Moon Child Read online

  “Me, married? No.” And probably never.

  “Girlfriend?”

  Tristan harrumphed. “Something like that.”

  “Gay?”

  Tristan nearly pulled a corny spit-take at the absurdity of the dead serious question. “Wha—did you really just say gay?” He sounded more amused than upset.

  The guy on Tristan’s other side must have spoken enough English to understand and slid away, just a few inches. Tristan had to laugh. “It’s nothing like that. I mean, I’m with someone. We’ve… we’ve been through a lot together. Not us fighting or anything, but we both helped each other through some really tough parts of our lives, you know how tragedy pulls people together. I love her. I really do. God, I love her so much.”

  “And she loves you?”

  Tristan smiled. “Yeah. She does.”

  “Isn’t it romantic then to think that love trumps all?”

  Tristan snorted and gave him a look.

  Mamoru’s warm smile only spread. “Well, I think it’s romantic. Imagine, whatever your other troubles, whatever’s making your relationship so… ambiguous?”

  “Yeah, that’s the word for it,” Tristan confirmed when Mamoru paused. And it really was the perfect word, like Mamoru knew just how confusing Ash really was.

  “Don’t you think love will just,” He paused to flutter his hands in the air. “Fix it all?”

  Tristan sighed, lowering his face into his hands, elbows resting on the bar. “Sure, it’s romantic, but you know what?” He looked up, meeting Mamoru’s gaze. “The truth is, love really isn’t that strong. Nothing is. I’m young, but not naïve.”

  Well, maybe a little.

  The other man frowned, nodding. “You may be right. Marriage isn’t the sort of thing to rush into anyway, not these days. Sure, I believe love can trump all, but… well, life happens.”

  “Now that sounds like a toast,” Tristan said with a tired smirk.

  Mamoru laughed. “I suppose so. Life does happen and we lose sight of the things most important to us. More importantly we lose sight of those we love. I haven’t seen my daughter in…” He let out a long sigh. “Years. Her mother took her from me, made a new family. I’ve spent most of my time traveling since. But I’ll never forget her, my daughter. Even if I was never a good enough father, I’ll still always want to be with her. Even knowing I’ll just fail her again.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. No, I, I don’t have a kid of my own or anything. But I know what you mean about not being a good enough something. I was… a bad son. I lost my parents to an accident and I’ve been traveling since too. Trying to find myself.”

  “Gomen nasai.”

  “No, it’s…” He sighed. “It’s behind me.” Liar. “Just learning to live again.” Pants on fire.

  “I understand.” Mamoru let the silence hang between them, both lost inside their own heads. When their drinks were empty, they refilled them but still said nothing to one another. The band ended—was it midnight already?—and the two had their fill of drinks.

  “Ma!” Mamoru exclaimed in Japanese, red-faced and swaying as he stood. He reached for a bag near his feet Tristan hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t big enough to be called luggage, but not quite small enough to be a man bag. “I think I’m done.”

  Tristan grunted. “I’ve got room for a few more.”

  The man swayed a little more, staring at Tristan and then harrumphed, sloppily climbing into his chair again, dropping the bag to the floor under his feet. “Can’t have a kid like you make me look old.”

  “Old? Dude, you look like you’re barely older than me.”

  Mamoru laughed, slapping him on the back. “I’m nearly twice your age.” He laughed again, sounding super drunk. “Asian genes, my friend. Well, half anyway.”

  “Yeah?” Tristan motioned to the bartender for more. “I’ll buy this round.”

  “No, no. You’ve tabbed enough. I’ll do this one—But, yeah, I’m actually half Japanese, look like my mom, you know? My dad was an Irish-American G.I., met mom during World War II, gave up fighting when he fell in love with her… it really was a book-worthy love story. Maybe I’ll sit down some day when I’m old and write it.”

  “That’s cool,” Tristan said with groan as he stood. “Explains your eyes… Hey, I’ll take a double of the same. Be right back, gotta use the can.”

  “You sure you don’t want a plain soda instead?”

  “A double of the same!” Tristan repeated over his shoulder. “Thanks.”

  “Ryōkai!” Mamoru confirmed even if he sounded bitter.

  Tristan hobbled off to relieve himself and splash a bit of water on his face. He was only comfortably buzzed. He’d always had a ridiculously high tolerance. It wasn’t until October though that he understood why. He wasn’t human. And that’s just it, wasn’t it? He wasn’t even half human. The deeper into his new world he tumbled, the more he understood that simple, depressing truth. He really was never human at all. At least that guy out there could proudly say what he was and knew it with a certainty. Tristan could only… well, guess.

  “Thanks,” he muttered when he slipped back onto his stool to find a nice tall Jack-n-Coke waiting for him. “Kanpai.”

  Mamoru answered him with a nod and salute in return. Both men were quiet after that, but it wasn’t long before Tristan started to feel funny. And not funny ha-ha either. He was overwhelmed with exhaustion and a little dizzy. He thought maybe at first it was the stress of the day’s events, being up so long and nearly dying, it was all finally catching up to him. But then, when he looked over at his drinking companion and saw the look in his eyes, Tristan knew. He’d been drugged.

  “You son of a bitch,” he whispered because any louder wasn’t possible.

  Mamoru only crooked an eyebrow at him before turning his attention to the barkeep. “I’m sorry,” he said in such a nice civil voice while Tristan tried to fight the drug. “My friend here is not feeling well, can you tell me his room?”

  The heavyset man behind the bar looked at him and then deciding he didn’t want to deal with a drunkard told him, “Mansion.”

  “Sō ka,” Mamoru breathed in surprise. That was the most expensive room, a building all its own and aptly named for its size. “Thank you.” He tossed more money than they’d both drunk down that night on the bar and slipped off his seat to grab Tristan before he fell. “Whoops! Careful Tristan.” He lowered his voice to a hush. “Or should I just call you Uruwashi-sama?”

  “Bastard,” he muttered into the man’s ear when his arm was flung around lean shoulders. “I’ll get you for this.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Ikuze.”

  Tristan didn’t fight it, couldn’t even if he wanted to. The will was strong, but the body didn’t agree. The effort to just stay on his feet was all he could muster. Whatever this guy hit him with was strong enough that even his not-so-human physiology couldn’t fight fast enough.

  Unbelievable! Just how many times in so many months could one person get themselves drugged? Oh well, he supposed it was better than the alternative—physical black out, or death. Not that he hadn’t his share of K.O.’s recently too. He really needed to start being more careful. Dammit, maybe he was more naïve than he thought.

  After some stumbling, incoherent cursing and irate groans, the pair made it to Tristan’s room. Unfortunately for Tristan, the others weren’t back yet. The elf looked like he was good with that fancy sword of his. Could have used the help right about then too. Damn.

  “Who are you?” Tristan asked.

  He was placed, more like dropped, on the sofa. Mamoru lost his balance when Tristan held on and fell on top. Tristan balled his hands into in the front of Mamoru’s shirt.

  From inches away, Mamoru answered, “I told you. Takeuchi Mamoru.”

  Well, his blood didn’t light up and they were much closer than they needed to be for Tristan to confirm vampire, pythia or other. So either this guy was a faerie, because he was too short to be an elf, o
r maybe he was just plain ole human. Too bad Tristan wasn’t that lucky.

  “I’m…” Tristan’s hand slipped from Mamoru’s shirt, though he didn’t mean to. His eyes fluttered shut. “I’m going to kill you… when I wake up.”

  Everything was dark and a warm chuckle found him. “We’ll see.”

  “What do you… want from me?”

  If there was an answer, he never heard it.

  THE voices were gone. Everything was gone.

  A surge of panic made Ash thrash before she forced herself to calm down. She didn’t need to call upon her vampiric gifts to know that she was trapped in earth. But as it was, there were no gifts to be had. She was utterly empty.

  Her seikonō was gone. She had no motonō either, nothing. She couldn’t draw on a single vampiric gift. The inside of her mouth was bitter and while she’d never in all her time heard of a pythia spell like this, she knew that taste. All pythia spells had a fundamental bitterness laced with the tang of blood. She didn’t recognize who the offending pythia was, but would be damned if she wouldn’t find out.

  There was a small noise of water splashing and Ash forced her eyes open. She was in the same cave she’d awoken in before but now there were lights on, strategically placed lanterns that lit the entire space. The water she smelled before was a small pool with a round spot of land in the middle. It was this little island where Genoveva sat with her feet in the water. She turned to look at her captive. Ash didn’t notice before when she was speaking with Vasco, but Genoveva’s hair was a mess; it’d been cut recently and poorly, as if a child having a fit of anger had just gone at it with scissors. The angles were rough and uneven. There were even patches missing right down to the skull.

  Ash remembered Genoveva having anxiety issues in the past that aggravated her trichotillomania. It was always so queer to see a less-than-perfect vampire. Ash lamented trying to explain to dear Vasco why he looked the way he did. He was always so confused and frightened. And vampire hair took so long to grow. The cowl helped, but wasn’t a fix-all. There was no fixing this particular vampire.

  Ash fought, tested the density of the earth that trapped her arms and legs to the side of the cavern wall. She was poised just above the ground so that her feet didn’t touch anything. If it weren’t for the blasted pythia spell she’d have no problem commanding the earth to free her. As it was, she was nothing more than a vanilla vampire. No, not even a vanilla. Her vision was duller, but her left eye was better than when she landed in Greece even if it was only at human level.

  For the first time in over three hundred years, the voices were gone. Near and far, there wasn’t a single voice in her head but her own. She felt… human.

  By the Goddess, what sort of sorcery is this?

  Behind her fear of the unknown, was anger. What pythia would willingly help such a monster? Whomever it was, Ash vowed with all her being to kill them. Kin (of a sort) or not, helping that monster was simply unforgivable.

  “Finally awake? By the Earth, you’re just as pathetic now as you were three hundred years ago.”

  Of course, it was Genoveva this time. Not surprising, considering she nearly killed Vasco in her attempt to flee earlier. If only she hadn’t held back just that tiny bit, letting her love of Vasco stay her hand, then she might have gotten free. Now she was not only trapped, but utterly powerless.

  “You know,” Ash said, trying to sound intimidating even though she was at a serious disadvantage. “This spell will only slow me down. I will get out of this earthen prison and I will kill you.”

  Ash’s contemptuous words were met with a low growl from the dark part of the cave that made her skin tingle with unease.

  Genoveva smirked. “No, you won’t. You’re mine now. Even more than you were back then.”

  “What—” Ash stopped when a great golden-colored tiger sauntered into the light and her eyes widened. “By the Goddess, is that Miw-sher?”

  Genoveva laughed so hard that it hurt Ash’s ears. She stood and went to her tiger, giving her scratch between the ears. “Don’t be daft, witch. You know jikininki can only survive for a week. Miw-sher died centuries ago, but I’ve been breeding these beautiful creatures. I’ve got a whole stock of them buried under the sands, but you can call this one Miw-sher, if you’d like. She does look just like her, no?”

  Ash swallowed back her words. Genoveva didn’t know that Ash could keep her jikininki alive for more than a week, decades even. Pandora, the dear pet dog, she was Ash’s first and last jikininki, far from an experiment but fascinating none the less. She wondered what the mad vampire would do to her to figure out the how of Pandora’s existence once she inevitably discovered the secret within Ash’s mind.

  Genoveva, pleased with herself, lifted her chin. “She likes you.”

  The tiger smelled her feet and Ash wished she could lash out at it. Rip it apart before taking out its master.

  Ash actually snorted a nasty laugh, something that was more fitting to her human lover than herself. Tristan was a strong influence on her. He was the reason she went on and she would see him again, whether in this world or the next. “You are a monster. I won’t let you keep me here. I will get free and then I will kill you.”

  Genoveva eyed Ash skeptically. “Master thought I could be good. He always was so full of love, my Master.” Genoveva’s gaze grew distant for a moment as she shifted through old memories of her Master before she let loose with a snarl. “He was weak. Gentle hearted fool. Should have killed him myself, like you did to my dear nephew. It is so like you to rebel and break vampire code. Always had to stand out and be special.”

  Asta bit back her nasty response, something that she normally wouldn’t have felt the impulse to even say. That was Tristan’s influence again. The thought almost made her smile. “The man I was with, did you let him go free as we agreed?” Maybe she shouldn’t have asked, knowing Genoveva, she’d probably forgotten about him already.

  Genoveva spun away with a hiss. Miw-sher growled her disdain. “I was going kill him too, but that prim English cunt and that lying elf shit interceded on his behalf. Didn’t see any reason to argue. Figured the witch would kill him herself anyway, fucking Uruwashi.”

  Prim English cunt with an elf?—Oh! “Chrysanthe is in Greece?”

  “Oh, so you do know her. I guess you would, alsahrh.”

  Ash cringed. She hated it when her kind called her a witch with such contempt. It was more as if they resented the possibility that Ash was special rather than actually hating the pythia. But then, Ash wasn’t a pythia, never was. She wasn’t really much of a vampire either, especially now with this spell in her.

  Damn!

  “You know it is impossible to turn a pythia into a vampire.”

  Many have tried. Malik did and ended up killing her full pythia twin in a fit of rage. Maybe with enough effort, and a miracle, the pythia could be made into vampires, but there had yet to be a single reported case. Ever. Still, many vampire believed that Ash was something more than just a vampire. The thought was hopefully delusional.

  “And yet here you are,” Genoveva said.

  “Your point?”

  Genoveva stomped up to her, leaned in, sneered in her face. “You’re keeping secrets. Secrets I want. And I’ll kill you if I have to just to pluck them from your mind. No, I think I’ll kill you anyway. Never did like you, always thought you were better than the rest of us, fucking princess alsahrh.”

  The old Ash would have denied it all, begged to be set free, whimpered at the compounded memories she held for the terrors that this monster, this single vampire alone had wrought on her, nearly destroying Ash’s mind. But she was no longer Asta Moriakos, she was Ash—no, not even Ash anymore. She was a new woman, someone who wasn’t going to let the fear paralyze her. Fear and doubt, anger and cowardice were no longer passengers in her life. She was stronger than that.

  Malik, he bestowed upon her many things, most of which Ash couldn’t thank him for, except for the strength he proved she ha
d. Granted, it took over three-hundred years to find that strength and accept it. In the end, she liked to attribute that revelation to the man she loved rather than her spiteful Master.

  “Oh, you think you’re so different now? Let me tell you something, alsahrh.” Genoveva took a theatrical step back, reaching into her robes to produce a lovely gilded knife. Ash knew that knife, how it felt from every angle as it carved into her flesh. An unbidden shudder torn its way down her back.

  Sensing her anxiety, Miw-sher let out a low noise, nose lifting in the air to smell Ash’s feet again.

  “People never really change. Vampire, elf, troll, dryad, pixy, human; no one. No matter how old you grow—and mind you, you won’t be bothered by the tedium of long life for much longer—but no matter how old you grow, you will never change. None of us do. Not you, not my poor delusional Master, or yours for that matter.”

  “Not you,” Ash said softly, attention focused sharply on Genoveva.

  “You’re right. And that was Innokentiy’s mistake, thinking he could change me, fix me. Alskhryh. You’re all insane. I think I might be the last of us that’s really all together… and I have another personality living in me.” She laughed. She laughed so hard that if she were human, she might have lost control of her bladder.

  Ash used Genoveva’s temporary distraction to test her bindings again. It was no use, with the strength of Genoveva’s seikonō and that blasted spell, Ash was well and truly trapped by the very earth she should have been able to talk to. She never really noticed before but even when she was starved, on the brink of hunger madness, she always felt a strong connection to the earth. It was her gift, her power, her will to wield. But now, now there was nothing and she felt utterly empty. It was enough to make her weep. She missed the weight of her power, the fullness of it filling her, the wholeness of it. She missed being what she was, a Master vampire.