CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

—

I

—

It was reminiscent of a crab made of metal—a crab with ten legs and a carapace ten feet wide. Instead of pincers at the end of those legs, it had scythe-like blades and hooked claws. An opaque glass dome bulged from the center of its exterior, and it seemed to be where the operator would sit. Water dripped from its black metallic body, leaving the stairs behind it wet and glistening. Its gill-like openings seemed to be drainage holes, and every time the pair on either side opened and closed, the collected water splashed down against the marble.

When it halted about fifteen feet from him, D asked tersely, “Who are you?”

There was the sound of meshing gears and something rotating. A black leg rose swiftly. It was at least seven feet long, but because the creature kept them curled under itself like a true crab, the height to the top of its dome was a little less than seven feet. Including the end attachments, each leg had four segments.

A streak of black lightning raced through the air. The leg that’d hooked up at D from below ended in a scythe-like blade. D sprang backward, avoiding it. The black leg stretched. As the tip of the scythe appeared to catch D in the abdomen, Su-In gasped.

There was a beautiful ching! and then the scythe went sailing into the air. After D had landed, the savage implement fell on the stairs behind him, sticking into them point-first.

D ran.

There was a hook at the end of the second leg; it curved through the air for D’s right side. Dashing along, D pulled his head alone back to let the weapon pass. With a mechanical clicking of joints, the hook stabbed into D’s face from the opposite side. But it didn’t meet any resistance—D was ducked over. What it’d pierced had merely been an afterimage of him.

The figure in black sprang, gliding like a swallow in flight. As he passed over the giant crab’s head, white flashes of light seared through the air. Needles of rough wood ricocheted from the surface of the glass dome.

As D landed several steps below his foe, his coat tore open without a sound. And not just in one place. The collar, the shoulders, and the back were all rent with long thin slashes shaped like bamboo leaves.

Something sliced through the air, then returned to the open launchers on the carapace of the giant crab. It was only a second later that the gnarled tree trunks to either side of D toppled to a roar of rustling foliage. The stumps were cut so smoothly it seemed like it must’ve been the work of some enchanted blade. Another bole not far off was split halfway through, and from the slice in it something like a thin black string dangled limply. That was the one D had parried with his sword in midair just a split second before landing.

Clearly a complex machine, this giant crab had used powerful compressed gas launchers to unleash dozens of metallic lines at the same time. Roughly three feet long, they had flexible blades so thin they were almost undetectable to the naked eye.

How many people could have avoided dozens of little whips shooting at them at almost four hundred miles per hour—or half the speed of sound? The fact that D hadn’t been mortally wounded was entirely to the credit of his exquisite skill with a sword. However, the foreboding red flowers blooming in confusion at the Hunter’s feet were drops of blood. The flesh was rent in a dozen places on his body. Could he weather a second assault? A single vivid streak of vermilion slid down from his right temple, following the line of his cheek.

Compressors whined within the giant crab’s launchers, and steam billowed from vents on either side of the creature. It came at him again. But suddenly, the giant crab grew scared.

Although it was a machine and it didn’t move an inch, Su-In could tell from behind the big tree that it was frightened. Every fiber of the woman’s being was eerily chilled, and her eyes were drawn to D. What had struck fear into the soulless machine emanated from every inch of him. The trickle of blood from his forehead vanished at the edge of his lips. His eyes were ablaze, burning with the color of a vampire’s gaze.

The next sight left Su-In wondering if this was the work of a dream demon running amuck in a world where time had stopped.

D kicked off the stone steps. Unlike his earlier leap, this time the hem of his coat opened like the ominous wings of some mystic bird as he soared through the air, and Su-In thought she must be hallucinating. As the shadowy figure came down again, there was a flash of white light from him on the way. Soft as the flash was, it had an incredible weight to it, and even after it had sliced deep into the dome on the giant crab’s carapace, the enemy’s weapons still didn’t go into action. The slice went halfway through the shell. Sparks shot out through the gaping wound, and the giant crab disgorged blood that looked like glistening oil.

Three hooks launched a jerky attack on D, but in a heartbeat they were severed at the second joint and clattered against the marble. D pulled his sword to the right.

With the whir of a motor, the giant crab spun itself about. A crack shot around its center, and while the lower half stayed as it was, the top half rotated ninety degrees. That was where the steel wire launchers were located. There was the sound of a discharge, and the black lines shot off into the treetops.

D made a thrust—a thrust of ungodly speed. It met only empty space.

The hulking form of the giant crab had taken to the air with a gust of wind—and it was flying off into a grove, this thanks to the wires it’d wrapped around the distant trees. Branches snapped and were pushed aside, and as they swung back into place to conceal the black saucer, the sound of trees being torn apart could be heard in the distance. And then there was silence.

Su-In remained behind the tree. “D . . . ,” the woman said with concern, though her voice was hoarse. The name came from her unconsciously, and she didn’t even hear herself saying it. She was looking at his eyes. That crimson gaze. The pair of fangs that poked from his lips. Here was a Noble the likes of which she’d never seen before. She was scared. He was positively terrifying. Yet this same person was now drenched in blood from his battle to protect her.

Concerns for his safety and another emotion finally overcame the woman’s otherworldly horror. Su-In came out from behind the tree. At the same time, D gave his longsword a single shake and returned it to the sheath on his back. Black oil dotted the pathway.

“D . . . ,” she said to him, and as she did, D wiped his mouth with his hand. Terror lanced through Su-In once again and she was paralyzed, standing there with one foot on the stone steps.

“Just a moment,” D said in a tone that sounded like he was struggling with agony. But it wasn’t the pain of his wounds. Gradually, bit by bit, the blood light was fading from his eyes. In the time it took Su-In to blink, his fangs had vanished.

Realizing that the atmosphere around her was pure once again, Su-In let the tension ease from her body. Somehow she managed to walk over to him. “D . . . ,” she said, “you’re hurt bad . . . But you were incredible. I—I couldn’t move a muscle,” she stammered.

“The bleeding will stop soon enough,” D said impassively.

“What was that thing?”

“I don’t know. It could be one of the five sent here, or it could be something else. I’ve fought three of them, and you met a woman who’d be the fourth. All of them were alive. But that one was dead.”

“You mean the machine?”

“There was someone inside,” D said, eyeing the grove where the giant crab had disappeared. “Someone who was neither dead nor alive, to be precise.”

“Well then—was it a Noble?”

“No, it wasn’t like them. It wasn’t a dhampir, either.”

“I just don’t know anymore.”

“I’m sure we’ll probably see it again,” D remarked, turning his gaze back to the top of the staircase. As if to say that was all he’d been interested in from the very beginning. “Let’s go.”

The two of them started off again. As they climbed the slope, they saw gardens that were frozen in time. In Su-In’s eyes, the yellowed grass was lush and green, and her ears echoed with the sound of elegant horse-drawn carriages rolling across the marble roads. It was dusk on a perfectly clear day. A trace of blue yet remained in the ink-black sky, and the breeze that blew through the gardens carried tidings of summer life. Like blossoms, women in white dresses snuggled beside men in black capes, and together they walked the stone paths without shadows at their feet.

Closing her eyes, Su-In could smell the perfume of the night-blooming flowers. On the white terrace of an equally white lodge, a songstress with lengthy tresses sang “The Days You Were Gone” to the accompaniment of a piano. In lighted halls silhouettes danced with gentle steps, while those who’d tired of waltzing stepped out onto the terrace to discuss things in the language of the night, knowing nothing of what was spoken during the day.

At one point Su-In noticed that she’d been crying without even knowing it. A hand came to rest gently on her shoulder. Su-In shook her head from side to side. Though she wanted to turn around and cling sobbing to the chest of the young man behind her, she got the feeling that she really shouldn’t. All she could think about was what’d been lost. Her grandfather, her sister, and the Nobility. She would have to live on all alone while conversing with those who decayed. Tomorrow would be another day in this northern village.

Wiping her tears away after a time, Su-In said, “Let’s go.”

Reaching Meinster’s castle in thirty minutes required taking a somewhat dangerous shortcut. Cutting through a garden where grotesque vines wriggled, then crossing over a river on a bridge on the point of collapse, and now taking a path along the edge of the jagged cliff posed no problem for D, of course. Su-In, on the other hand, was astonished that the worst thing that’d happened to her was she was short of breath. Now their eyes were met by the ruins of a stone castle as different from the elegant homes that surrounded it as the heavens were from the earth, and a good deal more unsettling, too. Seen through the narrow slits carved in the outer walls around the grounds, the calm northern sea looked like it’d grown wild, and the clouds that had merely covered the horizon now eddied around the summit of the shattered watchtower.

Su-In softly pulled the collar of her wool coat closed. “It’s so cold,” she said. “I’ve come this way before, and it’s always been like this. That’s why even us locals don’t come out here.”

As D trained his gaze on the massive fissure ahead of them, he said, “Wait here.”

Su-In was speechless. “I didn’t come all the way out here just to play tour guide,” she finally shouted. “Given what I know about the person who used to live here and the fact that you’ve come out here, there’s got to be some connection to the bead. I need to know what it is. My sister and grandfather were both killed—I mean, they both died because of it.”

The woman said nothing more, and D walked away without a word. Su-In went right after him. Slipping through the crack, the two of them halted. Su-In gasped.

Before them lay a tremendous pit. It was as if some colossal landslide had happened right in the middle of the castle, leaving only part of the outer walls standing. Round and covering acres, the maw of the chasm yawned like a black and bottomless abyss. The circumference had to be a few miles. It was immediately apparent that the remaining walls and ceiling maintained a precarious balance. There was a sense of overwhelming destruction, devoid of pity or restraint.

D walked to the brink of the hole, and the hem of his coat danced back up like a butterfly from the wind. Was it blowing straight out of Hell?

“The man in the black cape . . . ,” Su-In muttered in a cramped tone. “But who would go to such lengths to utterly destroy a fiend feared even by his fellow Nobility? There’s not a single trace of anything left. It’s almost as if it couldn’t be allowed to remain here.”

D said simply, “I hear waves.”

Su-In strained her ears, but could hear nothing.

“I’m going down,” D said as he surveyed their surroundings. He’d just been checking whether or not there were any foes around.

“How?” Su-In asked him. “It could be thousands of feet deep for all we know.”

“The sides aren’t cut perfectly smooth,” D said as he peered into the pit below.

“You don’t seriously mean—you’d climb down bare-handed?”

“Wait here.”

Swallowing hard, Su-In donned an expression as grave as anyone on a suicide mission and said, “I’m going.”

“If you fall, I won’t save you.”

“I’ll be okay as long as I’m with you,” she replied, though the words were delivered in a monotone. “Carry me on your back.”

D turned around without a word. More than Su-In’s determination, it may have been the thought of strange creatures attacking her if she were left up there alone that motivated him.

Su-In pressed herself against his powerful back. Even through his heavy coat she could feel his muscles of steel. As she wrapped her legs around his waist, she felt a warm ache deep in her loins.

D bent over—he was at the brink. Lightly they took to the air. As the darkness swallowed her head, Su-In shut her eyes. A second later, she got goose bumps. The wind was hitting her forehead—D was making the descent headfirst. While she wanted to ascertain just how he was doing it, Su-In couldn’t open her eyes. Even if she had opened them, she probably wouldn’t have believed what she saw, and the circumstances were so extraordinary they might’ve left her senseless.

The pit walls that seemed perfectly smooth at first glance actually had irregularities of a fraction of an inch. The tips of D’s long, pale, and even delicate fingers found those crevices, and like a veritable lizard he made his way straight down the rock face. His speed was unbelievable considering that he had about a hundred pounds on his back. Above them—or below them, going by the way their feet were pointed—the hole grew smaller, dwindled to a little white coin, and then could be seen no more. This darkness had to be artificial.

In place of the light was a wind that blew up from below with increased and annoying strength, and Su-In’s ears distinctly caught the sound of breaking waves. The crash of them grew closer and closer, and they were going to hit them any minute—and just as Su-In thought that, her body turned over easily, her hands slipped off the Hunter, and her legs went into the cold water ankle-deep. She was about to latch onto D again without a thought, but then the soft ground that supported her feet kept her from sinking any further.

Su-In opened her eyes. While she was terribly afraid, her curiosity was also quite strong. She couldn’t see anything. There was only darkness and the waves that lapped at her ankles.

With the sound of a striking match, there was light. D had just lit an illumination cord designed for travelers. A quarter-inch thick and based on a blend of magnesium and carbonized zirconium, the cord would light just from friction and could even be used underwater. And if left out in the sun for an hour, the cord could also provide warmth. It was an absolute necessity for anyone on the road.

And the sights that came into view with that dazzling light made Su-In gasp.

—

II

—

Normally inactive even by broad daylight, the main street of the village was now filled with bizarre characters.

With a palette spattered with a dozen colors in his left hand and a brush in his right, the traveling artist rendered scenes of one exotic land after another on an oversized canvas and a portable easel supported by his belt, then tossed the pictures to the children who lined the street.

Turning flips forward and backward, and then leaping seven feet into the air to twist and turn before landing again softly as a bird, the acrobats were greeted with applause from the people.

With a cheap cigar in his mouth, a troubadour in a silk hat and a swallowtail coat played a violin and sang to the echo lizard on his shoulder:

—

A love decided on a summer’s eve is a tragedy,

Like a maiden’s blood, swooning at the beauty of a young Noble, pale and gloomy,

Or the serenade of the darkness played on the winds of the sad highlands . . .

—

Though reciting the same lyrics any street musician would know, he received a shower of coins from every woman from the youngest maids to the old ladies with bent backs.

In addition, there were also vendors of ice cream, snow cones, watermelon, and candy treats, and though they didn’t seem very suitable for the village at present, their expressions brimmed with confidence as they pushed their garishly decorated carts.

Each and every one of them was part of the procession of attractions and hucksters here for the season about to begin in this northern village—that short, week-long summer.

Particularly noticeable in the group was the human pump—who spat out not only flames but water, fog, flowery petals in all the colors of the rainbow, and ultimately little moons and planets—and a little child of about five who rode on a motorized float. Covered with a red sheet, the latter transformed in the blink of an eye into a saber-toothed tiger, a Neanderthal, a fire dragon, and then into a seven-foot-long unicorn the sheet couldn’t possibly have concealed. Wherever these two acts went, they were surrounded by the local children, so it took them nearly ten minutes to move forward even three feet.

All of them were out to stir up as much excitement as possible for the summer festival that would begin with the start of summer the following day, and their tents would be pitched out by a certain temple near the edge of town. Following after the seemingly endless succession of performers, the people moved on, leaving the street filled with cheers and dust. Beginning early in the morning, the procession would continue all day, a cheery and bustling sight welcome anywhere on the Frontier.

The showy performances and promotions went on for some time, but after they had died down, only one strange figure remained: the white-haired and white-bearded old man wrapped in a scarlet cloak faced a collapsible metal easel, seated on a shabby folding stool as he moved his pen across the canvas. Unlike the performers here for the festival, he seemed to be a traveling painter merely out to earn a living, and the reason the crowd around him didn’t disperse even after the gaudy promoters had gone was because it was rare to see such a scholarly tableau in this fishing village, and the pen, canvas, and ink he was using were unlike those any artist who’d ever been here had used in the past.

In place of a brush he used a sharp quill pen, and for a canvas he had some sort of thin hide. Even more surprising was the ink into which he chose to dip his pen. Sticking his pen into a vein in his own left wrist, the old man dabbed it in the blood that poured out before moving it to his canvas. Knitting their brows at first at the sheer weirdness of this, the villagers had only to take one look at the picture he’d apparently been working on for some time when their shock gave way to enchantment. The women in particular stared raptly at that dangerous face.

One cried, “I want it!”

“Let me have that one!” said another.

“How much do you want for it?” asked a third, offering a handful of coins.

The picture was a portrait of a young man—just the face, not a full-length portrait. Yet the women were all clamoring for the same image as if they couldn’t wait for him to finish it, their eyes bloodshot and breath snorting out of their noses.

“You fancy this one, do you?” the old man muttered morosely while etching delicate lines onto the hide with precise movements that seemed unimaginable from his rough-looking hands, where muscles and tendons bulged to the surface. “I can’t say I’m overly fond of it myself, so take it if you wish. Put the money in that bag there.”

Bending toward the leather bag where the clink of coins instantly began, the old man pulled out the wooden box that was next to it, took off the spring lock, and pulled out a bundle of similar canvases.

The women’s eyes were alight like those of savage beasts. All of the parchments in the roll had drawings of the same young man’s face. Hands reached in wildly, and a brief but bitter struggle ensued. Though there were surely more canvases than spectators, all of the artwork was carted off, and perhaps because of this there was cursing and tugging and women shouting at other women to give them their pictures back as they all dispersed.

Once they were gone, the old artist pulled a new canvas from his box, put it on his easel, and began to move his pen across it. Not merely interested in earning a living, he seemed rather to be a lone artist completely driven by an urge to create.

And while the old man hadn’t noticed, off to the east—at the corner of the first side street headed toward Su-In’s house—one woman in a shabby coat had been glaring intently in his direction since just before all the excitement began. Hair disheveled and complexion pale, she looked at first like one of the ubiquitous vagabonds when she was in fact none other than the sole feminine accent in the fiendish quintet—the sorceress Samon. Needless to say, the elderly artist her venomous gaze fell upon in a hair-raising distillation of malice and lust for vengeance was Professor Krolock, while the face on his canvas was that of D.

But what in the world could he be doing here? Why was Samon looking at him with such loathing, as if she knew he was the one to settle with when she didn’t even know what he looked like? And finally, how had this woman who should’ve obeyed the professor’s whispered commands to kill herself returned to the group unharmed? The answer to that riddle would come soon enough.

Folding up his easel and stool, the professor tossed them back into the same wooden box and exclaimed, “My, now! Only two days ago I was destitute. Well, I’ve got enough for the inn and some funds to live on now.”

Apparently he’d disposed of the pictures to raise some money.

“Which way was it to the inn again?” he said to himself.

As the old man walked off in the opposite direction, Samon turned right around and started following after him with a perfectly innocent look on her face.

In a few minutes, he came to a vacant lot with no sign of anyone else around. Quite a way off, a little stone building that was probably a storehouse stood all alone, and the old man circled around behind it.

A knowing smile rose to Samon’s lips. Calmly shutting her eyes, she brought her hands together and interlocked them with only her index fingers extended. A few seconds later, when she came around behind the building, the old artist she pursued was there waiting for her.

Neither of them seemed at all ruffled.

“You knew what I was up to, did you?” Krolock inquired.

“There are no inns out this way,” Samon chided him.

“Ah, you have excellent hearing.”

“Yes, that’s why I heard your voice before. Heard it as you ordered me to my doom.”

“You must be a lucky woman,” said the old man. “But this is more than I can attribute to poor luck on my part. Perhaps my sketch was a tad too rough? No, I’m sure there must be some other reason.”

“That’s none of your business. You’ll die without ever knowing.”

“My name is Professor Krolock. You may take that information to your grave.”

“I’m Samon. And you’ve taken the words right out of my mouth.” Samon’s lips rose in a malevolent bow. All was in readiness for her spell.

The professor formed a little grin in the middle of his white beard. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Would you prefer that I start first?”

The sorceress’ gorgeous mien twisted with distress. In point of fact, her powers should’ve long since taken effect.

Samon’s spell had the power to take the fondest memories a person had and magnify their nostalgic feelings, giving shape to them in a way that would melt a person’s willpower to nothing. What doting parent could look on their beloved child, appearing just as he or she had in life, and not heed whatever request the child might lisp? Even if they had enough reason to realize such a thing was impossible, Samon’s power would drown their thought processes in the sweet nectar of remembrance, guaranteeing their acquiescence.

But she never would’ve dreamt there existed anyone whom this power couldn’t affect.

“How unfortunate,” the professor said as he rubbed at his eyelid with one hand. “You see, I don’t carry around that sort of bothersome baggage.” With a flourish of his arm, a rolled-up parchment appeared from his sleeve. He opened it.

Samon raised her right hand.

“Stop,” the professor commanded, his tone trenchant.

But there was no chance that a woman of fortitude like Samon—a warrior who’d survived countless deadly encounters—would simply surrender. And yet her right hand, which was about to hurl a gleaming black razor disk, stopped in midair, every muscle stiffened.

The professor’s command hadn’t been directed at Samon—at least, not at the real live Samon. The word he’d barked had been directed at the picture on vellum his right hand held open—a precise rendering of Samon’s face.

Sometimes he whispered to it almost like a song. Other times he shouted at it as if enraged. When directed to a peerlessly detailed likeness of a person done in his own blood, his suggestions and instructions would hold the living model for his artwork spellbound.

“I don’t know how you survived last time, but this time you won’t get away. It’s a pity one so beautiful has to die so young, but you’ll simply have to count yourself unfortunate that I’m too old to succumb to such looks. Okay, now you’re going to climb down to the beach . . .”

But just as the professor gave his deadly commands, a silvery flash shot toward his back. Spinning around without a word and backing away a few steps at the white-hot pain of being slashed open with a blade, the professor saw the dashing young man who held a bloody sword. “Why, you’re . . .”

The young man stepped forward calmly.

At the same time the spell that held Samon must have broken, because she shook her head repeatedly and turned toward the professor with curses in her eyes.

The professor’s assessment of the situation was rapid. Without any parting repartee, he grabbed the wooden box by his side and ran for dear life toward the street. Blood gushed from the gash in his back.

“Die already!” Samon groaned, ready to hurl her razor disk when the point of a silvery blade quickly came to rest against the base of her throat.

“What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same,” the temptress said, the corners of her eyes rising angrily.

Turning an icy gaze to her, the handsome swordsman—Glen—said, “You didn’t show up at the time I set. So I went for a stroll and found you in this fine mess. You haven’t forgotten the orders I gave you, have you?”

“I didn’t take any orders—” Samon spat as she averted her gaze. The muscles in her cheeks were trembling. Twitches brought about by humiliation—and fear.

“Do you defy me? Then allow me to refresh your memory. When you were about to throw yourself from the cliff behind the temple, it was I who saved you. And after that I—”

“Don’t speak of that,” Samon said, swinging her right hand.

That same wrist was then caught in a viselike grip, and the woman’s alluring face twisted in pain. The razor disk fell at her feet.

“It would appear that old geezer is the very same person who would’ve had you throw your wretched self from that cliff. In which case, I suppose I should let him get away for being the one who helped bring us together. Besides, you’ve got other work to attend to, wench.”

And then Glen pulled the struggling warrior woman close and pressed his lips to hers so tightly it seemed like he’d rip them right off.

 

III

 

Of course, the incandescent glow didn’t extend far enough to reveal the scenery for miles around them. All Su-In saw were black waves breaking at her feet and something that looked like a beach to her rear. And above that beach loomed part of some colossal mechanism. The entrance to the hole couldn’t be seen at all. But what Su-In thought was that perhaps, contrary to legend, Baron Meinster’s accursed experimentation had continued down here in the bowels of the earth.

Pipes crisscrossed the ceiling, and there were rows of pistons that called to mind steam-driven machinery, twisted cords, and a series of cracked glass tanks that nonetheless remained brimming with some unknown fluid. Even this brief glimpse at no more than a portion of the research facility easily conveyed something about how vast the place as a whole was and how unsettling its purpose had been.

“This stuff belonged to Meinster, didn’t it?”

Not answering Su-In’s question, D looked out over the breaking waves. The light couldn’t reach the far side. But Su-In realized this young man could see things she or other people would never comprehend.

“We’re under the sea,” the Hunter told her. “Well over a mile down. I guess you could say we’re underground, too.”

“But who could’ve . . . Do you mean to tell me Baron Meinster survived?”

There was no reply.

“Or did someone kill Meinster and make it look like everything had been destroyed, but secretly continued the same experiments here deep underground . . . Someone like . . . the man in the black cape? Who on earth was he, anyway?”

D didn’t answer.

Su-In sensed him moving away. For some reason, it seemed like the awesome mystery that hung in this subterranean abyss had congealed into a dark hue that clung to the back of the gorgeous Vampire Hunter.

They took a dozen steps across the sand. Realizing there was no use saying anything more to D, Su-In kept quiet. She was worried about whether or not they could make it back in time for her grandfather’s funeral. They still had two hours, but it would all depend on how long it’d take to climb back out of this hole. Su-In suddenly thought how strange it was she could still worry about such mundane matters.

Relying on the tiny circle of illumination, the pair walked through the laboratory. Startling sights drifted into the light, then faded again. Beastly corpses beyond numbering floated in the tanks. There were severed limbs and trunks that couldn’t be easily classified as either human or animal. But strangest of all was the helix model that spiraled up toward the heavens. The pedestal alone was over six hundred feet in diameter. Although the woman asked D what anyone would ever need one so big for, he naturally failed to reply.

When another tank came into range of the light from D’s hand, Su-In froze in amazement. Suspended there in the clear liquid were the corpses of what could only be wolves and bears and fire dragons. But what frightened Su-In was the fact that their hands or chest or some other part of their flesh looked like it had to be human.

So, this was the result of Meinster’s experiments. Fear and rage filled Su-In’s brain with red. “What was Meinster trying to do? Who took over for him? What did they try to create here? What kind of horrible creature?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Just then, there was a sound of something other than waves out in the subterranean sea. Something had splashed in the water. The realization that they were at the bottom of the sea made the blood drain from Su-In’s body. Could it be him? This was his lair, wasn’t it? Not Meinster, but the “Noble from the Sea,” whose true identity was a mystery to all.

“Stay here,” the Hunter said as he took her hand and put the light in it. The dark figure dwindled in the distance without a sound. Su-In’s stout heart tightened with a kind of fear she’d never felt before.

D stopped at the shore. Even his keen eyes that could see as clearly by the light of a single star as at midday could find no end to the waters. It truly was a sea. What’s more, there must’ve been some need for it down here in the bowels of the earth.

Glub . . . Bubbles rose to the surface roughly forty feet away. Something had let its breath out underwater. The ripples became small waves that reached D’s feet.

About seven feet ahead of where the bubbles had risen, something black came to the surface. A human head. Was it the same person he’d seen in the sea the night before?

Slowly, it rose from the water. With every move, the dripping water splashed from its chest, its hips, its thighs. Stopping fifteen feet away from D, it was a strapping man who was stark naked. He wasn’t the same individual as the other night—that much was immediately evident. He had an elegant look to him, with features reminiscent of the people of the southern sectors and a well-groomed mustache that only strengthened his impact. With the proper wardrobe, he could probably pass for a Noble.

“You must forgive me for my less-than-presentable state,” the man said as he slicked back his hair. “This place brings back so many memories; I simply had to go for a swim.”

“So, the sea brings back memories,” D said softly. It wasn’t a question. Nor was it an opinion he was expressing. “All life came from the sea. That’s why he needed the sea to be here.”

“I suppose that’s the case,” the man conceded as he took a few steps and collected his clothing from the darkness. As he pulled on a pair of trousers, he said, “I take it you’re D.”

“That’s right.”

“So, we meet at last. Allow me to introduce myself. Gyohki is the name. I’m an ally of Shin and Twin, whom you’ve already faced. I see now why the two of them didn’t fare well. You’re like Death on two legs.”

“You were created here, weren’t you?” said the Hunter.

“Precisely.” Pulling on a wool shirt, Gyohki wrung the water from his hair with both hands. “You see,” he continued, “I’m one of Baron Meinster’s precious children . . . although I ultimately ran away.”

If this was the case, it meant that this man had lived for more than a thousand years.

Peering fixedly into the darkness, he said, “I take it that’s Miss Su-In behind you. I’m touched she’d go to all the trouble of bringing the bead to me.”

“I’m holding onto the bead,” D said, thrusting out his left hand.

Seeing what rested in the Hunter’s palm, Gyohki nodded. “Very well. I won’t lay a hand on the young lady.”

“I take it you haven’t met up with Egbert or the rest, have you?”

“I’ve been operating independently since yesterday. I’m not in the same hurry the others are, hence the nostalgic dip here in my birthplace. By the way, I don’t suppose you’d simply hand over the bead, would you?”

“My employer wouldn’t like that.”

“Then I suppose this is unavoidable.” Stretching his back, Gyohki then rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder. The bones in his neck cracked loudly. “Ah, I’m getting old,” he said with a grin that would’ve left the female of any species in a daze, but regrettably it had no effect on the Hunter. “Well then—shall we do this?” said Gyohki, his tone intense.

The way both legs were naturally in an open stance and both arms extended before him bore a striking resemblance to how Dwight had looked when he’d challenged D, although this foe differed in that his fingers were open instead of clenched.

The whine of a sword leaving its sheath rose from D’s back.

“I have just one question,” said D.

“And what would that be?”

“Was it Meinster who made you, or was it him?”

As Gyohki exhaled sharply, his leg blasted through the air. The speed of his kick was unbelievable.

Shooting up from below, D’s blade met only thin air. Well, not exactly—the Hunter’s sword was held flat at eye-level, but Gyohki stood on the blade. His weight seemed to have no effect on the weapon at all.

“Well, what are you going to do now?” the grinning Gyohki asked. “Before you can cut me down, you’ll have to knock me off of here first. But all I have to do to take your head clean off is give you a swift kick with one leg. No matter how you look at it, the odds are in my favor. Get the bead out. Do that and I’ll spare your life, at least. Hell, I’ll even bring the little lady back up top.”

D said nothing.

“Such stupidity,” Gyohki said, and with that his leg vanished. Or rather, it rocketed toward D’s temple with such speed that it seemed to disappear.

A scream rang out.