LAND OF THE DEAD

CHAPTER 6

-

I

-

Sparks and electromagnetic waves shooting from the newly cut opening, the machine halted, and, in the very same instant, Lori threw herself on the physician. Rubbing against his body, she crushed out the still-smoldering fire. Giving off only bluish smoke now, Dr. Tsurugi moaned. Above her, the girl sensed someone moving. Lori looked up and moved her lips. Hurry, she mouthed. We have to get him to the nurse quickly!

“I should have a look at him first,” D said slowly, and, helping Lori out of the way, he pulled off the physician’s lab coat.

“I’m fine,” the disheveled Dr. Tsurugi said as he tugged at his own hair. “It’s not a serious burn. I can walk on my own. Kindly leave me be.”

D stood up. Despite the other man’s sharp tone, the Hunter didn’t seem particularly angry. Without giving the physician another glance, he looked at Lori.

An awesome tempest of fear and self-loathing raged in the girl’s eyes. Didn’t even try to help the doctor . . . I just . . . took the gun . . .

“Well done,” D said soberly. Of course, Lori had no idea how close to miraculous it was to hear those words coming from him. “If you hadn’t taken that shot, the machine probably would’ve killed you both. You knew the doctor’s burns weren’t too bad.”

But I . . .

“And when you took the shot, you even put yourself in front of the doctor,” the Hunter continued. “Not many people would’ve done that.”

The girl’s eyes were gleaming. Only after D said those words did she realize just what she’d done.

“Yes, indeed,” the physician said as his hand picked through the miserable remnants of his hair. “If you’d bothered with me, both of us would be checking into the hereafter. I owe you my life. Now, then—lead on. My nurse hasn’t been any use since the magnetic storm. This time it’ll be my turn to get looked at.”

Lori nodded. The girl knew that she was needed now.

Just then, they noticed there was no sign of D. A few minutes later he reappeared from the door to the control room.

“What happened to the sheriff and his men?”

D simply shook his head.

“What the hell was that thing?” the physician muttered, his voice fraught with anger.

In reply, D merely said, “An internal defensive system for the ship, no doubt. It seems to be the only thing moving. The ship’s crew died off three years ago.”

“How do you know that?”

D pulled a yellowed ship’s log from his coat. After the physician had run his eyes over the last page of it, ineffable shades of terror and misery colored his face . . . an expression that didn’t fade for the longest time.

The crew of this pirate ship had grown weary of their aimless voyages. Though they freely sailed the skies, the floating cities and cargo-laden sailing vessels they preyed on were few and far between. What’s more, when the pirate ship finally did get a chance to shine, all her opponents had either mounted heavy firepower or acquired three-dimensional radar and more powerful engines, making fight or flight the only viable solutions. The number of targets a pirate ship could go after had decidedly decreased. Apathy and ennui began to take over the ship, and before long many of the crew took their own lives, while the rest either started killing each other to stave off the boredom or grew sick and died. But the ion engines of the ship itself still ran, and could continue to do so until the end of time. Carrying nothing save a load of corpses, she continued her voyage across the boundless seas of fear.

“And the person who kept this log?”

“He was in his cabin,” D said, “shot through the forehead.”

“In that case, who in the world fired those missiles?”

“The computer must’ve been programmed to do that. Someone told it to go right on plundering even after they were all dead.”

The physician shook his head in disgust. Looking at D, he asked, “And none of this bothers you? There’s carnage all around us, and your expression says you don’t feel a thing. What does it take to break that pretty face of yours? What could make you cry? Or make you laugh?”

“I’ve seen too much,” D said dispassionately.

“Still—” the physician began to say, but then a mysterious light filled his eyes. “Okay, I understand about the missiles. But what about the gangways being sent over after they pulled alongside us? You mean to say that was programmed into their computers as well?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see. But . . . ”

“Let’s go.”

D turned around. As the physician was about to ask him to wait, he heard a low groan beneath his feet. The ship was starting to move. “What in the name of—”

“It’s setting off on another journey. A new voyage of plunder.” D’s voice trailed off into the distance.

The other two went after him. The whole ship was mired in an eeriness that staggered the imagination. Just as the three of them finished crossing the gangway, the pirate ship gradually began pulling away from the town.

“Where do you suppose she’ll go?” asked Dr. Tsurugi.

Lori gazed at D. The same question swam in her innocent eyes.

Both of them had already noticed something—the dark destiny that hung over the pirate ship. Somewhere on it, something still survived: the will of the crew that’d grown tired, killed their compatriots out of that boredom, and ultimately programmed their computer with orders for indiscriminate destruction and marauding before they themselves disappeared. The ship would leave on another voyage. Without a destination, she was steered by a shapeless hand on a horrifying journey of nothing but murder and plunder.

D and his companions watched the ship’s dwindling form for what seemed like ages.

“Mayor’s not around, is he?” D said.

“Probably at home. It’s kind of strange, though. Barring extraordinary circumstances, he’s not really the type to sit on the sidelines in a situation like this . . . ”

“You should send Lori back to the hospital. And don’t forget to take those weapons. You should go back with her.”

The physician scanned the area, a shaken look in his eyes. If a man who didn’t run without good reason had turned tail, there could be only one explanation—something big had happened. Taking Lori by the hand as the girl wondered what was going on, Dr. Tsurugi walked off toward the hospital.

D headed straight for the mayor’s house. Ming’s daughter came out and told the Hunter her father was in the control room. Not even acknowledging the thick, syrupy gaze the young lady kept trained on him, D turned right around.

As the town slid into a calm afternoon, an unnatural atmosphere hung over everything. D alone understood. Only he saw the resemblance between the mood in town and the eerie atmosphere that hung over the pirate vessel.

As he slipped in through the control room door, a shadowy form blocked his field of view. Using just his left hand, D caught the man flying toward him like a rag doll. It was one of the men who worked in the control room. His lower jaw had been completely torn off, and bloodstains covered his chest like an apron. His eyes had rolled up in his head. Fear and massive shock had stopped his heart. It was the work of a monster, something beyond the human ken.

Gently setting the dead man down, D turned his gaze forward to the perpetrator. Weapon in hand, the mayor was frozen in place. In front of him stood another worker. Several corpses lay at the worker’s feet. All of them had bulging eyes, and skin as pale as paraffin. There was no need to see the wound at the base of each neck.

The worker turned toward the Hunter. He was in his forties. According to the list the mayor had given D, his name was Gertz Diason.

“Careful, D! He’s a vampire!” the mayor shouted.

The worker opened his mouth, displaying a pair of stark white fangs. Discarding the bloody lower jaw he had in his hand, he slowly walked toward D. He knew who the real foe was. His feet stopped moving. If the vampire knew who his enemy was, he also knew the extent of his enemy’s power. Fear left a clear taint on his cruel face.

“When did he start acting strangely?” D asked. His tone was so tranquil in the face of this fearsome opponent that it absolutely beggared belief.

“Been like that ever since he got back a little while ago,” the mayor replied. He was also rather composed. And not just because D was there. “About three hours ago, they let him go home for a nap. After he came back to the control room, it seems he attacked the nearest guy. When a second man went down, one of the workers came and got me.”

“Where’s the town going?” D asked, his question on an entirely different track.

The enemy snarled. Whipping up the air, he attacked D. It was an ill-conceived attempt. As he passed D’s shadowy form, it became clear that the Hunter had his longsword in hand. The blade sank deep into the fiend’s chest, and, as the menace dropped, the mayor let his shoulders fall.

“Is this the result of the Knights’ experiments?” D asked softly. “Is this what you wanted to get your hands on? Is this the peace you idealized?”

“Stop it!” the mayor shouted. “The Knights succeeded in their experiments, I tell you. Right in that very house. I knew that much. What they produced was perfect. That’s why I wanted their method! Because my own efforts turned out imperfect.”

“You kept what you’d created alive, and hid it somewhere. Kept the failure your experiments had created, when the Knights had been successful.”

A frightening silence descended. It was D who formed the silence, and D who broke it.

“What did you hope to accomplish by turning the people in your town into vampires? Did you want to make eternal travelers?”

The mayor’s Adam’s apple bobbed wildly.

-

II

-

Before they had made their way back to the hospital, Lori noticed that a ghastly atmosphere had shrouded the town. Someone was watching them, she felt, through the keyhole in a closed door, or through a crack in drawn blinds, or from a back alley entrance. Lori was going to latch onto Dr. Tsurugi’s arm, but then thought better of it. He was the one who was really hurt here. This wasn’t a matter of who was a man and who was a woman. Maybe she couldn’t hear or speak, but the strong still had to take care of the weak. And neither strength nor weakness had anything to do with one’s physical condition.

However, the road carried them back to the hospital without incident. Though the physician called out the nurse’s name, there was no answer. “Looks like she’s gone,” he clucked. Then, flopping down into a rickety chair, he quickly grabbed a memo pad and handed it to Lori. Stay in the hospital. You mustn’t go outside. And don’t forget that shotgun.

Lori wrote a reply: Okay, but you need to be taken care of first. Where’s the medicine?

Stored with the other drugs in the next room. You’ll have to apply it to me.

Nodding, Lori straightened herself up. Her body brimmed with vitality. This was the joy of accomplishment. Leaning her shotgun against the wall, she hurried out of the examination room.

For a hospital that seemed so cramped, the drug storeroom alone was huge. This room held the keys to life for the whole town. Lori knew the name of the medicine she needed—after all, she was the daughter of two chemists. The various medicines were organized according to their usage. The jars she was looking for were stored next to the artificial-skin patches back on the farthest rack, stacked one shelf below the acid. Grabbing two jars and a heap of skin patches, Lori turned.

A woman in white was standing in front of her. It was the nurse. Her eyes were strangely red. Like she was angry.

I’m sorry, Lori mouthed slowly. As a nurse, the other woman would be used to things like that.

The woman’s lips slowly twisted and formed a smile. From the corners of it, fangs peeked out.

Lori froze in her tracks.

The nurse’s thick fingers latched onto the girl’s frail shoulders. Lips that loosed the winds of hell slowly climbed up her throat.

Help me! Lori shouted. But no voice came from her. Of course it wouldn’t. Though the girl struggled with all her might, the vampire’s hands didn’t budge. Help me! Lori screamed, not giving up. Help! Please! Somebody, help me!

They were cries no one could hear. The voice of despair, frail and futile. Lori knew at last she was truly alienated. Left in a world where she sought aid, but no one would come. She was its sole resident. The significance of the sunrise she’d watched with D was swept away with everything else. Fear of the unknown filled the girl’s mind.

When the nurse pressed her lips against the nape of Lori’s neck, the girl reached out with her left hand and grabbed a jar on the shelf above. She smacked it against the woman’s face with all of her might, and the jar shattered. White smoke enveloped the fiend’s hateful visage. The nurse reeled backward. Acid had gone into her eyes.

Knocking the nurse out of the way, Lori ran. A hand as cold as ice caught her ankle. The chill spread throughout her body, and Lori grew stiff. There was a strong tug on her leg. Pulling her back to the fallen fiend. Another pull. Her body slid across the floor. Something heavy clambered onto her back, and Lori tried to give a scream.

No one came. The doors were closed. Something as minor as the sound of a glass jar breaking wouldn’t reach the examination room.

Lori was mired in despair. Then, the pressure of someone sitting on her back suddenly vanished. Something black was oozing through the middle of the door. As the blackness took human shape, Lori looked up at it with teary eyes.

How have you been? a cheerful voice said in her head. Today it sounded terribly bold.

You can understand me, right? You understand what I’m saying, Lori thought back. Please, you’ve got to help me!

Just leave it to me, the voice agreed readily.

The nurse pulled herself up. She burned with a demonic urge to fight this new foe. As she held her hands out in front of her chest, the fingers were spread for clawing. Like an animal the nurse pounced, but the black shadow went right through her. A black semicircle jutted from the white chest of her uniform. The nurse collapsed in a heap.

In no time, the semicircle had vanished. Lori couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of physical properties the weapon must’ve possessed.

How about that? That’s what happens when a monster or two crosses my path. You wanna learn how to do this stuff, too?

I do, Lori thought, wishing it with all her heart. Telepathy—a way to speak without using words. A flying disk that could kill a servant of the bloodsucking Nobility with one blow. Lori had to have these things.

Then we should be able to do something here. I need to ask one favor of you, if that’s okay.

Just name it. I’ll do whatever you want.

Lori’s feverish, trembling thoughts were overlaid with a man’s cold laughter. Well, it’s like this . . .

-

Aspecial kind of death was racing around town. Just now, it’d paid a visit to one house, and, after meeting it for just a few seconds’ time, all five members of the family thudded to the floor. It couldn’t drink their blood, and this displeased it. But it was fated not to drink the blood of its peers. You might say it was performing the same role as a kind of infectious germ.

Emanating from every inch of it were what could be called vampire bacteria. The bacteria entered into the unlucky people through their skin and then moved into their muscle cells, going all the way to the marrow of their bones. And then something else was born. Night’s baleful energy sprang from the marrow of their bones, and their muscles grew ten times stronger. No matter how much damage the skin cells might take, they’d regenerate in a few seconds. Surpassing humanity in every respect, and terrifying them in every respect as well. All because of their lust for blood . . .

Less than five minutes after their visitor had left, the family members awoke. They felt the hunger. And there was another powerful urge as well. They had to make more of their kind. They’d been made to avoid competing with each other.

More of our kind—

Make more of our kind—

And then the family left their home behind, each member off to separately fulfill their common duty.

-

When D came to the hospital looking for Lori, he heard from a deathly pale Dr. Tsurugi how the girl had been attacked by the vampire nurse. The Hunter seemed to have only the slightest interest in the incident. “Was she okay?” he asked.

“More or less,” Dr. Tsurugi replied.

And that was the end of it.

Gripping a memo pad and electromagnetic pen in her delicate hands, Lori wrote, What can I do for you?

D’s well-formed lips began to move. “I want you to go to your old house.”

Why?

“Your parents hid certain chemical and mathematical formulas somewhere in the house before they ran off. If we don’t dispose of them once and for all, there’s likely to be more trouble, and you’ve seen the abominable results of such experiments with your own eyes.”

But I don’t know anything!

“Was there any place in particular in the house where your parents often brought you?”

Yes, there was.

“That’s what I need to know, and that’s why you have to go with me.”

Okay. Putting the pen down, Lori got up.

-

About the town—where do you think it’s headed? Lori asked D as they walked along. Her lips merely shaped the words. She got no answer. Perhaps that was because it didn’t matter.

Suddenly, D said, “Apparently a new destination’s been programmed into the computers. That’s where we’re headed.”

But where is that?

“Given our present course, a place where there’s ruins and graves that belonged to the Nobility.”

Why would we go to such a place?

“We’d have to ask whoever input the heading. Though I have a feeling I might know.”

What do you mean by that?

This time D didn’t answer her. The two of them entered the old Knight house.

“Now, then, if you could show me the place you mentioned,” D said softly.

Lori nodded.

Not surprisingly, the first place they went was the laboratory, someplace that’d been searched thoroughly by both D and the black shadow.

My father was always tapping the top of that desk with his finger. He may have been hiding something.

D reached for the pressure-resistant desk crafted of mahogany. “Where did he hit it?”

Lori pointed at a certain section. Though the surface of the desk seemed perfectly normal, on closer inspection it appeared that just that one spot was a bit more faded than the rest.

D stroked the surface. “How about it?” he asked.

Although Lori couldn’t hear what he’d said, her eyes were riveted to him. There was definitely something rising grotesquely from the palm of his left hand. It resembled a human face. Lori watched silently as its lips moved.

“Hmm. The surface has been finished with something to bring out the shine. But it’s oddly light in the part she just pointed out. The problem doesn’t seem to be the thickness of the coat, but rather the composition.”

“Is the composition the same?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. Stand back, please.”

Lori backed away, just as she was told. After all, there was something she had to do to the young man.

D’s longsword flashed out. The swipe of his steel was faster than any eye could follow. Cleanly sliced from the desk, the piece of wood in question landed in D’s left hand. “Analyze it,” D commanded.

“Damn, you’re a regular slave driver,” the mouth in his hand remarked with discontent.

D pressed the thin board into the palm of his hand. A second passed, then two, then three.

“Good enough,” a cramped voice said, trickling out between the hand and the board.

D opened his hand. The face on his palm had been reduced to just a pair of lips. A red tongue hung from them. Apparently his left hand had analyzed the material by licking it, as evidenced by the fact the surface of the board was wet.

“The atomic arrangement of each element forms a single letter or digit in the formula. That’s a real good hiding place. If any given element is too thick or too thin, the letter disappears.”

“Yes, it certainly is clever. So—” D began to say, but, as he looked over his shoulder, a pale little hand slammed a wooden wedge into his chest. Staggering back, D thudded to the floor. Surely he never dreamed Lori would reach around from behind him to put a stake in him.

But, in fact, Lori hadn’t driven a stake into him at all.

With the realization that D’s body wasn’t moving in the slightest, the girl’s sweet countenance suddenly crumbled, and an indescribably crude smile surfaced in its place. The voice that came from her was that of a man. “Now that’s the way you do it! That’s one obstacle out of the way, I guess. I bet it never occurred to him I might slip into the little lady he trusted the most. No hard feelings, bucko. Everything in life just boils down to business.”

When the girl smiled broadly once again, her expression was unmistakably that of John M. Brasselli Pluto VIII.

-

The town kept moving. D still lay on the floor with a stake through his heart. The mayor had come and was engaged in an uncharacteristically enthusiastic conversation with Lori, and somewhere in town Pluto VIII’s body wasn’t breathing at all, while his heart alone kept beating. Dr. Tsurugi knew none of this, but mantled as he was in a vague fear, he could do nothing but arm himself with a scalpel and a shotgun.

-

Those scattering the vampire plague were paying quiet calls on the houses in town, while those who had fallen waited impatiently for the sun to go down. And those intently watching the three-dimensional radar in the navigational control room discovered a vast expanse of ruins on the plateau some twenty miles ahead of them—and they were terribly shocked to find there was less than an eight-inch difference between the height of the plateau and their present altitude.

-

Okay, time to come up with a final price. How much are you offering, fancy pants?” Lori asked, her lovely lips twisting into a sneer. Needless to say, the falsetto voice belonged to Pluto VIII. “I’ve got the chemical formula and mathematical equations you need to become a Noble. You’ve gotta be willing to pay handsomely for that.”

“Fine. Fifty million dalas.”

“Don’t make me laugh. We’re not talking about a kid looking for his allowance here. With this, you’ll be able to make people who can go about their lives just as they do now and only have to drink blood once or twice a month—you follow me? Naturally, they’d be able to walk in the light of day. They could fall into water without drowning. And they wouldn’t need to eat. You could blast ’em with a rifle or laser or whatever and the damage still wouldn’t kill ’em. Plus, their personality won’t change at all. There’s nothing but advantages to this, right? You don’t go offering a lousy fifty million dalas for something like that.”

“Make it five hundred million dalas, then,” the mayor said, smiling broadly.

The offer had just grown tenfold, but Pluto VIII shook Lori’s head from side to side. “Five hundred billion dalas—and not a bit less. After all, you’re getting the secret to making supermen. And, as an added bonus, I already borrowed this little lady’s body and got rid of the Vampire Hunter who was holding up the works. So you won’t be getting any further discount from me. Hell, you want me to go tell everyone how you cut my throat wide open while I was in your maid’s body? I hate to break it to you, but I can get into rotting corpses, too. I could work her vocal cords and have her testify if I had to.”

After thinking a bit, the mayor nodded and said, “Okay. It’s all for the good of my town. You’ll get the price you named—five hundred billion dalas. But I’ll need one thing to sweeten the deal.”

“And what would that be?”

“In place of the Vampire Hunter you killed, I’ll need you to take care of the last vampire plaguing us—he’s one of my experiments gone wrong.”

Pluto VIII said nothing.

“The man I let on board two hundred years ago gave me a certain chemical formula and a procedure for making humans into vampires. However, it proved too difficult for me to complete successfully. I had to wait two long centuries for a pair of geniuses like Mr. and Mrs. Knight to be born before my hopes could be realized. But then they ran out on me at the last minute. Didn’t care for my orders that the fruits of their labor only be used on the residents of our town. They wanted to use it for the good of the whole world. The fools,” Mayor Ming spat. “There’s only a small handful of people who actually want to live in peace. Just try giving something like that to the world below. Before you knew it, they’d start murdering each other. Those who were going to live in peace would only wind up courting death. I conducted my own research without their assistance. Though two of my guinea pigs came extremely close to success, it was simply beyond my power to root out the vampire cruelty budding within them. And, unfortunately, both of them escaped. One of them targeted my daughter to exact his revenge, but he was destroyed by the Vampire Hunter. The other one is still active—spreading the vampire bacteria within him everywhere he goes.”

“That’s rich,” Lori—or rather, Pluto VIII—said, clutching her belly as he laughed. “Sounds to me like the situation is proceeding just like you hoped it would. Care to tell me why you want the vamp killed?”

“The cruelty of the Nobility is so great, it drives even them mad. I’m sure you’re aware not only of what their kind did to us, but also how vicious the disputes were that raged between fellow Nobles. I want the life of the Nobility. However, at the same time, that life must be one of eternal peace.”

“You’re a greedy cuss, I’ll grant you.”

“Say what you will. It would be difficult for me to say the present strain of Nobilitation would suffice, no matter what we might try. You’ll have to hurry and dispose of him before he turns every last person in town into an imitation vampire. And if you don’t like that, then the whole deal is off.”

“Okay,” Lori/Pluto VIII said, nodding. “I’ll drop your freak with one shot. Consider it as good as done.”

The intercom buzzed loudly.

“What is it now?” the mayor fairly barked.

“The town is approaching a plateau. Preparations for landing have already begun.”

“Aha,” Pluto VIII said, eyes gleaming. “Then I guess this must be the destination that got fed into your computers. It should be kinda fun to try and figure out why he’d do that.”

“If he input these coordinates, it’s pretty obvious that once we get there he’ll gain some advantage. Hurry up and get rid of him.”

“Understood.” Nodding his agreement, Pluto VIII got up. “You said there’s already been some victims, right? That’s just too damn funny. Let’s hope some of them at least wanted to be vampires . . . ”

-

Leaving the mayor’s home, Pluto VIII felt an unspeakably weird aura envelope his borrowed body. Twilight was approaching. The aura wasn’t particularly concerned with him individually—it filled the very air. A vast number of sources for the unsettling emanations were moving about nearby.

“Well, I’ll be damned. The ol’ mayor sure took his sweet time moving on this, and now it looks like we’re talking about more than half the town—this place is a freaking undead paradise,” Pluto VIII muttered, walking down the street on Lori’s beautiful legs.

A presence soon stirred in his vicinity.

“Came to play, did you?” Pluto VIII muttered, and Lori stopped in her tracks.

In the feeble darkness stood a motionless figure with black gloves on. The weird atmosphere seemed to radiate most strongly from his body.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Pluto VIII laughed. “I don’t know where the hell you’re taking this town or even why, but it’s all over now. I’ll make quick work of you, then get off this ride—once I get what I’ve got coming, of course. The know-how that made you immortal should fetch me a nice price elsewhere, too. It’s too bad you won’t get to see your buddies multiply, but you’ll have to get over that.”

Though it was unclear how exactly Pluto VIII manipulated Lori’s supposedly nonfunctioning vocal chords, he had her talking a blue streak. He then made a broad wave of his right hand in his foe’s direction.

The instant it looked like the flash of black was going to buzz through the foe’s heart, the vampire sailed silently over Pluto VIII’s head. With a speed that staggered the imagination, the vampire launched a kick.

Evading the blow with unbelievable agility for a man in a young lady’s body, Pluto VIII hurled his disk-shaped weapon with a scooping motion. The weapon’s aim was true, and it quickly ripped the vampire open from crotch to chest and showered the road with bright blood.

“Got ’im!” Pluto VIII shouted through the beautiful girl’s face.

It was only a second later that same face froze solid. The darkness behind where the fiend had collapsed had just sent forth a tall youth of unearthly beauty.

“No, not you . . . ” Pluto VIII groaned. “It can’t be . . . I mean, even a dhampir . . . You couldn’t just take a stake through the heart . . . ”

“Too bad.” D’s soft voice ripped Pluto VIII’s heart from his chest. “Tell me what you discussed with the mayor.”

Pluto VIII backed away. Though he was looking for a chance to run, he realized that would be impossible.

“The girl’s parents told you something, didn’t they?” D said, but Pluto VIII couldn’t even tremble at his softly spoken words. “Probably where they hid the procedure and formula they’d perfected for making humans into Nobility. Why would they leave something like that here in town when they ran off? Answer me that.”

“Because they were ready to die.” Perhaps Pluto VIII had reconciled himself to the notion of fighting D, because his voice was incredibly calm. “Think about it. They’d always had an easy life, safe and secure in their little town. What could they do out on the Frontier? Even if they had the tools for it, they still didn’t have the heart. And Mr. and Mrs. Knight knew it. But what the two of them accomplished was just too big for them to throw away. Maybe they wanted to help the future generations or something, but I’m sure the better part of it was due to the lust for fame. And, after some consideration, they couldn’t think of anyplace safer to hide it than this town. Is that a heartbreaking tale or what? Dying like dogs, forgotten out in some far corner of the Frontier after all they did . . . So, you know, I figured I might as well use what they found to earn myself a little coin . . . ”

“Did you kill the Knights?”

“What do you mean . . . ?” Pluto VIII’s eyebrows rose. He looked ablaze with indignation.

Ever serene, D continued, “I don’t think it likely a pair of chemists would fail to notice their trailer’s nuclear reactor was malfunctioning. They went outside and got eaten. Now, no matter how sheltered those scientists might’ve been, there’s no way they wouldn’t have known how dangerous it was to go outside on the Frontier in the dead of night. Unless, of course, you promised them they’d be safe.”

“Hey, wait just a minute there!” Pluto VIII protested, sticking out his right hand to stop that train of thought. “Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I saved the little lady.”

“Yes, because I was there. Molecular intangibility lets you go right through radiation. You couldn’t bring yourself to let the dragons eat her, but figured you could kill her easily enough inside the vehicle—and that’s where you made your mistake.”

“You’re unbelievable. You’re just a walking heap of suspicion.” A smile zipped across the pretty young face Pluto VIII was using. A wicked grin he hadn’t shown before. “Though you’re right about some of that stuff. You know, when I first met you I got a real bad feeling, and it looks like I was right on the money.”

“What was the mayor’s aim?” D said, as if he hadn’t heard a word of Pluto VIII’s chilling admission. “To turn all the townspeople into Nobility—into vampires?”

For a brief instant, D’s longsword danced out and split the twilight with stark, white flashes. A pair of figures who’d been closing on him from behind silently fell to the ground.

With that momentary weakening of D’s uncanny aura, Pluto VIII was swallowed by the darkness. “It’s too late, D,” he called back. “Too late. These folks have all been infected by the mayor’s failed experiment. And now they’re just gonna keep on multiplying. This town is finished. Well, it’s just what the mayor hoped would happen. Trying to turn human beings into perfect Nobles is just flat-out impossible.”

He was probably right. The visitor two centuries ago, the mayor, the Knights—each of them probably had a dream. The town rode on a dream, was in fact made of dreams. And now the town was waking from that dream. Waking with the worst possible results.

“I didn’t wanna have to throw down with you,” Pluto VIII said, “but there’s no way around it now. Let’s do it. I’ll see you again in hell, fates willing!”

The instant D realized the baneful air directed at him was melting into the darkness, he shut both eyes. His longsword went into action. It had no problem at all slicing the disk blade into pieces that scattered through the air.

D charged. Around him, the wind roared.

There was nothing Lori/Pluto VIII could do. D’s fist sank into the girl’s delicate solar plexus, but it swept right through her body as if her body was mist. Once again, the superhuman ability known as molecular intangibility had come into play. Lori’s body had been transformed into a runny, shifting shadow.

D turned around. Like a tuft of grass fluttering in the breeze, the shadow billowed down the street and faded into the ground without a sound. Not bothering to watch the black tip of its head disappear, D looked instead into the distance, at the vast expanse of sky and earth.

The route some mysterious hand had put the cursed town on carried them now over ruins that stretched as far as the eye could see. Massive stone pillars, canopies, and streets stood naked and dejected in the lights shining from the belly of the flying town. Though it went without saying that all of these ancient constructs were cracked and crumbled and otherwise reduced to terrible rubble by the ravages of wind and time, for some reason this land had an even ghastlier atmosphere. Out on the Frontier, ruins that’d belonged to the Nobility weren’t particularly rare. Nevertheless, this land didn’t stir the deep feelings of loneliness usually associated with such sites. This place suggested only one thing—an unsettling evil. And D alone knew the form that evil would take.

From out of the shadows of meandering rows of stone pillars, shapes stirred as if they’d noticed the coming town—human shapes, moving as if enraged . . . or overjoyed.

“At last . . . we’re here . . . ” said a desperate sigh of a voice that made D turn. It was a dark, blood-spattered figure lying in the road a few yards away. Even after D saw that it was the same unnatural creature Pluto VIII’s disk blade had bisected, his expression never changed.

“So, you were the one guiding the town?” He put the question to the corpse just as he would to any living person.

“That’s right. Everyone in town has what it takes to become one . . . ” he said, his voice weak, his breath ragged. By “one,” he no doubt meant one of his kind. “This is where . . . all the failures meet. Not alive, but . . . unable to die. Cursed with an endless hunger, and a future without dreams . . . no place could be more fitting for the people of this town.”

“Six more hours?” D muttered. That was how long it was until dawn. Such a short time for the tremendously long engagement that was about to begin.

“The failures number over five thousand . . . Will the living prevail, or will death sing its song of victory? No . . . It won’t be either. That’s what makes this the perfect fate.” His final words mixing with laughter and a death rattle, the figure collapsed on the ground once more, never to move again.

Destruction echoed from somewhere in the distance. No doubt the vampirized townsfolk were attacking another house. Even if the law enforcement bureau had gone into action, with things this far along they wouldn’t have been able to handle the situation. Besides, they’d probably already succumbed as well . . .

Glancing briefly down the road—in the direction of the hospital—D set off for the navigational control center. In no time at all he was there. About a dozen workers were thoroughly engrossed in inspecting their weapons. An extraordinary tension filled the room.

On seeing D, the mayor showed more relief than hostility. “I suppose I should thank you for coming,” he said.

“Take a good look down there,” D said softly. “This is the end of the road you started them on. Down there, five thousand things that couldn’t become Nobility are waiting for five hundred living people. They think the residents of your town will make fitting companions.”

“They were failures.” The mayor looked tired. “But we were going to be a perfect new breed of humanity. A creature with the mind and heart of a human and the immortal flesh of a Noble, reveling in an eternal life free from the filth of the mortal world. I may have failed, but the Knights succeeded. And as soon as they did so, they tried to get out of town.”

“The vampire who attacked your daughter was one you made, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right. I made two, and both of them escaped. One of them turned his fangs on my daughter, the other one is spreading his germs all over town now.”

“Half the town’s already been turned into vampires. If you want to hire me to do it, I’ll take care of them.” Despite the present situation, a Hunter was always a Hunter.

“Is this the end of everything, then?” The mayor put both fists to his forehead. And then, looking at D, he smiled with satisfaction. “No, not yet. So long as there are still decent folks in this town, my dream will never die.”

Frigid light filled D’s eyes. If one was mad for having a mad dream, then the mayor was already out of his mind.

Abruptly, the ground tilted forward. Some unsecured machinery crashed against the mayor’s shoulder. No blood came from him, but blue lightning crackled out of the wound. He was a cyborg.

“Touchdown in seven seconds . . . ” a technician clinging to a control panel exclaimed.

The town from the sky was descending to the earth it was never supposed to meet.

“Six seconds . . . ”

In the ruins below, countless things were starting to stir.

They’re here! They’re here! More of our kind have come!

The grating sound of lids being pushed open on coffins of stone, wood, or steel, and the putrid stench. Pale hands protruded from the graves, and crimson eyes gazed out.

“Four seconds . . . ”

As Lori headed for a dilapidated building, Dr. Tsurugi came running up behind her.

“Three seconds . . . ”

The town was silent. As if no one had been there from the very start.

“Two seconds . . . ”

A disk blade gleamed in Lori’s right hand. It was actually a solidified chemical compound that would disappear once it’d served its purpose.

“Zero!”

Before the jolt threw the people into the air, the thunder of the impact shattered the windows of every house. Lori and the physician rolled across the ground. The shock wave became a heavy wind that blasted through the town, knocking houses at an angle and snapping off trees. Half of the townspeople were injured in some way or another. The other half were actually injured as well, but it didn’t bother them.

“Engine nozzles have been damaged.”

“We have cracking in the convection pipes.”

Voices shot back and forth across the control room in confusion.

“How long will it take to input a new course and get airborne again?” the mayor asked.

“Four hours minimum.”

“Do it in two.”

“Roger.”

D ran to the entrance. Warped by the impact, the iron door wouldn’t budge an inch. D hit it with his shoulder. By the time the door hit the ground, sending scraps of metal flying every-where, D’s form was already racing down the darkened streets.

-

With silent footsteps, death’s countless shapes were closing in on the town. Scrawny hands imbued with the strength to snap trees in two reached for the entrance hatch on the bottom of the town’s base. The air outside began to stir with the dim sound of them pounding away at the door with their fists.

“They’re getting in!” a bloodstained controller cried out.

“Relax. Even with the strength of a Noble, they couldn’t break through that hatch,” the mayor said as he smeared repairing compound on his shoulder wound. “We just have to hold out for two hours. Hook some power lines into the outer walls and the barrier. Juice them to a hundred thousand volts.”

“Roger!”

Soon, the whole town was enveloped in pale light. The front rank of vampires reeled backward, smoking and giving off sparks. All of them had their hair standing on end.

“We did it!” one of the operators shouted.

“It’s no use. The voltage is too high,” another worker muttered.

One after another the shadowy figures emerged from the darkness. From behind stone columns and under domes. Out of the very ground. New bodies piled on top of the charred ones. Fire burst from the new ones, too. Planting their feet on the shoulders of the ones below them, they put their hands to the outer wall and began to scale it.

“They should be dead . . . but they’re climbing up it,” someone said.

And to that, someone else replied, “The Nobility are immortal . . . ”

“Raise the voltage!” the mayor ordered. “We’ll burn them down to the marrow of their bones. Deputies and security, head outside and shoot any intruders. We can’t let a single one get on board.”

The light had lost its bluish tint and was now stark white. The figures scaling the outer wall crumbled like clay figures cracked by the hot sun.

“They’re running! We’re saved!” someone shouted jubilantly at the sight of the retreating figures on the control room’s screens.

“Don’t let your guard down. They still have time yet. They’ll be back again for sure. And we can’t count on the barrier. Get outside and start shooting.” As the relief of the present crossed the mayor’s face, so did the fears of the future.

-

Dwas out in the middle of the street. The glow of the barrier had vanished, and, aside from the lingering stench, the town was peaceful and quiet. The people were now either locked in their homes cowering from this new threat or out seeking the blood of others. It seemed the latter had all became one with the darkness while spreading their death.

Figures appeared in front of D, and behind him as well. Crimson eyes filled with an atrocious hunger, they edged closer. It seemed that almost everyone in town had been turned into a fiend. There wasn’t anyone left for him to protect now . . . aside from two people.

Something flew past the Hunter with the speed of a swallow. D knocked several more away with his left hand, and all the rest sank into the chests of the approaching figures.

Cries of pain split the darkness. The missiles were wooden wedges from stake-firing guns. The men from the law enforcement bureau didn’t have time to fire a second volley, as people pounced on them from the roofs of various houses.

D’s longsword flashed out, and several figures who’d been run through the chest fell to the ground. All of them were townspeople.

“Can’t hold them off any longer. Prepare to abandon ship,” D ordered the frightened, faltering lawmen as he lowered his bloody blade.

“We can’t do that. There are tons of them outside. Wherever we go, they’ll kill us. We’ll just have to wait for daybreak,” one of them said in a hollow voice. The only emotion coloring it was a deep shade of despair.

“Then do what you like.” D turned and left without another word.

The town would rot away silently, as if this had all been decided two centuries earlier. For the town’s people, tomorrow would never come.

As D hurried down the street, a pale figure rushed at him from the right side. Without even turning to look that way, D simply swept his right hand horizontally. When the figure fell with fresh blood gushing from its chest, D recognized the face. It was the little girl he’d saved from the colossal birds. The fangs jutting from her mouth slowly vanished.

-

Dwalked on. Before he got to the hospital, he was attacked several times, and each time was but a single exchange. Once he’d killed one, there was no one willing to make a second attack. The unearthly aura around D cowed even the dead.

D came to a halt in front of the hospital. The white building was completely destroyed. If the two of them were still inside, even a miracle wouldn’t be enough to save them. Gazing at the rubble for a while, D turned.

A shadowy figure stood there like darkness congealed. Under either arm he carried a body. Dr. Tsurugi and Lori. “They’re both okay, D,” Pluto VIII said. “But I don’t think you’ll be able to get them safely out of here the way things stand now—plus, we’ve got us a fight to finish!” And, with the last word, he let the two bodies fall to the ground.

D sprang instantaneously.

Pluto VIII’s body transformed into a black stain, and two disks flew from him. There was a silvery flash of light. The disks ricocheted away.

Shrinking and shifting, the black stain returned to the form of Pluto VIII. A dark line ran down his forehead. “Thanks,” he said. “Noticed I didn’t have much time left, did you?”

Bright blood spilled from Pluto VIII’s mouth, but it wasn’t the result of any wound D had dealt him. Just as he/Lori had been about to kill Dr. Tsurugi, the jolt of the town landing had dealt a grievous wound to Pluto VIII’s real body wherever he’d left it sleeping.

“There’s one thing I have to tell you . . . ” Pluto VIII groaned as he slowly sank to his knees. “I took her body against her wishes. Tried swaying her with offers of telepathy—but she fought me to the very end.”

“I know,” D said, nodding. “But I’m sure she was always grateful to you for saving her, too.”

It was unclear whether D actually caught the smile chiseled into Pluto VIII’s face at the moment of death.

D went over to where the two bodies lay. They both had a pulse. More surprisingly, some of their cuts had been crudely bandaged. Pluto VIII must’ve done it. He was a strange man.

Screams rose in the distance. Residents were being attacked by former residents, by neighbors who finally had a goal, thanks to this need to turn everyone into vampires.

D put his right hand on the physician’s brow. His eyes opened immediately. As his dim gaze bounced from left to right, there was a glint of will in his eyes. Staring at D, after a moment he asked, “Did you save us?”

“Not me. Him.”

A sorrowful gaze fell on the lifeless form. “I just can’t figure that . . . ” the physician muttered. “What about the town?”

“This town died a long time ago. Now true death has come for it. But I’ll get you both out of here safely. Rest assured.”

“I give up . . . ” Dr. Tsurugi said. “You’re just too much for me. I finally see why she felt the way she did.”

“What are you talking about?” D asked.

The physician said the name of a village, and D’s expression changed. It was as if he’d just been touched by a gentle breeze in midsummer. Several years earlier, he was in that village, locked in a fierce battle to the death with a vampire to protect a brother and sister who lived on a ranch on the outskirts of the small town.

“Are they both well?”

The physician nodded. “Extremely. The little guy helps his sister out like a grown man, and their ranch is even bigger now. I would’ve loved to stay there doing what I could for the rest of my days, but it seemed she had her heart set on somebody else.” Finishing his inspection of Lori, the physician nodded with satisfaction and straightened himself up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the Hunter asked.

“You don’t know how to work the exits on your own, do you? Let me help you.”

“You’re wounded.”

“I couldn’t win that girl’s heart. At least let me do something that would’ve made her happy.”

D looked straight into the other man’s eyes and saw the perplexing emotions that swam there. “How long did you spend in that village?” he asked.

“Not long. Six months.”

“The two of them were lucky to have you.”

“Thank you.” The physician’s eyes glittered. A look of pride shone in them.

-

The barrier’s voltage is dropping rapidly!”

As if in response to that last cry, shadowy figures that’d been headed away surged toward the town again.

“How goes inputting the course into the computers?” the mayor shouted.

“It’s finished.”

“Take her up then!”

“We don’t have enough thrust, sir!”

“I don’t care. Just do it!”

“Roger.”

As pale figures cleared the outer wall, pouring down like an avalanche, the town escaped the bounds of earth. It bobbed up into the air as if that were its sole purpose. Still, a few shadowy figures came down the inner wall. The last thing they ever saw was a gorgeous young man who gave off the most unearthly air. Running every last intruder through the heart, D lowered his longsword and turned.

The mayor was standing there. “My journey has only just begun,” he said. “As soon as the dawn comes, the vampires will be destroyed. I’m sure the remaining townsfolk and I will somehow manage to keep the town running.”

“This is a dead town,” D said quietly. “Where will you go? And for what purpose?”

The mayor laughed. It sounded ghastly. A figure leapt at him from behind, its fangs bared. The mayor’s fingertips sank into its heart, and the figure fell at his feet. It was Laura.

Off in the distance, the wind howled. The dawn was still far off.

“There’s a plain a dozen miles from here. You and your friends get off there.” The very sound of the mayor’s voice was dark and distant.

-

Saying not a word, the trio watched the departing town. Where would it go? No trace of the formula had been found on Pluto VIII’s body . . . Where could he have hidden it? Would the mayor ever find it again?

D stroked the muzzle of his cyborg horse. It was one of three the mayor had left with them.

“What’ll we do about the girl?” the physician said, believing Lori to still be asleep, but when he looked over his shoulder he found her awake.

Her eyes gazed across the plain at the blue dawn. Her pale finger moved across the sand. The two men read what she’d written. I’ve heard the sound of the wind and the songs of the birds, it said. So, that was the perspective the girl had after seeing life and death up close? As her long hair fluttered in the morning breeze, Lori’s shadow was etched distinctly on the ground.

“A mile and a quarter ahead of us is a town. The two of you should go there together.” Saying that, D got on his steed.

“Where will you go?”

Giving no reply, D advanced on his horse. Mount and rider quickly dwindled as they headed off, bound for the mountain ridges that grew bluer by the minute.

-