A One-Armed Escape
Unlike the others, this thug must have trained hard—he raised his arm in that same instant and blocked Se-geon’s kick.
Crack!
“Argh!”
Yet the man who stopped Se-geon’s kick crumpled forward with a scream. Blocking a steel-toed hiking boot with bare arm left the bone anything but intact. Se-geon reset his stance, seized the man by the hair, and drove a second strike into his cervical spine.
Thud!
The thug collapsed and did not rise again. The line of gangsters stretched down the corridor stared at Se-geon with expressions of pure disbelief. Of course Se-geon still wore his helmet; he had no intention of showing his face.
“Aigoo, you fucking bastards. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Playing around?”
A man shoved through the throng. A hideous vertical scar split his face—the classic gangster mug—and he drew knives from inside his coat.
“Jun-yeong hyung-nim!”
“Shut it! Zip those traps, you sons of bitches!”
The thug called Jun-yeong spat the words as if chewing them, then reversed his grip. He looked like a specialist in throwing blades. Aside from the difficulty of controlling the damage they inflicted, throwing knives were superb weapons. A thrown knife never flew farther than ten meters, and inside that range even modest training let a man hit his target with ease.
Dodging such blades was nearly impossible; blocking them was hardly easier. Small wonder thugs favored them.
“…….”
Se-geon knew that well enough. In a narrow corridor the problem only grew worse. He held tonfa, yet any gangster who specialized in throwing knives would be skilled. Kim Jun-yeong of the Sangdong-pa was former special forces and infamous inside the organization for his blades.
Ding…… ding…….
An antique grandfather clock—oddly out of place in a thug office—chimed the hour. Mixed with the bells, the knives came flying.
Whoosh!
The first attack targeted his thigh. The motorcycle helmet protected his head and the tonfa covered his torso, so the legs were the opening. Se-geon spun the tonfa downward and blocked.
Clang!
The tonfa knocked the knife aside. Deflecting a blade in a dim corridor—for Se-geon, who had never properly drilled such things, it was pure dumb luck, a cow catching a mouse with its hind hoof. In that same instant another knife sank into his right arm.
“Guh!”
He had deliberately aimed low to split the defense, then driven the second blade at the opened torso. Only Se-geon’s exceptional reflexes saved him; otherwise the knife would have found his heart and ended him. Realizing the corridor offered no chance of victory, he flung himself into the side room.
“Khak!”
The blades were sharp and heavy, built for killing power when thrown. Moving with a knife that had nearly punched through his arm only worsened the wound. Se-geon yanked it free with his free hand, cast it to the floor, and clenched his tonfa.
“That son of a bitch! Kill him!”
The gangsters poured in, cursing. The injury was bad enough that further fighting looked impossible. Bone was intact, but muscle had been pierced; even a skilled surgeon would have doubted whether the arm would ever work again.
“Underestimated them, huh.”
Se-geon muttered the complaint as he pulled out a pressure bandage and dropped it. A full year of anti-vampire training, more than three thousand hours of brutal drills—and he had still looked down on a gang like the Sangdong-pa. If the thugs outside heard that, their blood would boil past all control.
“You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you! Bring the chainsaw!”
“…….”
Their blood was already boiling plenty. At this rate he might be carved into pieces by ordinary gangsters instead of vampires. The thought snapped him fully awake.
Se-geon raised the tonfa at the doorway and brought it down without mercy on the first head through. The man charged in with no plan at all, as if he had never watched a single movie, took the blow, and flopped out like a frog struck by a stone.
Whoosh!
Then came the sound of air being cut. Se-geon spun the tonfa on pure reflex and blocked, yet the impact left his arm numb. The next man had swung a steel pipe. His form was solid—someone who had practiced kendo—and he followed with a thrusting attack.
An attack no tonfa could simply stop. Se-geon happened to catch his heel on the sofa behind him; the pipe stabbed only the unfortunate cushion.
“Keok!”
Sprawled over the sofa, Se-geon screamed. Blood poured from the knifed arm. He shoved a hand into his pocket and yanked out Psychedelic Moon. Ordinarily he would have inhaled it through the nasal mucosa, but there was no time for niceties.
“Damn! The helmet!”
He tore the helmet off, stuffed the Psychedelic Moon into his mouth, and chewed hard until the capsule split.
“You son of a bitch! I’ll carve you up with a chainsaw and scatter the pieces!”
The pipe-wielding thug kept threatening even as he swung with lethal precision. Flat on the floor, Se-geon kicked the sofa into the man’s legs and barely forced himself upright.
“You bastard!”
The thug vaulted the sofa and launched a rapid assault. Se-geon, tonfa in one hand, deflected left and right and slipped the thrusts with head slips.
“!”
He had closed the kendo interval with astonishing footwork until their foreheads nearly touched. The thug held a third-dan rank; longer weapons held the advantage regardless of any proverb. Yet Se-geon had broken that range with pure footwork. The Psychedelic Moon beginning to take effect was pure misfortune for the gangster.
Crack!
The tonfa spun in midair and dropped onto the man’s shoulder. A sickening snap of collarbone accompanied his collapse to the floor.
“Kraaagh!”
“What the hell? You got taken out by a cripple?”
Jun-yeong kicked the door open and charged in. Se-geon hurled the tonfa at him and rushed forward.
Thud!
Unlike the others, Kim Jun-yeong did not even try to dodge. A dull impact split his forehead and blood sprayed, yet he never blinked as he raised a knife.
Dangerous!
Se-geon screamed inside. This man would simply take the tonfa hit and still throw the blade.
Se-geon snatched the motorcycle helmet from the floor in desperation.
“You bastard!”
With Jun-yeong’s curse two knives flew. Both hands, yet the blades came in perfectly level—nothing ordinary about it. Se-geon lifted the helmet and lightly deflected both.
“What the—!”
Blocking thrown knives from less than a meter away! Even battle-hardened Jun-yeong had never faced anyone like this. Startled, he threw a kick.
“Hmph.”
The kick seemed to crawl toward him—at least to Se-geon’s eyes. Instead of dodging he smashed a low kick into the supporting leg. Countering a kick by striking the planted foot is extremely risky; a miscalculation can snap your own knee. Jun-yeong took the blow and held.
“Fuck!”
Jun-yeong drew another knife and stabbed again, yet Se-geon slipped the attack as lightly as a phantom. Evading the strikes of a knife specialist so easily… Of course it was the Psychedelic Moon, but Jun-yeong had no way of knowing and was going out of his mind.
Crack!
Se-geon’s palm heel shot up into Jun-yeong’s jaw. The fluorescent light flickered as the man’s vision blacked out for an instant—a clean concussion from a single blow. The assault did not stop. Se-geon twisted the arm outward, broke it to snatch the knife, then heaved the man up and slammed him into the floor in one motion.
Boom!
Yet Jun-yeong, driven into the bare floor, bounced straight back up. The flooring was hard material; rising after that throw was impressive—though of course he had not escaped damage.
“Tch!”
Se-geon felt his head swim from blood loss. A stamina-draining throw exacted a heavy price even under Psychedelic Moon.
Is it because I didn’t mix in the cocaine?
Thinking that, he jumped out the window. Leaping from the second floor with an injured arm was dangerous, yet for Se-geon on the drug it was effortless. He landed as nimbly as a black cat and sprinted for the motorcycle.
“Stop! Don’t you stop right there, you bastard!”
Se-geon had no reason to listen—he did not have a drill in his skull. He somehow swung the motorcycle parked at the entrance around with one arm and roared off.
The throttle was meant for the right hand… yet Se-geon gripped and twisted it with his left instead of his ruined right. Compared with true motorcycle stunts it was crude, but handling a bike skillfully with one arm still proved his ability was far from ordinary.
Vroooom!
The thugs kept hurling curses at his retreating back.
“You son of a bitch!”
“Fucking bastard! After him!”
A few uninjured men ground their teeth and raged. Then the office door opened and the boss, Jeong Sang-dong, appeared late, golf club in hand, scowling at his subordinates.
“Ah, hyung-nim!”
“Everyone shut up! Making noise when hyung-nim’s here—are you punks?”
Kim Jun-yeong, covered in blood, first restored discipline among the underlings. Truth was he wanted to grind that brat into paste himself, but getting worked up now would only deepen the damage. He recovered the bloodied knives from the floor and let out a low sigh.
“The kid’s really something. Pierced through the forearm and still flying around.”
Taking this much punishment almost deserved admiration. Jun-yeong wiped a knife with a cloth as he thought it.
“He won’t be in one piece either.”
Civilization’s lights illuminate the city, so it seems few places remain for darkness to settle. Yet the Tower of Babel that humans raised—though God is already dead and no longer worth desecrating—still trails its shadows.
Atop a construction crane that took the cold night wind full force, the man known by the baptismal name Silvester stood clothed in black.
The very summit of the rebar crane… the black-clad priest slowly surveyed the city. Here, where massive buildings occupied the four corners, powerful winds always blew. The giant crane keened as the gusts battered it.
“Ah…”
Silvester closed his eyes and took one step, then another. Walking without hesitation along the sparsely linked rebar… he raised his right hand. A hand little different from any human’s, yet in that moment his fingers touched his face. The delicate fingertips traced his flawless skin more slowly than any caress.
Hiss!
Even though the gloved fingers exposed no nails… the skin split and a small wound opened. A razor-sharp cut, yet only a bead of blood welled without flowing. That blood formed a triangular pyramid centered on his eye.
“My eyes are darkened; I wander in the blackness.”
He murmured the words and looked ahead. How could human fleshly eyes pierce a city veiled in streetlights, neon, and darkness deeper still—yet the black-clad priest turned his body atop the crane and gazed over the entire city.
“Is that so?”
The priest murmured quietly and withdrew his hand. The sharp blood-trace on his face closed at a speed that rivaled a vampire’s regeneration, and soon even the mark vanished.
Slowly opening, his blue-gray eyes held deep self-mockery. Those eyes that looked upon the world yet accepted nothing. They were so decadent and beautiful that even a priest’s vestments dedicated to God could not hide the malevolent aura.
“Haa.”
A pure white breath rose into the night sky.
In the dead of night when even the last bus had stopped, a black shadow stood in one corner of a park as vehicle exhaust faded away.
“Huff… huff…”
A young man in a black racer suit leaned against a streetlight, his arm wrapped in a tourniquet. From the bound arm, blood the color of mercury-vapor lamps—dark blue-black—seeped out. He gasped roughly and took a heavy step. With each slow footfall a metallic sound rang across the asphalt. Staggering like this, someone might have come to check on him… yet at this late hour the night streets held few people.
“What a goddamn mess.”
The young man muttered, yanked off his motorcycle helmet, and hurled it onto the road. A green part then appeared. Despite the cold winter weather he had sweated so heavily that the moment the helmet came off, sweat poured down along his hair.