In a sense, Juke found Mayor Camus’s consideration an unwanted favor. He had no complaint about her treatment of D or the fact that she’d given them permission to stay there, but her generosity was also coupled with a strict admonition not to lay a hand on Lady Ann. To be perfectly honest, he’d wanted to do away with the girl. Knowing there was no use arguing about it, he’d thanked her and got the help of some of the villagers in bringing the pair back to the wagon—carrying Ann on his own back. He’d ignored Sergei as the man asked what was going on, heading directly to the assembly hall, where he explained the situation to his compatriot in an empty room once their accommodations had been prepared. He even shared his thoughts on the matter of Ann.

Much to his surprise, Sergei replied, “Let’s bring her with us.” Stupefied, he asked, “Why?”

“After hearing your tale, I suppose that big hole in the ground must’ve been made by the little girl’s father—the Duke of Xenon, or whatever he’s called. I don’t really know why a parent would run off and leave their daughter covered in blood, but my hunch is that the girl didn’t get taken down by D—I think she might’ve been trying to save him. I’ve been keeping an eye on her the whole time, and I can tell you she loves D down to the marrow of her bones. If D told her to die, she’d gladly drive a stake into her own heart. In which case, it looks like you’ve got yourself a replacement for D. She might not be interested in anything but D, but for him she’d fight to the bitter end, and by extension she’d be fighting for us, too. Right?”

“You might have something there. Only we don’t have a freaking clue when D’s gonna wake up, and the girl’s hurt pretty bad, too.”

“Snap out of it, Juke. We’re talking about a Noble here. See, she may look ten years old, but inside she’s a monster, ageless and undying. She’ll heal a hundred times faster than D. Just leave her be, I say. Leave her be.”

With the logic laid out for him that clearly, Juke had no choice but to nod his head. According to Sergei, Gordo would recover soon, too.

Not even needing to hear Juke’s reply, Sergei read it in the man’s face, giving him a light clap on the shoulder and saying, “Okay! We’re good, right? I’m gonna look in on D. Leave tonight’s watch to me and get yourself a decent night’s sleep.”

The assembly hall was unexpectedly spacious, and it had a covered garage that could’ve easily accommodated five or six cargo wagons—that’s where their vehicle was parked. Leaving the empty room, Sergei found where D was sleeping. In the room to the right Gordo continued to receive a transfusion, while Rosaria was in the one to the left. Ann had stopped bleeding, so she alone had been left out in their wagon. Wolfsbane had been put on its doors and windows, so she’d have a hard time getting out of it. They couldn’t be sure that seeing her roaming around free as you please wouldn’t cause another panic among the villagers.

Sergei was worried about D. Earlier, when he’d seen the villagers carrying the Hunter into his room, his left hand had been shriveled like a mummy from the wrist down. Knowing as he did that it served as a sort of medical specialist living within D’s body, the transporter was understandably concerned. And it was on account of this that he paid a call on D.

However, before the man had gone ten paces down the hall he heard the unmistakable sound of breaking glass coming from the direction of D’s room. Racing to the rescue, Sergei saw D lying in bed and a bloodstained Lady Ann glaring at the shattered window as the wind carried in darkness. When Sergei and the village physician had examined her, her heart had stopped—despite her Noble nature. But she must’ve been faking it.

“How long have you been okay?” “Ever since I was first cut. I was up against my own father, after all,” she laughed.

Realizing there’d be no reasoning with her, Sergei asked, “What happened?”

Before posing his question, he’d looked at D and decided that nothing was out of the ordinary.

On the floor lay a heavy bastard sword that darkly reflected the light from the ceiling.

Ann shook her head in response to his tense query. Clear as glass beads, her blue eyes burned with rage.

“Well, who was it, then?” he asked, thinking how ridiculous this was and that the answer would be obvious.

Seeming to choose her words with care, Ann replied calmly, “It was Mr. Gordo.”

Not surprisingly, the transporter was stupefied, saying, “Of all the absurd—

How would Gordo get in here when he was still getting a transfusion? And why would anyone need that nasty-looking sword?

As disturbing as the latter question was to ponder, Sergei had a pretty good idea what the answer was. As for the former—

Ann’s reply to that question was straight enough: “I came to get rid of his left hand. Because I didn’t have a chance to deal the coup de grace.”

“It doesn’t work on me,” Ann responded, and this time her innocent smile made the hair stand up on his arms.

Just as the pair was about to leave the room, Juke came running in, having heard the sounds of destruction. All of them went into Gordo’s room next door, where the man lay exactly as he had when he’d been brought there, still connected to the transfusion equipment.

“Hey! What’s the meaning of this?” Sergei exclaimed, but as he turned to look at the girl, his eyes found only the open door and the hallway, which, while well lit, was still a cold scene.

“I must leave. Short though it was, I enjoyed our journey,” Lady Ann said in an extremely morose tone, the words themselves falling from places unknown. “The villagers will be here soon. They’ll probably wish to destroy me. Before they arrive, I shall leave so I may protect my D from the shadows.”

As the words ceased in the light, there was the sound of stomping feet and angry voices from the front hall.

Fearing more trouble, Juke and Sergei decided to say that it was actually Ann who’d attacked D, and by the time the villagers had bought into it, Ann was racing gracefully through the darkness until she arrived at a building where there wasn’t a single light showing. Peering at a sign on the wall, she saw that the steel plate read Town Hall. The back door was unlocked.

Sailing down the corridor like the wind, the girl came to the room at the very back of the first floor. Amid a line of doors that were darkened as if by design, this one alone had a light burning. Nothing could be seen from outside because the shades were drawn to keep supernatural creatures from being drawn to the light spilling out through the frosted glass.

At the far end of the spacious room, a gray-haired woman was seated at a desk in front of a window with its wooden shutters closed. The door Ann let go of had a plate on it that read Mayor.

“Welcome, Lady Ann,” said the mayor who held the trust and respect of the entire village, smiling with the most heartfelt sincerity at this lovable yet accursed child of the Nobility.

“So it is you after all, Dr. Gretchen,” Ann said, not begrudging her host her usual blossom of a smile.

Grinning wryly, the mayor said, “I set upon the real one as she was returning from the neighboring village, and I’d believed I’d done a good job of impersonating her, but how clever of you to find me out. And how did you learn that it was the renowned mayor who was pulling Gordo’s strings?”

By the sound of it, she’d apparently been controlling Gordo from the room and watching everything.

“I simply thought about the timing for Mr. Gordo being turned into a puppet,” Ann replied with a bit of satisfaction. She certainly was a precocious little beauty. “I hadn’t observed anything out of the ordinary about him up till the time D and I left the wagon. And though Juke and Sergei brought the wagon to the assembly hall, there were villagers all around them at the time, so no one could’ve laid a hand on him. After we got there, I can attest that there were no intruders.”

“You were feigning unconsciousness, weren’t you? You certainly fooled everyone.”

“You’re an impressive little lady,” the mayor she’d called Dr. Gretchen said, letting out a laugh that left her pale throat exposed. “So—I would love to hear the rest of your formidable reasoning.” “Very well. It’s as I already mentioned. The only chance you might’ve had to do anything strange to Mr. Gordo would’ve been when everyone went running off to where D and I were. That was when you went to where the wagon had stopped. All alone. You let your assistant go on ahead.”

“That would simply mean you had to put a spell on him as well.” The mayor nodded time and again with satisfaction.

“We are no longer father and daughter. Father cut me, and I have severed all ties to him. Now there is only one person who matters to me.” “As it happens, you picked the wrong man to be smitten with, didn’t you?” the mayor said, the expression that surfaced on her face filled with undeniable affection.

Strangely enough, it must’ve moved Ann as well, as a glittering trail rolled down the girl’s cheek.

“Then you must go as well,” the mayor said somewhat sadly, a distant glow in her eyes. “Ill-fated though your love may be, I know all too well how you feel. Such a gorgeous Hunter—I’ve lived six millennia and can’t recall ever seeing anyone like him.”

“But that’s precisely why I came,” the mayor said, her lips finally twisting into a horrifying shape. “You must be aware of the kind of people I worked on—all humans gifted with incredibly good looks, and a few Nobility as well. And there wasn’t one among them who didn’t weep and cling to me, begging me to kill them or destroy them. That is the level to which I’ve taken my skill.”

“I won’t allow you to lay a finger on my beloved!” Ann asserted frostily, the radiant smile now entirely wiped from her face.

Still on edge but unable to get rough with the people to whom the mayor had given protection, the villagers set off in search of Ann, at which point Juke said to Sergei, “I’ll go with their group. You stay and take care of things here.”

“To be honest, I don’t know if I can handle it. We’ve got Rosaria to worry about, too.”

“Yeah, the Sleeping Beauty Gaskell made. But I don’t have a clue when something other than a prince’s kiss might wake her from the general’s spell. After she slits my throat, it’ll be a little late for me to say I trusted her.”

“Then tie her up good. It doesn’t look like she’s strong like the little lady was.”

Sergei sighed. “Do what you like, then. Anyway, be careful out there,” he said, waving his hand. Outside, the torches and lanterns the villagers carried danced like fireflies.

After seeing Juke off, Sergei headed straight for D’s room—in all the commotion, he’d forgotten to check on the Hunter’s left hand, which he’d been so worried about. Closing the door, Sergei was a little unsteady on his legs, but he hastily pulled himself up straight and rubbed both temples firmly.

Coming up on D’s left side, Sergei knelt down. He had a grim look in his eye. Putting a piece of glass to D’s lips, he confirmed that the Hunter was barely breathing, and that the sleep upon him was so deep it was nearly death before he stood up again.

In the misty depths of his brain, a gray-haired old woman with red eyes was ordering him to do something. It seemed Gordo was there, too. Sergei was certain of what she’d said.

Taking a machete with a blade a foot and a half long out of his jacket, Sergei adjusted his grip on it time and again until he finally settled on a satisfactory stance.

Look for an opportunity to cut D’s left hand off. That’s what the old woman had told him. Although Gordo had apparently made a move first, he’d been unsuccessful. Oddly enough, the girl had interrupted him when she’d come to get rid of D’s left hand.

Taking D’s desiccated left hand in his own and pulling it well out, Sergei swung the machete down without taking particular aim. For a second there was about as much resistance as hacking through a sapling, and then he went smoothly through the left wrist. Staring intently at the limb that was as motionless as a dead branch, Sergei tossed it to the floor. And it made a sound just like a dead branch hitting the ground.

“What a troubling little tomboy you are,” said Mayor Camus—or rather, Dr. Gretchen in the guise of the mayor—as she quietly rose from her seat. “All your beloved flowers have closed their buds and gone to sleep. How do you intend to slay me?”

The mayor cocked an eyebrow, for she’d just watched Lady Ann bring her right hand up to her mouth. Lips like delicate petals opened, and the girl expelled a pale pink shape into her hand.

Arjd with these words, Ann blew gently onto the tender bloom in the palm of her hand. Like a petal borne on the wind it sailed, and though it should’ve been easy enough to dodge or catch, the mayor didn’t manage to do either. Standing as still as a flower picker enthralled by a bloom, she took it right in the middle of the forehead. Roots ran beneath the skin and the light pink flower swiftly turned a darker shade.

The flower was a far deadlier weapon than it appeared, but it had turned a horrid color and withered feebly.

“Ann, didn’t your father ever tell you my specialty was the field of toxin research?” the old woman laughed sinisterly. Her solemn features overlapped with a youthful countenance of unimaginable beauty. Even when the laughter stopped, the old face didn’t return.

“Dr. Gretchen!” Lady Ann said, shouting the name of her formidable opponent once more.

“Young lady, are you acquainted with the portrait of me from before my resurrection?” asked the beautiful woman dressed in the mayor’s clothes. Apparently she was a narcissist and shameless self-promoter—she wanted to talk about her past so badly she couldn’t help herself.

“Not even I know for certain when it was that I was born, aside from the fact that it must’ve been more than six thousand years ago. I first became interested in toxins at the age of two. Yes, I believe I recall it quite clearly. My father concocted poisons as a pastime, you see, and he experimented on me. He said he wanted to see just how much the agony could distort my lovely face. And his wish was granted; I went through hell. Every drop of blood boiled in my veins, and my brain and organs melted. Blood shot from every pore on my body, and I even spat up my own entrails. I cursed my father. I cursed the Sacred Ancestor, too. But a miracle occurred. In the midst of that pain and torment, my soul knew the joy of triumphing over it all. Can you understand that? The sweet taste of pain that you might never savor, the splendor of the poison that produced it. Shocked by the results, my father apologized to me, and I asked him to teach me about toxins. And you know the reason why three millennia later I’d earned a place in the history of the Nobility as ‘the woman who never should’ve been born,’ don’t you?”

It was a long, boastful talk. Ann nodded numbly. The answer she knew to that question didn’t make listening to Dr. Gretchen’s gasconade any more agreeable. Showing no fear, the girl said in a voice that was like a song, “You administered poison to more than fifty thousand Nobles, knowing full well that even the most virulent toxin you made wouldn’t kill them. Instead, your concoctions had the power to make those Nobles suffer for all eternity. You kept them hidden in the basement of your castle, where you toyed with them.”

“I gave them every conceivable poison and studied their reactions. Immortal and indestructible—can you think of anything more perfect for experimentation than subjects who would last forever? Still, men and women reacted differently. The effects of the drugs were different on babies and old people. Ah, what sweet, happy times those were! One drop of the beautiful drugs I concocted would make a little girl’s abdomen swell up like an ant’s and burst, or make the naked body of a countess melt away like mud. I believe it was the ruler of the Duchy of Richeur whose agony was such that he clawed at his own body, peeling off skin and rending flesh until he was nothing but a skeleton and a brain. Nevertheless, he didn’t die. Torn apart or liquefied, they would live forever, tormented by unending pain. When the Sacred Ancestor apprehended me, fifty thousand dying but deathless Nobility were found in my domain, so that was the official toll given for my victims. But in the Mountains of Madness in a location unbeknownst to the Sacred Ancestor, a hundred times that number still groan in agony. At present, I’m considering going back to them someday and continuing my experiments. Actually, I’ve already engaged in some—in the castle of the great General Gaskell. I can’t change what I am. I can’t be stopped. After capturing you and slaying D, I intend to return to the general’s territory as swiftly as possible.”

Despite the fact that anyone would’ve found her experiments abhorrent, what radiated from every inch of the woman who’d conducted them was a fascination with the unknown and an enthusiasm of a purity beyond compare.

“No matter what else that Hunter may be, he’s a human half-breed, after all. Though I’m sure he can’t begin to compare to the Nobles I’ve used, his beauteous countenance makes even my heart beat faster. I wish to see him suffer from my poison. I wish to watch as blood runs from his every orifice, as his eyes pop out, as he bites through his own lips. And I’ve already given two humans orders toward that end.”

“Sergei! ” the girl exclaimed, literally leaping into the air. The naxtie of the other man the dreaded toxicologist would’ve encountered had flashed before her. He was still with D!

Turning in astonishment—in other words, turning her back to the doctor—was a mistake Ann made out of concern for D. A needle was thrust deep between her shoulder blades. A foot in length, the needle had a semitransparent tube less than a millimeter in diameter stretching from its back end into the mouth of the mayor—or Dr. Gretchen. Suddenly, an ocher liquid flowed through the tube. One of the doctor’s beloved poisons was being injected into Ann’s body.

“First, let’s start with a little game,” the doctor said with a grin. Lady Ann had bent backward the second she was pierced, and she ran now for the door without ever breaking that pose. The needle came free, whistling as it was sucked back into the doctor’s mouth.

As Ann got to the doorway, she coughed violently. She could feel terrible fever and chills racing through her body.

“What do you intend to do?” Dr. Gretchen called out, her voice following the girl out the door. “D still sleeps, and two of the men who guard him are my puppets. And all of the surrounding villagers respect me. D must die here!”

Ann ran to the front hall. When she was ten feet from the door, it opened from the other side and villagers came pouring in. Seeing Ann halted there, they were stunned for a moment, but they quickly turned and shouted to those behind them, “Here she is!”

Ann jumped to the left. There was a window. The glass glittered like fragments of the moon as it shattered. Crushing a number of those pieces underfoot, the lovely little girl ran on by the light of the real moon.

Ann was irritated by how slow her legs were. Near and far, here and there, she could hear choruses of shouts announcing they’d found her or asking where she was. As long as she could hear them, she knew she could move with relative freedom.

A number of the torches that danced in the darkness were moving in the same direction as her goal. They were probably going on instructions from the mayor—Dr. Gretchen. But at their current speed, she still had a chance.

Racing back like a gust of wind, Ann found no sign of anyone around the assembly hall and made straight for D’s room. Running over to where D lay all alone, Ann pulled back the sheets and was left breathless. D’s left hand was gone. From the look of the wound, she could guess the weapon and the way it’d been used.

Glancing at the floor, Ann called out, “Where are you, Mr. Left Hand? I need your power, you see. Aid me for the sake of my D.”

“I’ve no choice but to take him with me,” she said, starting toward D’s bed.

Just then, there was the small, hard knock of something weakly springing from the floor. There could be no mistaking the direction Ann’s eyes turned: under D’s bed.

The withered hand was in such a sad state, it wouldn’t be surprising if she’d failed to tell it from an ordinary piece of trash.

If she didn’t get an answer, she intended to pull off a finger or two to bring it back to its senses. After all, it was Lady Ann who’d put it in that shape to begin with. There were any number of ways she could fix it.

“What do you want?” said a feeble and painfully hoarse voice, but it was definitely the same one as before.

“I might’ve shriveled up, but I don’t die that easy. So why is it.. . you’re looking for me?”

“To save my beloved D. There’s no time now so I can’t explain in detail, but the mayor is Dr. Gretchen in disguise. She’s the most dangerous poison specialist in the entire history of the Nobility. She’s using Mr. Gordo and Mr. Sergei to go after my D.”

“There’s no one who seems likely to cooperate with me aside from you and Mr. Juke. That’s why I’ve come back.”

“I see . . . The way you feel. . . about him . . . it’s no joke. First thing to do ... is get me and D out of here. Can you do that?” “Yes.”

Just as Ann was replying, there was the sound of the front door being thrown open, and footsteps and voices soon followed. Quickly reaching out and grabbing the left hand, Ann stood up, got D from the bed, and threw him over her shoulder. Although her intentions toward the left hand were now the complete opposite of what they’d once been, the girl didn’t find this the least bit strange.

With a full-grown man over the shoulder of what looked to be a ten-year-old’s body and the severed left hand in her right hand, she started at an easy run toward the window, and then fell forward.

“What... are you doing? You little idiot...” the left hand cursed weakly as it fell on the floor, but then it gasped in a louder tone.

While under the bed, it hadn’t been able to make out Lady Ann’s face because she was backlit, but now it saw with perfect clarity.

The ever-innocent face of the girl struggling madly to rise from the floor had ballooned to twice its normal size, and probably due to the fever it was also bruised a deep black. And it wasn’t just her face. Her arms, legs, and the rest of her body were so grossly swollen that no trace of the innocent little girl remained.

“You .. . got poisoned ... right? Surprised you made it this far ... in the shape you’re in . ..”

Ann didn’t hear the left hand’s words of praise. She was desperately trying to get her poison-filled body to rise again.

Somehow making it to her feet, she’d no sooner resumed carrying D and the left hand when the door was thrown open and human figures spilled through the opening like a pile of soapsuds.

Three men with rifles appeared in the doorway and, after looking at Ann, they moved to the very forefront of the villagers, dropped to one knee, and took aim. Their stake-firing guns were already cocked. Propelled by compressed gas at an impressive sixteen hundred feet per second, the rough wooden stakes would probably have little trouble piercing Lady Ann’s heart.

It appeared the admirable fight this fearsome little girl had put up had come to an end.

She said nothing either in agreement or disagreement. Out of pure reflex, Ann pressed the mummified palm to her mouth. Something soft touched her lips—the tiny pair of lips that’d formed on the palm. And from between them, something warm went into her mouth.

Three wooden shafts flew toward the innocent little girl’s chest faster than the speed of sound. As proof that their aim was dead on Ann, all three shafts collided in the same spot, sending each other flying. One of the three flew toward the window, and at the very same moment a strange little figure slipped out through the now glass-free window, becoming one with the darkness.

From the left hand she gripped with her right, a fragmented tone was heard to say, “Well. . . how did you like my kiss?”

“I feel much better now,” Ann replied. She still felt languid to the marrow of her bones, but power was filling her. Though it had been only a minute amount, the energy the left hand’s lips had blown into her mouth had been of a high purity. The swelling in her face went down rapidly.

“That’ll hold you ... for two hours,” the left hand said. “Bury D in the ground. It’s all. . . up to you.”

Even Ann could tell the energy she’d just received had been the left hand’s last. Her right hand grew heavy. Whether the limb she held had died or merely fainted didn’t matter to Ann. Ordinarily, she would’ve discarded it at this point or finished it off. The only reason she’d saved it was in the hopes of helping D.

The area around the assembly hall was full of silhouettes and streaks of light. Weaving her way between them, Ann made her way the better part of a mile into the forest. She knew what she should do.

In an inky darkness not even the moonlight could penetrate, her dainty hands began clawing at the earth. Her sweet little face had nearly returned to normal. Partway through the job, the sound of digging halted—it was a nasty trick of the blocked poison. Horrible chills threatened to rob her of her consciousness, but the little girl battled through them, her hands and clothes smeared with dirt as she continued digging up the ground.

In no time, a long sigh of satisfaction flowed from between the clustered trees.

“I wonder if I should bury your head as well,” the girl mused. “No, then you wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

“This will bring you back to life,” she said, and though she was breathing quite raggedly, there was a ring of relief to her voice. “But if by some chance it doesn’t, I won’t let anyone touch you but me. If you don’t awaken, we’ll stay here forever—no, I shall find an opening, and together we’ll run away. All you need to do is keep sleeping. I’ll look after you for the rest of your days. And if, I say, if your dhampir mortality can’t be overcome, then at that time I, too, shall pass, my beloved.”

The ardor the innocent girl’s heart contained must’ve been great, for her confession in the darkness laid bare her true feelings— feelings so intense and painful her body burned with them. But there was no one there to listen. D continued to slumber quietly, and his left hand was also out of commission. Though it was pointless to go on speaking, Lady Ann didn’t see the pointlessness of it.

When her monologue was finished, the girl’s eyes burned with a fierce determination, and her brain worked incessantly. Sooner or later, someone would come looking for them. Before that happened, she had to break through their perimeter and get D out of the village—and by dawn at the latest. After that, it would be a journey just for the two of them. The ten-year-old girl fantasized lovingly about traveling around carrying the unconscious D—it was perhaps the first satisfaction her soul had ever known. If only he would truly never wake again! Exaltation and a counterbalancing sadness rose in Ann, bringing her to tears.

It was probably due to being lost in these powerful emotions that she didn’t sense anyone approaching. The instant the sound of a twig snapping underfoot echoed against her eardrum, Ann spun around.

“Don’t call anyone!” another one told him. “We’re gonna take care of this little girl ourselves. There’s the next election for the mayor to think of.”

By this time, Ann’s eyes had clearly picked three strong men and the stake guns they carried from the darkness.

“Freak, we won’t let you get away this time!” said the man carrying the incandescent lamp, his voice trembling—after all, they’d run into a Noble in the middle of the night. Obviously he’d never experienced fear quite like this before.

Thousands of years had passed since the Nobility went into decline, so there weren’t very many chances now to encounter a Noble, especially not one who was a little girl as pretty as a doll. It was on account of this that the men didn’t faint or flee from abject terror and shock. They also had another very good reason—the election for mayor one of them had mentioned.

“All three of these things fire stakes,” one of the men said. “And we’re the best shots in the village. No matter how you try to run, we’ll make sure at least two of them hit the bull’s-eye. Just accept it.” “There’s one thing I must verify,” Ann said fearlessly. “You won’t do anything to him . . . Am I correct?”

The light of the lantern shifted, revealing D’s face. Any way you looked at it, it was a horrifying sight, but the handsome features the light fell upon had a beauty so intense it left the men dazed. The lantern was lowered. The man who carried it had a blank look on his face.

Taking a hard kick in the ass, the man with the lantern came back to his senses. The light was raised again.

“Snap out of it!” the center figure snarled at him in a harsh tone. He was the same one who’d said not to call anyone and who’d mentioned the election.

Turning to Ann, he said, “Sad to say it, but this trouble started with you two—because we let a Noble and Noble half-breed into the village. Those freaking transport guys will be looking at some fines, I’m sure, but we’ll finish with you two right here. After that, it’ll just be a matter of convincing everyone I made the right decision.”

“If it were a matter of me alone, I would’ve been in a quandary, but now you say you mean to harm him as well,” Lady Ann said in a tone that was actually quite bracing, delivering the words like a soliloquy. But as she stood next to where D’s head poked from the ground—with her sweet little face glowing pale in the circle of light and her eyes alone raised to stare at the men—something terrible lurked in her gaze. The second she’d heard they’d take the life of the man she loved, the dear little girl had been transformed into a demoness.

Was there anything that could be done to save Ann in the heartbeat that followed?

Perhaps there was. As proof, all three of the men clutched at their throats, clawed at the sky, then toppled every which way. By the time they hit the ground, black blood gushed from their noses and mouths and they’d breathed their last. They’d gone through their death throes while they fell.

Perhaps the way they died tipped her off, or maybe it was the superkeen senses unique to the Nobility, but Ann put one hand over her mouth, then crouched down to press the other one over D’s.

From the depths of the darkness a voice carried on the night wind could be heard to say, “You can relax for the time being. For those of Noble blood, it’s no more than a sweet perfume.”

Mayor Camus walked out of the stand of trees that towered behind where the three men had fallen. Despite the fact that the terrain was a twisted mess of snaking tree roots, her gait was as smooth as if she were on level ground.

“I sowed poison in the wind. Now, leave D there and go. If you don’t, then Noble or not, I’ll send a deadly poison at you that will leave you in eternal pain.”

Just for a moment, Ann hesitated. Dr. Gretchen’s experiments had been so outrageous not even her fellow Nobles could hide their disgust. It came as no surprise the girl’s tiny heart nearly stopped. However, a second later Ann cursed herself for her indecision.

Who cares if she performs vivisection on me or dissolves my body1 It doesn’t matter what happens to me. So long as I can save my precious D, I shall gladly go into the sleep of death.

Ann spat another flower up into her hand, this one a pale purple bud. In the same manner as before, she breathed on it and sent it flying at Dr. Gretchen. Again the blossom withered and fell from the doctor’s brow.

“Stop this foolishness. I don’t know how it is you still have enough strength left for that, but let my poisoned wind now ravage both of you.”

But before the doctor/mayor had finished her declaration, the ground shook. The doctor was thrown well off balance, and her sinister wind blew off into the ether.

Stumbling and falling on her back when her foot caught on a root, Ann saw an enormous silhouette rising from the earth between Dr. Gretchen and herself and cried, “Father!”

“Duke ofXenon—does your madness extend this far?” Dr. Gretchen shouted as she barely managed to regain her balance and secure her footing, but a second later she peered at the figure dominating the darkness and cried out in astonishment, “Grand Duke Mehmet!”

Though the movement was fluid, the doctor was familiar with this Noble’s name and his style of combat, and she’d also determined the true nature of the gigantic silhouette.

Standing more than twelve feet tall, the enormous humanoid machine was Grand Duke Mehmet’s weapon. This robot—or android, to be technical—was a device born of the Nobility’s science, but capable of far more intricate movements than other machines, which made it as graceful as any human. Just look at it. Black hair swaying in the night breeze, a dauntless mask of oriental styling resting on a bronzed face, threads of gold and silver, blue, red, and purple—his dazzling cape and clothes were stitched with the most brilliant hues. It didn’t differ in the slightest from the real Grand Duke Mehmet—aside from the fact that it was gigantic, its face and build were a perfect duplicate of his own. In comparison, the combat exoskeleton worn by Ann’s father—the Duke of Xenon—was a rough suit of armor utterly devoid of artistic sense.

“In the basement of General Gaskell’s castle. I fear I’ve imbibed a bit too much wine,” the giant doll of Mehmet replied.

Although the Duke of Xenon’s armor required him to be inside the exoskeleton controlling it, Grand Duke Mehmet’s machine man was, as the name implied, a marionette that could be freely operated from a great distance. It went without saying which of the two offered the greater safety and convenience for its operator.

“How enviable, Grand Duke Mehmet. In that case, why don’t you relax and dream of your long-lost kingdom?”

“Actually, I can’t do that,” the great image of the grand duke said, placing a hand over his mouth and letting a gentle burp escape. Gentle? It sounded like a rumbling deep in the earth!

He said, “The great general told you what would happen if you threatened the duke’s precious daughter. Anyone can see that the general is going about this the wrong way. On hearing that you’d been sent out, the duke informed the general that if so much as a scratch came to Ann, he and all his clan would be turned against Gaskell, at which point our great general hastened to send me. My, but he has the strangest weaknesses.”

Letting out what sounded like a sigh, he continued, “From his basement I sent out my reconnaissance bugs, which finally found you. I made it here in the nick of time, thank goodness. Now I’d like you to cease and desist.”

“That precocious little princess is crazy with love,” the doctor said, and she too heaved a sigh, only hers was a hundred times more refined than that of the grand duke’s stand-in. “Without eliminating her, slaying D will be impossible.”

“Hey, now!” the false grand duke said somewhat sadly. “I thought that might be the case, so I brought the written orders from the general with me. Satisfied?”

“I healed the great general’s wound so I might gain permission to be out here now. I won’t allow anyone to interfere with me. D is my prey! Step aside.” “Then there’s no avoiding this,” the gigantic Mehmet said, his upper body bending back far.

Still looking up at the night sky, he said, “This me is a machine. Your poison won’t work on me, Dr. Gretchen.”

“I wonder about that,” the doctor replied, her words suddenly halting with a choked groan. The fake grand duke’s hand had seized her neck with lightning speed. Gasping unintelligibly, her agonized face turned purple before the Nobleman’s night-piercing gaze.

“Now, let us return to the castle, Doctor,” the giant declared gently. “Oh—I almost forgot the most important part.”

His body turned to the right and he extended his other hand to Ann, who was still on her rear on the ground.

Swiftly slipping free from the grasp of the trembling fingers, Dr. Gretchen took cover behind a thick stand of trees, and then began to explain what she’d done.

“Which one of you is in pain, milord? This odious impostor, or the real you far off in the castle?”

Ignoring the agonized giant, the doctor focused her attention on what lay beyond its massive form.

“I don’t believe in any of that nonsense about working with colleagues toward a common goal. It was my misfortune to be born into a world where enemies surround me. That’s why I dispersed poison in the castle, too. Since this isn’t the great general’s domain, this probably won’t reach his ears,” she laughed.

“How could you ... do such a thing? Do you intend ... to do away with the lot of us?” he cried, spitting the words like a gout

What an intricate device this was! The instant Grand Duke Mehmet vomited blood off in the distant castle, the machine man spat up blood here.

The ideal machine, it was truly one with its operator. What allowed it to mimic every little movement of the operator were devices developed by scientists of the Nobility called “synchronizing circuits”—also known as “doppelganger circuits.” It was said a machine man equipped with these circuits would shed sorrowful tears when its operator wallowed in an abyss of grief, and if that person were wounded, the machine would bleed from the same spot. And that was indeed the case.

“This poison only goes into effect when the person exposed to it harbors murderous intent against me. But fear not. As a Noble, you should recover from it in less than an hour. In the meantime, I shall be busy,” she continued, circling around the writhing machine man.

Surely the little girl possessed abilities far exceeding anything any of them could’ve imagined. In the scant time the doctor and the machine man had been fighting, Ann had unearthed D-—who’d been buried up to the neck—and carried him as she made her escape.

As the doctor stood there, the sound of her teeth grinding ringing out, voices cried out behind her.

The voices of the villagers sailed through the air, about 70 percent tension and the remaining 30 percent full of fight.

Clucking her tongue once, the doctor turned in their direction with the face of the mayor and shouted in the voice of the same, “Over here! There’s a Noble about! Somebody help me!”

And to the machine man, who was panting breathlessly, she said, “People are coming. Go wreak some havoc before you leave.”

What followed was a tremendous nightmare for the village of Krakow. The colossal figure of a suspected Noble appeared from the forest and trampled every villager that crossed his path or struck them dead before vanishing into the darkness. In the time it took him to leave the village, the death toll reached twenty, and eight houses were utterly destroyed. Witnesses testified that its face was just like a human’s and that it walked almost like it was drunk, but these accounts were attributed to the trauma and excitement of the disaster.

It was nearly dawn before a brief period of peace was finally reclaimed thanks to the mayor’s instructions. With no place else to direct their rage, the villagers naturally turned to the transport party. Though Juke had been involved in the search, he was tied up, while a mob burst into the assembly hall and hauled Sergei, Gordo, and even Rosaria off to the local jail. It should be noted that this treatment wasn’t the norm—the code of the Frontier said that anyone connected to the Nobility was to immediately be expelled. This was due to concerns that the Nobility would take revenge if any harm were to come to their cohorts. But it was Mayor Camus who’d instructed them to do so.

She’d told the frightened and perplexed villagers, “This isn’t merely about what happened in our town; it’s a perfect opportunity to show the world that we’re all sick of being threatened by the Nobility.”

In reply, she said, “If they go to another village and do something similar, we’re going to regret tossing them out for all our days.”

“In light of the village’s losses, they’re all to be beheaded. The sentence is to be carried out publicly at noon tomorrow,” she said, for some reason giving them another day to live.

Ann was happy—she’d managed to get out of the village with D and his left hand thanks to the mayhem the fake Grand Duke Mehmet had caused. After running on and on through the dark of night, it was nearly dawn when she hid in some ancient ruins several miles from the village. Though the foglike shield that General Gaskell had given her to allow her to move about in daylight covered her from head to toe, daybreak couldn’t help but pain this child of fiendish blood. Ann writhed in agony in the watery light that speared in through holes in the roof and walls, panting as she tore up the brick floor, dug into the black earth that was exposed, then buried D in it. Around the time she finished doing this, the sunshine grew stronger and the light that’d come to the world while she was occupied seared her diminutive form mercilessly.

“That shield will only last three days,” the general had instructed her sternly. Still, when the girl lay down in the shadows formed by the stone columns and walls, her heart was filled with both relief at having protected the one she loved and joyous anticipation of the night to come. There lay the world of the Nobility, where human hands could never reach them. Even if her shield failed, she didn’t think it would be terribly difficult to hide themselves from humans and the sun by day. She would just keep on going— through a world of moonlight and star shine and night winds, just D and her.

Without having a chance to investigate the furthest reaches of the ruins, Ann fell fast asleep. When she awoke, her body told her it was still the middle of the day. She recognized the young lady who now stood before her. The people in the wagon had called the one who’d been asleep the whole time Rosaria.

“What do you—” Ann began, her tone like a cry of agony as she tried to go into a combat stance but failed.

Trying to stand but unable to do so, Ann used her hands and feet to crawl across the floor. When she rounded a column, D came into view. Rosaria knelt by his side, and she seemed to be telling him something. Only bits and pieces reached the girl’s ears, things like “tomorrow morning” and “execution.”

She felt a terrible foreboding. That young lady was trying to bring D back to his old world, wasn’t she?

“He can’t hear you,” Ann shouted, clinging to the column to pull herself up. “Really, he can’t—so go back.”

By the time she’d spat one of her deadly blooms into the palm of her hand, Rosaria was fading as if she were dissolving into the abundant glow. A ray of the refreshing light burned Ann’s body, but the agonized girl crept toward D.

A glittering something spilled from the girl’s eyes. Ann had forgotten that they were called tears. But her heart still clung to the melancholy feelings that had given rise to them.

It was in the early afternoon of that day that two visitors called on Mayor Camus’s home. The mayor lived alone, and, unusually, heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows, leaving the interior of the abode in darkness. The reason she gave for this was that, exhausted from the previous night’s search and the shock of running into the giant, she wanted to try to get some good rest. Still, when the pair gave their names, she appeared from the depths of the darkness, passing through the living room with a clearly troubled expression. A strong incense burned, as if to mask some odor.

Not even bothering to offer them tea and seemingly unembarrassed to be there in her nightgown, she showed them her pearly teeth as she said, “Welcome, Duke of Xenon. So nice of you to come, Grand Duke Mehmet.”

Her eyes were as round and innocent as a child’s, her pale skin alluringly free of wrinkles and invested with the most amazing vitality. Most notable were her crimson lips, which looked as if they’d been daubed with fresh blood—the bewitchingly beautiful face was not that of the aged mayor so admired by the inhabitants of the village.

“I believe you know why we’re here, don’t you?” a man in dusty red traveling clothes asked, leaning across the table as he did so.

Though slightly balding, he had bushy eyebrows and was covered from the nose to the chin by a heavy beard that resembled a bird’s nest. He bore a passing resemblance to the little girl who’d run off with D the night before. Today, he wasn’t wearing his combat exoskeleton. It was Roland, the Duke of Xenon.

And the other one was also a middle-aged traveler dressed in a threadbare coat and trousers—because the huge face of a machine man that was his perfect twin had been seen the previous night, he wore a patch over his right eye, had made his complexion paler, and had disguised the shape of his nose, but Grand Duke Mehmet let his incomparably fierce lust for killing show clearly now as he threatened in a chilling tone, “Even if you slew D, that would hardly be the end of this.”

In response, Mayor Camus—or rather, Dr. Gretchen—smiled seductively and boldly asserted, “You must excuse me, but that doesn’t strike me as something two Nobles renowned for their intelligence and bravery would say. Those are strong words.”

Not surprisingly, a faint fear and turbulence skimmed across the woman’s gorgeous countenance, but she did a wonderful job ridding herself of it.

“The two of you received permission from the great General Gaskell to come here together, I assume?” she asked them, just to be sure.

“Of course,” said the Duke of Xenon. “Though the general had only allowed us to operate solo to prevent us from colluding, he made an enormous exception and called a meeting because your actions, Doctor, were that unpardonable!”

The Nobleman’s eyes gave off a red glow, but Dr. Gretchen returned their glare with an ironic look, saying, “My actions—you mean attempting to do away with your darling daughter along with D instead of trying to save her? Or are you referring to my opposing Grand Duke Mehmet when he came to dissuade me?” “Both,” Grand Duke Mehmet said, his one exposed eye turning red. “Add to that the fact that you poisoned the lot of us. You are—”

“Insane?” The doctor must’ve been terribly amused, because she forgot to cover her mouth as she laughed. “Do you think a madwoman would be capable of researching toxins? That’s the question that should’ve been posed when I first started using Nobles in my experiments. But back then and forever more, I swear I am sane—I am not the least bit mad.”

“Then you must know what’s coming,” the Duke of Xenon said, raising his right hand to shoulder level. His fingers were curled as if holding something, and the long spear that appeared in their grasp was the same as the one he’d put through D’s chest. See how its length, glowing yet semitranslucent, grew to fill the space. Its tip stretched right toward the heart of the beautiful woman clad in an old woman’s nightgown.

The doctor nodded. The general had certainly been uncomfortable dealing with her. Nevertheless, she didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow as she asked, “Once you’ve destroyed me, how will you find D?”

“We’ll manage somehow,” the Duke of Xenon responded, but his tone was less than crisp. He obviously lacked confidence in these words.

“Thanks to the shields the general developed, we’ve gained the ability to operate in daylight. If your darling daughter is intent on protecting D, she’ll have fled far from here by now. Even if the two of you were to split up, it would prove a Herculean task.”

“But you mean to tell us you could do it?” Grand Duke Mehmet asked, sticking his chin out. “How?”

“Tomorrow morning, I shall execute D’s compatriots. I’ve already sent messenger pigeons to the neighboring villages and have express riders spreading the word. If D should hear of this, he’s sure to come flying back.”

“I’ve heard the man known as D would never abandon his business associates. And as you’re no doubt aware, this time, for whatever reason, he’s joined up with a transport party.”

“Didn’t you say D was sleeping? No doubt that’d be the sort of coma that occurs only in dhampirs and strikes without warning. Who says that he’ll awaken before the day is out and learn of his compatriots’ execution?”

“If he doesn’t, then there’ll just be a few more headless corpses in the world. But it would be well worth your while to wait. If you are so determined to take my life, you are more than welcome to it after that,” she said eloquently, not retreating in the least. To speak this way in the presence of two Greater Nobles, she had to be either incredibly confident or truly mad.

The pair fell silent, exchanged glances, and then stared at the beautiful woman with a kind of suspicion in their eyes. The way she talked about executing the three transporters left them wondering if the doctor was merely looking forward to killing them.

“I’m going to look for my daughter. If D is with her, I’ll strike him down. Aside from that—we should just wait. It’s only a day. And if by some chance D doesn’t come, we can look forward to tearing her to pieces.”

The semitransparent spear that sat in his hand like a piece of spun glass now became a very real weapon of destruction. It quickly slid forward. The same tip that’d pierced D’s chest pressed a bit into the swell of Dr. Gretchen’s bosom. The doctor endured it, merely crinkling her brow ever so slightly.

“To be honest, I hope D doesn’t come,” the Duke of Xenon said as he rose slowly in his traveler’s garb. His spear had become one with the darkness-hued air. “So long as my daughter is safe, we’ll search for them later. However, I’m more interested in driving my spear through this woman’s heart.”

Though the two of them aired these staggering thoughts before her, Dr. Gretchen simply smiled like some holy woman enraptured by a heavenly choir.

Late in the afternoon when the western sky had taken on a tinge of blue was the time the golden light became the gentle glow of evening. And as that light fell in ripples like a length of fabric across the ruins, D slumbered on. Was the Rosaria Ann had seen just an illusion? Her whispers didn’t seem to have reached the consciousness of the handsome young man as he slept.

Perhaps it was the air and the breeze that woke Ann once more around dusk. On seeing Rosaria, she’d thought it best to move D someplace else, but her weariness and the midday sun had caused her to fall fast asleep. Though her expression remained a little sleepy looking, it quickly regained its glow, filling with joy. D was safe. All that remained was to leave here.

As she tried to rise, her diminutive form swayed weakly and an intense feeling of enervation assailed her. When she lay flat on the floor, she knew the reason for this—the energy D’s left hand had given her had run out. After that, Dr. Gretchen’s poison had spread throughout her body. But her mind was focused, and the chills were relatively minor because the poison must’ve grown diluted by now.

“It’ll take a little longer, I guess,” Ann told herself, but just then she noticed something wriggling about a foot and a half from the open wound on D’s left wrist. It was his left hand.

She’d brought the limb this far because she thought it might help to revive the Hunter, but refusing to die, it had become active again at some point and now appeared to be working to reattach itself to D. But where did the mummified hand find such energy?

The girl had a sudden flash of inspiration. It was Rosaria’s doing. While the woman was filling D’s ear with stupid notions, she must’ve given his left hand the energy to live. But how? Wasn’t she just an ordinary human being sleeping back in their wagon?

Ann was truly confused, so she decided to focus her attention on D’s left hand. Considering the amount of time that’d passed since they’d come here, how much ground the left hand had covered, and how slowly it appeared to be moving, it couldn’t have received much energy.

“Up we go!” Ann cried, clinging to a stone column as she pulled herself to her feet. With another cry to spur herself on she took a step forward. She had no cane to lean on, and there was no place on the wall to use as a handhold. Reeling badly, she fell time and again, yet Ann finally caught up to the left hand. It had reduced the foot-and-a-half distance to just four inches.

“How unfortunate for you,” Ann said, and though the poison had caused her face to swell again, she smiled like an angel as she surveyed the ground all around herself. Having caught hold of the back of D’s left hand, she felt it struggling as she scooped up the ancient iron spike she’d spotted.

“Hey . . . quit it!” it called out in a hoarse and feeble voice, but that only served to ignite the dark nature that lurked within the little girl.

Piercing D’s left hand with the iron spike, she pinned it to the ground . . . along with her own left hand.

After seeing the left hand’s convulsions turn to limpness, she pulled her own hand off the spike.

“Sooner or later my dearest shall awaken. Until then, I’ll care for him. He has no further need of you,” the girl laughed, smiling like the sun even as the darkness in the ruins grew to that of watery ink.

At last the revived hand had fallen. Now nothing could bring D back but D himself. And the lives of Juke, Gordo, Sergei, and Rosaria depended on his actions this evening!

In no time, Ann reached the spot where she’d buried D. As her hands dug away the earth, there was more strength in them than before. For darkness was the ally of the Nobility.

A shadowy gray figure stood there. In either hand he held a bouquet—apparently they were wildflowers. He was an old man in a gray hooded robe. A thin cord was wound about his waist, and from it hung a shabby leather pouch and a glass bottle.

Apparently he’d also spotted Ann, for he asked, “What’s a girl like you doing here at this hour?” From the suspicious tone of his voice, he’d guessed something about Ann based on her attire.

“Oh, nothing,” Ann replied precociously, shaking her head from side to side.

“That’s right. I mean, you’re wrong. Until I found it, this place really was just ruins. An abandoned place of worship. But not now—I’m trying to bring it back. My efforts have been half successful. Here I am now with the two of you. You’re neither dead nor alive.”

“How rude of you! ” the girl exclaimed. “Just what I’d expect from a human. We are truly alive.”

“Only by night,” the old man said. “If you can’t live in the light of the sun, then I’d hardly call that living. What’s the Nobility doing out here? I doubt you’ve even noticed what I’ve been up to.”

“I’m a priest of the Adolka faith, and I was visiting a nearby village. On account of my age I retired three years ago, but before I did I found these ruins and started probing the mysteries of a lost religion.”

“Religion? You mean that thing humans do to seek salvation?” Religion still existed in this world. At the Nobility’s peak, a disproportionate number of new religions had been created, and their number was said to have been in the tens of thousands. Although all of them sought protection and freedom from the accursed Nobility, all except a very few were merely for appearances, and these died out without the Nobles ever having to do anything about them. The Adolka faith the old man had just mentioned was one of the few remaining religions.

The old man didn’t answer, and Ann lost interest in him. As she began digging dirt away from D’s body once more, the aged priest called out to her in a tense tone, “What are you doing? Oh, is that a human buried there? How handsome he is! I see what you’re up to. You buried your victim out here so you could indulge in your vile blood drinking without anyone finding out about it!”

What drivel! Ann thought to herself. Not that it matters. He’s a mere human, after all, and couldn’t comprehend my lofty purpose or these feelings of love.

“I can’t very well let this go on. Stop—stop it, I say! You may have a sweet little face, but you’re a terrible creature!”

The aged priest ran up behind Ann, raising the knife he’d drawn from the sheath on his hip. Apparently it’d originally been used in religious rituals, having a blade that twisted from the middle up and was inscribed with markings that looked like a sutra. In order to survive in a world ruled by the Nobility, religions had no prohibitions against killing.

But Ann made no move to stop the knife he’d raised. Still turned away from the aged priest, she took his blade right in her petite back. The blade should’ve pierced her heart from behind, but it stopped about an inch in.

A look of dismay raced across the priest’s visage. The feeling he’d got from the knife wasn’t that of stabbing into human or Noble flesh.

A doll-like hand caught him by the throat as he tried to shout, and one little swing hurled the priest into the ruins. The moment he landed some ten feet away the bottle on his belt shattered, its contents spilling across the floor.

Forgetting all about the old man, Ann went back to digging out D. Further in, the sound of the old priest’s groans and some rustling could be heard, but she paid no attention to them. The evening wind swept across the floor, sending tiny bits of dust flying and making her golden hair sway. Though she’d intended to work straight through until she was done, she was repeatedly forced to stop by the lingering effects of the poison.

And while that was happening, other activity was taking place in the far reaches of the ruins. The old priest who’d been dashed against the stone floor got up —clutching his back—and began to crawl in further on his hands and knees. In the back was a space with a stone slab that seemed to be the remains of some sort of ceremonial altar, and the walls and ceiling weren’t cut stone blocks but rather solid rock. On closer examination, there were signs that someone had directed their energy toward utterly destroying it. In other words, the ruins a few yards from D and Ann’s location were carved into the rock of the mountain.

Neither Ann nor the aged priest knew what had occurred here more than ten thousand years ago.

Long ago, it had been a little place where devout believers had gathered, and even after the nuclear war it’d remained, after a fashion. The Nobility feared and hated something that was here and had laid waste to the place, yet the people didn’t abandon their faith and rebuilt it time and again, only to have it destroyed again. With the passage of time, it eventually fell into its present extremely desolate state.

The reason the priest had settled here was that there was a section about an ancient religion in old documents he’d read in his younger days. The icon that this religion worshiped was said to have the power to ward off any Noble. He became an itinerant priest with no fixed parish, crossing mountains and rivers, going from village to village seeking one of those icons. The priest believed that the thing he sought, this thing that frightened the Nobility, was here. Traces of it remained on the stone altar and the round stone base behind it. A sort of thick plank laced with cracks was set in the center of the round stone, and the priest decided there must’ve been something about it that threatened the Nobility. That part of the old documents had been scorched and illegible. However, behind it there was only a rock wall. What had been found there?

The aged priest reached it. Below the wall was a lantern made from an empty can with a stub of a candle in it. From the look of the steel hammer and chisel lying next to it, it seemed that he’d been chipping away at the rock wall or carving something into it. Indeed, at about head level for the priest there was a cavity in the wall a foot and a half across and just a foot deep.

Striking one of the matches by the lantern, the aged priest pressed his hands together, mumbled something, and then touched the fingers of his right hand to his forehead and both shoulders. Folding his hands together once more, he began to chant indistinctly. What he mumbled was an ancient prayer he’d deciphered from those old documents, and the gesture was part of that religion’s rituals.

“I’ve never tried this before against a Noble—but I’ll show them the holy power the human race unlocked!”

“This can’t be!” he said. “My research couldn’t be mistaken. This prayer was certain to make the Nobility—” “Very well, off we go!” Lady Ann called out with joy, her cry echoing through the interior of the ruins, where even the air itself was damp with the deepening blue.

D’s body had been dug out of the black earth. Bending over, the ten-year-old girl picked him up in her arms, her childish face glowing with elation. Not even sparing a glance to the priest who continued his useless prayers, she cradled D with the respect befitting a pieta of unearthly beauty and walked off toward the crumbling entrance.

She halted ten paces shy of the entranceway. The entrance to the ruins had a stone staircase. On it stood a figure—a bald man with a heavy beard.

Still dressed in his dusty traveler’s garb, Roland, the Duke of Xenon, smiled at his beloved daughter. But there was something unsavory about his grin.

“The doctor’s treatment of you was so horrible, I put some pressure on the general. Old Mehmet got it pretty bad, too, so he also pitched in. Then the two of us paid a little call on the doctor—”

Giving his daughter a brief rundown of the day’s events, he then told her he’d gone out to search the whole area.

“You know how fast my suit is. First, I asked the villagers if there were any houses, caves, or ruins hereabouts, then I went around checking them all. This is the sixteenth place I looked—I never thought I’d find you this quickly. Well, let’s head back. After I spear that Hunter through the heart, that is.”

His last remark was filled with a determination that said he wouldn’t give her another inch.

“If you go back, you’ll do so alone. And if you want to destroy this man, you’ll have to destroy me first.”

Lady Ann’s reply showed a similarly obstinate will, and it made the lips hidden beneath her father’s beard quiver intensely.

“Ha! I can’t begin to imagine how the man who created a daughter like me would feel,” Lady Ann laughed. “Nor how a father who violates his own child feels.”

“Because you saw in me the face of my mother, who died so youngl Mother also looked like a ten-year-old when she died.”

“Have you forgotten already? I remember it in vivid detail. What you did to me that time, Father, and what you called me. Alice, you said . . .”

All trace of emotion drained from the Duke of Xenon’s face. His lack of expression was more terrifying than any look of rage, but it was at just that moment that a grayish light covered his features. Not stopping at his head, it swept across his arms, chest, stomach, and legs, turning him into an entirely different person. The gigantic exoskeleton he wore probably consisted of a single continuous sheet.

Lady Ann looked up in silence at where her father’s head loomed at a height of ten feet.

“I could never hurt you,” he told her. “However, come what may, that man must be disposed of here and now. I hate that bastard for deceiving my beloved daughter. Tearing him to pieces won’t even begin to satisfy me.”

As the giant stood there paralyzed with shock, Lady Ann retreated further into the ruins.

If he wanted to, he could move without his footsteps making a sound, but he must’ve been extremely shaken emotionally, because the ground thundered under his massive form. The floor sank and the stone walls crumbled.

As the ruins were about to welcome new death and destruction, Lady Ann glided across the floor like a phantom.

The giant swung his right arm. A spear materialized in midair, jabbing into the floor right in front of Lady Ann.

Lady Ann narrowly dodged the weapon, but her shoulder struck it, throwing her off balance and causing D to drop from her arms. The entire floor had receded, and D landed in the lowest part on his back. Oddly enough, it was in exactly the same location where Ann had buried him.

Although fine dust drifted through the air, Ann didn’t so much as blink as she stared at her approaching father. No, the emotion that shot from her eyes wasn’t one to ever be directed at one’s own parent. It was quite obviously a hatred that burned like a flame.

Her bloodsucking flowers would no longer do her any good. Perhaps aware of this, she leapt to the bottom of the bowhshaped depression in the floor and stood in front of D’s chest with her arms extended to either side.

A long spear whistled through the wind, shattering the stone altar in the back of the ruins. A warning shot.

“This is your last chance. Out of the way!” the Duke of Xenon shouted, a new spear glowing in his upraised right hand.

“Go ahead and throw it,” Ann said. There wasn’t an iota of fear in either her tone or the look on her face. The girl was prepared to die. She would defend the man she loved as best she could or perish along with him.

The sight of her there could almost be described as divine, and it left the titanic warrior tensed in the blue light. However, this lasted only a moment—his patience and forgiveness for his recalcitrant daughter had long since run out, and the face of his inanimate exoskeleton conveyed an unmistakable indignation as the giant swung his right arm home.

But who could’ve foreseen what came a second later? Who could’ve guessed that a horrible scream would erupt from his mouth?

This was what the aged priest curled up at the base of the far rock wall had sought—ancient holy men seeking to protect it from destruction by the Nobility had concealed it in a natural pocket inside the rock wall, and the blow from the long spear had collapsed that wall and brought it into view.

In the light of dusk lay an entire stone cross with a tiny human figure nailed to it through both hands. On the figure’s head was a crown of thorns, and his expression of horrible pain and exhaustion was nonetheless filled with a boundless mercy and charity that was certain to touch all who beheld it.

What laid the fearsome, fiendish parent and child low was a stone crucifix that’d survived ten thousand years.

After so much time had passed, all memory of the ancient priests who’d tried to preserve it had been lost, and it had become a mere piece of stone. But then, what made something holy or unholy?

Before the little stone crucifix, the pair of Nobles lost their minds, the Duke of Xenon reeling wildly as he began to return to the entrance.

He withstood the agony that was building like a blaze in his body. A second later, its heat became a terrible cold and he quaked from head to toe with chills. Worst of all was the unfathomable fear rising from the depths of his heart. Not even listening for his beloved daughter’s reply, the duke fled the ruins in all haste, nearly tripping over himself in the process.

It was practically a miracle that Ann remained there. As hopeless as the situation was, she was concerned about D. If she were to try to take him out of there now, her father wouldn’t sit idly by. It might be best if they died together, but if she couldn’t have that, the least she could do was spare D from the present pain. For he, too, sprang from the accursed blood of the Nobility. In fact, D hadn’t awakened yet. Still, the holy had a power that assailed the unholy regardless of whether they looked upon it or not.

On top of D, Ann hugged his head, and her body trembled as if with fever. She knew pain and peace at the same time.

Something skimmed by her head. Although Ann didn’t see it, it was rather strange. A lone red insect had been hurled in through the entrance. It sailed straight to the back of the ruins as if flying under its own power, latching onto the center of the crucifix—and the neck of the person on it. It then stuffed the tail end of its abdomen into its round mouth and hung around the figure’s neck like a rosary. And then, strange as it seemed, there was a crunching sound from its tail as it began to devour itself. What had been a ring a foot in diameter swiftly dwindled, and even when it had become about the same thickness as the modest statue’s slender neck it kept eating, then suddenly it was gone. Literally nothing remained.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. In the center of the figure’s face, around the tip of his nose, there appeared a tiny black spot. A hole. A second later, it became a great black cavern about three feet across. Of course, it didn’t occur on the surface of the figure. Nor was it on the cross. It was an opening that suddenly appeared in space—a tunnel. While it was unclear where it led, it whined as it sucked the air from this side of the hole, as if the other side opened into outer space. And air wasn’t the only thing it inhaled—stone blocks and pieces of rock and anything else that would move were being sucked into that black space at a terrific speed. When a piece of stone larger than the hole came into contact with it, the hole grew wide enough to accommodate it, and then shrank back to normal again. At the rate it was going, one had to wonder if it wouldn’t swallow the entire ruins.

At that moment, a second bug just like the first came flying from the vicinity of the entrance and was swallowed by the void. The hole abruptly vanished, and the pair dropped back into their original location.

The rubble that hung in the air fell, one piece after another. As the sound of it rang out, from the same direction where the two insects had come a calm voice was heard to say, “The only way to fill the hole a ‘space eater’ leaves is to throw another of the bugs in.” Ann recalled hearing the voice before. Sitting up, she said, “Grand Duke Mehmet!”

“Indeed, it is I—you’re fine, I take it? I’ve been searching for you along with your father, whom I happened to meet now by chance. Your father’s still here, but he’s in a horrid state. I wish to ask that you return with us. Of course, that would be after D’s head has been removed from his torso.”

“I’m sorry to say I’m not as malleable as your good father. I will only tell you once. Step aside.”

“No,” Ann replied, her face flickering in the lamplight as she shook her head determinedly. Miraculously, the candle lit by the aged priest hadn’t gone out when it’d rolled her way. Ann’s hair and skirt fluttered in the wind.

“Then here’s another bug. Let the two of you vanish together into the void,” the Nobleman said, his tone frightening for its persistent tranquility.

Space eaters—in return for swallowing their own bodies, these bugs tore a hole in space that would swallow anything and everything. And Grand Duke Mehmet was able to control these dangerous creatures as he wished.

Not saying another word, he let one of the bugs go buzzing through the air. This time it arced right up over D and Ann’s heads. Beginning to devour itself in midair, it opened a hole above Ann’s head . . .

A silvery flash shot straight up from below. It resolved into a blade, the tip of which thrust into the hole that’d appeared. The instant bluish lightning spilled from the hole, the sword pulled back out of it. And the terrible bug hole disappeared.

A black-gloved hand, stretching out from the pit, gripped the sword that had made this vertical thrust.

Next to Ann, a powerfully built body rose. The wide-brimmed traveler’s hat was at a slight angle, but that couldn’t spoil the frightening exquisiteness of his features. Let the holy and unholy be silenced in the face of this young man’s beauty. Rising smoothly in the still-raging wind to stand like a temple guardian was none other than D.

Ann and Grand Duke Mehmet had spoken simultaneously, both of their voices laden with terror. They didn’t see how this could be.

From the time Ann had pinned it to the ground, his left hand had been eating the black soil. When the contents of the priest’s bottle had coursed down the sunken floor, the left hand had been right in the path of the water. The wild wind, raging insistently, had suddenly died as if it’d been inhaled. And the flame from the candle that’d rolled down there had also been sucked into its mouth, quickly returning the shriveled hand to its normal proportions, after which it pulled itself off the iron spike and reattached itself to D’s left wrist. Earth, water, fire, and air—the instant the four elements that composed the world were combined in that tiny mouth, pale blue flames had erupted and D had come back to life. Of course, this alone wasn’t enough to overcome the malady unique to dhampirs. The time for him to awaken was probably approaching anyway, but there could be no doubting that his left hand had made the greatest contribution.

D stood. As proof that he remained blind, his eyes were shut. However, on seeing the valiant way he climbed up from the floor without even acknowledging Ann, who tried to cling to him, who would’ve thought he’d lost his vision? From the moment he awakened, his sole purpose for existence was to fight.

Evening dyed the world from blue to inky black—a fitting color for men doing battle.

• In the darkness beyond the entrance there hung an enormous face. Through its eyes, the real grand duke, who was off drinking somewhere, looked at D.

“I’m honored to hear that. I don’t have time to explain the present situation, but since you called out my name, I take it you’re prepared to meet your death.”

Anyone who didn’t know about D’s left hand would’ve found this impossible to believe.

A look of surprise came to Mehmet’s face. When his mouth opened, there was a whir as a pair of space eaters came flying out.

D forged straight ahead. Before the bugs could eat themselves, they were bisected in midair and left to fall to the floor as ordinary insect corpses. Before another bug could be launched, D leapt.

Desperately dodging a thrust of ungodly speed, the false Grand Duke Mehmet retreated. As he bounded from the stairs down onto the road, not a trace of his haughty smile remained on the face twelve feet from the ground. While he exhaled lightly, a pitch-black figure of grandeur sailed down from above. Soaring like a mystic bird, D struck with his blade—and the arms Grand

Duke Mehmet had put up to block it were lopped off at the elbow. Though it was impossible, at that moment D got the impression he heard the real grand duke scream somewhere far away. But if that were all it took to make the Hunter hesitate, he never would’ve attacked in the first place.

A third heroic blow that refused to be parried struck the right side of the machine man’s trunk. Fresh blood with the smell of oil spread through the air like changing maple leaves in fall. D’s blade had also ripped through Grand Duke Mehmet’s enormous torso.

• On the other side of the road stood the Duke of Xenon in his combat exoskeleton. At the very moment the point of D’s sword turned toward him, the Duke of Xenon bounded onto a massive bough some forty-five feet up in a great sixty-foot tree, circled around behind it, and vanished from sight.

Not even turning to look, the Hunter slashed to the rear with his blade, but it became sandwiched between a pair of enormous hands.

“What’s this?” the hoarse voice groaned. After all, the fake Mehmet had just had both his arms cut off.

“Surprising, isn’t it? This machine man is a part of me—and so long as I don’t die, he can’t die either,” the grand duke laughed.

“He can do everything I can, only with three hundred times the power. So, I think I’ll snap that sword in two before leisurely doing away with you.”

The grand duke put his strength into his arms. And the sword should have broken effortlessly—but it didn’t. The palms of the machine man’s hands were pressed together tight, but between them D’s blade slowly worked its way down to the little fingers.

Astonished, the grand duke tried with all his might but could do nothing to move the blade.

As the grand duke gave an involuntary and all-too-real cry of fright, the sword sank into his brow, halting after it’d sliced his head in two. Spraying oil out into the twilight like blood, the fake grand duke leapt back. Just before he landed, a large black hole opened on the ground, and he fell into it.

“I see now why all of us were called together. Four of your compatriots are set to be executed tomorrow. Come to the execution ground if you like.”

• Not even bothering to wipe off his sword, D returned it to the sheath on his back. But from the very beginning there hadn’t been so much as a drop of blood or oil on it. The blade itself was simple steel—it had to be something about his skill.

“Tomorrow morning, eh?” the hoarse voice said. “How will you save ’em? Or will you abandon ’em? Which would be more your style? There’s only one road here, but it runs in two directions.”

D began walking away. There was no emotion to it at all, and that’s what made it such a gorgeous gait.

“My love—D!” Ann called out in an earnest tone from the entrance to the ruins.

Falling to her knees on the stone staircase, Ann sobbed, “Where are you going, D? That’s the way to—”

The stars were out. Perhaps they had a prediction to make about the day to come. They burned as blood red as rubies.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve visited Transylvania twice. The first time was a private trip; the second to record material for a Japanese television network. There was a gap of several years between the two trips, and I think those years saw some very decisive change for the Romanian people. It was during this time that the dictator Ceausescu was overthrown. My second trip made me aware of the changes that’d occurred in Romania.

The first time I wanted to go to Transylvania, the taxi driver in Bucharest insisted he couldn’t go outside the city, so my lovely guide had to negotiate with him and tell him I’d pay extra. Somehow we made it there, but the second time the public broadcasting company was true to form and we had a college student who could speak Japanese as our guide. Renting a van, we were able to travel about as we pleased.

At any rate, NHK was doing a travel series that went all over the world, and this episode was about the Transylvanian warlord who was the basis for Dracula, Vlad Tepes. As the author of more vampire novels in Japan than anyone, I was singled out for the assignment. To be perfectly honest, the second time I wasn’t all that enthused about going because the first trip hadn’t left me with a very good impression.

Even in the capital city of Bucharest there had been very little color. Needless to say, there was no neon, and the people’s clothes were black or white. Occasionally there was a little red and blue mixed in.

After I got tired of Romanian cuisine, we did some checking and found a Chinese restaurant. I was delighted to go there, and I saw there were lots of items on the menu. It was in English, so I could basically understand it. I told a man who looked like the manager, “I want this, and this, and this.” Saying nothing, he pointed to two items on the menu. Apparently he meant, “This is all we have.” Well, it was better than nothing.

I told the people at the national travel bureau that I wanted to go to Transylvania, but the middle-aged woman at the counter coldly told me that taxis wouldn’t go outside the city, as I mentioned earlier. Apparently a second, kinder middle-aged woman pitied me, and if she hadn’t got a taxi for me, I probably wouldn’t have made it out there. The interpreter I requested was beautiful and friendly, and the taxi driver was also a cheerful fellow. On straight stretches of highway, he’d get the car up to a hundred miles per hour and take his hands off the wheel to surprise us (my wife was with me). Over two days, our lovely guide showed us Bran Castle, Targoviste, and Transylvania’s Castle Dracula (The same castle where Tepes’s wife throws herself from the battlements in Coppola’s film Bram Stoker’s Dracula).

So, having seen the major sites, my general feeling was, “Oh, not again.” Of course, by nature I dislike traveling, and that may have played a large part in it, too. However, I accepted the offer and flew from Narita to Paris, then from Paris to Bucharest.

Hideyuki Kikuchi was born in Chiba, Japan, in 1949. He attended the prestigious Aoyama University and wrote his first novel, Demon City Shinjuku, in 1982. Over the past two decades, Kikuchi has written numerous horror novels, and is one of Japan’s leading horror masters, working in the tradition of occidental horror writers like Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, H. E Lovecraft, and Stephen King. As of 2004, there were seventeen novels in his hugely popular ongoing Vampire Hunter D series. Many live-action and anime movies of the 1980s and 1990s have been based on Kikuchi’s novels.

Yoshitaka Amano was born in Shizuoka, Japan. He is well known as a manga and anime artist, and is the famed designer for the Final Fantasy game series. Amano took part in designing characters for many of Tatsunoko Productions’ greatest cartoons, including Gatchaman (released in the U.S. as G'Force and Battle of the Planets). Amano became a freelancer at the age of thirty and has collaborated with numerous writers, creating nearly twenty illustrated books that have sold millions of copies. Since the late 1990s, Amano has worked with several American comics publishers, including DC Comics on the illustrated Sandman novel Sandman: The Dream Hunters with Neil Gaiman, and Marvel Comics on Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer with best-selling author Greg Rucka.

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