PEOPLE OF THE TWILIGHT

CHAPTER 6

-

Her surroundings were awash with crimson.

What stained them was a mixture of hunger and thirst. It made noises and beckoned to her will.

Her will tried to resist. It had accumulated much thus far—love, hope, kindness, dreams, grief, and, finally, rage. This will developed as she had lived her life, and some called it her “personality.” The answer it always gave to the invitation was no.

But the time was drawing near.

The crimson surroundings busily besieged her will, diligently trying to pacify the tough walls of reason with the caress of instinct.

Gradually, the walls were crumbling.

The falling fragments were instantly assimilated by the hunger and thirst. Her will felt something sweet, as its senses were stripped away. The feeling was something akin to the joy of discovering the world where she really belonged.

And yet the core of her will resisted.

Swelling with spitefulness, the crimson lurched forward, ready to swallow the will whole.

The gruesome battle raged on.

I’m melting. Being absorbed. Changing. Becoming a . . .

-

When Lina opened her eyes, D was just about to leave the shack. The light slipping through the window and cracks in the walls was a hazy blue. It was near dawn.

“You heading off already?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. D stopped in his tracks and turned.

“It’s still early. Go back to sleep. And when you get up again, go home.”

“No way! I wish you’d get that through your head.” As she spoke, Lina crawled from the sleeping bag.

“Aren’t you cold?”

At this remark from D, Lina realized she was wearing nothing but a blouse.

Now that he mentioned it, though the wind was quite cold, she didn’t feel the chill.

“It’s kind of warm today, isn’t it? I always have been warm-blooded.”

Whether her answer satisfied him or not, D went outside without seeming to take much notice. Stretching, Lina followed.

“The ruins again? There’s nothing there, I’m sure.”

D was silent as he put the saddle on.

“Wait up, I’m going, too.”

“You can’t. Go home. And then go to school. Shouldn’t the exam board be here by now?”

Doing some quick figuring, Lina extended two fingers and waved them at him. “Not yet. I’ve still got two days.” She remembered that soon a great load would be off her chest. In two short days, she could bid farewell to this village.

But, Lina thought, all my tomorrows will be here in two days. I wonder if tomorrow coming is a good thing or not? “Please, D,” she said. “ I won’t get in your way. If I do, you can send me right home. Take me with you. I’m afraid to be left alone.”

“Do what you like,” D said with a nod, though she’d been certain he’d refuse. “But if you come, it’s because you want to. I won’t even spare you a thought.”

“Fine by me. Leave me behind whenever you like.”

Lina gleefully strode toward the wagon.

“You forgot something.” D gave a toss of his chin toward the entrance to the shack.

“Huh?”

“Seems someone came and left this while I was sleeping. It’s not for me. Must be a sophisticated guy.”

The dubious face of the girl shone like the morning sun when she caught sight of something, a small white shape, left by the entrance.

A single bloom.

Gently taking it in hand, she slipped it into the breast pocket of her blouse. It seemed the mysterious delivery boy was always watching over Lina.

“Looks like you’re not all alone after all.” Even D’s voice, as emotionless as ever, sounded like it was showering her with blessings. “If anything were to happen, someone would grieve for you.”

Perhaps D knew something already.

Lina’s thoughts were a thousand muddled pieces. “When school’s over, is it okay if I come back here?” she asked.

“Do as you like. Of course, there’s no guarantee I’ll make it back in one piece.”

Lina fell silent. Behind his soft words lay a world of carnage a young girl couldn’t possibly begin to imagine.

Lina shook her head. She shook it over and over, desperately. “Not to worry. I’m sure you’ll be back,” she said, trying to convince herself. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

D reined his horse around silently. He kicked the heels of his boots into its flanks, and his mount galloped away without a moment’s hesitation.

After the thunder of hooves had faded into the depths of the forest, Lina climbed up into her wagon and took a peek at the sundial in the storage compartment.

It was much too early to head off to school. However, she didn’t think she could handle her anxiety if left alone with it for long.

Why didn’t I tell D about what happened yesterday? she thought. About that mysterious hole, and the shadowy figure and bizarre creatures I ran into down there? Or about those words?

The shadow of the abominable events of a decade earlier grew all the heavier in the silence, and now it was poised to clamber onto her shoulders at any opportunity.

Lina suddenly remembered Cuore. Maybe the shadows of the past were giving instructions to him, too.

Guess I’ll go see him, she thought. She’d heard where he was from the mayor.

Lina gave the horses a lash.

-

On a narrow road, D suddenly stopped his horse and scanned his surroundings.

It was a perfectly normal track through the forest. Here and there, the last white traces of snow punctuated what grass remained, and the brown strip of road ran on forever. Nor was there anything out of the ordinary about the morning breeze blowing against him. Nevertheless, D’s senses, the supernatural perception possessed by dhampirs alone, told him he wasn’t going where he wanted to go.

How was this any different from the road he’d taken the day before?

Pausing a bit, D once again clomped down the road. After riding for a minute or so, he stopped. The scene that greeted his eyes differed not one iota from the last one. The brown strip, the grass, the trees.

“Stop running around in circles,” his left hand suggested.

“So, we’ve been sealed off in another dimension then, as I thought,” D muttered. “We could keep going down the road like this until the end of time and not get anywhere.”

Take two points in space and fuse them together at both ends, and whatever lays between is trapped forever, only able to keep moving within the confines of the closed dimension. The real question was, when had his enemy learned this little trick?

“So, what do we do now?” the voice asked with delight.

“We’ve got no choice but to get out.”

“Oh. And how would we do that? If we were on the outside it’d be a different story, but in the whole history of the Nobility there’s never been a case of anyone busting a containment dimension from the inside.”

“There was a magnetic containment field in the lab up in the ruins,” D said, getting off his horse. “As you could tell by watching the way the hill works, it was made to deal with normal human beings. It’s not half enough to contain me.”

The voice was silent, but it was a silence pregnant with agitation and fear. “You’re the boss,” it finally replied, “but I don’t know where on earth you get these crazy ideas. I don’t want to be anywhere near you when you break through.”

“As you like. But until then, I need you to do your job.”

Tethering his horse to a nearby tree, D entered the woods. Gathering dead branches as he walked, he snapped off the twigs before piling them on his shoulder. When he returned to the road some ten minutes later, both shoulders were loaded with as much as would possibly fit.

Piling the heap of wood on the ground like kindling for a fire, D began digging up the soil. He didn’t use his sword, a stake, or anything else. With all five fingers lying flat, he artlessly thrust his left hand into the ground, scooping out clods of dirt like his hand was a shovel, and piling the dirt in a mound beside the kindling.

But this was no plain soil. The earth was black and hard, packed solid by countless passing loads. What indescribable strength that hand must’ve possessed, to slide wrist-deep into the earth with such consummate ease. In no time, he’d dug a hole big enough for one person to lie in comfortably, and had accumulated a corresponding volume of dirt.

“We’re all set,” he said, smacking the soil from his hands.

“Not quite,” the left hand protested. “Earth, water, fire, wind—we’re still short water. Bringing you back to life is one thing, but we can’t hope to succeed in breaking out of a sealed dimension if we’re short even one of them.”

“No cause for alarm.”

Standing before the mound of dirt, D rolled back his coat and shirt sleeves, exposing his left forearm to the wind. He brought his right index finger to bear just above the wrist, at a point where the artery was. Both finger and nail were gracefully in keeping with their owner. Just what sort of trick he’d employed was unclear, but merely running the finger across the white flesh left a thick vermilion line, and bright blood gushed from the wound, pouring down on the lumpy black earth like a warm waterfall.

With evening so far off, this was a weird piece of work to see on a sunny little trail through the woods.

After making sure his lifeblood had sufficiently soaked the clods of earth, D wiped the same finger across the gash. The bleeding stopped, and there wasn’t even a trace of the wound.

Not surprisingly, his complexion was a bit paler, but it was disturbing to see how deftly he put the fingertip dripping with his own blood in his mouth, taking that little bit of sustenance.

Did he plan on using these arcane materials against a physics-based phenomenon like this sealed dimension?

“Taking from life to give life, eh?” the left hand fairly moaned. “A miserable bit of business to be sure. But really, it’s scary how coolly you can do it. Guess it should come as no surprise, since you’re . . . ”

“Enough.”

With that one word from D—his look pale, cold, and unearthly, changed by the single drop of blood he had tasted—the voice was silenced.

Taking two branches from the pile of kindling and holding one in each hand, D put the end of one against the side of the other and rubbed them together vigorously. He didn’t appear to put much strength into it, but both branches burst into flame, and, when they were tossed back onto the mound of dead wood, heavy black smoke and fierce flames instantly sprung skyward.

Earth, water, fire, wind—all four elements had been assembled.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said.

His left hand reached for the flames. Then into the flames.

The wind howled, and, perhaps guessing something, even the horse whinnied.

There. The blazing pillar of flame became a thin line that was sucked, like smoke, into D’s palm!

“That makes fire and wind, right? Earth and water are next,” he muttered in a beautiful voice, as his pale skin regained a luster that could rightly be termed bewitching.

-

Lina stopped the wagon a short distance from Fern’s house.

She didn’t think relying on common courtesy would see her through this visit safely. She’d probably be sent back to the mayor before she’d even had a chance to see Cuore.

So she decide to do it by less legitimate means.

Walking until she could see the walls of Fern’s compound, she ducked the woods. Following the wall, thirty feet down she found what she wanted. There was an opening at the bottom of the wall just about big enough for Lina to fit through. It was a little-used bolt hole she remembered hearing Fern’s daughter mention. The precocious Bess had used this to escape the watchful eye of her nagging father and meet with boys.

A little more, just a little more now, Lina mentally chanted as she squeezed through, eventually coming out behind a plastic structure that appeared to be some sort of breeding coop. Not far ahead she could see the main house, and behind that the roof of the barn. The property was eerily quiet, perhaps because it was still early morning, but she knew from growls and howls spilling from various small structures spread about the place that the guard beasts were already awake.

I’m in trouble if any of these critters have a sharp nose and a loud bark, Lina thought. But I suppose I’ll be fine so long as none of them sink their teeth into me. Checking that there was no one around, Lina made a quick dash for the barn.

Maddening as it was, there was truth in what the mayor had said—there was no way a man like Fern would give Cuore a room in the main house.

The barn was quite a bit larger than the one at the mayor’s residence. The door wasn’t barred. That was proof someone was inside. When she pushed open the door, the reason was immediately clear.

The heavy stench of the beasts assailed her nostrils.

The barn doubled as a breeding place for guard beasts. Given that Fern had lost his wife early, and that he only had Bess to help him take care of the creatures, there was an extraordinary number of them. Lina cocked her head.

The shack was sectioned off by panels—partitions fashioned from metallic alloys, glass, plastic, and various other materials that had to withstand the acid, flames, and whatever else the guard beasts could spew. The sight of a giant spider like the one she’d seen a day earlier, a monstrous snail-like creature some seven feet long, a mammoth quadruped going berserk behind a semi-translucent barrier, and countless other strange beasts made Lina nauseous. With a sudden whoosh, a gout of flame shot into the air down at the far end of the barn.

“I’ve had quite enough of this. What kind of sicko would keep these creepy things?” she cursed in a low voice, though she continued bravely on. Once past the monsters’ pens, she entered an area hemmed in by farm implements and piles of feed containers. The stink of the savage beasts was thinner, but the air had become strangely chilly.

“Cuore?” she called out in a low voice. “Cuore, it’s me, Lina. Are you in here?”

“Too bad.”

Why did that cheery voice make her whip around with a scream?

“Bess! For goodness sake—don’t scare me like that!”

As Lina took a breath of relief, her classmate approached her in a pure white robe with the collar turned up.

“If you’re looking for Cuore, he’s not here. He’s staying somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else? But your father took him in.”

Bess laughed. She drew closer. For no particular reason, Lina backed away. Before she knew it, she was in the corner of the room. She felt boxed in. Her foot brushed something hard.

Turning to look, Lina’s face grew stiff. It was a coffin. Apparently, it had been exhumed from a graveyard, as dried mud still clung to it. She hadn’t seen it before, hidden there behind the bales of hay.

“Bess, what’s this for? Did someone pass away?” Even as she was saying it, Lina half-realized the truth. “Aaaaaah!”

Something cold caught hold of her ankle just as she was about to step away. She screamed, and the lid of the coffin slipped ever so slightly, revealing a pale hand.

Desperately, she wrenched her way free, but Bess blocked her escape. “Relax and stay a while, Lina,” she said. The bloodshot eyes gazing fixedly at Lina nailed her to the spot.

Behind here, there was the sound of something hard hitting the ground. She spun around.

Fern was standing in front of the coffin. His insulated vest and somewhat filthy pants—these clothes she’d seen so many times before—served to fuel the fear bearing down on Lina’s reason.

“That’s a hell of place to be taking a nap.” Her voice quavered pitifully as she said it half in jest, and Fern’s mouth twisted into a grin.

“I was gonna go out and get you, but I’m glad you came to us. I’m sure everyone will be plenty happy.”

“Hold on there. Who exactly is this ��everyone’? I came here to see Cuore. Where is he?” Lina asked, estimating how long it would take to run to the door.

“He’s with everyone else. I’ll bring you to meet them all soon enough.” Fern laughed again.

Seeing the fangs peeking from either corner of his lips, Lina cried out to Bess in desperation.

While the girl in the white robe bared her fangs, she was also unbuttoning her clothes. “I’ve been so lonesome, Lina,” she cooed. “I couldn’t go out to see anyone, and I’ve been so hungry. After all, ever since I drank Papa’s blood, I haven’t had anything to feed on but the guard beasts. And on top of that, Papa . . . ”

Her pale-as-paraffin hand made a motion, and the white garment fell to the ground.

For the first time, Lina realized there were some things so terrible you couldn’t scream, no matter how badly you wanted to.

From the neck down, her classmate’s body wasn’t that of a living human being. Her flesh was black-and-blue and shriveled dry, and beneath the painfully prominent ribs only the lump that must have been her heart continued grotesquely hammering away, beating out the pulse of something without life.

“Papa’s been drinking my blood.” Bess smiled enigmatically. “Every day now, every single day, he kisses me on the neck and drinks his fill, you know. He says he’s wanted me for a long time. And after all that, he won’t even let me drink a little bit of his.”

“This is . . . this is just too . . . ”

New fears shattering the old. When Lina bolted for the door like a scared rabbit, one of the withered branches that was Bess’s arms caught her and held her close.

She felt cold breath like moonlight on the nape of her neck.

“You know, I wanted you. I always used to think about you at school. I wanted to kiss you at least once. And now I will.”

“Stop it!” Struggle as she might, the arm pressing against her body had the strength of steel.

“It’s okay, isn’t it, Papa?” The hunger and passion was now laid bare in Bess’s voice.

Fern considered for a bit, then nodded. “The others will probably have a fit, but a mouthful or two should be okay. After all, even if we leave her be, you know what’ll happen sooner or later.”

These weighty words hammered Lina with a strong primal fear.

What would happen to her sooner or later?

When those raw, warm lips brushed the nape of her neck, Lina’s reason utterly collapsed. Madness battered its way through the wall of fear, and something burning hot gushed out all at once.

Bess was thrown against the far wall, screaming awfully, her body spinning like a dervish. Regardless of how Fern felt at the sound of those thick boards snapping, not even a trace remained of the faint smile of a vampire watching his prey.

“Well, now . . . we should’ve expected no less,” he groaned. Lina began to run. He pursed his lips, and eerie syllables flowed throughout the barn, calling to his guard beasts.

Lina slowly returned toward Fern, walking backwards now.

A few yards ahead of her, grotesque figures began filing through the door one after another—a giant spider, a colossal snail, a mucus-dripping creature shaped like a sea anemone, a mass of writhing purple tentacles. There was an army of guard beasts.

The mob of shapes closed around Lina as she backed away, her color completely fading.

“We won’t let you get away again,” Bess laughed, as she leisurely got to her feet. “So, come to me. At any rate, you’re already . . . ”

Lina covered her ears, her whole being recoiling against whatever Bess was about to say.

The ring of foul-smelling beasts squeezed tight around her.

“Okay, all set,” came the voice from D’s left hand.

D nodded.

With the exception of a smattering of bloody mud and a fistful of ashes giving off a thin wisp of smoke, the outlandish materials had disappeared. Who would’ve believed all of that could be consumed by a little mouth no bigger than the tip of a pinky finger?

Without a sound, D sailed up onto his mount.

Giving his cyborg horse a pained glance for just the merest instant, he lashed it hard.

But, in this eternally sealed dimension, what was the point of this dash on horseback?

“Where’s it been fused?” he asked, training his piercing gaze straight ahead. The wind rang in his ears.

“Three hundred yards from here. It’ll start warping back around any time now, so you’d better watch yourself,” the left fist said teasingly.

And what did it mean by that? The dimension was onto them.

Watch. See how the stands of trees lining the road, the bushes, even the sky and the road itself twist like a veritable mirage, dissolving like paints in water and surging after D as he gallops by?

It was a wondrous sight, as the gale raised by this gorgeous youth melted the world and pulled it after him.

“One hundred and fifty to go,” the voice said with pleasure. “One twenty . . . One hundred . . . Almost there.”

D’s pupils reflected only the landscape before him. No fear, no anger, no sorrow there. It seemed he was always that way. Increasing his speed even more, the moans of the wind became a maddened scream.

“Fifty . . . Thirty . . . Ten . . . Now!”

With this word, the whole melted and the crumbled universe touched D’s back and reversed direction. It was as if the dimension had been turned inside out.

The next instant, however, up in the laboratory in the ruins, fire spouted from a small device.

A millisecond later, the auto-repair circuits went into operation, but the speed of the destruction wreaked by the extreme energy force that had broken through the sealed dimension far exceeded that of the countermeasures.

Destruction pitted against reconstruction.

Losing the ability to make proper assessments, the repair circuits adjusted the programs to draw on all the energy in the ruins. The rip in the sealed dimension overlapped with dimensions in other completely different locations.

D’s body flew through the air, sailing up into a space that held nothing. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed his cyborg horse being broken back down to its constituent atoms.

1945. It was unfortunate, to say the least, that five Avenger torpedo bombers happened to be flying over the seas around Bermuda when the sealed dimension made contact with the area.

1872 and 1888. The crew of the ocean liner Marie Celeste, sailing the Atlantic bound for Genoa, Italy, and Jack the Ripper, out prowling the East End slums of foggy London, were simultaneously sucked into the sealed dimension, vanishing from the pages of history. The repair circuits should probably be praised for the part they played in the latter of those disappearances.

3046. An alpha-class black hole moving at 1250 miles per second, with a perigee of 170 million miles suddenly disappeared an instant after swallowing Pluto. Because of this incident, scientists among the Nobility, who were in the process of constructing interstellar rockets to escape to other planets, were subjected to great criticism, and the senior staff on the project, from the director down, were reassigned.

The overlap took zero real time to occur.

1901. Visiting the Palace of Versailles in Paris, Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain both ran into one Marie Antoinette as she was sketching in an arbor in the garden. Under pseudonyms, they penned a faithful account of their experiences, publishing it in 1911 under the title An Adventure. Needless to say, that Marie Antoinette was none other than the French queen who, along with her husband Louis XVI, was dispatched into the mists of time by the revolution’s guillotine in 1793.

4018. While eating dinner in his home, the human artist Vernon Berry witnessed a certain Noble attacking a beautiful woman in her bedroom in London, 1878. Though it took Berry three months, he managed to complete a portrait of the attacker. And thus the painting that for nearly six thousand years stood as the crowning masterpiece of all the images of the Sacred Ancestor came into being.

All the shortest effective distances between two points had overlapped.

An intense gale knocked Lina and the others to the ground, and, as she tried desperately to get up, Lina saw the most gorgeous figure in the world standing between her and Fern, as if to shield her.

“D!”

Comprehending the situation at a glance, the Vampire Hunter advanced without a sound. In this terrific gale that made it hard to even raise one’s face, this daring figure actually looked like he was enjoying it. The monstrous beasts retreated with groans.

“So, it was you after all,” D said softly, gazing at Fern and his daughter. “Tell me something before you meet your end. Where’s your master, the figure in gray? How do you get in?”

Even crushed as he was by the otherwordly aura emanating from the Hunter’s physique—beautiful as darkness crystallized—Fern bared his fangs. “They’re all in the ruins. But there’s no way to get to them anymore. Anyway, you’re gonna die right here.”

D was in motion before he heard the arcane call to arms, moving of his own volition right into the heart of the pack of savage beasts that surged forward.

His naked blade snarled. A head with compound eyes flew off, tentacles like those of a cephalopod rained down. Fresh blood gushed out, and the flames issuing from one of the monsters were truncated by a flash of silvery light.

It was battle beyond compare, and a quiet one.

There was neither whoosh of slashing blade nor scream of severed bone. The wind even blasted away each and every cry from the monstrous beasts. Finally, the guard beasts lay at D’s feet, without having scored a single hit with their pernicious claws or beaks or fangs.

A flash of light flew.

About to pounce on Lina, Fern tumbled to the floor with wooden needles piercing both knees. Making a desperate grab for the compressor-powered gun on his hip, his hand was nailed to the ground. Bess had her back up off the ground, but couldn’t move any further. The gaze she trained on D was strangely feverish.

The bare blade was shoved in front of Fern’s face.

“Answer me—where’s the way into the ruins?”

His soft words, devoid of threats or coercion, froze the blood of a fearless vampire. For the first time, it dawned on Fern that the dashing youth before him was no ordinary dhampir.

“What . . . what the hell are you?” he asked in the midst of a crushing fear that made him oblivious to the pain in his shattered knees and his now two-fingered right hand. “Someone who’s been made one of the Nobility ought to be more than a match for a human half-breed bastard. And yet, you’re . . . ”

The naked blade swished through the air, and one of Fern’s ears went flying.

“I’m a Vampire Hunter. Now answer me.” His tone was as just as soft as before, but with an underlying force that was overwhelming.

“I . . . I know,” Bess fairly moaned. Slowly, she approached the site of her father’s bloody battle with the youth.

“Don’t you dare tell him—arrrgh!”

Fern’s threat was cut off together with his other ear, which went sailing through the air.

“I’ll tell you . . . Just let me taste your blood, O gorgeous one . . . ” Bess’s voice quivered with longing and delight.

Clutching the arms she extended to him like withered branches in his left hand, D asked just one thing. “Where?”

“It’s . . . ”

“Watch out, D!”

With Lina’s cry, D made a backward leap of some ten feet. While still in midair, a mass of energy that defied imagination struck his beautiful face.

The air rang twice, with a bang like an air-filled paper bag suddenly popped.

Bess and Fern’s bodies had swollen from the inside, then blown apart in an explosion of blood and chunks of flesh. With gory spray and scraps of meat raining down on her, Lina let out a scream.

The wind, which had just died down, rattled the barn on a completely different scale. Beams of heavy steel alloy bent, and screws shot loose.

D realized that the energy mass that had annihilated the bodies of Fern and Bess was the same life-form that he’d encountered three times before. The laws of physics stated that two things couldn’t occupy the same place at the same time.

So, I was right—this is a foe after all, he thought. But someone’s consciousness summoned this thing. And, whoever that is, even they can’t completely control it.

He had an idea who that someone was.

The invisible being raised its voice.

Lina covered her ears.

It was then that the fragments of red and pink started moving toward the energy mass. The blood and bits of flesh that had once been Fern and his daughter were sucked toward the thing, briefly coming to rest against its indiscernible form, before being almost instantly absorbed.

It wasn’t that this manifestation of mental energy desired them. Rather, it used them as sustenance for its creator.

Someone or something was just beyond the door.

Leaping, D was struck once again by a massive invisible fist of energy. He fell back to earth. He shook his stinging head lightly and put his left hand to the ground to support his body. This concentration of energy surpassed imagination.

There were many supernatural powers that could create something from nothing. The spirit beasts spawned by conjuration were one example. However, the energy beings were subject to the same laws of nature as everything else, so naturally there were limits to their power. It would have been a different matter if they were nothing but raw energy, but these energy forms also had intelligence.

In light of that, the energy mass that hindered D’s actions must have been created by a being of unearthly power. D had only survived the first hit because of his own powers, and because some of the energy from shattering the sealed dimension remained with him. But he might not be able to stand another hit.

The energy form turned and headed for D. The wall creaked, then snapped with an awful sound.

“D!”

D’s face, which had been turned toward the floor, looked up now.

Did the death bearing down on him catch a glimpse of the eyes radiating beams of crimson light, or the pair of jutting fangs? The left hand resting on the ground gripped the hilt of his sword.

As she watched, Lina got the impression she could clearly see the arc as D swung his blade and the “shape” of the hulking thing as it relentlessly advanced.

When the two met, sparks devoid of color or sound flew throughout the barn. Lina’s brain burned.

The energy vanished.

D dropped to one knee in exhaustion.

Rubbing her head all the while, Lina ran to him. “D, are you okay?”

“Nothing to worry about it. But could you take a look outside the door for me? See if there isn’t someone lying out there.”

“I’ll be back in a flash.”

Lina went to the door, looked around a bit, then returned. “There’s no one out there. You think maybe they got away?”

D thought for a moment, then laid back on the ground.

“Are you okay? Should I go get a doctor?”

“You needn’t be concerned. I’ll heal soon enough. What I’d like to know is, what brings you here?”

“I came out looking for Cuore. Just a sec, I’ll go get you some water.”

Before D could stop her, the girl had disappeared through the doorway.

When she returned a short while later, tin cup in hand, D had already gotten up. Even when he’d been on the floor, his expression hadn’t shown that anything was wrong with him, or that he was even in pain. Lina was half-tempted to wonder if he’d just been teasing her.

“Sorry. I had the darnedest time finding the well. Here you go.”

D was silent as he took the cup she proffered, then drank a mouthful. Not that his body desired it. He was merely responding to Lina’s hospitality. When this girl was around him, D did things that those who knew him would never imagine. Perhaps realizing as much, Lina was beaming, but soon her brow clouded and she asked, “So, what the heck was that thing? Is it the same thing that showed up that night we found Cuore?”

“Probably. It’s a mass of superdense energy. When they found out they’d not only failed to keep me sealed away but that I’d also broken through here, they probably came by to keep Fern and his daughter from talking.”

When Lina asked him about it, D briefly recounted the incident with the sealed dimension. While she was only a girl of seventeen, he recognized she was intelligent enough to comprehend his story.

“Wow. I guess you can do some pretty amazing stuff,” Lina said, her eyes wide with wonder, as they walked away from the barn.

When all signs of the living had left the barn, two things remained: a deep depression in the ground right where D’s left hand had been until the instant he’d met the energy form with his blade, and something lying in one of the guard beasts’ cages near the doorway. Not only was the latter hidden by a metal partition, but it was also in a state that bordered on catalepsy, so it wasn’t all that surprising that D had taken no notice of it.

It was Cuore Jorshtern.

-

“Another failure, it seems . . . ”

At last, the low voice was colored by impatience. In a room in the ruins illuminated weakly by a single lamp, two silhouettes deeper than the darkness were conversing quietly, as if crushed by the density of the Stygian blackness.

“If they’re not back by now . . . ,” another voice said, trailing off glumly.

If one of the voices belonged to the shadowy figure in gray, who could the other be?

“My, but that Hunter’s a tough one,” the first shadow said. “I never would’ve thought he could break out of that dimension.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“Oh, well, I’ve already thought of a way to beat him. Rest assured. I’m more concerned about Lina. Hasn’t she remembered yet?”

“I did try to persuade her.” The second shadow paused thoughtfully. “Her time just hasn’t come. Remember, each of us awakened separately, didn’t we?”

The first voice, gravely weighing the situation, didn’t immediately respond. “Only two days until the exam board arrives,” it said at last. “This has to be settled today or tomorrow. We’re left little choice. We should bring Lina out here instead of waiting for her.”

“But that’s . . . ” The second voice was clearly shaken. “It’s by no means certain the amplifier would yield favorable results. Lina’s mental processes, in particular, are delicately complex. If it were to go poorly, the damage could be irreparable. Just look at Cuore.”

This time it was the first voice’s turn to groan. “Hmmm . . . But in return, he gained the power to produce that thing. Very well. We’ll wait just one more day then, shall we? In the meantime, we can take care of that interloper. Good enough?”

Saying nothing, the other shadow seemed to nod.

After a short silence, one of the shadowy figures began to mumble, “And yet . . . ” It wasn’t clear which of them spoke. “Can’t you feel it? That there’s someone here besides us . . . ”

“Impossible.”

“Someone is watching us. Someone is laughing. Watching our actions and laughing at them . . . from somewhere in the long distant past.”

“Stop talking like that.”

The voice was silenced and the pair of shadows moved off through the murk. In their wake, only the darkness remained, almost as if to say darkness alone suited them.

-

Lina stopped the wagon at a fork in the road. If she continued straight ahead she would go back to town, while the path stretching to the left led to the hill with the ruins.

“Nothing else will bother you now,” D said from horseback. The mount had been commandeered from Fern’s place. “I’m going to the ruins. And you—”

“I’m going home. I know that part by heart by now.” Lina shrugged her shoulders and stuck out her tongue.

“Good. Come tomorrow, this will all be over.”

Feeling the gentleness in D’s voice, Lina bugged her eyes a little. She thought she should say something, but, by the time her lips moved, the beautiful silhouette was already dwindling against the sun that filtered through a sieve of overlapping trees.

For a long time, Lina didn’t move from the spot. When she did move, however, it wasn’t to go straight ahead, but to the side.

The wagon turned a hundred and eighty degrees, thanks to some surprisingly masterful handling by the young lady, and sped back the way it had just come, wheels creaking in the tire ruts all the while.

Lina lashed with the whip. The wind ruthlessly buffeted her brooding countenance.

In about twenty minutes she was back at Fern’s house.

Riding as far as the courtyard, she leapt down from the driver’s seat, a canteen from the storage compartment in hand. Racing to the barn as if she’d forgotten all of her earlier fears, she pulled Cuore from the guard beast’s cage.

Lina had deceived D. Cuore had been lying out on the path, and she’d hidden him in the cage when she said she was going to fetch some water. Even she didn’t know for sure why she’d done such a thing. Was it that she didn’t want D to find out something she needed Cuore to tell her? She wasn’t sure.

Propping his head—which reeked of grease and dandruff—on her knee, she forced Cuore to drink some water, and he opened his eyes, coughing and sputtering.

Spying Lina, sense took residence in his muddy pupils.

Though she gave a sigh of relief, Lina found her heart wrung by how horribly emaciated his face looked as he tried, with little success, to form a smile.

He looked like a skeleton draped with skin. He was so terribly thin, like everything in his powerful frame had been ripped right out of him; he looked like he might be on the brink of death.

His body felt unusually light to Lina, as she lifted him up, and, while carrying him, she couldn’t keep a few tears from coming to her eyes.

Why now, now that a good ten years had passed had all the gears started running in reverse? Didn’t Cuore’s wasted form presage her own fate and that of Mr. Meyer? Her tears sprung from that thought.

When she’d finally slid Cuore up onto the driver’s bench, Lina heard hoofbeats approaching quickly from the direction of the gate.

Lina bit her lip. Who should discover them but the very last people she wanted to see right now—the men of the Vigilance Committee.

“Well, now, look who we have here,” said the second-in-command, Corma, as he stood up in the stirrups. Noticing Cuore’s condition, his eyes glittered cruelly. He had a pole of shiny black iron slung across his back. His real trade was clubbing lesser dragons and bears to death for meat and hides that he could sell. “Seems like something ain’t quite right here. What’s up with Fern? Ain’t he around?”

“How should I know?” Lina replied, glaring back at the gawking men. “Go ahead and look for him. I just came out to talk with Cuore. He looks so bad off, I was just taking him to the doctor’s. If you don’t have any further business with us, kindly get out of the way.”

“That’s awful serious, now, ain’t it? Well, I wish I could just tell you to be on your way, but something just ain’t right about how thin he’s got. You’ll have to hold your horses a minute.”

At a signal from Corma, a few of his men went into the barn and the main house, then came right back. One came out of the barn with an agitated expression and reported that the guard beasts had been massacred.

In a threatening tone, Corma said, “Looks like we’ve got business with you now. So, are you gonna come along with us?”

-

Having thoroughly combed the interior of the ruins, D returned to the courtyard. The passageway to the subterranean lab was sealed by several tons of rubble, and there was no sign of another entrance.

Why was D still so obsessed with the ruins? His contract as a Vampire Hunter had been terminated, but he knew his work wasn’t yet done. Could it have been professional pride that kept him in the village?’ Well, that was part of it. But that gelid beauty of his—a sublimation of anger, sorrow, joy, and all other human emotions—was lent a hue akin to vindictiveness by the outcome of the activities that had continued for centuries in the depths of this laboratory. Still, even if those feelings were the reason, did D himself even notice?

“Can’t find it at all, eh?” his left hand laughed scornfully. “But even if you did find it, what’d you intend to do? What happens when you know for sure the results of those experiments a decade ago? It’ll just make for that many more dark nights. The fate of those four kids was decided ten years back. No one can change that. Or could it be . . . ”

“Could it be what?”

“That you’re doing this to meet him?”

D’s expression stiffened for a moment, but calm quickly returned. “You may be right.”

“Oh ho! Grown a human side, have you? Then it looks like this interminable wandering hasn’t been a complete waste.”

Suddenly, the sky clouded darkly. Even the sound of the wind died sharply.

D’s right hand stretched for the sword on his back.

The courtyard was no longer the courtyard.

With every inch of his body, D felt it rising into being.

His immediate vicinity was pitch-black. Allowing not even light itself to pass, its density was comparable to that of a black hole. But as incredible as the density of the darkness was, it was several orders of magnitude lower than the presence that stood before D, blocking his path.

D sent all that density right back at the presence.

I should have expected as much. You did well to resist it, a disembodied voice said disinterestedly. It wasn’t praise. This was something the meaning of which was beyond words. Anyone else would have been crippled by this point, their psyche physically crushed. You certainly are a success.

“Silence,” D said. He didn’t have to speak the words, nor even think them. This was a conversation of an altogether different kind. “What did you do here? What were the results of your experiments ten years ago?”

You mean the genes of darkness and light? Simply remarkable. How well you’ve done to fathom that much, the presence said, as it circled around D. How cruel it is—that the genes of one person, even one solitary gene, can prove the deciding factor for its entire species. Crueler still when their race knew glories unrivaled by any other creature, yet gallantly accepted their fate in time. In that sense, couldn’t one say that the Nobility are truly superb?

“So they’ve all quietly accepted their demise then?” D laughed scornfully. “If that was the case, there’d be no need for Vampire Hunters.”

It’s not the Nobility that needs them. It’s the humans. Why don’t you give us as much time as we need to die off?

“I’ve grown tired of listening to your quibbling. What were you doing here, tell me that.”

In place of an answer, a certain image appeared.

Light didn’t suddenly spring into being in the blackness. The image wasn’t projected into D’s mind or his brain. Nonetheless, there was that one image.

It was the naked body of a woman.

Not just one. There were countless bodies, pale and nude, existing simultaneously in one simple image.

A black shadow bent over her. The shape of that silhouette alone blackly eclipsed parts of the woman’s body. It looked like finger-shaped holds opened on her breasts, and the shadow’s thick legs seemed to lop off her slick, writhing thighs.

The woman was reaching her peak. Her climax seemed to stretch on forever. Plunging her nails into the figure’s back, she bit the flesh of its shoulder. The rapture on her face as she turned away became a voice spilling from her gleaming, wet lips.

However, an eternal climax might also mean eternal anguish.

A number of the faces were etched by death and faded away from the image. And more, so many more. D counted tens of millions.

The presence inquired, Have you no memory of this? You of all people should remember it. It was the instant you came into this world. You were my only success.

“You bastard—you were doing the same thing all over again here, weren’t you?” D asked, resorting to normal words—words ablaze with white-hot rage—for the first time.

Exactly. You see, this was once a computational center for such things. Over the course of three-and-a-half millennia, I conducted countless experiments and all ended in failure. All the by-products were erased.

The scene changed.

D was surrounded by strange-looking creatures. Though clearly reminiscent of human beings, they were such weird creatures. Craniums swollen, limbs twisted, eyes glittering like those of a cat. Their whole bodies were mantled in fur. Infants cried feebly.

D realized each of them possessed an unimaginable strength. He saw their power. Every last one of them could operate night and day, without sleep. They could breathe in a vacuum, too. They could swim freely underwater, and their cells could regenerate from even fatal blows.

They were the pinnacle of biological evolution. However, a sole drawback brought death upon them.

The accursed deed—the need to drink blood.

That was the reason they were erased. Hundreds of thousands of them, still infants and unable to offer any protest, were buried in the darkness for all time.

“Why did you do all these things?” The strictly serene query bore an infinite weight of grief.

In the pursuit of possibility. There were more ten years ago. But it all ended in failure.

“And do you intend to erase them, as you did all those young lives?”

It’s not my habit to leave failures around, the presence said in conclusion. His final word on the matter was spoken with silence, but was all the more frightening for its import. I shall dispose of all the genes of darkness. You can watch to make sure, if you wish. You’ve seen a great many things. A few more shouldn’t pain you.

While he listened to the presence, D half-closed his eyes. He was changing this being that possessed the density of infinitely compacted darkness into a form like his own.

That was his only chance of victory.

Of course, this was totally unrelated to the actual physical form of his opponent. D would only cut down the form made manifest to him—that was the extent of it. Somewhere within D, a gigantic, powerful figure was moving toward completion. An image of the Sacred Ancestor, wrapped in a black cape, a pair of fangs jutting from the vermilion lips chiseled into his pale skin.

The instant it was complete, D focused all of his physical and mental energy into the sword racing from its sheath.

Light cut the darkness.

With the sunlight of midday showering down on him, D thrust his blade into the ground and clung to it almost like a crutch as he got to his feet. The heavy shadow of fatigue clung to his beautiful countenance.

“Looks like he’s taken off,” he said, even his breath ragged. He was answered by a quavering voice.

“You scare the hell out of me. That you could wound him . . . your own . . . ”

Without replying, D started to walk over to the gate where he’d tethered his horse.

“Where are we headed?”

“I don’t know what the four of them have planned, but now at least I know their fate.”

“Then let’s get out of town. Wash your hands of it, D. You’ve got no connection to these people.”

“Tomorrow, it’s going to be decided whether or not one of them goes to the Capital. For that reason alone she made it through the winter. Through a winter that’s lasted a decade.”

“So what you’re trying to say is you’d like to watch over her so that she doesn’t know the truth right up till the very end? What a sentimental softy you are.”

D didn’t say a word as he lashed his horse.

-

The whip rebounded off her white back.

Sobs escaping through her grit teeth, Lina opened her eyes and fought off the sudden urge to faint.

Though her face and her fully exposed torso were both soaked with sweat, her body was quite cold.

When she opened her eyes, she saw before her a bunch of jeering men. A bloodstained Cuore lay on the stone floor.

Lina’s wrists were bound together by a rough rope, and she hung from a pulley in the ceiling. There were a great many welts across her back. The men laughed and told her they were still going easy on her. Though there’d been a few pauses along the way, she’d been whipped for nearly twenty minutes so far. This wasn’t about getting a confession out of her. This was all about Lina’s pain—about them enjoying the agony their whip wrung from the girl’s flesh.

The men had no questions of any sort for her. Before they brought Lina and Cuore to the interrogation chamber, located in one of the outbuildings at Fern’s place, they’d asked things like where Fern and Bess were or what their connection was to the vampire attacks. But when Lina steadfastly maintained she didn’t know, the men looked at each other, smiled, and started to torture the already half-dead Cuore. Perhaps trying to protect Lina as much as he could, Cuore held on through more than an hour of electric shocks and dunkings before he passed out.

“Hey, call the sheriff!”

Aware in her hazy, dim state of consciousness that this entreaty hadn’t come from her, Lina let a smile rise on her lips. What, is that the best they can do? Aside from the physical pain, this is nothing compared to what I’ve been through the last ten years.

One of the men approached her. Judging by the unkempt beard, it had to be Corma. A powerful grip on her chin spun her around to face him .

“Oh, still got some fight in you, do you? We don’t have to call no freaking sheriff, boys. We can handle this just fine. First of all, you ain’t told us nothing yet.”

“And I don’t have anything to tell you, you fuzz-faced sadist! Don’t touch me!”

While his grimy hands stroked her white breasts, Corma brought his vulgar lips close to Lina’s face.

“Oh, you got a million things to spill. Like where’s Fern at? And how the hell are you tied in to the Noble that’s been running wild in town lately? Well? If you ain’t inclined to tell, we’ll just have to get the answers from your body then.”

A warm tongue traced the nape of her neck.

She tried to pull her face away from him, but he held her tightly by the chin.

“Hey, stop that! Let me go!”

“Getting a little feisty, are you?” Corma turned to the others “Hey! Give me a hand with her.”

With nods and grunts of agreement, three or four more men gathered around her.

Hands and tongues wriggled against her back, across her belly, between her tightly shut legs.

“Stop it, just leave me alone!”

But as she squirmed, something was about to change deep inside Lina. She felt an anger unlike any emotion she’d known, a white blaze, directed more at the boundless depravity of human nature than at the outrages against her own body

These bastards—these damned humans!

Her pale body flew up. It was a fierce snap. The men, on her like a pack of hyenas ravaging a corpse, were smashed against the walls and floor.

The blaze raced into the blood vessels in her wrist. With the exertion of just a modicum of power, the coarse ropes burst and Lina fell to the ground.

“You . . . bitch!” Corma exclaimed, jumping back up from the floor.

He grabbed the iron club leaning against the wall. It was a vicious weapon, with sharp conical knobs protruding from all sides. In Corma’s hands, it could knock through a stone wall, and, used against prey at close range, it hit harder than a slug from a high-caliber rifle.

The other men got up and surrounded Lina.

“No more mercy for you. Tear them bottom duds off, too, and then we’ll fuck her to death.”

“Heh heh. We’ll stick it to her from the front and the rear!”

Vulgar promises and violent threats spewed from every mouth. They were just about to pound across the floor to her when—

The door opened with a dull creak.

All eyes turned that way, and while five pairs looked dubious, one pair widened in surprise and delight.

“Mr. Meyer!” Picking her clothes off the floor, Lina took cover behind the young teacher.

Not surprisingly, the men were trembling. They looked embarrassed, averting their gaze. Corma alone challenged the teacher, and just barely at that. “What are you here for? Why all the way out here? I could’ve swore you was among the missing.”

“I went on a rather long journey,” the teacher said, as if wholly unsurprised by the strange circumstances. “I’ve just now gotten back to town. I merely dropped by with the intention of asking Fern what new developments there’d been in our local problem.”

“Fern ain’t here,” Corma spat, jabbing a finger at Lina. “Now he’s the one missing instead of you. The girl knows where he’s gone. So we was just interrogating her.”

“You don’t say?” Mr. Meyer said with a nod. Looking straight at Corma, he said, “Well, from the look of things, it doesn’t seem to have gone very well. Leave this to me. Let me try discussing this leisurely with her at my home. That’s fine with you, isn’t it?”

For some reason, Corma swallowed the “no” that was just about to leave his throat.

“Well then—begging your pardon.” With a simple bow, Mr. Meyer pushed Lina along and disappeared through the door.

Between the men who exchanged idiotic looks, spirits that contained equal amounts of relief and fear were rising.

-

Once the wagon had gone out through the gate, Mr. Meyer looked at Lina’s wrist and said, “Got a little rope burn, I see. That was just horrible of them. How did you get out of your bonds, anyway?”

“Uh, well . . . when I was fighting back, they came undone on their own.”

“You don’t say.”

The teacher asked nothing more, but gazed straight ahead. Growing somewhat anxious, Lina inquired, “Um . . . where are we going?”

“Where do you want to go? I’ll take you wherever you like. I’ve got today off, too.”

D’s face and the shack out by the waterwheel drifted into her mind, then Lina shook her head. Such precious memories. The girl knew there’d never be another day like that one.

“I want to go to school.”

“Good enough. But before that, Cuore needs some looking after, wouldn’t you say? Let’s take him to the doctor’s.”

He sounds kind of dejected, Lina thought. Something troubling must’ve happened to him while he was gone.

The wagon headed toward town.

-

When the members of the Vigilance Committee had gathered in the center of the compound, the horse bearing D galloped in.

With an impressive display of skill, the Hunter executed a dead stop about a yard shy of the men, who wore doltish expressions of astonishment. Not wasting any time, D said, “The girl must have been here. Where is she?”

“How the hell should we know?” Corma said, stepping to the fore. His voice brimmed with hostility. He’d just been thinking how they needed a little diversion. And now the perfect target had fallen right in their lap. “We was showing her a little bit of a good time,” he continued, “and she was sobbing and carrying on, but when we was done with her she sprouted wings and just flew right out the damn window. I reckon she’s at the school now.”

“The wagon tracks lead back here,” D said, in a strangely soft voice. Icy fingers of dread stroked up and down the spines of the ruffians. “How exactly were you showing her a good time?”

The gorgeous youth was standing in front of the men now, having dismounted without making a sound. A white sensation they couldn’t meet head-on buffeted their incipient faces. It was his eerie aura.

“What did you do to the girl? Answer me.”

Knowing D would not accept silence, Corma tried to bluff. “Heh. She just happened to be here when we came by. We tried to ask her a couple of questions about how she tied in to the Nobility, but the bitch wouldn’t play along. So then we took her inside and showed her a good time, naturally. Man, when we spread her legs and stuffed it in her, she was sobbing with joy. After that, we whipped her, and then all of us cleaned her wounds. Oh yeah, we cleaned them with our tongues!”

“Really?” D said with a nod, his voice not really soft but just low. Then, without another word, he turned his back and began to walk away.

“You freak!”

Carving a path through the air, the iron club swung in a downward arc aimed for D’s head.

The men’s gasp of surprise could be heard at the same time as the ring of iron meeting steel. At the base of D’s neck—or just a little bit above it—the iron club had halted, imbedded on the blade he’d partially unsheathed.

The men’s eyes bulged. More than the timing necessary to evade the skull-splitting attack of the club, more than anything, the men were shocked to see that D’s thin blade withstood the hundreds of pounds of pressure from the iron club.

But the real shock was yet to come.

Little by little, but without pause, D pulled the sword from its sheath. One-handed, of course. Behind him, the giant, who couldn’t have been less than two hundred and twenty-five pounds, gripped his hundred-pound iron club with both hands, trying with every ounce of might in his body to stop the unsheathing of the blade.

For those unaccustomed to seeing such a display, it had to be the most frightening sight in the world.

When he’d finished pulling his sword free, D slowly turned around. Unwilling to let go, Corma slid one hand down to the far end of the club—now the man was poised with both arms bracing the club up over his head. Locked together, neither the sword nor the club trembled in the slightest.

Though they could see no twinge of movement in D’s emotionless visage or the muscles of his beautiful, powerful hand, the men perceived the sinking of Corma’s hulking frame, and they were paralyzed with fear and awe.

The sweat pouring from Corma soaked his beard. His knotty muscles shook, and he couldn’t help sinking to his knees. His hulking form was forced down by a sword wielded single-handedly.

Without use of his trunklike legs, Corma had to rely on the strength of his two arms. When he turned his fearful eyes up at the foe standing over him, the boundless pressure was suddenly gone. Okay, he thought, I was just getting warmed up, you dirty vamp bastard.

However, in the next instant Corma lost himself in true horror.

D’s blade was coming down now!

Realizing that the steel was slowly slicing through his iron club, Corma was an instant away from total panic when he heard D’s voice.

“Where’s the girl?” the gorgeous god of death inquired.

Despite his present situation, Corma found himself intoxicated by the voice and the beauty of the one who gazed at him. “Meyer came . . . took her away in the wagon. Took Cuore with them, too . . . ”

D nodded, and then, with one slash, he split the iron club in half and Corma from skull to crotch.

Without so much as a glance at the body—sending out a bloody spray when it fell onto its back and split in two—D mounted his horse.

It wasn’t until the pounding of iron-shod hooves striking the plain had faded into the distance that the men, standing vacant-eyed as if in a daydream, could finally breathe again.

-

At the point where it could slip out of the forest and be at the entrance to town, the wagon made a sudden stop. Lina, who’d been in the back assiduously tending to Cuore, leaned forward into the cab and cried out in surprise, “Mr. Meyer, what in the—?!”

Standing in the road about five yards ahead of them was the dreaded figure in gray.

“We’ve got to get out of here, Mr. Meyer!”

“It’s no use. The horses won’t budge.”

“No problem. There’s a stake gun in the storage compartment!” As she spoke, Lina returned to the bed and armed herself with a long, slim weapon she pulled out of the box. With propellant smeared on the butt of the stakes surrounding the two-inch-thick stock, and a small motorized lighter for rapid firing, the weapon’s effectiveness tended to diminish over long distances. At close range, however, it demonstrated tremendous power.

“Stand back! This is nothing like the sliver gun I had last time!” Lina shouted, standing as tall and fierce as the temple guardians of yore.

The shadowy figure approached without a sound.

“Stay back! I don’t want to have to shoot you!”

“Shoot it, Lina!”

The sound of Mr. Meyer’s voice ever so slightly upset the power she put into her finger, which was already squeezing the trigger.

Leaving only a kick and a resounding bang in its wake, the stake pierced the shadowy figure’s heart.

Turning its body ever so slightly, the figure reached its right hand around to its back. Lina shuddered as she watched the butt end of the stack sucked through the figure’s body. Holding the bloody stake in his right hand, the figure leapt into the air.

He swung the stake down at Lina in the bed of the wagon. Rough wood slashed through the air.

Lina found herself standing in the road.

Without even giving her time to wonder how she had gotten from the wagon to the ground, the shadowy figure hurled the stake at her. Before she could scream, the wind-ripping growl abruptly stopped in front of her chest.

Lina gazed absentmindedly at the stake she’d caught as it flew through the air. Somehow it seemed like she’d become an altogether different creature.

“Don’t you understand yet?” the shadowy figure asked her from the bed of the wagon. “Your movements, your speed—you’re not the same old Lina any more.”

“You dolt, if you’re gonna start talking in your sleep, save it for nap time!” Effortlessly stopping the stake Lina threw back at him, the figure raised his right hand.

“D?!”

Seeing the gorgeous youth standing quietly off to the side, Lina was shocked.

“What’s wrong?” the figure asked. “Don’t you desire this man?”

As she heard the distant voice of the shadowy figure, Lina felt a sudden, hot, rapacious desire burning in her flesh.

I want D. I want those exquisite arms to hold me.

“That image is your very heart made manifest. It’d certainly never deny you what you wish. Love him any way you please.”

The low voice was pregnant with expectation. While she was aware this was a psychological attack, Lina touched her hand to D’s powerful, hard chest. His lovely lips panted.

D’s breath was sweetly fragrant.

I want to suck . . . Lina’s heart mumbled. I want to suck . . .

“I can’t!”

As soon as she’d desperately wrenched herself away, D became Mr. Meyer.

An enigmatic aroma wafted to her nose from the glass receptacle he cupped with both hands.

While averting her face from its color and scent, Lina heard another voice call out to her.

Drink. You must drink. It will set you free. Come back to me.

The container was proffered.

When it reached her mouth and the crimson liquid surged forward, Lina struck wildly at the cup with both hands. The glass shattered, and her field of view was stained deep red.

There was no one by her side. Her hands hadn’t been injured, either.

Lina started to run. She worked her legs without looking back. If she stopped, the shadowy figure would catch up to her. Worse yet, she’d be completely changed. That was her greatest fear.

The next thing she knew, she was at the edge of the forest.

She glimpsed the familiar school building. Though she got the feeling she shouldn’t go there, she had nowhere else to go.

“Lina,” the figure in gray called out, stopping the girl just as she was about to walk on.

She whirled around with a scream of terror, but, at the sight of a familiar face, her fear gave way to relief. Even if it was the most disagreeable of people, in her present state Lina was simply glad it was one of her classmates.

“What are you doing out here?” Callis, who was evidently on his way to school, asked. A flirtatious smile arose on his smooth, handsome face.

“Nothing really. Run along to school now.”

“That’s some greeting. And after how long I waited to catch up to you.”

“How long you waited?”

“Ever since the last time I saw you, you’re all I’ve been thinking about. Look, I picked these for you yesterday.”

A white bouquet was thrust before her.

The understated single flowers had been delivered on summer days and winter days, but this bouquet was one huge bunch, ripped up roots and all.

Lina remembered her window sill in the morning—the slight fluttering of her heart as she opened the window, thinking maybe today he hadn’t come. The white flower she hugged gently to herself, knowing that someone was looking out for her. All these things were a million miles away.

Taking the bouquet, she heard a voice that was not her own say, “Uh, Callis, I have a favor to ask.”

“What is it?”

“As I recall, your family processes beast carcasses, right? Don’t you have a warehouse around here somewhere?”

“That’s right.” Even as he knit his brow in suspicion, the lustful laughter that arose in his thin eyes didn’t escape Lina’s notice. Not that it mattered.

“Take me there. I want you to hide me for a while. On account of my father’s always doing these gross things to me.”

“Wow, I had no idea.” The young rake swallowed loudly, affected by Lina’s physical presence. She seemed like a completely different person from the one he’d seen two days earlier. “Sure thing. It’s not like they use it at all during the winter anyway. You wanna go right now, or after school?”

Lina turned toward the schoolhouse. Several students looked at them before disappearing through the gates. She got the feeling Viska and Marco were among them. Someone waved to her, and Lina lifted her hand a little in a half-hearted response. Almost as if to say goodbye.

Then, her decision made, she took Callis’s hand.

Lips that seemed visibly redder said, “Okay, let’s go.”

-

About the same time the girl and the bewitched boy disappeared into the depths of the forest, D arrived at the school. The wagon tracks that he had followed all the way from Fern’s place through the forest had come to a sudden end. Finding some signs of a struggle on the ground, he’d rushed to the schoolyard.

He entered the sole academic building. The high school classroom was the one closest to the gate.

Without knocking, he opened the rickety door. Instantly, countless eyes focused on him.

“Well, do come in. I haven’t seen you for a while.” Chalk in one hand, Mr. Meyer bowed a greeting.

At someone’s command of “stand for our guest,” the students rose in unison. “Bow.” Each head dropped simultaneously, without the slightest flaw in timing, then came back up again. Every one of them had Lina’s face.

No one told them to take their seats again.

D’s pupils emitted a weird and beautiful light.

A psychological attack. And I walked right into it. Reprimanding himself lightly, D tried to focus his senses on the source of the force field covering the area, but couldn’t find it. Perhaps having learned a lesson from the failure of the attack on the rainy night, the enemy was concealing its position by using diversions on a multitude of levels.

It’s not that the field couldn’t be penetrated by a concerted mental effort, but the effort itself would consume a great deal of time and psychic energy.

“Are you here to observe the class?” asked the Lina holding the chalk.

A forced smile skimmed D’s lips. Somewhere in that gelid psyche, capable of freezing all thought, there might have been a trace of the innocent lass after all.

Linas beyond number approached him. In their right hands, each held a rough wooden stake. Surrounding D, they swung their stakes in unison. D tried to leap away, but his feet were stuck to the floor, and a number of stakes drove into his chest, spraying blood everywhere.

In extreme pain, but without changing expression in the slightest, D leapt to the corner of the classroom. Since he’d weathered that first attack, much of the efficacy of his opponent’s spell had been lost.

That’s not to say there were really stakes stuck in D’s body. This whole battle was taking place within D’s mind. If his body—which was equivalent to his will—were to surrender, the real D could die without a single physical wound. Conversely, if he could hold out, the result would be a trenchant blade to turn against his assailant. It was a quiet battle.

Lina, Lina, and Lina hurled their stakes. Two were deflected, but the last one stuck in his shoulder.

With especially long pickets clutched at their waists, Lina and Lina rushed in. D drew his longsword and hacked through both of their necks.

The blade met no resistance, and the two pickets sank into his abdomen. Letting go of the pickets, Lina and Lina laughed sweetly.

D gazed at the blade of his sword. It was just an ordinary tree branch. Even if on the surface his consciousness was ordering him to butcher her, his subconscious was trying to save “Lina.”

Swiftly growing ever more enervated by massive blood loss and scorching heat, D grinned bitterly.

Lina leapt, swinging a stake down at him from over her head. His left hand caught her by the wrist, and he threw her back into the midst of the net of attackers closing on him. Though his pain had increased, mobility was returning to his body. His opponent was growing weaker as well.

Suddenly, there was a change in the world.

D stood on a section of ice field crossed only by the howling wind.

He didn’t have a mark on him. The sword in his right hand had returned to being his peerless weapon.

D shut the door more firmly than ever on the cage of his psyche.

His foe was gambling his victory on this image. They’d make every lethal effort to leave a beautiful corpse lying there, exposed to the wind on the fields of ice.

Shooting stars flew across the pitch-black sky.

D, someone called out to him. The voice twisted in the wind, became a desolate scream, and raced off across the icy plains. Again it cried, D.

Ahead of him at a distance that was impossible to judge—it might as easily have been a yard as a thousand miles—there stood a lone woman.

The long garment of pure white she wore wasn’t a dress, but rather a shroud. He couldn’t see her face, hidden as it was by her black hair. Much like D, she had nearly translucent skin.

D.

It seemed to be both a voice issuing from the woman, as well as the song of the wind.

D stood completely still, as if frozen solid.

From what part of D did his opponent pull such an image? Truly, the vastly spreading plains of nothingness were a world befitting this youth. On the other hand, the woman . . .

D, we meet at long last. The voice was like the wind sweeping the fields of ice. How I’ve waited . . . with just one thing I’ve been wanting to ask.

D’s whole body tensed.

Whatever question she asked, to grant that request would mean death for his psyche. His enemy’s trap was perfect.

I want to know the name of your father.

And so the question came. The question to which this woman knew the answer better than anyone else.

For the first time, a dark shadow resided in D’s serene beauty. The wind became even more insistent, and, as D grew ever colder, the icy plains dyed his shadow even darker.

Please answer me, D. What’s your father’s name? What is it? What is his name?

D’s lips parted ever so slightly. The tiny tremble in his cheek testified to the intensity of the battle of wills he was now engaged in.

What’s his name? What’s your father’s name?

The wind frayed the edges of his exceedingly grave words.

“His name . . . is . . . Dra—”

The fields of ice were buried by white light.

-

D had just opened the door to the classroom.

With chalk in hand, the middle-aged teacher turned a dumbfounded expression to him, and all the students were left breathless.

He had triumphed over the psychological attack.

“Is there something we can do for you?” the teacher, the substitute for Mr. Meyer, inquired.

“You haven’t seen Lina, have you?” D asked, moving his eyes from the teacher to the students. The fields of ice, the woman, and her question were already far behind him. He was a Hunter, after all.

There was no answer. Unable to turn away, the girls trained their gazes on D’s countenance, and even the cheeks of the boys stained with bashfulness. They had to wonder if such beauty could actually exist.

“The girl’s in serious danger. Not just her life, but her soul is in peril. If anyone knows anything, please tell me.”

A scrawny figure—the boy Marco—stood up over by the windows and told him where to go. D raced from the room.

By the time D reached Callis’s processing plant, however, only the boy’s body was there, lying on the floor with its throat torn out. Yet, not a drop of blood remained anywhere, and Lina was gone without a trace.

-

The dozen riders climbing the hill on horseback turned at the sound of hoofbeats coming up behind them. The riders were the mayor and the sheriff, accompanied by the members of the Vigilance Committee.

“Where are you headed?” D asked, leaving about fifteen feet between himself and them.

The sheriff came forward. He pointed to the silver cylinder strapped to the back of his horse. A proton bomb. “We’re gonna take care of those ruins. That way, the sight of them won’t upset the folks from the exam board. We found out from some kids who were picking flowers out here that anyone can climb it normally now.”

“Perfect timing,” the mayor shrieked, his mouth spreading across the better part of his face. “When we were done with this, we’d planned on coming around to arrest you. On suspicion of murdering Corma. Then we were going to grill you about where Lina is.”

When D’s gaze fell upon them, several of those who’d been there when Corma was cut in two grew pale.

“I hate to tell you this, but that doesn’t constitute a crime,” the sheriff said, turning to the mayor. “According to the others’ testimony, Corma attacked him from behind. That being the case, no matter how he got killed, he brought it on himself. We’ve got nothing to ask this Hunter except for information about Lina.”

The mayor bit his lip. Looking at D with a cheerful expression, the sheriff continued, “They told me the truth even after they saw one of their own killed right before their very eyes. It looks to me like they’re really, truly scared of you. Honestly, the thought of it leaves me speechless. Fact of the matter is, I’d love it if you could show me the technique you used.”

Noticing how strange the atmosphere had become, the mayor shrieked, “What are you doing shooting the shit with him? At the very least, he must know where Lina is. Take him in before he gets away.”

“If he was gonna run, I reckon he’d have left town when you fired him,” the sheriff said in a forceful tone. “But he stayed. I don’t know why. And he risked his life to protect Lina when she jumped into that mess half-cocked. Tell me, mister Mayor—you think any of us would feel like fighting for a girl who was a complete stranger with a couple of them guard beasts coming at him? A man like that won’t run or hide, even in the face of certain death. There’s no need to take him in.”

The mayor fell silent, his face flushed vermilion.

“I know it might sound overly cautious, but it’d be wise not to meddle with the ruins,” D said softly. “Since the way up the hill has returned to normal, it’s only proper to assume there’s some other kind of defenses now. That castle did belong to the Nobility.”

“We’re not leaving anything to chance.” Shading his eyes with his right hand, the sheriff turned his gaze to the rear of the hill.

D had already perceived the low rumbling sound.

He saw a black gun barrel spearing the sky.

Sunbeams scattered off its gigantic metallic body, displaying an overwhelming mass. The flat body of the vehicle was treated with a special coating resistant to lasers and other light-beam weaponry. Only the radar dish and caterpillar treads were vestiges of ancient times.

“It’s a M-8026 CT—a computerized tank,” the sheriff said in a hearty tone. “We dug it out a couple of years back after someone found it buried in the ground on the edge of town. Called a mechanic in all the way from the Capital to give it a tune-up. Thanks to this baby, our losses to bandits and colossal beasts in the three years since have been nil, but the village is still as poor as ever. This model is over two thousand years old, but it still had the manual, and it gets the job done. Seems to have been abandoned for some reason or other. Anyway, you can see we got backup in spades.”

D didn’t say a word as he turned his horse toward the foot of the hill. Not mentioning that the shadowy gray figure might be lurking deep within the ruins, or that there was a definite possibility it had made off with Lina, he went down the hill silently.

“Once we’ve taken care of business here, we’ll be paying a visit to your little hut out by the waterwheel,” the sheriff yelled after him. He and the other inhabitants of the village continued to believe that the Noble was dead. “I’d appreciate it if you could manage to find out where Lina’s at by then.”

What the sheriff must have meant was that if the Hunter handed her over instead of hiding her, things could be settled peacefully.

D didn’t turn around again.

“All right, move out,” the mayor commanded. “Okay, Sheriff, let’s give it a blast, just to set the mood!”

The sheriff smiled wryly and gave the command to fire.

Raising the 150-millimeter-caliber barrel of the laser cannon, the tank took aim at the outline of the ruins without a single wasted motion. There wasn’t even the sound of gears grinding together.

The thick beam of light caused a white-hot globe of light to erupt on the castle wall. That scorching sphere of some ten million degrees made the stone wall evaporate nearly instantaneously, and it glittered like a rainbow as the sunlight rained down on it.

The men gave a cheer.

“Now, move in!” the mayor cried.

The hill responded.

Abruptly, the tank turned. Taking a blast from a weapon mounted on the howling ceramic turret, some of the men and mounts had their heads pulverized like ripe persimmons.

“Fall back! Retreat to the base of the hill!” The sheriff’s voice was blotted out by shock.

Meanwhile, the enormous form of the tank was being sucked into the ground. It was like the sinking of a gigantic ship bound in a whirlpool of earth and green, a vision beyond imagining.

The creak of grinding metal rose from the earth, and when the barrel alone was left poking skyward, a terrific shock rocked the hill. The energy of the ultracompact atomic reactor became lotus-red as flames spouted into the sky, staining the world crimson.

“The hill swallowed it then?” D muttered softly, watching from a distance as the group of men and horses scurried down the hill, rolling and stumbling. Now that way into the ruins had been cut off, too.

D returned to the shack by the waterwheel.

Watering his horse at the brook, he retrieved a silver cup and a bottle full of tiny capsules from his bags. He scooped up some crystal-clear water and dropped in a capsule.

In a matter of seconds, the water became the color of blood. Downing it in one gulp, he drew an easy breath.

The capsules, filled with dried blood, plasma, and nutrients, were food for dhampirs. Ordinary dhampirs took them three times a day. However, this was the first D had taken since coming to the village. His stamina far exceeded the bounds of the average dhampir.

The sky started to turn a darker blue.

Would dawn come again for a certain girl?

D set his cup down by the window and headed over to his horse. Even if his efforts were in vain, he still couldn’t give up.

Why did he go through it time and again, all the deaths and wasted effort? Straddling his horse, he started once more retracing the path to the ruins. He galloped for a few minutes, then, suddenly, he stopped.

A lone youth stood by the side of the road. It was Cuore.

In an instant, he’d vanished.

Dismounting and moving closer, D spied the small hole concealed in the thicket. It was the same hole where Lina had her encounter with the ash-gray shadow.

It was probably a trap. Without the slightest pause, D threw himself in.

A strange sensation prickled his body. That could only mean one thing—a spatial distortion. Two points were connected, warping the space and distance between them. Those two points were probably the hole . . . and the ruins.

There was dirt beneath his feet. Less than a foot away was someplace with an expansive floor paved in stone. This was probably one of the ruin’s emergency exits. Either all the circuits blown when D broke free from the sealed dimension had been repaired, or power had been restored to this area alone.

D picked up a pebble by his foot and pitched it forward. At the boundary line between the dirt floor and the paving stones, the pebble gave off a pale flash of light and fell on the other side. The shape was exactly the same, but the pebble’s substance was different.

“So it’s dead? Looks like I’ll have to pass a compatibility test.”

There was a powerful guard on duty here. Anyone or anything failing to match the predefined physical criteria of the spatial rift would meet a silent material death.

Perhaps D would be transformed into diamond?

Without taking time to think, he stepped silently forward.

Every one of his cells emitted the sparkle of jewels, and dreamy flames colored his countenance.

As soon as he set foot on the stone floor, the glow flickered and faded away.

With just a light toss of his head, D ventured into the depths of the darkness.

A foul stench and presences condensed around him. D’s eyes could clearly discern the vastness of this area, and the form of those who dwelled here—twisted, transfigured, former human beings.

The wind whistled, and two of them that’d leapt at him fell to the ground decapitated. An evil, malicious intent poured unbridled from the bloodshot eyes at D, making the darkness seethe. These creature delighted in slaughter and hatred. What could they possibly have been granted in return?

A few more lost their lives, too, and then the strange things receded into the depths of the darkness. The iron door set in the far wall started to shut, swallowing their footfalls.

D became a black wind, slipping through the thin opening.

He came into a shining corridor. Some sort of luminescent material must have been mixed into the silicon steel of the walls and ceiling. The floor, which hadn’t deteriorated over the millennia, hazily reflected his form.

Following the sounds of the twisted creatures, D proceeded down a long corridor. In the distance, the groan of machinery was audible.

These were the remnants of a dream. But whose, and what had they dreamt of?

The scenery changed, and D’s way was obstructed by a wall of cyclopean rocks. Crumbling stone steps stretched into the darkness above. Once he’d climbed them all, a steel door came into view.

The blue pendant on D’s chest grew more brilliant, and the door opened without a sound.

The vast chamber was filled by an almost twilight illumination. It was a laboratory reminiscent of the one he’d explored with Lina. But this one looked several times larger. The memory of any number of castles he’d seen before came and went in D’s mind. Indeed, they’d been filled with blue light, too. Perhaps that was the color of extinction?

On the stone floor, two naked bodies were intertwined.

With every movement of the gray shadow lying on the pale female body, a low pant escaped. Her white hands raked fingernails down the ash-gray cloth, and her thighs tightened around his waist.

The face of that beautiful woman, who looked like she was being violated by a mummy of antiquity, was the face of Lina.

Unexpectedly opening the eyelids that rapture had nailed shut, her eyes met D’s. Her expression faded.

The gray shadow leapt up without even stirring the air. The blade of his sword drank in the blue light.

Simultaneously, there rose the whine of sword leaving sheath from D’s back.

“I see . . . Cuore’s to blame, isn’t he?” Making a voice of his anger, the shadow squeezed out the words. “It was unwise of me to leave him unattended like that, even if all his psychic energy was spent and he was more dead than alive. But you’re too late, Hunter. My wish has been fulfilled. Do you have it in you to cut down Lina?”

Narrowing his gaze to take in just the ash-gray shadow, who was brimming with murderous intent. and Lina, who had lethargically raised her sweaty torso, D analyzed the situation. “So this is the birth of a new Nobility? What would you do if I could cut her down?”

The shadowy figure slowly lowered his blade until it scraped along the floor. “Could you do it? Could you really cut down a friend?”

Flashes of white light crossed.

The shadow closed on him with unbelievable speed, slashing his demonic blade from ground to sky, but D’s longsword deflected the blow and split the suddenly unbalanced figure’s shoulder.

The deep red wound yawned wide, and vivid blood flew—but the gash closed quickly.

A look of admiration raced through D’s pupils. No matter how powerful their vaunted recuperative abilities may be, none among the Nobility had taken a hit from D and been unaffected.

As the shadow backed away, he brushed the lab table beside him. Made of oak, the table looked to be about ten feet long. Moving his left hand slightly, the shadow sent the table flying at D. It roared with the force behind it.

The instant it appeared to impact on D’s body, the table changed direction, went over his head, and fell to the floor behind him.

Realizing that D had flipped it with the tip of his longsword, the shadow was rooted to the spot.

This was a showdown between things that had the shape of men, but weren’t men.

D leapt into the air.

The shadow seemed to have forgotten to move, and his heart was pierced by a naked blade that poked clear through his back.

Lina gasped with astonishment.

The moment the two figures had overlapped, one of them had leapt backwards—with a sword still stuck through his body. Behind his mask, a sneering grin rose in his bloodshot eyes.

A vampire invincible to even D’s sword through the heart! Yes, surely this must be proof that the demon who could walk in the light of day didn’t have to resign himself to the destiny of the night.

There was a silvery flash of light right in front of the now empty-handed D, and the Hunter soared through the air like the shadow had. As he closed in after him, the ash-gray shadow swung his left hand.

A metal cylinder struck the floor, sending pillars of flame up toward D.

Fending off the flames born of the ultracompact atomic grenade with the hem of his coat, D came to a halt. Behind him was a stone wall.

He could see the shadowy figure smiling through his mask.

What froze his grin was that the arm that had shielded D’s chest seconds before had halted his deadly sword thrust with its palm.

As the terror-struck shadow watched, the face that arose in D’s palm laughed heartily. The tip of his sword was held in that wicked little mouth. Clearly someone had bitten off more than they could chew.

Perhaps the ashen figure’s shock was too great, or perhaps he couldn’t match the strength of that uncanny mouth, but, for whatever reason, the shadow let go of his longsword and jumped out of the way. He was trying to extract the sword that was still stuck through his chest when the crunch of severed vertebrae came from around his neck.

This time, blood spouted out like a fountain, and, without even watching the decapitated torso drop, D approached the ash-gray head rolling around on the floor.

The impact after its flight through the air had knocked the mask off, and the face of what was still a young man glared at the heavens. The right half of the face looked like it had been caught in a press, with both the eye and the ear shrunken to half their normal size. Ugly and grotesque, the face was completely covered with wrinkles.

“Such is the price of receiving powers none of the Nobility have ever known!” Lina said from beside D. It was unclear where she’d got it from, but she now wore a white death shroud—raiment that until a day earlier would have been the furthest thing from appropriate attire for her. “In return for the amplification of his psychic energy, Cuore’s cognitive powers degenerated. I see it all now. That was Tajeel Schmika.”

“Is Mr. Meyer okay?” D asked, attentive to his surroundings but without taking up his sword. Perhaps he was getting ready for the other one, the unrecognized vampire rendered on the computer screen.

Lina happened to smile then. “You’ll see him soon enough. Do you want to know the whole truth? I think you already know most of it anyway.”

D gazed at Lina, at the girl of seventeen whose whole body brimmed with energy, who perhaps wanted to stun the Hunter with a sight of her supple thighs peeking through the slit of her death shroud.

“Then all this is the result of experiments a decade ago? And now all of it’s coming to light.”

Lina nodded at his serene tone. Casting a sympathetic glance at the creatures in the corner of the room, their eyes glittering, she said, “They were children taken from other villages about the same time we were. In their present form, they’ve gone a decade without food or drink—yes, they could live that way forever. I wonder if we could say they benefited in some way? What do you think? I guess you could say that compared to them, we were lucky. The experiments left us with no external abnormalities, so at least we got to live the last ten years as normal human beings. Without even realizing we’d died a decade earlier . . . ”

With a brief glance at Tajeel’s head and body, which gave off a purplish smoke as they dissolved, D moved his eyes to the enormous electronic apparatus hemming the laboratory.

Remnants of the abominable experiments that had once been performed here, gene-altering equipment, automated surgical units, clusters of ultralarge-scale integrated circuits—all these listened without a word as the tragic truth reached them.

“Why was Tajeel left here?”

“He was a failure, after all. Right from the very end of the experiments he was wild, with an excessive lust for blood. That’s why only the three of us were released. Given a grace period of ten years. It seems we were the best of the guinea pigs.”

Ten years—a long, long time until the results of the experiments would become clear. During that time, the modifications made to their cells caused the cells to change one by one, mixing a different hue into the blood flowing through their veins, and making their genes long for the darkness . . .

“I suppose you could say the experiments, including the ones to increase my intelligence, succeeded for the most part. Now I can see perfectly well in the dark, and the cells of my body produce energy even if I don’t eat anything. Though I haven’t tried it, I suppose I could even survive in a vacuum or underwater. D, can you do all that?”

Without waiting for an answer, Lina took the sword D had discarded from atop Tajeel’s remains. Thrusting it deep into her own heart, she let him watch as she pulled it out again.

“So long as we don’t get our heads cut off, we’re immortal. Tajeel knew that, so he brought me into the fold, and I fulfilled his desire. As I’m sure you could see. I wonder if my child will be a good one?”

“Why did he wait until now to make you his? He must’ve had countless opportunities.”

“Because, as the only one who had awakened, there was nothing he could do until our genes of darkness were perfected. All he had to do was wait. I would automatically learn the truth about everything and gladly let him have his way with me. So that we might increase our numbers.”

So, was that the real purpose of the ruins?

“But it seems the experiment failed after all. The same urge that Tajeel had dwells in me, as well.”

Within her slightly opened mouth, D saw a pair of fangs.

The girl frolicking on a road crusted with remnants of snow because she was going to the Capital.

The girl at the windowsill, a white blossom at her breast, gazing for an eternity at the road that had carried her mysterious suitor away.

“I don’t know if you found him or not, but before I came here I killed one of my classmates. Once we were alone, he suddenly grabbed hold of me, pushed me down, and demanded that I transfer my right to go to the Capital to him. He said that was the only reason he’d ever pretended to be interested in a Noble victim like me. At that point, something inside me changed forever. I wonder if that makes his murder justified?”

D was silent, just listening. There was nothing else he had to do. What had he fought for in this village anyway?

“And do you have the same urge, too?” Oh, but the Hunter’s voice was as cold and clear as ever when he sent the question back over his shoulder.

“Yes.” Cuore stood paralyzed in the blue light. He had an intelligent, rational expression that seemed to belong to someone else entirely—and he had pearly white fangs.

“He tried to protect me right up to the very end. Even knowing the fate in store for him, he did his very best, asked them not to bring me into the fold. Though he was the one who found the entrance in the forest and set Tajeel free in the first place, the night Tajeel attacked Kaiser’s wife for the second time, he was sneaking around after him trying to stop him. Unfortunately, he hadn’t mastered the use of his psychic energy, and he let it all out at our place.”

Letting a chagrined smile arise, Cuore came over and stood by Lina’s side. Twining her pale arms around his neck, Lina smiled lasciviously.

“I intend to let him have his way with me, too. What’ll you do, D—try to cut me down? Aren’t you supposed to be a Hunter?”

“I don’t work without compensation. Besides, my business here is done.” That was his farewell to the girl who’d listened to the song of wind and the brook with him.

D spun on his heel in the blue light. He made it as far as the door before a voice filled with positively unearthly malice drifted from a dark corner.

“Why . . . are you letting him leave?”

D saw the ash-gray shadow walking closer with a laser gun in his right hand. The last one—the man the computer had rendered.

“Stop it,” Lina said in a strident tone. “Killing him will accomplish nothing. We can live anywhere at all. Given time, we can probably discover some way to get by without lusting for blood.”

The shadowy figure shook his head. It was an oddly sluggish movement. “We haven’t been given time . . . Take a good look.”

One of his hands tore off the mask.

There were gasps of surprise.

What made Lina and Cuore’s eyes bulge wasn’t the fact that the face belonged to Mr. Meyer, of course, but rather that the face itself was warped and melting like a waxwork. One eye drooped all the way to his chin, trailing red tendons behind it.

D’s memory replayed a certain phrase. I must dispose of the failures.

“You don’t . . . seem surprised,” Mr. Meyer said. “You knew after all, didn’t you?”

D nodded. “When that farmhouse was attacked by a couple of creatures that escaped from here, there wasn’t enough blood to account for you. There could only be one reason. Because you were one of them.” His voice seemed pained. The man who’d let a light shine on the future of a girl. These, too, were words of farewell. “Apparently your vampire nature seems to have awakened without you being aware of it. Are you the one who attacked Fern and his daughter? That’d explain why, when the two blood samples from two different attackers were mixed together and analyzed, an unrecognizable face was displayed.”

A sapphire beam converted the floor by D’s feet to steam and ions. D didn’t so much as flinch.

“Why are you the only one who’s fine? Weren’t we . . . humans made in the same fashion? How come we’re the only ones . . . who must die? . . . ”

There was a sound like something shattering, and the teacher collapsed on the floor.

“Mr. Meyer!”

“Keep away from me . . . ” Checking Lina before she could run over to him, the teacher tried to stand again.

Blue light speared through the twilight, burning through the walls and floor in succession.

The barrel of the weapon dropped.

A voice saddled with infinite anger and protest crept across the ground. “Lina . . . You mustn’t . . . study . . . the history of the Nobility . . . ”

Watching the putrid ichor and clothing fall to a heap on the floor, Lina asked D, “Is that our fate?”

D was silent. He heard a voice. You were my only success.

“I envy you.”

How must Lina’s words have sounded to D?

“I’m so jealous of you, I could hate you. When will we end up like that, do you know?”

“No, I don’t.”

Absentmindedly, Lina wound her arm around the neck of the frozen Cuore and said, “I’d planned on just dropping out of the picture, but I’m going to go before the exam board tomorrow. You’ll come, too, won’t you? True to Mr. Meyer’s dying wish, I’ve got to tell them how much I loathe the Nobility. To say there’s no tomorrow for them, and no history—just like the four of us.”

Suddenly, Cuore stepped away from Lina.

Speechless with surprise, Lina was ready to go right after him, but D caught her by the arm.

“He doesn’t want you to see him.”

Tottering, the youth disappeared into the reaches of the darkness. The time had come for him, too.

In the blue light that would most likely fill this place for all eternity, the beautiful Hunter and the girl trained their eyes on the depths of the darkness as they both, individually, bore witness to the cruelty of fate.

-

The next day, the trio of examiners who arrived in the village early in the afternoon received a strange proposal from the mayor, who looked somewhat pale. He said that the town wanted to conduct the exam in the ruins that’d once belonged to the Nobility.

The selection of a human being who would help build the future would take place in the ruins of those that had ruled the past. Wouldn’t that be thrilling?

The proposal was accepted. That evening saw many in attendance in a subterranean hall filled with chairs.

Although the members of the exam board furrowed their brows as Lina stood in her white dress in front of mysterious devices, after a captivating smile from her they took their seats without complaint. The villagers lined up behind them.

Only one person, the mayor, wore an expression of discontent, and that was because D and Lina had coerced him into using this location. If his relationship with his adopted daughter was made public before the exam board, he’d have been run out of town, regardless of the power that he held. But, more than that, more than anything, it was the eerie aura from D as the Hunter stared at him that made the mayor tremble.

D stood quietly behind Lina, hidden in the depths of the darkness.

When everyone had gone to their seats, Lina bowed quietly, and the mayor stood up. “This year’s representative of the village of Tepes: Lina Belan. Her score on the selection tests—twelve hundred out of a possible twelve hundred points. Her excellent work has earned her a place before this exam board.”

Though they tried their level best to preserve their stern demeanor, the expressions of the examiners softened. Despite the fact that the results had been communicated ahead of time, Lina’s performance still had the power to inspire awe.

“Very well. Now, there’s just one question I must ask before the final decision is made. What studies do you intend to pursue in the Capital?”

A wave of tension passed through the assembly.

Many of her classmates knew of the girl’s desire. However, to say it aloud would be to throw away all her tomorrows. But they didn’t know that for Lina there was no tomorrow.

As D stood there, he had a fleeting shade of sorrow in his eyes.

“Before I answer, there’s something I’d like to show you.”

The assembly stirred at Lina’s comment. Such a proposal was out of the norm. This examination, which could have been concluded with a brief answer, was becoming a long, drawn-out affair.

“Once, this castle was referred to as the Nobility’s Frontier Center for Calculation,” Lina began. “Constructed about five thousand years ago—well, five thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven years ago, to be exact—certain top-secret experiments were conducted here. Five thousand years—isn’t there something familiar about that number? From the historical point of view, it’s generally said that the decline of the Nobility as a race began in this era.”

The blue light stirred. What was the girl trying to tell them?

Lina raised her right hand.

Between the girl and the audience, an image formed. While it was completely two-dimensional, it had depth and color. Realizing that the image was of the same subterranean hall they were now in, the people looked at one another.

Machinery ensconced in the darkness glittered, shadowy people dashed about, flasks spouted gouts of prismatic smoke. Children were sealed in medical casings on what looked to be lab tables, and men in black garb studied data rendered in strangely glowing points of light.

“This is a recording of the experiments,” Lina explained. “Experiments by the Nobility that were no less than an attempt to halt the decline of their species. However, their science had already come to the conclusion that their decline was inevitable. To them, this unavoidable decline also meant eventual extinction. How the few who reached that conclusion must have cursed their fate, perhaps even wallowed in the deepest despair, I can well imagine.”

Here, Lina smiled broadly.

“Gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it?”

The assembly stirred a bit, the tension broken. The examiners exchanged glances and laughed. Still beaming her smile, Lina continued. “The way they chose to combat their despair was through these experiments. If the inevitability of their ruin was written in their genes like letters carved into a milestone, then they had only to make those genes into something else. Turn night into day, darkness into light. Become a creature with a far greater will to survive as a race—a higher potential energy. In this way, they began trying to genetically combine humans with the Nobility.”

It took a few seconds before all assembled there could catch the import of Lina’s words.

This time, shock waves ran through the assembly. The mayor and one of the examiners rose to their feet.

“How—how do you know that? What are you?”

As if to answer the examiner’s question, the image hanging in space changed.

Warped children were born one after another, men and women transformed into something no longer human. A part of the ruins was suddenly consumed by flames, crumbling.

“These experiments were carried out secretly in one area of the Frontier, far from the Capital, and you can easily imagine what the results would have meant to many of the Nobility. Just as we find it repulsive to even consider such a thing, they, too, detested the thought of mixing with humans. Let’s say that the destruction by the opposing faction you just witnessed was one answer. Those privy to the secret fled from the ruins, and silence reigned here for five thousand years.”

About to say something, the examiner saw a look rising in the girl’s eyes. He held his tongue. Such a mysterious look it was. When hatred and sorrow are mixed together, could they produce a picture of supreme bliss?

“Ten years ago, the ruins came back to life. A being of tremendous importance, one whom even I find difficult to comprehend, took four children from our village and performed the same procedures on us. Why at this late date? And why were those children chosen? That I don’t know. Perhaps the decline of their race had highs and lows, like a biorhythm, and there was an optimal time for starting up again. At any rate, the children underwent the treatment, and were then returned to the village. All memories erased, unaware that the results would manifest in their bodies a decade later. And now the results are in. Taking this shape . . . ”

The eyes of people focused on Lina—on the pair of fangs poking from the corners of her lips.

There was no more stirring of the crowd. A deathly silence fell over them, and the mayor covered his face with both hands.

Erasing the image with a slight wave of her right hand, Lina continued softly. “Yes, but now it’s all over. The four children, in accordance with fate, will leave the village. Even if that fate was forced on them by someone else.”

At this point, Lina turned her back to the audience, as if to let someone standing in the darkness hear her last malediction. “There’s no need to mourn for them any longer,” the girl said, “because now they finally understand. What was hoped for them. What’s waiting for them where they must go. And though in the long run they themselves didn’t quite get to the top, they were one step in what will continue to be a very, very long climb.

“The Nobility perished, and the human race remains,” Lina continued. “However, couldn’t we say the biological disposition of human beings—in both their physiology and psychology—is superior to that of the Nobility? Who could claim that the worth of a creature is based on the height of the biorhythm for its species? Brutality and cruelty on par with the Nobility, an urge to destroy anything more beautiful than yourself—these things have been all too familiar to me.”

Transfixed by those freezing cold pupils, the mayor grew pale.

Once again, an image hove into view.

The people saw stars glittering in a pitch-black ocean. In the distance, a hundred billion more stars sparkled, a vast spiraling nebula nurturing a multitude of life-forms, the sea of hydrogen atoms giving birth to existence itself.

“The four children were supposed to go there.”

Lina’s voice sounded as if it had crossed a great distance when it rang in the ears of those assembled in the rows.

“Free from the black destiny hanging over the humans and Nobility, they were to go out and join the universal consciousness as a perfect form of ‘intelligent’ life. Now even that dream is gone, but because of that, I suppose they don’t mourn for themselves.”

Suddenly, the image changed.

The darkness faded rapidly, and light filled the hall. The white light welling up drove away the twilight, swathing the exhausted-looking faces of the people, and every inch of their bodies, in a wonderful and serene hue.

“This is the potential of the new humanity.”

Her whole body glittering beautifully, Lina quietly looked at D, then gazed at the shining people.

“The people who uncovered this potential, the beings who guided the human race to a higher level—were they really so cursed?”

The girl suddenly pressed a hand to her chest. The time had come. If nothing else, her voice was proud.

“I believe I’d like to learn about the history of the Nobility.”

-

As soon as she finished saying the words, Lina collapsed.

“Don’t come near me! Don’t watch! D!”

The people stopped where they were, and the beautiful shadow knelt by Lina’s side.

“Just hide my face . . . ”

A black scarf fell across the face of the girl.

“Thank you . . . D . . . Stay by my side, won’t you? I’m so scared . . . ”

“I’ll always be here.”

“Back at the shack . . . ” Lina wrung a voice from her pain. “At the shack . . . the white flower I found in the morning . . . that . . . was your doing, wasn’t it? If someone had left it, there’s no way . . . you wouldn’t have noticed them . . . ”

“That’s right.”

“I was so glad . . . so very . . . glad . . . There were two people who cared about me . . . I wish I could’ve met the other one . . . ”

“Don’t talk.”

Lina’s hand came up. Just before it started to melt and dissolve, D took hold of it gently. It was the first time he’d done so. It would never happen again.

“Goodbye . . . D. Oh, the potential we had . . . ”

The weight in D’s hand dwindled rapidly, along with her voice.

No one moved.

The dazzling light threw long, long shadows across the floor.

When one skinny boy raised his damp eyes at the sound of a door opening and closing, the beautiful Vampire Hunter had disappeared.

-

A few days later, a horse and its gorgeous rider were following the narrow road where the crusted remains of snow conspired with the shoots of young grass.

Though the night was over, a thick cover of leaden clouds shrouded the eastern sky. The rays of the morning sun didn’t reach the ground.

An almost imperceptible breeze fluttered the hem of the rider’s black coat as he crossed the sea of grass stretching far into the distance.

Behind the rider, there was the moan of the morning’s first electric bus approaching.

About fifteen feet ahead of him was a small bench. Humble though it was, this was a stop on a bus line connecting the Frontier and the Capital.

Noticing the horse and rider, the skinny boy seated on the bench looked up in surprise. The next moment, his expression became bashful and he looked down again. His gloveless hands were thoroughly chapped.

The small traveling bag by his side bore the address of his destination as well as his name—Marco.

The horse and rider passed by.

Shortly thereafter, there was the sound of the bus stopping. It drew closer, then passed.

Suddenly, a window opened and the boy stuck his head out. Wildly waving his thin hand, he shouted something.

The piercing groan of the engine and wheels scribbled out his voice. But D could hear him. And this is what the boy had said: “I’m headed to the Capital. Gonna do the history of the Nobility.”

A gust of wind blew, as if to chase after the bus.

D remembered.

The face of a boy listening the final words of a girl. A look of boundless pride in his eyes. The face of the someone who loved.

And D knew.

The messenger who left the white flowers, and let a girl dream.

At some point the clouds broke, and, as he watched the little bus disappear into the sun-showered distance, a faint smile started to rise on D’s lips.

If that boy could have seen it, he would have told people for the rest of his days how he’d been the one to bring it out. It was just such a smile.