Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi Page A

recklessness was born of her ignorance. Greco—or rather, his combat suit—didn’t budge an inch. He pulled the end of the whip with his right hand, and with one little tug, the whip flew into his hands.
    “How many times did you think I was gonna fall for that, bitch?”
    Shocked though she was, Doris was indeed the daughter of a Hunter, and she leapt back almost six feet. As she jumped, eyes that sparkled vulgarly with the light of hatred, lust, and superiority followed her.
    “Don’t forget it’s my daddy that runs the show in town. There’s nothing to keep us from seeing to it you and your stupid little brother starve to death.”
    Doris was a bit shaken, and it showed on her face—she knew the truth of what he’d just said.
    A committee generally governed village operations, but the ultimate authority in town was the mayor. Under the harsh conditions of the Frontier lands, time-consuming and half-hearted operating procedures like parliaments and majority rule would bring death down on the villagers in no time. Monsters, mutants, bandits—the hungry eyes of outside forces were focused relentlessly on Ransylva. And naturally, village operations included the buying and selling of goods. It would be a piece of cake to come up with some reason to suspend a shop from doing business. When it came to the life or death of his business, Old Man Whatley had no choice but bow under duress. For Doris, a hard two-day ride to go shopping in Pedros, the nearest neighboring village, was out of the question under the present conditions. Anyway, it was clear Greco and his cronies would try to stop her.
    “You have a lot of nerve, saying a despicable thing like that. I don’t care if you are the mayor’s son …” Doris’ voice trembled with rage.
    Ignoring that, Greco said, “But if you’d be my wife, all that’d be different. We’ve got it all set up so when my daddy retires, the folks with pull in this town will see to it I’m the next mayor. So, what do you say? Won’t you reconsider? Instead of busting your ass on that rundown farm, you could have all the fancy duds you could ever wear and all you could eat of the classiest fixin’s. Dan would love it, too. And we could run off that creepy punk because I’d protect you from the vampire. If we put the money out there, you’d be surprised how many Hunters’ll show up. What do you say?”
    In lieu of an answer, Doris drew closer.
Well, look at that—no matter how tough she tries to act, she’s still a woman after all
, Greco thought for a split second before a mass of liquid spattered against the helmet’s smoked visor. Doris had spat on him.
    “You—you crazy bitch! I try and treat you nice, and you pull this shit!” Greco wasn’t accustomed to using the suit, and his right hand clanked roughly as it mopped his faceplate clean. But then he grabbed at Doris with incredible speed. He had hold of her torso before she had a chance to leap away. He pulled her into him. Purchased mere hours earlier from a wandering merchant, the combat suit was second-hand and of the lowest grade, but the construction—an ultra-tensile, steel armor built on a base of reinforced, organic, pseudo-skin over an electronic nervous system—increased the wearer’s speed three-fold and gave him ten times his normal strength. Now that Greco had Doris, there was no way she could get away.
    “What are you doing? Let go of me,” she screamed, but she only succeeded in hurting her own hand when she slapped him.
    Greco had no trouble whatsoever restraining both of Doris’ hands with one of his own, and he hoisted her a foot off the ground. The helmet split down the middle with a metallic rasp. The face peering out at her was that of bald-faced, fiendish lust. A thread of drool stretched from the corner of his lips, which held a little smirk. Doris glared at him indignantly, but he said, “You’re always putting on the airs. Well right here, right now, I’m gonna make you mine. Hey,