Scenes from an Unholy War Page 8

  “Rust!”

  “It’s all right, Lyra. Don’t let the bastard get away,” he ordered her in a voice some would’ve called a death rattle.

  “Roger that.” Taking a step back, the warrior woman drew the sword from her hip.

  Rust staggered, his body wracked with pain, but he didn’t fall. He was gritting his teeth. Every one of his muscles tightened, and even his anus clenched. But it wasn’t in an effort to overcome his pain.

  “You’ll never get away now,” Lyra said in a steady tone, her remark directed toward the now-immobilized knife jabbing from the lawman’s flesh. Her lovely countenance was as frightening as it was bewitching. “Identify yourself. Are you a spy for the Black Death?”

  “This was a mistake,” said a shadowy voice inside Rust’s stomach. “Who could’ve known the sheriff was a pseudo Noble? There’s the screwup of a lifetime. My name’s Domon. Yeah, I snoop for the Black Death.”

  “But you have another name, don’t you? Stejiban Toic.”

  “I knew a farmer by that name.”

  “You’re ready for what’s coming, aren’t you?” Lyra said, drawing back her right arm. “Just one last thing—are you the only one they’ve got lurking in the village?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t you love to know!”

  “Was it you that killed the guy with the bats? Or was it one of your friends?”

  “No, it wasn’t any of us. That would have to be someone else.” The voice took on a malevolent ring as it continued, “Seems we’re not the only danger you’ve got here in town. You’d better look around real good. The gang will be here in two days. Then, no matter who you’ve got living here, you’ll all get sent to hell together. Okay, go ahead and stab away, if you must!”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Lyra said, a fierce gleam in her eye. Her right arm trembled with an electric urge to kill. However, she quickly lowered it.

  “What are you doing, Lyra?” Rust asked, covered with blood and sweat.

  Not replying, she pulled a silver cylinder about the size of a cigarette from the pouch on her left hip. She then rubbed the black end of it against her cape. From within it came a sound like gunpowder burning.

  “This remedy’s a little harsh, but hang in there.”

  “Okay,” the sheriff replied.

  They joined forces in an example of perfect teamwork. Showing no fear or doubt, Rust opened his mouth. Lyra shoved the cylinder into it. Rust swallowed it without biting down.

  “What the hell do you think you’re—” the voice cried out.

  There was a scream of despair. Before it had ended, fire shot from Rust. Ten-thousand-degree flames from the incendiary device spewed from his mouth, nose, ears—even his belly. Blazing like a torch, the sheriff said nothing as he fell to his knees—but another scream flew from his abdomen, then quickly died again. As he thudded against the floor, a white fog blasted his body and the flames on it.

  “We were dealing with a liquid person here. If I’d stabbed him, he just would’ve spilled out through the wound and gotten away. Which is why he asked me to stab him,” Lyra said, her expression cold as she continued to spray out the contents of the small extinguisher, but her eyes were shaken by a hint of sadness.

  —

  Galloping on his cyborg horse, D pulled back on the reins about three-quarters of a mile away from the encampment. He was in the middle of the wilderness. After confirming that the tank and laser cannon had been destroyed, he’d gone to the rendezvous point. Gil and the others hadn’t come back. And that wasn’t all that hadn’t returned; D’s left hand was still missing. Without bothering to search for it, he headed toward the village. From the time they’d parted company, each of them had been responsible for their own fate. If the hand was still fine, it would come back. If it didn’t come back—that was all there was to it.

  But D hadn’t halted his steed to confirm that the outlaw band behind him had been wiped out. He’d heard a cry of pain ring out in the darkness. It was the voice of his left hand.

  D’s eyes focused on an area where weeds as tall as a man’s chest were swaying in the night breeze. From behind the tall grass a face came into view. The coat that covered a build closely resembling D’s own came down to the heels of the man’s boots. As the man trod through the grass toward the Hunter, D noticed that he had a longsword slung over his right shoulder. On the end of it was a human hand, stabbed through the palm.

  “You forgot something,” the man said. “The first time I speared it, it ripped itself open and got free. And thanks to that, we kissed our ammo dump goodbye.” The man laughed in a low tone. There was no animosity, no sense of outrage, just innocent laughter. “But that doesn’t really matter. I caught it again and kept it with me so that through it, I could sense where to find you. My name is Toma. I’m the leader of the Black Death gang.”

  “D.”

  Toma flinched at his own gasp of astonishment. “So, you’re D? I’ve always wanted to meet you. Come to think of it, we had to meet. Oh, this makes me so happy, D!”

  Toma was truly enraptured. His eyes were bloodshot, and a little drool ran from his mouth. A chattering sound came from his fangs.

  “So, you’re a pale imitation of a Noble, are you?” D said, his right hand going over his shoulder for the sheath of his sword.

  “Oh, hold up, there. Get too hasty, and I’ll have to kill this hand of yours.”

  “Do whatever you like.”

  Toma’s eyes bulged. Here the outlaw had thought he was holding all the cards, but he’d been dealt an unexpected blow.

  “Wait. Just hold on, now. You don’t have a problem with going the rest of your life without your left hand?”

  Nothing from the Hunter.

  Toma blinked his eyes. He seemed to be at a loss. “Then I guess there’s no point in me keeping it. You can have it back. But first, I’d like a little something in return. Like hearing about those missiles, for starters.”

  D said nothing. Knowing the true nature of his foe, he normally would’ve attacked the man without any further discussion.

  “I figured you’d blow them up or carry them off, not launch them. What’s more, you scored a direct hit on that big old glacier way off in the wilderness, and that took real skill. Our tank and laser cannon got taken out, too. Thanks to you, we won’t be able to steamroller the target on our next job. You think maybe the two of us could talk some business?”

  “What happened to the other three?” D inquired. This was not a question he’d have asked ordinarily, but this time he was the group’s leader. Out of responsibility to his subordinates, he had to ask.

  “I faced them. That’s all you need to know. And the next one I’ll face is you.”

  “Give me the hand back first.”

  “Sure—here you go!”

  Wiggling the sword over his shoulder back and forth, Toma freed the left hand. His sword moved forward and back. There was a single, garbled cry. The left hand was brutally chopped in half in midair, with the halves landing in the grass to either side of D.

  “I just get the feeling it wouldn’t be wise to have you putting that thing back on. Now, show me how good you are, Vampire Hunter D. Let me see with my own eyes and experience firsthand whether you’re able to kill me or not.”

  Toma bit down on the fingers of his left hand. There was the sound of teeth coming together, and then another sound rang out. A crunching. He was chewing up his own fingers. He extended his hand. His thumb alone remained, the other four fingers having been bitten off.

  “Now we’re the same. I want to do this fair and square. Okay, D? Why aren’t you looking for your left hand? You don’t even seem worried. Good! That’s just the sort of man I’ve been waiting for,” Toma said, saluting the Hunter with his bloodied hand.

  When the outlaw dashed into action, D bounded.

  “Yes!” one of them exclaimed.

  One in the air, the other on the ground: as the two figures passed, the clash of their blades echoed and dazzling sparks f
lew. The pair faced off with more than twenty feet between them and once again raced forward like two winds, winds well suited to the desolate place they were in. Accursed winds. The black wind of unearthly beauty struck with his silvery fang, and the gale that blew against him raked with steely claws. Particles of light danced, and each time a faint light filled some corner of the pitch-black wasteland that was the plain. The winds blew against each other, around again, and collided once more. A cry of pain shot out in the darkness, and something heavy thudded against the ground.

  “Aaaaaah! Why, D?”

  Arching backward as if he were going to keel over, Toma shook. Deep red blood flew from all over his body. He pressed his right hand against the stump of his left arm.

  “Why, D? Why didn’t you kill me? Why’d you take off my arm and let me stab you through the heart?”

  D staggered backward. Toma’s blade jabbed through his chest at an angle.

  What had happened was obvious. During their deadly battle, the residual effects of the venom and the sunlight syndrome had struck him.

  “This is no good, D. No good at all. You were supposed to slay me. You were the Hunter who could do it. If you can’t, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” Bending back so far he faced the sky, Toma howled. “I’ll become a Noble!”

  D fell. Without looking, Toma reached over with his right hand and pulled the sword from D’s heart.

  “There’s no one now. No one at all.” A voice that sounded like a sob traveled through the brush. It conveyed nothing short of heartbreak. A short time earlier, while working to save the burning sheriff in the watchtower in Geneve, Lyra’s expression had showed exactly the same emotion.

  SLEEPER AGENT

  chapter 5

  I

  —

  Just after daybreak, Old Man Roskingpan was questioned and a search was performed on the house belonging to Domon of the

  Black Death gang—also known as the farmer Stejiban Toic. The reason for the search of Toic’s house was obvious enough; the old man was brought in because he was suspected of complicity with him. After all, Toic—a liquid human—had concealed himself in the bottle of champagne the old man brought.

  “There’s no way I could stuff a grown man into a champagne bottle in the first place!” the drunk protested, which sounded reasonable enough. However, liquid humans could make tens of thousands of their particles fuse into one while still retaining their fluid state. Everyone knew that.

  The old man, of course, maintained that he didn’t know anything about the incident. Though he could recall being in the saloon, having a few drinks, and overhearing that Rust and Lyra were in the watchtower, he said he didn’t remember going out there or leaving the bottle behind. About five minutes had elapsed from the moment when the old man called out to Rust to when the sheriff reached the bottom of the tower. After setting down the bottle, the old man had left immediately, and if Toic had opened the bottle, poured out the contents, and concealed himself in it, there was a very good chance that he’d been tailing the old man. However, Toic hadn’t been at the saloon, and the idea to go out to the tower—according to the old man’s account—had come from hearing in the saloon that Rust and Lyra were there. The chances that Toic just happened to spot the old man and then follow him were extremely remote. It was quite conceivable that this had been planned in advance.

  Rust was handling the questioning, which had bogged down on that last point, when Lyra returned from Domon/Toic’s house.

  “It seems Toic left his house last night, saying he was going to go have a drink. The time was—”

  It was the same time Old Man Roskingpan was hanging around town; it wouldn’t have been at all strange if Toic had encountered the man before he went to the saloon. Lyra’s investigation had been thorough. On her way back from Toic’s house, she’d stopped by the old man’s place—which was less than two hundred yards from the farmer’s—and learned that the old man had passed another villager before going to the saloon.

  “When this guy asked him, ‘Heading off to work now?’ the old man replied, ‘Yeah, I’m going off to give a little encouragement to the sheriff and his sweetheart,’ and he waved the bottle at him.”

  Judging from the timing, it was possible that Toic might have been out spying when he was fortunate enough to overhear this exchange, only then formulating his plan to hide in the bottle. In other words, the old man had intended to give the bottle to Rust and Lyra from the very start.

  “For the time being, we’ll let him go,” Rust decided. “The problem is, the possibility he was involved in the scheme remains. Have somebody keep an eye on him.”

  “That works for me.”

  Exhaling liquor-tinged breath and cursing the sheriff for a two-bit lawman, the old man was led out, and Rust moved on to his next problem.

  Shortly before noon, he paid a visit to the mayor at the town hall. Two hours later, a mother and child were sent out through the main gates to the village. It was Toic’s wife and his son, who’d just turned three. The mayor of a village had the ultimate right to decide what was done with the family of a villager who’d broken the law. Discussing this was the purpose of Rust’s visit. The woman had met Toic four years earlier, when he first came to the village, and they’d had a child together. From that day until this, his wife had gone without knowing who or what he really was.

  In Frontier villages, it wasn’t rare for people to do what Toic had done. Therefore, communities made their own distinct sets of laws intended to root out such people. In the case of Geneve, there was a strict clause that stated: Anyone married to someone from outside the village who has any reason to suspect their spouse of behavior unbecoming a villager, no matter how slight, should contact the sheriff. Toic’s wife was considered to have breached this rule. The mayor, the deputy mayor with his bandaged face, Rust, and Lyra were present as judgment was passed, but Toic’s wife refused to accept their decision, protesting that she hadn’t known anything.

  “There’s no way that a person capable of turning into a liquid wouldn’t betray that with some sort of abnormal behavior. Even if the woman’s denials are to be believed, having lived with him without noticing it makes her an accomplice, and her actions are still considered suspect.”

  That was the mayor’s decision. Though the deputy mayor tried to suggest that perhaps he was being a bit too hard on her, it was his habit to find fault with every little thing the mayor did, and as always his objection was ignored. Their deliberation proceeded smoothly, and it was decided that they would generously allow the mother and her son to go to a neighboring village while it was still light out. Toward that end, her neighbors loaded all her furniture and possessions into a wagon.

  As the woman wept and pleaded with them to at least let her child remain, she heard the sound of the gates closing behind her. But the two of them remained. Though the mayor himself stood atop the gate, entreating her to hurry up and get going, the woman asserted that she wouldn’t leave the village. Even with no one answering her, the woman never stopped crying out mournfully.

  The villagers were in the middle of their combat training, and they threw themselves into it more than usual. During martial-arts practice, the villagers fought like mad, as if trying to ignore something, and fighting against them, the professional mercenaries couldn’t help but get serious as well. One person after another got hurt, and it was decided to cancel practice while they still had some strength left for the actual fighting. The villagers guarding the gate, the farmers diligently tending their fields, the workers busy in the town hall, the mayor and the deputy mayor, and Rust and Lyra all heard the woman’s voice. It was almost enough to shake their callous rules. However, not one of them suggested letting her back in. The woman from next door who’d nursed Toic’s son when his mother was bedridden and who’d brought him to the doctor when he had a fever covered her ears, but even she didn’t ask that they not be driven away. For these people knew from the day they were born what it meant to live on the Frontier.<
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  The sun went down. Everyone expected that the mother and child would leave.

  The cries beyond the gates became curses. Taking her son in her arms, the woman shouted, “Look at this boy! What has he done?” There were no tears in her eyes. She’d long since cried herself dry. Not understanding what was happening, her doleful-looking child began to cry.

  All the men just inside the gates had to cover their ears and grit their teeth. Some even burst into tears.

  The village and the world were about to fade into blue. Finally, she had to give up. Staying there any longer would just make them prey for monsters. Laying curses on the lot of them, the woman took up the reins of her wagon. Wheels creaking, they rolled into the darkness.

  “Hurry!” someone muttered.

  Even after the wagon had vanished from sight, the cries of the child still trailed along after it. But his whimpering stopped abruptly.

  All the villagers knew in an instant what that meant. Several people ran to the gates, climbing up them, but even before they’d finished, a guard in the watchtower shouted, “It’s Gil’s guys!”

  The emergency siren began to wail across the sky above the village.

  Just prior to this, Rust had suddenly noticed he was alone in the sheriff’s office. Villagers had been coming to ask about their stations in battle or how rations were going to be distributed, but since the mother and child had been exiled there’d been no sign of anyone. Rust wasn’t to blame, and everyone knew it. So no one gave him a hard time about it. But aside from the mayor, the sheriff was the other face of authority. At times like this, people always needed someone to be a sacrifice—the one they looked away from.

  A figure in blue came in. It was Sheryl, carrying bread and a hunk of cheese.

  “What’s all this?” Rust asked her.

  “Daddy—er, the mayor—told me to bring you this. It’s the cheese they make out at Stephan’s place. It’s the best in the whole village.”