Song of Loss

Chapter 4

When the Hunter returned to the castle, it was full of commotion. Dismounting from his cyborg horse in the front hall, D caught the screams of women and the crack of gunfire.

“We’re about twenty minutes late,” the hoarse voice said.

Though the Hunter had returned at a full gallop, apparently the enemy had spurred their steeds on as well. Those had been Vulcan’s orders, most likely.

D headed straight for the duke’s private chambers. He was just about to climb the stairs when a lady-in-waiting rushed over to him. It was one of the other two who’d met him when he first visited—Mysch. The cerulean hue of her dress was vivid to D’s eyes.

“You’re still safe?” she asked.

“What happened?”

“Headless soldiers attacked us. It was General Kiniski, I’m certain of it.”

“And the duke?”

“Given the situation, I believe he’d have moved from his chambers to the panic room.”

“Did he fight?”

Mysch’s breath caught in her throat. D’s voice had changed, becoming hoarse.

“No, he evacuated immediately.”

“The guards have taken up arms,” the hoarse voice continued. “And the soul of the Tiger is nowhere to be seen. I see you’re fine, but what about the other two?”

“Najina was cut down. As for Shyna—I don’t know.”

“Where’s the panic room?”

“It’s in the basement. And the enemy knows that, too. The entrance is this way.”

She started off on foot ahead of him. Android or not, human emotions had been input into her electronic brain. And now, the lady-in-waiting must’ve been calling upon all her courage.

“You can get there from his grace’s room, but to reach it from the outside this is the way to go.”

From the depths of the corridor came the sound of steel being hammered. Though their civilization had reached the heights of scientific development, the Nobility chose the weapons of antiquity when they went to war. It was said that showed just how deeply nostalgia ran in the Nobility’s DNA. And yet—

A crimson beam of light skimmed D’s left shoulder. There was a second beam—this one making the wall to his right collapse in a steaming mess.

“They’re using particle cannons, too,” the hoarse voice noted. “End of the line for the woman.”

D turned around. The lady-in-waiting wasn’t there. On the floor was a grayish blob of clay that was giving off white smoke. He couldn’t even make out the cerulean hue of her dress.

“Too late,” said the hoarse voice.

D crouched down and ran. The pendant on his chest glowed with a blue light. No blistering particles assailed him.

Dashing a hundred yards in three seconds, he laid his blade into the foe who appeared around a corner. But it stopped dead right above his opponent’s head.

The soldier clutched his chest. Though he was an android, his heart was equipped to feel fear. At his feet lay five bodies in uniform, some with heads and some without.

“How do you get to the panic room?” asked the Hunter.

“It’s this way,” the soldier said, and he began walking down the corridor ahead of D.

After going about ten yards, he halted.

There were sconces set in the walls. Corridors dotted with lines of flames were also to the Nobles’ liking. The soldier took out one of the oil lamps. At the same time, the wall right next to it turned, revealing a black interior. There was no stairway, no elevator, just a hole.

“Has the enemy gone on ahead?” asked D.

“They pursued his grace the duke through his room. General Kiniski knows everything.”

“If I go down, will it lead directly into the room?”

“No, the panic room is isolated. We androids can’t get near it.”

D sprang into action. Sailing straight down would be a nice way to say what he did, though what he did was plummet. Wind whistling in his ears, D held the brim of his traveler’s hat with his left hand.

“Well, how about that?” the left hand said in amazement. “There must be an elevator to get back up. We’ll be coming up on five hundred yards soon.”

He landed in a spot ten thousand feet below the surface. But he didn’t land so much as he slammed into the ground. It would’ve been enough to shatter not only a human being, but also an android. D quickly got to his feet, but his innards were still swirling madly from the shock of the impact. He spat out a wad of blood. That was it.

He advanced down the stone corridor at a rapid pace. He quickly discovered the door. It was open. Undoubtedly General Kiniski knew the password to open and close it.

D put his left hand against the wall by the entrance.

“We truly regret this, my liege,” General Kiniski could be heard to say. Apparently it had taken him and the others quite a while to get there. It seemed they’d just arrived.

“Though I find myself in this position—threatening you with death—I had hoped you would fight back. That’s what the one they call the Tiger would do. Though I’ve been given a new mission, if I should fall to the Tiger’s counterattack, that would be an admirable result. Such is my wish. But even with your would-be murderers before you, your grace doesn’t lift a finger to fight. Why do you not take up the staff that rests by your side? It may be naught but a piece of oak with a gold grip, but if swung by Duke Van Doren it would be enough to smash the worthless clods behind me to pieces in less than a minute. So why is it you’ve remained seated in that chair since the moment we burst in here? Because standing would mean fighting? No matter how old he may be, the Tiger bares his fangs at his enemies. I thought surely you would do me that honor, my liege.

“But you have changed. Was it when you had to deal with Master Leavis? When Master Kazel was taken away? When Master Sebastian abandoned his home? So easily the Tiger’s fangs were pulled, but I faithfully awaited the day they would grow in again. However, that day never came, and here we are now. My liege, are you not ready to take up arms? Cow us with a roar from the Tiger, bat us to the ends of the Earth with a swipe of your paw—will you not let us see you like that once more?”

“General—I’m sorry, Kiniski,” the duke could be heard to say from not far away, “you conceal the most important point. Surely you must understand. It wasn’t dealing with Leavis, or losing Kazel, or Sebastian leaving that changed me. The Tiger is not so fragile as to fly into a rage at his children’s rebellion or caprice. Even now, I would cast them into the fires of Hell without a moment’s hesitation if need be. My mistake, however, might have been in taking Sirene on as a maidservant.”

A different feeling clung to that last remark.

“Kiniski, humans are weak things. I have never thought differently. And Sirene didn’t teach me that they were strong. What I learned was that Nobles are also weak.”

“My liege?”

“And when I did, I came to understand how I should’ve been. When I had to deal with Leavis, I should’ve felt pain. When Kazel was taken away, I should’ve known hate. And when Sebastian turned his back on his home, I should’ve felt loneliness. More than anything, I should’ve understood what they were feeling. And so I was left alone. I haven’t lost the will to deal with the traitors. I do not fear my own destruction. However, what I should raise my hand to is the events of days gone by. And there is no way to undo them.”

Silence descended. It was the sort of silence born of solitude and despair.

“Kiniski, who changed you?”

“It was the head of the bandits.”

“And his name?”

“Vulcan Lura, I believe.”

“I don’t know him,” the duke said, immediately adding, “but what is the purpose of slaying me?”

“To learn the location of the weapon your grace used in the Battle of the North.”

“I no longer remember.”

“My liege?”

“All I recall is that it was too terrible a weapon. I sealed it away, and the memories of all who knew of it were erased. As a result, no one knows of it. It has gone to its eternal rest. There’s nothing else to say. Kiniski, run your sword through me if you like.”

“But I—”

“You can’t, because your new master won’t allow it. Stab me.”

“You leave me no choice. Forgive me.”

D stepped through the doorway. Including General Kiniski, there were four invaders. On sensing the arrival of a new presence, two of them turned and were stabbed in rapid succession through the heart, while the spear stuck out by the third was pushed away by the Hunter’s left hand before he took a step forward and brought his sword down. Pale blue waves of electromagnetism snaking from him, the headless soldier fell, split right down the middle.

D squared off against General Kiniski. The room had a faint blue glow.

“What are you doing here?” the headless general asked. “I’d heard you were here to take my liege’s life. You need only sit back, and your wish will be granted without any effort!”

“I could say the same to you,” D replied.

“What?”

“Which of us gets the first crack? Shall we settle that?”

“That sounds intriguing,” the general said, his right hand already resting on the “weather weapon” slung over his shoulder.

D’s surroundings were suddenly bleached white.

II

“Fifty degrees below zero. Dhampir or not, that will keep you from moving.”

Glittering beads of white began to form all over D’s body. Even the chair and wall by him were tinged with frost.

“If I pierce your frozen heart, that should kill you. You made a mistake coming here, D,” the general said, using the same hand to reach for the hilt of the broadsword he wore on his left hip. The blade was long and thick and looked rather heavy.

Lowering the temperature to minus sixty degrees just to be safe, the general stood before D.

“You’re like a doll, your blood frozen solid—I’d love to hear why we’ve feared you so long.”

And as he said that, the tip of his blade sank toward D’s heart.

It was only a machine’s speed that allowed Kiniski to take a reflexive step back. The diagonal slash that he took from the base of his neck to his left flank sent tendrils of electromagnetism out in all directions as the general staggered wildly.

“Y-you bastard! How could you?!”

D suddenly stepped forward, leaving the frozen zone. His body was immediately enveloped by flames. The weather weapon had created a blistering zone of five thousand degrees. Furniture that’d been frozen and white swiftly melted away. Unable to withstand it, D was driven to his knees on the floor, but he hurled his sword as if it were a throwing knife. It took the general through the heart, and he ceased to function, falling to the floor.

D stuck his left hand out of the heat zone. A tiny mouth appeared on the palm of his hand, which was facing forward, and it began sucking in air with alarming force.

When the Hunter got to his feet and stepped out of the heat zone, his body and even his raiment had returned to normal. Using the discarded weather weapon to make it rain so as to check the spreading flames, D then shot a look over to where the duke remained seated in his chair.

“Greetings,” the duke said, raising one hand. His smile was free from worry.

Anyone other than D would’ve cursed the Nobleman for that and tried to cut him down.

“Thanks to you, I’m saved. You’re every bit as strong as I expected. That’s the Vampire Hunter ‘D’ for you. You’ll have to pardon me for asking you the same question as Kiniski. Why did you save me?”

“About that ultimate weapon—you say you’ve lost all memory of it, but is that the truth?”

“Indeed, it is.”

“What about where the Sacred Ancestor is concerned?”

The duke didn’t move. However, something else seemed to enter his body.

“Why would you ask that?”

“You used the ultimate weapon. But wasn’t he the bastard who built it?”

“D, my good man,” the duke began absentmindedly. His terror was that great. “Know you no fear? It is unforgivable to refer to the great one that way . . . to call him a bastard.”

“One other thing,” D said. “Your second son, the one you said was taken away—I don’t think the Tiger would just smile and nod at that. Was that the bastard’s doing, too?”

“D, what do you think this world is? It is not man’s, nor the Nobility’s, but it belongs to the great one alone. What makes you think it was the great one who took Kazel away?”

“I know of other cases.”

The duke said nothing to that.

“Did your son ever come back?”

Nothing.

“Any rumors about him, even?”

Still no reply.

“Come tomorrow, things are going to get busy around here. You might’ve lost your teeth, but that doesn’t mean the beast called greed is going to go easy on you.”

D started walking toward the door.

“Sirene hired me to get rid of you only after you’d slain your attackers. She said she wanted the Tiger to roar once more.”

Even after D had left, the duke didn’t move a muscle. Somewhere in the castle, the moonlight reactor was at work. So long as it ran, he would not perish. Time had shown him a road to eternity. One who could never know destruction need never feel longing or loneliness or even fear.

In no time his guards came, but before they did, the Nobleman murmured, “D, who in the world are you?” He then added, “And Vulcan Lura. Who gave you that name?”

The site where the survey party was given permission to dig was the remnants of an ancient castle out in a wasteland about a dozen miles north of Castle Van Doren. The Van Doren clan had been appointed administrators/feudal lords of this area three millennia ago, but these ruins predated that. Everyone in the survey party was brimming with expectations. Though they’d excavated Noble ruins here and there, ones from this era were few and far between.

Before an excavator so enormous the survey party had worried it might cause their transport plane to crash, the gantry crane, the atomic-powered drill, and other equipment could be put into operation, the group members first had to perform an assessment. They got results almost immediately. With just a little digging around columns and a domed ceiling that had been exposed at the surface, they discovered an entrance to an underground cavern.

“The place was destroyed by the OSB. There are records of it,” Valerie said at the entrance to the enormous cavern, her eyes agleam.

It was nearly noontime, and the sky was so blue it could cut right through you.

“Let’s go have a look,” one of the members urged. It was someone the others hadn’t seen before. The night before, Professor Lovick had fallen into a coma for reasons unknown, but luckily this local man had come by this morning and been hired to work in his stead.

Though the other archeologists gave him unpleasant looks, Valerie didn’t seem to mind, saying, “We’ll head in, at any rate, but there’s no telling what could happen. The rest of you’d better wait out here.”

“You sure you’ll be okay with just him along?” another member asked anxiously.

“This is the Frontier,” she replied. “Any danger too great for two to handle would be just as bad for ten of us.”

Wrapping the rope around their waists and carrying a video camera, lanterns, and enough food for two days, the two of them vanished into the blackness.

Using the rubble and the rock’s recesses and protrusions, they climbed down more than a hundred yards, taking a break at the bottom of the massive rock wall.

Valerie said to the new guy, “Pretty generous of the Nobles, eh? We can take as much as we want.”

“Yeah, it’s a hell of a thing. Noble stuff from this era doesn’t go for less than a thousand dalas, even if it’s just a handkerchief or a single glass. It’ll make a hell of a war chest.”

“Just a minute, there. The deal was that your share’s whatever we leave behind!”

“I know. Relax.” The new guy stuffed a cracker into his mouth, swallowed it after hardly chewing at all, and continued, “I’m surprised the others let you come down here alone, though. They were looking mighty greedy. Don’t they think you might keep it all for yourself?”

“They know how honest I am! But I can’t really blame them for being greedy. Even now, the Frontier is so poor. Young folks leave their villages and head for Frontier cities or the Capital, and famines aren’t uncommon out here.”

“That’s what the Nobility are there for.”

“The Nobility’s support is slack all over. That’s why everyone’s getting out of the Frontier sectors. You should know that.”

Scratching at his head, the new guy replied, “That’s why our work’s gotten easier to do. One good drive, and we could put control of the northern Frontier sectors back in human hands. But the duke’s might is still nothing to scoff at, and his troops and weapons are so far ahead of us in both numbers and powers the difference is like night and day. We need a real ace up our sleeves.”

“There’s no guarantee digging up this place will find it for you. We don’t even know if the duke remembers where it is or not.”

“It existed, and even if they say it got disposed of, so long as there are legends that it survived, it’s worth checking out. Even if we only find part of it, that might lead to discovering the whole secret weapon.”

“What do you plan on using it for?” Valerie inquired, her tone changed.

“To fight the Nobility. What else would we use it for? They may say their kind looks to be going extinct, but out on the Frontier their power’s still great. Even in a fight we’re certain we could win, we’d be ready to have ourselves a party if our chances of victory were even thirty percent. To break them, we really need this weapon they say Nobles used to defeat other Nobles. How long do you think human beings have been ruled by vampires? A few tiny uprisings went down in history. But not one of them succeeded. This time, we’re going to score a victory, then turn that into an opportunity to keep on winning.”

To Valerie, it seemed as if the new guy’s eyes were blazing in the darkness. “Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said.

“See if I don’t. After all, this time I’ve got a great partner.”

“Spare me. I’m not about to take up a stake for the sake of mankind.”

“I’m not saying everybody has to. All you’ve gotta do is help us in your own way.”

“I’m not helping you at all. Basically, we’re doing this job because we got permission from the Nobility. If they ever found out I poisoned my boyfriend so you could be on the team, they’d exile me to the damned moon!”

“He was too stubborn. But I’m grateful to both of you. Is he gonna be okay?”

“Three days of bed rest and he’ll recover. If we find anything, I’ll bring him out to the site.”

“By all means, see that you do.” The new guy took a short sip of water from his canteen, but then he turned a stern look upward. “Another thing—are the others gonna be okay?”

“Okay how?”

“Well, I’m not gonna say I have an eye for people or anything, but I do notice things.”

Swallowing some jerky, Valerie then looked down at her feet and replied, “To be honest, I wouldn’t call it the best of all possible teams. Most of them aren’t so much interested in uncovering an accurate picture of Noble history through these artifacts as they are in finding some valuable loot.”

“Are they that hard up for help in the Capital?”

“Don’t get me wrong. They’re all really talented archeologists. It’s just that the greed can run even deeper. I don’t put my complete faith in them.”

“Want me to bring in some of my people for protection?”

“No way. We can’t thin the party any more than we have.”

“Looks like we really asked a lot of you. Don’t worry. I’d never forgive myself if anything were to happen to you.”

“Sure you’re not a little too soft for someone heading up a group that’s picking a fight with the Nobility? You’ve got to be ready to let a woman or two die along the way.”

“You know, I think the same thing. According to my father, I get that from my granddad.”

“That’s destiny, then.”

The pair’s laughter reverberated from the bowels of the earth.

Just then, from up ahead there came a most distinct sound.

“You heard something, didn’t you?” Valerie said, drawing the pistol from her hip.

“Yeah. Something alive,” the new guy said, and he started putting his food away.

When they listened intently, the sounds were steadily drawing closer. And there were lots and lots of them.

III

Shortly before the two members of the survey team went underground, the duke and D had once again set out to make the rounds in an aircraft. This time they were going to mountain villages much further north than the previous day. As always, patients had come from all the surrounding villages, and they cried out in wonder at the speed with which the makeshift hospital and medical equipment were set up, their pain and despair turning to the hope of recovery before the visitors’ eyes.

“The rebel army also supplies human doctors, but they’d be hard pressed to make it all the way out here. Once I’m gone, treatment can continue, though they’ll probably destroy this equipment too.”

“That’s right,” the hoarse voice said, agreeing with the duke. “Frontier rebels are mostly sickos half out of their minds. You oughta catch ’em all and help ’em get—gaaaaah?!”

The duke gazed at D’s left hand with interest, saying, “Do you collect rent from him?”

“Nope.”

“He’s the type to take advantage of the situation,” said the duke.

“I know.”

And saying that, D looked over at the hospital.

A sun-bronzed man was racing toward them from it, spurred by the sweeping gestures of a number of others. When he came to the duke, the man suddenly began to tremble.

“What is it?” the duke inquired with a thin smile. “If it’s an outbreak of the common cold, you shouldn’t come to me but head over there.”

“D-d-don’t think this makes up for all the things you’ve done!” the man shouted, terror squeezing the words from him in a shrill tone. “You come here like some kindly old man, but we all know you’re living off our lifeblood. How many have you killed so far? Everybody else might be blinded by your acts of generosity, but I ain’t fooled!”

Normally the fear would leave someone as they bellowed like that, but in this man’s case the trembling only grew all the more violent.

The duke was just staring at him in silence.

“One of these days, I’m gonna put a stake through your heart with my own two hands, you got that?!”

He wasn’t able to say any more than that. A number of villagers had jumped on the man, then dragged him away. The only one who stayed behind was the white-haired mayor of the village.

“My humblest apologies. I can’t say how sorry we are. Please, take this old gray head and let that be the end of it,” the old man said, bowing desperately.

The duke clapped the man on the shoulder and told him, “I’m accustomed to it.”

“Oh, thank you,” the village mayor said, clinging to the duke’s arm.

“Bysan and Lota, Trofall and Sengen—I believe patients from all the local villages have lined up here, but are there any other isolated individuals?”

“No, this is everyone,” the mayor said, shaking his head so hard it seemed it would tear free. “And they’re all so happy. Thanks to the medicine you gave us, there isn’t a single patient who can’t move any more. The ones who came are all there are.”

“Then that’s just fine,” the duke said with a nod. It was a practiced motion. “I shall see you again in a month’s time. Tell everyone I said as much.”

The Nobleman looked over at D. But the young man of unearthly beauty had vanished.

D was in the nearby forest. It was a spot about seven or eight minutes on foot from the hospital.

In the more northern parts of the northern Frontier sectors, stands of trees had to be able to weather temperatures as low as a hundred below zero. Species like white birch and acacia wouldn’t stand a chance. The Nobles who created the bitter cold had also made forms of life appropriate for it. These were species of trees that had hot sap circulating through them, keeping them warm enough to survive the severe cold.

D went over to one such tree. In a number of places its charred brown surface was sending out shoots that were nearly scarlet.

“Oh, would you look at that? If it ain’t a ‘Hell-and-back,’” the hoarse voice remarked with surprise. “I wonder if the locals even know about it. If they did, they’d dig it out quicker than—”

The voice died there. D had turned around.

A girl of about twelve or thirteen was just stepping out from behind a tree trunk roughly five yards to his right. Perhaps it was due to the sunlight in the north, but like the other villagers, her skin was nearly black. She was so tense, it gave her large eyes a certain hardness.

“You’re with our lord, aren’t you?” the girl asked. Her right hand clutched the handle of the knife she wore on her hip.

“Right you are, cutie.”

Her large eyes rattled back and forth. “That’s a horrible voice for a face like yours,” she said.

“Is it?”

The girl’s expression suddenly became tranquil. The last remark had been in D’s voice.

“That one’s much better.”

“You have business with the duke?”

“Yep. Now, everybody’s getting checked over. Will he be leaving when they’re done?”

“Yes, if there are no other patients.”

“There are,” the girl said, almost slapping him with the words. Her teeth were blindingly white.

“Where?”

“On the side of that mountain over there. Me and my big brother have a house up there. The villagers or doctor won’t come up. You think maybe our lord would go there?”

“What kinda shape’s your big brother in?”

The girl grew confused at the hoarse voice. The eyes she trained on D were reeling with rapture and puzzlement.

“How is he?” asked D.

“He’s been bedridden for the last four days or so. Mountain snake venom did it to him. And there’s nothing I can do for him.”

“Come with me,” D said, and he brought the girl to see the duke.

“Glia’s my name,” the girl said, introducing herself politely, but even then her eyes kept flitting somewhere else. The hospital.

On hearing the situation, the duke agreed without another word. “Just leave it to me. We’ll head up there right away.”

“But there are still villagers to see.”

“Never fear, the androids and their medical equipment will take care of them.”

“But, um—we won’t have a doctor.”

“There’s equipment in my airship. Rest assured.”

“Great,” Glia said, and she collapsed on the spot.

“That all she had in her?” the hoarse voice said in disbelief.

Just then, small voices reached them. Small but angry. And more than just one.

Glia got to her feet. Her right hand went for her knife—then stopped.

Three or four villagers were running toward them. And they were all pointing at Glia. Slamming on the brakes, they tried to shout something. But they couldn’t get it out at first. They’d run over at full speed.

Huffing for breath, one said, “What brings you around here?”

“Did Cotil kick the bucket or something?”

“My brother’s indestructible!” Glia shouted. And then, almost triumphantly, she added, “And the lot of you sure as hell know it.”

Sanity suddenly returned to the faces of the crazed villagers. The girl’s older brother was most certainly no average person.

“At any rate, you know what we said we’d do to you if you came down off the mountain, don’t you?”

“Come here. We’ll show you we mean business.”

“It’s just this once, and I won’t do it again!”

Once again a madness gripped the villagers.

“We’ll have no trouble here,” the duke said, stepping between them.

The strength immediately drained from the villagers.

“Is there some problem with me going to the girl’s home?”

“No, it’s just . . .”

“The two of ’em are outsiders,” another said, glaring at the girl with loathing. “So they ain’t got no right having you look at ’em, my lord. Please, just leave ’em be.”

“I’ll settle with them once and for all,” the slim girl said, standing poised to fight in the face of such intense hatred. She didn’t seem frightened. Every inch of her burned with the fires of battle. Such was the life she’d led.

“I have already promised to go,” the duke said, settling the matter. Looking at each of the four villagers, he continued, “And none of you intend to interfere with that, do you?”

Terror turned the four of them into statues.

“Very well, then. In that case—” The duke used the staff in his hand to point toward his aircraft. “D, what will you do?”

“I’ll go.”

“Well, what do you know. Child—does that please you?”

At the duke’s query, Glia looked at D. In an instant, she went soft all the way to her soul. Having served its purpose, her stony tension melted away.

“Well?” the duke asked again.

“Yep!” the girl replied with a hearty nod.

Glia’s house was a log cabin on the slopes of Mount Kaiser, which boasted a height of almost fifty thousand feet above sea level. Unlike those in the villages at the base of the mountain, it didn’t make any use of modern building materials. The gaps were filled with mud.

Since there wasn’t an open space large enough to land, the aircraft hovered about sixty feet above the house, and the three of them descended on a beam of magnetic force.

With one look at the house, the duke let out a gasp. The walls and roof were riddled with damage. The roof also showed large scorch marks.

“Marks left by more arrows, swords, and bullets than I can count,” the hoarse voice said, sounding impressed. “And fire arrows on the roof—no, looks more like Molotov cocktails. Just how old is this brother of yours?”

“How old is he?” D asked.

“Sixteen.”

“And you’re twelve—who’d come all the way up here in the mountains to start something with a couple of little kids living on their own?” the hoarse voice mused.

Glia went over to the door, put her mouth to a gap in the wall, and said, “You all right, Cotil? The lord of the land’s agreed to come to see you. We’re coming in now.”

She took out a little key and slipped it into the keyhole. There was the sound of a deadbolt sliding back.

Glia, the duke, and D went into the dark room in that order. A powerful scent struck their noses. About five hundred square feet in total, the space had shades drawn over all the windows and flowers sitting on tables large and small.

“I see,” the duke said purposefully, the words escaping in a murmur.

Three pairs of eyes were trained on the face of the young man sitting up in a bed at the far end of the room. A green scarf covered his mouth. And with that, they knew.

“No matter how you might try to mask it with the scent of flowers, nothing in the world is stronger than the stench of blood,” said the duke. “Remove that covering. I want to be sure.”

Groaning a little, Glia walked over to the bed. When the girl reached out her hand, her older brother stopped it, reaching for the scarf himself.

Even in the gloom his face would be termed pale, and his unusually red lips in particular stood out. Along with the pair of fangs that jutted from them.

“So, he’s an ‘incomplete’?” said the hoarse voice.

“Let me see your throat.”

The boy took off the scarf, exposing his throat for the duke. There was no mistaking that the two scars over his carotid artery were teeth marks.

“When and where did you come to be bitten?” the duke asked, covering his mouth with a handkerchief. But it wasn’t to shield himself from the smell. Nothing was more effective than the stench of blood at bringing out the true nature of a blood-starved Noble.