Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Part Three Read Online Free Page A

from another world and three relatively average faces alternately spoke in hushed seriousness or collided in heated debate, finally coming to a consensus when the light outside was fading in hue.
    â€”
    â€œI wonder if he’s coming?”
    â€œNo, he won’t come.”
    â€œOh, yes, he will.”
    These three opinions mixed in the air, melting together as two travelers and an old woman stared intently at each other’s faces.
    Although they were disguised as middle-aged travelers, there could be no containing the intensity of their eyes or the inhuman stateliness that spilled from every inch of them. It was Grand Duke Mehmet and Roland, the Duke of Xenon. An hour earlier they’d left the village, which was in chaos following the incident with the space eater, and climbed to the top of a hill to the north. The silhouettes of birds skimmed across a sky deep blue with the approaching dusk. Their conversation focused on the fate of D and the transporters, and now the trio was of differing opinions.
    â€œWhy would they come back to the village where they nearly lost their lives just for their wagon and its cargo?” Grand Duke Mehmet said. Not only his lips but his whole face as well twisted from time to time due to the pain that shot through his arms and back—apparently the pain of the gigantic marionette losing its limbs had been transmitted to his own body.
    â€œHe’ll come,” the Duke of Xenon asserted. “I hear that for those who live on the Frontier, death is preferable to the shame of not fulfilling your professional obligations. The way I see it, they’ll definitely return to get their wagon and their goods.”
    â€œYou seem well informed as to the human way of life,” said the old woman—Mayor Camus, who was in fact Dr. Gretchen—as she glanced briefly at the Duke of Xenon’s face. It was a sarcastic look, and an equally sarcastic tone. “But this time it serves you well. I also believe the humans will come back. I have no idea why D is traveling with them, and he may be another matter entirely, but the three men will return.”
    â€œIf they do, then good,” Grand Duke Mehmet said, looking up. “The Duke of Xenon and I waited outside the village since early this morning. And we swore to ourselves that if D or anyone working on his behalf were to come, this time we would deliver him unto death. But who would’ve thought—I mean, who could’ve imagined he’d do it in such a manner?”
    The grand duke removed the patch from his right eye.
    In the direction of his gaze a number of birds circled and soared. Suddenly, one of them stopped beating its wings and went into a steep dive, as if enamored of the ground. Less than a second later it was joined by a second—and a third. Once the poor birds had disappeared somewhere in the distant woods, Grand Duke Mehmet finally let out a breath and put the eye patch back on.
    The power of a look alone—the murderous intent that radiated from his eyes—knocked birds in flight from the sky. This was a perfectly natural occurrence for a member of the Nobility, as was evinced by the fact that the expressions of his two fellow Nobles didn’t change in the slightest.
    But the ferocity of the grand duke’s rage and the reason for his mood were painfully clear. They’d been bested using space eaters only the grand duke could control. Moreover, he could only imagine that the bugs in question were the same ones D had cut in two. If so, the responsibility for this tremendous setback all lay with him—Grand Duke Mehmet. That was the source of the rage that caused him to knock birds dead from the sky.
    â€œThough I understand your anger, there is no need for the two of you to engage him once again,” Mayor Camus/Dr. Gretchen said, gazing at the two men.
    The indignant looks she drew from them were a response to the undercurrent of derision in her