Vampire Hunter D Volume 13: Twin-Shadowed Knight Parts 1 and 2 (29 page)

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I

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T
he road lay in shadow. To either side of it were endless rolling plains. Though they were dotted with what looked to be rocky mountains and woods, these did nothing to lift the air of desolation. Spread with gray clouds, the sky occasionally carried the growl of distant thunder. It would probably rain.

All day a horse had been advancing through the wilderness. The continuous stretch of drab tones and identical scenery would drive all emotion from the heart of any rider in the saddle. Anger, joy, and sadness all fused with the ash gray world, leaving a dull weariness in command of the soul. At times like this, travelers might even wish they were dead.

However, this rider was a gorgeous exception. The eyes beneath his wide-brimmed traveler's hat gave off a light that even the void would fear, and as he rode into an almost imperceptible breeze, the face he had turned forward was so beautiful it could convince anyone that it was not of this world. Men and women alike were paralyzed by it, and even the beasts undoubtedly adored him with one look at it. However, his beauty was such that all who saw him understood that when his black-gloved hand reached for the hilt of the curved sword peeking over his shoulder, he wouldn't be done until death colored the blade of his weapon.

Both the ashen sky and the ocher plains seemed to exist solely to highlight the rider's magnificence as he and his horse went down the highway. What awaited him at his destination—life or death?

When the grumbling of the heavens had grown quite close, a flickering image resembling a village began to take shape further down the road. The sea of clouds lit up. Blue zigzags connected the sky and earth, with thunder audible just a short while later.

Perhaps this was some signal to welcome the rider and his mount. For with that flash of light, the rider had caught the stink of blood on the almost imperceptible wind. It had blown out of a village—a village that lay more than six miles away.

It was an hour later that the horse and rider came to the village. At the end of a smaller road that branched off to the right of the highway loomed a high palisade and a wooden gate. The gate was open. And the stench of blood definitely came from within.

The rider, however, showed no signs of turning his mount in that direction. Not displaying the slightest hesitation, he rode forward without evincing a mote of fear. All he had for the village that stank of blood was a stern indifference. Had any survivors known of this, they might've held it against him for the rest of their lives. No, they would've undoubtedly forgone that. That way, they were spared having to choose death over a life of writhing pain.

After the young man had gone five or ten feet past the road to the village, his ears caught a faint sound and a voice. The sound was footsteps, and the voice was that of a young woman.

“Help me!”

The young man's action betrayed the image he projected. Halting his horse, he tugged on the reins and wheeled it around. He gave a light kick of his heels to his mount's flanks, and the cyborg horse began to trot back in the opposite direction.

On passing through the gate the rider was greeted by a scene like any other Frontier village. Wooden houses were scattered between the trees. There was a square and a well, stock pens and rows of storehouses. However, no one called out to the visitor, and there was no sign of vigilance-committee members to surround him with swords, spears, and firearms in hand.

The rider went straight down the main street of the village. But despite everything that was wrong about this scene, he didn't seem to raise so much as an eyebrow of that cold and beautiful visage.

On the left-hand side he saw the sign for the general store. Yarai's. It was the local branch of a chain that had stores far and wide across the Frontier. At the same time the horse halted in front of it, the door swung open from inside and a pale figure staggered out. Taking a couple of steps down the raised wooden sidewalk, she then thudded down on her face. Her flaming red hair shook.

Getting off his horse, the rider went over to the girl. Before he came to a stop, the girl put both hands against the sidewalk and tried to rise. Surely she'd noticed the rider's approach, but she didn't even look at him as she got back up. Though she was gritting her teeth, her face was that of a beautiful young lady of seventeen or eighteen. Rubbing her tear-wearied eyes with one hand, the girl then looked up at the rider. Her eyes instantly opened wide with fascination, and a rosy hue tinged her cheeks. For even mired as the girl was in weariness, resentment, and despair, the rider had a countenance so gorgeous it made her lose herself.

“Who are you?” the girl asked in a dazed tone. “I'm Rosaria.”

“D.”

At that point the wind blew by, stirring the young man's hair and making him hold down the brim of his hat.

“That sounds like someone saying goodbye,” the girl—Rosaria—said, squinting her eyes.

“What happened?” D asked.

“Everyone's been killed,” Rosaria replied weakly. With a pale finger she pointed to her neck. To a black scarf. “You must know without even looking. There are a pair of teeth marks under this. I was bitten by a Noble.”

The sky glittered. Half of the girl's face lit up, while thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Show me,” D said.

“No. I don't feel particularly good about it, and if you were to run off on me, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere.”

“I'm a Vampire Hunter.”

Rosaria's eyes opened as far as they could go. Yet they still seemed to have a sort of gauze over them due to the beauty of the young man before her.

“You're a Hunter . . . Would you by any chance be a dhampir?”

“Yes.”

With that, Rosaria collapsed on the spot. The threads of tension that'd supported her had been cut. Shoulders rising and falling as she took a deep breath, she looked up at D with hatred in her eyes.

“So, this is the end for me?” she asked.

“Why do you say that?”

“Don't play innocent with me. I'm a victim. When a Vampire Hunter finds someone like that hanging around, he doesn't let it slide. It's your ilk that did this to the village!”

So, Vampire Hunters put the stench of blood all around the place?

“What happened?” D asked once again.

“Your colleagues came in and ran around killing everyone. That's all—why don't you see for yourself?”

Suddenly Rosaria got right back up on her feet and headed for the door of the same general store she'd come out of. She acted as though her earlier call for help had just been the sound of the wind.

Stroking the neck of his horse, which seemed somewhat on edge, the Hunter then followed after Rosaria.

The interior of the store was soaked in blood. Not the floor or the ceiling. The very air. By the counter, two villagers lay face down. Apparently they'd been attacked from behind, and the ends of iron stakes jutted from their backs. Judging by the length and thickness of them, the stakes had to weigh over twelve pounds each. Even if they'd caught those people off guard, the person who'd used them must've been endowed with incredible strength.

“Back behind the counter is old man Meadow. He was the manager.”

D had already caught the scent of another person's blood rising from back there. Turning to Rosaria, he asked, “Did you hide?”

The girl nodded. “I worked here part time. I was just in the middle of putting some sacks of flour into the storehouse out back. And then, all of a sudden, I heard these screams.”

Though she'd thought about coming out, her whole body had just frozen. The screams had been that intense.

“Actually, they were screams from Mrs. Judd and Mrs. Laroque lying there. It's unbelievable the noises a person makes when they're dying . . . Then there was the sound of something hitting the floor, and old Mr. Meadow said, ‘Who sent you?' But right after that . . .”

“Wasn't there an answer?”

“Not a word. Once I heard the manager fall, there was some laughter. I'm sure there were four of them.”

Terrified as she was, this innocent young redhead had still been able to deduce their number from the murderers' voices.

“I was paralyzed in the storehouse. And then I saw this huge flesh-eating rat down by my feet. It didn't surprise me, but it managed to knock over a mountain of canned goods. I was certain I was dead. They came into the storehouse!”

“How did you survive?”

“I don't know,” Rosaria replied, shaking her head in denial. “I just pressed my back up against the storehouse wall like so and shut my eyes. I was so nervous I thought my heart would stop. Now, that storehouse is a little prefab job that couldn't hold three people. I knew as soon as they came in I'd be right in front of them. They absolutely had to have seen me. Yet all they did was grunt about how there was no one there, and then they just left.”

After he'd finished listening to her, D spun around and stepped outside. Crossing the street, he went into the saloon in the middle of the block. It was a bloodbath in there, too. Nearly a dozen men lay in their own blood. Stakes jutted from their backs or chests, and there were three decapitated corpses.

“Not a single person escaped, you know,” Rosaria said in a hoarse voice, having followed him there.

Undoubtedly these sudden attackers always prided themselves on being exceptionally skilled at slaughter. One corpse stood over by the wall with one hand going for the machete on his hip. He'd been killed while trying to resist. A stake about a foot and a half long nailed him to the wall, right through the heart. The man over by the window who'd been impaled with arms still outstretched had obviously made an attempt to escape.

“They must've been remarkably fast,” Rosaria said, shaking her head.

It was obvious that, having wielded those heavy stakes so easily and slaughtered ten people in a split second without letting anyone escape, they weren't average Hunters. What's more, they hadn't pulled the stakes back out. Each must've had a number of them—how many pounds of weapons did they carry around?

“Have you seen the heads?” D asked.

His question related to the decapitated corpses. Although it seemed a shocking query to put to a girl of her age, this was the Frontier. And it was D asking.

“I've seen nothing of the sort!” Rosaria said, turning her face away.

Had the butchers carried them away, then? For what purpose?

D went outside.

“After they left, I went around and checked every house in the village. The massacre was complete. Not a single person was left alive. Our village didn't have much of a population to begin with. Wherever you go, you'll find nothing but corpses here.”

“How about the women and children?”

Rosaria closed her eyes and shook her head. The winds of death had blown off with every life in the village, irrespective of age or sex.

“Did you see the killers?” D asked as he looked across the street.

“Nope. You can laugh if you like, but—I didn't leave the storehouse. At least, not until the sound of their horses and wagon had gone down the road to the gate. But while I was in the storehouse, I heard screams and shouts and people begging for their lives outside the whole time.”

“Was it an ordinary wagon?”

“Now that you mention it, there was a huffing sound like steam.”

The reason D had asked must've been because he'd seen the number of deep ruts that'd been left in the dirt of the street.

“Do you know who they were?”

Not answering that, D asked her, “How long has the village been going?”

Rosaria's eyes gave off a troubling gleam, but she soon seemed to give in, saying, “I guess there's no point in hiding it from you, is there? Apparently, it's been about fifty years. They took a village that'd fallen into disrepair and patched it up. You know, don't you? That this was a village for victims.”

“They all had scarves on,” D replied.

Taking off any one of those would've exposed a pair of fang wounds.

“Why didn't you look under them? When you see a person with a scarf around their neck, isn't it perfectly natural for a Hunter to tear it off and check, even if that person happens to be one of your own parents? All the Hunters I've ever known would've done that.”

“What was the population of the village?” D asked her.

“Two hundred—or a few over that.”

“Were you planning on seeing to them?”

It took the girl a few seconds to grasp the meaning of those words.

“You'd bury them?” she said, her eyes quickly filling with tears. “I can't believe it. You're a Vampire Hunter, aren't you? Isn't it your job to kill people like us?”

“There isn't enough time to bury them. We'll cremate them.”

Rosaria nodded and sent glittering bits flying.