http://clampfix.fanworks.net/x-fix/dark3.txt </head><body><pre>Finally finished chapter three... Both the world and the characters belong to people more talented than me (CLAMP and Laurell K. Hamilton, respectively). Some violence, strong language, shounen ai: I'd give it a PG-13. Enjoy. ~Chapter Three~ I walked out of the Diet building less bored and a hell of a lot more confused than I'd been when I went in. Kishuu-san had walked me out, but hadn't said a word. Really, her behavior was completely unnatural for a high school student, and I was beginning to wonder about it. What kind of life gives a human girl--maybe sixteen, certainly not much older--such perfect control? Well, it wasn't my place to ask, and besides I had enough to think about. The vampire seer had asked me to try and hunt down that purple-eyed boy who she was convinced held the key to whatever the hell the vision she'd seen really meant. The future of the world--the spirit of the Earth being raised--frankly, I had my doubts about the whole thing. Out here in the afternoon sunlight, none of it seemed real. Afternoon? I squinted up, then checked my watch. Six-thirty, and practically dusk already. This was not good at all. It would be full dark before I got home, and I hadn't expected to be out past sundown. I hadn't brought a single weapon of any kind. And I was really *not* willing to rely on my inherent powers against a vampire or two. --- I nearly gave myself whiplash trying to look everywhere at once on the subway, but nothing happened at all. There were too many people, I suppose. My street, however, was dark and deserted even only half an hour past sunset. Hell, there was still that deep turquoise ring around the sky that you get when the sun isn't *quite* gone. That wasn't enough to stop a vampire older than, say, three weeks. I knew it. So I wasn't too surprised to hear the voice behind me on the street. I've never worked out whether it's some kind of vampire trick or just me, but every time I hear that voice my insides suddenly tie themselves into a granny knot. I think I prefer to believe that it's some kind of trick. I turned around, slowly. *He* smiled at me. Wearing sunglasses. Honestly, sunglasses after the sun goes down, he's the only one I know who does things like that. I guess it's all image, like it is with most master vampires. "Good evening," I said, suddenly feeling very tired. I was ten minutes from my apartment, and both my physical and spiritual weapons. There was no way I could get there in time. I wasn't sure I could pull off a spell powerful enough to get through *his* shields without any ofuda--frankly, I wasn't sure I could get through his shields without full regalia and a ceremony. This added up to me being utterly defenseless. I didn't think he'd kill me. I wasn't sure, but I think he still cherishes hopes of putting the last two marks on me and having me free and clear. Or he just enjoys the game of baiting me into a nervous breakdown. More likely the latter. "I thought that was my line," Seishirou-san complained, voice as light and false as always. He's a consummate actor. A hell of a lot better than I'll ever be, I can't even hold a poker face. "Sorry," I said. We stared at each other for a while. I could meet his eyes, but I was glad for the sunglasses anyway. As if he'd read my mind, he pulled off his sunglasses and gave me a smile that showed no fangs whatsoever. I flinched. One smile, and he was suddenly perfectly in character as the man I'd fallen in love with. ...Did I forget to mention that? Yeah. I loved him, back before he murdered my sister and fucked up my life. I think--no, I know--that I would've let him put the other two marks on me. But he didn't want to, after all. I wasn't worth it. I hated him for that most of all. I realized abruptly that I'd been standing there, caught like the rawest novice, for almost a minute. And it hadn't been his gaze that got me at all. Just memory. I snapped myself out of it, and gave him my best glare of death. He laughed at me and pulled out a cigarette. Keeping it poised for a moment, he patted down his pockets with his free hand, looking for a light. Sheer reflex made me pull out my own lighter and hold the flame to the end of his cigarette for a moment. He put it to his lips, and inhaled deeply. After a moment, he pulled it away, and gave me that perfectly feigned smile again. "Thank you, Subaru-kun," he said. I stared at the end of the cigarette. It was smeared with dark red, like a woman's cigarette would be with lipstick, but I knew it wasn't anything so innocuous as cosmetics. Early as it was, he'd fed. The smear on his cigarette was blood he hadn't bothered to clean from his lips. He was chillingly casual about blood. I suppose it came from his profession as well as from his diet. Suddenly, my brain managed to re-engage, and spat out an idea that made sense. I was holding a lighter in my hand. Vampires were as flammable as sawdust. I flicked the lighter again, and my hand lashed out toward Seishirou-san's face. He caught my wrist while the flame was still a good foot away. I don't know why I'd thought I could get away with it. He was a vampire, after all. They're fast. "So do you still want to kill me?" he asked, his eyes fixed on my face. His voice was as soft as a caress, so easy to fall into it and think that of course I didn't. His eyes--ancient guilt managed to get in a good kick as I stared into the single golden eye and its white glass mate--his eyes were deep as pools, comforting-- Damn it, he was doing it to me again! I tore my gaze away from his face and stared safely at the concrete. He'd show up like this irregularly, sometimes twice in a month, sometimes not for a year and a half. Just often enough so that I couldn't forget about him. "You're dead already," I snarled at him, not breaking eye contact with a small crack on the sidewalk. "God knows how long you've been a walking corpse. I'm a necromancer, I know dead." "Subaru-kun," he murmured, lips brushing my ear, "you're so very good at not answering my questions directly. You told the truth, of course, but tell me this: do you really think I'm nothing but a corpse?" His hand was warm on my wrist, even though the bonecrushing grip was something few humans could match. His breath on my cheek felt very real and very alive. But the power within me had no emotional qualms. "Yes," I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut, and it was the truth. I could feel the outraged surprise resonate through the marks, even though I was not, not, *not* going to look at his face. The 'how dare you defy me' feeling. I was hardly up to defying him. I just hoped that he didn't ask any harder questions. Self-hatred, the good old familiar whip, gave me a few lashes just for fun as I concentrated on the shadowy sidewalk. Familiar refrain, too: "why can't you stand up to him? What happens to all that adamantine resolve whenever you get within ten feet of this guy? I thought you kept telling yourself you hated him." I could barely even see the crack I'd been focusing on. It was getting darker fast. Seishirou-san, to my great surprise, let go of my wrist and took a step away. I glanced back at him (damn that reflex). "So, isn't your job to execute murdering corpses like me?" he mocked, voice warm and amused. The dangerous icy edge flickered underneath. "Well, Subaru-kun? You haven't made a single attempt to kill me yet tonight. I'm almost disappointed." I was not going to admit that I was unarmed. "I keep hoping you'll give up and go away," I said, and I meant *that* comment with all my heart. Well, ninety-nine point nine percent. He laughed at me. Maintaining my righteous wrath suddenly became a great deal easier. "Do you really, Subaru-kun," he wondered aloud, and gave me that infuriating smile again. "All right." I must have lost a few moments, because the next thing I knew I was standing, alone, on the deserted street. It was full dark. I sighed, and began walking back up to my apartment again. And tonight I still had to track down Kigai for those bereaved parents... Honestly, my work is never done. --- I've learned some things in my near-decade of hunting vampires for a living. The spell I planned to use tonight was one of them. My very own creation. Go me. It was a combination of my family's ritual magic and my inborn necromancer's power. One of the many reasons that I'd rather go out pretending to be vampire bait than use it straight off. My apartment isn't the best place to perform ritual magic--it's a studio, and I have to shove the furniture to the edge. Which I'd just finished doing. My trench coat was thrown on the edge of the bed against one wall, and I'd set up the altar in the center of the floor. Which was dusty. Oh well. I'm not into housekeeping. I wanted a cigarette. Being the noble duty-driven person I am, I ignored the impulse and walked over to my closet. My ritual robes were in a dusty dry-cleaning bag at the very back, since I try to avoid looking at them. They carry bad memories--let's leave it at that. I pulled them out, the bag rustling and leaving dust on all my other clothing, which is mostly black. Damn. I guess it's a trade-off, though. Black clothing shows dust, but it doesn't show blood. The ritual robes, on the other hand, do show blood. They're white. And damned intricate. But they are the only clothing I own that I *can* wear for stuff like this, so I'm stuck with it. I swear, one day I'm going to go find one of those New Age shops and pick up something ritually consecrated that looks *nothing* like these. I'm thinking polyester. Neon purple, maybe. For now, I put on the robes. They're heavy, and stiff; they rustled around me as I walked to the center of the room and knelt, beginning to chant. The kekkai around my apartment weren't enough for ritual magic. First step, therefore, is to raise another layer of shields. Keeps Bad Things out, and if I'm stupid enough to raise something I can't control, keeps it inside so I'm the only one that gets maimed. Multipurpose. It didn't take too long to finish the shields, and then it was on to the important part. I had to hook my death-sensing talent into everything I knew about Kigai. Something like getting the scent. It would've been easier if I had had anything of his. Still not too difficult, though. I could feel it when the spell took. Suddenly it was like there was a cable hooked behind my breastbone. It tugged at me, pulling me along towards the vampire I needed to find. All I had to do was follow it. I dismissed the shield, grounded off the extra energy into my apartment's kekkai, and collected my slaying equipment. This time I packed a little more carefully. My one remaining knife--hopefully I'd be able to get the other one back from Kigai. And enough ofuda to re-paper my apartment. Kigai was a magician. I was going to treat this like a duel. Like I've been in a lot of those. Well, first time's the charm. I hope. I looked at the clock. Ten-thirty. There was a long time left before the sun rose and my spell broke. Good and bad: I would be able to track Kigai down, and if I got in shit deep enough that I couldn't get out on my own the sun wouldn't save me. Well, I hadn't been counting on it. This, at least, made sense, I reflected as I stepped out the door and held still, sensing the direction of my prey. I had taken a job, for the money and perhaps a little for the child who had been murdered. And so I was hunting. This situation with the vampire seer Hinoto made much less sense. Now that I'd agreed, I had the luxury to regret it. I didn't need to play along with some ancient vampire's power games to find Seishirou-san. I didn't think he'd leave me alone. He enjoyed toying with me too much. Sadistic bastard. And I had the scent. I shoved the whole unwieldy package of doubt and anger out of the way and set off. --- The moon-washed street was dead silent again. It was the spring, almost at the end of sakura season, and I had to try very hard to keep myself from flinching every time a petal floated by on the breeze. Paranoid? Who me? Never. The silence on the street was beginning to get to me. I hurried along, trying to pay attention to everything at once. But, wonder of wonders, nothing showed up and tried to eat me. I guess I'd used up my bad luck quota for the day. Or Seishirou-san had scared them off. Or possibly they were saving me for Kigai. What a wonderful thought. Not like I could do anything about it now. If I dropped control of my end of the spell, it would turn into a link between the two of us, and Kigai could track *me* back to my apartment as easily as I could track him now. Sure, I'd be on my home ground, but I have to sleep sometime. Does a magic-using vampire need permission to enter someone's house? I wasn't willing to risk my life on the assumption that he would. --- It took nearly two hours, most of that spent on the subway, to reach the building that Kigai was using as his lair. I stared up at it, impressed despite myself by the vampire's sheer arrogance. Who would have guessed that there was a vampire lairing under the city hall? It certainly added another level of protection. I had to get past the normal night watchmen as well as facing down Kigai and whatever servants he had below. I could do at least the first part with a basic no-one-here spell. The vampires I could deal with more directly, but I had this silly prejudice against attacking humans. The spell took about five seconds, and I slipped into the darkened building. I could feel the 'compass' of my tracking spell pulling me downward, so forcefully now that I almost stumbled. Kigai was definitely close. Almost directly beneath me. Basement. Something warned me not to touch the elevator, so I took the stairs. They were your typical public building stairs: concrete, a little cracked, a little stained, a light at each landing and shadows gathering almost palpably between the floors. In other words, creepy as hell. I wondered if they'd been designed that way, or if it was just a happy accident. Ice breathed down my spine--vampire power. Damn. They had had the stairs warded. I broke into a run, my footsteps on the concrete steps echoing like a scream in the stairwell. No one had showed up yet, I might yet make it to somewhere where I could stand and fight-- Something swooped down on me with serpentine grace. I whirled, putting my back to the wall, and called fire down on it before it could touch me. As it drew back from the flames, the sickly orange light glistened on its surface. Plastic? It was a cable, a machine. I had just been attacked by a utility fixture. The wall moved behind me. Oh shit. I gave up fighting and just ran, ran for my life. The stairwell was a death trap. But I wasn't going anywhere any safer. Some perverse whim made me run *down*. Behind me, the concrete walls crazed and opened, raining crumbling stone and flakes of paint as the black cables leapt out after me. This was a vampire lair?! I jumped the last six steps, stumbled on the concrete landing, and flung the door open. Ice-cold air hit me in the face like a blow. But it was a hell of a lot less scary than the mass of cables chasing me down the steps. I slammed the door as I ran through it, as if that would do any good, and paused in the new room. There were wires stretching overhead, delicate as hair, arching towards the distant ceiling. Thicker cables mingled with them, all leading towards the hulking mechanical spider at the center of the web. I slid to a stop. Oh, shit. Talk about the frying pan and the fire. I could swear that the machine was staring back at me. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. Icy centipedes made their way down my spine. Someone chuckled, and I spun around to face... Kigai. He leaned against the wall, smirk firmly in place, relaxed as a cat. "Fancy seeing you here," he said. There was something dangerous way down under the flash and glitter of his cheerful facade. "Walking straight into the vampires' lair at midnight... tell me, Sumeragi-san, are you brave or just stupid?" All of the above? I stared him down, trying to retain my calm. "Do you want me to kill him?" asked a bored-sounding girl's voice. "No, Satsuki-chan," Kigai called back. "This is that human servant I told you about, the necromancer. Come down and meet him!" "All right, Yuuto," the girl said, and a delicate human figure leapt down from the center of the machine. As she walked closer, the wan yellow light of the bare bulb above the door chased away the shadows hiding her face. She was pretty, in a delicate, dazed way; her eyes swam in the depths of the thick, round glasses she wore. She was five hundred if she was a day. I was beginning to feel fatally outnumbered. Dammit, this was supposed to have been Kigai and a few younger vampires, maybe a human servant or two--Satsuki was twice his age! Kigai slipped an arm around her and brought her forward. There was a distant, angry rumble that shook the wires above us. Satsuki giggled, a girlish sound that raised the hairs on my arms, and stared at me. "You're the Sakurazukamori's human servant?" she breathed, eyes gleaming with analytical interest. I cringed. God, if there is any title I hate, it's that one. "I'm no one's servant," I snapped at her. She indicated my hands, coolly. The hands in question twitched, but I kept myself from reaching for any of the ofuda I had stored away. If they weren't fighting, I could keep my peace. Because if it came to a fight, I wasn't sure who was going to win. Between them, they had seven centuries of power and one very big tentacle machine against me, a sum that just might equal one dead Sumeragi. Another vampire coalesced from the shadows, and my spirits sank even more. The newcomer prowled closer, scarlet lips fixed in a predatory smile. "You didn't tell me we had a guest, Yuuto," she breathed, her dangerously low neckline heaving more than was strictly necessary. "He just arrived, Kanoe," Kigai replied, gaze trailing appreciatively over the female vampire. "Meet Sumeragi Subaru." "Oh, the one my sister's after?" Kanoe said, eyebrows rising infinitesimally. Her hand dropped to her hip, lacquered fingernails toying with the top of the slit in her long black skirt. I really, really hoped that the show she was putting on wasn't for *my* benefit. Maybe it was just habit...? I glanced around the trio. "Which of you is the master here?" I asked, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. I still couldn't believe I'd been stupid enough to assume Kigai would be alone. Eyebrows arching in interest, Kigai gestured towards Kanoe. "She can't be," I said before thinking it through. "She isn't powerful enough." Kanoe's sensual air dropped away, and she met my eyes with ancient fury etching itself through her face. It took a lot of effort not to cringe. If I lived through this, I would have to learn to keep my mouth shut when diplomacy called for it. But this situation looked to be screwed already. I slipped several ofuda from my sleeve into my hand and gazed back, right into her eyes. I could feel her power as she tried to roll my mind, but my resistance held. If she'd been a master, and that old, I would have been hers. But she wasn't. I let myself smile slightly. She snarled, fangs flashing, and struck me. I saw it coming, but didn't have time to move out of the way. Her hand hit me full in the chest. The blow took me off my feet and flung me ten feet backwards. Right into the concrete wall. Fireworks erupted before my eyes, and I slid slowly down to a seated position, struggling to regain my breath. ~Shit,~ I thought, trying to get my eyes to focus. I had the distinct feeling that the de facto truce had just been broken. Had I told anyone where I was going? No, of course not. And the sun wouldn't be up for six or seven hours. I wanted, distantly, to reach for my weapons--arcane or physical, anything!--but my arms didn't seem to be obeying me right now. Kanoe prowled closer, the same come-hither walk. Power shone through her frail skin, drawing it close over the bones. She seemed transparent, ghoulish. The deep brown of her eyes had bled right through the whites, leaving two dark holes in her face. And she was still nothing. I could feel her frail power beating on me like a moth trapped in my hand. But I looked up at her and knew, to my heart, that she didn't need power, she didn't need to roll my mind. All she needed to do was reach out one hand and tear my throat out with those scarlet-lacquered nails. And right at the moment I couldn't do a thing to stop her.</pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>