Demon Deathchase (16 page)

Borgoff swept away the tangled knot of ideas. “Let’s go,” he said. “If Leila’s okay,
she’ll send up a flare or get in touch with us one way or another.”

The two of them got back on the bus. Kyle took the driver’s seat, while Borgoff went
into the bedroom. There wasn’t a single breath to be heard from Groveck’s bunk. Shriveled
and dry like a mummy, you could’ve put your ear to his motionless chest and not even
heard a heartbeat. Right now,
this
Groveck was indeed dead.

When Borgoff looked down at the lifeless husk of his youngest brother, a pained and
human expression crept into his supremely fierce face, and then the bus shook a little
as it began to move.

—

II

—

Two women were walking through the forest. One of them—a gorgeous, shapely blonde
in a blue dress—headed deep into the forest with her eyes fixed on one spot straight
ahead. The other—dressed in a light shirt and slacks—looked like she was just out
for a stroll in the woods, but from time to time she stopped and checked the ground
or looked at how the brush was broken before walking on a little further. Though her
eyes kept scanning the forest, she didn’t seem to be in the least bit lost. The eyes
of both women sought the same thing. The young Vampire Hunter, defenseless in his
makeshift grave.

Leila stopped and wiped the sweat from her brow. After she’d fried the colossal hand
Caroline controlled, she’d gone right after D. She had no definite reason for doing
so, but, judging by the way he’d run off, it was clear something was wrong with him.
It wasn’t like the great D to be nearly killed by a woman, no matter what sort of
freak she might be. There was only one reason for that she could think of—sunlight
syndrome.

He would’ve taken off for the forest then, seeking Mother Earth. It was easy enough
to follow the hoofprints. She’d even found the spot where he’d slipped into the woods.
That was where the trouble started. The battle car couldn’t get through. Without regret,
Leila had left her cherished vehicle behind.

She wasn’t sure exactly what Caroline would do, but, judging by how the woman’s strength
compared to that of Leila’s brothers or D, and in light of how much trouble she’d
had trying to do away with the dhampir before, there was certainly a very good chance
she’d be intent on killing D now. What’s more, the Barbarois woman possessed strange
powers. She might’ve already beaten Leila to D. It was so easy to kill a dhampir suffering
from sunlight syndrome, it made the super-human abilities they displayed in their
chosen profession seem like a distant dream.

With a javelin in her hand and the sliver gun shoved through her belt, Leila entered
the forest. The hoofprints were fading fast, filled in by quickly growing moss. All
she was left with were the instincts she’d refined in her life as a Hunter. The question
was, would that be enough to make her a match for the Barbarois woman? Now that Leila
had abandoned her beloved car, she’d be no more than a normal human girl to Caroline.

Bearing right for a few yards, she suddenly came into a clearing. She saw the horse
tethered to the branch of a nearby tree. D lay half-buried in the dirt by the horse’s
feet. Choking back a cry of joy, she kicked up moss as she scrambled over to him.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. His beautiful countenance—which sufficed to
give her goosebumps even at this distance—was supremely wise and enduringly stern,
and his eyelids were closed as if he was deep in contemplation.

Leila’s shoulders fell. Something hot spilled past her eyelids, to her great surprise.
The last time she’d cried was a distant memory. She seemed to remember wiping away
her tears by the side of a blood-stained old woman whose face she could clearly recall
even now.
Who had that been?
she wondered.

Forcefully wiping her tears away, Leila laid herself down gently on top of D’s dirt-covered
body. It was so cold. The chill she felt wasn’t from the soil. It was D’s body temperature.
When Kyle had come along and found her after she’d been wounded in her battle with
the Noble, he told her she would’ve died out there if someone hadn’t kept her warm.
Of course there hadn’t been a heating unit around. D had kept her warm.

It wasn’t as if she’d never had feelings for anyone before. She’d been proposed to
a number of times. But all her suitors had left when they found out what her last
name was. All but one. Leila drove him off. Because that night, she’d been violated
by her brothers.

“We’re not letting you go anywhere,” said Borgoff. Nolt whispered to her that he’d
wanted to have his way with her for a long time. Kyle lost himself in the act without
a word. As soon as the other three backed off and Groveck’s nearly mummified form
mounted her, something in Leila’s soul flew away. And ever since, she’d been a colder
killer than ever before.

But now that special something had returned.

“You saved me,” Leila fairly whispered to the gorgeous, immobilized man. “This time,
I’ll
protect
you
. I’ll defend you with my life.”

A strange presence moved through the woods. Checking that the safety of her sliver
gun was off, Leila took the javelin in hand and let the fighting spirit fill her.
She rose to her feet.

—

He was lying on a hill of pure green. As he rarely got to go outside, each time, short
though it was, was absolute bliss. Joy bubbled like a fount in his heart. Gentle gusts
of wind, showers of sunlight, the scent of dense tufts of new grass, the blue mountain
range stretching toward eternity—all these things made him realize what a pleasure
it was to be alive.
Now this is living!
he thought to himself.

It was Groveck, or rather, the “spirit” of Groveck that had escaped from the sickly
body left in the Marcus bus. The sound of footsteps rose from the forest behind him.
He turned to find a girl running toward him. The fear in her countenance spoiled his
mood. Just when he was enjoying himself.

“Help! Please, help me,” the girl cried out, circling around behind him.

He was perplexed. His forte was getting people to run away from him, not toward him.
But the reason the girl had said what she did was soon apparent. Out of the woods
stepped a man armed with a large rifle, apparently a huntsman of some sort.

The huntsman looked around restlessly, but soon spotted him and the girl. The huntsman
approached them with powerful strides. Grove heard screams of fear spill out from
behind his back. For the first time in his life, he felt something unprecedented stirring
in his heart. The other man stopped about a yard away and swung the muzzle of the
rifle to bear on him.

Grove was a bit surprised. Every inch of the huntsman’s body brimmed with hostility
and self-confidence. Though he’d never seen this other man before, it appeared the
huntsman knew who he was. “What do you want?” he tried to ask, but the other man didn’t
seem to hear him, and not a muscle moved in his own face. That’s the way it always
went. He gave up on ordinary communication.

“Give me the girl,” the man ordered. His voice was cold. Any fool could well imagine
what would happen whether he complied with the huntsman’s command or not.

“If you don’t want to, fine,” the huntsman added. “I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna
let you live anyway. Strange meeting you here, though.”

Grove tilted his head. He just couldn’t recall who this other man was. His opponent,
however, was kind enough to provided the answer.

“But then, you wouldn’t know me in this shape, now would you?” the huntsman snickered.
“I was part of the threesome over next to the carriage when you snuck into the village
of the Barbarois.”

Learning this, Grove was no less bewildered. He could, indeed, recall the trio in
question. However, that middle-aged man, jet-black youth, and shapely beauty were
all quite different from the huntsman now before his eyes.

“Oh, that’s right—I still haven’t shown you my true face. The one you saw before,
and this one I have now, are no more than temporary hosts. The real me looks like
this!
” And with that, the huntsman pulled up his shirt with one hand.

Grove let his mouth fall open. But there was nothing on the huntsman’s belly. When
the girl gasped, it was like the signal for the change. As they watched, a number
of deep creases that couldn’t really be called wrinkles coursed across the huntsman’s
abnormally protruding belly, and then what looked like a human face bulged from the
surface, showing a little nose, lips like purple scraps of meat, and eyes that blinked
wide open. The tips of the yellow teeth spilling over the twisted lips came to fang-like
points. It was a tumor . . . a tumor that had a face like a person, and a life of
its own. The body of the huntsman was no more than a vessel for it to move around
in.

“Surprised, junior?” the tumor asked. “This is the real me. I’ve been hopping from
body to body for five hundred years. It’ll take a lot more than your tricks to beat
me.”

At last Grove grasped the situation. Hostility flooded into his heart. Perhaps it
showed.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” the tumor laughed. “If you let your lightning fly,
I’ll shoot and the girl behind you will die, too. You got that?”

For a moment, Grove was befuddled.

The abdominal tumor added, “Of course, the girl’s not exactly in pristine shape anymore.
You ought to have a good look at her stomach.”

The weird course of the conversation shifted Grove’s attention to his rear. Before
the fierce report of the gun could reach him, he was struck in the chest by heat and
a forceful impact. Flying backward, he saw the blue sky. It seemed his foe had aimed
away from the girl. He’d never had any intention of shooting her.

Without even glancing at the punk toppling backward in a bloody mist, the huntsman—that
is to say, the eerie countenanced carbuncle—smiled at the girl. “Okay,” he said, “come
to me now. If that bastard Mayerling gets out and about, there’ll be hell to pay.
See, I’m not allowed to do anything to his coffin. So I want to get as far away from
here as we can before darkness falls.”

A relieved expression arose in the girl. Realizing at this point that she was worried
about Mayerling’s safety, the expression of the countenanced carbuncle—or Mashira—flooded
with rage. “Oh, you’re being such a pain!” he shouted, taking a step toward her. But,
from the pit of his stomach, or quite literally from the middle of his abdomen, a
gasp of astonishment escaped. The young man was getting up, perfectly healthy, devoid
of a bullet hole or spattered gore. “You son of a bitch,” the countenanced carbuncle
said. Now he realized what the young man really was.

The world was bleached white. In the blink of an eye, streaks of light coming from
nowhere in particular slammed head-on into the huntsman’s abdomen. Flames rose from
him, the stench of melting fat filled the air, and the huntsman fell into the brush
with a thud.

It was almost as if the nerves that had endured this truly unearthly confrontation
finally frayed and snapped—the girl started to fall like a puppet whose strings had
been cut. Grove caught her gently.

When the figure that easily scooped up the girl had gone down the hill with her and
out of sight, a low voice could be heard around the ankles of the still flaming corpse.
“Well, spank my ass!” it said. “That’s about what I’d expect from one of the Marcus
clan. Now that I’ve seen his powers firsthand, I can’t help wondering what the real
him
is like.”

—

Leila had never seen the woman up close before. She didn’t think her golden hair and
creamy complexion were beautiful. She herself suited D better. But it was certain
that behind those glamorous looks, the Barbarois woman possessed powers that staggered
the imagination. Leila didn’t take her lightly. Realizing in an instant that her javelin
would be useless against this opponent, she jabbed it into the ground and drew the
sliver gun.

Caroline pursed her lips and smiled. “Do you think you can defeat a woman from the
village of the Barbarois with a toy like that?” she laughed. “I’ll have you know,
even the Nobility have no easy time getting into our village.”

Instead of replying, Leila squeezed the sliver gun’s trigger. Imperceptible needles
pierced the woman’s stomach without making a sound.

“Oh,” Caroline cried, but soon enough she grinned broadly. “A gun that fires needles?
You should’ve aimed for my heart, little girl.”

Not knowing quite what she meant by that remark, Leila stood stock still with amazement.
Suddenly, something fell from overhead and struck her right hand. The sliver gun went
flying. Something speared down into the moss between the gun and the hand she stretched
out to retrieve it, foiling her efforts. On discovering it was a thick tree branch,
Leila leapt back, but something else caught hold of her by the shoulder. It was another
branch, huge and bristling with countless twigs. Twisting the twigs with a crisp snap,
the branch wrapped them around Leila’s limbs like fingers.

“When I learned you’d arrived here ahead of me, I drank the sap of all the trees in
the area,” said Caroline. “Sap is the lifeblood of trees. So now, every one of their
branches is mine—I have thousands of hands and feet.”

“No, you can’t be . . . ” Goaded by a fearful foresight, Leila writhed, but she couldn’t
get free of the branches that were now her bonds.

“Ha ha, regrettably, I am not a Noble.” Caroline wore the smile of a victor. “However,
I have inherited some of their abilities. My mother, you see, was a wet-nurse for
the Nobility overseeing Sector Seven of the Frontier.”

Oh, it couldn’t be that this gorgeous woman was a dhampir like D. Inhumanly beautiful.
Mysteriously refusing to dine. Throwing feverish glances at Mayerling—hadn’t all of
these things indicated the woman’s true nature? Even the way she could move about
in daylight without difficulty fit the pattern.

However, her powers proved that she was indeed one of the Barbarois. Whatever felt
her fangs—even inorganic things like the mechanical arm, or non-sentient lifeforms
like the vegetation that bound Leila—obeyed her in the same way that humans followed
the will of the Nobles who bit them. While most dhampirs would drink blood, they didn’t
convert anyone, so her ability was truly fearsome in comparison.

Looking from D to Leila and back again, Caroline let an evil little grin escape. “From
what I saw just now, I’d say you’re in love with that dhampir. How interesting. I
was going to make short work of you, but I’ve changed my mind. I want you to watch
as I go over there and skewer the heart of the man you love. And after that, I’ll
let you share his fate.”

“Don’t,” said Leila. “If you’re gonna kill anyone, kill me—”

“How courageous,” Caroline replied with a laugh. “It seems even human scum who make
their livelihood murdering the Nobility are far more tolerant when it comes to someone
they adore. Well, just wait. You’ll follow after him soon enough . . . ” Caroline
stated sternly, but as she did so an unbelievably chill breeze stroked her back. This
female dhampir, possessing powers comparable to D’s, turned around despite herself.

There was no change in the way D lay. What could that gorgeous man be dreaming of?
Of the ordinary life that he, as a dhampir, could never know? Of days long passed?
No, no, of a future painted in blood and pitch-black, with battles that would know
no end—of that there could be no doubt.

“Just my imagination?” Caroline muttered as she raised her right hand. A branch from
one of the massive trees around her bent at the trunk and pointed its trenchant tip
at the Barbarois woman’s chest. Grabbing it in her pale hand, Caroline snapped the
branch off a yard back from the tip.

Slowly, she went to the side of the sleeping D and placed her feet so they straddled
the depression. With both hands, she took a firm grip of the branch—the gigantic stake
she’d improvised—and the instant she was about to swing it down from over her head
. . .

Leila’s scream of “Stop!” and her own strike were almost simultaneous, and it was
in the next instant that Caroline cried out “Mashira?!”

The stake was caught in midair. By D’s left hand. By the palm of his left hand, to
be precise. And, as might be expected from Caroline’s puzzled cry, what stopped the
keen point was indeed the tiny mouth that appeared in the palm of his hand. The stake
had literally been stopped by the skin of those teeth. Above the mouth, a pair of
mischievous eyes laughed. And yet, his jaws were so powerful that even Caroline with
her superhuman strength couldn’t make them budge in the least. Her beautiful visage
distorted by surprise and horror, the female dhampir leapt away.

“I’ll thank you not to be calling me by strange names,” the face in the palm said,
effortlessly spitting the stake out of the depression. “That Mashira—he’s one of your
cohorts? He’s one of my kind then, I take it?”

Without answering, Caroline made a sweep of her right hand. The forest shook. Several
gigantic trees bent and swung their branches straight down at the sleeping dhampir.

The left hand countered with an attack of his own. Grabbing hold of the huge branch
it’d just spat out, it hurled the wooden missile at Caroline. The branch went with
such speed there was no time to dodge it. And yet, Caroline must’ve managed at least
a lightning-fast twist of her body, because it was her abdomen that the huge branch
ultimately pierced.

The instant she fell backward screaming, the movements of the branches came to a dead
stop. Even Leila’s bonds came undone.

Seeing that she didn’t even have time to make a dash for her javelin, Leila ran at
Caroline. Latching onto the branch impaling the female dhampir, Leila shoved with
all her might. Blood bubbled from Caroline’s mouth.

“You little bitch you!” the female dhampir screamed. Her whole body twitching in the
throes of death, her pale hands seized Leila’s shoulders.

Leila didn’t stop pushing, even when the blood-rimmed mouth clamped onto her neck.
The only thing in her mind was,
I’ve gotta save D
, and that thought alone.

The mouth quickly fell away. An intense feeling of relaxation swept over Leila, and
she allowed the huge branch to be snatched from her grasp.

Backing away a few steps, Caroline groaned again. The huge branch still pierced her
abdomen, and from the waist down she’d been dyed crimson by the blood gushing from
her. It was a sight nothing could rival.

“Little girl, we shall meet again. And next time, you will be my slave.” Blood mixing
with the words she spouted, Caroline turned and left.

Leila went to her knees on the ground. She’d just been bitten. Bitten by a dhampir.
She felt no wonder, no fear. Only fatigue and a feeling of satisfaction. She’d kept
her promise. The promise she’d made to herself. Still, Leila managed to pick herself
up and go over to the sleeping D. Gazing down at his beautiful face for a long time,
she said goodbye. “I wanted to kiss you,” she said, “but I can’t now. I mean, you’d
wind up a laughing stock if some reject vampire were to steal a kiss from a Hunter
like you. So long. If you can, try to think of me from time to time.”

Barely managing to take the sliver gun and javelin in hand, Leila walked away. Her
tottering figure was soon swallowed by the forest.

But how long would D continue to sleep? After all, the warrior woman who’d risked
her life and soul defending him was wounded, Mayerling’s lady love had run off somewhere,
and the situation was only growing more confused . . .

—

III

—

The scene was the road, about two hours after Caroline and Leila’s deadly battle had
ended. Knifing its way through the wind at a speed of twenty-five miles per hour,
the bus came to a sudden stop when something was spotted up ahead.

“What is it?” Borgoff called out in a gruff voice from where he was prepping his bow
and arrows in his bedroom.

“A woman just crossed the road dead ahead of us. A blonde in a blue dress—probably
that Caroline character Grove mentioned. I’m gonna go have a little look-see.” As
he spoke, Kyle got to his feet with the crescent blades in hand.

“Wait up—I’ll go with you.”

In reply to Borgoff’s offer, he said, “Don’t sweat it. It’s just a woman. Besides,
what if someone’s trying to lure us both outside so they can take out Grove while
we’re gone? There’s another one of them somewhere, you know.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Borgoff conceded. “Be careful.”

“Hey, just leave it to me.”

Smiling with overwhelming self-confidence, Kyle got off the bus. Although noon had
already come and gone, the sunlight was hot and white. With crescent blades in either
hand, as he was about to enter the woods in the same spot where the woman had vanished,
he said, “Just to be on the safe side,” and let the blades fly.

There couldn’t have been any stranger ranged weapon than Kyle’s crescent blades. Controlled
with the fingertips of the hand that held one end of the thin wire, the semicircular
blades attached to the other end of each line swept easily between the densely overlapping
trees and came back to Kyle’s hands. If his foe was lurking anywhere within a hundred-foot
radius of the entrance to the forest, fresh blood drawn from her head or throat should’ve
remained on the edge of his crescent blades at the very least. Better yet, she might
even be dead already.

“Looks like no contact,” Kyle said to himself. He went into the woods. Casually taking
a few steps, he shouted, “There you are!”

A silvery flash coursed to the base of a gigantic tree, and, just when it seemed it
would strike the trunk, it suddenly turned and shot straight upwards.

Caroline screamed and fell to the ground. Not the slightest trace remained of where
she’d been staked with a huge branch two hours earlier, but now she held her exposed
and bloody thigh and moaned. The crescent blade had slashed it open.

“What do you wanna do, Barbarois bodyguard?” Kyle snickered cruelly. “Don’t be shy.
Take your best shot, if you’re game.” While Kyle snorted that she wasn’t all she was
cracked up to be and extended both his arms for the
coup de grace
, his eyes were blasted by the woman’s orbs. There was an indescribable light in her
eyes.

Without time to realize how bad this development was, Kyle went and knelt by the woman’s
side. Her exposed thigh was burned into his retinas.

“Are you okay?” His consciousness drifting in a dream, Kyle heard himself ask a question
that wasn’t even in his mind.

“I think I’ll be fine,” the woman practically moaned. “My leg hurts. I really must
stop the bleeding—would you be so kind as to lick it clean?”

The fact that this woman was a Barbarois sorceress no longer concerned Kyle. “Sure
. . . no problem,” he sort of mumbled, then put his mouth to her bare, white leg.
His lips were instantly sullied with blood. Licking the outside clean, when he worked
his way to her inner thigh, the woman began panting in earnest and wrapped her other
leg around Kyle’s waist. Kyle’s blood-tinted lips pressed in even further.

When the moans of pleasure and lapping sounds had stopped, the woman gently put her
hands on Kyle’s cheeks. Her unblemished white face approached the blood-stained visage
he raised at her bidding. Kyle had no comprehension how fearful the woman’s actions
had become.

And yet, while his instincts may have guessed the danger he was in, the fingers that
reached with exasperating slowness for the crescent blade at his waist were caught
by one of the woman’s gentle hands.

“Oh no you don’t,” she chided. “You can use those to serve me once I’m done kissing
you . . . ” Her voice alone rang in his head, and, before long, the blackest darkness
suffused his mind through her lips.

When Kyle came out of the forest a short time later, he raised his hand up over his
head to shield his eyes from the sun. Slowly, he returned to the bus.

Borgoff was in the driver’s seat. “How did it go?” he asked.

“She wasn’t in there. Looks like she got away, but you can’t be too careful.”

“Hmm. Trade places with me,” said the oldest Marcus. Standing to let Kyle take the
driver’s seat, Borgoff returned to the bedroom. Kyle was holding the wheel mutely.
“Say, Kyle . . . ” Borgoff called out to him. Kyle didn’t move. Borgoff called his
name again.

“Er—What?” Kyle responded, his tone distant and removed. “I’ll let you in on a little
shortcut. Pretty soon, we’ll come to a spot where there’s a red branch sticking out
on our left. Turn in there. Once we’re on that road, just follow it straight and we’ll
come out near the Claybourne States.”

“Gotcha,” Kyle replied.

The vehicle went a bit, then stopped.

“What happened?” asked Borgoff.

“The engine stalled. Looks like the oil charger is all screwed up. Give me a hand
fixing it.”

Empty-handed, Borgoff followed Kyle off the bus.

“Hold on a sec. I’ll scout around first,” said Kyle, moving to the front of the vehicle
and out of Borgoff’s line of sight. Borgoff scanned their surroundings and gave a
light scratch to his head. And, having scratched, he leapt.