White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4) (23 page)

TRISTAN was chewing angrily on the inside of his cheek, hands gripped like vices around the steering wheel. Juno was in his lap, sleeping. He didn’t know why he brought the damn stupid cat along, didn’t really like cats to begin with, but it’d seemed right at the moment.

Tristan had spent most of his daylight time trying to find a way to work off his aggravation. After failing to sleep off the stress of the night, he went out into the snow and practiced with his back-up sword for a bit, surprised the child vampire had left it for him. When he was done with that his mind was more worked up than before even if his body was exhausted.

Muttering words of respect and apology for taking advantage of the dead man’s house, using his bed, shower and eating his food, Tristan carried on his day, thinking over and over again how he would get away from the tiny terror. And what he’d say to Ash when they reunited, because if nothing else, the fact that he couldn’t kill indiscriminately was making itself exceptionally clear. If he couldn’t kill without his conscious interceding, then how was he supposed to do what had to been done to stop Mother? He couldn’t kill a child vampire right in his grasp and he
knew
she was a monster.

She’s a monster but you’re an abomination.

God, what was it about that single word that wouldn’t leave him? Abomination.

As he wallowed around in his self-misery again, his attention slipped to his tiny passenger. Right at dusk Xuejiao returned and immediately said they were leaving. They hopped into their stolen car and Tristan was directed deeper inland. He wasn’t sure where he was anymore, only that it was snowing again and he was having a hard time seeing through the big flakes.

He was still angry with himself for not leaving while he had the chance, having nearly a full day to get away from her. But then, he knew that she would hunt him down and force him to come with her again, only not on such nice terms and probably with many retaliatory deaths. It was hard to willingly give himself over like this, but if it meant he might live past it, then he could justify it as being practical.

Still, it wasn’t in him to surrender. “You gonna tell me about your master plan now or am I just here to chauffeur your crazy ass around?”

He felt the vampire turn in her seat to look at him but he refused to look at her in return.

“’Cause, I’ll tell ya,” he kept saying as if she weren’t glaring now, “if my job is to just witness you killing and to drive, you’ve picked the wrong Uruwashi. I’ll kill you now, right here. Fuck, I’ll take us both out if I have to.”

The thought to wrap the car around a tree had occurred to him. Trouble was he was sure he’d be the only casualty. Well, him and the stupid cat.

“By all means then,” she answered tartly. “Take your best shot at the next tree, but you’re right. I will prevail.”

The cat flinched at the girl’s voice and Tristan thought he felt her growl, a claw pricking his thigh. Juno-chan didn’t like the vampire either.

He huffed, sinking down in the seat. He had no clue what Xuejiao had in mind for him but more than that, he saw it as a startling coincidence that he’d been aligned with her at all. Maybe there was a such thing as fate, maybe not. But how much did he believe in coincidence to not question something like fate? The very night he’d met a vampire with two seikonō happened to be the same day that he was whisked away in some pythia born metaphysical space and learned that the mother of all shinwa was after him… How could it all really just be a coincidence?

“How much farther?” he grumped.

“I’ll say when.”

He harrumphed again and let the silence settle. In the quiet he let his mind swarm with thoughts and ideas. So much so that when he’d started to speak he didn’t know that he was actually going to put those thoughts to words.

“Wren says you’re the scion of the first vampire.”

Maybe he was blocking his mind like a champ or maybe the audacity to say it aloud surprised her. Whatever it was, she took a moment to process and then smiled big, showing off the biggest damn set of fangs. Granted, he’d thought that Innokentiy’s, centuries younger, were actually bigger, but it was her already petite size that distorted their grandeur.

“Did he now?”

“Mhm,” Tristan hummed, trying to keep his cool despite the sudden, palatable tension. “But you know, even with your little duel seikonō performance, I still can’t help but call bullshit on that one.”

The little girl lifted her brow. “Do tell.”

“I mean, you shinwa—and heikō, actually, you’re not supposed to question your origins. And here you are touting that you’re the kid of the First Vampire.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No, not really.”

She watched him a moment and then huffed, looking away, out the window at the night world. “I can only speak on what I’ve been told. Maybe he lied, maybe not, but who am I to question? He’s my Master.”

“You really don’t know?” Tristan glanced at her and saw that her jaw was held tightly. “I mean, you guys share all sorts of shit in blood. Even if he never fed you from his veins after you were made, there’s no way you didn’t see what he was when he actually made you.”

When it was clear Xuejiao really wasn’t going to answer him, his confidence inflated.

“Seriously? You
don’t
know, not for sure, do you?”

She turned her head slowly to look at him, eyes narrowed and her expression as old as he’d seen it yet. “Mind yourself, Uruwashi. I’m only dragging you along because I was told to, not because I find fancy in letting you remain breathing.”

Now that was like a blow to the gut.

“Wha—what? Who the fuck told—”

“Slow down,” Xuejiao suddenly snapped, her attention completely elsewhere now.

Against his better judgement, Tristan slowed to car to a roll as he noticed the man hunched into himself, trudging through the snow along the side of the road. Most of the shops he passed were closed but there was one up a block or so with its lights on. Probably the guy’s destination. Too bad he would never make it.

Xuejiao shot out of the car. Tristan gasped and jabbed the breaks to a full stop, watching in horror as the innocent-seeming child rushed the man, incapacitated him with a single blow and then dragged him along in the snow after her by one arm like a doll.

“What the hell!” Tristan screamed at her when she opened the back door to shove the man in. The cat got upset and darted out the open door past the vampire and her catch. “Shit,” Tristan hissed and ran off to grab the cat.

Xuejiao was stuffing the man’s legs into the car when he returned with Juno. “Just what in the hell do you think you are doing? If you think I’m going to stand by and watch you kill another person, you’re fucking wrong.”

She didn’t even look at him, a smile curling her lips with some secret thought. “Just drive,” she ordered with that disgusting smile and slammed the back door shut.

“No,” he said, refusing to back down. He shoved Juno into the car and straightened to glare at Xuejiao. “Not until you tell me what you’re going to do.”

“Kill. Him,” she said speaking with lips curled back to show her teeth.

“Absolutely not!”

For a bare second it looked like the vampire was going to argue, then realized words were lost on someone as hardheaded as Tristan. Instead of bothering to speak, she flung her hand out, sending Tristan flying back and crashing into the opposite curb.

Slowly, moving with measured motions, Xuejiao crossed the street to him and stopped to glower as he tried to find his breath again. She’d been careful when she emptied his lungs of oxygen but he was still hurting. She could have just as easily ripped all of the oxygen from every vessel in his body then froze all of the water he was made up of, but she didn’t and Tristan counted himself damn lucky.

“I can work that contraption myself,” she said pointing to the car. “I can even take care of the men that try to stop me from driving it, but I rather keep you busy. Apparently even when your body has a task, your brain does not and goes off onto wild tangents. You’re needlessly making this harder for us both. So why don’t you keep your thoughts to yourself and just do as you’re told and this will all be over soon.”

“With my death?” he whispered looking up at the sky. His lungs were on fire.

“Death?” she chirped and then laughed, making him flinch. “Don’t be absurd.”

Before he knew what was happening, the three-foot tall vampire was jerking him upright and helping him balance on his feet again.

“I told you before, I won’t hurt you. I’m not supposed to—rather, not allowed. Honestly, I don’t have all that much interest in you anyway. Uruwashi or not. Maybe if you were full Uruwashi, but you’re not. You stink of something… else.”

Tristan looked at her dumbly. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking but still, a name slipped from his lips. “Jason?”

The vampire flinched and he wondered if he’d hit on something good.

“How—Er, yes. Actually.”

She looked flustered as she spun sharply and started to march off. Like she wasn’t supposed to answer but she couldn’t lie to him either.

Tristan’s head hurt like he’d taken another hit from a practice sword, but he felt bolstered by the ground he’d gained.

“He’s a pythia, isn’t he?” Wren had said as much.

She hesitated again, but answered in a way he wasn’t expecting. Presumably, honestly. “Yes.”

“Why? What’s he want with me? Who is he?”

Xuejiao stopped, her head lowered and shoulders lifted. She’d said too much, Tristan could tell. And he knew she was deciding now if it was all worth it, saying too much. What did she have to lose? What could someone like her possibly lose?

“You may find out just yet,” Xuejiao whispered, dropping her shoulders and left Tristan standing alone in the middle of the street as she returned to the car and got in.

He looked up the street, the direction the man had been going. There was someone outside the izakaya now, looking around, maybe for the guy in the car and Tristan sighed to himself. He could admit he was intrigued by the vampire’s seeming honesty. And hopeful. Maybe she would tell him more.

When was he ever
hopeful
?

But it really seemed like Xuejiao wanted him to know what she knew. That she had plenty to say but couldn’t. If Tristan could stick it out long enough and not get himself killed trying to keep this kid alive, then maybe he’d get some useful info from his captor.

It’d be a nice change of luck, anyway.

Tristan got back in the car behind the wheel and sighed at the man passed out in the back with Juno curled up on top of him, purring happily. He would do everything he could to save this one. If he couldn’t, then he was going to lose his shit. Just how many people would die because he wasn’t strong enough? Both, physical and mental, he was starting to realize.

Half an hour later, they were sitting outside a building that looked abandoned. It might have been a home once, but it looked more like a mechanic’s garage now.

“Bring him inside, will you?” Xuejiao said before getting out of the car and shutting the door behind her.

“Wait a minute!” Tristan shoved fat cat Juno into the passenger seat and got out, propping in his arms across the car roof and door. “I’m not helping you kill the poor bastard.”

She stopped and turned to look at him and then huffed. “Fine. I’ll do it then.”

Tristan moved to put himself between the car door and Xuejiao.

The tiny vampire crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. “This is not a negotiation, Tristan. Move out of my way.”

“No,” he said, standing firm. “I’m not going to let you hurt him.”

“Do not make me use this,” Xuejiao said, lifting a tiny fist in the air. And it would have been comical if that hand wasn’t wreathed in lightning. That and the memory of being knocked on his ass more than once by a simple flick of her tiny hand was enough.

Reluctantly, Tristan backed down, grumbling curses under his breath and making a very long mental list of all the ways he might kill the vampire when the time finally came.

“Please don’t do this, Xuejiao.” He hadn’t tried simple politeness yet and figured it was a good last resort.

The small vampire though didn’t think it was and pushed him aside with some ferocity. Tristan took a few steps away to let out some steam, feeling utterly helpless to the point of near insanity. Tristan lifted his face to the sky and screamed out his frustration. He knew what would happen now and there was no stopping it, no matter how determined he was.

By the time he finished roaring and railing he was alone and he rushed off to find his tiny ward. He stopped inside the front door to take it all in. Maybe he was outside longer than he realized. In the time it took him to blow his top Xuejiao had stripped the man of his heavy coat, shoes and socks and had strung him upside down from a ceiling beam. His arms hung down against the side of his head and under him there was an old metal pail.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, mortified.

She looked up with the eyes an adult, old and cynical. She said nothing, turning her back on him and before he could comprehend the truth of that small hand swiping the air before her, it was too late. The man jerked but didn’t wake up—a small consolation, he supposed.