White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4) (19 page)

“
Ano
…
sumimasen
.”

Tristan drew his gun and aimed it at the kitsune who’d snuck up behind him.

“I think I can help.” She eyed the gun. “If you trust me.”

Tristan took a few steps to the side, getting Wren out from between him and the kitsune. “I don’t. Pretty sure you tried to kill me yesterday in a genkaku.”

The kitsune put on a little pout. “That was Kyō. I am Kohaku. Kyō was angry. You reset her in France. She was almost two hundred, now she start over again.”

Oh, the one he sliced in half. Yeah, guess she would be pretty pissed with him.

“We mean you no harm, truly.”

Wren caught Tristan’s eye. The vampire looked apathetic and shrugged as if to say, “your call”.

“Sorry sister, but you and your skulk spent your last get out of jail card on that genkaku stunt.”

“We understand,” the new voice said behind Tristan and he spun again.

“Akane,” he said by way of greeting. He knew it was her only by the scar. Right, that and the opulent attire, that helped. The skulk leader was standing at the bottom of the temple steps, fully dressed in a stunning gold gown. Golden highlights shimmered in her hair and in her hand she held a heavy gold chain that lead down to the fox at her side.

When she saw Tristan looking at the harnessed animal, Akane smiled and tugged on the leash, making the fox hiss. “Kyō is paying for her indiscretion.”

Tristan harrumphed. “Even still, you can’t blame me if I don’t believe you, trickster.”

Smiling slyly, Akane tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“You going to tell me where Xuejiao went?”

“Edogawa.”

Wren made a little noise, pulling Tristan’s gaze to him. “Where?”

The vampire bowed his head, hiding all of his face behind his hair. “It’s a ward in Edo—uh, Tokyo. The place where I died.”

With an understanding frown, Tristan nodded. Then frowned harder when he realized he had a long ass trip ahead of him and hoped that the tiny tot of terror stayed put long enough for him to catch up.

“I,” Wren said in a shaky voice, “I can’t go there. I wouldn’t be of any use to you anyway, being a vanilla.”

Tristan wasn’t so sure, since the man did know Xuejiao the best, but he nodded. Most vampires feared the place they died, even the ones who claimed to love what they were. Even Malik had been afraid of something—many things, actually.

“Fine,” he answered. “Besides, I think it best you stay away from your Master. I get the idea that he might try to hurt you.”

Wren straightened, his attention going past Tristan. “Yes,” he said softly. “I imagine he might.”

Tristan turned to see Desmond storming towards them, his expression the perfect image of fury.

THERE was an explosion of snow where Wren had been standing as Desmond sprung onto his scion.

Tristan jumped back, putting his gun away with a huff. “Come on,” he grumbled. “Hey! We don’t have time for this bullshit. Knock it off already.
God
.”

He opened his mouth to say something more but he was suddenly distracted by the hand on his arm. He spun, reaching for his gun but stopped when he faced Akane. He glanced down at Kyō on her leash and flinched back when she chattered at him, baring teeth.

“
Damare
,” Akane said with a tug on the gold chain and the fox cowered. “
Gomen
ni
. She means no real harm, she is just strong-willed.”

Tristan understood that. What he didn’t understand was what the fox wanted from him. It was obvious by the look on her face that she had something important to say. He glanced over at the vampires. They were fighting, but it didn’t look too serious. Tristan could let them release a bit of pent up rage for a bit. It was probably safer for everyone for those two to get the fury out now anyway.

“You want something?”

Akane looked down to her feet. That’s when Tristan noticed her delicate gold sandals. Guess she didn’t feel the cold any more than Wren. Too bad Tristan did.

“I wonder if you would be gracious enough to accept a gift from us. A token of peace and friendship. Of
my
admiration.”

Tristan started. She wanted to be friends? It wasn’t that he hated the kitsune, per say, but they’d been pretty off-putting since he met them. But time and time again, Akane, their leader, would come to the forefront and apologize. Tristan really wanted to believe in those reparations.

“What kind of gift?”

Akane looked up, almond eyes full of hope and an uneasy smile on her face. “A calling pearl.”

“What—a what?”

Akane dipped a hand down into her cleavage and came back with a pearl the size of a grape. It was a stunning iridescent turquoise with a hint of gold swirls.

“If you’re ever in need of assistance, use this to call upon my clan. We promise to come, no matter where you are in the world. I want to make up for the rouse we forced you into.”

“No one forced me to do shit, lady.”

She smiled coyly. “No, but we deceived you and we needed our shrine vacated by both parties… You do understand.”

Tristan only scowled.

“We have come to an understanding with the troll and she will not return.” She looked to the fighting vampires and frowned. “I do hope that Wren will be leaving too. He’s kindly enough for a vampire and I do consider him a friend but we do not like outsiders in our home, our place of power.”

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s leaving now.” Maybe even the country, the way things seemed to be going for the vampire.

“So then everything has worked itself out. Here, my gift to you.”

Tristan took the pearl from her, examining it up close. It seemed really familiar. “You give out a lot of these?”

She shook her head making her gold hoop earrings click together. Tristan wondered if those earrings stayed there when she shifted into fox form. “Only Uruwashi we have known through the years. That Fire vampire had one he’d stolen and had I known, we would not have answered the call. Anō… please do not go showing it around. We make it practice to not tell the other races since we give these to Uruwashi alone. Most do not know of its existence. Even Yukihime doesn’t know.”

That was a full answer and Tristan felt a surge of anxiety. He palmed the pearl, holding it tightly. “You know a lot of Uruwashi?”

She shook her head again and a cry behind Tristan made him turn around. The two vampires were still at it, screaming at each other in their own languages as they traded half-hearted swings and Tristan rolled his eyes at them.

“Sadly, most are dead now.”

Tristan frowned. “Mamoru…”

Akane perked up. “You know Takeuchi-san?”

He cast his eyes down in mourning. “Did, briefly.”

“You mean…?”

He sighed and looked up, feeling his eyes burn from the memory of the man’s violent death. “He died in battle.”

“How?” Akane demanded, her eyes wide in horror.

“It was an accident.”

“Who did it?”

“It doesn’t matter now; it really was an accident.”

“Who?” the unassuming fox-woman asked again in a way that left no room for dismissal again.

Tristan huffed, ran a hand over his hair. “An elf named Silas.”

“The Duane Prince? But he—”

Jesus, why did everyone call him that? Was he really that important of a prince?

“Like I said, it was an accident. It took two vampires, two Uruwashi, a pythia and an elf to take down Genoveva of Earth, and barely at that. Our victory wasn’t without its casualties.” He rubbed his chest where Genoveva had nearly finished him for good. And if it took that much to kill an insane ancient, how much more would it take to stop a kodaijin like Xuejiao?
Mother
?

“Sō ka,” she whispered looking lost.

Tristan held out his hand and she mindlessly reached out to take the pearl from him. “I still have his pearl, found it in his things.”

She nodded, tucking the pearl away.

He took a steadying breath and turned to the fighting vampires. They were quieter and that bothered him, but when he looked, Desmond had Wren pinned, not harming him and they were talking in low, fast voices to one another. Maybe they would work their shit out.

“His daughter—”

Tristan turned back to Akane. She looked troubled, running the gold chain through her fingers over and over again.

“He spoke of her often. Has anyone told Seth of her father yet?”

His daughter’s name was
Seth
? That poor girl. “Uh, not that I know. Silas might have since they were friends. I don’t even know where she lives.” Mamoru did talk about living in Maryland. If he made it back home alive, he’d remember to try and find the girl. How many Seth Takeuchi’s could there be living in America?

Akane frowned a little, looking positively adorable. “You didn’t know Mamoru well?”

“We uh, we didn’t have much time together before he died.”

“Sō ka. I don’t suppose then, he ever had a chance to tell you our theory?”

“On…?”

She smiled sadly. “We argued philosophies often, even came to terms on more than one, but there was one in particular we couldn’t see eye to eye on. I just wonder if he ever talked to you about it. It was a big topic of controversy for him.”

Tristan shook his head, turning to keep the others in his peripheral. He didn’t have time for this, but if those two could work something out then he’d be okay with it. He couldn’t say why, but he really hoped they reconciled. That, and Akane seemed like she
really
wanted to talk to him, that there was something she wanted him to know.

“It’s common knowledge,” Akane was saying, eyes fixed on the vampires but not really seeing them. “Amongst the shinwa and heikō that the Uruwashi originated from humans, that humans cultivated what they needed from vampires to make the Uruwashi. Human enough to walk in the sun and retain their sense of morals, but vampire enough to garner the strength they needed to kill the vampire.”

Tristan nodded. That’s the gist of how he understood it. Not only from Yukihime and Ash but Mamoru too.

Akane glanced at him before looking back to the others. “But we think the existence of the Uruwashi is just the opposite.”

“Meaning?”

Across the way Desmond let out a growl that would make any wolf jealous and all the hair on Tristan’s body stood on end. Shit, things looked like they were going south again and Tristan shifted on his feet, ready to intervene but torn, wanting to hear Akane out.

“We believe the Uruwashi started off as vampire. Vampires so old that they could not die by any conventional means. And while even the sun couldn’t kill them, they were unable to lay eyes upon it, which they so desperately wished for. They wished it so much that they sought out the consul of a pythia.”

Tristan’s breath caught. She had his full attention now and by the look in her eyes as she glanced at him sidelong, she knew it. “You think a pythia spelled a vampire to be day walking and
that’s
where the Uruwashi came from?” If that were true, then the Uruwashi really weren’t part human, mortal—whatever, at all.

She shrugged, attention going back to the vampires. They were on their feet again and looking tense, but Tristan was too distracted to notice the palatable anger. “I think it makes more sense than starting with a human. Even the cleverest of humans cannot think to capture a vampire and hold them. Not even with an army of men, not the sort of old vampire they’d need to harvest from.”

Tristan was still trying to process it because, fuck him, but it made way more sense to him than the “popular knowledge”, which was turning out to be simple theory. It explained why Innokentiy freaked out on him when he found out that Tristan had been working with a pythia, thinking they wanted to “experiment” on the ancient vampire. What if all the Uruwashi were was an experiment by some overzealous, cocky pythia?

Holy shit, this was huge.

“What was Mamoru’s reason for refuting your argument?”

“That a vampire given the gift of sun wouldn’t be interested in killing others of their kind, rather they would give them the same gifts.”

Tristan harrumphed. “Maybe, but the vampires can be pretty self-centered.”

“Hai, this is true, but something like the gift of light… No other creature can understand the vampire’s desire for such a simple thing as the sun. It’s the one thing that binds them together, that desire. Personally, I think it’s all a part of their vampiric genetic code, their lust.” Akane threw her hands on the air in an exasperated gesture. “Who knows, maybe dissent was born of jealousy. Whatever the reason, there are now two factions of vampire, those who can walk in light and those who cannot and the latter killed the former out when the former tried to kill the latter.”

Tristan scowled. He wasn’t so sure as the thoughts swirled. Things made more sense and yet, there was so much more to know. “Uh… Can I, can I ask you something that might sound outrageous without the predictable questions it’ll make you have?”

The kitsune jerked in surprise but smiled. “Yare yare, with a question like that, how would my inherent curiosity allow me to say no?”

Tristan licked his lips and hoped he didn’t say something he shouldn’t. He didn’t know these people, the kitsune, and while Akane seemed genuine enough there was no way he could give her his trust. “I’ve been told—not by a shinwa or heikō,” he added quickly and hoped it wasn’t too specific. “That the shinwa and heikō were designed, engineered, whatever, to never question their origins. Or figure it out.”

The fox woman frowned and thought for a long time. “Hai… Yes, that’s true. I never have—Hai.” She looked like it hurt to admit it but it seemed true enough, her admission.

“So you really never have wondered who the originators of your kind are?”

Her frown deepened. “Is this the profound question I wasn’t supposed to reply with my own inquires?”

Tristan took a really long time to answer, “Yeah.”

The kitsune huffed, shaking her head. “I don’t know what information you’re really looking for but I’m afraid I don’t have the answers for you and we kitsune, we know everything.”

Tristan harrumphed at her arrogance, but in a way, she was right. The kitsune shared a collective knowledge that went back as far as, well, conceivably as far as their origin. That they didn’t know or question that origin was again all part of the design. If anyone knew, it would be them. Maybe it really was only the first of each race that knew their genes. Only one real way to find out.

“Damn,” he sighed. He opened his mouth to say more but the commotion behind him stopped him. The two were at it again and things were looking serious. “Hey guys, we really need to get moving here…”

Desmond didn’t even seem to hear the American’s words as he body-slammed Wren against a pillar. It might have been Tristan’s imagination, but he swore he heard the wood creak. His big hands completely covered Wren’s delicate neck and Tristan rushed over before the vampire could pop his scion’s head off. And from the look on Wren’s face, his limp body, he was just going to let it happen.

“Hey, man,” Tristan tried again in a sympathetic tone. “Why don’t you let him go?”

Desmond growled, shooting him an incredulous look with raging green eyes.

Wren’s complexion was going a little grey but he did nothing to stop Desmond from strangling the life from him. Guess the man was one of those vampire who had to breathe after all.

“Look, I don’t know what he did to make you hate him this badly, but you’ve already scarred him, isn’t that enough? He’s got to live every day ashamed of whatever he did and literally hide his face. Does he really have to die?”

Desmond flicked angry eyes at Tristan again and then after a moment of staring he huffed, letting go of Wren and taking a big step back. The Scot cursed a few gruff words and refused to make eye contact with anyone, but he seemed to be done trying to kill his scion.