Machine Gun Heart
In that instant, Se-gun's heart slammed into a violent, racing tempo. The sealed organ hammered at high speed, and his nervous system accelerated with it. Time around him stretched thin; gunfire and voices dragged out like a warped tape played too slow.
Thwack!
The .50-caliber Magnum round Giovanni had fired punched through the bed Se-gun's kick had sent flying and streaked straight for the space between his eyes. Se-gun snapped his head back and let the bullet pass. In a flash of motion he had both Glocks in his hands, hurling himself sideways as he poured fire downrange.
Giovanni flinched, throwing both arms up to shield his face—yet several rounds still punched between his forearms and punched clean through his brow.
Whirrr!
Without ever touching the floor with his hands, Se-gun stuck to the ornate suite wall, then dropped down with his arms crossed. Empty magazines kicked free of the pistols on their own; fresh ones slid out of his pouches and slammed home. When he flung both arms wide, the slides racked forward and the guns were live again.
Ssssssssssss—!
Pitch-black wraiths took shape around him. The moment Giovanni saw them, the blood drained from his face.
Until now he had never once believed himself inferior to the Jinma. He was a being born from samples of an extinct ancient vampire strain, fused with cutting-edge genetic engineering and magecraft. A new species entirely, he had told himself—one that had crushed lycanthropes again and again, proof that he was the true next generation of Jinma. But in this moment the killing intent rolling off Han Se-gun simply crushed him.
A terror he had never tasted before… and it was so electrifying that Giovanni could not hold back a laugh.
"Keh-heh-heh. Haaah. Impressive. Unlike Mr. Seo, Han actually lives up to the reputation."
Giovanni tossed aside his shattered sunglasses and licked the blood running down his forehead.
Humans panicked when they saw something completely alien. When they had to fight that alien for their lives, the panic only deepened. Se-gun, however, showed not a flicker of surprise. Then a cascade of water poured down over them all.
BOOM!
The motorcycle Se-gun had ridden through Tito earlier finally erupted into flames, triggering the sprinklers. Already half-wrecked by Giovanni's gold Magnum, the bike had finally given up the ghost.
Lance Bernardo ripped off his sunglasses and yanked a submachine gun free. In the same heartbeat Se-gun swung a muzzle toward him.
Bang! Bang!
Two shots, perfectly placed. Both of Lance's eyeballs burst. The ghoul flung an arm across his face in shock, but to Se-gun—already under full acceleration—the motion was molasses-slow.
Se-gun's accelerated perception was so sharp he could watch the slide blow back and still time the next trigger pull by eye.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Every report drove a needle-sharp round into a vital point. One shattered the cervical vertebrae through the unprotected throat; another punched into an elbow joint so that a single bullet fractured the whole arm.
Apparently deciding to thin the enemy numbers here and now, Se-gun unspooled detonating cord and flung it at Lance.
"Son of a bitch!"
Giovanni, desperate, teleported Lance clear. Police were already flooding the building—luxury hotel response times were no joke.
"This is no good. We're out."
Barrey hauled the broken-legged Tito upright and barked at the rest of the mages. In that moment they became a single mind: get the hell out before they got crushed between Han Se-gun and the vampires. Shrimp never survived when whales fought.
The elevators were already dead. Sprinklers had tripped the fire alarms; only emergency lights glowed, and the cars refused to move.
"Stairs it is."
The mages cast one last regretful look down the corridor and sprinted for the stairwell.
"Hey. Quit sleeping and get up."
Han Se-gun had wired Seo Rin—sprawled against a pillar—and hauled him over. The boy's limbs were still severed and bound in Kevlar bands; he kept twitching as if the shock had never left him.
The moment Se-gun cut the bands free, the severed arms and legs skidded across the floor and slapped back onto the body as if they had been waiting. Full moon tonight—his regeneration was running hot.
Still, Seo Rin did not wake.
"What the hell did these bastards do to you…"
Se-gun scooped up a shard of glass from the floor and used it as a mirror to check the enemy. Lance Bernardo, Royce Bernardo, and Giovanni were all steadily regaining strength. Sunset was coming fast. They were already this tough; once night fell, what would they become?
He should have finished them the second he unsealed his heart… Instead they had used spatial jumps to leave the line of fire and reappear, buying time. Even they seemed rattled by Se-gun; the fight had bogged down into a stalemate. In the end Se-gun resealed his heart, grabbed Seo Rin, and decided to break contact—something he had never done before. Visible vampires were for killing, always.
Wheee-ooo! Wheee-ooo!
Sirens screamed below. Se-gun himself was already a write-off, but he could not drag Seo Rin down with him. The kid had never killed a single human or vampire.
"…Huh?"
Se-gun realized how strange that thought sounded. Looked at the other way, turning Seo Rin as ruthless as himself would actually be smarter. Then the boy would fight tooth and nail to protect himself, and Se-gun wouldn't have to babysit every second.
Desperation was the only real teacher… and that law applied to more than just humans. Once there was no road back, Seo Rin would thrive as a resident of the night.
"No. No."
Se-gun shook his head. Even so, he could not let the kid fully become a creature of the night.
Their situations were different. Se-gun had begged Deok-yeon and Silvester to make him a hunter. He had thrown everything away, burned every bridge, carved the flesh from his own bones—and chosen this life. Seo Rin had only stepped into this world to keep his family from being hurt. The difference started in the heart.
If Seo Rin lost every path home, he might become a monster that fed on humans. That, at least, had to be stopped.
"I just don't want more enemies. It's not because you're pretty or anything."
Se-gun muttered the words and stood. One way or another, he had to land a solid hit on Giovanni and the Bernardo brothers before night fell, or escaping with Seo Rin would be nearly impossible. And Se-gun had no desire to turn Seoul into a sea of fire again.
"All right. Time to settle this."
He burst out from behind the pillar. Instantly the Bernardos and Giovanni opened fire. Se-gun sold a fake step as if he were coming out one side, then spun the other way, rolled free, and fired Beast at them in the same motion.
"No!"
Tough as they were, nothing walked away clean after taking a magic round from Beast.
"Gyaaah!"
Royce Bernardo caught a grazing hit. That alone sheared twenty percent of his upper body clean off. Lance and Giovanni lunged from their cover pillars and poured fire back at Se-gun.
Se-gun threw himself past a table already shredded into Swiss cheese and, at the same time, cracked the detonating-cord wire like a whip. The wire swept across the carpet of shattered glass; every shard leapt up and bounced daylight deeper into the room.
"Ghk!"
The vampires flinched from the sunlight. Se-gun rose and fired Beast again.
"Truly remarkable!"
Giovanni snapped open another spatial transfer and yanked himself and Lance to the floor below. Without that damned teleportation, they would have been corpses long ago.
"Annoying… His control's even better than Zein's."
Se-gun gritted his teeth, reached the fallen Seo Rin, and used the Kevlar bands to lash the boy to his own body. Full moon meant Seo Rin might go berserk and try to tear his throat out, but there was no time to care about that now.
"You bite me and I swear I won't just let it slide!"
He growled the warning while he finished strapping Seo Rin on. Looking down from the hotel, he saw two paddy wagons already on site and riot-control vans—the mobile unit had rolled out. Gangnam-daero was completely sealed; the police presence was massive. No ordinary human was walking out of this.
"If it were just me I could jump, but this guy's the problem."
Se-gun peered over the edge with the unconscious Seo Rin hanging from him. Dropping into the middle of the police would end the boy's life as he knew it. Trying a long leap while carrying dead weight was a gamble he did not like.
While he hesitated, boots thundered up the stairwell.
"…Ah, screw it."
Se-gun yanked a tablecloth free and rolled Seo Rin up like a burrito. No one would recognize him now. He lashed the bundle to his back with the Kevlar again.
"Let's go!"
The police were certain they finally had Han Se-gun. There was still no hard proof the man tearing up the hotel was him, of course—but who else pulled stunts this big in the middle of the city?
They had scrambled hard, determined to catch him this time and wash the shame off their badges. Rush-hour Gangnam-daero, however, was pure hell.
"What are you waiting for? Get a police chopper in the air! You want to lose him again?"
Detectives Park and Kang, the ones assigned to the Han Se-gun case, called for aerial support the second they hit the scene. Command was lukewarm. Sure, some lunatic had ridden a motorcycle into the hotel façade, but there was zero confirmation it was Han Se-gun—and still no confirmed casualties.
"…Crazy bastards. We ought to just wipe the lot of them."
Detective Park muttered, dropping the radio. That was when it happened.
A window high on the hotel wall exploded outward. A man in a black racing suit, a pale bundle strapped to his back, leapt into open air. Everyone screamed—yet he landed lightly on the neighboring rooftop as if it were nothing.
"Wha—?!"
He bounced from roof to roof, mocking the police trapped in the gridlocked streets, and vanished into the concrete jungle. Officers could only stare up at the high-rises like dogs that had lost their bird.
"…Is that bastard Spider-Man or what?"
One cop muttered the idiotic question while gawking at the sky.
Han Se-gun ran for a long time with Seo Rin on his back before he finally slipped the police cordon. Human eyes were scarier than people gave them credit for; even recognition-interference magic left a few who could still spot him. So he kept leaping block to block, staying off the streets. How far had he gone?
"Ugh…"
Seo Rin stirred against his back. Startled, Se-gun missed his footing and plummeted five stories to the ground.
CRASH!
"Urgh—dammit…"
He flopped on the pavement, twitching. Using Machine Gun Heart so freely against Giovanni had been the mistake. He had meant to overwhelm them in one burst, but Giovanni's spatial jumps made him a specialist at hit-and-run. The stalemate had only chewed through Se-gun's body for nothing.
"Come to think of it, I never even drained any blood."
The thought barely formed before something started thrashing against his back again. Only then did he realize he had landed square on top of Seo Rin.
"…This is entertainment. But it's dangerous. Do not try this at home."
He parroted the old pro-wrestling disclaimer and immediately unfastened the Kevlar belts, freeing Seo Rin. A wounded lycanthrope meeting a full moon almost always forced a transformation. Seo Rin still could not control himself once he turned. High probability he would attack. Distance first.
"For crying out loud…"
Se-gun clutched his heart and gasped for air. The fight with Giovanni had cost him more than he wanted to admit. And now Seo Rin on top of that… Well, compared to Giovanni the kid was an easy opponent; no real worry there.
Then Seo Rin groaned and sat bolt upright.
"Ugh."
Landing while strapped to Se-gun's back apparently hadn't done much lasting damage. Surviving a five-story pile-driver and bouncing right back—full-moon lycanthropes really were monsters.
"You're awake? Good. At least you didn't transform."
"Huh? Where are we?"
Seo Rin looked around, baffled. Down the alley, already-drunk crowds were already surging past like a living tide.
"You finally with us? Body okay?"
"Ah—yes."
Seo Rin studied Se-gun with open suspicion. The man was actually fretting. The same Se-gun who usually half-killed him with his own hands, suddenly worried? Something felt off.
"You look like you've got a guilty conscience."
"Kangaroos?"
Se-gun played dumb. Seo Rin shot him a skeptical look and tried to stand—then every muscle in his body lit up with pain.
"Aaaaaagh, that hurts!"