White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4) (12 page)

The vampire wasn’t moving. Tristan knew what he heard but needed to be sure as he pushed the man over to his back.

“Shit,” he hissed. He’d broken the vampire’s neck. He didn’t mean to, he just wanted to get away. As he wobbled to his feet, he thought that he’d better leave, that he could be sorry and wallow in guilt later if Wren wasn’t strong enough to heal that. For now, he needed to find his way back home.

He found his knives and gun shoved up Wren’s ridiculously large sleeves in special compartments, cut himself free and left, grabbing his shoes on the way out. He didn’t even bother to put them on as he hurried down the stairs and out of the building.

It wasn’t until he got in the car, shivering from snow melted, cold-ass socks and an adrenaline high, that he realized he’d forgotten the most important thing. With a groan of self-admonishment, he went back inside and upstairs, leaving his shoes behind on the passenger seat of the car he was about to steal. He was still grumbling to himself under his breath for being stupid when he reached the second story genkan again. He saw the shaft of bamboo coming for him, but was too slow to move out of the way and took it right to the face.

“Fuck!” he cried out from the floor, clutching his forehead, expecting to find his brain hanging out of a gash the size of the Grand fucking Canyon. There was a lump but no blood and brain.

“Why did you come back?” Wren asked as he stepped around the corner, wielding the
shinai
. Tristan wasn’t sure if it hurt more or less than the usual solid wood
bokken
he and Ash practiced with on occasion. Ash tended to avoid his head at least.

Tristan rolled to his back to look up at the vampire. “Forgot car key.”

Wren glanced at the wall where he’d clearly hung the key when they’d come in and then snorted a cynical laugh. “Americans…”

Even beaten, Tristan had to smile. He couldn’t explain it, but he liked the guy. Maybe it was because he reminded Tristan of a mix of Ash and Mamoru.

“Will you comply now?”

“Fuck, I surrender. Just don’t eat me, okay?”

The vampire harrumphed at him, his nostrils flaring as his eyes lit up for a brief instant. He disappeared for a moment, only to return with a first aid kit and pair of proper handcuffs. “If you would, please.”

Tristan sighed but thrust his hands up into the air for cuffing.

Wren stepped close enough that if Tristan wanted to start a fight again, he had the perfect chance to grab the guy’s legs. But he decided he was done for the moment. He had all day to find a way out.

“Your jacket,” the man said softly.

With another defeated sigh, Tristan sat up and wiggled tenderly out of his bloody and torn jacket. Then hissed at the amount of dark stain around his left arm. The jacket had acted almost like a condom and fresh blood poured out.

Wren’s mouth screwed up as he went to his knee and examined the wound. Still focused on Tristan’s arm, Wren asked quietly, “Did you kill him?”

“Him, who? You’re going to have to be more specific. I’ve got a list.” And fuck, he hated that he did.

The first cuff clicked around his wrist and Tristan frowned. The second clicked into place and then Wren was prodding at the wound again. “Takeuchi Mamoru. You thought of him earlier.”

Tristan stared at the side of Wren passive face. “N—no. He was my friend.” He was a brother, as Mamoru had so aptly put it. They were blood, somewhere along the line.

Wren looked like he didn’t believe him as he grabbed ahold of his forearm.

“It was an elf.”

This got a noticeable reaction from the vampire and then Tristan was tugged upright, wobbling to his feet.

“An elf?
Here
? What in blazes are the elves doing this far east?”

He wasn’t sure what the man meant, or the worry behind it, but Tristan shook his head. “Greece.”

Wren’s expression went even more startled. “That’s pythia territory.”

O-K… He was starting to feel like there was still a lot to be learned outside of what Mamoru had told him. Then again, it wasn’t like they had a ton of time to go super in depth, still, he felt just as confused about his world now as he was from the start of all this craziness.

“Which elf?”

Tristan shrugged. “Called himself Silas.”

The vampire flinched. “The Duane prince?”

Prince? Seriously, that guy?

“I—but,” Wren stuttered, “they were friends.” The vampire glanced at him. “Good friends.”

Tristan looked away. “It was an accident.” And if he wasn’t weak, Tristan wouldn’t have gotten himself nearly killed. If he hadn’t been stabbed through the chest, then the spell Chrysanthe used to save him could have saved Mamoru. Fate had a sick sense of just.

“Sō ka,” Wren whispered, shoulders slumping.

Without any more questions, Wren took a few minutes to clean Tristan’s arm and put in a few stitches. The cut wasn’t so long as it was deep and it made him ache all the way to his chest. But Wren was gentle and efficient as he stitched and bandaged Tristan up.

Nodding, he motioned for Tristan to move and guided him through the small apartment until they reached a door at the end of a short hall. “You’ll be comfortable in here. I suggest getting plenty of sleep.”

Tristan looked inside when Wren opened the door. It was the size of a closet, literally. The bed, the only thing in the space, came up right to the door and touched all four walls. At least the futon looked thick and comfy, nicer than his current one. Had a real frame and all. “Fantastic,” he sighed as he climbed onto the bed. There was a light fixture over his head but with no bulb in it, it wasn’t going to do much of anything for him.

“
Oyasumi
,” Wren said with a shrewd smile before shutting the door on him and locking it.

Tristan sighed again at the windowless, pitch black prison and wondered how he was going to get out.

THERE was a weight on top of him, the sound of a man’s grunts and angry words filling his ear. The revulsion and fear he felt were real. The experience wasn’t. Or, he had hoped. He’d been having this same dream since France, but there was never enough for him to understand what was happening or what it meant. Just the emotions that went with it: fear, pain, confusion, disgust. Drowning despair.

He wondered if his mind were trying to tell him something, maybe something he’d been made to forget. The thought scared him a little, but his curiosity had always been a powerful thing. He was willing to remember even if that memory gave him greater pain.

He was just about to give himself over to the struggling memory when he felt the warmth of life brush against him. He stifled a shiver and then realized that he was completely aware that he was sleeping, could feel it in his body but his mind was wide awake. Wide awake and in a mental space that wasn’t of the world he knew.

“The past is the past,” a voice said to him. “You dwell on things that mater naught when the darkness prowls.”

“Li—Lilith?” He knew it was a thought but he suspected he’d just said it aloud in his sleep too. Because, without a doubt, he knew he was asleep. She told him as much without words or real thought, it was just a fact he knew at her bidding.

The presence shifted and he felt the familiar cadence of a nod. It was strange, he was fully aware of himself but there was no strain on his mind or body, just the bliss of utter emptiness. He didn’t even feel panic at the oddness of being suspended without feeling. The whole experience was almost… pleasant.

“I’ve come for you, Uruwashi.”

The words seemed to chill him. Words he’d heard enough to know when shit was about to hit the fan.

“There is something about to happen that you must witness.”

He felt himself nod mentally, not scared at the prospect of whatever this event was and when the voice spoke again, it had more shape, was louder as if Lilith were a part of his conscious. “Hurry, it starts now.”

He wanted to ask what, but then there was a tug on his mind and suddenly Ash was there, her image plastered on the wall of Tristan’s mind. He not only saw her, he
felt
her. Her body, her emotions, the apprehension and doubt as she walked into a dark space. God, he could
smell
her. He was her. He realized he’d been shoved into her consciousness.

Jesus, so strong.

She liked her new powers, the lessons learned from her ancient Master, Innokentiy. She’d just used her seikonō, and heavily. He could taste the grit of earth between his teeth, feel its pulse across
her
body. She’d raised a jikininki tonight and was exhilarated over her mastery, the control, the beauty in that splendid creature, the moon bear. She hummed with excited energy even as her wellspring was depleted to an uncomfortable level. She felt superior to Yuki for the first time in her life. She knew, without a doubt, that she could hurt, maybe even nearly kill, the ancient vampire. The prospect made her confident and gave her hope to a future not marred by needless death.

The Snow Princess was as at Ash’s side. He knew he was hitching a ride in Ash’s conscious, knew it clearly, but he felt Yuki’s emotions. Maybe it was how all vampire sensed each other. He felt Yuki’s mantle of presence almost as keenly as Ash’s wrapped around him.

The emotions from Yuki confused him, but there was no focus to analyze. Ash was talking now, her voice clear and melodious, demanding everyone hear her words.

“What is this?” she demanded.

The older vampire looked startled for a moment and bowed her head. She was trying to hide the confusion in her eyes but Ash knew better. She—they—could taste Yukihime’s emotions.

“Please,” the Snow Princess said softly, motioning deeper into the cave.

With a huff, Ash turned back around and continued to push her way through the tight space of the cave—a cave that was until very recently occupied by the very moon bear jikininki she’d just given life and rest again to. Tristan felt a surge of electricity again as Ash reveled in her mastery of the creature. He was proud of her, even if she was being a bit emotional. She needed a release, to finally tell The Snow Princess off and have the air clear between them.

The vampires emerged finally into a great cavernous space. Despite the cold stone and the snow outside, the hole was balmy and warm. Comfortable enough for a human to live in. But there was no human living in this cave.

Tristan flinched, trying to command a body that didn’t exist in this metaphysical space. Lilith, he could still feel her with him, hovering along the fringes, but he wanted to
see
her. Assess,
understand
in the way only he trusted his eyes to tell him.

“Eyes lie,” Lilith said again in her little girl voice in his head.

Tristan meant to say, “So does the mind”, but she sensed the sentiment and he felt her smile dismissively at him.

There were gauzy columns of colored fabric affixed to the ceiling of the dugout cave, creating smaller spaces of use within the cavern. A large fire pit with a metal grated table of sorts was carved out in the middle of the room, a large iron pot of bubbling liquid that smelled very familiar to Ash cooking away on top. The bed in the corner, behind the curtains of blue, looked hand-made. It was all very cozy, even if out of place in a cave. Sitting at the fire, a small figure stirred the pot. In his empty space, Tristan shifted, trying to find Lilith and realized she was no longer at his side. Her consciousness was back in her own body.

Understanding washed over Ash, tightening her gut and focusing Tristan’s attention again. “This place smells of Lilith. Don’t tell me she
lives
here,” she said softly.

Yuki’s fear flashed. “Insisted upon it.”

“This is madness,” Ash hissed, more to herself than for other’s ears. She spun to face Yuki fully. “You let her stay here alone?” Who protects her?

Even as Ash wondered, Tristan knew. Lilith protected Lilith. Her immense power as a pythia protected her. Death would only ever come for the pythia because she herself willed it. But it was Ash’s human concern for a niece that let her forget these simple truths and it was endearing to Tristan.

Yuki’s eyes widened and she stumbled back. Ash’s earlier show of power had frightened the older vampire, they could taste it. She knew Ash was doing herself a great disservice by not actively feeding on humans but she had no idea just how suppressed the young Master truly was. Add on top of that a need for vengeance slowly showing itself and the skill of the oldest of their kind and Ash was the last person Yuki should cross.

Yukihime was afraid of Ash.

Tristan felt a surge of pride again, bolstered by Ash’s own.

“This is what I wanted you to see, Asta-chan,” Yuki said in a shaky voice, her speech falling into Japanese. “Everything, the lies, manipulation… leaving Lilith in this cave, everything I’ve done has been dictated to me by one person. I’ve not my own will.”

Ash balked. Somehow, Tristan didn’t feel as surprised. “What? What are you saying?”

Yuki moved forward and grabbed Ash’s arm so fast that she yipped in surprise, jerking away. Yuki frowned. “Not her.”

“Then who?” Ash asked with furrowed brow and racing heart. Sure, she didn’t have to breathe, but that heart, it needed to pump and it pumped too hard for her liking sometimes. It was the last symbol humanity any vampire possessed, proof that they’d once been good.

Tristan mentally scowled, not liking her line of thought but understanding it. That was Ash for you.

“I’ve been there,” a voice said, filling the cave. There should have been an echo. Tristan understood that voice even before Ash, having heard it moments before in the same fashion. This was not a voice made by vocals cords but one pushed directly into everyone’s head with such seamless skill that it seemed as if their ears were hearing the sound and not their brain.

Sudden realization that only Tristan had seen Lilith’s body at the hearth washed over him as Ash only just registered it herself. Next to her Yuki’s fear flashed again as she finally saw the girl too.

Ash took a stiff step forward. She was wound tight and for good reason. “Lilith, you…?”

The figure at the hearth didn’t move but Ash would be damned if she didn’t know that voice.

“I’ve been to that dark place,” Lilith said coldly. “I’ve seen what lays in the void.”

Confused, Ash glanced to Yuki, not for guidance but to keep her attention on the room and not just her niece. “The void?”

“She comes,” the older vampire said quickly.

“She
who
?”

Yuki frowned. Ash may have not clearly felt it, but Tristan did. The old vampire had a monumental and irrevocable decision to make, one that might mean her life. She hissed a curse under her breath and then, deciding she owed Ash, she would tell her. If it meant her life, then so be it. She’d gotten enough from life anyway and was growing tired of the lies.

Tristan wasn’t so sure he believed Yuki, even thoughts directly from the source but when the ancient being rang out a single word, he didn’t care to decipher Yukihime any longer.

“Mother.”

Tristan’s tension was his own, but Ash bristled too. “Who, by the Goddess, is Mother?”

Being so closely tied to Ash in that moment, the second she spoke the words, he understood her adage ‘By the Goddess’. Ash’s God, the goddess she worshiped in life as a defunct pythia with no quickening power. The goddess of light, moon and sorcery, Hecate. But this was not the ‘mother’ Yuki referred to now, this was something… darker.

The old vampire licked her lips in a gesture Tristan’d never seen from her—unsure and nervous. “Izanami.”

Ash shook her head, not understanding. “Izanami no Mikoto?”

Tristan started. He knew the Shinto stories of the gods, Izanami and Izanagi. They created the islands of Japan and their children created a many number of things themselves. Tale states that during the birth of her last child, Izanami died and went to hell, yomi. Izanagi went in after her to bring her back but she’d already eaten from the underworld and become one with it. And he ran from her when he saw how hideous she was and she refused to let him leave her, vowing to kill a thousand humans every day until he returned to which he vowed to give life to fifteen hundred. But that was all Japanese folklore, mere tales.

“Yes!” Yuki jumped forward, intent on touching Ash, but pulled back when Ash balked. “The very same. But she’s no myth.
They
are no myth.”

Tristan echoed Ash’s confused frustration in his space hitchhiking in her mind. “I don’t understand, are you telling me you actually know where we come from?”

Yuki nodded and said emphatically, “Yes.”

Ash studied her, her skepticism more than apparent in her expression. How was she supposed to believe anything this woman—this
child
told her? And yet, her words felt true.

And for Tristan, sequestered to the corner of Ash’s soul, seeing the full truth of this moment, he knew Yuki was telling the truth as she knew it, he could feel it with a certainty that made him sick.

“Lilith, she… I’ve seen her,” Yuki whispered, her voice quavering. “Mother is real. She is the poisoned darkness from which nightmares are born.”

Ash moved through the room and went to crouch down across from Lilith, catching glimpses of her niece through the fire. This was the closest she’d been to the girl in over three-hundred years and she didn’t know just how close she was allowed to get.

“Is this true, what she says?”

Lilith’s tiny voice filled the room again, simple and to the point. “Yukihime is a liar.”

Ash shot Yuki a look. The other vampire only frowned in return. Tristan felt Yuki’s shame and disappointment. Did Ash not feel it too? Did she even care? Yuki had told the truth and Ash refused her. For some reason, Tristan felt the urge to reach out and tell the conniving, manipulative vampire he had. He believed her, felt the truth in her mind.

“Yukihime always lies,” Lilith’s voice continued. “We all have choices, even against
them
.”

“Them?” Ash questioned.

Lilith looked up, her white linen hood pulled down over her face to hide her missing eyes. “Mother and Father.”

Ash glanced back at Yuki. The other vampire was wringing her hands nervously.

“Mother and Father,” Ash repeated dryly as if she didn’t believe. “So, Yukihime did not lie about our origins? Our parents are truly Izanami and Izanagi?”

Lilith’s attention remained focused on Ash though she had no eyes to see with and did not actually speak with formed lips. “Izanami and Izanagi are our parents. The architects of sin and balance.”

“Sin and balance?”

Lilith went back to tending the soup on the fire. “Mother is sin and Father is balance.”

Ash shifted uncomfortably as Yuki came to sit next to her. She didn’t want the Master near her. Couldn’t trust her, couldn’t abide her face some days and she was nearing that point now.