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  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Nolt said wryly, being more philosophical than the youngest boy. “We’re talking about a guy that fended off your crescent blade, after all.”

  While Kyle glared at the second oldest, Nolt’s eyes glimmered. “A horse—I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

  Kyle was at a loss for words. Sure enough, the sound of iron-shod hoofs came from the depths of the same forest from which the two brothers had just emerged. “It was no problem for us because we knew a shortcut. But that son of a bitch . . . ”

  Just as the two were exchanging glances, a horse and rider appeared from part of the forest below them, knifing through the darkness. Making a smooth break for the road, the figure struck them as being darker than the blackness.

  “It’s him all right,” said Nolt.

  “He ain’t getting away,” Kyle shot back.

  There was a loud smack at the flanks of the pair’s mounts, and hoofs were soon kicking up the sod.

  With intense energy, they pursued the black-clad silhouette. The way he raced, he seemed a demon of the night, almost impossible to catch.

  “We got orders from Borgoff. Don’t try nothing funny.” Nolt’s voice flew at Kyle’s back, about a horse-length ahead

  of him.

  They couldn’t have D getting ahead of them, but, even if it looked like that might happen, they weren’t to do anything rash. Borgoff had ordered them not to attack in the sternest tone they’d ever heard from him.

  But for all that, the flames of malice burned out of control in Kyle’s breast. It wasn’t simply that he had the wildest and most atrocious nature of all his siblings. His lethal crescent blade attack had been warded off by D. For a young man with faith in strength alone, that humiliation was intolerable. What he felt toward D surpassed hatred, becoming nothing less than pure, murderous intent.

  Kyle’s right hand went for the crescent blade at his waist.

  However . . . the two of them couldn’t believe their eyes. They just couldn’t catch up.

  They should have been closing the gap on the horse and rider who didn’t seem to be going any faster than they were, but weren’t they in fact rapidly falling farther and farther behind?

  “Sonuvabitch!” Kyle screamed. Even as he put more power behind the kicks to his horse, his foe still dashed away, the tail of his black coat fluttering in the breeze he left. In no time at all, he shrunk to the size of a pea and vanished from their field of view. “Dammit. Goddamn freak!”

  Giving up and bringing his horse to a halt, Kyle trained his flaming pupils on the point in the road that had swallowed the shadowy figure.

  “We ride all night, only to have this happen in the end . . . ” Nolt said bitterly. “From the looks of it, we’re never gonna catch up to him by normal means. Let’s wait here for Borgoff to show up.”

  —

  III

  —

  Around him, the wind swirled.

  His hair streamed out, and the wide brim of the traveler’s hat seemed to flow like ink. The silver flecks crumbling dreamlike against his refined brow and graceful nose were moonlight. Though the air already wore a tinge of blue, the moonlight reflected in his gaze shone as brightly as in the blackest of nights. While it was possible for a specially modified cyborg horse to gallop at an average speed of about sixty miles per hour, the speed of this horse put that to shame.

  What could you say about a rider who could work such magic on the kind of standard steed you might find anywhere?

  The road dwindled into the distant flatness of the plain.

  Without warning, the rider pulled back on the reins. The horse’s forequarters twisted hard to the right, while the sudden stop by the forelegs kicked up gravel and dirt. This rather intense method of braking was not so much mesmerizing as it was mildly unsettling. Once again, the moonlight fell desolately on the rider’s shoulders and back.

  Without a sound, the black-clad figure dismounted. Bending down, he patiently scrutinized lines in the dirt and gravel, but he soon stood upright and turned his face toward the nearby stand of trees.

  This person, possessed of such intense beauty as to make the moonlight bashful to be around him, was none other than D.

  “So, this is where they left the usual route then. What’s he up to?” Muttering this in a way that didn’t seem a question at all, he mounted his horse again and galloped toward the tree line.

  All that remained after he vanished through the trees was the moonlight starkly illuminating the narrow road, and the distant echo of fading hoofbeats.

  The moon alone knew that some six hours earlier a driver in black coming down the road had changed the direction of his carriage in that very spot. Had D discerned the tracks of the carriage he sought, picking them out from all the ruts left by the number of electric buses and other vehicles that passed this way by day?

  Shortly thereafter, the moon fused with the pale sky, and, in its place, the sun rose.

  Before the sun got to the middle of the sky, D and his steed, who’d been galloping all the while, broke out of another in an endless progression of forests and halted once again.

  The ground before him had been wildly disturbed. This was the spot where the carriage had lost a wheel and rolled.

  Starting out a full twenty-four hours late, D had caught up in half a day. Of course, it was the fate of the Nobility to sleep while the sun was high, and the Marcus clan was still far behind. The speed and precision of the pursuit by the team of mount and rider was frightening.

  But where had the carriage gone?

  Without getting off his horse, D glanced at the overturned soil, then gave a light kick to his mount’s flanks.

  They headed for the hill before them at a gradual pace, quite a change from the way they’d been galloping up to this point.

  It was a mound of dirt that really couldn’t be called a hill, but, standing atop it looking down, D’s eyes were greeted by the sudden appearance of a structure that seemed quite out of place.

  It looked like a huge steel box. With a width of more than ten feet and a length of easily thirty, its height was also in excess of ten feet. In the brilliant sunlight that poured down, the black surface threw off blinding flames.

  This was the Shelter the Noble in black had mentioned.

  Immortal though the vampires might be, they still had to sleep by day. While their scientific prowess had spawned various antidotes for sunlight, they never succeeded in conquering the hellish pain that came when their bodies were exposed to it. The agony of cells blazing one by one, flesh and blood putrefying, every bodily system dissolving—even the masters of the earth were still forced to submit to the legends of antiquity.

  Though the vampires had reached the point where their bodies wouldn’t be destroyed, many of the test subjects exposed to more than ten minutes of direct sunlight were driven insane by the pain; those exposed for even five minutes were left crippled, their regenerative abilities destroyed. And, no matter what treatment they later received, they never recovered.

  But in the Nobility’s age of prosperity, that had mattered little.

  Superspeed highways wound to every distant corner of the Frontier, linear motor-cars and the like formed a transportation grid that boasted completely accident-free operation, and the massive energy-production facilities erected in and around the Capital provided buses and freight cars with an infinite store of energy.

  And then the decline began.

  At the hands of the surging tide of humanity, all that the Nobility had constructed was destroyed piece by piece, reducing their civilization to ruins hardly worthy of the name. Even the power plants with their perfect defense systems collapsed, a casualty of mankind’s tenacious, millennia-spanning assault.

  While the situation wasn’t so dire in metropolitan areas, Nobility in the Frontier sectors were stripped of all means of transportation. Though there were many in the Nobility who’d expected this day would come and had established transportation networ
ks in the sectors they controlled, they inevitably lost the enthusiasm and desire to maintain the networks themselves.

  Even now, silver rails ran through prairies damp with the mists of dawn, and somewhere in colossal subterranean tunnels lay the skeletons of automated, ultra-fast hovercrafts.

  Before carriages became the sole means of transportation, accidents caused by the failure of radar control and power outages occurred frequently.

  To the humans, who’d learned how to use the scientific weapons of the Nobility or could penetrate the vehicular defenses with armaments they’d devised on their own, Nobles in transit and immobilized by day were the ideal prey.

  Due to the intense demand from the Frontier, the Noble’s government in the Capital—where the remaining power was concentrated—constructed special defensive structures at strategic locations along their transportation network.

  These were the Shelters.

  Though built from a steel-like plating only a fraction of an inch thick, the Shelters could withstand a direct hit from a small nuclear device, and there were a vast array of defensive mechanisms armed and ready to dispose of any insects who might be buzzing around with stakes and hammers in hand.

  But what made these Shelters perfect, more than anything else, was one simple fact—

  “There’s no entrance?” D muttered from atop his horse.

  Exactly. The jet-black walls that reflected the white radiance of the sun didn’t have so much as a hair-sized crack.

  Looking up at the heavens, D started silently down the hill.

  The pleasant vernal temperature aside, the sunlight that ruthlessly scorched him was unparalleled agony for a dhampir like D. Dhampirs alone could battle with the Nobility on equal terms by night, but to earn the title of Vampire Hunter, they needed the strength to remain impassive in the blistering hell of the day.

  As D drew closer, it seemed the surrounding air bore an almost imperceptible groaning, but that soon scattered in the sunlight.

  At D’s breast, his pendant glowed ever bluer. It was a mysterious hue that rendered all of the Nobility’s electronic armaments inoperable.

  Dismounting in front of the sheer, black wall, D put his left hand to the steel. A chilling sensation spread through him. The temperature was probably unique to this special steel. Perhaps it was because, to render the exterior of this structure impervious to all forms of heat or electronic waves, molecules served as atoms in it.

  D’s hand glided slowly across the smooth surface.

  Finishing the front wall, he moved to the right side. It took thirty minutes to run his hand over that side.

  “Sheesh,” said a bored voice coming from the space between the steel and the palm of his hand. The voice let a sigh escape as D moved to the back wall. If there’d been anyone there to hear it, this bizarre little scene would’ve undoubtedly made the eyes bug out of their head, but D continued his work in silence.

  “Yep, this metal sure is tough stuff. The situation inside is kind of hazy. Still, I’m getting a picture of the general setup. The superatomic furnace inside is sending energy into the metal itself. You can’t break through the walls without destroying the atomic furnace, but in order to do that you’d have to bust through the walls first. So, which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

  “How many are inside?” D asked, still brushing his hand along the wall.

  “Two,” came the quick reply. “A man and a woman. But even I can’t tell whether they’re Nobility or human.”

  Without so much as a nod, D finished scanning the third wall.

  Only the left side remained.

  But what in the world was he doing? Judging from what the voice said, he seemed to be searching the interior of the Shelter, but, if the outer walls couldn’t be breached, that was pointless. On the other hand, the voice explained that destroying the outer walls would be impossible.

  About halfway down the steel wall, the left hand halted.

  “Got it,” the voice said disinterestedly.

  D wasted no time going into action. Without taking his left hand away, he stepped back, reaching with his right for his sword. The blade seemed to drink up the sunlight.

  Drawing his sword-wielding right arm far back, D focused his eyes on a single point on the wall. A spot right between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

  But what had they got there? The instant an awesome white bloodlust coalesced between the naked sword tip and the steel—

  A pale light pierced the black wall.

  It was D’s sword that streamed forth. Regardless of how trenchant that thrust might be, there was no way it could penetrate the special steel of the outer walls. Be that as it may, the graceful arc sank halfway into the unyielding metal wall.

  That’s where the entrance was. D’s blade was wedged in the boundary between door and wall, though that line was imperceptible to the naked eye. With the mysterious power of his left hand D had located it, then thrust into it. Granted that there was a space there, how could the tip of his sword slip into an infinitesimal gap?

  “Wow!” The voice that said this came not from the interior, but rather from D’s left hand. “Now here’s a surprise. One of them’s human.”

  D’s expression shifted faintly. “Do they have Time-Bewitching Incense?” he asked. That was a kind of incense the Nobility had devised to give day the illusion it was night.

  “I don’t know, but the other one’s not moving. A dead man, at least by day.”

  “The girl’s okay then?” D muttered. Most likely she’d been bitten at least once, but if that were the case, destroying the one responsible would restore her humanity. Why then did a dark shadow skim for an instant across D’s features?

  The muscles of the hand he wrapped around the hilt bulged slowly. It’s unclear what kind of exquisite skill was at work, but the slightest twist of the horizontal blade sent a sharp, thin line racing across the steel surface.

  Blue light oozed out.

  D immediately ceased all activity. Silently, he turned his face to the rear. His cold pupils were devoid of any hue of emotion.

  “Earlier than I expected,” the voice said, as if it were mere banter. “And not who I expected at all.”

  Presently, the faint growl of an engine came from the forest, and then a crimson figure leapt over the crest of the hill.

  Raising a cacophony, a single-seat battle car stopped right at the bottom of the slope.

  The vehicle was an oblong iron plate set on four grotesquely oversized, puncture-proof tires. The vehicle was crammed with a high-capacity atomic engine and some controls. The product of humans who’d got their hands on some of the Nobility’s machinery, its outward appearance was a far cry from what the average person might call aesthetically pleasing. An energy pipe with conspicuous welding marks twisted like a snake from the rear-mounted engine to a core furnace shielded by studded iron-plate, and the simple bar-like steering yoke jutted artlessly from the floor. Churning in the air like the legs of a praying mantis, the pistons connected to the tires—and all the other parts, for that matter—were covered with a black grime, probably some harmless radioactive waste.

  Perhaps what warranted more attention than the appearance of the vehicle were its armaments and its driver. Looming large from the right flank of the rear-mounted engine was the barrel of a 70 mm recoilless bazooka, staring blackly at D, while on the other side, the left, a circular, 20 mm missile pod glowered at empty space. Naturally, the missiles were equipped with body-heat seekers, and naught save certain death awaited the missiles’ prey. And finally, ominously mounted atop the core furnace and exhibiting a muzzle that looked like it had a blue jewel set in the middle of it, was the penetrator—a cannon with grave piercing power.

  Yet, despite the fact that it had a lot of heavy equipment not found on the average battle car, judging from the size of the core furnace and engine, this vehicle could easily be pressed for speeds of seventy-five miles per hour. It would run safely on ninety-nine percent of a
ll terrain, and, thanks to its three-quarter-inch thick wire suspension, it could be driven on even the worst of roads. It raced across the ground, a miniature behemoth.

  A figure in crimson rose from the driver’s seat and jerked a pair of sturdy goggles off. Blue eyes that seemed ablaze took in D. Blonde hair lent its golden hue to the wind. It was Leila, the younger sister of the Marcus clan.

  “So, we meet again,” said the girl.

  Perhaps it was the animosity radiating from every inch of her that made her vermilion coverall seem to blaze in the daylight. Her body, jolting to the incessant groaning of the engine, seemed to twitch with loathing for D.

  “You might’ve thought you beat my older brothers just fine, but as long as I’m around you can’t steal a march on the Marcus clan. Seems I ran into you at just the right spot. Is my prey in there?” This girl referred to the Nobility as her prey. She spat the words with a self-confidence and hostility that was beyond the pale.

  D continued to stand as still as a sculpture, sword in hand.

  “Out of my way,” Leila said, in a tone she used for giving orders. “It was unfortunate for my prey that they had nothing but this broken Shelter, and fortunate for you, but now I’ll be taking that good fortune, thank you. If you value your life, you’d best turn tail now.”

  “And if I don’t value it, what’ll you do?”

  D’s soft voice caused a reddish hue every bit as vivid as her raiment to shoot into her face.

  “How’s that? You seriously want to tangle with Leila Marcus and her battle car?”

  “I have two lives. Take whichever one you like. That is, if you can.”

  The serene voice, unchanged since the first time she heard it, made Leila fall silent. The tomboy hesitated.

  She hadn’t realized yet that the blade piercing the wall of the Shelter was there due to D’s secret skill alone. From the very start, it never crossed her mind that anything alive could perform such a feat. Still unaware of D’s true power, Leila’s hesitation was born of movements in her heart to which she was as yet oblivious.