Blood Under Moonlight
Under a moonlit sky, two shadows raced through the forest. Chang-woon, already bloodied from fighting Juk-yo’s subordinates, and Juk-yo, who looked far more at ease, hid among the trees and struck at each other from the shadows. Chang-woon raised gales to assail him and tore trees free with telekinesis to block the path, yet Juk-yo simply kicked the trunks into splinters and pressed forward as if the wind meant nothing.
Thud!
Black tentacles erupted from the earth and punched straight through Chang-woon’s body. Juk-yo had scattered his own blood as traps and driven him into them. Like a rabbit forced into a snare, Chang-woon collapsed helplessly forward.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
From beneath a cold stone statue came the scream of a young Éire woman. Eighteen years old, already married and a mother—whether she was truly Jeong-ya’s incarnation or merely the latest vessel for Juk-yo’s curse, Chang-woon knew he would fail to protect her this time as well. He fell onto Ireland’s cold black earth, and Juk-yo ground a boot into his head.
“You mean to protect that woman? To shield the one who cast us into eternal night?”
“Y-yes… I will! More than that—there’s no proof she’s Jeong-ya at all! It’s just your delusion, brother!”
In the next instant Juk-yo kicked him. Chang-woon flew, smashed into a tree, and began to drop. Juk-yo closed the distance at terrifying speed and seized him by the throat before he could hit the ground. A wet crack of shifting vertebrae sounded, and Chang-woon’s body went limp. Only for a moment. The monstrous regeneration of a Jinma knitted the broken neck bones back together, and he revived. Juk-yo looked down at him and smiled with pure sadism.
“Fine. She’s your woman, so of course your arm bends inward for her. Good. Then you become her parent.”
“Guh…! Wh-what?”
“Pour your blood into her and make her a vampire! Do that and I’ll leave the two of you alone forever. Why not? She was a vampire once. She’s only going back.”
“Nngh…! I—I can’t.”
Chang-woon refused to yield to the threat. Turning a healthy human into a resident of the night was unforgivable. Dragging an ordinary person into the world of vampires—where slaughter and violence were virtues—was nothing more than creating one more rabid dog. That was exactly what Juk-yo wanted to watch: not a clean death, but a living misery that would feed his sadism. And he wanted Chang-woon, once Jeong-ya’s man, to do it with his own hands.
“Why refuse? No matter how many times she reincarnates, I’ll find her and kill her. Do you understand what it means for me to step away?”
“Even so… I want her to stay human. I’ve already become a vampire. At least let her remain—”
Every hair on Juk-yo’s body stood on end. He flared with murderous rage.
“You idiot! That sentimental crap makes my skin crawl!”
The wet sound of tearing flesh rang out as Chang-woon’s limbs were ripped free and hurled away. Juk-yo turned from the limbless body, then seemed to remember something, raised a hand, and snapped his fingers.
Crack!
The woman cowering and trembling beneath the statue exploded into pieces. Like a human sacrifice offered to the ancient Druid gods, she was shattered, and every drop of her blood sprayed across the stone.
“Hahahaha… Hahahahahahaha!”
Laughing, Juk-yo vanished into the mist. He would return to the world of the mad moon and reign over the vampires once more. Killing these cursed offerings, time after time, was nothing more than a hobby to him.
Then why, Juk-yo, do you never pour your own blood into her?
Chang-woon closed his eyes with that final question as consciousness slipped away.
Chang-woon snapped awake. Still suffering from his own severe wounds, he must have dozed for a moment. He could not tell whether he had dreamed or simply remembered. He scrubbed his face with both hands and forced his mind to focus.
A sudden, violent rush of wind reached him. Startled by the killing intent, Chang-woon rose just as the apartment window slid open. Silvester stood there, arms folded, hovering in midair. Moonlight glittered on his silver hair and on the hair-thin wires stretched beneath his feet. This man—no, rumor claimed he was no man at all.
Some said the Austrian mage-priest Silvester had created a slaughter-engine; others whispered that the Vatican had cloned an artificial human from the holy blood of Jesus Christ. Either way, one fact was certain: he possessed power that surpassed vampires and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jinma themselves.
“Your instincts are sharp.”
Before the words finished, gunfire erupted. Chang-woon threw himself backward to dodge the bullets and hurled the chair he had been sitting on at Silvester. The priest casually batted it aside with his Japanese sword.
“Kh! Silvester! Barging into a lady’s room—you’ve got rotten manners!”
“Aren’t we comrades in that regard?”
Silvester stepped carefully inside. Chang-woon drew climbing rope from his waist and gripped it with both hands. With a sharp whir the rope uncoiled into long strands of Kevlar thread that fluttered through the air.
“Not bad. This might actually be worth my time.”
Silvester lunged, Muramasa raised. Every time Chang-woon blocked, the gunshot wound in his side throbbed. The priest’s strength rivaled a vampire’s. Yet Chang-woon was one of the twenty-four strongest Jinma. Though his equipment was poor by comparison, their collision turned the cramped room into a typhoon. The only mercy was that there was no furniture left to smash.
Whoosh!
Gale-force wind, telekinesis, and illusion—Chang-woon unleashed them all. Silvester slipped past every attack, closed in, and drove Muramasa through him.
Crunch!
The keen blade punched through Chang-woon’s chest. In the same instant Chang-woon’s hand shot toward the priest’s face. A vampire’s grip was a weapon in its own right—less sharp than a sword, yet the damage it left was far more grotesque.
“Impressive!”
Silvester sneered and withdrew, evading the strike. Muramasa tore free of Chang-woon’s flesh, spraying blood in every direction. The priest flicked his coat to bat the droplets from his face, then drew an aspergillum from inside his cassock and sprinkled holy water over the blade.
“That’ll make it rust.”
Chang-woon offered the advice without thinking. Silvester lowered the aspergillum and fixed him with a glacial stare.
“How considerate of you.”
The edge glittered coldly in the dark, its tip gleaming like a beast’s wet nose scenting blood. This priest would not stop until Chang-woon was dead. Regrettable, then—he would have to kill him first. Chang-woon reached for the blood that had spattered Silvester’s body and tried to exert the binding power of blood.
Yet something was wrong. His power simply drained away, like fresh water vanishing into a vast ocean; the binding refused to take hold.
The binding… won’t work?
If blood-binding failed, then drinking that blood would grant a vampire no benefit—only poison. What in the world was this man?
Fighting him will only poison me. There’s nothing to gain!
The vampire Silvester hunted was not Chang-woon alone. There was no need to exhaust himself as the first opponent. Yet he could not simply turn his back and flee; the instant he did, that sword would carve open his unprotected spine.
At that moment Jeong-ah stirred with a soft moan and sat up. The second Chang-woon saw her, he hurled himself through the balcony. Silvester leaned out after him, but Chang-woon had already vanished without a trace.
“You took that much sunlight earlier and still aren’t weakened much.”
Even after being run through, his movements had remained sharp and light. The fight had ended only because Chang-woon refused to go all-out; a true death match would not have been so easy.
“Ah—y-you! How did you get in here?”
“Through the window. And you—after everything I said, you were still chatting away with a vampire.”
“That’s my private business. Chang-woon doesn’t seem that bad. Where is he, anyway?”
“I drove him off. Originally I meant to kill him. No—vampires are already dead, so ‘kill’ is the wrong word. Let me correct myself: I intended to erase him.”
Silvester sheathed Muramasa as he spoke. Chang-woon was an ancient vampire with many abilities, yet in front of this woman named Jeong-ah he had never used them freely. Was he holding back so she would not be drawn in?
What a fool. Then again, one more fool among the vampires is hardly strange.
Jeong-ah stared at Silvester as if he were the strangest creature alive and pressed him again.
“Huh? Chang-woon never hurt me, you know. You’re the one who came in and started trouble, aren’t you?”
“If someone can claim AIDS is a fine disease simply because they haven’t caught it yet, then perhaps a vampire can look good too.”
Silvester examined his own body with an expressionless face and muttered,
“Vampires are ultimately a social evil. Hunters are no better. For people like us, debating good and evil is meaningless.”
He glanced down at his arm. Sometime during the fight—he could not say when—the back of his hand had been torn open, and blood was seeping out. For such a large wound the flow was surprisingly light.
“Hm? When did I get this?”
“Ah—hold on. There should be a first-aid kit somewhere…”
She looked around, then noticed the bandage neatly wrapped around her own arm.
“….”
Realizing Chang-woon had put it there, Jeong-ah flushed for a moment, said nothing, and brought the kit over to Silvester. The instant she reached for his wound, a wave of dizziness crashed over her. A splitting headache and a burning thirst seized her entire body.
“Ah! Hah… hah!”
“….”
Silvester watched her intently. Jeong-ah barely managed to collect herself and looked up at him.
“What?”
“My wounds heal on their own. I don’t need that.”
“So you’re not an ordinary human either, then?”
She recovered, put the kit away. The headache, dizziness, and thirst vanished as if they had never existed. Yet Silvester suddenly spoke in a voice that was almost too sweet, too alluring.
“Do you want to lick the blood?”
Jeong-ah’s face blazed. This man was a priest, yet he overflowed with sensuality—pale skin, cold features, and long silver hair that suited him far too well. Hearing him ask something so soft and intimate made her heart lurch.
“What? N-no, what are you even—?!”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Silvester spoke as if the thought had only just occurred to him.
“My name is Father Silvester. Call me whatever you like.”