Moon Child

by Christina Moore

  “Lu—no.” Another shot tore into the arm of the sofa, inches away from their heads. “Chikushō… Can we talk after we get away from the mad pythia?”

  “Fine, but nothing funny.” God, he was going to regret this, he just knew.

  Mamoru made a rude noise but was grinning. “How’s this for funny?” he muttered and then jumped to his feet. He cupped his hands much like Chrysanthe did before she shot off that energy whatever, but everyone could see what Mamouru’s gesture was creating as a big ball of fire hazed into existence. “Onibaba! Don’t make me use this.”

  “Oh my god,” Tristan whispered. He went cold, the memory of staring down a ball of fire once before setting off all his instincts to run.

  Silas stopped mid-swing, fuchsia eyes held open wide, mouth slack in shock. “Ha’bi,” he whispered to Mamoru, “please.”

  Mamoru had everyone’s undivided attention now.

  Tristan stood slowly, looking to the others. “Listen—”

  “Don’t bother,” Mamoru interrupted. He was staring at Silas, hurt in his eyes. “She’s determined and won’t have her mind changed.”

  He looked to the pythia. Her face was twisted in anger and strain as she fought to hold onto the ball of energy she’d conjured up but held back throwing. It was starting to singe her hands. She needed to let it go. With a sigh, she released the energy gently back to the void and lowered her hands. She refused to let the others see that she’d hurt herself and gnashed her teeth against the pain. That was the problem with wild earth magic, it always came with a cost.

  “If you let us go,” Mamoru explained evenly, “I won’t have to kill you. I’ve got nothing against either of you. I rather admire the elves.” He frowned sadly at Silas. “Despite their history with the other shinwa…”

  “Oh dear, we can’t let you go. You know the rules.”

  “Vampire rules?” Mamoru spit. “Please, since when do the pythia care anything about vampire law?”

  “Oh dear, I don’t. But in this case they are right. Aggi showed me what you did to that church. Your fire is too dangerous.”

  “A—Aggi? You mean Agamemnon? Is he the one who put a price on my head? That makes no sense.”

  Chrysanthe frowned, looking at him suspiciously. “You know Aggi?”

  “Of course I do. He’s the one who told me where to find this guy,” he said with a nod towards Tristan.

  “Me…?” Tristan snorted a laugh, shaking his head as he started to understand what’d happened. “So much for staying out of it, altering fate and shit.”

  Chrysanthe sighed. “Oh dear, sending us out was a ruse. Silas?”

  The elf didn’t bother to turn. His sword hung at his side, lose in his fingers. “Let them go.”

  “Silas!” Chrysanthe said, shocked.

  Silas stiffened, looking angry. “I can’t do this!”

  Tristan’d only ever heard a handful of words out of the guy and never yelling. In fact, that he was able to yell with such delicate voice surprised him. Somehow, it just didn’t seem right for the elf to yell.

  The pythia took a step back, affronted with her mouth hanging open.

  “Tristan, grab my bag.”

  “Your… bag?” He turned to look behind him. There on the table was Mamoru’s little man bag he’d seen him with in the bar. Tristan rolled his eyes, sighed and grabbed the leather bag off the table. His shoulder strained with the weight of it, almost dropping it. He wasn’t expecting it to be that heavy. “What the shit’s in here?”

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” Tristan sighed. He hated to, but he was leaving with Mamoru. Not only did he want nothing to do with the elf and pythia, he was hoping Mamoru could tell him a little something about himself. A real Uruwashi, right?

  The other man motioned with a nod for Tristan to go ahead and he did. But in passing the ever vigilant elf, Silas grabbed Tristan’s arm, giving him a warning look.

  Tristan gave his own in return. “Wanna take your hands off me, pal?”

  “Silas, love, you’re right. We are defeated this round.”

  “Agapi mou,” the elf answered sadly.

  “Must be serious if he’s talking this much,” Tristan interjected. He was seconds away from slugging the elf, knocking him down… maybe a swift kick to the face and leaving.

  Chrysanthe sighed and spoke softly to her dedicated companion in Greek. Silas argued but in the end, she got her way, like she always did. Reluctantly, Silas let go of Tristan.

  As the two men passed Chrysanthe, she said, “I will find you again. And kill you.”

  Mamoru stopped and his smile was sad when he answered, “Wakatteru.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Mamoru opened his mouth to answer, but Tristan beat him to it. “That’s Japanese for fuck off.”

  The Japanese man sighed, rolling his eyes and said in his birth tongue, “We need to hurry or we’ll be late.”

  Tristan didn’t understand what the other man said to him word for word, but he got the gist. Time to get the fuck out of Dodge. Happily.

  “You’re going to regret this,” Chrysanthe muttered under her breath.

  He tisked his annoyance. “I’m past regret, sister.”

  “We will be seeing each other again, Tristan. That’s a promise.”

  He stopped and turned to face the others, gun held out but not pointing it at anything living. “So I should just end this now is what you’re telling me?” He felt more than saw Silas react to the gun and gave the elf a warning look.

  “I don’t meet your code,” the pythia said.

  “What code?” he snapped.

  “This line of morals you’ve created for yourself… The excuse you tell yourself to make killing living beings okay. Shinwa or not, killing is killing.”

  He cringed. She was right—on all points. He was less concerned with the fact that she knew his “code” as to how she knew. “I suggest you stay away from me, lady, or you’re going to find out exactly what my code entails…”

  The flame Mamoru had been carrying in his hand started to slip through his fingers like water by the time they got outside. Tristan saw the same thing with Lucien and wondered just how new Mamoru was to this power. The other man hissed an oath when the fire actually burnt him.

  “I thought you were immune to fire?”

  Mamoru shot him a look, losing his concentration just long enough for a big glob of liquid fire to plop into the potted plant that flanked the walkway and burn the plants inside. He hissed again and dismissed the fire to make it evaporate in a puff of black smoke. “It’s not like a passive ability, I have to work on it.”

  “You want to tell me what all of that was about?”

  There was loud noise from the room that made them both flinch, Mamoru’s angry gaze flicking behind Tristan to watch the door. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “Dude. I had no idea she was a bounty hunter.” He actually felt pretty damn gullible to think she wasn’t before.

  “No. No, that’s not it. She’s not a hunter for hire… I’m afraid there’s more to her than we realize.” There was another crash from inside followed by a loud, heavily British curse, making the two men tense. “We can figure it out later. Come on, we really need to hurry or we’ll miss the boat.” He started down the path to leave.

  “Assuming any tickets are left,” Tristan mused. They almost didn’t get enough last time because they were so late getting to the boat. Silas was about to bribe the ticket master when they realized they still had unclaimed tickets.

  Mamoru almost laughed. “We don’t need tickets.”

  “What, why?” Of course they needed tickets to ride. No ticket and you got yourself thrown out a window. Well, maybe if you were a German who pissed off Indiana Jones… God, he must have been still drugged. Focus.

  The other man stopped short and spun to him. Tristan stared like an idiot at the Machiavellian smile on the man’s face as he took the heavy bag from him. “You seem to forget…”
Mamoru’s fangs showed. “I’m part vampire.”

  7: Fabricated Background

  DIDN’T your mother ever tell you that your face will stay like that if you make it too often?”

  “Bite me,” Tristan grumbled into his hand where he was leaning against the railing on the boat observation deck. “And don’t fucking talk about my mom.” He felt a twinge of pain remembering her and then a wash of guilt since he’d actually not thought about either of his parents for the past few days, so caught up in everything else going on.

  Mamoru leaned over the railing to put his face into Tristan’s and smiled. “Are you always so coarse?”

  Tristan looked at him with cold eyes, chin and mouth hidden in his cupped hand. “Yes.”

  The other man harrumphed and turned, putting his back against the railing. “You haven’t asked me yet.”

  Tristan turned his head enough to look at the other man. “What?”

  “About me. About you. You’re clearly green… You don’t have a Master do you?”

  “What? Of course not. I’m not like you, I’m not bitten.” He cringed to himself. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but his honesty made it hard not to just speak his mind. Even if the stuff he said was detrimental to his wellbeing.

  Mamoru sighed, shutting his eyes as he tilted his head back. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

  Tristan only grunted. He was all used up when it came to insults and quips. In truth, he was angry. He was angry about Ash being taken. Angry that he didn’t know where to find her, if she was even alive. Angry that he loved her so damn much and yet, could still doubt her. Angry that she’d never told him anything about… everything.

  “In the Uruwashi clan, Masters are mentors. Yes, it just so happened that mine was my mother—hence, my literal maker, but usually it’s a grandparent or other close relative. Then again.” He turned around to face out again, overlooking the water. “We’re all family when it comes to the Uruwashi. And the actual vampire who bites us? They’re usually killed right after…”

  Tristan looked at him incredulously, when in fact, he was amazed. “I always thought I was the last one.”

  “Well, yes. You are. You’re the last Uruwashi since your birth, that is the last born on record since 1982. But not the last in existence… Did someone tell you were the last ever?”

  He frowned, screwing up his mouth. Well, no she never did say “you’re the last Uruwashi alive.” She’d only said “You’re the last.” Guess he and Ash both took it wrong. Then again, did he really believe Yuki knew what she was talking about? Not that, even if she did, she could be trusted. It was all just a game to her.

  Tristan sighed. “A vampire who, I guess, is on my side. She’s old enough and strong enough to have killed me without effort, but she’s been more like… I don’t know, just watching me.” Not to mention interfering with his life where possible.

  “Who?”

  He cleared his throat, shifting his stance to try and hide his tension. “Yukihime no Mizu?”

  Mamoru dropped his head to hide his face behind his hair. “Mattaku.”

  “You know her?”

  “Yeah. I know her. Most of us do, she’s insane.”

  “Us?” Tristan righted himself in interest. “You know of other Uruwashi?”

  Mamoru looked up again and smiled sadly. “Not any more. Not until last night.”

  “Wait. So we’re… you and I…?”

  “I think so. But I can’t be sure. There used to be a ledger with all of the last lingering Uruwashi hiding the world over. My line was the strongest with Uruwashi blood. Most don’t ever know what they are but die by “accidents” at young ages. We used to think it was actually Yukihime who was hunting us, but then about two years ago, we found out it was Malik when he attacked the small clan I lived with in Osaka.

  “He’d been making his way across the continent, slowly over the years, killing out the last of the Uruwashi. I was the only one from our clan who survived the attack since I was en route to the US when it happened. I was devastated when I returned and found everyone dead. The ledger though… I don’t know where it was kept and the ones who did know are all dead.

  “I couldn’t ever get close enough to Malik when he was alive. Lilith, that pythia, she must have been warning him. But you, you were a warning too and Malik in his insane pride wanted to have you close. I had to just wait it out. After you killed him, I searched the onsen and his current residence. Both were burned to ashes. I don’t know if the ledger was ever there or not. I have to assume, until I have proof of its demise, that it’s still out there and it’s a very dangerous tool in the wrong hands.”

  Tristan couldn’t believe that there was another Uruwashi that close to him not two months ago and he never had any idea. It made him wonder if there’d ever been others. And if Yuki really did hide it from him.

  “Is that why you’re after Genoveva?”

  Mamoru sighed and walked across the deck to sit in the shade. “She is of Malik’s line, so if there’s a chance she does, I have to try. I already know Ash doesn’t have it.”

  Tristan flinched as he lowered himself to sit next to the other man. “What do you mean, you know Ash doesn’t have it?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  She hasn’t told me shit, was his first reaction, but he bit his tongue against it. It was none of Mamoru’s business that Ash didn’t tell Tristan whole truths. “Uh, Yukihime stole her memories the night we met.” That was the truth at least.

  “Sō ka. Well, I met Ash last March or April or so. I was actually going to kill her, but when I bit her and saw that she’d never killed a single human voluntarily… I didn’t think it was right to kill her.”

  “Wait a minute. You bit Ash?”

  “You saw my fangs and I do have the hungers of a vampire. What we did, well it was more than simple feeding… I actually stayed with her in her home for a few—”

  “Stop.” Tristan almost didn’t have enough breath to form the word. Was this guy saying what he thought he was? That he and Ash—God! “Enough. I don’t need to know. I don’t want to. And if you bring it up again I’ll fucking shoot you. In the face.”

  “You two are—”

  “Yeah,” Tristan snapped.

  “Understood,” Mamoru said with a frown. “Anyway, Ash didn’t even know about the ledger. There’re a few other lower ranked vampires of Ash’s line, some vanilla, but I doubt they’d be entrusted with it. Genoveva is the last Master of that particular Earth line I have left to question. After that, I guess I’ll move on to the vanillas… Maybe the water line after that since Yukihime and Malik were once lovers.”

  “Whoa whoa whoa… what?”

  “What?” Mamoru asked, unsure what was upsetting Tristan.

  “Malik and Yuki were what?”

  The other man frowned at him, one eye squinted against the bright mid-day sun. “Lovers. For a very long time. In fact, I believe Ash was the distraction that came between them.”

  Tristan was both surprised and yet, not to learn that Yuki and Malik had been lovers, or whatever qualified as such when you’re a vampire. It made sense, those two, but was still unexpected. And Ash was the one that came between them…

  “Are you going to kill her?”

  “Genoveva? Oh yes. She definitely fits the profile for extermination.”

  Tristan nodded. He liked to hear he wasn’t the only… well, killer with a conscious. Sure, it was part of him to kill vampires, but he was still at his core human, if not in DNA than in morality. He couldn’t kill an innocent person and a vampire who didn’t rampantly kill humans was innocent enough in his mind.

  “You’ve killed a lot of vampires then?”

  “No, not really. A dozen or so, maybe. I’ve met quite a few though in my travels. Usually try to talk to them first, feel them out, bite them if I can manage it, have a taste of their memories to see what they’re about, if they’ve been killing a lot. It’s amazing to me, of all the sto
ries I heard growing up of how afraid of the Uruwashi the vampires are supposed to be and yet in this modern time, almost none of them had even heard the name Uruwashi before. Sure, they could feel that I was different than normal humans, but the feeling was so damn good that they didn’t care and let me get close. Very close.”

  Tristan nodded. “And is that how you got yourself bitten?”

  Mamoru laughed, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Now that’s… I was trying to visit my daughter, it was only just last year, shortly after the New Year actually and I wasn’t having any luck. She… I couldn’t get through to her. I was just trying to figure out how to see her when I stumbled upon a vampire. I’m not sure exactly what he was doing but he and his brother were bothering this woman in Virginia… it was happenstance really that I had a flight out of Dulles that day and that it was delayed and our paths crossed.”

  “What was his name?”

  Mamoru smirked. “You’re going to like this… He went by Baldwin, but his real name, his Christian born name was Baudouin d’Ibelin. Sound familiar?”

  Tristan frowned as he thought. “No, not really.”

  “His brother is Balian d’Ibelin. Goes by Bailey these days.”

  “Wait… Yeah, that kind of sounds familiar.” God, why did that sound so familiar?

  “There was a movie about him, the brother, Kingdom of Heaven.”

  “Oh shit, right, the crusades. Wow. They were real people?”

  Mamoru laughed. “You don’t know much about religious history, do you?”

  “Religion, what?”

  “Sō ka. Well, it was Baldwin who bit me. I would have killed him myself but Balian ended up killing his brother. The only reason I didn’t kill Bailey was because he’d done me a favor. Besides, he wasn’t of Fire and wasn’t a big killer, not like some of the others I’d been trying to find. I figured I could wait to see what he’d do with his second chance.”

  “God,” Tristan scoffed, not really listening much anymore. He was still hung up on something. He knew the name Balian from that movie, but it felt like something more— “Oh shit!” Tristan burst to his feet, startling a few of the tourists around him. “I met him!”