Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne

the ground. Once they were five steps down, the chilly air swept over Ry. At the same moment, the lights came up. A lamp in the wall had gone on.
    â€œIt still works. Can you believe this thing?”
    â€œWe’re talking about the Nobility here,” Amne reminded him. “ The Nobility.”
    A short while later they reached the bottom. There was a corridor, and the ceiling was fairly high.
    â€œI wonder which way we should go,” Amne said, looking around in all directions anxiously.
    â€œThis way,” Ry told her, pointing one way as he began walking. Even he wasn’t sure why he’d chosen this particular route. Proceeding straight down the corridor, they came to a black steel door. As they stood before it, it split open right down the middle. The darkness beyond it was dispelled by the very same devices that’d done so on the stairs. Taking a step in, the pair then froze in their tracks.
    In the ash gray space that seemed to have been scooped out of the very rock, countless humans lay like ghouls. Though their garments were filthy and tattered, they were those of ordinary villagers. The stark and waxy luster of their faces was not the fault of the lights.
    â€œWhat . . . what the hell are they?” Ry said, trying to keep his knees from buckling.
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe they’re people who were bitten by the Nobility.”
    â€œNo, they don’t have a mark from the Nobles’ kiss.” And having spoken, Ry turned around. Amne had just drawn a sharp breath. The girl had her fist to her mouth.
    â€œLook. The clothes on those people over there—they’re awfully old-fashioned. But these ones are just like my own. Could it be . . . Are these the victims from before the Nobility disappeared . . . and then the people who were bitten when they came back again twenty years ago . . . ?”
    â€œI already told you, they haven’t been bitten,” Ry snapped irritably, but then he froze. His face turned to Amne of its own accord. Amne was looking at him as well.
    â€œThese are the people called here by the song,” she said in a tone without cadence.
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    III
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    â€œWeren’t they killed?”
    Amne shook her head at Ry’s question. “They lived. But I wonder who could’ve hidden them down here.”
    â€œI don’t know about two hundred years ago, but how about the families of the victims from twenty years back?”
    â€œWho knows? That time, there weren’t very many of them at all. Look—one, two, three of them all told. And on top of everything, they’re with the people from two hundred years ago, of all things. You know, we should go back to town and ask around about it.”
    Just then, Ry caught a certain scent.
    â€œHey, you’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
    Amne furrowed her brow. But it took less than a second for her expression of consternation to become one of horror. Bending over so quickly it was like she’d been snapped in half, she stared down at her right ankle. “It’s bleeding. I scraped it on the stone stairs on the way down, but . . .”
    Ry’s gaze was riveted on the people around the room, and how they’d started to stir. How their eyes had opened . . .and how they now got to their feet not with the jerky motions of a marionette, but slowly and smoothly.
    â€œ. . . it doesn’t really hurt. I just banged it up a little bit.”
    â€œDon’t look straight ahead,” Ry told her.
    The people in the chamber were already standing. Staring at them.
    The pair began to back away. Amne turned her face to the floor; she just wanted to whip around and run like hell. But the others would probably break into a sprint as well.
    They went through the doorway. Though she prayed they wouldn’t follow her, the people stepped out into the corridor completely unperturbed. Amne let out a scream. As Ry tried to catch her collapsing body, he lost his