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Authors: Hideyuki Kikuchi
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for that of a genuine mummy stuck out from
the bottom right bunk.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were up. I’m sorry if that idiot Nolt disturbed you with all
his hollering.” Where the eldest Marcus normally kept this gentle tone of voice was
a complete mystery.
The person in the bunk turned over, though it was clearly painful to do so. He was
a pitifully small lump beneath the blankets. “I’m sorry, bro . . .about not carrying
my own weight . . . ”
In response to the frail voice, Borgoff shook his head without a word. His bull neck
creaked and looked like it might pop. “Don’t talk nonsense. The four of us are more
than enough to take anyone on. You ought to keep quiet and get your rest.” After he
stroked it lightly, the slender hand finally pulled back into the blankets. “So,”
Borgoff added, “it doesn’t look like you’ll be having any seizures for a while then,
eh?”
At this entirely sympathetic question, the other man let the covers he’d pulled up
over his head slip back down smoothly. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “I think I’ll be able
to keep it under control on my own.” His face was smiling as he answered feebly. His
brother knew he had to be smiling, but the expression turned out to resemble nothing
so much as a rictus. His cheeks were hollowed, his terribly cloudy eyes were sunken
in cavernous sockets, and the breath that leaked out with his voice from lips the
color of earth was as thin as that of a patient at death’s door. The feeble body belonged
to Grove, the infirm younger brother Nolt mentioned when the clan first met D.
However, if he were to catch a glimpse of these corpse-like features, even D himself
would have been surprised. Grove’s face, which held a childlike innocence, was etched
with exactly the same features as the vital young man who’d slaughtered the army of
attacking vampires that day in one blow, and then left.
—
Mayerling watched almost absentmindedly as his fearsome pursuer was sucked into the
dirty torrent below the bridge and was lost from view in a matter of seconds. Mayerling
didn’t notice that the girl had opened the light-impermeable curtains and poked her
head out the window.
“What happened?”
Turning around at the sound of her anxious voice, he replied, “It’s nothing. Just
one less thing to bother us.”
Seeing the bridge behind the carriage, where flames and black smoke were still rising,
the girl’s face clouded quickly. “What on earth—” she gasped. “Did you make that hole?”
Mayerling wouldn’t answer. He could feel in his bones that this was the work of another
foe.
It wasn’t lightning that’d bored a hole through the bridge, but a destructive energy-beam
of another sort. Even now, a swarm of over two thousand satellites loaded with beam
weaponry continued their long slumber in geostationary orbit some 22,500 miles above
the Earth. Many of them had been launched by the government to help keep the human
rebellion down, but there were also numerous privately owned satellites. Each of them
was equipped with a means of generating beams that were decidedly man-made. What they
fired was quite unlike the natural energy generated by storms. Judging from the beam’s
accuracy, and how it seemed to be only aiming at D, it’d been fired by a human, and
one who undoubtedly felt some animosity toward D. That much was evident; any who would’ve
wished to help Mayerling had long since perished.
It was probably another Hunter. A foe who should be feared for different reasons than
D. But was it just one?
Training his boundlessly cold and dark pupils on the silver serpent of current, Mayerling
presently turned to face the girl again. “Be assured . . . with the passing of but
two more nights, we shall be at the gateway to the stars. Sleep well. Relax, and trust
everything to me.”
When the girl nodded and pulled back inside, Mayerling looked up at
the bottom right bunk.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were up. I’m sorry if that idiot Nolt disturbed you with all
his hollering.” Where the eldest Marcus normally kept this gentle tone of voice was
a complete mystery.
The person in the bunk turned over, though it was clearly painful to do so. He was
a pitifully small lump beneath the blankets. “I’m sorry, bro . . .about not carrying
my own weight . . . ”
In response to the frail voice, Borgoff shook his head without a word. His bull neck
creaked and looked like it might pop. “Don’t talk nonsense. The four of us are more
than enough to take anyone on. You ought to keep quiet and get your rest.” After he
stroked it lightly, the slender hand finally pulled back into the blankets. “So,”
Borgoff added, “it doesn’t look like you’ll be having any seizures for a while then,
eh?”
At this entirely sympathetic question, the other man let the covers he’d pulled up
over his head slip back down smoothly. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “I think I’ll be able
to keep it under control on my own.” His face was smiling as he answered feebly. His
brother knew he had to be smiling, but the expression turned out to resemble nothing
so much as a rictus. His cheeks were hollowed, his terribly cloudy eyes were sunken
in cavernous sockets, and the breath that leaked out with his voice from lips the
color of earth was as thin as that of a patient at death’s door. The feeble body belonged
to Grove, the infirm younger brother Nolt mentioned when the clan first met D.
However, if he were to catch a glimpse of these corpse-like features, even D himself
would have been surprised. Grove’s face, which held a childlike innocence, was etched
with exactly the same features as the vital young man who’d slaughtered the army of
attacking vampires that day in one blow, and then left.
—
Mayerling watched almost absentmindedly as his fearsome pursuer was sucked into the
dirty torrent below the bridge and was lost from view in a matter of seconds. Mayerling
didn’t notice that the girl had opened the light-impermeable curtains and poked her
head out the window.
“What happened?”
Turning around at the sound of her anxious voice, he replied, “It’s nothing. Just
one less thing to bother us.”
Seeing the bridge behind the carriage, where flames and black smoke were still rising,
the girl’s face clouded quickly. “What on earth—” she gasped. “Did you make that hole?”
Mayerling wouldn’t answer. He could feel in his bones that this was the work of another
foe.
It wasn’t lightning that’d bored a hole through the bridge, but a destructive energy-beam
of another sort. Even now, a swarm of over two thousand satellites loaded with beam
weaponry continued their long slumber in geostationary orbit some 22,500 miles above
the Earth. Many of them had been launched by the government to help keep the human
rebellion down, but there were also numerous privately owned satellites. Each of them
was equipped with a means of generating beams that were decidedly man-made. What they
fired was quite unlike the natural energy generated by storms. Judging from the beam’s
accuracy, and how it seemed to be only aiming at D, it’d been fired by a human, and
one who undoubtedly felt some animosity toward D. That much was evident; any who would’ve
wished to help Mayerling had long since perished.
It was probably another Hunter. A foe who should be feared for different reasons than
D. But was it just one?
Training his boundlessly cold and dark pupils on the silver serpent of current, Mayerling
presently turned to face the girl again. “Be assured . . . with the passing of but
two more nights, we shall be at the gateway to the stars. Sleep well. Relax, and trust
everything to me.”
When the girl nodded and pulled back inside, Mayerling looked up at
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