Death Embraces

by J. C. Diem

  “You will see your lover again, Natalie,” Kokoro reassured me. “When you have learned all you can from us, you must return to Europe and finish what you had barely begun.”

  Of course I had to go back to Europe. If anyone knew where the First was hiding, it would be the European rulers. That meant I would be meeting the Comtesse again. This time, I wouldn’t be the bumbling idiot she’d ordered hacked to pieces. Instead, I would be an efficient killing machine like the imposter the emperor had sent to her death. None of them would stand a chance against me.

  “You will not be alone, Mortis,” the seer said in response to the picture I had of my lone self in battle with hordes of monsters. “You will have an army of your own to assist you.” Her smile was enigmatic and she refused to tell me where the mystery army would come from.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Ishida has ordered a suite to be prepared for you. It will be far more comfortable than your previous quarters,” Kokoro told me. I hoped so, since my last quarters had practically been a bare cell.

  I stood at the blatant hint that it was time for me to leave. The seer had retreated somewhere deep inside herself. Maybe she was seeing the future or perhaps she was eavesdropping on the thoughts of her people.

  All but sloshing with information, I headed back down the dark corridor and took the stairs. The platform was waiting for me when I arrived at the top. It carried me back up to the surface in slow, dizzying spirals.

  Emperor Ishida and his entourage were long gone when I stepped out of the temple. A single guard had been left to escort me inside. His face was stony as he led me back down to the hidden door. Pressing a button that was very nearly invisible, he entered the mountain passage first. The door swung shut behind me and I was back in the labyrinth of hallways again.

  I’d thought my sense of direction had improved after becoming a vampire but the hallways all looked the same to me. I had no chance of memorizing the winding, almost random path we took.

  As promised, I was taken to a suite of rooms then left to my own devices. The first room was a living area with the typical low black table and plump red and black cushions. I was glad to see a large bookcase filled with books off to one side. The paintings hanging on two walls were graceful and attractive landscapes. A bathroom, equipped with a tub but lacking a shower, was in the room to the left. To the right was a bedroom and it wasn’t empty of life as I’d expected. From the whispers and nervous shuffling of feet, several people were waiting for me.

  Standing in the doorway, I eyed the line-up of human men in puzzlement. All ten were in their twenties and all were attractive. I was pretty sure none of them spoke English. “What’s going on?” I asked them anyway.

  “The Emperor would have you choose seven of us, mistress,” said one of the men with a bow. I couldn’t tell if they were volunteers or if they’d been coerced into this.

  “Choose you for what?” I asked suspiciously.

  “For blood,” responded another guy.

  “Or any other services or pleasures you wish,” replied a third. He sent me a smile that clearly said he’d be happy to help me out with that. Either they could understand me or they were guessing my questions with startling accuracy.

  Only the thought that the emperor might be offended if I refused to choose from the men had me stepping into the room. I stood in front of the first man and gave him a good looking over. His eyes remained on his feet and he was quaking in fear. Nope. Too scared. The second guy stared at me boldly, dropping his eyes to my chest with a suggestive smirk. He was the one who wanted to help me out with my pleasures. No frigging way. Too slimy. Another man in the middle was also terrified to the point of shivering. The rest seemed to be ok with the idea of being my temporary slaves. They’ll do, I thought with a sigh of resignation.

  “I choose you lot,” I said and pointed at the lucky seven. The rest filed out wearing expressions of either relief or disappointment. “What’s the plan here?” I asked the remaining meals.

  “We will each come to you once a week and you will take what you need from us,” one of the men replied calmly.

  Since he seemed to be coping with the idea of being my slave, he could be my first snack. “I’ll start with you. The rest of you can sort out what order you want to, er, visit me in.” I wasn’t used to giving suggestions to humans but they nodded and exited my suite.

  “What’s your name?” I asked my first victim.

  “I am Yori,” he said with a bow. Obviously, they could all understand English. They just chose not to speak it.

  In my head, his name translated to something like ‘trust’. Just what I needed, a human who would trust a vampire not to harm him. They do things differently here. The humans do seem to trust the vampires, I reminded myself. “I’m Natalie,” I said and held out my hand.

  He shook it gingerly then turned it over and looked down at my palm. Showing just how true to his name he was, he held the holy mark against his face. “I am at your beck and call any time you need me, mistress.” His eyes were guileless as he made the offer.

  My gaze strayed to his neck longingly. “Well…I am a bit hungry.”

  Smiling, he sank onto the bed and offered me his neck. I wasn’t sure how things were done in the Japanese community but I captured his eyes anyway. They went dreamy and he didn’t protest as I sank my teeth into him. I took just enough of his blood to half fill the empty hole in my stomach.

  Yori came out of his daze quickly, which meant he’d probably been vampire food before, and glanced questioningly at the bed. “No!” I said and stood. “That, ah, won’t be necessary.”

  “I thought all young vampires needed to feed their flesh hunger,” my human slave said in confusion.

  “I’m not a normal vampire,” I said in the greatest understatement of the twenty-first century. “I don’t need to feed my flesh hunger very often.” That wasn’t quite a lie. I did get the urge to feed my flesh hunger but I needed a bed partner I was actually willing to get naked with. Luc was the only vampire I’d met so far who I was attracted to. The few times we’d been naked together, I’d ended up breaking his spine, ribs, pelvis and femur. Humans were far too fragile for me to even think of climbing into the sack with them.

  Bowing, Yori smiled and slid off the bed. “Tomorrow night when you wake, an instructor will be waiting for you. He will teach you the skills you need to destroy the European scum.” Wow, the Japanese vampire prejudice against their rivals had even spread to their food.

  “That’s great. Thanks.” I all but pushed him to the door and shut it in his face. He hesitated then trudged off down a hallway. The door could be secured with a sturdy lock and a heavy metal bar. I turned the key, slid the bar into place then ducked into the bathroom. Twin oil lamps sat at either side of the door. They gave off a soft glow when lit.

  Since I didn’t have the option of a shower, I had to settle for a much more time consuming bath. Colourful bottles were lined up on a shelf above the tub. As the bath began filling with water, I sniffed each bottle and chose one that smelled like roses.

  Once the tub was full, I poured some of the fragrant perfume into the water then sank into it and closed my eyes. I wished Luc was here or I was with him, wherever he was. I’d gotten used to him being by my side, keeping me from harm. The next time we met, we might be enemies. The thought chased away the flesh hunger that had begun to rise. Depressed, I struggled against dry sobs and won after a short battle. I was supposed to be the big, bad Mortis for Christ’s sake. Sobbing didn’t fit the image of the cold blooded killer I was meant to be.

  The bath did wonders to relax me and I soaked until the water changed from blisteringly hot to warm. If I stayed there any longer, my body heat would leech away and I’d start shivering. Towelling off, I took the black robe that had been left hanging on a hook on the door and pulled it on. There was no blow dryer beneath the sink so I settled for rubbing my hair briskly with the towel then combing it.

  Feeling lonelier than I
ever had as a human, I dressed in the borrowed leather suit again then settled onto a cushion on the floor of the living room with a book. TV would have done a better job of taking my mind off my uncertain future but my suite lacked both a TV and electricity.

  When the sun made its appearance, I dragged myself off to bed. My new life would begin when night fell and I almost dreaded to see how it would turn out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As promised, an instructor was waiting for me when I opened the door. If I had to guess, I’d say he’d have been about forty when he’d been turned. Exactly my height, he had a squat, powerful body. His face might have been carved from rock for all the expression he wore. He led me quickly through yet another confusing tangle of corridors to a spacious room.

  I had only a few seconds to gawp at the array of weaponry lining one wall. A selection of throwing knives, swords, axes, spears, bows and other weapons I had no name for were on display. Wooden dummies, scarred by many practice bouts, sprouted a few of each weapon.

  We weren’t alone in the training room. A hundred or more leather clad men and women were either teaching students how to fight or were honing their skills on each other. They were too well disciplined to gape at me openly but many flicked curious glances at me when they could.

  I thought my teacher would be impatient and disgusted with my lack of fighting skills but he treated me with a distant patience that I hadn’t anticipated. Moving to a rack of wooden swords, he chose one then waited for me to do the same. Weight wasn’t going to be a problem but length might be. The last thing I wanted to do was stab myself, even if the worst I could suffer would be splinters. The swords wouldn’t always be made of wood, after all. Being the klutz I was, I might even end up chopping one of my own limbs off.

  Selecting a sword that seemed the right size, I waited for the lesson to commence. Instead of leaping about and whacking at me like I’d expected him to, my teacher started off showing me simple blocking techniques. I performed the blocks against imaginary thrusts and slices. They were simple enough but my instructor apparently wasn’t happy with my footwork. I found this out when his sword whistled through the air and smacked me in the thigh. It was a sure fire way to get my attention. Pointing at his feet, he showed me how I should be standing. Keeping one eye on his sword arm to make sure he wasn’t going to stab me suddenly, I shuffled my stance around until it was correct. Once I was in place, I continued to block imaginary sword thrusts.

  A strange thing happened during the first few minutes of training and continued on as the night progressed. My instructor’s inscrutable face registered faint surprise then growing amazement at my ability to remember each block he showed me. After an hour of defending myself from invisible blows, he attacked me with an overhand blow without warning.

  Changing my stance automatically, I met his descending sword with my own. After a slight nod of acknowledgement from my teacher, his wooden weapon became a blur of motion. Our blades clacked together with each time I performed a block. The attack only lasted for a few seconds before he broke off. I stood with my eyes trained on him, waiting for more.

  We now had an audience and I’d been so focussed on blocking that I hadn’t even noticed them gathering. The students and their instructors watched me carefully, waiting for my reaction. I gave my instructor a small bow as I’d seen the other students do. I guessed it had to something to do with showing respect. The corners of my teacher’s mouth twitched in an almost smile then he moved on to showing me how to attack.

  It was a long night but the hours seemed to fly past. As dawn neared, students began placing their training weapons back in the racks. My instructor shook his head as I walked past him to put the weapon away. “Practice,” was all he said.

  Bowing again, I kept the sword and followed the students out. Word must have spread that I didn’t fall down dead when the sun came up for the day. My teacher knew I had plenty of time to practice what he’d taught me. With the battles waiting for me ahead, I thought this was probably a very good idea. I’d review what I’d been taught before resting for a few hours.

  It took me a while to find my rooms again. There was a pattern to the labyrinth of hallways that I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of yet but I had my sense of direction now, at least. In my rooms, I secured the door then came to a dead stop when I spied a familiar weapon lying on top of the bookcase. While I’d been training, someone had returned the late General Yasui’s sword to me. I was nowhere near worthy to use it yet so left it where it was for now.

  My next task was to shift the living room furniture around to make a tiny training room of my own. Copying the handwork and footwork I’d learned, I spent the next six hours alternately blocking and attacking imaginary enemies. In my mind, most of them were short, had white-blonde hair and wide-set eyes. I killed the praying mantis at least a hundred times in as many ways as I could concoct. Tired at last, I lay down to rest.

  That first training session set the tone for the next four months.

  I didn’t spend the entire time fighting, feeding and sleeping. Every second week, I was allowed a night off from training to do whatever I wanted. I explored the island, discovering a field where the cows were kept. Hundreds of cattle huddled together as they slept. I learned that a thin camouflaged canopy was raised during the day just in case of overflying aircraft. If the cattle were ever spotted, someone would be sure to investigate. As per the temple on top of the mountain, the Japanese had devised more ways to hide their existence.

  Often during the days Ishida chose not to rest, I was graced with an invitation to join him. We’d sit in his entertainment room, playing computer games and watching movies. He was the only teenage vampire on the small island and he wanted someone to play with. Trust him to choose me to be his playmate. I thought I had matured since being changed into a monster but maybe I hadn’t grown up as much as I’d thought. Still, it kept me entertained as well so I wasn’t about to complain.

  Yori and the other six guys continued to supply me with blood. I finally convinced them that I really didn’t need to feed every day so I only had a visit from one of them every third day or so. Yori’s puppy dog eyes told me he wanted much more than to feed just my blood hunger but I resisted him easily. He might only be a few years younger than I was but he would always be a boy to me. I’d already had my hands on a man and wasn’t about to settle for anything less now. While Yori never came out and asked me to jump his bones, it was pretty obvious he wanted to get naked with me.

  Kokoro sent for me a few times and we had unpleasant chats about the possible future of our species. We both knew that if I failed, we wouldn’t have a future. Some things didn’t need to be spoken out loud and that was one of them.

  Then came the day my instructor decided I was ready to graduate from his tiny class of one. My first clue that it wasn’t going to be just another normal day wasn’t exactly subtle. A student was waiting for me in the training room. Apart from her, the room was empty of the undead. “Come with me,” she said with a mysterious smile.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. She glanced back over her shoulder at me several times in nervous excitement but refused to answer my questions.

  We trotted down hallways that I’d finally managed to memorize. I knew where we were heading before she came to a stop at an ornate pair of doors. I’d never seen the doors to the throne room shut before and hadn’t realized they were decorated with gold dragons. A pair of solemn guards opened them and I stepped inside.

  What the heck is going on here? Am I in some kind of trouble? I wasn’t sure how that was possible since I hadn’t made any enemies or gotten into any fights so far.

  Ishida’s throne had been moved to the back wall, leaving the circular centre of the room bare. Ishida sat solemnly on the stone chair, wearing his golden regalia once more. I nervously eyed the guards lining the room. They were three and four deep and all wore their black masks. Dozens of dark eyes watched me stonily.

  My instructor,
whose name I had yet to discover, strolled into the room. The doors boomed shut behind him, sealing us in and my nervousness grew. My teacher held a sword that I’d never seen before. I’d progressed from wooden swords to metal ones after only a few short weeks of training. Despite my misgivings, I hadn’t managed to chop off any of my body parts, or anyone else’s. The practice swords had been plain and ordinary when compared to this one. The hilt was white and the blade was shiny and razor sharp.

  Standing in the centre of the room with his feet planted on the gold dragon’s belly, my instructor waited silently. I finally realised he was waiting for me to approach when someone shoved me forward. Stumbling on the first step, I straightened up and walked to the middle of the room.

  My instructor handed me the unsheathed sword without a word. I took a few seconds to admire the ivory hilt and intricate dragon that was carved on the blade. It matched the one on the floor exactly. Then my teacher bowed and took up a spot against the wall. Tense, I waited for something to happen. Finally, something did.

  Two veiled guards rushed at me simultaneously. I immediately knew that this wasn’t just another training exercise. This was very much for real and they were out for my blood.

  My blade met the sword aimed at my chest and turned it. Spinning, I ducked the second blade and counterattacked with a thrust of my own. Then the fight was on.

  Thanks to my freaky new reflexes and intense training, I had no trouble defending myself from the two men. No one had bothered to tell me the rules so I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to fight to the death or just to first blood.

  Hoping it was just to first blood, I nicked one of the men on the arm to test the theory. He immediately bowed and retreated back to his spot in the crowd. Before I could cut the second vamp and put an end to the test, two more vamps leaped to the attack. Shit! This doesn’t seem very fair. Taking a chunk of skin off the original attacker’s sword arm, I turned to face the new pair. Another two joined them as the defeated guard retreated from the battle. I had no more time for mental protests at the uneven ratio of fighters so set them aside and concentrated on the fight.