The Man Who Would Be D
Guiding Light
She could distinguish her hand clearly, if she pressed it right to the end of her nose. Even after she found her glasses in a bucket next to the bed, she still couldn’t see. The vampire must have enjoyed searching her. Her clothes were all un-tucked and twisted. She couldn’t let D know about that. It would drive him crazy. She’d have to bathe to rid herself of the creatures touch, and that D would enjoy assisting in.
She made her way along thel, tl, tucking her glasses down her shirt, finding them useless, devising a plan in her head. As she followed the feel of the wall, down a narrow corridor, she could hear familiar sounds. One was the wind, blowing around or across something hollow. The entrance to the cave would make sense to make that sound. Then there were the other sounds. She knew those ones too. She and D had also made those sounds on some of their wilder nights, or days.
Then there was nothing. Accept the sound of the wind. Carefully she listened, but still nothing, not even the woman’s breathing could she hear. She reached into her pocket but found nothing there. Usually she kept a vile of garlic juice, but he must have found that. She’d left her arrows and such in the room back at the bar. All accept…
“So good to see you awake at last!” said a voice, as stronger than human arms came around her neck and waist.
“Let her GO!”
“D! Where are you!?”
“Be still Kale. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“I see you brought my little pet with you,” said the vampire, sliding his tongue along her ear.
“No…more your…pet,” sighed the woman, and dropped to the ground in front of the hunter, the knife still in her back.
“I thought you didn’t kill humans?” Stagail laughed, realizing then that his hopes of freedom from the dark were forever lost.
“She wasn’t human. She’s a clone.”
“An Ark! Of course. Three and a half years to live. How would she know exactly how long? Unless she’s a clone with a five year lifespan.”
“SHUT UP!! You hunter, drop your sward! Or watch your pretty one die!” As the vampire’s fangs grew closer to her skin, Kale reached up and slapped her hand flat against his cheek.
At once the vampire started scream his his face steaming at the contact. He threw kale away, pealing her crucifix from his face and tossing it in her direction.
Kale could see the dark figure moving in front of her, and pulled the slim dagger out of her boot, carefully hidden there when the harness that held it there snapped and was never repaired.
But when she went to through it, she saw the dark figure had grown, considerably. She knew then that D had charged him, and without seeing clearly, she didn’t dare through the knife.
Suddenly the dark figures separated and stood off to each other. A stalemate, neither of them with a weapon. “Kale, Stagail is to your left, throw the knife!”
“No kale. He’s trying to trick you.”
“Only one of you is wounded!” she called.
“And he wounded me to cause you to doubt me.”
“That’s true Kale, but it’s me who’s wounded.”
“Shut up! Both of you!”
“Kale…”
“Shut up!” She turned her blade to each in turn. Which one? They both sounded the same. Calm and confidant.
“Ask me something that only I would know. Something you told me that no one eknowknows.”
“Alright.”
“Alright…”
“Ask me about how we met.”
“No!” she cried. “Vampires can sense thoughts like that. They’re strong, and at the surface. I’d need something simple. DON’T MOVE! Either of you, or so help me I’ll find a way to kill us all.”
“We can’t let him go Kale.”
“I know…My birthday. When is my birthday? Be Quick!”
“Mid summer!”
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
“Kale…”
“I think I’d know my own husband!” she said, turning to her left. But swiftly she turned right, landing the blade deep in the man’s chest. “Garlic coats all my weapons. Die painfully Stagail!”
“HOW!!” he shrieked, his skin splitting at the poison running through his veins.
“I never told D when my birthday was. But D found me in mid summer, he considers that my birthday.”
The two watched, and listened as the defiant vampire died before them. Then with the girls that were taken from the village, sufficiently placed into sleep by D, and their horses hitched to an old wagon to carry them all, D steered them all towards town, as the old estate burned brightly against the night sky. Secure with the knowledge that the notes and computer equipment was sufficiently destroyed, D felt at ease, knowing that no other vampire would learn what Stagail had planned, and try to continue the work.
As D drove the wagon down the center street of town, he couldn’t believe what was going on. People everywhere were screaming, riots were everywhere, buildings were being set fire to, men were fighting, it was like the law didn’t matter anymore. “What is going on?!” Kale asked, as D held her close to keep her from being grabbed off the wagon, as he fought off people from both sides.
“With Stagail dead, his twisted influence over the town is gone. People are free, and confused.” Again he pushed a man down from the wagon seat, drawing his sward to ward off others. “We can’t stay here.”
“Where is the Sheriff?”
D looked around to find the tall man with the gold star and cross on his lapel, only to see him beating on others as well, and tossing a Molotov cocktail into his own office. “Useless,” he sighed, and flicked the reins to move the horses faster to the barn. Oddly enough the bar had not been damaged, and the barn remained in tact. At least on the outside. Inside the barn, hay had been strewn all over the floor, what horses that were stabled lay in pieces all over the floor and stall walls. Harness and saddles wheretroytroyed, and the power cells were missing. “I’m glad you did follow me,” he said as he unhitched their horses. “Max would have been torn apart had you not, if the barn looks like this, I’d hate to think what happened in the bar.”
“Max, Nightmare, protect yourselvell wll we return.”
The horses bobbed their heads as D put the barrier across the stall, pulling the remains of a horse’s neck assembly off the wall beside him. “Come on. I’ll get some help inside. You should rest.”
“I’m alright. I just need to be able to see a little better.” D guided her through the barn to the bar.
He was right. The bar was a disaster. No one inside was dead, thankfully, though in the morning, when the vampire’s influenced panic wore off, they may wish they were. Every table in the bar was either broken or overturned. There were seven people altogether in the room, all of them out cold. All accept the barkeeper. He was behind his bar, nursing a split lip with a wet towel. His eyes went wide when he saw D and Kale return. “Oh no, not again. Get out. You’ve caused enough damage!”
“It wasn’t me,” he stated flatly. “But a vampire who used his powers to look like me. You’ll find your whores in the wagon in the barn. See to it that they are returned to their rooms and bathed as soon as possible. Theler ler should look at them too.”
“You brought them back?”
“The Vampire is dead. He won’t be returning. I will be leaving in the morning. After we rest. Try to see to it that the rooms upstairs are not disturbed.”
“Are you kidding!” he scoffed, “Where do you think the whole things started. Right here! Everyone in the damn place went NUTS. I tried to stop them; people even started coming in to help, only to have the madness spread.”
“You seem unaffected.”
“Now. Someone cracked me on the head, I only came too a moment ago. Go on. Go upstairs. Things should start calming down once more people have some sense knocked into them.”
D merely nodded and guided Kale upstairs to their room. Every door was broken open, even theirs, but with no one inside, the room was left untouched. D closed the door and braced the wing chair against it. Then he and Kale settled and went to sleep.
By morning things were finally quiet. D finished a second treatment over Kale’s eyes, and waited for her to see him. She put her glasses on and smiled. “Finally, you’re still a little hazy, but I can see you fine.”
“You know, I can continue with this to the point where you won’t need your glasses.”
“No, no D, don’t. I need them. Please, just put it away.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a long story. Just promise you’ll let me keep my glasses.”
“If that is what you want.”
“Yes.”
“Alright.” Just then there was a knock on their door. “Who is it?”
“Boris, the barkeeper. Things have calmed down now, and the Mayor is downstairs with the Sheriff. They want to talk to you.”
“We’ll be down in a few minutes.” As Kale righted her cloak, D lay his hands around her shoulders, fastening the chain with her cross on it. “Don’t want you to be without this.”
“My god, I thought he’d thrown that over the cliff.”
“No. It was never far from you. Come on, let’s go and see what these men want.”
The bar was slowly coming back together. In the middle of the room one table was set up, the only one it looked like that didn’t need repair. Around it sat four people. The Sheriff, with a bandage around his head and left eye, a well dressed older man whom D assumed was the Mayor, with his right arm in a sling, and his right foot wrapped in bandages, the bar keeper, and a woman, the woman who brought D and Kale their dinner that first day they arriv Cal Calmly D approached them, as Kale pulled up an unbroken chair and sat down, wanting only to listen.
It was the older man who spoke first. “You say that last night was caused by a vampire?”
“In a way. This vampire was out of his mind, his power of mind control was warped, and did much damage once you were released from it. He is dead, the women upstairs need a doctor, and we are leaving.”
“The town will pick up your bill for your stay here, but how much will you charge for this service?”
“My fee,” D glanced back to Kale, “has already been paid.”
“Splendid.”
“Good day.”
No one gave the two any trouble as they left, calmly walking their horses down the center street, as people either picked themselves up out of their way, or dragged someone else out of the street. The sun was high, but the clouds were thick. Though it felt like rain, D didn’t expect it to come down for some time. He chose the Westward direction once clear of the town, and together they disappeared over the hills.
That night, after a nice meal of cooked rabbit, Kale lay next to D staring up at the night sky. The clouds cle clearing, no rain had fallen, and the brightness of the moon and stars shone down like icy pinpoints in the night sky. “I never thought I’d see them again,” she sighed. D turned to her, tracing his fingers along her collar bone and down between her breasts.
“I thought you’d be upset about never seeing at all again. Would it only be the stars you’d miss?”
“You know I’d miss you most of all,” she laughed, staring up to his soft blue eyes. “I use to watch you at night, by the fire when you couldn’t sleep. And I’d dearly miss how the stars would seem like a shield around you.” She turned her gaze back to the heavens. “But I’d always remember you, but the stars are different.” He leaned in and kissed her shoulder, gently working his way to her neck. “Even the shooting stars I’d miss. There’s so many.”
D stopped at what she said. “Shooting stars?”
“Yeah, the meteor shower thapphappens every year. Look. They’re coming now.”
He turned and sat up, seeing the tiny streaks across the sky. “Those aren’t meteors.”
“You sure?” she watched as he got up and went to his horse, pulling something out of his saddlebag.
“I’m sure. The meteor shower doesn’t happen at this time of year. Besides that. They’re slowing down.” He pulled the object longer and raised it to his eye.
“I didn’t know you had a telescope.”
“I always carried it, though till now I never had a use for it.”
“What are they?”
“Ships. Though I can’t make them out.”
She turned around and found a brighter light streaking across the night sky. “There’s one.” D turned his telescope to it and sighed. “Are they arkers returning from space or something?”
“No,” he lowered gla glass for her to see. “They’re vampire ships. And they’re coming back.”
Kale took the glass away and turned to him. “Why? Why would they come back? Where would they go? No one here would take them in? They have now power base any more.”
“There’s one place they’d go. Only one place they can turn to. Barbarois.”
“Where is that?”
“You won’t like it,” he answered, turning his gaze further westward. Kale followed, only to realize what he meant.
“Oh no…”
(to be continued…)