Eternal Samurai

by B. D. Heywood

  “Wakatta, there was no point in giving them false hope. I will bring the boy to the hunters as soon as he is well.”

  “You are in love with this human. He is the one, neh?” the smaller vampire stated without judgment or rancor.

  “Ha, hai. He is the one. I would gladly give up everything including my soul to be sure he is safe.” Arisada brushed a hank of damp hair from Tatsu forehead.

  “Sadomori will kill you for this.”

  “Perhaps. At least he will try. The only way to ensure my koibito’s safety is to for me to kill my Seisakusha. Once that is done, I will leave this city forever.”

  “What about the danger you pose the boy now?”

  “Ironic isn’t it? Even as I wish to protect him, I am the greatest threat to his life. I should have stayed away. To my shame, I could not. But I promise, he will be safe in my care. As much as I detest it, I will feed every day.”

  “I do not envy you. A love like yours is a terrible thing.” With a short bow, Fornax left the room. Like the doctor, he was astounded that the boy lived. For the past four days, Fornax had cared for Tatsu during the brief times when Arisada left the house to feed from the runaway indentured hiding at the other end of the island. Fornax knew Tatsu disliked him but as he dressed the boy’s suppurating burns, he became impressed with the young man’s courage. Perhaps Cobb-san was worthy of Saito-sama’s love.

  Arisada ignored the agony from his own injured back as he washed Tatsu’s sweat-covered body, He traced the puckered scars on Tatsu’s throat and across his bicep. Obviously, vampire bites, yet Tatsu had escaped infection. Of more concern, was the tattoo over the youth’s right breast. Arisada knew that mons well, yet he believed every member of that family had been eradicated.

  His heart thrummed each time he regarded the strength and beauty in Tatsu’s face. More than once, he stopped himself from kissing those sweet lips. The vampire felt no shame when his cock hardened while he cleaned Tatsu’s buttocks and genitals. Arisada ached to have those long lithe legs wrapped around him even for a moment as he buried his cock in Tatsu’s core. But he knew it would never be. He sighed with desperate resignation.

  It was almost dawn when Tatsu awoke with a gasp, stared with uncomprehending eyes at Arisada. “My koibito, welcome back,” the vampire whispered. Without saying a word, Tatsu slipped beneath the calm waters of his first real sleep.

  Arisada laid his head by the youth’s inert arm and wept with gratitude as he gave thanks to whatever kami kept the boy alive. Tatsu slept on peacefully, his long lashes lying soft as a baby’s against his pale cheek. One last glance back at his beloved, then Arisada left the room.

  The vampire smiled as he showered. Tonight, he would send a message to Dr. Amos telling him his services no longer were needed.

  Arisada bolted the steel door and set the primitive alarm at the head of the stairs descending to his basement bedroom. He lit several candles not because he needed the light but for the comfort from the flickering light. Dropping his soiled yukata into a wicker basket, he dove with a grateful sigh under the steaming shower.

  Exhausted, he fell onto his platform bed but he could not sleep. With a shiver of dread, Arisada considered Tatsu’s tattoo. Ukita Sadomori wore an amulet with an identical design. The ancient vampire often bragged how he tore it from the neck of a woman he killed in Nagasaki. That woman must have been Tatsu’s mother.

  With a gasp, Tatsu jerked awake. Disoriented, he stared at the peach-colored ceiling. Where the hell was he? The infirmary? A hospital? What the fuck had happened to him? The pounding headache doing an imitation of a taiko drum in his head turned thinking into a major chore. Flashes of chasing after a white van. Something vague about dogs. Yeah, he crashed his bike. No, he knew more happened after that but his pounding head refused to cooperate. His mouth tasted foul like rotten eggs.

  Sharp stabs of pain shot up his legs and back. Nausea assailed him as he sat up and threw off the thin blanket. Thick bandages encompassed his left hand and more compressed his ribs. Their pressure hurt each time he moved. He scraped the crud out of his eyes, and peered blurrily around the small room.

  A clutter of medical equipment including heart monitor, oxygen tank, dressings and medication crowded together on a wheeled metal cart next to his bed. A stand held an intravenous drip bag that fed into his right arm. With fumbling fingers, he plucked out the needle.

  Weakness washed through him as he swung his bare legs over the side of the bed, and looked around.

  The small room was familiar, comforting, as if he were home in Nagasaki. Walls painted a soft yellow were offset by decorative strips of wood. Oddly, the walls seemed to be e made from thick rice paper.

  Tatsu slid from the bed and froze the second his feet hit the floor. He slid his bare soles over the ridged surface. Looked down at a tatami made from the traditional rice straw. Okay, definitely not in hospital. But where?

  The unmistakable urgency in his bladder said to forget about the where. He staggered into the adjoining bathroom. Pissing felt good. It also hurt like hell. The rawness around his cock slit told him he’d had a catheter in him at some time.

  By the time he got back to the bed, his muscles had the strength of overcooked soba noodles. The pain in his ribs screamed at him to rest. But he had to find out where he was, and how he got here. Kuso! No sign of his weapons or gear. Cell phone missing too. A plain, cotton yukata hung over the end of the bed. Another mystery. He dragged on the garment, grateful for its warmth.

  Tatsu clutched his ribs with his uninjured hand as he willed his wobbly legs to move to the door. He slid it aside before realizing it was a shoji, a Japanese sliding door. He stepped into a narrow hallway lined with light green tatami that complemented the smoky-grey walls hung with delicate Japanese prints. The house, if that what it was, reminded Tatsu of his home in Nagasaki.

  “Ohayō. Sumimasen.” He apologized for calling good morning since he had no idea of the time of day. Again in English. No response, no sounds of life. Kuso, no weapons! In a strange building with no idea how he got there. “Just keep moving Tatsu,” he muttered “Find some freaking answers.”

  He slid aside the door facing him, stepped over the threshold and stared dumfounded. Thin light from the quarter moon filtered through the beveled-glass roof. It cast a silver wash over the perfect, rectangular ikinewa, a pond garden. Lines of groomed sand created a balanced symmetry among the rocks and night-blooming dragon-fruit and primroses. Off to one side, a waterfall trickled into a natural-stone pool filled with koi and water lilies.

  Delicate murals covered each wall, cleverly hiding the frames of several doors. Fighting nausea and weakness, Tatsu checked each room. One was chashitsu, a Japanese tearoom. The low teak table was surrounded by soft brightly colored zabutons. Beyond it, he saw an alcove that held a modern kitchen. No windows, no exits. Another door from the garden opened on a second bedroom. Again, no windows, no exits.

  His anxiety grew as he found no way out. He entered another room. His breath caught at the exquisite beauty of the tiny shoin, a room used to display spiritual heirlooms. An exquisite painting of a sakura tree in full bloom covered the entire far wall. A butsudan, a small wooden cabinet with small front doors held a clay bowl and scrolled paper fuda. He wondered who had written the prayer on the scroll. Still, he refrained from touching it. Fudas bore sacred words for the kami of the petitioner.

  Sticks of incense smoldered in a bowl of sand in front of the butsudan. A group of three rocks sat before a statue of Buddha Amida. A fission of grief lanced Tatsu. The three stones, perfect in their symmetrical placement, reminded him of Ojii-san’s shrine so far away in time and place.

  Behind the statue, a floor-to-ceiling rack held a dozen beautifully decorated katana. Hai, weapons! Tatsu seized one, slid it from its saya and froze. Impossible! This sword could not be authentic. Yet, the clear lines in the blade, the leather wrapping around the tsuka, the distinctive decoration of the guard, were unmistakably the design of the famous ei
ghteenth century swordmaster Suishinshi Masahide. Tatsu had seen dozens of paintings of this sword in books. This particular katana was long-considered lost. How was it here, in this house? Overcome with reverence, he placed the ancient weapon back on the rack, checked each one. All were authentic, all were ancient. Despite his need, he felt utterly unworthy to take one. He closed the door on the precious treasure.

  The building reminded him of the shoin-zukuri houses of the ancient samurai. However, unlike a traditional shoinzukuri that sits within a garden, this house surrounded the garden. And also unlike a shoin-zukuri this place had no windows.

  He crossed the garden with care not to disturb the harmonious design in the sand. Stared for several moments at the wall covered with a magnificent triptych of the Byōdō-in Phoenix Hall, the Buddhist temple in Kyoto. As a boy, he had visited it several times. He tapped on the center panel, produced a hollow knock. There had to be a door behind it. Tatsu pushed and pulled on the panel. No luck. He smoothed his hands down each joint, but found no secret latch. More prodding over the frames of the two adjacent panels yielded no results. Kuso!

  His increasing pain and frustration clouded his thinking. And he knew it. What kind of a paranoid idiot lived in a house with no windows or doors? His gut answered with a crawling suspicion.

  Clutching his ribs, Tatsu shuffled to the opposite wall that featured a stunning, life-sized mural of a torii, a traditional gate constructed from two wooden pillars and ornate curved cross braces. Just beyond lay a small Shinto shrine. So realistic were the details of the shrine’s gate that Tatsu reached out to push it open. A gasp escaped him when his fingers found the edges of a real shoji.

  A cold chill ran between his shoulder blades, dampening his excitement at the possibility of escape. He was surrounded by the icons of two religions. Shinto and Buddhist.

  Kuso, how could he be so baka? He knew what—or really who—lived in this house of no-fucking windows, a certain flame-haired vampire. Tatsu’s groin pulsed with a distracting, totally out-of-place rush of desire. Desire and danger.

  He edged the door open a fraction. Muted moans of an animal in great pain came from behind it. His curiosity about the practitioner of two religions evaporated. Chills rippled over Tatsu’s skin at the sheer agony of those cries. He shoved the shoji aside and stared in horror, his throat closing on any outburst.

  Saito Arisada stood trembling in the center of the steaming water of a modern jacuzzi. His back was to Tatsu. Head bowed, the vampire’s arms shook as he held himself up with hands pressed in desperation on the smooth tiles. The remnants of his glorious mane lay in short wet curls against the nape of his neck. Huge suppurating blisters covered his back from shoulders to his clenched buttocks. Nothing remained of that beautiful tattoo. Somehow, Tatsu knew the loss of that art caused the vampire far more anguish than any injury to his body.

  With another agonized groan, Arisada lowered himself into the steaming water. He seemed oblivious of Tatsu standing frozen in the doorway.

  A single memory burst into Tatsu’s mind: That long, beautiful hair, flaring like flames in the wind as Arisada fought to reach Tatsu’s side.

  In that moment, looking at the kyūketsuki’s ruined back, Tatsu’s heart broke. Waves of insane, irrational emotion gripped him. The tsunami caught him, swept away all other feelings—except love, a powerful and undeniable love.

  Stunned, Tatsu slid the door closed, and staggered back to the sanctuary of his room. He fell onto the bed. Exhaustion claimed him. Tomorrow things would make sense, tomorrow—

  Loud thumping woke Tatsu. Not the pounding of the migraine that had plagued him the day before, but a rhythmic beat of reggae. What the hell, Reggae? His nose caught the rich aroma of fresh coffee, distracting him from the music.

  His bandages were gone. Puzzled, he sat on the edge of the bed, and pressed on his ribs and leg, felt only a twinge of pain. Creamy healthy skin replaced the raw burns of only a few hours ago. He couldn’t have been hurt that much. He sniffed. Jigoku, he stank. Shower, like right now.

  Resisting the heady lure of coffee or the mystery of the Jamaican rhythms, he stood for a long time under the bliss of steaming water. The scent of the sandalwood soap—masculine, sexy—called to mind Arisada. He pulled a fresh yukata over his still-damp body and slipped his feet into a pair of soft slippers.

  Dammit, he had to reach the Major, but first, some answers. No, first find that coffee, then answers. Tatsu followed the tantalizing smell across the garden. He slid open the door to the dining room and stared at the exquisite chashitsu, a low table set for two.

  Arisada turned to greet him from the tiny kitchen alcove beyond. “Konbawa, watashi no ie ni youkos,” the vampire welcomed Tatsu to his home.

  “Arigatō gozaimasu.”

  “Tatsu-san, it is good to see you’re up, so to speak.” Arisada smiled at his double entendre. He held up a glass coffee pot. “I have just made it fresh. Would you like some?”

  The absurdity of seeing a vampire playing host hit Tatsu. He laughed. It made his ribs hurt like hell but he couldn’t stop. “Sumimasen,” he apologized. “I sure didn’t expect to see you making coffee.”

  “Why not? I enjoy the taste,” Arisada smiled as he handed Tatsu a steaming mug. “I hope you take it black.”

  Tatsu took a long, appreciative drink, lifted the mug in a salute. “This is good.” He stifled a laugh. “And reggae?”

  Arisada shrugged as if to say, “why not?” then turned off the music. He lifted a plate of adzuki buns from the counter and waved toward the adjoining chashitsu. “Sit. No doubt you have many questions.”

  Tatsu knelt on the comfortable zabutons, the low table between them. “Hai. What the hell happened? How did I get here? How long? Where are my weapons? My cell? Where’s Bana?”

  “Bana is dead.”

  The bluntness of Arisada’s statement rocketed through Tatsu. No, not Bana, it couldn’t be. He recalled the glitter of humanity in Bana’s blood-colored eyes, Bana’s rich Irish profanity as he fought side-by-side with him.

  Arisada held up one slim, elegant hand. With a deep show of reluctance, the vampire described the explosion. “The second before Bana fired, I grabbed you and flung you to safety. Bana’s bullets ignite the methane tank. The entire plant exploded.”

  “Bana’s dead?” Tatsu could not believe it. That Bana, while a vampire, had died trying to save humans was a horrible injustice. That it happened six days ago made the death unreal.

  “Sumimasen, Tatsu-san. I am so deeply sorry. The explosion destroyed the plant. I doubt any survived.”

  “No way, you are wrong.” Tatsu’s voice grated with suppressed grief. His skin turned cold. Freezing. He blinked rapidly, his eyes gritty as if full of dust. Then details of that night flooded back—the theft, chasing a white van, the shock of Arisada’s arrival, the attack, the dying screams of the thieves. Then the fatal blasts of Bana’s automatics.

  The vampire reached out to steady the youth but drew back at his glare. “Why were you there?”

  “I was summoned by my Daimyō. I knew nothing of the theft. Imagine my dismay when I saw you. The one you call Bana was fighting at your side, killing kyūketsuki. When he fired at me, his bullets punctured the tank. I had mere seconds to save you. No time to help any others.”

  Tatsu reared back with the sick realization that Arisada had taken the full force of the explosion. If not for that single act, he would be dead. Gratitude, fear, resentment, anger—a range of unwanted emotions rocked him.

  “Why didn’t you take me to the Colony? Why here?”

  “Every kyūketsuki under Ukita’s command is hunting for you. The Daimyō may discover the whereabouts of the Leper Colony. My home is safer.”

  “I have to report in. My team … they think I’m dead.”

  “Do not be alarmed. Fornax informed your Major you were safe. He agreed that you should remain here until you healed.”

  “The Major knows?” Tatsu felt a twinge of betrayal. The Major had deci
ded to leave him with this vampire?

  Arisada smiled thinly. “He gave his consent.”

  “Fuck that. Give me the keys to your car,” Tatsu snapped as he pushed himself to his unsteady feet.

  “I cannot, we are on an island several miles from Seattle. You are too weak to drive.”

  “Then give me your cell. I must report in now.”

  The vampire shook his head. “Gladly, but it won’t help. There is no signal. Dawn is too close but I promise, we will go tomorrow night.” He felt a raw desperation to have Tatsu to himself for a short time longer.

  Tatsu’s legs shook with weakness. He dropped back onto his knees with resignation. “Fakku.”

  Arisada smiled at the profanity. Adorable coming from that sweet bow of a mouth.

  “Wakatta. Do you have anything to eat around here?” Tatsu cocked his head to one side, a quizzical gesture he had not used since his mother died. “I mean besides me?” He blushed then, deep pink creeping over those sharp cheekbones.

  “Will miso soup and oyako donburi do?”

  Tatsu’s stomach rumbled its hunger, his mouth watered at the thought of the rice dish. “Arigatō.”

  At the boy’s acceptance, the vampire relaxed. He went into the kitchen and began preparing the meal. Tatsu studied that profile haloed by its shorn locks. Remembered hearing those hideous groans of agony, seeing that ravaged torso, those suppurating wounds. Remembered how Arisada received those injuries. He was overwhelmed with the need to offer some sort of comfort, no matter how inadequate.

  “Gomen. I saw your back when you were in the hot tub.”

  “I know.” Arisada kept his head down, preparing the food, his actions precise and elegant. Still, Tatsu saw the hesitancy in the vampire’s movements.

  “Your beautiful tattoo was destroyed saving me. It seems inadequate, but domo arigatō gozaimasu.” He bobbed his head. “How bad was I hurt?”

  “You fractured some ribs. Also, a severe concussion and multiple stab wounds that caused internal bleeding. Burns. For a time, the doctor did not think you would live. But you fought hard. I have never known a human to recover so quickly.”