Bete Noire Read online

  Ash shook her head. “I cannot say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. He trusted her, but didn’t entirely believe everything she said. She had this way with the truth and not telling it so clearly.

  “I truly do not know.”

  He shut his eyes and groaned, thinking he didn’t like the idea of feeling the pythia. That he was changing.

  “Perhaps Shishō knows why.” Why else would she bring the girl?

  “Great,” Tristan sighed. He really wasn’t having a good night and it’d only just started. “Listen, Ash about what I said before…”

  “We should go out there. I do not trust her alone.”

  He screwed up his mouth for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, yeah okay. I’d rather she didn’t do something weird like make a hat out of what’s left of my sofa cushions.” Besides, he wanted to officially meet the pythia, even if he was completely weirded out by being able to sense her.

  Ash’s expression went dark. It bothered her just as much, if not more than him, that he could sense her. She had a close, personal understanding of the pythia and knew such a thing was, in a word, impossible. Without speaking any of her concerns aloud, Ash pushed open the panel separating the main living space from the bedroom. Tristan heaved a sigh, grabbed a shirt and followed after her.

  The main room of the apartment was simple and way too small for four people to be in. The place was barely big enough for him, let alone two vampires, even if one was the size of a kid, and the pythia, who was a child herself. Though, despite the small city he lived in, the apartment was considered a palace at almost 320 square feet. Being a gaijin, foreigner, he was lucky they even rented to him. Having money helped in the smaller towns.

  Back in October, the place had been trashed when Malik’s people—read: vampires—had come looking for him. They went batshit and tore the place apart, wrecking just about everything he owned including his laptop and iPod. The only thing that survived was a one-cushion sofa, the other cushion having found its miserable end at the hands of a mad vampire; a small computer desk with no computer and the room divider. The rest of the furniture consisted of a few cheap lamps he picked up to replace the ones they broke and a new bed mat. What was the point of buying more furniture if they were leaving soon? Well, he hoped it was soon. Apparently not soon enough to avoid a special visit from the thousand-year-old Master vampire, Mizu no Yukihime.

  The old vamp had found herself a spot lounging on the remaining sofa cushion, arms laid out across the back like she owned the place. One thin leg was crossed over the other, exposing all of the bright white paleness of her skin from toes to hip. And Tristan could confirm that she did in fact remember her panties tonight. Hurray for everyone.

  She was perfectly at home, watching him with her eerie, crystalline eyes as he entered the room behind Ash. Tristan flinched, almost stopped in his tracks when his gaze found the pythia. Lilith stood in the corner, wrapped head to toe in a thick black velvet cape. Her face was masked in the deep shadow of the hood. She was like a mini Grim Reaper lurking in the corner like that. It took everything in him not to stare and gape.

  Ash on the other hand did stop and stare. This was the closest she’d been to the girl in over fifty years. They had a past, these two, one that haunted Ash every day she slept and was left at the mercy of her own mind.

  “Kore wa...” Yuki started in Japanese. She was searching for the least offensive word in English to use. “...kawayui—charming, little place you have here. I don’t understand why you two didn’t take my generous offer, Tristan.”

  He snapped to attention on Yuki, but opted to stay quiet, ignore her bait. But Yuki wasn’t playing along. She never played fairly.

  “Asta-chan, you of all people… sleeping in a closet? On the floor? How… simple of you.” Yuki talked as if the words were dirty, like they tasted bad on her tongue.

  Shortly after the pair finished off Malik, Yuki had so generously offered Tristan and Ash their very own, spacious suite in her home. They respectfully declined. While Ash had her own reasons, Tristan’s was far simpler. He hated them all. Yuki, Desmond, Lucien, that chick he ended up hitting and the dude who poked him in the ass with his boner… Every single vampire in that place was on his shit list.

  That place was a total freak show. Besides, just walking in that home set his blood on edge. He knew now that the freezer burn, tingling, near-arousal he felt when near Ash was what he felt when he was near any vampire, a device of his kind. But, being only half, or less, Uruwashi meant that the vampire had to be practically on top of him. But with so many in such close proximity, like in Yuki’s place, the feeling was exponentially stronger, always on. He’d never leave his room, trying to, ahem, relieve the tension. Ash wasn’t about to help with that any time soon either and she was the only one he was interested being anywhere near him.

  Ash made a small noise of surprise and looked to Tristan. He blinked back at her, realizing she’d heard him thinking. There was nothing he could do about it and stopped caring weeks ago what she heard. He had nothing to hide anymore. Mostly.

  Yuki was watching the two, the corner of her lips curled up in amusement. She knew exactly what Tristan and Ash were both thinking and thought they were being all around childish.

  Ash rallied herself, a task she’d done more times in her three-hundred-forty years than she could count. “Yukihime,” she started out in a harsh tone then softened it. “Shishō, what can we do for you this evening?”

  The old vampire smirked, her clear eyes going to Tristan. She looked him up and down, taking in his tall, lean, shirtless figure. Her smirk spread wider, growing until she flashed the tip of one of her long, saber-tooth fangs. The look was one he was quickly becoming accustomed to from her—didn’t mean he liked it. She was thinking about what she’d do to him if Ash weren’t around. He stifled a shudder. And for the dozenth time, his gaze was drawn to the figure in the corner. She really moved that time, didn’t she?

  “Chibi-san,” Yuki said, waving her hand at the pythia. “You are making Ryōshi-san nervous. Please, come sit.”

  The caped figure moved, appearing to glide across the tatami. Tristan’s pulse suddenly jumped. Sweat started along his hairline, though it was anything but hot in the apartment. Lilith lifted a hand slowly. It was then that he noticed she was holding something in the other against the front of her body, a glass jar. Her hood slipped back, finally revealing her face.

  This was the same child Tristan remembered seeing that night he killed Malik. She was the one Desmond had been escorting around like a rock star. While she looked to be only ten, that wasn’t her true from or age. The girl was several hundred years old, the privilege of being a pythia with an arsenal of spells at her disposal. Her brown hair was thick and curled around her porcelain face like a doll. And her eyes, they were a brilliant blue, the color of the sky on a cloudless day. Something about those eyes haunted him, came to him in dreams. And yet, he had this overwhelming sense every time he remembered those eyes to see them again. But now, instead of getting a glimpse of blue there was only a strip of black cloth, blindfolding her.

  For some reason, he felt compelled to touch Ash. He reached out, stretching his arm to her and found her hand. She didn’t protest when he pulled her close, fingers still meshed together. “What is this?” he whispered to her.

  For once, she couldn’t read his mind, the mixed jumble of thoughts, and shook her head. “What is—”

  “Problem, Ryōshi-san?”

  Tristan licked his lips nervously, shot Ash a look and then looked back up to Yuki, trying hard to not look at the little girl now sitting on the low side of the sofa where the cushion was missing. His breath came out shakier than he would have liked. “I… I knew there was someone here, when we were in the bedroom still, something—someone not human. But this is nothing like what I feel with you vampires. She’s... I don’t know.” He stopped, rubbing at the back of his neck nervously. He wasn’t sure he sh
ould have even been saying any of this. “Warmer. I can just feel her. It’s making me dizzy, nearly nauseous. I can’t remember ever feeling like this in my life.” He looked down to Ash again and whispered, “Is she really a pythia?”

  Ash’s face was dead expressionless. She nodded once.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Yuki?” he asked looking to her. “Care to explain?”

  She put her arm around Lilith’s shoulders. “You are an enigma in yourself, Ryōshi-san.”

  “That’s not an answer,” he grumbled. He looked to the little girl even though she couldn’t see him through that blindfold. Why was she even wearing it? “Do you know, Lilith?”

  The little brunette said nothing, only moving her head up and down slowly once.

  “Really?” Excited, he took a step towards her, Ash heavy on his arm since he refused to let go of her hand—a comfort of any. When Lilith said nothing more, he asked, “Well, um, do you mind telling me?”

  “Sorry, Ryōshi-san,” Yuki said, “she will not speak.”

  “Since when?” Ash asked a little too quickly.

  Yuki tilted her head to the side, lips tight with something that might have been apprehension. “Shortly after I took her from Malik. The child spoke a cryptic message of crow, night and death... Since then, not a single word has been uttered...” Yuki reached behind the girl’s head, untied the blindfold and let it drop away. Ash and Tristan gasped together, their clasped hands squeezing tighter. “Two days later, I found her like this.”

  “By the Goddess,” Ash whispered. She tugged on Tristan’s arm, pulling him against her side. Her free hand came up and held onto his arm a little too tightly. “She… she did this to herself?”

  Yuki nodded, looking as dismayed as Tristan’d ever seen her.

  The skin around Lilith’s eyes was jagged pink edges of healing flesh, her eyes were missing. Yuki had been kind enough to sew the damaged skin back together but it still looked raw and painful.

  Yuki’s voice was soft and sad when she answered, “Hai. She tore her own eyes out with her fingers. The same day, she refused to speak again, and she will not leave my side, not even for a moment. She will not even heal the damage with a spell. She’d rather walk around like this. I had to sedate her just to sew the holes closed…”

  Ash was moved to nearly tears. For all the time she knew the girl, she never imagined this would be her fate.

  “Why?” Tristan asked softly. He was more disturbed than should have been and couldn’t say why. Only just that it really bothered him, on a personal level. He felt like he needed to cry for the girl though he didn’t even know her.

  Yuki shook her head, her eyes shutting for a moment in remorse. “It is just something that happens to all pythia, in time.”

  “What...” Ash had to stop to collect herself. “What were her words? What did she see?”

  Yuki tied the blindfold over the girl’s missing eyes again and straightened, looking from Tristan, then to Ash. “The raven flies. The flower blossoms. The star falls. The earth shudders. Darkness awakens.”

  The room was unnervingly silent as the others processed the words. To Tristan, they just sounded foreboding and ominous. For Ash however, she knew enough about the pythia to not jump to any one conclusion as their words could be taken in multitude of understandings. Ash wanted to believe the foretelling wasn’t as dark as it sounded. She could ask the girl and of anyone, Lilith would speak to her, she knew this without a doubt. But if Lilith was no longer speaking and no longer allowing others into her mind, what words could be had?

  Tristan let out a long, shaky breath and whispered, “What the shit does that mean?”

  “That, I don’t know.” Yuki smiled even as she shrugged lightly. “I don’t speak pythia.”

  “Is this why you came, Yukihime?” Ash asked in a tiny voice.

  The old vampire made a flippant gesture with her hand. “No. I thought perhaps that Lilith here could do with a change of scenery.”

  Tristan frowned. Change of scenery? The girl couldn’t even see. And she did that to herself.

  “You’re being cruel,” Ash whispered in Greek, sounding as if she might cry.

  “Am I?” Yuki answered in her own language with a high lit to her tiny voice and shrugged again. “If you really want to know, why don’t you address her yourself, Asta-chan? She is still of her mind and such.”

  “Dammit, Yuki,” Tristan snapped harsh enough to make Ash flinch. He didn’t understand what was going on or what they were saying without including him, just that he didn’t like it. “Quit fucking around. Tell us what you want and then get the hell out.”

  He gave up long ago on being overly polite with the Snow Princess. The night he and Ash killed Malik, Tristan flicked off the old vamp and said more than a few rude things to her and she never retaliated. Yuki didn’t want him dead. Besides if she did, well, there wasn’t a hell of a lot either him or Ash could do about it then, was there? He accepted whatever was going to happen to him would happen. Besides he wasn’t going to put up with Yuki’s bullshit. He wasn’t afraid of her.

  Yuki tossed her head back and laughed. “Ryōshi-san… brave brave Ryōshi-san. So you don’t fear me any longer?”

  Feeling confident again and able to let Yuki distract him completely from the blind pythia, Tristan took his hand back from Ash and crossed his arms over his still bare chest, looking defiant. “No,” he answered plainly and honestly. She only creeped him out, that was a very different emotion from fear.

  “Sō ka.”

  There was a whirl of motion around him seconds before something solid made contact with his upper body. His middle lit with cold burning energy, warning him that a very powerful vampire was way, way too close. Tristan took in a sharp breath, feeling the air fill every inch of his lungs, and blinked up into a face he never liked seeing so close. Yuki grimaced all fang at him, hot fingers pinching around his Adam’s apple, choking him. His eyes widened as he started to gag for air.

  Next to him, Ash made a small, strangled sound. Tristan flinched and tried to look towards her, but the pressure on his windpipe kept him in place. Out of the corner of his vision he could see her pinned to the floor at his side, Yuki’s steel grasp immobilizing her. They were both at the mercy of the fickle, ancient vampire.

  “What about now? Brave, brave, Uruwashi. Mattaku, you smell so... totemo oishii.” Yuki licked her lips, wetting them. Her expression shifted from hungry to put-off again. She harrumphed, tightening her fingers so that she cut off his air completely. “Do you fear this mad, old vampire now? Is the Uruwashi frightened yet?”

  Tristan bucked under her, straining for air, his vision fogging already. He wanted to lift his arms, fling them outward and hit her, punch her right in the fucking face and deal with the repercussions later. But, for such a small person, she proved to be stronger and he couldn’t lift his arms from under her legs where she’d pinned them to his sides. He was helpless, like a butterfly to the flame against an eighty pound girl. And she was going to kill him if she didn’t let go soon. All she had to do was pinch her two little fingers together and crush his trachea, then dead Uruwashi on the rug.

  “Yeeees, Ryōshi-san. You’re so very right. All I have to do is squeeze and your life would be mine... Mmmm, and I bet you taste...” She shuddered hard, her eyes fluttering.

  She really did want to kill him.

  “Yukihime!” Ash managed to scream with the sudden lessening of fingers pinching off her voice box.

  The Uruwashi blood in Tristan suddenly shifted, the way he felt was the same, yet different. Something was about to happen, he just didn’t know what. Yuki’s fingers on his throat became impossibly cold, as if they were made of ice. Then, as if confirming his last thought, a thin layer of frost spread out around his neck, radiating from her hand. Tristan tried to suck in a gasp, shocked. Instead, he kicked, bucking under the vampire, his eyes wide and wild as the ice started to enclose his entire neck a
ll the way around. He could feel the cold all through his throat and into his mouth. His chest started to burn from the inside out.

  Next to him, Ash’s writhing doubled. She tried to kick out, take the Master vampire in the head, but Yuki saw the move coming and blocked it. She warned Ash in gravelly Japanese to mind her manners or she’d be under Yuki’s scrutiny next. Reluctant, having to believe that Yuki wouldn’t really kill Tristan, Ash forced herself still, eyes welling with frustrated tears.

  The small vampire gave a little huff. “Tadashi…,” Yuki drawled out, looking whimsical as the ice ceased to spread, “if I were to do something as silly as kill you, I think perhaps I could find much more interesting ways of doing so.” She smiled and leaned over Tristan, letting her top sag open, showing him that she wasn’t wearing anything under the thin fabric. Not that there was much under there to show off.

  He groaned, his eyes starting to roll back. His whole face was tingling now, the pull of unconsciousness just moments from winning. Yuki huffed, pouting her lip out in an over-exaggerated display and opened both hands as she pulled to her feet over him. Tristan drew in a deep, gasping breath, the air burning all the way down his throat, pulling fire made of sharp ice into his lungs. Yuki stepped away and he coughed a few times as the fresh air filled him and rolled to his side, curling up into a ball.

  Ash immediately reached for him, touched his face. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, unable to speak just yet. He’d live anyway.

  “You are sure?” she asked a little more gently and he looked up finally, meeting her gaze. There were unspent tears lingering at the corners of her eyes. No matter how many times Tristan’d seen it, twice now to be exact, he was sure he’d never get used to seeing the red-tinted tears of the vampire. They literally wept blood.

  “Yeah,” he answered in a scratchy voice. “Thanks.”

  She gave him a small smile and sat up. And he said a silent thanks that she was okay, not even breathing heavy. Two months around vampires and Tristan wasn’t sure if they really needed to breathe or if it was just for show. He was starting to suspect the latter.