White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4)

by Christina Moore

  Xuejiao noticed him reaching for his gun with the awkward left hand pull and gave him a little squeeze. When Tristan looked into her half-lidded eyes, goose bumps ran down his entire body. She no longer looked like the child she emulated but the true killer she was. “I wouldn’t.”

  He swallowed, mouth dry with apprehension and dared to look up, frowning when he realized Wren wasn’t moving.

  “What do you want?” he asked carefully, afraid lest he speak too loud he might set the child off.

  “Just Wren,” she said plainly.

  The tension was like a wire around his throat. One overzealous swallow and he’d be cut, bleeding out before he could stop it. He was so focused on remaining calm that he couldn’t think clearly. He couldn’t narrow down that one thought that would get him out of this alive.

  “Why?” Seemed like a simple enough start.

  She titled her head, losing a touch of her dark mien. “Because he’s mine.”

  “And how does killing all those innocent people bring him to you?”

  She frowned, looking pouty and adorable. “That’s got nothing to do with him. I like doing that, but it’s not for him.”

  Coldness sliced through Tristan. He was more resolved now than ever to take this vampire out. It brought to mind of his time in Greece, on that infernal ferry with Mamoru as they went across the Mediterranean to the mainland. Mamoru spoke of vampire law at length, but what really interested Tristan was Uruwashi law.

  Back in the old days, back when the Uruwashi still flourished, it was their edict to kill every single vampire they’d encounter. The vampire’s perceived goodness meant nothing to the Uruwashi of old. Total eradication was the goal.

  After the Uruwashi’s near decimation, they had to change their way of thinking. It was impossible for such a small, and weakened, number of Uruwashi to kill off the vampire race as a whole so they started to judge the distinction of life or death on a vampire’s merit. Of course every person’s personal beliefs of good versus bad are different. So they devised a standardized check list. Over time a list of nearly a dozen questions was dwindled down to one.

  Anyone might obviously assume it was something trite like “As a vampire, have you killed a human?” But what was the point of asking a question that had a one-hundred percent response rate? Even the most sensitive of vampires to the human plight killed. By desire, necessity or accident, it was what they did.

  No, the question was, “Do you regret killing the innocent?” Yes, meant the vampire lived, no equaled death. It was ultimately flawed, since as Wren had said, there was much grey in the world. But it was hard to deny the justification for extermination when the vampire in question was now standing before Tristan so boldly exclaiming that she killed those people maliciously because she liked it. She didn’t regret it; he knew without her saying so.

  There was no thinking his full plan through as Tristan pulled his gun on the child vampire. A part of him was horrified, rallied against his principles that killing a child was wrong, no matter what she’d done or what she was. But the bigger part, the part that sought justice and still hurt with the need for vengeance that hadn’t been satisfied with Malik wanted that little vampire dead. He hungered for her death the way a vampire hungered for warm life and it broke another piece of his humanity as he understood it and accepted it.

  Whatever he intended to do to bring down the child was lost in a flurry of hissed curses, a blow to the face and the feeling of weightlessness. When Tristan came to a few seconds later, he was laid on floor with the child vampire crouching over him, his gun in her hand were she rested it casually against her temple. It was stupid, thinking a gun would work on someone so old, but it felt like the better option over the katana.

  “I don’t like these things,” she said, wiggling the gun around with her finger haphazardly on the trigger. “They’re so impersonal. Though, I understand them, their simplicity and power.”

  Tristan was still dazed, his vision coming and going too much for him to really grasp his situation.

  “I’m leaving now and taking Wren with me. You can try to stop me, but you shouldn’t. I expect that for leaving you with your life, you will back off. Don’t follow me, don’t send others for me. I’m keeping Wren, is that clear?”

  Tristan frowned. Wren was the cost to end her rampart killing? Seemed fair enough to him, but then why did thought make him itch? There was somewhere deep in his brain that was screaming at him to get the fuck up already and do something but he couldn’t put a linear thought together.

  Xuejiao lowered her face close to his. He couldn’t focus on her expression anymore and the black was threatening again. “You Uruwashi really are a pitiful bunch, I’d hate to infect myself with your futility by taking your blood into me.” She dropped the gun with a loud clank, making Tristan flinch. “Shame…” Her face disappeared from over Tristan and he was left blinking against the black in his vision, staring up at the ceiling. “I remember how good the full-blooded Uruwashi tasted. Had such fun with them.”

  There was shuffling across the room, the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. “Don’t follow us. Warn the others to stay away or I will end you and everyone around you.”

  Tristan groaned his answer, his eyes rolling back into his head. The last thing he remembered was feeling heavy and cold.

  TRISTAN awoke shivering.

  He was so very cold and his head hurt. When he touched his forehead over the throb and came away with blood he frowned. He turned his head enough to look to the side and nearly dunked his face into water. He was still on the floor of Wren’s place, but there was four inches of standing water all around and the water next to his head was dark red with his blood.

  “Dammit,” he muttered and tried to sit up but felt too dizzy. So he just lay there in the freezing water, shivering violently, uncontrollably. He didn’t really have to wonder what happened after he failed to stop that little vampire and he couldn’t help but be impressed that such a pint-sized person managed to take him down so easily.

  Was that what he had to look forward to, the swatting of a fly, when it came to Mother? Enough of that. No time to harp on what’s to come, deal with the now.

  After the spinning subsided, he tried to move again and managed to get himself upright. His head spun and he had to shut his eyes and breathed slowly against the nausea. The blood was flowing now down over his face, into his left eye and he looked around, trying to find something to tie around his head. He stopped with a jolt of surprise when a snowflake the size of a golf ball floated by. That’s when he saw the rest of the room. It was filled with them.

  “Oh wow,” he muttered as he stumbled unsteadily to his feet, one hand clutching his head, the other against the wall for support. He let out a yelp followed by a growled curse when something electric and sharp shot down his spine, dropping him to his knees in the water with a big splash.

  “What the shit?” he asked, eyes wide in horror because even with his mind cloudy, he understood in an instant what’d happened. The snowflake he brushed when he stood had burst apart at his touch and shocked him. It seemed completely impossible that a vampire would have two seikonō as Wren had claimed and yet, here seemed to stand all the proof he needed in tiny little snowflakes made of snow and lightning.

  Just to make sure he wasn’t imagining things, he reached out with a tentative hand and touched another snowflake. It popped on his palm in a spray of purple sparks. A second later, when those sparks were already a distant memory, the pain overtook him. His whole arm convulsed with a surge of raw electricity that made him yelp again and fall back against the wall with his legs pinned awkwardly under him. He was soaked through and through and it felt as if the power of that little spark spread throughout his body with the same force as his arm had taken.

  When the surge was over, he lay slumped and tingling against the wall, gathering his breath and resolve. That’s when the true horror of the room came into sharp focus. There was no way h
e would be able to leave without shocking the fuck out of himself on all those snowflakes. And if one snowflake hurt that bad, just how would he survive dozens?

  The creak of the heavy metal door downstairs altered him to it opening and Tristan held his breath. He had no idea what time it was anymore. If it were night or day. If the person coming up those stairs now was human or vampire. On his side or not. He could see his gun on the table, but at five feet away with at least twenty snowflakes between them, he wasn’t ready to go for it just yet. And there was no way he could wield the katana properly with his arm messed up.

  “Damn,” Tristan sighed, dropping his shoulders when the large body filled the doorway.

  “The fook is this shite?”

  Tristan wiggled his legs out from under him with sigh. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Selling Avon—the fook yew think I’m ‘ere fer?” Desmond had yet to look at him, his attention taken by the spectacle of the room. “Come tae save yur sorry lot—Er, what’s this bloody mess now?”

  Mindful not to touch the snowflakes floating dangerously close to him, he motioned with a red hand and tired not to smirk at the anticipated reaction he was going to get. “Go ahead, touch one.”

  Desmond cast a suspicious look his way but was reaching out. Curiosity was a powerful thing. Tristan couldn’t help but laugh when Desmond touched the snowflake and jerked his arm back so hard he put a hole in the wall next to him.

  “The shite is that!”

  “Seikonō,” Tristan answered with a tired sigh. Ah, that laugh was too much.

  “The fook it is…” Desmond said, eyes wide as he examined a snowflake from an inch away. “Bollocks,” he muttered and then looked to Tristan. “How?”

  Tristan shut his eyes, resting his head back against the wall and shrugged. “Are you going to get me out of here or just stand there and watch me bleed out?”

  That’s when Desmond seemed to really notice Tristan and the blood still flowing freely from his head. It wasn’t like him to care, but he didn’t have a snarky response for the American as he boldly stomped through water for him.

  The first few snowflakes that burst against Desmond only hurt Desmond, but the more he ran into those sparkling crystals, the more another problem became clear. Tristan cried out as the electricity traveled through Desmond, into the water and into him. And despite the distance it had to travel to reach Tristan, none of its power was diminished.

  “Desmond!” Tristan finally screamed, begging abatement from the pain. But Desmond had enough too and the shock of all those snowflakes brought the big bad vampire to his knees.

  Teeth gnashed to bare his fangs, Desmond growled out his pain and met Tristan’s gaze.

  Tristan was a little taken aback. Never had he expected Desmond to come to his rescue. And he had, twice now, actually. “Why?” Tristan whispered when he found his breath again.

  “Don’t ken what yur bloody on aboot,” the other man grunted as he took a moment to catch his breath against the pain.

  “You hate me. Why would risk yourself to help me?”

  With a grunt and a curse when he smacked another snowflake of death, he pushed to his feet. “Dinnea do it fur yew.”

  “Do you really love her that much? To sacrifice yourself for a man you hate just to make her happy?”

  Desmond stopped moving altogether in an instant, that utter stillness that the vampire could achieve that made them look as if they were made of stone. Tristan was unnerved by the man for the first time.

  “You don’t ken a bloody thing, boy.

  Tristan stared at him a moment and then sighed. “Just help me out of here you big fucking ape.”

  Desmond flicked him off with two fingers but trudged towards him, taking hits from the snowflakes all along the way even knowing that Tristan’s less-than-vampire physique was taking the pain worse.

  “Desmond,” he gasped. “Stop.”

  Desmond hissed a string of curses but stopped, panting and spittle dribbling down his chin. He was trying to hide it, but Tristan could see the pain in his eyes. Felt the same pain himself.

  “We need to get you out of here.”

  Tristan shook his head. “I can’t—I can’t take anymore. Can’t you use your seikonō to mitigate it?”

  Desmond frowned, looking so unlike him and more like the Desmond Tristan saw in Greece, the vampire that was afraid of being on the island where he died. “I tried already.”

  Tristan sighed, relaxing a little now that he wasn’t wracked with pain. His head throbbed and his eyes felt burnt out so he shut them. “Damn,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure whether he should be worried that he hadn’t felt Desmond pull on his seikonō or not. Having been in such close proximity to so many different seikonō users at once in Greece, he now knew the telltale sign of each without a doubt. He could also taste what energy they drew from just by being close enough to feel their presence. He hated to admit it, but he tasted both wind and water from Xuejiao in those critical seconds before she knocked him out. But right now, with Desmond within reach, he wasn’t feeling anything. Nothing at all. Maybe it was his head or maybe it was something a bit more calculated, like say, a pythia’s spell.

  He’d worry about it if he didn’t bleed to death in this place first. “Desmond?” he said in a shaky voice, eyes opening to catch Desmond’s gaze. “If you… if you need blood… take mine. Right now, feed on me and use the seikonō from my blood to get us out of here.”

  The seriousness in Tristan’s tone, the unfaltering gaze shook the vampire so that he fell into that stone stillness again. He remained silent for a long time, just staring at Tristan. When a snowflake floated too close, he moved so suddenly that Tristan flinched, startled by it.

  “No. Yur just giving up one pain fur ‘nother and we won’t bloody do it.”

  Tristan laughed a curt sound. “You’re supposed to tell me you don’t want a drop of my disgusting Uruwashi blood, man.”

  It took Desmond a few seconds to laugh and then he was laughing too much, like his old self. Tristan felt he saw a little bit of the real Desmond just now and realized that laugh was his front. Ash wore a mask of irritability, and Desmond wore a mask of nonchalance when neither of them were what they pretended to be.

  “All right,” Tristan sighed, wobbling to his feet. “Let’s do this. Try to avoid them this time.”

  They both knew that he had been trying to, that their homing on Desmond wasn’t his fault, but instead of being snippy about it, Desmond just grunted and took Tristan’s arm, throwing him half over his shoulder to support his weight. Tristan hated that he had to rely on the vampire but right then, he could admit that he was in over his head.

  15: Sinker

  HE could feel Desmond again, now that they’d broken out of the seikonō upstairs and he could admit to himself that the vampire made his insides—and, fuck, some of the outsides—all tingly happy.

  “Fuck me if that didn’t hurt like a sonofabitch,” Tristan muttered, holding Desmond’s shirt to his head that vampire hadn’t thought twice about giving over. Tristan was bleeding too much and that seemed to worry the man, even if he’d never say so.

  They were laying in genkan, the foyer of Wren’s apartment in a wet tangle, not caring that they were practically in each other’s laps, and Desmond was now half naked, as they tried to recover from taking on that crazy seikonō. After Desmond had gotten them out of that mess upstairs, the pair practically ran for the door but lost their resolve and burst of energy by the time they got to the door. Being electrocuted so many times really took it out of a person, vampire or otherwise.

  “That was one bloody kicker of a seikonō. Who’d you say did it again?”

  Tristan shot Desmond a clouded look. “I didn’t.”

  Desmond gave him a sour frown in return.

  “How’d you find me anyway?”

  “One of the fox followed yew.”

  Tristan snorted a disgusted noise. “The kitsune… Get me started on those trickster
s…” Then again, he knew their nature and still went along with it. His situation was just as much his own fault as the kitsune’s.

  “Bloody stupid to get yurself abducted.”

  “You’re the one who took me out to that shrine under false pretenses. That trip had nothing to do with that troll, did it? You just wanted me kill Wren for you and got the kitsune to join in your lie, am I right?” He didn’t really think that, but he felt like punishing Desmond.

  Desmond frowned and then looked away when he realized he was making the face. “Don’t know what you’re on aboot.”

  “You know what, I don’t give a shit. It’s done. Wren’s gone.”

  “Stop calling him that,” Desmond said with a bit of a growl.

  “What? He said to call him Wren, so I call him Wren. Or would you rather me call him Toshiro whatever-his-last-name-was. Guy seemed nice enough too, despite kidnapping me. I don’t know why you had to try and burn the poor fuck’s face off like that.”

  Desmond blinked at him once before his arm shot outward, popping Tristan in the mouth.

  “Ow!” Tristan shouted. “I’ve got a fucking concussion here, you asshole! Christ… what was that for anyway? You gonna say you didn’t do that to him? Scar him like that?”

  “Who told you about that?”

  “Wren did! God,” Tristan moaned, dabbing at his lip and found it bleeding again. “You busted my lip open again you fucking—” He stopped himself with a little sigh. “Look, I know you two have a history… not a good one anyway, but it doesn’t matter now. You’ve gone your way and he’s gone his.” When Desmond didn’t answer, Tristan added, “Right?”

  The other man grunted, looking away. “Right.”

  “Right. So everything’s all worked out. Can we go home? I’m fucking beat.”

  “Fine,” Desmond grumbled and walked out the front door, swinging it hard enough that it almost popped back into Tristan’s face by the time he got to his feet.