Come to Arjuna
The Corvette stopped at the mouth of the alley leading to Se-gun's house. The priest opened the door and spoke.
"Any farther and it gets awkward. The neighbors have eyes."
"…"
"And as for what just happened—write it off as a bite from a mad dog and forget it. Even if you told anyone, no one would believe you. You'd only end up looking like a lunatic."
With that, he waited for Se-gun to climb out and shut the door. Then Se-gun, who had been slumped and drained only moments before, suddenly rapped on the Corvette's window as if a thought had seized him.
"Wait! Just a second!"
"What?"
Instead of opening the door, the priest hit the window switch. The power window slid down, and those cold, merciless eyes fixed on Se-gun. Se-gun cried out, desperate.
"Those vampires—are there still a lot of them? Don't tell me the one that died in my house was the last of them?"
Se-gun had realized the priest meant to leave and blurted the question in a panic. That urgency, that near-paranoid fixation, almost looked like the edge of a mental break. The priest answered without warmth.
"Whether there are more or that was the last of them is none of your concern. What you need to do right now is go home, clean up that bloodbath of a house, and get back to something resembling a normal life as best you can."
"You think I don't know that's impossible? My whole family is gone—how am I supposed to just go back to normal? I can't forgive them! So—"
"So what?"
In that instant the priest's arm shot out the window and seized Se-gun by the collar.
Then, with terrifying strength, he hauled Se-gun in and smashed his face against the Corvette's glass. Blood spattered across the hard synthetic pane.
"Gah!"
"Don't make me laugh, you brat. Who do you think you are? If dying is what you want so badly, I can send you after your family right now."
"Nngh—!"
Se-gun screamed through the pain. The priest held his collar with only one hand, yet it felt like a chain cinching around his throat.
That monstrous strength called to mind an industrial press; Se-gun couldn't speak, could barely breathe, only choke and gasp. And though any ordinary man would have let go by now, the priest showed no intention of releasing him.
He held on as if to say that if Se-gun died of strangulation, so be it. The only mercy was that the fabric gave out under that grip and tore.
Rrrrip!
With the sound of cloth ripping free, Se-gun collapsed onto the ground. The priest looked out through the open window and said,
"Get back to reality. Misfortune isn't yours alone, so stop sniveling, you son of a bitch. You think you're the only one whose family got wiped out?"
"Damn it! I can't! How am I supposed to forget when I've already seen it? You want me to forget the monsters that ate my whole family? Is that even something a person can say?!"
Se-gun clutched the back of his neck and howled. In answer, the priest drew a Desert Eagle and leveled it at Se-gun's skull.
"What a pain in the ass. Making you forget is easy enough. All I have to do is blow your brains out right here. Get lost."
"…"
Se-gun did not back down. The priest smiled thinly, then cracked him across the face with the Desert Eagle—six-inch barrel.
It was like being smashed in the face with a small dumbbell. Se-gun went down at once, blood running.
"Urgh!"
"Fine. Then come find me at Arjuna. We'll talk properly then."
As the priest's voice cut off, the Corvette's V8 engine began to idle with a savage growl.
"My name is Silvester. Call me Silvester for now. Got it?!"
With that he gunned the Corvette and tore out of the alley. Se-gun listened to the engine fade into the distance and closed his eyes.
"Hah! Hah! Hah!"
Along a dark national highway lit only by sparse streetlamps, a man was running. He clutched his belly as if a beast were on his heels, and blood poured from under his hands to spatter the grass.
Pat-pat-pat-pat.
Startled insects burst up in a cloud, their chitinous shells catching the pale mercury light and casting dizzy, flickering shadows.
The fleeing man stopped for a moment, staring into that glow as he tried to catch his breath. Behind him, like a phantom, the black-clad priest—Silvester—appeared.
He walked toward the blood-soaked man with the heavy Desert Eagle in hand.
"Aaaaagh! I didn't—I didn't do anything! I really don't know anything!"
The bloodied man screamed as he stumbled back and sat hard on the ground. Silvester kept coming, slow and deliberate, the Desert Eagle trained on him.
Click.
The hammer drawing back sounded unnaturally loud. Terror drove the man farther back—and behind him, Chuncheon Lake lay open under the moonlight. He kept retreating until he dropped to his knees and begged.
"P-please, spare me. I—I'm a vampire, yes, but I used to be human, and I have a family I have to feed! I'm begging you!"
The vampire pleaded with genuine, wretched pathos. It was abject, but not incomprehensible. The priest's expression did not thaw as he took another step closer.
A large van swept past them along the highway, and somehow the people inside never seemed to notice the two of them at all. Silvester spoke to the vampire still begging for his life.
"Then cry."
"?!"
"Cry and prove your innocence, you slut."
Silvester advanced as he said it. The vampire could only tremble, hands shaking.
"W-what do you—"
And then a tear slid down Silvester's cheek. To the vampire's astonishment, the priest was weeping clear tears as he raised the Desert Eagle. Moonlight on that pure silver hair, and those faintly Eastern features traced by transparent tears—it was a beauty that did not belong on this priest, this incarnation of abuse and violence.
"That's your limit. Slut!"
Bang!
A cold gunshot rang out across the night.
Se-gun pulled on a racing leather suit, the gloves clenched in his teeth while he dragged the zipper up with both hands. His face still bore the clear marks of Silvester's beating, plastered over with bandages.
If he had truly become a monster that could heal a shattered arm, the bruises on his face should have faded by now—but Se-gun did not seem to have turned. He let out a breath of relief and tugged on the gloves.
Silvester had only told him to come to Arjuna. He had said nothing about where Arjuna was, or what it even was.
Arjuna was a figure from the Indian epic of the Bhagavad Gita, the one who receives the teachings of Krishna, Vishnu's incarnation. But there was no chance he was being told to go hunt down something that abstract.
So Se-gun combed the internet looking for Arjuna. What came up were mostly the titles of Japanese animations, or Arjuna of the Bhagavad Gita. Undeterred, he turned next to the phone book.
And there, in the directory, he found it: Occult Shop Arjuna.
Se-gun rode the RX-125 that had become his brother's keepsake out onto the road. It was still only Wednesday. As a high school student he ought to have been in class—but with his entire family slaughtered, demanding he honor a student's duties and sit through lectures would have been cruelty.
But what, exactly, was Se-gun himself thinking as he headed for Arjuna? Revenge on the vampires who had killed his family? If that was all it was, Silvester's hands had already delivered it.
The vampires had been butchered by Silvester, and even their corpses had long since vanished. So then—why?
"Nnngh—!"
A groan tore free inside the helmet. As if answering that raw surge of feeling, the RX-125's heart howled with a high exhaust note and tore down the road.
Arjuna occupied a large ground-floor storefront facing a small park. True to the name of an occult shop, a big brass pyramid-like structure stood on display out front.
But what caught Se-gun's eye was the jet-black Corvette Coupe parked in front of Arjuna.
The dark sports car followed soft curves, its sleek gloss throwing back the sunlight, making the already exotic occult shop gleam even brighter.
Se-gun parked behind the Corvette, hung his helmet on the bike, and headed for the entrance. Beyond the glass doors the interior was dim and somewhat gloomy.
Was it the occult-shop image? Even the air drifting out from within did not feel ordinary.
Jingle-jingle.
When he opened the door, a small copper bell fixed to it rang. Mid-morning—perhaps still too early for customers. No one stood at the counter.
Se-gun considered calling out, then instead began to look around the shop.
This exotic occult shop had a sofa set out on one side for guests, and on the opposite wall hung strange masks from various countries, Chinese talismans and feng shui goods, crystal balls of cut crystal, and more.
Se-gun had never cared much about the occult, but oddities like these had a pull strong enough to snare even the uninterested—and he was no exception.
While he was absorbed in the displays, a door in the back opened and a middle-aged man in a beret stepped through. His skin was rough from a youth spent unafraid of the sun, but the frame underneath was still solid.
More than anything, the beret he wore was the kind issued by Special Warfare Command—the special forces, commonly called the Black Berets.
"Ah—"
Startled, Se-gun looked at the retired soldier. The man looked back and recognized him at a glance.
"Han Se-gun, is it?"
In that moment Se-gun froze where he stood. Even as the survivor of a sensational, grotesque massacre that had the gossips buzzing, he was no celebrity—so being known on sight was proof enough that this was the Arjuna he had been looking for.
Of course, how many occult shops in Korea had a 2002 Corvette Coupe parked out front? The black Corvette alone was irrefutable evidence, but Se-gun found himself freshly astonished all the same.
"Yes. That's me."
"Earlier than I expected. Have a seat and wait."
He pointed to the sofa as he spoke, then sat first on the facing side. Se-gun noticed the man's hands were trembling. Then the inner door opened again, and a woman appeared from within.
"Oh my. Look at me. We have a customer."
The soprano voice, a little theatrical, was astonishingly beautiful.
She was a model-slim black-haired beauty who had clearly put great care into her hair—long locks finished with a sharp razor cut—and she wore a clean men's suit.
It looked less like the uniform of an occult-shop clerk and more like a casino dealer's. Early twenties, perhaps? And yet she carried a mysterious air. Her age was hard to pin down at a glance. Se-gun rose from his seat at the sight of that striking woman.
"I've come looking for Father Silvester. Is he here?"
"Oh, he is, but he's sleeping right now. Should I wake him?"
She said it with a light, musical laugh.
Then the door behind her opened and Silvester himself appeared. Fresh from washing his face, water still not fully dried, an unmistakable look of irritation sat plain on his features. Perhaps, deep down, he had hoped Se-gun would never find the place.
But Se-gun had found Arjuna far sooner than expected. Tracking it down in only two days from nothing but a name—that was the kind of drive that would put a private detective to shame.
"I'm already up. No need to wake me."
He said it as he swept back his silver hair and tied it. Having just risen, he wore a pure white shirt instead of his cassock—one printed with the famous image of Snoopy lying on top of his doghouse.
His silver-blond hair looked barely tended, yet it shone with a brilliance no artificial dye could imitate, and that tall, handsome figure and face belonged more to a model than to a priest who hunted monsters.
Standing side by side with Arjuna's clerk, the two of them looked startlingly well matched.
Se-gun looked at this strange priest and asked without preamble.
"Is this your house?"
"It's my base in Korea. Not a house."
Silvester said it and looked to the middle-aged man. The man in the beret drew an envelope from his coat and set it on the counter.
"Here. Looks like that bastard has left the country."
"So after all that tailing, we lost him again this time. Damn it."
Silvester took the envelope, checked the contents, then came out to the sofa. Without so much as glancing at Se-gun, he asked,
"What'll you have?"
"Coffee."