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Vol.1 Vampire Hunter D 17 страница

Прочитайте:
  1. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 1 страница
  2. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 10 страница
  3. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 11 страница
  4. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 12 страница
  5. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 13 страница
  6. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 14 страница
  7. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 15 страница
  8. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 16 страница
  9. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 17 страница
  10. DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 18 страница

With a premonition of his firmly skewered foe bringing a smile to his face, the Count thrust the blade. The sword was caught and stopped dead right in front of D's chest. Caught between the palms of the Hunter's hands. Their roles had been completely reversed from their first encounter!

Without letting up in the slightest on the unspeakable pressure he brought to bear four inches from the weapon s tip, D twisted both hands to one side. The Count didn't go sailing through the air, but the end of the blade snapped off. The broken tip still between his hands, D leapt back ten feet.

"Why, that's the very same trick..."

It was truly grand the way the Count sent out his cape even as he shouted this, but the difference between being the one doing the trick and the one on the receiving end in this case became the difference between life and death. The tip of the sword flew from D's folded hands in a silvery flash that neatly knifed through the heart beneath that black raiment.

For a few seconds the Count stood stock still. Then the flesh on his face began to melt away, and his eyes dropped to the floor, trailing optic nerves behind them. Mere moments after he hit the floor, his rotting tongue and vocal chords forced out his final words.

"I... I had to beg our Sacred Ancestor to teach me that very same trick... Could it be... Milord, are you truly his... "

 

D quickly made his way over to Doris, who lay on the floor. Something strange was happening to the castle. The faint ringing of the warning bell from the Count's chest was proof of that. The Count's deadly attack had faltered because the bell had caught his ear—turning him from the path of certain victory to a plunge into the abyss of death. The floor shook ever so slightly.

A light tap to her cheek was enough to wake Doris. There was no trace of the fang marks on her neck any longer.

"D—what in the world is going on?! You're alive?"

"My work is done. The wounds on your throat have vanished." D pointed to the far end of chamber and the way he'd come. "If you go up that staircase you'll find Dan. The two of you should go back to the farm."

"But you—you've got to go with us."

"My work is finished, but I still have business here. Hurry up and go. And please be sure to tell Dan not to forget the promise he made his big brother."

Tears sparkled in Doris' eyes.

"Go."

Turning time and again, Doris finally disappeared into the
darkness. A salutation rang from D's left hand, though it
probably never reached her ears.
"So long, you tough, sweet kids. Godspeed to you."

 

D turned around. To one side of the chamber stood Larmica. "Was that your doing?"

Larmica nodded and said, "I reversed all the computer's safety circuits. In the next five minutes the castle shall be destroyed—please, flee while you may."

"Why not live here in your castle until the end of time, with the darkness as your companion?"

"There's no longer time for that. And the Lee family died out long ago. It died when my father chose a pointless, eternal life of nothing save drinking human blood."

The trembling grew stronger, and the whole chamber began to groan. The white detritus falling from the ceiling wasn't common dust, but rather finely powdered stone. The molecular bonds of the entire castle were breaking down!

"So, you'll stay here then?"

Larmica didn't answer the question, but said instead, "Kindly allow me to ask one thing—your name. D... Is that D, as in Dracula?

D's lips moved.

The two of them stood motionless, with white powder raining down. His reply went unheard.

 

A ppropriately enough, the vampire's castle turned to dust like its lord and was gone. Their field of view rendered pure white by the clouds of powdered rubble, Doris and Dan couldn't stop coughing from all the dust.

They were atop a hill less than a hundred yards from the castle.

Wiping at her tearing eyes, when Doris finally raised her face again another sort of tears began to flow.

"It's gone... everything. And he's not coming back either...

Putting a hand on his distracted sister's shoulder, Dan said cheerily, "Let's go home, Sis. We got a heap of work to do.'

Doris shook her head.

"It's no use... I just can't do it anymore... Can't use a whip like I used to, can't look after you or do my work around the farm... And all because I found someone I could depend on..."

"You just leave it to me." The boy of eight threw out his chest. His little hand gripped D's pendant. "We've just gotta holdon for five more years. Then I'll be able to do everything. Ill even find you a husband, Sis. We got a long road ahead of us—so buck up."

He knew that he was no longer just an eight-year-old child.

Doris turned to her brother, looked at him like he was someone she'd never seen before, and nodded. Five years from now, he'd still be a boy. But in ten years, he'd be able to rebuild the house and hunt down fire dragons. It would take a long while, but time had a way of passing.

"Let's go, Dan."

Finally reclaiming her smile, Doris walked toward their horse.

"Sure thing!" Dan shot back, and, though his heart was nearly shattered with sorrow, he smiled to hide it.

With the two of them on its back, the horse galloped off to the east, where blue light filled the sky and their farm awaited them.

D had kept his promise.

Now it was the boy's turn.

 

Postscript

 

O r actually, an explanation of the dedication. Most fans of outre' cinema should be familiar with the film Horror of Dracula, produced in Britain by Hammer Films in 1958. Along with the previous year's The Curse of Frankenstein, this classic helped fire a worldwide boom in horror films, and, in addition, served as the first inspiration for this humble horror novelist. I've seen quite a few horror and suspense movies, but no film before or since accomplished what this one did—to send me racing out of the theater in the middle of the show. Though most will find this information superfluous, Terence Fisher directed it, Jimmy Sangster wrote the script, and Bernard Robinson was the production designer. Surely the film's stars, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, require no introduction. The whole incredible showdown between Count Dracula and Professor Van Helsing— from the fiend's appearance in silhouette at the top of the castle's staircase, to the finale where sunlight and the cross reduce him to dust—is something horror movie fans will be talking about until the end of time. I hope it's made available on video as soon as possible. At present, Kazuo Umezu could be regarded as the leading man of horror manga in Japan, but so far as I know, the only male manga artist in the past with such a distinct horror style (I don't know about female manga artists) would be Osamu Kishimoto. But rather than aiming to produce more of the same Japanese-style horror that had preceded him, this man created a gothic mood in the Western tradition. Whether it was a weird western-style mansion standing right in the middle of the city, with coffins resting in its stone-walled basement and a horde of creepy inhabitants, or the logic of the conflict that runs through all his stories (such as the cross against vampires or the power of Buddhism against kappas), the way he succeeded in bringing his creatures to life in a field like Japanese horror manga, where they were so sorely lacking, was, in a word, refreshing.

It would be most unfair if someday someone were to write a history of horror manga in Japan and dismiss Osamu Kishimoto as merely one more author of sci-fi and adventure manga. Even now I get goose bumps as I recall the short tale about the kappa that turned itself into a beautiful woman when runoff from a factory polluted its lake, and later took up residence in a brother and sister's house, as well as many other tales. Lately I haven't seen much work by him, but I sincerely hope to see him in better health and producing new stories in the future.

Hideyuki Kikuchi

December 6, 1982, watching Dracula (79)

 


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