JOURNEY'S END

CHAPTER 5

—

I

—

While D and Caroline’s deadly encounter was unfolding on the ancient battlefield, Mayerling’s jet-black carriage was parked on the shore of a lake some forty miles away as the crow flies. The sky was clear and blue, the trees by the shore benefited from the abundant water, and rainbows seemed to spring from every leaf and twig. Far off, a blue mountain range capped with white snow stretched into the distance, and golden birds skimmed the peaks. As scenery went, this was a truly beautiful and placid tableau.

As he watered the horses on the lake shore, a serious expression flitted into Mashira’s wicked visage, as if he were mulling something over. He’d been that way since a short while earlier—when he’d parted company with Caroline. Now, waiting for the horse to finish drinking, he seemed to be gazing intently at the ugly face reflected in the water. Finally, after some minutes of rapt concentration, he muttered, “Okay,” and slapped his hands together. Following that, he stooped to pick a number of the white flowers blooming by the shore. As he started walking toward the carriage parked a little way off, a charitable expression, strangely free from worry, arose on his face.

He tapped on a window with shades tightly drawn, and a voice over an intercom answered with an inquisitive, “Yes?” At this charmingly plaintive voice, he stopped the unconscious licking of his lips, and, in an amiable tone, he replied, “I was wondering if you wouldn’t like to open the window and get a breath of fresh air. The sky is blue, the water clear, and the whole place is filled with the sweet scent of flowers. Though milord Mayerling slumbers, I believe you have nothing to fear so long as Mashira is here.”

There was no reply. Behind the window, she must have been hesitating.

Perhaps seeing some spark of hope, Mashira said as buoyantly as he could, “Here, look how beautiful the flowers are. The ground’s completely covered with them. If you’re that worried, just open the shade and drink in their color if you will.”

There was silence again, and, just as he was deciding his ploy wasn’t going to work, the black shutter shot up smoothly. Seeing her innocent face quietly peering out like a moonflower, Mashira smiled inside.

How can I get her to come out here? That’s the question that’d wracked his brain since before they had arrived at the lake. He’d considered a number of options, but, in the end, he decided to exploit the feelings she was bound to have as a young human girl. Even if she was with her boyfriend, even if he’d expressly told her not to go outside, there was no way a maiden of her tender years wouldn’t want a breath of fresh air after being cooped up in a carriage for days. After all, the darkness was no place for a human to live. Ever since Mashira had taken Mayerling’s place at the reins at dawn, he had schemed of using the girl’s humanity to his advantage. Planning ahead, he took the carriage off the road and steered it to this remote locale.

“Say, how do you like these?” Mashira quickly thrust the bunch of flowers he’d concealed behind his back against the windowpane.

The girl’s eyes became terribly blurred, and her white hand reached out. It bounced off the windowpane in vain.

“What are you waiting for? What’s the harm in merely stepping out for bit of fresh air?” And then Mashira became even more empathic. “The flowers are in bloom, birds are singing, and when this place seeps into your pores and makes you even happier, milord Mayerling is certain to thank me for a job well done. And of course, the purse for our contract might gain a little weight, as well. Think of it, if you will, as your way of helping out one poor bodyguard.”

The girl’s eyebrows knit with reflection. In less time than it took to draw a breath, her pupils sparkled and the door handle spun. The girl stepped down into the meadow, and the darkness of the interior was scattered by the sunlight.

His beautiful prey had finally played into the trap. Gently taking her by the hand, Mashira led her to the shore.

“It’s so beautiful,” the pretty young lady exclaimed, proving that she was indeed a resident of the world of daylight. Where the little waves encroached on the shore, the girl knelt and reached out to touch the surface of the lake. Ripples spread, obscuring her gorgeous countenance. Pulling back the hand she’d put wrist-deep in the water, she searched for a handkerchief to wipe her face. The surface of the lake returned to calmness.

Mashira was standing behind her. The front of his gray coat was open. Maybe the girl glimpsed something inside it, because she froze without saying a word. When she finally turned and Mashira’s hands grabbed her by both shoulders, something brown and tube-like stretched between their abdomens with unholy speed . . . out of Mashira’s gut and toward the girl. The girl squirmed, but Mashira’s hands never left her. Her well-formed body was pushed down into the brush without any real effort.

“What are you doing? Let me go!”

“Can’t do that,” Mashira said, grabbing the hand the girl levered against his jaw and twisting it up. “I’m crazy about you,” he continued. “You’re gonna be mine. If you just take it you don’t have to get hurt. I’ll take care of that jerk Mayerling, too.”

“What are you talking about? Let go. If you don’t let go of me—”

“What’ll you do? Out in the middle of the woods like this, you can shout but nobody will come. Now, why don’t the two of us get to know each other a lot better . . . ”

A mouth burning with desire tried to close on her lips, which trembled with fear and anger. It was then that intense gunfire resounded. As Mashira jerked up his head, there were tremendous explosions of pain in his jaw and crotch.

Grunting as she pushed his body off, the girl got up quickly. Behind the carriage, she spied what looked to be a huntsman with a still-smoking rifle thrown over his shoulder. There’d been someone around after all.

The girl quickly ran for the carriage. The huntsman cut her off. Unsettling shadows clung to his scraggily bearded face. “Missy, what in the blazes are you?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. This here carriage’s gotta belong to the Nobility. Why on earth would you be trying to get into it?”

“The truth is . . . ”

As the girl hemmed and hawed, the huntsman threw a vulgar laugh her way. Suddenly, he grabbed her chin with one hand. With his substantial strength, the man exposed first one side of the girl’s neck, then the other. “No wounds . . . meaning you hooked up with a Noble of your own accord, didn’t you? You little traitor. Once I’ve taken care of that bastard, I’ll learn you a thing or two. And when you’ve known a real man’s touch, I’ll send you to join your bloodsucker.”

An unbelievably fierce gale was blowing in the girl’s head. This man means me harm, too, she thought. The moment I set foot outside of the carriage, I meet with one misfortune after another. Oh, if only I’d stayed with my love . . .

“Get your hands off her,” she heard Mashira say in a low but clear voice. Still smarting from the blow to his crotch, he remained somewhat hunched over as he came closer. His look had changed. He was so enraged now, almost nothing remained of his expression. “Get your stinking hands off her,” he repeated.

“Ha! If you think you can make me, give it a shot,” the huntsman laughed scornfully. “I figure chances are pretty good you’re just a drifter who ran across this girl the same as me, but trying to rape her here was piss-poor planning. I’ll be sure to nail her once for you, too, though. Now run along to hell.” And, saying that, he threw the girl down in the opposite direction from the carriage and took the high-caliber gunpowder-rifle in his left hand.

“Wait just a—” Mashira started to say, but with an explosive bang like a hammer striking steel plate an enormous hole opened right in the middle of his heart. His hunched body was thrown back over six feet. A scream rose from the girl, and the air was clouded by a vermilion mist.

“Okay, now to deal with you,” the huntsman chortled. “After I’ve had my share of fun with you, I’ll drag you back to town for everyone to see.” And with that the huntsman turned around, and an alarmed expression arose on his face. The girl’s face had been flooded by a look of sheer terror. Following the path her eyes had taken, now it was the huntsman who froze.

Mashira was coming toward them. Covered with blood, a gaping hole in his chest where he’d taken the high-caliber shell. There was no need to see how his eyes had lost their light when the bloodless face was that of a corpse. The way he walked was strangely stiff. Almost as if it was something he wasn’t accustomed to doing . . . The huntsman shouted something. His rifle seemed to howl in response.

Mashira’s head exploded like a watermelon. It may well have been that his steps became swifter at that point because his load had just been made that much lighter.

The huntsman couldn’t move. The nerves that drove his body had withered to nothing when the rifle he placed so much stock in had proved ineffective.

The hands of the headless man reached out and grabbed hold of the huntsman’s powerful shoulders. “You know, I was just getting used to this body. Now I’ll take yours, you bastard.” There wasn’t even time to notice how this voice so unlike Mashira’s reverberated from his belly before something like a brown tube sank into the huntsman’s abdomen, rising from the same spot on the walking corpse. Several seconds passed. For the girl, it was a nightmarish eternity.

“Heh heh heh—the transfer is complete,” the voice said from his new belly. The belly of the huntsman, that is . . .

Without wasting time to watch the headless corpse tumbling to the ground, the girl, who’d long since reached her limit of horror, gave a scream and dashed off into the forest. Though the huntsman followed her with his eyes, for some reason he didn’t set out after her. “There’s no use in her trying to run,” he snickered, “but I only gave her a little of me, so we’re not quite ready to start either. Guess I might as well have myself a little game of hide-and-seek,” he muttered, starting after her at a brisk pace.

—

When the last scrap of canned beef had been safely tucked away in his stomach, Kyle threw the empty can into the street. The cylinder rustled hollowly for several bounces and then, as it hung in the air on another, a silvery flash of light split it in two before zipping back to Kyle’s waist.

It was the main street of the ghost town. Kyle was sitting on the edge of the boardwalk that jutted from the front of the saloon. When rain soaked streets like these, the mire could be difficult for pedestrians to negotiate.

Parked in front of the drugstore, the bus opened its door and Borgoff stuck his head out. He seemed on edge.

“What do you wanna do, bro?” Kyle asked, getting to his feet.

Borgoff made a concerned face. “Grove’s had another attack,” he said, looking up at the heavens. “A real bad one this time. His heart might not be able to take it.”

“That ain’t good. We still might need him to do his stuff one more time if something comes up.” With a snort of laughter, he added, “Maybe me and Leila went at it a little too hot and heavy for him.”

“You moron,” Borgoff bellowed, his face severe, but he soon folded his arms and donned a morose expression. “Of course, you probably ain’t far wrong. I mean, we knew it wasn’t any good for his health to force him to send his other self out like that,” he muttered. “Anyway, let’s roll,” said Kyle. “We’ll lose the daylight if we hang around here waiting for freaking Leila. The Noble’s making better time than we figured.”

“Yep,” Borgoff replied, but his face was dark.

This cruel clan had always managed to take care of not only the prey they stalked, but their competitors as well. But now they’d lost their brother Nolt, Leila hadn’t returned, and even bedridden Groveck hovered near death.

Leila’s failure to return didn’t necessarily mean she’d been slain, but, in light of the strength of their foes, the brothers couldn’t be sure. Worse yet, Borgoff harbored another fear about his little sister. That she’d fallen for D.

When they’d picked their sister up after she’d been injured in her first engagement with the Noble, every chunk of shrapnel had already been pulled out of her, and Leila was resting peacefully. They’d asked who’d patched her up, but she said she couldn’t remember. It sure as hell wasn’t the Noble. Which meant it had to be D. In fact, there were signs two other people had clashed near where they’d found Leila. She hadn’t made any mention of that. But, given his sister’s temperament, it wasn’t inconceivable she’d keep it to herself. D was someone they were going to take out, after all. The fact that he’d saved her life would be nothing but pure humiliation.

However, Leila didn’t seem in the least bit mortified. And that was just the start. Her expression was pained even while they strategized together, and she seemed strangely tired. Their clan wasn’t so soft they’d make a big deal out of that, but her condition seemed to have nothing to do with physical exhaustion. Considering all the facts, Borgoff realized she’d only exhibited these signs whenever they discussed what to do about D. Putting two and two together, he thought, Bingo!

But in his heart of hearts, there was one thought Borgoff couldn’t get rid of, peerless Vampire Hunter though he was—the question of whether it was really D that’d saved Leila after all. At that point, D must’ve known for a fact that the Marcus clan should be considered his enemy. By all accounts, he wasn’t the kind of man to go easy on any armed opponent, woman or not. Even if half of what people said about D’s abilities, his battles, and the list of foes he’d slain could be discounted as idle talk, the remainder was enough to send icy fingers up the nape of Borgoff’s neck. He of all people had saved Leila? Borgoff found that hard to believe. And that’s why he hadn’t tried to stop his sister from going out on reconnaissance that morning.

Borgoff swept away the tangled knot of ideas. “Let’s go,” he said. “If Leila’s okay, she’ll send up a flare or get in touch with us one way or another.”

The two of them got back on the bus. Kyle took the driver’s seat, while Borgoff went into the bedroom. There wasn’t a single breath to be heard from Groveck’s bunk. Shriveled and dry like a mummy, you could’ve put your ear to his motionless chest and not even heard a heartbeat. Right now, this Groveck was indeed dead.

When Borgoff looked down at the lifeless husk of his youngest brother, a pained and human expression crept into his supremely fierce face, and then the bus shook a little as it began to move.

—

II

—

Two women were walking through the forest. One of them—a gorgeous, shapely blonde in a blue dress—headed deep into the forest with her eyes fixed on one spot straight ahead. The other—dressed in a light shirt and slacks—looked like she was just out for a stroll in the woods, but from time to time she stopped and checked the ground or looked at how the brush was broken before walking on a little further. Though her eyes kept scanning the forest, she didn’t seem to be in the least bit lost. The eyes of both women sought the same thing. The young Vampire Hunter, defenseless in his makeshift grave.

Leila stopped and wiped the sweat from her brow. After she’d fried the colossal hand Caroline controlled, she’d gone right after D. She had no definite reason for doing so, but, judging by the way he’d run off, it was clear something was wrong with him. It wasn’t like the great D to be nearly killed by a woman, no matter what sort of freak she might be. There was only one reason for that she could think of—sunlight syndrome.

He would’ve taken off for the forest then, seeking Mother Earth. It was easy enough to follow the hoofprints. She’d even found the spot where he’d slipped into the woods. That was where the trouble started. The battle car couldn’t get through. Without regret, Leila had left her cherished vehicle behind.

She wasn’t sure exactly what Caroline would do, but, judging by how the woman’s strength compared to that of Leila’s brothers or D, and in light of how much trouble she’d had trying to do away with the dhampir before, there was certainly a very good chance she’d be intent on killing D now. What’s more, the Barbarois woman possessed strange powers. She might’ve already beaten Leila to D. It was so easy to kill a dhampir suffering from sunlight syndrome, it made the super-human abilities they displayed in their chosen profession seem like a distant dream.

With a javelin in her hand and the sliver gun shoved through her belt, Leila entered the forest. The hoofprints were fading fast, filled in by quickly growing moss. All she was left with were the instincts she’d refined in her life as a Hunter. The question was, would that be enough to make her a match for the Barbarois woman? Now that Leila had abandoned her beloved car, she’d be no more than a normal human girl to Caroline.

Bearing right for a few yards, she suddenly came into a clearing. She saw the horse tethered to the branch of a nearby tree. D lay half-buried in the dirt by the horse’s feet. Choking back a cry of joy, she kicked up moss as she scrambled over to him.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. His beautiful countenance—which sufficed to give her goosebumps even at this distance—was supremely wise and enduringly stern, and his eyelids were closed as if he was deep in contemplation.

Leila’s shoulders fell. Something hot spilled past her eyelids, to her great surprise. The last time she’d cried was a distant memory. She seemed to remember wiping away her tears by the side of a blood-stained old woman whose face she could clearly recall even now. Who had that been? she wondered.

Forcefully wiping her tears away, Leila laid herself down gently on top of D’s dirt-covered body. It was so cold. The chill she felt wasn’t from the soil. It was D’s body temperature. When Kyle had come along and found her after she’d been wounded in her battle with the Noble, he told her she would’ve died out there if someone hadn’t kept her warm. Of course there hadn’t been a heating unit around. D had kept her warm.

It wasn’t as if she’d never had feelings for anyone before. She’d been proposed to a number of times. But all her suitors had left when they found out what her last name was. All but one. Leila drove him off. Because that night, she’d been violated by her brothers.

“We’re not letting you go anywhere,” said Borgoff. Nolt whispered to her that he’d wanted to have his way with her for a long time. Kyle lost himself in the act without a word. As soon as the other three backed off and Groveck’s nearly mummified form mounted her, something in Leila’s soul flew away. And ever since, she’d been a colder killer than ever before.

But now that special something had returned.

“You saved me,” Leila fairly whispered to the gorgeous, immobilized man. “This time, I’ll protect you. I’ll defend you with my life.”

A strange presence moved through the woods. Checking that the safety of her sliver gun was off, Leila took the javelin in hand and let the fighting spirit fill her. She rose to her feet.

—

He was lying on a hill of pure green. As he rarely got to go outside, each time, short though it was, was absolute bliss. Joy bubbled like a fount in his heart. Gentle gusts of wind, showers of sunlight, the scent of dense tufts of new grass, the blue mountain range stretching toward eternity—all these things made him realize what a pleasure it was to be alive. Now this is living! he thought to himself.

It was Groveck, or rather, the “spirit” of Groveck that had escaped from the sickly body left in the Marcus bus. The sound of footsteps rose from the forest behind him. He turned to find a girl running toward him. The fear in her countenance spoiled his mood. Just when he was enjoying himself.

“Help! Please, help me,” the girl cried out, circling around behind him.

He was perplexed. His forte was getting people to run away from him, not toward him. But the reason the girl had said what she did was soon apparent. Out of the woods stepped a man armed with a large rifle, apparently a huntsman of some sort.

The huntsman looked around restlessly, but soon spotted him and the girl. The huntsman approached them with powerful strides. Grove heard screams of fear spill out from behind his back. For the first time in his life, he felt something unprecedented stirring in his heart. The other man stopped about a yard away and swung the muzzle of the rifle to bear on him.

Grove was a bit surprised. Every inch of the huntsman’s body brimmed with hostility and self-confidence. Though he’d never seen this other man before, it appeared the huntsman knew who he was. “What do you want?” he tried to ask, but the other man didn’t seem to hear him, and not a muscle moved in his own face. That’s the way it always went. He gave up on ordinary communication.

“Give me the girl,” the man ordered. His voice was cold. Any fool could well imagine what would happen whether he complied with the huntsman’s command or not.

“If you don’t want to, fine,” the huntsman added. “I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna let you live anyway. Strange meeting you here, though.”

Grove tilted his head. He just couldn’t recall who this other man was. His opponent, however, was kind enough to provided the answer.

“But then, you wouldn’t know me in this shape, now would you?” the huntsman snickered. “I was part of the threesome over next to the carriage when you snuck into the village of the Barbarois.”

Learning this, Grove was no less bewildered. He could, indeed, recall the trio in question. However, that middle-aged man, jet-black youth, and shapely beauty were all quite different from the huntsman now before his eyes.

“Oh, that’s right—I still haven’t shown you my true face. The one you saw before, and this one I have now, are no more than temporary hosts. The real me looks like this!” And with that, the huntsman pulled up his shirt with one hand.

Grove let his mouth fall open. But there was nothing on the huntsman’s belly. When the girl gasped, it was like the signal for the change. As they watched, a number of deep creases that couldn’t really be called wrinkles coursed across the huntsman’s abnormally protruding belly, and then what looked like a human face bulged from the surface, showing a little nose, lips like purple scraps of meat, and eyes that blinked wide open. The tips of the yellow teeth spilling over the twisted lips came to fang-like points. It was a tumor . . . a tumor that had a face like a person, and a life of its own. The body of the huntsman was no more than a vessel for it to move around in.

“Surprised, junior?” the tumor asked. “This is the real me. I’ve been hopping from body to body for five hundred years. It’ll take a lot more than your tricks to beat me.”

At last Grove grasped the situation. Hostility flooded into his heart. Perhaps it showed.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” the tumor laughed. “If you let your lightning fly, I’ll shoot and the girl behind you will die, too. You got that?”

For a moment, Grove was befuddled.

The abdominal tumor added, “Of course, the girl’s not exactly in pristine shape anymore. You ought to have a good look at her stomach.”

The weird course of the conversation shifted Grove’s attention to his rear. Before the fierce report of the gun could reach him, he was struck in the chest by heat and a forceful impact. Flying backward, he saw the blue sky. It seemed his foe had aimed away from the girl. He’d never had any intention of shooting her.

Without even glancing at the punk toppling backward in a bloody mist, the huntsman—that is to say, the eerie countenanced carbuncle—smiled at the girl. “Okay,” he said, “come to me now. If that bastard Mayerling gets out and about, there’ll be hell to pay. See, I’m not allowed to do anything to his coffin. So I want to get as far away from here as we can before darkness falls.”

A relieved expression arose in the girl. Realizing at this point that she was worried about Mayerling’s safety, the expression of the countenanced carbuncle—or Mashira—flooded with rage. “Oh, you’re being such a pain!” he shouted, taking a step toward her. But, from the pit of his stomach, or quite literally from the middle of his abdomen, a gasp of astonishment escaped. The young man was getting up, perfectly healthy, devoid of a bullet hole or spattered gore. “You son of a bitch,” the countenanced carbuncle said. Now he realized what the young man really was.

The world was bleached white. In the blink of an eye, streaks of light coming from nowhere in particular slammed head-on into the huntsman’s abdomen. Flames rose from him, the stench of melting fat filled the air, and the huntsman fell into the brush with a thud.

It was almost as if the nerves that had endured this truly unearthly confrontation finally frayed and snapped—the girl started to fall like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Grove caught her gently.

When the figure that easily scooped up the girl had gone down the hill with her and out of sight, a low voice could be heard around the ankles of the still flaming corpse. “Well, spank my ass!” it said. “That’s about what I’d expect from one of the Marcus clan. Now that I’ve seen his powers firsthand, I can’t help wondering what the real him is like.”

—

Leila had never seen the woman up close before. She didn’t think her golden hair and creamy complexion were beautiful. She herself suited D better. But it was certain that behind those glamorous looks, the Barbarois woman possessed powers that staggered the imagination. Leila didn’t take her lightly. Realizing in an instant that her javelin would be useless against this opponent, she jabbed it into the ground and drew the sliver gun.

Caroline pursed her lips and smiled. “Do you think you can defeat a woman from the village of the Barbarois with a toy like that?” she laughed. “I’ll have you know, even the Nobility have no easy time getting into our village.”

Instead of replying, Leila squeezed the sliver gun’s trigger. Imperceptible needles pierced the woman’s stomach without making a sound.

“Oh,” Caroline cried, but soon enough she grinned broadly. “A gun that fires needles? You should’ve aimed for my heart, little girl.”

Not knowing quite what she meant by that remark, Leila stood stock still with amazement. Suddenly, something fell from overhead and struck her right hand. The sliver gun went flying. Something speared down into the moss between the gun and the hand she stretched out to retrieve it, foiling her efforts. On discovering it was a thick tree branch, Leila leapt back, but something else caught hold of her by the shoulder. It was another branch, huge and bristling with countless twigs. Twisting the twigs with a crisp snap, the branch wrapped them around Leila’s limbs like fingers.

“When I learned you’d arrived here ahead of me, I drank the sap of all the trees in the area,” said Caroline. “Sap is the lifeblood of trees. So now, every one of their branches is mine—I have thousands of hands and feet.”

“No, you can’t be . . . ” Goaded by a fearful foresight, Leila writhed, but she couldn’t get free of the branches that were now her bonds.

“Ha ha, regrettably, I am not a Noble.” Caroline wore the smile of a victor. “However, I have inherited some of their abilities. My mother, you see, was a wet-nurse for the Nobility overseeing Sector Seven of the Frontier.”

Oh, it couldn’t be that this gorgeous woman was a dhampir like D. Inhumanly beautiful. Mysteriously refusing to dine. Throwing feverish glances at Mayerling—hadn’t all of these things indicated the woman’s true nature? Even the way she could move about in daylight without difficulty fit the pattern.

However, her powers proved that she was indeed one of the Barbarois. Whatever felt her fangs—even inorganic things like the mechanical arm, or non-sentient lifeforms like the vegetation that bound Leila—obeyed her in the same way that humans followed the will of the Nobles who bit them. While most dhampirs would drink blood, they didn’t convert anyone, so her ability was truly fearsome in comparison.

Looking from D to Leila and back again, Caroline let an evil little grin escape. “From what I saw just now, I’d say you’re in love with that dhampir. How interesting. I was going to make short work of you, but I’ve changed my mind. I want you to watch as I go over there and skewer the heart of the man you love. And after that, I’ll let you share his fate.”

“Don’t,” said Leila. “If you’re gonna kill anyone, kill me—”

“How courageous,” Caroline replied with a laugh. “It seems even human scum who make their livelihood murdering the Nobility are far more tolerant when it comes to someone they adore. Well, just wait. You’ll follow after him soon enough . . . ” Caroline stated sternly, but as she did so an unbelievably chill breeze stroked her back. This female dhampir, possessing powers comparable to D’s, turned around despite herself.

There was no change in the way D lay. What could that gorgeous man be dreaming of? Of the ordinary life that he, as a dhampir, could never know? Of days long passed? No, no, of a future painted in blood and pitch-black, with battles that would know no end—of that there could be no doubt.

“Just my imagination?” Caroline muttered as she raised her right hand. A branch from one of the massive trees around her bent at the trunk and pointed its trenchant tip at the Barbarois woman’s chest. Grabbing it in her pale hand, Caroline snapped the branch off a yard back from the tip.

Slowly, she went to the side of the sleeping D and placed her feet so they straddled the depression. With both hands, she took a firm grip of the branch—the gigantic stake she’d improvised—and the instant she was about to swing it down from over her head . . .

Leila’s scream of “Stop!” and her own strike were almost simultaneous, and it was in the next instant that Caroline cried out “Mashira?!”

The stake was caught in midair. By D’s left hand. By the palm of his left hand, to be precise. And, as might be expected from Caroline’s puzzled cry, what stopped the keen point was indeed the tiny mouth that appeared in the palm of his hand. The stake had literally been stopped by the skin of those teeth. Above the mouth, a pair of mischievous eyes laughed. And yet, his jaws were so powerful that even Caroline with her superhuman strength couldn’t make them budge in the least. Her beautiful visage distorted by surprise and horror, the female dhampir leapt away.

“I’ll thank you not to be calling me by strange names,” the face in the palm said, effortlessly spitting the stake out of the depression. “That Mashira—he’s one of your cohorts? He’s one of my kind then, I take it?”

Without answering, Caroline made a sweep of her right hand. The forest shook. Several gigantic trees bent and swung their branches straight down at the sleeping dhampir.

The left hand countered with an attack of his own. Grabbing hold of the huge branch it’d just spat out, it hurled the wooden missile at Caroline. The branch went with such speed there was no time to dodge it. And yet, Caroline must’ve managed at least a lightning-fast twist of her body, because it was her abdomen that the huge branch ultimately pierced.

The instant she fell backward screaming, the movements of the branches came to a dead stop. Even Leila’s bonds came undone.

Seeing that she didn’t even have time to make a dash for her javelin, Leila ran at Caroline. Latching onto the branch impaling the female dhampir, Leila shoved with all her might. Blood bubbled from Caroline’s mouth.

“You little bitch you!” the female dhampir screamed. Her whole body twitching in the throes of death, her pale hands seized Leila’s shoulders.

Leila didn’t stop pushing, even when the blood-rimmed mouth clamped onto her neck. The only thing in her mind was, I’ve gotta save D, and that thought alone.

The mouth quickly fell away. An intense feeling of relaxation swept over Leila, and she allowed the huge branch to be snatched from her grasp.

Backing away a few steps, Caroline groaned again. The huge branch still pierced her abdomen, and from the waist down she’d been dyed crimson by the blood gushing from her. It was a sight nothing could rival.

“Little girl, we shall meet again. And next time, you will be my slave.” Blood mixing with the words she spouted, Caroline turned and left.

Leila went to her knees on the ground. She’d just been bitten. Bitten by a dhampir. She felt no wonder, no fear. Only fatigue and a feeling of satisfaction. She’d kept her promise. The promise she’d made to herself. Still, Leila managed to pick herself up and go over to the sleeping D. Gazing down at his beautiful face for a long time, she said goodbye. “I wanted to kiss you,” she said, “but I can’t now. I mean, you’d wind up a laughing stock if some reject vampire were to steal a kiss from a Hunter like you. So long. If you can, try to think of me from time to time.”

Barely managing to take the sliver gun and javelin in hand, Leila walked away. Her tottering figure was soon swallowed by the forest.

But how long would D continue to sleep? After all, the warrior woman who’d risked her life and soul defending him was wounded, Mayerling’s lady love had run off somewhere, and the situation was only growing more confused . . .

—

III

—

The scene was the road, about two hours after Caroline and Leila’s deadly battle had ended. Knifing its way through the wind at a speed of twenty-five miles per hour, the bus came to a sudden stop when something was spotted up ahead.

“What is it?” Borgoff called out in a gruff voice from where he was prepping his bow and arrows in his bedroom.

“A woman just crossed the road dead ahead of us. A blonde in a blue dress—probably that Caroline character Grove mentioned. I’m gonna go have a little look-see.” As he spoke, Kyle got to his feet with the crescent blades in hand.

“Wait up—I’ll go with you.”

In reply to Borgoff’s offer, he said, “Don’t sweat it. It’s just a woman. Besides, what if someone’s trying to lure us both outside so they can take out Grove while we’re gone? There’s another one of them somewhere, you know.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Borgoff conceded. “Be careful.”

“Hey, just leave it to me.”

Smiling with overwhelming self-confidence, Kyle got off the bus. Although noon had already come and gone, the sunlight was hot and white. With crescent blades in either hand, as he was about to enter the woods in the same spot where the woman had vanished, he said, “Just to be on the safe side,” and let the blades fly.

There couldn’t have been any stranger ranged weapon than Kyle’s crescent blades. Controlled with the fingertips of the hand that held one end of the thin wire, the semicircular blades attached to the other end of each line swept easily between the densely overlapping trees and came back to Kyle’s hands. If his foe was lurking anywhere within a hundred-foot radius of the entrance to the forest, fresh blood drawn from her head or throat should’ve remained on the edge of his crescent blades at the very least. Better yet, she might even be dead already.

“Looks like no contact,” Kyle said to himself. He went into the woods. Casually taking a few steps, he shouted, “There you are!”

A silvery flash coursed to the base of a gigantic tree, and, just when it seemed it would strike the trunk, it suddenly turned and shot straight upwards.

Caroline screamed and fell to the ground. Not the slightest trace remained of where she’d been staked with a huge branch two hours earlier, but now she held her exposed and bloody thigh and moaned. The crescent blade had slashed it open.

“What do you wanna do, Barbarois bodyguard?” Kyle snickered cruelly. “Don’t be shy. Take your best shot, if you’re game.” While Kyle snorted that she wasn’t all she was cracked up to be and extended both his arms for the coup de grace, his eyes were blasted by the woman’s orbs. There was an indescribable light in her eyes.

Without time to realize how bad this development was, Kyle went and knelt by the woman’s side. Her exposed thigh was burned into his retinas.

“Are you okay?” His consciousness drifting in a dream, Kyle heard himself ask a question that wasn’t even in his mind.

“I think I’ll be fine,” the woman practically moaned. “My leg hurts. I really must stop the bleeding—would you be so kind as to lick it clean?”

The fact that this woman was a Barbarois sorceress no longer concerned Kyle. “Sure . . . no problem,” he sort of mumbled, then put his mouth to her bare, white leg. His lips were instantly sullied with blood. Licking the outside clean, when he worked his way to her inner thigh, the woman began panting in earnest and wrapped her other leg around Kyle’s waist. Kyle’s blood-tinted lips pressed in even further.

When the moans of pleasure and lapping sounds had stopped, the woman gently put her hands on Kyle’s cheeks. Her unblemished white face approached the blood-stained visage he raised at her bidding. Kyle had no comprehension how fearful the woman’s actions had become.

And yet, while his instincts may have guessed the danger he was in, the fingers that reached with exasperating slowness for the crescent blade at his waist were caught by one of the woman’s gentle hands.

“Oh no you don’t,” she chided. “You can use those to serve me once I’m done kissing you . . . ” Her voice alone rang in his head, and, before long, the blackest darkness suffused his mind through her lips.

When Kyle came out of the forest a short time later, he raised his hand up over his head to shield his eyes from the sun. Slowly, he returned to the bus.

Borgoff was in the driver’s seat. “How did it go?” he asked.

“She wasn’t in there. Looks like she got away, but you can’t be too careful.”

“Hmm. Trade places with me,” said the oldest Marcus. Standing to let Kyle take the driver’s seat, Borgoff returned to the bedroom. Kyle was holding the wheel mutely. “Say, Kyle . . . ” Borgoff called out to him. Kyle didn’t move. Borgoff called his name again.

“Er—What?” Kyle responded, his tone distant and removed. “I’ll let you in on a little shortcut. Pretty soon, we’ll come to a spot where there’s a red branch sticking out on our left. Turn in there. Once we’re on that road, just follow it straight and we’ll come out near the Claybourne States.”

“Gotcha,” Kyle replied.

The vehicle went a bit, then stopped.

“What happened?” asked Borgoff.

“The engine stalled. Looks like the oil charger is all screwed up. Give me a hand fixing it.”

Empty-handed, Borgoff followed Kyle off the bus.

“Hold on a sec. I’ll scout around first,” said Kyle, moving to the front of the vehicle and out of Borgoff’s line of sight. Borgoff scanned their surroundings and gave a light scratch to his head. And, having scratched, he leapt.

A bewitching light zipped out of the gap between the vehicle’s undercarriage and the ground. As Borgoff looked askance at the pair of crescent blades sparking together in the spot where he’d stood, his right hand went into action. Grabbing the bow and arrows tucked through the back of his belt, he readied them in midair. There was a sound like the plucking of a zither’s strings as he loosed two arrows simultaneously. What was really strange about the shot was how his arrows hit the tangled crescent blades, turned a few times, and slid up along the wires attached to the blades.

A low groan could be heard from the far side of the bus.

Borgoff circled around the vehicle to stand over the fallen Kyle. One steel arrow quivered in his brother’s stomach and another was stuck through the top of his head. “I didn’t want to have to do this to my own brother, but I didn’t really have a choice,” he told Kyle. “You went and got turned by a vampire. But at least now I know what she really is. I’ll avenge you, so rest easy.” Notching a third arrow, Borgoff took aim at his agonized brother’s heart. “The next time you’re reborn as a vampire, try not to shade your eyes from the sun when it’s not all that bright out.” And he watched until the bitter end, until the steel shaft had pierced his younger brother’s heart.