The Birth of a New Species

chapter 8

I

In the living room of the farmhouse, the tension was congealing into a jet-black mass. The sound of the driving rain seemed to send a miasma into the air.

“Two hours to go,” Arbuckle said, putting his pocket watch away and beginning to use his knife to sharpen a wooden stake he’d scrounged somewhere. “What about Jan’s corpse?” he asked. He wasn’t talking about its location.

“I went and had a look at him,” Josette replied from the back door, which she’d just come through. “No problem there. There’s never been a case of a vampire run through the heart coming back to life.”

“Now, we don’t know about that,” Arbuckle countered, brushing off the wood shavings that’d collected in his lap. “The monsters here in this village are somehow different from the ones we all know. Who’s to say the servants of the Nobility are exceptions to that?”

“I really don’t like the sound of that,” Bligh said, abandoning his surveillance from the window and getting to his feet. “Think I’ll have a peek at him, too.”

Once he’d vanished through the doorway, Josette glared at Arbuckle and then, after hesitating for a moment, followed after Bligh.

Jan’s corpse lay in the middle of the floor. Checking him for a pulse and making sure he wasn’t breathing, Bligh gave a stiff smile and said, “Looks like we’re okay here.”

Pulling a crumpled paper package from his pocket, Bligh took out a cigarette and lit it.

“Those aren’t very good for your health.”

“What are you, a schoolmarm?”

Expelling smoke, Bligh stared at the warrior’s wife. Josette didn’t avert her gaze. She stared right back at Bligh until he became uncomfortable, then asked, “So, where were you headed?”

“A village not far from here. It’s called Angyoh. Know it?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Why? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“I know somebody there. Have something to deliver.”

“You don’t say.”

“Ain’t you worried about your hubby?” Bligh asked, his query mainly intended to try to take her off edge.

“Even if I were, it wouldn’t matter, would it?”

“Lady, you’re a lousy liar.”

The woman arched an eyebrow quizzically.

“You’re so worried about him you can barely stand it,” he continued. “Hell, it’s written all over your face. But it’s about time you gave up on him.”

“I know. So kindly drop it, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bligh replied, taking another drag on his cigarette.

“We’d better not let our guard down,” said the woman. “The two of them out there have the strength and cunning of the Nobility.”

“Yeah, I know that. But we’ve done all we can do, too. Mock Nobility or not, they won’t be so quick to come at us.”

“I hope you’re right,” Josette said, her reply not entirely free of fear. “The vampires in this village are a little different.”

Bligh smiled and said, “Well, we’ll manage somehow. One way or another, I’m gonna stay alive and make it outta the village. And you and the flesh peddler are coming with me.”

“You’re pretty confident of that.”

“Yeah. Just leave it to me.”

“Can’t believe it,” Josette murmured weakly.

“What do you mean? I ain’t lying!”

“No, it’s nothing,” Josette said elusively, her previous cryptic remark spurred by how different from her husband she found Bligh to be.

Through all their days of trying battle, not once had Josette’s husband tried to protect her. He only charged in to help her in accordance with pre-made plans. Even then, when things got out of control, Brennan left it to Josette to handle them. He’d left her behind. The only thing that’d saved Josette from fearsome servants of the Nobility or death at the hands of wanted men was her own luck and skill. Traveling with a husband who didn’t care whether his wife lived or died, Josette had felt her heart become a vast and barren wasteland. But now that was at an end. It’d been stopped by words like just leave it to me and coming with me.

“Hey,” Bligh said, wearing an expression of amazement, “are you crying?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Josette replied, batting her eyes and shaking her head. “At any rate, let’s hang tough until daybreak.”

“Yeah. Ain’t no telling where those bastards will try hitting us.”

 

That unpredictable pair was up in a watchtower only a hundred yards from the farmhouse. They were more than sixty feet off the ground. Wind and rain lashed at them head-on. They looked at a window with light spilling from it.

“Since their outer defenses are strong, we’ll just have to topple them from within,” Emily said, gnashing her trenchant fangs.

Beth remained silent, gazing at her compatriot.

“But we’re a new type, right? Last time didn’t work out, but now we can do this!”

Emily pursed her lips. What escaped them wasn’t a whistle. It was a thin tube that was red, as if choked with blood. The tip of it tapered like a needle, and taking it in hand, Emily rested her chin on the railing surrounding the watchtower. Her breath hissed out. And with it, her tongue stretched. Shaken all the while by the wind and rain that hammered them, at first glance it looked weak, but with the strength of a steel cable it kept stretching farther and farther.

It was about a hundred yards to the farmhouse. Easily stretching that far, the tongue started to descend, bound for a chimney.

“You know their location?” Beth asked.

Soaking wet and with eyes closed, Emily didn’t reply, but after about five minutes she finally said, “Found them.”

Her eyes opened. They gave off a glow the same color as blood.

There was only a single chimney, but it was connected to every fireplace in the house to rid them of their smoke. Probing it, she’d found something.

“Two of them were in there, but they left,” said Emily. For she had an eye at the tip of her tongue. It must’ve been some sort of sensory organ.

“Here we come, Jan!” Beth exclaimed, an evil smile spreading across her face. A flash of lightning bleached it white. “We’ll give you the life of a Noble once again.”

 

The thin red tube crept from the ancient stonework of the fireplace. The way it wriggled over to Jan’s corpse without hesitation called to mind a snake. Stopping by the right side of his head, it reared up like a striking serpent, then plunged right into Jan’s heart. The red, blood-like liquid coursed through the tube.

As Josette had stated, vampires who’d been run through the heart didn’t come back to life again. But look. Was a healthy hue not slowly creeping into his pale flesh? His heart wasn’t beating. Yet the crimson fluid flowed through Jan’s veins, and his fingers began to close tightly. Even a vampire would’ve found this an unearthly world of strutting monsters.

 

The duchess was pleased with her success. Two of her obstacles had vanished into watery graves in the “artificial sea,” which meant there was no longer anyone to impede her ambitions.

An hour had passed—and she’d already begun creating the new life form. Based on all the data accumulated up until now, the operation proceeded so smoothly it surprised even her, with only one procedure remaining before her aims had been met.

In the control sphere for this experimental facility that was the pinnacle of “Noble science,” the duchess stared down with irony at the rusty lever by her hand. The final pull that would determine the results of so many experiments would come from this old-fashioned iron lever. And somewhere in her heart, the Noblewoman was able to take a cold view of that anachronism.

In the center of the laboratory there stretched a vast pool that looked large enough to house more than a hundred sharks. Blue-green water spread farther than the eye could see, foaming, and bubbles roiled to the surface. The control sphere suddenly floated into the air. Soundlessly gliding through space thanks to its gravity field propulsion system, it halted in midair at the point indicated by the numerical data—the center of the enormous pool. The trappings of a laboratory were nowhere to be seen.

By means unknown, the pitch-black sky was split by the starkness of lightning. The duchess ran her eyes over the figures. Each and every value was perfectly correct. She felt satisfaction and confidence—and a touch of apprehension.

Two of the figures were off by one quadrillionth. The computer said that was due to the genetic fusion. However, it also stated that such a tiny discrepancy wouldn’t be a problem.

The figures for the DNA fusion process are being distorted. Was the mysterious equation wrong? No, that can’t be.

The duchess’s right hand reached for the final lever.

“Go!”

Just as she was about to throw the lever, there was a change to the diagram above her head.

Intruder alert! it declared.

A blue ball of light shot up from the water, swallowing the control sphere. The control sphere creaked under the fierce molecular impact.

“Who dares?” the duchess groaned, but even then she knew the answer.

From the bottom of the sphere, a silvery mass about six and a half feet long dropped into the water. Once underwater, it took on the most effective shape for propulsion, going on the attack in a tenth of a second. The bluish-green expanse gave rise to a dome of light about thirty feet in diameter. Its color deepened by the second, and it swelled larger and larger.

The control sphere had risen to an altitude of fifteen hundred feet, and within it the duchess sensed that her counterattack had ended fruitlessly. There was no numerical data. Her own Noble instincts told her so. The light that’d colored the control sphere’s field of view for an instant was already gone.

“You realize all this kicking and screaming is no use. You are—”

Having the control sphere drop down to just shy of the bubbling surface of the water, the duchess switched the numerical display over to directional readings. There was no need to do so.

A supple figure was coming disinterestedly across the water’s surface straight toward the sphere. Boots ankle-deep in the water, he showed no hesitation in his strides. Lightning made his face blaze from the darkness.

The duchess’s features warped with rapture.

“—D.”

II

Precisely. It was D. The young man had supposedly fallen from the crumbling passageway and disappeared into the choppy sea below, but now he moved eerily across the sea’s surface, halting about ten yards from Heldarling.

Her breathing now ragged for some reason, the duchess said, “D! What are you doing here?”

“I fell into the sea,” D replied. “And there was someone else with me. He had a compact bathysphere with him.”

“Greylancer—and was he responsible for that missile a moment ago as well? That miserable traitor.”

“Rather than curse him, you should be cursing yourself for dropping me into a sea that connected back here.”

The duchess looked as if a wave had washed across her face. “Oh, I see. It would seem I’ve underestimated your abilities. Wait. I shall summon an appropriate opponent for you now.”

At that instant, a crimson beam shot from the blue-green water. Penetrating the control sphere’s force field with ease, it unleashed its full power. The white-hot flow of energy spread across the water’s surface, engulfing D in the blink of an eye.

 

In no time, the flashes of lightning brought the lonely surface of the water out in relief, like a challenge thrown at eternity. There was no one there. But look. In one spot, the surface of the water had begun to bubble. A wind arose. Waves formed, their crests torn by the wind. Wasn’t that the way this planet had been in the distant past? Lightning struck the surface of the water, which even now hadn’t ceased bubbling, ions were released, and steam billowed up to hide even the crests of the waves.

Watch. From beneath the madly beating waves, a new form was rising eerily. The light died. It was as if it were afraid to illuminate that form. A thing stood on the water’s surface.

 

Leaving Bligh and Arbuckle on watch in the living room, Josette did a loop through the rest of the farmhouse once more. Making sure all the doors and windows were locked, she was just about to head back to the living room when there was a faint sound in the next room. Apparently a piece of furniture had moved. However, there was nothing in there but Jan’s corpse. Sliding the minigun’s firing mechanism into her left hand, Josette used her right to draw the short spear she had tucked through the back of her belt.

She turned the doorknob with the same hand that held the firing button. Pushing the door open as she turned the knob, she flashed in the light that was mounted on her minigun. A wind struck her cheek.

No one was there. And Jan’s corpse? It was gone. The circle of light illuminated naught save the lonely wooden floor.

Josette trained the light on the window. It was open. Wind and rain were blustering in.

Though she’d had no intention of entering the room, the thought that she had to shut that window got her moving first. She practically ran over to the window. Once she’d locked it, relief bubbled up in her. For a split second she let the tension escape her, and then her body was squeezed from behind with vise-like strength. Something warm latched on to the nape of her neck.

Josette shifted the barrel of the minigun ever so slightly, then hit the firing button. The barrel had been pointed backward to deal with the attack from behind, and now it showered her foe with long-awaited gunfire. The vice-like grip loosened, and then was torn free.

Making a broad turn purely on instinct, Josette let her short spear fly. Having taken the barrage, Jan’s body had nearly been cut in two above the waist. The spear went right through his heart. The force of the impact nailed his upper body to the wall, and his lower half tore free and fell to the floor. When she saw it stagger back to its feet, Josette let out a cry that was almost a shriek and started firing the minigun indiscriminately. Even after her target was reduced to a bloody mist, even after the minigun had run out of ammo, the woman still held down the firing button.

It was Bligh that finally stopped her, saying, “Simmer down. What happened?”

“Jan came back to life!”

“You’ve gotta be joking.”

Looking over at the wall, Bligh started toward where Jan’s upper body hung.

“One shot, right through the ticker,” the man noted. “Shouldn’t be a problem now.”

“If it’s happened twice, it can happen a third time. Cut his head off.”

“Okay. You oughta head back to the living room.”

“No, I have to see it for myself.”

 

When Bligh came back with a machete in his hand, Josette said to him, “I think you might’ve noticed this already.”

With that, she took away the hand she’d had pressed to her neck. A pair of teeth marks had been left over the carotid artery.

Bligh’s eyes went wide. Instinctively, he backed away, but that reaction was unavoidable.

“Jan bit you, but he’s been destroyed. His teeth marks should’ve disappeared! You sure it wasn’t Beth or Emily?”

“It was Jan,” Josette replied wearily. “There really is something different about the Nobility around here—they’re a new type. So their victims must be, too.”

“What should we do?”

“Kill me—at least, that’s what I should tell you, but I’ll try everything else first. We’ve got a fire going, don’t we?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them went back to the living room.

There was no sign of Arbuckle. The window was open.

“Where the hell’s he gone?” Bligh exclaimed, looking around wildly.

“Got attacked, most likely. Forget about him. It might just be they’re all here in the house.”

“Oh, that’d be fun.”

After a world-beating grin, Bligh gave Josette a worried look.

She said to him, “Vampires who come back from the dead after being stabbed through the heart, Nobility whose victims still turn into vampires even after the Noble responsible has been destroyed—there’s bound to be real trouble if we don’t take care of Beth and Emily. If they get out of the village and start feeding on humans, there’ll be no stopping them at that point. We have to slay them here. Here I was, ready to finish myself off, but I guess I’ll have to put that off until later.”

“Wh-what the hell am I supposed to do about you?” Bligh stammered.

“For the time being, patch me up. After that, if you see me acting even the slightest bit strange, go right ahead and run me through the heart and chop off my head.”

Bligh could only stare at Josette dismally after the outlandish thing she’d just said. However, a mysterious glint had filled his eyes. It was an emotion he’d long forgotten—respect.

Josette turned herself around and went over to the heater. Taking the tongs from beside the fireplace and pulling a piece of coal from the box beside it, she placed the black nugget in the fire. The coal immediately started to glow.

“Hey!” Bligh shouted at her. Just then, the warrior woman pressed the blazing lump against her neck.

Bligh raced over, but before he could pull the tongs and coal away, Josette dropped to one knee on the floor. She must’ve had a frightening amount of mental and physical fortitude to withstand the pain so well.

Though Bligh crinkled his brow at the stench of burning flesh, the emotion that’d taken root in his chest only grew stronger, like a rock upon which waves would break futilely. Reaching out his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world, he put his arm around Josette’s shoulders and slowly helped her to her feet, then led her over to the sofa.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. But, you know, I’ve heard about this treatment of yours, too. Unless you sprinkle the magic water on the wound you seared, all you wind up with is a bad burn!”

“Still, it’ll buy me about two hours,” Josette retorted. “After that—well, you know what I need you to do.”

“Oh, you delegating responsibility now? Yeah, I’m okay with that.”

Josette placed her hand on top of the one the man had resting on her shoulder.

From the front hall, a voice that sounded like it’d been starved of oxygen for ten millennia said, “No, leave everything to me.”

The eyes of the pair came to focus on a spot where Arbuckle stood.

“Keep back, you son of a bitch!” Bligh snarled, short spear at the ready.

There was no way a man who’d disappeared with a pair of vampiresses was still normal.

“I wish I could tell you I’m fine, but they got me,” Arbuckle said, showing them the back of his right hand.

Josette took one look at it, then shut her eyes.

“Well, damnation,” Bligh growled. “Now I’ve gotta put you down, too? What about the two girls?”

“Before I knew it, there were two pairs of bright red eyes outside the window. By the time I realized it was their eyes, I was already outside.”

Fortunately for Arbuckle, the torrential downpour had left Beth and Emily’s hypnotic powers weakened, and it was probably on account of that that the old procurer was able to bring along the doll D had given them. Returning to his senses the instant the rain struck him, Arbuckle had thrown D’s doll at the pair just as they were about to pounce on him. The doll had swung its sword and nearly taken off Emily’s head, but Beth had dodged the blade and sunk her fangs into Arbuckle’s right hand.

“So, then you killed ’em?” asked Bligh.

Arbuckle nodded, adding, “Not me, but D’s proxy. We’ve got nothing more to fear. Well, nothing but me and Josette, that is.”

“Damn it all!” Bligh exclaimed, backing a safe distance away from the two of them and keeping his short spear at the ready.

“Relax. We’re still okay. I have magic water with me. If I were to press a burning coal to my neck it’d probably kill me, but Josette will survive. Sprinkle this on her.” Arbuckle pulled a slim whiskey flask like travelers favored from the inner pocket of his jacket and tossed it to Bligh.

Eyeing it skeptically, Bligh asked Josette, “What should I do?”

“Try putting some on me.”

“But on top of that burn—you sure it’s okay?”

In the past, tens of thousands of different spells or drugs had been devised to prevent someone from turning into a Noble, but all had proved fruitless. The only exception was a method that’d been discovered only two short years earlier, which consisted of burning the wound and then purifying it with magic water. But the combination of the two was so painful, it sometimes drove people to madness. Most women and children would die from the shock, or else lose their minds. The magic water couldn’t be mass produced, and its existence wasn’t common knowledge yet.

“Seems pretty damn risky. The guy admits to being a vampire!” Bligh said, riddled with anxiety.

Josette smiled at him and extended her right hand. Once she’d taken the flask and unscrewed the lid, Bligh went over to Arbuckle and jammed the tip of his spear against the man’s throat.

“If anything strange happens to her, you’re gonna wish you’d never been born!”

“Don’t worry,” the man reassured him. “I’m still human.”

The pair’s exchange was punctuated by a scream.

Josette had performed the final treatment. White smoke rose from beneath her left hand, which was pressed to the nape of her neck.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

She let out a long wail of pain. It grew thin and hoarse, and then Josette slumped across the sofa.

III

Bligh raced over, brushed aside the woman’s hand, and looked at the additional burns.

“You son of a bitch!” he snarled, but when he whipped around, Arbuckle had suddenly vanished.

“Oh shit,” Bligh said his eyes leaping to every corner of the room as he slapped Josette on the cheek. When she opened her eyes, he let out a sigh of joy and relief.

“You okay?”

“I’ll survive.”

Her voice was steady. Her complexion was like that of a corpse. Warrior training or not, she was still just a woman of flesh and blood. Her strength was rapidly fading.

“Two hours more,” Bligh said, swallowing the words, Think you can last that long? He fell silent, but quickly said, “All right.”

“What’s going on?” Josette inquired dubiously.

“I’m going up to the castle.”

“Huh?” Josette said, so surprised she tried to sit up, but immediately slumped back again.

“It’s all the fault of the folks up in the castle you wound up like this. They must’ve come up with some way of helping you.”

“What are you talking about? You’ll never make it back alive!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. After all, D’s up there, too!”

“But there’s no guarantee you’ll run into him!”

“But if I stay here doing nothing, you ain’t gonna last till daybreak! Okay, just hear me out. Get down in the basement. Down there, all you’ve gotta do is shut one door and they ain’t gonna be able to get in. Just wait for me there.”

“A basement? How do you know the place’s got one?”

“Earlier, when I was in Jan’s room, the carpet on the floor slid to one side and I saw a trapdoor.”

“I see. But you’re—”

“Hey, don’t worry about me,” Bligh said, the pain that’d rapidly risen in his heart written all over his face. “I had me a lady and I couldn’t save her. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna feel that way ever again.”

Before Josette could think of anything else to say, powerful arms looped around her back and behind her knees, easily scooping her up.

 

The thing that floated up was greeted by fog and waves and lightning. Aside from its strangely beefy chest—which was actually like a boulder covered in black skin—the rest of its body was exquisitely proportioned. Though its small face and head were also colored jet black, beads of water slid across the surface of arms and legs the same hue that weren’t the least bit monstrous, but rather as limber and muscular as those of an athlete.

“Both U-taker and the prototype are gone,” the thing said, the words issuing from its black mouth. “Their flesh and blood have become my body. Now to venture outside and make the world tremble. The strong will soon gather beneath my banner. Better yet, I can remain alone and do away with the remaining Nobility.”

He began to walk across the water with confident strides. Surely he never could’ve imagined that another figure would appear with a burst of bubbles from the water’s surface twenty to twenty-five feet ahead of him.

It was a giant who stood a head taller than the thing but was only half as wide, and in his hand he held a crimson long spear.

“Greylancer, you yet live?”

The giant laughed aloud, saying, “D survived. So I had to, too.”

“I am not meant to face you. Will you not join forces with me?”

“Join forces to do what exactly?”

“Dismantle the world, and build a new one in its place.”

“Together?” Greylancer sneered. “Besides, once all the humans and Nobility have been disposed of, there won’t be anything left of the world. What are you and I supposed to do, spend our golden years playing cat’s cradle or throwing javelins together?”

“Once all life on this planet is extinct, we need only go to another planet. And do the same thing there.”

“So, we’d be berserkers? Are you what the Sacred Ancestor was trying to create?” Greylancer said, his eyes giving off an angry blood light.

“Precisely,” the thing replied, thumping its chest. “That is what I was born for. U-taker and the prototype have become my flesh. They’re somewhere inside of me. And they work toward the same purpose.”

“Rubbish,” Greylancer spat, looking toward the heavens. “Duchess, are you listening? With one pull of a lever, you’ve created this misguided individual. Is that what you desired? Was this the Sacred Ancestor’s dream? Nay, I say it is neither.”

The thing blinked its black eyes. Every inch of Greylancer was enveloped by hellfire. That was the will of a Greater Noble.

“When you were born in these black waters, you made a mistake somewhere. Was it your human blood, your Noble mind, or your OSB flesh? You’re out of your mind. And accordingly, I shall do away with you in the name of the Sacred Ancestor.”

Down around Greylancer’s feet, the black water began swirling. The long spear rose. A thin dribble of water linked the spearhead to the surface of the water. Suddenly, the water twisted, becoming a drill more than three feet in diameter that pierced the upper body of the thing. No, the three-foot-wide drill actually ripped the thing in two.

Even after the water drill had vanished, the thing still didn’t fall. For a string of blood thinner than any thread connected its two halves. That one string quickly became two, became ten, a thousand, ten thousand strings knitting together a body.

“I suspected that might happen,” said Greylancer. Of course, he was fully aware this was not only a formidable foe but an incredible one. Still, the giant was above that, the daring and self-confidence never leaving his face. For this man was renowned as “a Noble among Nobles.”

The head of the long spear began to turn red. The water gave rise to waves, their crests white and fractured. From the wind.

“Ah, it’s been so long since it flowed through me. The power of this planet—nay, that of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, perhaps the entire Milky Way. One wave of my lance was enough to repel an entire OSB fleet, and now you shall taste its might.”

And as the Nobleman spoke, a flash of light linked the long spear and the thing. Heaven and earth alike turned stark white.

From the depths of the light, a voice was heard to say, “It’s no use, Greylancer. Just as you can wield the power of the Milky Way, I have been given the power to destroy the same galaxy. And now I use it to absorb power. Pour more into me. Make it hotter and more intense. All of it becomes my power. See, it’s more than enough.”

The light still linked the two of them. Greylancer shook. For he had felt the blistering energy pouring into every inch of his body.

“You’re sending it all back at me? I should expect no less,” said the Nobleman.

At that moment, astronomical observatories and stellar research facilities around the world noted a sudden drain of energy from the Milky Way that threw them into a panic. And just as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

The thing had spread the fingers of its right hand and held its palm out high before Greylancer’s watchful eyes. What was that inscribed in the gleaming gold of the object it held?

“The crest of the Sacred Ancestor?!” Greylancer exclaimed in astonishment, backing away. “The king of the Nobility—the Absolute Ruler. Why would you have that?”

“Would you defy me, Greylancer? Any who bear this crest are to be afforded the same respect as the Sacred Ancestor—it’s the ironclad rule, the very first line of the Law of the Nobility. I am the Sacred Ancestor!” The fierce voice raced across the surface of the water like a storm across the seas, declaring, “Stand down, Greylancer.”

At the same time, another voice, quiet and gorgeous, said, “Stand down, imposter.”

Before the location of the second speaker could even be discerned, the surface of the water between the two of them split. Leaping from it was a young man of unearthly beauty garbed in black, and he had a longsword raised to strike. His blade, which had cleaved wind and wave, came down, splitting the thing from the top of its head all the way down to its crotch.

The thing’s expressionless face twisted into a smirk. After D’s blade had passed completely through it, not even the line of his cut still remained. Who was this, who had rendered Greylancer’s long spear useless, and now deflected D’s unholy blade?

“You absolutely, positively cannot cut me. Only one who could cut the Sacred Ancestor can cut me down.”

The thing arched backward and laughed. Bending down, it stuck its right hand into the water, then slowly raised it. Here was something D would undoubtedly recognize. What appeared from the black water was a sword belonging to the warrior Lyle Brennan.

D said, “Human, Noble, and OSB—in a way, I suppose you have accomplished what he planned.”

In some ways, Greylancer was more astonished as he looked at the young man before him than he’d been when he saw the crest of the Sacred Ancestor. Who did D mean by he? This Hunter couldn’t possibly be—?

“What did you say just now?” the thing inquired, thrusting its right hand straight at D. For the same surprise had seared its body. “Who do you mean when you say he? You couldn’t possibly mean—the Sacred Ancestor?”

“No one can say,” D replied. His voice was as beautiful as his features. “No one knows if his plans were correct, or if the results were right. Not the humans, not the Nobility, not the OSB, not even he himself.”

“Don’t say that!” the thing with Brennan’s voice cried, making a horizontal slash with its blade.

Still poised to deftly parry it, D sailed backward. When he landed, the thing closed on him. The sword he brought down like a man possessed left D shrouded in bluish sparks.

“All that parrying does nothing to slay me! D, only one in the image of the Sacred Ancestor can wound me.”

The thing with Brennan’s voice left a cut on D’s brow with his blade. The blood that dripped down from it touched D’s lips. His deep, dark eyes gave off blood light.

What are you, D? Where do you come from, and where are you going?

The figure in black leapt. As the Hunter brought his blade down from directly overhead, the thing shouted, “Look!” and thrust out his right hand.

The sound of bone being cut traveled across the surface of the water. The thing’s right wrist rose higher and higher, coming down in the water far off in the distance.

D ran without making a sound.

His wrist still gushing bright blood, the thing that spoke as Brennan prepared to stand against him. Even now, his confidence in his own immortality was unshaken.

There was an acute pain at the back of his head. Something had been pulled out of it! And now the energy that could control the galaxy was leaking out from the same spot!

“Now!” a hoarse voice shouted, its cry spreading as the sea surged and snarled.

The sword the thing had raised to parry the blow broke like it was a slip of paper, and his head was split down to the jaw. His whole body blurred by a bloody mist, the thing fell flat on his back, sending up splashes of water.

 

Several minutes later, D and Greylancer encountered someone unexpected in the center of the laboratory. It was Bligh, blood-soaked and covered with wounds from head to toe, and riding on his shoulder was the Hunter’s left hand.

The hand turned its palm toward D and said hello. “I’ll have you know,” it continued, “that it was yours truly that drove a four-inch-long needle into the back of that bastard’s head while he was being upgraded! And me that latched onto him and yanked it out again, too.”

“He was the one who threw you,” D said, turning his gaze to Bligh.

“It was most fortunate the two of you ran into each other,” Greylancer said, making no attempt to hide his incredulity.

“Well, I went down in the elevator and was kinda wandering around when these weird monsters jumped me. Thought I was a goner, but just then this thing dropped down from the ceiling and saved me. Never thought I’d owe my life to a severed hand. But enough about that—”

Bligh went on to tell them what’d happened to Josette, and asked about a cure.

“That won’t be a problem. I got all the info from the computers about the abilities of the things they made here,” the left hand assured them.

Following its directions, the group prepared medicine and dashed back to the farmhouse, but what they found in the basement were the bodies of Arbuckle and Josette, dead by each other’s hands. The man had taken a short spear through the heart, while the woman’s neck had been torn halfway through by sharp claws.

“The bastard must’ve snuck down there before Josette went in,” Bligh said, sounding like he could hardly bear it. For it was Arbuckle who’d given Josette the “magic water.”

“You die alone, eh?” he murmured.

Those had been Josette’s words.

Looking out the window, Greylancer said, “It would appear the rain has let up, too.”

The patter of raindrops had died away, and a watery blue light had begun to fill the eastern sky.

“I guess it’s about time for me to leave,” Greylancer said, looking at the others and giving D a grin. “A long, long time ago, a human girl taught me a saying. I’m not exactly sure if this is the sort of time to use it, though.”

“How did it go?” asked D.

“You only go around once, they say. Apparently it means sometimes, you never meet again,” Greylancer replied, his gigantic form gradually becoming transparent. “I suppose you already know this, but both I and the duchess are illusions temporarily given physical form from data recorded in the computers. But what a pleasant time I’ve had, D. I’ve gone across time and met an incredible man.”

“Godspeed to you,” said the left hand. D only gave a faint nod.

The Noble among Nobles faded away.

The others went outside.

“What the hell?!” Bligh alone exclaimed. “The village—it’s all rotting away. It’s like the ruins of a place from a thousand years ago.”

The farmhouses had collapsed, only the pillars of the watchtower still stood, and all that was left of the river that’d flowed there was a dry bed.

“When the dreams of the Nobility rotted away, that was the end of everything,” the hoarse voice said in a tone that carried an appreciable sense of pointlessness.

“So, everything is just a dream?” D said, somewhat uncharacteristically.

“That’s right. Some might ask if we’re not just a dream, too.”

His left hand had a ring of indefinable sadness to it.\

 

By the time they’d buried Josette’s remains and exited the village, it was nearly noon. Taking the highway west, they came to a tiny village where Bligh halted his cyborg horse and said, “This is the place. So long.”

“Where are you going?” the left hand inquired, apparently more interested in other people’s doings than D was.

“The grave of a woman I left behind when I ran off, actually.”

“Oh, you don’t say.”

Just three years earlier, Bligh had gotten caught up in some trouble gambling in a nearby village and found himself on the run from the local thugs. Though he’d fled with the female gambler he was working with, it was here that their pursuers had caught up to them. Driven by fear, he’d left the woman behind and fled alone, having no news of her after that.

“So now it’s bugging you after all this time, and you’re gonna bring her a flower?” said the hoarse voice. “You’re a sad individual.”

“Say what you like. So long!”

Bligh hitched his steed to a nearby sapling, then walked east from the highway down a narrow side street. Halting after fifteen or twenty feet, he found cobblestones piled by the side of the street. There were two small graves. Pulling a single bloom of infinity weed from the inner pocket of his jacket, he placed it before the graves. It was a nice white flower.

D probably understood why there were two graves.

The man lingered at the graves for quite a while, and by the time he turned around, the Hunter had already wheeled his steed around and headed west.

End