Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four (13 page)

Matthew gazed at Sue’s face. She didn’t know that the Sue he saw gradually became someone else.

“That’s not right,” Matthew muttered, sounding terribly wounded.

To that, Sue could only reply, “What?”

“That’s not how it was, Sue. I kept
you
safe. From the day you were born right up till now. Yet you’re trying to get away from me.”

Powerful fingers sank into the throat of the Sue -who -was-not-Sue.

“Letting yourself be tempted by that Vampire Hunter from God knows where, of all people! What kind of position does that leave me in? I can’t let you do that, Sue. I absolutely cannot let that happen.”

His voice trembled. Matthew’s shoulders and arms shook, too, and Sue’s body quaked. At the same time Matthew’s trembling ceased, the body fell face up on the highway. It was several seconds before Matthew noticed that it was the same woman who’d saved him.

“Sue?”

After desperately clinging to the person to whom he owed his life, shaking her as if trying to start a fight, then giving up, only to go back to shaking her again, he heard a hoarse voice say to him, “You don’t know when to give up, do you?”

Even in the moonlight, the figure in crimson seemed to burn.

“She’s dead, you know. And only Grand Duke Valcua can bring her back to life.”

Struck by the crack of a gun and a fiery blast, Kima was blown back ten feet. The hem of his long robe spread across the ground like flames, gently enveloping him as he fell backward.

“You didn’t kill some stranger named Sue. Your younger sister’s also called Sue. And it’s
your sister
that you murdered with your own two hands.”

“No, it can’t. . .”

Matthew was going to refute what he said, but he couldn’t open his mouth. Kima’s statement was correct. It was his sister Sue that he’d killed. The girl he’d loved so well since they were children, and stuck up for, and protected.

How could you betray me after all that? It’s all your fault, Sue. I didn’t do anything. All I did was choke you a little, playing around.

The shotgun slid out of Sue’s hands.

“You can’t run from this any longer. What’ll you do, Matthew? Will you go with me to see the grand duke?”

“I didn’t kill her,” Matthew murmured. “I always looked out for Sue, always protected my little sister. I could never kill her.”

“No, you weren’t able to protect her at all. Did Sue ever thank you?” Matthew pondered the answer. It came to him quickly. And that was why he was silent.

“As far as your sister was concerned, having an older brother like you around kept the gates to the whole wide world shut. You were a nuisance who kept her locked away in a stuffy little room. Everything you did repulsed your sister, and the praise you gave her sounded like curses spewed by a corpse just back from the graveyard. Face the facts, Matthew. Surely you must’ve noticed. That’s why you stuck up for Sue more than you had to, kept her safe, concealed the truth. And then, when a man a thousand times more handsome than you started to undermine your dominance, you took your own two hands and—”

“Stop it!” Matthew bellowed, charging at the crimson figure. Grabbing the front of the robe, he reached for the hood, but the garment didn’t move at all.

“You bastard!” Matthew exclaimed.

Now the hood was off, and the face that stared back at him was that of the Sue he’d just dispatched. Frozen in place, Matthew felt

an icy white arm wrap around his neck, and breath that smelled like foul grave dirt tickled his nostrils.

“I can’t believe you killed me,” Sue said. “Come with me, Matt.” The instant Matthew realized the face was that of his sister, the girl’s arm came away from him, and she scampered off like a startled rabbit.

At about the same time Matthew was leaving the village with the other Sue, in the forest seven days’ ride from there the following conversation was taking place.

“Why did we stop?”

“The sensors have detected an invisible barrier before us.”

“I don’t care. We have a force-field projector that was installed back at the fortress. Give it full speed and smash right through it.” “The enemy also has a force field. Anything that touches it is broken down to its constituent atoms.”

“And ours does the same thing. It’s our power pitted against theirs, with one being absorbed and the other remaining. Go!”

The engine of Braujou’s car gave a vicious snarl as it began to speed forward.

Up ahead—only about six feet away—the space suddenly warped like a heat shimmer.

The engine stopped without a sound.

“What is it?” Count Braujou shouted.

“This is dangerous,” the female voice said. It sounded like the voice of an incredibly beautiful woman. “The computer has concluded that five seconds after we make contact, space will be distorted, and this vehicle will disintegrate within fifty seconds.”

“I don’t care. Go!”

“Would you stop already?” said the thing that rested on his shoulder. “Sue’s here. Do you intend to have her caught in the middle of this battle between your force fields?”

“Oh, damnation!” the count snarled, shaking the hand off his shoulder.

Falling to the floor, the hand said, “Ouch!”

“There is what appears to be a person currently approaching from the south-southwest. Aura readings indicate that it is not a human being.”

It was Seurat floating in the air. The holograph advanced through the trackless forest without pause, while ahead of it and around it bushes and titanic trees were pushed away or knocked over by an unseen force.

“It doesn’t seem like he has a force field around him. But he’s trailing us sure enough—someone must be helping him. Give me a view of the living room.”

Sue appeared. Thanks to dimension-bending technology, the vehicle’s interior seemed like the vast and luxurious residence of a Noble, and in one of its rooms, the girl was curled up in a chair fast asleep.

“I wonder whom she’s dreaming of,” the Nobleman said, his tone strangely placid. Looking at the door, the count ordered, “Open it.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” the left hand asked from the floor.

“I’ll fight the foe who’s pursuing us-—what else can I do?”

“He’s about your size—so be careful.”

“I wish it were someone other than you wishing me well,” Count Braujou replied before he was swallowed by the darkness.

“That tricky devil—he was all too happy to go. Seems a bit old to be getting so jealous. Ah, the green-eyed monster is a fearsome thing in a man,” the left hand said, grumbling away to its heart’s content on the floor. “Hold on. Tell me I’m wrong. Hey! Open the door to the control room!”

“I cannot respond to any commands but those from my master.”

Extending its forefinger at this reply, the left hand murmured with interest, “Hmm, so that’s where you are?”

Going ten paces from his car, the count switched on the thought-activated force-field device he wore on the right side of his chest. As it was attuned to the barrier around his vehicle, he had no problem slipping through it. The unearthly aura that blazed from every inch of him was undoubtedly the hatred he felt for his approaching foe. However, the count didn’t comprehend the clinging flames of emotion that stoked his hatred the way gasoline fed a fire.

After going another thirty feet, Braujou came to an area that was all shrubs.

“This should do nicely.”

The long spear in his right hand flashed out, knocking all the scrubby growth away, and then the count stood still in the center of the sixty-foot clearing he’d created.

He didn’t have to wait two seconds before a stand of trees in front of him parted down the middle.

“We met during the day, didn’t we?” the count said, shifting his gaze to Seurat’s club. “I’m surprised you made it this far. Whose help did you have?”

There was no change to Seurat’s expression, which could have been described as sluggish.

“Hmm, not talking? In that case, you can keep holding your tongue as I send you to hell!”

Moving with unbelievable speed, the count raced toward the giant. When he was just thirty feet from his opponent, the space between them rippled violently, and the count’s body broke like a wave when it burst through. Perhaps because the characteristics of the two force fields differed, the count seemed to be pushing through an opaque membrane as he tried to pierce Seurat’s shoulder with his spear. The tip of the weapon vanished before it could touch Seurat’s shoulder.

With a low grunt, Seurat swung his club. He brought it down on top of the count’s head, but the count was distorted like a staticky TV picture while the weapon passed through him.

“The only thing that can slay me is this spear,” the count said, and his weapon flashed out once more.

A line ran through Seurat from his forehead to his jaw, and when it stretched all the way to the hem of his shirt, the front of his gigantic form was laid bare in the moonlight.

The count’s eyes were focused on the massive red maze that had been drawn on the front of his opponent’s body.

“Hmm. Why didn’t you paint one on your face?”

Braujou’s spear went through Seurat’s face with a thrust that had all his might behind it. Not thinking about pulling it out, the count drove it in as far as it would go. A few seconds later, a complete lack of resistance made his eyes widen. The tip hadn’t come out. Seurat’s hand clutched the shaft of the spear. The count let out a cry of surprise. Seurat gave a great shake of his upper body and the spear— still jammed into the giant’s face—came out of the count’s hands.

The fearful moment had arrived. In the time it took Seurat to level the spear he’d taken, the count didn’t have a chance to flee. He set his force field to maximum strength.

Space was distorted. Jabbing through it, the glowing head of the count’s long spear went for the Nobleman’s heart before he could dodge it—but it stopped just shy of impaling him. A hand had suddenly appeared and gripped the shaft of the weapon. A disembodied left hand.

“Carelessness is our greatest enemy.”

The twenty-foot-long spear began to fall, but then suddenly flew back up, spun around, and was hurled with the strength of the left hand alone.

Just before the spear could penetrate Seurat’s face he dodged it, losing just some flesh off his cheek-—no, actually it was
all
the skin on his face that he lost. The other face that appeared from beneath it had a vibrant red maze drawn on it. The mask he’d worn over it had most likely been intended to keep anything from touching it.