The Wounded Tiger
From a neighboring rooftop, Kamchai sat with a sniper rifle braced against his shoulder and tapped his wireless earpiece twice, signaling that Han Se-gun was approaching.
"So he really is coming."
A year earlier, when Han Se-gun had all but seized control of Seoul, he had rotated through a dozen safe houses. As his strength grew, he stopped. From then on he used only one base. Absolute power had bred absolute confidence. In truth, he had been the undisputed master of this territory.
Every vampire walking the streets of Seoul had been nothing more than prey that might be hunted at any moment; none of them had ever been able to stand against him. But now the tiger that ruled the mountain was wounded. If they failed to cut its throat here and now, it would recover, and the full force of its rage would turn on them.
And if he came back at all, there were only two places he would go: his home, or Arjuna. Just as they had predicted, Han Se-gun was heading for Arjuna.
"One arm gone, most of his weapons lost—all he has left is a single sword. We cannot let this chance slip away."
Li Wei-xiang relayed Sa Jun's orders exactly as he had received them.
Still, the boy who had come to fetch Han Se-gun was a concern—Lilith's son, Seo Rin. His combat ability looked negligible, but he was still a lycanthrope. And if he was carrying firearms, the report that Han Se-gun had only a blade left would no longer hold.
"Just as I thought."
Seo Rin kept tight against the buildings, exactly as Han Se-gun had told him. There was no telling when a sniper's muzzle would flash, so he used the walls as cover. The taller the buildings flanking them and the narrower the street, the better their odds of staying out of a sniper's line of fire.
"…We've got company."
Han Se-gun murmured the words after tasting the air. Detection wards used to ring this entire block. They were gone now. Those wards had been laid to disrupt hostile magic; if someone had deliberately torn them down, the people waiting for them were mages.
"If they're mages, could they be those South American types we ran into before?"
"Could be. Could also be someone else. Stay sharp. Their marksmanship was first-rate."
Han Se-gun ground his teeth at the memory of the last time Giovanni Vantero's bait had lured him into a sniper's crosshairs. He should have finished those bastards off then and there.
By then Seo Rin had reached the alley that opened onto the park in front of Arjuna. Beyond that point the ground was open parkland—nowhere to hide from a bullet.
"What do we do?"
"Check the corner with a mirror first. See what shape Arjuna's in."
"Yes, hyung."
Seo Rin edged forward, eased a hand mirror past the corner, and peered into the reflection. Arjuna's shutter was down, but light still leaked through the windows.
"The shutter's closed."
"Windows?"
"Not broken."
"Good. Looks like Arjuna itself is still intact. The problem is the people waiting for us."
If the master had dropped the shutter, the enemy was close. Against opponents like these he would normally have needed nothing more than his bare hands—but not now. His abdomen, where Argon had kicked him, was still locked in ice; the wound refused to heal. The last time he had taken a hit like that, he had needed two full days of soaking in hot water just to recover… and this time was far worse.
So Seo Rin's all I've got?
The kid's skill had improved, no question. But could he actually break them out of this? And more than that—could Seo Rin bring himself to kill human mages?
"It's dangerous. You can pull out if you want."
Han Se-gun said it as if he expected nothing. Seo Rin bristled. A little gratitude would have been nice; instead the man was still clinging to his pride even half-dead. Seo Rin knew better than anyone how little Han Se-gun could move. Hauling him here on the motorcycle had felt like dragging a block of ice.
Still—to reduce that swaggering Han Se-gun to this state—Argon really was something else. Then again, two Jinma had gone after him at once. Of course he had ended up like this.
"If you and your master die here, hyung, I'll just end up in even worse danger afterward. You don't need to protect your pride over it."
"I—I'm not."
Han Se-gun answered a little too quickly. Seo Rin narrowed his eyes.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Han Se-gun said it and slid down the wall until he was sitting. One kick from Argon and his whole body felt frozen solid; the wounds would not regenerate. Or rather—if they did regenerate, the strain would kill him anyway. Seo Rin finally grasped how bad it was and started pulling out gear.
"Anyway, then I'll do my best! I'll handle the enemies. But…"
"But what?"
"I know it's weird to call it a reward, but… I can meet Maria after this, right?"
Even to himself the request sounded ridiculous. Of all the times to ask something like that—did it even make sense? But the words were already out; he could not stuff them back in. Han Se-gun stared at him blankly for a second, then burst out laughing.
"Pfft. Puhahahahaha!"
"Wh-what? I'm going to get mad."
Seo Rin had already known the question was absurd, but watching the man laugh so openly still stung. At the same time, it had been a long while since he had seen Han Se-gun laugh at all. Han Se-gun kept snickering for a good while before he waved a hand.
"No, no—it's just funny."
"Yeah, I figured you weren't laughing because you were sad. You laughed because it was funny."
Seo Rin muttered the words dryly. Han Se-gun's expression suddenly turned serious.
"Why, though? Do you like her?"
"L-like her?"
"That's what I asked. What else would I mean?"
Like Maria? Of course he liked her—very much. But Han Se-gun probably was not asking in that sense. Hmm. It was a little ambiguous. That kind of thing was…
"No, it's more like… she just feels like a little sister."
"What about your actual little sister?"
"Ahahaha. Yeong-eun is Yeong-eun."
Seo Rin scratched his head. Han Se-gun sighed.
"You're pathetic. What are you going to do with a kid like that? Are you a pervert?"
And there it was—the real issue. Whatever Maria's true age might be, she looked like a minor. For Seo Rin, a high-schooler whose body had already finished growing, to be attached to a girl who looked like that… But Seo Rin held his ground.
"You said her real age is a lot older."
Silence stretched between them. Yes, her real age was higher—but he had just called her a little sister with his own mouth. What kind of nonsense was this?
"You sure pick whatever interpretation is convenient. Why are you even asking me about something like that?"
The way Han Se-gun said it—as if Seo Rin were simply wasting his time with idle chatter—left Seo Rin speechless. Why ask him? This was the same man who had wrapped the sleeping Seo Rin in detonating cord and then emptied a magazine into him, and now he was asking "why are you asking me?" The sheer shamelessness of it.
"Wow. You don't remember spitting fire this afternoon when you found out?"
"Spitting fire? Do I look like Agni to you?"
Agni does not actually spit fire either, Seo Rin almost said, but he kept the remark to himself. Han Se-gun sat in the alley, breathing hard.
"Whether you meet a female vampire or a zombie, that's your business. And if things go wrong, I put a bullet in your skull any way I like… then I track Maria down and finish her off too. That's what risk means, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, but—"
"Love that can't climb over obstacles isn't real love."
Han Se-gun delivered the verdict with absolute authority. Seo Rin stared. Love? Love—like the thing that showed up in every pop song until you were sick of it? Was he saying Seo Rin was in love with Maria? Hmm. Loving a child who looked that young did seem like a problem. That was probably exactly what people meant by "pervert." But that was not the issue right now. Seo Rin shook his head hard.
"Hold on. Aren't you twisting that way too conveniently? In short you're saying: do whatever you want. I'll get in the way however I want."
"You already know how stubborn I am."
Ah. Right. This was exactly the kind of person Han Se-gun was. Seo Rin looked at him, dumbfounded.
"…"
He kept staring.
"Ugh."
Han Se-gun made a small sound of discomfort and deliberately turned his head away. Seo Rin walked over and stared at him again.
"Pfft."
"Kh."
They both snorted at the same time. What exactly were they doing right now? Neither of them really knew—but it was undeniably, ridiculously funny. They spent a long moment laughing under their breath before they finally managed to pull themselves together.
"Then I'll… go take care of them."
Seo Rin said it and climbed the wall.
Once he reached the rooftop, he could pick out the humans hiding among the surrounding buildings. Three of them in total. They had done a fair job of concealing themselves, but they could not hide their scent. Seo Rin's senses were sharper even than a vampire's; he found them without trouble.
Not the South Americans.
He had expected mages from that group, but these were different. Almost certainly the private unit Sa Jun dragged around. Between Han Se-gun's house and Arjuna, the house was the more dangerous target.
That place was a nest of traps and bristling with weapons. If Han Se-gun ever dug in there and started a siege, the situation would become nightmarish. Even if someone seized the house first, the entire space was already so familiar to him he could navigate it half-asleep.
In close-quarters fighting, the difference between familiar ground and foreign ground was absolute.
Knowing Sa Jun's personality, he would have left the truly dangerous site to other people and sent his own subordinates to the relatively safer one. The reason he had set this trap for Han Se-gun was not so much long-standing hatred as a simple impulse: here was a man who would have to be removed someday, and the opportunity had finally arrived.
Seo Rin approached them carefully. They were human. Even if they had been vampires the problem would have been the same, but humans made the reluctance to kill that much stronger. Still, when the other side was trying to kill you, you could not afford mercy. If his skill had been overwhelmingly superior it might have been different—but it was not, and clumsy pity would only get him killed.
The fact that one of them was a woman still sat uneasily in his chest.
He had no choice. Seo Rin steeled himself, picked up a stone, and threw it. The rock struck the rooftop iron door with a metallic clank; every one of them spun around in alarm.
"What—?"
In that instant Seo Rin rose and ran. The gap between buildings was considerable. He crossed it in a single silent leap.
"Damn it!"
They still had not spotted him and were moving toward the stairwell door. One started down the stairs; the other stayed above, scanning the surroundings.
Static crackled over their radios.
"Watch out! A shadow just jumped buildings up there!"
"What?"
At that exact moment the shadow appeared in front of them.
Thud!
Seo Rin punched the man in the gut—hard enough to drop him, not hard enough to kill. The man tried to guard, but Seo Rin's fist had already driven through his abdomen like a spear.
"Gah!"
The man collapsed at once. Seo Rin snatched the hunting rifle from his hands and folded it in half. Then the familiar wave of dizziness hit him. Illusion magic. The specialty of mages—something that had left him helpless before. This time was different.
"Hup!"
Seo Rin twisted his body and slipped past the mace flying at his head. A red-haired woman gripping a short flail stared at him in shock. She had thought the illusion had taken hold—and he had already broken free of it. That was worse than never falling for it at all. One of her attacks had already been wasted.
"Ugh!"
She pulled a .22-caliber pistol from her sleeve and aimed it at him. Seo Rin simply caught her wrist and lifted. To him a human body weighed almost nothing; she dangled in the air.
He slammed her down onto the roof. The flail skittered across the concrete, and she went still. For a second he thought he had killed her—then he saw she was still breathing.
"Taking people down without killing them is harder than it looks."
Seo Rin pried the .22 from her fingers. A two-shot derringer, a little self-defense piece. Almost no vampire or lycanthrope would even notice a hit from something like that. Even a properly aimed three-round burst from a real pistol might or might not finish a monster—and she had planned to face them with two rounds of .22? Absurd. Still, it was small and surprisingly pretty.
He pocketed it and drew his own weapon. The Tec-9 Maria had given him. Could he actually fire it at a person? He had not even been able to shoot vampires with it.
"Forget it."
No point carrying a gun he would not pull the trigger on; it would only get in the way. Seo Rin re-engaged the safety and slung the submachine gun across his back.
Se-gun circulated the cold through every corner of his body and slowly forced himself to his feet. Moving was hard, but not impossible. He registered that Seo Rin had already cleaned up the two on the rooftop.
"One left on the ground. That much I should handle myself, right?"
One hand gone, a deep wound from Argon's strike still open—but he could not leave even that much undone. He started to rise. At that moment a figure walked into the alley where he stood.
"Oh my. Se-gun?"
She smiled and casually tossed the man she had been dragging beside a trash bin. The man—clearly one of Sa Jun's subordinates—foamed at the mouth and twitched. She was still in a white blouse and apron, not even changed out of work clothes, and she had just dismantled a fully armed fighter as if he weighed nothing. Se-gun was hardly in a position to judge anyone, but the sight still looked completely unfair.
He looked at her and sighed.
"Looks like everything's taken care of."
"Seo Rin's gotten rather good, hasn't he? Well, thanks to him I barely had to lift a finger. Come on—first we need to get you treated. Looking at you like this is just painful."
She examined his wounds, then abruptly pulled him into an embrace. His entire body temperature had plummeted; he was ice-cold. Even for a body that was no longer human, staying alive in this condition was impressive.
"Argon got you, didn't he?"
She said it and rolled Arjuna's shutter back up. Bright interior light spilled out across the darkened park.
The occult café Arjuna had always been a peculiar little landmark in the neighborhood. That a striking beauty ran the place alone was already enough to draw attention, and for reasons no one could quite figure out she closed whenever she felt like it. There was no fixed day off; she simply shuttered the shop on a whim, which must have made the rent a constant headache.
Even so, when the doors were open, customers came in respectable numbers. More than a few of them harbored less-than-pure intentions toward the owner and tried bold approaches. Each time she simply smiled that mysterious smile of hers and turned them down.
After enough rejections, the young men of the district started calling her "the cigarette-shop girl"—the cool beauty from the old pop song who handed everyone a rejection slip.
Today Arjuna was closed again.
"Mmm. Oh dear, oh dear."
Kim Seong-hui, owner of Arjuna, shook her head slowly. Han Se-gun sat shirtless in front of her; the side of his ribs and abdomen had turned a deep, frostbitten blue. Midsummer frostbite—not on fingers or ears or toes, the parts that lose heat easily, but on the torso itself. Remarkable, really.
Of course, this was the work of the Jinma Argon's unique ability. A single kick loaded with the curse of freezing had done all this. Surviving a direct hit from a Jinma at all was fortunate. Against an ordinary human the same blow would have caved in the side and left the body in two pieces.
"How do you feel?"
"Hot."
Han Se-gun answered between ragged breaths. The freezing curse dropped his core temperature, yet the wound itself burned like fire—an exquisitely irritating combination. One clean hit from Argon, a Jinma whose blood ability was the freeze curse, and this was the result.
Kim Seong-hui began carefully unraveling the curse. First she mixed mistletoe, mandrake, and mature herbs into an ointment, then used it to paint delicate runes across the damaged flesh.
"I don't believe in spiritual healing or any of that stuff."
Han Se-gun grumbled half in jest. Kim Seong-hui smiled as she answered.
"Interested in the Way, Se-gun? Your soul looks unusually pure."