White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4)

by Christina Moore

  The front door knob broke in her hand and she let them in, insisting on removing their shoes and using the guest slippers in the genkan. Tristan wasn’t sure what was happening but since she’d been so docile with him, he decided it was okay to do what she asked until it was something that compromised him. He hated being with her, not arguing over every little thing, not knowing if the others would even begin to know what happened to him, but until he found a way to flee, he was trapped. He had to trust that the tiny terror wouldn’t just snap.

  Xuejiao glanced back to give him a veiled look. “I want to thank you again for your cooperation.”

  He snorted, admiring the house with one eye while keeping the other on the vampire. “It’s not like I had a choice.”

  She smiled. “I suppose not. But all the same, thank you for cooperating, I realize how hard it is for someone like you.”

  He made a rude noise, thinking she didn’t know him in the least but was too tired to start shit. “Just hurry up and show me whatever it is that is so important and then we’ll be on our separate ways.” Until Tristan figured out a way to stop her. God, he was actually going to have to ask Yuki for help.

  She harrumphed and walked through the huge home. It was dead quiet, but the kind of quiet that was peaceful rather than unsettling. The front rooms were meant for entertaining, a large sitting room and another with a big TV and a few family photos. They looked like a nice family, a husband, wife and young daughter.

  The dining room was set up with dinnerware as if it always looked like that and they didn’t actually eat at the table. It did have twelve place settings. The sound of trickling water brought them through the Americanized kitchen with its shiny appliances and into a central foyer that was set up with tons of living greenery, skylights and actual birds chirping in the loft.

  A cat trotted into the room and practically impaled herself on Tristan’s legs, looking for attention. Xuejiao stared at the cat a moment and then tisked, marching off. Tristan sighed and followed after with the cat trailing along behind.

  The bedroom that Xuejiao led them to was huge and empty enough that they could hear the echo of their slippered feet. It was dark and cool, smelling a little bit of the snow and ocean, peaceful actually. The fat cat waddled past the others and jumped on the bed. It was then that Tristan realized they weren’t alone as a shape on the bed moved.

  He spun to Xuejiao. “What’s this?” he hissed but was loud enough that the person on the bed shot up shouting in Japanese, “What the hell?”

  The small vampire was on the man in an instant. A moment later, Tristan was too.

  “Dammit, Xuejiao! I didn’t sign up to stand by and watch you kill someone!”

  “Don’t be stupid.” The vampire swatted Tristan away. Well, maybe it was more than a mere swat because he flew five feet back and landed hard on his tailbone. He groaned out his pain, unable to get up just yet but for Xuejiao it cost nothing and the man they’d surprised was now lying limp in her hold.

  “Xuejiao!”

  The little girl looked back at him from where she’d perched herself over the unconscious, still breathing man and rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up already. Eyes open, mouth shut.”

  Tristan planted a foot to get up and was wracked with pain. The thought that he’d broken his tailbone did occur to him, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from getting to Xuejiao. Just as he’d gathered the resolve to get his other foot under him, the vampire on the bed huffed and flung her hand out. A gust of wind aimed to hit just him knocked him off balance and to his back. It was strong enough that his head slammed into the tile floor and knocked him out cold.

  He awoke with a fat cat purring away on his chest, kneading her claws on his pecs. “Fuck,” he grumbled and swept the cat off him. She complained with a hiss and ran out of the room. His entire lower back ached and he really hoped he hadn’t fractured his tailbone. Remembering Xuejiao, he forced himself to his feet. The pain was bad, but he’d had worse and would live.

  The house was quiet and he wondered if she left him behind. Moving like he was walking on glass, he shuffled out of the room and ended up in the middle foyer area where the foliage and birds were. The cat was there, perched on a bench, watching the birds above. There was netting about nine feet up, effectively trapping the birds in their deceivingly open birdcage.

  “Sorry, kitty, no bird for you.”

  She meowed at his attention and started to purr again. He bent down to check her collar and saw that her name was “Juno-chan”, written right there in blocky roman letters. When he looked up from Juno-chan he noticed the blood. They were tiny footprints, stamped out in dark red that led to the opposite side of the house. Tristan doubled back to the kitchen and found a nice big knife. It didn’t have a guard like his combat knives and he hoped he didn’t shred up his hands.

  Juno-chan watched him pass through the “birdcage”, tail twitching. The tile that had covered all the other rooms gave way suddenly to tatami. He was at a traditional tatami room complete with a shrine. The smell of incense was heavy in the air, leaving a lump of mucus in the back of Tristan’s throat he had to clear away.

  Sitting in the middle of the space on Indian style, Xuejiao turned at the small noise and looked him up and down, expression empty, before turning her back on him again. She no doubt saw the big ass kitchen knife in his hand but didn’t care.

  The blood trail Tristan had been following stopped at Xuejiao and spread out in a great big ring around her. She was the center of that red circle. Curiosity was a powerful and damnable thing and before Tristan could make the conscious decision to move closer or flee, he was walking towards Xuejiao.

  “Did you kill him?” Tristan asked in a tone that was half cautious, half barely contained anger as he saw the man on the floor. He was face down and naked, hair matted but not bloody. Water most likely, Tristan realized. He wasn’t moving and, Tristan was pretty sure, not breathing either.

  The vampire didn’t bother looking up at him as she shrugged. “You tell me.”

  Tristan made a wide circle around the vampire until he had the man between him and Xuejiao, for whatever good it meant. Delusions were a powerful courage enhancer. He crouched and felt for a pulse in the man’s ankle and didn’t find any but his own as it increased.

  “Why?”

  Her brows rose. “Why?”

  “Why did you kill him?” Tristan stood, the hand holding the knife shaking.

  She considered him a moment, head tilting back and forth, feigning the little girl persona so masterfully. Maybe that was what was really holding him back from attacking her. It wasn’t knowing that she was capable of breaking him without ever laying a hand on him, but the fact that she was a child. It was a hamper in this case but how most humans were wired, not to hurt children—fuck, even Malik, the psychopath, didn’t hurt kids. He wondered how many others mistook her for the sweet child she appeared to be before becoming her victim.

  Xuejiao huffed and stood. When she noticed that her clothes were covered in blood, she gave a little start and batted at herself, only smearing it deeper into the fine silk.

  Sighing she looked up and met Tristan’s eyes. “You’re not ready to understand yet.”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean!” He was at his breaking point. He didn’t witness it, but the vampire just killed someone practically in front of him and he let it happen.

  She gave him a dismissive look and started out of the room, adding fresh footprints to the ones that were already dried. Juno darted in then and Tristan flinched, rushing to scoop her up before the white cat turned herself red.

  Xuejiao stopped at the door and turned back to look at him. “I’m going to rest now, it’s nearly dawn. Don’t try to find me or leave. I expect you to be here when I awaken this evening.”

  “Excuse me?” he snarled. “What makes you thinking I’m just going to wait around for your crazy ass?”

  The vampire narrowed her eyes at him. “Because you agreed to s
ee what I wanted to show you.”

  “And just how long is this showing going to take? I’m not a patient man, you know.”

  She shrugged, looking away. “That’s up to you.”

  He scowled and was about to really rip into her but she was talking again.

  “I know there’s no point in threatening to tie you up, your shinigami would see to it that you’re freed anyway.” Her eyes moved to the side and Tristan actually made a strangled yipping noise, moving away from where her attention was.

  “My…” He looked too, as if he could actually see the invisible soulless monster. There was no way she could see it. Sense it, maybe, but definitely not see, unless she was either A, in yomi—Boy, did he wish that—or B, they were in the body of a human and wanted to be seen as their imagined personage, which involved a pythia’s help.

  Xuejiao slowly turned her head and seeing his utter shock, smiled. “You didn’t know? Well, in any case, I won’t secure you. I’m going to trust you stay put like I asked.”

  He swallowed hard. As if the situation wasn’t fucked enough, to be told that he did in fact have a shinigami around him just plain freaked him the fuck out. What the fuck did a shinigami want with him? Jesus, Lilith could have at least warned him. “And then?”

  “Then we move to the next place.”

  “Where this thing you want me to see is?”

  She pouted her lip out, head tilting to the side as she considered him and then straightened again. “Perhaps.” With that she left the room. A few moments later the front door slammed shut and Tristan let out his held breath, looking to the dead man on the floor.

  After a moment of dumbfounded staring he made an angry noise. “Dammit!”

  Juno dug her claws into him before leaping from his arms and hauling ass out of the room. He sighed to himself, rubbing where the skin had been broken. He didn’t know what to do with the dead body; he only knew that he couldn’t bear to be faced with his failure and shut the door between them. As he climbed wearily into bed, utterly exhausted in mind, he vowed he would do whatever it took to stop Xuejiao, even if it cost him his own life.

  19: As Hope and Promise Fade

  TRISTAN was chewing angrily on the inside of his cheek, hands gripped like vices around the steering wheel. Juno was in his lap, sleeping. He didn’t know why he brought the damn stupid cat along, didn’t really like cats to begin with, but it’d seemed right at the moment.

  Tristan had spent most of his daylight time trying to find a way to work off his aggravation. After failing to sleep off the stress of the night, he went out into the snow and practiced with his back-up sword for a bit, surprised the child vampire had left it for him. When he was done with that his mind was more worked up than before even if his body was exhausted.

  Muttering words of respect and apology for taking advantage of the dead man’s house, using his bed, shower and eating his food, Tristan carried on his day, thinking over and over again how he would get away from the tiny terror. And what he’d say to Ash when they reunited, because if nothing else, the fact that he couldn’t kill indiscriminately was making itself exceptionally clear. If he couldn’t kill without his conscious interceding, then how was he supposed to do what had to been done to stop Mother? He couldn’t kill a child vampire right in his grasp and he knew she was a monster.

  She’s a monster but you’re an abomination.

  God, what was it about that single word that wouldn’t leave him? Abomination.

  As he wallowed around in his self-misery again, his attention slipped to his tiny passenger. Right at dusk Xuejiao returned and immediately said they were leaving. They hopped into their stolen car and Tristan was directed deeper inland. He wasn’t sure where he was anymore, only that it was snowing again and he was having a hard time seeing through the big flakes.

  He was still angry with himself for not leaving while he had the chance, having nearly a full day to get away from her. But then, he knew that she would hunt him down and force him to come with her again, only not on such nice terms and probably with many retaliatory deaths. It was hard to willingly give himself over like this, but if it meant he might live past it, then he could justify it as being practical.

  Still, it wasn’t in him to surrender. “You gonna tell me about your master plan now or am I just here to chauffeur your crazy ass around?”

  He felt the vampire turn in her seat to look at him but he refused to look at her in return.

  “’Cause, I’ll tell ya,” he kept saying as if she weren’t glaring now, “if my job is to just witness you killing and to drive, you’ve picked the wrong Uruwashi. I’ll kill you now, right here. Fuck, I’ll take us both out if I have to.”

  The thought to wrap the car around a tree had occurred to him. Trouble was he was sure he’d be the only casualty. Well, him and the stupid cat.

  “By all means then,” she answered tartly. “Take your best shot at the next tree, but you’re right. I will prevail.”

  The cat flinched at the girl’s voice and Tristan thought he felt her growl, a claw pricking his thigh. Juno-chan didn’t like the vampire either.

  He huffed, sinking down in the seat. He had no clue what Xuejiao had in mind for him but more than that, he saw it as a startling coincidence that he’d been aligned with her at all. Maybe there was a such thing as fate, maybe not. But how much did he believe in coincidence to not question something like fate? The very night he’d met a vampire with two seikonō happened to be the same day that he was whisked away in some pythia born metaphysical space and learned that the mother of all shinwa was after him… How could it all really just be a coincidence?

  “How much farther?” he grumped.

  “I’ll say when.”

  He harrumphed again and let the silence settle. In the quiet he let his mind swarm with thoughts and ideas. So much so that when he’d started to speak he didn’t know that he was actually going to put those thoughts to words.

  “Wren says you’re the scion of the first vampire.”

  Maybe he was blocking his mind like a champ or maybe the audacity to say it aloud surprised her. Whatever it was, she took a moment to process and then smiled big, showing off the biggest damn set of fangs. Granted, he’d thought that Innokentiy’s, centuries younger, were actually bigger, but it was her already petite size that distorted their grandeur.

  “Did he now?”

  “Mhm,” Tristan hummed, trying to keep his cool despite the sudden, palatable tension. “But you know, even with your little duel seikonō performance, I still can’t help but call bullshit on that one.”

  The little girl lifted her brow. “Do tell.”

  “I mean, you shinwa—and heikō, actually, you’re not supposed to question your origins. And here you are touting that you’re the kid of the First Vampire.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “No, not really.”

  She watched him a moment and then huffed, looking away, out the window at the night world. “I can only speak on what I’ve been told. Maybe he lied, maybe not, but who am I to question? He’s my Master.”

  “You really don’t know?” Tristan glanced at her and saw that her jaw was held tightly. “I mean, you guys share all sorts of shit in blood. Even if he never fed you from his veins after you were made, there’s no way you didn’t see what he was when he actually made you.”

  When it was clear Xuejiao really wasn’t going to answer him, his confidence inflated.

  “Seriously? You don’t know, not for sure, do you?”

  She turned her head slowly to look at him, eyes narrowed and her expression as old as he’d seen it yet. “Mind yourself, Uruwashi. I’m only dragging you along because I was told to, not because I find fancy in letting you remain breathing.”

  Now that was like a blow to the gut.

  “Wha—what? Who the fuck told—”

  “Slow down,” Xuejiao suddenly snapped, her attention completely elsewhere now.

  Against his better judgement, Tristan
slowed to car to a roll as he noticed the man hunched into himself, trudging through the snow along the side of the road. Most of the shops he passed were closed but there was one up a block or so with its lights on. Probably the guy’s destination. Too bad he would never make it.

  Xuejiao shot out of the car. Tristan gasped and jabbed the breaks to a full stop, watching in horror as the innocent-seeming child rushed the man, incapacitated him with a single blow and then dragged him along in the snow after her by one arm like a doll.

  “What the hell!” Tristan screamed at her when she opened the back door to shove the man in. The cat got upset and darted out the open door past the vampire and her catch. “Shit,” Tristan hissed and ran off to grab the cat.

  Xuejiao was stuffing the man’s legs into the car when he returned with Juno. “Just what in the hell do you think you are doing? If you think I’m going to stand by and watch you kill another person, you’re fucking wrong.”

  She didn’t even look at him, a smile curling her lips with some secret thought. “Just drive,” she ordered with that disgusting smile and slammed the back door shut.

  “No,” he said, refusing to back down. He shoved Juno into the car and straightened to glare at Xuejiao. “Not until you tell me what you’re going to do.”

  “Kill. Him,” she said speaking with lips curled back to show her teeth.

  “Absolutely not!”

  For a bare second it looked like the vampire was going to argue, then realized words were lost on someone as hardheaded as Tristan. Instead of bothering to speak, she flung her hand out, sending Tristan flying back and crashing into the opposite curb.

  Slowly, moving with measured motions, Xuejiao crossed the street to him and stopped to glower as he tried to find his breath again. She’d been careful when she emptied his lungs of oxygen but he was still hurting. She could have just as easily ripped all of the oxygen from every vessel in his body then froze all of the water he was made up of, but she didn’t and Tristan counted himself damn lucky.