Free Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four Page B

stood a full head taller than the baron, but his figure looked perfectly square due to the unusual broadness of his shoulders. His lengthy face was black—not like that of a Negroid, but rather with a metallic luster to his skin that made the outline of his eyes, nose, and mouth all imperceptible. His naked chest was also pitch black, and against it swayed a medallion of jewel-encrusted gold. But even more conspicuous was the dazzling scepter clenched in the blackness of his right hand. The crimson stones set in its head glittered mysteriously.
    â€œLord!” the baron called out to him.
    As if in response, one half of the cape Vlad had closed over his chest opened like a wing. The sight of the young lady it exposed, or perhaps even the suspicion that she would be found there, was enough to make a low rasp of breath escape the baron.
    â€œI’m told Taki is her name. She was sold to a brothel, and thereby came into my possession. I hear she’s a virgin. She certainly has an exquisite throat.”
    â€œDon’t touch her, Vlad!” the baron shouted as he stepped forward.
    Smiling but not saying a word, Vlad pulled Taki close.
    Perhaps under some spell, Taki remained just as she was with a vacant look in her eyes.
    â€œWhat a fool you are to be Nobility, yet fear the taste of human blood. I procured this girl so that I might show you a true banquet of blood.”
    A band of light split the speaker in two, lengthwise. The blinding streak that traveled from the crown of his head down his forehead and out again through the crotch was slowly working to push the two halves of Vlad apart. The thick band then became a thin thread. And it took less than a second for that thread to dwindle down to nothing and disappear.
    The baron didn’t unleash a second attack.
    Black hands had wrapped around Taki’s waist and pulled her right up against the Nobleman.
    Seeing the black lips part, the baron caught sight of the deep red maw and white fangs, but there was nothing he could do. The lips obscured the nape of Taki’s neck. A disgusting overlay of black and white continued for about two seconds, and then the lord took his lips away. They were damp and red.
    The baron watched this outrage without comment not because it was simply the Nobility’s everyday manner of “feeding,” but because the display had a traumatic effect on him due to his genetic makeup and personality. But the instant Taki’s head jerked back and he saw the pair of raw and swollen wounds at the base of her neck and the vermilion stream that spilled from them, he ran toward the pair like a wild horse.
    It was a split second later that the ground beneath his feet, or rather, the floor of the entire hall, suddenly sank. Unable to do a thing, the baron fell dozens of yards. What awaited him was cold water. Gurgling loudly, it sucked him under and shoved him away.
    The legends spoke of this. How vampires weren’t able to cross running water.
    As the baron desperately worked his arms and legs, his ears caught a haughty laugh, and voice bellowed down to him, “If you are in fact any part Nobility, you can drown down there. But if you should happen to be spared, you shall be cursed for all eternity!”
    -
    D and May were out on the edge of town in an abandoned shed that housed a water wheel. But though the enclosure might be described as a shed, it was hardly on the scale for merely using the water wheel to mill flour. The wheel itself was easily three hundred feet in diameter. It literally stretched up into the heavens like God’s very own lathe. Beside the shed, the river that even now kept that great fifteen-feet-thick disk in perpetual motion flowed by at an appreciable pace. It would’ve been more correct to call the shed where D and May were a power station. Although the village had switched over to more efficient solar power two decades earlier, the vast interior of the building still contained