Disclaimer: Neither Vampire Hunter D nor The Little Vampire belong to me. I am making no money from this fanfiction, and all recognizable characters, events, and locations belong to their respective copyright holders. All original characters, etc. belong to ISJ, and are not to be used without my permission.

Thanks, again, to everyone who's reviewed so far! And thanks, also, for your patience as I slowly release these chapters to you. If it weren't for this pesky little thing called "real life," I would have a new chapter out every day. Oh, well.

Happy reading!

Slainte!

ISJ

Chapter 4

Moonlight bathed the harsh, windy desert in ethereal shades of white as D walked alongside Lissandra. Some distance away, the rest of the newcomers milled about, setting up camp under the overpass. D watched their unhurried movements a moment as his keen ears picked up the tinny echo of their voices bouncing against the concrete walls of the overpass.

"How many of you are there?" D asked without preamble, his eyes focused straight ahead and not on his conversational companion.

Lissandra gave him a sideways glance, then returned her gaze to the ground passing beneath her feet. "A better way to phrase that question would be to ask how few of us there are. This company number eleven, including me. But there are other groups of dhampires, more than you would expect there to be. I know of a band of dhampires devoted solely to your profession who make their home in Northern Italy, and another group, a family clan, living in the Old Black Forest, besides many others. You are not nearly so alone as you believed."

D digested this information quickly, saving his shock for another time. "You mentioned it was fortunate you found me "first". I assume you mean before I was found by another of these groups."

"One group in particular, actually. While I and my friends are as far from consorting with true vampires as it is possible to be, there are others who do not look upon their vampire kin with the same revulsion that we feel. In this part of the world, the most famous--pardon, infamous--of these is a bunch of mercenaries led by a creature known only as Dread. They are dhampires only by definition; they slake the bloodlust more fiercely than many vampires do. They would have considered you, D, to be a great prize. Your sleeping head would have become a most valuable trophy had it been they, instead of we, who, how did you put it, 'sneaked up' on you."

"Why did you?"

The woman eyed him, amusement tugging at her lip. "Not much for chitchat, are you? I suppose you wouldn't be. You are your father's son."

D snapped his head toward her. "What?"

Lissandra turned to him, wearing a smirk that failed to melt her frosty countenance. "You know that your father considered a conversation garrulous if it involved an exchange of more than ten words. I was the daughter of one of his nobles, and while I often endured the presence of Lord Dracula, you and I never met." Her eyes narrowed fractionally as they darted appraisingly over the planes of his face, and the smirk softened a little. "A pity, that."

D was not even slightly in the mood for games. The mind-games of vampires, and, by extension, of some dhampires, palled extremely quickly. "You have not answered my question."

"Of course, my lord. Dragos, the leader of our group, has spent the last twenty years searching for you. He sort of collected us along the way, banding us together as a rag-tag team of wanderers who have only our curse in common. You are not an easy man to locate, I'll have you know. Going on rumors and gossip, we followed the ghosts of your path through most of Belgium and Czecho-Germany."

"But why?" D's patience was wearing thin. "I may not be superfluous in my speech, but your hedging more than makes up for my deficiency."

D was satisfied to see fire flash in her eyes and blossom on her cheeks. She looked away for a moment, suppressing her ire and biting back a hasty reply. Her response was more short than before, and had acquired a thick layer of ice.

"If I said that we only sought you out in order to help you..." She let the sentence dangle expectantly.

"I would have you pinned on my sword for continuing to waste my time."

"Ah. Thought so. Well, believe it or don't, assisting you really was a factor in our search. We believe we may be able to reward you abundantly for the services we shall ask you to render."

"You believe," D repeated with a small sigh of exasperation. "You weary me, woman. Speak your mind, now."

It was a command that would brook no further nonsense. Lissandra stopped in her tracks, turning to look up (some distance, even for her) at D. "Honestly, we sought you out for your notoriety. Ours is not the most well-known of this area's dhampiric assemblies. We wanted your presence to make our group more prominent."

Mystified, D asked, "To what end?"

Lissandra hesitated for a moment, a moment she spent staring straight into D's eyes as if desperately searching for something. Then she took a steadying breath, her only outward sign of any tension, and said more quietly, "Our group requires the services of the Wraiths. We have, as individuals and as a group, been seeking them for far, far longer than we have been looking for you. We hoped that by attracting the famous vampire hunter D, we might foster rumors that would attract the Keepers of the Way."

D could not believe he was hearing this. He'd wasted an hour of his time for this? Fairy tales, all of it; Keepers of the Way, indeed. The Wraiths were as imaginary as Santa Claus. D was being asked to ally himself with complete strangers for the sole purpose of being bait for mythological entities. He'd have more luck if he camped out next to a fireplace on the night of December four and twenty.

Lissandra must have read these thoughts in his eyes, for her own became stony. "You don't believe they exist. They do. In the space of a week, an acquaintance of mine went from pumping dhampiric blood through her veins to moving into a human village, oddly unable to recall her entire life up to that point."

"No more mad than you and your colleagues. I refuse." D immediately turned away.

Lissandra grabbed his shoulder, rather more tightly than necessary, to arrest him. "My lord hunter, you cannot tell me that in all your extensive travels, throughout your long life, you have never encountered anything that might testify to the existence of the Wraiths. I have lived as long as you have, though I have not seen the half of your experiences, and I myself have come to believe they are real."

"Your beliefs are nothing to me. Show me proof they exist, and I may reconsider your offer."

It was Lissandra's turn to be exasperated. "But that is exactly why we need you, my lord hunter! We have never seen the Wraiths, only heard and witnessed their deeds. We wanted you in this group so that we would become well-known, be whispered about by both human and vampire lips. It is the only way to draw the Wraiths to us."

"You spoke of Dragos' vagueness as if you had no part in it. Quite to the contrary, I see you are just as delusional as he. I will not lash myself to your insanity only to be dragged down by it." D pulled roughly away from her clenching hand. "I told you I wanted no other companions; you'll have to find another celebrity to be your bait."

D had only taken three steps when Lissandra's voice spoke to his retreating back. Her speech had become the coldest he'd yet heard it, and it flowed in the gently cajoling cadence that sprung from her vampire half. D knew that tone well, had used it himself to persuade particularly stubborn bounties to submit to their capture. Meant to be bewitching, though so tempered by humanity that it was only half as effective as a vampire's charm, it served well to stop him in his tracks.

"You have not heard the reward."

"I have no desire to." The bewitchment had no addling effect upon his brain; he was too strong for it.

"Leave then. Take your horse and your talking tick and walk on toward that city, Lord D. Look for that job to bring in your next meal. You won't find it."

Reason, and not vampire-magic, drew D up short. She had a point, unfortunately for him. Sighing imperceptibly, D closed his eyes and waited, his back rigid with expectance.

She continued. "You and I both know the vampires have been far too quiet, lately. Your paychecks are few and far between, and growing smaller by the day. However long you can live on what money you have left, I can guarantee you it won't last as long as it will be called for."

"And accepting your offer will resolve that situation, how?"

"Dragos and the other members of our team, in forethought, have saved some money for this time we all knew was coming. Also, many of our members, the ones that aren't hunters, continue to get work in the cities and villages of this region under the guise of being humans. And, besides all that, Khayle Lee is master of the great fortune of the late Count Magnus Lee, a vampire I'm sure you'll recall. If memory serves, it was you who brought Khayle into his fortune in the first place."

D's spine stiffened further. Was there no end to this madness?

Still, the prospect was tempting. This group was a self-sufficient unit, in, admittedly, a much better financial condition than he could boast. And they needed him. He would lack for nothing in the way of supplies, and would, it seemed, have to do nothing but merely call himself a part of the group in order to partake of the blessings. Quite a catch.

But...it irritated him to have to admit he was not doing well enough on his own. And it really annoyed him to think about wandering around with this bunch of madmen, calling himself one of them. Would he also have to answer to their fearless (not to mention witless) leader, Dragos?

"I have my own money set aside," D told her flatly. "I don't need yours." Strictly speaking, it was not a lie. He did have a little bit of money hidden away in a safe place, far from here. But it was precious little, and not nearly enough to be of any real use. D cursed himself for having procrastinated when it came to setting aside funds for such an occasion as this; he'd always meant to but had constantly had enough work to convince himself to put it off.

"While I have a strong suspicion you're bluffing about that, I'll let you have that point of contention by moving on to the next benefit of our offer."

D made no reply.

Lissandra moved up behind him, very close. D could sense her, near enough to touch him.

In a low voice, she said only, "Mortality."

D drew in a sharp breath. The very thought, the very sound of that word was enough to make him burn all over, burn for sheer desire to attain that very thing all humans wished to escape. But just as soon as the sensation began, D doused it with the cold realization that the woman was speaking of her imaginary Wraiths, again. A promise of mortality was of absolutely no value when it was based on the assumption that a fairy tale was somehow true.

"I don't believe in them, remember?" he asked coldly.

Lissandra made no reply. Suddenly her voice was right in his ear, her breath actually cool against his cheek. "What if you're wrong?"

D whipped around and backed a pace to put space between the woman and himself. "It would be an obscene waste of my time. They do not exist."

Lissandra's eyes bored into his. "A waste of your time? Time is all you have, lord hunter. Your time's never running out. What would you lose by coming with us?"

D had no answer, no good reason not to take the deal. Fairy tales aside, the money was enough of an incentive.

And...there was always that small, unbelievable chance...that "perhaps" lurking on the outskirts of reality. What if the woman was right, and he really was wrong? What if this could be his chance at a real, true life? Would he really turn it down to satisfy his pride?

He knew the Wraiths were imaginary, knew it, and was not willing to accept that they might be otherwise. In that, these people hoped in vain; he refused to hope in the same. But he was not getting anywhere fast by wandering Europe, aimlessly seeking employment and burning through money far faster than he earned it. A promise of money was the most that he could ever hope for, and enough to make him put away that pride.

Besides, he could just remain a part of this group until he got another job offer, then leave, none the worse off. And, worst-case scenario, and another job did not come, these people could only wander around for so long, chasing myths, before they disbanded of their own accord and left him to himself again. Either way, this wasn't a permanent arrangement; he'd be free of this obligation within five years, he felt sure. Not that he was going to mention this to the woman.

D tried to stare her down, but for the first time in his life, he seemed to have met his match. "Nothing," he finally replied. "And so I will accept your offer."

Lissandra's eyes softened for an instant with relief, and in that split second of time D recognized just how lovely she could have been, perhaps could be, were it not for that icy manner she'd perfected. Then the moment had passed and that face was once more impassive and the only thing D could see were the harsh angles of her cheekbones and painfully straight nose, looking for all the world as if they'd been cut from ice.

"Very good. I'm glad you have decided so, lord hunter."

D suddenly frowned. "I'll retract my agreement if you don't stop calling me that. I'm no lord and proud of neither my ancestry nor my profession."

"Proud of them or not, the titles are yours by right."

D gritted his teeth but said nothing. Suddenly another voice, ancient and acerbic, answered for him.

"Oh, just call him D, woman, and come down off your high horse already! D, will you please hurry it up? You two are driving me insane with your aristocratic banter. If we're taking this job, let's get on with it."

D's frown deepened and he clenched his left fist. A gurgled sound emerged from somewhere under his fingers. "I thought I told you to stay out of this," D murmured.

"And I did, admirably, but your deal is made now so you'll not tell me I can't talk."

"You'd better not," Lissandra muttered. "The prohibition would probably kill him."

Left Hand was struck silent for the space of two heartbeats, and then called Lissandra a name so foul that D pulled a little-used black glove from his belt and immediately stifled the parasite with it.

Lissandra, however, seemed not in the least fazed. She only watched placidly as D adjusted the glove, then said simply, "I can see why you didn't want any more companions."

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lucidscreamer: I'm glad you approve of D's characterization, and I'm so happy you're still pleased! Thank you for reading!

Kitala: Thank you so much! I'm working hard on having an actual, solid Plot--holds up shiny Plot--so, I hope the story will meet with your expectations. Happy reading!