He leant back, legs stretched in front of him, on a floor chair beside the kotatsu table. He was in her rooms now; somewhere Yoshida was overseeing the removal and disposal of Ai's body. He took a cigarette from a black lacquer box on the table. He lit it and inhaled deeply, the smoke mixing with the taste of blood in is mouth. He was fidgeting, new energy in his veins, picking at threads on his dishevelled tailcoat, twisting the buttons on his shirt.
She made one of her trademark dramatic entrances. He never got tired of watching that.
She did not look at him as she walked around the table, her outer kimono untied but held with gripping hands tight to her body. Her face was unpainted, pale against the red and gold of her magnificent garment.
She knelt carefully, spreading the kimono around her, her hair flowing long and flaxen down her back. Finally she looked at him.
She looked like nothing he had imagined. No pride, no sneer. What was it that suffused the gentle lines of her face?
"My boy is leaving again." Her voice was flat.
That was it. Disappointment.
He nodded in reply, avoiding her eyes.
She continued. "You did that yourself, Angelus. I encouraged you, helped you find the right situation, I hoped that it would bring you back. Apparently not. But you did that yourself."
"I know."
They both paused, as Angelus once more inhaled the smoke that vaguely numbed the sensations on his tongue.
"You are contemplating rats." Darla broke the silence.
"That's right."
"How will they feel again after the delicacy you have just tasted?"
"Free."
"Angelus. How prosaic."
Angelus laughed mirthlessly.
"I'm not trying for poetry, Darla."
"What are you trying for, then?"
"I'm trying to forget."
"Why did you come to me? So you could curl up inside me and forget all of it, forget a hundred and fifty years, forget that every night I gave you the blood of a dead human?"
"Yeah."
Silence.
"And I reminded you of it all."
"Yeah."
"I disgust you."
He exhaled a ragged breath, protesting.
"I do," she continued. "I remember when you disgusted me, my boy."
He looked at her. There was a wistful smile on her face.
"No more?" he asked.
"Things change."
"Yeah."
"But I don't."
"You've changed since Shanghai." He flicked cigarette ash into a brass ashtray.
"How?" she asked.
"You're quieter. I've never seen you so… quiet. Gentle."
"I haven't changed, Angelus. Not really."
"But Darla, you can!" Angelus leaned forward onto the table, excitement now animating his features. "You could! You could come with me, we could go somewhere no one knows us, America maybe, and we could fade away together, you and me!"
"Fade away?" Her eyes were wide.
"Yes! Darla, we could be together –"
"Fade away! Angelus, do you forget who I am?"
"No. No, I do not. That's why I'm saying this, Darla. Do you see me saying this to Spike, to Dru?"
"A hundred and fifty years, and now you don't know me! Or maybe you're so narcissistic you think I'll change because you did."
She stared at him. His enthusiasm began to falter.
"Darla, it's the only way."
"The only way for what? For us to be together? Did you learn nothing from your weeks in that room?"
"I learned one thing. I learned that everywhere I've been, everywhere I go, I'm looking for you."
"That's touching, Angelus. Very moving. Do you think Ai felt your pain as you fucked her, drank her and killed her?"
"Don't." His chest felt hollow.
"Don't what? Remind you of what you are, what I am? And, Angelus – something you seem to have entirely forgotten – what I want to be? What I like being?"
The cigarette crackled as it burned towards his fingers in a bright orange glow. Smoke caught the light as he exhaled, making it seem somehow more real than it tasted.
"'Like being', Darla? Is that why you locked yourself away here? Not hunting properly for – how long? Nearly twenty years?"
"I am over three hundred years old. Forgive me if I need a holiday."
He laughed.
"A holiday? You're the woman who killed by my side for a century and a half?"
"Yes. No. With you I was –" Her breath caught. "I was one of two. Now I am starting again. One of one."
"You're good, Darla. Very good. I could almost believe you actually felt that."
"Fine. Think what you want."
"You want a holiday, come away with me. I'll show you how it can be alright."
"You crawled back to me because nothing was alright. Because you couldn't bear it anymore. Can you really see me dining on rats, Angelus? Supping on vermin?"
Angelus stubbed out the cigarette.
"No. I can't."
"That's right. And don't ever forget, you killed a human tonight. You and your soul."
"I – I thought it was you."
"Excuse me?"
"I saw you. On the bed. I bit her – didn't know why you didn't bite back…"
Darla looked blank.
"You need that fiction? You can't even admit it now?"
"It's not a fiction."
"Angelus, she had a heartbeat," she said impatiently. "Don't even begin to pretend you didn't hear it."
He kept his eyes low, playing now with the cigarette butt, pushing ash around in the ashtray.
"I – it was all mixed up. I was looking for you, and then you were there."
"Angelus, this is ridiculous. I don't want to hear it."
"I knew I was wrong." He sighed, his dead heart almost audibly crumbling. "I guess I knew it was her. I wanted it to be you, so badly –"
"What are you saying? You come back to me, you want me, you kill for me, but I still disgust you too much for you to stay?"
He couldn't answer, he just held his head, squeezing his eyes tight as if he could block it all out.
Darla stared at him.
"Come, Angelus. Why don't I make it easier for you?"
"What?"
She stood, and held her hand to him.
"I'll make it easier for you to leave. Make it easier for me to watch you walk away."
The courtyard still smelled of snow. There were still a few hours till sunrise. Bare cherry trees gently moved their skeletal arms in the winter breeze.
"Yoshida!" she called.
For a moment, just the sound of the trees creaking quietly. Then footsteps from inside the house. Yoshida appeared, wrapped again in his dark furs.
"Yes, mistress?" he said.
Angelus gauged the boy. It was wearing on him, this death surrounding him. Extra lines in his white skin, a tiredness, and oldness that did not belong in his young face.
Angelus stopped by the bench. Darla continued moving towards the boy, her eyes locked on his face. It was as if he knew what was coming. He watched Darla walking to him, and then looked around, smelling the air, his gaze wandering over the courtyard lit by brittle moonlight. Dark buildings, dim light glowing behind paper screens. Light spilled from the bathhouse onto the soft ground, holding his fogged breath in the air as he experienced the world for the last time.
Darla stood before him. His gaze finally swept around to her, his eyes to hers. A vague hint of a smile played about his lips as he leant towards her. He kissed her, fully and completely, feeling her against his skin as he had always wanted. Then he pulled back and tilted his head, staring at her, waiting.
Her demon came forward, snarling, purring. His breath caught, and she could hear his heartbeat increase in speed. But he did not flinch.
Angelus watched his face crease as Darla sank her fangs in his neck, right into the jugular. His mouth opened as his eyes closed, and his body sagged into hers. His breath was a long, contented sigh. Angelus saw the last flicker of life in his fluttering eyelids. She let his body drop to the cold ground.
She looked over her shoulder at Angelus. With hard eyes she watched him turn, walk through the teahouse, out onto Pontocho-dori and back into the night.
She left soon after, leaving eleven bodies in the courtyard: six servants, four beautiful, painted geisha, and Yoshida Seiji. There was no one to dispose of them anymore.