Road Fighter
“Kill him!”
The vampires seized the opening and charged at Han Se-gun, but in that instant he depressed the clutch and shifted gears. The bike lost speed just enough to slip past the ones rushing him.
Thud!
Without even drawing the blade from the sheath strapped to the bike, Se-gun swung. Using the difference in speed, the strike knocked the vampire clean off his own machine.
“Gyaaaaah!”
Vampires who fell while traveling at over a hundred kilometers an hour—even if they somehow landed intact—were run down by the vehicles roaring up behind them.
“Tch! A road fighter!”
Kyung was stunned by Se-gun’s skill—the way he had casually slipped through the pack that had been chasing him and bitten their tail instead. To knock vampires flying, exploit the gaps that created, and turn the pursuit around took a level of guts and ability most people could never dream of.
“You bastard!”
The vampires packed into a big van tried to ram him. Se-gun simply tilted the sword he was holding sideways. When he had struck earlier, the scabbard had already come free; the bare white blade caught the streetlights and flashed.
“Heh.”
A strange smile crossed Se-gun’s face. Hidden by the helmet, no one else could see it, but it was as ugly a smile as any man could wear. The vampires were charging into a trap they already recognized, and though Se-gun hated them, he could not help feeling a flicker of pity for creatures being used as pieces in Sarhyuk’s scheme. Of course a human who squeezed them dry for money had no right to pity them—or to hate them either.
Especially when you’re the one taking their lives, he thought, and let the sword go.
The blade flew free and punched straight through the van’s windshield. The vampire in the driver’s seat was pinned to the seat right along with it.
Crunch!
Shattered glass sprayed in every direction as the van skidded sideways.
“Keh-keh-keh…”
Se-gun was laughing. Blood and death filled the long straight road. What would become of the innocent people caught up in this wreckage born of malice?
“Hahahaha!”
Vroooom!
A rampage that hurt the innocent as well. The bike’s raw exhaust note. Road fighters. Vampires. The mad moon. The Psychedelic Moon racing through his veins woke the madness and drove Se-gun on. He knew the police would not sit still after a disaster like this, and he knew the law’s net would close around him too—yet he kept riding.
“Ooooooh.”
Sarhyuk let out a cry of pure delight at the blood-smeared windshield. He had already smashed several vampires with the Hummer; the jolt that ran up through the wheel every time he hit one was pure electric thrill.
“This is fun! What a monster!”
He yanked the wheel as he shouted. The Hummer scraped past a van stopped in the road and tore a long gash down its side.
“But what about the guy chasing us? That’s a Jinma hunter’s car.”
“Boss. The cops are setting up a barricade ahead.”
Two of his men spoke at once. Their situation was hardly ideal. Ordinary vampire hunters—no matter how expensive vampire blood was—would have cut their losses and run by now. But the alchemist Sarhyuk had the power to break this open.
“Hmph. A police barricade. Any side streets around here?”
“How would I know? This is Korea.”
“For crying out loud. At least put a navigation system in. Running an illegal business without knowing the roads—what good is that?”
Sarhyuk muttered to himself and pulled out a firearm.
“Anyway, that Se-gun bastard doesn’t look like he’s trying to die, so let’s just keep after him hard.”
“If the cops grab us it’s a nightmare, Boss. Think about that for once. Entrusting all our lives to some kid like that is—”
“I know. But tonight’s a full moon. You do understand I didn’t become your boss for nothing, right?”
Sarhyuk gripped the wheel and glared up at the sky. Clouds had swallowed the moon so it could not be seen, but tonight was unmistakably full.
“Even so…”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. For now, let’s just take it easy and enjoy ourselves. Carpe diem!”
Sarhyuk swung the wheel and looked ahead. Eyes that shone like a beast crossing a night field reflected in the windshield.
Bang bang bang!
Se-gun twisted away from a vampire’s kicking attack and squeezed the Tokarev’s trigger.
“Gyaaaaah!”
The vampire took several rounds, then kicked free of the seat and lunged. If the bullets were going to drop him anyway, he would at least drag Han Se-gun off the motorcycle with him—a kamikaze charge. Se-gun simply pulled the bike forward and let the charge miss. The vampire who had thrown himself into the air hit the pavement in an ugly sprawl, all that courage wasted.
“You son of a bitch!”
Looking back, Kyung’s eyes nearly bulged with rage. Fellow-feeling among vampires was thin—some of them even preyed on their own kind—but even for creatures like that, scenes that demanded shared fury kept piling up one after another.
“Kyung! Is the illusion working?”
“It’s not sticking!”
He had already tried the hypnosis several times, but a rider dosed on Psychedelic Moon and flying at high speed did not fall easily under trance or hallucination. The helmet that kept their eyes from meeting only made it worse.
Bang!
While Kyung still clung to the idea of illusion magic, another vampire went down. Strong vampires did not usually drop to a single silver round from a handgun—but on vehicles screaming at high speed, the rules changed.
“Alright—here!”
Se-gun slapped a fresh magazine into the Tokarev and wrenched the handlebars left.
Police always set their barricades at intersections or merge points—the most efficient way to check the most vehicles with the fewest officers. That also made those choke points easy to predict.
“Hup!”
Se-gun jumped the bike and left the road in a single bound.
“Keh!?”
He vanished into a narrow alley off the roadway. The vampires who had been fighting him hard on the open road were left staring like dogs that had chased a chicken onto a roof.
“You fucking bastard!”
Kyung and the others immediately cut their speed, but in the tide of oncoming and passing traffic there seemed to be no way to follow Se-gun.
“Whoa. That one’s a killer.”
Sarhyuk marveled again at Se-gun’s recklessness. Cutting across the center line on a six-lane road and bolting off it entirely—no one without a serious death wish would even try it.
“Boss?”
The men watching Sarhyuk’s face shuddered with a bad premonition. When this one said he would do something, he did it.
“We’re going after him!”
“Of course we are!”
In that instant the Hummer swung sideways and plunged into the alley. But the passage Se-gun had broken through was a little too narrow between the buildings for a Hummer.
“You really going in?”
“We’ve got just the thing for it!”
Sarhyuk shouted and rammed the vehicle parked at the entrance. With terrifying force the Hummer crushed the car under its wheels, canted itself at an angle, and forced its way into the alley. The crushed vehicle wailed its alarm like a dying creature. Knocked free by the impact, it rolled forward on its own; the hand brake had clearly been set, but it was no match for the Hummer’s monstrous power.
“God damn!”
Kuaaaaaaaaah!
The gas-turbine engine bellowed, and the Hummer tore down the alley still listing hard to one side. This monster of a vehicle—its original engine torn out and replaced with an armored-car gas turbine—shook the buildings as it thundered through.
“Now that is a fine piece of work.”
Silvester followed in their wake and caught hold of Deok-yeon’s collar.
“You’re not—”
“Just borrowing your body for a second!”
He hauled Deok-yeon toward himself and tipped the car hard to the side in one motion. Astonishingly, that alone was enough: the Corvette Coupe stood on its flank, slid past the vehicle blocking the alley mouth—the one the Hummer had flattened—and dropped into the alley proper.
“There—get over!”
Silvester kicked Deok-yeon into the passenger seat. The coupe immediately found its balance again and clawed the pavement with its tires.
Screeeech!
“Carpe diem, is it?”
Silvester shifted gears and gave a short, contemptuous laugh.
“If a man can take pleasure in a moment like this in such a filthy mire, that tells you exactly how rotten his nature is.”
“Sir?”
“Nothing. Talking to myself.”
They burst out of the alley and onto the national highway.