Before Daigo could reach her, Gen was already at Akane’s side.
Her body twitched. Her white fingers were wrapped around his tanned wrist.
Akane’s hand reached out toward them, though she still leaned against the coffin.
“Ohhh!” Gen threw back his head in pain, unable to remove the slender hand that gripped him. She had a brute strength that could crush bone.
“Gen!” Tatsu ran and grabbed Akane’s hand.
“Whoa!?” Tatsu cried out and quickly let go. “Her hand—it’s like a python!”
That’s how strong her grip was.
Akane turned toward them.
Against her face, which was sapped of all color, her lips looked unnaturally red. And her wide-open eyes also burned red.
Tatsu instinctively turned away.
Daigo also moved sideways to avoid her gaze.
Daigo’s arm came out of his jacket and swung downward at Akane’s head.
“Gyyaaaah!”
Had there ever been a scream so terrible? Letting go of Gen’s hand, Akane grabbed the small chain that had been put around her neck.
Another horrible scream.
White smoke plumed out of her clenched fist. Even as she turned up the whites of her eyes, she tried desperately to take off the thing grasped in her hand…
A gold crucifix.
Daigo stooped to lift her unconscious body in his arms and stared at the stone coffin.
So this was where the root of the evil rested. As long as this remained here, Dracula could continue to satisfy his thirst for blood, using this coffin as his resting place.
“I’m sorry,” Daigo said to Akane, then put his hands on the lid of the coffin. “Help me, please.”
Tatsu came to his aid, and the two pushed with all their might.
The lid made a grinding noise as it slid slowly toward the foot of the coffin.
“It’s moving! Push!”
“Right.”
The sound of grinding stone echoed until the coffin had opened halfway.
Daigo peered in and saw that the bottom of the coffin was covered with ocher-colored soil.
It was the soil of Transylvania. Vampires had to rest every day in their own graves, but could travel far from them by lining a coffin with their native soil; this stratagem permitted them to spread their disease all over the world. They had to send Dracula back to his grave—for eternity, this time. But with what weapon?
Daigo’s hand reached inside his jacket.
“A crucifix?”
“No, I have no more.”
“That is good,” said a voice from above.
There was a crushing sound of wood and boards being broken apart, as a black figure descended and landed before the two men.
He was wearing an Inverness cape and a driver’s cap. He was still young. Heavy books, glass bottles, and test tubes came crashing down around his feet.
“My name is Renta, and I am the count’s servant!” The son of the broker roared like an animal.
Had he never known Dracula, he would have continued to waste away his days as nothing more than an eccentric with some peculiar hobbies. But his infatuation with evil had gone too far.
Red rays seemed to shoot out of his eyes, and his white canine teeth, which stuck out of his crimson lips, made him the very image of a vampire.
“So that the count could live down here, I’ve made the attic my home. You have interrupted my experiments in an exceedingly rude fashion. Don’t think you’ll get out alive.”
“Come and get me, you monster. Sacrificing your family to a beast… Have you no shame?” cried Tatsu.
Renta furrowed his brows and quickly smiled.
“You think the count drank my family’s blood? You idiot. The esteemed count would never drink from such lowly people as my mother and father and the clerk. They were my own prey.”
Tatsu rolled his eyes. The yakuza and former samurai could not believe his ears. “You… drank your family’s blood? You really are the devil!”
Renta laughed, the fangs sticking out of the sides of his mouth.
“By the looks of you, you must be a yakuza. A lowlife like you is simply not capable of understanding how honorable it is to serve the count. My stupid parents, who were once no better than insects, have now become noble beings, blessed with eternal life.”
“Shut up!” Tatsu ran toward him, raising a knife over his head.
The blade came at Renta at great speed and with violent power behind it, but he evaded it easily. A vampire’s reflexes are far superior to those of ordinary humans.
“You bastard!” Tatsu swung the knife sideways this time, but Renta crouched forward and eluded the attack, sending Tatsu spinning around helplessly.
Renta attacked him from behind.
“No!” Daigo moved. Tatsu’s body dropped.
“Gyyaah!”
It was Renta who had screamed. Tatsu had escaped his clutches, and blood spurted out of Renta’s side.
After missing the first time, Tatsu had stooped and continued to spin around, slashing Renta in the side with his knife. Perhaps the former samurai had not forgotten all his fighting techniques.
“Oh, so you do feel pain. Don’t worry. I’ll put you out of your misery.”
Glaring at the bloody knife, Tatsu approached Renta, giving every appearance of being confident of victory.
Then Renta stood up straight. He was holding something in his right hand, which was pressed closely against his side. It let out a roar and a lightning flash.
Tatsu hunched forward and then was sent hurtling backward. He fell over on his back about ten feet away. A pool of blood spread from beneath him.
“Tatsu!”
Another shot.
Gen fell over, grabbing his chest. Daigo quickly hid behind the coffin.
The weapon in Renta’s hand was a foreign-made revolver.
Renta twirled it around. He parted his red lips and smiled.