III

“Are you familiar with the city called Paris?” the grand duke asked, his youthful countenance still turned away from Françoise. The waltz was danced without looking your partner in the face. As a result, even sworn enemies could be paired together.

“Paris, you say?”

“Yes. In the oh-so-distant past, in the days when mankind still fancied themselves the center of the world, the city was said to be one of the beacons of culture.”

“But human culture . . .” Françoise began, her face twisting with scorn.

“Quite right. It was never anything great. But I visited that city just once. Shall I bring you along next time?”

“To a city that was never anything great?”

“Yes.”

“What could possibly be there?”

As the girl gazed intently at him, the grand duke responded with a smile. “Let’s discuss it another time. This evening, you make your debut.”

Unfortunately, Françoise had picked the wrong night for her debut. It was halfway through the tune when there was a murmur and everyone turned their eyes in the same direction. Someone had noticed a figure coming in from the veranda.

“How gorgeous!” countless voices declared as one.

Entering through a pair of glass doors left wide open, the figure in black with a longsword across his back had come to stand in the center of the hall without making a sound. The lavishly attired ladies and gentlemen swallowed their words and backed away. The hall had been covered by tension, fear, and rage—and outweighing them all was rapture. That was why they couldn’t speak. That was why their steps were exquisite even as they retreated. That was why when the visitor asked, “Where is Grand Duke Bergenzy?” his voice drew sighs.

The grand duke looked down at his left arm. Françoise clung to it with a trembling hand. Gently placing his own hand atop it, the grand duke then removed the girl’s hand from his arm and stepped forward.

“I am Grand Duke Bergenzy. And I would have your name, O gorgeous philistine!”

“D.”

The clamor rose, and the people of the night retreated still further. In their place, stalwart attendants stepped to the fore. Guards.

“Stand back,” the grand duke commanded them.

The men disappeared.

“Seeing that the one known as the greatest Hunter of Nobility on the Frontier has come here, I take it it’s my life you’re after. I have no objection to that. Naturally, I will resist, though.”

The air froze. D’s right hand had gone for the hilt over his shoulder.

“Patience. I’m not sure whether you realize this or not, but I have a great many of the villagers here in the castle. I have but to snap my fingers and the entire castle will be blown away. Of course, we wouldn’t be harmed by that in the least by that, though.”

His distinguished face split lengthwise. Cries of terror and astonishment rippled through the room only after D had broken the stance from his downward stroke. Collapsing on the spot, the grand duke turned to dust before his very eyes.

“An illusion, eh?” the hoarse voice murmured.

“Right you are,” the grand duke laughed proudly, having appeared in exactly the same spot. “Not even the man called D could distinguish it from the real thing. You see, I supervised the design and manufacture of weapons for the Sacred Ancestor.”

The grand duke stepped forward. And his head went flying. No one had even seen the horizontal swipe D had made with his blade. Sailing in a massive arc, the grand duke’s head struck a wall more than sixty feet away before falling to the floor.

“Someone, toss me back!” the severed head commanded.

One of the guards raced over, scooped it up, and lobbed it back to the body that stood there patiently.

Catching it with ease, the body returned the missing part to its rightful place. The grand duke’s grinning visage suddenly took on a shocked look—and the Nobleman disappeared.

“Unbelievable,” said a third iteration of the grand duke, his eyes wide.

Indescribable groans rose on all sides of him.

“My illusions are composed of different particles than normal matter. They should be able to recover from any attack, yet you’ve destroyed two of them now. D, can your blade cut on a molecular level?”

“Where’s the real you?”

“Good enough. Come for me if you like, but know this first—”

“I don’t accept any conditions.”

“I see,” the grand duke said, shrugging his shoulders. Looking around at the group, he said, “Everyone, you have my deepest apologies, but you can see the situation that has developed. Until my return, I hope you’ll forget all about this turn of events and enjoy yourselves—and now, you must excuse me for a while. No one is to follow after me.”

Just then, the performance ended. The band had continued playing “Fascination” without pausing for a second.

“Nicely done,” the grand duke said, raising one hand in greeting to the conductor, who bowed to the Nobleman as he moved toward the door. D followed after the Nobleman, and the crowd parted for them without a word.

The grand duke stopped in his tracks. The girl in the metallic azure dress was right in front of him.

“I’ll be right back, Françoise—just as soon as I take care of this.”

The two men went out into a corridor.

They’d gone about three paces when they sensed someone behind them. Apparently they’d been followed.

A figure in an electric blue cape stood before them. Raven-haired and with features unlike those of the grand duke or his other guests, he seemed to be of foreign blood.

“Vyken—I ordered you not to come!”

“But that would prevent me from doing my job,” he replied, the looks he gave the grand duke and D as sharp as any bird of prey’s.

“Very well. And what of Glickenheim and Johnston?”

“Both slain. The battle was decided in the blink of an eye.”

“Those two? It would seem his title of the Frontier’s greatest Hunter of Nobility is more than just talk. Leave us.”

Though the grand duke’s tone was soft, his word was apparently iron, and his faithful guard bowed and watched the two of them go.

“You might not think it to look at me, but I’m quite a coward,” said Bergenzy. “No one else in the castle even knows where I stay. You will be an exception.”

“Why’s that?” asked the hoarse voice.

It was small wonder that the grand duke eyed D suspiciously before saying, “Because this seems likely to relieve my boredom.”

The hoarse voice laughed, “Well, you’ve got more than your fair share of confidence. You’d fight this guy to stave off boredom?”

The blue light from a cylinder at the end of the corridor tied the floor to the ceiling. The grand duke entered first, and D followed after him.

“Have at you!” the grand duke exclaimed, becoming a blue silhouette.

D felt every cell in his body burning. And he was aware of each and every one.

“We’re being disintegrated!”

His head split by the hoarse voice’s cry and the sensation of blistering heat, D still managed to remain conscious.

The light faded.

Apparently they were inside an enormous structure. Though D’s surroundings were sealed in darkness, he could sense the tremendous mass that lurked there. Any creature accustomed to living in a hospitable environment would probably hyperventilate at the thought of being there.

Sticking his left hand out in front of himself, D slowly turned in a complete circle.

“Not a clue what’s going on outside. He ain’t there, and it may be he’s pulled a fast one on us,” the hoarse voice said, its tone composed despite the import of the words. It was probably accustomed to situations like this. “Let’s see what the closest thing is.” About three seconds later, the hoarse voice continued, “I’ll be damned. We’ve got some ridiculously big stone statues in front of us, to the rear, and to either side. Seems like Nobles really do admire the stupidest things.”

“What is this place?” D inquired.

“Not entirely sure, but my gut’s telling me it’s some kind of archives.”

Narrowing his eyes a bit, D peered through the darkness.

“We gonna wait and see what move Bergenzy makes, or will we—”

“Apologies for my abrupt departure, O lovely assassin,” the grand duke announced in a tone so substantial it seemed you could strike it and make it ring like a gong. D tried to determine where the voice emanated from, but was unable to ascertain the location.

“Just his voice,” the left hand groused.

The Nobleman had no physical presence there.

“Unfortunately, I can’t square off with you just yet. However, no matter how far I might run or whatever defensive measures I might employ, the man called D would undoubtedly tear the lid from my coffin. I led you here in order to prevent that very thing.”

A low groan escaped D’s lips. He’d just weathered the sensation of a cold metallic blade slicing through his brain.

There aren’t many things I must tell you. That’s what they had said.

D realized that the “voice” had come from the stone colossi on all four sides of him. Had the “voice” waited beneath an unknown stony fortress for untold millennia for D?

One. And there, the “voice” faded away.

“‘There aren’t many things I must tell you,’” the grand duke said. “‘One’—Those are all the words we’ve been able to make out thus far. Over the span of five millennia. Telepathy isn’t an easy power for a Noble to acquire, but there are some with a rudimentary ability to catch thoughts, and there are devices for such purposes as well. Yet it took us five thousand years to decipher a single thought from the Great One. Have you no wish to learn the rest of it, D?”

“Why do you think I’d want to know what he has to say?” asked D.

“Because in truth, there is one more word we were able to make out,” the grand duke replied. His words rang like a recited prayer in D’s ears. “The very last word of a ‘thought’ otherwise indecipherable to me. In point of fact, that word was ‘D.’ It’s been waiting for you for five thousand long years.”

II

The darkness squeezed tighter around D and the voice.

“What’d he come here for?” asked the hoarse voice.

The Nobleman replied, “That I don’t know. It was during my father’s reign, and I was still quite young. One day—as I recall, it was dark night, without a star in the sky and clouds piled all the way down to the horizon—I was in my room listening raptly to a performance by a band my father had summoned from the Capital when my father came in looking enraged and told me to get back in my coffin. Terrified by his demeanor, I went down into the underground crypt with the chamberlain. Though I had no intention of hiding in my coffin, the chamberlain told me to get in with an even sterner expression than my father’s. I had no choice but to comply. Once that lid was shut, I was in my own little world, beyond the reach of all light or sound. However, that night I heard something.”

“And what was that?” asked the hoarse voice.

“My father’s voice, his footsteps, his fear. My father had gone into the most spacious of the living rooms. And, haughty man though he was, he seemed like a trembling bunny fleeing from a beast. After that, something came in. D, that living room is above ground, while I was in a grave nearly two miles beneath the surface. And yet, I sensed it. Something incredibly large. I speak not of physical size alone, but I sensed a being with such a presence the mere act of conversing with him would leave one feeling like they were about to be destroyed—was that the Sacred Ancestor, D?”

Nothing from the Hunter.

“I was ordered to live down in the crypt for the next year. Even now I’m not entirely sure what happened to my father and his retainers during that time. However, he was like an entirely different man, a gloomy, soulless husk, and a year after that he went missing. Even now, he hasn’t returned. On exiting the crypt, my eyes were greeted by a remarkable change. The living room my father had been in with something else had become a much vaster space shrouded in darkness. And four colossal statues towered there. Right here.”

D looked up into the crushing darkness before him. “It doesn’t have a face,” he remarked.

“That is one of the mysteries. All four have heads, but lack faces. Therefore, I knew what they were. They had to be statues of the Sacred Ancestor. The night I left the crypt, I sensed ‘the thought’ for the first time. However, I could make out nothing save the beginning and the very end. And that only after five millennia and bringing all our science to bear on it. Someday, a man called D would come here. All I could do was wait for that eventuality. D, what was it the Sacred Ancestor wished to tell you?”

There was no reply to that. Instead, the Hunter asked, “Where are you?”

“Right here.”

A palpable presence seemed to coalesce about ten yards to his right.

D bounded. Twisting his upper body in midair, he struck with his blade over one shoulder as if returning it to its sheath—and there was no sign of fleeing, just the savage thud of bone being cleaved.

Falling to the floor with a geyser of black blood was the grand duke’s right arm, which had been severed at the shoulder.

“You bastard! Have you no desire to hear the Sacred Ancestor’s ‘thought’?!” the shadowy figure exclaimed in disbelief, he and his voice fading into the distance, but the figure of beauty gave chase.

“D!”

A diagonal slash cut right through the Nobleman’s cry. And his left arm.

In midair, D jerked his blade to the right. Was he preparing to make a thrust? He’d be aiming for the grand duke’s heart.

“Gaaah!”

The cry was a veritable death rattle.

A flash of purple ripped through D. Still poised for a thrust, he fell to the floor.

The grand duke had fled back beyond the light.

“Those are ‘black cosmic rays,’” the hoarse voice said with undisguised astonishment. “A millisecond’s exposure is enough to destroy DNA. They’ll screw up bones and nerves, brains and mind all down to the most basic level!”

Dhampir or not, if D was unable to prevent the mad rush of blood in his veins, it would be a poison that would paralyze him with fatal results. However, his fall became a graceful landing and a second later D went after the grand duke, true to form.

The light faded. Behind the grand duke, a blue cylinder came into view.

“That’s a transport tube! Don’t let ’im get in it!” the hoarse voice exclaimed, its words swinging around in an arc. For the Hunter’s left hand had just hurled a rough wooden needle.

The grand duke reeled backward, but then dashed a few paces and was swallowed up by the cylinder.

The very instant D poised to leap, the cylinder vanished.

“He got away?!” the hoarse voice shouted, but its tone quickly became one of surprise. “We nailed him with that needle. And before that, you put your blade right through his heart. Cut off both his arms, and got in another lick to boot. You of all people. And yet, he managed to get away—so who or what the hell is this joker?”

“We’re going after him.”

“I figured. First things first, though—this was obviously some sort of living room in the castle that was converted into a shrine. Seeing where he used a transport tube to get outta here, I’m thinking it’s been moved somewhere else.”

“Can you get us back?”

“I can try,” the hoarse voice replied with complete confidence.

Taking a small leather pouch and a bundle of red string from his coat, D dumped the contents of the former into the palm of his left hand. Black soil. It was immediately sucked into the palm of his hand. Following that, a tiny mouth appeared in it.

Taking a foot-long section of string from the bundle, D held one end of it between his teeth. It had a silver cap on it. Pulling that off, the Hunter waited a second, and then a blinding light fought back the darkness. The string was made of gunpowder. Pushing it into the mouth on his palm, which sucked it up like a long noodle, D then put his left forefinger against his right wrist. His nail was as sharp as it was elegant. A blur of motion, and blood gushed from his wrist. The tiny mouth gulped down the dripping river of red with the bottomless gluttony of an anaconda. D rolled the ball of that same finger over the wound once, and the bleeding stopped.

“Last one, now. Leave this to me,” his left hand murmured, and then it pursed its lips.

D raised his left hand. The wind howled. With a whoosh the air was being sucked in by those lips.

The elements earth, wind, fire, and water had all been assembled.

“First, we’ve gotta find out just where here is.”

D pressed his left hand against the stone floor. And he kept it there for several seconds.

“I’ll be damned,” the hoarse voice remarked with amazement. “I’d heard that bastard Grand Duke Bergenzy wasn’t just in charge of weapons, but was at the top of the Ministry of Technology, and damned if that ain’t the truth.”

“Where are we?” D asked, and on hearing his left hand’s reply, a coldly murmured “Oh” escaped him.

“There ain’t a thing we can do until we find one of them transport tubes. I think I have it. It’ll be a little bit dangerous, so you think you could feed me again?”

D got a gleam in his eye. He pulled out the leather bag of gunpowder fuses once more.

†

“You think D’s gonna be okay?” Leiden asked Elsa with apprehension, having looked over at the castle—the only building beyond their windows that was lit up.

“The castle hasn’t changed in the least bit,” Elsa said, the resignation deep in her tone. “Think he failed?”

Habaki was sitting across the table from them. The trio was in an abandoned farmhouse they used as their hideout. It had an ample supply of food and weapons.

“It’s a little too early to be jumping to any conclusions,” Habaki told them. “Let’s not write off the greatest Hunter on the Frontier until we’ve laid eyes on the grand duke again.”

And then all three of them sighed deeply, each fueled by their own musings. Start again from scratch. That thought was overlaid with their real misgivings and fears, now sharper than ever. They couldn’t close their eyes to this. And there’d be no backing down.

“The grand duke—you think he knows about us?” asked Elsa.

“Probably. I remember bats flying around over my house. And not just a night or two. I’m talking about for a month straight. It was tough for me to chitchat with my family like nothing was going on!” Habaki said, looking up. Even now, those symbols of the vampire apparently flitted overhead.

“Yeah, lately I’ve got the feeling somebody was prowling around outside my house at night, and it gives me the creeps,” Elsa replied. “My ma feels it too, and it’s made a nervous wreck of her.”

“Damn, we’re in real trouble now. Somebody probably tailed us out there tonight, too!”

Leiden scratched the back of his head, saying, “Screw that. We haven’t even done anything yet.”

“Then let’s get them before they get us.”

“Knock it off, Leiden!” Elsa exclaimed, her body trembling. But just then, she caught the faint but protracted buzz of an indicator.

Habaki boldly strode over to the south wall. An obviously handmade metal box had been set on a three-legged stool. Glancing at the screen, he said, “Got people coming. Eleven of ’em. All in hooded robes. ‘Murder monks’ from the castle. You two better get your combat suits on!”

New life flowed into the rough suits hanging on the wall by the door. Chunky steel fingers took up repeating bows and quivers.

“What the hell?” Leiden exclaimed as he was feeding one arrow at a time into the harmonica-like ammo cartridge.

Ordinarily, they’d pull arrows one at a time from a quiver and load them side by side in the harmonica-shaped cartridge, but Habaki loaded the entire quiver at once.

“Yeah, I forgot to tell you about this baby, didn’t I, Leiden? It’s Cornet’s latest and greatest. Same weight as the old one, but a helluva lot easier to carry.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve got another to spare, do you?”

“Sorry, but they’re handmade. Had him slap this one together as a special rush job.” As Leiden eyed him with envy, Habaki added teasingly, “If you want it all that badly, I’ll swap you, you big baby.”

“Shut up.”

The two of them were right up against the wall by the window. The sounds from the metal box—the radar—were becoming shorter. A sign the enemy was closing.

They stopped.

“Five yards out. They’re hiding between the trees.”

Saying that, Habaki flipped a switch, wrapped the box up in the bag it’d been resting on, and put it into a wooden backpack covered with thin iron plates.

No sooner had he strapped that to his back than Leiden asked him, “What do you suppose they’ll try?”

“If it’s the murder monks, they’ll open with poison gas. Get your masks on,” he told the other two, his hand reaching for a rough-looking item on the table.

Cornet had explained that chemical filters inserted into the part that covered their nose and mouth would absorb poisons. However, they were as yet untested. This would be the trial by fire.

“Here they come!” Elsa cried, and that was followed shortly by the sound of the windows shattering.

A yellow canister rolled across the floor, belching gas of the same hue. It was followed by another canister, and another.

Quickly pulling off his mask, Habaki said, “The bastards are waiting for us to come running out. I think we’ll wait for ’em in here.”

Putting his mask back on, he coughed a little. Apparently he’d inhaled some of it. His lungs burned—but he soon got over it.

“What’s wrong?” Elsa asked, turning toward him.

“I’m fine,” he replied, flashing her the okay sign with one hand.

The world beyond his goggles was already yellow. But still in his twenties, that young man didn’t realize just how cruel that world could be.

III

A minute passed in silence. The yellow canisters had stopped fuming. Now the smoke was just blowing out the windows.

“Our enemies have missed their guess. They’ll be coming in now!” Habaki tried to tell the others through his mask, but he knew it was no use.

The ceiling creaked. All eyes and ears trained on it, the ceiling caved in with a crash.

The yellow-robed figures had long scythes in their hands.

When he was just a little kid, Habaki had seen the body of a decapitated farmer. He’d run afoul of the grand duke, or so the talk went. That was their handiwork, eh? he thought to himself.

One of them was muttering something. The interior of his hood was shrouded in darkness, and crimson eyes glittered there.

“Habaki Mejiba . . . Thou shalt be delivered . . . to the Sacred Ancestor . . .”

The man’s blood froze.

“The hell you will!”

He spun his short spear around. Up until that point, he’d been pretty confident he was quicker.

Not seeming to mind as the spear pierced his chest, the monk swung his scythe.

There wasn’t time enough to dodge it. Habaki blocked the blow with his left arm. A ching! rang out. Thin iron armor covered the man’s left arm from the back of his hand to the elbow.

“Oof!” he grunted.

Dropping his hips ever so slightly and steadying himself, Habaki made a horizontal swipe with the spear in his right hand.

The monk’s body arced across the room to slam against the far wall and drop to the floor—and he immediately got up again. The red sparks blazed once more in his darkened hood.

A hard thunk took his head off. With oily black blood spraying from the wound, his decapitated torso thudded to the floor. There was no time to even thank Leiden, who’d struck him down from behind with a machete, as one murder monk after another dropped from the ceiling.

We will have thy head, Elsa Garry . . .

We will have thy head, Leiden Pomme . . .

These stammered, murmured prayers threw the two of them into mad action.

The repeating bow whined. A piston driven by compressed gas released an arrow a second, and they slammed into the murder monks with deadly accuracy. They struck them right through the heart with an accuracy that seemed like it would last forever.

From behind one stumbling monk another one pounced, swinging down with his scythe as he did so.

“What the hell?!” Leiden exclaimed, blocking it with his bow. Though his weapon was made of wood, key points had been reinforced with iron. It would have no trouble at all stopping the average scythe. This one cut right through it, though.

The blade that’d bisected Leiden’s bow struck his neck and stopped. He had the combat suit to thank for that.

“You sons of bitches!” Leiden growled, kicking off the ground powerfully. Catching one attacker in each arm, he slammed them into the wall, crashing into it himself in the process. He felt their skulls crack, and the murder monks spat up blood.

“There’s no end to them!” Elsa cried as she shot down the foes closing in rapid succession.

Leiden had spun around to go to her aid when three monks with shattered heads attacked him. That hadn’t been enough to kill them.

There was a streak of red light. A beam from Habaki’s ray gun. Their robes transformed into torches, his foes fell one after another.

Though the Nobility and their victims could only be destroyed by a sword or stake through the heart, apparently these monks were a different matter. Flames had begun to spring from some of the figures they’d mowed down.

“It’s working!” Leiden exclaimed, raising a fist.

But just then, Habaki clutched his right hand. His weapon fell to the floor. A robed figure who’d swung a great scythe at him had raised his weapon to strike again. He was less than three feet away. It was a guaranteed hit.

But he slashed through empty air.

Damn it! Leiden thought, the words flashing through his brain faster than they could spill from his lips, and at the same time he drew the machete from his belt and swung it down at the strangely posed foe.

“What the hell?!”

It wasn’t so much that he was thrown off balance, but it felt more like something had pulled his attack off in another direction. His blade, too, sliced only air, leaving the wielder crawling on the floor. Before he could even get up again, cries of surprise from Habaki and Elsa let him know he wasn’t the only victim of this bizarre phenomenon.

Swiftly getting to his feet again, Leiden found that the robed figure from a minute ago had stuck a familiar-looking weapon in his face. Habaki’s ray gun. No doubt he’d picked up the weapon Leiden’s friend had dropped.

Fear crushed the voice from him. Even his vaunted combat suit would be powerless before blistering rays that could melt solid iron. The barrel of the weapon had a steady bead on the left side of Leiden’s chest.

Somewhere, he heard a sound like insects taking wing. The realization that he’d heard the same thing earlier skimmed through Leiden’s mind, and at that very same instant the assassin before him fell flat on his face. At some point, the monk had pressed the weapon in his right hand against his own chest.

Suicide? It can’t be!

This time, Leiden most definitely heard a protracted buzz.

A strange man was standing in the doorway that faced the road. He had metal rings looped over his shoulders. They rotated without touching his clothes—and the sound Leiden heard was that of them moving.

“Figured I’d swing by this way on my way home from a night out drinking—these are ‘murder monks,’ aren’t they? All three of you better stand clear of them.”

The rings stopped turning.

“Now!”

Leiden jumped back. Habaki and Elsa both followed suit.

Great scythes gleamed. Black blood gushed out. It fell like rain on robed figures with blades stuck deep in their neck, who flopped noisily to the floor.

“What the hell is this?! They killed themselves with their own scythes?” Habaki said, staring at the latest intruder. It was a harsh look he gave the man, one most would call a glare. The rings had started moving around him again.

“See, I just went and changed the direction gravity was working on them,” the man sneered. “So no matter where they shot or slashed, they all went off in different directions. Like at themselves, for example. And if that wasn’t enough to stop ’em, I’d have crushed ’em flat.”

Though there was a certain refinement to his features, his laugh seemed more than just wild; it was positively savage. There was no way on earth this was just an ordinary traveler.

Habaki had a pretty good idea who he might be.

“You one of the fellas that came here from the Capital with that scientist?”

“Yeah, along with three others. They picked me up on the way here. Hired me in a village called Grunerhat.”

“Oh, so you’re an anti-Noble warrior.”

The village in question had a training center for anti-Noble warriors.

“More or less. When you come right down to it, I’m closer to you folks than I am to them.”

“Good,” Elsa said, slumping back against the wall. Her combat suit weighed over two hundred pounds. It had a feedback system that allowed the wearer to control it.

“I heard there were some young folks in the village who had some spine. That’s you guys, I take it? But if you’re gonna try and take a bite out of the Nobility, you’d best keep in mind their teeth are a thousand times sharper than yours.”

“We know,” Leiden replied, his tone polite.

“You here to confab about some Noble exterminating? No sudden moves, now.” And saying that, the man raised the liquor bottle he had in one hand and took a swig. Gasping for breath, he wiped his lips and smiled at the trio.

“Will you help us?” Habaki ventured.

“Me? Sorry, but I’m already working for the Professor. Him and you are like fire and water. Forget we ever met, and what I did here today. Otherwise, I’ll have to slit your throats. This job pays damn well, you know, and I’m not about to lose it.”

Elsa stepped forward, saying, “As a warrior in Grunerhat, you must’ve trained long and hard toward slaying Nobles. If it’s money you want, we’ll manage something. Join up with us.”

“Spare me, sister,” the man said, bending backward with laughter. “It’s more money than you could earn in a decade of honest work. You’d better spend a little more time learning just how the world works. Then you can go play at being Hunters.”

The trio fell silent. If not for him, they were the ones who would’ve been slain. That much was certain.

“Well, guess I’ll be on my way. The monks have started to melt and everything.”

The other three surveyed their surroundings. White smoke poured from the robed figures as they and their clothes dissolved into a flesh-colored goo.

“Even their scythes . . .” Elsa murmured.

“Probably all made of the same stuff. Your enemies are a rank or two above you. So run on home and find decent jobs. There’s someone better suited to dealing with the Nobility you can leave this to, am I right?”

“D . . .”

“You got it. I ran into him in front of the castle. He’s not just scary, he’s freaking bottomless. None of us could do anything about it, but he just made the drawbridge come down and rode across it like it was no big deal. I know a couple of Nobility Hunters, but he’s a freak on a whole different level. Chances are—” the man began, his expression making the hearts of the youthful trio beat faster.

“Chances are what?” Elsa asked in a whisper.

“He could be even more of a freak than the Nobles. And I ain’t talking about your ordinary Nobles, either.”

“If you don’t mean ordinary Nobles, then what?” Habaki inquired, swallowing hard.

But the man turned his back to them. “See ya. Next time we meet, we’ll probably be on opposite sides—I hope it doesn’t come to that, though.”

“Wait. At least give us your name,” Elsa said, her voice trailing after him.

“It’s Ringard.”

“I’m Elsa Garry. And that’s Leiden Pomme.”

“I’m Habaki Mejiba. We’re fighting to destroy Grand Duke Bergenzy.”

“Yeah, you’re fighting,” he said in a sarcastic tone, his words hanging for ages in the darkness of the doorway.

Habaki coughed. It sounded terribly painful. And he couldn’t stop.

“Let’s get him to Doc Chavez,” Elsa said, running over and taking him by the shoulder.

Though they had to be dragged out of bed, the village’s sole physician, along with Tabana, his only nurse, quickly made preparations to deal with their patient. Chavez had two sons, neither of whom had followed in his footsteps.

After scanning the man from head to toe with a device that could diagnose ailments on a cellular level, Doc Chavez assured him, “You’ll be fine. You’re coughing from the gas you inhaled, but it’s nothing serious.”

“Do me a favor and spare me your lies.”

“What?!”

“Doc, I’ve known you all my life. Before I had my tonsils out two years ago, I was in here to see you every week. I know you better than you know yourself, Doc.”

Rolling over on the bed, Habaki faced Nurse Tabana, who stood gravely down by his feet.

“Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, you might at that,” the nurse replied, sounding pained.

Rubbing the back of his hoary head, the doctor said, “Okay. The gas turns the nuclei of your cells into those of a dead man. I call it ‘zombification,’ and without a doubt it’s what’s happening here.”

Habaki let his shoulders fall.

The doctor and nurse fell silent. It was said that these were the two most trying professions in the world they lived in. And that was on account of the sheer frequency with which they were left feeling powerless.

However, Habaki soon looked up at them. He did it so quickly, the two of them were left exchanging looks of surprise.

“How long do I have?” he asked.

“I can’t say for sure, but from the rate it’s going, I’d say about a week. It could be a little more or less, depending on how strong you are.”

“How long will I be able to move around?”

“Right up until the moment of your death, I’d say. Actually, you’ll probably die on your feet and be reanimated while you’re walking around.”

“Well, I’ve seen my fair share of zombies. I’ll end up wanting to eat my friends and family, too, won’t I?”

“That might well be, though I suppose that may depend on your strength of will.”

Tabana had to look away.

“How about keeping my wits about me?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem right up until death.”

“I see. Please, don’t say anything about this to my two friends in the waiting room—or anybody else.”

“Understood,” the doctor said with a purposeful nod before continuing, “I do have one request, though.”

“What might that be?”

“Come back here before sundown and let me explain your condition to you in detail. I’d like to read up on how best to treat it. Of course, I’m not forcing you to do it.”

“Okay, Doc. No guarantees, but I’ll try to make it.”

“Much obliged. It would mean a lot to me. Oh, you’ve got to have a glass of this milk. I can’t recommend it enough. Parson’s granddaughter does the milking and selling at her pa’s ranch. It’s divine!”

“No, thanks. Can’t taste anything anymore.”

At a loss for words, the doctor set his hand down on the young man’s shoulder. The palm of his hand felt hot—because the shoulder was cold.

In his heart of hearts, Habaki was crying out for a certain someone.

Hurry up and destroy the grand duke. Do that, and I might not have to go out this way. And wind up a slave to the vampires.