Record of the Blood Battle Page 6

  “So, you mean to say all the solutions up until that point were wrong?”

  “A variable was placed incorrectly, you see. We knew it was in there, but had it in the wrong place. The Sacred Ancestor was certain we’d be fine without it, but that sort of arrogance has no place in physics. Ha, ha, ha!”

  “Then Nobles will be able to walk in daylight forever?” D said, his voice like icy rain falling softly from the night sky.

  The baron’s laughter was cut short. “Yes. And I told the Sacred Ancestor as much, while I was locked in a stasis field. He’s something else, I tell you. In the thirty minutes memory persisted after opening the field, he told me he’d managed to make one perfect specimen—meaning the DNA.”

  “Hey,” the hoarse voice said, the word echoing hollowly in the dome of its astonishment.

  In the past, an enormous presence of unknown nature had told D, You are my only success.

  Twisting around, D asked, “Are you talking about me?”

  “If you want to find out, you’ll have to take me with you. Well? How about it? What will it be?”

  On seeing the rider and his steed starting to walk away again, the baron leapt up.

  “You truly disappoint me. Hey, wait! Would you hold on a minute? Naturally, the Sacred Ancestor will want the new equation. He’s certain to come see me.”

  Out in the darkness, the hoofbeats halted.

  “Don’t you understand? Stick with me, and you’ll see the Sacred Ancestor. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Why do you think that?” said a voice that spread through the baron’s ears.

  “Because that’s the way it has to be. His hopes rocked the very foundations of the Nobility. How many lives, human and Noble, do you think have been sacrificed on that altar? Ah, even now the cries of those women and children, their babies, come back to me. You, D, and your mother—”

  Suddenly, the baron slapped both hands over his mouth. He realized his error.

  However, his fear-filled eyes reflected a young man in black who remained as tranquil as the darkness. “Get on,” he said softly.

  “Okay!” the baron said, dashing toward the horse. On his way there, he tripped and fell flat on his face once. Apparently his amazing leaping power only came into play when he was escaping from danger. As his foot wouldn’t even reach the stirrup, D had to give him a hand up.

  “It’s amazing how short the bugger’s legs are,” the hoarse voice commented with dismay. “They can’t be more than a foot and a half long.”

  “Oh, shut up!” the baron shouted, wrapping his arms around D’s waist. “Do legs make the man? To the contrary. Do you think women find men over six and a half feet tall attractive?”

  “Okay, what makes a man, then?” the hoarse voice inquired.

  “Hmmm . . .”

  “The head? You’re nuts if you think that! There’s only one thing that determines the worth of anything with human form—the face!”

  “The face?” the baron said, growing introspective.

  Perhaps tired of the whole matter, D said nothing as he delivered a kick to his horse’s flanks.

  They’d gone only about thirty feet before they heard the distinct sound of an approaching engine behind them. And mixed with it was a low and distant cry of “Help!” It was a woman’s voice. A young one’s.

  “Oh my,” the baron said, licking his chops as he turned for a gander, but then he donned a look of suspicion. “Why aren’t you stopping?” he asked the silent D. “She’s pleading for help. Shouldn’t you do something?”

  Those hardly seemed the actions or the words of a Noble.

  “Because it’s not our job,” the hoarse voice said, and it too seemed a bit lamenting as the sound of the engine came nearer.

  Looking back again, the baron let out a puzzled, “Huh?”

  Utterly naked, a girl floated in midair. She had to have been about sixteen or seventeen. The moonlight couldn’t have been faulted if it admired her tempting skin and full, shapely breasts. But perhaps it was incorrect to say she was utterly naked. From the waist down, the girl was concealed by the darkness. Lips that would’ve seemed unnaturally thin and red by the light of day trembled, spilling cries of “Help!”

  “Oh, she’s a real beauty, isn’t she?” the baron said. The instant he broke into a lewd grin, he cried out in shock, “What in the—”

  His words hung in the air as his body zipped forward. The cyborg horse had broken into a gallop. Clinging madly to D’s waist, he shouted, “What are you doing?” at the Hunter even as he heard a series of awful, ground-shaking sounds closing on them from behind.

  The girl was following them. But whose footsteps were those? The shadowy form charging toward them from some twenty yards away wasn’t that of a girl. It was a machine that consisted of four enormous steel limbs and a bare frame. Nevertheless, it moved with a smoothness reminiscent of an animal. Its neck stretched a good fifteen feet into the air, and the end of it fused with the girl’s lower body.

  “What the hell is this thing?” the baron said, eyes bulging.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like this being in the valley,” the hoarse voice said with equal amazement.

  “I saw it in the cavern,” stated a cool and composed voice.

  That was followed by the hoarse voice, saying, “You’re responsible for this. Some of your property escaped before the explosion!”

  Once the hoarse voice had pointed that out, the baron suddenly cried, “Ah!” His eyes filled with recognition. “Now that you mention it, I have seen her before! Actually, it was a device that utilized a woman as bait to catch humans.”

  “Who’d build something like that?” asked the hoarse voice.

  Puffing his chest, the baron replied, “Who but I could’ve built such a thing?”

  “Yet you forgot all about it?”

  “It was a silly little proof of concept. And it didn’t even work terribly well. As punishment, I relegated it to a corner of the warehouse, but it managed to escape, I see. Ouff!”

  The baron’s words gave way to a cry and he fell from the back of the horse. He’d just taken an elbow to the face from D. Bouncing a few times like a rubber ball, he came to rest at the side of the road. The enormous mechanical beast raced past him.

  “His attitude a little more than you could stand?” D’s left hand inquired.

  “Too heavy,” D replied succinctly, leaping up on the back of his steed. Keeping the reins in his left hand, he stood, his right hand reaching for the scabbard on his back. Over his head, the naked girl was drifting down.

  “Help! Help! Help!” Tears welled in her eyes, and her willow-thin eyebrows quaked with fear. Her trembling lips knew only how to form that one word. “Help!”

  From somewhere in the frame of the machine, a black whip whistled out. It would split the flesh of any man snared by the girl’s entreaties. The instant it was about to touch D, his steel flashed into action.

  The moon alone was witness. It heard the hum of what remained of the black whip, and saw how exquisitely D sailed through the air, even if he didn’t fly close enough to it. Ah, the hem of his coat spread like wings, the blue pendant conspired with the moonlight, and the blade in his hand let that same light of the moon testify to the keenness of its edge.

  Though the neck of the mechanical beast was eighteen inches thick, D’s sword went halfway through it. The machine arched backward. The way its limbs twitched was reminiscent of a human being. Black fluid gushed from it. Not blood, but oil. Still, the writhing machine sprayed it around like blood, looking like a titanic beast in its death throes. And at the end of its neck, the pale girl cried out for aid. An unending cry of “Help!”

  Cutting the whip once more when it came whistling at him, D then hacked his blade into the gore-spurting neck again. Cruelly enough, he struck in exactly the same place. The head came off. At last the great beast fell. Its speed unchanged from its charge, its upper body slumped forward, and the instant it made contact with the gr
ound, the enormous form flipped over. Sheer momentum was the only way to describe it. Shaking the earth, crushing rocks, it could only keep flipping end over end in an accursed roll. Before long, the rumbling of the earth and the beast’s twitching died down as the young man in black stood on the steely corpse in the moonlight. That young man, who stood in one place so long, as if contemplating life and death. D. Walking along the neck of the great beast, he leapt down to the ground from the end of it. At his feet, a pale figure cried out softly and sadly, “Help!”

  Whether or not he heard the cry was unclear. D walked on. With his fifth step, he looked back. The massive form was turning transparent and being swallowed by the darkness, like a fade-out in the movies. The device hadn’t been built to self-destruct.

  At that point, D heard a voice issue from the heavens. We meet again. It’s been quite a while.

  D’s left hand reached into his coat, but the hoarse voice stopped him, saying, “Don’t bother. It’s no use.”

  Was there nothing you could do, D?

  When the baron managed to drag himself over a short while later, covered with cuts and scrapes and feeling like he had one foot in the grave, the young man was standing stock still with his sword already sheathed, looking terribly isolated with his faint shadow.

  THE MANSE OF THE CULTURED LADY

  chapter 4

  I

  —

  It was daybreak by the time they reached the town of Nieto.

  Apparently quite elated to be back in a human town after five millennia, the baron’s eyes gleamed as he said, “Hmm, things don’t seem to have changed much while I slumbered. Well, the human race reached completion at a fairly low level. Perhaps they don’t really want to change. Oh, that woman over there is simply stunning, isn’t she? My, just look at the size of her breasts! That hourglass shape! Mmmmm, and a derrière that sticks out like nobody’s business! That’s what I call progress. I retract my earlier statement.”

  This Nobleman didn’t seem like he had anything to do with either the Sacred Ancestor or “progress.”

  D first headed for the stables. His cyborg horse would need maintenance.

  “Stick with me,” he ordered the baron.

  “As if a Noble would enter some shack that reeks of horses! I’ll wait here,” Macula replied, steering clear of the entrance to the maintenance area.

  And yet, when D came back, the hoarse voice said in disbelief, “He’s not here!”

  —

  Soon after the baron had exited the stables, the mocking laughter of children flowed in from the right. In the narrow alley, he was surrounded by at least half a dozen boys.

  “This guy’s delusional!”

  “Noble, my ass! Who ever heard of a Noble out in broad daylight? And look at that funny armor he’s got on. Hey, let’s throw rocks at it!”

  “What are you talking about? This is the armor of a Noble. Can’t you see the grace and dignity in my features?”

  The baron stood with his chest puffed out, but the boys only looked down at him with scorn. They all stood at least a head taller than him.

  “You bald-headed liar! You’ve got a face like an octopus’s ass. Like hell you’re a Noble. Hey, unless you want the crap beaten out of you, you’d better give us some money.”

  “What do you mean, you wretched human children? You should be thankful for the opportunity to meet a genuine member of the Greater Nobility. Try any foolishness, and you shall be severely reprimanded.”

  “Just try it, you bald midget!”

  The largest boy stepped in front of the baron.

  “Ohhhh,” the baron said as he inched backward. “Stupid brats—are you familiar with the expression twenty-three skidoo?”

  “No. What’s it mean?”

  “This!”

  For a moment, they were left stunned by the way the baron had suddenly turned around and sprinted away.

  “After him!” the largest boy ordered, the whole group tearing off after the Nobleman and surrounding him again in short order. His legs weren’t nearly as long as theirs. That was followed shortly by a cry of “Let ’im have it!” The diminutive figure was immediately swallowed up by the mob of attacking boys.

  “Stop that this instant,” a soft voice called out to them several seconds later.

  The boys’ violence was stemmed both by the quiet dignity of the female voice and the knowledge of whom it belonged to.

  “Lady Millian?”

  Dressed in an elegant silk suit, the woman possessed a youthful beauty that hardly seemed to suit the title of “lady.”

  The boys’ eyes turned to the man who stood behind her like a wall dressed in black. Judging from the buggy whip he held, he was likely both her coachman and her bodyguard.

  “Save me,” the baron said, and as he took refuge behind the driver’s back, blood dripped from his head.

  “You’re wicked children, aren’t you?” Lady Millian said, glaring at them. “Shall I tell the sheriff to make you spend the night alone out in the forest of the Nobility? The next time I see you doing this, you’ll not get off lightly!”

  “Sheesh, what a hysterical bitch!”

  “Dyke!” the boys said, pelting her with insults as they ran away.

  “What little brats. They don’t feel the slightest bit of respect toward their elders. I should’ve expected as much from humans, I suppose,” the baron muttered to himself as the woman looked down coolly at him. She was reasonably tall.

  “From the way you refer to them as humans, could it be that you’re—”

  “Oh, yes, I’m a Noble,” he replied, puffing his chest, but he immediately deflated again. “No one believes me, though.”

  “Understandable,” Lady Millian said, staring intently at the baron and biting back a laugh. “You cast a shadow on the ground, and above all there’s the matter of you standing in the sunlight. Have you some proof you’re a Noble? Could you transform yourself into a bat and flit around?”

  “Those tricks are strictly for engineered Nobles. I, on the other hand—”

  The baron’s voice halted there because of the blood flowing from his forehead. Running along the side of his nose, it’d reached his lips.

  “As you can see, I’m the genuine article.”

  The baron opened his mouth. A pair of fangs caught the woman’s eye. He now seemed like an entirely different person, and she froze in her tracks.

  The great wall of a man lurched forward, but she said, “Totem,” stopping him. “A genuine Noble,” she murmured in astonishment.

  “That’s right.”

  “In that case . . . I have a request for you.”

  The emotion choking her voice made the baron grin. Did his Noble senses tell him something?

  “However, discussing it here would be somewhat improper . . . Would you be so good as to come to my home?”

  “Are you sure that’s okay? I am a Noble, you know.”

  “That’s precisely why I offer you this invitation.”

  “Very well, then. But in return, you mustn’t hold whatever happens against me.” As he focused a look of unrestrained longing at the nape of the young beauty’s neck, the baron licked his lips. Though he had the three strikes of being short, fat, and bald against him, that craving alone was proof positive that he was indeed a member of the Nobility.

  —

  Deciding there was no point searching for the baron in the immediate vicinity, D walked straight down to the sheriff’s office. He told the stunned man behind the desk, “I’d like you to tell me who’s the most eccentric person in town.”

  After some consideration, the sheriff replied, “That would be Lady Millian. She’s a widow who lives out in the forest on the western edge of town. Been a bit odd ever since her husband passed away two years back. It seems she’s been collecting data on the Nobility from all over the country.”

  “Does she intend to turn her husband into a Noble or something?”

  The sudden change in D’s voice brought the sh
eriff back to his senses. Glaring at the Hunter, he said, “Say something like that to anybody in town and they’ll string you up on the spot. I won’t even get there to stop ’em until they’re done lynching you. We won’t stand to have you doing anything to hurt or embarrass that lady.”

  “Oh, really? She’s that beloved, is she?” asked the hoarse voice.

  “Not just her. Her husband was also an outstanding person. He laid the foundation for development in this town, and led us through the hardest times. And as soon as the town had settled down, he gave up all his powers and positions of honor, and went back to living like an ordinary citizen. Even now, the whole town is pulling for the lady, and we won’t let her be ridiculed.”

  “Well, I’ll be—gyaaaah!”

  Stifling the hoarse voice’s mocking remark, D turned to leave. “Sorry to bother you.”

  Beauty’s spell over the sheriff was finally broken.

  “What did you come here for? Where are you going? If you try anything funny with that lady, I’ll—”

  The door closed.

  Growing pale, the sheriff raced over to the cage where they kept the carrier pigeons.

  —

  Alighting from the carriage and looking up intently at her manse, the baron gasped with surprise and turned a somersault.

  That was close! the Nobleman thought. If anyone from town had been with him and could have read his mind, they’d have cocked their head to one side and wondered what had been close.

  Awaiting the baron there in the sunlight was a fashionable chateau hemmed in by greenery. Uniformed butlers greeted them in the foyer, and the row of maidservants lined up in the grand hall bowed in unison while the baron walked proudly in the fore, head high and shoulders back as he strode down the corridor. In that regard, he was a Noble through and through.

  At the end of a long corridor, he was given a guest room that was also opulently furnished. Almost everything in the house seemed to be made of glass and crystal. He excitedly looked all around, examined the furnishings, stuck his head out the window and shouted a greeting, and was jumping up and down on his bed when the lady and Totem came in.