The potion at least explained why she looked human and Tristan couldn’t feel her in his blood for once. He missed the hum of her energy beating against his soul. It was a comfort that he’d grown quickly accustomed to. It was startling to turn around and realize she was so close and not have felt her there.
“So, what then? How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?”
The others all exchanged worried and tired looks. “Um, maybe…” Mamoru started, looking unsure about himself as he grabbed his bag. He fussed around for a moment before pulling out a ball of shiny aluminum. It made a soft clank as it shifted in Mamoru’s hand, the way a can of spray paint sounded.
Ash gasped, taking a step back.
“What is it?” Tristan asked when he noticed Desmond tense too.
“Uh…” Mamoru looked between the vampires. “A pythia spell bomb.”
“A what?” Tristan yelped, stumbling back.
“Not a bomb that blows up pythia,” Mamoru said with a forced laugh and then frowned when the others didn’t even crack a smile. “I had a pythia friend make it for me.”
“An antediluvian?” Ash asked in a breathy whisper.
“Actually no, she’s not.”
Ash’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “A rather skilled child then.”
Mamoru’s smile spoke of a bond deeper than friendship with the pythia. “Yes, she’s very talented.”
Getting a flash of luscious memories, Desmond harrumphed, muttering under his breath something about getting righted with a witch.
“What is it packed with?” Ash asked, ignoring Desmond with practiced ease.
Mamoru looked slightly embarrassed. Spell bombs were a way to exponentially increase the firing power of a regular spell to cover a wide area. The more serious the material of the bomb ball, say glass versus metal versus plastic, the more serious the stuff inside. “Ah, a tempest. It’s all I have on me right now.”
“No,” Ash said, keeping the fear in her voice in check. “Thank you, Mamoru. I think we would all rather live than see that little ball of death go off in these close confines.”
He shrugged and tossed it into the bag carelessly. The man was brave enough to delve into pythia magic and trust it to work for him, but he didn’t respect it nearly enough. That troubled Ash.
“So we’re trapped,” Tristan said to break the silence.
“I fear so,” Ash replied softly.
“Right then,” Desmond suddenly said and started to slosh around in the water as he moved toward the back of the cave. “All we can do right now is sleep our energy back, aye? Rather’d that fooking crazy shit get a full night’s run on us than risk trying tae swim out of here half dead and become full dead.”
Tristan scowled, the words already tasting sour on his tongue before even speaking them. “I agree.”
Ash bit into her lip, exchanging glances with Mamoru. Tristan felt that stab of jealously again. Everyone in this room had been closer to Ash at one point in their lives than he had. He was a big enough man that he could accept that they’d had their own lives before each other but it still nagged Tristan.
“After I have rested and the spell has run its course,” Ash said in a tentative voice, “I should be able to move the blockage enough for us to safely leave.” Too bad she didn’t really believe the spell would run its course. Regardless, she still wished to meet the pythia who could craft such a terrifying spell.
Tristan nodded and put all of his hope into it. He had to believe in her abilities to save them. Desmond harrumphed and crossed his arms, turning away to find someplace to settle in. Tristan made a face at the skeptical vampire before turning his attention to the others.
“Are you okay?” he asked and after a moment, Mamoru jerked to attention, realizing Tristan meant him.
“Anō, yes. I think so.” The place where Ash had bitten him was itchy and red. Sure he healed faster than a human, but not nearly as fast as the vampires. “It’ll heal soon enough.”
Tristan considered him dubiously for a breath and then sighed, turning to Ash. Without a word he scooped her up against him and kissed her. She made a surprised little noise but sunk into him, holding him tightly, almost painfully. The need to open and taste him was almost more than she could bear. To her surprise Tristan pulled back first and she licked her lips, hoping that it wasn’t because she tasted like blood.
“How are you?”
She smiled, meaning it. “You asked me that before.”
“Your hand, does it hurt?”
“No,” she lied with a smile.
He shook his head at her. He knew she was lying to save him the worry. “Anything I can do? We’ve got all night to kill.” Technically there were only five hours of dark left. Despite the fact that the sun couldn’t touch this place, the vampires still would have no choice but to sleep once it rose. It caused them physical pain and forced them under. The younger of them, the ones that fought it went insane. It was in their favor to give into the pull and sleep.
She reached up and cupped his face with almost warm fingers. The flush in her cheeks left long ago as all the blood she took from Mamoru went to making her hand functional again even if not all her fingers would move yet. “When was the last time you slept?”
“What, you telling me I look like shit?”
She laughed, relaxing into him again, nails scratching at his beard stubble. “Yes, you look like shit, my love.”
He laughed in return and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Well, between a concussion and a broken arm, being dicked around for the better part of a day and nearly dying because of that fucking witch, getting buried up to my neck.” He sighed. “I didn’t really have much time to clean up, none less sleep. I did get a short nap on the boat but that was… fuck, forever ago now.”
A brown brow rose as she reached for the bandage Mamoru held out to her. “Witch? Boat?”
From across the way, leaning against the wall, putting on his bad boy act, Desmond too seemed to perk up in interest. Tristan did his best to ignore the look. “Yeah, I, Christ, it’s a long story.”
Ash’s mouth screwed up and she motioned to the room around them. “I have the time.”
Tristan laughed and turned away, pulling her along by her hand to find a dry piece of land to sit on. There wasn’t much left. “After I was knocked out,” Tristan said and then grunted as he let himself fall into a sit. “I woke up back at our room with a pythia and elf.”
Ash nodded, lowering to her knees in front of him and started to wrap his arm. The bites were deep but the cold he wasn’t really feeing yet helped slow the flow. He would live, but he needed to have some of the punctures stitched. “Chrysanthe and Silas.”
“You know them?” Mamoru asked with eagerness in his voice as he sat huddled close to the pair.
“I have met Chrysanthe twice, but all I know of Silas is what I have heard.”
“Like?” Mamoru prompted looking worried.
She shook her head. “The only thing of note being that he had been bound by his previous Master, punishment for breaking service with him and that now he has no ties to the earth anymore.”
Mamoru’s eyes widened and he sat back, taking it all in. Even with all he’d told him, Tristan didn’t understand what Ash had just said and he shook his head at Ash to let her know he didn’t.
“Elves live off the energy of the earth and in order to safely draw that energy they use familiars. Due to their… unfortunate history, many of the other shinwa tend to make slaves of the elves. Silas was slave to another pythia before Chrysanthe. But they fell in love, Silas and Chrysanthe, and with her help, Silas was freed of his master. As punishment, his old master killed Silas’s familiar and, this is the part I have trouble with, cut Silas’s tie to earth.”
“As in… he can’t draw on that power anymore?” Tristan asked.
“Exactly. Such a thing is unprecedented. It should be impossible, even for a pythia.” Then again, humanizing a vampire was supposed to be impossible t
oo.
“Okay,” Mamoru said softly, “but that power is now in Chrysanthe’s control.” When he noticed the intent eyes on him, he stiffened. “She’s not very good with it. I think Silas is acting as her familiar, but she’s not meant to wield such raw power and can’t direct it properly.”
“She’s a loose cannon,” Tristan chimed in.
“That is impossible,” Ash said, eyes a little wide in shock.
“True none the less.”
“Just who is pulling the strings on this?”
“Ah,” Mamoru said, coming closer. “That is the real question. Tristan and I, we had a bit of an altercation with the couple before we left Crete. Despite what she said, I don’t think they really meant to kill me, just detain Tristan and I. I think the witch is working for someone.”
“Crete.” Ash jerked back, her mouth screwed up as if she bit into something sour. She glanced to Desmond and back. “What in the blazes where you doing on Crete?”
Tristan rolled his eyes. “Like I said, long story.”
“Sleep,” Ash said gently before kissing Tristan on the cheek. “We can talk after you have rested.”
Tristan grunted at her but laid down, pulling her down to lay next to him. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Ash frowned at the seriousness in Tristan’s tone and wondered what someone with say, foresight, might have said to him.
“There is something greater than you and I at work here, Tristan.”
Hadn't there always been? Tristan wondered.
“There is more than just a pythia and an elf interfering.”
“Don’t forget Yuki,” Tristan added.
Ash sighed, putting her palm to his cheek. “Genoveva is just a cog in some master plan. I will find who is pulling the strings on all of this and kill them with my own hands if that is what it takes to cease the meddling. Fate will correct its course, but not without its casualties. I do not wish to be one of those casualties because a small group just can’t help themselves.”
Realizing she really meant it, that she’d go that far, Tristan frowned. “I can’t help you kill whoever it is,” he said softly. “Not if they aren’t vampire. Not if they haven’t killed humans.” In fact, he might have to stop her.
Same dark look in Ash’s eyes as the night they killed Malik, she smiled. “No. Nor would I ask you to. It should not be your burden.”
Feeling uneasy, the two men exchanged glances. Tristan was happy for Ash, finally coming to terms with how she felt about those who’d wronged her. He just wondered how much more blood on his hands he could bear before losing his mind. Because every single being Ash killed while they were together was his burden too. There was blood on his hands, and part vampire or not, it didn’t feel good.
13: Karma Police
THE back and forth whispers of an ashy feminine voice and a tired male voice coaxed Tristan from his fretful sleep. He hadn’t meant to sleep before the vampires went down for the day but as the excitement wore down and the adrenaline was all spent, sleep demanded tribute paid. Their whispers were somehow soothing, even with the anger lacing Ash’s words.
“You are lying,” she hissed, baring her teeth in a threat she didn’t mean.
“Maybe,” Mamoru answered not sounding frightened at all, “but it’s not your place to interfere.”
“I am no—” Ash snapped, but Mamoru spoke over her.
“Nor mine. Don’t you think if he were meant to know who his father was, he would have found out by now? You’ve said yourself that you’ve been searching for months and haven’t come up with anything.”
Now that was like a bucket of cold water to Tristan’s head and he struggled to remain still to hear more. He hated eavesdropping like this but he needed to hear their thoughts unhindered. Neither Mamoru or Ash would admit it, maybe they didn’t even notice, but they treated him as a child at times, hiding things from him to spare his delicate human sensibilities. He was stronger than either saw. And apparently Ash had been keeping more secrets from him. God, he still had to find the right time to broach the whole Yuki-gave-her-memories-back subject. It was obvious that Ash remembered Mamoru and what he was. She wasn’t even pretending not to. Just thinking about it now made him angrier than he wanted to be.
“Are you a pythia or an Uruwashi—do you think to see the future now, to understand fate?” Ash snapped and then sighed, softening her tone. “I apologize. I just, I am very frustrated over the whole thing. I have been searching so hard for Tristan’s father and have found nothing at all, not even the tiniest of clues.” She shook her head. “I feel as there may be a force out there greater than all of us keeping me from finding these answers. Perhaps the answer is in the few memories Yukihime still holds back from me. I cannot believe someone would meddle this profoundly…”
Tristan’s whole body suddenly ached. That clenched it. She remembered.
“Yes, speaking of the Snow Princess…” Mamoru paused for a long time, trying to pick is words carefully. “There’re a few things you need to know.”
Ash raised an eyebrow at him. “I imagine there is. But you know I cannot take another drop of your blood right now.” Ash’s voice was a low whisper but there was a heat in it that made Tristan want to see her face. Was she really saying what he thought he was hearing, that she was so weak right then that she would just drain the man dry? Rip his pants off, ride him to climax and drink down the last drop of Uruwashi blood?
“He loves you,” Mamoru said. “Very much.”
“I know,” Ash said in a tiny voice full of pain. “And that love… it hurts both of us.”
Tristan was too shocked to even breathe. Just what was she saying?
“Anyway,” Mamoru said and cleared his throat after an uncomfortable long silence. “I still don’t think that crazy old antediluvian was the one that helped spell you inept. It just, he doesn’t seem old enough, wise enough for that. I talked to him—” He stopped to scrub roughly at his hair, the heavy salt water had left him itchy. “I don’t know, two days ago now? He seemed to know exactly what was going on but I don’t think he’d actually helped that monster humanize you. I think he’s working for someone. Maybe whoever Chrysanthe’s working for.”
Ash raised a dirty eyebrow at him. “You are far more naïve than I had thought you to be.”
He gave a scoff in answer. “Ash,” he admonished.
“Think of it,” Ash pleaded in exasperation. “If he did know what was to happen, he might have wanted to ensure that outcome. Putting my life in danger would surely push Tristan the right direction. By the Goddess, it would certainly push me in that direction. Back in France, when I thought we would die, I offered to bite him. And I meant it, Mamoru. All to save his life, whatever it might be. By the Goddess, I was committed to it before Yukihime—” Ash stopped as the memory of that night filled her with anguish. She was rash for letting that woman sway her so easily.
Tristan could barely contain himself with what he’d just heard. She was going to bite him.
“Knowing all of that, if Agamemnon—”
“Agamemnon?” Tristan blurted before he could stop himself. He sat up and turned to look at the pair huddled close, nearly forehead to forehead. He couldn’t stand playing possum anymore and needed to engage. “That stinky old pythia, you think he’s got something to do with all this?”
Mamoru gave him a look that said he knew Tristan had been listening and was helping him out by letting him hear Ash speak so freely. As it was, Tristan felt bad for it, having to eavesdrop just to learn anything from Ash.
Ash’s lips pressed into a tight line. She hated not being able to feel the subtle rhythms of the others, hear their thoughts. The rise and fall of Tristan’s breath as he slept, the steady beat of the muscle in his chest keeping him alive, the quiet of his thoughts as he slept were all shut out from her. It was eerily… depressing.
Her lips suddenly parted in realization. The other two men noticed and were on sudden alert, unsure of the expression.
<
br /> “Ash?” Tristan went to her and knelt beside her. “What’s wrong?”
“I,” She stopped to blink at him in utter shock. “I miss being a vampire…”
He blinked back at her a moment and then burst into laughter, hugging her. “You’re still a vampire.” Otherwise she’d be dead, right? “You’re just…” He sat back, looking at her and trying to find the word.
“Tamed.”
He nodded. “A strange sort of vanilla. Think it will wear off soon?”
She glanced at Mamoru quickly, a look of warning in her eyes, before looking back to Tristan again and shaking her head. “I cannot guess. Ingested pythia spells vary in how long they last.” Some, even permanently.
Tristan nodded again, remembering the gradual building pain the break on his arm felt as it blossomed to life again when the spell ran its course. Chrysanthe, that witch, she never fixed it to start with, just slapped him with a super strong spell to hide the fact that she wasn’t good enough to heal him properly or make a permanent spell.
“At any rate, my hand should be back to normal by dusk.” Resting in her lap, she wiggled the fingers of the right hand. They were slowly working again. “And when this spell runs out, I should be able to refill my seikonō from Mamoru’s blood to get us out of here.”
“You think Agamemnon is interfering?” Despite the man’s vehement claims that he would never do such a thing.
Ash sighed. Tristan was annoyingly focused sometimes. “Perhaps. He is the only pythia within very near proximity that would have the power to make a spell that strong.” Perhaps even focus elven magic to a pythia. “The one helping Genoveva has to be an antediluvian, a very, very seasoned one at that. Though, if anyone but either of you had told me it was possible to humanize a vampire, or bind an elf with no earth power to a pythia, I would have said they were utterly mad.”
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