The Legend I

Once Bitten

Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction

# I keep giving late releases. I'm so sorry. I've been out of the house a lot this week, so I haven't had much time to write. Anyway, here's the last chapter of Once Bitten, also the shortest chapter in the entire story, for some unfathomable reason. It just turned out really ... succinct. Please forgive me if it's god-awful in addition to being horrendously late! I'll make up for it with the sequel, I promise! The name of the sequel is Tainted Angel, and if all goes well I'll have the first chapter up within the next two weeks or so.

Chapter 11: Burial

Passing through the second-floor hallway, D arrived in the castle's dining room. It was another huge room, with a long table of sold varnished wood that could seat fifty. Each place at the table was set with gold cutlery and fine porcelain crockery.

At the head of the table, across the huge room from D, was a throne-like seat, carved from gold, padded with velvet and encrusted with jewels. It was empty, but the two chairs on the immediate right and left of it were occupied by a pair of young women in simple white dresses. Both had sunken, listless eyes bordered with dark circles, lank, lifeless hair and gaunt, pale faces. Their throats were marked with a pair of puncture marks each.

They were the vampire's latest victims from the village. They had been bitten, and had passed into the stage where life had all but drained from their bodies. The only thing ahead of them now was the full change that had yet to overcome them. A couple more bites, and they would become like the five that D had killed back on the landing. Even if the vampire responsible were killed now, they would never be normal again; they had already become doxies.

Neither of the women seemed to notice D's presence. Both of them simply sat stiffly in their chairs, swaying from side to side ever so slightly. They were a pitiful sight.

D was a vampire hunter, and he knew what he had to do. He stepped forward and began to walk across the room.

A minute or so later, he passed through the door on the other side of the room. Back in the dining room, the two women were slumped over the table as if asleep. Each bore a neat stab wound on the left side of her chest.

The room behind the dining room was a large, square ballroom. A thick layer of dust coated the high-quality marble dance floor. Heavy velvet drapes blocked out the light coming in from the large windows. As the door swung shut behind D, everything became pitch-dark.

Without warning, the huge chandelier set in the high, dome-like ceiling of the ballroom flared to life, filling the room with yellow light. Standing in the centre of the dance floor was the vampire Ferrucio. There was recognition on his face as he gazed upon D.

"So we meet again, dhampir," he said in a voice that reverberated around the entire ballroom. "And now I know who you are. You are the vampire hunter D. Where's the girl? She's not … ill, is she?"

D knew perfectly well what the smooth-talking vampire meant by 'ill'. But he refused to take the bait. He did not even respond to the jibe. He simply drew his sword.

"It seems that we were never meant to get along, dhampir," Ferrucio said resignedly. "First my finest catch turns out to belong to you. Then you kill my wives and my new brides-to-be. Now you're here to kill me."

"You've bitten too many humans in one sitting," D said in his usual quiet, emotionless voice. "You won't get away with it."

D vanished from his position in front of the door. Almost simultaneously, the sharp crash of steel against steel sounded as Ferrucio effortlessly parried D's downwards slash with the black stick he held in his right hand. D's blade and the jewel on the butt end of the walking stick glittered in unison, reflecting the light from the chandelier.

"They are my brides, dhampir," Ferrucio hissed as he blocked another slash and jabbed at D skilfully with the narrow tip of his stick. "My eternal companions."

The two weapons clashed twice more before Ferrucio made a great backwards leap away from D. The transparent jewel on his rod began to glow as he aimed it at D. Suddenly, the white flame within the jewel, as if snuffed out by a splash of water.

Ferrucio landed on the opposite side of the ballroom, staring disappointedly at his weapon. Then he looked up at D and noticed that the blue jewel hanging from the hunter's neck was glowing slightly. His eyes narrowed.

"So I can't use vampire technology against you, eh?" he said. "Well, then."

The white light reappeared in the core of the jewel as Ferrucio raised the stick to point at the chandelier right above D. A bar of white light shot from the jewel and struck the heavy chandelier. There was a small explosion at the point of impact. Then the light fixture began to fall.

With a resounding crash, the chandelier hit the floor. The room shook with the impact, and cracks appeared on the floor. D appeared right in front of Ferrucio, slashing straight down with his sword. Before the blade made contact, Ferrucio leapt back, moving so fast that he too seemed to be disappearing and reappearing at another spot.

Keeping his distance, Ferrucio blasted the ceiling above D, causing large chunks of stone to rain down on the dhampir. D dodged the falling rubble and closed the distance again, slashing this time from earth to sky. Ferrucio avoided his blade easily and moved away once again to continue making bits of the ceiling fall down on D.

The fight continued like this for several minutes. Neither D nor Ferrucio bore any significant wounds. It was a stalemate; the only loser was the ceiling, which was close to crumbling to pieces.

Then D leapt by one of the windows and made a horizontal cut as he passed. The curtain fell away with the sound of ripping fabric, and the last rays of the evening sun streamed in through the dusty glass. Ferrucio reeled back, momentarily blinded. Flames crackled to life on his clothes – he was beginning to burn.

With a roar of rage and pain, the blinded Ferrucio blasted blindly with the jewel on his walking stick in all directions. Explosions rocked the room, and craters dotted the walls and floor. The floor, already weakened from the impact of the falling chandelier, gave way with a deafening series of cracks. Both D and Ferrucio fell through the crumbling floor.

As he fell, D kicked off the falling bit of floor he had been standing on. The force of his jump brought him to Ferrucio. Before the disoriented vampire could react, D ran him through the heart.

Ferrucio's eyes shot wide open in shock. Then he mumbled, "So this is the end of it, the end of the lonely eternity. I only wished for companions to pass it with. Have you ever thought about what eternal life means, hunter? It means that you live on and on … and eventually you run out of things to see and do. Without company, you just get tired of it …"

Joined by the sword in D's hand, which impaled Ferrucio through the chest, the vampire and the hunter fell into the hall below the ballroom. At the last moment, D pulled out his sword and jumped back, landing on his feet. Ferrucio crashed to the floor on his back.

Huge chunks of rubble rained down from above. One fell on Ferrucio, but his body had already begun to turn to dust. The entire room shook. Cracks were spreading along the floor and up the walls. D started to run across the large square hall towards the double doors on the other side as the walls caved in around him.

Vianne woke up in a shabby, not-too-comfortable bed with a thin mattress and threadbare sheets. A damp cloth had been laid across her forehead. Pulling it off, she sat up. Her entire body felt weak and lethargic, but at least she no longer felt like she was burning up inside. She looked down at herself. There were no longer any wounds on her body – the skin showing through the rips and tears in her clothes were completely smooth and unmarred.

She looked around. She was in a tiny room with a low ceiling. Besides the narrow bed, a small wooden wardrobe was the only piece of furniture in the room. The rest of the space could be covered in two or three steps.

There was a click, and the door opened with a loud creak. An aged priest stood in the doorway, wearing a faint benevolent smile on his wrinkled face.

"You're awake, I see," he said in a gentle voice. "I do hope you're feeling better. I took the liberty of having the village doctor give you a shot for your fever."

Vianne said nothing, perhaps because she was unable to. Her mind was horribly, cruelly clear. She could remember everything; the sight of Marcus being shot down by his own neighbours replayed itself in crystalline detail over and over in her head. And where was D?

It seemed that the priest could see the unspoken question in her eyes, for he said, "Your companion is on a mission at the vampire castle across the valley from here. He's entrusted you into my care while he does his job. You can go outside and have a look at the castle if you like, but perhaps you would like to change into some clean clothes first?"

He paused and gestured at the wardrobe. A mournful note entered his voice as he said, "There used to be a novice here, some years ago. She was a delightful child, but a terrible sickness took her to meet the Lord early in her life. This was her room, and her clothes are still in that wardrobe. Everything here is free for you to use until the hunter returns for you. Rest well, child."

With that, the priest backed out of the tiny room and shut the door. Quietly, Vianne got out of bed and opened the wardrobe. The doors creaked, like the floorboards beneath her feet. Within the wardrobe hung the habit of a novice. A few sets, actually. Carefully avoiding the simple crucifix pendant – it made her uncomfortable – hanging from a hook by its chain, Vianne slipped out of her own tattered clothes and changed into the garments of an initiate of the house of God.

When she was done, Vianne went to the door and opened it, stepping outside. She was standing beside a confession booth in a corner of a cathedral. The simple altar was to her left, and the empty pews were arranged in neat rows ahead.

Cautiously, she walked past the pews and slipped out into the churchyard. A few passers-by on the street outside the fence gave her suspicious glances, but she ignored them and looked around. There was a small outbuilding to one side of the main chapel building; no doubt that was where the old priest slept.

A low rumbling, like that of distant thunder, caused Vianne and all the villagers to look up, over the roofs of all the houses, at the imposing silhouette of the castle on the hill in the distance. Large clouds of smoke seemed to be rising up around the castle, and it seemed to be sinking lower. Vianne's eyes widened as she realised what was happening. The castle was collapsing, and the smoke was actually clouds of dust stirred up by falling debris.

The priest had said that D was at that castle! Lifting her skirts off the ground, Vianne ran down the street past the open-mouthed villagers. Without stopping for breath, she charged right out of the village gates and into the open field beyond. There, she stopped and watched, trembling with a sense of foreboding, as the castle fell apart.

D reached the doors and flung them wide open with a single push without slowing down. Abruptly, he jerked to a halt and jumped back as the corridor ahead collapsed, sending debris tumbling into the hall.

When he landed, he was forced to perform a lightning-quick roll to avoid the pillar that was falling upon him. The rubble was forming an impenetrable barricade around him, and more still was falling from above. He was trapped.

Then an unusually large piece of stone fell across the open gap above D, sealing off all the light. Nothing more could be seen in the blackness as the rest of the castle fell to pieces and crashed to earth.

The people of the small hamlet in the valley stopped in their daily chores and exchanged uneasy glances with their neighbours as the girl who lived under the care of the old priest in the small local church walked past them. The girl who had been brought here ill and unconscious, and entrusted to the priest by the dhampir hunter they had hired. The girl who had never spoken a word since regaining consciousness, who wore the habit of a novice but uttered no prayer and wore no cross. The girl who always wore a black cloth band on her left wrist.

They all knew where she was going. She was headed for the open large open field just outside the hamlet, the field that lay between the hamlet and the collapsed ruins of the old vampire castle on the top of the highest hill. She went there every day.

When the castle had collapsed, nearly six months ago, the girl had begged the priest, in writing, to help her erect an empty grave out in that field. He had acquiesced. From that time onwards, she visited the grave every evening at dusk.

Every evening, she would stand in front of the plain grey headstone with no cross, sometimes glancing up at the vanquished castle. The words engraved on the stone were simple:

Vampire Hunter D
May he never be forgotten.

The nameless girl would stand there until the stars came out. She was not afraid of the dark. Even with the recent rumours about the shadowy figure spotted near the grave late at night, she still visited and stayed until after dark.

Today, the sun was still in the sky when she arrived at the grave. Her cold, listless eyes sparked to life when she spotted something white fluttering in the chilly wind that swept past. It was a piece of cloth, trapped under a small pebble at the foot of the tombstone. She bent and picked it up.

There were three words written on the small scrap of fabric. Wait for me.

The priest looked up in surprise when the door opened and the girl he had promised the hunter he would take care of walked into the chapel. The sky outside was still tinged with the last rays of the setting sun. She had never returned so early before.

His surprise did not end there. When he looked at her face, he saw that she was smiling. It was not a joyous smile. It was a slight, close-lipped smile of serene acceptance. Yet it lent her usually expressionless face a radiance that finally made the priest realise what a pretty child she was.

"Have you found peace now, my child?" he asked gently.

"Vianne," she said instead of answering his question. It was the first time he had heard her voice. "My name is Vianne, Father."

- END -