The Apostle of Justice

After reclaiming his bike from the repair shop, Se-gun took it out for a slow test ride and, while he was at it, tapped into police radio chatter.

As quitting time settled in, the city swelled with a tide of commuters. Streams of cars flowing toward the bedroom towns of the Seoul outskirts—Ilsan, Bucheon, and the rest—laid bare the monstrous, deformed sprawl of this megalopolis. It might have been better than Japan, where people rode trains across absurd distances just to work in Tokyo, but a city this misshapen was a grotesque graveyard in its own right.

And in a graveyard, it wasn’t zombies that rose—it was vampires. When the black dark thickened with yellow-brown and red smog, and the ozone broken down by daylight gave off its nauseating stink, that was Se-gun’s dance time. Blood and fire whirled, corpses stacked high—what exactly was he doing? He asked himself the question, but all that ever remained was hostility, and the will to kill. If vampires were already dead the way they were in movies and novels, killing intent shouldn’t even apply. Yet they walked on two legs, breathed, spoke like people, even fell in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠love, and shrieked their heads off when it suited them.

Putting a bullet through one of those skulls—wasn’t that pure joy? Se-gun lashed the case holding his USAS-12 to the side of the motorcycle and tore into the night with the police band for a soundtrack. Until this night ended and day returned, he would keep running wild, hunting for something—anything—that could still jolt his numbed self. And then—

A female officer’s voice, drier than the Sahara, relayed the news to the patrolmen. Were their hearts made of stainless steel so fear couldn’t rust them? To send her own colleagues into a death trap in that flat, flavorless tone—Se-gun almost pitied the police. Separate from that, though, he knew perfectly well they would never catch a vampire with the tracking methods they used. Vampires kicked off walls and scaled buildings. Had anyone ever seen Spider-Man get ticketed by the cops?

"Heh."

Se-gun bit his lower lip until blood welled, then pressed the kiss of it to his pendant. The bloodstone drank the offering and slowly began to glow with power. A vampire-detection tool forged through sacred magic. For something occult, the interface was almost insultingly intuitive—even a spiritually stone-deaf human like Se-gun could use it.

"All right then, Apostle of Justice. Let’s see. The hunter of injustice is going to kill you."

Muttering that, he tipped his head back and tucked the pendant inside his clothes as if he meant to swallow it. The darkness that clung to his body would answer how close he had already come to the night’s demons. His green-tinted hair caught the streetlights and shone pale; his golden silhouette was sleek as a black panther’s. The drugs were still in him, but his hard-trained body was streamlined and sharp like any predator’s. And that bike—at the very least, he was a hunter of other predators, of vampires. A monster evolved into the form this city needed most. That was Han Se-gun.

He had cast himself as the villain to catch the Apostle of Justice. No—it was far too late to call himself a villain as if the role were new.

Somewhere along the way, murder had gone numb. Maybe that was why he’d killed too many. His composite sketch had grown detailed; public interest had swollen with it. He should have seen a day like this coming. And yet he couldn’t stay still—society itself kept dragging him along.

They either insulted him or, failing that, cheered him on and idolized him. Delivering justice. In a way, it was a simple, rational reason. Because of it, he could take blood without guilt, and the people went wild for him.

A wave of nausea rose without warning. What made him sick was himself—wrapping the need for blood in the rags of justice—and the people who agreed with him and made him a hero. Filthy. You’re the same as the ones who looked the other way when bastards like that used to torment me. If you love watching injustice get punished, if you love seeing people broken by incomprehensible violence, then why weren’t you angry before? I’m already ruined goods—but how could all of you look away from everything, and only when those bastards finally got it send me that cheap, secondhand approval?

Still, their praise had thoroughly anesthetized him, and he had killed so many. When he came to himself, his hands were soaked in blood, and he was licking them clean. It was terrifying—and yet a certain satisfaction moved him. He wouldn’t deny that he, stripped of a human future as a vampire, had tried to find fulfillment in that.

But he was a hero. Whatever the circumstances, he had done what you humans couldn’t bring yourselves to do—law, morality, conscience, whatever the excuse—and cleaned up society’s trash. He was a hero.

The police couldn’t catch him. He leapt from building to building, cutting across whole blocks. Nothing was more useful for shaking patrols than a vampire’s physical gifts. They didn’t understand three dimensions. Thinking you just had to block the roads and everything would be fine—wasn’t that a little naive?

"Haa… haa… I need somewhere to rest for a bit."

He walked toward the subway. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Euljiro, was it? The station facing Sewoon Shopping Center along Cheonggyecheon received him. Sewoon was so old that looking at it now suggested the fossil of a dying dinosaur—or something worse, the husk of a greater beast. At night the building was even more desolate; even as a vampire, he felt a faint fear and awe before it.

"Huh?"

Across the street, several young men emerged from the subway entrance. At an hour when the trains should have stopped, foreigners coming up from the station was strange enough. What happened next was stranger still.

Thwack!

A sound nothing like the gunfire of movies or comics—more like a toy pop-gun—and the man shattered. Then, with a low growl of engine, a motorcycle surged up the stairs. He dove for the subway entrance on pure reflex. Wh-what the hell was that just now?

"Kyaaargh!"

Howls and screams rose. Unable to kill his curiosity, he looked out again—and what filled his eyes was a scene of slaughter. The man who had climbed off the bike, still helmeted, was firing a shouldered gun into the foreigners, then dropping low as one of them charged with a weapon. Light seemed to spit from him as he drew a blade.

Crack!

A sound like a belt striking bare flesh, and a leg came off. Then a head strike—if he held a kendo rank, it showed. The helmeted man whipped past, cracking the foreigner’s skull. More astonishing still was how, even mid-melee, he switched weapons at speed. He spun the sword in one hand while the other stripped a magazine from the gun—he must have hit the release—jammed the blade into the plywood of a street stall, and with both hands slammed a fresh magazine home. Then fire again—

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Even from a distance the recoil looked vicious, but the aim was brutally accurate. The foreigners in front never mounted a real resistance; every last one of them came apart.

"Kh…"

He had never seen people break like that. Nausea rolled through him. A head gone, a spine left twitching like a spring, guts sliding out in loose loops—even to a vampire’s eyes it was hideous. And the man’s movements were terrifyingly fast and precise—fast even by vampire standards.

Is he a vampire too?

He couldn’t think anything else. Fear hit him cold; he went deeper down, soundless. Police didn’t scare him, but a maniac like that was a genuine demon. His instincts said being caught would be very bad.

"Hmm. The pendulum’s still reacting."

The man’s voice carried to him. Startled, he pushed farther inside. Right—he’d groaned without thinking a moment ago. The man must have heard.

If that one is a vampire too—!

He bolted downward in a panic. And then an engine note filled the subway. The man had come in after him.

Se-gun flipped on the headlight and rode down the stairs. Moments earlier he had clearly heard someone scuttle into the depths. The Bloodstone Pendulum kept answering; a vampire had definitely fled this way. Chasing stragglers was less useful than hunting that smug Apostle of Justice—but the pendulum reacted to the nearest target. If he didn’t clear them out first, the search would get muddied.

"So where did this bastard go?"

He swept the interior with the light. An empty station still had night staff, of course, but if a vampire had dived in, Se-gun had to dive in after. Most people on night duty were half-asleep anyway—what did it matter?

"Tch."

Inside, the headlight and the gunfire had only startled a few homeless people; no one else showed. He was about to give up and leave when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the beam caught a torn stainless-steel grate. Someone had ripped the staff door off its hinges and slipped onto the platform.

Whoever this idiot is, he’s got nerve.

Thinking that, Se-gun squeezed the bike through the narrow doorway and charged in.

He rode the stairs down in one breath, then suddenly braked near the platform. A presence lingered to the side—someone hiding. Escalators flanked him on both sides, and Se-gun was not quite the kind of man who rode a motorcycle up and down escalators… or so he liked to claim.

"Hmm."

He drew a Glock, fitted a suppressor, and eased down the steps. Instantly a stainless-steel recycling bin came flying from the side.

Vrooom!

He had expected the attack. Petty, for a vampire—but a hit would still hurt. He gunned the bike, slipped past the throw, and spun around on the platform.

"Ugh!"

Seeing the miss, the target bolted for the exit opposite the way Se-gun had entered. Train platforms, though, were long. Se-gun put rounds into the exposed back.

"Kh—!"

Only then did the other realize his mistake and duck behind a pillar. Se-gun rode the platform hard, hunting him down.

"Huh. An Asian?"

The target was different from the vampires he’d just put down—East Asian. Interesting. Famous clans like Hecate’s, or the Island Astate, were classic white supremacists who bragged about having no people of color among them. An Asian vampire? And a Korean, at that?

"Kraah!"

The thing ducked behind a vending machine. Se-gun paused, bike idling. If it tore the machine free and threw it, even he would be in real danger.

Closing in would only improve the machine’s odds of hitting him. Best option: shoot the moment it tried to lift. He holstered the suppressed Glock and raised the USAS-12. He’d meant to avoid using it underground if he could—but if the bastard was playing it this way, he had no choice. Then the thing suddenly spoke in Korean.

"S-stop. I’m a vampire too!"

"…What?"

For Se-gun, it was pure absurdity. Of course he knew the bastard was a vampire—that was why he’d chased him. What was I’m a vampire too supposed to mean? A request to make the kill clean?

"I don’t know why you killed those foreigners, but I had nothing to do with it. And I have no intention of talking about what you did!"

"You’ve got to be kidding me…"

Speechless, Se-gun stroked the gun. Then a thought struck him. He had come this way because the police report had pointed near a PC bang in the area, hadn’t he?

"So. You’re the one who’s been killing people lately. The one who only hunts villains."

"What? Ah… yes."

"Why do you do it?"

With a vending machine between them, Se-gun and the other held a strange little dialogue.

"Because they’re villains, and I’m a vampire anyway—if I’m going to drink blood, I might as well drink villains’ blood, so…"

For an Apostle of Justice who executed the wicked, the delivery was pathetic. Se-gun asked again, almost laughing.

"Who decides who’s a villain, and how?"

"If you listen to people, you figure it out pretty fast."

"…Fuck off, you son of a bitch. In the end you just want blood. You dress it up every which way so you can live with yourself—can’t even play vampire without the pretty story? Get out here right now. I’ll kill you myself!"

He racked the USAS-12 with ugly intent. The vampire protested at once.

"You’re one to talk! You can’t live a proper life in society either! If you’re going to float around like that, isn’t it better to live in whatever way is even a little positive for yourself? And I only beat bad people and drank their blood—I never did it to good people!"

Heat flooded Se-gun’s face. This one had to die. Killing vampires had always been duty—but this one he wanted dead as a personal hobby. A vampire talking about living positively? How nice that would be. A vampire more human than a human like Han Se-gun, who lived on nothing but malice toward vampires. But Han Se-gun was a man who lived by evil.

How far would that "positive" thinking stretch? He wanted to see if the same words came out with a blade buried in the gut.

"So who makes that judgment?"

"I don’t know who makes it—but the victims know for sure! Let me ask you one thing. When you killed those people just now, were you certain they were evil?"

"Killing doesn’t need good and evil. Violence is violence—nothing more, and often less. Now… aren’t you tired of the argument?"

In that instant Se-gun charged on the bike. He’d only kept talking to force an opening out of the stalemate, but another word and he’d lose his temper for good.

"Ugh!"

The vampire flinched and finally heaved up the machine. The USAS-12 spoke.

Thoom!

The vending machine took most of the shot, but enough force got through that the vampire was blasted sideways.

"Kraah!"

It scrambled up and fled for the stairs. Se-gun aimed—then the tube ran dry, and the shot never came.

"Damn it!"

He rode the stairs hard. By the time he cleared the subway, the target was already scaling a streetlight, then launching itself onto the Cheonggye Overpass. High ground meant a blind spot from below—hard to chase. Se-gun simply raced ahead and climbed the ramp onto the overpass itself.

"Hiiik!"

"Running won’t help you!"

He drew the Glock and fired. He had no real reason to shout while shooting—but the bastard scraped his nerves so raw that useless words spilled out anyway.

"Aaaagh!"

Screaming under the hits, the vampire leapt back down from the overpass. Heading toward Dongdaemun, it looked like. Se-gun checked the Bloodstone Pendulum’s pull and kept after it. The trail ran toward Dongpyeonghwa Market. Around here people vanished only briefly at night; by dawn throngs would flood in to buy clothes. No place for a gunfight—whether the fleeing thing knew that and aimed for it, or simply fled on instinct, he couldn’t tell.

"Shit. Thirty minutes to timeout?"

He checked his watch and clenched his teeth. Miss that window and merchants would pour in to open the market. That miserable vampire! Se-gun, who had lost family to vampires, had dirtied his hands knowing full well he was becoming the evil, sanding and filing and sawing his own humanity down until he went numb—while that one had anesthetized himself with the drug called justice. That piece of trash! Someone who refused to face the ugliness inside himself, then turned violence on others, was the most repulsive creature alive.

Of course, knowing your own ugliness didn’t license every crime—but anyone who loved violence and followed desire had to stare into their own core. That foul craving, the urge to destroy, the cowardice, the cruelty… those became fate and a yoke, and they destroyed anyone who failed to master their own savagery. Se-gun himself had been destroyed by that and become a fine resident of the mad moon, slaughtering vampires.

But seeing that bastard hide his foul nature behind a beautiful wrapping—that was what ignited Se-gun’s rage. If he could have, he would have done the same. If he could have gilded everything as righteous revenge and believed himself right, how beautiful would the world be?

With a worldview that simple, how happy could a person become? He wanted to live the happiness of ignorance, smiling always like a blissful idiot. Wasn’t that, maybe, everyone’s dream?

But that was weakness. Compromise. Defy the Daoist sages if you must. Confucian teaching, Buddhist teaching, Daoist teaching, Christian teaching—an ugly human who could compromise with none of those countless teachings had no choice but to take his own ugliness as companion and become a demon.

God, save this soul. No—curse it instead. Let me fall to hell for that curse. For a demon as foul as me, that is only fitting!

"KRAAAAAAAH!"

Se-gun’s roar shook the bike. One demon leapt from the overpass ramp to the ground and charged the terrified vampire trying to smash through a still-shuttered storefront and hide. The panicked vampire fled, throwing everything into escape from the mad beast.

Along a narrow street toward Hwanghak-dong, where unopened street stalls still blocked the roadside, the vampire ran for its life.

If only the police were here—he would hand himself over, gladly be caught. He would bind himself again in the cage of law he thought he had transcended, if it meant escaping that demon. The hero complex that had buoyed him, the guilt under it, every scrap of humanity—all of it boiled away. What remained was the will to live, the instinct to survive. The duty to stay alive! Feelings from nowhere flailed and swam him through the sea of night air.

Run! Away from the demon! Even if the end of the road is death!

He dove into the line of old buildings facing the Cheonggye Overpass in Hwanghak-dong—structures waiting only for demolition. Inside, every kind of trash was piled high; the place was so decayed it called up Kowloon Walled City from old Hong Kong films. The stairs were rotten iron—no motorcycle could climb them. Still he felt no safety. The madness rolling off the helmeted man, the malice, the killing intent, became a blade that stabbed his heart and closed his throat.

A monster. That thing was a monster. He himself was a monster called a vampire, but he still had human parts. What was that, then? Something that had taken an axe to every remaining human piece of itself—something that had crossed from man into demon?

Clang!

Footsteps. The man had left the bike somewhere and come up on foot, armed with a Japanese sword and a pistol. Could he win? If he fought with everything he had, could he win? Impossible. That twisted demon’s presence was blue fire and a razor edge; a man who had only ever attacked those weaker than himself could never stand against it.

"Uuugh!"

He yanked free a gas pipe and ran forward. Not as a weapon—as a shield, if a sword came. None of it was coherent. He flailed through the dark as if swimming, limbs loose and half-dead, bolting blindly outside. He stumbled into a cramped apartment room. He could see out. Beyond the rotting veranda stood a grimy furnace and a tall chimney.

Thup!

A silenced pistol spoke. Dodging bullets was Matrix fantasy—impossible for human or vampire.

"Aagh!"

Blood ran. Whatever the rounds were made for, the wound refused to close easily. Only then did he understand his mistake. This man was no vampire. He was something that hunted vampires—not a vampire at all! He flung himself off the terrace like a man fleeing. Four meters of air, a landing on a tin roof—the tin gave, and his foot punched through. His leg scraped and bled, but what was that next to a gunshot? He got up and walked on.

More fire from behind; blood spattered the tin. Ah…

Suddenly he wanted his mother.

Mom, Dad, family, friends… every face rose in his head.

I don’t want to die! Why had he become a vampire, lost them, and tried to soothe the emptiness by killing villains and drinking blood? Those bastards were the bad ones. The ones who had tormented him from the start—and that D Church, or whatever it was. He didn’t know why they had made him a vampire, but they were the ones who were wrong!

He kept walking. In war movies, grown soldiers always died calling for their mothers. He thought he understood why. He caught the ladder on the chimney and climbed.

The demon followed him onto the roof. Toward a chimney that burned who knew what, it came on, climbing the ladder with deliberate care. He jumped to another chimney. The man drew a second pistol from his coat—a Tokarev, though the vampire had no name for it—and shot the top of the ladder. Half-rotted with age, the rungs broke; he kicked off ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the post, swung with the collapsing ladder, and caught the neighboring stack.

The thing was already dying.

Its careless failure to handle gunfire said it was a vampire made by accident. How else would it have wandered around openly, playing Apostle of Justice and murdering people? And yet—even hit like that, it kept running. Foolish. Simple. This was a one-sided slaughter, and the moment he understood that, regret flooded in.

Had he needed to kill? Did he need to kill? Must every vampire die? Between a good vampire and an evil human, which mattered more? But vampires were plague—you killed them before contagion spread—and a negative, self-destructive existence that stole blood to prolong its life was…

No!

Do not compromise with your own evil.

Walk the edge of the blade!

Walk through the flames!

Drive the sword into the throat of the boy dying with his mother’s name on his lips!

Desolating himself to sever weakness, scourging himself with his own evil, Se-gun raised the blade and cut the vampire down. Already drained of life, the body went slack and hung its full weight on the steel. A person’s weight, a vampire’s weight—what difference was there? But a demon who had cast himself into the demonic asked for no salvation.

"AAAAAAARGH!"

He only unleashed whatever filled him and roared at the moon stained red with smog. Atop an old chimney… in the black ruin of buildings, a slum of wreckage, the demon that had run a corpse through lifted a long howl into the night.