Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God (21 page)

“Well, I’m blinded by that wonderful costume of yours. It must be even harder to be the one wearing it. When the time comes, it might leave you too dizzy to fight.”

The mayor grinned wryly.

Tension filled the room.

II

“You’re one to talk, you third-rate warrior, leaving your back open like that! Please, honor me with some more of your great wisdom,” the man replied, hostility radiating from every inch of him.

Keeping your back covered was the first step in keeping someone from surprising you with an attack from behind.

The woman said frostily, “Having your back to the wall is all well and good, but what do you intend to do if you have to meet with an employer in a hall that seats ten thousand? Shout back and forth at each other for the entire exchange? By the time your meeting’s done, you’ll both be hoarse.”

The man pulled away from the wall. There was a faint sound from the longsword on his back—it was nearly six feet in length. Though it seemed a bit long for someone his height, it made it clear that guns weren’t his only weapons.

“We can’t have you fighting at a time like this, Mr. Strider and Ms. Stanza. After all, we haven’t had many applicants for this rescue mission,” the mayor said with displeasure in an attempt to stop them.

The man—Strider—went back to the wall. That was what a professional would do. Only an amateur got so hot under the collar he’d throw away a chance to make some money.

“Couldn’t you tell us what this gig entails, already? The deadline for applications is dawn tomorrow; am I right?”

At Strider’s sneers, the mayor shrugged his shoulders.

“Two days have passed since you started forming this rescue team. Any real daredevil warriors would be here by now. Give up already. Time’s a-wasting.”

Looking up, the female warrior, Stanza, said, “Pardon me for saying so, Mr. Mayor, but the listing reads: Job: rescue, extremely dangerous. Compensation: ample. You’re not going to get many takers with that. Besides, there’s a gang war going on in Cactus, and pretty much anyone who thinks they’re any good has headed there to cash in on it.”

“Then you mean to tell me you two don’t think you’re any good?” the mayor said, a bitter grin on his face.

“I want to know what the situation is,” Stanza said, pressing for more information. “Do what you will, but people still see things and talk. Strange characters have shown up all over Mercenary Road, and they’re attacking farms and ranches—that much I’ve heard myself.”

“And troops from Cactus raced off to help, but were never heard from again,” said Strider.

As a native of the Frontier, the mayor had apparently expected this, and he showed no surprise at all as he said, “It was exactly five days ago we got word from the Slocum place along the highway. Two days after that, a hundred armed soldiers raced west along the highway from Cactus, and not a word’s been heard from them since. It would seem they were taken out before they could even get a messenger hound off. That’s why the authorities in Cactus haven’t been able to put down the gang violence. We waited another day after that before taking applications. There’s a carriage and driver standing by. I want you to set out tonight.”

“But what’s the situation?” Stanza inquired.

“According to an emergency carrier pigeon from Slocum’s house, what appear to be armored troops are massing on the highway, attacking each and every home they come to. Their family intended to flee to the ruins—that was all they could tell us.”

“When you say ruins on Mercenary Road—you mean that place?” Stanza asked, a terrible gleam in her eye.

Strider whistled.

Both of them were surprised—and afraid.

“And communication after that?”

“None whatsoever. To be honest, we don’t know if there are any survivors or not. So, it might be a complete waste sending you folks out there. Nevertheless, we’re willing to pay. Fifty thousand dalas apiece.”

Whistling again, Strider remarked, “Well, that’s most generous.”

“Double it.”

The mayor stared at Stanza. This time, he was practically glaring at her as he said, “Pardon me, but that’s well above the going rate.”

“Not for dealing with something like this. The mercenaries who appear from time to time on the Florence Highway are evil beings created by the Nobility and even feared by the same. It’d be hard enough to sneak by them and make it to the ruins, but then we’d have to make it back again. And I’ve only got one life to lose.”

“There’s no proof that these attackers are the same mercenaries,” the mayor protested in a beastly growl. “They’re just a legend, and died out long ago—some five millennia ago. You think they’d come back after all this time?”

“You do know the Nobles’ lives are eternal, don’t you? It wouldn’t be all that strange for them to breathe new life into these creations of theirs. At any rate, I expect to be paid a hundred thousand dalas. If you don’t like that, I guess I’m done here.”

Shifting the longsword she held to her left hand, Stanza got to her feet.

“I won’t work for peanuts, either,” Strider said, stepping away from the wall.

“W—wait! Just hold on,” the mayor stammered, hurriedly trying to stop them. Beneath a receding hairline, his brow glistened with sweat. “Innocent people are in need of your aid. As a human being, don’t you want to help them?”

“A human being?” Stanza said, a thin smile chiseling itself onto her lips—a smile made of ice. “I used to be one of those, I suppose.”

“I’m with you. See you around, Mr. Mayor.”

“W—wait!”

“Are you gonna pay the hundred thousand?” Strider asked, leaning forward.

“I’ll have to consult our accountants. Digging a tunnel through the mountain chain to our west has left the town strapped for cash.”

“Then you’ll just have to sit back and live within your means, I guess,” Stanza said, turning toward the door.

“That’ll never do. Maintaining and safeguarding the highway is part of our town’s mandate.”

“That means you get special subsidies from the Capital, doesn’t it?”

The mayor gave the smirking Strider a look like he was calling him a third-rate swordsman.

“Ten million dalas a year, as I recall—and you wouldn’t wanna blow that, would you? Just pay out the hundred thousand dalas.”

As Stanza headed for the door, she said, “Talk to your bean counters. I’ll be at the hotel or in a bar.”

“Same goes for me,” said Strider.

After the two of them had left, the mayor said, “This was supposed to be a mission of mercy we were organizing. Money-grubbing bastards!”

Finally able to release his rage, he stomped his feet in anger.

Though the town’s finances might’ve been strained, things were hopping in the Silver Castle Saloon and everywhere else in the entertainment district. This particular establishment operated three separate businesses: a bar, a casino, and a whorehouse.

The scent of alcohol, drugs, and nicotine hung in the saloon like an iridescent haze, the coquettish voices of women jostled with the angry tones of men, and when the door to a gambling parlor that echoed with the sounds of roulette and cards and the cries of beasts opened, a bouncer hurried toward the exit with a bloodied patron who’d apparently lost his temper after a streak of losses, while a traveler or speculator who seemed to have won big climbed the stairs, accompanied by a bevy of women. Exchanges of gunfire rang out from time to time, but they soon died away, swallowed by the eddying mire of lust.

In one corner of the gambling parlor, a terrible cry of pain went up. An enormous figure that was green from head to toe had just clapped a bear hug on an indigo individual every bit as large as himself. Green muscles swelled like balloons filling with water. The sound of snapping bone rang out, but it immediately drowned in the sea of cheers that went up. Stark bone jutted conspicuously from the indigo body that fell to the floor.

“And green is the winner! Step that way to claim your winnings,” the referee of the cruel spectacle that was “monster dueling” called out in a loud voice, pointing to the cashier in the back. Naturally, he was an employee of the Silver Castle.

Covering about seventeen hundred square feet, which was about a third of the staggeringly large gambling parlor, this game actually took place in a cage fifteen feet tall and fifty feet in diameter. The cage was electrified, and it set off a fierce shower of sparks every time it was touched by one of the modified beasts—captured fire dragons, rock demons, or heavily altered bio-men. Both the house and the customers made these modifications and trained their monsters to fight in order to collect bets. With greater financial resources to draw on, the saloon usually fielded the winning altered beast, though recently some patrons had banded together into project teams that invested a fair sum of money into the monsters they entered, meaning the saloon couldn’t rest on its laurels.

“Hey, there!”

Stanza didn’t even turn when she was slapped on the shoulder.

In the cage about six feet in front of her, saloon staff armed with electrified whips were driving the green bio-man to one side of the cage while the dying bio-man was carried out.

“Aren’t you the little ice queen. You mind?” the resplendent warrior Strider asked, grinning all the while.

She hadn’t been kidding when she said she’d be at the hotel or in a bar.

“Suit yourself,” Stanza replied, not because she cared for him, but because it really didn’t matter either way.

For all his complaints about warriors leaving their backs open, Strider was only too happy to leave his back exposed to the other patrons now. After ordering an absinthe from an ass-wiggling waitress connected to the whorehouse, he looked at Stanza’s glass and commented, “You’re drinking the same? You’re a tough one.”

He couldn’t have been any more pretentious in his compliment.

The absinthe served out on the Frontier wasn’t the real stuff like they had in the Capital. Intended for humans who’d been modified for heavy manual labor, the synthesized drink was five times stronger than the original. A flame would not only ignite it—it’d make the stuff explode, and one glass was enough to cause immediate alcohol poisoning and possibly death in the average person. No one in their right mind ordered it, but then, warriors were some kind of monster.

“Anyway, earlier, you had no problem turning your back to me. What’s the story with that?”

“For the same reason you’re doing it now.”

“You mean because anyone who can’t tell when someone’s creeping up on him can’t really be called a pro? When you pull that, it kinda undermines my bluff, you know.”

“Sorry.”

Stanza’s insincere reply was buried beneath vicious cries and screams. One of the employees bolted from the cage clutching his shoulder, while a few others raced over and shut the door. The cage shook. The bio-man had slammed up against it. Disproportionately long and thick fingers wrapped around the iron bars and began to rattle them violently. Patrons screamed, and some of the women even got to their feet.

“The big guy’s pretty pissed, eh?”

“They must’ve shot him full of drugs to keep him riled up.”

“You can say that again,” Strider agreed, taking the blue glass that’d just been brought to him and draining it in one gulp.

A pale arm wrapped around his neck like a snake. It belonged to a waitress with bare shoulders and a lot of thigh showing.

“Hey, how about you buy me one, too?”

Grinning at her cloying tone, Strider pointed to his empty glass and said, “You want some of that?”

“Yeah. Passed to me mouth to mouth.”

“I see. You say the damnedest things, don’t you? I like you, missy.”

“Same here—this might be L-O-V-E,” she replied, a delicate finger prodding Strider’s cheek.

“But this drink’s not really the thing for you,” Strider said, making a wry face.

“Oh, why not?”

The woman’s right hand began to inch across Strider’s chest. Bringing lips smeared with bright red lipstick to Strider’s ear, she whispered, “The woman next to you—she scares me.”

III

“It’s that obvious, is it?”

“Just now, when I walked behind her, I got chills.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Nodding and grinning, the warrior stared at Stanza’s profile and said, “We got some interesting guests here.”

The two warriors were seated in the foremost row of seats on the north side of the rocking cage. Stanza’s unblinking gaze was focused on a spot on the east side. Finding her complete lack of movement somewhat unsettling, Strider followed her eyes but found nothing save ordinary hick customers. But in his ear, he heard the female warrior say in a tense tone, “That guy.”

Her tone of voice made the waitress clinging to Strider gasp aloud.

Stanza stood up. The three copper coins worth ten druids each that she dropped on the table scattered noisily.

“Hey!” Strider called out to her, but her lithe form weaved through the patrons as she headed for the door.