Disclaimer: I own neither Saiyuki or anything else that anybody in the known universe could sue me for. I own nothing.
AN: Enjoy the chapter. Don't forget to push the happy little review button. Please? Also, somebody asked if I could include other characters a little more in the story ( it is a little Sanzo centric isn't it?) the answer is yes, I will include other characters more in later chapters. But…sorry, not this time.
Succubus Nights
Hakkuryu's injuries healed nicely. Aside from a couple of bumps and bruises his only real injury had been the sword driven into the hood. They drove up the winding mountain roads; Hakkai was speeding, as usual. Sanzo was thinking about what had transpired. Humans had almost killed them. That was bad.
"This fog's too thick." Hakkai said leaning into the steering wheel and squinting to try and see better.
Sanzo flicked off the ashes of his cigarette and glared at Hakkai, "I do hope you don't suggest we stop."
"No," Hakkai said carefully, "I'm just saying we should remain in one place until the fog lifts." At Sanzo's brittle glare he continued, "It'll be dark soon, then we really won't be able to see anything."
Sanzo bit down hard on the length of tobacco, "…Fine…we stop until the fog lifts, no fires. No attention."
Hakkai nodded, little snob was probably really pleased with himself on the inside. Typical.
VVVVV
They stopped on the side of the road to set up bedrolls. As per usual, Hakkuryu lay next to Hakkai, dreaming whatever dreams a miniature dragon has. Gojyo was snoring excessively loud and mumbling something about booze or women or some such nonsense. Goku lay on his back, with his tongue hanging out and a goofy smile on his face. Out of all of them, Sanzo was sure Goku was least susceptible to nightmares.
Sanzo himself, was sitting up, robes stopped haphazardly at his waist. With his thin black undershirt and practically bare arms, it was cold. But that didn't really matter. He was too nervous to sleep. It was so strange; almost as soon as they bedded down he couldn't help but think there was something watching them. Of course it was probably just jitters from the stupid nicotine.
He'd taken it upon himself to keep watch, at least until he could sleep right. Another headache ravaged his temple. Damn. And he'd thought he'd gotten rid of the stupid thing when they'd been unpacking. Of course, the three or four times he'd smoked since then probably hadn't helped. He closed his eyes for only a moment, trying to rest them. When he did, the priest remembered he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before either. He rested his head on the pillow, the headache didn't go away but at least it subsided. That in and of itself was enough to keep him there. But as he drifted into sleep, there was one little nagging thought that plagued his mind. Sanzo tried to put his finger on it, but he just couldn't. He gave up after a moment or so, and drifted away into his regularly scheduled nightmare.
He saw bodies. Endless rivers of cloaked, rotting corpses in a vast desert. The sky was blue without a cloud marking its topaz surface. Bolts stuck from their backs. Dried, caked on blood hardened their soaked robes. Insane, lifeless eyes stared back at him.
Suddenly, the rotting, insane-eyed human bodies transformed into bloodthirsty demon bodies. The bolts changed to bullet holes. The desert changed to a mountain landscape, with trees bathed in demonic blood. Alone he stood in the middle of the slaughter.
The death.
The death of a master to save his apprentice.
The random sacrifice of demons to avenge a master.
The eyes changed, into the vicious human eyes he'd seen that morning. They came alive and charged him in waves of hate and pain. Knowing they'd tear him to shreds, he raised the pistol to his own temple.
Click.
And that was when he felt the hundreds of demonic claws and teeth rip his sinewy frame to pieces. Through the endless pain he smelled something, a smell of burning flesh.
VVVVV
Hakkai's own sleep had been a long time coming. After being the one behind the wheel all day, not to mention healer and all the chi fighting he'd done when they were attacked. He was exhausted, and at first happy to get some rest.
Then the dream came.
A thousand words not said to one loved. A thousand times to die. A thousand demons murdered by his hand in coldest blood. A thousand drops of blood that littered his frame. A thousand final screams. A thousand begs for mercy. A thousand times relived in his mind. A thousand vengeful spirits coming from the abyss to claim their killer. A thousand claws caressing him as they pulled him down.
They offered death. A thousand millennia of suffering for his sins unto them. As they pulled him into the heat of hell he heard everlasting screams of agony, and smelled the sickly stench of burning flesh.
VVVVV
Gojyo would have preferred to curl up next to a beautiful woman, in a warm town somewhere. Not only did he not have a woman, he didn't even have a fire. Stupid, high-and-mighty monk. None the less, he'd camped out before, and was just as tired as anybody else.
He licked soft skin. Working his way up from the base of her stomach, to her soft luscious lips. All the world disappeared. He cared nothing for their journey, or for his companions. For a heartbeat his eyes dashed away from her beautiful, perfect form to the side of the room. They lay in a cluster.
Hakkai seemed the most peaceful, two bite marks in his neck where the blood had been drained. Only a little was actually left to pour out onto his Chinese tunic. Then there was Sanzo, his lilac eyes staring into emptiness, glazed over for the last time. Gojyo had done the deed himself. It was he who strangled the monk, and then fed post mortem beside his lover. Goku also stared blankly, even though his heart still beat. A thrall, nothing more.
She had shown him so much. Enlightened him. Given him more than he'd ever known. He kissed her, running his hands down her body. In a moment of passionate heat, he bit her neck, letting her blood pool into his mouth. She returned the bite and he felt his blood pool into her. Forever bound in immortal love.
And then he smelled the burning flesh.
VVVVV
He ran. He ran like he'd never had to in his life. They were behind him. Crying for his blood, trapped in the heated chase. His breath grew heavy and his muscles ached as they begged for oxygen. The fog. The fog was heavier than air, he felt like the more he needed it the more weighed down he became.
The hunters came from behind him, where the fog held him to the ground, it seemed they glided across it. Faster they came until they were upon him. Hakkai gripped his legs pulling him down for a final time. Gojyo his metallic weapon through his back, into the ground. The crescent moon weapon sliced open his back though his guts, into the ice cold ground. Pinning him.
He felt hot breath on the back of his neck. Sanzo. Then the bite on his throat. Stinging hot pain. Sanzo drank all that flowed from the open bite mark. His blood was being drank.
By Sanzo.
By his Sun.
His neck was the first to become numb, slowly, as more blood surged out, the numbness spread. All that was left was the freezing cold as death slowly advanced on him. The only sign he was even still alive was the pounding as his heart slowed. Then stopped. Then came the smell of burning flesh.
What?
Goku's eyes slid open and he looked around the camp.
Oh god, Sanzo.
"Hakkai!" Goku yelled.
VVVVV
Sanzo felt it before he awoke. As a matter of fact that's what awoke him. Nothing gets you up like the feel of the skin melting off your body. He saw his leg was on fire. He grunted and leaped from the bed, rolling on the ground, desperate to put out the fire before it spread. Although the dirt rubbing into the injury was like literally rubbing salt in the wound. Hakkai was already dashing over, Goku was next, and then came Gojyo.
Stupid Kappa, Sanzo thought hazily, Always last to show up when I need help.
Of course that was one of few coherent thoughts through the pain. Luckily, Goku already had water. But the dumbass dumped it on in such force that it tore some of the burned skin right off. That hurt. But at least it put the fire out, which was the immediate threat to his life. He lay on the ground, breathing heavily, as Hakkai sealed up the wound.
"You stupid son of a bitch."
Sanzo lifted his head and glared at the green-eyed man, "Come again?"
"Your stupid cigarettes. You set yourself on fire when you fell asleep with it in hand."
"I'm not that stupid. Someone else must have done it." Of course there was the chance Hakkai was right. If Sanzo could recall something nagging him as he drifted to sleep.
"You know people die like that?"
"What the hell are you? My mother?" Sanzo bit the sentence off as Hakkai dropped the healing spell. "What do you think you're doing?"
Hakkai smiled sweetly back at him, "I don't have enough strength to heal it properly, but hopefully you'll think twice next time before you almost turn yourself to cinders…Now I'll get a bandage and disinfectants so we can at least kill anything that's in there. The biggest concern with burns is always infection." He walked off mumbling something about how 'unbelievable' it was.
Sanzo glared at Goku, who had remained quiet, staring at him the entire time. "What are you lookin' at?"
"I was worried!"
"I'm fine! I was fine! I will always be fine!" Built up irritation from the whole goddamn situation brought out the best in him. Being who he was, he took it out on Goku no matter how little sense it made to do so.
It all came back, the dream, bodies coming to life and tearing him to shreds. He brought a hand up to his temple to block out the images as best he could. He hadn't had a dream that vivid in quite a while. He looked around, fog and cloud cover were all around them. Even managing to veil the moon, without veiling it's light. What the hell?
He was suddenly reminded of Chin Yissou. The a centipede demon who's father and clan Hakkai had brutally murdered. Hadn't that assface used fog as a scare tactic?
No way…that guy was long, long, long dead.
But, somebody else could have mastered a similar technique. Fog was actually pretty simple for most mages once they got the hang of it. Okay, assuming the fog was artificial, what the hell was causing it? There would have to be a pretty powerful mage somewhere on the mountain to summon a cloud of this magnitude. Any such mage would almost have to be demon, but no demon aura surrounded it. There were rumors of human mages that strong, but only in places far to the west, as far as Sanzo had heard there were no such human mages in Shang Gri La.
That's too weird. Demon made sense, those drones at the front door attacked as soon as they saw the awesome-threesome. With swords that could cut right through demon energy barriers. Those bastards were equipped and prepared to fight demons in fold. They hadn't followed them into the mountain, so that could only mean they didn't want to abandon their post in case whatever evil nasty had this mountain for a home made an escape for it.
Yet the fog held no demon energy. Demon energy could be masked, but it would still show in the energy used to create the fog.
It could have been the humans. It would make sense Sanzo wouldn't have heard about a mage that powerful living so far in the middle of nowhere. No surprise that word didn't get around that fast…
Sanzo sighed; he was trying to come up with an answer to something he couldn't possibly come up with without more information. As hesitant as he was to admit it he was not freaking all knowing, and he knew he couldn't think as straight as he wanted to when the burn on his leg still hurt like hell.
"Eww," Gojyo said randomly, "It's all gooey and meaty."
"Just die…" The priest hissed. He wouldn't get any mileage from asking Gojyo anything. So, he voiced his concerns to his only possible intellectual equal. "Hakkai?"
"Yes?" Hakkai was already at work cleaning and dressing the wound. With every new treatment it sent new waves of agony up Sanzo's nerves.
"Anything about this fog seem familiar to you?"
For a moment, Hakkai's face twisted in thought; "Now that I think about it…it does seem like what Chin Yissou used to hold us in one place while he tried to pick us off one by one…"
See? That was why he always asked Hakkai these things.
"Well," Gojyo interjected, "Isn't artificial fog just supposed to look like…well, fog?"
Sanzo was about to snap something when Hakkai told the half-breed in a calm voice, "Artificial fog is never exactly like real fog. Creation always holds something of its creator. In the case of real fog that creator is Mother Nature herself. But when it's made by a human or a demon, it's wrong because there is no way a human could be anywhere near as pure as the world around us."
Goku and Gojyo had blank stares.
Hakkai sighed, "Okay, the Earth itself can never be corrupted. There's always purity to the creation that comes from nature. Fog, plants, lakes. You name it. When a human, who has a personality, whether good or bad, creates something it always holds something of it's creator-"
There was a rustle in the bushes. All armed in the blink of an eye. Sanzo, his gun drawn and the scripture lain over his shoulders (Fortunately it had been unharmed in the fire). Hakkai was already gathering a ball of his chi, or what was left of it anyway. Gojyo and Goku had their staffs ready to rumble.
A woman stepped out. In a revealing, white robe. In the moonlit fog she looked pale to the point of luminance. Long perfect legs were exposed where the robe ended. She was barefoot, with long, black hair draped over her perfect, hourglass frame. Her eyes were gray, light enough to look almost white. Even at that they were only a shade lighter than her skin. She still looked healthy, despite the white complexion. On top of it all the top of her robe was opened in such a way as to leave something to be desired.
"Hello…" She spoke with velvet smooth, yet it was husky in a way too. But not so much that it dominated the silkiness to her voice, "I am Freydis Nahema. Mistress of this town, Queen of all free Vampires."
VVVVV Chapter End
AN: Howdy ya'll. Thanks again for reading all the way through the chapter. Well, I promised the succubus would appear. But unfortunately I'm too tired to write anything else that may be coherent so I'm just gonna leave it with that minor cliffhanger. Sorry, the horrific dreams took up way more time and thought than I thought they would so. Yeah. I'm leaving it at that. Please, click the little review button and tell me what it did good, and what I could improve on. Thanks.