Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four (10 page)

From between the machines, a form like a gigantic stag beetle appeared and closed on a puddle on the walkway made from water that'd dripped from D on his way over there. The front half of the beetle's body turned to face the waterway. While it was unclear what it intended to do, D had long since been swept away to the watery depths. In a manner of speaking, the beetle was a kind of patrol car making its rounds in the manor. D was right to suspect that his intrusion had been discovered.

Less than a minute after he'd entrusted himself to the flow of the waterway, D suddenly found himself surrounded by a vast, open space. Water stretched endlessly on all four sides. The flow that'd carried D here no longer had even a trifling effect on the world, while the blue light was the only saving grace of the motionless void. Making for the light, D started to rise toward the surface.

“This is one weird place,” his left hand said. Its voice was muffled. They were still underwater, after all.

Sticking just his head out, D looked all around. The ceiling was curved in a great vault and had lost the coarseness of natural stone. This was most likely a natural cavern that had been modified.

“Water flows here from the river. But for what? There ain't so much as a minnow down here!”

At that point, D turned his gaze down into the water and said in a low voice, “No, there
is
something.”

A pale woman's face was gazing up at D from below. Her gaze, which could be described as earnest, carried all the solitude of her watery existence, while her white dress seemed to speak of long years that it hadn't been allowed to flutter despite being underwater. It was definitely the same woman as earlier.

“When did she . . . ?” D's left hand muttered, and that was probably the very same thing the Hunter was wondering. For not even D's ultra-keen senses had detected the woman's approach.

D sank into the water once more. Perhaps he thought the woman really wasn't suited to being out of the depths.

“Welcome, O mighty one,” the woman said, her voice ringing in his head. It wasn't telepathy—the woman's lips were actually moving. And her voice did indeed echo in D's head.

“Are you the baron's mother?” D asked in his usual voice. It was quite strange how it sounded normal even underwater.

“Oh! Is my child well?”

“Didn't you see him?” said D.

“You mean—he has come here?”

“Indeed.”

“In that case—in that case, my husband . . .”

“Your son was out to get his father. Would his father have any compunction about doing the same to his son?”

“No, he would not.”

“If he were slain,” D said coolly, “what would be done with his remains?”

“They would go into the subterranean incinerator or the river.”

“Someone else—a young woman—should've been brought here as well.”

“I know nothing of that.”

“Where is Lord Vlad's bedroom?”

“In the north end of the basement. Or at least
it was
. Long ago.”

The last phrase seemed tied to boundless thoughts. There wasn't resentment or anger or even grief. The only emotion in this woman was a calm as still and clear as the waters that surrounded her.

Just as D was about to kick away through the depths, the woman called out to him, “Could I not trouble you to hear a certain tale? You, who have the blood of the Nobility in you but are no Noble, who have the mind of a human but are not human—I should like one such as yourself to hear this. To hear our tale.”

The woman's voice held emotion for the first time. And that meant chaos and destruction for this placid world.

“Wow!” the Hunter's left hand remarked.

A fierce turbulence that would've left any ordinary person unable to keep their eyes open speared through the crushing depths of the water, tossing D like a toy.

The woman could do more than merely drift peacefully.

Just then, the waves that traveled through the water carried a different sound.

“An intruder has been detected,” said a voice that reached them underwater—the voice of a machine. “No one's come this way, have they?”

“Leave me!” the woman said, her lips moving.

“Pardon the intrusion.”

“Oh, now there's something you don't find much. Fear in a machine's voice. It seems the lady ain't just a sunken stiff.”

While it was unclear just where the left hand had learned such colorful terminology, it fell silent after that.

“I'll hear you out,” said D.

The woman's violent emotion had already been lost.

“You see, a month before my child—Byron—was born, a certain august personage came to our manor,” the woman began, speaking through the water. “Ah, yes—he has an air about him that is so very much like yours, the great one does.”

All she could remember was a giant figure in black standing there in the center of the great hall—this is what the woman told him. Her husband and their retainers had prostrated themselves, and when she followed their example, that great personage declared, “Your child shall be born in a month's time—but I want to perform a certain procedure on him immediately, and I shall take custody of him for three months once he is born.”

“Forgive my impertinence, but what are you trying to say?” Lord Vlad had asked.

“I shall make a new Nobility!” he answered instantly.

That reply caused the woman to tremble. Persistent rumors circulated about the great one abducting large numbers of human girls and also performing bizarrely inhuman experiments on Nobility. She thought her husband would object. However, with the great one before him, her husband consented readily, saying, “This is a great honor. Kindly do as you see fit, and allow us to serve in any way that we may.” And as he expressed his approval, he smiled so broadly his cheeks seemed fit to burst.

For the following month, the woman was troubled. The mixing of human and Noble blood—that was the sort of thing the rumors described. For a woman of purebred Noble upbringing, that was every bit as cruel as plummeting straight to hell. Especially when that fate might be her child's. She worried, contemplating everything from running away to killing both her baby and herself, but she was unable to pursue either course of action. Knowing well what weighed on his wife's mind, the lord had her under strict surveillance.

Presently, the day of the delivery came and the great one called upon them once more, taking the infant away just as promised. After her husband returned from seeing off their guest in the most obsequious fashion, the woman rebuked him violently.

“Why didn't you try to stop him? How could you let him take our treasure? I despise you. And I shall never forgive you, for so long as I live,” she said, spitting the words out like a gout of blood.

In reply, her husband merely said, “Wait three months.”

For the woman, those three months were like flesh being shaved from her bones. And then her baby returned. The shadowy figure that towered once again in their hall set the peacefully slumbering babe on the floor and turned to leave without speaking a single word.

Her husband called out to his back, “Were you successful, or was it—a failure?”

There was no answer.

“Byron grew up without incident. He was showered with blessings by my husband, myself, and everyone else. And as my child grew, my hatred waned.”

Watching her child grow into a fine young man, the woman swore to herself that she would protect him no matter what happened.

The change, rather, came in her husband. It was when Byron was five or six that she noticed a disapproving gleam drifting through her husband's eyes whenever he looked at the boy. With each passing day it only grew in intensity, until it took the form of cruel violence unleashed on Byron's person. One day, his coffin was taken from its place in the basement and left out in the sunlight unbeknownst to anyone. A timer had been set on the lid so that it would open at a certain hour. Byron's entire body was burnt, engulfed in flames.

“I'm not sure whether or not you know this, but when a Noble's flesh is charred by the rays of the sun, it never again returns to its original pallor,” the woman said sadly. “Perhaps that would've been for the best. Ever since that incident, my husband's feelings toward our child could only be described as murderous . . . ever since our child's skin returned to normal
that very same day
.”

-

I

-

Miska was with de Carriole in a certain location. Naturally, she wasn't there of her own free will—all freedom of mind had been taken from her when she first met him. Her eyes were still vacant even now, and she made no attempt to flee despite the danger, but lay on a table like a lovely doll.

She was in a laboratory.

Surrounded by countless drugs and pieces of glassware, an atomic generator, a forge, and the like, de Carriole was seated in a chair beside her. And sitting there, he looked like some evil old jailer ready to torture the captive beauty with his vile “experiments.” However, the deep wrinkles of the old man's face drew closer together, and a shadowy suffering seemed to cling to his features like the wings of a bat. In fact, he'd been deliberating this way for nearly a full day. Going through the pile of parchment scrolls he had close at hand, he quickly ran his eyes over them, as he'd done more than a hundred times before, yet still he did it once more. He then banged a scroll against his knees with both hands. For this great sorcerer who was said to be able to call forth the devil himself, such displays of pique were rare.

“This will never do. There seems to be no way at all to remove the Destroyer from this girl. It's impossible to separate the two of them safely.”

Rising to his feet, he glared down at Miska as she lay on the table. Ordinarily, it wouldn't have been strange for his eyes to have held despair, but they were ablaze with malevolence. It was because of this disposition that de Carriole had become a sorcerer feared by even the deadliest serpents, but it did not help him overcome his current obstacle.

“If they are separated, the girl will die. That is unpardonable. What's more—?”

Just as he was speaking, an odd-timbred voice announced from a circular window up by the ceiling, “Sai Fung is here.”

The black figure was that of a large raven. Its gaze gleamed with purple. Crystals had been set in place of its eyes.

Shooting a glance of displeasure not at the raven but at the distant door, de Carriole commanded, “Send him in.”

Without the slightest delay the door opened and the man in question stepped in. He then informed the old man that Zanus had been slain.

“Zanus?! When was this?” the ancient sorcerer asked, his eyes glowing with a spark far too base to be termed hope, but after Sai Fung replied, the light swiftly faded and the old man returned to the seat he'd been about to vacate.

“No, it's too late now. At least, to use a dead body. Even for him, it would be too great a load to bear.”

The ring of what some might term obsession in his voice finally prompted Sai Fung to ask with some discomfort, “What are you talking about?”

Although he made no reply, the great sorcerer seemed to suddenly think of something, and he turned an incredibly intense gaze on his subordinate.

“Wh—what is it?”

“What if I were to use you?”

The look in his eye and his tone of voice both defied description. Sai Fung's hand reflexively reached for the bastard sword on his hip.

Subordinate or not, the deadly determination in the man's eyes made de Carriole shake his head in futility.

“It's no use. You wouldn't last a minute.”

“What in the world have you been going on about all this time? Have you no words to ease the passage of Zanus's soul?”

“I'll give you his pay.”

“Well, that's another matter, then,” the man chortled. “Go ahead and take all the time you need for contemplation. You've heard my report. I'm heading back to the manor.”

“Wait,” the old man called out to stop him, and then he rose from his chair, walked over to a large desk that was close by, and grabbed the flask that was warmed by the flames of an atomic lamp. About half an inch of pale purple liquid had accumulated at the bottom of it—the result of his completely focused efforts since learning about the connection between Miska and the Destroyer.

As his master approached with the flask in hand, Sai Fung raised one hand to stop him, saying, “Kindly wait just a second.”

For an instant, the strangest phenomenon occurred. While it was clear he'd only raised his right arm, it seemed to blur into an overlap of countless limbs. However, as de Carriole stopped right in front of him, the old sorcerer's eyes saw just one image of Sai Fung's right arm.

“What in blazes do you wanna do with me? Don't tell me you want me to drink that funny-colored concoction.”

“Correct.”

“Just stop it.”

The baron had counted this man among the three greatest warriors, but Sai Fung grew pale as he backed away. It seemed he'd had more than enough of his master's potions.

Grinning at the naked fear of his subordinate, de Carriole told him, “Relax. I'm not going to turn you into a purple phantom again. This is a fortifying elixir.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Sai Fung asked, his eyes narrowing even further.

“It's a drug that will turn flesh into steel. Drinking just a drop of it would transform you into a superman capable of smashing through the walls of the manor's reactor with a single blow.”

“By all means, let me drink it.”

“But in return, your whole body will be reduced to dust in an hour.”

“I retract my previous remark. And why would you concoct something so useless in the first place?”

“In order to make a vessel.”

“A vessel?”

Fluttering his white beard, de Carriole turned to the table where Miska lay and said, “There's something horrible within that young lady. It slumbers at present, but once awakened, it would destroy everything on the face of the earth.”

“You can't be serious,” Sai Fung said, as people so often do, but he knew that where supernatural phenomena were concerned, this great sorcerer neither lied nor even joked, so he said nothing more to question his master.

“I sorely desire to have it under my control. But in order to do so, I must separate this entity—which we can refer to as the Destroyer—from the girl by whatever means necessary. However, as things stand now, I wouldn't be able to control it. Until I can, I need another body—one under my command—in which I might let it sleep.”

A hand dotted with age spots gripped the flask tightly.

“In that case, you have plenty of servants and homunculi in your mansion.”

“Balderdash!” de Carriole bellowed at Sai Fung, crying the word like a man unhinged. “You think any old body, filthy and frail, would serve to confine something that could destroy the world? The Nobility! A Noble's body would do the trick. The girl is proof of that. However, being pledged to Lord Vlad's service, I am unable to use Nobles in my experiments. That is why I prepared the fortifying elixir, but, as expected, it simply won't do. The initial form can't withstand the energy the elixir produces.”

“Is this Destroyer character really all that strong?” Sai Fung inquired with trepidation. Although his head knew what his master said was the truth, his heart couldn't accept it yet.

He immediately regretted posing such a rash question.

De Carriole's lips warped into a smile.

“Want to see?” he asked, his voice practically a whisper.

Based on past experiences, nothing good could come of this. It would be bad, and on an incredible scale.

“Do you want to see?” the great sorcerer asked again. His eyes glowed maniacally.

“Uh . . . sure,” the man replied, unable to refuse.

De Carriole's highly disturbing smile grew ever more daunting.

“Excellent. Then I shall show you just a little.”

And saying that, the old man tottered back toward Miska, hunched over all the while. As if pulled along on invisible strings, Sai Fung followed behind him.

Before reaching Miska, de Carriole took a summoning bell that sat on the desk and gave it a shake. The crystal-clear peal was swallowed by the air. Setting it back down while its signal remained a mystery, the old man stood by Miska's side and raised her pale right arm.

“As a result of my examinations, I've determined that this is the easiest spot to get the Destroyer to come out.”

Though Sai Fung stared intently, he couldn't find anyplace odd on the bone-china skin that was unique to the Nobility.

“I can't see it either. So of course you wouldn't be able to,” de Carriole said boastfully.

While one hand held Miska's arm, a silver needle gleamed in the other. The needle was a good twenty inches long.

“However, a machine I constructed indicated that this pressure point served as an entrance and exit for the Destroyer. Allow me to demonstrate a small fraction of the Destroyer's power!”

Right here and now?
Sai Fung thought as a shudder raced through his body, but de Carriole's needle remained motionless, and the sorcerer turned around.

The same door by which Sai Fung had entered opened again, allowing a colossal figure to enter.

“A golem . . .” Sai Fung muttered.

Awkwardly planting one foot after another on the stone floor, the imposing figure walking toward them was most definitely a humanoid shape sculpted from clay.

Sorcerers often had odd jobs that were impossible for humans, and although there were various means of dealing with this issue, the most widely accepted was the “animated doll.” Formed from bronze or earth, or even from flowers or air, these dolls were given life by the miraculous concoction that made them. Of them all, those shaped from clay were said to be the toughest and most obedient, and sorcerers, necromancers, and Nobles pitted them against each other to test their abilities.

“This is bad news. That's a combat model!” Sai Fung squeaked in a pathetic tone. “Breathe life into one of these guys when there's no fighting to be done, and there'll be hell to pay before you get it back to sleep again. This one in particular is always nasty when it gets up, isn't it?”

“Exactly,” de Carriole said as he raised the needle in his right hand and gradually brought it closer and closer to Miska's pale arm.

A
clang!
resounded from the floor.

The golem had clapped its hobnail-studded iron boots together and taken a position there, arrow straight and utterly motionless. Standing eight feet tall, it weighed in excess of twelve hundred pounds. With those proportions, it wasn't exactly cut out for housework. Battle—it was for that purpose alone the humanoid weapon had been given life.

“I'm so glad you're here.” Staring intently at Sai Fung, de Carriole said, “Kill him.”

“Wha—?!”

Before Sai Fung could even begin to voice an objection, the golem turned noisily and robbed him of any breathing room.

“Hey! Knock it off, boss!”

As the man backed away, his hip slammed into another table, rattling it badly. Even after Sai Fung had stepped away from it, the table still didn't stop shaking.

Creaking across the floor, the golem rushed at him. It was like a massive steam locomotive barreling forward. Knocking desks and tables aside that must've weighed several hundred pounds each, it extended both arms as it closed on Sai Fung. The sounds of bottles and other equipment shattering seemed to go on forever.

The monstrosity closed with a speed and a force that were both inescapable. As its two arms came together in an iron ring, a lithe form leapt out from between them on a course that angled off to the right. It was Sai Fung. But how in the world had he managed that? His bound was made at an angle and with a speed which were both impossible for a mere mortal. What's more, both his arms were straight out in a rather natural pose, and he stopped as if stuck to the ceiling. Incredibly enough, he was still at an angle.

“The thought of not being able to do anything but run pisses me off, you know. Is it okay if I reciprocate, boss?”

At his question, de Carriole—who'd been watching the whole incident from start to finish from down on the floor—smiled with a strange affability and replied, “Very well, then.”

“I've got permission now,” Sai Fung said, his expression filled with a dauntlessness that made his fear up until now seem like a sham. “Have at you, mud pie!”

A black shadow suddenly covered the man's face. The giant was right in front of him. The tremendous twelve-hundred-pound form had kicked off the floor and sailed up to him, up more than thirty feet. And now it didn't seem the least bit interested in merely grabbing him.

It was a gargantuan clay fist that ripped through the air on its way to Sai Fung's face. But the term “clay” was misleading, because de Carriole had kneaded it and mixed in various materials to give it the strength of steel.

However, Sai Fung's form suddenly disappeared from right under the giant's nose. He was right behind the golem, hanging from the ceiling, his pose not changed in the least. But how had he done that? He still had both hands resting at his sides.

Without breaking its pose from the hook it'd thrown, the golem began its descent.

Sai Fung made a leap that brought him skimming along the giant's back. A bastard sword glittered in his right hand.

The golem's left arm quickly twisted around behind its back. It slammed into Sai Fung's shoulder—or so it appeared for a heartbeat, and then the man made a vertical descent to the floor. There was no conceivable way he could zip around like that. It was almost as if countless unseen arms and legs propelled his body in any possible direction. As Sai Fung made a light landing, the massive form came crashing down right in front of him. Its own weight plus the acceleration meant a force of over five tons on impact—but the clay colossus took it with just a slight bend of both knees. It whirled around with unbelievable speed.

Humbled perhaps by the sheer power of the giant, Sai Fung stood stock still.

The giant's right arm was already raised as high as it could go. It came down with an explosive
whooosh!
Right at Sai Fung's head.