Ayako's Betrayal
“You’re one persistent woman. Persistent women aren’t popular, you know!”
“Shut up! Even if I die, dragging a bastard like you down with me would make it all worth it!”
“Is that so? But I’m a priest. Dying together with a woman would be quite the scandal!”
In that instant Muramasa rose from Silvester’s grip. The blade punched straight through the woman’s back and skewered Silvester as well. Their silhouettes locked for a heartbeat, and moonlight spilled across the collapsing form of the female vampire.
The elevator was rising. All right. If she just rode this down… But a sudden, ominous premonition seized Jeong-ah. Come to think of it, wouldn’t the enemies expect her to escape by elevator? And the car now climbing toward her had already reached the fourth floor before she even pressed the button.
In the end she kept plunging down the stairs, gasping, round and round until her head spun. Going down didn’t cost much strength, yet the endless spirals left her dizzy. She reached the second floor, then hurled herself out through a window into the night.
“Hah… hah…”
Jeong-ah looked up at the apartment building. With a shattering crash every window on a floor blew outward, and vampires poured after her.
“Ah!”
She sprinted hard into the night streets. The vampires kept closing; every time she risked a glance over her shoulder, despair clawed at her. Then, just ahead, Yoon-chang opened a car door and stepped out.
“S-Senior!”
“Huh? Jeong-ah? What’s going on? Hey—what’s with that wound?”
She ignored the questions and scrambled into the car.
“Hurry! My life’s in danger! Drive!”
“What? What happened? Did some guy you dated as a freshman desert with a rifle or something? You haven’t even flipped your rubber shoes on him!”
Even as he joked, Yoon-chang slid into the driver’s seat and fired the engine. Jeong-ah’s personality would never let her make that kind of crack for fun. The moment the car roared to life, the rear windshield exploded and vampire arms thrust in after her. She yelped and dropped low, dodging the grasping hands; Yoon-chang stomped the accelerator and rocketed forward. The campaign sticker stuck inside the car—“Let’s refrain from sudden starts and stops”—flashed in the rear-view mirror.
“D-Damn it, what the hell is this?!”
Yoon-chang roared and floored it. He despised automatic transmissions, so he worked the clutch and slammed the gear into third. With vampires still clinging, he tore ahead thirty meters, then whipped into a sharp curve. Glass and metal shrieked; the vampires were flung off. The instant they hit the pavement Jeong-ah scrambled into the front seat.
“Faster! Or we’re dead!”
“Whoa! What are those things? Are they okay?”
Even then he worried about the ones who’d fallen. He’d tried the move like something out of a movie, but the result was anything but cartoonish. Anyone would flinch at the sound of bodies breaking.
“They’re not human, so go!”
“Hey, hey, what are you talking about? If they’re not human, are they cats or what? Huh?”
He said it, yet stopping meant dying right along with her, so he drove like a man possessed. His beloved Tuscani spat fire and flew. Behind them the vampires swarmed a roadside truck, ripped the cover off the steering column with bare hands, tore free the wires, and hot-wired the engine.
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Just give up already—they’re chasing like crazy.”
“Keh-heh-heh! A night race has its own charms, doesn’t it?!”
The truck thundered after them at terrifying speed. Vampires who had been running on foot realized a vehicle was faster and scrambled aboard until the bed looked like a military transport crammed with soldiers—enough to chill anyone’s blood.
Still, they managed to open a little distance. Jeong-ah caught her breath, glanced at her own hand, and saw blood welling where glass had cut her. Silvester’s words floated up unbidden.
I’m going to become a vampire like them?
She shook her head hard. Yoon-chang, white with terror, demanded answers.
“Urrrgh! What the hell are those things? Explain! Jeong-ah! This car’s still under financing!”
“They’re the ones behind the serial murders.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
His good-natured face went deathly pale. She wasn’t kidding. Half the missing and dead in the area had probably been turned into ghouls to swell their ranks. But the man driving was staring sideways—Jeong-ah yanked his head forward.
“Watch the road!”
A sudden bang rocked the car. The truck had caught up and rammed them from the side. It felt as if they’d plunged straight into a full-blown action movie. Maybe people in the West sideswiped cars like that all the time, but a Korean driver like Yoon-chang had no chance of withstanding it.
“Guhhh! Oh my God!”
“This won’t work! Take a narrow side road!”
“At this speed? Impossible!”
A vampire launched itself onto the hood. The windshield spider-webbed with a crash, blinding them completely. Jeong-ah kicked the glass out with one vicious stamp. Wind howled in; a vampire’s hand snaked through and seized her ankle.
“Keh-heh-heh! Hello, miss!”
“Not hello!”
She buried the knife Silvester had given her in the vampire’s throat. The move must have shocked it.
“Ghk! You bitch!”
It lunged in fury—then the blade flared, and the vampire was blasted off the car with a choked scream. Yoon-chang swung hard into the narrow road beside a construction site, hoping to lose the truck.
“Yes! We’re safe!”
He exhaled in relief the moment they entered the tight lane. No truck could keep speed here. But in the rear-view mirror two crimson eyes suddenly blazed. One fleeting glance was enough; Yoon-chang’s mind was already stolen.
“Heh-heh-heh. Kheh-heh-heh. Uheh-heh-heh-heh!”
Foam flecked his lips; he laughed like an epileptic. Jeong-ah shook him, but there was no sign of returning sanity.
“Senior! Look out!”
The madman aimed the car straight at the steel girders of the construction site. Jeong-ah snapped her seat belt on just before impact. Airbags exploded from both the driver’s and passenger’s sides—thank heaven for a modern car. The Tuscani slammed into the girders and crumpled into scrap.
“Ugh…”
Jeong-ah forced the ruined door open, staggered a few steps, and collapsed. What was happening? She wasn’t some action-movie heroine; how had she ended up in this nightmare?
“This… this is the worst.”
She sank onto the cold dirt.
The vampires’ truck rolled in along the narrow road. Its headlights washed over Jeong-ah where she lay stunned by the crash. The truck stopped; vampires leapt down. Between them Juk-yo descended like a bird of prey, seized the fallen Jeong-ah, and hoisted her high.
“Boring. Caught so easily. Chang-woon! You’ve lost again!”
Juk-yo regarded her with mild disappointment. The toy he had meant to play with thoroughly was already broken. Of course this round had cost him more than any before— the Jinma hunter had slaughtered many of his vampires, and Chang-woon had done the same—yet to Juk-yo himself the victory felt flat and flavorless.
“Care to die for me, then?”
“No!”
A thunderous blast of wind exploded among the gathered vampires, flinging them like rag dolls. The gale tore through their ranks, shredding every body it touched. From its heart Chang-woon emerged.
“Oh? You’re finally here. Slow.”
Juk-yo set Jeong-ah down as if he had been waiting. Perhaps the desire to wound Chang-woon burned hotter in him than any vengeance against Jeong-ya. Crushing a desperate Chang-woon and murdering the object of his curse before his eyes—that was the only amusement left in this endless, tedious existence.
“Kill him! Whoever takes Chang-woon gets his blood!”
Vampires spilled from the truck; others arrived late by every means imaginable, some even on foot, flooding the construction site. Greed for Chang-woon’s blood drove them forward before Juk-yo even finished speaking.
“Kill him!”
“Don’t make me laugh!”
Chang-woon flicked his fingers. The head of the foremost vampire simply vanished. A whirlwind caught the body and reduced it to red mist. Those who closed to melee range took fists to the face and toppled with brains trailing behind them.
“Don’t underestimate me, children!”
His roar summoned a storm that seized every vampire. No matter how strong their limbs, once their feet left the ground they were helpless—an elephant is powerless in the ocean. The searing gale lifted them into the air, nullifying every advantage. Chang-woon hurled another blast and shredded the floating prey. Still more vampires charged without losing their killing intent.
Then a black serpent danced along the wind. Like a water-snake cutting across a tropical river, a long black whip streaked in, coiling around the throats of the vampires thrashing in mid-air and silencing them forever.
“Ayako!”
Chang-woon greeted the unexpected ally with gratitude. Ayako dropped among Juk-yo’s vampires, whip lashing, cutting them down.
“Gyaaaah!”
A screaming vampire crawled on the ground; Kevlar thread whipped around it. The gale tightened like a fist. In that instant the threads became blades and diced the creature into pieces. Its blood rose into the air and flowed into Chang-woon, sealing his wounds. At last only Juk-yo remained. Even then he had merely watched his subordinates die. Once Chang-woon and Ayako finished the slaughter, he gave a thin smile, seized Jeong-ah by the throat again, and held her out toward Chang-woon.
“Ugh…!”
That slender neck looked ready to snap at any second. The soft moan pulled Chang-woon back to himself; he strode forward shouting.
“Juk-yo! Let her go!”
“Oh? Why should I? For someone so ignorant of the world, do you not even know what a man who takes a hostage usually does? Hmm? If I meant to release her so easily I would never have grabbed her.”
“Stop playing the third-rate villain. That’s not your style and you know it.”
Juk-yo nodded as if conceding the point and dropped Jeong-ah to the dirt.
“True. Crushing you first and then killing the girl in front of your eyes would be far more satisfying.”
Chang-woon motioned Ayako back and stepped forward alone.
“It won’t be so easy this time. Their blood has restored quite a bit of my strength.”
“Is that so? But did you know this?”
At that moment Jeong-ah’s eyes opened. Their gazes met; Chang-woon smiled, and Jeong-ah’s face filled with horror. That smile—
“Behind you!”
A black whip flashed from behind Chang-woon and coiled around his neck. In the same instant a crimson lance of blood shot from Juk-yo, punched through Chang-woon’s body, and carried him into the corrugated steel wall.
“Ghk!”
Pinned to the panel, Chang-woon thrashed once, then crumpled forward. The blood spear liquefied and streamed back into Juk-yo.
“Chang-woon!”
Jeong-ah’s scream went unheard. Chang-woon twisted to look behind him. There stood Ayako, face blank, the whip still in her hand. She was the one who had pointed him to this place. He had trusted her and come—only to be betrayed from behind?
“Ta… Tachihara!”
He croaked her name in ruin, but she reeled in the whip and deliberately looked away. Juk-yo chuckled. The tableau before him—faith shattered, the faithful wounded—was pure beauty to his sadism. It was the sight he always hungered for.
“Hahahaha! That woman is already nothing more than my limb. Fool! That’s why you never trust anyone so lightly—even if you are the vampire who sired her!”
Ayako bit her lip until it bled, but as long as Juk-yo held the power of life and death over her she could only endure.
Chang-woon could not answer. He lay on the ground and glared up at Juk-yo, eyes blazing with hatred that changed nothing about the present reality.
“Guh…!”
“Hahahaha! I win this game as well. Did you know? I have never once regretted or resented becoming a vampire. I savor this very moment. Living as a vampire, fighting, killing—every last scrap of it is so delicious it drives me mad!”
Jeong-ah glared at him, fury rising. If not for that, why place a blood curse and keep murdering people? Was she nothing more than a bystander dragged into their war?
“You’re unbelievable!”
“Idiot! At this rate both humans and vampires will be destroyed!”
Chang-woon and Jeong-ah condemned him in the same breath, yet their words meant nothing to the one who held absolute power.
“I have no interest in lectures from a mosquito that only sucks the blood of other vampires. At any rate, all your efforts have been wasted. Do you even know what state that woman is in right now? Hmm?”