Vampire Hunter D Volume 26 Read online

  Other Vampire Hunter D books published by

  Dark Horse Books and Digital Manga Publishing

  vol. 1: Vampire Hunter D

  vol. 2: Raiser of Gales

  vol. 3: Demon Deathchase

  vol. 4: Tale of the Dead Town

  vol. 5: The Stuff of Dreams

  vol. 6: Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane

  vol. 7: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea Part One

  vol. 8: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea Part Two

  vol. 9: The Rose Princess

  vol. 10: Dark Nocturne

  vol. 11: Pale Fallen Angel Parts One and Two

  vol. 12: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four

  vol. 13: Twin-Shadowed Knight Parts One and Two

  vol. 14: Dark Road Parts One and Two

  vol. 15: Dark Road Part Three

  vol. 16: Tyrant’s Stars Parts One and Two

  vol. 17: Tyrant’s Stars Parts Three and Four

  vol. 18: Fortress of the Elder God

  vol. 19: Mercenary Road

  vol. 20: Scenes from an Unholy War

  vol. 21: Record of the Blood Battle

  vol. 22: White Devil Mountain Parts One and Two

  vol. 23: Iriya the Berserker

  vol. 24: Throng of Heretics

  vol. 25: Undead Island

  VAMPIRE HUNTER D 26: BEDEVILED STAGECOACH

  © Hideyuki Kikuchi, 2017. Originally published in Japan in 2009 by ASAHI SONORAMA Co. English translation copyright © 2017 by Dark Horse Books.

  No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Yoshitaka Amano

  English translation by Kevin Leahy

  Book design by Brennan Thome

  Published by

  Dark Horse Books

  A division of Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

  10956 SE Main Street

  Milwaukie, OR 97222

  DarkHorse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kikuchi, Hideyuki, 1949- author. | Amano, Yoshitaka, illustrator. |

  Leahy, Kevin (Translator) translator.

  Title: Bedeviled stagecoach / written by Hideyuki Kikuchi ; illustrated by

  Yoshitaka Amano ; English translation by Kevin Leahy.

  Other titles: D--Mashō Basha. English

  Description: First Dark Horse Books edition. | Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse

  Books, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017018316 (print) | LCCN 2017018786 (ebook) | ISBN

  9781630081621 () | ISBN 9781506701998 (paperback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Vampires--Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Horror. | FICTION /

  Fantasy / Paranormal.

  Classification: LCC PL832.I37 (ebook) | LCC PL832.I37 D28713 2017 (print) |

  DDC 895.6/36--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018316

  First Dark Horse Books edition: August 2017

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  Mike Richardson President and Publisher Neil Hankerson Executive Vice President Tom Weddle Chief Financial Officer Randy Stradley Vice President of Publishing Matt Parkinson Vice President of Marketing David Scroggy Vice President of Product Development Dale LaFountain Vice President of Information Technology Cara Niece Vice President of Production and Scheduling Nick McWhorter Vice President of Media Licensing Mark Bernardi Vice President of Digital and Book Trade Sales Ken Lizzi General Counsel Dave Marshall Editor in Chief Davey Estrada Editorial Director Scott Allie Executive Senior Editor Chris Warner Senior Books Editor Cary Grazzini Director of Print and Development Lia Ribacchi Art Director Vanessa Todd Director of Print Purchasing Matt Dryer Director of Digital Art and Prepress Sarah Robertson Director of Product Sales Michael Gombos Director of International Publishing and Licensing

  Along for the Ride

  Chapter 1

  I

  Though the midday sunlight on this late autumn day was relatively tranquil for the Frontier as it colored the homes and people, the face of every single person staring at the stagecoach parked in the station lot showed the most horrible loathing. They didn’t even make such faces on seeing the most evil villain who was sure to hang. It resembled the look someone got when they saw a dead body. Indeed, they seemed even more horrified, as if they looked upon the living dead.

  Though the black coach parked in the lot already had a team of six cyborg horses hitched to it and the folks in the office had finished selling tickets, the travelers were in no hurry to board the cramped vehicle, so they remained sitting in the break room in the station enjoying cigarettes, consulting maps, or bidding a farewell to the peace and safety of their daily lives.

  A commotion, carrying a tinge of horror, rolled down the street.

  The sheriff’s office was only about thirty feet from the station, and beside it was a vacant lot that measured about twenty feet square, but when the door facing that lot opened, what was shoved outside was something all too common on the Frontier. Locked within the ten-by-ten-foot iron cage was a young man dressed in a black servant’s outfit, seated on an iron chair bolted to the floor.

  As the people saw his face, the expressions of loathing swiftly faded from their own. It was as if, for the first time in a thousand years, a gust of fresh air pushed its way through a miasma. Anyone among the spectators would have just sighed and accepted the inevitability of the change. The face of the young captive was that beautiful.

  “He’s Duke Sinistre’s valet.”

  “His name’s Dorleac.”

  “Can you imagine devoting yourself to the Nobility body and soul for more than a decade when you’ve got a face like that?”

  The station quickly became the spot for townspeople to swap information.

  “For whatever reason,” one woman began, “he was wandering around outside the castle two days back when a security patrol passed by and nabbed him—but aren’t they supposed to execute any human who’s been with the Nobility that long, whether they’ve been bitten or not?”

  “It’s like this, lady: since there hasn’t been a servant of the Nobility who could walk in broad daylight for decades, they got orders directly from the government in the Capital that they really wanted to examine him, and that they were to have him transported.”

  “Oh, that lucky bastard,” the woman remarked.

  “Sure is good-looking, though, ain’t he? You think maybe the muckety-mucks in the Capital used the cameras in their surveillance satellites to sneak a look at him?”

  “Damn near sure of it. You’re right on the button. But I don’t care how much anyone goes on about him being able to walk in the light of day; he’s a servant of the Nobility. No telling what kind of dark power he might have. That goes with the territory for the sheriff and her deputies, but it’s a real headache for the other passengers. They’ll be risking their lives on this trip. A real ride into hell.”

  Laughter continued for a little while, but then it stopped as if cut short. A black cage, gleaming in the sunlight, had just passed right in front of the gossip swappers. The cage had small wheels attached to the bottom, rolling as it was pushed by a pair of sheriff’s deputies. The sheriff went ahead of the cage, entering the station building—the o
ffice of the stagecoach company. When the employees glimpsed her face and the sheriff’s badge pinned to her ample chest, their expressions were a sight to see. The sheriff was a beautiful woman with brunette hair spilling from her wide-brimmed hat.

  “Well, Louise—I mean, Sheriff, we’ve got the coach all ready to go,” said a man in a suit and bow tie, standing behind his desk, extending his hand to shake. He was the manager.

  “No passengers but us, right, Mr. Platt?” Sheriff Louise said rather insistently.

  The manager shifted his eyes and replied, “I’m sorry, but there are three customers who positively insisted on going.”

  “Did I or did I not absolutely forbid you from selling any tickets?!” the sheriff snarled, her eyes flashing angrily. Their trip was going to take roughly a week, during which they would be risking not only their lives but their very souls. They were truly journeying into death.

  “Yes, I know you did,” the manager replied, “but consider our situation. The trail from here to the airfield runs right through Duke Sinistre’s domain. Do you think that fiend’s just going to sit idly by and let his servant be whisked away right under his nose? Even if you were to return this Dorleac person to him now, we wouldn’t be able to run our coaches until his anger subsided. How long do you reckon that’ll be? A month? Six? A year? No, let’s say half a century at the very least! For fifty years we’d be shit out of luck. This is a serious impediment to travel. And, it’s safe to say, a fatal blow to our business. At this point, we need every last passenger we can get. Hell, we’d sell tickets to monsters, or even the duke himself. The fare to the Capital for ten people puts this company in the black for a month.”

  The manager’s expression and tone were part of a technique he’d mastered during two straight decades running an office for the stagecoach company. Over the last twenty years, everyone who’d ever heard a similar explanation had envisioned the company’s imminent bankruptcy, as well as the employees and their families taking their own lives in the aftermath.

  The sheriff sighed and said, “You’ve explained the situation to your customers, I take it?”

  “Of course. And even knowing the danger that awaits, they’re all okay with it. I find their courage exemplary.”

  “I think you’re less interested in courage than revenue,” the sheriff remarked. After drawing a breath, she continued, “Give me some background on them.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she glanced over at the lounge. If she could always get this information on short notice, there’d be no need to worry about trouble. Perhaps the sheriff had a hunch about how things would go, because she’d asked the coach service manager to check people’s identities despite having told him not to let anyone else ride with them.

  “This way,” the manager said, leading the sheriff to his private room at the end of the hall, where he explained about the passengers.

  Claire Scherzen (twenty-seven years old, saloon girl)

  Harman Briggs (fifty-one years old, blacksmith)

  JJ (thirty-six years old, Hunter of Nobility)

  The manager continued, “Add to that the lunkhead you brought along.”

  “Al Zemeckis—twenty-one years old, a farmer. And if I ever hear you call him a lunkhead again, there’ll be hell to pay. Plus there’s me and my two deputies—so, a total of seven, right?”

  “And what business brought you to our stagecoach company, Sheriff?” the manager ventured.

  Suddenly reminded, Louise corrected herself, saying, “Eight,including Dorleac.”

  “Our coach, the Belvedere, normally seats twenty, and with the additional fold-down seating can accommodate up to thirty. Yes, you’d be hard pressed to find such a comfortable ride these days.”

  “That’s great to hear—now, could you let everybody onboard?”

  The manager looked at the clock on the wall, then compared that to the time on his pocket watch before nodding. “Two minutes and four seconds difference—and I don’t know which of them is the correct one. Well, then, you’d best let everyone know.”

  Without a backward glance at the employee hollering, “Everybody, the coach is heading out!” the sheriff left the office.

  Looking over at the stagecoach, Louise found two of her deputies looking back at her, apparently having finished loading the cage onboard. The passengers filed between the two men as they boarded the coach. The saloon girl, the blacksmith, the Hunter—but the fourth one halted and gave the sheriff a look as if he were trying to read her mood.

  In a heavy flannel shirt and jeans, the man wore a leather vest in typical farmer fashion. Though his shirt was wrinkled now, it’d once been well laundered and ironed. He probably had a woman looking out for him. The repeating rifle he carried in his right hand was unusual, even for a lawman. An ordinary handgun was about a thousand dalas, a bolt-action rifle two thousand, and a repeater more than five thousand. Considering that living expenses out on the Frontier were said to average about a thousand dalas a month, it was a rather extravagant weapon for a farmer to have. Given the age of the rifle, it’d probably been purchased quite some time ago for keeping monsters in line.

  “What should I do?” the man asked in the tone of a lost traveler.

  You’re really not cut out for this work, Al, Louise thought to herself. I know your situation, but you never should’ve taken this job.

  “Work with us,” the sheriff replied. “You’ve got to follow my orders to the letter, Al, but everything else I’m leaving to your judgment as a deputy. Raise your right hand.”

  “Sure.”

  The farmer raised a heavy right hand, and the sheriff followed suit, saying, “Al Zemeckis, do you swear to discharge your duties as a deputy of the town of Happy Gringo’s sheriff’s department, western Frontier district, until discharged from that position?”

  No matter how many times Louise did this, she never could get used to the ceremony, but she couldn’t very well let him onto the coach without deputizing him and releasing him from personal liability.

  “I do,” the farmer replied, his tone and expression equally serious.

  “Good. Climb onboard. For the time being, it’s your job to watch our friend the valet.”

  Following Al, the sheriff was just about to plant a foot on the coach steps when she turned and looked around. In addition to the station manager and his staff, nearly a dozen townspeople were staring at her. They gave doleful looks to the stagecoach and its passengers.

  Though the sheriff had made no announcements, the speed with which rumors spread in a rustic town was frightening. Someone had been apprehended near a Noble’s castle—with that much to go on, it’d take less than two days to learn who it was and what they’d been doing. No doubt the gossips could clearly see the purpose of this journey, the hopes of Louise and her men, and a denouement quite at odds with those hopes.

  When Louise turned right around, only the manager offered a stiff smile, only to have the door slammed in his face.

  Though stagecoach drivers were employees of the coachcompany, this time one after another had declined the job, so a sheriff’s deputy named Lantz who’d had some experience in that field ended up climbing into the driver’s seat. A coach employee on the sidewalk rang a tin bell and shouted, “Moving out!” With a single crack of the whip, the cyborg horse–drawn coach rolled forward, wheels creaking. If not for a buffering device, the wheels of the coach would have left ruts in the ground three timesas deep.

  Even after the coach had faded from sight, those who had seen it off showed no signs of moving on for the longest time. The sun was high and clouds dotted the blue sky that autumn day—and the townspeople had just watched a stagecoach ride off toward aterrible fate.

  II

  Seating in the coach consisted of five rows of forward-facing benches to either side of a narrow aisle, with each bench seating two passengers. To the aft were shelves for baggage and a space that could hold up to a thousand pounds of cargo, as this type of coach also doubled as a shipping se
rvice. Currently, that space was occupied by the prisoner and his iron cage. Al and a deputy named Belbo, the latter armed with a buckshot bow, were sitting on the floor to either side of the cage and well out of arm’s reach, while Louise was seated in the very last row. Immediately after boarding the coach, the sheriff and Belbo had donned sunglasses.

  As the coach left town and was entering the surrounding farmlands, the sheriff stood up and called out for everyone’s attention. All seated separately, the three passengers twisted around for a look. They all wore the same annoyed expressions. People on the Frontier had a fundamental dislike of authority, after all.

  “My name is Louise Kirk, and I’m sheriff of Happy Gringo. Although you’re probably already aware of what I’m going to tell you, I must give you fair warning.”

  Before she’d even finished speaking, all but Harman the blacksmith—who was in the second row from the back on the right-hand side—turned away in disgust.

  “From here on out,” the sheriff continued, “we’re going to be crossing some extremely dangerous territory. Without a doubt, your lives will be in jeopardy. In such a situation, my three deputies and I will endeavor to do our best to keep all of you safe, but our real mission is transporting the prisoner locked up in back. If there’s any concern that rescuing you might jeopardize our mission, we’ll have no choice but to give the completion of our mission primary attention. We ask for your understanding in that regard.”

  “Yeah, we know!” someone promptly responded. It was the saloon girl, Claire Scherzen, seated in the second row from the front on the right side. Raising her right hand, gripping a bottle of booze, she continued, “Normally, you’d die to keep the peace for us. But when the time rolls around, the job comes first—hell, every public official is the same way. Okay, okay. We’re used to it by now.”

  “Another thing—” Louise said, putting strength into her stomach muscles. “In the course of dispatching our duty, there may be some need to restrict your actions. I hope you’ll understand.”

  She was fully prepared for someone to jump down her throat over that.