Search Worlds Without End

The Apocalypse didn't end with a BANG, but with a whimper. Silently, the 'amnesia wind' swept away all of mankind's knowledge. Thousands of years of human civilization vanished overnight as people forgot how to use the tools of modern civilization; who they were, how to speak - everything! Technology decayed as mankind was reduced to an extremely primitive level. Two years after the devastation, a young man explores a nation reduced to barbarism: America. Miraculously re-educated after the cataclysm, he is accompanied by a young woman - somehow spared the obliterating effects of the amnesia wind. Pursued by a relentless killing machine, they search for those responsible for stealing their memories.

Also includes Invader Summer.

Japan has always had its own vampire tradition, and has eagerly naturalized Western vampires and vampire literature to produce exotic new hybrids and species of horror, of terror, and of sensual, exquisite beauty. Here are a few of their masterpieces.

The Japanese word for vampire is kyuketsuki, which translates literally to "blood-sucking monster," but the literary tradition is far, far more complex.

The practice of Buddhism permeates Japan, and burials are almost always by cremation... leaving the Count and his relatives with no coffins to sleep in! But there is more than one way to sip a little blood, as these authors reveal. Thanks to Bram Stoker, Christopher Lee, and countless others who have popularized the Western vampire, modern Japanese authors have an extensive range of traditions and tales to weave into their own creations.

Contents:

• Masaya SHIMOKUSU -- "A Cultural Dynasty of Beautiful Vampires: Japan's Acceptance, Modifications, and Adaptations of Vampires"
• INOUE Masahiko -- "Blue Lady"
• ASUKABE Katsunori -- "Kingdom"
• KIKUCHI Hideyuki -- "The Stone Castle"
• OKAMOTO Kido -- "The One-Legged Woman"
• HIKAGE Jokichi -- "Vampire"
• ASAMATSU Ken -- "The Crimson Cloak"
• SUNAGA Asahiko -- "Vow"
• KAJIO Shinji -- "The Husk Heir"
• KAMON Nanami -- "A Piece of Butterfly's Wing"
• OKUDA Tetsuya -- "Unnatural"
• IINO Fumihiko -- "Paradise Missing"
• FUKUZAWA Tetsuzo -- "Dracula's House"
• KONAKA Chiaki -- "Birth of a Vampire"
• MIKAWA Yu -- "Halvires"
• INOUE Masahiko -- "Parasol"

Bounty hunter Shooter searches the badlands of 1880s Kansas for four outlaws-the "Dreams Made Flesh" minions born of the fleeting thoughts of Cthulhu-and manages to shoot one, but the outlaw's corpse vanishes to leave only mysteries: he shot bullet after bullet, but never reloaded, and his gun was icy cold.

In Dodge City he meets up with Bat Masterson, Doc Holiday, and Wyatt Earp, employing the powers of the Esoteric Order of Dagon to kill the four Dreams before they attract undue attention to the Church's own attempts to awaken the Master.

The shootout at the OK Corral will decide the victor-and possibly the fate of humanity.

A unique mash-up blending two of America's favorite literary genres-the western and the Cthulhu Mythos-with a dash of Japanese ninja for added zest, brought to life with the humor and bold imagination that made his Vampire Hunter D series such a success in English translation.

It is the year 7000 by Noble reckoning, and the vampire rulers of the world have grown complacent. When the Outer Space Beings invade, the Noble warrior Greylancer must pit his skills and magic against the technology of the OSBs, quash an anti-Noble rebellion, and, when he is critically injured, turn to mere humans for help. The Three Thousand Year War of Vampire Hunter D begins here!

12,090 A.D. It is a dark time for the world. Humanity is just crawling out from under three hundred years of domination by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. The war against the vampires has taken its toll; cities lie in ruin, the countryside is fragmented into small villages and fiefdoms that still struggle against nightly raids by the fallen vampires-and the remnants of their genetically manufactured demons and werewolves.

Every village wants a Hunter-one of the warriors who have pledged their laser guns and their swords to the eradication of the Nobility. But some Hunters are better than others, and some bring their own kind of danger with them...

Vampires: murderous creatures in the shape of humans, they stalk the night feeding on the blood of innocents. Seemingly immortal, they can be destroyed only by the use of a stake through the heart, severing of their heads, or exposure to sunlight. By the year 12, 090 A.D. vampires have ruled the Earth for almost 300 years, and it is only these weaknesses that have kept these foul monsters from totally overrunning the world.

But what happens when those rules no longer apply? The village of Tsepesh sits in the eternal shadow of an abandoned castle, a onetime stronghold of the Nobility, the vampire lords who rule the devastated wasteland of the future. Ten years ago four children disappeared while playing near the castle, only to mysteriously reappear a month later. Now vampires have begun to hunt in the daylight. Are the two events connected? The villagers turn to the vampire hunter known only as D, but as he follows the children, now adults, the answers he finds may be more terrifying than anything he could ever imagine.

The vampire hunter known only as D has been hired by a wealthy, dying man to find his daughter, who was kidnapped by the powerful vampire Lord Meierlink. Though humans speak well of Meierlink, the price on his head is too high for D to ignore and he sets out to save her before she can be turned into an undead creature of the night. In the nightmare world of 12090 A.D., finding Meierlink before he reaches the spaceport in the Clayborn States and gets off the planet will be hard enough, but D has more than just Meierlink to worry about. The dying man is taking no chances, and has also enlisted the Marcus family, a renegade clan of four brothers and a sister who don't care who they kill as long as they get paid. Beautiful illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano complement the post-apocalyptic plot, filled with chilling twists.

When a floating city becomes the target of a rash of vampire attacks, only one man can restore the oasis. "The City," a tiny metropolis of a few hundred sheltered citizens floating serenely on a seemingly random course a few feet above the ground, has long been thought safe from the predation of marauding monsters. It seemed like a paradise. A paradise shattered when an invasion of apparent vampires threatens the small haven. While the Vampire Hunter known only as "D" struggles to exterminate the scourge, a former denizen of the city, the attractive Raleigh Knight, and the brash John M. Brassalli Pluto VIII seize control of the city lurching it onto a new and deadly course. D's travails are just beginning.

In a world where even the smallest and most remote village is being terrorized by the monsters that stalk the night, there is a hamlet, prosperous and peaceful, where mortals and vampires have lived in harmony for years. It is there that 17-year-old Sheavil Schmidt has slept, neither waking nor aging, for 30 years since first receiving the vampire's immortal kiss. The mysterious Vampire Hunter D is lured to the tranquil oasis by recurrent dreams of the beautiful, undying girl bathed in an eerie blue light and dancing in a ghostly chateau.

Granny Viper is a "people finder," a searcher for lost souls along the roads of a forbidding wasteland. Her latest mission: the safe return of a young woman named Tae, kidnapped eight years ago by vampire Nobility and held in Castle Gradinia on the Frontier's far border. But rescuing Tae is only half the battle--Viper knows she and the girl can't cross the formidable expanse to the town of Barnabas alone. After making the fatal mistake of hiring the mercenary Bullow Brothers to help her, Granny turns to the legendary Vampire Hunter D for salvation. As they traverse the bleak desert between the Inner and Outer Frontier, the two women and D find themselves in a race for their lives. And they soon discover how cruel the desert is--and how very ruthless the Bullow Brothers are...

A girl's dying wish sends D on an impossible quest in this riveting prose novel.

Even a reluctant hero can't refuse the last request of a beautiful woman. On her deathbed, the mortally wounded woman gives him a strange gem and asks him to deliver the priceless stone to her sister, far off in a North Sea fishing village. D's journey is made ever more perilous by a series of scoundrels and rogues hired by the girl's murderer. They'll stop at nothing to claim the jewel. Will they catch him? Hideyuki Kikuchi's crackling narrative and Yoshitaka Amano's imaginative artwork make this a must-read entry in the series.

The picturesque coastal town of Florence was known for millennia as a pleasure resort for the Nobility. As retribution for their decadence, the cruel and beautiful vampire inhabitants were "punished," driven out more than a thousand years ago by a solitary traveler in black. Only one-Baron Meinster-refused to leave, only to be thrown to the waves by the mysterious assassin.

Summoned to contemporary Florence by Su-in, sister of a murdered village girl, the enigmatic Vampire Hunter D discovers a vampire curse ravaging the town's human inhabitants. The plague apparently originating, impossibly, from the unforgiving sea-could it be Meinster's Revenge?

In Sakuri, a young woman is about to be sacrificed to the vampiric Noblewoman who reigns over the village. But before the princess can drain the life from the woman, a young man tries to slay the vampire. He fails and manages to escape, but in doing so incurs the wrath of the entire town. The citizens of Sakuri have entered into a pact with the Undead princess and her monstrous bodyguards. With the ritual offering disrupted, the vampire's armored bodyguards vow to murder the villagers one by one until the would-be hero is captured.

When Vampire Hunter D learns of the villagers' bargain he knows he faces several almost impossible challenges-can he rid the town of the parasitic demons that plague it? What if Sakuri's inhabitants don't want to be rescued? And can he uncover the secret that even the vampire Noble is afraid to speak?

In the title story, "Dark Nocturne", D is hired to unlock the secret of a siren's song that is drawing men in their twenties to their deaths in the hills outside Anise Village.

In "Notes on Imagined Autumn" D finds himself caught between two lovers during a ritualistic sacrifice in the village of Shirley's Door, but if D can't stop the sacrifice will all in the village be doomed?

And in "Legend of the War Demons" two living weapons, genetically engineered creatures who are the last remnants of a war waged hundreds of years in the past, find that battle is not so easily forgotten. It's up to D to stop their unending conflict before it consumes the present as it did the past.

Pale Fallen Angels Parts One and Two, the first two novels of Hideyuki Kikuchi's groundbreaking epic four-part Vampire Hunter D tale, are presented here in one affordable omnibus collection!

Krauhasen: A mysterious land under the control of Lord Vlad Balarge, a member of the vampire Nobility. When Lord Vlad's son, Baron Byron Balarge, needs to make a long and treacherous journey to faraway Krauhasen, he commissions the help of the infamous Vampire Hunter D, promising a princely sum and a solemn vow-no feasting on any humans for the duration of their journey!

Still, D finds his work cut out for him as the duo encounters an ongoing parade of thugs, rogues, and runaways, all with riot and revenge in mind. The pair are joined by the teenage tumbling act, May and Hugh, and the haughty Noblewoman Miska, recently spared death by the stake. But when D discovers the Baron's plans to murder Lord Vlad, he quickly finds his own life in danger.

Baron Byron Balazs nears the end of his arduous journey; his bodyguard-the enigmatic and deadly Vampire Hunter D -- has delivered him to his faraway home in Krauhausen. Having survived the near-epic journey, and many attempts on his life -- ordered by his father, the dread Vampire Noble Lord Vlad -- the baron thinks he is ready for his final battle, whatever the cost. But Lord Vlad is not so easily vanquished, as he unleashes yet another host of nefarious killers on his son, not least of whom is a mad doctor who was enlisted to perform sinister experiments on the young baron's mother years before!

When Vampire Hunter D entered the town of Sedoc it was in search of answers to the meaning of a dying vampire's last words: "Find Muma." But when he meets Mia, the daughter of the local fortuneteller, he learns the mists emanating from a smoking crater on the outskirts of Sedoc have reanimated thousands of corpses, compelling them to crawl from their graves and hurl themselves into the smoking chasm. When D goes to investigate, he finds himself split in two: a second Vampire Hunter D, full of passion and lust and hunger for the company of women, is born!

D has crossed over the southern border, into the domain of the cruelest and most evil of the royalty, General Gaskell. On the way, he picks up a "victim" -- one of few survivors in the villages-and makes way with her and the Deliverers. Along the way, he is attacked by the Drowned, and fights many more unspeakably horrible enemies. All of this suggests that Gaskell -- who was supposed to have been put to death under the light of the sun -- is still very much alive. But why?

Vampire Hunter D takes on his greatest challenge yet! The ruthless vampire Noble General Gaskell commands the loyalty of some of the most infamous and deadly vampires in history, and Gaskell has no patience for D's interference, heroic or not! With the odds stacked against him, D must prevail or perish.

In this chilling adventure, Vampire Hunter D has been dispatched to vanquish the ancient vampiric Noble Count Braujou, guardian of an ancient buried treasure. But when a mysterious object crashes into the earth, destroying half of the northern Frontier, D faces an even more terrifying opponent-the renegade vampire Valcua, the Ultimate Noble! Having been exiled to outer space, Valcua took his entire kingdom of strange and deadly creatures with him, and swore that when the time was right they would return to have their revenge. Unfortunately for D, that time is now...

Vampire Hunter D continues his quest to overcome the interstellar evil brought to Earth by the ultimate Noble, the terrifying renegade vampire Valcua! Wielding a sword that can cut through the fabric of space and time, Valcua has a score to settle with the bloodline of humans responsible for his exile. The family has enlisted D to protect them from Valcua's wrath, and the Vampire Hunter might be their only chance at survival.

D, the ageless, supernatural Vampire Hunter, takes charge protecting the survivors of an aircraft that has crash-landed in a deadly zone known as "the Playground." But before D can assist them, he must first battle a legion of undead warriors swarming from the fortress of the Sacred Ancestor, the oldest vampire in existence!

When a quartet of robbers leaves a trail of slaughter through a town, the mayor looks to hire a pair of bounty hunters to bring them to justice. But their path is blocked by an army of soldiers! If they want to survive the journey, they must enlist the help of the Vampire Hunter known only as D.

In a village on the edge of the Frontier, D is among the warriors and mercenaries hired to defend the village from the Black Death, a notorious bandit gang. But the bandits don't arrive, and the village mayor dismisses the mercenaries. As D leaves the scene, he's struck by "sunlight syndrome" -- the deadly ailment unique to dhampirs! While D is recovering, and his sentient left hand is running the show, D is again called on to help. It seems the Black Death is coming after all...

D accompanies a convoy delivering a vampire Noble to face public trial for his crimes against humanity. However, the Noble's enemies have targeted the men and women of the convoy, and they are out for vengeance! Can D bring himself to kill humans in order to protect the Noble under his charge?

Commissioned by a vampire ancient to recover the coffin containing the body of the demonic Gilzen, hated even by his own kind, D travels to a frightening mountain landscape perennially shrouded in snow. Within a castle piercing the mountainside, D discovers a group of knights tasked to protect Gilzen at any cost. It's time for D to use all the forces and powers at his command to prevent Gilzen's resurrection!

She might just look like an ordinary-if beautiful-young woman, but Iriya is anything but ordinary! A ruthless warrior clad in red armor, Iriya is a Hunter determined to exterminate the vampires that were once her parents and siblings. Now, half-vampire, half-human D has to decide to offer his assistance, get out of the way, or have a dangerous battle on his hands!

After a Frontier village's monitoring station fails, deadly vampire Nobles return to life, swearing vengeance on the descendants of the family that defeated them three hundred years ago. The mayor of the village hires five vampire hunters, including the legendary D, but as the mayor returns from the Capital, he finds that his daughter has been targeted by vicious human enemies! In this brewing three-way battle of life and death, no one's survival is assured...

On an isolated island, vampire Nobility run a mysterious laboratory, continuously pumping out a white mist which compels the inhabitants of a nearby fishing village to become the vampire's slaves! When the village tries to retaliate, their fighters never return. The vampire hunter known only as D has been sighted on the island, but how did he come to be there, and whose side is he on, and will any mortals survive the brewing conflict?

In a fleeting last breath, a beautiful woman on her deathbed hands a strange gemstone to D and asks that he deliver it to her sister in a remote North Sea fishing village. As D cuts across never-ending expanses of Frontier in search of his seaside destination, he is relentlessly attacked by wave after wave of mercenary and monster... all employed by the man who murdered the young girl. In order to grant a dying wish, D must find a way to keep this priceless jewel out of everyone's covetous reach, and all without sacrificing his own life!

A mixed band of travelers from an inn, spared by seeming chance from a bizarre landslide that rushed and receded like a wave, find shelter in an ancient village older even than the most forsaken settlements on the Frontier! Indeed, for fearful rumor has it that once long ago the village was a testing ground of the Sacred Ancestor...that sought to twist the genes of aliens, humans, and Nobles into a new form of life! What was formed here in the distant past seeks to nourish itself on the travelers and rise again.

Can D save them and destroy the evil legacy--or is his arrival exactly what the village requires for its nightmare to awaken at last?

D is a vampire hunter--and he's just been paid ten times his asking price to do exactly that, an assignment to destroy Duke Van Doren, administrator of the northern Frontier.

Among the complications are that no less than three other groups, each with their own agenda, are headed for the Duke themselves... and D's supposed to hang back from striking until his target has eliminated all three! The question is, will the Duke oblige the terms of the contract--or does he actually want to be destroyed?

Out on the Frontier, the killers called the "Nameless" have no wanted posters--because everyone they go after winds up dead. Now D must measure his sword against these grotesque and deadly freaks!

Hired by the mayor of Schwartzen to stop a corrupt political ploy that would sacrifice human lives to appease the local Noble, Grand Duke Bergenzy, the vampire hunter arrives in town to find his client has himself dropped dead under suspicious circumstances. His widow, wanting no more bloodshed, begs D to simply forget the job--but D's interest in the job is just beginning...

Marquis Verenis--he's a powerful Noble... he's in possession of antimatter technology... and he's three hundred million dalas in debt to Old El, the lender of last resort out on the Frontier!

The vampire lord even put up his castle as collateral--but not a single collection agent dispatched by El has returned, so it's time to call in an outside consultant, named D! But the mooching Marquis isn't the only one who owes the financier big time and would rather kill Old El than pay up--and those debtors too mean deadly trouble ahead for D... even if they are only human!

After a devastating earthquake that left most of Japan in ruins, the district ward of Shinjuku in Tokyo has opened up a doorway into another dimension--becoming the halfway-house suspended between the mortal world and the supernatural.

Setsura Aki, undercover P.I., is considered the best "man hunter" in the business. He allies himself with friend and rival, Doctor Mephisto--a wizard of physical and spiritual surgery. Together, they battle the evil forces that overrun the city.

Coming from the deepest and darkest parts of China, four immortal demons, led by the Princess of vampires, have surmounted four thousand years of space and time to seize control of Shinjuku and make it their own.

It is up to Setsura and Mephisto to uncover their new formidable foes' dark plans for the city. Can the duo stop them before they plunge the living populace into a new level of fear and slavery none can escape?

A vicious vampire gang four thousand years in the making has awakened from its slumber in order to seize control of Demon City Shinjuku. Princess, Kikiou, Ryuuki and Shuuran are as persistent as they are merciless, especially when the target of their attacks is Setsura Aki.

A treacherous house of reptiles built of giant leeches and poisonous snakes--Ryuuki's ghost koto "Silent Night" and his malevolent demon qi--Shinjuku's heavily armed police becoming vampires and attacking its own citizens--

Demon City is transforming into Vampire City before their very eyes.

To make matter worse, despite his wizardly powers, Setsura is assaulted by Shuuran and is turning himself. His trusted friend and colleague, Doctor Mephisto, shows ominous signs of becoming a slave to their wills. Setsura has never before experienced such dangers in his life!

The immortal vampire gang led by "Princess"--Kikiou, Ryuuki and Shuuran--is slowly but inexorably taking over Demon City Shinjuku. Its citizens and the administration alike are turning into vampires. Mephisto has apparently allied himself with them of his own accord.

Setsura Aki stands alone on the brink of extinction, tested by one desperate counterattack after the next. Intending to snuff out his life once and for all, Princess unleashes the self-regenerating Kazikli Bey (better known abroad as Vlad the Impaler, the original Dracula).

Meanwhile, concerned about the worsening state of affairs in Shinjuku, a team of foreign legionnaires--Special Forces Operational Detachment "F"--is dispatched to Demon City.

This Medusa of a supernatural face-off has grown another head. The confusion deepens and Shinjuku's fate hangs in the balance. But what is Mephisto really up to?

As the immortal Demon Princess inexorably transforms Demon City Shinjuku into a vampire metropolis, Setsura infiltrates her manor house alone. There he encounters the puppet paramours and "picture soldiers" created by the warlock Kikiou.

The witch Galeen Nuvenberg once again comes to the rescue. But that only draws her into Princess's crosshairs as well.

Meanwhile, panicked by the growing vampire hordes in Shinjuku, the Japanese government and its American allies resolve to sterilize the city with nuclear weapons. As if taunting the stranded and isolated Setsura, the countdown to disaster has begun.

Princess, the legendary evil vampire from ancient China, and her followers Kikiou and Ryuuki have unleashed the plague of vampirism upon the already debauched and depraved city on the edge of the abyss. As more and more of Shinjuku's citizens turn into creatures of the night, a secret government plan is hatched to annihilate Demon City with a nuclear device.

As the clock ticks down, beautiful manhunter Setsura Aki enters Princess's kingdom to retrieve Princess's hostage--the Prime Minister of Japan. There he meets a mysterious mask maker from a bygone era and undergoes a transformation. But will it be in time to save Shinjuku?

Meanwhile, the Demon Physician--Doctor Mephisto--remains a voluntary prisoner in Princess's camp. To what end--and whose side is the good doctor truly on?

And in Shinjuku's Magic Town, Tonbeau Nuvenberg and the Doll Girl find the portal to Princess's kingdom--a box sealed by magic. To open the box, they must do the impossible: access the timeline of the Universe itself--the Akashic Records.