Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Hitomi Takamori returned to her mushroom house half an hour after the Disco Trousseau Massacre.

Her heart felt like it had beat itself to a pulp. Her stomach felt as if she had swallowed a lump of lead. That she’d been able to hail a taxi was amazing enough. That she’d managed to retrieve the fare from her desk and collect the change was a miracle.

She’d witnessed the slaughter in front of the club. In the face of all that blood and human carnage, her budding journalistic spirit died.

What was she doing getting involved with a woman like that? And the man who had led the girl to her abode—the girl who had gone off with that woman—what manner of man was he?

They must be one and the same.

The face of that strong, silent man rose up in her thoughts. As did the unbelievable conclusions. But he must be different. She could not have become entranced by a man who had anything to do with the likes of her.

The tragic series of events that had begun the night before were taking their toll on her spirit. She’d returned home in order to pose the question to him, and that itself was beyond perverse.

The taxi left and she stood alone in front of the door. She had to go in. Now she felt the fear. She hadn’t the time to check when she’d retrieved the fare, but had felt no human presence deeper in.

These creatures of the night were unlikely to linger about when night came. She ran after the taxi. Its taillights were just turning the corner. It couldn’t wait and it wouldn’t come back. For the first time, Hitomi was seeing the true colors of the night.

She stood there for a while. Her body trembled once. A bird sang out in the night air.

She walked quickly to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. Without stopping, she proceeded from the foyer through the kitchen and placed her hand on the door and slid it open.

Darkness filled the room the way water fills a glass. Touching it seemed to send ripples through the gloom. The light switch was by the door. She reached out, almost in a daze. She was afraid her fingers were going to close around some strange object, but they reached the switch unimpeded.

Light filled the small room.

A man was there. The same place she had left him in the morning, the same position, lying on his back.

There was only one thing—no, two things—different. First, the blanket was pulled down to his waist. Second—and now Hitomi let out a small scream—a black stake grew out of the left side of Ryuuki’s chest. Its black gleam boasted its sickening gravity as it sunk into his heart.

A steel stake.

Hitomi’s thoughts shouted at her to run. She spun around. The sliding door slammed shut in front of her face. She tried to open it but it wouldn’t budge. She looked down at the jamb and saw a streak of white dust. Earlier, not even Galeen Nuvenberg had taken note of it.

She touched it with the tip of her finger. It blew into her face, into her eyes. It stung fiercely and made her gasp. She bent over in pain.

The pain went away. The dust had retreated. Ryuuki’s body lay there.

She turned to the door. A gray stab of pain assaulted her retinas. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the ceiling. Her vision cleared. She poised herself and leapt toward the door. She was blinded before she reached it.

Hitomi attempted to escape two more times before it became clear that the dust was commanding her—to focus her attention on Ryuuki.

“What do you want?” she cried, throwing her arms out in supplication. “He’s dead. What am I supposed to do about it?”

The dust danced in front of her face. Then swirled down and gathered around the stake.

“You want me to remove it?”

The dust scattered around the circumference of his body. If she removed the stake and brought him back to life, that could constitute a betrayal of the human race.

Hitomi looked down at him. A countenance that bespoke the distillation of the feral and the civilized in countless trials and tribulations remained calmly unchanged on this cruel deathbed.

And she realized how becalmed her own spirit was. This was Demon City, after all, the city where every creature, no matter how ugly and repulsive, had the right to live and let live. Didn’t the citizens of this city have an equal duty to protect the rights of the vampires as much as those of anybody else?

The conviction welled up inside her—this man is different. He was a different species from that of the cold, merciless vampire demon favored in the movies.

Even the dust stirs itself to protect him.

Her conscience clear, Hitomi grasped the stake. The black-red blood around its base was hard and dry. She knelt and yanked up with all her might. It resisted at first, and then slipped out.

She fell back on her behind, the stake in her hands. She cast it aside and approached him. She touched his pale face. There was no reaction. She touched his hands. They were cold. There was no pulse.

How was she supposed to revive him? Her state of exhaustion robbed her of her strength. She put a hand on the floor and took a ragged breath.

Tan—The sound rang in her ears. But she couldn’t make it out.

Tan—Tan—

Tan—Tan—Tan—

Her blood thrummed to the beat. The man with a tree up his ass. She’d assumed he was dead and thought no more about him. It wasn’t possible. He was alive and had followed her back here—

Hitomi ran to the window. The curtains were closed. She hesitated. And then pulled them open. The grounds in front of her house were filled with moonlight. The small figure was sitting cross-legged in the center of the lot. It could have easily been mistaken for a passing shadow. But the shadow sat on a slab of concrete beating his drum.

“Help me—” Hitomi whispered. No other words came to mind. “Help me—”

She backed away from the window and turned around. Ryuuki was standing not more than a foot behind her.

“Ah—” A cry of fear and joy. Her heart could not decide which emotion to settle on. The next second, she forgot all about the accursed drum. She clung to him as if in a dream. “Thank God. You’re alive. Thank God.”

His large hand touched her cheek. Hitomi wasn’t afraid anymore. She raised her head.

“Stop—” said the voice above her, a voice filled with pathos. “Stop—Shuuran—I owe this person my life.”

This person? Who was he referring to? She touched his rugged, sturdy chest, unconsciously feeling for the wound, stiff with congealed blood. What remained of the blood that had poured out of this vampire.

The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Hitomi looked up at him. His face was before her eyes. The pair of blood red opals reflected in her eyes. Far away, in the depths of her senses, Hitomi felt a stab of pain. But she had already forgotten what had caused it.

For a long time, the body of the man and that of the woman fused together. And then the woman slumped slowly to the floor. The hand that had supported her now laid her out on the futon.

A bite mark now marred Hitomi’s throat.

“I will spare you the same fate as me. Forgive the man who can offer you so little in payment for your kindness.” He wiped his mouth and spoke in melancholy tones. The dust swirled around him. “Is this what we are doomed to become, Shuuran? To do as you beseeched me, to take the blood of our benefactors even at the cost of their blood?”

Outside the window the drum rang out. Tan—

Ryuuki was about to say something to Hitomi, but instead said, “Say a prayer, Shuuran. Are there no prayers in you? Neither are they in me. We do not even celebrate our rebirth into eternal life.”

The face of this mighty man who had once driven the barbarians from the borderlands was colored by a sorrow that exceeded death. The sound of his voice was like coughing up blood. The blood he shed on behalf of others was never anything but.

So once again his corrupt body must put on incorruption.

The wind rattled the glass. Ryuuki’s expression shifted. “Ah,” he said in a faraway voice, “Princess calls.” The gray dust swirled. “I must go. She would not do so unless something unusual had happened. Perhaps she has met with Setsura. Or she wishes to mete out punishment. In which case, the sentence was delivered long ago. What, do you not understand? It is what it is. You have served her for two thousand years and yet do not understand her heart. However—”

He bowed to Hitomi’s body and left the room. Somewhere a bird called. There was no one in the surrounding fields. Only the bright moonlight on the dark ground.

Wrapped in demonic spirits, accompanied by Shuuran’s dust, Ryuuki set out for parts unknown.