by Aja James
Sōsuke looked across the long lab tables at her, his eyes becoming hooded.
“Well, as far as I know there are only two human subjects in the near vicinity to test it on.”
He smiled a bit apologetically at her.
“Just you and me, Ava. And frankly, I’d rather you took the first shot. Don’t you want to test out your own theory?”
So, she was to be both the mad scientist and the guinea pig. Ava took a fortifying breath.
The shadows that had blended into the corners of the cavernous basement now congealed into solid forms again. Six shadow assassins crouched on one knee by the entrance of the chamber, heads bowed.
The heavy stone door slid smoothly open to admit a man Ava had never seen before, yet he looked eerily familiar.
“Does your return mean that Takamura and his allies have been dispatched with?” Sōsuke asked the stranger as he strode deeper into the chamber.
Ava held her breath. Was this who Ryu and the others went to fight? Was he the master of the shadow assassins? They seemed ready to do his bidding even now.
The stranger looked intently at Ava, and she felt like a bug under a microscope.
“I trained Ryu too well for him to be defeated so easily,” he said, keeping his gaze on Ava.
“He is now every bit my match.”
Sōsuke raised an eyebrow in question. “And this pleases you? Wouldn’t you want your enemies to have lesser skills?”
The stranger’s eyes slid briefly to Sōsuke. “I never said he was my enemy.”
“Whatever,” Sōsuke said, dismissing the topic. He didn’t care why the ninja was facilitating his efforts and seemingly aligned with GTI, just as long as Sōsuke got what he wanted.
Ava took note, however, and stared unblinkingly back at the stranger, trying to figure out what looked so familiar about him.
“Whatever you need to do, you have an hour, maybe less, to do it in,” the stranger told Sōsuke. “They are coming.”
“That wasn’t the plan! How did they know where to find us?” Sōsuke burst out in a rare show of emotion, frustrated by the time crunch he was under.
The stranger tilted his head a bit, measuring Sōsuke with large, fathomless black eyes.
“Does it matter, doctor? You have your assistant. Make it happen.”
With a string of what must have been curses in Japanese, Sōsuke turned to focus back on his work.
The stranger looked back at Ava, a small half-smile tipping his full lips, as if he found her somehow amusing.
And that was when she knew why he looked so familiar.
He and Ryu could have been brothers.
*** *** *** ***
Sengoku period, 15th century Edo.
The Master was waiting.
Ryu took his time. He found the papers and destroyed them. He made his way back to the shrine in the last remaining hour of night. When he arrived at the top, he first stopped by the weapons room in the back of the shrine and took his favorite sword down from the wall, spent a bit of time sharpening it, then purposefully made his way to the cherry tree in the courtyard.
The other shinobi must have been sleeping or still out on missions, for the shrine was uncannily quiet.
Deserted.
Save for a lone black figure underneath the tree, his long dark hair tangling with a strong wind.
Ryu walked to stand a few feet before the Master and unsheathed his sword, holding it relaxed in his hand, business end pointing to the ground, as if he didn’t intend to kill with it.
They regarded each other for long moments, until the Master finally let out a sigh.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said quietly. “You would never win against me. And what for? Throwing your life away for a woman who threw you away like so much rubbish.”
“She brought me into this world,” Ryu answered calmly, tonelessly. “Perhaps I should never have been born. If so, then I am simply correcting a mistake fate made.”
“Fate never makes mistakes,” the Master said, a tinge of bitterness buried in his philosophical tone. “Don’t waste your life on someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
It occurred to Ryu distantly that the Master was fond of him. He might not be Ryu’s sire, but he was the only father figure Ryu knew.
Ryu raised his sword and assumed the fighting stance.
“I will not go easy on you,” the Master warned, giving Ryu one last time to change his mind.
“Nor I, you,” Ryu returned.
The Master sighed and walked into the open courtyard. In that moment, lightning streaked across the sky, followed by the roll of thunder, and icy rain poured down upon them in a violent deluge.
Unarmed, the Master stood a few feet away, his legs slightly apart as he lifted one hand, palm up.
“Come,” he commanded with a crook of his fingers.
And Ryu attacked with everything he had.
All the anger, pain, frustration, confusion—all the emotions he had long buried deep inside—culminated in a single-minded determination to destroy the target before him.
As Ryu slashed and kicked, spun and hit, every move precise and deadly, focused and efficient, he submerged any shred of conscience, buried every morsel of morality.
He was a killer in that moment, pure and simple. Only the blood of the Master would satisfy the violent beast within him.
But it soon became apparent, that no matter how viciously Ryu attacked, the Master effortlessly deflected him with his bare hands and feet, his movements fluid and swift. He moved so quickly he became a blur of shadows, elusive like the wind.
Abruptly, Ryu stopped, his chest heaving with the exertion, his limbs quivering from the sustained flood of adrenaline. He was soaked from head to feet from the icy rain, his black robes and hair sticking to his skin. It poured so continuously he could barely keep his eyes open in the downpour. He could only make out the tall figure of the Master before him, also still.
Except the Master’s breathing was barely noticeable. He wasn’t even winded. He simply stood there regarding Ryu with what seemed like disappointment, and perhaps a shade of sadness.
Ryu closed his eyes and concentrated.
He had tried the shadow technique only a few times before, and had always failed to achieve the nebulous state the Master seemed to achieve. He had learned to blend into the shadows, but he had never become one of them.
An eerie calm descended upon Ryu as he let the emotions that had lent him strength a while ago seep out of his body along with the rain. He emptied himself of feeling and willed himself to become one with his surroundings, as cold as the rain, as light as the air. He focused all of his strength on the point of his sword and willed it into the heart of his target.
In a blur too fast to track, Ryu became the shadow that flew across the courtyard, through the body of the Master like an arrow, before coalescing into solid form again on the other side.
A gasp.
The Master turned and stared disbelievingly into Ryu’s face, a hand holding his side.
“Bravo,” he rasped quietly, as a thin line of blood leaked from the corner of his lips. “But you missed my heart.”
Ryu raised his sword again for a second charge, but before he could focus, the Master’s body diffused into a black fog that swarmed Ryu all at once.
Ryu tried to break free from the black shadowy web but his limbs were too heavy to move. At the same time, he was bombarded by powerful fists and kicks that robbed him of breath. Each hit was meant to cause the utmost damage, and soon Ryu’s body became too broken to hold upright, and several jagged ribs bent inwards from the relentless pummeling, puncturing his internal organs.
He crumpled to the hard, wet ground in a boneless heap, his sword clattering beside him.
Ryu could barely breathe for the agony that engulfed him. Every major bone in his body was broken. His lungs were filling with fluids that made him gurgle as he struggled for air. His vision was blurred with blood but he could mak
e out a pair of feet on the ground in front of his face as he lay there in a mangled mess.
The Master crouched down as Ryu’s eyes rolled up to look at him.
“If you die, I will see to your burial,” the Master said calmly, as if he hadn’t just beaten Ryu within an inch of his life bare-handed.
“If you live, I will teach you everything I know about the shadow arts. Afterward, if you want to fight me again, I will accept your challenge as an equal.”
Ryu did not answer. He was too busy dying. The cause could be any number of things—internal bleeding, choking, organ malfunction—so many choices. He closed his eyes and waited for death to take him…
He had no consciousness of the length of time that passed. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. All he knew was that despite the weakness and agony of his body, a hunger like nothing he’d ever known ate at his stomach from the inside out. A thirst so ravaging, the continuous rain that poured into his open mouth from the skies above only made his throat drier, burning, as if his veins were on fire.
“Ryu senpai?”
He heard a familiar voice call out as if he were submerged deep under the sea and someone was calling his name from miles above.
“Ryu senpai?”
He felt a hand nudge his shoulder. He wanted to tell the person to leave him alone, let him die in peace. Any touch only caused more pain, though he did feel a strange numbness begin to take hold of his extremities.
He was rolled onto his back by the good Samaritan who must have been the new boy that joined their ranks a few months ago. None of the other trainees would have bothered with a bloody, broken body in the courtyard. If he died, they would have just dragged him off the mountain and dumped him somewhere.
Except the Master had said he would bury Ryu.
Well, didn’t he feel special.
The new boy put his face close to Ryu’s, presumably to ascertain whether he was still breathing, maybe checking for a pulse or a heartbeat.
Ryu didn’t know what drew his attention, but suddenly he scented the salty odor of the boy’s sweat and blood despite the pouring rain. He must have been wounded during training or on a mission.
Wounded like a rabbit before a starving wolf.
As Ryu’s nostrils flared, his eyes opened wide of their own volition and zeroed in on the thick vein that pulsed in the boy’s throat.
The thirst intensified until Ryu’s entire body began to burn. He felt something sharp stab through his swollen upper gums, cutting the flesh. Before he knew what was happening, he had contorted his body around the boy’s like a ravenous spider with a fly, holding his prey still despite the boy’s struggles and his own wounds.
And sank those sharp daggers in his mouth into the vein at the boy’s throat.
Ah, bliss. With the first swallow of fresh blood, Ryu’s parched esophagus clenched in relief, even as his thirst intensified still further.
He drank and drank, until there was no more fluid, until the lifeless body in his clutches crumpled like a deflated balloon on one last breath. That was when Ryu felt an explosion of energy blast into him, infusing his body with a vitality he’d never known.
And then exhaustion claimed him, chasing away his consciousness.
When Ryu woke up again, he was no longer human.
*** *** *** ***
Since it was all but certain she would be the first to get the serum in case they hadn’t found the right formula and taking it would lead to a painful demise, Ava concentrated on making sure it worked.
Exactly what that meant, she didn’t really want to think about. Would taking the serum turn her into a vampire like Medusa’s organization intended, if Sōsuke were to be believed? Or would she simply heal faster and live longer, as Sōsuke himself intended?
Ava really wasn’t choosy at this point. She just wanted to survive to fight another day.
“So, you are Ryu’s ‘sweetheart’,” the stranger mused, sitting casually on a corner of the lab table watching Ava work.
Ava didn’t look at him as she focused on extracting the stem cells from the embryo without damaging them.
She only had one shot. If the stem cells were unviable, they would have to start all over again, because once she took them out, the embryo would die.
It was a part of her field of research she hated the most. Just because the embryos were created in vitro, did that mean they had less right to life?
But she pushed the thought far away in this instant, because right now, her own life was at stake, and regardless of what she did, those stem cells would be extracted, and the embryo would die.
“I don’t know if I am his,” she answered, only half paying attention, her face pressed to a microscope as she inserted a needle into the blastocyst.
“But he is mine.”
She could hear Sōsuke working on the suspension fluid at the other lab table a few feet away. They’d decided earlier that the injection would be made directly into the heart.
Ava wasn’t looking forward to it.
“So you love him?” the stranger elaborated, his tone half derisive, half hopeful. It was a strange combination.
“Yes,” Ava answered simply.
“What are you to him?” she asked in return as she gingerly withdrew the needle and deposited the stem cells in a culture dish.
When the stranger didn’t reply, Ava spared him a quick glance and spotted that same half-smile on his face that Ryu always wore when he was darkly amused or being a pain in the butt.
“Who do you think I am, doctor?” he murmured. “You obviously have an opinion.”
Ava made sure the stem cells were safe and secure and turned to fully face him. In about half an hour, they would be ready to be inserted into the suspension fluid.
And Ava’s life could end very abruptly and painfully.
“You could pass for his brother,” she said, distracting herself with conversation. The more she gazed at the stranger, the stronger her conviction grew that he was indeed somehow related to Ryu.
“You have the same eyes, nose, and expression. Same hair too.”
The stranger maintained his half-smile.
“What did he tell you about me?” His tone was mildly curious, but his eyes glittered with intensity.
“Nothing,” Ava answered. “We haven’t known each other very long.”
“Yet you love him.”
Ava shrugged, as if to say she was helpless against her feelings. “Do you need a certain amount of time to fall in love or to know you love someone?”
The stranger seemed to consider this, decided to take her words at face value and moved on.
“You do not seem surprised by your situation.” He gestured with a flick of his fingers. “Nor by the likes of me.”
“You mean being abducted by shadow assassins, a mad scientist, and now a pale, deadly looking man who might be related to my vampire lover?”
Ava paused and thought for a second. “No, I guess I’m pretty immune to my situation at this point. Or maybe numb is a better word for it.”
The stranger’s smile spread wider.
“So you know what he is.”
“The same thing you are?” Ava prodded.
“Not quite,” he answered. “I am full-blooded while Ryu is only half.”
“Half vampire?”
Ava was fully immersed in the topic now.
This was no longer idle banter to pass the time away and distract herself from a potential ugly death—her own. She realized she was conversing with someone who knew Ryu’s history, a history that seemed different than the one Ryu had related briefly to her.
“Half human too,” he added.
Ava stared at him for several seconds, her mind working quickly, retrieving her conversation with Ryu from her memory banks.
“You mean Ryu was born? Not made?”
“Is that what he told you?” The stranger sighed. “Is that what he still thinks?”
“Wait.” Ava held up a hand to
try to work out the meaning of this. When she arrived at the conclusion, her eyes widened as she held the stranger’s gaze.
“So a vampire and human can beget offspring?”
When he simply looked at her, she muttered to herself, “I guess it doesn’t happen very often or Medusa wouldn’t be trying to find other means to create vampires.”
Then it dawned on her. She herself had created a viable embryo from the Genesis sample and a human egg. Genesis, if it was like Evergreen, could be from one of two sources as far as Ryu knew—Dark Ones or vampires, or Pure Ones.
She looked back at the stranger.
“Ryu’s mother was a human. Do you know who his father is?”
He didn’t respond, still smiling that sardonic, darkly amused smile.
Ava gasped.
“Are you his father?”
Finally, the smile on the stranger’s face faltered, and he looked away from her.
For a long time, he didn’t speak, his gaze unfocused and faraway, as if he was lost in memories.
“He thought I turned him,” he murmured, so quietly Ava had to move closer to hear.
“When he awoke from his first feeding, he saw me standing over him, the dead body of the human he’d fed from beside him, and he thought I had orchestrated it all.”
The stranger huffed shortly.
“I was just as surprised as he that he lived after our battle. I knew I had done enough damage to finish him. I had just arrived at that time to bury his body like I promised. And there he was, half healed of his wounds, his bones no longer broken, his organs functioning perfectly, his eyes still full of hunger for more blood. And that was when I realized.”
He looked back at Ava.
“She had not lied, the woman who birthed him. It was right in front of my face all along but I did not see it. Perhaps I refused to see it.”
“He’s your son,” Ava whispered the truth.
The stranger looked away again.
“We did not speak of it, not the fight that led to his near-death, not the aftermath, and not his transformation. He stayed for a number of years to continue training, and I kept my promise that I would teach him all of the shadow arts. Then, one day, he simply disappeared.”