Writhing Forms

Chapter 7

I

Exhausted faces greeted D. Unsecured baggage was strewn everywhere. No one could muster enough energy to straighten it up. Even Dorleac lay face down on the floor of his cage, making no attempt to so much as look at D. Al was sitting right in front of the cage, and it was at him that D halted. When Al looked up absent-mindedly, his expression glowed like that of a farmer seeing the sun break through the clouds after a long spell of rain.

“My thanks for the courage you showed,” said a visage pale and lovely enough to rival the moon.

The man had gone outside to fire the shotgun blasts that had distracted the gladiator.

“I wasn’t so sure of you at first, but you sure are dependable, mister,” Louise said, but rather than gushing praise, her tone was one of pleasant surprise.

The other passengers nodded at that. They’d witnessed D pushing the stagecoach back one handed.

“We’ll wait here until daybreak,” D said, looking around at the rest of the group.

Every one of them shut their eyes. As if to keep his good looks from stealing their very souls.

“Be careful not to fall asleep. If someone starts to nod off, tie them up.”

After telling them that, D swiftly went back to the door and opened it.

“Well, somebody sure is thoughtful,” the left hand murmured in a voice no one else could hear.

It wasn’t until a good deal later that the rest of them heard the sound of hoofbeats coming from the direction of the highway. They halted in front of the stagecoach, a group of uniformed men in the light thrown by a part of the vehicle that’d miraculously remained intact. The one at the vanguard greeted them, saying, “Seeing where you were a half day overdue for your scheduled arrival, we came out to get you. I’m Labama Chauvet, captain of the Returnee Armed Guards.”

Louise introduced herself, then explained at length about their circumstances.

Surprise spread across Captain Chauvet’s face as well as those of several men behind him.

“I’ll be damned. You were attacked by an underworm, and not only did you survive, but you even drove the thing off? Pardon me, but I just can’t swallow that. It’s not even possible to fight one.” When he finished saying that, his face had Don’t try to bullshit me written all over it.

Now it was Claire’s turn. “What are you giving us that look for? You think we’re lying, do you?” Gesticulating with her beloved liquor bottle, she continued, “Every last word of what the sheriff said is the truth. We’ve got a strong bodyguard on our side, you know.”

“Oh, I see,” Chauvet replied, covering his mouth. He was concealing a sneer. “And just who is this bodyguard who easily sends an underworm packing without losing anyone in the process? I would sincerely enjoy the honor of making his acquaintance.”

“It’s D!”

The expression on Chauvet and his men’s faces changed as suddenly as a rough splice in a film.

“D? Er . . . You mean the Hunter of Nobility? Is it . . . that D?”

“Yeah, he’s here with us. Come on in and see.”

Chauvet and the others were massed just outside the door to the stagecoach.

“No . . . that’s all right,” the captain said absent-mindedly. “Get some horses hitched to this rig pronto. Rom, Elvin, Sacos, Beyond, Shakshoukas, Daquiri—you men, dismount. Hitch your horses to the stagecoach, then ride double with the others. We’re setting off for Canaluda immediately. Oh, if only he’d been there, Happy Gringo wouldn’t have wound up like that . . .”

“Huh?” Louise murmured. “Did something happen back in town?”

Chauvet’s features twisted horribly. “Truth be told, I was going to tell you when you reached Gasburke, but—in Happy Gringo, all the townsfolk were slaughtered.”

The sheriff was speechless.

“One of the locals used a Mach pigeon to send word to the sheriff’s office in Canaluda. He’s no longer alive, either. Another pigeon was sent to the nearest sheriff, in Toel, requesting that he go investigate. Just three hours ago we had communication saying that the first message had been correct.”

The duke, Louise told herself.

Deprived of his manservant, the Noble had bared his fangs in vengeance. Death had already begun to run amok. Fortunately, the only people with any connection to the town were her and Al. Since his farm was almost twenty miles outside town, there was essentially no chance it’d been attacked.

“Let’s just keep that information between us,” Louise said, the words bitter in her mouth.

Fifteen minutes later, the stagecoach and its fresh team of horses sped off on creaking wheels with D in the driver’s seat.

It was two hours later that they arrived in Gasburke without incident.

Since Dorleac was in terrible pain, and the tiny way station had no physician, it was decided that the least they could do was to let him sleep in a bed until they set off the next day. It was Claire who made the suggestion. No one opposed it. While the law compelled them to keep him locked in a cage, human emotion told them it was wrong.

Just to be on the safe side, Louise asked, “What do you think, D?”

The gorgeous huntsman didn’t say a word. It wasn’t that he intended to respect the decision of the majority, nor was he apathetic.

Two members of the escort brigade were posted with Dorleac. Al and Harman were to get some rest.

“You cannot fall asleep. Give in to the sandman for even a second, and I’ll shit-can you that instant for dereliction of duty,” Chauvet told the two from his group, who were left with their eyes spinning.

“He could use a woman’s presence. I’ll stay with him, too,” Claire suggested. “And if I fall asleep, you can shoot me dead!”

And so it was decided, and the bar girl entered the second-floor bedroom.

“How about letting me go free for a while, too?” JJ asked, and his handcuffs were removed under the condition he not leave D’s side.

“I could really go for a smoke.”

The two of them went to the dining hall, where JJ sparked one of his cigarettes.

“Huh?”

At some point, D had gone over to stand in the doorway to the garden, where he was gazing outside. The sound of the rain was raucous. The former Hunter had been left to his own devices—or more to the point, it really didn’t seem to matter to D. Rather than being angry at his demeanor, JJ was astounded, and he took the tin ashtray in hand and headed over to D.

“Is that all you make of me?” JJ groused.

“What’s that?”

“I’m asking you if you regard me as a dangerous character. I won’t have you acting like I just don’t matter.”

D remained silent.

Having lost the opportunity to bring down his righteous anger, JJ had no choice but to keep digging.

“I know the reason why you weren’t opposed to Dorleac being let out of the cage. It’s because you’re confident that inside or outside of that cage, he can’t get away from you.”

“Get some rest,” D finally responded. “We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon. From then till we reach Canaluda, you’re going to be stuck in a pair of handcuffs half the day.”

“You’ve got a point there,” JJ said, crushing out the rest of his cigarette in the ashtray. “Spare me the cuffs till we pull out of here. Night, then.”

He turned to walk away, but halted and looked back at D. There was no sign of the Hunter in the doorway. Running over, JJ saw the gorgeous huntsman white with the spray of rain. He couldn’t say a word. For he’d seen another figure standing before D. JJ blinked his eyes. Even through the silky gauze of rain, the other one looked just like D.

Their shouts and footfalls were erased by the sound of the rain. The next thing JJ saw was the two Ds with their blades locked together. The more distant D was bearing down, while the closer D held his ground. The instant the two met, the closer D angled off to the right, his blade mowing through the torso of the other. Blood gushed out, and the further D spun around once before hitting the ground.

Claire saw the whole thing from the bedroom window. From the time D had casually stepped through the doorway below, her eyes had been trained on him—because she’d already seen D standing in the rainy garden. On seeing the astounding sword fight intensify, and then one of the Ds fall in a cloud of blood, her interest was at its peak.

“What is it?” a clear voice asked Claire as she was backing away from the window. It was Dorleac, lying in bed.

The pair of guards gave sharp looks to him—and to Claire.

“Down there—” Claire began to say, but she decided against telling him. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be wise to give the young man any information that might overstimulate him. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

And saying that, she took a seat in an armchair. Her heart was thumping.

“How’s your shoulder? It hurt?” she asked in a tone devoid of the slightest feeling.

“Yes. A lot. Would you get me another compress?”

“Sure.”

Just as she gave the young man what he’d requested, he said to her, “I’m not going to get better, am I?”

His doleful tone made Claire a little sad.

“You’ll be fine. Some great doctor in the Capital will have a look at it, and you’ll be better in no time.”

“I won’t last that long.”

“You’re a man, aren’t you? Don’t get all wishy-washy over a little thing like an arm.”

Just as Claire was really starting to get into the conversation, the door was thrown open roughly. Another member of the escort brigade poked his head in and said, “Hey, it looks like the pretty boy got himself killed downstairs!” Having said that, he left, and the other two guards followed after him.

“Oh my God, do they mean D? Just a minute—I think I should go, too.”

She’d gotten up and had her back to Dorleac when he told her, “Please, don’t go.” He had the sad tone of a little boy who wanted his mother. “Don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone in this condition.”

Claire nodded and went back to her chair. It wouldn’t do to have him escaping, but more than that, being needed wasn’t an entirely unenjoyable sensation.

“Oh, aren’t we the spoiled little boy. You’re not about to die all alone from the likes of that. You really aren’t the Frontier type, are you?”

“I never wanted to live out here,” Dorleac replied, gazing at Claire with sparkling eyes from his bed. “From the time I was born, I knew this cold, untamed land wasn’t the place for me. My world wasn’t the wilderness territory inundated with fog, frosty winds, and clouds of dust, but rather one of crystal palaces, where flying machines soared across the distant sky on a beautiful evening.”

“Like in the Capital?”

“That’s right,” the dashing young man said, but even as he nodded his head, his eyes never wandered from Claire. “However, I knew from the time I was a child that was all just a daydream. I reconciled myself to living in a shanty out in the middle of the godforsaken wilderness, tilling and watering the soil until the end of my days. And that was when I met him.”

“Duke Sinistre?”

Dorleac nodded. “That night, I’d been abandoned so there’d be one less mouth to feed, and I wandered about in the woods with every intention of killing myself. But then . . .”

“He wanted you to be his boy toy?” Claire said, and then she realized what a horrible person she’d become.

Looking away, the young man continued, “‘I know of your dreams,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’ And he took me by the hand. I only thought of my parents and my two little brothers for a moment. And then I was filled with thoughts of how now I was leaving home to enter a world that was my own. It was a time of unparalleled bliss. A decade passed—and not once did I curse my lot or wish to return home.”

Oh my God, Claire murmured to herself in her heart of hearts. I suppose a Noble would choose a person like this. Or does a person like this just attract Nobility?

Was there something innate to human beings that would draw the Nobility to them?

Claire looked the young man straight in the eye. Can’t back down now, she thought. There’s no way a Noble’s boy toy can get the better of somebody who’s lived an honest life in the real world.

Her mind started to drift away. Her blood ran cold—no, actually it was a peaceful feeling.

I’m bushed. There’s no way we can go without sleep, D.

II

Downstairs, an odd situation was unfolding. JJ had carried D in after the latter had collapsed in the garden. Some members of the escort brigade who’d just gone into the dining hall for a smoke saw them and started an uproar.

D had squared off against a phantom image of himself, slaying it but dropping at the same time—such was JJ’s explanation, and they didn’t understand it at all, but they made every effort to resuscitate D. Sadly, there was no doctor present, and though the man who ran the inn had a lot of experience with such emergencies, there was nothing he could do.

D’s body didn’t have a mark on it. Yet his breathing had stopped, and his body temperature was that of a dead man.

He cut himself down—that’s what JJ thought.

Louise and Al raced to the scene, and they consulted Harman but didn’t come up with anything. Of them all, only Claire was missing.

Placing D’s body in a back room and setting Al and members of the escort group as guards, Louise went up to Dorleac’s room with JJ. Claire was letting the young man tell her about himself.

On hearing about what had happened to D, Claire grew pale, while Dorleac murmured, “Was it one of those?”

“What do you mean?” Louise inquired, not missing what he’d said.

“Something I heard about from Duke Sinistre. A doppelgänger. Another you. It’s said that if you see one, you’ll die within a month’s time. It’s even worse if you cut it down.”

“You die on the spot, eh? But D’s not dead!”

“He must be different from normal human beings,” Dorleac said in a tone of adulation.

“So, is there any way to save him?”

“The surest way is to dispose of whoever created the doppelgänger. However, that’s difficult. Another way is to give them a certain medicine.”

“And where do we find it?” Louise asked, the color draining from her. In her dreams, she’d resolved to do away with D, but in reality Louise wanted nothing more than for D to be saved.

“It’s everywhere. But also nowhere.”

“Are you trying to get smart with us?” JJ said with an incensed expression.

“I simply spoke the truth. There’s no other way to save someone who’s seen their doppelgänger and fallen into a coma except to have them drink the blood of the Sacred Ancestor.”

“The blood of the Sacred Ancestor?!”

That was enough to snatch away the souls of all of them, as if the stuff were flowing in their own veins.

“In that case,” Claire began, an eternity seeming to have passed before she began to speak, “there’s nothing more we can do. The freaking blood of the Sacred Ancestor—that’s fantasy talk!”

A leaden shadow of despair hung over the group.

Snapping his fingers, Dorleac said, “Oh, that’s right . . . I forgot something.”

“What now?!”

“Even if someone sees their doppelgänger, the original will be okay if they have another person kill it that very same day.”

“In other words, D would’ve been better off not cutting it down himself but letting JJ take care of it instead?”

“That’s right.”

“Just perfect,” Louise exclaimed, raising her hands and slapping them down on her thighs. She didn’t neglect to glare at JJ, either.

“There’s no point kicking ourselves over it anymore. Let’s just let D sleep. Claire, take care of the kid till I come back.”

And with that, Louise was just about to leave the room, but Claire called out to stop her.

“What did you plan on doing about D tomorrow?”

“We’ll take him with us. They might be able to do something for him in the Capital, or maybe we’ll run across whoever made the thing while we’re on the road.”

“You’ll defend him to the very end, won’t you?”

“Naturally. If he recovers along the way, we’ll definitely need him.”

Once they’d gone downstairs, Louise put the handcuffs on JJ and put him in his room, then she headed straight for Chauvet’s. But only after undoing the top two buttons on her blouse.

“What have we here?” the man inquired, his face plastered with lust. His gaze focused on Louise’s cleavage.

“I want you to leave the matters of Dorleac and D to me.”

“D’s fine, but the kid’s a problem,” Chauvet replied, making an undisguisedly wry face. “Your job is finished when you hand him over to us. You’ll have to leave the rest to me.”

“How many men do you have under you?”

“Fifty. I wouldn’t say they’re all the cream of the crop, but they’re more than enough to handle some Noble’s playmate. Speaking of which, is he human?”

“He has no problem being in the sunlight.”

“Then he’s human. Any strange powers?”

“I guess . . . if you count ‘fuck me’ eyes.”

“Well, now.” Chauvet rose from his chair and went over to Louise. There was a certain look of expectation both on his face and in the way he moved. “‘Fuck me’ eyes, eh? Well, from a handsome young lad like that, I can see how some would be taken in. Truth be told, if that D fella hadn’t been around, he might’ve won my heart, too. Well, if not for somebody else.”

Chauvet’s arms wrapped around Louise from behind, but she made no attempt to shake them off or escape.

“Speaking of ‘fuck me’ eyes, I was hoping you’d use some on me.”

Hot breath reeking of alcohol fell on the nape of her neck, and fingers squeezed around the swell of her breasts.

“I didn’t think you were that kind of girl.”

“Don’t put it all on me. I just thought we might get along.”

“I have no problem with D, but I can’t have you doing as you like with Dorleac. I’d be out on my ass. And I don’t feel like losing this job just yet.”

Chauvet’s hand slid into her blouse through the neckline.

“And how far does your job go?”

“Till we reach the Capital.”

“Then if he goes missing after that, you won’t take the blame, right?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Still with her back to him, Louise reached around and wrapped a pale arm around the man’s thick neck.

“In that case, you can have Dorleac until then. Promise.”

“Sure thing,” Chauvet said, leading the lady sheriff over to the bed.

JJ was constantly having changes of heart. Since watching D square off against his doppelgänger, the man had dreamt five times. Though to outward appearances he was just dozing, in his dreams he was back in that graveyard continuing that battle endlessly. Loathing himself for failing so close to victory, and hating D for swooping in and taking the prize. The retrieval unit fanned those feelings incessantly.

And as JJ went through this time and again, a bizarre transposition began to take place. In other words, the dream was reality, and reality was the dream. In reality, D was one of his traveling companions. He would never dream of assassinating someone who’d fought alongside him. However, in a dream, it was another matter.

His right hand wrapped tightly around his left from the wrist down. When he pulled in a certain direction, there was a nasty pop as his thumb was dislocated. His hand had become the same thickness as his wrist. Slipping off that handcuff, he repeated the procedure on his right hand.

His gear had been left on the stagecoach. JJ went over to the window and opened it. Rain and wind blew in. What faint blueness there was must’ve been from the eastern sky. Finding the head of a nail driven into the sill, he dug away at the wood around it with his fingernails. Once he’d exposed about a tenth of an inch, he grabbed the nail by the head and yanked it right out. It was over six inches long. That would suffice.

Once he’d collected four of them, the door creaked. JJ’s upper body pivoted on his hip, spinning around a hundred eighty degrees. His right hand whipped out like he was throwing a dart.

It was right in front of the ample bosom of his target that his missile halted, held tight in her right hand.

“Hey, look who you’re throwing those at,” Louise said, a wry grin rising on her lips.

“I’m surprised you caught that.”

“Of course I did. This is a dream, after all.”

JJ caught the nail when she threw it back, clenching it in his hand with the other three. “You don’t say. You, too, huh?”

That was all JJ said. The fact that the sheriff was one of his compatriots was natural enough in a dream.

“How’s D doing?” he asked.

“Still in a coma.”

“So, we kill him?”

“Naturally!”

The eyes of both gave off a weird light. Even after they reached D’s room, the gleam didn’t fade.

From the room across the hall, there came a faint sound.

JJ burst through the door with lightning speed.

“Ah?!”

The muffled scream was that of a woman. Two figures were intertwined on the bed. The man and woman were naked, and left exposed from the waist up.

Quickly closing the door, Louise turned on the light.

“What’s this—aren’t you the stationmaster’s wife?”

JJ’s eyes were turned on Harman and his unusually hairy chest, and the blacksmith gave him a sheepish grin.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Louise demanded.

As he hurriedly pulled on his underwear, the man replied, “Er, this lady here was looking kinda lonesome, so I came by to tell her all about the Capital.”

To Harman’s weak excuse, JJ added sarcastically, “In the nude.”

“Well, when two people meet for the first time and wanna talk in perfect honesty, this is the best way to do that, right?”

“I see. Just now it’s come back to me,” Louise said, nodding intently. “You were on one of the wanted posters sent over from Bilian quite a while back. The others were all photographs, but yours alone was an artist’s sketch. That’d be why it didn’t come to me right away.”

“For what?” JJ inquired, furrowing his brow.

“He cons women into thinking he’ll marry them. And he’s been a pretty busy little devil, too. As I recall, between the eastern and western Frontier sectors he’s tricked more than five hundred women out of their dowries.”

“This must be a mistake. I’m not a very handsome man.”

“Handsome men don’t run marriage cons. But why would you pick here of all places?”

“Well, now those jerks from the escort brigade have filled all the rooms. I thought that at least here, the two of us could have our own little world—”

“Get out of here right this minute,” Louise said irritably, tossing her chin in the direction of the door.

“He—he’s a con man?” the woman asked with an expression of disbelief, looking by turns at Harman and then Louise.

“Yeah. An old hand at it.”

“That’s a lie,” the woman countered.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re lying for certain. He really is going to come back and take me away from here.”

“Come back? He’s not going to take you with him now?”

The woman nodded. “First he’ll leave, and once he’s taken care of some business he’ll come back again. And then he’ll take me away from this way station out in the boondocks.”

“What’s his price?” JJ asked with disgust.

“His price?”

“In other words, what’s he get out of you?”

“Actually, I’m giving him something.”

“The same difference.”

“My wedding ring. It’s got a real diamond in it.”

Under the watchful eyes of JJ and Louise, Harman hastily grabbed his jacket and drove the woman toward the door.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” JJ said to her. “His only business is that diamond.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say!” Harman shouted.

“Yeah!” the woman exclaimed, and they left the room.

“He’s an odd one,” JJ said, shaking his head. His expression said he didn’t understand this at all. “Less than an hour after we get here, and he’s already put the moves on a woman. Worse yet, it worked.”

“I recall a memo that was written on that wanted poster. Seems he’s a genius at talking ladies out of their drawers. Apparently everyone from hundred-year-old grannies down to three-year-old girls wanted to be his bride.”

“That’s some genius.”

The two of them went to D’s room and told Al and the escort member that they’d take their places, so they could leave.

Al asked Louise, “You sure you shouldn’t be watching Dorleac?”

She replied that she’d be back soon, and sent him on his way.

Once the door had closed, JJ turned toward D. Louise did likewise. The faces of the former Hunter and the sheriff had become those of murderers.

“I’m gonna kill him.”

“Me, too,” Louise said, holding the stake launcher at the ready.

In his comatose state, it didn’t seem likely even D could defend himself from the pair’s attacks.

The shadows of the two of them overlapped at the head, falling across D’s chest. JJ raised a nail to strike.

It was at that point heated shouts were exchanged and there were footfalls out in the hallway.

III

By the time the pair exchanged glances and headed for the hallway, an especially loud cry had rung out—a scream from someone in their death throes.

“It’s an attack!”

“Hide!”

“The back! Run out the back!”

Among the numerous shouts was one of “Y-you? You’re me?!” And then that became a scream.

There could be no mistaking that someone had launched an assault on the way station.

The commotion in the hallway had reached their door.

“What the—?!”

No sooner had the door opened than a group of sword-fighting figures leapt in. Three of them had their backs to JJ and Louise, and they were pitted against five others.

The trio turned and looked at the room’s occupants. The sheriff and former Hunter had never seen them before. All of them were covered with blood. They must’ve been members of the escort brigade. However, JJ and Louise had already noticed something bizarre about this group. Three of the attackers were exact duplicates of the defenders, from their faces right down to their garb.

“Doppelgängers?!”

“Help us!” one of the three cried out to JJ.

Ordinarily, the original and the copy should’ve been evenly matched, but being caught off guard and the shock of seeing themselves as the enemy had stacked the odds against them. Add to that the two-man advantage the enemy had, and the trio quickly went down in a bloody mist.

Apparently not particular about who they fought, the five attackers raised their gory blades and charged JJ and Louise.

“Ouf!”

“Gaah!”

One of the two who reeled backward had a nail stuck right between his eyes, and the other had a wooden stake driven through his heart.

The third and fourth came at them. JJ and Louise both narrowly evaded their blades, and near their previous location there was the harsh sound of bone being severed. Though the pair, retreating from the trenchant sword tips of the enemy’s further attacks, didn’t have time to see it, the fifth attacker had noticed a bizarre occurrence. What he’d cleaved was the arm of the young man lying on the bed. He hadn’t intended to cut it. But it had suddenly gone up. Therefore, the killer had swung his blade at it. Everything from the elbow down fell to the floor, fresh blood sprayed from the stump of his arm, and the young man’s upper half was stained crimson.

At that point, the fighting was approaching its conclusion. Foes numbers three and four got nails through their foreheads, and JJ got his hands on one of the enemy’s longswords. Only one of them remained.

The fifth one didn’t try to flee. Doppelgängers had no emotions.

Dodging the swipe the enemy made at him, JJ ran number five through the heart. After confirming the doppelgänger had vanished, he asked Louise, “You all right?”

“More or less. Now, on to the next job!”

The two of them faced the bed. And the eyes of both went painfully wide.

D was standing beside the bed.

“You . . .” JJ started to say.

“How . . .” Louise began.

D inquired of the suddenly speechless pair, “What are you doing?” His tone and the air about him hadn’t changed in the least.

“Apparently we’re under attack by these damned doppelgängers. And we were worried about you, so—”

“You’re telling me you were worried about me?” D said to JJ.

“It was more like—”

JJ became tongue tied when D’s deep eyes were trained on him.

“Actually, I was worried,” Louise said, following up on JJ’s remarks. “We’re going to need you the rest of the way.”

In response to that, D asked the sheriff, “So you came here with him?”

“That’s right.”

“Your job is transporting Dorleac. No sheriff I know would’ve been thinking of anything but that.”

“That’s not—”

“This woman forgot all about Dorleac to come save me? And she brought a man she had to let out of handcuffs with her?”

“What are you trying to say, D?” JJ said, tightening his grip on the nail he had in his right hand. He knew it would do no good. Now that D had recovered, the former Hunter’s abilities would be no match for him.

“The two of you dreamed, didn’t you?”

That wasn’t reasoning; it was an assertion. It meant that the pair had fallen under the enemy’s spell—and the punishment would be death.

Oddly enough, JJ and Louise didn’t feel any fear. Now, D was the angel of death to them. However, this was the dream world.

“It’s no use, D,” Louise said. “You can’t kill us.”

D stepped forward.

JJ hauled back with the nail.

Gunshots could be heard, and the windowpane shattered.

“Is that the work of your co-conspirators?” D asked, spinning around. The hem of his coat spread like the wings of a supernatural bird, and he left the room without even looking again at the other two.

And then the bizarre battle was finished in no time.

Ninety percent of the escort brigade was killed in the surprise attack, with Chauvet being one of only four survivors. Most of the enemy had either died while killing their originals or met with Chauvet and his men’s counterattack, while the stragglers were slain by D.

Such one-sided battles must be rare. As strange as it would be to be killed by an attacker who was yourself, if the original struck down the doppelgänger, he too would die on the spot—resulting in a stalemate.

Al, Harman, and Claire were all fine. Their doppelgängers had all been dispatched by D. Those of Louise and JJ had been slain by the pair, who switched partners. As for Dorleac—no copy of him appeared. That was only natural.

“Letting D get revived was the enemy’s major mistake,” Louise was saying when D returned from outside and dropped the corpse of a winged beast-man on the floor.

“This is the same one that I cut outside the stagecoach,” D said.

Looking somewhat refreshed, JJ said, “Looks like it ran out of juice. Maybe it squeezed out its last bit of power making those doppelgängers?”

Raising one hand, he recited a brief prayer. It was a feeble eulogy for those who’d given everything in the losing battle.

Once daybreak came, the rain stopped.

“This is a good omen,” Louise told the group with a smile, her eyes shifting from the dawn sky to them. She didn’t know whether or not that was true, but saying it was part of her job.

“How many men do you have at the airfield?” D asked Chauvet.

“Twenty. I brought thirty here with me.”

“The real test will be getting Dorleac to his flight. Send one of your men ahead to tell all twenty to head this way.”

“Roger that.”

Knowing the power of the enemy—and D—the captain of the escort brigade obeyed without any complaints.

The remains of the escort group’s men and the staff of the way station were all put in the storehouse, and then the group returned to the stagecoach. Chauvet and his men were riding on all sides of the stagecoach as they sped off.

“You can’t go to sleep, folks,” Louise called out within the vehicle. “It’s three hours to Canaluda—and the enemy’s still hale and hearty. We’ve got to make one last push.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Al said, raising his right hand and yawning widely.

“He didn’t sleep, did he, Harman?”

“Oh, no problem there. I kept my eyes big as saucers watching over him, and he didn’t once nod off.”

“How about Harman, Al?”

“He stayed awake, all right. No word of a lie.”

Like I believe that, Louise thought to herself as she smiled and nodded. She herself had chosen the task of eliminating D.

D was in the vehicle. Sitting up in the driver’s seat were two of Chauvet’s men. Louise had stated that she wanted everyone keeping an eye on Dorleac for these final three hours, and Chauvet had consented.

“I’m surprised that pig would listen to what you have to say,” Claire stated frankly, leaving Louise startled. With a knowing gaze, the bar girl continued, “The way he eyeballs your tits and ass, he seems just like one of my customers—something happen last night?”

“Act your age. There’s three hours to go—you’ll have plenty of time later for that sort of talk.”

“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am,” Claire replied, sinking down in her seat.

A woman can sense these things, Louise was forced to remind herself.

In front of the cage were the sheriff, Al, and D. Claire, Harman, and JJ were in their seats.

“Almost to the end, eh?” Al said, looking strangely refreshed as he let out a breath. “Last night I had my doubts, but we’ve made it this far. And reinforcements will be coming for us along the way. I’m finally gonna get paid!”

“What will you use the money for?” Dorleac inquired with interest.

“To buy a cleaner from the Capital for my wife and kids. Farms in these parts get attacked by swarms of bloodsucking gnats all year round. When it’s real bad, they can turn a clear sky pitch black in nothing flat. It’s like a damned solar eclipse! Even if you manage to drive ’em off, any place where a gnat drew blood swells up like a burn and gets so itchy you’re rolling all over the floor. There was this farmer who went months without getting any better, and it finally drove him out of his mind. My kids had a close call, too. If I get one of them cleaners, the damned gnats won’t come anywhere near us. That’s why I’m doing this. Anything wrong with that?”

“Not at all. I’m just happy I was able to be of use,” Dorleac said with a smile.

On seeing that, Louise said to him, “You seem mighty composed.”

“Excuse me?”

“Once we reach Canaluda, you know what’s going to happen to you, right?”

Silence from the young man.

“Normally, I wouldn’t be surprised if you suffered a fit, or turned into a shellfish like before. So, where’s all this confidence coming from?”

“It’s not confidence. I’ve simply given up. Having come this far, there’s no point in putting up any more of a fight.”

“That’s a good way of looking at it. I don’t believe you, though. After all, you told us we’d need the blood of the Sacred Ancestor to revive someone affected by a doppelgänger.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Dorleac asked, a dissatisfied look on his face. “I wasn’t lying to you. I heard it from Duke Sinistre.”

“Then your master was a liar.”

“Why on earth would anyone lie about that?”

“To throw us off track. D came around after he got doppelgänger blood on him.”

Louise believed that was what had revived D. She would never imagine there might be a link between a mere Hunter, no matter how incredible he might be, and the legendary Sacred Ancestor.

“What’s wrong?” the sheriff called to Dorleac in a tone of suspicion.

This was worse than turning into a shellfish. The face of the young man in the cage had become that of the living dead.