Vampire Hunter D Volume 13: Twin-Shadowed Knight Parts 1 and 2 (6 page)

“I'll kill her, you bastard!”

And then D turned his back to them once more. His horse began to walk away.

“You son of a bitch!”

Who knew a human being was capable of such a cry of hatred and despair?

Before his cry had ended, Gully felt a sharp pain in both his left and right wrists. He looked down at them. Pieces of unfinished wood jutted from both. Rough wooden needles from D.

-

II

-

Screaming like a wild animal all the while, Gully raised both hands. Twisting around in the saddle, he tumbled right off his horse. And hitting the ground, he rolled from side to side.

A black lust for killing prickled through the bodies of the marksmen and they raised their barrels.

“Stop it!” Old Jal shouted.

His words were effaced by the crack of a gun.

A fiery pain shot through Mia's earlobe, and there was a metallic ching!

The shriek of agony came simultaneously with one of the marksmen toppling backward on his mount. A red stain seeped through his left hand when he pressed it to the opposite shoulder, and his rifle fell to the ground trailing purplish smoke.

What'd happened? Overcome now by shock and awe, the remaining marksmen froze in place, horses and all. A sword glittered in D's right hand, and he held it level right in front of his chest. Actually, they knew the answer. They simply didn't want to believe it.

How could he possibly deflect that deadly bullet and send it right back at the shooter? Before they could even question the rationality of it, the men's blood froze in the face of undeniable facts. Attacking him again would be impossible now.

Perhaps gleaning this, the gorgeous Hunter returned his sword to its sheath and quietly turned his back to them. Before long, the hoofbeats of his white steed were heard, but not one of the men made a move to stop him.

-

Though D heard the sound of hoofbeats behind him, he didn't turn to look. He was on the highway that ran west out of the village. The sounds quickly pulled up alongside him.

“You're a meanie, not even turning around,” Mia said as she worked the reins.

D advanced without replying to her. Mia understood that he probably had no further use for the village or her. But if that was the case, what was he after?

“Um, there's something I'd like you to do for me,” Mia said, leaning her body out in D's direction. “I want you to go back to the village with me. Please.”

There was no reply.

After advancing a bit, she said, “The least you could do is answer me.”

“Not gonna happen,” a hoarse voice said.

Her eyes flew from D to his left hand.

“I realize you're not interested in anything but yourself. But hear me out anyway. A major crisis is about to strike this village, just as I told the others. If nothing is done to avert it, it'll be the start of a disaster that will change the whole world as we know it. I came here because my mother told me about it. I might not be able to change things, but I still can't just sit back and do nothing. D, if anyone could do something, it's you. You could alter our destiny. That much I know. That's why I'm begging you. Please, stay here in the village.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

Mia's eyes went round. The question had come in D's voice. She didn't notice that he had his left hand balled into a tight fist.

“They ran you out of town, too. You even got taken hostage. It shouldn't matter at all to you what happens to their village.”

“The same thought occurred to me. But I can't let this happen. I—I'm a fortuneteller's daughter. I'm responsible for the futures I've seen.”

“You needn't be.”

“I'm sure that's what you think. But I—”

“The people in the village would tell you they don't need your concern, right?”

“Yes, I know that,” Mia said, nodding her head after worrying her lip.

“Well, it seems they won't let it rest at that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Behind us.”

Mia twisted around. Back down the road, the shadowy form of riders wavered like a heat shimmer. There were around ten of them.

“Are they from the village?”

They were probably the families of the deceased. And it looked like they'd had all they could stand.

“C'mon, let's go,” she called out to D, but he didn't move.

Looking from him to their pursuers and back again, Mia could eventually make out the shapes of horses and riders that caught up to them then rode past to form up lines about fifteen feet ahead. All of them were formidable in stature. Muscular or lean, graying or bald, there were all types, but they were united by the looks of fiery animosity they turned on the pair. The spears, swords, and bows they gripped shone in the sunlight.

D and Mia halted.

“We lost our son yesterday,” said a giant of a man armed with a bow and arrow. “I can't just let the matter sit. We haven't even found our boy's remains. So you're gonna have to tell us again exactly what happened.”

“I was with them. With your sons—I'll tell you about it,” Mia interjected.

“We'll hear what you have to say later. From what the sheriff said in the hospital, this guy was the killer. Yet Old Jal let him go without doing a thing. And that don't sit quite right with us, you see.”

“So you're going to take matters into your own hands? Don't. Even off at a distance, you must've seen the other guy who looked exactly like him. A couple of people went off after him—off that way. He's the one responsible!”

Judging from the way the men exchanged glances, a number of them seemed to know what she was talking about. However, it didn't last long, and the looks that were once more trained on the pair didn't soften in the least.

“You're the only one we see right now.”

“And I keep trying to tell you—”

“I know,” the bald farmer said, fighting desperately to keep his emotions under control. “And that's why we didn't want to pull an ambush. We've seen how good he is, but we still don't feel like being underhanded. Because that's not the way we raised our boys, either. That's why we'll come at you one at a time. If you kill us all, you can go wherever you like.”

After silently gazing at the imposing figure for so long, D remarked casually, “Come at me in force.”

Amazed, Mia shouted, “D! You can't fight them!”

“We never asked you for an advantage in numbers.”

“I'm the one who killed your boys,” the Hunter replied.

The world froze. Even Mia's eyes snapped open wide, and the girl was left unable to speak.

To the men, who'd been reduced to stony statues, he said, “Here I come. Try to stop me.”

Gorgeous movement came to be in the frozen world.

“Don't do this, D!” Mia shouted frantically as she followed after him. Not that she was concerned about his safety. No matter how skilled these powerful men might imagine themselves, there was no way they could defeat D with mere swords and spears. And yet, she wasn't worried for the villagers' sake either. She simply didn't want D to become a true butcher.

Fifteen feet. D advanced silently.

“Don't!”

Ten. Mia halted her horse.

Three. The world was lost beneath angry shouts and gleaming light. Silvery flashes closed in on D from all directions.

And a flash of light met them. Just one. Mia heard a protracted metallic sound.

In the direction in which the light had flowed, another sound reverberated from the ground—the sound of swords and spears, bows and arrows sticking into the earth. Each and every man on horseback cradled his right hand and moaned. Their wrists were dislocated. More than the pain of their injuries, it was the knowledge that they'd all been dealt with by a single stroke from the young man before them that made the men stiffen.

D moved forward. The ranks broke—not because the men told their mounts to do so, but rather because the horses themselves cleared a path out of sheer terror. D walked away, and Mia followed after him.

Once their shapes had disappeared down the road, the bald man finally muttered, “The damn freak is . . .” But he caught himself, adding, “No, that's not what he is.”

“Yeah,” another replied. “He got us all riled up and knocked us silly to take a load off our shoulders. That ain't the sort of thing no murderer would do. We were in the wrong.”

“You know, he's probably a lot better man than we thought.”

When the men looked down the road, it was like they were looking at a whole different person, but by that point there was no longer any sign of D and Mia.

-

An orderly and shimmering stripe across the black earth—that's what the Noble Road was, and no sooner had they got on it than D, who didn't seem to be listening no matter how Mia tried to reason with him, suddenly looked up at the sky and said, “Sure is strong, isn't it?”

He was talking about the sunlight.

“Yeah.”

Mia herself had gotten pretty annoyed and hadn't spoken to him for quite some time, but she was sweating so badly she'd answered him without even thinking.

From time to time, the scenery ahead of them wavered as heat shimmers rose from the ground.

“Why don't we take a little break?” Mia asked. “It seems like the sun is out of whack or something. I can't take much more of this.”

“Hold on for another thousand yards or so. There's a resting place up ahead.”

“You mean a dark abode?” Mia said, scanning the glittering road before them.

Constructed of hexagonal pieces that could've been either stone or metal, the road was a good thirty feet wide, and it twisted and turned its way toward the oddly shaped rocks that were visible in the distance. Designed by the Nobility, after thousands of years this road didn't show even modest signs of wear as it raced off across the earth, to the bottom of the sea, and up into the sky.

The “dark abode” was the resting house D had mentioned. Even the Nobility had been powerless to stop the cosmic movements of the earth and sun. And with the coming of morning, even the Nobility's roads would be bathed in sunlight. Of course, by day they would take refuge in coffins safe within their carriages, but considering the potential danger if they were by some chance exposed to the rays of the sun, they had constructed emergency shelters every score or so of miles along the road. These were known as “resting places.” In size they ranged from tiny ones that would accommodate only a pair of Nobles up to huge ones that could shelter a hundred people, but the dark abode Mia had mentioned referred to a structure designed to protect ten to twenty people from the deadly rays. Concomitant with the Nobility's millennia of decline, many of these had been weathered into ruin, taken out of service, or destroyed at the hands of mankind, but a large number of them still dotted the shimmering road, providing a place where the surviving Nobles or people who'd lost their way might find a brief respite from the travails of their journey. That not only Mia but also D would want to take a break was a natural-enough assumption given the nature of the blood that flowed through him. D was probably suffering far more than Mia at present.

“This is really strange,” Mia said after about five minutes had passed, looking over at D beside her. Every time her lips moved, beads of sweat went flying. “The sun's just too hot. There's no way this is—”

“Hurry,” D said as he delivered a kick to his horse's flanks.

Heat shimmers rose from the ground to obscure him. Even distorted like that, he was still gorgeous.

-

III

-

Less than two minutes later, a gray dome came into view to the right up ahead.

There it is, Mia thought fuzzily. Her heat-wracked body had been drained of emotion. Her skin ached as if it were on fire. Her field of view was bleached white. The sunlight was becoming a scorching implement of death.

Their horses side by side, they reached the dome. As the girl joyfully slipped out of the saddle, she looked at D. His gorgeous form was in the process of slowly falling over.

“D!”

While Mia raced over to where he'd fallen to the ground, she could feel her own consciousness slipping away. Collapsing on top of D, the fortuneteller's daughter fainted. Sunlight ruthlessly roasted her body.

A powerful chill spread from Mia's forehead, and she opened her eyes. D's left hand was resting on her brow.

“Can you . . . move?” D asked, still lying on his back.

“Yeah, sort of. You helped me, didn't you?”

“Right now, you're in a better condition to do something than me. Open the door.”

He must've meant the dark abode.

“Okay,” Mia said, nodding as she got up and turned around—only to be dumbfounded.

“It's not there!”

She couldn't have been unconscious for more than a few seconds. But even if she'd been out for an hour, it would've been impossible for such a thing to happen. The austere gray structure had vanished completely, and a valley strung with oddly shaped rocks filled Mia's view.

“That's impossible . . .”

“You're . . . hallucinating,” D said.

“Hallucinating?” Mia rubbed her eyes, but the new scenery showed no signs of changing.

“If any creature but a Noble . . . comes near it . . . the defense systems come into play . . . The valley is an illusion.”

“But a minute ago the dome was—”

“Because . . . you were . . . with me.”

When D fell, it had recognized that Mia was a mere human.

“The dome is . . . right there. Try to touch it.”

An incredulous look on her face, Mia extended her right hand. She didn't feel anything. The area was just empty space. Her senses told her so.

“Looks like the effect extends to her consciousness.”

At the sound of a hoarse voice completely unlike D's, Mia looked in surprise in the direction from which it'd come, but D's left hand simply lay on the ground.

“There's no way a human could get one of the Nobility's buildings open, D!”

The voice seemed to be trying to rouse the Hunter, and it sounded for all the world as if it came from the palm of his left hand.

Before a powerful curiosity about confirming this could burst free, D ordered her, “Take my left hand off at the wrist.”

“What?” Mia exclaimed, her eyes bugging quite understandably.

However, before her surprise could become a refusal, D said, “If we don't do something . . . both of us will bake out here. Unbutton my coat.” His tone was overpowering and would brook no insubordination. And though that was part of the reason Mia complied, she was also listening to the words ringing in her ears.

“Both of us will bake out here.” That can't happen. I won't let it. Have to do something. Must save D.

Once she'd undone the buttons, he told her, “My sword's to your left. Use that.”

A glistening black hilt protruded from a well-worn scabbard. The hilt had a carving of coiled ivy wrapped around it. As she pulled it free, the steely blade let her know it had the weight of a man's weapon. How did the gorgeous youth swing such a hefty blade?

Her legs wobbled.

“Hurry up and make the cut . . . Don't have much time.”

“But what good will cutting it off do?”

There was no answer.

D's eyes were closed. She was staring at him in spite of herself when a voice said, “He's gone comatose. Hurry up and make that cut!”

Mia stiffened.

“What . . . what in the world are you?”

“I'm his left hand. Now getting cracking. If you don't, he and you are both gonna die. Well, technically it's more accurate to say one of you will be destroyed—”

The girl was at a loss for words.

“Oh, I see the look on your face has changed. Ready to get to it, are you? Yeah, that's right; raise his sword just like that. Damn you, your legs are going all rubbery! Can't you stand up straight? Put more back into it! Yeah, that's more like it. Raise it—now!”

Mia swung the blade down.

Though she tried to pry her hands free of the sword, her fingers remained wrapped around it like a bit of ornamentation affixed to the hilt. The feeling of severing a human hand for the first time had left Mia in a state of shock.

Something tugged powerfully at her ankle. Her eyes dropped in alarm, and then she shrieked. The fingers around her ankle and the hand connected to them were all part of the limb she'd just lopped off D.

“I could go myself, but it'd be a hell of a lot quicker to have a real live human carry me over. Come on! Pick me up and bring me exactly where I tell you.”

“No way.”

“What do you mean, no way? If you don't—”

“I know, I know.”

“We could do without all the sulking. Do you have any idea what your job here is?”

“It's not my job.”

“Stop talking back and do it already, would you?”

A second later, an electric shock shot from Mia's ankle through her whole body, making her jump.

“What the heck was that for, you little—”

“ ‘Left Hand' will do. Sass me again and I'll raise the voltage next time.”

“Don't you have a fork or something I could use instead?”

“You little snip of a girl!”

“Okay, already!”

In an exaggerated, contorted action, Mia picked up the left hand. If she hadn't formed a vision of D in her mind, she never would've been able to do it.

“So, what am I supposed to do with this thing?” she asked while averting her gaze. Not a single drop of blood spilled from the gaping wound on the wrist.

“I'm not a thing! That's ‘Mr. Left Hand' to you.”

“So, what should I do, O high and mighty Left Hand, sir?”

“Don't get smart with me. Okay, lift me up ever so gently and carry me over to where I say. Do that, and everything will go smooth as silk.”

“I suppose you were the one who cooled me down earlier, were you?”

“Ah, ha, ha,” the left hand laughed with apparent surprise. Mia tried to hide her disgust as she lifted the limb.

Her body was bleached white. The sunlight had grown blisteringly hot. Mia closed her eyes. While her body might be able to endure the light, her optic nerves were another matter.

“That bastard's even begun to control the sun, has he? I don't think we'll be able to let that slide. Hurry up, Mia baby!”

“What's this baby crap?” she snapped back, but she knew she had no choice but to do as the hand said. “What should I do now?”

“Take five normal-sized paces straight ahead. Next, take another two and a half to the right. Then raise me up to eye level.”

“Okay, okay!”

“One ‘okay' will suffice.”

“Ooookay,” she replied snidely, and then she moved to the spot as directed. Sweat poured from her, and the refreshing chill within her was dying. Her legs began to buckle.

“Don't move, damn you! This calls for an incredibly delicate touch,” the left hand shouted.

“O-okay.”

She held the hand up as best she could, but then she fell again.

This is grim, she thought. I think we're done for. Even my brain is sweltering.

No sooner did she start to open her eyes than sweat coursed into them. Her bangs drooped down over her eyes. As she gave her head a desperate shake, her eyes caught the exquisite face of the man lying on the ground.

“D . . .”

From nowhere at all, strength welled up in her. Strength intended not for her own salvation, but to save another.

“That's it! Good! Lift me up. Perfect!”

The left hand reached out into empty space, and then suddenly disappeared.

Vertigo assailed her.

“You did great, Mia,” a hoarse but satisfied voice remarked, but the second it entered Mia's ears, she dropped to the ground.