Living Bait
She was being murdered again and again. The images came as if through a cheap projector—grainy, lurching—yet every wound felt as though it were being dealt to her own flesh. No. She was being murdered herself.
Having her throat punched through by an obsidian arrow counted as the merciful version. A sword would drive into her body, the blade twisting to scoop out her entrails. They drank her blood, tore her flesh to shreds and ate it, burned her alive while she still breathed.
She wanted to scream, to thrash, a hundred times over—but her body would not obey. It was like sleep paralysis: her entire frame had slipped free of her mind’s control. Then, all at once, strength flooded back into her limbs. She bolted upright on the bed with a raw, piercing shriek.
“Kyaaaaah!”
When her senses returned, she was in her own room. In that same bleak chamber that mirrored her usual one, she gasped for air, cold sweat pouring down her as if she had been caught in the rain.
“Ah… another nightmare… But—”
None of it made sense to her. Why was she dreaming such things? And why had she come here to sleep in the first place? Had she simply been so exhausted the night before that she had collapsed on the spot? She hadn’t felt that tired. She tried to retrace her memory, but yesterday was walled off behind a fog.
“Ah… this is no time to sit around.”
She pushed herself up from the bed. If she couldn’t remember yesterday, it was probably just ordinary forgetfulness. The moment her feet touched the floor, however, the memory returned in a flash.
Chang-woon’s figure, staggering after being struck by that enormous rifle, rose in her mind. Even with the memory clear, she could not bring herself to believe it. A gunfight in the middle of Seoul? And what the hell had that lunatic with the gun been?
“Th-that’s impossible.”
She shuddered and sank down onto the floorboards.
Pigeons so plump it was hard to believe they could still fly had flocked to one corner of the park. A black-clad priest sat on the bench in front of them, scattering feed. The man tossing the grain was a foreigner with long silver hair, and his empty eyes held no emotion at all as he worked. He was simply fulfilling the proposition that pigeon feed exists to be given to pigeons—not because he found the birds in any way endearing.
Then Jeong-ya came running, out of breath, from the far side of the park. In light clothes for work—long jeans, a jacket, a little baseball cap pulled low—she looked almost like a mischievous kid. Certain tastes would have found her extremely appealing. Of course, the reason the priest was waiting for her here had nothing to do with that particular taste.
Even so, the man who had opened fire in this very park the night before was now shamelessly feeding pigeons. Jeong-ya bit her lower lip; it did not sit well with her.
But the man opposite her was a killer who carried firearms. A killer in a priest’s cassock was absurd, yet he was unquestionably dangerous. Jeong-ya hid among the bushes and watched him carefully. Should she call the police? One glance at the snapped tree and the bent streetlamp erased the thought. What good would civic duty do against someone who sprayed automatic fire? You would be lucky not to take a bullet yourself.
“Hmm. Against a blind man, that kind of hiding might have worked. But my eyes are rather good.”
The priest turned and addressed her. His Korean was fluent, without a trace of awkward accent. Startled, Jeong-ya stepped into the open.
“Ah—um—first of all, what happened last night?”
As questions put to a deranged murderer went, it was spectacularly feeble. She felt the full weight of how pathetic the words sounded leaving her mouth, but the priest seemed to take a different view. The silver-haired man looked briefly surprised, then nodded at her.
“Dear me. Not only did I leave a witness—I couldn’t even put her under hypnosis. I really have gone downhill.”
“Y-you—!”
The tone of a priest scolding himself for leaving a witness was pure threat. Whether he meant to threaten her or not, he moved to put her at ease.
“I don’t kill humans, so you needn’t worry yourself. And in your case, you’re such excellent bait that I have even less reason to.”
“Excuse me?”
Jeong-ya’s eyes went round at the man who had just labeled her bait. Last night alone had been a bolt from a clear sky—and now bait? Did that mean there was still more coming?
The silver-haired priest simply returned to scattering feed with a straight face.
“As bait for drawing vampires, you are ideal.”
“Excuse me? Vampires? You mean the blood-sucking, turn-into-a-bat, dissolve-into-mist Count Dracula kind of thing?”
“Close enough to the truth, let’s say.”
He crumpled the empty feed bag and rose. Jeong-ya stared at him, speechless. In an age when people went to the moon, how could anyone bring up vampires with a straight face? But he was far too serious, and far too dangerous, to dismiss.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe it or don’t—it makes no difference. But those vampires have you as their target, so you’d do well to be careful. Being careful is never a bad habit, is it?”
“Well, yes, but—this is ridiculous. Vampires? That’s the stuff of movies and novels—”
“If a man can take a Barrett round and still run off on his own two feet, no fool would ever die in a traffic accident. I have no hobby of enlightening the naive. There was a time I followed Voltaire, but I never possessed the patience education requires. So I won’t force you to believe me—but knowing is better than not knowing.”
The priest stated it all in fluent, utterly cold tones and fixed his gaze on Jeong-ya. Those icy eyes held no human feeling at all.
“Th-then, fine, let’s say that’s true. Why tell me?”
“I’m requesting provisional cooperation.”
“Denied!”
Jeong-ya collected herself and brushed the brim of her cap. He was dangerous, but she was certain he had no intention of harming her, and that was a relief. Still, she would rather not get stabbed in the back. The man opposite her was dangerous in every sense of the word.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I have no intention of cooperating with you! Not the slightest speck of interest in working with someone who opens fire in the middle of Seoul.”
“As you like.”
He turned away without expression. Jeong-ya seized the chance and bolted as if fleeing for her life.
“Bait doesn’t have to be stuck on a hook. Let’s watch how this plays out.”
The silver-haired priest muttered to himself and strode straight through the pigeons still pecking at the feed he had just scattered. Seoul’s pigeons, which had long forgotten how to fly, startled and flapped their wings—and that was all.
Jeong-ya tied on a convenience-store clerk’s apron, came to the counter, and took over from the person on the previous shift. Yun-chang, who had arrived earlier, was flipping through a newspaper and tossed out a remark in passing.
“What’s this? You’re late today. Ah, that guy earlier was going fuck, fuck nonstop—said you were ridiculously late. Heh heh. But you’re pretty, so he just smiles to your face, huh?”
“No. I had something to take care of. Being late is my fault, anyway.”
“That so? Our Jeong-ya’s all grown up. Aigoo—so I’ve got zero shot at being your boyfriend? Hm?”
“Absolutely not. Senior, you’ve got Yeong-eun unnie.”
“Yeah, yeah. My bad. Oh, right—I’m quitting this place as of tomorrow.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Why? Spend your whole life doing convenience-store part-time and you’re just a flat-out loser, right? My graduation project already passed, so I’m going to roll around at home playing online games while I get ready for job hunting.”
“I—I see.”
Jeong-ya clicked her tongue at her senior’s strangely honest confession. Maybe it was the soaring youth unemployment rate, but he delivered the line like a joke while wearing a deadly serious face. Then the door opened with a jingle of the bell. She turned her head—and the man who had been shot the night before walked into her line of sight.
“Ah—hey—”
The moment he entered, his face lit up at the sight of her. Jeong-ya startled, shoved the counter open, and bolted out.
“Ah! Senior, I’ll just be a moment—!”
“What? Hey! Where do you think you’re going?!”
Jeong-ya did not answer; she raced for the back door. The man who had just come in sprinted after her toward the same exit. When Heo Yun-chang saw him dive through the door marked Staff Only, he immediately blocked the man with his body.
“Hold—hold it! Who the hell are you?! Huh?!”
By the time the words left his mouth, the man was already gone out the back. Yun-chang blinked, unable to believe what had just happened in front of his eyes.
“Wh-what?”
The alley behind the convenience store was a narrow, sparsely traveled lane. Gas-company pipes and boiler tubing jutted out in an ugly tangle, and the buildings looked far more sinister from this side than from the street, lined up like trees. Jeong-ya burst into it at a full sprint.
Th-this is impossible! He got hit by something that snapped a streetlamp and he’s still alive!
Not only was he alive—he was fast. She had overturned a stack of water bottles on her way out to block the path, but the man vaulted it as lightly as a cat and came after her into the alley.
“Wait! I have no intention of harming you!”
“L-liar!”
Terrified, Jeong-ya tried to run harder. However fast she was, there was no way she could outrun a vampire’s feet. The instant Chang-woon closed on her, a sharp sound of air being cut rang out.
“Get down!”
“What?”
A gunshot cracked through the alley. Chang-woon tilted his head back just enough to slip the bullet’s path—and a dagger, launched before the shot but far slower, flew at his temple. He caught the knife bare-handed.
“Hah!”
“Impressive reflexes. After the hit I landed last night I took you for a greenhorn—but you’re a Jinma, are you?”
At the mouth of the alley stood a priest with long silver hair, a Japanese sword in his hand. Caught between them, Jeong-ya grew even more terrified. Still—a man who fired guns was closer to human than a man who took bullets and walked away unharmed. She dashed forward and slipped past Silvester’s side.
“Dear me. Biting the bait this quickly? Dumber than crucian carp, it seems.”
Chang-woon glared at Jeong-ya fleeing behind him and at the silver-haired priest who had let her go—Silvester.
“I am in your debt from yesterday, Father.”
“Well now. I understand the urge to repay a favor quickly enough.”
Silvester drew the Japanese sword from its scabbard. The steel sang as it left the sheath—a sound that chilled the blood.
“The ozone layer’s full of holes these days. UV’s strong. No weather for a vampire to be out in broad daylight.”
“That blade—a Muramasa? Who are you?”
“I’m honored that a vampire marquis takes an interest.”
In the same breath Silvester lunged. Chang-woon lengthened his hair at once, seized it, and met the blade as if wrapping a towel around a weapon. Even so, the priest’s Japanese sword sheared halfway through the hair. Silvester drove harder, sawing through the rest like a blade through timber, and shouted:
“I am Silvester—an excommunicated priest!”
With that introduction, Silvester and Chang-woon crashed together. Jeong-ya threw one glance back to confirm the fight, then ran for all she was worth. Objectively her life was in danger, yet the whole thing was so unreal she could barely feel the tension. A vampire hunting her, an exorcist priest swinging a Japanese sword—this was just a C-grade horror movie!
“I don’t even like horror movies!”
Jeong-ya screamed it, but no one was listening. Gasping, she bought a ticket without thinking and sprinted into the subway. The station was strangely quiet. It wasn’t a crowded hour to begin with, yet a different atmosphere from the fight she had just left seemed to rule the place. Jeong-ya had no time to worry about atmosphere.
“Hah—hah!”
Confident in her running, she dropped lightly onto the platform. A train was just arriving; she dove straight in. The doors closed and the train pulled out. Only when she caught her breath and looked around did she realize—there was no one else in the car.
“Huh?”
She found herself very curious just how far this C-grade horror movie intended to go. She had zero interest in satisfying that curiosity with her life as collateral.
“Ah… just like the nightmare, really…”
She swallowed curses and fury and stared at the doors on either side. Then, all at once, every window in the subway car shattered.
“Kyaa!”
She scrambled to the center to avoid the glass. Only then could she see the passageway clearly. The rear door opened, and from it monsters began to move. Monsters that had once been human—eyes weeping pus, shambling with the clumsy, robotic gait of things no longer alive.
Jeong-ya fled forward, away from the things that inspired pure physiological revulsion—the ghouls.
Yet as if it made no difference whether she ran ahead or not, more ghouls began a slow advance from the rear door. Their pace was too deliberate for comfort. In this finite metal tube of a train, did that absolute advantage always belong to them no matter how far she ran? Jeong-ya stumbled in panic, scrambled up, wrenched open the opposite door, and fled that way instead.
She ran through the cars like a madwoman and at last reached the rearmost car. Only then did she see the train sliding into a station.