CHAPTER 4

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I

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It was less than an hour after the trouble at the village office that D called on Su-In.

“Under no circumstances are you to leave,” he told her. Su-In could sense that something was wrong, and asked the Hunter repeatedly to tell her what it was. After she mentioned that she’d witnessed the incident at sea, D explained the situation succinctly.

“So, who was the source of that voice?” Su-In asked, her eyes blazing with anger.

“I’m sure he’ll show himself eventually. But for the time being, all you can do is stay right here.”

“Okay. I’ll do as you say. But how is the Noble connected to that thing in the water—you think it’s something like that crab we saw?”

Making no reply, D asked her an odd question instead. “You said warriors had come to your village in the past, didn’t you?”

Nodding, Su-In immediately replied, “Yes.”

“Are you on good terms with the curator of the local museum?”

“Sure. She’s a great person. And she’s always been very good to me and Wu-Lin. In fact, she’s the one who taught me everything I know about teaching school. Have you been to see her?”

“Yes. Yesterday,” D said, gazing steadily at Su-In’s face.

“What for?” she asked, a dubious expression shaking her girlish naiveté.

“At any rate, don’t go outside.” And saying this alone, D left.

After she’d watched the Hunter and his cyborg horse disappear in the distance, Su-In went back to the room and opened her book before she realized something.

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D was in the dark. Perhaps due to some defensive system that still remained operational, a true darkness that not even a single ray of sunlight could pierce lingered above him. He could hear the waves. Coming and going, coming and going . . . He was at Meinster’s castle—at the bottom of that colossal pit. But why had he gone back there?

Not even glancing at the wall of bizarre scientific equipment to one side, D began to walk along the shore. The chamber was vast. Although D could see by the light of a single star at night, even he couldn’t see anything down here. Aside from the sound of the waves and the flow of the air, all he had to rely on were his own hyper-sharp senses as a dhampir. Or perhaps he’d already seen what he was looking for by the light of the illumination cord he’d carried last time.

Walking for another five minutes or so, he finally halted just shy of a stony quay. A square holding area had been carved out of the center of it, and a ten-foot-diameter sphere bobbed there with the breaking waves. A globe of flame spread from D’s right hand. The light gave a pale blue tint to the edges of the sphere, revealing the seat fixed in the center of the craft and the bizarre machinery below. The panels surrounding the seat looked more like elegant cabinets patterned after bird wings than controls. The ring around the back half of the sphere must’ve been a stabilizer to control depth. Since no intake valves were visible, it was clear the craft didn’t use water to submerge or to propel itself. This was one of the submersibles the Nobility had once used to “play” in the sea.

Going over to the quay, D touched the purple crystal that jutted from it. Without a sound, a steel gangway rose from the water, linking the spherical craft to the stone quay where D stood. Just as the sphere was locked in place, there was the sound of its motor turning over, and then part of the craft flipped upward. It was a doorway that allowed the Hunter to board as soon as he crossed the steel walkway.

D settled into the seat. The transparent door shut, and the seat turned forward automatically. Actually, the person seated in it could turn his gaze in any direction he liked and the omnidirectional operational system would follow the movement down to a thousandth of a millimeter. The seat then descended to the most ergonomic position, and the retractable control unit in front of it slid out at an angle adjusted to match that of the seat. A three-dimensional holograph of what appeared to be the submersible and its performance figures took shape in the air above the controls.

Shifting his eyes to the control unit, D inspected an unusual bulbous attachment that wasn’t part of the standard equipment. It was a telepathic amplifier. Aside from the normal controls, this craft could also be operated by the will of its pilot. While it was common knowledge that the Nobility’s superhuman abilities also included various telepathic powers, not even their advanced science had been able to incorporate such mental abilities into a machine. No one had, except for the ruler of this subterranean lair. Had it been Baron Meinster? Or him?

Gazing at the holograph for several seconds, D then threw a switch and shut off the display before turning on the telepathic amplifier. The walkway submerged, and the lines stabilizing the sphere came free. The main generator in the lower portion of the sphere set up a force field in front of the craft, and the sphere began gliding forward through the water with zero resistance. The scene to all sides was projected clearly onto window-like screens.

When the force field was set to the bottom of the sphere, the craft quickly began to dive. The depth reached seventy feet. Though the water was pitch black, the image on the screens was clear as midday. Readings from the craft’s sonar were being enhanced and brightened by computers.

Advancing about seven hundred feet at a speed of roughly sixteen knots, the submersible closed on the black bedrock. There was a huge, perfectly round opening in the center of the floor—it must’ve been more than forty feet in diameter. That was the way out to the sea.

At the right edge of D’s field of view, the depth, strength of the current, speed of the sphere, and other data appeared in rapid succession. The submersible entered a cave, and images in the craft clearly revealed the machinery set in the rocky walls. Wave generators, filtration systems, and saltwater synthesizers—everything one would need to make this subterranean sea as close as possible to the real sea, the crucible of life. Gyohki himself had been born here.

Rock walls that seemed to go on forever on all sides vanished unexpectedly. D was out in an incredibly vast area. He’d entered the sea. D turned the submersible toward where the ships had been attacked.

His foe was in these waters. According to eyewitness accounts, it was probably the same metal monstrosity that’d attacked him by the Nobles’ resort. But what was it? Did D know, or didn’t he? From the look on his handsome face as he watched the screens, there was no way to tell.

In roughly two minutes’ time he reached his destination. The area was packed with schools of fish—it was a sight that’d make any fisherman’s mouth water. The depth was thirteen hundred feet. It was another twenty-three hundred feet to the sea floor. D took her straight down to the bottom.

The comparatively smooth rocks were adorned by multicolored seaweed that swayed like submarine flowers. The riotous mix of hues made it look like a vast ocean garden on his sphere’s screens. No doubt this place had been specially made by the Nobility for their pleasure outings. As proof, skulls could be seen half-hidden among the roots of the seaweed as it rocked with the current—almost as if the human remains feared the Nobility even now.

Colossal bones passed by. No doubt these were the remains of creatures that’d been spawned by the Nobility only to die in struggles against others of their kind.

D switched on the sensors. For three miles in any direction there was nothing save schools of fish. The larger shapes that occasionally appeared in the distance must’ve been giant killer whales.

The submersible continued to the north. Three power boats became visible between the rocks—each of them had its hull torn wide open. Not displaying the faintest interest in the wrecks, D had his submersible continue straight ahead.

The sight that lay before him was chilling. It looked like a vast, deep mortar that stretched on forever. As the slope descended smoothly, even the rocks and seaweed lost their colors, until the entire field of view went white. There was no more unsettling paleness in the world than this—the stark white of bleached bones. Though the conical depression was several miles in diameter, every last inch of it was completely blanketed by human skeletal remains. Surely these must be the remains of victims of a thousand years of the Nobility’s “games” in the water, all swept here by the tides. The vacant sockets of countless scattered skulls were all turned toward D, and their mouths seemed to unanimously chant a curse on their cruel fate.

Following the slope of the depression, D slowly descended in the submersible. Ahead of the craft, the bleached bones were crushed by its force field and eddied all around it. The flesh of any ordinary person would’ve crawled at such a sight. Beneath the skulls that were raining down like balls, a black chasm yawned. The data informed him that its overall length was nearly a mile and a quarter and it was fifty feet across at the widest point. It was almost two miles deep. That was just about the limit of the submersible.

Points of light blinked on the sensor, becoming a three-dimensional image. Something was buried in the mud that lay at the bottom. A box. And it was shaped like a coffin. An abode of the dead, resting on the sea floor two miles underwater? No doubt the person D sought was its inhabitant.

The force field shifted under the sphere. The craft advanced at a speed of twenty-two knots. At the depth of eight thousand feet, the warning light went on. Disregarding it, the Hunter continued to descend.

The force field was positioned almost directly above a point on the sea floor that was slightly depressed. The whitish mud flew up.

At the bottom of the deep blue sea, a coffin rested peacefully. A bit larger than normal, it was ten feet long and seven feet wide. Sensors informed D that there were indications of machinery inside. But none of it was functioning now. Above it and around it, bleached bones that’d been disturbed from their sleep floated down like an unearthly snow.

D activated a remote manipulator that was mentioned in the performance data. A metallic arm stretched from the bottom of the sphere and removed the lid of the coffin. Sensors had already relayed the fact that the lid was made of steel.

Miraculously, the material that lined the box—satin, by the look of it—remained completely unscathed. The machinery that hemmed in an area large enough to protect a single sleeping person consisted of a variety of metabolic regulators and energy transformers. Judging from the propulsion unit nozzle set on the bottom of it, the coffin had most likely been intended as an emergency escape pod. As the situation demanded, the power for life support systems could be drawn from the seawater, and the coffin should’ve been able to protect its sleeping occupant for a millennium or two.

But the sensors provided D with a look at the force that’d rendered all the coffin’s systems inoperable. The thick steel lid and box both had a straight horizontal slash through them right near the center. No doubt the energy that’d split the lid had served the same purpose as that which had given rise to this massive trench at the bottom of the sea.

The gold emblem on the lid consisted simply of the letter “M.” It was Baron Meinster’s.

When summer called, did he slip out of it and swim off to the village? The mud that was raining back down on it now said that no, he did not. Perhaps when he’d fled to the sea, someone had seen to it that tragedy befell him. And it had come more swiftly than anyone could’ve ever imagined.

Saying nothing, D sent the submersible climbing. It exited the chasm. A speck of light flickered on the left side of the display. And as soon as it did, a black form pounced on the craft, and something that looked like a leg impacted the view screen. For a second, the lights went out, and then the warning bell began to wail insanely.

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II

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Just as he crossed the boundary of summer, Dwight turned up the collar on his thermal jacket. It was terribly cold—and although he’d been accustomed to such temperatures until a day earlier, the cold was rapidly killing skin cells that’d just gotten used to warmer weather. About seven hundred feet ahead of him, there was already a string of ice chunks. Something colder than the wind hit his cheek, and at the very same moment his field of view was filled by what looked like a shower of white confetti. Only it wasn’t paper—it was a genuine snowstorm. Ten minutes earlier, the summer sun had been shining down on the village as he pulled away in his power boat, but a mere six miles out to sea he was right smack in the middle of a winter storm.

“That’s a hell of a change,” Dwight grumbled, quickly swinging the bow of his boat around. Although he’d cruised over the line between the seasons while occupied with thoughts of Su-In, he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of plowing straight into the heart of winter to lure the menace out of the sea’s depths.

Hold on, Su-In, he bellowed in his heart of hearts. You’ve got yourself mixed up with sea monsters and dhampirs and all kinds of trouble, but I’m gonna set everything right. First, I’ll take care of the monster and chase the pretty boy off. After that, I’ll get the rest of them to recognize your character and all the good you’ve done. I can even replace the boats that got sunk out of my own savings. I don’t know what the deal is with that friend of yours, but he’s kind of won me over, too. I get the feeling I know how you felt when you hired him. It could be that driving him off is gonna be the most painful part of all.

With darkened eyes that hardly suited such a broad-minded and frank-speaking young man, he gazed toward land.

It was just then that the water splashed off to his right. The loud smack that echoed was the sound of a sizable fish tail hitting the water.

Dwight moved with lightning speed. When he whipped around, he already had his spear gun braced against his shoulder. Although it held six shots, each weighed three times as much as the spears used by the average fisherman. This gun could punch through the skull of a seven-hundred-pound rumble tuna with just one shot. But as a result, the amount of gas pressure required and the weight of the weapon itself were beyond the bounds of common sense.

The sound of the splash faded away. It wasn’t his imagination. And this wasn’t where the schools of fish were. Could it be a lone fish that’d strayed from its school? Or was it something else?

Dwight cut the engine. The wind had gotten fairly strong in the afternoon, and the sea was rough. Miserable conditions for trying to locate fish.

“Come and get me,” the man muttered, licking his lips. The will to fight became an energy that burned in his muscles—there wasn’t an iota of fear in him. He was a fighter to the core. If he hadn’t decided to make fishing his life’s work, he might’ve been a warrior of some distinction out on the Frontier.

On the other hand, the thought of Su-In made his blood hot. They’d known each other since childhood, but in a tiny village like this, the same could be said for everyone around the same age. His memories of good-natured play with her were far outnumbered by instances when they’d squared off. If he hit her once, she’d given him two shots in return. When he’d teased her and said she was fat, she’d called him a Neanderthal and a whale boy. Strangely enough, that was probably what’d fostered his feelings for her. The girl was always looking straight ahead. After her parents died and they’d had the funeral, he couldn’t ever remember hearing her reminisce about them. Su-In was always standing there on her own two thickset legs, solid as a rock. Still, there was a mighty gale blowing. And Dwight figured the time had now come for him to give her some support.

To his rear, there was a splash. Dwight turned around. Ripples were spreading between the crests of the waves.

“You’d better stop fucking with me,” the fisherman spat.

“Hey,” a sober male voice then called out from behind him.

As surprise and fighting spirit filled him, Dwight looked around three times. The well-formed face of a woman rested on top of the starboard gunwale. Her golden hair and alluringly pale skin were both glistening wet. For a second Dwight thought she might be a survivor of some shipwreck, but a certain incident quickly sprang to mind. The night before, his friends and the Vampire Hunter had seen a mermaid from the beach where the Noble had vanished. Was this it?! But the voice he’d just heard was that of a man . . .

“What are you staring at?” lips as red as a sunset clam spat in the same voice as before. “I don’t know what brings you out here, but I’m glad you’re here. I went out for a swim last night, but I’ve grown so weary of the taste of fish. I yearn for human flesh, like long ago.”

Not one to be intimidated, Dwight asked, “You the one that sank those boats?” He quickly added, “Long ago? What the hell are you?!” His right index finger had the trigger of the deadly weapon pulled back as far as it would go.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before, have I?” said the woman, or someone with a woman’s face, at any rate. “Nearly a thousand years ago, I’d drag striplings like you down into the water and devour them. That was always a tasty treat.” Laughing, she added, “I’ve restrained myself the last thirty or forty years, but as soon as I hit the sea here in my hometown, the taste of it came back to me.”

“Save it for someone who cares!” Dwight barked back. “Are you a man or a woman, you bastard? I’m not much for killing women, but based on what you just said and the voice you said it in, I’m not about to stand idly by, either. So, were you the one demanding we give him the bead?”

“The bead?” said the woman with a man’s voice. “You know about that, do you?”

“So, it was you after all! Get ready to meet your maker!”

Compressed air launched the missile at a speed of five hundred feet per second. Though the shot should’ve slain the woman, it only ended up taking off a bit of her golden hair before it sank into the sea, thanks to a big wave that’d hit unexpectedly and thrown Dwight’s aim off.

“Damn it all!” the fisherman shouted as he reached for the starter button on the engine. But at just that moment, the boat rocked violently beneath his feet.

The sky whirled around—or at least it looked that way while Dwight plunged into the blue water with his coat and his gun, sending up a spray. Even as he fell, Dwight kept his eyes open— dragon fish and ryxan sharks usually attacked people the second they went in the water, tearing the flesh right off of them.

The woman’s face was right in front of him, and her deep red mouth snapped open mercilessly. Even when he saw the rows of fangs that lined the crimson maw, Dwight wasn’t surprised. The mouth of an armor shark was fifty times as big, and its jagged teeth were a hundred times the size of hers.

“You just blew it. Coming at me head-on was a big mistake,” Dwight muttered as he shifted the spear gun to his right hand.

Grabbing his shoulders with both hands, the woman went for the base of the man’s neck.

Shoving her head away with his left hand, the fisherman jammed the spear gun against her side. This time he didn’t miss. A projectile that could go through three feet of tidal whale blubber and another eight inches of cranium pierced the soft female flesh, sailing off with a bloody trail to vanish into the depths of the sea.

The woman reeled backward. As she executed a somersault, Dwight launched a third spear at her torso. Her agonized movements twisted her body in ways unimaginable for an ordinary woman, but the third spear hit her just below the waist—right in her scale-covered abdomen—and sank halfway into her before stopping. As she continued to writhe, the woman stared steadily at Dwight. It was a look of such violence, such loathing.

Gripped by an unearthly horror, the normally fearless man of the sea kicked desperately through the water. His head smacked the hull of the boat. His failure to start the engine earlier had proved fortunate.

Tossing the spear gun into the boat, Dwight then climbed in, too. He hastily started the engine. Ahead of him, the deck of the boat burst upward, and a pale hand shot up through the hole along with the water. The hand then vanished. When he finished stopping up the hole with repair putty, another spot on the deck about a foot away was also breached.

Dwight knew he was in trouble. He wouldn’t have enough time to make it back to land. Instead, he turned the bow of his boat toward the ice floes. It was too dangerous to stay out on the sea. He’d have to lure her up out of the water.

Setting the engines to full speed, Dwight headed back up to the bow to get his spear gun. Snowflakes blew against him. He’d just passed over the boundary again.

The surface of the sea swelled ahead of him. And the woman shot up from the water like a flower’s petals bursting open, blood streaming out behind her. She looked positively demonic. Twisting in midair, she began a rapid descent.

Dwight’s right hand still hadn’t reached the spear gun.

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What Su-In had forgotten was her textbooks. Even though she was dealing with children in her class, she still had to prepare the lessons. As soon as she recalled her oversight, it immediately started to drive her crazy.

D had told her everything he knew about the attacks she’d witnessed from the cape. She’d also heard that the major figures in the village had been informed about D’s true nature. Chances were she wasn’t going to be able to stay in the village much longer. But maybe that would be for the best. A northern village like this didn’t have anything that would make her want to stay. And if she’d survived up there, she should be able to make a living anywhere.

D’s elegant good looks filled her mind for a moment. That might be the way to live. Not that she’d be able to go with him, but maybe a life of one journey after another would suit her nicely. Hell, maybe she could go with him after all . . .

Su-In then recalled thinking that she might’ve seen D smile once. If she stayed with him, maybe someday she’d get to see that smile again. But all the woman’s thoughts about that first taste of sweet happiness were consumed then by other tiny faces. Teacher, they were saying, when does school start?

Today, Su-In replied to them in her heart of hearts. She hadn’t told them she was leaving yet. At the very least, she was still their teacher. The thought that she might never again stand at the lectern only served to strengthen her resolve.

“I suppose the least I can do is prepare a lesson for them,” she muttered.

It was two hours after D had left that she headed off to her house. The air had a faint bluish tint to it, and it was brighter than usual. But Su-In was wrapped in a feeling of desolation. Empty for just one day, her home seemed as cold and distant as a stranger’s abode. Wu-Lin and her grandfather were no longer there, after all. Su-In could hear the distant music of the festival as she went into the main house.

The textbooks were on a bookshelf in Su-In’s bedroom, but now that she was here, there were a number of other things she wanted to get as well. Detergent, a spare light, fuel briquettes, another coat . . . She ran all over the house grabbing this and that, and before she knew it, the blue world outside was about to don its darkest shade. Gripped by a fear she couldn’t quite understand, Su-In switched on the living room light and began stuffing her belongings into a bag.

Less than five minutes later she was done. Shutting off the light, she grabbed the door knob. Although she could turn it, the door wouldn’t open.

What the hell?! she thought.

She put all her weight against it, but the door wouldn’t budge an inch. It didn’t feel like someone was pushing against it, or that the door had been locked. The entire door wouldn’t move in the least, as if it’d been glued in place.

Then Su-In remembered a similar incident. Clutching her bag, she ran for the door to the kitchen. But just as she was about to go through it, a figure appeared from the right side to block her way. A gust of awful dread stroked the woman’s plump cheeks.

“You . . . But you’re . . . ,” Su-In stammered, listening coolly to her own dazed words. “Grampa . . .”

“Su-In . . . ,” the old man with the pallid face said, winking at her.

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One blow from the attacker seemed to have blinded the submersible. The light-adjusted screens vanished, and the scene outside the windows was shrouded in a murky darkness. Fortunately, the holographic imaging system hadn’t been damaged, and the Hunter learned quickly enough who his foe was. The three-dimensional image depicted the very same giant crab he’d encountered previously. Clinging to the top of the sphere, it was brandishing its claws.

No matter how resilient the glass of the sphere was, a blow from one of those steel limbs would be dangerous. The giant crab must’ve hidden between the rocks to conceal itself from the submersible’s sensors. No doubt the crab had been closely monitoring D’s movements.

Blows rained down on the craft in rapid succession. Although the sphere’s force field could keep it anchored in one spot, it did nothing to make the craft any more damage-resistant. The lights went out, and a warning lamp came on. Another indicator reported that the generator was about to fail.

D shifted the force field to the top of the sphere. The crab was blown off. Blasted more than thirty feet through the water, the mechanical menace then recomposed itself. Folding all its limbs up, it sped back with incredible velocity. Apparently, the giant crab had highly efficient stabilizers and shock absorbers working on its behalf.

In accordance with the force field setting, the sphere continued to rise as D checked on the damage status of the craft. The Hunter felt a slight shudder. Something was wrong with the submersible’s stabilizers. The force field projector was losing power, and if it failed completely, the craft would be left completely immobilized. But the gravest possible dilemma had also presented itself—the navigational power gauge was dropping by the second. Even before the Hunter had started this journey, it had been in the caution range. Now the power wouldn’t last another five minutes.

D switched the force field to autopilot, and the force field then slammed into the middle of the crab at full power. The crab’s legs twisted and its carapace creaked. But that was the extent of it. It was still coming after him.

The submersible didn’t have either the weapons or the energy left for an undersea battle. Then the force field projector stopped. Any further fighting underwater would be impossible now. And the surface was still more than one hundred fifty feet away.

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III

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What wound up making the difference between life and death were the instincts of this seafaring man who’d lived out in the elements for so long. Before Dwight was even aware of it, his right hand had shifted to his belt instead, pulling out his gaff hook and swinging it at the grim reaper above him. The hook weighed nearly five pounds. With a thunk! it sank into the mermaid’s waist.

A scream rang out, and a man’s voice issued from the beautiful woman’s lips. Due to the way Dwight twisted his body, the mermaid’s descent was ruined, and she suddenly slammed down on the bow of the fisherman’s boat. Dwight leapt over by the pilothouse and armed himself with one of the spare harpoons that were stored down on the gunwales.

The amalgam of woman and fish writhed on the deck. Stabbed in its human portion and still pierced by another harpoon in its lower half, it now had a thick gaff hook sunk in its midsection. No sight could’ve been more ghastly. However, even in her death throes, this beautiful woman had a face that was not of this world and eyes that were like nothing human. Her eyes were dyed deep red, and the fresh blood spilling from her mouth stained the fangs she gnashed incessantly. Fish tale squirming all the while, the woman glared at Dwight. That alone was enough to keep this man of the sea from hurling the harpoon he held at the ready.

The woman’s hand seized the harpoon that pierced her waist. Wailing with pain, she tried to pull it free, but the barbs on the tip hooked into her flesh, stopping it. Agony warped her gorgeous countenance. Yet she kept on pulling. Even Dwight could hear the barbs ripping through her skin. With chunks of her own flesh still clinging to the harpoon, the woman threw it into the sea.

She moved to the gaff hook next. The hook came out easily enough. However, the woman didn’t discard it. Clutching the five-pound piece of iron in one hand, she steadily crept toward the fisherman on her belly. With blood seeping from wounds in three separate spots, her whole body was smeared with vermilion. But even redder than that were her eyes, which smoldered with an awful hatred.

“I’m going to eat you . . . slowly,” the mermaid said, her masculine voice choked with pain and curses. “But before I do, I’ll rip you into a million pieces with this hook. Oh, how you’re going to scream for me . . .”

“That’s what you think,” Dwight barely managed to reply. Despite the fact there was little power behind his words, he added, “Fuck you!” and hurled his harpoon with his remaining strength.

The woman’s hand shot out in a horizontal blow, and there was a dull thud as the warped weapon dropped into the sea.

Covered in a fearful sweat, Dwight’s face was suddenly blasted by snow. The woman was less than three feet from him. And there was still another fifteen feet to the ice floes. A hopeless distance.

Grinning, the woman bared her fangs.

Suddenly, the center of gravity shifted. In the sea just three feet off the starboard bow, a colossal sphere had bobbed to the surface, and the water it’d displaced had formed waves that struck the boat broadside. Although Dwight caught hold of the gunwale in an instant, the mermaid who’d been poised to strike was flung into the sea. Streams of blood trailed after her.

Somewhat bewildered as he watched a bloody cloud form in the sea, Dwight then quickly turned and stared at what had surfaced on the opposite side of his boat. Sounding stunned, he called out, “What in the—is that you, D?!”

It was a second later that the Hunter flew from the top of the sphere like a black wind, seeming to spread a pair of wings before landing on the deck of the boat. Not even glancing at Dwight, D gazed instead at the dwindling sphere.

“Hey!” Dwight called out to him, but then the fisherman’s eyes bulged in their sockets. As if to push the spherical craft aside, a number of black, leg-like objects stretched from the sea.

That’s the thing, Dwight realized instantly. That’s what sank the boats and tried to get us to hand over Su-In’s bead.

“We’ll be onto the ice soon,” D said sharply. “Make your preparations to get off. Here it comes.”

“Got you!” Dwight shot back. Though there were a thousand questions he wanted to ask, he forgot them all, for he’d realized that the deadly battle he was involved in was not of this world. And in order to survive, he had no choice but to work with the gorgeous young man before him.

The blizzard erased the bizarre legs and claws. The ice floes were closer now. Skillfully manning the helm, Dwight brought his boat up against a flat section of the ice. D got off, and he followed soon after.

The wind and snow buffeted the fisherman’s cheeks. As he knotted his hood beneath his jaw, he asked, “What are we gonna do?”

“How deep does it run around here?” D inquired. He was referring to the thickness of the ice.

“A good twenty-five feet at least. No monster’s gonna follow us up through that!”

“Yes, it will.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“There wasn’t any need for you to head out to sea, too,” said D.

His softly spoken words irritated Dwight. “No one asked for your opinion,” the fisherman shouted indignantly. “I came out here because it was the only thing I could think of to do. Did you believe I was gonna just sit back and let you grab all the glory around here? If you’re gonna give me a hard time, you can find another ride back to shore.”

“Su-In would be pleased to know what you were doing, I’m sure.”

“What?!” Dwight exclaimed.

“Keep your distance. It’s me this thing is after.”

And saying that, D spun around. Before him lay a desolate field of ice. The expanse was unusually flat.

“Hey! I ran into a weird sort of monster, too,” Dwight called out.

His words stopped D in his tracks.

“A mermaid,” the fisherman added. “She knew about the bead, too. Sure was a hell of a beauty, though it takes more than just looks to make a woman.”

If Dwight could make such an introspective remark while the situation was still far from resolved, he’d already regained his typical boldness.

“I put two harpoons and a gaff hook into her, and it didn’t even faze her,” he continued. “When you popped up, she dropped back into the sea, but I get the feeling she’s still hanging around here, just watching us for an opening. Heaven help me—I finally see why my dad’s afraid of my mom!” Dwight said, though the groaning wind shredded his words.

Hit head-on by a particularly fierce wind, Dwight lost his balance and was driven back a few steps. “God damn it all . . . ,” he snarled, trying to right himself again only to be driven back a few steps more.

It was a split second later that he learned it wasn’t due to the wind.

The ice field between Dwight and D rose, and legs appeared after breaking through what had to be tons of ice. There were two of them, and the ends of the legs were spinning tremendously fast. While it came as little surprise that they couldn’t break through the whole twenty-five feet of ice, the whirring drills worked on boring a larger hole, and surely the whole creature would appear once the remaining ice was thin enough to shatter. The two men would’ve been stunned if that didn’t take at least a few seconds more. Several more legs appeared, clicking as they twisted around to brace themselves firmly on the ice field with their claws. And then a black saucer that looked just like a crab stood before the pair, launching plenty of ice into the air in the process. The semitransparent dome in the middle of the thick body spun around to the front, and just as it halted, it split right down the middle.

An unsightly face quickly looked straight at D, and in an uninflected tone, the kingpin of Cronenberg—Gilligan—asked, “Surprised to see me?”

.

Su-In immediately guessed what was happening. Thanks to the harsh environment that’d raised her, she’d learned not to wallow in sentimentality. There was no way a dead person would be returning to life. Which meant this person before her had to be an impostor.

“Who the hell are you?!” she snapped.

Her grandfather’s face grew distorted at her cry. The eyes, nose, and mouth all collapsed like melting rubber, and then a completely different face formed—a youthful one. Su-In had no way of knowing that face matched a man by the name of Twin.

“You’re not very surprised, are you? What a disappointment,” he said as he stretched his back, and he actually sounded quite crestfallen.

His clothes were still those of the grandfather. Su-In was just thinking how he was the same height and build as the old man when his proportions suddenly became those of a powerful young man. Taking a big step back, Su-In let go of her bag and braced the short spear she’d brought with her from her hideout. Aimed straight at the man’s heart, the weapon didn’t tremble in the least. She evinced the same skill as she did while fishing.

“Now, I’m not sure just what’s going on,” said the woman, “but you’ve gotta be one of the people after the bead—the same bunch that killed my grandfather and my sister. And the nerve of you, disguising yourself as Grampa Han. I’m warning you, I’m not gonna hold anything back!”

“I know, I know. Don’t get so worked up about this,” Twin said in a somber tone. One look at the spear Su-In leveled at him was probably enough to tell him both how skilled and how intent she really was. “I want to make it perfectly clear that I wasn’t the one who killed your sister or your grandfather. Not that I have any problems with killing when I have to. Okay, just skip the pointless resistance and come with me.”

“And what did you plan on doing with me?”

“We’ll take you hostage and call him out,” Twin replied. “The deal is, he gets you back safe and sound in exchange for the bead. That’s the smartest way to play it, you know. The whole reason I stuck around here was to try and steal the bead, and to watch for an opening when I could kill him, but it just wasn’t going to happen. He’s too tough. There’s not much I could do against someone like him all by myself. I even tried interfering when he was throwing down with that sword nut with the weird whistle trick, but it didn’t do any good. Which meant I was left with nothing to do but the plan I just mentioned.”

Twin let the tip of his left index finger slide down the head of the spear as he gazed intently at Su-In.

“Were you the one who tossed the back room, too?” asked the woman. “Just how have you managed to keep following me all this time?”

“I didn’t follow you. See, I was here all along.”

Su-In’s expression shook with astonishment.

“I didn’t disguise myself as your grandfather just now,” said Twin. “They found his body in the sea, right? Well, that was me!”

“Well then—who was the guy D found disguised as my grandfather before?”

“My partner. Actually, to be honest, he’s my brother. We were both born on the same day at the same time, so we don’t know which of us is older. Since he was also posing as your grandfather, no one really suspected me. Of course, that Vampire Hunter had a sneaking suspicion. When he ran me through out in the barn, I was scared out of my wits!”

“If he stabbed you, why didn’t you die?” asked Su-In.

“Because I’d turned myself into a corpse. Sure, you can stab a corpse all you like, but you can’t kill it twice. If someone wants to kill me, they’ll have to do it while I’m alive.”

That must’ve been one of Twin’s special warrior abilities. Transforming himself into a corpse so convincingly that even D couldn’t see through his disguise and being planted in the ground, he’d only gone into action when necessary, then sank back into the soil when he was done. If his comings and goings hadn’t been performed with positively inspired skill, there was no way he could’ve avoided detection by D.

“As I already said, Twin is a duo,” the young man continued. “But aside from the two of us, no one in the world knows that. If it ever got out, we wouldn’t be worth much as enforcers anymore. So, since you know now, I really can’t let you live. Once you’ve served your purpose, I’ll have to get rid of you.”

Twin’s hand reached for the end of the spear.

Su-In jabbed at him with all her might. All her anger over the deaths of her sister and grandfather was behind her thrust. Sliding between the man’s fingers, the steel tip of the weapon struck him square in the heart. Twin’s body shook, and then he seized the head of the weapon and pushed down on it. The business end of the spear was now behaving like a child’s rubber blade, much to Su-In’s surprise.

“See, this is what did it,” Twin said as he spread his other hand for her to see. The semitransparent mucus that seeped out into his palm was the very same substance that’d dulled the edge of D’s blade. “It’s a type of fat our bodies excrete. Not that we can make as much as we like whenever we like or anything, but we have enough to protect ourselves from a sword or a spear, or to keep a window shut. So give up already,” Twin said, but his last words came out in midair.

He probably didn’t even realize what was happening until he’d flown clear across the living room and slammed into the very same door he’d sealed shut. He hadn’t seen Su-In’s skill on the ferry, where she’d dealt with one of Shin’s puppets. But the way he twisted at the last minute and barely escaped hitting the door headfirst must’ve saved at least a bit of his warrior pride.

“Shit . . .”

As he got up from where he’d fallen to the floor with a face stark with anger, the tip of a whistling spear slammed into his throat and, warrior though his was, Twin vomited blood everywhere as he was knocked back against the door. Falling to the ground, his body then moved no more.

Although pain and regret drifted across her face for a brief instant, Su-In quickly regained her normal grit and pulled the short spear out of the man.

“I didn’t want to kill anyone, but that was for Grampa and Wu-Lin. And you would’ve killed me, too. Don’t idle now—move along to the next world. And be sure you don’t wind up a servant of the Nobility.”

Picking up her bag while still clutching the spear, Su-In headed once more for the kitchen door.

“Not yet.”

More than the voice, it was the cool air stroking the back of her neck that had an impact on Su-In, making her turn.

Twin was standing there with his back to the door that led to the living room.

Su-In stammered, “How on earth could you . . .”

“Did you forget already that you can’t kill a corpse? See, right before you stabbed me in the throat, I ‘died.’”

The bag fell from Su-In’s hand. Although she was trying her best to look natural, she had the short spear at the ready in front of her chest. But the instant Twin slid over to her without a sound, Su-In caught an intense blow in the solar plexus that rendered her unconscious.

“I’ve had enough of your screwing around. You wanna see what happens when a woman forgets her place? I’ll slice your nose off to show you a thing or two,” Twin muttered hoarsely, rubbing his throat all the while.

Squatting down by Su-In’s side, he put the blade of his knife to the base of her well-formed nose. Although he had the face of a young man of cultured upbringing, as a warrior he was perfectly comfortable doing things that would make anyone else’s flesh crawl.

Strength surged into Twin’s fingers.

.

“You lopped my head off, but I survived. Oh, how it hurt then. It hurt so badly I wanted to die.”

The snow flew fiercely, and the sound of the wind grew all the more sorrowful. But through the wind and the snow, Gilligan’s bitter tone flowed out like a river of gloom.

“But I persevered,” he said. “I kept going until I could get into this thing. You see, I did my homework for just such an unforeseen event. It didn’t matter that you’d cut my head off—I wasn’t about to just give up and die.”

His sword already drawn, D gazed at Gilligan and at the black machinery that had become his new flesh. Then the Hunter suddenly said, “You’re one of the ‘Blood Seekers,’ aren’t you?”

“Oh, so you’ve heard of us, have you?” Gilligan said, and then he smiled silently. “Vampire Hunter D—you are no ordinary Hunter, nor even an ordinary dhampir. But why don’t we see now which of us is closer to being a true Noble?”

Not responding, D brought his sword up perpendicular to his right shoulder—in the “figure eight” stance.

The Blood Seekers. In this world where the Nobility were the subject of fear and hatred, there was a cult that studied and worshiped their accursed blood—the very thing that made them so dreaded and reviled. All human beings face death one day, and the very thought of that eventuality can’t help but turn a person’s psyche to solid ice. And at that of all times, there’s one thing that some people will unconsciously crave—the secret of the eternal blood of the Nobility.

The fanatics who sought that secret so they might share its power—taking part in all manner of cryptic rituals and even going so far as to let Nobles drink their blood—had been dubbed “Blood Seekers.” To unravel the secrets of that blood, they would travel anywhere imaginable and learn everything they could about the Nobility—in ancient castles in desolate gorges, the sprawling remains of factories on lonely islands far out to sea, massive ruins that towered over the plains, and subterranean palaces where a wealth of information had been secretly cached.

Aside from his role as a kingpin in a Frontier town, Gilligan had another “role,” and as a Blood Seeker, he had undoubtedly studied Noble manuscripts, gotten his hands on their products and mastered their technology, and even used his own body for experiments aimed at approaching the Noble condition. And it had borne results. The fact that D’s blade had taken his head off yet he’d still remained alive was evidence of that. And the fact that he was running around in a piece of machinery incomprehensible to most humans was still further proof, which would mean that the secret of this “bead” he was risking his life to get had to have something to do with that, too . . .

“This time I won’t let my guard down,” Gilligan said with boundless confidence. “I’ve repaired the damage you did, painted on another coat of armor, and improved the engine circuits. It’s twice as hard and twice as fast as last time. But if you’ll tell me where the bead is—or rather, if you’ll hand it over—I’ll make your death a relatively painless one. We’re out on the ice here—but go down forty feet and you’re in the middle of the ocean. Your Noble blood will only work against you there. I, on the other hand, would have no problem.”

The Nobility couldn’t cross running water, nor could they swim. Secure in those ancient and immutable laws, Gilligan must’ve hidden himself deep in the sea and waited for D. When he’d challenged the Hunter on dry land, it’d merely been to get in a little practice with the machine. And he’d also foreseen that if he were to demand the bead, D would be sure to come out there.

“Hey!” the third person shouted, speaking for the first time. Dwight had both hands cupped around his mouth as he continued, shouting, “Just what the hell is this bead we keep hearing about anyway?”

Without even turning toward the other man, Gilligan said, “D, don’t you want to know?”

Naturally, there was no reply. No doubt the only thought burning in D’s brain at that moment was a plan to destroy the murderous black machine. No, that wasn’t right. Beyond life and death, beyond anything and everything in the cosmos, this young man’s thoughts were surely lacquered with a darkness no one in the world could fathom.

The figure of beauty advanced without a sound. When he’d closed to within six feet of the motionless giant crab, his pace remained exactly the same, but a silvery flash raced from sky to earth. It even sliced through the falling snowflakes. Giving off a beautiful sound, the blade rebounded from the giant crab. Dodging the legs that assailed him almost simultaneously with his own blow, D leapt back a good six feet.

“I suppose you see how useless it is now. Maybe you should try the same thing you did last time and drink some of your own blood to bring out your Noble nature, eh? By all means, allow me the pleasure of beating you as you truly are,” said Gilligan. “Now, where is the bead?”

The sound of meshing gears totally shredded the normal sounds of the wind—it was the whine of the machine. Though its movements were less than fluid, it charged straight at D.

The tip of D’s sword came down.

That move sent the crab circling around in the opposite direction. Its top half spun around. The launchers for its murderous wires were now pointed at D.

White smoke rose with a Whoosh! A cloud of loose snow. Although the curtain of white D’s blade had thrown up from the ground was shredded an instant later, by the time its remnants had scattered in the wind, there was no sign of D on the ice field.

The crab was visibly shaken—apparently, it wasn’t equipped with any scanning devices. The pilot’s bubble spun around with dizzying speed, searching for the hidden D. Then it stopped.

The surface of the snow was flecked with red spots. Spaced a few yards apart and continuing across the ice floe toward the center, they were definitely drops of blood.

“You won’t escape me,” Gilligan cried from somewhere within the crab. “So long as you live, my dream will never come to fruition. No matter where you run, I’ll find you and kill you.”

And then the black mechanical monstrosity dashed off, its steps kicking up a cloud of snow that was almost beautiful. Even the great D couldn’t hope to rival the speed of a machine like this.

Less than four hundred feet in, the bloody trail turned left. A snowy hill blocked the crab’s field of view. Falling snow had collected over time on the irregular surface of the ice floes. D must’ve realized he’d be at a disadvantage fighting on the smooth field of ice. The bloodstains continued halfway up a slope of roughly fifty degrees.

Slowly the crab began to climb the frosty incline. Twice the snow gave way, but the machine deftly maintained its balance and climbed about twenty feet up the rise. At the top, there was no sign of D. The crab decided he must’ve concealed himself in the whitened banks. Jets of compressed air squealed in rapid succession, throwing up a cloud of snow. But the only scream was that of the wind.

The crab looked over the edge of the hill—the trail of blood continued there. Taking its own weight into consideration, it proceeded cautiously. If the snow and ice were to give way, it would prove problematic. Proceeding to what it’d apparently judged to be its limit, the machine had just stopped when there was a whirring sound as something wrapped around its leg. It was one of the wires the crab had launched earlier. By the time the machine realized the line had been thrown around it from behind and had turned around, a figure in black had already burst from the snow and had taken to the air like a mystic bird to close the distance between them. Though the machine tried to stop him with its other legs, they wouldn’t move. Actually, a total of four of them had been entangled.

By the time the wire guns started going off, D was already in midair.

The glint of the Hunter’s blade as he brought it down with one hand made Gilligan think of two things inside the machine’s interior. He’ll never break through, he first assured himself. But then he thought, No! Not there!

Yes, there.

D’s blade sank into the machine, and it cracked open. Two days earlier, he’d struck the exact same spot up in the Nobles’ resort. And in just the same manner, flames spouted from the iron crab. The automated repair system was spraying plastic sealant into the gap in an attempt to fill it.

Just as D landed, he brought his sword down on the four legs he’d immobilized. One of them was severed, and the crab’s body tilted crazily to one side. Oil sprayed from the opening, staining the snow an inky black.

A claw attacked the Hunter. Ducking to avoid it, D then severed another of the crab’s limbs.

The weight of the crab that it’d been supporting then shifted. Some of its legs sank into the snow, and beneath them there was an ear-shattering cacophony of destruction. Covered by the white torrents of snow and ice raining back down, the crab took less than two seconds to drive itself into the ground despite the fact that it weighed several tons.

The hem of his coat spreading out behind him like wings, D landed at the base of the mountain of ice that’d formed on the ground.

“What the hell is that thing doing?!” Dwight called out from behind him in a hoarse voice.

His answer came in the form of the engine sounds that started below the shards of ice. The glittering chunks shook, then collapsed without warning. Only the very tip of the pile remained above the surface when it finally stopped.

The crab must’ve dug a hole and escaped—just like it’d done when it’d first appeared from the twenty-five-foot-thick ice.

“Got away, did he?”

Not replying to Dwight’s question, D sheathed his sword and turned to the fisherman. There was no tinge of tension or fear in the Hunter’s handsome features, but Dwight shuddered as the wind-blasted expanse of snow and ice grew ever colder. Perhaps the only thing that was beyond life and death was beauty.

“I’ll take care of him some other time,” D said softly. “Until then, just sit back and keep watching. I think it’ll probably be safe for the next few days, but you should still refrain from fishing.”

“Okay,” said Dwight. “None of this is anything like the sort of stuff that usually happens around here. Everyone’s better off not knowing about it. At least while it’s still summer.”

Snowflakes stuck to the fisherman’s face, then melted. As Dwight wiped them away with one hand, D faced the land. Back there, it was summer.

“It’ll be over soon, won’t it?” Dwight said in a distant tone. His eyes then dropped to D’s left arm, and he remarked, “I just noticed something—what happened to your left hand?”

A GEM STAINED SCARLET