The Wind Is Howling
“The wind is howling.”
He stood atop an old-fashioned brick building, looking down over the city. The night air, racing past midnight toward dawn, was cold as a blade laid against the throat, and the rising fog recalled a battlefield thick with gunsmoke. Through it, the streetlights that had all gone out at once rose up in a bleak, desolate way. Was this how the wrecks of ships looked, beyond the fog, on a sea haunted by ghost ships?
He gave a small shrug of his shoulders and began to dance.
His tightly closed eyelids trembled faintly above his brows, and his feet swayed quietly in time with the rhythm. Without concealing the exalted emotion within him, he entrusted his body to the darkness of night and savored the sound of the wind. A salty sea breeze, laden with fog and chill, brushed against his skin.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
From far away, the faint roar of helicopter rotors drifted toward him. Hind helicopters were flying in over the city. The buildings of this worn, old coastal city might themselves have been works of art—but once battle broke out, those works of art would vanish without a trace.
“It’s useless. You domesticated dogs. Creatures with neither ideology nor ideals, faithful only to the orders they’re given—you don’t possess souls that can understand the art time itself creates. Still… even so, heaven and hell have been promised to the likes of you.”
The dancer smiled.
Clack. Clack!
They were coming. The domesticated dogs, dragging the chains around their necks across the ground and raising a metallic clatter. Armed with guns and body armor, night-vision goggles pulled down over their heads, they advanced to carry out the slaughter they had been ordered to perform.
“Then walk it, if you can. Heaven or hell? How much is your life worth as a chip?”
White teeth flashed in the darkness, and scarlet eyes steeped in madness opened. A moment later his form melted into the fog.
Awooooooo!
The howling of wolves rang out. Special forces operators who had been inserted through the fog started in alarm and scanned their surroundings. Yet their enemy had no visible form.
Grrrrrr!
Continuous tracks smashed through the antique streets as something charged forward. A massive heavy tank tore through the fog at a dead run. Though it was charging toward an invisible foe, the sheer sense of pressure it radiated was formidable. This single pole of the iron hammer of destruction forged by human civilization roared like a mythical beast as it raced through the city.
But then… something shot out of the fog.
Clang!
A clear metallic ring accompanied the impact against the tank. Yet it failed to leave so much as a scratch on the vehicle’s thick outer armor.
Even so, the tank lost its direction as if it were drunk and plowed into the infantry escorting it. The soldiers who had been leading the reconnaissance through the city in a snake formation, carefully maintaining safe distance, were horrified—but they were powerless before this sudden metal tidal wave that had lost all sense of direction.
Crunch-crunch-crunch!
Human beings were crushed down beneath the fog. The great iron hammer of destruction had turned its end upon its own comrades. Fresh blood sprayed, and the stench of blood spread through the fog.
With that as the signal, shadows began to move within the mist. Like wraiths drifting through a ships’ graveyard, they raced across the sea of fog and slipped in among the soldiers flooding the city to seize it.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Gunfire crackled in rapid succession, yet it vanished emptily into the night sky. The fog swallowed screams, explosions, and the roar of guns alike.
“That’s right. This is how it goes.”
The dancer who had stood above the city descended to the ground. He raised a blood-soaked hand toward the sky. A pale blue moon pierced the clouds and revealed itself—so close it seemed he could pluck it from the air. Holding that moon in his eyes, he murmured suddenly:
“Are you looking at this moon too, Rossini?”
Seo Rin woke with a start. At first his surroundings looked hazy, as if seen through milky frosted glass; then objects snapped into sharp focus. Had he only dozed off for a moment?
He hurriedly rubbed his eyes and looked around. He was in the back seat of a racing Land Rover, having just woken from a deep sleep. Seo Rin normally took pride in his stamina, but after the fight with Sa Jun he had thrown himself into preparations for the journey and barely slept at all.
He glanced at the seat beside him. There, sunk into the van’s cushions as if half-swallowed by them, lay Han Se-gun, fast asleep. Ordinarily the man wore a black racing suit of ballistic material. That look, combined with his nickname “Beast,” always called to mind a black panther—a dark predator.
But right now he was dressed differently: a crisp suit and waistcoat. Like Seo Rin, he had slept poorly, so even inside the violently jouncing vehicle he slept as if the world no longer existed.
To Seo Rin, who had always associated Han Se-gun with racing suits or leather jackets, the sight was so absurd he wondered whether he was still dreaming. It felt like watching an idol singer cast as the boss in a gangster film. That young, almost boyish face, draped in a cumbersome suit, with a long coat neatly folded and tucked under one arm—the dissonance hit him like a wave.
An engine note drove the thought away.
Vrooooom…
The Land Rover driven by Kim Seong-hui tore down the national highway as if carving it open. The sun had not even risen, yet the speed was ferocious. That a driver this powerful turned out to be a woman of indeterminate age was something one could hardly imagine without seeing it firsthand.
He actually managed to sleep through this, Seo Rin thought, studying Se-gun again. The man slept with his brows stubbornly drawn together. Burying himself in the seat and folding his arms was simply his habit when he slept sitting up.
Because it was a wrinkle-free suit, the creases where his arms crossed smoothed themselves out after only a moment. Is this one of those home-shopping suits? Seo Rin had to suppress a private laugh at the thought.
The reason Se-gun, who normally insisted on racing suits or jackets, was wearing such an incongruous formal outfit was simple: it was a prop for disguise. Han Se-gun possessed an Ectoplasm Mask—a tool that could freely alter the appearance of a face. Change the clothes and the face, and ordinary people would never see through the identity.
“Mmm.”
Come to think of it, today was the day they left. Seo Rin clutched his chest as a fresh tremor of excitement ran through him. He might get punched for saying so later, but it felt a little like the thrill before a school trip.
“Ah, you’re awake?”
Kim Seong-hui spoke without taking her hands from the wheel. In the rearview mirror her expression wore a soft smile that somehow looked meaningful. An uneasy feeling made Seo Rin swipe at the corner of his mouth, but there was no drool.
“Try remembering the cover story.”
She asked it with the stern look of a teacher regarding a student who had just woken up.
“Th-the cover story?”
“Yes. You have to have it memorized well enough to answer instantly even right after waking.”
“Uh… so my name is… Nikolai Yevchenkovich Kim. Son of a Koryo-saram mother, visiting my father’s country, Russia… right?”
Seo Rin recited the information that had been drilled into him.
Traveling in Russia meant police or officials could demand one’s purpose of entry and related documents at any time. To pass such interrogations with forged identity and papers, the false identity needed a corresponding degree of realism.
Seo Rin himself was clean and had no real need to cling to a fake identity—but Han Se-gun was different. He was an extreme terrorist the international police were hunting with bloodshot eyes. Tagging along with him could mean getting swept into crimes or subjected to investigation. Avoiding that required the false identities.
Honestly, he keeps saying he’ll kill me, yet he fights tooth and nail to keep me from becoming a criminal myself…
He was grateful that Kim Seong-hui and Se-gun were looking out for him, but the contradiction was almost comical. While Seo Rin was thinking that, Kim Seong-hui’s voice cut through his reverie.
“You’ve got it memorized well.”
“And hyung is Seong Woo-hyun. A businessman using me as an interpreter… But doesn’t he look way too young to be a businessman?”
Han Se-gun had endured a great deal, yet he almost never saw sunlight; his skin was clean and unmarked by aging. No matter how one looked at it, that face belonged to someone in his late teens or early twenties. A businessman? A passing dog would laugh itself into a stomachache at a lie that flimsy.
Kim Seong-hui answered in a bright, cheerful voice.
“We’ll change the appearance. Or rather, we have no choice but to change it. Until now he was fighting inside his own territory—Korea—so he could openly keep his own face. That’s over. Now he has to charge straight into the heart of enemy territory with almost no proper armament. When you fight somewhere you don’t know the customs, the military and police organization, or how to get information, you simply cannot display the same power. The reason Se-gun has been winning so far is because he had already internalized Korea’s terrain and the structure of its forces.”
Her voice, almost singing in time with some internal rhythm, was lovely to listen to. What she was saying, however, was a grim reality. Without detonating cord, without bombs, without even firearms—could Se-gun still face large numbers of vampires the way he once had? The thought made Seo Rin uneasy.
He glanced at Kim Seong-hui behind the wheel. Every time she spun the wheel with wild force, the Land Rover lurched and inertia seized them. The suspension bounced and the whole vehicle shuddered.
Yet Se-gun only furrowed his brow while keeping his arms folded. He neither toppled over nor woke; he simply slept on, arms crossed, with stubborn determination. The sight looked so obstinate that Seo Rin let out a sigh.
“But is this really going to be all right? Noona, why don’t you come with us? In a month I’m supposed to adjust Se-gun hyung’s body with my own hands… just thinking about it makes me shake.”
Seo Rin looked at her, worried.
Han Se-gun’s body would turn fully vampire unless it was recalibrated once a month. Kim Seong-hui had taught Seo Rin how to perform that adjustment. If their stay abroad stretched beyond a month, Seo Rin would have to handle Se-gun’s body himself.
“You’ve started casually calling me Noona.”
Kim Seong-hui looked at him as if she found it adorable. Seo Rin shot back boldly.
“Better than ‘ajumma,’ right? Is there any other title I can use? Should I call you Master the way hyung does?”
“……”
Faced with Seo Rin’s sheer nerve, even Kim Seong-hui was left speechless. He wasn’t wrong. If she said the wrong thing now he might actually start calling her ajumma, so she changed the subject.
“Ahem. Even if I grant you a hundred points, I don’t think I’m old enough to be called ajumma. Or rather—age aside—my appearance at least doesn’t look like an ajumma’s, does it?”
“Ah…”
Somehow the way she asked made him want to agree, yet Seo Rin felt an inexplicable chill and shut his mouth.
“A-anyway, Seo Rin isn’t my disciple, so there’s no reason to call me Master. Noona is better. In any case, I can’t go with you. I’d love to—desperately—but if I go I’d only be a burden.”
“A burden?”
Seo Rin stared at her in surprise. From what little he knew, Kim Seong-hui’s power was nothing to take lightly. If anyone was going to be a burden it would be him, not her. Yet Kim Seong-hui frowned as she drove.
“Inside a space I’ve prepared myself is one thing, but I have no confidence I could protect even my own life once I’m out in enemy territory. Ordering Se-gun to protect me might be entertaining, but I can’t put that kind of burden on him, can I?”
“I don’t think it would be like that…”
Seo Rin looked at her doubtfully. He couldn’t claim to have seen everything, but from what he had glimpsed she was a stronger combatant than he was. Kim Seong-hui shook her head.
“Against ordinary humans, simple magic would be enough. But… well. With the ritual devices and formations prepared at Arjuna I could even hold off a Jinma, yet if I walk into enemy territory completely unprotected I can’t use any of my better magic. My physical abilities drop as well… It’s the same for every mage. The difference between a place you’ve prepared so your magic works properly and a place you haven’t is night and day. That’s why I think I’d end up being a hindrance. Besides, the enemies you’ll meet from now on won’t be as easy as the ones in Seoul. They behaved themselves somewhat in Korea, but Russia is a country where ‘nothing is possible and nothing is impossible.’”
Seo Rin didn’t fully understand, but it seemed mages lost a great deal of their power once they left ground they had personally prepared. He nodded in acceptance.
But if that was the case, was Han Se-gun all right? His string of victories in Korea had come partly because he was more familiar with the terrain and the region. When he faced unknown enemies abroad, would he still be able to bring that same power to bear?
While Seo Rin was turning that question over, Han Se-gun quietly opened his eyes.
“……We’re almost there.”
Even while asleep he had kept precise track of time; he spoke with complete confidence without glancing at a watch. How could he know without looking at a clock or the surrounding landmarks? Seo Rin asked, impressed.
“Ah, you’re awake?”
“Yeah.”
Han Se-gun formed an Ectoplasm Mask and carefully settled it over his face. With that single action he easily transformed into the person on his forged passport. The face he chose was that of a middle-aged businessman.
Seo Rin watched and asked:
“Do I not need a disguise? If possible I’d like to wear a mask like that too.”
“Well. You could try, but this is a spiritual body. Without a certain degree of spiritual ability you can’t maintain it.”
Han Se-gun cut him off. Without at least some grounding in magic, an Ectoplasm Mask could not be sustained. Seo Rin was a child of Lilith, so he would not lack talent if taught—but there simply was not enough time.
While they spoke the car arrived at Sokcho’s international passenger terminal. Seo Rin and Se-gun immediately got out and took their luggage.
“Then… come back alive.”
Kim Seong-hui said it in a calm tone. Se-gun slipped sunglasses over the face altered by the Ectoplasm Mask and nodded.
“If possible, I will.”