CHAPTER 7

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I

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What the hell?!” Ricardo cried as he jumped aside, but he grinned just as quickly. “Are you scared?” he asked Su-In. “I’m not surprised. But you won’t be for long. Just between you and me, I’ve always sort of had a thing for you. Once you’re one of us, I’ll give you a nice long poke,” the boy said in the tone of a veritable fiend.

However, Ricardo’s last remark brought Su-In back to her senses. His crude suggestion stirred an explosion of womanly ire.

“Who the hell would ever wanna be with you?!” Su-In shouted as her right hand whined through the air. The drug that’d kept her paralyzed had worn off—her fury had swept away the last of its effects.

As a well-practiced punch made his cheekbone creak, Ricardo reeled backward. But that was all it did. In the blink of an eye, his face was right back in the same position, and wearing a smirk. While the servants might not be as powerful as the true Nobility, their musculature still had five times the strength of an ordinary person. Now Ricardo—or Hannah and Clementine, for that matter—could weather a blow from a professional boxer without any problem.

“You bitch!” Ricardo snarled, fangs bared in his evil countenance. But just as he was lunging for Su-In’s throat, he staggered back-ward once again. A gleaming wedge had burst through his chest from behind.

“Oh, my, that was a close one. But now you clowns have to deal with me.”

Ricardo’s blood-spattered eyes reflected the hand crouching on the floor like a pale spider. Beside it ran the dark stain that flowed from Su-In’s lower half. With a low groan, Ricardo fell flat on his face. A knife had gone right through his heart.

“You bastard!”

“You won’t get away with that!” the women cried as they got up.

They leapt toward the hand. Su-In had been entirely forgotten.

Suddenly Clem, who was at the fore, began to glow. Her form was enveloped by pale blue chemical flames. Every bit of color on her was rendered a luminous white, and before the girl could even scream, she fell across the floor as a pile of stark white ash.

Hannah stopped dead in her tracks, and the pale hand raced right between the vampire’s feet.

“We’re getting out of here, Su-In,” said the hand.

“But there’s still one more to deal with.”

“Sorry, I just went through the last of my juice.”

“Oh, you really are completely useless,” said the woman.

The two of them made excellent time as they headed for the door in the far wall. There was another room beyond it.

Her hesitation lasting only seconds, Hannah pursued them at a furious pace.

Turning around just in front of the door, Su-In hurled the knife she’d pulled out of Ricardo’s corpse. The weapon flew fast and hard enough to penetrate the skull of a giant killer whale, but Hannah simply clapped the palms of her hands together to stop it right in front of her face.

“This is not good!” the hand cried at the same moment the door opened.

The two of them made a mad dash into the next room, bolting through it without a backward glance.

“This way!” shouted the woman.

They took a right in the corridor—and it brought them straight to the main entrance. Hearing Hannah’s footsteps behind them, Su-In began to tremble. The front door was falling off its hinges.

They burst outside. Gasping, Su-In halted sharply. Thanks to her incredible momentum, she barely managed to keep herself from falling over.

A pale moon floated in the heavens. It was a crystal-clear summer night.

In a moonlit garden where even the weeds that had grown to their hearts’ content looked gorgeous, there stood two figures. Samon and Glen. Even before it could dawn on her that they were both foes of D and herself, Su-In simply recognized them as fellow humans.

“Help me—the girl behind me is a vampire!” she shouted as she pulled up alongside Glen.

Hannah stood in front of the entrance to the temple. Her pearly fangs gnashed together, thirsting for Su-In’s lifeblood in a way that was more detestable than words could convey. “Out of my way,” she growled. “Let me drink the girl’s blood!”

Looking first at Su-In and then at Hannah, Samon asked, “What should we do?” Naturally, her query was directed at Glen.

Not replying to the question, the seeker of knowledge took a step forward. Free of even the smallest injury, his handsome face was immaculate in the moonlight.

Hannah charged at him.

The flash of white light that shot up from the young man’s waist mowed right through the girl’s neck. It was just like being in town and watching Old Man Krakow expertly take the head off a salmon with one swipe. After the flash had passed through her effortlessly, Hannah ran about ten feet more with black blood spraying from her body—from the headless torso her legs carried.

When the girl’s body fell at length, Su-In finally noticed Glen and Samon’s complexions. “You . . . both of you, too . . . ,” the woman mumbled.

“Stupid children,” Samon said as she coldly surveyed the decapitated remains. “They should’ve restrained themselves until we arrived . . . I suppose you killed the other two, did you? After we went to the trouble of showing them a whole new world.”

Su-In felt like all of the blood had drained from her body.

Sword still lowered, Glen spoke at last, saying, “When you came out . . . you had something odd with you, didn’t you?”

His voice was as hollow as the abyss. It was the voice of the night.

“It’s hidden itself in the grass—what is it, some pet of yours?”

With the two of them staring at her, Su-In couldn’t move a muscle.

“In a manner of speaking,” a hoarse voice replied from somewhere in the bushes. It sounded like it had its cheeks filled with something or other. Though Samon looked all around them, she couldn’t determine where the voice had originated.

Su-In felt an incongruity. While it was the same voice, it was as different in tone from the one she’d heard in the temple as day and night. The words were filled with immeasurable confidence.

“My, my. It seems I vastly underestimated you,” Glen said as he brought his blade up to his lips. “I sense a frightful power in you. If we were to fight now, even the woman might be in jeopardy.”

Samon’s expression changed. She’d just realized she was the one to whom the swordsman was referring.

“As the old me would’ve been,” Glen continued. “But not anymore. The killing lust I get from you feels almost the same—you’re on D’s side, aren’t you?”

“Well, I certainly spend enough time by his side,” the voice responded.

“In that case, give him a message. We’re taking the woman. If he wants her back, he’s to come to Cape Nobility tomorrow just as the sun sets. Until that time, we won’t do anything to her.”

There was a brief silence.

“Understood,” the voice said stoically.

Glen’s sword was tilted against his lips. His tongue was touching the blade, licking the blood that clung to it.

“Come,” he said.

With that one word alone, Su-In followed along after Glen like a marionette when he walked off. Samon was pulling up the rear, and once the three of them had vanished into the far reaches of the temple grounds, a protracted sigh could finally be heard from the grass.

“I’ll be damned if we don’t have one serious pain in the ass to deal with now,” said the hand. “I thought about trying to get the girl back, but that probably would’ve got me killed in the bargain. He could even tell where I was hiding. Before, he wasn’t much of a problem, but I have to wonder if you’ll really be able to take him now, D.”

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It was twenty minutes later that the left hand finally met up with D—beneath the dilapidated main gate to the temple. After the Hunter brought Toto to the hospital, the thief had regained consciousness and told him where he could find Su-In.

“It really was too bad,” the left hand told D, going on to explain everything that had transpired. It was already neatly reattached to the Hunter’s wrist.

“Cape Nobility, eh?” said D. But that was all he had to say.

“It’s finally coming down to that time,” the left hand remarked. “It looks like you would’ve been better off leaving the village when you had the chance earlier. A lot more blood’s gonna be spilled. Are you sure you don’t know what that bead really is?”

D was silent.

“And the Noble—what’s he?” the hand continued. “Then there’s the story we heard at the museum. Are you sure there isn’t a link between him and the warrior we heard stayed at Su-In’s house? I’ve already found one. How are you doing on that?”

Giving no reply, D looked off to the left. The horse and rider were halfway up the side of a hill overlooking the sea. There were no trees. White waves shattered against the jet black world, and the undying roar of the surf sang a paean to the north. Summer had come from out beyond the glittering ice floes, as a Noble in blue raiment. And it held a final paintbrush that was now stained with a vermilion hue. But it would be neither D nor the seeker of knowledge who would wield said brush.

“Why did you come here?” the voice asked. “Was it because of the girl murdered in Gilligan’s basement? Because the last word she said was your name? Oh, you just keep getting softer and softer. Can’t break your promise to the dead? Even though it’s the living who get angry, while the dead never say a thing.”

D remained silent as he gazed out at the sea, as if the movements of his heart that the hand described were something about which he knew nothing at all. Perhaps he’d never have a heart of his own for all eternity.

Presently, the Hunter gave a single kick to his mount’s flanks and raced off on the steep, narrow path up the incline like an ominous black wind.

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Su-In lay on the floor of the mud room. She was in Glen and Samon’s hideout in a shack by the sea. Although she hadn’t been tied up, she didn’t move. If she got the urge, she could’ve stood up or even run. But she wouldn’t get the urge. Desire, aspirations, competitive spirit—all the positive aspects of consciousness seemed to have been drained from her eyes when she met her foes’ gaze.

“Girl, there’s something I’d like to ask you,” the sorceress Samon said after a while. Glen sat to one side of the hut and was seeing to his blade. The warrior woman’s eyes gave off a vermilion glow every bit as evil as Glen’s, and as she gazed at Su-In, she made no attempt to conceal the hunger and greed in her gaze and on her lips.

“What would that be?” Su-In replied, seeming to make an effort to somehow rouse her own will.

“You were under my spell once, back in the sheriff’s office and at the temple gate. When you were, you showed me a certain man. A man you want to see more than anyone in the whole world, someone you simply can’t forget.”

“A man?” Su-In said, knitting her brow. She remembered the incident. But what did this woman mean, it was a man? It was Wu-Lin. Wasn’t it?

Knowing nothing of Su-In’s own doubts, Samon continued, asking, “How does he fit into this? What’s his connection to the Noble who comes from the sea?”

Despite her semiconscious state, Su-In’s whole body tightened with a terrible shock, and it wasn’t simply because of the completely unexpected suggestion that there was some connection between the Noble and herself. But for an instant, she’d caught a glimpse of the answer through countless overlapping layers of gossamer. She’d seen it with a geometrical, geological precision.

“What are you talking about?” asked Su-In.

“Don’t play stupid with me,” Samon snarled, baring her fangs. “He’s the man whose loss you mourn more than anyone or anything else. But why was it him? That’s what I want to know. Answer me.”

Su-In shook her head. “It was Wu-Lin! Wu-Lin!” she insisted.

“Don’t give me any more of that!”

“It’s no lie,” Su-In retorted. “You should stop lying to me.”

Samon’s features twisted into an atrocious expression, but it quickly vanished and the sorceress stared intently into the woman’s eyes. Points of light like rubies drilled through Su-In’s eyes and tried to drain the dregs of her soul through them.

Before two seconds had passed, Samon muttered, “Oh . . . So, you’re under hypnosis, I see. And a very powerful kind at that . . . erasing memories and clearing up feelings of guilt . . . But not perfectly, I’d say. Wait just a moment. I’ll see what I can find now.”

The rubies became flaming crystals. Su-In’s eyes grew more dazed, while Samon’s face glittered with jewel-like beads of sweat.

Several seconds passed—

Closing her eyes, Samon swayed on her feet. Clinging to a pillar strung with nets to steady herself, she rubbed her eyelids with one hand. When her eyes opened again, they were ablaze with the most malicious delight the world had ever seen.

But what did Su-In have locked away in her heart that would please Samon of all people?

“I saw everything,” said the sorceress. “So that’s what happened, is it? Dear me. I can see why you’d want to hide that. And now, I’ll show it to you, too.”

“Don’t!” Su-In cried, frightened without even knowing why. A ghastly fear beyond comprehension was rearing its head from the darkest depths.

“Look into my eyes,” said Samon, holding Su-In by the chin as she brought the woman’s face closer.

“Stop it!” Su-In cried, but her voice faded feebly. Samon’s hands had a grip on her chin, and a blurry white mass immediately began to take shape between them. “Samon of Remembrances”—the name may have had a romantic ring to it, but Su-In was learning now just how terrible the woman’s spell could be.

An outline formed. The eyes took shape. A nose was added. And it wasn’t Wu-Lin. While the face was still far from defined, it clearly was that of a man.

Su-In shut her eyes tightly. But Samon pried the woman’s lids open again.

“Take a good look,” the sorceress told her. “Peer into your own soul. And see exactly what you did.”

There was a powerful tug on Samon’s shoulder. Her surprised gasp brought a disruption to her spell, and the image that’d been formed by Su-In’s heart vanished.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?!” the sorceress cried, her shout of shock and anger being absorbed by Glen’s powerful chest.

“Knock it off,” the swordsman told Samon.

“What’s the matter? I was simply showing the girl her own true nature. Is there some problem with that?”

Glen swung his left arm in a rough arc.

Easily knocked head over heels, Samon hit the wall boards back-first. A wooden box fell from above and landed at her feet.

“Of all the nerve,” Samon snarled. “Have you forgotten who it was that kept you here in this world?”

“Yes, I have,” Glen said, his face completely emotionless. A ghastly aura gusted from every inch of his frame, knocking the wind out of Samon.

“Why, you . . . ,” the sorceress groaned fearfully. She’d just realized the young man she’d risked her life and soul to save had, at some point, become something completely beyond her reach. Fear changing to rage, Samon wore a demonic visage as she crept along the wall and made her way back toward Su-In. “You would defend this woman and treat me this way? That’s unpardonable,” she said. “See how you like it when I do this!”

Samon’s mouth snapped open. Her face twisting with the supple speed of a whip, she drove her pair of fangs toward Su-In’s throat as the woman lay on the floor in a stupor.

A flash of white zipped between the two women.

In a spectacular move, Samon flew through the air, but as she landed again, a blade pressed right against her chest.

“You traitor!” she cried. “You want the woman’s blood . . . You’d have it all for yourself, wouldn’t you?”

Glen responded in a low voice that sounded like he was spitting up his own blood. “I promised I wouldn’t lay a hand on the woman until sunset tomorrow. And having given my word, I intend to keep it.”

“How stupid of you to make such a promise . . .”

“To you it may be stupid, but to me, it’s more important than life itself! You’re not to lay so much as a finger on this woman until tomorrow,” Glen said, and his blade slid forward.

A rich vermilion flower blossomed on the breast of Samon’s blue dress.

“If it’s blood you crave,” the man continued, “you can drink your own. But wait—I have something even better to show you.”

His blade danced through the air, and Samon’s clothes fluttered down to the floor like the wings of a butterfly.

This was how the seeker of knowledge rewarded the woman who’d risked her life and soul for his own sake, a woman whose full bosom was now stained with blood?

As the woman stood stock still, the swordsman pressed his lips fiercely to her throat. A stream of crimson instantly began to spill from the space between her skin and his lips. Samon’s face was pointed skyward, and as her expression changed from one of excruciating pain to extreme pleasure, the woman cradled Glen’s head in her arms.

“I am yours,” she fairly sobbed. “But you are mine, too.”

The face that’d been turned toward the heavens fell against the nape of Glen’s neck. So cruel, yet so erotic.

Su-In lay on the floor, unable to do anything but watch as a man and woman who’d both received the kiss of the Nobility began to feed on each other’s blood.

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II

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Night was over. The sea breeze bore the scent of summer to the northern village and made the white flowers and the green grass glisten. Performers pulled three-eyed monsters and robots out of thin air while the villagers danced an unfamiliar waltz to music that played in a clearing edged by a pond and fields of flora. Although the bodies of the three missing young people had been discovered in the ruined temple on a hill some distance from the village, everyone involved had been gagged by the mayor’s orders. The patrols along the shore had also been increased. Above all else, the one week of summer had to be gently and secretly protected. Children’s pleas to go to Su-In’s school were met with reproach from stern-faced members of the town council, who informed them that Su-In wasn’t a good woman. A better teacher would come to the school, and they no longer needed such a disreputable person.

Just four more days, they all thought. Summer couldn’t be tarnished. For it was a hopeful season brimming with light. However, even this season had its inescapable consequences. The coming of night was still a certainty.

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D opened his eyes.

He was out in Su-In’s barn. Getting up, he went outside and got on Toto’s cyborg horse. There was nothing stilted about his movements. They were as precise as a machine, as beautiful as nature, and as orderly as the universe.

Leaving the road, D turned right. Today, the watch fires flickered on the beach once more. The Noble was almost sure to come. What did he seek? Three years. And this summer, he’d come in search of Su-In. Why in the summer? Perhaps listening to the song of the northern sea had made even the Noble long for the blue season once more.

“Hey there! Hey!” the Hunter heard someone shout in the distance. D stopped his steed.

Dwight was racing toward him on a single-seater hydro-bike. A compact two-wheeled vehicle powered by amplified hydroelectric energy, it was a popular form of transportation in areas near rivers or the sea. Although its top speed was less than thirty miles per hour, it was more than sufficient for traveling short distances.

“Wait up. Where are you going?” the fisherman asked, spinning the handlebars around for no particular reason. “At this hour, would you be going out for Su-In? You’re gonna go rescue her, aren’t you?”

Not addressing Dwight’s question, D asked, “What brings you out here?”

“It’s that goddamn Toto. Sorry, but he ran off on us.”

When the thief was brought to the hospital for the wound to the left side of his chest, Dwight had been there having his own injuries treated, and D had asked the fisherman to keep an eye on Toto’s condition. After the Hunter told Dwight that this man knew about the bead, he’d agreed to do it without any argument.

“I had one of my men keeping an eye on him, but when I heard the way he was tossing around in bed, I went to have a look for myself. Seems he slammed my guy up against the wall at some point and knocked him out cold. Hurt as bad as he is, he couldn’t have got very far, but we checked everywhere and came up empty. He must be tough as hell. Anyhow, I came out to tell you that.”

“Go home,” D told him. “I’ll bring Su-In back.”

Riding alongside the Hunter for a short time on his bike, Dwight then gave a determined nod. “Those sound like words I can put my faith in,” the fisherman said. Then he added, “You better come back alive, too, you hear me? I don’t care if you’ve got Noble blood in you or any of that. So long as you’re still living, something good’s bound to come your way.”

Up until that point, D had been facing straight ahead, but then he turned and gazed quietly at Dwight. “That’s right,” he said. “As long as I’m still living. And Su-In will make it out of this alive, too.”

“I’m counting on you,” Dwight said, extending one hand. But he quickly pulled it back. Even he knew a Hunter didn’t like to use his sword arm for anything else.

Dwight’s vehicle stopped. D alone would go, illuminated by the moonlight.

Turning off the narrow road, the Hunter advanced down a side path leading into the hills until a wide road appeared. Light could be seen leaking out from beneath its dirt covering. It was the Nobles’ road. The soil that covered it must’ve dried out and been worn away over the years, allowing the surface below to peek out.

Continuing down the road for thirty minutes, D came to the resort area. The shadows of the horse and rider fell on the ground. Only the rider’s shadow was faint. Such was the destiny of those of Noble blood.

A black carriage raced by D’s side. By the blue glow of an electric light, men and woman dressed in formal wear laughed and chatted. The lights were on in every house. Fireworks blazed on their front lawns, and pure spring water spread like the wings of birds in marble fountains. Surely there must be a ball tonight. A nocturnal bird with bones of silver and wings of crystal passed over D’s head. Perhaps the letter it carried was a message of love from some gentleman to a lady.

The wind gusted across the street. A shower of white petals blew from the gardens of all the houses, striking D in the face. He caught one in his hand. It was a grimy scrap of wallpaper.

There was no sign of anyone moving on the road. All of the houses lay in utter darkness, and as the wind blew through their weedy, eroded gardens, they joined it in singing a song of abandonment and decay. It was all just a dream.

Silently D advanced down the white path, and before long the sounds of the sea grew closer—he’d arrived at the cape. Off in the darkness, he could see three figures about a hundred feet away.

Massive stone sculptures of people’s faces lined either side of the road. Since these effigies had been coated to resist the elements, they still retained the same color and form that they’d been given thousands of years earlier.

Once D closed to within forty feet of them, he got off his horse. His hair and the hem of his coat fluttered with the sea breeze.

The central figure was Su-In, while Glen was to her right and Samon to her left. The paleness of their skin couldn’t be attributed to the moonlight alone, and from this D could see for himself the true nature of her captors.

Glen opened his mouth and said, “Not at all surprised, are you? Oh, that’s right—your left hand probably told you all about us. But this is the road I’ve chosen in order to beat you.”

Although Samon then shot a quick glance at the swordsman, she said nothing.

Seemingly under a spell, Su-In wore an expression that showed no signs of any will of her own.

“I don’t have the bead,” said D.

“That is of little consequence. I simply want to settle things with you. And this woman no longer has need of it, either,” Glen said, his voice quivering with jubilation.

“Let the girl go.”

“Just as soon as you and I have settled this. Relax. We haven’t laid a finger on her, and we won’t after this is done, either.”

And saying that, Glen suddenly looked up at the sky. The moon was out. It was so perfectly clear, it seemed like it could reflect all the activity taking place on the world below. Glen smiled.

“Lovely moon, isn’t it? It’s a pity we have to fight on a night like this.” With a light shake of his head, he then turned to D again. “But my blood just won’t wait. Even though I’ve been made a servant of the Nobility, my blood alone remains unchanged. What’s more, you can’t very well let me live in my new form.”

“Are you the only one I’ll be facing?” D asked.

Although the Hunter didn’t so much as glance at Samon, her whole body stiffened with fear. D seemed to be saying he’d destroy them both at the same time if necessary.

“No, both of us,” she snarled with bared fangs, but Glen raised a hand to silence her.

“It’ll just be me. There’s not a chance in a million you’ll survive, but should that somehow come to pass, let the woman go on her way.”

“I can’t do that,” D replied.

“I thought you might say that,” Glen said with a smile that was actually rather refreshing. Had this man ever looked up at the moon and smiled in all his life?

Samon, on the other hand, was utterly exasperated. “If you die,” she said, “I’ll fill your heart again with the blood of the girl and the Hunter. I won’t allow you to die and leave me here alone. I’ll bring you back time and again if need be!”

“Let the woman go,” said Glen of all people.

Amazed, Samon was about to say something, but she quickly nodded her consent. Although anyone could plainly see she had something in mind, no one could tell exactly what it was. Su-In was given a shove against her shoulder, and as the woman staggered forward, a flash of white came before her face. Samon’s dagger.

While it wasn’t clear exactly what effect it had on the woman, it was only a second later that intelligence returned to her round face. Shaking her head two or three times, Su-In may have still been under the effects of the hypnotism, because she started to walk toward D without any hesitation.

“Go home,” D said succinctly.

“No,” Su-In replied. “I can’t leave you here all alone. I’m staying.”

“Do what you like. Stay if you want to watch how the Hunter dies,” Glen said, his right hand rising from the sheath to the hum of steel. He’d quickly drawn his blade.

Su-In swiftly ran over to one of the stone carvings. No longer even watching the woman, D drew his blade, too. Samon ran to one side like a gust of wind.

Two gorgeous men—and neither of them moving. If Glen was the epitome of deadly determination without affectation as he held his sword out straight at eye level, then the breathtaking sight of D assuming a “figure eight” stance with his blade by the side of his head was just as much the picture of a warrior whose beauty transcended life . . . or death. Most likely, anyone would stand there astonished and accept their fate if it were this young man delivering their end.

However, Glen’s eyes glowed with crimson—the color of the Nobility. As he took a step forward, his sword’s thrust had something behind it that hadn’t been there before, and the instant D parried the blade in a shower of sparks, the impact jarred both the Hunter’s arms. Perhaps feeling more than just a ferocious blow, D blocked a quick follow-up strike without ever getting off an attack of his own. In Su-In’s eyes, it looked as if D were entirely surrounded by showers of sparks.

The two combatants moved around, tracing a tight circle. Glints of light flew madly in the space between them, then the two handsome figures leapt away—one to the right, the other to the left. The sea was to D’s back. Su-In was behind Glen’s.

The moonlight revealed dripping streams of black. From D’s right eye. Down Glen’s left wrist. The figures of beauty were frozen in place. The place was so still, even the sound of the wind and the crash of the waves breaking at the foot of the cliff seemed to have been transformed into pure moonlight.

One working with one eye, the other with one arm—the real question was, who would be at an advantage, and who at a disadvantage? D already had his right eye shut, and Glen was managing his blade solely with his left hand.

D kicked off the ground. As he brought his sword down, it was aimed precisely at the right side of Glen’s neck, but the attack was parried by a horizontal slash from the left of his foe’s blade—a blow that knocked both the Hunter’s sword and his arm back against his own chest and left him reeling. Without time to right himself properly, D made a horizontal swipe of his sword at his opponent’s temple. The only thing that allowed Glen to dive to one side and avoid the slash was the new level of power his blood so kindly supplied. D glided closer without making a sound.

A refreshing melody rang in the Hunter’s ears.

D’s sword became a white flash of light flowing toward Glen’s chest. Glen’s sword did likewise. Before the Vampire Hunter’s flash could pierce his chest, the seeker of knowledge drove his silvery streak through D’s heart.

“D?!” Su-In cried, and she was about to race over to him when Samon spread her arms to bar the woman’s path. “Out of my way!” Su-In shouted as she launched a fierce and certainly unladylike jump kick she’d learned from a warrior. But Samon suddenly vanished from before her, and the woman took a sharp blow to the neck as she landed on the rocks.

Ahead of her, D had already fallen to the ground.

“D!” she yelled once more, but as her hair was seized and jerked backward, Su-In’s words became a cry of pain.

“Take a good look,” Samon told her. “He’s dead. My man has killed him. My love promised to let you go unharmed, but I didn’t. You can go right after the Hunter. And once you comprehend what I’m about to show you, you’ll beg for death.”

Although it felt like her neck was about to snap, the agonized Su-In stared at the end of the promontory.

D had been slain. The blade jutting from his chest was proof of that.

However, wasn’t Glen also on his knees by the Hunter’s feet? His sword had pierced D’s chest. And D’s blade had done the same to him. The only difference between the two had been a slight twist of the body that’d kept one from being hit in a vital spot.

“Glen?! Has he slain you?!” Samon asked when she finally managed to wring the mournful tone from her throat.

Su-In heard the words through her pain and horror.

“Don’t worry,” the swordsman quickly replied. “It seems that I’ve won. Samon, let the girl go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I just won’t be right with all this if I don’t send her right after him. Oh, that’s right,” she laughed, “you still don’t know, either. Well, have a good look at what our chaste little maiden is truly like.”

“Stop it,” said Glen.

But there was no further reply from Samon. Putting her hands to Su-In’s head, she peered down at the woman’s face from behind.

The figure that took shape before Su-In’s eyes was the same one as the night before. He was every bit as tall and muscular as D or Glen. And when fully formed, his vaguely cruel features bore a resemblance to someone.

“Who’s he? Who is this man?” Su-In moaned, while above the woman’s head Samon bent backward with laughter.

“Don’t you recognize him? Then I shall have to show you something else—with the power my new blood has given me. Look!”

The air before Su-In stirred, and an image of a second person came into being. Su-In stared at it in a daze, and Glen forgot all about his pain and one other matter as he watched her.

Indeed, everybody makes mistakes. Near D’s waist, there was a muffled noise that sounded like dirt being eaten.

“But that’s—” Su-In cried out in astonishment when she stood face-to-face with the completed image. She recognized it. There was no way she couldn’t. After all, it was Su-In herself.

“Now, go to it,” Samon told her. “Just as you did back then. Re-enact the scene that’s been purged from your memory.”

The tableau that unfolded before her eyes at Samon’s command seemed as if it could only be some nightmarish bacchanal. Su-In’s other self—the one that’d appeared from her mind—drew a knife, then came up behind a man who seemed to be mulling something over and drove the blade straight into his heart with breathtaking ease. The two Su-Ins screamed. So did the young man. Truth and fiction were in perfect accord. Clutching at thin air, the young man fell forward. But before he could hit the ground, he vanished. The phantom Su-In disappeared, too. All that was left was the woman pinned by Samon, staring absentmindedly into space. Tears rolled from her eyes. Su-In realized she would never again be the same person. The memories her grandfather’s hypnotism had sealed deep within her heart were tainted with sorrow and fresh blood.

That was the warrior who came to my house four summers ago. And I murdered him. Stabbed him in the back . . . So Grampa Han used his skill on me to keep me from losing my mind . . .

Su-In’s personality was imploding. Cracks formed with surprising ease in the ego of the rugged, honest woman, branching out through her entire psyche like the veins of some ill-fated and disturbing circulatory system.

“Stop it!” Su-In shouted. As if mere screams would be enough to check her own collapse.

And as if to keep that from happening, Samon’s laughter split the darkness.

But then both Su-In’s sobs and Samon’s malicious laughter stopped. Glen got up. Before his very eyes, a figure darker than the darkness was eerily rising to his feet, like an immense and gorgeous mountain.

.

III

.

“You broke your word,” said the voice of the night. Glen had sworn that Su-In would be released, and that nothing would be done to her.

Two points of light burned into Glen’s eyes—D’s eyes as he got to his feet again. They were ablaze with a vermilion hue. Bits of black rained down at the Hunter’s feet, and pieces of earth that spilled from the palm of his left hand.

“Yes indeed, nothing beats good solid food. It takes more than wind to fill your belly.”

When Glen realized the second voice had come from the Hunter’s left hand, his lips unleashed his deadly whistle.

The wind snarled with the sound of something slashing through the air.

The instant the glittering moonlit wave touched Glen’s neck, it became a bloody streak of black. The line raced diagonally to the left, splitting him open all the way to his left lung when D pulled his blade away. Simultaneous streams of blood spread from Glen’s chest and back like the wings of a black butterfly.

As the seeker of knowledge fell to the ground without a word, D prepared to bring his blade down on him.

There was nothing Samon could do, but she howled like a beast. Perhaps that was what stopped D’s blade.

Just then, the Hunter felt gravity slam down on every inch of his body. It felt like the darkness itself was sinking. Glen was splayed across the ground. He couldn’t move a muscle.

“Oh, here comes another one,” D’s left hand said with amazement, drawing a fifth person out from behind one of the carved stone faces. There was no need for him to name this man who had gravity at his beck and call.

“Egbert, kill him! Kill the Hunter!” shouted Samon. Unbeknownst to Glen, she’d called the giant here and kept him in hiding. And the line across the tip of the cape marking the boundary of his “kingdom” was so faint, even D wouldn’t notice it.

“So, we meet again,” Egbert said in a ghostly voice. “But this time will be the last. Although I had hoped for a proper fight . . .”

“And here I thought you had more character than this,” D’s left hand barked scornfully as the Hunter barely managed to stand erect. “You don’t even know what it means to have a serious one-on-one duel—which makes me wonder what the hell country are you king of?!”

“Laugh if you like. But I’m in love with her. I want to defend those whom she’d defend.”

Those whom she’d defend—wasn’t that the very man Egbert had tried to kill?

The whole reason Glen had received his Noble blood was because the giant had used his power on the seeker of knowledge and knocked him off of the other cliff. Out of that whole quintet of warriors who would exploit any advantage or use whatever treacherous means they could, Egbert alone had shown a unique character that’d come as a refreshing change. Even when he’d attacked Glen, it had only been to save the woman he loved from being a mere pawn in the hands of the seeker of knowledge. And although he’d agreed to gang up on D, he was surely the only one who’d felt any reservations about doing so. And now, he was ambushing D to protect a man he’d once tried to kill.

“Make sure you don’t kill Glen,” Samon commanded in a tone steeped in bloodlust. “Just get him. Kill the Hunter alone.”

“I know,” Egbert said. Slipping his hand into his breast pocket, he pulled out a number of tiny shapes and tossed them on the ground not far from where D stood. Everyone but Su-In could see that they were little mud figurines. Egbert then threw something else. Even upon seeing that they were twigs and nails, there was no telling how he intended to use them.

At that point, D said something strange: “Aren’t you going to call in the other two?”

Egbert got an odd look on his face, but he said nothing.

A few seconds later, D was surrounded by bizarre soldiers there in the moonlight. A tree of some unknown form sprang from the ground at his feet, like smoke given substance. Roughly spitting up mud, the soldiers then charged forward. Their swords and spears flashed out like dazzling blossoms. Although the kingdom was under five Gs, the soldiers could move about freely. This alone would’ve been difficult for anyone to believe.

The shadowy figures overlapped as they made a beeline for D, but a split second later, they all turned to dust as every head was severed and every torso split. The wind carried away the remnants of the soldiers, and D alone remained standing in solitude. His eyes were gleaming with crimson.

“It’s no use,” the Hunter said. Samon was directly ahead of him. Up until now, the young man had never said anything about his own victory or his enemy’s defeat, no matter how weak his opponent was. Perhaps it was some animosity toward the woman who’d laid Su-In’s heart bare that made him say it now.

D looked at Glen. The swordsman was in retreat. A pair of soldiers were dragging away his unconscious form.

D’s left hand let loose a howling gale. As needles of rough wood pierced both soldiers through the base of the neck, they were instantly reduced to dust.

Seeing D walking calmly toward where Glen lay on the ground, Samon shouted, “Oh no! Egbert! You must do something!”

As if in answer to Samon’s cries, a bizarre form burst from the soil near Glen’s feet. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary bush. But from the way it threw twisted, tapering thorns out into the darkness in all directions, the vegetation was clearly meant to bar D’s path and to shield Glen. By the light of the moon, the sharp branches had a metallic luster. It was doubtful that even D could’ve imagined the nails Egbert had scattered earlier taking on such a form to hinder his foes.

Whistling through the wind, another branch sprang from the bush. In a manner reminiscent of someone holding a rose rather than seizing a razor-sharp thorn, D caught it with his left hand. A thin black stream quickly rained down onto the ground. The rate at which lifeblood dripped from the Hunter was far greater than normal.

“Impossible!” cried Samon. Having received the kiss of the Nobility, she now understood something she might not have known before. She knew now what fresh blood meant to a dhampir.

A number of branches besieged the Hunter like whips, but each was slashed away to rain back down to earth in a wild dance. Making a single swipe of his sword, D then rushed forward toward the steely bush with incredible speed.

There was a flash. With a single burst, and the bush was split in half down the middle.

Glen was motionless.

As D tried to get through the split, a flash of black lightning shot by his side. Deflected with an earsplitting sound, it was an iron rod. Changing his position, D looked over at the ruler who’d just entered his own kingdom.

“Hurry up! Take him and get out of here!” Egbert said in a forceful tone to Samon, who was behind him. It was not because he was acting on Samon’s orders. Rather, he was risking his life because he knew this was the hated enemy of the woman he loved. Even though he’d become something inhuman, this man of the ancient warrior code hadn’t entirely forsaken his former self.

And D, for his part, took up a position directly opposite the man.

“Strange, isn’t it?” Egbert said flatly. “I’m not doing this just to play hero. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. D, is that how a Noble’s mind works?”

His only answer was the wind.

As a human, Samon had risked her own life to save Glen’s, as had Egbert when he received the kiss of blood. Humans and Nobles—how did they differ?

“I’m ready to pay for my ambush with my own flesh,” the giant said. “I know I can’t win, D, but I’m gonna have at you!”

D readied his blade in a low position. To this man who was facing him fair and square, he didn’t say, “It’s no use.”

The gravity suddenly eased away. Egbert had relinquished his kingdom.

“Hyaaah!”

Backed by his new Noble blood, the giant’s blow was harder and faster and more precise than ever, but D’s eyes glowed crimson and the blade he swung up from below deflected the iron staff, executed an elegant turn in the air, and slid right through the heart of the king who’d cast off his crown. Even after D had drawn his blade back out again, Egbert stood stock still.

“So . . . death is true peace? Now I see,” the giant muttered, his words following him as he fell to the ground.

Letting his eyes drop to the warrior’s remains momentarily, D then turned his gaze toward the road. With Glen over her shoulder, Samon was closing on Su-In.

The Hunter’s left hand flicked out.

Having accepted the blood of the Nobility, the sorceress would get no mercy merely because she was a woman. A needle of unfinished wood pierced the left side of the temptress’ neck, poking out again on the right side. Samon staggered for a few steps, her knees buckling. And yet she still wouldn’t let go of Glen.

“Come,” she said, bloody bubbles spilling from her pale lips along with that challenge. D’s needle had gone through the carotid artery. Naturally, it wasn’t a fatal injury for a vampire. Samon drew her dagger. “Come, Hunter . . . I’ll never allow you to kill him. I’ll never let anyone lay a hand on my man . . . I’m still alive. Come . . . Come to me . . .”

Though her chin and breasts were drenched with fresh blood, Samon still showed incredible tenacity.

“That sure is something,” D’s left hand remarked with admiration.

However, as D stalked forward, there wasn’t the faintest hint of emotion in his eyes. Three villagers had been bitten, and he was a Vampire Hunter.

Just then, the whole world shifted with a rumbling from below. There was a roar as if some subterranean demon had discharged all the world’s evil and hatred at once. And rather than stop, the rumbling kept spreading, baring colossal fangs at the land mass.

To say the least, it was extremely unfortunate D was standing at a spot about ten feet from where the part of the cliff that jutted out over the sea connected to the rest of the land. Strength surged into his legs so he could make a leap, but the ground beneath him had already crumbled. Along with several hundred tons of stone, D plunged headlong toward the dark crests of the waves.

.

Although the earthquake that struck the Nobles’ resort area destroyed half of that vast territory, it had almost no effect at all on the village. Musical performances at the festival continued to ring out, and the people soon erased the anxious looks from their own faces as they tried to convince themselves that nothing could possibly go wrong on a summer night. Tidal waves weren’t even a concern. The water level merely rose a few inches, but the young men standing guard were in no danger, and nothing happened aside from four or five of the watch fires being knocked flat.

.

A point of light glowed in the midst of the darkness. The shape it took was not a cone, but rather closer to a globe. It was the illumination cord.

The scene that emerged was one of pure destruction. Heaps of stone and building materials had formed, yet the fact that the waves beating against the piles of wreckage hadn’t changed their flow or location seemed to indicate that no severe damage had been done to the underlying structure.

It was the area deep below Meinster’s castle.

“This place sure as hell got hit hard,” said a hoarse voice. “This was the center of the devastation, but it looks like the shock waves were all set up to emanate outward. Isn’t it strange that someone would know how to do that?”

Climbing over the rubble, D moved further into the subterranean chamber—to where the bizarre tanks stood in a veritable glass forest. Water still dripped from the hem of his coat. Less than two hours had passed since he’d fallen from the cliff at the cape.

Though he’d gone back to the cape, there was obviously no sign of the two vampires, nor was there the faintest trace of Su-In. Surely they’d taken her with them. So long as Glen still lived, he was sure to contact the Hunter again. D had no choice but to wait until he did so. Any emotions he might’ve harbored regarding Su-In’s fate couldn’t be discerned from his handsome features beneath the interplay of pale light and shadows.

As the Hunter ventured in further, the devastation took on a sharper tone. All the tanks had been shattered, and shards of glass continued to drop from their sides. At what seemed to be the center of the tanks, D halted. This was where an incredible energy had gone wild.

Aside from D, there were only two people who’d have any business down here. But if either of them had been down there, it didn’t seem like they could’ve possibly survived.

D looked far off to the left. There’d just been a sound of metal grinding on metal. Perhaps it was responding to his light.

Something heavy rolled down a slope. Probably a chunk of masonry.

Pulling out a wooden needle, D tied the illumination cord around the middle of it and hurled it right at the source of the sound.

In the circle of light, something that looked like a black leg could be seen wriggling. It must’ve been about forty feet away.

“Oh, him, is it?” said a voice down by D’s left hip.

Slowly extricating itself from a pile of rubble was a familiar aquatic machine—Gilligan’s giant crab.

D didn’t even draw his blade, and the reason for this quickly became evident.

In the process of extricating itself, the giant crab seemed to have run out of power. Toppling forward, it clumsily rolled over once, and then fell heavily against the slope. A great scythe of a claw struck the ground by D’s feet, and then stopped. It didn’t move another inch.

Catching the feeble hum of a motor, D approached the crab’s body.

“Wow, this is something else! The arms and legs have been ripped right off,” said the voice.

But the pitiful image of that gigantic crab robbed of all its limbs save one was already burned into D’s retinas. However, its legs hadn’t been carelessly torn free. Each stub sparkled with a nice smooth cut, as if the limbs had been severed by some trenchant blade. The whir of the motor swelled, and the glass dome on the crab’s body circled around to the front. The bubble was much more clouded than it’d been during its battles with D due to the cracks it now bore.

“Is that you, D?” a feeble voice called out to the Hunter. “I’m finished. I managed to hold out against you . . . but this time, I just didn’t have what it took.”

“Who did this to you?” D asked when he finally spoke.

“Professor Krolock . . . He’s given himself the power . . . of a Noble . . .”

“With the bead?”

“That’s right . . . He continued the experiment down here . . . just like I wanted to do . . .”

“How did you get here?” asked D.

“I was trying to fix the parts you’d damaged . . . while underwater,” Gilligan replied. “As chance would have it, I sank deep to the bottom of the sea . . . And down there, I found the opening that leads back into here . . . That bastard Krolock . . . When I found him, he was floating in one of those glass tanks . . . and on the bottom was the bead . . . half-dissolved . . .”

“What was the bead?”

“You mean to tell me you don’t know?” Gilligan laughed. “Here we were, risking our lives . . . and the whole time, the biggest threat to us . . . didn’t even know what it was for . . . Ah, that’s life for you,” Gilligan said, cackling. “A long time ago . . . I saw a laser recording in the Capital’s archives that’d been made by a certain Noble . . . In it, there was information on Nobility who could live underwater . . . Now, Nobility in their natural form couldn’t do so . . . but if they used a human body, they could then live underwater or even in broad daylight. But if they did that . . . then once a year, all the impurities that collected in their body . . . had to be expelled . . . And that’s what the bead was . . . In other words, all you had to do was analyze that . . . and the secrets of human and Noble genetics would be yours. That was as much as I knew . . . But that damned Krolock . . . he even knew about this research facility. Let me tell you something else . . . If the human psyche is resilient . . . the personalities compete with one another . . . Two minds in one body . . .”

His voice was stretched terribly thin.

“I wanted to have the power . . . of a genuine Noble. I read all the literature I knew of and tried every conceivable means . . . and thanks to that, I survived even after you cut my head off . . . But now I’m done for . . . When I shattered the tank . . . that skinny bastard pulled out this scrap of cloth . . . The next thing I knew . . . I was having the crab cut off its own legs . . . After he finished me off . . . he blew up the damned lab . . . Hurry . . . He must’ve gone to the village . . . He’s hungry . . . wants blood . . . But watch yourself . . . He’s stronger than you are . . . And another thing . . .”

The last thing the kingpin said was like a final breath he squeezed from himself.

“He’s . . . crazy . . .”

And after that, Gilligan was silent. It was a pitiful end for him. Twice he’d fought D in that mechanical monster, and both times he’d managed to escape with his life. What did that say about the old artist if he could defeat such a machine?

“This isn’t good. We’d better get right on this—because if we don’t find Krolock before he gets back to the village, there’ll be hell to pay!”

Without even waiting for the hoarse voice’s words, D had already turned to leave.

WHEN WINTER COMES AGAIN