Mia’s eyes were open. He was coming closer, this figure of unearthly beauty. However, he had an air about him so ghastly she thought her blood would freeze. She didn’t know this D.

Halting by her feet, the figure in black looked down on her with that crimson gaze.

“Yes, D—drink my blood,” Mia said, raising her left hand as blood continued to stream down it. “I don’t mind, so long as it’s you. Then go and slay the other you. This is the only compensation I can give!”

Peering down at the pale girl who’d completely lost consciousness, D slowly bent over. Within her pale throat, a blue line rose into prominence. The jugular vein.

That evening, the town’s retired but now acting sheriff Old Jal received a visit from a black night wind. A door he was sure he’d locked opened, and the instant he realized that, the nocturnal wind that blew in snuffed his lamp. In the resulting darkness, he saw a figure in black who was like the night wind congealed. Beyond the window, the moon was out.

As Old Jal sat there with eyes bugging out, the figure lined up five severed heads on his desk, one after another.

Old Jal got the feeling he was somewhere out in the solitude of outer space. “I know . . . but folks in town aren’t gonna like this.” “Do whatever you like. I’ll be coming and going a lot. Just tell them to stay out of my way.”

“There’s a Noble in the area as powerful as I am. Are you trying to tell me I should just let him be?”

“Got any proof? This is a peaceful village. Or it was, until you and that girl came along. Once I let them see these heads, everyone’s gonna come gunning for the two of you. But even if we could get a hundred times as many people as there are in this town, we wouldn’t stand a chance of beating you. That’s what scares me. D, are you gonna raise your hand against innocent villagers?” “Tomorrow, have everyone gather in the main square,” D said. Training a gaze that could crush stone on the Hunter, Old Jal asked, “You planning on persuading them all? Or something else?” “I suppose we can make it high noon. I’ll be back.”

At the time D had appointed, the village square was filled with a noisy bustle that far outstripped the earlier rumblings in the earth. It was ragged breathing and chatter choked with malice, uncertainty, and murderous intent, all of which spilled from men and women armed to the teeth. The blue sky and sunlight burned deep shadows on the ground. Five pairs of vacant eyes reflected all the square’s proceedings. That morning, Old Jal had asked the carpenter to erect a wooden stage as quickly as he could—and on it sat the five severed heads.

The aged lawman had told the villagers everything at the community hall, and after they unanimously decided that D had to be disposed of, they’d all moved on to the square. They had decided to meet with him despite the terror D inspired in them. No matter how great D might be, he wouldn’t go away unscathed. And that was the crux of Mia’s fear and uncertainty—that he’d raise his hand against the villagers.

“Sheriff, you think he’s really coming?” one of them asked Old Jal, who stood beside the stage.

“You don’t think maybe he had us all gather here so he could go get whatever it is he wants—”

“Why, that’s Gael!” an old woman—apparently the man’s mother—exclaimed with delight.

“Sesto’s there, too. And Coonan! Did they come out of that hole or something?”

These men had been among the first to go out to the great subsidence, only to go missing. There were three of them. The whole crowd became one massive tide that went rushing toward them—then stopped. The force of the retreating wave sent those in the rear reeling.

There was something strange about the behavior of the men, all three of whom were young. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about their appearance or they way they walked, and yet something wasn’t quite right. It was almost as if they didn’t belong there, walking in the light of the sun. As the group kept a silent watch over them, the trio walked into the square.

“Gael!” the old woman cried, her stone necklace swaying to and fro as she stepped forward. Her tears glistened. “So, you made it back alive, did you? Your old mother couldn’t ask for any—”

Her son—Gael—grinned slyly. At that moment, something whistled angrily through the air.

The mother looked down on the villagers from a terribly high spot. As a severed head trailing a ribbon of blood.

One of the villagers fired a round from an old-fashioned rifle. Gael’s right shoulder jerked back. A split second later, he leapt, sailing more than twenty feet to land directly in front of the shooter, at whose neck he then swung his right hand. It was a vicious chop. Not only was the shooter beheaded, but two more villagers to his left were also caught by the same blow, their necks half severed and sending up fountains of blood as the men toppled.

“Sesto—what in the world’s come over Gael?” a girl who couldn’t have been twenty asked her older brother in an imploring tone.

Placing his hands gently to either side of her head, her brother made an equally gentle twist to the right. Her head turned precisely 180 degrees, and his little sister died instantly of a broken neck.

Not to be outdone by the first two, Coonan also went into action. When no one was looking, he’d taken up a dead tree branch. Less than five feet long, it still demonstrated impressive force in the hands of the young man who’d returned. One easy swing crushed the torso of a villager wearing an old suit of armor. Another thrust of the same strength impaled a trio of villagers. And that wasn’t all.

“Hey!” he called out, swinging the branch toward Gael and Sesto when they turned.

The three impaled villagers sailed neatly into the air. While they were still in midair, the hands and feet of Gael and Sesto went up. The bodies of the villagers fell to the ground, their heads alone neatly removed.

And along with Old Jal’s words, a crimson light shot from his right hand. The ruby laser bored through the right side of Sesto’s chest, enveloping it in smoke and flames. Subjecting him to a ruthless fusillade, Old Jal had no sooner dropped the man than he saw Gael coming down at him from above. Oh, shit, he thought as he shut his eyes; only his ears caught the unearthly hewing sound that spelled his new fate.

But what thudded to the ground was Gael’s right arm. With a limb lopped off at the shoulder, the young man landed a good fifteen feet ahead of Old Jal and glared off to the right another fifteen feet, where there stood an inhumanly handsome man in black.

Gael said something, and then surged forward like a storm wind, aiming blows at the solar plexus and chest of the rider in black with his left fist. Ten blows in the span of a second—the punches came at ungodly speed.

And D blocked them all. His body described an elegant arc. His sword flashed out. The blade ran in a straight line from the stump of Gael’s right arm, slicing his accursed heart in twain.

Ignoring Gael as he fell, D spun around. A thin but deadly branch scythed a horizontal path toward his face.

Coonan poised himself for a second attack, but the branch had been severed by the same slash that took his arm off at the elbow.

Coonan stood stock still, unable to move, for jabbing against the base of his throat was D’s blade.

“Did you come here to collect corpses for experimentation?” D inquired in a rusty tone. “Or was this slaughter itself the experiment? Answer me.”

Coonan didn’t reply. Though his eyes were tinged with fear, he wore the emotionless visage of an automaton. His left arm had fallen off as well, having been severed at the shoulder.

As his foe howled with pain and reeled back, D said to him, “I won’t ask this twice. Where is the other me?” It was a soft query.

Wind struck the Hunter’s handsome visage. Still facing backward, Coonan’s body had taken to the air. Landing a good thirty feet away, he launched another intense jump that took him out of the square, and then raced away without a backward glance.

Saying nothing as he returned his sword to its sheath, D turned to face the villagers. A bell tolled off in the distance. High noon—the time D had promised he’d be there. And as they beheld D, another hue gradually began to suffuse their eyes and piteous expressions.

Approaching slowly, Old Jal said, “I’m . . . I’m glad you came.” Looking down at the two who’d fallen, he asked, “What the hell happened here?”

“They’ve been changed. What ran amok here were others who’d taken on the form of your friends.”

“Now that you mention it, I did get a report back from the guys who chased him yesterday morning. They said he was a perfect double for you.”

“Personally, I wouldn’t have complained if you’d just run off.” Raising his right foot, D planted it lightly on the ground. “He’s down there. Someone with Noble blood.”

“That’s because he’s exactly like you, you bastard!” a mournful scream rose from D’s flank. It came from a blood- soaked middle-aged

man carrying a girl who’d been impaled on Coonan’s stick. Her father, no doubt. “We heard about you from the sheriff. You’re a freaking dhampir, ain’t you? A human/Noble half-breed. That guy’s sure to be your brother. You got us all to gather here so they could attack us, didn’t you?”

The air was transmuted. Countless streams of malice erupted in unison from all around D.

“Did you plan on butchering the lot of us? How about it?” “Answer him!” others called out.

“The kind that can be harvested from the flesh of the dead.” Silence descended. As bewilderment passed through the villagers, the face of one froze in horror. The same followed with other villagers and other faces, for the terrifying import of D’s words was finally dawning on them.

“You bastard ... Not only do you kill a man, but you’d steal what’s inside him as well?” screeched a voice so shrill it made people want to cover their ears.

A woman covered with blood raced toward D with a knife in her right hand. A pair of arms closed around her from behind, stopping her.

“I know how you—how all of you feel, but this young fella isn’t the culprit. If you need proof, just look—he settled their hash for us, didn’t he?”

“Just another trap. The two of them had the others run wild so he could come to the rescue. To fool us into trusting him.”

Heaving a sigh, Old Jal said, “Look, D—I’m not gonna be able to keep a handle on this. In the end, I think hitting the road as soon as possible would be the—”

“Someone who knows their way around a weapon, step right here,” D said, pointing to the ground in front of himself.

The appalled expressions of the villagers changed once more. Even gut-churning rage cooled in light of what they’d just seen D do.

“Step forward. Doesn’t anyone want to have his revenge? I was the one who sent those three out here.”

A silent, crushing wave rolled across the square. He was doing the exact same thing he’d done with the villagers who’d chased him on the highway.

“What, are you scared?” D prodded softly. “This is your chance to avenge your parents, your children, and you’d just let me go? I see. I was right to come here in the first place.”

After he’d taken a few steps toward where his cyborg horse was tethered at the entrance to the square, a youthful voice howled, “Wait just a goddamned minute!”

“You sick son of a bitch! I’m gonna make you pay for what happened to my little sister,” shouted a young man who looked to be under twenty. In his hand he clutched a massive sickle. “I’ll show you there are real men in this village. All of you, watch this!”

Though someone shouted out at him not to do it, the young man kicked off the ground in a savage bound. The great sickle he had raised could not only take off a human head, but it’d have sufficient force to cut through two or three torsos at a time.

What he intended as a battle cry came out as a desperate scream as he brought his weapon flashing down.

The sickle had sufficient force and was well within range, but D merely tilted his upper body to the right to avoid it. Without a second’s pause, the blade of the sickle reversed direction in an exquisitely timed attack, but it again met only thin air, and, ignoring the agitated young man now caught off balance, D kept walking the way he’d been headed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’ll take too long,” D said. And then he told them the same thing he’d told the villagers a day earlier. “Come at me in force.” The men waited silently until one of them called out in a voice like steel, and then they all rushed at D like horses given a taste of the spurs. A second later, every last one of them let a weapon fall from a hand with a dislocated wrist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How self-serving. I was going to say because of your curiosity.” “No, I’m not,” the girl retorted tentatively, but her response could only be taken to mean his assertion was right on the mark. Fortunately, he didn’t pursue the matter any further.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Very well. I shall do so soon enough. But first—come with me.” An arm in black stretched from the stone wall. Before Mia had a chance to avoid it, it grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pulled her through. Most likely, something had been done to the molecular structure of the wall. The moment her skin registered the sensation of slipping through something that wasn’t water but rather more like a dense fog, Mia found herself on the other side.

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

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

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

The pair started forward. Due to the humidity, Mia was winded before they’d walked for ten minutes.

“I’ve had it. Can’t you do anything about this heat?” the girl panted. “It’s geothermal. The thermostat is irreparably damaged. Put up with it.”

“I can’t walk anymore,” she said, turning her face to the floor, and just then, an arm like steel slid under her left arm.

Before Mia could finish speaking, her body was lifted off the ground, turned, and loaded onto the fake D’s back.

She knew she could fight him all she wanted, but it still wouldn’t do any good. The fake D had already started walking. Because of her exhaustion and the stifling heat, Mia quickly slumped against the black back.

And it was just then that the hair-raising screams resounded overhead. A vile-smelling wind seemed to strike her back, there was a shrill screech, and something brushed by her neck as it fell.

“After the great destruction, the surviving guard beasts that were kept here spread all through the place. At present, this is a highly dangerous environment.”

Mia’s words were cut short by the flapping sound of approaching wings overhead. She had no idea what shape these creatures took. But the unusual number of wings Mia heard beating terrified her.

The sound spread. They were all swooping down at once. The slicing noises that she heard one after another began to reverberate like one drawn-out sound. There was an echo of things falling around them. However, the sound of approaching wings hadn’t dwindled in the least.

“It would seem we’ve got some of their blood on us. The scent is drawing them out.”

CHAPTER 5

Pain shot through her back as though it were being shredded. Desperately fighting back an explosion of agony, Mia sank her fingers into the fake’s shoulders. Her hand reached for the pouch on her waist.

“I’ve got some caustic powder,” she whispered in a low voice. “When I give the word, hit the deck.”

"Sure."

Mia, though somewhat dissatisfied with the fake D’s amused tone, pulled the capsule of powder from her pouch. Once it spread through the air and the lighter at the top end of the capsule ignited it, it should melt anything, including rock, in a thirty-foot radius. But for Mia to remain safe, it was necessary to give due consideration to the timing of that ignition. Ordinarily, the powder wasn’t really suited to a situation where she was moving so quickly. However, she didn’t have time to be picky.

“Stop,” she called out, but as she turned the emitter upward, the capsule slipped.

“Oh!”

The tiny container struck her wildly grasping fingers once or twice before falling right through them.

“What is it?”

There was the sound of demonic wings closing in on her from behind. A shriek rang out, and it sounded like a number of the creatures dove downward.

She needn’t have even asked that. He’d caught it before it hit the ground. Mia was laid low by a feeling of utter defeat.

Once again she heard a strange flapping sound. It was followed by a slash, and what felt like wings fell onto Mia’s back. She pressed the button as if she were spraying insecticide. It expelled the contents for two seconds—and then the sound faded. Holding her finger over the rough wheel of the lighter, she cried out, “Hit the dirt!”

An iridescent sphere of light swelled into existence. A powerful acid tore into the creatures in the air, melting them.

As a weight resting on her suddenly vanished, Mia realized that she’d been on the bottom—the fake D had narrowly managed to shield her from the caustic flames. For the longest time Mia couldn’t take her eyes off the back now exposed by his ruined coat.

Somewhat flustered, Mia hurriedly replied, “The monsters’ corpses. They’re all melted. I didn’t get to see what they looked like after all.”

Swiftly catching Mia as she fell, the fake D could feel the warm wetness on her back with his fingers. Torn open by an attack from the monsters, Mia’s back had lost about as much blood as it could.

“You mentioned my true appearance,” the fake D said, his eyes beginning to gleam fiercely. “Okay, I’ll show you. Now.”

Telling her this in a voice that prickled like frost, he brought his handsome visage closer to Mia’s pale throat.

The next thing she knew, she was lying in bed. On remembering everything that had happened up until that point, she looked around in shock at her ravaged surroundings, which bore some resemblance to a sickroom. The ceiling and walls were ruined, and by the barest of illumination she made out what seemed to be melted beds and medical equipment. Here lay death, heavy and dark.

“Are you awake?” Mia heard a voice above her head ask abruptly, and the girl thought the shock would snuff her breath. Was the D looking down at her the real one or the fake? After some consideration, she let out a disappointed sigh.

That much Mia could understand. But what sort of being would go to such lengths to destroy one of the Nobility’s facilities? This new puzzle occupied her brain.

“I wouldn’t jump around too much if I were you. I couldn’t do any more than a makeshift treatment. You lost a lot of blood.”

Terror drove a pillar of ice through Mia’s spine. Bleeding in front of a man with the blood of the Nobility in him? In all her life, she’d never done anything with the same speed that she now used to bring her hands to either side of her neck.

Once her fingertips told her that the skin remained smooth, the fake said to her, “Feel relieved now?”

“Although it was a very alluring aroma, I have no intention of making you my servant at present. You see, without a body that can live in the odious light of day, I can’t accomplish my aims.”

Mia didn’t hear these words. Her relief at not having fallen to the pernicious fangs of the Nobility had blotted out all other thoughts. And it was due to that that she failed to notice the fearsome meaning of his last remark.

A short time later, Mia brought up a different matter. “You took care of my back, didn’t you?”

Though Mia didn’t notice it, the walls of this room also retained the same light-emitting properties. When she looked up at the fake D’s face, Mia found the first traces of tension in his expression.

“He made it through the defense systems faster than I expected. He truly is . . .”

“Stay here,” the fake ordered her, and then he turned around. “There are strange things prowling around outside. Don’t go out there.”

If this impostor called D “me,” what manner of being could get him so agitated? Mia became more intrigued. Her curiosity had made her call on this dark abode, and it was safe to say it was now once more inviting her into pitch black danger.

Somehow keeping the pain in her back in check, Mia got out of bed and began to walk off toward where the fake D had disappeared.

She was still dressed. Her pouch remained safe and sound, too. Searching for anything else that might serve as a weapon, she picked up a foot-and-a-half-long piece of steel pipe off the floor. When she swung it with both hands, it seemed like it would suffice. But in return, a sharp pain shot through her back.

She could see only darkness ahead of her, but upon entering it, she found the door. Once she stood before it, it opened by itself.

Great, she thought, but as soon as she stepped out through it, it closed right behind her. Flustered, she tried stepping on the floor in front of it a few times, but now the door wouldn’t budge at all. Which was why the fake D had told her not to go outside.

“This is bad,” she told herself, but she quickly gave up on stewing over it. In studying divination, Mia had learned that if one method didn’t give you the answer, you should switch to another right away. If astrology didn’t work, try a reading from the winds—and that was exactly the philosophy that guided her now.

Mia was standing in a broad corridor. Although everything, including the doors set into the walls, was made of the same luminescent metal, the surfaces were melted, twisted, and smudged with oily smoke, speaking volumes about how a savage destroyer had torn through here mercilessly. Nevertheless, Mia couldn’t do anything to stop the admiration and the fathomless fear spreading through her heart. Here was a facility beyond the imaginings of the humans up above—what on earth could’ve laid such waste to it?

I have to know—Mia’s new curiosity flashed so brightly that even when she shut her eyes, it burned into her eyelids.

“It’s been a while, but I suppose I should give it a try,” Mia said, moving to the center of the corridor and standing the steel pipe on end. Chanting the spell for directional divination, she took a step backward. The pipe floated about four inches straight up in the air. This was the most important part of any divination—an impartial view.

With that, the pipe dropped, pointing off to the left when it landed. Picking it up, Mia started off to the right side without a moment’s hesitation.

The air was terribly hot, but at least it didn’t have an odd smell to it. As she walked for the next ten minutes, she came to a number of corners and stairways, and each time Mia used the same method to decide her path. She didn’t run into any of the “strange things” the fake D had mentioned.

Though the degree of destruction in the underground facility grew greater the farther she went, Mia grew inured to it. She only realized that’d been shortsighted of her when she came to an area that reminded her of a factory. Ruined machines of staggeringly huge proportions towered to either side of her, all of them half melted and misshapen. Some had their inner workings exposed, and those had also melted away. While many of the massive machines were recognizable as cranes or furnaces, there were also amalgamations of spheres and cubes that seemed to suck her in as she looked at them, and the mere thought of the purpose they might serve formed ice on the nape of Mia’s neck.

When she came to a sixty-foot-high cylinder that called to mind a rectifier, Mia sensed the presence of someone behind her. She turned and looked. A shadowy figure swiftly hid itself behind an iron pillar. Although it was a human shape, it wasn’t that of the fake D. For starters, he wouldn’t be one to hide.

As Mia glared at the spot where the shape had vanished, her right hand slipped into her pouch. Groping blindly, she found the capsule of phosphorous powder and pulled it out. After spraying

it at her feet for a second or so, she opened the lid, spilling its contents out as she backed away.

When she’d gone about fifteen feet, the human figure reappeared in its original position. Leaning forward somewhat with both arms crossed in a disagreeable manner, it was headed toward her at a good clip. Apparently it wasn’t about to let her get away. But when it came close enough that she could clearly discern its features even in the faint light, a cry of horror rang from Mia’s lips.

Partly it was the gloom and partly it was her own reaction that left her aghast, but the youth with a complexion as pale as paraffin was indeed the same young man who’d been decapitated two days earlier. The proof was on his neck—black stitches ran all around the base of it.

“Zoah . . . Who in the world could’ve . . .” Mia said, tears spilling from her eyes. While they were tears of mourning at the pitiful sight of the young man who’d loved her, they were also tears of rage toward whoever would subject the dead to such a ghastly procedure.

However, the way the young man approached her devoid of expression was truly unsettling.

Fear dictated Mia’s course of action. Crouched down, she struck the capsule’s lighter. Defying the gloom, a blinding flash of light zipped over to Zoah’s feet. At that instant, Zoah stepped onto the phosphorus powder she’d scattered seconds earlier. Though Mia’s eyes were shut tight, she was assailed by images of the white seeping through her lids and used both hands to hide her face.

Opening her eyes a crack, she turned and ran for all she was worth. The sound of burning followed her for a brief period. The living corpse hadn’t even let out a scream.

At that point, heaven and earth traded places. A tremendous jolt twisted the world, throwing Mia’s body in a direction even she couldn’t determine, where she was swallowed up.

She had the sensation of sliding downward. At the very least, she wasn’t flying. Beneath her body she could feel an incline.

What’s gonna happen? she wondered—and just then, a shock tossed her body up. Mia was just in the midst of a scream when she landed on her ass against hard ground.

And she wasn’t just talking about her derrière. She could tell that the wound on her back had opened again. Warm dampness was sliding down toward her waist.

The quaking subsided. Though she knew it must’ve been caused by some tremendous force run amok, she couldn’t begin to form a definite picture of what that might’ve been.

Getting the feeling she’d done something that couldn’t be undone, Mia surveyed her surroundings with trepidation. And her breath caught in her throat. Not surprisingly, the glowing walls were behaving strangely, their dim illumination now alternating intervals of darkness and light that created a kind of strobe effect. And in these flashes of light, Mia was able to make out a vast expanse of dark soil and rows of gravestones. Originally, this place must’ve been located far below the floor Mia was on, but apparently it too had been struck directly by that massive quake, as the gravestones had all fallen and parts of coffins or even whole ones protruded from crevices in the earth.

Crawling over to the closest tombstone on all fours, Mia read the writing on it. It was inscribed solely with numbers. They’d been burned into a metal plate with a laser or something similar.

“These numbers . . . This date is from more than five thousand years ago . . . This one’s three thousand . . . And seven thousand . . . And this one . . .”

The numbers inscribed on five or six of the grave markers related the fact that all of them had been erected more than three millennia earlier. At the same time, they also spoke volumes about how long this subterranean facility had been in operation.

“Leave it to the Nobility. But so many of them wouldn’t have died so easily. In which case ...”

At that point, Mia should’ve left. To the rational mind, there was no way remains from more than three millennia earlier could have retained their original forms. However, curiosity burned once more in her bosom, and in a spot less than three feet from her, she saw a coffin that’d been completely exposed. A pain shot through her back and waist as if a knife had gone into them, but she didn’t let that bother her. Inching over on her knees, Mia reached for the coffin’s lid.

I wonder if it’ll even open, she thought, but it slid off easily enough. It came as little surprise that even Mia didn’t have enough nerve to peek in right away, but rather she lowered her eyes and regained control of her breathing.

She raised her head. There was a face right in front of her. The shriveled, desiccated face of a mummy, its eyes alone glowing.

Not saying a thing, she pulled back. Something cold came to rest on her shoulder. Her hand reached up to touch it. Icy fingers. Mia’s eyes stared straight ahead—at the figure about to leave its coffin. And it wasn’t the only one.

Mia watched a coffin in the distance . . . another coffin, still buried ... Lids were sliding off or pried open, hands stretching out, figures rising . . . figures, figures, and more shadowy figures.

There was an impact on her shoulder, but she quickly pulled free. Taking five or six steps on her knees, she rose and turned. Trembling engulfed her whole body.

Zoah was standing there. Due to the dizzying switches between darkness and light, for a little while Mia didn’t notice that there was something wrong with him. The shape of his face was strange. The right half of it remained shrouded in darkness.

Half of his face was missing. And Zoah, too, was closing in on her. There was nothing she could do but retreat. She wondered how, terrified beyond belief, she must appear to him and the others. Were the hands he extended seeking some expression of affection, or flesh and blood?

Her back bumped against something. A metal pole. There was no place to run anymore.

The forest of arms moved forward. Out of all those limbs like hard, dead branches, Zoah’s hands alone still retained the semblance of a living person’s.

Her breasts were seized roughly. By Zoah’s hands. Mia let out an agonized scream. He was going to tear them off.

Suddenly, her pain subsided. Zoah’s hands slowly pulled away, following the arc his falling body described. It wasn’t clear whether or not Mia noticed the glittering needle that pierced his temple. The other walking dead also fell to the ground, one after another. Glistening needles were jabbed through their temples, their chests, their abdomens.

“It’s my hair,” said a voice off to the left. Just as before, the figure in blue astride the black steed had long hair that covered him to the waist.

How many times am I gonna have to ask that? she wondered, suddenly feeling stupid. Blood loss and the pain in her back were rapidly sapping her strength.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Mia asked, staring intently at his black mount.

“You keep saying he, but there are two Ds, you know. The real one and a fake.”

Behind the blue hair, something glimmered. Perhaps it was an eye. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

It took her a few seconds to respond to those words. “Know anything about what?”

“I can’t say. When I slay him, have him tell you with his dying breath.” “Don’t be so sure of yourself.”

The black steed came closer, and the pale figure in blue reached down from its back.

“In that case, I have no use for you. I’ll have to do the same thing to you that I did to the others,” he said, turning his head—or actually, his hair—to indicate the legions of dead.

“Why?” Mia asked, cold sweat beginning to run down her face. “You were with them. Perhaps you learned the same thing.”

“I don’t know anything. But if you’re going to kill me anyway, why don’t you tell me?”

“What a jerk you are!” Mia spat. “I give you whatever you want, but you won’t tell me anything about yourself in return—that’s despicable.”

When he asked her this, Mia finally realized that she was. Zoah lay at her feet. First his head had been cut off, and now he had a hairlike needle through him.

“Yeah, so I cry. Is that a crime? A fortuneteller’s daughter is still a human being. When something sad happens, I cry. If something rubs me the wrong way, I get angry. What’s the matter with that?” Glaring at the man in blue, who was surely an assassin, she continued, “If you’re going to kill me, kill me already. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let a liar like you use me.”

“Are you so loath to serve as my bait? Are you that smitten with the man they call D?”

What is the other D? The question started to rise in her throat, but Mia hesitated. Looking around at their surroundings, she asked, “What is this place?”

“A facility constructed by the Nobility in ancient times. Certain experiments were conducted here over the course of nearly ten millennia.”

He said it so casually; she couldn’t comprehend it at first. Parsing the words one by one with her brain, she strung them back together to form some meaning. She still had to ask, “What did you just say?”

“Mixing human and Noble blood? Is that what you mean? They did those sorts of experiments here?”

Dizziness swept over Mia. She barely managed to keep herself upright by clinging to the pole, but the impact of that knowledge wasn’t about to leave her.

Mia searched madly for her next question. “Well, then—who was it that destroyed this place? There’s no way humans could’ve done it. Was it some falling-out between Nobles?”

“This place was designed by the Sacred Ancestor. Nobility or not, no one save him could so much as put a scratch on its walls.” “Then who did it? I’ve heard there were extradimensional life forms and creatures from outer space who opposed the Nobility.”

“Not them.” “Quit being coy and just tell me. You’re going to kill me anyway, right? Who did it?”

Just as Mia strained her ears to catch the indigo assassin’s reply, the ground quaked once more. It continued for several seconds.

Showing no signs of getting down off his horse, the assassin looked up at the ceiling and said, “That’s the sort of fight I would expect. But for all that destruction, not a single chunk of debris falls—truly the work of the Sacred Ancestor.”

Though the face he then turned toward Mia might’ve been devoid of emotion, his eyes gleamed with terror.

“All this quaking and destruction is because he’s fighting. What’s more, it’s getting closer. You truly have become unnecessary.”

His left hand, which had gripped the reins, slowly rose before his face, and then made a sudden jerk. Obviously he’d pulled out a hair. And like a lengthy needle, it would surely pierce Mia’s body. In this world where even now darkness and light continued to flash, death closed in on Mia with certainty.

Turning in that direction, Mia peered into the blackness. A shadowy figure stood there. Shut in darkness, struck by light. But solitary and imposing.

Something shot out, scorching the air as it went. A flying needle of unfinished wood came to a halt about four inches shy of the blue assassin’s face. Mia gasped, for what should be wound about the missile but a few dozen strands of blue hair. The assassin’s hair was able to act autonomously.

The first strike for each had proven ineffective. And the thought of what the second strike might bring left Mia immobilized. This wasn’t a confrontation between two men—-it was one between a pair of demons. As the two squared off with fifteen feet between them, the light shone on them, and then darkness swallowed them.

At D’s soft reply, Mia’s heart swelled. Standing there was the real thing—the D she knew so well.

“How does it feel to battle yourself? And to knock this research center back to square one just when it was on the road to reconstruction? A battle between chosen ones must be something incredible.”

“That’s my job. Anyone who gains any knowledge of these experiments, regardless of how little that may be, is to be exterminated—that’s the order I was given.”

“That goes without saying. If you don’t know that, you’ll never amount to anything more than a simple Hunter.”

The figure in blue rustled as if he’d been caught in a breeze. Or rather, he stirred like a snake. Each of them was primed for battle.

The assassin’s left hand reached for his hair. Taking hold of a fistful, he brought it to his lips. Fwooo! Mia’s ears caught the sound of him blowing. Hundreds of needles flew at D without a sound. D’s sword slashed through them, but the hairs weren’t cut.

Look. D’s blade was growing bluer and bluer by the instant. The hairs from the blue assassin were wrapping themselves around it.

“Your sword is useless now,” the assassin said, laughter tingeing his words. “Think you’ll be able to stop my hair next time?”

As he spoke, his blue arsenal rustled up like vipers rising to strike. D had been denied the use of the weapon that might ward off any fresh attacks.

“What?” rang a cry of surprise. The assassin twisted around in the saddle. From behind him, Mia had wrapped both hands around his neck.

Her sad cry became an agonized shriek a heartbeat later. A brightly gleaming needle pierced her through the chest and out the back.

However, the assassin in blue donned a puzzled expression. Mia had suddenly disappeared. Once again she’d called upon the same decoy spell she’d used on the brink of the great subsidence. Her true form was crouched next to the pole, where she had a hand pressed to her chest.

The result was unexpected. The assassin in blue suddenly wheeled his mount around and galloped toward Mia.

D bounded. In the intermittent light, his blade glittered. It no longer wore its sheath of hair. The sword he swung came down hard on the assassin’s shoulder, shaking the rider badly in the saddle, but Yuma narrowly managed to stay up.

Listing heavily to the right, the assassin galloped off into the depths of the darkness.

Sensing someone approaching, Mia raised her head. The pain of being skewered by a needle was rapidly ebbing.

Her duplicate was formed by her will, particulates in the air, and proteins expelled through her own pores, and the more detailed it became, the more its reactions mirrored her own. And that was why, to a certain degree, Mia experienced the pain that her duplicate endured.

“Do I look okay? I’m beat to hell!” “We’ll see to your wounds later.”

Mia was caught off balance. That was all D had to say after she’d disobeyed his orders and entered the dark abode? She’d been braced for a vicious tongue-lashing.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” Mia asked him jokingly, but then she noticed that his stare was focused not on herself but on the darkness to her rear. It couldn’t be a new foe, could it? Was that the reason for the unexpected retreat by the assassin in blue?

As expected, the figure that approached from the depths of the darkness was also D. Needless to say, it was the impostor. The assassin had noticed him and fled. No matter how powerful Yuma might be, it would clearly be too dangerous to take on two Ds.

“No matter where you go, it’s just one endless battle with you, isn’t it?” the fake D said in a sarcastic tone.

While the voice was D’s, Mia got the feeling she was seeing another side of him, and it put her in a foul mood.

Perhaps sensing something, the fake D raised one hand and said, “Hold on. There’s no point in fighting any longer while we’re so evenly matched. Let’s take a rest. We’ve got this lovely spectator, too.”

Turning to D, Mia said, “Let’s do that.” But she didn’t even know why she did so.

The sword D lowered had blue hair wrapped around its blade. That was probably the reason he’d allowed the assassin to escape.

When it had appeared he’d be unable to defend himself from his opponent’s attacks, Mia had used her decoy spell. However, D now gave a twist to his wrist, and the strands promptly snapped, fluttering down to the ground.

“Well, I’ll be,” Mia said, but her words quickly streaked away from her as she fell toward the ground.

Just before she hit, D’s hands caught her and swiftly turned her over. And although she wasn’t sure exactly how he did it, she felt like her back had just been laid bare.

“What are you-—” “Just some treatment,” D said, and the pleasant coolness spreading across her back vouched for his words.

“She sure pushed her luck,” a hoarse voice grumbled, and at that, Mia found tears welling in her eyes.

D stood up again. How it had happened was once again a mystery, but the girl’s clothes were back in place.

“Even I can’t do that,” the fake D remarked with admiration after standing there speechless for so long. “That old dog gave you an edge. I guess it can’t be helped. Apparently you were the first in your class.”

Tossing his jaw at the two of them, the fake D said, “Come with me. I’ll show you what this place is really all about.”

And then he turned around and walked back into the darkness from which he’d come.

The trio was in a space reminiscent of a laboratory. Though the ceiling, walls, and floor were all melted as if they’d been assailed by the same high heat as everything else, the arrangement of what appeared to be deformed equipment and the atmosphere that still hung in the deathly gloom made the room’s former purpose known. Some thirty feet away, a machine that retained a cylindrical shape gave off periodic flashes of pale blue light.

“This is the core of the facility. Though it was thoroughly devastated, it comes as little surprise that it survived.”

Mia pressed her hands against her chest. It wasn’t the cold. An atmosphere close to a chill had stolen into her. Experiments had been conducted here that no human should’ve ever known about.

There was no reply. What’s more, it appeared the fake hadn’t expected one from him.

Gazing at the melted lump of material just before him, the fake made a haphazard slice at it. Melted or not, it was still apparently metal, but the material offered no more resistance than water as he bisected it with a diagonal slash.

“This is where the birthing device was. Do you understand, D? We were born not in our mother’s home or a delivery room, but in a room for experimentation.”

It was quiet. The stillness was such that it seemed to have been ordained in ancient times and respected by all of creation.

And then it was broken by an insolent voice, echoing in a hair-raising manner, ‘“We were born.’ D, that means the two of you . . .”

“That’s right,” the fake said, nodding. “Here, we were plucked from our mother’s womb and cut apart. Apparently our backs were joined in a special fashion. It would seem that’s why we’re so similar, both in appearance and in ability. Which of us is the older brother and which the younger, D?”

“I’m not surprised. You can’t answer that, can you? But I know. I, who was sealed away in the cold and weighty darkness for so, so long. Unlike you, who were given life right away. I know, you see.”

“It would seem he wanted to have everything exactly the same. But for what purpose? We grew in the same woman’s womb under the exact same conditions and were delivered without even a millisecond’s difference. From anyone’s perspective, there would be no older brother or younger brother. In other words, you are me, and I am you.”

Vertigo assailed Mia. Her body was terribly cold. These two couldn’t possibly be brothers. Or, as the impostor put it, one and the same person.

“You called me a fake, didn’t you?” the fake D said, and the girl now noticed that he was wearing a grin. “In a sense, you’re not mistaken. After all, I was sealed away here while D was given the world. I suppose that after being delayed for so long, it’s only natural I’d be considered a fake.”

“As if you didn’t know! To keep control of the world in the hands of the Nobility. That’s what I’m programmed to do.”

“That’s right. It was part of the preparations for putting this facility back in operation.”

“Back in operation?” Mia said, her eyes wide as she looked all around them. “It’s completely destroyed—and you’re saying it’ll operate?”

“But still,” Mia started to protest, but at that point the lighting began to flicker.

Smartass, Mia thought, but she did want to get D’s opinion. “D—what’s going on?”

Could it actually do that?” Mia asked D, but he didn’t reply. V-4 In his place, the fake said, “These are preparations undertaken by the Sacred Ancestor. No doubt he furnished each and every molecule in the ceiling and walls with regenerative abilities. By my calculations, it should be fifty percent complete within three days.” “And what do you intend to do then?”

“Woman, you are sorely lacking in the imagination department,” the fake said, his grinning countenance making Mia shudder. “This facility isn’t merely for genetic research. It’s equipped with an impressive level of defensive and offensive capabilities. Systems developed by the Sacred Ancestor, at that. If my memory serves, it has the power to reduce half a continent to dust with the single touch of a button. But no, it should prove quite interesting to expose the lowly humans to the strange shapes that the results of the original genetic research took.”

“So, what do you hope to accomplish with that? What’s your aim?” “I myself don’t know—at least, not fully.”

The fake D’s evil smirk grew even broader. “If there must be a reason for evexything, I think it’s due to my anger at being left alone for so long. That may not be it exactly, but it can’t be far from the mark.”

“I’m begging you, don’t do this,” Mia entreated. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to really hate this horrible mass murderer. “There has to be something else you could do. A great man like you would be able to do anything.”

Even she knew what she was saying sounded absurd. Pointing at D, she said, “He’s an outstanding Hunter, for example. If you’re just like him, you should be able to do the same.”

“That may be,” D said, and his words were a great help. However, was D admitting to what the other had said—that they were the legitimate offspring of the Sacred Ancestor?

“Don’t bother,” D said, and those words from him brought an explosion of murderous intent from every inch of the fake D. “Wait, D!”

The figure in black strode forward. Mia had intended to block his way, but she ended up stepping to the side without putting up any resistance. A sword gleamed in D’s right hand. At the same time, the fake D had drawn his blade.

The instant Mia’s heart rankled a bit at the hopelessness in those words, D kicked off the ground with tremendous force. Mia’s eyes caught nothing more than a momentary explosion of light. Blue sparks spread over the fake D’s head. Two streaks of light intertwined like serpents all the way down to the floor, shot back up again, and then there was a second scattering of sparks in front of D’s chest. But that wasn’t what made Mia cover her eyes. Every time the blades came together, a strange sensation filled the room. Two tremendous energies with wills of their own were slamming together, flying apart, growing even denser as they tried to shatter the field that contained them from the inside. Destruction for destruction’s sake, expansion for expansion’s sake—all three brains were seared, and their bodies were left semitransparent and weighing only half as much as normal. It seemed as if neither of the pair’s blades could injure the other. Steel clashed, and every time that mellifluous tone rang out, the atmosphere became chaotic, abusing Mia’s body, spinning her and driving her up against the walls. She sank halfway into them.

At that point, a greenish hue arose in the dim light. Blinking repeatedly, it went black, then blinked once more.

“That’s a warning light,” the fake D said. Or at least that’s who Mia guessed it was, but she wasn’t completely sure. The two of them had been switching positions so rapidly that each looked at times like the shadow of the other. “Do you know what’s happening, D? I do. Intruders.”

The fake D stood there motionless, his eyes half closed. But he soon remarked, “Hmm, it would seem even that little hick village has someone with some backbone. They’re coming down into the subsidence.”

“The fools. They’ll see what a terrific stronghold this research center is when I strip the life and soul from them.”

About three feet above the trio’s heads, an image had formed of a number of figures descending a rope into the great subsidence. Men from the village. Mia counted four of them, of which three looked familiar. All wore backpacks and were armed with longswords or axes, bolt guns or tasers. Mia’s eyes were drawn to the youngest and seemingly most intrepid of the bunch.

His name was Kuentz. The son of a village huntsman, he was a mere nineteen years of age, but there wasn’t a man around who was any better in a bare-handed fight or in the use of arms. The reason he hadn’t been involved in any of the major incidents up until now was simply because business had sent him off to a neighboring village. This morning, he’d heard about the trouble before leaving said village, and as soon as he got home, he called the men together, gathered volunteers to explore the bottom of the great subsidence, and rode out there after making sufficient preparations. He was hardly a rash young man, which became evident when he ruled out any of the village volunteers who had a wife and children to look after, regardless of what special skills they had. The other men were also cool headed and composed, all brave men who weren’t above sacrificing their lives for the safety of their families and their village.

Coming down the rope in almost a straight line, they’d gone about halfway when the rock face grew violent. The mere touch of their feet against it sent the four of them flying, rope and all, and once they’d twisted back around on the line, they found unsettling mummies leering back at them. This may have been an area where the ancients had performed mummification rites and burials, but the fact that the rocky walls had easily given way at that point to reveal exactly four of them seemed to be no mere coincidence. As the men stared dazedly at them, their desiccated flesh swiftly began a transformation. Blue blood vessels shot through their muscles, which ballooned and reclaimed their reddish hue before pink skin flowed up to cover them like a returning tide. And from the way their bountiful chests filled in, bare of even a stitch of clothing, they could tell the mummies were women. Then the women, with gold, red, black, and green tresses hanging down to their waists, got the most coquettishly alluring smiles as they reached out for the men with both arms. Ordinarily, anyone could’ve seen there was something strange about this. However, the situation was so incredibly abnormal it left the men dumbfounded, and they allowed the pale arms to wrap around their necks.

It was Kuentz who realized the danger. When he was hired to go to the eastern Frontier region and help out, he’d encountered a tree that took on human form in the Forest of Cain. Thanks to her lovely countenance and tempting flesh, he had been just about to throw himself on her in spite of himself when a more experienced local saved him with a homemade flamethrower. Later he heard how the pistils of its blossoms secreted a powerfully hypnotic liquid, the scent of which halted human thought processes. After the victim had been enveloped by its hand-shaped petals, he would be digested and absorbed.

His limbs no longer responded. Quickly biting through his bottom lip to bring himself back to his senses, Kuentz fired away with the flamethrower an old huntsman had given him. Although three of the beauteous mummies were engulfed by flames in the blink of an eye, the fourth survived, for one of the villagers had already leapt into the arms of the lovely woman.

As he was being dragged into her body, their colleague exclaimed, “Save me!” When he turned to make that entreaty, half the flesh was gone from his face, leaving only a skull with eyeballs.

As Kuentz prayed for his friend’s swift passage into the afterlife, he let a golden jet of fire fly from his flamethrower. The beautiful woman instantly turned back into a shriveled mummy, and it was probably thanks to this that she burned so well.

“Now there’s three of us—and I don’t intend to lose anyone else. Be real careful now.”

When Kuentz spoke, the rest of the group—actually, just the other two—seemed to get their bearings back as if they’d been dunked in an icy stream of winter meltwater, and they nodded in response.

“One of them’s already been killed. Make it stop, D!” Mia cried, but neither of the two young men who wore D’s face said a word.

“Oh, they’ve reached the bottom! Couldn’t you switch off the fortress’s defenses? Make it stop.”

The girl showed no signs of relenting, but the fake merely shrugged his shoulders at her cries, saying, “At present, the facility has diverted nearly all of its energy to reconstructing itself. It’s not in a position yet to hand complete control over to me.”

“Well, I still can’t let this happen. If you don’t want to do anything, then I’ll go all by myself. You can—”

Grinning wryly, the fake D said something unexpected. “Slay me? Girlie, I suppose I can help you.”

“It would seem my blood runs a little redder than that other me. How does that sound?”

“In that case, order that me not to touch this me. You’re his employer, right?”

“Have it your way,” D said, having nothing else to say on the matter for some reason. “However, we’ll accompany him.”

Whether or not he realized that strange developments were taking matters out of his hands, D stood there as silent as always. “You must know where they are. Show us the way.”

“If even one out of the three is saved, the two of you are to leave here today. And not return for three days.”

Unable to decide immediately, Mia turned to D, but the gorgeous Hunter didn’t say a word. Mia thought her last decision might’ve angered him and felt a little depressed. Also, the words of the fake telling them it would take three more days for the facility to function normally still rang in her ears. However, seeing the trio who’d reached the bottom of the great subsidence and stood stock

still in the eddying white steam without even knowing where they were, she knew she couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

“Good enough,” the fake said, looking at D and Mia with smug satisfaction before he turned around.

After hearing from the sheriff in the hospital what’d happened out at the great subsidence two days earlier, Kuentz and the other members of his group had borrowed heat-resistant suits and gas masks from the fire department’s storeroom. They’d already donned the suits, and as for the masks—well, they were pretty old, so the men were going to use them only if the gas was more than they could take, slipping them on just shortly before they reached the bottom. They certainly were swelteringly hot, and apparently a scant amount of air passed through the filters, forcing them to take shallow breaths. If they didn’t finish their investigations as quickly as possible, the masks might suffocate them.

Kuentz was certain there was something, or someone, at the bottom of the subsidence. Therefore, he’d intended to take the time to do a thorough search—but his determination was rapidly waning in the heat. Still, what kept him from losing heart was his youth and sense of duty, plus the confidence that came from having experienced more grueling situations than most adults. His body bore over a hundred scars in various places, half of which had nearly been the death of him. While putting down a stone bear that weighed nearly fifty tons, he’d been gouged open down to the lungs, but he’d still managed to make it out of a germ-infested jungle in the midst of a downpour due to the knowledge of medicinal herbs he’d gained in the western Frontier. On a plateau called Ren, he’d been attacked by a weird tribe of pygmies and hit by five poison arrows, but he still managed to destroy the earth-quaker they called their god thanks to a protective spell he’d learned in a certain library in the Capital. He would manage something this time. If not, he’d fight to the bitter end.

With all the drive and determination of youth, Kuentz had come more than prepared, even bringing along three compatriots— although one of them had already met his end. The youthful leader’s heavy responsibilities were subtly affecting his mind and his judgment. He wasn’t sure where, but there had to be a door someplace so the murderer known as D could come and go.

In a twilit world brimming with white steam, the trio began their desperate search. Five minutes . . . ten . . . twenty . . . The steam drew torrents of sweat through the heat-resistant suits, and their feet sank into the red clay.

Once they’d passed the thirty-minute mark, Kuentz used the microphone in his mask to call the other two. “Graff and Chang— let’s pull out of the hole for a while. Then we’ll take another run at it.”

A feeble voice came through his receiver. “Chang . . . here. The heat’s messing with my eyes. Don’t know which way I’m headed.”

Kuentz peered down at his feet. They glowed with the luminescent yellow paint he’d had the village painter fill the soles of his boots with. Chang’s had green, and Graff’s had blue. Once he’d gone back to where they’d touched down on the bottom, it would be easy enough to find them.

Calling out to Graff that he was going to look for Chang, Kuentz changed direction. His footprints remained. Just as he took a step forward to follow them, a human shape began to form in the steam.

“I called him, but he didn’t answer. The heat might’ve been too much for him.”

Kuentz was stunned. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? Where is it?” “Over this way. I’ll show you.”

As soon as Chang started walking, Kuentz made note of their direction and began counting his steps. Two hundred sixty-seven steps brought them to a sheer wall. An iron door was set in it. Ten feet wide and ten feet tall, it seemed more an entrance for wagons than people.

He gave it a push. At the mere touch of his fingertips, the hinges began a tortured squeak. As the opening grew, the area beyond it began to come into view. It appeared to be a corridor.

Although he was worried about Graff, Kuentz said, “I’ve got no choice but to go. Chang, you wait here for Graff.”

Kuentz stepped through the open door alone. Inside, he was greeted by a dim world not so different from that outside. Though gusts of steam interrupted his vision, they vanished when he went in further. He soon saw that this was an incredibly huge facility.

Who the hell built this place, and when? We’ve been living right on top of it like dolts, never suspecting a thing, he thought, cold sweat pouring from him.

He soon came to a corner. As he was debating which way to go, he heard footsteps from the passage on the right. Someone was coming with a calm and steady gait. He strained his eyes. Approaching from the depths of the corridor was what looked like the outline of a man.

“Graff?” he called out, based on both instinct and the general shape of the figure. Wearing a backpack, with goggles over his eyes and a gas mask over his mouth and nose—it was definitely Graff. However, as if he was startled on seeing Kuentz bolt around the corner, the shadowy figure tore down the corridor in a mad dash.

As the dumbfounded Kuentz gave chase, he saw that there must be another passage behind the wall, and he dove through it without hesitating. The figure was running up ahead. After a number of twists and turns, they went down a broad flight of stone stairs. Spreading as far as the eye could see, the gray world brimmed with stillness.

Suddenly, Kuentz stopped in his tracks, his path blocked by an enormous set of doors. He wasn’t sure whether Graff had gone through them. Getting a bad feeling, he instinctively considered turning back, but at that moment the doors began to open down the middle. The air on the other side was damper and it clung to his skin. Had he not glimpsed that humanoid shape in the dim light, he never would’ve gone in there. But, firming his resolve, he plunged in. The doors closed behind him, the force of their shutting driving him forward a few steps.

I was lured down here, he thought, growing more and more certain of his suspicions.

The dim light took on a bluish hue. Kuentz felt as if it was seeping into him through his skin, and his body stiffened with tension. Looking all around again, he found the place filled with an eerie aura that chilled his otherwise feverish determination.

Sandwiched between the vast stone floor and the great ceiling were towering stone statues, but as he gazed up at them, at some point the floor and ceiling grew oddly close, then swapped positions, leaving him on the floor but staring down at the ceiling. Though he could see staircases and platformlike decks here and there, the slightest change in perspective was enough that even those shifted, twisting, the stairs breaking off in midair, swirling off in vortices. Here, geometry seemed to lose all meaning. The visual irregularities were transmitted to his flesh—and an intense nausea filled Kuentz.

It was at that point that the trembling of the earth became a noise he could hear. Up ahead—off in the dimly lit distance, but drawing closer. Kuentz could tell it was the sound of footsteps.

At long last, something befitting this bizarre facility was about to reveal itself to him.

Kuentz touched a protrusion on the leather case that sheathed his left arm from the wrist to the elbow. Spring loaded, a cylindrical launcher and iron arrows within the case sprang out. Driven by highly compressed oxygen, the arrows could penetrate the plated hide of a large armored beast at a range of fifty yards. The sound of excess oxygen spilling from the tube ignited Kuentz’s will to fight.

Darkness formed in the dim light. It had a human shape. The footfalls became like thunder.

There was only one emotion he knew he couldn’t let come over him, but it mixed with his voice anyway.

The shadowy figure that halted on the short flight of stairs ahead of him was a good ten feet tall. Armor in a leaden hue encased his body, while his entire head was covered by a helm with three vertical slits. In his right hand he held a spear at least fifteen feet long, and on his hip he wore a longsword.

“Bring them to me.” “You can try to take them back by force if you wish. They are needed here.”

And as he said this, the gigantic form pounced. The giant cleared a distance of nearly thirty feet in a single bound as he closed on Kuentz, and as he looked up at his opponent, Kuentz was spellbound by his overwhelmingly massive proportions. His foe probably didn’t feel like making any unnecessary movements in midair before thrusting the spear he had ready through Kuentz’s chest. His landing was accompanied by a great thud.

His knees bent slightly, the giant went to turn in that direction, but his upper body fell. He fell to his knees, and then put down his left hand to steady himself. Iron arrows protruded from the joints of both knees. While Kuentz may have had the speed necessary for an attack, when had he managed to avoid the giant’s falling body?

The gigantic figure could do nothing to hide his astonishment while Kuentz pointed his left arm straight at his foe and ordered him sternly, “Bring me to my friends.”

“You wish to see them?” the giant asked. His voice trembled with a touch of something spine chilling.

The last bit wasn’t directed at Kuentz. As if in response to the call, objects whistled down from the air above. From the sound of them hitting and the height they bounced, Kuentz probably could’ve determined how far they’d fallen, but he didn’t have time for that.

At his feet lay innumerable human arms and legs and torsos and heads—hacked apart in the most horrible fashion.

As the stupefied Kuentz stared at them, his eyes also caught the giant rising, and his ears echoed with the sound of the extracted iron arrows hitting the floor.

The giant’s cry was shredded by a harsh metallic clang! Kuentz’s third arrow had pierced his temple. Staggering wildly, the giant swung his right arm in an arc. The head of the spear he waved was easily three feet long, with either side honed razor keen. If that swing landed, it could probably bisect the trunk of a greater dragon.

Kuentz was above his deadly swipe, at the same height as the giant’s face. The terrific spring in his knees was the product of his inherent strength and the severe training he’d undergone as a huntsman. His right hand rose. As he brought it down again, it gripped the blade of the bastard sword that projected from his leather forearm protector. Putting his full weight behind it, Kuentz brought the blade down on the giant’s head. The blade was made of a special steel forged by the most renowned blacksmith in the western Frontier. With an ease that shocked even an experienced hand like Kuentz, the blade slashed through the dragon helm and visor and sank halfway into his foe’s torso. However, when Kuentz landed on the ground, it wasn’t a smile of victory that spread across his face, but rather a perplexed shadow. Aside from the copper plate, he hadn’t met any resistance at all.

Letting out a base laugh, the giant took his helmet between his hands and lifted it off. There was no head inside. All there was was an empty space.

“This isn’t my true form. Until the reconstruction of this facility is complete, I need a body to deal with you and others like you. But

This time unable to dodge the thrust of the spear, Kuentz stood there rooted like a tree. And then disappeared.

Kuentz had backed away as far as the door. However, when he turned around and looked, he froze in his tracks. A cold stone wall now occupied the exact spot where the door had been.

“You’re a spry bastard,” the headless giant said as he made a swing of his spear. What he’d impaled with his earlier thrust had merely been an afterimage of Kuentz. Not only could he jump, but the young man was also swift footed enough that he could move at speeds in excess of Mach 1.

He was at the end of his rope—that was the only expression that described the way Kuentz felt. For all his speed and skill with the iron arrows and concealed blade, slaying an opponent who lacked a physical body would be a Herculean task.

The giant donned his helmet once more. And then he did two incredible things. Raising the spear in his right hand, he slammed it down on the stone floor. It was unclear what the spearhead was made of, but the shattered bits of it went out like sea spray, forming glittering bands of waves at Kuentz’s feet. Each and every shard was at least four inches long, with razor-sharp edges left exposed like thorns.

Kuentz’s legs had been taken out of the picture. The fragments of the spear would easily pierce the soles of his shoes, immobilizing him.

As Kuentz gnawed his lips, the giant looked down at him coolly—although he didn’t actually have eyes—and undertook another activity. Dragging himself with thudding footsteps over to where the dismembered corpses had fallen, he drew the longsword from his hip. He then made shallow cuts into the arms and legs and torsos. Once he was done, he kept his sword in hand as he counted, “One . . . Two ...”

Though they didn’t respond to Kuentz’s stunned cries, five of the corpses began twitching their limbs in an unsettling fashion. Had the giant used some sort of resurrection spell on them, or had he merely pieced them back together and made them move? Whichever was the case, you would be hard pressed to say that the cadavers were satisfied with their present state.

Those were indeed human bodies that got up, but cobbled together based purely on proximity—the blond head of a young man sat on the torso of what was clearly a middle-aged man, and both the right and left arms didn’t belong to him either. And while the legs were a matching set, they didn’t belong to the owner of the head or the torso. However, that wasn’t uncommon. At the very least it had one head and torso, and two arms and legs. Another body could only be described as a prank by some god of creation. Two right arms wrestled with each other for dominance, while both legs were left ones. And the face that gazed down stupidly was upside down.

“Stop it!” Kuentz ground his teeth. “Stop it, you goddamn monster! Put all of them back the way they were.”

“All of them? Not one of them can remember who he was. They are empty vessels, just like this,” the giant said, striking his chest. “But it would seem that, to you, they are still friends. Therefore, you can do them no harm.”

The dead—in the horribly twisted forms they now possessed— began to advance on Kuentz with stiff steps. There was no way to describe the sight of them walking across the spearhead fragments other than to say they were like demons from the fires of hell.

Though he had his iron arrows and concealed blade ready, Kuentz still hesitated. No matter how grotesque their forms, their faces were still those of friends. Friends he’d studied with, played with, and squabbled with since he was little. A troubled sweat broke out on Kuentz’s brow, and his hands shook badly.

“What’s wrong? Simply think of them as corpses. Or if you raise your hand to them, will you be labeled a friend killer for the rest of your days?” the giant said, leaning back for a hearty laugh.

Dead friends reached for Kuentz’s throat with both hands. Even if he were to break free of them, there were still those metallic thorns at his feet. And if he somehow managed to tramp across them to freedom, the giant’s longsword would be waiting for him.

The circle closed in on him. However, as Kuentz glared at the giant, his eyes weren’t filled with despair, but rather burned with the will to fight. This young man would surely choose to go down fighting.

The trembling of his left hand stopped dead. When he held his arm out straight, the iron arrow was aimed not at his dead friends, but at the giant behind them. He would retaliate. Even now, he still challenged his fate.

The giant’s laughter stopped unexpectedly. Like a person awakening to learn their whole world was just a dream, he suddenly turned and looked behind him. Three figures stood in the same depths of the darkness from which the giant had come. One was a woman; the other two were inhumanly beautiful men in black who were identical in appearance.

“There’s the ringleader,” one of them said to the other. “And that brings my part to a close. I leave the rest to you. Now, don’t forget about the three days we agreed on.”

The woman stared at the gorgeous figure that’d been the target of that remark.

“It wouldn’t do to have my employer die on me.” Glaring intently at his other self, D then made a toss of his chin at the giant and said, “Call him off.”

“I can’t do that,” the fake D said with a disagreeable expression as he, too, looked at the giant. “It’s part of the recovery process after the research facility was completely destroyed. There are parts of it that recognize me as the master, but there are also systems that haven’t accepted that. Unfortunately, this character represents the latter. Although sooner or later he’ll come under my command, at present, he would view me as a foe as well.”

At what some might even describe as an embittered reply, D said softly, “In that case, you can dispose of him.”

“I thought you might say that,” the fake said, shrugging his shoulders. “But this is hardly the time or place to stand around debating. That young man’s in danger.”

Never taking his eyes off the fake, D said, “Get out of here.” He was concerned about Mia’s safety while he was busy fighting.

“Fine. If you’d be so good as to destroy him, you’ll just be doing me a favor. I’ll be wishing you luck from afar.”

And with that obtuse reply, the fake walked off toward the depths of the darkness, turning after he’d gone a few paces. When his eyes met Mia’s, he said, “Pleasant journey to you, brave little miss.”

He addressed her in a gentle tone that made him seem like a completely different person from who he’d been up until now, but before Mia could frame a reply, he vanished into the darkness.

It was less than a second later that Mia returned to her senses from the strange feeling that’d come over her. By the time she turned her eyes to where the lurid life-or-death battle would unfold, D had already finished descending the staircase. Less than sixty feet stood between him and the giant. Perhaps that was an appropriate distance for the boundary between the stillness that seemed to hang in the vicinity of the gorgeous Hunter and the sudden shift to cries of deadly battle, or perhaps not.

D advanced without concern. In response, the giant stood stock still. When the silently advancing D was finally below the blade the giant had raised, the giant made a horizontal swipe at the base of the Hunter’s neck. Blue sparks shot out like glittering grains in the feeble light, and a crisp metallic clang rang out. D had parried the blade in the act of drawing his own.

Wasn’t the giant staggering? If he was, it lasted only a second before he managed to maintain his balance and lift his sword above his head for a second blow.

D didn’t parry it. He kicked off the floor lightly and slashed down with his blade in midair. At essentially the same time he sheathed his sword, the giant’s upper body—from the right side of his neck to the bottom of his rib cage on the left—moved slightly out of alignment. Like it was going down a slide, it slipped off and fell to the floor with a booming thud.

After merely taking a glance at the portion of the giant that still stood on the floor and his sword, D walked over to Kuentz. Actually, in the whole course of the battle, the Hunter had never stopped moving for a second.

Behind him, what remained of the giant’s lower body bent over slowly. Lifting the severed left portion, he tried to stick it back in place. After all, he had reanimated the villagers’ corpses. He barely got it back in position.

As D walked, he tapped his right foot lightly against the floor. Once again the giant’s upper body slid off, and by the time its echoes boomed, D had already dived into the thick of the living dead. Not at all concerned with the metal fragments on the floor, he flashed out with his blade and swiftly took apart the reanimated corpses. There wasn’t a mote of humanity in his “dissection,” so brutal even Kuentz—who was caught in the middle of it—couldn’t bear to watch.

The Hunter went on to sweep the fragments from the floor, saying, “Come with me.”

After slipping free of the net of fragments, Kuentz, dumbfounded, looked at D and Mia and asked, “Who the hell are you two?” “Didn’t you see us back in town?”

In response to Mia’s question, Kuentz shook his head, saying, “No, I know. You’re Miss Mia, right? And that’s the Vampire Hunter ‘D.’ ”

An intense glint filled the eyes that gazed at D. As far as Kuentz was concerned, he was still a murderer.

“We kinda wandered in,” Mia lied. Even if she were to tell him the truth, he wouldn’t understand. For Mia herself, comprehending all of this was only a distant dream.

“I’ve still got work to do. I’ve gotta find out for sure what’s going on down here.”

“Forget that and just get out, okay? No matter how long you stay, you’ll never learn anything and you’ll only get yourself killed. Like all of them.”

But Kuentz had a fierce light in his eyes. “Then I have to avenge them. You two go on ahead.”

“I’m prepared to do that. I can’t very well go dragging my tail back all alone.”

“No, that’s exactly what you should do. You must’ve seen how terrifying the things infesting this place are. They control the dead, for God’s sake!”

“There was nothing inside that armor. All I heard was a voice,” Kuentz muttered absentmindedly.

“You can’t win against things like that. No one will blame you for going home.”

“Your friends are all dead. The reason you alone made it in here is because the enemy invited you in. A foe like that won’t let you go again easily. Whatever was in that suit of copper armor is probably watching us right now.” “What was he?” Kuentz asked, his face distorted.

When it came to various monsters and spirits, he knew quite a bit, and he’d encountered them on a number of occasions. That thing had been something entirely different, because Kuentz was wearing a charm against supernatural beings.

Kuentz’s eyes leapt to the vicinity of D’s left hip. Although Mia knew that the hoarse voice had come from his left hand, she said nothing.

“But more importantly, now we simply can’t afford to wait three days up on the surface. Those two aren’t in league yet.”

By that, the hoarse voice was referring to the fake D and the thing in the armor.

“This place is coming back to life. If it’s fully restored, it’ll become a tremendous fortress we’ll be powerless against. Needless to say, we can’t stay here safe and sound. We’ve gotta get back up to the top as soon as possible.”

Since D wasn’t talking, Kuentz was completely bewildered. The hoarse voice definitely seemed to come from D’s hip—where his hand hung easily by his side.

Before the figure in black loomed the same stone wall where the door had disappeared earlier. And then the wall in front of D fragmented like an electronic image, and what should suddenly appear again but the door.

In spite of himself, the boy looked over at Mia, and seeing in her profile the shock and fear and even adoration that rocked the girl’s features, the young man felt a pang shoot through his chest.

CHAPTER 7

Where are we, anyway?” Mia fairly groaned a little over an hour after they’d left the ritual chamber. Traveling down the corridors and climbing stairs with D in the lead, the girl wasn’t uneasy, but the relentless march was physically more than she could take.

“We haven’t even gone halfway.”

“I’m sorry, but I need a break. And I’m thirsty too,” Mia said, sinking to the ground.

Before her lay another staircase. The top of it dissolved into the darkness. And that endless climb was enough to rob the girl of both her will and her strength.

“It’s weird, though. We’ve been climbing all these steep stairs and we still haven’t reached the surface yet,” Kuentz said, his voice heavy with distrust for D, but not because he thought he was a murderer. Those suspicions had faded in the short time he’d spent with D. That was partly because he was working for Mia, but it was really because the girl had told him what D was. A dhampir—he didn’t like that one bit.

Weren’t they kin to the Nobility? In that case, he should be living in secret high in the mountains or deep in a valley where no one would ever find him, not walking around interacting with people

like everyone else. To make matters worse, he made his living as a Hunter, and a Vampire Hunter at that. Vampires—weren’t they his kind? Although Kuentz didn’t quite consider him a traitor, he most definitely didn’t approve. Something wasn’t right there. When Kuentz looked at D, his eyes were anything but amiable.

“Interfering?” Eyes wide, the man looked over at D’s hip and asked, “Are you into ventriloquism or something?”

“The thing in the armor we ran into earlier has distorted space. And as a result, the distance to the exit increased tenfold. As we press forward, I’m undoing it, so we’re making some progress. If not, we’d just keep going and going till we died.”

“Well, I’d say in an hour and a half. But that’s only if nothing else interferes.”

“Yeah. That’s just great,” Kuentz said, slapping his hands together with a touch of desperation. “Well, whatever we’re doing, we’d better do it fast. The air’s got a dangerous feel to it.”

“Okay,” Mia said, standing up and climbing on without any further argument. Perhaps it was his black raiment, but while he appeared svelte at a distance, now that she was touching him, she found his back to be so broad and muscular it held her spellbound. Relief spread through her body.

“I have no problem with you wanting to show your best face for the lady. But worst comes to worst, you wouldn’t be able to strike back as quickly, and that’s a problem. Don’t come crying to me then, lover boy.”

The young man was surprised at his own hostility, but his expression suddenly stiffened. For a hoarse voice had let out a low chuckle.

“Something funny.⁷” Kuentz asked angrily. Mia was right beside him. It was a natural reaction.

“That’s pretty big talk. What do you say we see for ourselves who’s gonna do some crying?” Kuentz said, naturally going into a combat stance. He let all the power drain from his body and collect in the tips of his toes. Ten feet lay between him and D. While the concealed blade on his right arm might not be much good, the iron arrows from his left should prove effective at that range.

“Don’t,” D said. A thread-thin groan of pain escaped from his left fist as he balled it even tighter, but of course that didn’t reach Kuentz’s ears.

“C’mon. Knock it off,” Mia told him from D’s back. “This is no time to be doing this, is it? If we don’t work together to get out of here—”

Kuentz stared at the girl and her fervent expression. Her crystal-clear eyes stripped away the damp fever that’d been spreading through his head, and in a heartbeat he was back to his senses. “You’re right,” he said, nodding.

Mia was the first to grasp the meaning of D’s icy reply. Her body stiffened with shock on his back, and all she managed to say by way of protest was, “D . . .”

“Hey,” Kuentz said, unable to hide how shaken he was. “What did I do? I said I was sorry.”

“Come on,” D said quietly. He still had Mia on his back, tying up both his hands.

“He wants a fight. So I should give him what he desires as soon as possible.”

“I’m not in the mood for that anymore,” Kuentz said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Something blistering hot skimmed by his right cheek. What jabbed viciously into the stone wall behind him was a needle of unfinished wood. But how had the Hunter managed to hurl it with both hands occupied?

“So that’s how you want it?” Touching his right hand to his cheek, Kuentz then looked down at his fingertips. Blood stained them.

“I don’t know what’s bugging you, but I’ll finish this fight you’re starting,” he told the Hunter, his mind and body already prepared for war. The will to fight now bubbling up in him was so pure, a grin even appeared on Kuentz’s lips. “But set Mia down first.”

“Whoa!” he exclaimed, only able to leap clear thanks to his incredible speed. When he landed, he saw that D was closing on him. With both hands around Mia’s back, the Hunter didn’t seem to be holding a weapon.

Kuentz was about to launch an iron arrow when he noticed he hadn’t raised his left arm yet. Lifting it, he brought it to bear on D’s stomach. It seemed like it took a year to do so. He heard the rasp of compressed oxygen being released. But once he’d fired, his blood froze.

However, rather than follow the path of the arrow, the boy took a more circuitous route. As he listened to the sound of D’s attack splitting the air just a hair above his head, he drove the concealed blade on his right arm toward D’s waist. Shocked at meeting nothing with it, he sprang away. And when he landed, there was something cold hanging directly over his head.

D was right in front of him. Kuentz was paralyzed by the realization of what the wind that’d whistled down on his forehead meant, but the Hunter asked him, “What will it be?”

“Kill me!” Kuentz shouted, eyes still shut, but just as he did, he felt the blade pull away from him. At his feet there was a hard metallic clatter. Lowering his eyes, the young huntsman found something to truly freeze his blood this time—the two arrows he’d launched. D had had both arms behind Mia’s back, as always. He wasn’t even holding his sword. If anyone had the skill to stop the second arrow Kuentz had launched at him at the speed of sound as he brought a blow down that would’ve split the boy’s head like a piece of firewood, it was this gorgeous Hunter.

All the strength drained from Kuentz, and he slumped to the ground. Having seen the unbridgeable gulf between their respective abilities, he was mentally and physically burned out.

“Yeah.” Kuentz himself was surprised by how easily that reply came out and the way it carried no hard feelings. D’s superior abilities had wiped away all the prejudice he felt toward the Hunter in one fell swoop. The freshness inherent in youth and the heroism attendant to the Hunter profession freed Kuentz from the weird atmosphere that’d been gnawing at his mind.

Getting back to his feet, he grinned sheepishly and said to D, “You’re a psychologist, aren’t you?”

The Hunter didn’t even smile at that but told him, “Up we go.” And saying that, he headed for the stairs.

After climbing about fifty steps, they reached the top and a broad corridor. D halted.

“What is it?” Kuentz asked, having been stopped just as he was about to press forward.

Though he knit his brow suspiciously, Kuentz was well aware of the young man’s almost limitless skill, so he was compliant, saying, “Okay. Is that all?”

“When we go down this corridor, something is certain to try to stop us,” D explained. “I don’t know what it’ll be. But under no circumstances are you to turn around. If you look back, it’ll be over then and there. You probably won’t make it out of the fortress.” “Understood,” Kuentz said with a nod, but then a question suddenly occurred to him. “So, how is it you know so much about this corridor anyway?”

They started forward, but before he’d taken three steps, Kuentz sensed someone behind him.

“Kuentz!” a voice called out to him, and in his heart he let out a furtive gasp. Though he had both ears covered tightly, he could hear the voice with perfect clarity. And it belonged to—

He was about to turn in spite of himself, but barely managed to stop when he recalled D’s warning. What could the same friend who’d gone missing at the bottom of the great subsidence then lured him to that bizarre giant be doing here?

“Kuentz—can you hear me? I’m hurt. Some weird monster thing bit my leg, and I can’t move. On top of that, it got me in the gut. I’ve lost so much blood. I’m in a bad way. You’ve gotta help me!” The shouts were strained, the words spat out like so much blood.

D and Mia kept right on going as if nothing had happened. Apparently Kuentz alone could hear Graff’s voice.

And then his friend continued in a feeble, urgent tone, “Help me! Don’t leave me down here, Kuentz. You’re the leader, right? It’s your job to save me. I’m begging you, do your duty. Get me out of here!”

Unable to stand it any longer, he was just about to turn when a great force came to bear on his shoulder. Though it was unclear when D had backed up, the Hunter remained facing forward while reaching back with one hand to grab the man’s shoulder. He couldn’t begin to imagine how D could’ve noticed the strain he was under. At that moment, a terrifically wrathful scream rang in his ears, fading just before it could drive Kuentz mad.

They advanced down the endless corridor for another hour. When they came to the next comer, D told them, “It’s okay now.” And with that, the three of them took a rest right there.

Graff must be dead, Kuentz was thinking numbly when he was startled by Mia’s sobs and turned to the girl.

Having climbed down off D’s back, Mia sat on the floor. There were a number of blotches on her knees. Stains from tears. “What’s the matter?” he asked once more.

Giving a feeble shake of her head, she said, “Nothing.” But her voice belied her words.

“After you’ve cried for five minutes, you’ll feel better. And then we can get down to some quality boy/girl talk.”

“You dope!” Mia spat, but her tone was faint and not very cross at all. Remaining silent for a while, she then said, “My mother called out to me. She must’ve passed by now, but she called to me again and again. And when I thought about her really being gone, I just couldn’t help it.”

“Nope,” she said, looking at D. The exquisite youth was leaning against a wall a short distance away. “He took me by the hand. And then, all of a sudden, I didn’t feel so bad.” “You don’t say. That’s just great,” Kuentz said brusquely, leaving Mia’s side and walking further down the hall. Planting his back against the wall, he looked sullen.

“It’s just a seasonal malady. You only get it while you’re young,” a hoarse voice replied.

Go over there and do what? Still, she got the feeling that if she went over, everything would be all right.

Approaching Kuentz with steps she herself found oddly stiff, she asked him in an even stiffer tone, “Uh, what’s the problem?”

She turned toward D, seeking aid, but his eyes were shut as if in contemplation. Almost mesmerized by the sight of him, Mia hastily turned back to Kuentz and said, “What a great guy.” “Excuse me?” the young man said, eyes popping. He saw Mia, head hung low and cheeks reddening with the realization she’d made a mistake. Giving a sudden cough, he fought desperately to keep his hard exterior from collapsing.

It was all just a misunderstanding. And that misunderstanding was the start of everything.

D’s left hand gurgled with laughter, but the two of them didn’t notice. “These young folks don’t need a go-between meddling in this. Though from what I’ve seen, the girl’s smitten with you.”

“Well,” the hoarse voice began, “my instincts tell me roughly thirty minutes. If nothing comes up, that is.”

“What is it?” D asked. And amazingly enough, there seemed to be just the tiniest bit of amusement in his tone.

“Damned if I know. No matter what I say to him, he just sits there sulking and won’t say a peep. Calls himself a man, but he doesn’t know when a woman—I mean, he’s just rotten.”

“What are you saying about me?” Kuentz complained from off in the distance. “You’re the one acting like a hysterical old hag-to-be. One look at a guy who’s kinda good looking and you’re hot and bothered in a flash.”

Mia was livid. Using both hands to form a symbol, she began to chant an unsettling spell.

“Serves you right,” Mia said, turning away indignantly. “That’s what you get for insulting people. Consider yourself lucky your brain didn’t explode.”