The Man Who Would Be D

Chapter 3 Blinded

It was nearing midnight when the two figures crested the hill overlooking the old manor. At one time it must have been a beautiful place, but now the trees and shrubs were badly overgrown, and the once tame rose vines had spread all over the structure, and weeds could be seen in the moonlight growing up through the rotting boards of the front porch and stairs. The roof had caved in over the main foyer of the house, but the rest of the place looked intact. “Anything?” she asked quietly. D said nothing as he led her closer.

They left their horses in a thicket of bushes and entered the house through an opening left in the wall by a fallen tree, which lay half rotten across the yard and house. “They\'ll stay close to the ground,” D announced quietly. “With this damage, the upper floors are too unstable.”

“No kidding. D, do you really think they\'d come here? Regardless of what the doc is gona do, Vampires have more class than this. D? What is it?” she stepped closer to him, fearing he\'d taken another spell like earlier, only to find that D had opened a curtain to a laboratory, complete with power, computers, and equipment she\'d only see in pictures of sophisticated research labs back in her time. “Holly crap!”

D picked up a clipboard, and scanned over the notes. Recognizing the language, he put the board face down, and moved on through the lab. “She\'s getting close,” he said.

“Oh?”

“She\'s kept notes. She wrote that she\'s figured out how to splice the wolf gene into an adult Vampire\'s DNA. But her last test subject died before she could complete the procedure. She\'s gone to get another wolf.”

“Great. And the other girls? The hookers from the bar?”

“Her notes didn\'t say.” They quickly fell silent and hid behind counters and equipment as voices came closer to the lab from the hall.

“I promise you, Lord Stagail, this time it will work,” said a woman.

“It had better. I will not tolerate another failure. The town is getting wise to what is going on with the whores, it won\'t be long before that idiot sheriff comes here. My powers are weakening already from your last attempt. I cannot warp his mind like I had been. Fix this now!”

“Yes sir. The new wolf is downstairs. I\'ll get it.”

“Fool. The wolf would kill you. It must first submit to my rule, before you go near it. I\'ll send it up to you, just be ready.”

“Yes, my lord.” They heard two sets of footfalls then. One heavy and heading away, the other lighter and louder, and Kale knew the woman was in the lab. “Odd. I don\'t remember...AH!!!” It wasn\'t Kale who\'d surprised the woman, but rather D. There was no door to the lab, so they had to act fast. “Who are you!!?”

“That\'s not the way it goes,” said Kale, pinning the woman to the counter. “We ask the questions, you answer them. How did you meet up with this Vampire, and why did you let him strip you of what is right and wrong!?”

“You think he did something to me? You must have been talking to old Rover. He always thought that of me. How is the old dear, has he learned any new tricks?”

“Yeah, a good one. Play Dead. Want to find out how he did it?”

“Kale! Don\'t. The Vampire hasn\'t done taken her. She\'s normal.”

“Normal? Then Why!?”

“Because I\'m dying. I\'ve only got 3 1/2 years left to live. You wouldn\'t understand.”

“You\'re right, I don\'t understand,” she said pulling out her dagger and laying it across the woman\'s throat. “Why don\'t you educate us? Maybe then I\'ll kill you quickly. Let\'s start with where you learned to do all this. I doubt it was from one of the Buy & Sell’s cheep novels.”

“You wouldn\'t understand, even if I had told you. It\'s far beyond your pathetic little brain.”

D drew his sword and lashed it\'s tip across the woman\'s cheek, leaving a shallow bleeding wound. “If you do not answer, I will go deeper, and slowly skin you like a cow for leather.”

“OOOO big words. Hey? You\'re a vampire too, aren\'t you? You\'d have to be, pale skin such as that.”

“Don\'t insult him,” warned Kale, “I won\'t like it. Now I won\'t ask again.”

“I\'ve only one thing to say. Wolf!! Attack!!!!!”

Kale threw the woman to the floor as D took the attack of the swift moving wolf. “D! I can get a shot!”

“Stay clear!” he shouted as he threw the beast against the computers.

“NO!!!” cried the scientist as the systems shorted out.

“Be still bitch,” Kale shouted to her, turning up an old Bunsen burner. “D! The notes! Toss \'em, I\'ll burn \'em!”

“No!!!” The woman lunged at Kale only to be thrown down again. Kale turned to see D still struggling with the wolf. She watched as he skillfully blocked or avoided the attacks from the beast. She readied her bow with an arrow, but couldn\'t fire, for D was in front of her target. The scientist began to stir.

“If I were you, I\'d stay down,” she told her then looked back to D.

“NO!” cried the scientist, when Kale leveled her bow to the wolf. She rose, grabbed a beaker full of liquid, and threw it at Kale. The fluid splashed over her face and into her eyes. Everything around her suddenly seemed too bright to look at, even after she closed her eyes. She screamed as the fluid ate through her flesh. It burned like fire across her face. She released her arrow in reaction, missing the wolf\'s heart and getting it in the shoulder.

“KALE!” D called, seeing her with her hands to her face, her released arrow had shot through his cloak, just below his raised left arm.

“Now that was too close,” muttered the sym., but no one heard it accept D.

“Wolf! Run!” called the scientist, “I\'ll find you later!”

The wolf pushed the hunter to the floor and bounded out the window, the silver arrow still in its shoulder. The scientist pushed past Kale and ran out the door. D rose and watched from the window as to where the wolf would go, but it was too late. It was already out of sight. He then turned his attention to Kale, pulling her hands away to inspect the damage. The liquid had left an array of red blotches and blisters across her face. Tears tinged with a little blood streamed from her eyes.

Quickly he got water in a bucket and started wetting down her face. The pain eased as the chemical was neutralized, and she was able to catch her breath. Carefully D opened each of her eyes and gently poured water across their surface. “D.”

“Yes.”

“I can\'t see you.”

He sighed. He was afraid of that. “I\'m here.”

“D. I\'m scared. I mean, I\'m really scared.”

“I know.” He held her to him, his strength her crutch. This was his fault. He never should have involved her in this hunt. “Well find a doctor. I promise.”

It was late. He\'d been dragged out of bed yet again to tend the wounds of those injured in the latest bar fight next door. Finally the last of the wounded settled in the upper rooms, and his exam room cleaned, he turned down the lights for the night. Or so he thought. The door was thrown open and a tall pale man dressed in black strode in, carrying a woman wrapped in a dark green cloak. “She needs you,” the man whispered.

The old man sighed. “Put her on the table, tell me what happened.”

“We\'re hunters, one of our prey threw a chemical in her face to escape. Now she cannot see.” The doctor pulled off the crewed bandages, and looked over the wounds on her skin.

“What\'s your name dear?”

“Kale,” she answered as he gently dabbed her wounds with disinfectant. “Water washed the stuff away, but I couldn\'t see when he washed my eyes.”

“Mmmm. Sounds like a simple acid, neutralized by wa Now Now I\'m going to look at your right eye...” She flinched as he pulled her eyelid open, the light too bright to tolerate. “Ok, ok. Sir. Douse those candles will you. I\'ll use this one only.” A few moments later he opened her eye again.

“I can see a little light,” she said with hope.

“Good. Now hold still.” Carefully, through special glasses with a softer light he looked over both her eyes, humming to himself in answer to his own silent questions. “Alright, keep your eyes closed.” She could hear matches snap to fire and the smell of sulfur on the air. “Good news is, the eyes are not as badly damaged as I though. You must have had your hand up or something.”

“I was wearing glasses,” she answered, holding out her glasses to the healer. The doctor nodded as he saw the tiny dips now in the surface of the lenses.

“They saved your eyes from more severe damage. Your sight loss is most likely from shock. The fact you can see light, no matter how significant, is proof that you should regain full use of your eyes in time. I\'d like to put bandages across your eyes till then. Your pupils will not dilate properly, and the light may damage your eyes.”

“I can live with that.”

“Normally I\'d keep you here, but all my spare beds are taken up by brawlers from earlier tonight.”

“We have a room,” said D quietly, but Kale could tell he was at her side for his voice sounded close.

“Good. Get some rest. I\'m going to give you a shot for the pain.”

“No!” No needles. I don\'t like them. Besides, the pain is ignorable.”

“As you wish. Come see me tomorrow evening. I do rounds before that & I won\'t be easy to find by someone unfamiliar with my rout.”

“I\'ll find you, when she needs you,” D hushed, tying kale\'s cloak around her shoulders.

“Fine, fine. Get some rest, I\'ll see you tomorrow.”

The barman had already gone to bed, when the two returned to the bar, but a night attendant opened the door for them when D showed him their room key through the glass. He settled Kale on the bed, and lit a few lanterns around the room. Electricity was available, but would cost them more than he would have liked. So lanterns and candles were more than sufficient. “D, I\'m not helpless. I can manage a few things.” D said nothing only moved closer to her. “I didn\'t want to mention itfronfront of the town doctor, but what about the regenerator. It works on humans, maybe it will heal my eyes.”

“Tygra told me to use it a little each time, to allow the body to heal on its own.”

“Then we\'ll use it a little at a time then.”

“I think it\'s in your saddlebag.”

“I know it is. I put it there when I burned my arm last week. I think it\'ll be at the bottom.” She could hear D go through her bag, the tinkling of small metal tools inside, as he pushed them aside. Then she heard the items tumble onto the table.

“We\'ll need to fix up your bags. You\'ve got too much junk in them.”

“You should have seen my purse,” she laughed.

“Did you forget about the money father gave you?” he asked finding the little device and returning to her side.

“Money? What Money?”

“I guess he gave it without you noticing. I\'ll put it with the horses.”

“We\'ll give it back next time we see him.”

“You shouldn\'t. Father will be severely insulted. He gave it without mention. We\'ll use it without mention.”

“But...?!”

“No, Kale. Do not mention this to him when next we meet him. He does this because he has more money than he can spend. Even in all his years to come. This way he knows his children will be able to survive. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” She flinched as D slowly passed the device over her eyes, allowing the beams to do the most good in the single pass. Then setting it aside, he watched as she regained her breath again. “I\'m sorry, my love.”

“For what?”

“I should not have let you get involved in this. I should have ended it the night we burned the wolf.”

“And you go on without me? Not bloody likely.”

“Kale I...”

“Hey, if you don\'t take me, what would I do? I\'m not staying behind with your father. I got the impression that you hadn\'t seen him in decades. And I\'m not about to spend 60 some odd years without you. And when I do travel with you, baring injury or illness, I\'m not about to wait in the boarding house waiting like I use to.”

“I remember those times. I\'d go hunt & when I came back, I\'d have to be careful opening the doors.”

“You never did know what was coming did you? Dagger, Arrow...”

“Kicks, punches, or a kiss,” he continued softly, drawing closer to her.

“Well a kiss often led to so much more,” she cooed, feeling his presence closer, then he quickly drew away.

“I have to find them,” he said, shaking the urge that was building once more.

“I\'ll wait up.”

“No,” he said, laying his left hand to her shoulder. “You\'ll rest. As the doctor said.” She hated when he did that. She couldn\'t argue when he used his more gentle powers, but he never gave her much warning when he\'d use them.

He gently laid her down, covering her with her cloak and blankets. “She\'ll be alright,” said the sym.

“I know. But I have to leave.”

“You sensing something?”

“Something I\'d rather not.”

“That again? Why?”

“I don\'t know. I\'m getting out of here, while I still have control.” He locked the door, looking one last time to her sleeping form. “I\'ve got to find them. To put a stop to all of this.” Quietly, he closed the door.