An Unannounced Guest
Thanks to Silvester, Se-geon had all but gotten the vampires’ blood for free. He mixed it with stabilizer and stuffed it into the refrigerator. With a stockpile like this, he could demand a better safe house from Kenneth Yang. In cash it had to be worth hundreds of millions of won — and he was keeping that kind of fortune in a fridge. Se-geon could scarcely believe it himself.
“How should I put this…”
Wasn’t he following capitalism’s classic disease with flying colors — earn more money, buy more tools, use those tools to earn still more money, in an endless vicious cycle? Se-geon thought that and let out a sigh. The family photograph on the desk sat in an old glass frame, its power seemingly spent. After wading through the slaughterhouse where blood washed blood, memory grew clouded, and even the stake driven into his chest finally vanished.
“……”
Unconsciously, Se-geon was fiddling with the family photo. They said reminiscing about the past was proof you were getting old, and Se-geon had no grounds to argue. His awareness as a hunter had been completed that day — the day his family was slaughtered. That was an undeniable fact.
But if he admitted that being a vampire hunter was itself immoral, then blaming his corruption on his family’s deaths would amount to dodging responsibility. So Se-geon had to carve into himself that he was a vampire hunter, separate from his family’s death.
“Is that so…”
Suddenly he wanted some air. Come to think of it, he still needed to report to Silvester about the Jinma Jeong-ya, but Silvester’s injury had made him miss the timing.
“Ah…”
He looked around his empty room. The new safe house Kenneth Yang had arranged was no different from the last. Even when the weather turned cold, the boiler had never been turned on once; a bleak chill filled the place — nowhere a human should live. And a fortune sitting in the refrigerator, no less. He was already regretting how he’d treated Jeong-ya as money during their earlier fight. Money meant nothing to him — so why had he clung to it so hard?
“Damn it.”
He shut the door irritably.
The Takamura-gumi was currently the corporate-style yakuza that had seized control of Japan’s entertainment business. Korea’s organized crime outfits mostly made their money from hostess clubs, nightclubs, and other nightlife. That was possible only because Korea’s entertainment industry charged outrageous rates for huge profits, and because plenty of people still walked through those doors.
Japan had places like that too, of course — high-end traditional restaurants, exclusive dining houses — but even when the bills ran high, the money was reinvested in the service itself. Yakuza skimming restaurants from the shadows was relatively rare. The markets closest to what Korean gangs ran were loan-sharking and prostitution; prostitution, though, was under threat from the rise of compensated dating — a thriving cottage industry of independent schoolgirls — and loan-sharking was far too traditional to count as a new market.
So they seized the entertainment industry instead. It was hardly strange for yakuza to have their hands in adult video production, or even in the studios of celebrities who appeared on national network television.
“This the place?”
Jinma Phantom stopped his car in front of a vast hanok mansion. Ordinary houses with grounds this large would have violated zoning laws, but traditional hanok were different. People who wanted a grand estate sometimes chose to live in one for exactly that reason.
“Hmm. A traditional house.”
Phantom stepped out of the Viper and looked around. True to a man with something to hide, security was thick on every side.
The problem was the cars parked at the entrance. Other guests were already here — guests who favored Lincoln Continental limousines, no less.
“Hold it! Who the hell parks here without permission!”
A man in a black suit strode up to Phantom and fired off the question. The way he spoke Korean without the slightest hesitation to a foreigner said he was well trained. Knowing that even if the other man didn’t understand the words, the tone would make the meaning clear — that took real confidence.
And the order was almost certainly to keep anyone approaching the mansion out, no exceptions. From the look of them, every guard carried at least a stun gun.
“Not at all. I’m acquainted with the master of the house.”
“What? Acquainted?”
“……”
But this was South Korea, where a car said everything. Even someone who knew nothing about automobiles could tell the Viper Phantom had arrived in was no ordinary vehicle. The guard hesitated, then softened his tone and tried again.
“Do you have an appointment?”
Phantom adjusted his sunglasses. Of course he had no appointment. But he took out his phone and dialed.
“What the—”
“Please wait. I’m making that appointment right now.”
Jinma Phantom said it and waited for the ring. A moment later, Zein’s voice came through.
“Who is this?”
“Me.”
The register of the man who had been using honorifics with the guard changed at once.
“Huh? Well now. The moon must be rising in the west. What wind blew you into calling me all of a sudden?”
“I’m outside your house. Let me in.”
“What? Ah — fine. How did you even find this place?”
Startled by Phantom’s sudden appearance, Zein still contacted his men and had them let him through.
—Beep!
An electronic beep, and then a door made of old pine swung open! Phantom clicked his tongue at the absurd sight. If this was fusion, it was fusion of a sort — but the sheer dissonance made it glaringly clear that Zein had no real interest in traditional Korean culture.
“This way, please.”
“Right.”
Phantom sighed and walked forward. At the entrance, however, a woman in a white coat stood waiting with a metal detector.
“A moment, please. I need to check you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding…”
Jinma Phantom frowned. Even if they kept metal from going inside, once a fight started it never ended cleanly — that was reality. Zein knew that; he would never insist on this procedure himself. It was just habit among the people guarding the mansion. Still, anyone carrying something the law frowned on was bound to dislike a search.
Beep-beep-beep.
Sure enough, the detector went wild. Phantom had no choice. He drew his Beast Double and set it down beside him. The heavy custom revolver settled onto the side table by the gate, and the guards tensed at once.
“Wh-what the—”
“Whoa… is that a toy?”
It was clearly a gun heavy enough to ring like solid steel. The woman who had been conducting the body search cut the guards off.
“That’s enough! You’re being rude to a guest!”
“But—”
“Sir, I’m afraid bringing something like this inside is extremely problematic.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll leave it.”
Phantom handed her the gun and strode in without hesitation. This place was ruled by a vampire of the same Tetra Anax line, but Zein found Phantom distasteful — Phantom knew that better than anyone. Walking in unarmed could easily cost him his life.
“I’ll show you in.”
“Appreciate the kindness, but no need.”
Phantom brushed past the people waiting for him in the courtyard and went inside. The others looked deeply displeased, but this was someone who spoke casually with their boss. Phantom all but ran up onto the main wooden veranda and slid the door open.
Rattle!
As expected, a guest was already there. A young Japanese man in his early twenties, dressed in a black suit, sat formally seiza before Zein. His long hair was swept straight back — the look of a fighter who refused to cut his hair for combat, even if being grabbed by it put him at a disadvantage. That was Kato Haruhiko. Among karate practitioners who prized traditional conditioning and pressure-point training, the dominant opinion called him arrogant; but seated in seiza, Kato’s presence was pure caution. Even when someone rudely slid the paper door open behind him, he didn’t spare Phantom so much as a glance.
“Ah. You’re here?”
Zein frowned briefly, then said nothing more. Opening a sliding door and walking in when other subordinates were present would normally have brought down thunder — but the other party was who he was.
“Wh-who is this?”
Zein had gone full crime boss: a long low table stretched before him, and a whole assembly of organization bosses sat along it. One of the seated men voiced his displeasure at the white young man who had entered without any warning. Phantom said nothing. He simply walked over and took his place at Zein’s side.
“……This is outrageous!”
“Leave it. Now that you’re here, how about a drink?”
“Hmm. Later. I’ve got something to discuss right now.”
“What is it?”
Zein played dumb. Phantom picked up a bottle from the table. Completely out of keeping with the building’s atmosphere, it was brandy. He struck the neck with the edge of his hand, snapped the crystal clean off, poured into an empty glass, and drank alone. A flicker of interest passed through Kato Haruhiko’s eyes at the sight, but he showed nothing more — which was more than could be said for the organization men around them, who had all but jumped to their feet.
“Enough! Now that you’ve wet your throat, let’s hear it.”
“Right. Well. Where to begin… First, about the search. Word is you’ve been interfering with my work.”
“Y-you—!?”
The assembled men stared at Phantom in disbelief. Zein had no choice but to hold them back. If any of them decided to show excessive loyalty and jumped Phantom, there would be a pile of corpses — that much was obvious. Besides the Korean gangsters, many of the Takamura-gumi men Zein kept under him were vampires. Even so, Phantom’s power outstripped theirs with ease.
Damn it. He’s doing this on purpose.
Zein felt his guts twist, but he kept the smile on his face. They could have spoken English and been done with it. Choosing Korean instead was deliberate — so the subordinates would understand every word.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. When exactly did I interfere with you?”
“You’d know better than I would. That violent outfit called the Jeoksu-pa — you know them well enough, don’t you?”
Every eye in the room snapped to one man. The Jeoksu-pa — named for rising through bare-handed fighting — was a major criminal organization that had passed to a successor while its first boss, Yang Gi-cheol, served a life sentence. The only reason it was not the largest in Korea was that they had deliberately fractured control of their businesses to stay beneath the law’s notice.
The result was that the Jeoksu-pa had split into eight mid-tier subordinate groups. Its second boss, Choi Gyeong-sik, started when an outsider suddenly spoke his organization’s name.
“Is that so? And what about this Jeoksu-pa?”
“They ruined a job I commissioned. Quite deliberately.”
Phantom said it and sat himself, uninvited, in the seat beside the boss. Zein gave a crooked smile and shot back.
“Isn’t that a bit of a leap? Run an organization and you get this kind of thing and that kind of thing.”
“Hmm. If it wasn’t intentional, then it won’t happen again from here on?”
“……”
Of course, even without looking, anyone could tell Zein’s face had gone as if he’d bitten into something foul.
“Ah — one more thing. Getting yourselves on network television doesn’t sound like something Tetra Anax would want.”
“That’s my business to handle. If I can settle it between myself and Tetra Anax, it’s over, isn’t it? Sticking your nose into that is meddling past the point.”
On that point Zein did not yield. What medium was more certain than network broadcast? Why would he abandon what amounted to a public manhunt? Once Wednesday passed, a nationwide broadcast searching for her would go out.
“Fine. Then let’s leave it at not interfering with each other.”
“How generous of you.”
Zein sneered. Phantom rose from his seat.
“Then I’ll hope we don’t see much of each other going forward. I should be going.”
“Do that.”
Zein let him leave without further comment. The organization men still seated stared at Jinma Zein in shock. With his cruel nature, there was no way he would simply let someone this rude walk away. And yet Zein, face twisted as if chewing dung, was allowing Phantom to go.
“Wh-who was that?”
“Row Gibson.”
“Huh?”
Aggressive M&A, vulture investing, corporate dismantling, slamming resource rights down to rock-bottom prices — the so-called genius of eating other people’s money, a man who occupied the upper ranks of the world’s hundred richest. The thugs, however, were thoroughly ignorant of any of that.
“Never mind.”
Zein was not the sort of kindly soul who explained things one by one to idiots. He said it, and let out a sigh.