Bete Noire (11 page)

He gave a little chuckle and looked out the windshield, it was starting to fog and he wondered how long they’d been parked there—how long Ash let him sleep. There was a shape through the condensation and he swiped a hand across the windshield to get a better look.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he murmured, looking up at the castle. A real
freakin’ castle. Moss climbed up the drab, weather-worn grey bricks. There were three floors of tall windows, the first floor windows were two stories tall. All of the windows were fitted with metal bars, the ends curling outward into points. No light shone from behind, instead it looked like they were all covered from within by dark wood, shutters maybe.

He looked to Ash, a smirk playing on his lips. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she answered with the same concealed smirk. “We are in the old world.”

“No shit.”

“Tristan, listen I… let us make a deal.”

“A deal?”

She gave a nod. “If you put all of your current focus into this hunt and nothing more, I will tell you everything you want to know. Once it is done.”

He stared at her a moment. He knew what she was saying. If he could stop nagging at her, brooding over her “lies”, let what he didn’t know not bother him, then she’d answer his questions. It was hard for him to let go of things though, even harder for him to trust.

“I know,” Ash said softly, placing a hand over his.

He nodded. “Just don’t get me killed, okay?”

She smiled and leaned over the center console to him. When she was just a breath away, she whispered, “Promise,” and kissed him softly on the cheek. As she pulled away she brushed her fingers over the damp spot she made on his skin, letting her nails scrape ever so slightly.

“Come, let us get this over with. I do not wish to waste my entire night here.” Which was a real possibly, what with the way these older vampires tended to act, like spoiled children used to getting their way.

“Agreed,” he grunted in reply.

They met at the front of the car, where Ash was already digging in the trunk. Tristan had his one gun on him, his security blanket. It wouldn’t kill a vampire, say, Ash’s age. Not even the younger ones really, but it would slow them down and give him a chance to cut off their head. That was the only real way to kill a vampire. Ash admitted one night while they were sparring that the pain they felt from cuts and such hurt just as much for them as it did for humans, only the vampire’s faster healing and higher endorphins worked to lessen the pain within moments. The point was, they still felt pain. That was an asset.

In the front storage trunk, a space no bigger than a travel bag, was a small cache of guns and knives. Ash strapped one knife to the inside of her left forearm, not even bothering to hide it under her sleeve. What she really wanted was Murasaki Kaeru, her beloved katana, that was still packed away in the trunk from the plane. She cursed herself for leaving it behind and hoped it wouldn’t get her killed. Perhaps she relied on it too much.

Tristan added his own knife or two.
Figured he could never have enough pointy things at hand. “No gun?” he asked when he noticed Ash was done with just the knives and there was still two guns to be had.

“I do not wish to insult them.”

Tristan understood without being told why. The best way to kill a vampire was take their head, but if they were young enough, a bullet to the brain worked too. The older they were, the less the chance of them succumbing. To carry a gun into the home of a vampire of seniority would have been a great insult as a shot to the head would have just pissed them off rather than kill. At least the sword would have been looked at as more ceremonial rather than as a weapon meant to be used.

“What’s the plan?”

Ash huffed and shut the trunk, grumbling again about not having Murasaki Kaeru. “I do the talking.”

He smirked as he popped the clip on the gun and checked it. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes, Tristan. It is only Yukihime’s fascination with you that she even tolerates speaking with you.” Secretly though, Ash suspected the old vampire might have had a small crush on Tristan, or more rightly, Tristan’s defiance towards her, towards the world.

“What the hell are you talking about?
” he said with a big grin. “That crazy old shit
loves
me and you know it.”

Ash made a face that said she didn’t disagree. It wasn’t romantic love, but a fascination sort of love. “Older vampires typically do not tolerate speaking with humans.”

He frowned. “But I’m not human, am I?”

She looked up, her face a blank mask, her armor. “That may be true enough. But as far as all others are concerned, you are only human. You are food. Food should not talk, only die. Since this is my first time meeting a new Master, and without an offering, I should speak.”

“Whatever,” he answered with a flippant hand motion. “You’re the boss.”

She smirked. “Good boy.”

He was shivering by the time Ash pulled on the large iron knocker fashioned in the shape of a wolf’s head on the front door. Most of Tristan’s shakes were due to the cold, the rest was the sudden surge of adrenaline, the wonder of the unknown and anticipation of meeting another ancient.

“What knockers,” Tristan said with a little giggle. He couldn’t help himself.

Ash started to roll her eyes but ended up smirking. “Thank you,” she answered sounding saucy and banged the metal against the wood, making a deep noise on the other side of the door.

Tristan chuckled and gave her backside a little pat while they waited for an answer. Ash ignored the playful touch, but was having a hard time not smiling over it. It was so easy for Tristan to switch over to snarky and flirty sometimes that she wondered if that was his true nature, not the brooding, constantly in mental turmoil man that she’d met. The man he was before he lost his family.
She felt terrible for not encouraging that side of him to come out more.

There was a sudden bang and the sound of bare feet shuffling over stone from
inside the castle. Wood and metal creaked and then the door was being pulled inward with a meticulous slowness that said it was as heavy as it looked and then some. A large man, someone Tristan’s build, would have to put a good effort into moving the enormous oak slab. The hinges sounded as if they were about to give up, commit suicide to get away from the strain of holding a door that was easily a couple hundred pounds.

The anticipation was starting to get to him and the door stopped moving,
cracked open just enough for a person to pass through, and then one appeared. Only, this was not the person Tristan was expecting. Not in the least.

HOLY shit,” Tristan whispered when the door opened and there stood not a full grown, strong adult man but a young boy. The kid couldn’t have been older than nine. Thick blond curls fell over his face, brushed the nape of his neck. Even with all of that hair, it wasn’t enough to hide the mess the left side of his face was. The skin looked melted, knotted in a mass of dripping scar tissue that dipped below the collar where it spread across the base of his neck in a series of ugly ties. The others couldn’t see the eye on that side of his face hidden under the leather patch, but it was milky and blind. The other, a warm chocolate brown, was half lidded, bored and tired. His flesh tone was pale, but not sickly so and his cheeks were slightly flushed as if he ran to the door... or even pulled it open all by his little lonesome.

He was the
youngest vampire Tristan’d ever met. How did he know for sure the kid was a vampire? His blood told him so with a certainty as a new flavor, something with a lighter note, turned on, though weak in comparison to Ash. Tristan wasn’t sure what to be more astonished over in that moment, the fact that he was starting to feel vampires differently from one another or the vampire before him.

Who the hell does this to a child?

The boy tilted his head up to the pair, showing off a fresh set of holes blemishing his tiny neck that’d had yet to heal, just above the collar of his shirt. “Mind yourself, lad,” the child snapped in a common English accent.

Tristan opened his mouth to snap back when Ash pushed her way in front of him and gave a short bow. “Ash of Earth
. Yukihime of Water has sent word of our coming?”

The boy crossed his arms
over his chest. “Who’s that one?”

Ash stiffened, though she tried to hide her tension by shoving her hands behind her back to look collected. “Ah… my personal valet.”

Tristan, for once, was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Not that he really understood what a valet was.

The only eyebrow the boy had rose in curiosity. “You’re a hermaphrodite then?”

“What the fu—”

Ash silenced Tristan with a hand to his chest and a pleading
expression. “No, I am a fully intact woman.”

“That one too
?”

Tristan scowled but kept his mouth shut.

“Him as well.”

The boy smirked. “A male valet to a female… I must be getting old. Right then, Ash of Earth, down to business. You know you is supposed to bring the Master an offering. Since I don’t see one, am I to suppose that is your valet’s business too?”

“No,” Ash answered firmly.

The boy harrumphed, looking smug. Tristan had no idea what was
going on, why they were standing outside still at the whim of this kid.

“Trust me, lad,” the child vampire said, attention narrowing on Tristan again, “I’m no kid.”

Tristan opened his mouth to complain but Ash stopped him again, turning to face him with a stern look and slapped a hand against his chest. In a low voice, Ash hissed, “Tristan, please. I do not know this House. This is not the same as seeing Yukihime. I know you can contain yourself for just a few minutes, please.”

Holy shit, it was
just
like seeing Yukihime. This boy was the English version of Desmond. God, now he really didn’t want to go inside. “Look, unless you teach me how to block my thoughts, I can’t stop thinking. Besides, he shouldn’t be able to read my mind.”

The child vampire rose a curious brow at Tristan behind Ash’s back. He was hearing everything spoken, and not. Tristan was the only one who didn’t realize that.

Ash sighed and leaned in close, pulling him down to whisper in his ear, for what good it would do. “He is no mere fledgling. Stop… feel him.”

“Ash—”

“Just shut your eyes and your mouth and concentrate. You can feel him…”

He huffed, but shut his eyes. He felt her, almost pressed against him, the bubble of cold energy that engulfed her. She tasted of cold, thick, heavy… She tasted of earth. He almost imagined the grit of it between his teeth, filling his mouth and sinuses, choking him. He started to
pant as he panicked, feeling as if he couldn’t breathe. Ash moved away from him, taking her earthly energy with her. He let out a long breath when the tightness in his throat eased and a new flavor trickled in, filling the space between the grains of terra. It was as cool as the earth Ash tasted of, only this had a more… ethereal sensation. Yes, this flavor had a soft cleanness about it, fresh and…

“Air,” he whispered and opened his eyes, looking down to the little boy. “You wield air.” And that wasn’t entirely true. This boy’s Master was indeed a vampire of the House of Air. He had the markers of the power, yet powerless. He was a rare, but not
terribly unusual vanilla.

Ash leaned in and whispered, “We call it
wind.
Kaze
.”

Tristan scowled, thinking, “Big fucking deal what it’s called. I can taste it.” His eyes were full of worry as he looked to Ash. This shouldn’t be happening.

All amusement left the child’s expression as he frowned. “What are
you
?”

Tristan really didn’t know.

Ash quickly stepped between the two, drawing the boy’s attention to her again. The last thing she wanted was to put any sort of fascination on Tristan and have to fight just to leave with him intact. “I realize that by not bringing a gift, we have greatly insulted the Master, but please, we only just arrived on such short notice and have much—”

“Earth, was it?” The boy looked her up and down slowly with a single dark eye. The look spoke of someone older, an adult. “Show me.”

Ash dropped to one knee before the boy and bowed her head. “Please, I beg of you. Allow my indiscretion to pass without trial.”

Tristan took a step back surprised. “What the fuck’s going on?”

The boy laughed, showing his fangs, and put his hands to his hips. He gave Ash a snide look and said, “Show me, Ash of earth and I will allow you to see Master so… empty-handed.”

Ash shot the child vampire an angry look, not caring that she might anger someone so much older than her. Even unfed, she was stronger than the boy. But in the vampire way of things, he was still her senior. Rightfully, she should have called him Master, but her pride hated the idea of calling a mere vanilla something they hadn’t earned. Vampire law had always been beyond her understanding, and as she grew older, tolerance.

With an angry huff she stood again, smoothing out her skirt. “Very well.” She spun on her heel and marched out across the gravel to a spot in the winter-dead grass. Tristan caught up to her, stopping at her side. She had her eyes shut, taking in deep breaths, letting them out slowly in mediation.

“Hey, um,
soooo… what’s happening here?”

“You finally get to see what it is I can do.”

Something that might have been fear prickled along his skin. “Uh—”

“I suggest you step back.”

Tristan frowned, but retreated back towards the castle, leaving Ash standing alone, breathing deeply. After a moment of standing there, promising herself she’d hold back and only do the bare minimum to get by and not risk scaring or hurting Tristan, she opened her eyes and raised her hand. She only had to add this step because of her current weakness. If she had fed on a real human being tonight rather than her “pythia juice”, as Tristan called it, than this minor yet annoying little stage would be unnecessary.

Ash bit into the radial artery of her left wrist. Blood touched her tongue and she gasped, jerking her wrist away. But it was too late, it turned on that deep hunger she always carried with her, pushed so far down inside that it was nothing more than the nag of a bee buzzing in her ear. But now, now it was a lion roaring in her face, demanding that
it be fed.

Tristan realized he wasn’t standing far enough back when a wave of something foul tasting hit him, igniting a fire in his middle. Whatever Ash was doing, pissed of
f his Uruwashi blood. It was warning him something bad was about to happen. It was warning him to find something pointy and run.

“By the Goddess,” she whispered and crouched down, letting her blood flow freely into the earth. And the Earth, she ate up Ash’s blood as if she were a vampire herself. Ash hated thinking that something so pure as Earth herself could accept something so dark as Ash’s tainted blood.

Ash placed her hand upon the dead grass and the breath left her in a sinful sigh. She felt everything residing below. The power trickled out around her in a wave of cold energy. At her current strength though, thankfully, that power only spread a few meters. Still, within that small circle of power penetrating the earth she felt many things: the small creatures that lived in soil and those not alive. There was a body, long dead, just on the edge of her ring of power to her right. She could feel him, the man under the earth. She could make him hers.

With a shaky sigh, Ash opened her eyes slowly, not remembering having shut them and let her power flow from her in a gentle wave. As the feel of the earth and the dead body intoxicated her senses, she pulled on the flow-back hard, forcing more of her will into the earth at her feet. Without thinking of what she really meant to do the ball of cold, sloppy power building in her chest, she called upon that dead man
and he answered, greedily sucking up her power.

She felt the creek of bone against bone as if they were her own limbs. She felt the panic of the man as he realized he had no lungs with which to breathe, no muscle with to move, no eyes to see. Ash quickly sent him her command, as Master, calming him even as she cursed herself for
calling upon him. Raising a jikininki was the last thing she had intended to do. But then, she’d denied her power for too long. That power was like a wild animal, it needed space to roam, run… feed. It begged to be let free.

“Dammit,” she hissed through clenched teeth. She should never have agreed to this. Now she had a mess to clean up—the jikininki, undoubtedly, the least of them.

Tristan, standing quietly along the sidelines, not understanding a thing that was happening, gasped when it finally became clear. A few feet out from where their car was parked, the earth rippled and out shot a bony hand just like from a bad horror movie.

“What the shit!” he yelped, moving back. He gave a little oomph when he ran into the child vampire. The boy grinned up to Tristan in a way that said he was clearly pleased with Ash’s performance. To back it up, he broke into applause. Tristan was too stunned to do anything. The little vampire could have grabbed him right then and bitten him and he would have been too captivated by Ash to stop it.

Ash gave a hiss and fell to her hands and knees on the grass. Tristan was moving to her side without a thought. “Hey,” he said softly when he reached her, kneeling into a crouch. “You okay?”

Ash’s eyes were full of pain, and hunger, staying Tristan’s hand. She bit into her lip and nodded. “Yes. Please… just, just get away from me.”

“I—” He stopped, frowned and then nodded, understanding. She wanted to bite him, more than usual. He stood and backpedaled as she pulled to her feet. It was true, he wanted her to bite him, but right then, he was afraid she might not be able to stop herself if she did. He would die once and only once with no chance of rising again.

The child vampire was still clapping, now laughing, as Tristan turned. But then his attention was drawn elsewhere and he gave a loud
gasp, stopping dead in his tracks. The thing Ash had awoken in the earth found its way free and was trying to stumble to its feet like a newborn foal, limbs wild and akimbo. The creature was mostly bones, strings of decayed ligaments holding it all together. It looked up and gave a low growl as it sensed others near it. If Tristan wasn’t careful, he would be the substance the jikininki needed to make itself whole again, to have lungs, a stomach, eyes. Ash shambled over and dropped before the monster. It sensed her and lunged, though it wasn’t to attack. Just like a newborn baby at mother’s breast, the jikininki found the wound still seeping at her wrist and latched on.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered just loud enough for Tristan to hear as she held the mewling monster in her lap. She would bare the stink of death now for days. A consequence well deserved. And more. “So sorry.”

“Please!” the child vampire said through his laugh, “Come in, come in. Master will be pleased to meet your pet.”

“He is no pet!” Ash snapped, her attention jerking around to the little vampire.

“Oh Ash…,” Tristan sighed as he saw the anger in her expression. And the tears staining her face.

“Trust me, that man was nothing more than a mongrel. Come, we shouldn’t make Master wait any longer.” The child vampire didn’t wait for an answer as he turned away and marched back towards the front door.

Tristan shuddered—not completely from the cold—and dared a few steps closer to Ash. “Are you okay?”

At hearing Tristan speak, the creature ripped its mouth away from Ash’s wrist with a grunt, turning his head towards him.

“Just, stay back, please.” She wasn’t entirely strong enough to control this poor soul. The jikininki still had free will, of which Ash was not interested in controlling except to protect innocents from it.