White Devil Mountain (20 page)

A faint, nearly suppressed laughter had reached D’s ears. “I suppose that was a stupid question,” the man on the throne said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “What would you do, save dispose of the pseudo-Nobility that attacked you? Such a fearsome man. It’s a joy to meet a man such as yourself, D. Let us hope you live up to the expectations I, Gilzen, have for you.”

“You were the cargo?” D inquired.

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Then I’ll have to dispose of you,” said the Hunter. That was what it meant to be the young man known as D.

Gilzen’s eyes bulged, and then the man immediately smiled. “So, that’s how it’s going to be? My, I’m coming to like you more and more. D, might I have one moment more?”

A murderous implement flew through the air without resistance, straight for the Nobleman’s forehead—and the rough wooden needle poked out through the back of his head. For a split second, a look of incredible pain and rage skimmed across Gilzen’s pale countenance, but before he could even catch D’s eye, he grinned wearily. Three times he clapped his hands, and D’s deadly needle came out as if it were being pushed back through, tumbling halfway down the stairs before it came to a stop.

“Not even your skill can slay me. Why not stay here in the castle for the time being and hone your abilities?” He then added, “I know quite a bit about the Sacred Ancestor.”

D bounded.

Gilzen clapped his hands together. Beam weapons secreted about the room should’ve pierced D from head to toe. On D’s chest, his pendant glowed blue. And nothing happened.

When the dashing figure in black alighted right in front of him, Gilzen gazed at him half in surprise, half in admiration. “You fight, even knowing it’s pointless?”

D’s right hand caught the man by the neck. Unexpectedly thin, his neck was crushed with one great squeeze.

As D gazed at the twitching Gilzen, his eyes were incredibly clear. But his ears caught someone saying, “Mr. D!” He didn’t even turn to look, but the voice continued, “Everyone’s here. We got caught.”

The diminutive figure standing just inside the door was Lourié.

“—As I was just saying,” Gilzen said as little coughs racked his crushed throat. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. It puts even me in such a strange mood. Look, I must be blushing. Ah, but I read you right. It seems there does exist something that can melt your icy machinery. I know it’s a terribly shopworn phrase, D, but I take no responsibility for what happens to the boy!”

“He’s nothing to me.”

Gilzen smirked. It would be no exaggeration to term his smile evil. “The very fact that you’d say that proves you’ve played into my trap. Look.” He snapped the fingers of his right hand.

Darkness enveloped Lourié’s body. Cries gushed into the air.

“The screams of a child with no connection to you. They don’t bother you, do they?”

As Gilzen said that, bubbles of blood came out with his words. He slowly pulled his torso away. D’s fingers came free of his neck, and they didn’t try to find purchase on it again.

“Well, I shall welcome you as my guest.” Putting his hand to his ravaged throat, Gilzen continued, “However, as the ruler of this land I must first make an example. This is how we reward filthy Hunters.”

Suddenly, curved blades appeared from either side of his torso. Blades? No, clearly they were
ribs
. At the same time the left one pierced D’s flank, the right rib changed direction like some clockwork mechanism, stabbing into D’s heart from above. With the tip of it poking out from his back like a stake, D arched backward without a word, reeling. His body instinctively sought to pull away, but his torso was skewered.

“And here end my sanctions against this despicable character. Later, we shall chat to your heart’s contentment. Nights in my castle are long, D!”

The bizarre rib swords had been pulled out of him. At last D backed away, his body swaying greatly, and then he fell straight backward from the summit of the pyramid.

Captive

chapter 1

I

D
fell feet first. To be precise, he did a half flip in midair. The moment he landed, he should’ve bounded to a new location, but instead he fell to one knee. Gilzen’s rib sword had punctured his internal organs.

A shadow drifted on the floor behind him like a stain. Though lacking physical form, it was actually a two-dimensional being.

“Stop!” The call for restraint rained down from the summit of that enormous dais. “You’re not to lay a hand on that man. Back!”

The shadow halted. It remained where it was, unwilling to relent.

Gilzen’s voice grew even louder, carrying hints of coercion and intimidation as he shouted, “Kindly back away—Mother.”

The shadow finally backed off. With intense speed it fled in the same direction it’d come.

“I suppose there’s no point in hiding it any longer. D, that was actually my mother.”

D got up. Not even turning to look, he bent his knees slightly. He was preparing to pounce. The young man hadn’t yet lost his will to fight.

“I am no longer in the room.”

D caught the position from which the words fell, high in the air above the dais. There were grave indications of something opening behind him. The door.

“Exit that way, and you’ll find Jeanne. She’s to be your personal attendant. She’s only a
poor imitation
, but she has delectable blood!”

A stark flash flew in the direction of the voice: a rough wooden needle.

There was no response, and soon after Gilzen’s voice faded, D walked off toward the door. Apparently the wounds from the ribs had already healed. His gait was the same as always. After he was through, the door closed behind him. Still sensing it behind him, D looked at the young woman before him. It looked as though she hadn’t moved an inch since parting company with the Hunter.

“I’m surprised you’re still well,” Jeanne murmured, as if the words were a pious litany.

“Where is Gilzen?” That was D’s only question.

“That I don’t know,” the young woman replied, her words like a groan in the unearthly air that froze her.

D’s body swayed, and he put more strength than necessary into his legs to support himself.

“Looks like his poison’s making its way through you, eh?”

Jeanne’s surprise freed her from the bonds of the Hunter’s supernatural aura. No doubt she had to wonder how such a horrible, hoarse voice could come from a gorgeous young man like him.

“It’s an ancient kind of poison, one unknown even to me. Hey, girlie, give us—I mean, give
me
some help here.”

“I have been instructed to do so,” Jeanne replied, nodding respectfully. Coming up by D’s side, she extended a hand to take hold of his arm.

“Don’t touch me—let’s go,” the young man commanded in a beautiful voice that suited his ghastly appearance.

–

“This is a hell of a place to be locked up. Let me out! Let me out of here! Let me out, I say!” the outlaw shouted, but there was no response from the corridor beyond the iron bars or from any of the other cells.

There was some light, which was a relief, but there was no sign of anyone anywhere. The stone corridor and iron bars kept silent, invested with a stillness from days of antiquity. Who could’ve imagined that this structure had just been completed?

After thirty minutes of hollering and bar shaking, Crey finally gave in. No matter how he protested, there weren’t any guards around to do anything about it.

“This is like boxing with the drapes,” he murmured, paraphrasing a proverb he’d learned while wandering in a distant island nation. “This isn’t good, no sir.”

His spirits were wilting. He couldn’t even guess how he’d been brought here. They’d been camped out in the snow when the giant, the kid, and the doctor had suddenly vanished. While he was stunned, there’d been a tap on his shoulder—that was as far as he could recall. The next thing he knew, he was here. His clothes were just how they’d been, but the mountain-climbing gear was gone. As was his knife, of course. He’d been abducted, and there hadn’t been a thing he could do to stop it. That fact drained the wanted man to his very core. His energy would return sooner or later. If it didn’t, he couldn’t live. But it would take time. At the moment, his spirits were at rock bottom.

Just as he sat down cross-legged on the stone floor, to his left he heard a voice he recognized say, “Mr. Crey?”

“Squirt—so, you’re okay?” It seemed that Lourié was locked in the neighboring cell. “I’ve been shouting for a while. Didn’t you hear me?”

“I just woke up. In my dream there was this dog barking, but was that you, Mr. Crey?”

“Shut up, you little dope. Forget that—can you tell me how you got here?”

“You went outside, sir, and then Mr. Dust came over. A voice from outside spoke to us. And when we opened the door, I suddenly got all dizzy—the next thing I knew, I was here.”

“Were you tapped on the shoulder?”

“No. How about you, Mr. Crey?”

“It was Gilzen or someone, I guess. Weird thing to do. But that’s fine by me. Later on, I’ll get my payback. What about the other two?”

“They’re somewhere else,” another voice suddenly said.

Crey got the impression he heard the rustle of fabric against the ground. Pressing his face against the bars, he looked down the corridor to his right—in the direction the voice had come from.

Along came a ghostly, pale figure.

“Miss Lilia?”

It was Lourié that called out to her first. Crey was so angry, it took him longer to speak.

“You lousy . . .” He didn’t finish the rest. In its place was the sound of teeth grinding.

Without the sound of a single footfall, the lovely Huntress came to stand before Crey. Crey fell silent. Not out of anger—in a rare turn of events, his spirit had been undermined by sympathy for another and despair.

Lilia’s face was pale, her lips floating like a solitary island of crimson, and from between them what should protrude but the points of a pair of fangs.

“You . . . got bit by a Noble . . . ?”

As the outlaw murmured stupidly, the Huntress before him twisted her lips into a grin. Stark fangs jutted from her gums. Lilia brought her right hand up to her neck. There was a white scarf wrapped around it.

“She hasn’t changed completely!” Lourié cried out with joy.

Lilia hadn’t been wearing a scarf back in the village or in the refuge. The reason for this change of dress was simple—she didn’t want anyone to see the wound beneath it. The teeth marks from where a Noble had bitten her. She unconsciously touched the wound—something only victims still in the process of change did.

“It’s okay. If we slay the one who bit you, you’ll go back to normal. Just hold on until then!”

Lilia pressed one hand over her mouth. She turned toward the boy. For all their cruelty, her eyes also held an odd spark of peace.

“Thanks, kid. But it’s okay. You see, I’m satisfied.”

“You can’t say that. You have to overcome the temptation of the Noble blood. Control yourself—and fight!”

“You’re such a sweet child.” Lilia grinned. It was a human smile.

Suddenly her face jerked up. Her expression changed. The smile vanishing, she said, “They’ve caught you at last. So much for resisting!”

“Caught who?” Crey asked, rattling the bars. “The doctor and Dust must’ve ended up like us a long time ago. Which would leave—D?”

“Captured—
him
. . .”

Crey had never heard Lourié sound so hopeless before.

“Give up. To
that one
, it would be child’s play to catch God in heaven above. They should’ve done away with him ten thousand years ago.”

“‘That one’ ? Who’s that? Gilzen? What’s he intend to do with us?”

“Are you curious?”

“Of course.”

“The one thing Nobles always crave is hot blood.”

Lourié had the wind knocked out of him.

“So that’s what you gave him? Then he’ll just have to settle for what he got outta you.”

It didn’t look like she was walking at all, but Lilia now stood right in front of Crey’s bars. Her face neared his. The two of them glared at each other. Crey’s entire countenance was suffused with vermilion, and a faint smile came to Lilia’s lips. Connecting the faces of the two was a current of hatred as hot as fire.

“You don’t even know your own world. Poor, pathetic human—if only you were like me. Then you’d see what incredible creatures the Nobility are.”

“I don’t give a damn about that crap,” Crey spat, baring his teeth. “As far as we’re concerned, Nobles are just monsters, drinking human blood and making ’em into more of the same. They can’t enjoy the light of the sun; all they can do is skulk around in the darkness all the time. Let’s get this straight: the dead ain’t supposed to come back again. That’s the way of the world.”

“Why shouldn’t they come back?” Lilia inquired.

Crey bugged his eyes. “Are you some kind of idiot or something? Think about all the dead coming back to life, one after another. What could be creepier than that? This world belongs to the human race.”

“Wouldn’t people be happy to have dead family members come back to them?”

“Sure, they’d be happy. But if that means popping fangs all of a sudden and trying to sink ’em into my throat, then no thank you! They’d have to be sent to the next world all over again.”