A Possibility That Isn't Zero
Chang-woon made his way to Ayako's motel. He worried about Jeong-ah, but the man wouldn't harm a human—not the rumored Jinma-hunting vampire hunter. If it was him, he could probably protect Jeong-ah from Juk-yo's people. Still, the unease wouldn't leave him.
"Damn it. So he isn't human after all. I've never faced a hunter that strong."
Muttering to himself, Chang-woon stepped into the corridor and knocked on the door. He needed to recover first, no matter what. If it came to it, he could ambush some of Juk-yo's spawn and heal with their blood—but in his current state, moving rashly would be a mistake. If this had stayed a simple duel between him and Juk-yo, fine. But now a Jinma hunter had entered the board, and other vampire bloodlines like the Vanishing Blood were starting to stir.
He had no intention of blundering around and fattening their bellies with his own blood.
Knock, knock…
Ayako regulated her breathing to keep up a calm front, then opened the door to receive him. Chang-woon stepped inside—and suddenly his legs gave out. He pitched forward. Ayako caught him before he hit the floor.
"Chang-woon!"
"Heh… ugly sight, isn't it. Sorry."
"Where on earth did you go?"
She laid the weakened vampire on the bed. Clearly he had forced himself to move while his wounds were still open, and it had caught up with him.
"You're a powerful vampire, but even you know better than I do that sunlight is poison when you're already weak."
"Yeah. I went to Jeong-ya's house."
"Jeong-ah. Past lives are past lives; this life is this one. Keep that straight. And you didn't even believe she was Jeong-ya's reincarnation in the first place."
"True enough. Haa… haa…"
Chang-woon carefully restored the binding force of his body and began treating his wounds. He couldn't simply leave Jeong-ah entirely in Silvester's hands—not when he was the one who had to protect her. If he didn't heal soon…
"Still. Taking a bullet at night… maybe I ought to give up my seat as a Jinma."
He muttered the words under his breath. At night he could stop even a sniper rifle with telekinesis—yet he had been hit and left half-dead. It was almost laughable. Of course, the weapon had been an M82A1 Barrett. Even Jinma stronger than him would struggle to stop a round like that.
"By the way—where is her house?"
Ayako asked it lightly. Chang-woon started to answer, then stopped, mouth open, lost for a moment in thought. The air between them chilled. She recovered at once and threw herself into the explanation with everything she had.
"So I can protect her while you're weak. Tell me."
"Ah. Cheongsong Apartments, Building A, unit 1305. She doesn't like vampires, so stay out of sight… and there's a Jinma hunter there. Be careful. Honestly, you don't even need to go. I want to tell you not to."
His voice sank lower and lower, like a man drifting into sleep—until it was closer to sleep-talk than speech. A question rose in Ayako's mind without warning.
"Why do you keep protecting her? Juk-yo's power is immense. If you stopped making an enemy of him and focused on growing stronger yourself—yes. You could simply stop protecting that woman. You don't even know if the Blood Curse truly carries a past life forward. She isn't your Jeong-ya. She's someone else!"
By the end it was less an argument than a plea. She loved this hopeless vampire father of hers with all her heart.
"That isn't true. Bonds transcend everything. If the one you loved lost their memory and became a different person, could you cast them aside? Whether she remembers me or not—whether she is born a man, or something else entirely—she is still her. Of course I don't believe in the Blood Curse either. But…"
"…"
"If there is even the slightest chance that she is the one, I have to protect her from Juk-yo. Yes. Even a possibility that converges to zero is not zero."
Chang-woon—the cold man who would never look at her. Because it was the love of vampires, untouched by lust, it was purer still, and for that very reason all the more cursed. An eternal yearning that could never be fulfilled… Ayako could only laugh, breathlessly. Vampires cannot cry, so laughing was all that remained. Never before had the inability to weep felt so bitterly sad.
"What a powerful bond. Something the likes of me could never hope to overcome… Damn it! This is so stupid."
But the merciless Chang-woon had already sunk into a sleep like death.
As always, Juk-yo stood atop the steel framework and looked down over the city's nightscape.
"They say the stupider a man is, the more he loves high places. Still—it really is a magnificent world. This smog could rival London's."
He nodded as if savoring the aftertaste of his own words. Then information flooded into his mind. The fragments of flesh he had planted here and there gathered intelligence for him with perfect loyalty. That power was why he had been able to arrive in Korea ahead of Tetra Anax's support.
"Our new member seems to have found the place where the treasure is buried! Go!"
Juk-yo gave the command with lordly composure. At once, vampires spilled from the half-built structure and vanished into the shadows of the city.
A pack of vampires snickered at one another as they closed in on the apartment complex. Juk-yo's orders were absolute, but he had said nothing about how they were to be carried out. They slipped through the dark, already tasting the banquet of violence and slaughter prepared for them. The apartment's location was known. This many vampires against a lone woman—and without the Jinma Chang-woon present—the outcome was as good as written.
"They say a hunter's with her, but a hunter's still just a human."
"What about alchemists, though? Or a Taoist like Yen? Those humans are dangerous. And Jinma Sepia got killed too—by a Jinma hunter."
"You think some idiot like that is anywhere near our Lord Juk-yo? Come on."
Talking like that, they formed a cordon. An apartment building was a sealed box once the entrances were cut off. Humans had no gift for flying away into the sky. If Chang-woon and the woman had been separated, this would be free meat. But then a thunderous gunshot cracked through the night.
"Gaaah!"
The upper half of the vampire at the front simply ceased to exist. Blood and shredded flesh sprayed in every direction. It was a wound no vampire could regenerate from, no matter how resilient.
The others whirled toward the sound. There on a terrace stood Silvester, a rifle braced against the railing. His silver hair shone faintly even in the dark as the beautiful priest swung the barrel toward his next offering and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
"Y-you're insane—!"
Before the words finished, another vampire was hit. His blood-soaked upper body lofted into the air and vomited blood and entrails without mercy.
The city kept shuddering under the successive blasts, yet the streets around them stayed eerily quiet—as if the whole neighborhood had agreed to endure the gunfire in silence. Right. This has to be a scam. Vampires, hunters, all of it fake. Any second now some TV station will show up and apologize, saying it was a hidden-camera prank. Jeong-ah covered her ears with a pillow and clung to the thought. Silvester, for his part, kept swapping magazines and firing from the terrace—then finally tossed the rifle inside.
"They're coming in through the blind spots."
The front door buckled with a sudden whump, and a woman vampire in a cowboy hat kicked it open, hands still in her pockets.
"Heh. Handsome priest. Shame about killing our friends."
"You talk too much, slut."
"Well now. I don't know how high and mighty you feel with that rifle, but let's see what else you can do without it. Go!"
At her signal, the ghouls packed behind her surged forward. They had once been human; the vampire's curse had stripped them of personhood and left only monsters. Their forms were so grotesque that Jeong-ah recoiled in revulsion.
"Move!"
Silvester shoved the terrified Jeong-ah behind him and lunged. Muramasa left its scabbard in the same motion, and the first rank of ghouls went down like cut grass. He bent inward and cut upward; a wet spray of blood painted the apartment ceiling. It was not a flashy technique—only a cold, clean strike, beautiful enough to sting the eyes. Looking up at the ceiling where the blood had already begun to bead and drip, Jeong-ah felt the breath leave her body in a single, stunning shock.
"Haa… haa… haa… ngh—!"
"Oh?"
Watching the change take her, Silvester found himself interested enough to glance away mid-fight. In that instant the ghouls rushed him together, tangling their bodies around Muramasa and pinning the blade. Even a sword becomes little more than a string of meat when half a dozen torsos are skewered on it—but Silvester did not flinch.
"Clever little trick."
"Yeah! But it won't stay fun for long!"
The woman vampire warped both arms into blades and charged. In the same breath a .50-caliber Desert Eagle slid from Silvester's sleeve. He shot her without hesitation.
"I-impossible. A hand-cannon that size can't come out of a sleeve— koff!"
Blood ran from her head and mouth as she writhed. Silvester's face remained blank.
"Think of it as Doraemon's fourth-dimensional pocket and you'll sleep better. Or don't."
Muramasa moved. Four or five ghouls still clung to the blade, yet it parted their flesh as lightly as scissors through paper and slipped free.
"Chest!"
A shout, a single cut. The ghouls' bodies shattered; the room drowned in blood. The sheer savagery seemed to jolt Jeong-ah back to herself—she shook her head hard from side to side. Silvester drew a knife from inside his coat.
"Lee Jeong-ah, was it?"
"Yes?"
The knife landed at her feet. It was far too vicious a thing to call a knife—a blade a full thirty centimeters long, thick enough to be a distant cousin of an axe head.
"Kill yourself."
"What?"
"Better to end it now than become a vampire. Or would you rather end up like them?"
He pointed at the twitching ghoul corpses on the floor. Jeong-ah shuddered at the carnage and forced the words out.
"Y-you can't mean that. Why would I have to?"
"A vampire is a human who has fallen. The cracks of the Enigma turn people into vampires, and you—having come into contact with a Jinma, a being of that magnitude—are at far greater risk. If you want to become one, I can kill you myself right now. If you don't, take your own life. I am not accustomed to fighting while protecting someone else."
Jeong-ah picked up the knife and watched Silvester's face. Those eyes were ice, and they terrified her. Then a hand thrust up from the heap of ghoul corpses and locked around Silvester's throat.
"Kraaah! You damned Doraemon!"
The woman vampire was still alive. She had seized his neck. The cry was absurd, but Silvester only smiled and set a hand on her head.
"Hnh. I'm flattered."
In that gap Jeong-ah bolted for the door. Now even the priest had begun to threaten her life. The only person left she could trust with her body was Chang-woon.
"Ah—where is he when I need him most?!"
She jabbed the elevator button and kept scanning the hall around her.