Vampire Hunter D Read Free Page A

going to have a look at your wounds. To get a general idea of how powerful a foe I’m up against.”
    “I’m sorry. Go ahead, take a look,” she said, turning her face away and exposing her neck. Even if the slight trembling of her lips was a remnant of her reaction seconds earlier, the redness of her cheeks was caused, no doubt, by the embarrassment of a virgin having her flesh scrutinized by a wholly unfamiliar young man. After all, in her seventeen years, she hadn’t so much as held hands with a boy before.
    Seconds later, D’s expression had a distant air to it. “When did you run into
him
?”
    Doris breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of his voice, which was entirely without cadence. But why was her foolish heart pounding so? Unaffected by her racing pulse, and gazing raptly at D’s face all the while, she began to recount the tale of that terrible night in the most composed tone she could muster.
    “It was five nights ago. I was chasing a lesser dragon that’d slipped onto the farm while we were fixing the electromagnetic barrier and killed one of our cows, and when I finally thought I’d finished it off, it was already pitch-black out. To make matters worse, it was near
his
castle. I was all set to hightail it home when what should happen but the dying beast suddenly spits fire and burns the back half of my horse to a cinder. I’m thirty miles from home, and the only weapons I’ve got to speak of are the spear I use to kill lesser dragons and a dagger. I ran as fast as I could. I must’ve run for a good thirty minutes when I noticed something, like there was someone running along right behind me!”
    Doris suddenly fell silent, not only because the memory of that terror had become fresh again, but also because a fiendish howl had just pierced the darkness from somewhere very close. The breath was knocked out of her as she turned her beautiful face in that direction, but soon enough she realized it was only the sound of some wild animal. Her expression became one of relief. Though rather dated, an electromagnetic barrier that had cost them a pretty penny sealed the perimeter of the farm, and within it they had a variety of missile weapons set up.
    She resumed the account of her horrid experience. “At first I thought it was a werewolf or a poison moth man. But there was no sound of footsteps or wings flapping, and I couldn’t even hear it breathing. Yet I just knew there was someone right behind me, no more than a foot away, and moving at exactly the same speed I was. I finally couldn’t take it any more and I whipped around—and there was nothing there! Well, there was for a fraction of a second, but then it circled around behind me again.”
    Memory was sowing terror across the girl’s face. She gnawed her lip and tried to force her trembling voice out. D said nothing, but remained listening.
    “That’s when I started shouting. I told whoever it was to stop hiding behind me and come out that instant. And when I’d said that, out he came, dressed in a black cape just like I’d always heard. When I saw the pair of fangs poking over his mean, red lips, I knew what he had to be. After that, it’s the same old story. I got my spear ready, but then my eyes met his and all the strength just drained right out of me. Not that it mattered much, because when that pasty face of his got closer and I felt breath as cold as moonlight on the base of my neck, my mind just went blank. The next thing I knew it was daybreak and I was lying out on the prairie with a pair of fang marks on my throat. That’s why I’ve been down at the base of that hill each and every day, morning till night, looking for someone like you.” Her emotional tale over at last, Doris slumped back onto the sofa exhausted.
    “And he hasn’t fed on you again since?”
    “That’s right. Though I do wait up for him every night with a spear ready.”
    D’s eyes narrowed at her attempt at levity. “If we were merely dealing with a