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His sleep has been restless, lately.
Almost every other night he’ll jolt into wakefulness at some late-enough-to-be-early hour, with a feeling he can’t quite put into words laying heavy against his skin. As if he were increasingly aware of himself: of his movements, his pulse, the solitude and smallness of the space he takes up. Aware of the depth of the shadows, and the emptiness of his room. Waiting with held breath for something to step out from them and fill it.
And it’s at these times that the tiny twin scars on his throat start to ache.
“You don’t look so good,” Rian says to him with a frown. They’re in the training hall, helping each other stretch, prepping to spar with some of the younger recruits. “Have you been sleeping?”
His limbs are so heavy and tired he feels like he’s wading through something thick and viscous. It’s been this way for three months off and on, ever since they got back. The sleep deprivation. The weariness of someone who knows he could rest, soundly and without disruption, if only he had – something. He’s not sure what. Or maybe he does, deep, deep down, but he tries not to conceptualize it.
He doesn’t say that to her, though. Instead he smiles, in a way that he hopes looks casual.
“Just some insomnia. It’ll clear up soon enough.”
She nods slowly. Doesn’t look convinced. “You should go to the med bay – ask them for some of those sleeping herbs. Remember they gave me some, once? After I fucked up my collarbone during that one hunt. I was out for twelve hours. Best sleep of my life.”
“Yeah,” he says, reassuring, and helps her to her feet. “Maybe I’ll try that.”
Somehow he gets the feeling that drugs can’t fill the space that’s missing.
They get summoned to the High Chamber after the day’s training. Granted an audience with Lady Ryume, who gives them a slightly unimpressed once-over from her perch on the commander’s chair atop the dais. Her eyes linger on Ryuga in particular, judging, measuring, seeking out, it seems, some sort of warning sign in his demeanor or his posture.
“It has been voted on by the Council,” she says, “that your suspension will be ending, and that the two of you will be returning to active duty. Which I’m still somewhat unsure about, personally, but if your direct superiors believe you to be fit then that’s that.”
Rian flashes him a relieved, excited grin, which he attempts to return. It will be good, he tells himself. To get back to work. This will put him back together. Reshape him into himself again.
“You have immediate orders to move out, in fact,” Lady Ryume is saying. She nods to one of her aides along the perimeter of the room, who steps forward to press an envelope into Rian’s hands. “Intel has picked up reports of a target skulking around a particular underpass in Shibuya. That as well as its supposed nest are marked on the map provided.” She tilts her head to the side as she observes them. “Good luck, hunters. Remember your training this time, please. For everyone’s sake.”
Ryuga almost wants to protest, as he did so many times to so many Council members when they first returned. None of our training prepared us for that, he’d said again and again with growing desperation, only to be soundly written off. Making excuses, most of them seemed to think. But it’s alright, Dougai-kun. We understand these things happen, even to the best of us. Vampires are such tricky creatures –
Rian is grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him down with her into a deep bow, tugging him across the room and out the door a moment later, towards their first hunt since Romania.
It’s simple, in the end. By the book. Their prey is weak.
(Or maybe. Maybe it’s that anything seems weak by comparison.)
Though he still feels thrown off balance when the thing goes to rake at him with its sharp fingernails but stops, frozen there with an odd expression of confusion contorting its pallid face. There had been another – a newly turned fledgling not in their report. Rian has gone after it, leaving Ryuga to face this one alone.
“You,” it hisses. “You’re Marked.”
He blinks back at it, unwittingly lowering his dagger just a fraction. “Marked? That’s not possible.” His lip curls. “Are you imagining things, demon? Or just stalling for time?”
“No,” it says, shaking its head and backing away. “No, you are! There is a shadow over you, hunter. Someone has claimed you as theirs. Someone powerful.”
Ryuga feels something icy cold grip him like a hand around the throat, but he laughs despite it, overly loud and echoing in the claustrophobic space of the grimy underpass tunnel. “You really aren’t a smart one, are you? You should pick your lies more carefully. You think I wouldn’t know?”
It looks at him steadily – warily, he thinks, though not wary of him.
“Wouldn’t you?” it says.
His hold around the weapon’s hilt begins to tremble. It usually takes at least five feedings, if not more, for a vampire to choose to Mark a human – to put a visible claim on them as their “possession,” their “property.” After only one bite is utterly unheard of, he tells himself. And the Mark has to be etched physically into the skin, of course. Hard to believe, that he wouldn’t have noticed something like that.
Tries not to think about how many of the things he witnessed at Castel Grozavie were unheard of or unbelievable.
“I have my honor,” the creature in front of him says. “You may not think it exists among our kind, but it does. I would be committing a grave offense by harming you. Let us go our separate ways peacefully, hunter. It will be easier.”
A train rumbles by like thunder on the tracks above, shaking silt from the tunnel ceiling.
Ryuga gathers his wits enough to laugh again – a harsh, jagged sound. “Easier for you, maybe,” he says, and lunges forward to deliver that practiced strike into the dead flesh of the thing’s heart.
He finds it later that night, standing in front of his mirror. Twists and turns in every direction, craning his neck until –
He stops. And stares at the simple triangle shape of perfectly cut scars sliced into his back, directly between his shoulderblades. Clearly made with practiced, purposeful intent. Small and unremarkable enough so as to not draw attention from anyone who might have seen him shirtless in the time since their return.
Cold dread begins to snake its way through his chest. How had he not noticed when it happened? But he knows it’s a stupid question as soon as he asks it of himself. Because he’d been gone because of the bite. Blissed out and drowning in it. He could have run him through with that sword of his and Ryuga might have only felt a twinge.
Haltingly, he touches the edge of the triangle scar with his fingertip, and the raised flesh there feels warmer to the touch than it should be, flushed, as if the blood beneath was throbbing in anticipation. He shivers.
He doesn’t meet Rian for dinner that night. She knocks on his door but he doesn’t answer. He simply lays there in bed, conscious of the thump of his pulse in his ears, staring into dark corners of his room until his eyes grow so tired he can’t anymore.
“What all do we know about the Marked?”
D. Ringo peers up from the inlaid jewels of the old hand mirror he is carefully refurbishing, his magnifying eyewear swiveling and focusing on Ryuga as he leans across the counter.
“Hey to you, too, kid,” he mutters. “Why’re you asking all of a sudden?”
“It’s just. I met one of them, on my hunt the other day,” Ryuga lies. “But they were different than the rest. And I started thinking… that maybe there’s something we’ve been missing. About how it all works.”
“Something we’ve been missing,” D. Ringo echoes. “All of us? For however many hundreds of years now?”
“You never know.”
His eyes narrow behind the magnifying spectacles. “Be real with me. This another Romania thing?”
Ryuga presses his lips together in a thin line and averts his eyes.
D. Ringo heaves a sigh. “Alright, alright. You know I wish you’d move on from this shit. But clearly that’s not happening. I dunno what answers you think you’re gonna find in here that you haven’t found already, but. C’mon.”
He selects a key from one of the many unlabeled desk drawers, pushing back his chair and gesturing for Ryuga to follow after. Leads him down the rows and rows of towering, dusty shelves that stretch far enough to be half-hidden in shadow. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the categorization of the Archives, Ryuga has often thought. Only those that work here understand it, as if the knowledge were imparted upon them by the place itself as a reward for their loyalty.
D. Ringo stops; turns down a particular aisle and unlocks the case of ancient-looking books and manuscripts, opening the cabinet doors and gesturing towards it.
“Knock yourself out, kid,” he says. Claps Ryuga on the shoulder as he brushes past him. “Hope to god you find something useful this time. Gettin’ sick of seeing your mug in here.”
Ryuga smiles a bit at that as he begins to stack materials into his arms.
Hours later, he finds what he’s searching for deep within an unlabeled tome, its pages brittle and yellowing. Amid the unassuming chapters about practical uses for sigils in the field, there it is: a selection of transcripts of conversations with the Marked. (He wonders how many decades this information has sat forgotten in this old book. Pushed aside and ignored, as much seems to be around here.)
T: You were Marked after the eighth feeding, correct? What did you feel after it had taken place?
Subject C: (prolonged silence) It… was a happiness I can’t quite put into words. My Mistress informed me of her intentions, and made the Mark. And I was overjoyed. To be in her favor like that. To be chosen.
T: (clearing throat) Yes, right. I meant more… physiologically. There was no obvious effect on your body or your mind as a result?
Subject C: Maybe… the tug when she was gone from my side felt a little sharper, after that day? But otherwise, no. Nothing. (subject laughs) I wasn’t under some newfound sway, if that’s what you’re getting at. I’m sure some Marked might be, but… Most of us simply crave it from the very start, you know. Even if we can’t admit it to ourselves at first. We want to belong to them. Is that so wrong?
Ryuga stares down at the text with an unpleasant twisting, churning feeling in the pit of his stomach. Flips to the next page. And the next. Only one of the six Marked interviewed claims to have been influenced by tricks or glamours. The other five, purified by hunter rites and confirmed to be of sound mind, all say that they desired it of their own volition. Like marriage, one claims, a sacred communion, and Ryuga can almost hear the bliss in their voice.
Breathing hard, he slams the tome shut and pushes it away.
The next hunt goes south quickly.
He’s truly alone for this one, Rian needed elsewhere for a mission deemed more pressing. And yet here, too, the intel proves incomplete, without a mention of the way this vampire has shaped its nest to be as inhospitable to intruders as possible. Staircases are blocked off or demolished, traps set around every turn. He barely avoids a rigged knife that buries itself into the wall just past his head, its tip coated in something that he’s certain must be poison.
He’s bruised and tired and angry by the time he makes it to the uppermost floor to find his mark waiting for him.
There’s a nervous, jumpy energy about the thing, he notes. Rare to see in those bold enough to attract the attention of Hunters – typically even the weaker ones will put on airs of cunning and bravado. This one, though, keeps glancing almost imperceptibly over its shoulder, and Ryuga finds himself growing wary, too. Of whatever it is it’s waiting for.
“You really made me climb all the way up here,” he says, pushing those thoughts aside, drawing his dagger and advancing slowly. “Don’t make this any harder for me or for you.”
“You’re the one who – who messed up my perfect nest,” the thing snaps. It’s gripping a weapon as well, some sort of metal piping that’s been sliced and whittled and sharpened to a dangerous point. “I had it just right. Everything… was in its place. And then he came. And you – ”
It breaks off with a growl of frustration.
“…‘He’?” Ryuga says, frowning, sliding his foot another step closer, and that is when the creature lunges. He sidesteps the first jab; parries the second and slashes his dagger across his opponent’s chest, sending it reeling back with a hiss, its eyes gone totally black with fury. They circle each other tentatively, a methodical contest that Ryuga knows he would have won –
If the floor beneath one misplaced step didn’t begin to crumble and throw him slightly off balance, forcing him to leap away. The creature takes advantage of the split second of distraction and weakness to surge forward and sink its makeshift weapon into the flesh of Ryuga’s shoulder.
The pain is unlike being pierced with a sword or knife. There’s nothing precise about it. Instead it is jagged and tearing, worse still as the creature rips it out of him again, blotting out all else, and he chokes on his own shout of pain as his legs give out from under him, knees hitting the concrete hard. Blood begins to splatter against the floor, and he can see the thing’s face change, tension and frustration replaced by hunger. It tosses its weapon aside with a clang. Breathes in and out, savoring the smell.
It’s advancing on him, this time with different intent, when it jerks to a halt. And a hand, covered in black blood and viscera, suddenly emerges from its abdomen with a sound like ripe fruit being split open. Forced all the way through its body in a single, vicious motion.
The vampire stares down at it. Looks back at Ryuga, wide-eyed, some of that blood now trickling from its mouth.
“Ah, what did I tell you?” says a voice from behind the creature. “I think I was pretty clear, friend. You can rough him up a bit, but you don’t get to spill any blood.” The hand withdraws through the massive, bloody hole it’s made in the vampire’s flesh, the creature gasping and jerking like a puppet on a string. “Honestly, I shouldn’t have even had to say it. There are supposed to be rules, you know. Decorum. I swear, hardly anyone has any manners anymore. No wonder this community is falling apart.”
The creature is thrown aside, hitting the wall with a dull thud and lying still.
Jinga stands there in the middle of the crumbling hallway, examining his own bloodied state with an expression of mild distaste.
“These are my favorite clothes, too,” he says, trying to rub away something on his black sleeve.
Ryuga can’t breathe. His head is swimming. He has his palm pressed tight against his shoulder but the blood won’t stop flowing, trickling over and between his fingers.
“…Why are you here?” he manages.
Jinga’s eyes flick over to meet his. Just as vicious and dark and cold as he remembers. It’s like being plunged underwater unexpectedly.
“Are you surprised? That I’d come all this way? It was a bit of a trek, I have to admit. But I was getting so listless again. Unfulfilled.” He sighs dramatically. “I know you would’ve come back to me eventually, Ryuga. And I would’ve savored that. But… this is fun, too, isn’t it? I’m really enjoying the look you’re giving me right now.” He steps closer, and closer again, mouth curving into a smile. “The fear and the shock and… the relief.”
“Who would be… relieved to see you?” Ryuga asks, voice weak, attempting to scowl but not quite managing it.
“I wonder.” With a click of his shoes against the concrete he comes to stand in front of him, so that Ryuga has to crane his neck to see his face. Get up, he wills himself, but his legs won’t seem to obey. “Someone with a nice little Mark on his back, maybe?”
Ryuga swallows hard. He’s having trouble focusing his eyes, Jinga’s face doubling and fading before snapping back in again. “Isn’t that… supposed to mean something to your kind? Isn’t it supposed to be like a contract? I don’t remember saying yes.”
“Oh, I could just read it in your expression. That it’s what you wanted, somewhere in your heart. And speaking of contracts, you know…” He reaches down to pry Ryuga’s hand away from his bloody shoulder, pupils dilating at the sight of it. “I can’t believe you went and let someone else spill your blood like this.”
He seems to ponder for a moment before digging his thumb into the open wound. The edges of Ryuga’s vision go white as he makes a sound that’s a bit too aborted to be a shout. He’s on fire, he thinks. He must be. Every nerve screaming. He can sense the dagger lying there on the floor near his fingertips, and scrabbles for it with the last of his available strength, jabbing it straight forward and, by some chance, through the palm of Jinga’s other hand. The momentum from it is enough to push himself backwards and away, landing hard in a heap on the floor.
The last thing he sees before losing consciousness is Jinga, bright-eyed and laughing as he examines the blade impaling his flesh, and lifting his thumb to his mouth, slowly and pensively, to lick the cherry red blood from it.
He thinks that whatever bed he’s found himself in is shockingly uncomfortable, before forcing his still-tired eyes open to find that the truth is much stranger.
He’s lying on an unfamiliar leather couch, in an unfamiliar and very high-end apartment, and his head is in Jinga’s lap.
He stares up at him, fully awake in an instant, body tensing.
“You can bolt if you like,” Jinga says. “But I wouldn’t recommend it. I haven’t finished yet.”
A pinch of pain, and he draws back something that looks like a needle, thick black thread twining through his fingers. It’s only then that Ryuga notices he doesn’t feel like he’s dying anymore. Or at the very least it’s less dire. The wound on his shoulder has been cleaned quite thoroughly, and is being sewn up with surgically precise stitches.
He lies there for a time with his heart beating rapidly, brow furrowed, unsure of what to make of this.
“What are you doing?” he asks finally.
A quirk of the lips. Jinga slices through the leftover thread with the sharp point of his teeth as he puts the finishing touches on the stitching, before sitting back and meeting his eyes.
“What does it look like?”
“Why would you want to help me?”
He blows a strand of silver hair back from his face with a huff. “Oh, come on. You have to stop thinking of this in such black and white terms, Ryuga. There’s nuance here, alright? You know I enjoy some good old-fashioned hostility, but too much of that can get tiring quick. We all have to take a break now and then. And during those times, I’d like for us to have a more. Typical relationship. The sort that most of my kind enjoy with their Marked.”
“You think I’d want to have that with you?” Ryuga grits out.
Jinga arches an eyebrow. Reaches out to touch Ryuga lightly along the temple and slide his fingers back through his hair, the drag of his nails along his scalp not quite enough to hurt but enough to send an electrified jolt through him.
“You’re still just lying here in my lap, aren’t you?” he says mockingly.
Ryuga shoves his hand away; sits bolt upright and hurries to press himself against the opposite end of the couch, knuckles white against the armrest, a taut, brittle feeling in his chest.
“Where are we?” he asks. It’s all very tasteful and minimalist – dim lighting, spotless furniture, white walls interrupted only by a splash of red from two close-up paintings of a flower’s petals.
Jinga hums thoughtfully. “Can’t exactly tell you. I liked the look of this place, so here we are. It’s mine now. Ours, if you’d like it to be.”
“Did you kill the person who lives here?”
“Please. Is that all you think I’m capable of? I just informed her that we were very important guests. She’s wandered off on an errand right now. Should be back in a few hours, maybe.”
“I thought you didn’t use coercion tricks.”
Jinga rolls his eyes. “Keep up, Ryuga. That’s only on prey. And she’s not prey. Not when I have you right here in front of me.”
Unwittingly his hand drifts to his throat, pressing his trembling palm against those two small scars.
“Well. Maybe not today for that. You lost a lot of blood already. Might leave you in quite a state if I got too carried away. But don’t fret. In a few days’ time we’ll both get what we want.”
“What I want is you dead,” Ryuga hisses.
Jinga’s mouth twitches. “I know you do,” he says, sickeningly placating. “Good luck with that, by the way. I’ll bet you’ve been searching and searching through the Hunter library for anything that might help you kill me. Haven’t you? And you still haven’t turned up a single useful piece of information. What did I tell you, Ryuga? They think they know everything, but they’re blind to so much.”
Ryuga’s jaw tightens.
“I shouldn’t make it seem like I don’t appreciate your tenacity, though,” Jinga continues. “Because I do. That’s one of the things I find so appealing about you. You’re welcome to try and kill me right now, if you’d like.”
He gives him an expectant look, lifting his hands, palms up, as if to say ‘I’m waiting.’
Ryuga hesitates. Fire, maybe? That’s the option that’s been at the top of his list. A strong enough flame blessed with certain properties could turn even this creature to ash, couldn’t it? Though there’s nothing within reach at the moment that could help with that. Some of the sigils he’s found in old, forbidden books could possibly be useful, too – he’s memorized their patterns. But suddenly the idea of attempting to recreate them here and now seems like a thankless task. What effect would they really have? Maybe it’s something about Jinga’s stillness, sitting there like an arrogant, handsome statue, utterly confident that nothing of consequence will ever happen to him.
Ryuga sinks back slowly against the couch, dragging his hands over his face and through his hair.
“I’m too tired today,” he admits. “I’ve been so tired. For months.”
“My, my. And you were just unconscious a few minutes ago.” He gets to his feet, stepping close to look down at him, steady and appraising. “But I get it. I do. I could put you to sleep, you know. Real sleep. You only have to ask. And you’ll be,” here he snaps his fingers, “out like a light. I’d give you a good dream, too. Cross my heart.”
He bares his teeth as he laughs at his own joke.
Ryuga wonders if he’s ever received a more tempting offer.
“And what,” he forces himself to say with a glower, “only wake up when you want me to? I’ll pass.”
“Ah, no trust at all,” Jinga sighs. “You wound me. Well. Go on, then.” He waves a hand; moves toward the floor-length window and stands there staring out at the city skyline, the countless lights blinking against the dark silhouettes of buildings. “Since I can’t sway you. Head back to your little enclave. They’re probably wondering what’s managed to waylay you. Maybe they’d even believe you this time if you told them the truth.”
He gives him a significant look over his shoulder.
“But you won’t, will you? Tell them the truth.”
Ryuga doesn’t answer, and Jinga’s laugh seems to fill the entire space of the room until the air is heavy and close with it. It follows at his heels like a shadow as he gathers his things and steps through the door, and down the elevator, and back out into the night, stopping only to glance up, at that window high above, and see him still standing there, observing, a tall black shape against the apartment’s illumination.
(He feels… better, almost, knowing that Jinga is here.
There’s a certain freedom in it, when the worst outcome has already occurred. No more waiting in suspense. No more creeping trepidation or constant unease.
It’s not relief, though. Is what he tells himself. A feeling like a taut, knotted rope inside him beginning to be unwound isn’t relief.
Though he’s not sure how to call it otherwise.)
His target was unexpectedly killed by another vampire in a territory dispute, is his official explanation. He deemed the “murderer” an immediate threat to human life and spent the rest of the night in pursuit, which ended in a successful kill after only a few minor setbacks. It’s close enough to the truth, as most good covers are.
The marching line of stitches along his shoulder is the one thing that sticks out like a thorn from his story.
“You truly did this yourself?” the medic, Aguri, asks him for what must be the seventh time. He nods, and Aguri’s eyes narrow behind his glasses. He’s seen Ryuga’s in-the-field first aid handiwork before. It’s one of the things that consistently gets marked down as ‘needs improvement’ in his file.
“Right, okay,” he says slowly. “I suppose I should be pleased. That you’ve gotten so skilled at this so suddenly.”
“I’ve been studying,” Ryuga says, smiling, looking just slightly to the left of his gaze, like he might do when faced with the enemy.
Aguri lapses into silence. There’s only two other Hunters in the med bay today, occupying beds on the opposite end of the vaulted hall. The stillness of it all feels anticipatory, a breath being held in waiting.
“Dougai,” he says finally. “About those scars on your back.”
Ryuga’s hand curls against his thigh, fingernails digging in, enough to hurt even through the leather.
“Weird, isn’t it?” he says with a laugh. “How perfect they are. Not sure how that might have happened.”
“…Weird, yes,” Aguri says, voice soft, tilting his head to the side as he observes him. “How long have they been there? Because when I think about it… I saw those cuts there months ago, didn’t I? Didn’t think much of them then, considering everything else that had happened. But they still look fresh now.”
Ryuga shakes his head, attempting an air of nonchalance. “Can’t quite remember how or when I got them, sorry. I’m always getting sliced up out there. You know how it is.” The Mark throbs once, a pleasant sort of twinge. “Hard to keep track of every scar.”
He does go back, those few days later, after the last of the post-injury fatigue is wearing off. Finds his way to that apartment building effortlessly despite having no memory of its address or exact location. The apartment door is unlocked, and he opens it to a woman, maybe about thirty years old and fashionably dressed, paused in the middle of dusting the bookshelf to smile at him.
“Welcome,” she says. There’s a glazed look to her eyes that he knows all too well. “So nice to meet you, Dougai-kun.”
Jinga materializes out of the shadows behind her and steps forward to slide an arm around her shoulders.
“This is Sayaka,” he says, looking exceptionally pleased with himself. “She’s the one I was telling you about. Sweet of her to share her home with us, don’t you think?”
Ryuga presses his lips together in a hard line as he closes the door behind him. “You could get your own place easily. Why don’t you let her go, Jinga?”
He seems to consider for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. I’m really growing to like this setup. This way I’ve got company on the days I don’t get to see you.”
“Why didn’t you bring your wife with you, then? She has to be on her way soon, right? Doesn’t she care about you coming all this way for – ”
He stops himself there, abrupt, snapping his mouth shut and trapping the rest of those words. But not quick enough.
Jinga stares back at him; shoves Sayaka away as if she were suddenly little more than a nuisance, and she wanders off towards her bedroom, her steps rote and mechanical. Slowly, his mouth curves into a smile that’s far too gleeful for comfort.
“Are you worried about my marriage? Oh, that’s so cute. But I already told you, didn’t I? That Amily understands. Relationships are different, when you’ve lived as long as we have, Ryuga.” A pause. “Or maybe. You’re jealous?”
Ryuga’s face flushes hot. “You’re reaching,” he snaps. He lifts a hand to yank down the collar of his jacket, baring his throat, going for defiance but perhaps not quite managing it. His fingers are trembling. “How about you stop talking and get this over with.”
The points of Jinga’s teeth glint as he laughs. “Well alright. Can’t exactly refuse a request like that.”
Ryuga shuts his eyes as that eerily cool hand curls around his nape, as he’s pulled closer, taking a sharp, jagged breath as lips touch his throat and those fangs break through his skin.
(He sleeps there that night, undisturbed and dreamless for hours and hours, and wakes with an energy he hasn't had in months.)
He’s starting to wonder if Rian is requesting to be paired off with someone other than him.
Logically, he knows it’s most likely not because of him. It’s because of her – that woman who arrived not long ago from the Vol City chapter. The one with the sharp features and the cool, confident posture, who soundly kicked his ass during a spar the other day. Rian has always been weak for that type.
He can’t blame her, and oddly enough he’s beginning to find he doesn’t mind it so much. Flying solo on missions. He’s not supposed to be, of course. It goes against basic protocol for a Hunter to have no assigned partner. But he gets the job done regardless. And that’s what matters above all else in this profession: results.
Mostly he’s glad Rian isn’t there to notice the audience that he’s garnered.
“You want any help with this one?” Jinga asks, from where he’s lounging against the wall, swirling the ice in his glass back and forth with a clink, clink. This is the third mission he’s just ‘happened’ to show up for.
Ryuga gives him a withering look as he fixes the cuffs of his suit jacket. “No thanks.”
“Hm. Can’t promise I won’t anyhow. Can’t stand this Maezono woman. No class at all.” He makes a face. “Don’t be fooled by all this.” Here he gestures to the ornate, gilded hallway around them, towards the muted clamor of the party just past the rich burgundy hanging curtains. “She was a fledgling gutter rat just two centuries back. Then she murdered her own sire when he was weakened after a duel and stole everything he had.”
Ryuga can feel his brow knit together. “And you, of all people… dislike her for that?”
“Oh no, of course not. I admire that sort of audacity. But then she had the gall to get high and mighty about it and insulted Amily to her face at the very first one of these galas. That I still can’t forgive.”
“Right,” Ryuga sighs. He pushes the curtain side covertly, scanning the room until his eyes land on his target. Finds her in a floor-length midnight blue gown, conversing near the steps. Maezono Mika is exceptionally beautiful, as many of the old blood are, long, wavy hair pulled back from a soft face that one wouldn’t expect on a vampire. “Shouldn’t you have just… I don’t know, killed her then and there for her insolence?”
“What can I say?” He glances over to find Jinga looking amused. “We were a lot kinder two hundred years ago.”
Ryuga hates to admit it, but he’s somewhat grateful that he’s here for this one. This is a strange mission, almost as strange as the dispatch to Romania. Hunters and these bourgeois type vampires usually exist in a wary sort of ceasefire. The old blood know the rules. They take only what they need from humans, killing very little, striking up mutually beneficial relationships with their Marked. It isn’t clear to him what boundaries Maezono Mika has crossed to have a target leveled at her back so suddenly.
This gala is the best and perhaps only opportunity for a Hunter to get close to her, but he’s not sure he would’ve made it inside were he not Marked. It would’ve been an ordeal of a stealth break-in, that much is certain. The aura of the Mark, though, had gotten him waved casually through the front door, written off as the arm candy of one of the guests.
The old blood does love to show off their pets.
“Alright, fine,” he says through gritted teeth. “Maybe… I could use some help, actually.”
Jinga’s smile widens, shark-like. “Wonderful,” he says.
Lucky for him, Jinga informs him, that he is exactly Miss Maezono’s type.
“If I remember anything about her, it’s that she just loves wide-eyed, naïve-looking men like you.”
Ryuga frowns. Is he really naïve-looking?
“She’ll notice you if you’re alone near her. She’ll strike up a conversation. And that’s when she’ll realize you weren’t brought here for her. That you already belong to someone. And I imagine she won’t be particularly pleased.”
“Can you not talk like that? I don’t belong to you.”
“Oh no, of course not.” There it is again: that placating tone. “It’s part of the ploy, Ryuga. Trust me on this one. All for the sake of the hunt. That’s your people’s motto, isn’t it?”
Maezono Mika turns out to be just as easily baited as predicted, approaching him with a glint in her eye and commenting on the lovely cut of his suit. But as she looks at him something goes cold and sour in her expression.
“Who is it?” she asks stiffly, grip tight around the stem of her glass. “The one who has you? That presence… I’ve definitely felt it before.”
Here is what is supposed to happen: He will put on his best face of bitterness and say ‘they don’t matter anymore.’ He’ll lower his voice and tell her he had a falling out with his Master. That they stopped being good to him, that he’s looking for someone more powerful, more affluent, someone who will treat him right. She will see Jinga from across the room, watching, and know it is him she’s stealing from, and feel an extra vindictive pleasure in leading Ryuga away.
What actually happens is –
A hand curls around his waist. He starts; glances up to find Jinga smiling there.
Maezono’s expression darkens further still. “Of course it’s you,” she says, voice clipped. “Though I don’t remember extending an invitation.”
“It’s been so long,” Jinga says. “Thought I might as well drop in. See how you’re doing.”
“How kind. You seem to be doing rather well yourself.” She rakes her eyes over Ryuga, an indolent once-over. “Finally trade in that shrew of a wife, did you?”
Jinga’s smile has begun to take on a rather dangerous edge. His grip tightens, fingers digging hard enough into Ryuga’s hip that it feels like bruises might be left behind.
“Some of us are capable of having multiple fulfilling relationships. I know that might be tough to fathom.”
Maezono tilts her head to the side. “Really? Because now that I truly look at him, he doesn’t seem particularly overjoyed to be on your arm. Did he coerce you, dear? Mark you against your will?”
Ryuga blinks. “That’s. That’s not…”
Saying ‘yes’ would be a good way to salvage this. Appealing to her with a tragic ‘please, miss, help me, I never wanted any of this.’ And that would be the truth anyhow, wouldn’t it? It would be –
“What we have is… a little different than the usual,” Jinga is saying. He accentuates those words in a way that leaves them hanging heavy in the air.
Maezono stares back at him for a time; hums in that way that means ‘oh, really.’ “Isn’t that wonderful for you,” she says, baring her fangs in a sneer. “Well. If you’ll excuse me. I have host duties to attend to.”
“Trust you, you said,” Ryuga seethes as they watch her walk away. He twists free of Jinga’s grip to glare at him. “You can’t put your ego aside for a single minute. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
“Don’t get so worked up about it.” He reaches out to brush a strand of hair back from his face, and the light touch of his fingertips is unsettlingly gentle. He leans in, then, so that his lips are almost touching the shell of his ear, and his voice is suddenly devoid of any humor as he says: “She’ll be dead by the end of the night. I can guarantee it.”
He steps away, turning and making for the lounge area of low chaises across the room, and Ryuga simply stands there for a long moment before shaking himself and hurrying after him, sidestepping the party guests in his path.
“What do you mean?” he asks, sliding into the seat next to him. “You’re going to kill her?”
“You were right,” Jinga says. “I should have done her in two hundred years ago. It’s been this long and she still hasn’t learned to respect her betters.” He gives him a sidelong glance, draping his arm around the back of the chaise, fingertips brushing his shoulder. “If you like, you can take the credit for the kill when you report to your little friends. I don’t mind.”
The idea of sitting back and letting this creature do his work for him is… He supposes it should be an affront. But the more he considers, the more reasonable it begins to seem. Use any tools at your disposal. They teach you that early in training.
In a way, he would only be following protocol.
“Ah. They’re looking over here,” Jinga is saying, amusement evident. Ryuga follows his gaze to a small congregation on the opposite side of the room, Maezono in the center, each of them sending furtive glances in their direction. “Gossiping about that bastard and his Marked who clearly hates him. Which you do, don’t you?”
“Obviously,” Ryuga says.
A quiet, eerie laugh, which tapers off into contemplative silence.
“She doesn’t get it,” he says finally. “None of them do. They’ve never Marked anyone who wasn’t slavishly loyal and hanging on their every word. They only want sycophants. Puppets. Boring, the lot of them.” His eyes are bright as he turns to Ryuga. “You know what you should do? You should try to kill me right now. Can you imagine their reactions? It would be priceless.”
Ryuga stares back at him. “That’s tempting,” he says drily. “But no matter how much they can’t stand you, a human attacking one of their own in the middle of a gathering like this probably wouldn’t go over well. That’s the scenario I’ve been trying to avoid, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Jinga sighs, a kind of begrudging acceptance. “Fine, fine. I really want to take them by surprise, though.” The look he gives him now is intent, thoughtful, liquid dark, with something behind it that makes him tense in his seat. “Why don’t we do something else?”
He still somehow manages to be taken by surprise when he leans in to kiss him. It’s an uncanny sensation, moreso than ever before: the press of a mouth against his own without any of the warmth of a human person. Oddly enough, it’s not… unpleasant. The sharp tip of those fangs drag against his lips, digging in, and –
He puts a hand on Jinga’s shoulder and shoves him away with a hiss of pain. Blood is welling up from the cut, and he swipes his thumb across it, glowering at him.
“What do you think you’re doing? I’m not your wife.”
“Of course not. She wouldn’t be so angry over a little nip like that.”
“That’s not what I’m – ” He makes a noise of annoyance. Glances across the room again to where Maezono Mika and her hangers-on are still watching them covertly, evidently shocked at the Marked who would rebuff an advance. Their own Marked stand behind them, silent except when spoken to, their expressions placid and full of shining devotion as they stare at their masters’ backs.
He remembers the interviews in that old tome. They’re here of their own will, most likely. But something about the scene is becoming steadily more distasteful the longer he looks at it. Sycophants and puppets indeed.
“Can we… kill her together?” he finds himself asking. “I don’t think I want to just leave it to you after all.”
Jinga blinks at him, the rare surprise written there, before his eyes brighten.
“I get it. Are you trying to pick up some tips? For getting rid of us old bloods?”
Ryuga has to fight the strangest urge to smile. “That,” he says, “would just be a bonus.”
They get her alone later that night, in a long, empty corridor on the third floor.
“My, you’re both still here,” she says, lip curling to reveal her fangs. “What a pleasant surprise. I take it you’re not here for niceties.”
“Afraid not,” Ryuga says simply, and throws his first dagger like a silver dart. In her surprise she doesn’t quite manage to sidestep, the thing sinking into the flesh of her thigh, and she lets out a gasp, staggering back as the blessed metal begins to burn.
“A Hunter?” she hisses. “That’s not – but you’re – ”
“You should have listened, Maezono,” Jinga says with a sigh. “I told you this was an unconventional setup. He has his orders. And me… I’ve got a bit of grudge.”
He lunges, quick enough to be a blur, and the two of them hit the wall with a slam that seems to shake the foundations of the entire mansion. It’s not something that Ryuga can necessarily interfere with – the clash of two creatures who understand one another’s strengths and weaknesses better than he can hope to – but in a moment where it looks like Maezono is about to claw Jinga’s eye out, he sends his second dagger flying, burying itself into her bicep. This time the noise she lets out is more like a hoarse shriek. Limping from the previous wound and reeling from the new one, it’s almost easy for Jinga to reach out and twist her head right off her neck with a sickening sound.
The body wavers there for a time before keeling over, hitting the floor with a thud, black blood leaking from the garish stump of her neck. Jinga holds the head up by the hair to stare into its now-vacant eyes.
“Of course, even this isn’t enough to be sure, with one of us,” he muses. “If I was back home, I’d mount the head on a spike. Then weigh the body down and drop it in the lake.”
“…Burning it wouldn’t be easier?”
“Oh, I’m sure it would. But playing with fire is a real gamble for our sort. We only get more flammable with age, you know. For me it would be,” he snaps his blood-smeared fingers, “up in an instant with one wrong move.”
So he’d been right, then. To consider immolation. He retrieves his daggers from Maezono’s corpse; wipes them clean and sheathes them as he mulls this over.
“Should you be telling me this?”
Jinga tosses the head over his shoulder – it hits the ground with a dull sound and rolls to a stop – and turns to him with a wide smile. “Makes it more exciting, doesn’t it? Now, since I’ve been so helpful to your mission. Are you going to give me something in return?”
This time, when he sinks his fangs into his throat, Ryuga finds himself sighing with something like contented relief, the twinging pain and hazy warmth of it welcome, and the Mark between his shoulderblades feels lit up, glowing, as he reaches up to curl his fingers into Jinga’s hair.
The Council bursts into a chorus of murmurs when he places Maezono’s severed head on the table in the center of the room.
“You did this?” Lady Ryume asks, her eyes narrowing.
“I had no choice,” Ryuga lies. “A dagger to the heart had no effect.” Though he supposes he doesn’t know, does he? If Maezono was truly old enough for her heart to have turned to dust. Jinga clearly considered her an insolent whelp, after all. But to bend the truth here is in favor of the bigger picture. “It’s like I’ve been trying to tell you since Romania. That at some point in their lifespan, our method stops working.”
The buzz of whispered conversations begin again in full force, most of the Council wearing darkly anxious expressions as they each speak up in turn to press him further. Surely it must have had some effect? Were your blades properly blessed?
They hadn’t wanted it be true, is the real heart of the matter. They had wanted to continue believing that their understanding of the enemy, compiled over so many years, was comprehensive and set in stone.
The only Councilmember not conferring amongst themselves is Lady Ryume, still staring down at Ryuga with her face cool and impassive, betrayed only by the tension in her jawline. Even as he is finally waved away by Lord Yae, ducking his head and pushing the doors open, he can still feel her gaze fixated on the back of his neck.
She doesn’t trust you, Jinga’s voice says.
It’s been like this since the feeding all those hours ago – this telepathic connection that seems to have sprung up between them. It’s not an aspect of the Marked he’s ever heard of before, and yet it fails to surprise him. Fails to bother him, either; instead it just feels natural, an inevitability, to have him there in the shadowy corners of his thoughts.
She thinks you’ve been gripped by the hand of evil, he continues, putting overdramatic emphasis on those last few words.
Haven’t I? Ryuga thinks drily.
Jinga laughs at that, abrupt and biting, the sound reverberating off the inside of his skull. Well, I’m flattered that you’ve thought of me like that. But you know that’s not quite right, don’t you? I mean… I’m on your side, Ryuga. Unlike just about everyone in this little enclave. If they’re not leaving you on your own, they’re treating you like an enemy. Despite all the work you’ve put in. All the sacrifice.
Ryuga’s pace slows to a halt, there in the hall outside the training dojo, listening to the sounds of sparring and muffled banter drifting out from within. He wishes he could rebuke Jinga’s words, but it’s the truth, isn’t it? Even before Romania, this place never felt welcoming. No matter how many kills he racked up, no matter how many commendations the Council gave him, the sense of being someone who wasn’t supposed to be here never really went away.
You know what I think? Jinga’s voice says, softer now, like tendrils of something cool and dark being wrapped around him. I think we should tear it all down. The whole Hunter establishment. And you and me… we could start a new one. Something better. More efficient. Without all the hierarchy and restrictive old traditions.
Ryuga finds himself walking again, on a whim taking a turn he usually doesn’t, towards the room in the east wing where the source of the enclave’s protective seal is kept under constant guard. It’s drilled into them often in training, the importance of that seal. If it were broken, who’s to say what might be let in?
You would do that? he asks. Hunt your own, for no reason other than… to see them dead?
Oh, I think our society could use a little shake-up, too. Everyone’s been getting so complacent this last century. And weak. Ryuga can visualize, then, a flash of sharp teeth in his mind’s eye. I’d love for us to be the ones to change that. Wouldn’t you?
The guard stationed at the seal room door gives him a searching look as he arrives to stand there in front of it. He doesn’t seem to like what he sees in Ryuga’s eyes, as his hand drifts to his sword hilt, fingers tightening, white-knuckled around it.
Softly, Ryuga says, “Maybe I would.”