Vampire Hunter D Volume 13: Twin-Shadowed Knight Parts 1 and 2 (8 page)

Humiliated, the young man immediately flew into a rage, getting back up and charging forward once more.

Light flowed out. Two streaks. The blade of the great sickle flew over D's right shoulder and imbedded itself in the ground before the Hunter, while the tip of a sword was pressed against the young man's throat—D's blade, which had been thrust back over the Hunter's left shoulder. Not a single soul there had seen D draw his sword, nor did anyone understand how he could've known the exact distance of that thrust with his back still turned.

“What's your name?” D asked the paralyzed youth.

Nothing from the young man.

“Your name?”

“Uh . . . Frost.”

“Well, at least there was one man here. Why don't you ask me to spare you?”

Such a question, and such cruelty—could this truly be the real D?

“If you do, I'll let you live. How about it?”

The young man's face was slick with sweat from fear—the fear of death. He opened his mouth. His lips trembled horribly.

“Kill me . . . you . . . freak!”

A heartbeat later, Frost was bowled over by a vicious leg sweep. Flat on his back, as he tried to rise again, he saw his own sickle being raised high by D.

“Still don't feel like saying it?”

“Kill me! I'll become a monster like you and come back to kill you, you bastard.”

D artlessly swung the sickle down. It was met by a horizontal thrust from a longsword, and pale blue sparks shot from the blades.

“Here's another man for you,” said a man with red hair, and from the way he adjusted his posture with his sword, he appeared to have substantial practice with a blade.

“Mr. Rush!” the man on the ground called out gratefully.

As if in response to that, three more figures surrounded D—men armed with swords and hatchets. They weren't going to gang up on him. As proof of that, they all nodded in turn when Rush told them, “One at a time, boys.”

“That'll take too long,” D said. And then he told them the same thing he'd told the villagers a day earlier. “Come at me in force.”

The men waited silently until one of them called out in a voice like steel, and then they all rushed at D like horses given a taste of the spurs. A second later, every last one of them let a weapon fall from a hand with a dislocated wrist.

It wasn't the work of the great sickle. Rather, it was due to a single chop with the side of D's right hand.

“Now do you see the power of the opponent you'd be up against?” D said as if nothing had occurred, his words bowling over the villagers.

To the silently despairing crowd he said, “From now on, no more interfering with me. Your true foe is underground. Either I'll slay him, or I'll join those you mourn.”

And telling them that, D walked off to his cyborg horse. Though the sound of hoofbeats dwindled in the distance, no one attempted to give chase, nor were there any disparaging remarks to be heard.

-

III

-

Mia stood in front of the dark abode. Needless to say, since the defense system was operational, she was as unable to see it with her own two eyes as she'd been a day earlier. D had forbidden her from going near it—as the other D had been able to get inside, it was a perfectly natural thing for him to do. And Mia hadn't intended to do it, either. At present, she called a dilapidated house on the outskirts of the village home. But she'd left that dwelling and come out here because, as the daughter of a fortuneteller, she was drawn to the Nobility's relics.

In addition to their scientific culture, the Nobility had simultaneously developed a mystical culture, and one had but to begin to pursue that path to realize how far the Nobles had succeeded in developing it. Even the sort of divination Mia and others did was a system that borrowed from the accomplishments of the vampire civilization. However, it was strictly taboo to peruse any of the spells the Nobility had left behind, with some of the material being burned and other examples being sealed away deep in the earth. It was probably unavoidable that, as time went by, a minute part of the banned information began to get out. And though in such cases human conjurers with malevolent intentions had discovered this forbidden knowledge, they were not to be condemned. They entered polar regions that were nearly at absolute zero, intruded into living forests where even the very Nobility that had spawned them hesitated to tread, and traveled more than thirty miles down into the depths of the sea in homemade bathyscaphes. A combination of painstaking care and magic helped recover burned writings, molecular archives that had been destroyed, and records sealed away in other dimensions. Time went by, and though all this effort that'd been directed for evil purposes didn't bear much fruit, the forbidden knowledge now scattered across the continents ignited the inquisitiveness of serious scholars and researchers. And Mia was one of them.

Perhaps there was a chance some hint about incantations or secret rituals was hidden in the Nobles' facility. As a fortuneteller's daughter, Mia's mind was viciously needled by curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. However, D had sealed the invisible dome when they left. And Mia couldn't possibly get in on her own.

That's why it's okay, she'd thought, so long as I only go as far as the entrance. I can't get in anyway, and there's nothing dangerous about it.

And now, halted before it and looking down from the back of her horse, her heart not surprisingly had recurring calls from relief—and disappointment.

Stroking the neck of her mount, she whispered, “Let's head back.”

Just then, the scenery changed. Suddenly, the grayish black structure—the dome—appeared from nowhere. Mia pulled back on the reins in spite of herself, but in the span of a heartbeat she became its captive.

Why? That was the question she should have dwelled on, but the rectangular hole that took shape on the wall's outer surface smashed that thought to pieces. The entrance.

Who on earth could've done that?

Still up on her steed, she could think at least that far.

The invisible dome remained open. Reason commanded her, Don't go in there. And Mia was the sort of girl to comply. She tugged on the reins and was about to wheel her horse around when the hole—the door—began to shrink. Reflexively, Mia jumped down off her steed. Still, reason was working well enough to stop her just in front of the entrance.

Don't go in there. Something isn't right about this.

The entrance was closing. Once it'd shrunk to the size where a person would have to hunch over to squeeze through it, Mia did precisely that and plunged into the darkness of the hole.

The interior was just as she'd seen a day earlier. Though she'd heard the Nobility's buildings had devices that would check if a living creature was anything other than a Noble and dispose of any intruders, nothing like that happened. Why had it revealed itself and beckoned to her? On entering, that question became a more palpable terror that eddied in black clouds through her heart.

The first thing Mia did was consult the three-dimensional schematic of the dome that was right next to the entrance. It was easy enough to operate. Apparently the dome regarded her as a Noble.

There was a place called “the meditation chamber.” It was a room in the lowest floor—three stories underground. Moving sidewalks and elevators carried her all the way there. The room was a cube measuring roughly fifteen feet in each direction, and there were no suspicious drawings or hues to be seen.

Mia was looking around with a gaze that seemed to try to penetrate the very concrete when a voice abruptly commented, “Aren't you the dedicated one?”

The girl shrieked and turned around, saying, “D?”

The person who stood in front of the door was indeed D. And both his arms were still attached.

However—

“Which one are you?” she inquired in a tone that attempted to conceal her fear but didn't do a very good job of it.

“The D you don't know.”

“The fake one?”

At her response, D cleared his throat and smiled.

“What's so funny?” Mia asked, her right hand racing to the pouch on her hip. One of the capsules secured in its loops held special powder for divination. Her fright was fading away.

“Your right arm—how'd you get it back on?”

“It's not like you don't know the powers Nobles possess. Reattaching a severed limb is child's play,” D said, swinging one arm. “Oh, you must forgive me. So, I'm the fake one? You have no idea what a strange name that is for me.”

“Well, a fake's a fake.”

Even as anger filled her chest, Mia couldn't fight the strange sense of affinity building toward the beautiful young man before her.

“If you were to ask me, I'd say he's the fake, but never mind that. You're back in here because—”

“Because of you, right?”

“How self-serving. I was going to say because of your curiosity.”

“No, I'm not,” the girl retorted tentatively, but her response could only be taken to mean his assertion was right on the mark. Fortunately, he didn't pursue the matter any further.

“Ah, you are indeed a fortuneteller's daughter. It looked like you were hell bent on exploring the secrets of the Nobility. That's why I was waiting for you.”

Tension knifed into Mia's back. Was this fake trying to say he'd read her mind so well and invited her in?

“Why?” she asked, her right hand closing tightly around the most dangerous of the capsules—one of caustic powder.

“Don't get so up in arms. I merely wanted to tell you what you wish to know.”

“What I wish to know?”

“Who I am.”

“Huh?”

“And who he is. Although you would seem more interested in the latter.”

The face that made a sly grin was D's surely enough, but it still chilled Mia to the core. At that moment, she became absolutely certain this young man wasn't D.

“Come with me. You could look around this room all you like but you'd never find anything.”

And saying that, the figure in black did an about-face. Mia began following him after a moment's hesitation.

Advancing down a corridor on the same floor in the opposite direction from the elevator, they quickly came to a dead end. Nevertheless, the fake D didn't halt.

“Hey, watch out!”

Though taken aback when she shouted at him, the figure in black advanced without hesitation, colliding with the wall and unexpectedly being swallowed by it.

“Is this an illusion, too?”

Just to be sure, she reached out with one hand, but it was rebuffed by a cold surface. The wall seemed genuine enough.

As the girl stood there dumbfounded, a voice called through the wall, “This went undiscovered for all his checking. Which comes as no surprise. Until the day before yesterday, it was a regular wall, after all.”

“Then, you mean to tell me you changed it?”

“You could say that.”

The girl was speechless.

“There's nothing to be surprised about. You really are a rather forthright girl, aren't you? For a Noble, it's a simple matter.”

“So, you're one of the surviving Nobility after all. In that case, why don't you stop fooling around and go back to your true appearance?” Mia said, flinging the words against the cold stone wall. She couldn't bear the thought of someone so cruel and inhuman taking D's shape.

“My true appearance?”

Surprisingly enough, the voice behind the wall sounded somewhat astonished. But as a certain disturbing turbulence that even Mia herself didn't comprehend swept through her heart, that voice gave way to a bizarre chuckle.

“Very well. I shall do so soon enough. But first—come with me.”

An arm in black stretched from the stone wall. Before Mia had a chance to avoid it, it grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pulled her through. Most likely, something had been done to the molecular structure of the wall. The moment her skin registered the sensation of slipping through something that wasn't water but rather more like a dense fog, Mia found herself on the other side.

An oppressive heat struck Mia's face, but it wasn't because the temperature was high. The air was incredibly humid.

More than the fake D before her, it was her surroundings that caught her eye. She was in an enormous cavern—and one glance at the completely even walls, ceiling, and floor made it clear that it was artificial. It was a naturally occurring pocket, but it had obviously been worked by human hands. Or rather, by Noble hands. Apparently fifty or sixty yards in diameter, the vast cavern was visible all the way up to the ceiling. There were no light fixtures. The walls and ceiling themselves radiated light.

“Long ago, it was a bit brighter in here. The power supply was destroyed once, and now no amount of fiddling can get it any better than this, despite the fact that the Sacred Ancestor himself shielded the self-repair systems in a zero space field. It must've been a fearsome foe who did such a thing.”