secrets.

“He’s beyond saving now. Child, is there something you wish to say?”

“Yes, you bet your life there is—let me go!”

“Very well, you may have it your way. As for the other one,” the Nobleman said, turning an intense look on the enemy alien, “I shall dispose of it now. Wait just a moment.”

Without delay the alien foe backed away, and a heartbeat later it had vanished in the distance.

Lourié ran over to Crey. When he dropped to his knees by the outlaw’s side, tears flew everywhere.

“Mister! Don’t die on me. You can’t!”

Crey grinned. In a clear voice he said, “My ticker’s trashed. It’ll stop soon. Once it does, that’s all she wrote.”

“No, let’s go find Miss Vera. She’ll do something for you! You can’t talk like that.”

“Okay, okay,” Crey replied, smiling again. He probably looked on Lourié like a clever little nephew. “We’ll do that. But you know, something might come up anyway. I’m gonna give you something. If you survive and see D again . . . tell him this.”

Crey put his right hand into his jacket, rummaged around, and then pulled out two small rectangular placards.

“One’s got the name of my lady written on it . . . Never mind the other one. Have him bury ’em at the top of the mountain.”

“At the top?”

“Yeah . . . Seems her home was up here a long time ago . . . Before I met her she’d gone bad in the chest, and she was dead within a year. Before she did, she told me something. Said she was a hooker in a country village now, but she’d been a plain old huntsman’s daughter before. And that was when she’d been happiest.”

“And?” Lourié said, eyes overflowing with tears once more.

“Tell her father . . . to plant these if he can, okay? I thought I could manage it, but that’s a laugh. To someone else, I know it must seem like a stupid thing to ask . . . Just have him do it if he can. It looks like I’ve had it after all.”

“Mister—no, you’ve got to hang on!” the boy cried out, clinging to the waist of the alien who’d captured him. At some point Gilzen had vanished. “Help him! My friend’s dying! You could save him. Please, just do some outer-space stuff for him or something!”

The boy’s words floated upward. Having hoisted Lourié into the air, the alien that served Gilzen’s will put the boy under one arm and walked off down the corridor.

“Damn it, let go! Let go of me!” the boy continued to cry, his voice a mixture of anger and grief.

“Stop!” Crey groaned. “Leave . . . the kid here. Damn you, Gilzen . . . What are you gonna use him for?”

It wasn’t on account of those words that the alien halted. Mysterious flapping white membranes were flowing toward it from up ahead. Throwing Lourié aside, the alien grabbed the beam gun from its hip and pulled the trigger. The flash from it struck the approaching object. It pierced the membrane, setting the entire thing aflame.

II

Though the alien’s aim had been true, one membrane that escaped its blast skimmed the creature’s left arm. What had been like a strip of cloth suddenly became a blade. It tore through the alien’s armor like it was snipping a piece of string, and fresh blood gushed out—green, in this case. The alien backed away. It’d realized what the exquisite flying things really were. As the fear swelled inside it, the alien turned itself around and dashed off in the opposite direction.

Lourié ran over to Crey, then looked down to the far end of the corridor. The flames were still burning. Reflecting that firelight, the new membranes that appeared had a reddish glow.

“What are these things?” Lourié murmured.

“A kind of monster . . . Gilzen made . . . modeled on alien DNA-mixing technology,” Crey said, his voice painfully hoarse. “The DNA I got from him tells me that. These things were offshoots produced while Gilzen was trying to accomplish his aims . . . He intended to use ’em as guards or something . . . but they were too vicious to serve any purpose . . . So they all got locked up in a room underground . . . for ten thousand years . . . No, not even a year’s passed since the first one was put in there. These things are immortal freaking monsters. Who’s to say how many of ’em died and how many survived . . .”

“How many were there?”

“. . . A lot . . . Five thousand . . . Probably all that survived were the ones that could get by without drawing energy from outside . . . Maybe ten, give or take a couple . . .”

“Ten of those flap-of-skin thingies?”

“Yep . . . Run for it.”

“How did they get out?”

“How should I know? Get a move on!”

“Can you stand, mister?”

“You needn’t worry . . . about little ol’ me. What’s more important . . . those placards I gave you . . . They’re grave markers . . . I’m counting on you with those!”

Lourié gazed at the outlaw’s face. It was an earnest look. Crey had probably loved those two women as well as someone like him could.

Getting up, Lourié grabbed one of Crey’s arms and pulled on it.

“Don’t . . . I can’t move . . . So make a break for it.”

A thin membrane was drawing nearer to Crey’s feet.

“Go!”

Giving a violent swing of the arm the boy was holding, Crey sent Lourié reeling backward. Somehow the boy managed to keep from falling over, straightening himself up and looking over at Crey. The membrane that’d drifted over had grown rigid without warning, and it was just flowing past Crey’s chest. Crey’s head dropped back behind his torso.

Speechless, Lourié was rooted to the spot. Down by his feet, a white cloth-like strip drifted along. Up it floated, its edge aiming straight for the boy’s neck.

“Wha—”

A stark flash of light joined the boy’s backward-reeling body and the deadly membrane. Nailed to the floor by a rough wooden needle, the membrane twitched as only a living creature could, but it quickly grew still.

“D?”

From the far end of the hall a figure in black raced closer with a sword in his right hand, and the warrior woman following him also carried glittering steel. Hacking off the flapping membranes near Lourié in no time, D scooped up the boy without saying a word.

“Wait,” the boy said, looking down at Crey’s remains.

Normally, that was the sort of sight people shut their eyes to, but out on the Frontier you got used to seeing things like that while still in your infancy. Looking at Crey’s head, Lourié thought, He’s smiling.

His fallen torso had its right arm extended in the boy’s direction. Lourié’s tears overflowed. A split second before D’s needle had pierced the membrane, that arm had knocked Lourié out of the way.

We’re definitely going to plant these up top for you! the boy thought, his grip tightening on the little placards in his pocket.

“There’s just no end to this!” Lilia cried out. At her feet was a pile of membranes she’d sliced. Now it looked like ten times as many were flying down the corridor. “What are these things?”

The boy replied to Lilia’s question, “They’re monsters Gilzen had locked up.”

“I see. I’ll get the story from you later. D—retreat!”

By the time she called out to the young man in black, he’d already advanced about fifteen feet.

“What an ego!”

She was about to go after D, and then he halted.

Up ahead, a black form flecked with shades that were difficult to describe had appeared. Without a single corner to it, it called to mind a beetle, but since it lacked limbs it apparently relied on the tank treads on its bottom half to move. Surprisingly enough, those treads weren’t mechanical; they were clearly organic in nature. Perhaps it was equipped with some sort of sensory apparatus, because although no eyes were visible on it, it slowly moved what appeared to be its head from side to side, then turned toward D.

Lilia turned around and said, “It’s no good. There’s a ton of them coming!”

The other end of the corridor was choked with the membrane creatures. Death was closing on them from both sides.

Fear tightened its grip on Lourié’s heart. He clung to D’s shoulder for all he was worth. Beneath his fingers, the Hunter felt like iron. Relief and trust warmed the boy’s heart. Here was a man who’d fought the Nobility and always triumphed.

D stepped forward. A sword in his right hand—that had been enough for him to carve his way through any danger.

Lourié was no longer afraid.

At that moment there was the sound of scraping stone to their left. From the depths of the stone doorway a woman poked her head out, saying, “Hurry! This way!”

“Miss Vera?”

Leaving Lourié’s words hanging like a trail behind them, D ran toward the doorway, along with Lilia.

It was a room choked with dust. There were small windows to either side of the door. Lilia pressed her face against one.

The limbless beetle still seemed fixated on D and the rest of them. Staring at the stone wall with eyes that weren’t eyes, it unexpectedly dashed forward. Compared to its earlier movements, its speed was unbelievable.

“What in the—” Lilia exclaimed, backing away in spite of herself, and then the door shuddered violently.

There was an unnerving sound as cracks raced through the wall.

“That’s some horsepower,” Lilia said with a smile. “Here it comes again.”

The beetle backed up. Then the white membranes assailed it. One after another they became unholy razors, dealing white cuts to the beetle’s head and body. The beetle groaned. Turning its head, it tried to drive the membranes away. The depth and numbers of the cuts only increased. After suffering countless hits in the same spot, the beetle disgorged what could only be described as grayish “blood” from its wounds, and then every inch of it turned boiling hot.

Once again Lilia pulled her face back from the window, and an intense heat spread through the room.

“Into the next room!” Vera shouted.

D pushed Lourié and Vera into the room, then shut the door. He probably didn’t throw Lilia in with them because she was a Huntress.

“It’s incredible!” Lilia remarked with excitement.

Every last one of the advancing membranes was enveloped by flames, reduced to ash before they fell to the floor. Every inch of the beetle was still burning hot, and the melting walls and ceiling around it began to collapse.

D and Lilia moved into the other room, too. Vera and Lourié were already lying limply on the floor. That was on account of the heat that filled the room.

“If this keeps up, those two are goners. Not that it’s a big deal or anything,” Lilia asserted unpleasantly. She’d been a callous woman from the start, and after being bitten by Gilzen that trait only seemed to have been amplified.

Another wall collapsed. They were less than eighteen inches from the feverish hell.

“What do you intend to do, D?”

As Lilia made that mocking query, D stepped forward. Lilia could see how his eyes gleamed wildly.

“You—you don’t mean to . . . ?”

For a few seconds astonishment prevented the Huntress from making any movement at all. D pulled the paralyzed Lilia close. She planted one hand against the black fabric of his chest to push him away, but there she was stopped. Both physically and mentally. Oh, the look on D’s face as he sank his fangs into her carotid artery! He had chosen to transform into a vampire. A second passed, and then another—and as D quietly pulled away, Lilia simultaneously collapsed on the spot. There was something both disturbing and sensual in the way D wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Was that enough?” he asked.

“More or less,” the hoarse voice replied. A small face was rising in the palm of D’s left hand.

Another wall collapsed. The heat assailed them like a wild beast.

“So hot,” Lourié muttered fuzzily.

As if in response to that, D raised his left hand. From the little lips protruding from it something spurted. Fresh blood.

The stream of blood eddied, forming layer upon layer, turning into crimson steam where it came in contact with the heat. It became a wall of red liquid that stood against temperatures high enough to melt away even stone. It was obviously Lilia’s blood. However, there was no way the small amount of blood taken from her should be able to counter the waves of heat that were ravaging this floor of the castle. Perhaps it was something in the nature of the blood, or maybe there was some magical power behind the way it’d been spit out, but when the blood turned to steam it seemed to multiply without end, becoming a bloody vortex that mesmerized the room, the world, the very heat—until at last the heat was gone.

An ineffable stench of blood hung in the room, and D didn’t so much as glance back at the boy or the doctor by the wall as he asked them, “Are you okay?”

With unexpected speed the exhausted Vera responded, “I’m fine. The child’s fine, too.”

As Lourié lay there, the doctor had taken his pulse and checked his pupils.

D had already stepped out into the corridor. The rooms along either side of it were all burnt out. There was no sign of the beetle or the living membranes. Had the battle ended with the beetle victorious? No, on the floor were about a dozen whitish lines, long and trailing like loose threads. They were marks left where the beetle had bled. The membrane creatures had made manifest their terrible cutting ability.

“So, they took each other out?”

No one replied to the left hand’s question.

“My thoughts on the matter are that those were some of the creatures locked in that underground vault and putting out that supernatural aura. Their prison must’ve selectively taken part of the shock from that blast in the laboratory, breaking it open. Which would mean the rest of ’em have escaped, too. Sheesh! We’ve got Gilzen’s servants and the aliens—plus monsters? This castle’s turning into all sorts of hell! You’d better get those two out of here fast. Even though they know your true nature now.”

At that point the left hand made a garbled cry. D had balled it into a tight fist. He squeezed it harder and more cruelly than ever.

III

The first thing D did was tell Vera and Lourié to hide. At that point there was an unexpected development. Vera—the brave doctor—started crying in fear.

“No, I don’t want to be left here with the child!” she cried. “What are we supposed to do if the monsters come? Can you take responsibility for that?”

“Wow,” the Hunter’s left hand groaned. “That’s how the cookie crumbled? A physical and mental shift brought on by external pressure—just perfect!”

Even Lourié couldn’t help but ask, “Dr. Vera, what’s wrong?”

“Shut up. Just stay out of this. My life is at stake!” Vera cried, even raising her hand as if to slap the boy.

“What are you going to do?” the dumbfounded Lilia whispered to D. She hadn’t yet exhibited any of the effects of being bitten by him. It was just as it’d been when Gilzen bit her. “If she keeps crying and screaming like that, she’s gonna dig her own grave. The kid’s in danger, too,” she added. “Of course, you know full well if we bring them along they’ll only get in our way.”

Lilia licked her lips. In a low, dark, passionate tone she continued, “How about we kill them?”

Looking her straight in the face, D said, “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

It wasn’t a question. It was merely an observation. However, Lilia’s expression changed.

“Who’d ever—not for her blood,” the Huntress spat with naked loathing, but she quickly got a look in her eyes that was beyond description as she stared at D. It was a feverish gaze. “Funny, isn’t it? When Gilzen bit me it was no big deal, but I look at you, and it makes me all warm south of the border. You know, D, you’re the one who did this to me. Sure you don’t want to take responsibility?”

Her words could’ve been interpreted in several very different ways, but of course there was no reply. This was no time for worrying about such things.

After a short pause, D told her, “You’re staying here, too.”

Lilia bugged her eyes, sputtering, “I’m—why?”

“Hide somewhere and wait for me to come back.”

“I think just doing away with them would be faster. After all, it’s not like bringing them back was part of the contract.” At that point Lilia noticed how D was looking at her. “Stop it!” she cried. “You’re giving me the creeps. Fine. I’ll look after these two. Now, hurry back. One more thing—are you sure you can find Gilzen without me?”

“We’ll manage somehow,” the hoarse voice replied with distaste.

Ignoring it, Lilia got closer to D, grabbed his hand, and gave it a small but intense shake. “You’d better come back.” It was unclear whether or not D noticed her words weren’t prompted by concern for his safety. “We’ll be hiding out somewhere on this floor,” she continued. “Give a shout if you make it back.”

“There are three types of enemy here. Be careful,” D said.

Gilzen and those loyal to him, the aliens, and now the monsters the Noble had created—that made three threats. Regardless of the fact that Lilia had received the kiss of the Nobility, those weren’t the kind of foes she could easily best.

Once the Hunter had stepped out into the corridor, his left hand asked, “Okay, where are we going?”

“The energy core,” D said without missing a beat.

“Oh! That’s a good plan. Threaten to destroy the whole castle and he’ll have no choice but to show himself. And we know where the reactor is. But on the way there, the place is liable to be crawling with monsters. Can’t say for sure none of them aren’t tough enough to slay you.”

Before its sarcastic remark was finished, the Hunter said, “Where is it?”

“Thataway.”

D started walking. No matter what form of terrors this insane world might have waiting for him out there, they would never stop this gorgeous young man from pressing forward.

The stony moving sidewalk was going down a steep incline. An hour had passed since the Hunter had entrusted the others to Lilia’s care.

“Sheesh,” the hoarse voice croaked, “you’ve done well to make it this far. You’ve really hacked your way through those hellish guardians. Today you’ve really got me thinking you’re a monster!”

The voice sounded rather reflective, but there was no response from D. A ghastly sight, he kept his silence.

His right shoulder had been split open by the lightning-quick assault of a spiked tail, leaving his upper body soaked in blood. His left cheek bore a shallow cut the flesh was rising to fill, but initially it’d been deep enough to expose his cheekbone. That wound had been dealt by one of the meatball-shaped carnivores that’d flown at him by the hundreds. His left hand had been taken off twice, and was now finally reattaching itself. Just to get this far he must’ve slain more than fifty monsters. Yet the young man was exquisite. Stained with darkness and blood, his pale skin glowing all the more, his stunning good looks were such they might even be described as hellishly beautiful, and it seemed like they would drive the world mad. And everyone who looked upon his face felt the same thing: I don’t mind if he kills me. It wasn’t a thought. That faculty quickly melted away, and wouldn’t return for a while. Every foe of his was enraptured. Being slain in such a state, they probably all died happy.

D stepped off onto the stone pathway. A stone doorway towered before him. It was massive in comparison to all the doors he’d seen up to this point, and an overwhelming force filled the stonework. It was terribly quiet.

“Security’s gonna be brutal,” the hoarse voice warned him.

D had already started forward. Whatever awaited him, it didn’t matter to this young man.

“You need a key to open the lock,” the hoarse voice said, sounding composed, considering the context. It must’ve been used to situations like this.

D pressed his left hand against the stone doorway. At the same time, the door behind him began to open.

“Wow, it actually opened?” the left hand cried out, and D lowered it, watching the receding door and the slowly widening rectangle. “This is a trap! Gilzen set it up because he guessed we’d come here. Hey, you still planning on going in?”

That could be called a dumb question.

Not waiting until it was sufficiently wide to pass through, D twisted his body to squeeze through the doorway.

“Oh, my!”

That remark escaped the Hunter’s left hand on seeing the armed soldiers in the space just beyond the door. Equipped with long spears, longbows, rifles, flamethrowers, and even laser guns, the soldiers numbered over a hundred. These were the troops who guarded the energy core.

“Just as I thought,” the hoarse voice said, a sigh mixing with its words. Yet why did its tone also carry confidence and bold laughter?

The soldiers arrayed there already had eyes glowing red with madness, and a colorless and invisible but nonetheless incredibly powerful air of the supernatural rose from them. At the fore stood a row of ten soldiers armed with laser guns.

“Take aim!” ordered the apparent leader, standing at the right end of the row. Without a second to lose, he continued, “Fire!”

It didn’t seem likely even D could survive being shot through the heart by a ten-thousand-degree heat ray. However—no deadly beams were fired.

As the shaken soldiers broke their line, a black gale rushed at them. Silvery gleams flashed out and blood spurted horribly while the blue light was witness to the chaos of life and death. Those who discarded their laser guns and tried to run away had their backs slashed open, while those who tried to shield themselves with the guns were cut in two, along with their weapons. The Vampire Hunter D—baring your teeth at him was a knock at death’s door.

“Don’t get near him. Encircle him and hit him with the arrows!” shouted the leader, whose face was then split down the middle.

The bowmen receded like an outgoing tide. Before they could stop, the black gale blew at them, dropping them in a storm of blood. D’s blade didn’t deal shallow wounds. It was as if the Grim Reaper had whispered to him that making them suffer would be a sin, and the soldiers who fought in their retreat joined the bloody festivities through their instantaneous deaths.

Long spears thrust at the Hunter from all four sides. Hoping to deal the final blow to the impaled Hunter, the group with longswords made a ring and waited for their chance. Before they realized it was merely an afterimage the spears had pierced, the spearmen were on the receiving end of the murderous intent from the beauty in black sailing down from above.

By the time a hundred soldiers had been reduced to half that number, their fear was so high many of them tried to flee. Some were pierced through the heart by rough wooden needles, and some reached the exit at the far end of the room. Thudding into an invisible barrier, they fell on the spot with hands up to their faces, and still more needles assailed them. The existence of that barrier filled the soldiers with despair and rebellion. They counterattacked with looks of insanity on their faces, but they were quickly cut down and reduced to dust.

Not even breathing hard, D had just lowered his sword when a heavy laugh rained down on him from above. D looked up.

Gilzen stood atop the canopy that covered a walkway that ran to the far end of the room.

“The expression ‘no blood or tears’ describes you quite well, doesn’t it? In order to talk with me, you cut down a hundred men without getting winded? Well, that’s fine. Fighting is their job. They must realize that losing means dying. So—on to the next part.”

“The next part?” the hoarse voice said, furrowing its brow.

D felt the space on all sides of him suddenly grow tighter.

“Shrinking down your force field?” the hoarse voice asked, and for some reason there was laughter in its tone.

“It’s a gravity field, to be precise,” Gilzen said. “And I shall squeeze you down until you’re small enough to fit through a hole in the Dirac Sea. I wonder how a false immortal will react when he has infinite negative mass in an infinitely small volume.”

It was said that unless a vampire had a stake driven through their heart or their head cut off, they would continue to live. Numerous examples attested to this. Even now scholars in the Capital pondered the destruction of vampires. Are there any other ways to do it? they wondered. Drowning, burning, bullets, being run over, asphyxiation, sudden impact, blood loss, etc., etc.—they scoured the written records, oral traditions, and firsthand accounts from Frontier villages, laboriously cataloging the roughly thirty thousand examples that they divided into the aforementioned classes in Deaths of the Nobility, in which the author Derek Cerceau had this to say: “The sole manner of death for which we have no records at all is death by pressure. Nobles take great pride in their unchanging elegance and youth, but if one were to be locked in a square chamber and pressure were applied from all sides until flesh and bone were fused together, would the Noble still be able to return to normal? I am extremely curious and excited about the prospect of witnessing such an experiment.”

Now, walls of electrons pressed against every inch of D, resulting in an unpleasant sound of creaking bones in a place so sealed off no one would hear it.