Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Encore ❯ Haunted ( Chapter 12 )

Dark Encore

Epilogue: Haunted

Author's Note: Yup, yup. This would be the final chapter in this whole mess…EXCEPT! I am considering doing a prequel centering on Mnemosyne and/or Rose, so as to explain either/both of them and their motives in more detail (since I pretty much didn't do THAT here, heh.) It will also explain in more detail what happened to either/both of them during and after the events of Dark Encore. If anyone would like me to do this, not to do this, walk the plank for suggesting it, or get it started ASAP for fear of some wrath, please tell me so in a review or other form of contact. Okay? Okay.

Oh yeah! Anything written thusly: ~blah~ is a song lyric. The song is "Haunted" by Poe, and I seriously consider it this story's 'theme song.' Forgive me if I get some lyrics wrong, but I'm only hearing it through a (very cool) AMV. Now let's get going!

~*~

As the faint violet hints of sunrise arrived on the horizon, a dark castle shook on its foundations as a glowing starship emerged from its depths and rose towards the sky. Faintly visible in the slowly eroding dark of night were the only three witnesses to the flight - a dhampire, reviled on both sides because he was of both and of neither; a human girl whose convictions had been shaken, much like her grandmother's so many years ago; and a vampire whose moves were as unknowable as his own distant past as a human.

Dark brown hair swirled and danced on the currents of the wind; the dhampire said nothing, although Left Hand would certainly have wanted to speak up. But then again, Left Hand had been stuffed into a pocket and clenched so tightly that the parasite within would probably complain of suffocation once the other two people were gone.

~Come here, pretty please

Can you tell me where I am?

You…won't you say something?

I need to get my bearings…~

Neither of the other witnesses said anything as they, too, watched the ship depart. After Erika's desperate cry of encouragement, Rose had smiled back at her friend one last time, before closing her eyes and seemingly dozing off. Unconsciousness, after all, is no good substitute for rest, and Rose had obviously not been able to truly rest for a long time with all her nightmares. Meier had smiled, kindness in his eyes as they flew towards the sky, and all too willingly provided a support for the exhausted human.

She would wake up this time; everyone was certain of that, and Erika was the most certain of all. It would take a few hours, but Rose would wake up again. She wouldn't be asleep forever like she was the last time she flew into the sky. She would wake up again. When she did, she would either be en route to the City of the Night, or she would already be there, willing to shed the seeming restrictions of past lives and present lives and stay with the person she had been meant to be with since time began.

~I'm lost, and these shadows

Keep on changing~

As the ship faded into the distance, becoming one of the stars it would pass in its journey and then disappearing altogether, Erika chuckled slightly. "Well…I guess I'll be using my horse to get home, if it didn't run off after that thing launched. I don't think I'll be staying in the business anymore - I don't think I was ever meant for the business. Mnemosyne, D, what about you two? What're you going to do from here on in?"

The question was irrelevant for D; it was already understood that he would be going on hunting vampires until he disappeared from this earth as well. Mnemosyne, on the other hand, was a total enigma and really needed to answer the question - which is exactly what he did. "Me? Ah think Ah'll keep on wanderin' fer now. Don' have much to do other than that. Maybe Ah'll continue helpin' people, but ya know, Ah am getting a little old. Maybe Ah'll look into seeing the sun rise soon, or gettin' a bounty on my head so some vampire hunter can come along and exterminate me. Ain't no other ways to die that Ah can think of that sound interestin', an' stayin' round ain't fun anymore, ya know?"

~And I'm haunted

By the lives that I have loved

And actions I have hated

I'm haunted

By the lives that wove a web

Inside my haunted head~

Erika nodded and half-smiled. "Think I know how you feel…or maybe I don't. I probably don't." The red and yellow started to slip into the sunrise, effectively taking away the dark mystique of the scene that had just occurred. Accordingly, Erika and D headed towards their respective horses and Mnemosyne walked into the dark and ruined castle so he could muse over things. Perhaps he would come out again and become a fire; perhaps not.

The sunrise of that day witnessed only two people leaving the castle on horses - a dhampire and a mortal woman. They rode in separate directions, each heading on alone.

~Don't cry, there's always a way

Here in November in this house of leaves

We'll pray

Please, I know it's hard to believe

To see a perfect forest

Through so many splintered trees~

Thirty years later, in a small town far to the west, surrounded by verdant pastures…

A pale man, wearing a dark outfit that really wasn't suited to a warm climate, rode into the town on a mechanical horse. Nobody greeted him at the gates, but then again nobody threw stones at him either. Those who met him just waved to him or nodded - apparently, this place was dhampire-tolerant, or they had learned about his good deeds from someone…

~You and me, and these shadows

Keep on changing~

"D…is that you?" said a voice that was just beginning to tremble with age, but still sounded very much like the proud and tough woman he had parted ways with some time ago. D looked to his left, only to hear a chuckle from his right side. "Gettin' a little slow there, D. Maybe you should do like I did and start thinkin' bout retiring." D then looked to his right side. There stood a lady evidently in that state of life that D recognized as 'middle age just starting to get old.' She had light blonde hair that had evidently lightened and grayed at the temples as the years passed by and aqua eyes that had not lost their vivacity, despite the fine wrinkles that curled their ways over the skin surrounding them. She was slightly stooped now, and wore a light gray floor-length dress rather than her old hunter gear.

~And I'm haunted

By the lives that I have loved

And actions I have hated

I'm haunted

By the promises I made

And others I have broken

I'm haunted

By the lives that wove a web

Inside my haunted head~

"Erika," he said tonelessly, recognizing the woman at once. Erika smiled and walked (was it just his imagination, or was she a little slower now?) over to D, a smile on her aged face. Out of politeness, he asked, "How have you been?"

"Oh, I can't complain, D. Can't complain. Have a nice family, the runts are all teens now and ran out of the house the moment they realized they could. Probably all drains on society, I imagine. Haven't bothered to visit their own mother - but I can't complain about that either. I'd ask you how you were doing too, if I didn't know that you probably won't answer." Her voice seemed to tremble with sadness at the end of that sentence, and she diverted her attention to petting the horse's mane.

D recognized exactly what was going on. "You still can't forget any of it…"

~Always…always

I'll always want you

I'll always need you

I'll always love you

And I will always miss you~

Erika looked up at him - and for a moment, she was once again the child that D had met at Leila's funeral, confused and lonely. Then she chuckled and shook her head before meeting his eyes again. "You got it. Even after all these years, ah, I can still remember what Rose's voice sounded like, what Mnemosyne looked like…the castle, and everything that happened there." A pause. "And I'm getting old, that too. I might die before ever finding out if Rose - sorry, Charlotte got to the stars safely with Meier. Though I'll still be calling her Rose, because that's all I ever knew her as…from the day I first met her, years ago."

~Come here

No I won't say please

One more look at the ghost

Before I'm gonna make it leave~

D nodded silently, as if weighing his next words. Then Erika spoke again, her voice a little stronger and clearer. "You know, D…one of these days the vampires will be all gone. You'll be out of a job, and totally alone. What will you do then, D? Where will you go?"

The dhampire looked silently down at her for a moment before speaking. "If the vampires disappear, then there is a good chance I will become the hunted, as will any other dhampires that survive until that time. I do not think of it often."

~Come here

I got the pieces here

Time to gather up the splinters

And build a casket for my tears~

Erika looked up at him and smiled an innocent smile, one hinted of a childhood far happier than her grandmother's. "Oh, D. You really don't try to think beyond the hunting, do you? Leila told me that, once…she heard from a girl called Doris on the topic." She yawned softly, covering her mouth with one slender hand. It fell back to her side as she looked at D again, her smile tinged with sadness. "Mmm…I daresay that if I say outside much longer I'll catch my death of cold. I don't want you blamed for it."

Almost regal in her gait, Erika walked back to a house D presumed was hers, her back straight for once in (most likely) a few years. Then she stopped, hesitating. She looked back at D over her shoulder and turned to face him again. Her eyes were full of sadness.

~I'm haunted

By the lives that I have loved…oh

I'm haunted

By the hallways in this tiny room

The echo there

Of me and you

The voices that are carrying this tune…~

"D…Grandma Leila was in love with you, all these years, until the day she died. And for my part, I wouldn't have minded growing up with pointed ears and fangs, you know?" The childish smile was back on Erika's face as she spoke again. "But that's the way things turned out. Better watch it, D - you might find yourself falling for someone someday. At least, I hope you do, even if you don't hope so…I'd better head inside; the sun's starting to set and I'm getting sentimental. Maybe we'll meet again; maybe I'll shake myself out of retirement. Who knows?"

With that, Erika smiled one last time and waved at D. "Goodbye now, mister. And good luck." With a swish of the gray skirt and a straight back, Erika walked into her house, proud and dignified even after all that had happened.

And D rode off as the sun set, off to find another quarry of the dwindling vampire race…