Jackpot
As luck would have it, every mid-level boss—Kim Jun-yeong, Cheon Yeong-hu, and the rest—was out, so Jeong Sang-dong himself opened the door, golf club in hand.
“Huh?”
His eyes locked with Chang-hyun’s just as the younger man was emptying cash from the pockets of the fallen thugs. Caught red-handed fishing bills from the gangsters’ wallets, Chang-hyun flushed with embarrassment. He might have been a thief and a robber once, but this first real stick-up still made him squirm inside. From the victims’ point of view it was pure absurdity—some bastard who beats people up and steals their money, blushing because he got spotted? If you’re going to feel that way, don’t do it in the first place!
“You little shit!”
“Whoops.”
Chang-hyun snapped a roundhouse kick into the golf club Jeong Sang-dong was swinging at him. The instant his foot connected with a solid crack, Jeong Sang-dong felt a surge of triumph. Who the hell jams their leg into a titanium-shaft driver? The kid would be nursing a broken tibia for weeks—
Then the titanium shaft snapped clean in two and dangled limply, and Jeong Sang-dong’s confidence took a serious hit.
“Wh-what the hell?!”
“Excuse me!”
Chang-hyun drove a fist straight into Jeong Sang-dong’s gut. After that he simply cleaned out every last bill in the man’s wallet. A safe sat in plain sight, but even for a gang that lived by fleecing people, cleaning out the vault felt a little too heartless. Not that Chang-hyun was in any position to pity them—yet the wallet alone had already netted him nearly a million won, and he felt no urge to get greedier.
“Mmmph! Mmff!”
“Oh, right…”
Only after pocketing the cash did he walk over to the debtor trussed up in the corner and peel the packing tape off the man’s mouth.
“Haaah! Th-thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Chang-hyun frowned at the nylon cord binding the man and cut that free as well. Flesh had been gouged raw by the rope; on top of that the poor guy had taken a thorough working-over with a baseball bat. He looked wrecked.
“Well, I’m off.”
“What? You’re just… leaving? Shouldn’t you throw the whole lot of them in a cell?”
“I’m not a cop. You’d better run while you still can—they’re going to be furious.”
The man had watched him empty wallets and still thought he was police? Chang-hyun found it so ridiculous he almost laughed, yet on second thought it made sense. Of all the wallets in the world, who targets a gangster’s? The guy’s failure to read the room was almost forgivable. Still, Chang-hyun wasn’t about to babysit him any longer. He slipped out of the building in a hurry.
Meanwhile Sarhyuk kept roaming the streets, feng shui plate in hand, hunting vampires. Challenging Tetra Anax or any of the proper clans was suicide even for a corporate-style vampire hunter, so he never even marked targets that traveled in packs.
The problem is, once you go corporate and get big, the profit margins tank.
Paying salaries meant he needed serious revenue. The catch was that right now only Sarhyuk himself could actually find vampires. Most Korean hunters were just thugs with no real talent; tracking vampires was far beyond them.
Throwing more bodies at the problem didn’t catch more vampires. The only reason Sarhyuk could even keep this many people on payroll was that they were farming(!) vampires.
I need to bag that Jinma, Jeong-ya.
A flicker of impatience ran through him as he cast the spell on the plate again. These rituals drained body and mind; he would have to stop soon. Yet the clueless hunters trailing him kept babbling about how smart they had been to throw in with Sarhyuk. Ordinary hunters might spend days tracking a single vampire; Sarhyuk brought in five or six a day. Of course they thought he was a miracle worker.
“Huh?”
Driving past a park, Sarhyuk suddenly braked. The cars following him slammed to a halt and waited for his next move.
“No-entry zone.”
He shoved the door open, hopped out, and scanned the area. In the poorly lit park, evening crowds of young people and local residents milled about. A short walk brought a woman into view, sitting alone on the jungle gym and killing time.
“…”
She lifted her head, met Sarhyuk’s gaze, then rose and walked—slowly, very slowly—toward the back of the park. The casual pace looked exactly like a student heading home after curfew, but the shabby clothes said she was no ordinary civilian. And a young woman that age couldn’t possibly be a homeless drifter…
“Hmm…”
Too many witnesses. Sarhyuk cleared his throat and returned to the car.
“Well?”
The subordinate holding the door open watched his boss’s face. Sarhyuk knew that if the woman was a vampire she would hear every word. Thirty meters or not, she could catch a coin dropping on the seat.
“Bingo—no, jackpot.”
Bingo meant vampire; jackpot meant a real prize among vampires—a Jinma. The code was so childish she would understand it perfectly.
Thud!
Concrete scraped under her feet as she broke into a run. The other cars immediately ignored the no-entry signs and surged after her; a few peeled off toward the main roads outside the block.
“Shit!”
“Forget it. Herd her slow.”
Sarhyuk signaled and flicked on the navigator. The detailed local map told him exactly where to drive her.
“This is pure fox-hunting.”
He muttered the words and started barking orders over the radio. Rush-hour traffic was a nightmare, but the penalty cut both ways. The woman couldn’t risk displaying superhuman speed either. Human eyes were one of the things people who lived under the mad moon avoided at all costs.
“Man, talk about luck. Never thought I’d spot a Jinma right in Seoul.”
“Right? Why didn’t she just run somewhere else?”
“Who cares? We’re chasing.”
Sarhyuk tossed the feng shui plate onto the back seat and floored it. Selling a Jinma like Jeong-ya to other vampires would solve every profitability headache in one stroke. A true life-changing card—wasn’t this what a reverse of fortune looked like?
“Ugh.”
Yet this Jinma, Jeong-ya, either cared about human eyes or didn’t; she vaulted over alleys and dodged cars with casual leaps. A vampire had to use the terrain to shake vehicles, sure—but a Jinma reducing herself to that just to stay out of sight? He couldn’t wrap his head around it.
“Damn it!”
They had entered a no-entry zone; oncoming cars were already jamming the road. Sarhyuk threw the car into reverse and immediately tangled with the vehicles coming up behind him. Amazingly, Jeong-ya had stopped fleeing and doubled back. Was that a feint… or something else?
“Hah… hah!”
Jeong-ah checked her surroundings and returned to the park. The no-entry roads around it had let her shake the hunters, but circling back to the start was hardly wise. Still, she had no choice.
Whether from pollution or whatever, the spring evening was suddenly sweltering—if this even counted as spring anymore. She wiped the sweat from her brow and looked around. Mercury lamps lit the dark park, yet black shadows still pooled in the grass, casting eerie shapes. People without eyes that could pierce the dark chattered away anyway. Good. Here the hunters wouldn’t dare open fire or bring out their heavier toys.
Besides, they had split their forces to herd her toward the outskirts. Even if they abandoned their cars and ran, reaching the park again would take time. But would Chang-hyun make it back before then?
“Why did they spot me at all?”
Fear of Tetra Anax’s surveillance always made her parcel out her power for counter-detection. Even so they had found her. Because of Chang-hyun? Then he was in danger too.
“Huh?”
At that exact moment Chang-hyun appeared at the park entrance, arms loaded with clothes and two oversized sports backpacks, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. Raiding a gang office, buying necessities with the proceeds, and still wearing that satisfied face—any human would have said his liver had swollen up and was choking him. But he was a vampire, just like her.
“Chang-hyun!”
She sprinted to him. He handed her one backpack and lifted the plastic bag in his other hand. Sandwiches showed through the thin plastic.
“I, uh, bought some food. Didn’t know what you like, so I just grabbed stuff at the convenience store. And for the clothes I had no idea about sizes, so…”
“We don’t have time for this right now.”
“What?”
“Follow me!”
She dragged him into a run. Chang-hyun kept pace for a few strides before realizing she was moving far too urgently.
“What’s going on? Don’t tell me—”
“Exactly that. More pursuers.”
“But how—?”
He glanced back and spotted a car reversing out of the alley marked with the no-entry sign.
“Shh!”
“Hurry!”
“Wait—I’ve got a better idea!”
Compared to Jeong-ah, Chang-hyun was seasoned in fights, good at using terrain, and familiar with firearms. He pulled her toward the nearest subway entrance. Ride the circular line long enough and the public eyes would keep the hunters from attacking freely. One extra train car was all it took to make tracking nearly impossible—like hunting a gold needle in a haystack.
“Come on!”
He vaulted the twenty-odd steps down to the concourse in a single rush and charged the ticket gates. No time to buy a ticket; he simply leapt the barrier. And of course that was the exact moment several public-service workers coming up from the platform walked straight into him.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? You ought to know better!”
“Kyaa!”
At the same instant Jeong-ya jumped the gate; her skirt flared upward and she grabbed it on pure reflex. Attention slipped from the people in front of her—and her knee slammed into the temple of the worker holding Chang-hyun in a textbook jumping knee strike.
“Ah! S-sorry! Are you okay?”
“…Ugh. Of course I’m not okay.”
Figuring the situation had already gone sideways, Chang-hyun seized the other worker’s hand and stuffed two ten-thousand-won notes into it. The man, flabbergasted by the absurd bribe, started to refuse—why hand over that kind of money when a ticket would have been fine?—but when Chang-hyun let go, the back of the worker’s hand was already glowing an angry red.