Blood on the Moon

By Lydiby

Chapter VIII

Something cold cut through me and I turned to one of the halls I'd passed up earlier in favor of viewing the family portrait gallery. All the eyes seemed to be burning through me so I was relieved to see only an occasional landscape lining the corridor of this wing. All the doors seemed to be open and revealed modern furnishings more like what I was accustomed to but still in coordinating style. When I came across a bedroom with an open wardrobe I stopped. Feeling not at all unlike the main character in a Disney movie I'd seen by chance while in America, I investigated. It was full of clothes in my size and to my tastes, but none of them seemed very warm and it looked like the wind was bitter.

As I thought this rain hit the wind and as it ran down the panes to my mind it seemed to hiss 'Haruka.'

Shivering I pulled out a black turtleneck, long jean skirt, and a hooded grey cable knit sweater with embroidered fall leaves around the cuffs and buttons. Digging through some drawers I found a pale blue scarf and long wool socks. Draping Darien's clothing neatly over the bed I picked up the rain boots from the wardrobe floor. By the time I got back to the grand room it had stopped raining. A leaden grey overcast remained for as far as I could see out the tremendous windows. Gazing about at what would have been a glittering assault to the senses were it not washed in such gloomy light, I pulled on the boots sitting in the middle of the floor.

My lungs desired to sigh at the shameful waste of such a magnificent specimen of architecture, but the supreme silence of the place would not permit it. When my boots clunked and squeaked obnoxiously as I walked to the door it seemed like something was looking down on me with an austere air. As if the house itself demanded complete noiselessness.

Despite an unwelcoming blast of frigid air I was pleased to be away from that offended presence. The terrain on the road leading away from the house was worse than that of the surrounding ground so I took the first footpath that branched off the potholed and gullied road. It followed a crumbling stonewall lined with sporadic clusters of harassed mostly bare trees up and down rolling hills for two miles. I stopped on the last hill before the path plunged down into woods. Looking back the mansion made an impressive shadow against a misty fog that had begun to set in. Sitting down on a more secure chunk of wall I clapped the blood back into my hands. The exercise from climbing had kept the rest of me warm enough, but my hands were freezing. I felt so guilty about just leaving everyone and now I didn't even know where I was going. Even if I came to a town I wouldn't have any money to get back, but none of that seemed to matter anymore.

"Usagi?"

Jerking forward I spun around to see the last person I wanted to. Well, second to last.

"What do you want?" I eyed him warily.

"For you to cheer up." He walked to me, and not wanting to seem intimidated I remained where I was with my mind reeling in disbelief.

"Try not to lose this one, alright?" he easily slipped another coat onto me, little different from the last but falling to my ankles and stirring in the wind. When I dragged my eyes up to his they were met with a kindness I could not conceive.

'You murdered my friend,' my throat wrapped itself around the words and refused to release them.

"Still you grieve," he whispered. I could feel him in my soul and wished to shut him out, but couldn't, or wouldn't? Within me I felt the sharp edge of something broken and knew.

"Topaz walked into the sun."

"Yes," he replied gently, " she could not bear what she was and so she accepted the light into her heart and moved on."

"But you did not kill her?"

"Devin," was the simple response.

My eyes watered, so I spun away and stamped my foot. Livid with myself; I could not control the tears. As my shoulders wracked with choking sobs, arms encircled me. Ferociously, I tried to rip away, but I was no match against a vampire. Consoling myself with the fact that he couldn't see my face, I wept uncontrollably.

When I finally found breath for words I gasped out in anguish, "I don't understand you! One minute you're dry ice; the next pure kindness!"

"I don't mean to be. I only want to protect you. From the world I dwell in and myself. You shouldn't have to live in fear."

"Did ever occur to you that I can take care of myself?"

"No."

For a long moment I fumed and continued crying.

'I never asked for any of this. Just when I think I've maxed out. When I reached the limit of what I have to do something new lands on my shoulders. Maybe I did need someone to protect me, but now it's pointless. It's win or lose and one vampire will hardly make the difference.'

"Don't underestimate me Usako. With me will come the oldest and most powerful of my race. This it not your battle alone, the heart of it lies with my people. It is not even your fight, I don't want you risking yourself."

"It is not my fight?" I breathed in dangerously level tones, "I am sworn to protect this land and I will die for it if need be. You cannot expect me to sit in the stands like a spectator to wait for the outcome. I can't; I won't."

Then those wise words from that long ago bartender came back to haunt me with their true meaning.

'Lass, he's only harsh because he's lost so much. It t'ain't easy coming inta what he has. Just brush it t'off child and go back ta what yur life was. Take a cab and go home, sleep it t'off. T'is only a nightmare.'

"A nightmare indeed," I whispered putting the portraits and the words together at last, "This is some kind of atrocious inheritance isn't it?"

"If you must know…" He began hesitantly, as if he were afraid to sound like he was trying to win my trust and friendship with pity, but gradually he began to unwind his story.

"When I was nine I lost my memory, and so they told me, my parents in a car accident. Thus I was thrown into a system of orphanages and group homes until I became of age. I had been left quite a sum, but for legal reasons I was not able to access it until that point. Around this time I met Motoki and you. Being socially maladroit I suppose I took to teasing you as the way I knew best to gain your attention. I don't know if you ever had the time to notice how few friends I had; you were always surrounded by so many."

He spoke with such detachment—as if he were speaking of someone else entirely and he'd merely been an observer—I wanted to turn around to look at him. To see how his face changed and the truth in his eyes, but he had given me my space. Well, not literally, I resisted the urge to squirm.

"When I turned twenty-one my father reappeared and—as you put it so eloquently—brought me into my 'atrocious inheritance' in the custom of the Sheilds and Terran line. As you've observed it runs hereditarily through my family and has done so for millenniums. Each generation waits for the next to produce an heir before turning their child. In some cases, such as Rei and mine, more than one child would be born. This time my late father, in despair over our mother's death, turned me before I had even procured a girlfriend. Due to my father's folly the line will end with me. Perhaps all vampires are meant to die in this battle.

"The Terran heir withholds power over every vampire and vampire spawn created. I am the Terran heir," the air shook with this assertion, "I am the only one with the power to destroy Him and will not rest until it is done."

"You are the only one of the earth with the power; there are other's, not of earth."

"I would be grateful for their assistance, but it will not come. Their kingdoms fell and were forgotten in my ancestors' sovereignties."

This was emotional overload. I couldn't understand and I couldn't just forget all that he'd put me through. Then there were the roses…

"Let go of me, please," I whispered. I needed space to think. The outcome may be exactly the same as it was before; 'we may all be damned in the end.' For the here and the now I needed the solace of logic, immanent termination aside.

"Please don't shun me." His arms unfolded and I took a step forward.

Frantically, I studied the grey horizon as if the solution to this situation were written along it. The wind gusted bringing water to my eyes again and snapping my hair across my face. In his voice was the reminiscence of the little boy I'd seen in the cathedral who had cried bloody tears. Afraid of what I'd see, slowly I turned to face him.

His dark indigo eyes were watching me with such a childish desperation I felt my heart split in two.

"I," pausing a moment to timidly brush his midnight hair out of those haunting eyes, "I won't shun you. You can look to the sky to save you. What was dead will be reborn." The words and actions did not seem like my own. Though I meant what I'd said, I stepped back in dismay.

"I need—"

"Everyone is fine."

"Could you not do that?" I pleaded, taking another step back. This time into the deteriorating fence. A sorrowful look crossed his gorgeous features.

"I'll try not to."

"I wish you would disband the link."

"I already have."

Frowning, I realized my mind shields had been in place from the beginning of our encounter.

"How have—How can you?" I stared at him in utter perplexity.

Expressively, he shrugged.

"I couldn't tell you."

Unhappily, I kicked at the ground with a rubber-clad foot.

'He can see straight into my mind. There's nothing I can do to stop it?'

Probing only worsened it. Instead of raising a defense mechanism it allowed him further in than before.

"I'm sorry Usagi. For everything; for this. I don't know how to fix it. Perhaps it cannot be fixed because it is not broken."

'Not broken! You're in my head and I can't get you out! How is that not broken?'

"You're shields proper are functioning aren't they? There's a reason for this."

'Reason? Whoever's idea this was cannot possibly possess any.'

"Be grateful you can defend yourself."

'He sounds like Luna.' I grumbled to myself.

"I don't know who Luna is, but I get the impression I should not be flattered."

'Shit. Would you get out of my head!'

"As you wish, Usako." He smiled gently at me. All trace of the little boy was gone. Replaced by Mamoru restored in all his taunting glory. Except for his tone and…

"What did you call me?"

"Usako," he replied simply.

"It's only an improvement," I sighed, "but I'll have you know I belong to myself."

"That's my Usako."

With a huff, I turned to clamber down the trail in the forest. Pines and skeletal trees whispered as I passed. Without the wind it felt almost ten degrees warmer making my ears prickle painfully. Sloshing through icy mud puddles, I was wary of tree roots that would have me landing in them.

"You have no idea where you're going."

'Évidemment,' I thought caustically. Obviously

"Je ne sais pas c'est une bonne idée pour toi être errions seul dans la forêt." I don't think it's a good idea for you to be wandering in the forest alone.

'Pourquoi?' Why?

"Mon pere est aimé beacoup des loup." My father was fond of wolves.

"Mamo-Darienwhatever the hell your name is—I swear I will beat you—" Quickly, I turned around, but he wasn't there like I'd expected. Feeling extremely small, I watched for movement through the trees.

'Wolves don't attack people, not unless they're starving,' I thought scornfully. Even so I hoped he'd been joking; I didn't want to encounter a wolf. Deciding to go on, I turned into something solid. Shrieking, I toppled backwards but was grabbed before I could fall.

"No need to worry, you just frightened them all away," he said, sweetly.

"I ought to—"

"Thank me for catching you?"

Inhaling slowly, I tried not to explode.

"You the one who simply walked away." He deadpanned.

My anger dissolved, he had bared his soul to me and I had given him nothing. Tiredly, I looked at him again. Taking in the perused details, the dark cobalt eyes that could change so quickly, the chiseled nose and cheekbones, the unkempt dark hair, the straight mouth, the way he—frankly—towered over me. It was like seeing a new person, but I was too exhausted to react.

"Mamoru," I whispered; hoping somehow that alone would be enough to make him understand.

"Just come with me Usako," was all he said.

We walked side by side for about an hour winding through the woods until we came to an open field. Across the field was a village. By now night had fallen. His form was just a shadow and strangely enough I felt shy. He said nothing, as did I. In the archaic looking streetlamps I noticed that since he'd given his coat to me he was only wearing a half zipped up black sweater over a wrinkled white button down shirt.

"Aren't you freezing?" I asked.

He grinned, showing off his fangs. Once again reminding me he was a vampire, powerful and lethal.

"I would be anyway," he said brushing his hand against my face. Giving a frisson at the frigid contact, I tried not to think too much about the entirety of what being a vampire meant. It was easier to trust him without going into details.

"There's a small café down the street I'm told has good food. Would you like to stop there, or do you want your travel arrangements made at once?"

"Food please," I murmured.

Going back to that blasé penthouse and everyone's disproval was something I thought of with not a little reluctance. I needed to think, or at least resign myself to it.

"Noroc! Ce mai faci?"Romanian greeting A pretty girl around fourteen greeted Mamoru with enthusiasm. This drew who I assumed to be her mother out of the kitchen. They both had dark hair and eyes and spoke very quickly. They exclaimed over him and then moved on to exclaim over me. With trepidation I heard my name rebound back and forth a few times. Awkwardly, I stood frozen while they gestured wildly and hugged me. Mamoru said something that made them laugh and ordered. All of this was in a language I didn't even begin to recognize and I wondered for the first time where 'here' was.

"Where is this?"

"Romania, in the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps. South of Nagyszeben to be exact."

"Transylvania," I repeated and laughed. He smiled ruefully.

"The family has always gone out of its way to remain unnoticed by the local population. Bram certainly didn't help, but it's become easier over the last century with the passing of the worst superstition. My great grandfather brought a lot of Jewish and Roma refugees to the manor during the Second World War. At the time the only way to the manor was the footpath we took today so the Nazi's never found it.

"Around six hundred people stayed there. Another thousand secreted in the Transylvanian Alps were saved. They saw nothing unnatural for the duration of their stay so after the war word spread and we've gained the goodwill of the locals.

"However, one of the Boyash women had the gift of true sight. She recognized my great grandfather for what he was, but knew better than to speak of it. It didn't hurt that she fell in love with and married my grandfather, either. She made the prophecy."

My head jerked up as I recalled what Brook had told me.

'Long has the Lady lain frozen,

Lost her love of light,

In the shadows has fallen,

The last Child of the Sight,

All the seas storm in despair,

The Queen of long desire,

Has left her court an empty chair,

And joined she of the fire,

Purity is lost with bitter irony,

She walked into the sun,

Rather than live in hypocrisy,

And thus the fight is left to one.

Ten thousand years in rising,

Ten thousand years to fall,

And in the end the Darkness will wake to destroy us all.'

"The Roma still remember what we did for them and a caravan shows up each summer to maintenance the mansion. This place is owned by the descendents of some of her relatives."

"Did Rei have the sight?" I asked wearily.

"Yes, before she was changed anyway. She refuses to speak of it," he replied, his eyes burning into me.

It made some sense, but it didn't seem to mean anything. The only thing concluded was that the creator of all vampires was about to rise again.

The girl placed a mug of coffee before me and then brought out the food. Mamoru stared out the window rather than eat. My appetite diminished because I knew why; he lived off of blood. Slowly forcing myself to eat, I found myself staring at him. Mamoru continued to stare out the window as if amicably favoring this unconscious caprice of mine. He was—what is the phrase—devastatingly handsome? Better than that really, but the knowledge of what he did to live gave him a brutally realistic edge. A sort of cynical set to his mouth and a dark glimmer to his eyes. Yet he could change into an innocent looking boy so quickly it was unnerving. I didn't know what to think at all so I focused on swallowing. I didn't want to disturb this strange air of cordiality that had involuntarily settled between us. I had enough headaches; this was… surreally refreshing.

He paid for the meal and we walked down the street. It was nine by now and I still hadn't decided on anything. The place was a real small town. No one was out, most of the houses already dark. The air seemed to make its own noise to fill the silence. Something caught my eye. I stopped under a streetlamp and watched the air around me for a moment. Mamoru paused to watch me. My breath frosted but his did not and it disturbed me a little, not as much as it might have though. It came again.

"Mamoru!" I exclaimed happily, "It's snowing!" I spun around in a flatfooted pirouette and laughed as snowflakes landed on my shoulders and sleeves. Mamoru chuckled at the spectacle I was making of myself. Turning I scowled at him.

"You dare to laugh at a Julliard dancer?"

"I dare to laugh at a beautiful girl spinning in the snow."

My face first heated up, and then went cold, before heating up again. It was a very odd sensation but nowhere near as weird as him calling me beautiful.

"Milady Usako?" he teased, offering his arm. Hesitantly, I took it and he spun me around outrageously. We crazily danced under the streetlight to a symphony of snow. When I got cold he stopped and a car was waiting across the street for us. He pulled me against him inside the car and I fell asleep resting against him. My dreams seemed to echo with his voice whispering, 'rest while you can Usako.'