Blood Feast in Yangpyeong
Jinma Agni had driven out in high spirits, bringing his own vehicle along. Ordinarily he got around on an electric scooter, but something that flimsy was no good for hauling the kind of weapons he used. So he had scavenged an old Presto sedan someone had abandoned by the roadside. License plates still on, windows intact, air conditioning and heater both working fine — and yet they had just dumped it in the street. That, he thought, was exactly what was wrong with Koreans.
"Well, no idea if this intel is legit, but might as well check it out."
He had a free car, after all, so he crossed the roads in a cheerful mood and rolled over Yangpyeong Dam. He could tell people were laughing at him, but so what? A car only needed to roll — that was his philosophy. Phantom, tooling around expensive Seoul in something like a Viper with gas prices the way they were, struck Agni as a creature from beyond the far side of comprehension.
"Hmm."
The moment he cleared the dam, though, a strange killing intent washed over him. The smell of adrenaline and oxidized sweat pouring off tense people, maybe. Whatever they were, they did not look like humans gathered with good intentions.
"Give me a break. I'm not one of Anne Rice's vampires."
He was not reading their thoughts in detail, but he could feel the shape of their minds without even looking. Agni lacked the refinement of other vampires, yet even he could sense the humans' intent. Just how pathetic a fool did that Jinma girl have to be to still be hanging around a place like this? This was almost certainly a trap.
"Vampire hunters, huh?"
He stopped the car. Hostility radiated from people spread wide across the surroundings. Right. Whether Jinma Jeong-ya was actually here or not, they meant to catch any vampires who showed up to investigate. Having read that much, Agni calmly drove on along the national highway until he turned into the entrance of a roadside motel. Cars packed with people already filled the lot. The owner minding the office looked put out, but Agni parked with shameless indifference. Unlike other famous Jinma, Agni's face was not particularly well known, so the other vampire hunters only flicked him a glance before settling back down to wait inside their cars.
"Figures."
Agni yawned and leaned against the vehicle. Whether the vampire called Jeong-ya was really nearby or not, something was going to go thoroughly wrong tonight. So he had no choice but to wait until nightfall restored his strength. Jinma Agni draped the file on Lee Jeong-ah over his face and closed his eyes.
Se-geon stared at the bikes stacked in the warehouse and let out a low whistle. Looking at the machines crammed into the oversized trailer, he felt the blood start to boil in his chest.
"So all of these are stolen or smuggled, huh?"
"You're being loud. Keep it down."
The man who had led him to the trailer had a newsboy cap pulled low and pressed a finger to his lips, fretting over nearby eyes. Se-geon stepped inside and checked the merchandise. He was not uninterested in racing bikes, but what he wanted was strictly off-road. Racing machines were fine for straightaways, but they were useless for breaking through rough terrain. And vampires did not obligingly appear only on flat roads, so versatility had to be considered.
"Not many off-road models."
"People don't like 'em. No style."
"Hmm."
Se-geon was looking over the stock when his feet suddenly stopped. A Yamaha YZ-125 had caught his eye.
"Oh. You've got one of these?"
"Oho. Looking to buy that? Lucky you. That's a good machine."
This from the same man who had just said there were barely any off-road pieces. Se-geon thought as much, but he examined the bike anyway. It looked clean, and it had been fully tuned. For something left to rot in a warehouse, the condition was solid — it seemed like a fairly recent factory piece.
"Hmm… how much?"
"Gotta get at least twelve million for it."
"It looks used. And twelve million? That's more than a brand-new one."
Se-geon protested, half in disbelief, but the man held his ground. Se-geon's mistake had been letting on how much he liked it.
"Then go somewhere else. If you're so clean you can buy one off a street shop, go do that."
"Oh?"
Se-geon suddenly felt the urge to test out his newly purchased Glock 18. But this was a place Kenneth Yang had gone to the trouble of introducing him to, and causing an incident would be a problem, so he had no choice but to start haggling.
"What kind of idiot pays twelve million for a YZ-125? Factor in that this is a black-market deal — six million!"
"You're insane. Who cuts it in half like that? I'll do eleven million eight hundred."
"Ugh… knocking it down by twenty-thousand increments."
Se-geon was so floored he just glared at the man. A new one went for around seven million, and this guy wanted that kind of money for a used, dirty piece of goods. Se-geon had money, sure, but not enough to let himself get fleeced.
"Look… you're not hearing me. If it isn't someone like me, who exactly are you planning to sell that thing to? You're not going to leave it to mold and brew motorcycle wine with it. New price plus the tuning — eight million."
"Come on, spend a little more. Take it for eleven."
After a long, stubborn back-and-forth, Se-geon finally settled with the man at nine million six hundred thousand won. Paying that outrageous price for a used hot bike stung, but the tuning was solid, and he was going to ride it unregistered anyway, so it did not matter. Se-geon clipped on his half-folded license plate, mounted up, and rolled out of the shop.
"Mmm. Runs nice."
Se-geon grinned as he shot out onto the street. He had picked it on looks alone without even a test ride, so he had been worried — but once he opened the throttle, the thing flew. It ran so well it was almost concerning.
This thing isn't reported stolen, is it?
Se-geon muttered the thought to himself and swung the handlebars. Suddenly the road forked — one way climbing toward Seoul, the other peeling off into Gyeonggi Province. Come to think of it, the false rumor about Jinma Jeong-ya had pointed to Yangpyeong in Gyeonggi, hadn't it? The distance was considerable, but if he really opened it up, it would not take long.
"Should I check it out?"
He knew it was dangerous. Even a green rookie who had never pulled a single hair knew that when vampires and vampire hunters gathered, it was not going to end with a friendly game of patty-cake. Even so, he wanted to go. Was this not the perfect chance to see just how many other vampire hunters there were — and how many vampires?
"Hell with it! You only die once!"
Se-geon shouted the words with swagger, wrenched the bars toward Yangpyeong, and gunned it.
The sun sank slowly into the west and finally vanished. Even if vampires really were nearby, they would not show themselves here until roughly an hour after sundown. Of course, that was a different story if they were using light-blocking transport trailers.
With a bang, Jinma Agni kicked open the door of his Presto and climbed out. He walked to the trunk and tried to open it. But it was a car that had been left to rot on the street, and the trunk would not budge.
Crunch!
Agni simply applied force, smashed the trunk open, and pulled out a Caliber .50. Judging by the carefully bent rebar and the mechanical linkage connected to the trigger, it was a custom piece built to be handled with one arm. He loaded a belt of ammunition, slotted the weapon onto one arm, and wound the belt around his body through his left arm.
"H-hey! What the—!"
The people in the motel parking lot — the vampire hunters — startled and drew their weapons. Nobody used a monstrosity like that. Nobody human, at least.
Bang! Bang!
But Agni kicked off the ground, vaulted clean over the cars, and landed lightly on the motel terrace behind them. The ones in ballistic vests who had been firing pistols and shotguns spun around in panic.
"You're all dead."
Agni made the declaration and leveled his right arm at them. The heavy muzzle of the Cal.50 spat fire only twice — but the rounds did not stop at one man. They punched through him and struck the next. It was a heavy machine gun chambered in the same ammunition as an M82A1 Barrett. The bullets drove through two bodies and still had enough left to punch through the vehicles they had arrived in, proving just how useless a barrier human flesh was against that kind of round.
"Whew. Adios!"
Fire flashed in Agni's eyes at the same instant the vehicles exploded, a pillar of flame roaring skyward. Startled by the sudden chaos, a motel employee came running out.
"Aagh! Th-this is bad! Call 119, hurry—!"
"That won't do."
Watching the man from the terrace, Agni blew his head apart with a single shot from the Cal.50 and dropped to the ground.
A strange, resonant hum rose as the blood spilling from the corpses began to flow — slowly at first, then with accelerating force — racing toward him. Agni stood still and received the blood that came rushing to him.
"Ah!"
As the blood was absorbed through his body, he let out a soft sound of pleasure.
"Really is the best. No matter how much you drink, human blood is always more the merrier."
He aimed the muzzle at the motel and fired in a continuous burst. Gunshots and screams tore through the quiet of Yangpyeong, through the isolated motel. As long as someone had their feet on the ground, there was nowhere they could hide from him. He charged into the motel, killing everyone he saw and drinking their blood.
"Damn it! You crazy bastard!"
There were vampire hunters inside the motel as well. One of them stepped forward with a massive body bunker, sealing off the narrow corridor, while the others behind him thrust their muzzles through the gaps in the shield.
"Oho?"
Agni sighed at the humans' resistance. Against other vampires it might have been a fine tactic — but against a Jinma?
"Die!"
At their shout, Jinma Agni vanished from where he stood. He had thrown himself sideways, smashed through the building wall, and gone out through a window. While they rushed forward, startled by the shattering glass, a guest-room door opened behind them and Agni stepped into view.
"A body bunker couldn't stop this Cal.50 anyway. But manners are manners, so I'll go around."
"Gah!"
The hunters who had fallen back tried to spin and return fire, but Agni was faster. Only two spent casings hit the floor, and three vampire hunters were already dead. The body bunker in front dropped to the corridor floor with a massive hole punched through it.
"Simple enough."
Trailing the droplets of blood behind him like a long tail, Agni began to search the rooms one by one. He had the ability to sense living organisms, but neglecting a proper search was still dangerous. Every so often, among humans, there were ones who knew how to erase their presence completely. Even those were no real threat to Agni — but among them, now and then, you found the kind who exceeded all specifications, like Jinma hunters.