Tatsu rolled out from under the vampire’s cut, leaped up and slashed his blade tip across the Daimyō’s elbow. Muscle and tendons parted.
The vampire screamed, flipped the nodachi to his uninjured hand and drove toward the center of Tatsu’s exposed abdomen. Tatsu spun. The blade skittered across his ribs, slicing open skin and flesh. Hoping to trick the vampire, Tatsu cried out as if in great pain and retreated several steps. His bare heel caught on a razor-sharp rent in the steel roof. Agony lanced deep into his foot. He slipped.
“Now, you will die!” Sadomori screeched in triumph. He leaped high, spinning in the air. His foot lashed out, the side catching Tatsu across the temple. Tatsu crashed backwards, the back of his skull slamming onto the dome. His vision went black.
The Daimyō swept his nodachi down in a blinding arc. Tatsu blocked with the Ikkansai. With a clang of angry steel, the heavy blade caught Sadomori’s weapon, skidded down its edge and locked against its tsuba. Sadomori grunted with surprise, grabbed the Ikkansai by the blade and tore it from Tatsu’s grasp.
“Say hello to your dishonorable ancestors,” Sadomori hissed. He lunged, driving death toward Tatsu’s exposed abdomen.
The tower door burst off its hinges and crashed on the roof Saito Arisada, his kotagiri raised above his head, stepped onto the dome. The war cry of the Mii-dera Sōhei rent the night air. In it was centuries of injustice.
“He belongs to me!” Crimson eyes blazing, fanged mouth snarling, Arisada leaped, reaching Tatsu in the space of a single heartbeat.
Arisada’s kotagiri rang against Sadomori’s sword already descending with its death cut. Tatsu rolled, felt the kiss of air as the nodachi missed his spine.
With a matching scream of rage, Sadomori turned on his Primary. The two supernatural creatures, twins in skill and strength, clashed. One fought for hate, the other for love. Over and over, their swords clashed in a maelstrom of steel and fire and hate.
But even the finest weapons made by human hand are no match for vampire strength and fury. Both swords shattered, leaving Arisada holding only an inch of blade and Sadomori with more than a foot.
Crowing his victory, the older vampire drove length of steel into Arisada’s belly. In bizarre parody of their first meeting centuries earlier, the Daimyō twisted it through skin and muscle and viscera. Then Sadomori buried his fangs into his Primary’s throat.
Tatsu stared up in horror at the two creatures locked in mortal embrace. Heard Arisada’s agonized screams. Felt the hot splash of the vampire’s blood into his face.
In desperation. Tatsu scrabbled about for the Ikkansai. He found it and grabbed it—by the blade. No time to shift his grip to the protection of the tsuba. No time to think the sword would sever his hand. Just cut.
With a yell that came from the deepest part of his ki, Tatsu swept the katana sideways, ignoring the agonizing bite from its naked edge. A wailing shriek rent the air. A fountain of ichor drenched Tatsu. He rolled from under the struggling vampires, and saw he’d severed Sadomori’s leg at the knee.
“Arigatō,” he whispered to the kami of revenge.
Off balance, the old vampire staggered a hair’s width from the dome’s rim. Arisada reached for him, trying to pull his Sire away from the deadly edge. “Seisakusha, my Sire. No.”
Sadomori clutched the front of Arisada’s keiko-gi. “You will always belong to me.” Then he took them both off the roof.
Arisada’s flailing hand caught one of the protruding beams of the sundeck. Gripped it’s the steel in white-knuckled desperation. His other hand clutched the heavy fabric of Sadomori’s coat. Their plummeting fall halted with a jerk that nearly tore his arm out of its socket.
“Fool, we die together,” Sadomori hissed through blood and spittle. The old kyūketsuki’s eyes shone with a maniacal hatred. He clawed Arisada’s hand holding the beam, trying to dislodge that life-saving grip. His other hand twisted the sword imbedded in Arisada’s guts.
Arisada thrashed in agony, his knee catching Sadomori’s swollen groin. The old vampire shrieked, lost his hold on Arisada’s wrist. At that moment, the sword tore out of Arisada’s belly.
Sadomori’s scream of rage matched Arisada’s cry of loss as his Sire tumbled into the dark below.
“Arisada. No!” Tatsu cried out with horror. He flung himself over the dome’s edge, hand extended in a futile reach that encountered only air. Off balance, he nearly followed Arisada into the dark. For a heartbeat, he reveled in it. But he owed a debt to the kami of death. He twisted back onto the dome, lay gasping for air, shuddering with exhaustion and shock.
“Tatsu. Help me.” A choked whisper from below.
Hope surged through him at the sight of two hands clutching the rim. Sobbing with relief, he grabbed the vampire’s wrist, but his blood-drenched fingers had no strength. Arisada began to slip from his grasp. Tatsu leaned further out, the metal ridge digging painfully into his naked stomach. He caught the vampire by his obi, heaved with mindless desperation, and pulled his lover onto the dome.
Mind soaring with relief, moaning, “You’re safe, you’re safe,” Tatsu rolled onto the dome. He clutched Arisada tight against his chest.
But his relief last only a second. Blood gushed over him. Arisada’s blood.
The vampire lay inert. Tatsu struggled to his knees, cradling Arisada while he pulled off his obi. He pressed it with raw urgency to the kyūketsuki’s stomach. The cloth blossomed dark red, the stain spreading with ominous speed.
Don’t take him, don’t take him, Tatsu begged the kami of death. The words repeated in his head like a mantra. He pressed and prayed for what seemed like eternity, his eyes darting from the blood pumping from the vampire’s abdomen to the ragged hitch of his chest.
Arisada’s breath stuttered then halted.
“Iie! No!” Tatsu’s scream rent the cold, night air. He crushed his beloved against his naked chest. Rocked him just like Ojii-san had rocked him so many years ago. “Don’t leave me, koibito, please.” Against him, he felt a quick struggling gasp, then another, then a wonderful even rise and fall.
The vampire’s eyes fluttered open. “Koibito?” he whispered, wonder coloring his voice.
Tatsu hurt, oh hell did he hurt, body and spirit. But his beloved was in his arms. He could not stop running his hand over Arisada, seeking reassurance that his lover was alive. Overcome with relief, he moved to kiss him.
The vampire’s backhand flung Tatsu flat on his back. Shocked, he stared up at the kyūketsuki looming over him. He faced only a mindless predator—all reason, all emotion, all love gone.
Arisada bared his fangs.
Tatsu stared at that face contorted with an animal’s viciousness. Vicious yes, but beautiful. And mine. The certainty of that thought sent a tenderness throughout Tatsu’s body.
“Go ahead.” He offered his throat. “I won’t stop you.”
The acceptance in that voice obliterated the vampire’s blood lust. He pulled away from the youth, scrambled a dozen yards backward until he hit the blackened wall of the spire. Cowed, he turned his face to the wall. “Leave me! I beg you, leave now!”
Tatsu stared at the stricken vampire for a second. One hand pressing into his bleeding side, he dragged himself across that expanse of that endless roof until he reached Arisada. Touched that bowed head.
“Please, go.” Arisada trembled with the effort not to seize the boy, pierce that tender neck and drain his blood. He closed his eyes, shrank further away. The back of Tatsu’s hand caressed warm and tender down his tear-wet cheek. Steel-strong fingers clamped under his chin, an insistent pull, demanded he turn his head.
“Saito Arisada, look at me.”
Arisada groaned with desolation and turned to his beloved. He wanted to close his eyes against the terrible compassion in Tatsu’s emerald gaze. The blood rage drained from his body. His mouth stung as his fangs slid back into his channels.
“Watashi wa kimi kara isshou hanarenai yo,” Tatsu whispered. “I will never leave you.”
A wisp of breath caressed the vampire’s cheek. Warm, pliant lips touched each eyelid, brushed over his rigid mouth, the moist tip of a tongue traced over the seam. The sheer wonderment of it all left Arisada breathless.
“Beloved,” he murmured into Tatsu’s pretty mouth, and locked it into a deep, life-affirming kiss.
“Cobb! Cobb, answer me, man.” Passebon charged onto the dome, sweeping the area with his bow, Galloway right behind him. The Cajun spotted Tatsu clutched in the arms of a vampire, both surrounded by pool of blood. He sighted his weapon and squeezed the trigger.
Tatsu saw the big Leper out of the corner of his eye. “No, Chain, no.” He flung a protective arm around Arisada’s bowed head.
“Stand down, Bro,” Galloway ordered as he slapped Chain’s weapon upward. Three bolts wasted themselves on the night sky.
“Where’s Sadomori?” Passebon shouldered his bow.
“Over the edge.” Tatsu mumbled.
“Virus?”
Tatsu pointed to the container a few feet away against the wall. Without warning, his eyes rolled up, and he sagged against Arisada’s chest. Thin arcs of blood pulsed up from the holes in his neck.
In a single fluid movement, the Cajun scooped up Tatsu’s limp body and threw him over his shoulder. “Let’s go. Major says we’ve got three minutes before the place comes down,” he barked at the stunned vampire.
“C’mon, Arisada. Move your vampire ass!” Galloway grabbed the biocontainer and charged after his partner.
Without thought, Arisada retrieved his kotagiri and the Ikkansai. He staggered after them, clutching his belly. Through blurred vision, he saw Tatsu’s arms flop against Passebon with every step. The Cajun’s back and thighs were drenched in blood. But it wasn’t the hideous sight of Tatsu’s flayed skin that filled Arisada with a terrible despair. It was the knowledge that there was nothing to save Tatsu from becoming Sadomori’s last kill.
The blasts that killed the Space Needle were inoffensive compare to the resulting devastation. Simultaneous explosions ripped the Needle’s bowels apart, demolished the foundation of each tower leg. The edifice groaned, swayed on its fractured supports as if reluctant to give up its life. One by one, its steel beams bent then snapped like rotted timber. With a deafening, mind-shattering roar, the sixty-year-old edifice crashed to the ground, pulverizing everything along beneath it.
Arisada staggered over ground that bucked beneath his feet. Great, running fissures engulfed men and vampires. Thick, blinding clouds of dust billowed into the sky, boiled over several blocks, turning everyone and everything cement grey.
A piece of flying concrete smashed between his shoulders. knocking him down. He lay stunned on the shuddering earth. After an unknowable time, he struggled to his knees, peered through the tornado of dust and grit. Searched with raw desperation for the huge man carrying Tatsu. Finally, saw the Cajun lay the pale, inert form onto the ground next to one of the Colony’s vehicles.
Someone yelled for Wyckes. The man limped over to Tatsu and crouched beside the still youth. After an endless moment, the doctor shook his head. “No good. He’s dead.”
An animal scream ripped from Arisada’s throat as the world narrowed into those two immutable words. Even as he stumbled toward them, Galloway and Passebon picked up the limp body of Tatsu Cobb and placed it in the Humvee. Without a backward glance, the two men jumped in the cab. Doors slammed. Tires spun.
Arisada’s gore-soaked hand reached out—imploring and futile—as the truck tore away leaving the acrid stench of burnt rubber in its wake. His muscles lost all strength, and he collapsed again to his hands and knees, unable to hold his head up. He heard the Major call for Fornax, heard someone reply that the vampire was dead. Hands grabbed Arisada and helped him stand. He stepped in the direction of the vanished men. An iron grip on his shoulder, halted him.
“He is one of ours. We take care of our own.” Major Blenheim squeezed once, a fleeting gesture of consolation, then strode quickly toward the last truck. In seconds the site was deserted save for the corpses of vampires.
Mindless with grief, Arisada staggered to his car. His slashed belly continued to pump out his life force, defying even His body began to start to shut down, organs going into shock, limbs turning numb. He did not care. Let his life leave him. It was only fit. His heart so recently full of love was now dead. The loss so enormous as to defy all understanding.
He did not recall driving from the devastation. When he halted the Audi, he stared without comprehension at the unseemly number of indentured wandering the sidewalks of the Alki Compound. Why were they milling about, bleating like frightened sheep, gesturing toward the massive plume of smoke and dust obscuring the night sky?
A visceral savagery possessed him at his first sight of sustenance. His fangs tore through cartilage and arteries as he took his prey with wanton savagery. He ignored the gore covering his mouth, flowing down his chin, drenching his filthy clothing. For the first time in centuries, he felt no guilt for their deaths. His grief obliterated all rationale, all remorse and all morality.
.
Twenty-Four
Kyuketsuki Saito Arisada was mere hours from his death. He embraced it with gratitude. In the morning, he would walk through the forest, stand on the beach and watch the sun’s first rays dance over the waves. Although not the honorable act of seppuku, this death would be fitting. He had lost his nunmei no hito, his soulmate, and with it, all reason to live.
“Oh, koibito, forgive me. I failed you,” he murmured as he recalled his desperate search for Tatsu. The dust from the Needle still blanketed the city, when four days later Arisada wandered through Tatsu’s apartment. His footsteps echoed in the empty rooms. Not a single sign indicated the boy had ever lived there. The Leper Colony, likewise, deserted. He caught the scent of freshly cremated remains. In that hollow place of the dead, Arisada’s soul shattered. He collapsed on the cold, damp floor, dropped his head into his hands and keened.
First a ritual bath, the symbolic cleansing of the mundane world from his body. For a time, he sat in the ikinewa gazing fondly at each plant and flower. As he meditated he drifted in time, savoring every tender memory then cast it away to drift like cherry blossoms in a spring breeze He wrote a long poem begging for forgiveness for his sins and paying homage to Nowaki and Tatsu—his two lovers, one beautiful soul..
“Namu Amida Butsu.” One-hundred eight times he recited it while moving each onyx stone of his mala through his fingers. Time had worn away the engraving of infinity on the beads yet its meaning remained etched in his heart. One-hundred-eight times he avowed his veneration for the compassionate Amida Buddha.
Sunrise and the end of his suffering was an hour away.
A faint rumble like the gathering of a huge storm invaded his awareness. A wild, unreasonable hope flared through him. The rumble grew into a roar before the motorcycle engine stuttered into silence. He’d never moved that fast in his entire existence yet it seemed to take an eternity to dash through the mud to the small barn that housed his Audi.
Arisada skidded to a halt, unbreathing, struck immobile by the sight of Tatsu dropping the Drifter onto its kickstand beside the car. Arisada’s heart hammered high into his throat. It was as if he were seeing the youth for the first time, exquisitely new and unknown, and yet wonderfully old and known.
The boy was drenched. He dismounted, his long leg sliding over the seat of the bike, ass muscles outlined by wet leather chaps. Shook his tangled hair, flinging water in all directions.
“You are alive?” Arisada’s incredulity drowned in a sublime wash of happiness. His arms enveloped Tatsu, his body pressed against the cold, clammy leather of the motorcycle jacket. “I was certain you were dead,” Arisada’s choked voice vibrated against Tatsu’s wet neck.
A tiny huff of contentment slipped from Tatsu. He curled his arms tight and hard around the quivering shoulders, his cheek rubbing against Arisada’s head. “Dammit, you are hard to find. I’ve been riding around this is
land all night in this fucking rain.”
Abruptly, they disentangled and stepped away, distancing themselves an arm’s length from each other and the intensity of their feelings.
How are—?”
“I’m freezing, and I’ve been through hell. But I’m better than you. Do you know you’re naked?” Tatsu interrupted with no sign of teasing on his face.
Hapless in the clutches of his emotions, Arisada silently waved them into the house. But as he followed the boy into the genkan, fear shredded Arisada’s euphoria. There was no denying those edgy movements and small uncertainties that turned Tatsu’s gliding samurai walk into a parody of its former elegance. That rigid back, locked shoulders. The boy was using every iota of his samurai discipline to hide an unspeakable violation.
Tatsu removed his boots before stripping off his wet chaps and jacket, and hanging them on hooks. He dug out the Kings, put one to his mouth, began to flick his lighter.
With quivering fingers, Arisada plucked the cigarette from Tatsu’s lips. “Let me give you something better.” He leaned in and fused their lips in a devouring kiss.
For one, long hungry moment, Tatsu leaned into that kiss. He chased his tongue in deep, relishing Arisada’s taste. Then he snapped his head back and stepped away. Stared at the vampire with jade eyes as cold and hard as their namesake, empty of all warmth and innocence and trust.
Arisada lowered his head. “Sumimasen. Cobb-san.”
Tatsu ducked his head once but his gaze remained hollow. Still, even this polite gesture was precious to Arisada. With a sudden conviction, he knew what had happened to the boy. Knew the horror of it because he’d lived the same horror.
Arisada waved toward the far bedroom, the one where he’d nursed Tatsu back to health. “Please, you are wet and cold. You must be exhausted. Warm yourself under the shower. There are clean garments in the closet. I will make some tea. Some hot sake as well. Join me in the chashitsu.” His invitation was as impersonal as if addressing a casual visitor instead of his life’s love. But his sad gaze clung to Tatsu’s stiffly retreating back, only turning away when the boy slid the door shut.
Eternal Samurai Page 35
