Bete Noire

by Christina Moore

  A warm hand touched his forehead followed by the dampness of lips before he was lifted and carried off to bed. As sleep overwhelmed him he mused reverently, “What a great day to live.”

  The man was barely that, a fresh boy untarnished by life. He was only two years younger than Tristan, but the difference in age showed in the way the boy looked at Ash. This boy here hadn’t seen death, not the way Tristan did. But then, this boy was only human and his instincts now were telling him he was amongst those not human. He worked quietly and efficiently despite his eyes constantly darting between the two vampires.

  Yukihime was standing near the living room door wearing a traditional kimono. The fabric was white silk with silver and gold embroidery, some sort of flower. Over the kimono she wore a fur lined, short suede vest. The fur came up her neck and covered the entire back of her head, giving her a white halo that would have blended perfect with her hair if she weren’t wearing an aura right then to look as she once had, with dark eyes and black hair. Aura was not the Water vampire’s strong skill, but Yuki was old enough to do anything. If she could fly, Ash wouldn’t have been surprised—not that there’d ever been a single tale of such a thing amongst their kind.

  Even knowing what Yukihime was meant to look like was nothing like the shock of actually seeing it. Ash had only ever known Yuki as the pale thing she was, to see her with color was… disturbing.

  The ancient vampire smiled with blocky human teeth at the young hairdresser when his gaze lingered too long, making him gasp and look away. Still eyeing the boy, enjoying the imagines in her mind of him bending to her whim, she said in Japanese, “I must say, I am very impressed with the work you two accomplished here.”

  Sitting stiffly in the chair in the middle of the suite foyer, Ash shot her a look. The poor boy at her back was ready to bolt at a single misspoken word. Ash was already pushing herself to keep her aura maintained, or to keep from grabbing the poor boy and biting him.

  “You shouldn’t bother if it’s such a trouble then, dear. I’m just going to wipe his memory when he’s done. Shame really, he is so very cute and good with those scissor… He might make a lovely one of us.”

  “You dare,” Ash hissed, head swiveling around quickly to look at Yuki. The boy grumbled, but didn’t have the guts to complain any louder.

  Yuki only giggled. “Tell me, dear,” the old vampire said switching to English. “I know that Lucien-san didn’t have his way with you, but I wonder… how did our Ryōshi-san fare?”

  Ash frowned, eyes looking across the living space to her right, towards the closed bedroom doors where Tristan slept. He woke briefly during the day but was too weak to get up on his own. He was sick sometime during the day too, mostly blood that Ash cleaned up when she awoke before forcing him to eat some soup. He managed to get up long enough to go to the bathroom. He’d been sleeping since then, more than six hours ago. Ash was happy to join him, lay at his side for the rest of the night in quiet bliss if it weren’t for Yuki suddenly showing up with that frightened hairdresser. She didn’t have to guess how Yuki knew about her hair being ruined. She just wondered how it was exactly that the pythia told Yuki with no tongue to speak.

  “Lucien did not touch him.”

  Yuki took only a second to understand her meaning and then caught an image of the violation from Ash’s mind. She let out a gasped laugh, clapping her hands together. “I see, that is why the dear faerie is still alive then. Though only just.” Indeed, the heartbeat from the other room was slow and weak. Ash had only just taken her fill from him shortly before Yuki arrived. Shame she really didn’t have the strength yet to drain him.

  “Not only that, but I am using him to heal my burns.” In hopefully a fraction of the time.

  Yuki came around to stand in front of Ash. The boy cutting her hair immediately stiffened at the old vampire’s close proximity. She may have looked like a child, but he could feel she was something more. Human instinct was a powerful thing.

  “Is it bad?” Yuki asked in a solemn tone. It wasn’t often she displayed a true emotion other than her quick temper.

  “Yes. Lucien, he, I think he only put out the flames to save Tristan. Granted, he meant to hit Tristan to start, but it would have only been a glancing blow—a warning. I took that flame full on. I…” Ash looked down. “I never knew fear until that moment when the fire hit me. I felt it sear into me, deep into my flesh. Felt it eat at my very blood. And I knew there was no putting it out. I knew I was going to die.”

  Yuki went to her knees before Ash, placing her hands on Ash’s knees.

  “I was ready to die if it meant saving Tristan. I do not understand how Malik lived being burned like that. I do understand now the madness that followed…”

  “So it’s true,” Yuki whispered. All accent was lost with those softly spoken words. “Tristan was the one who killed Lucien.”

  Ash crinkled her nose as a lock of hair fell into her face. “Yes. He did well… all on his own.”

  Yuki considered her a moment with a deep frown. “I can make it go away.”

  “What?” Ash snapped looking Yukihime in the eye.

  “The pain you felt, the fear.”

  Ash’s face scrunched up in anger. “Meddling with my mind more?” Ash shooed the boy away and stood in a flurry, forcing Yuki to fall back onto her bottom. “Are you done?” she snapped at the boy in French, though she knew he understood more than a little English.

  He nodded quickly and gathered his things. Her new haircut felt lighter and wrong. She hadn’t had her hair this short in centuries. As the boy darted for the door, Ash shot Yuki a warning look.

  “Oh don’t fret so hard, dear. I’ll find him when we’re done here and take care of it.”

  When the two vampires were alone again, Ash let her anger free. “You had no right.” It took everything she had left not to scream it at the top of her lungs. Yuki had done some pretty low things in their time together, but stealing those key memoires, as far as Ash could remember anyway, were the worse. “Those were my memories, my life.”

  Yuki let her aura drop as her own anger twisted her features. “Now you listen to me and listen well because I will not explain myself to you or anyone else ever again. Everything I have done from that night I saved you from a painful sun suicide to this very moment and every moment that has yet to come has always been for the greater good. And you are a part of that greater good, Asta. You think you know me but you don’t understand a thing, child. Not a single thing. So stop fighting the fate of your life and just… go with the flow.”

  Ash scowled at her.

  Tone softer, Yuki said, “Trust in me.”

  “I trust you as much as I do not.”

  Yuki laughed. “Now that makes sense.”

  “I suppose fate has never really made much sense to those who don’t understand or even believe it.”

  “Says Asta Moirakos.”

  “You dare,” Ash hissed. She never thought she’d hear that name again. Especially from someone who’d promised to never utter it.

  Yuki held her hands up in defeat. “I dare and I push, it is who I am.”

  Ash harrumphed at that but relaxed, taking a seat in the living room on the new sofa. With a gasp, she let go of her aura. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to sneeze, but imagined that was what it felt like when she released the ball of energy she held inside to change her appearance.

  “Oh my,” Yuki whispered when she saw the damage and came to stand in front of her.

  Ash only looked away. She knew what she looked like. She knew how ugly she was.

  “No, no, my dear.” Yuki knelt before her, reaching up to touch Ash’s face. Using just her fingertips she turned Ash’s face to the side. “You have never been ugly. You are beautiful inside and out and a little bit of frayed flesh will not change that.”

  “It hurts.”

  Yuki took her hand back. “Your eye, is it well? I can find one for you. A lovely blue to match what they were when you were al
ive…”

  “I can see out of it fine,” she lied easily.

  “But it’s so dark,” Yuki said under her breath, eyes taking in all of Ash.

  “I never wanted any of this,” Ash said in a tiny voice. Her thoughts were on Tristan and what she intended to do when he awoke. She wasn’t ready, but he was. It was time and it hurt her to think she would willingly do such a thing to him.

  “Oh, my child.” Yuki took a seat next to her on the sofa and patted her knee. “You know what I’ll do? I’ll give you those memories back and then you’ll understand why I took them.”

  Ash looked startled for bare second before she narrowed her eyes at the old vampire. “And what do you want in return?”

  Yuki’s expression lit up. “We call things between us settled, even.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “Exactly, meaning that I will return your memories, well, those I deem returnable and you will from here on trust in me when I tell you to do something. No questions asked. And as a sign of good faith, I’ll even throw in a bonus. I’ll go in there and erase the tragic things the faerie did to Ryōshi-san from his frail male mind. He does know doesn’t he?”

  Ash bit into her lip nodding. Of course he knew, only he hadn’t thought on it too closely just yet. Ash was not looking forward to that revelation and the implications it would have on his long term mental health.

  “A deal then?”

  If Yukihime laid out a proposal like that, she meant to keep her word. But the question was, was it worth it? What if there was something important she held back but then would be unable to argue with Yukihime per their “no questions asked” clause.

  “If it were anyone but you, then no, it would not be worth it. But I know you, Asta-chan, my dear. You hold a deep value in things most of our kind takes for granted.”

  “Like a human.”

  “Kikkari,” Yuki agreed.

  Frowning, Ash reluctantly nodded, knowing she was right. “Okay.”

  The little vampire’s lips spread into a thin smile that always made Ash nervous. Yuki happily bared her neck to Ash, making a real show of it. It wasn’t often the old vampire made such a gesture. In fact, even Yukihime herself couldn’t remember the last time she’d let anyone willingly feed from her. She hadn’t many scions of her own these days for a reason.

  Despite having her fill of Sebastian only a few hours before, Ash’s mouth watered at the thought of more. Even the faerie’s strong blood couldn’t keep up with the amount of energy Ash’s body demanded to heal itself.

  Her jaw felt stiff when she opened widely as if she hadn’t used it a lifetime. It was the fear of the unknown making her body tense with anxiety. Yukihime was offering up her throat willingly, something Ash never thought she’d see, and maybe wouldn’t again. And what would she find in that ancient blood, what secrets of her own life were hidden away?

  The blood of another of her kind always tasted the same, cold and dry, thin. But this, Yukihime’s ancient blood was warm, almost human warm, and thick, heavy. It took Ash only a moment to realize why. All those soul’s Yuki had taken in the past, a piece of them lived in her blood. The cries of hundreds of tormented voices, screaming out to be heard, the lives of every human Yukihime ever killed.

  By the Goddess, there are so many.

  Ash’s first instinct was to pull back, to deny the voices, the cacophony of misery filling her mouth, but Yuki’s small, but very strong hand clamped down on the back of Ash’s head. “Shhh, my dear. Give it but a moment.”

  She whimpered, eyes squeezed shut as she prayed for the noise to cease. She’d seen too much, relived too many old memoires in the past days and had enough. She may have been vampire but her sensibilities had always been human—fragile.

  That’s right, my dear. Yuki’s words drifted into her mind as clearly as if she’d spoke aloud. That’s why you are so loved…

  Loved? I—Ash’s thoughts were cut off by her own moan when she swallowed Yuki’s blood down. The voices, they were too much and just as she was about to scream for them to stop, they did. All the noise coalesced into one, Yukihime’s.

  Master…, Ash sighed.

  Yes, yes my dear, shhh. Take them now, they are yours.

  Under the mantle of Yukihime’s presence Ash found her own. Her life, her memories. They flowed into her, filling her to make her whole again. But like Swiss cheese, there were spaces where small memories were still missing. Those she took in again were enough though, she understood so much now. She had so much to tell Tristan, if she could find the right words.

  Ash gasped, jerking away from Yukihime, letting the blood she didn’t want to swallow flow from her mouth. Nothing could make her take another drop of blood from the ancient vampire. The tears came fast, she didn’t even try to stop them.

  “Oh dear,” Yuki said softly as she brushed a strand of hair from Ash’s eyes, smearing tears along her temple. “You can’t tell me it was all that bad.”

  Ash jerked away. She didn’t want to be touched. She didn’t want anything to do with Yuki right then.

  “The Goddess curse you… I knew,” she said through sobs. “All along, I knew. Lilith she…”

  Yuki stiffened, expression hardening. “Yes. And you see now why I had to take that from you. My dear, you’re always so stubborn. Well, perhaps not as much as our lovely American hunter, but pretty damn close.”

  Ash hung her head, letting her hair hide her face and the red tears that wouldn’t stop. “You foolish old vampire, do you not see what you have done?”

  Yuki made a little noise of surprise when Ash looked up with tears and hate in her eyes. “I had decided already. I had decided to give Tristan what he wanted and stay with him forever. Now… Now you have changed that all yet again. How can I—”

  “Yare yare, that wasn’t my inten—”

  “No. But it is what you have done! Have you learned nothing in all your years? The pythia the world over must be crying over your interference.”

  Yukihime frowned hard, looking like the child she was. “I can undo this. Take them back.”

  Ash shook her head. “No, you cannot. It is already done.”

  The child vampire was struck silent. She’d messed up big time and knew it for once. When Ash looked up and met her worried gaze, Yuki said in such a convincing tone, “I’ll fix this.”

  “No,” Ash answered, standing. “You will not. Now leave.”

  “Asta-chan!” Yuki gasped, reaching for her wrist.

  Ash snapped her arm away. “No. If you had not come into my home and forced yourself on my mind, everything might have worked itself out already. Instead, you have only caused me more pain. Tristan too, he suffers for your insistent meddling. If you had only left things alone, Yukihime.”

  “Asta-chan, please let me explain.”

  “No. You have talked too much already.”

  The look of betrayal and hurt on Ash’s face broke Yuki’s undead heart. How could she have strayed so far?

  Ash remembered who the Uruwashi were. She remembered Lilith coming to her, saying it was up to Ash and Ash alone to save the last of the Uruwashi kind. Ash argued with the pythia, denied all ties with such a wretched clan. But the pythia was as gentle with her words and wise as she was all-seeing. And when the time came, Ash reluctantly, but willingly went to Tristan. She would save him but she did not have to love him as the pythia declared so boldly—love an Uruwashi? The absurdity of it. Her heart was her own and she controlled who held a place in it. Except, that the Uruwashi already had his place there. He was a part of her long before she ever laid eyes on hm.

  But then Yukihime, ever scheming, came and took that all away. The Master knew of Ash’s stubbornness all too well. Ash had a destiny to fulfill and Yuki would nudge it in any way she could. Ash awoke to a stranger in her home she knew nothing about but the strong physical pull of her blood to his. He was no human, nor vampire. She had no idea who or what this man was but that he’d already found a place in her heart. And
the harder she tried to deny those feelings, the more apparent they became until she started to act out. She couldn’t be hurt again, and it had nothing to do with Uruwashi and everything to do with her own experiences. Love had been cruel too many times to so easily accept it again.

  Now knowing what she once knew, she realized why Yukihime took those memoires and experiences, for if she hadn’t, Ash never would have accepted her own feelings. That was Yukihime’s theory anyway. Too bad the child vampire was wrong. Ash was already in love with Tristan long before they met face to face. She knew the moment she saw him she would save him, love him and stay with him always. Then Yuki came and took that all away and Ash almost left him behind to join her dead Master as ashes. It was a mere whim that kept her amongst the living dead. It was Tristan’s fire that brought them back together.

  And when Lucien’s fire nearly killed her, she vowed to never be this weak again, to frighten Tristan with her near death. She would make him strong and together they would be able to stop anyone. The moment he woke, she was going to offer him what he wanted. But that was all gone now, knowing the things Lilith had told her. Could she really be the one to set such a fate into motion?

  “Asta-chan,” Yuki said in a tiny voice, on the verge of tears. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “But you always do, Shisho. It is just who you are.”

  “No…” she whispered, the word trembling with her pain.

  “Please, just leave. I need time to think.”

  Yukihime considered her for a long time before finally nodding. “Okay… Just—”

  “Yes?”

  “Just remember… there isn’t much time now.”

  Ash frowned at her. “I know.”

  “Would it… would it help to speak to Lilith again? I mean, to hear it more clearly? I’m sure she’d let you bite her and then you could see it all, the big picture.”

  Ash made a rude noise, shaking her head. “You just do not learn, do you? No, Yukihime of Water. No, I will not drink from the pythia and watch the reel of fate unfold. No one but the pythia is meant to know that. Shame on you for tasting it.”