Vampire Hunter D (8 page)

As soon as a dhampir finished a job, the people who barely tolerated him while he went about his mission would chase him off with stones, their gaze full of malice and contempt. With both the cruelly aristocratic blood of the Nobility and the brutally vulgar blood of the humans, dhampirs were tormented by the dual destinies of darkness and light; one side called them traitors while the other labeled them devils. Truly, the dhampirs—like the Flying Dutchman cursed to wander the seven seas for all eternity—led an abominable existence.

And yet, Larmica was saying all she could to get him to join them. Still she spoke.

“You can’t possibly have a single pleasant reminiscence from your life as a Hunter. Of late, the insects in the village have been rather boisterous. At some point they will no doubt send in an assassin like yourself. If Father and I were to have a stalwart individual like you acting as a sort of guard when they do, we would feel most secure. What say you? If you are so inclined, we may even make you truly one of us.”

The Count was ready to explode with rage at the words his daughter—gazing with sleepy, painfully lustful eyes at motionless D—had said. But before he could, he heard a low voice.

“What do you plan to do with the girl?”

Larmica laughed charmingly. “Do not overreach your bounds. The woman shall soon belong to Father, soul and all.” And then, staring fixedly at her father with a cutting and highly ironic gaze, she said, “I believe Father wishes to make her one of his concubines, but I cannot allow it. I shall drain her of her very last drop of blood, then leave her for the human worms to rip apart and put to the torch.”

Her words suddenly stopped. The Count’s eyes gave off blood light. The fearsome night-stalking father and daughter surmised through their supernaturally attuned senses that the trivial opponent before them—the youth who was trapped like the proverbial rat—was rapidly transforming. That he was becoming the same thing they were!

“Still you fail to comprehend this,” Larmica scolded. “What can come of this obligation you have toward the human worms? Those menials spared no pains in exterminating each and every living creature on the face of the earth besides themselves, and managed to nearly wipe themselves out through their own carelessness. They only continued living through the charity of our kind, yet the first time our power waned, the insurgents were all too happy to fly the flags of revolt. They, not we, are the creatures that should be expunged from this planet and from all of space.”

At that moment, the Count thought he’d heard a certain phrase, and his brow knit. The muttered words had clearly come from the young man before him, but he promptly dredged the same phrase from the depths of distant, half-forgotten memories. Reason denied the possibility of such a thing.

.

“Sis, you sure we don’t need more fertilizer than this?” Dan’s apprehensive tone as he took the last plastic case and set it down in the bed of their wagon stabbed into Doris’ breast.

This was right about the time D was passing through the gates of the vampires’ castle.

The pair had gone into Ransylva to do their shopping for the month. However, the results were something pitiful. Old Man Whatley, proprietor of a local store, had always been kind enough to bring things out from the storeroom that he didn’t have displayed, but today he coldly refused as he’d never done before. As Doris named off necessities, he replied with apparent regret that they were either sold out or on back order. And yet, behind the counter and in the corner Doris saw he had stacks of them. When asked, however, he fumbled to say that the merchandise was already spoken for.

Doris caught on quickly enough. There was only one person low enough to cause her such grief.

Still, she didn’t have time to waste arguing with Whatley, so she choked back her rage, swung by the home of an acquaintance, and somehow managed to get what she needed for the time being. At present, every minute from sunrise to sunset was as precious as a jewel to Doris. At night, her ghastly life-or-death battle with the demon awaited. No matter what happened, she had to get home before nightfall—that was the message D had drilled into her before he set out. Well, she knew that, but ... Once she’d loaded the last package of dried beef into the wagon bed, Doris gnawed her lip. The uncharacteristically forlorn expression Dan wore back there in the wagon became a smile the second his face turned toward her. The boy was doing all he could to keep her from worrying on his account. Because she understood that, Doris’ heart was filled with a concern, a sorrow, and an anger that would not be checked. One of her hands reached over and unconsciously tightened around the handle of the whip she had tucked in her belt. There was only one place to direct her rage.

“Darn it, I forgot to swing by Doc Ferringo’s place,” she said with feigned agitation. “You wait here. It wouldn’t do to have our goods get swiped, so don’t you leave the wagon.”

“Sis …”

Her brother’s word seemed to cling to her, as if he sensed something, but Doris replied, “Hey, a big boy like you should be ashamed to make a face like that. D would laugh if he could see how down in the mouth you look. Stop your worrying. As long as I’m around, everything’ll be fine. Ain’t that the way it’s always been?” Speaking gently but firmly, and giving him no chance to disagree, she quickly set off down the street, thinking,
At this hour, I figure those scumbags’ll be in the Black Lagoon or Pandora’s Hotel. I’ll learn them a thing or two!

Her supposition proved correct. The second she opened the batwing doors of the saloon, Greco and his gang smirked and stood up from their table in the back. Quickly counting their number at seven, Doris narrowed her eyes suddenly when she saw what Greco was wearing.

His whole body was sparkling. From the top of his head to the tips of his feet Greco was covered by metallic clothing—actually, a kind of weapon called a combat suit. Doris had never seen one before, but her amazement soon faded, and with a scornful expression that said,
looks like that frivolous fool has jumped a new fashion bandwagon
, she laid into him. “You were all hot under the collar about what happened this morning, so you went and leaned on Old Man Whatley so he wouldn’t sell us nothing, didn’t you? And you call yourself a man? You’re the lowest of the low!”

“What the hell are you yammering about?” Greco smiled mockingly. “I don’t have to take that off no one who’s about to be some vampire’s fun toy. You should thank your lucky stars we didn’t let that little tidbit out. You’d better get it into your head that it’s gonna be the same thing next month and the month after. Looks like you probably managed to scrape something together today, but how long’ll that pitiful amount keep your orchards going and your cows fed? Maybe two weeks, if you’re lucky. Of course, that’s supposing you’re still walking around and throwing a shadow that long. Well, you’ll be okay because pretty soon you won’t have to eat anything to survive, but what’d you have planned for your poor little brother?”

Before his snide comments had ended, the whip streaked from Doris’ hand. It wrapped around the helmet portion of his combat suit and she channeled her power into toppling him. But her recklessness was born of her ignorance. Greco—or rather, his combat suit—didn’t budge an inch. He pulled the end of the whip with his right hand, and with one little tug, the whip flew into his hands.

“How many times did you think I was gonna fall for that, bitch?”

Shocked though she was, Doris was indeed the daughter of a Hunter, and she leapt back almost six feet. As she jumped, eyes that sparkled vulgarly with the light of hatred, lust, and superiority followed her.

“Don’t forget it’s my daddy that runs the show in town. There’s nothing to keep us from seeing to it you and your stupid little brother starve to death.”

Doris was a bit shaken, and it showed on her face—she knew the truth of what he’d just said.

A committee generally governed village operations, but the ultimate authority in town was the mayor. Under the harsh conditions of the Frontier lands, time-consuming and half-hearted operating procedures like parliaments and majority rule would bring death down on the villagers in no time. Monsters, mutants, bandits—the hungry eyes of outside forces were focused relentlessly on Ransylva. And naturally, village operations included the buying and selling of goods. It would be a piece of cake to come up with some reason to suspend a shop from doing business. When it came to the life or death of his business, Old Man Whatley had no choice but bow under duress. For Doris, a hard two-day ride to go shopping in Pedros, the nearest neighboring village, was out of the question under the present conditions. Anyway, it was clear Greco and his cronies would try to stop her.

“You have a lot of nerve, saying a despicable thing like that. I don’t care if you are the mayor’s son …” Doris’ voice trembled with rage.

Ignoring that, Greco said, “But if you’d be my wife, all that’d be different. We’ve got it all set up so when my daddy retires, the folks with pull in this town will see to it I’m the next mayor. So, what do you say? Won’t you reconsider? Instead of busting your ass on that rundown farm, you could have all the fancy duds you could ever wear and all you could eat of the classiest fixin’s. Dan would love it, too. And we could run off that creepy punk because I’d protect you from the vampire. If we put the money out there, you’d be surprised how many Hunters’ll show up. What do you say?”

In lieu of an answer, Doris drew closer.
Well, look at that—no matter how tough she tries to act, she’s still a woman after all
, Greco thought for a split second before a mass of liquid spattered against the helmet’s smoked visor. Doris had spat on him.

“You—you crazy bitch! I try and treat you nice, and you pull this shit!” Greco wasn’t accustomed to using the suit, and his right hand clanked roughly as it mopped his faceplate clean. But then he grabbed at Doris with incredible speed. He had hold of her torso before she had a chance to leap away. He pulled her into him. Purchased mere hours earlier from a wandering merchant, the combat suit was second-hand and of the lowest grade, but the construction—an ultra-tensile, steel armor built on a base of reinforced, organic, pseudo-skin over an electronic nervous system—increased the wearer’s speed three-fold and gave him ten times his normal strength. Now that Greco had Doris, there was no way she could get away.

“What are you doing? Let go of me,” she screamed, but she only succeeded in hurting her own hand when she slapped him.

Greco had no trouble whatsoever restraining both of Doris’ hands with one of his own, and he hoisted her a foot off the ground. The helmet split down the middle with a metallic rasp. The face peering out at her was that of bald-faced, fiendish lust. A thread of drool stretched from the corner of his lips, which held a little smirk. Doris glared at him indignantly, but he said, “You’re always putting on the airs. Well right here, right now, I’m gonna make you mine. Hey, dumbass, don’t do anything funny and just stay the hell out of this!” With that last remark—roared at the middle-aged bartender who had left the counter to try and break things up—the bartender returned to his post. After all, he was up against the mayor’s son. Eyes bloodshot with lust, Greco’s filthy lips drew close to the immobilized young beauty. Doris turned her face away.

“Let me go! I’ll call the sheriff!”

“That ain’t gonna do much good,” he laughed. “Hell, if it came right down to it, he likes his neck a little too much to stick it out. Hey, the bar is closed now! Someone stand guard so no one comes in.”

“You got it.” One of Greco’s lackeys headed for the door, but then halted abruptly. Suddenly, there was a wall of black in front of him, blocking his path. “What the hell do you—”

His shout was truncated almost immediately, and a split second later, the lackey flew through tables and chairs, crashed into two of his cohorts, and smacked headfirst into the wall. Not that he was thrown at it. The black wall had merely given the man a light push backwards. But his strength must have been inhuman: both the lackey that had gone flying and also the two others he’d hit were all laid out cold on the floor, and some of the plaster had been knocked out of the wall.

“You bastard! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” As the thugs grew pale and reached for the weapons at their waists, the black wall looked at them and shrugged casually.

Easily over six-and-a-half-feet tall, he was a bald giant. Arms, knotted like the roots of a tree, protruded from his leather vest. He must have weighed three hundred and fifty pounds if he weighed an ounce. Judging from the well-worn, massive machete hanging from his belt, the thugs realized their foe had more than just size on his side, and their expressions grew more prudent.

“Please forgive us. My friend here is wholly unfamiliar with the concept of restraint.”

Wriggling in Greco’s embrace, Doris forgot her struggles for a moment and turned toward the newcomers only to have her eyes open wide with surprise. The voice had been beautiful, but the man himself positively sparkled.

His age must have been around twenty. He had gorgeous black hair that spilled down to his shoulders, and deep brown eyes that seemed ready to swallow the world, leaving all who beheld them feeling gloriously drunk. The youth was an Asian Apollo. He, along with the giant and two other companions, seated himself at a table.

The only other people in the Black Lagoon aside from Greco and his gang, the newcomers began to amuse themselves with a game of cards. If the keen glint in their eyes was any indication, they had to be traveling Hunters of some confidence.

“What the hell are you fools supposed to be,” Greco asked, still holding Doris.

“I am Rei-Ginsei, the Serene Silver Star. My friend here is Golem the Tortureless. We’re Behemoth Hunters.”

“The hell you are,” Greco bellowed, as he looked the four of them over. “You’re telling me you hunt those big ol’ behemoths with so few people? A baby behemoth can’t even be killed without ten or twenty guys.” He laughed scornfully. “Granted, you’ve got that big bastard, but that still leaves you with a sissy boy, a pinhead, and a fucking hunchback. So please help me out here—how exactly does a bunch of rejects like you hunt anyway?”

“We shall show you—here and now,” Rei-Ginsei said with his sun-god smile. “But before we do, kindly release the young lady. If she were ugly, it might be another matter, but to treat a beautiful woman in such a manner is a grave breach of etiquette.”

“Then why don’t you make me stop, you big, bad Hunters?”

The vermilion lips that framed his pearly white teeth bowed with sorrow. “So that’s how it’s to be then? Very well ...”

“Okay, come on then!”

Greco was used to getting into fights, but the reason he forgot the power of his combat suit and threw Doris aside with all his might may have been because he had some inkling of how the coming battle was going to end.

Unable to prepare for her fall, Doris struck her head on the edge of a table. When she regained consciousness she was held in a pair of powerful arms, and matters had already been settled. “Ow, that hurts,” she said, rubbing her forehead.

Rei-Ginsei gave her a gentle smile and swept her up off the floor. “We dealt with those ruffians. I’m not completely clear on the situation here, but I think leaving before the sheriff is summoned might avoid complications.”

“Um, yeah, you’re right.” Due to her throbbing headache her answer was muddled, but Doris noticed the sharp squeak of wood-on-wood behind her and turned around in time to be utterly astonished. Every last one of Greco’s hoodlums was laid out on the floor. Despite the pain in her head, Doris was still sharp enough to notice something strange about them almost instantly.

The arms and legs of the two sprawled closest to her on the floor had been bent back against the elbow and knee joints and were twisted into horrific objets d’art. Most likely, the hoodlums had fallen victim to Golem’s monstrous strength, but what caught Doris’ eye were the remnants of a longsword and a machete lying near them. She wasn’t sure about the machete, but the longsword was definitely a high-frequency saber with a built-in sonic frequency wave generator, able to cut through iron plate. Both weapons were shattered down to the hilt as if they’d tried to chop through a block of steel.

Just behind one of the round tables squirmed Greco’s right-hand man, O’Reilly. He was known for his skill with a revolver; once, Doris saw him knock a bee out of the air from fifty yards with his quick draw. When she’d seen him last, he was already going for his gun. When one of the four came at him, the barrel of his weapon should have spit flame in less than three-tenths of a second. Yet here he was, sprawled face-down on the floor with his hand still locked around the pistol grip. But what truly made Doris shudder was the location of the wound that felled him. The back of his head was split open. One of the four—well, perhaps not Golem but one of the other three—had got behind him and dealt the blow without giving him the three-tenths of a second he needed to work his quick draw.