Moon Child

by Christina Moore

  “Did you ever ask her?”

  “No. I was too afraid. I like to believe she still loves me, somewhere in her all-seeing mind. But then when I saw her before we left Japan… it was like we were strangers.”

  Tristan frowned, turning his head to look at her. “She had no eyes, Ash.”

  “She does not need eyes to know me. I am of her very blood. I may not have the blood of a pythia in me, the right enzymes to quicken spells, but our very beings still resonate with each other as kin, as family.”

  “You were close to her, when you were still alive?”

  “Very. We were all we had in that tiny house. Looked out for each other, made a happy life from one that was never meant to be.”

  “Is that why you didn’t tell me about Lilith before? It hurt too much to talk about her? To admit that your own family was working against you for the man who took your life?”

  “Perceptive of you, but no. Yukihime did not want me to remember her…”

  Tristan sat up, the thoughts behind his eyes like spreading wildfire. “Because, she’s important to what I am?”

  Ash shrugged, staring up at the clouds. “I think because she told me who you would be to me and I needed help accepting it.”

  “Lilith talked to you about me?”

  “At length. The things she told me… I knew you before we had even said a single word to one another. I almost left you that night at the club. I knew when I finally saw you towering over the crowd that I was already a part of you. You did not know me, but I knew you and it was just destined to be. I was meant to be with you, to help you, guide you, love you through the most difficult part of your life.”

  He took in a shaky breath tasting of cool night rain. “Was I supposed to die, back there in Malik’s home?”

  “Lilith never said, only that whatever your fate was that night, mine was the same. And I wanted to die. By the Goddess, I dreamed, aspired of death after Malik was gone. That was all I had ever wanted.”

  “What stopped you, besides Yukihime?”

  Ash gave a little laugh. “Yukihime did not stop me, not even after exposing my plan to you. It was you, Tristan. I lived for you. I lived because I wanted to stay with you and you… you needed me just as much as I you. Even if I had not wanted to stay with you, knowing my death meant yours… it was not the way I wanted it to end for you.”

  “Our meeting was fated and us falling in love was just… meant?”

  “Yes. But I do not love you because fate has determined such. I love you because I do.”

  He gave her a worried little look. From the beginning he wondered if the way he felt for her was vampire-Uruwashi physics at play. Now, he wondered if it was all just forced by the way of fate. He hated that the universe thought it knew what was best for him. Maybe it was right. He wasn’t doing such a good job with his own life before Ash.

  “Is there anything else?” At Ash’s confused look, he added, “Anything else you’ve been hiding that I really need to know?”

  Ash bit into her lip, really thinking. “I am still missing a portion of my memories.”

  “You don’t know why Yuki didn’t give them back?”

  “No, that only they are perhaps important to what you are.”

  “Yeah, but what good would it do for her to keep that from us?”

  “Maybe she thinks you still are not ready to know?”

  He snorted. “She’s such a shit. When we get back, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”

  Ash chuckled, rolling to her side and putting a hand on his arm to make him look at her. “As will I.”

  He smiled, touching her hand. “Thank you. For telling me, I mean. Don’t think I’m not still mad about the whole taking my memories stunt though. It makes me not trust you a little too.”

  Ash frowned, taking her hand back. “I understand. And if you ask for your memories back, I will not argue it. I only ask that you think on it very carefully.”

  He swallowed hard, wondering again just what he did. “I will.”

  Ash heaved a sigh and the silence that filled in around them was comfortable. The air held a hint of ozone as the storm rolled in, electrifying the atmosphere with energy. The clouds tumbled by fast and with purpose, giving only brief glimpses of the nearly full moon begging to be seen in all its brilliant glory. The bugs were quiet, but that wasn’t for the impending storm so much as Ash’s unnatural presence.

  “I have a theory on what else you might be.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, sounding distracted. Again, Ash cursed her current state and not being able to read his thoughts. She knew now that her current state was just another manipulation by something greater, to force her into being what she was. A younger Ash would have fought it, but now, after more than three-hundred years of fighting what she thought she should be, she was tired. She was tired and ready to just… be. Whatever form that took that didn’t degrade her moral standing was acceptable.

  “It is rather fortunate that Silas has made himself known too, that will help me confirm such a theory.”

  Tristan turned his head to look at her finally. “You think I’m half elf?”

  “Partially anyway. What else if not elf?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t have feathers for hair.”

  She gave him a tiny smile. “There is that. But that does not mean you would inherit such trait, it is a recessive gene when mixed with other races—the feathers. And to say you are part of any of the other shinwa is just—Faerie might be a possibility.”

  “What? No way, I’m tall.”

  “True, but I am not wholly ready to dismiss the fae. Perhaps your father was half fae. In fact, a half fae, half elf father would account for many traits you possess: height, ferocity, healing…”

  Interesting, he thought, agreeing with her.

  She sighed wistfully, lost in thought a moment. Tristan let her think, his own mind having already worked over the same conclusions she was presenting. “I actually thought for a long time, before we met, that you might be part lycan. I do not remember why, only that I had this notion in my head and it got stronger and stronger the longer I searched.”

  “Lycan… really? But they’ve been extinct for over twenty years.”

  Ash shook her head. “I really cannot think of why, but only that I was so fixated on it at one point, but I don’t think that is likely now.”

  “Because?”

  Ash shot him a little glance. “I have tasted your blood. You don’t taste lycan.”

  Good point.

  “But it doesn’t take half elf or fae either, does it?”

  Ash frowned. “No.”

  Tristan sighed to himself. They really weren’t getting anywhere.

  “I wonder,” Ash mused almost to herself.

  “Yes?”

  Ash looked at him, expression a little sour. “I fed from Mamoru again after we returned to the room. He gave me some of his knowledge. For some reason, Yukihime saw it fit to keep the heikō from me.”

  “You know,” Tristan said with a huff, “I’d wondered about that. When Mamoru was telling me all that shit, I was thinking it was strange that you’d never mentioned the heikō before. I mean, the pythia are heikō n’ all.”

  “Because I did not know of them. Or rightly, remember them. Perhaps the key to what you are is within?”

  Tristan’s expression screwed up. “Well, I’m not a dragon, mermaid or a pixie. Certainly not an angel…”

  Ash actually giggled, making Tristan smile. “No, I think not.” She took up a pacing to think. “Perhaps… dryad?” She turned to look at Tristan again, evaluating him. “No. You are not vicious enough and your blood does not taste right for that either. Blasted if only I could discern that other thing I tasted in your blood, it seems so familiar and yet, not.”

  Tristan only frowned at that. Mamoru hadn’t touched much on the heikō outside of the pythia. And him being part pythia was impossible since they were completely immune to th
e vampire virus.

  Without asking, Tristan realized the moment that Mamoru told him about the pythia’s immunity was the reason Malik killed Ash’s twin. She was full pythia and it was impossible to make her a vampire. But still, Malik being the tactile learner he was, had to try. He had to prove it to himself that a pythia could or couldn’t be turned. Eva and Ash paid the price of his morbid curiosity.

  “I am still leaning towards elf/faerie despite what your bloods tastes like,” Ash said softly, “since we already know you are part vampire, in a sense.”

  “Well, no… what if…” He sat up, looking bewildered at his own musings. “What if it’s really just that?”

  Ash shook her head, not understanding and frustrated again that she couldn’t hear his mind to keep up with his thoughts.

  “What if I’m really Uruwashi and vampire?”

  “N—no. Vampire cannot procreate, sterile wombs and seed.”

  There was that, but... “Well, no. What if my mother’s super special Uruwashi ability was being able to get pregnant by a vampire? You just said she’d been bitten and Mamoru, he didn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot but somehow we got on the topic and he mentioned it as an aside. Two Uruwashi women actually got pregnant by a vampire, carried to term and everything. One, the baby died during birth.”

  Ash frowned at him. She hadn’t known there were Uruwashi like that. Mamoru was proving to be rather valuable. She would have to think of a nice way to ask for a taste of the man’s memories, all of them.

  “And the other?”

  Tristan looked away, trying to hide the horror he felt when Mamoru told him this earlier. “The mother died during birth. The baby lived but… the other Uruwashi, they killed it.” What he didn’t want to recount was the horrible way the mother died to the monster she birthed. Mamoru was actually there for the birth and went pale when he told Tristan about it.

  Ash took a moment to let the words hang in respect to the tragedy of their very existence. “That is a very viable possibility then. One that makes the most sense… I suppose.”

  Yeah, Tristan felt the same way. It made sense, but didn’t. Whatever he was, from what he’d understood from Mamoru, was unprecedented. So maybe he really wasn’t the spawn of an Uruwashi and vampire. If he was, Mamoru would have known, right? Boy, did he have a lot of questions for the man right about then.

  “If my mother was transformed before getting pregnant, then maybe my father is a vampire. It would explain why Yuki’s trying to so hard to hide it. To me, that sounds like a very powerful combination.”

  “Or a quick fix, knee-jerk reaction to repair a bloodline so watered down with human blood that it no longer has the strength to kill its enemies.”

  Tristan sighed and looked up, wishing the clouds would clear away so that he could see the stars. “Maybe.”

  “I think I would prefer you to be part elf,” Ash said sounding a little contemptuous.

  “Because?”

  She shrugged, trying to seem casual. “Honestly? I really do not know why. Only that…” She stopped to lick her lips. “Only that the idea of you being half vampire on top of Uruwashi… it frightens me, profoundly.”

  Tristan frowned. What could he say to instill confidence in her again? He took her hand and gave it a soft squeeze. “I won’t hurt you, Ash. Ever.”

  She smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know.”

  “Hey…” Tristan stood, pulling Ash to her feet with him and wrapped his arms around her. “Whatever I did that scared you, I won’t do it again, well, at least not on purpose, if that’s what you’re afraid of. And I won’t do it to you.”

  This time her smile reached her sky blue eyes. “You have no idea what you are saying.” She was laughing at him, just a little.

  “No, but I’m just… I just want to impart on you how important you are to me.”

  Her smiled slipped. “I know. And I promise to not erase your memories again without consulting you first, no matter what.”

  He nodded, expression deadly serious and leaned down to kiss her. She pushed up on tiptoe to meet him halfway and he mused that he could definitely get used to a more PDA-tolerant Ash.

  “Tristan?” Mamoru called out from back towards the home, sounding preoccupied.

  Tristan sighed and rested his forehead against Ash’s. “So, we’re good, right?”

  “Tristan!”

  He mentally cursed at Mamoru. “Yeah, one sec!”

  Ash looked him in the eye, smiling wearily. “More than.”

  “Tristan!” Mamoru yelled again, sounding more urgent.

  “What, dammit?” God, always when things got good.

  Ash stiffened in his arm and when Tristan turned to see why, he cursed under his breath at the man holding Mamoru captive. “Oh hell.”

  17: Outside

  WHERE is she?” Netty demanded. He held Mamoru to his chest like a shield. The angry Japanese man had a knife in his hand but the vampire didn’t need primitive tools to hurt anyone and Mamoru knew better than to fight when a vampire had ahold of his neck. “Did you kill her? Tell me what happened.”

  The second question was directed to Tristan by way of cold stare and he stiffened. “No. She got away.”

  “Tristan…,” Ash warned coming to stand at his side. Dammit, she missed her sword.

  “No, I feel it,” he answered, gun trained on the vampire’s face. He shifted on his feet, feeling anxious from the energy swelling up his torso, coaxing him to more intimate thoughts that didn’t involve using that gun.

  Ash’s attention jerked from the man holding Mamoru to Tristan. Feel what? she wanted to ask but didn’t want to show a weakness in front of the strange vampire. She had no idea what Tristan meant and that worried her. Had this potion changed her for the worse? Permanently?

  “As—” the vampire’s voice broke, his expression twisted in stunned curiosity. “Asta?”

  Ash’s shoulder bumped Tristan’s arm as she straightened.

  “You, you’re Asta…” His voice was soft with wonder, his expression full of emotion. He was good at faking human wearing that richly warm aura. The hold he had on Mamoru loosened and the man carefully slipped away as Netty, eyes on Ash, slowly came forward.

  Ash’s chin came up and she proudly answered, “I was born as Asta Moriakos.”

  “Yes,” the short vampire said, rounding on the couple. Tristan’s arm stiffened as he followed the man with his gun, but the vampire made no notice, eyes fixed on Ash. “You are, you’re the null pythia turned vampire.”

  Ash winced, trying to hide her chagrin. Her less traditional origins always seemed to be of great interest to others of her kind, trying to convince her just as much as themselves that she was special. Truth was, she was just another vampire, a sad, lonely soul warped left wanting by the life she was forced to live. “Ash, please,” she said with a tiny head tilt. She took a step away from Tristan and he tensed, unsure.

  “Ash, yes, I heard you took a new name after you left your Master. Good, that’s good.” The small vampire stopped just out of arms reach and considered her. “I heard you killed him. Malik.” At her suddenly uncomfortable look, he smiled and added, “No need to worry. I’m not of the old mindset of killing those who dispose of their Masters… I never understood old vampire law. I’ve always thought that the best place to meet one’s end in is the arms of one we loved, even if the sentiment wasn’t returned.”

  Ash smiled, lips stretching until her fangs showed. “I doubt my Master thought the same.”

  Netty frowned. “No, I’d imagine not. He was ill of mind even before he died.”

  Ash gave Tristan a look to let him know everything was well. Ever the paranoid though, Tristan refused to lower his gun despite his aching arm. Mamoru had joined the group, blocking Netty in from behind, a knife in his hands that he really didn’t need as the man’s power swirled about him at the ready.

  “I cannot claim sole victory over the end of my mad Master.”

  Netty’s
dark gaze went to Tristan. “No, you can’t. You two work well together, for enemies.”

  Tristan scoffed at that but didn’t figure their business wasn’t any of his.

  “Apologies,” Ash said looking completely calm. “I take you for an ancient one, but I do not know your name.”

  He heaved a heavy sigh, eyes roving over the two tense men watching his every move. “Netty will suffice.”

  “Netty?” Ash asked as she thought about it again. Before when Mamoru had told her about the ancient vampire named Netty, she thought the name was strange, but now, face to face with the vampire a memory stirred. “Is that not what—” Ash jerked back, eyes widening. “By the Goddess, you…”

  When the other vampire’s mouth opened to show an impressive set of fangs, his aura slowing washing away from his face and down his body to reveal a complexion of white and brighter white, did Ash know she was right.

  “You are dead,” she hissed in a low whisper as if it were a secret.

  The apathetic features that the oldest of their kind all wore didn’t shift despite the sadness in his voice. “I only wish that were true.” He leaned in to give Ash a proper vampire greeting by way of kiss and she stopped him with a slightly trembling hand in the air.

  “Apologies, but my relationship with Tristan is built on human morality and vampire edict would violate that.”

  The vampire looked pleased as his lips spread into a smile without showing those big fangs again. “Yes, of course.”

  “Ash?” Tristan prompted, shifting on his feet again. The strain from holding the gun up for so long was starting to bother him. He’d hit the vampire if he had to, just not necessarily where he meant to.

  “Mamoru, Tristan, I’d like you to meet my great, great, great Master, Innokentiy. Innokentiy, this is my love, Tristan and our friend, Mamoru.”

  Our, Tristan noted with tightening jaw.

  “Uruwashi, yes, I know. We’ve met. I don’t mean to sound old, but isn’t your partnership with an Uruwashi a bit queer? I suppose we all are foolish in our youth.”