Night of the Mad Moon
Whoosh!
But a flamethrower was different. It was nothing a chain could block, and this one, mixed with engine oil, became a searing liquid that forced its way into every gap.
In that same instant, however, pitch-black darkness lashed out from Juyda like a whip. The searchlights shattered one after another as if they had been strung with fireworks set to detonate all at once. Even the sticky, viscous streams of flame scattered like waves breaking against a massive rock.
“Oh-ho!”
Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Sons, riding in the command-and-control vehicle, opened her eyes in the dark. Glass shards from the windshield just shattered by that darkness had scored her face, yet the wounds closed at a visible speed.
“Oh-hooo… Ahahahahahaha! Not bad at all. That’s a Jinma for you.”
She stroked her own face and laughed. Juyda had merely swung that signature pitch-black sword of darkness, severing the flames midair and destroying every last searchlight. Power like that was exactly what one expected of a Jinma.
Yet Juyda himself, fresh from that astonishing destruction, was startled anew by what the humans before him were wearing. Every one of them was clad in the uniform of the regular United States Army.
And aside from the flamethrowers, the rest of the gear was standard-issue U.S. Army equipment, was it not? The people standing in front of him right now were all legitimate soldiers of the United States of America.
“That’s right. United States Army. Heretic Juyda. There are plenty of humans among us. Plenty of vampires too. What’s it going to be? As a vampire who doesn’t kill humans…”
Jennifer Sons laid special, heavy stress on that final sentence and raised her hand. The gesture looked perfectly natural, yet it was a call sign to the snipers hidden throughout the sector. Sure enough, a sniper’s bullet came flying in without a sound.
Thud!
Juyda clenched his teeth and staggered backward. The round had severed a chain and been aimed straight at his heart. Only a handful of rifles could do a job like that… and this was a shot from a Barrett M82A1.
“Now!”
The searchlights that had not yet been destroyed blazed back to life, and flamethrowers and small arms opened fire. An avalanche of ordnance no one would believe had been poured out just to catch a single man, a precise crossfire that violated the night’s silence and rained down on Juyda. Yet with movements almost too swift to credit, he sprang up onto the road, kicked off a streetlight, and vaulted onto the building across the way.
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
Perhaps because the bullet wounds had been severe, broken lengths of chain came free of his body and fell to the asphalt with dull, heavy thuds.
“Damn it!”
Jennifer Sons jerked her head up and stared at the sky. She had been muttering that he was fast, but even among Jinma, Juyda’s speed of movement was staggering. Without leveling entire buildings there was simply no way to catch something that moved like that. Snipers had been seeded everywhere, of course, but if the target slipped outside the operational zone, every booby trap and every marksman they had staged here would become meaningless.
“This is bad.”
In the Republic of Korea, the surest way for an armed force to preserve itself intact was to exist as soldiers. That was why Tetra Anax had gathered selected vampires and given them the status of United States military personnel. Turning vampires who could not walk in daylight into soldiers required a great deal of work, but compared with the advantages, the trouble was trivial. For Tetra Anax, masters of mental manipulation, it was hardly even a chore.
Still, she did not want to let this long-awaited chance to prove their value slip away. After going to the bother of granting them U.S. military status and making them Tetra Anax’s personal guard, they were supposed to demonstrate ability worthy of that effort, were they not?
“Damn it! Even the chains can’t serve as a shield anymore! And what the hell are the snipers doing?”
Jennifer Sons barked into the radio. Demanding that anyone find and shoot a target moving that fast—and cloaked in darkness—was an unreasonable order even for vampire eyesight. She knew it perfectly well, yet under the circumstances all she could do was pin her hopes on the snipers.
BOOM!
“What?!”
In that moment Jennifer Sons saw something bizarre. An Apache helicopter that had been flying perfectly fine suddenly spat fire and began to fall—trailing brilliant blue-white flames like fireworks. That had to be the metal of the airframe itself oxidizing and burning!
“M-metal ignition?”
Metal, once it caught fire, burned with unbelievable ferocity. But this was not finely shredded magnesium; an Apache helicopter spontaneously combusting was simply not something that should be possible. She stared at the sky in sheer disbelief. Anti-American sentiment was already boiling over; if a U.S. Army Apache strayed from its flight path and crashed into a city street, all she could do was pray it hit the road instead of a house or a building.
Whether her prayer reached heaven or not, the helicopter slid along the asphalt and, slowly but with absolute certainty, smashed itself to pieces. Lieutenant Colonel Johnson, who had been aboard, was surely dead.
“Wh-what the hell?”
Jennifer Sons ordered the driver to turn the vehicle around. Had Juyda shot the helicopter down? If so, every sniper they had planted was useless. No—her own life was in danger!
But how in the world…
“Curious, are you?”
At that moment a voice seemed to whisper right beside her ear. An instant later flames engulfed them. Jennifer ducked under the seat just in time to avoid the ring of fire that tried to coil around her neck… but the others were not so lucky.
“KRAAAAAAAH!”
Screams rose as the vehicle’s fuel tank ignited. Soldiers who had been riding and moving with the column leapt out in shock, only for heavy machine-gun rounds to hammer down among them.
“KRAAAACK!”
Thick .50-caliber bullets chewed up the road surface and butchered them without mercy. It looked like footage of machine-gun fire raking marching troops, filmed on an old camera.
“Aw, man, sorry about that. Well, no big deal. You won’t have to write an incident report, miss. Dead men don’t do paperwork. People are just so considerate these days.”
The owner of the machine gun spoke in a faintly flippant voice, smirked, and stroked the glowing barrel. An Asian man in a Hawaiian shirt, draped with all kinds of silver ornaments, wore a broad smile as he tilted his sunglasses askew.
“Tetra Anax’s personal guard or humans—to me you’re all just dinner.”
He muttered the words and dropped down into the mountain of corpses and sea of blood he himself had created. Of course an attack of this scale had not annihilated the vampires. Every vehicle had been hit and the lead elements wiped out—so what was the problem?
“You bitc—!”
The instant they left cover, a circular burst of flame erupted and roasted them. Even those who managed to dodge the targeting of the heat wave and draw their weapons could not withstand the casual, one-handed spray from his MG50.
“KRAAAK! J-Jinma Agni!”
“That’s right. Even if I’m a rebel against Tetra Anax, I’m still a Jinma, master of one of the twenty-four bloodlines. For low-grade vampires like you to try taking me on is kind of a joke, don’t you think? Hmm?”
Agni grumbled as he expanded his binding force and began to drink blood. In Korea he had been holding back on murder because he no longer wanted to cause trouble, but dieting really was no easy thing.
Well, I am pretty slim, though.
He lifted his head and scanned the rooftops where the snipers had been. Juyda must already have dealt with them; only the scent of corpses remained.
“Uuuugh… Agni!”
Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Sons stared at the Jinma standing before her in utter disbelief. To be annihilated by another Jinma’s ambush while they were on the move to engage Juyda…
“Why are you interfering?!”
She drew her sidearm and leveled it at Agni.
“Got guts. Even if I’m a target for execution, I’m still a Jinma. You’re pointing a gun at me right now? I knew Tetra Anax’s personal guard looked down on Jinma, but the Korean branch has to be third-rate among the guard units—no, fourth-rate, right?”
Agni laughed and, with casual skill, fished a cigarette out with one hand and stuck it between his lips. His whole posture said a pistol was beneath his notice. Even if the United States of America were the nation that fought for world peace and justice the way certain Hollywood movies claimed, they would never load silver rounds into a standard-issue sidearm. And even if they did, a pistol against a Jinma of the night was no better than a toy pop-gun. She probably knew that better than anyone.
“Ah…”
When Jennifer Sons froze, Agni exhaled a long stream of smoke and muttered,
“Hooo… Colonel Auntie? One piece of advice. Once you draw a gun on a Jinma, just standing there quietly doesn’t get you forgiveness. Got that? Even you should know that much.”
In that instant a V-shaped sheet of flame blossomed in midair with a whoosh. It happened so fast Jennifer Sons did not even understand what had occurred. The next moment her body collapsed. Like a sandcastle hit by a wave, she crumbled across the vehicle, staring at her own arms and legs burned clean through.
“AAAAAAH!”
The dam of numbness broke and pain flooded in. Yet Agni did not finish her off; he simply walked on.
“All right then—go wild to your heart’s content, Juyda. This ought to make a nice gift before you leave Korea.”
He looked up at the sky. The thickening night fog was now so damp it might as well have been a thin membrane of water. Yes—it felt almost like diving to the seafloor. A strange sense of dislocation. A night that could truly be called a blessing for the residents of the mad moon. On a night like this, whatever was going to happen would definitely happen.
“Hoooooo!”
Exhaling a long plume of cigarette smoke, he walked into the fog and vanished from sight.
Wilhelm finished handling every last detail and approached Phantom, who lay sprawled across the hood of the Viper. His master was a singular figure even among Jinma, famous as a master of every form of blood magic. That was why, even with a mere four hundred thousand VT, he drew the vigilance of countless vampires. Being the thrall of such a being was surely an honor in their society, yet right now Wilhelm found himself wishing he could politely decline.
He always has to make everything so big, damn it.
And the cleanup for every mess Phantom created was invariably dumped on Wilhelm. Whatever his actual age, Wilhelm’s appearance was that of a minor… a status that ought to be protected under child-protection and labor laws, yet here he was being worked like a dog.
“I’ve finished sorting everything out. Tetra Anax’s mental control over this entire area is solid.”
“Is that so? Good. Even if we count the whole place as a bedroom community, the number of people still awake has to be over a thousand…”
“Beast has already been given the recognition-impairment treatment. Beast Double as well. The only thing we have to watch for is property damage.”
Wilhelm glanced at his master’s gun. That absurd revolver, which held only three rounds, had been given the recognition-impairment treatment through Phantom’s blood magic. A weapon whose very edge of existence had been blunted so that it would leave no imprint on human consciousness—truly a magical weapon fit for the modern age. A special unit armed with something like that would have no trouble carrying out sabotage or infiltration missions.
“But the other side’s target is Zein, master of the Vanishing Blood. Will he even come to us? Personally I’d prefer he didn’t. That Zein fellow is vulgar, after all. A vampire consorting with gangsters—disgraceful.”
Even as he spoke, Wilhelm did not sound particularly angry. He was a good subordinate who always thought of his master’s well-being, yet a clash between Jinma was not something lesser vampires had any business inserting themselves into. As a member of vampire society, Wilhelm had decided he would not presume to meddle in Jinma affairs.
“Who knows. Juyda regards every vampire as an enemy, so I’m probably included. Zein isn’t a complete fool either—he’s gone into full hiding. And Beast is calling for its own. If he doesn’t answer that call, then I misjudged the man. I didn’t make that thing for a guy like that.”
“But Master, you’re different from other vampires, aren’t you?”
Wilhelm phrased “kind” in a roundabout way. Phantom’s way of thinking—refusing to restrict human freedom and treating them with respect even as a vampire—was certainly uncommon. Phantom’s thoughts, however, ran elsewhere.
“Using kindness as a shield is an evil that surpasses evil. I am unmistakably a vampire, and to vampire hunters I am an enemy they cannot help but hate. If some vampire hunter spares me because I’m ‘good,’ I’d rather he not use me for his own moral self-gratification. It feels like being raped, frankly.”
Humans who sold vampire blood daring to judge a vampire’s good or evil was an ugly business by definition. “Oh, you’re evil, so you must die. Oh, you’re good, so I won’t kill you. I’ll plunder life and blood from the wicked, but not from the good—because I’m an apostle of justice, you see.” If it was a joke, it was a thoroughly American one, and not the kind that made anyone want to laugh.
Plunderers wrapping themselves in the mask of justice made him sick. Of course the vampire hunters who would come looking for him would only be the cool guys who never pulled a nauseating stunt like that. Silvester and Han Se-gun.
“Though being too cool is a problem in its own right.”
For a single moment the moon showed its face between the clouds. At the same time Beast Double let out a low, vibrating whine. It seemed a guest had arrived exactly as he had hoped.
“….”
Though he had taken heavy attacks from other vampires, Juyda walked slowly out of the fog with a body free of any wound. His chains, however—both body armor and weapon—were already so badly damaged they were useless. Still he raised Beast, opened the cylinder, and slowly loaded the rounds.
Whoooosh—
A strong wind rose and the fog streamed past like a torrent. Phantom gave Wilhelm a look and pushed himself up off the Viper.
“Well then. Shall we begin?”
Wilhelm immediately started the Viper and cleared the road. He knew Juyda and his master shared an extremely complicated relationship, but he had no right to interfere. Leaving the scene and sparing his master any worry was the best choice he could make.
Click!
Juyda finished loading Beast and slowly leveled it at Phantom. Phantom, for his part, raised Beast Double and aimed right back. Both of them held their pistols with the careless posture of men who had never handled a handgun before.
Hong Kong noir films made poor pistol manuals. But with the power of a mighty vampire, even without a proper stance one could still put the bullet where it needed to go.
BANG!