A Third Force
“Useful?”
In that instant Silvester seized his claymore and hurled it at Phantom.
KWA-AAANG!
It was a storm. In the night the muzzle flash leapt a good forty centimeters from the barrel, vivid and blinding, and the recoil drove Phantom’s blond hair violently back—proof enough of the weapon’s monstrous power. Silvester’s claymore, which had withstood Agni’s onslaught without a scratch, shattered into flying shards from a single shot.
Shiiiiiiing—!
A torrent of propellant gas blasted from the vents beneath the muzzle. Silvester stared at the wreckage in pure disbelief.
“My sword…”
“Ah—sentimental about it? You used to favor a Japanese blade, didn’t you? A Muramasa, was it?”
“…”
The Muramasa had been Silvester’s once, until Juk-yo snapped it and swallowed the pieces. The claymore that replaced it was the summit of advanced materials engineering—special-steel shapers laminated at micron thickness so the blade could absorb shock while keeping its edge. It had been forged as a ritual sword of Western black and white magic alike, and ordinary curses and hexes could not touch it. It could even raise a seraph-class barrier. And now it lay broken by a single round.
Bwaaaang!
A motorcycle came tearing toward them—Se-gun’s YZ-125. The moment he saw Silvester standing empty-handed, Se-gun gunned the bike straight at Phantom.
“Hmm.”
Phantom watched him approach with a faintly startled look. In the interval Silvester whipped a Desert Eagle from his coat and aimed—
“Ah—!”
KWAANG!
The white hem of Phantom’s coat flared backward, belching flame. He looked for an instant like a jet streaking away on its own fire, but the fire was only muzzle flash.
“Kh—!”
Silvester crumpled where he stood. Everything below his right knee was gone, and what remained was already locking solid with Cellular; dehydration began to seize the rest of his body. The first round had been a high-velocity armor-piercer. The second was a Cellular slug.
“Not bad.”
Jinma Phantom smiled at the charging Se-gun, measuring the power of his own shot. Se-gun had already drawn his Glock and was firing wildly as he rode, but Phantom simply stood and extended one hand. A crimson mist rose like a wall.
“Tch!”
This was the same Phantom who had stopped PSG-1 NATO rounds in broad daylight. Glock 18 rounds could not even graze him.
“What the hell is this guy?!”
Se-gun knew by instinct he was facing a Jinma. Nothing else could stop bullets with bare flesh. Even so—this was ridiculous!
Click.
A massive revolver swung toward him. In the same heartbeat Se-gun yanked the front wheel up and drove the bike straight at Phantom. Pistol rounds might be stoppable—let’s see him stop a motorcycle.
“Ugh—fresh, I’ll give you that.”
Phantom, who had never faced Se-gun before, laughed at the reckless charge and flung himself sideways. His white coat whipped out as he turned a perfect aerial somersault, light as a gymnast.
“Ah—!”
Se-gun saw Phantom already behind him and kept the throttle open, weaving a hard zigzag to cut the chance of being hit. The attacker, however, had already lost interest.
“Pity. Agni’s about to run into the police. I’ll be going first.”
“What?”
Silvester stared at him, stunned. He had already crippled them—why leave without finishing the kill? This wasn’t some television villain who always monologued and fled. Phantom, though, had his own reasons.
“Truth is, I’m no fan of Tetra Anax either. It’s a shame when fellow vampires die to Jinma hunters—but if I kill a hunter like you, I lose any real chance of toppling Tetra Anax’s rule. To seize hegemony, you always need a third force. Always.”
With that, Jinma Phantom sprinted to his Viper and swung into the seat. He had been honest enough about his motives; Silvester could only glare after him, speechless. In the end Phantom meant to use the Jinma hunter Silvester as a tool against Tetra Anax.
Of course Silvester had fallen so easily only because he had already fought a company-strength force of vampire soldiers and then Agni, and had burned through every round and weapon he carried—not because his skill was lacking. Phantom knew that perfectly well. Leaving such a perfect chance unused could only mean he was dismissing Silvester entirely.
Or else he simply doesn’t care if he dies himself.
Silvester clenched his teeth and forced himself upright. The Cellular had sucked the moisture from his vessels and locked hard enough to send him into shock for a moment, but his body was nothing like an ordinary human’s.
“A-are you all right?”
How Se-gun had found this place, Silvester didn’t know—but the man he himself had invited into the world of the Mad Moon was hurrying toward him, face tight with worry. Small wonder. To Se-gun, Silvester had looked like an absolute power; watching him lose a leg would have been a shock.
“First… we need to get back to Arjuna and repair the body.”
“Huh? Repair?”
“Never mind. My car’s wrecked as well. We’ll bury the weapons and head for Arjuna. Give me a hand.”
“Ah—r-right.”
Se-gun seemed startled by the uncharacteristic meekness, but he quickly searched the ground and came back with the Barrett and the rest. Once the weapons were hidden under a riverside tree, Silvester picked up the broken claymore. Inside the thin edge ran a gelatinous shock-absorbing resin. He peeled it free, gripped only the blade, and sliced through the Cellular-hardened stump of his own leg.
“Ugh!”
“…”
Se-gun stared at the grotesque sight. Watching a man cut off his own leg as easily as slicing butter made even Se-gun—who had been baptized in blood and entrails—feel his teeth chatter.
“Cellular really is too dangerous. And vampires use this stuff…”
Silvester closed his eyes, trying to scrub away the lingering wrongness of the Cellular still crawling through him.
“Ah—get on the back of the bike. You don’t need to stop the bleeding? We’ve got plenty of vampire blood right now.”
“I’m fine. I’m immune to a vampire’s influence—which also means I get none of the benefits of their blood.”
That was all Silvester offered; he gave no further explanation. For a man who had just amputated his own leg, the calm was unnerving. Se-gun decided not to press and simply followed his lead.
“All right—hold on tight.”
Se-gun settled Silvester behind him, climbed on, and cracked the throttle. Strangely, almost no blood ran from the wound—so little it looked like cutting rubber, and the sight was chilling. Come to think of it, Silvester’s skin had always been unnaturally pale.
“That vampire just now… was he…?”
“Jinma Phantom.”
“I figured… He was incredible.”
Se-gun stuck out his tongue in grim admiration. He had emptied an entire Glock 18 magazine, and every round had been stopped head-on. It drove home just how soft Lee Jeong-ah—whose VT dwarfed even Phantom’s—had really been.
“Is it all right to leave the weapons and casings lying around like that?”
“Don’t worry. That’s Tetra Anax’s problem, not ours.”
Silvester said it flatly and locked both hands around the rear grab bar of the bike.
“Whoa—!”
The patrol car coasting along the road slammed to a halt at the sight of a massive trailer truck that had smashed through the guardrail and gone over the edge.
“Hmm… Hey, Officer Yang. Looks like an accident. Call for backup.”
“Yes, sir.”
The young driver still wore the stiff tension of a man whose rank insignia had only recently started to shine. Sergeant Kim sighed and climbed out.
“What the—this is no ordinary mess.”
The second his feet hit the ground, spent casings crunched under his boots and he nearly jumped out of his skin. A firefight? Bodies lay scattered across the asphalt—mostly foreigners in body armor.
“Whoa—this is a major case!”
“Y-yeah…”
Sergeant Kim’s face had gone pale. He hadn’t been on the force that long, but he had never seen anything like this. And every last corpse was armed.
“Automatic weapons. You sons of bitches—what the hell were you thinking?”
Submachine guns and assault rifles everywhere. Sergeant Kim’s pulse spiked. Wait—if these were the grunts, the rest of the crew might still be nearby. He shoved a hand into his coat, drew his Police Action .38 revolver, and swept the dark.
“Ah—!”
Officer Yang, watching from the car, ducked his head and hammered the radio. That was when they heard it.
Bwooong—!
An old truck was rolling toward them from the road ahead—a Daewoo Labo mini-truck with a local supermarket’s phone number plastered on the side. The driver hadn’t even switched on the headlights.
“Stop right there!”
Sergeant Kim stepped into the path and raised a hand. The truck didn’t slow; it accelerated. He lunged clear beside the trailer while Officer Yang screamed into the radio and slammed the patrol car into motion.
Screeeech!
The cruiser spun broadside and blocked the whole road. The supermarket truck was small and ran on LPG; it would never shove a police car out of the way.
“B-backup—now! Major incident! N-no—tactical unit!”
Officer Yang babbled in panic. He had blocked the road, but the truck was about to hit, and terror flooded him. Then a cheerful horn blared from the road behind.
“What now?!”
The truck stopped cold. From the rear a scarlet sports car came screaming in at a murderous speed. Sergeant Kim kept his revolver trained on the truck, frowning. Headlights only now? Suspicious as hell. Cho-seong Supermarket was run by the Jang couple, and the driver’s build was unfamiliar. Stolen vehicle?
Screeeeech!
The sports car overtook the truck and locked the brakes hard enough to melt the asphalt. The rear tires spun, the chassis whipped around, and the car came sliding straight at the patrol car.
BAAAAANG!
Inside the cruiser Officer Yang clamped the wheel, mashed the horn with his forehead, and stomped the brake. In the same instant the red sports car released its own brakes, floored the accelerator, and stopped sliding—settling neatly between truck and patrol car in a perfect block. The reek of burning rubber and scorched asphalt flooded the night.
“Of course.”
A Western man in a flawless white suit vaulted out. Without a word he lunged at Sergeant Kim and drove a finger-strike into the man’s temple, then spun and closed on Officer Yang still seated in the car.
“A-ambush! We’re under attack!”
The shout died almost at once. The finger sank into Officer Yang’s skull as easily as into soft tofu. The young cop who had been screaming into the radio a second earlier went slack-eyed, as if he had bathed in liquor, and collapsed.
“Hmm.”
Phantom laid him carefully across the seat and turned to Agni. If he had not stepped in, Agni would certainly have killed both officers on the spot.
“Tch. Soft on humans, aren’t you?”
Agni grumbled as he climbed down from the supermarket truck. Jinma Phantom approached him without hurry.
“Awful habits for a Jinma. What do you gain by slaughtering innocent humans?”
“Innocent? Before God, aren’t we all sinners?”
“I’m not asking for your stand-up routine.”
“I’m simply faithful to the proposition that vampires live on blood.”
“…If that’s your answer, I have nothing more to say. Let’s leave this place.”
Phantom walked to the patrol car, lifted the rear end, and set it neatly aside on the shoulder.
“Leave the truck. Ride with me.”
“Huh? You sure? If anyone sees Tetra Anax’s darling Phantom sharing a car with a delinquent vampire like me, it won’t just blow over.”
Agni needled him at every turn. After the fight with the Jinma hunters he had fully expected Phantom to finish him. Phantom only shook his head.
“Of course I won’t let anyone see. Just get in.”
He slid behind the wheel of his Viper, its red body gleaming under the moonlight. Agni had no real choice; he climbed into the passenger seat.