Just like he had done countless times before.
Arisada detested the vile act of feeding. He recalled with horror the brutality of the first time the bloodlust possessed his body and senses. His first victim wailed for mercy. Arisada tore out the man’s throat.
For an unaccountable time, Arisada killed wantonly until a tiny shred of conscience triumphed. Never would he forget the serenity of that blessed moment when he connected with his tamashii, his soul. After that, there were many times Arisada wished for his own death. But he had already taken so, so many lives. In his remorse, he stopped feeding.
Ukita Sadomori, his Seisakusha, his creator, intervened. He ordered Arisada to live. And oath-bound, Arisada complied. He found a balance of sorts between his vampire instinct and his higher spiritual self. He took the lives of those who would never face justice—murderers, brigands and rapists. There were thousands of them down through the centuries. Still, with every death, Arisada begged for forgiveness from the Buddha Amida.
Now, in this modern era, no vampire needed to kill thanks to the indenture agreement. Some humans regarded indenture as an easy life. Many did not believe they would catch the virus. Some did not care. And some offered themselves solely for the sexual high.
Arisada’s soul rested no easier for it.
He cursed himself a fool as he drove to the indentured compound at Alki. It had been five days since he had fed. In his near starvation, Arisada knew his lust to couple with his victim would overwhelm him. The fucking was that of an animal in rut with no meaning and certainly no affection. That the human begged for it never justified the act.
Arisada spotted a young man—gawky, barely into his twenties—standing beside an open door. His posture indicated availability. Despite a smattering of acne and the fawning behavior common in the blood addict, the boy was pretty. His slim body and brown hair bore a slight resemblance to Tatsu.
The vampire approached the feeder and touched him on the shoulder. Although Arisada only chose men, not all were homosexual. A pleased exclamation escaped the man as he saw Arisada’s face. The vampire felt no vanity with this reaction to his beauty. Beauty was a curse. His he used as a weapon.
Although strung tight with fear, his body reeking from adrenalin, the young man slipped under the vampire’s thrall. Within seconds, the young feeder’s cock tented his pants. With fevered haste, his hands groped at his waistband, jerked down the zipper. He dug under his tattered briefs for his prick.
“Not here, your utility,” Arisada commanded. Still with his hand on his prick, the young man led Arisada into his single-room. As soon as the door closed, the vampire struck. Despite his resolve, Arisada lost all self-control as his starved body reacted to the first sip of the blood. The sexual hunger took him hostage.
As the vampire’s saliva entered his body, the young man yanked out his own swollen dick and began jerking off with frantic strokes.
Arisada pushed the man’s groping hand away from his dripping organ, and closed his own slender fingers over the hot shaft. He stroked the thick arc of flesh, once, twice before the sticky seed pulsed out. Then the vampire opened his own fly and pulled out his hard, angry prick. Blind to only his need, he smeared his organ with the young man’s sperm then spun the human around and slammed him face first against the wall.
The youth was riding his orgasm, his tumescent prick spurting with aftershocks. Arisada yanked the feeder’s jeans to his thighs, and thumbed apart the cheeks of his ass to expose the tight, dark entrance. The vampire rammed in his cock into the feeder’s rectum with brutal force.
The young man bucked back against him, crying his “Oh yeahs,” and “Fuck me’s” in the needy voice of the junky. He ground his ass against Arisada’s thighs as the vampire’s fingers dug into his hipbones.
“Gomen, gomen nasai. Yurushite, yurushite,” With each thrust, Arisada moaned against the young man’s neck. His grief-torn words begged for forgiveness. With an anguished cry, Arisada ejaculated filling the youth with molten heat. At the same moment, he viciously drove his teeth into the sweat-slicked neck.
The boy uttered no cry of pain. Arisada fed with great gulps, his teeth and lips bruising the tender skin. Sated, he pulled out of the still-quivering ass. The thick cream slithered down the insides of the man’s thighs.
Arisada laid his head on the young man’s shaking back for a few moments. When the youth turned around, he was alarmed to see red rivulets running down the vampire’s face.
“What is wrong?” the young man asked, touching trembling fingers to the blood-streaked cheeks.
“Nothing you could ever understand, youngster.” Arisada kissed the young man on his forehead. “Arigatō gozaimasu.” He thanked the feeder with an impotent gesture of gratitude. Then fled.
The youth would be dead within a day.
Hours later, Arisada walked along the tranquil paths of the Kuboto Garden. Beneath a rare cloudless sky, the half-full moon cast a pale luminescence over the delicate Japanese landscape. The Garden was his solace and his bane, a poignant reminder of a land lost in time.
Arisada’s refuge lay deep in a forested section of the Garden surrounded by Threadleaf cypress. Here was his secret place where he mourned Nowaki.
How he relished and hated his crystal-clear memories of his life at Mii-dera. A time when he was human, when he embraced the teachings of Buddha Amida and trained to be a Sōhei. His greatest joy came from that moment he fell in love. His greatest heartache from the moment his lover betrayed him.
Memories are supposed to blur with the passage of time, especially the long ages that mark a vampire’s life. But his vision of Koji Nowaki was as sharp as the blade on his kotagiri. Hundreds of years in the past, yet Arisada’s mind relived every moment, every nuance of the scents and sounds and feel of his time with his lover, his soulmate. His betrayer.
Relive it and weep.
The Temple of Mii-dera, Nipon, Spring 1175
Tension rippled through every Sōhei of Mii-dera. Every monk looked with apprehension at the arrival of the zazu, the abbot from Enryakuji, their sister monastery high atop Mount Hiei. It was no secret that the zazu coveted control over the immense yet independent monastery of Mii-dera. It was also no secret that Mii-dera’s current abbot refused to step down.
In the past, this concern had caused many violent conflicts between the two holy houses. Now as the New Year began, the question arose again. To counteract the threat, Mii-dera’s abbot was considering an alliance with the clan of Prince Mochihito. This decision would determine the future of Nipon.
These concerns filled Arisada as he hurried through the monastery’s vast grounds. At the age of twenty-one, he was a gashira, an officer in charge of training one-hundred foot soldiers. His status as their sensei made him responsible for gathering all novices to greet the visiting party. A display of strength was required, and all Mii-dera monks had been summoned to the great temple.
As usual, when military training was suspended, the acolyte Koji Nowaki was missing. Arisada wasted precious time searching through dozens of buildings on the vast temple grounds.
“He must be somewhere outside,” Arisada curbed his annoyance. Nowaki slipped away from his household duties as often as he could to enjoy the warmth of the new spring.
At times, Arisada wondered if the rebellious orphan would ever fully embrace the discipline of Sōhei life. The youth learned fast and was already leagues ahead of his class in nearly all fighting skills. Nowaki had sixteen summers, a man by all standards, but there were times like now when he acted more like a child. Although intelligent and fearless, Nowaki chaffed at the restrictions imposed by the Buddhist life.
The sun, almost at zenith, suffused the orchard with a pale radiance. The blossoms from the sakura trees drifted to the ground to form a carpet of pink over the tender new grass. The air was redolent with their delicate scent.
Arisada sighted Nowaki lying under a sakura. Always a strange choice to Arisada who knew the boy had hidden in branches of
that same kind of tree while his entire family was butchered. On silent steps, Arisada approached the sleeping form. In the stillness of the moment, he knelt beside Nowaki, all urgencies forgotten. Arisada allowed the peace of the orchard to quiet his annoyance at Nowaki’s irresponsibility.
The older monk marveled how Nowaki-kun had grown in the few short years since he arrived to the monastery. The youth resembled an unbroken colt not yet tamed by life, full of wild energy. The boy’s exuberance often spilled over into little defiances like slipping off to doze under the cherry blossom trees when he should be cleaning the sleeping quarters.
One of Nowaki’s arms formed a pillow behind his head, the other rested on his chest, the long fingers slightly curled. Despite the chill in the air, Nowaki wore only a thin kimono. He had kicked off his straw sandals and undone his obi to let the garment fall open. Pink petals had drifted down to dust his body.
A thin shaft of sunlight filtered down between the tree branches. It lit Nowaki-kun’s face with a nimbus of golden light. The boy’s slightly parted lips showed the tips of perfect, white teeth. There was no tension in his face, just the sweet look of slumbering youth.
Four years separated their ages. Still, there was no mistaking Nowaki was at full manhood. Nowaki was now taller than Arisada with a lean body that moved with coltish grace. His frame carried a fine layer of muscle that more than hinted of the man to come. But it was the unalloyed purity of Nowaki’s sheer beauty that captivated Arisada’s heart.
The planes of Nowaki’s chest showed the promise of the muscles beneath. Arisada rubbed his hand over his own flat chest, knowing, with some regret, he would never be as strong as the youth. Nowaki’s skin was darker than his. Yet, golden glints tinged the pelt of brown hair dusting Nowaki’s chest and trailing down his ridged abdomen.
Arisada’s gaze followed the tantalizing concave of muscle down to the boy’s loins. Nowaki’s thin fundoshi outlined every curve and ridge of his sex, more arousing to Arisada than a view of the naked treasures beneath.
A lone pink blossom drifted down to settle on Nowaki’s forehead. Without thinking, Arisada reached out with trembling fingers to remove it. The gesture was an echo of his first caress when the boy came to him sobbing with fright and loneliness.
Arisada recalled that one precious time six months ago, when he held Nowaki in his arms. A fierce winter storm tore through the monastery as if every demon in Nipon sought to tear the place apart with supernatural forces. The wind howled through shuttered windows, making the candles gutter and cast eerie shadows over the walls. That night Nowaki had revealed the demons haunting his soul.
Why Nowaki’s defenses fell, Arisada would never know. The story poured out in a disjointed babble—the vicious mutilation, the murders, the rapes. The sheer helplessness suffered by an innocent who witnessed the slaughter of an entire village before suffering his own brutal violation. An all-too-common story, yet to Arisada, singularly heartbreaking when spilling from Nowaki’s lips.
Obeying his need to comfort the sobbing boy, Arisada cradled Nowaki, rocking him as the youngster begged his senpai to protect him from the horrors of his young life.
Afterwards, Nowaki burrowed exhausted into Arisada’s arms, the undeniability of his need overwhelming the older monk’s reticence. In the moment before sleep claimed them, Arisada professed his love for his young acolyte. However, when Nowaki woke at dawn still in the protective circle of his senpai’s embrace, the youth recoiled with shame. With a curse, he stormed out of the tiny room.
From then on, Nowaki had avoided Arisada whenever possible, and spurned any hint of affection from the older monk. Their voices filled with a harshness that almost, but not quite, obliterated the sound of their pain. Arisada became more brutal of the Nowaki’s training. He forgave no mistakes and wondered if he were seeking an excuse to kill the boy as punishment.
To deny his feelings for Nowaki, Arisada bedded others, hurried couplings, day and night. However, each time left him feeling hollow and sad—emotions deemed unworthy of a Sōhei warrior.
The breeze fluttered the sakuras above Arisada. A bird gave forth with a joyous, full-throated song, and brought him into his present. How much longer will we inflict this pain on each other, he despaired. Still, Arisada’s breath caught as the deep flush of love washed through him.
“No matter how you recoil from me, you are my koibito, my beloved,” Arisada ached to cradle Nowaki in his arms just for this moment. His long-suppressed desire emboldened him. He brushed his lips over the sleeping boy’s mouth.
The need to lay with the youth, to console and comfort him, to love him in all ways shuddered through Arisada’s thin frame. His cock hardened and tented the coarse fabric of his fundoshi. Horrified, Arisada scrambled to his feet, losing one of his straw sandals as he backed away from the youth and bolted for his sleeping quarters. Almost out of breath with fear and shame, Arisada propelled himself into his small cell. He slammed the door and barely made it to his night-waste bucket before his stomach expelled its contents.
Nowaki was an innocent. Arisada knew the youth’s bravado and rebellion masked the deep hurt of a young child who had felt nothing but abuse. Nowaki’s first intimate contact had been one of pain and degradation.
Arisada was Nowaki’s senpai, his teacher in all things yet, once freed of its shackles, his lust would murder the youth’s spirit. Arisada crawled over to the tiny statue of the Buddha Amida and prostrated, forehead to the cold, stone floor. He vowed that he would never cause a moment of suffering for Koji Nowaki. A samurai in ever fiber of his being, Arisada determined to suppress any love he had for the boy.
No matter the depth of his love, Arisada would never take Nowaki to his bed.
The Seattle Quarantine, 2024
Eight centuries ago, yet it may have well been last night. The diamond-sharp clarity of those memories never softened or faded with time. His yearning for the beautiful Nowaki, his friend, his lover, and, yes, his betrayer never abated. Over the centuries, the vampire had searched the faces of every youth he met. There had been thousands yet none held the tamashii, the spirit of his koibito.
Then mere days ago, almost at the point when Arisada despaired of ever finding that soul, he saw it shining from the emerald eyes of the young hunter fighting for his life behind a bar. Used the boy’s own delicious scent to find him, sparred with him with such beautiful symmetry that the vampire was not only roused but moved to tears. Never did he expect Nowaki’s new form to bear the bushi damashi, the spirit of the samurai. Perhaps Arisada was baka, an idiot. He foolishly believed Nowaki would reincarnate in the body of a vile criminal, someone Arisada could justify killing. But not in a boy who was as beautiful in body as spirit. A boy who bore honor with such grace and determination.
How the vampire wished to have never set eyes on Tatsu Cobb, never kissed him, pursued him, danced with him in the way of the sword. Never fallen in love with him.
“Oh you sweet, sweet boy. Why must I destroy you for the crimes of another?” Arisada moaned.
The tiny park was a solitary oasis in the dark. No one lived nearby to hear. Tonight, as thousands of nights in the past, Arisada howled his anguish up to the indifferent sky.
.
Nine
Tatsu shut off the Kawasaki, closed the fuel cock and dropped the motorcycle onto its kickstand. Hunched into his jacket, he cupped his last cigarette against the cold wind whipping in from the Bay. Even that first slow drag tasted like crap thanks to the putrid stink of effluvia from the nearby sewage plant. He shivered then glared at the leaden sky. Kuso, between the ceaseless rain and the stench of shit, he wondered why a normal person would even consider visiting this godforsaken city. But then Tatsu no longer considered himself normal.
Puffing slowly, he leaned on the bike’s seat and listened to the pings from his cooling engine. Considered the last few days. The canny Irishman had ambushed him. Stuffed in with the sandwiches was a greased-stained piece of paper with the words, “Don’t be a git,�
�� and a phone number. It only took Tatsu a couple of hours after eating the food to Tatsu decide to look into the job offer. He might be a stubborn “git” but not to the point of outright stupidity.
When Tatsu called from the boarding house’s ancient phone, the Irishman answered with a cocky chuckle. Directions to the industrial park on the Southside were easy. “Jist look for the foundry, can’t miss it,” Bana assured. But weaving the bike through treacherous roads full of shattered concrete, wide fissures and treacherous potholes was a bitch.
Tatsu surveyed the massive structure, which sprawled over at least five square blocks. Several smokestacks, covered with grime and soot, reared a hundred feet or so above the roof. Tatsu smelled old fuel and human ashes. Diamond-plate covered every window. Wide, steel loading doors, at least six stories high, closed off one end. A set of double doors in a concrete-block wall at the other end looked to be the obvious entrance.
Did he really want this job? If he agreed to work for this company, would he become nothing more than a hired killer? What would that do to the legacy grandfather had entrusted in him? Would he be shirking his karmic path? Yet, his encounters with the vampire Saito Arisada—no, his feelings about Saito Arisada—were muddling his thinking, derailing his singularity of purpose. Without some help and reliable information, Tatsu knew he was fakku, fucked and then some. Maybe this Leper Colony was worth a shot.
It was too much for him to admit he was lonely and tempted by the prospect of making a friend.
He took a last pull on his smoke and flicked the butt into a puddle. An unconscious shrug moved his swords into a more comfortable position. He mounted the short stairs to the grimy set of doors that looked fused closed by rust. Still thinking he was about to make a huge mistake, he curled his fingers around one of the jagged, metal handles. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, the warning coming too late. The door jerked open so suddenly that he knew he’d been under surveillance since the moment he parked his bike.
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