Debra snarled in response and threw out her arms and the vast web work of her hair. And each strand of her ebony hair reshaped itself into a serpent with a great pair of rapacious fangs that sank deep into Kurayami's mist-flesh. Kurayami roared anew, but this time in pain and anguish. She threw back her head, trying to loosen the medusan tangles of Debra's hair. Debra's hair only unfurled farther and wound like unbreakable silken cords around the girth of Kurayami's body. Moments pa.s.sed as the dreamlike struggle between the two vampiresses went on and on, and soon it became nearly impossible to tell where Debra ended and Kurayami began. The two seemed to merge, black on white, and tangle like threads with no beginning and no end. The earth growled and the air became charged like the sky before lightning was about to strike.

Alek smelled the ozone, felt the tear in the damp cold coc.o.o.n all about him. For a moment there almost seemed to be a pocket...he reached through it with all of his mind and power and sought and found the sword lying on the ground not far from the body of Kurayami's last victim. Come to me? he thought, and scarcely before he had even completed the thought he felt the smooth hilt of the sword slide into the palm of his left hand. He clenched it and felt the power that was himself and Debra and the Double Serpent Katana--that power that was them and was not them, that was more than them--couple and expand like a seething nuclear explosion- Stars fell. Time pa.s.sed.

Alek opened his eyes and found himself on the ground, his hot cheek cooling against the flat of the blade. Someone was shaking him. Rising slowly, feeling drained and weary and hungry, so hungry, he glanced upward. He expected to see Debra's mischievous smile...but was he dreaming? No. The Floating Dragon was there, hovering over him like an angry storm cloud, her eyes and her great carnivorous canines glittering like steel. It was she who had shaken him, as if to gain his attention. Shaken him...or tried to take him back into herself when she had no strength left.

As he watched, she bared those teeth in a hungry catlike hiss.

Dhampir mine! she said in his mind.

"Think again, b.i.t.c.h."

Kurayami roared, her voice tearing through his clothing and flesh like knives. Then she dived at his head.

Alek rolled out of the way, took the hilt of the sword in a two-handed grip, and brought it up in an arch that cut through her belly as if it were flesh and not mist. The sword, as was its nature, hungrily sucked up whatever it encountered. Kurayami screamed as the sword laid her open and ate her out. Alek gasped as the sword grew first warm and then hot, scorching, in his hand. He grimaced and willed his hands to open, but he couldn't let go of the hilt; it felt welded to the palms of his hands.

Hissing, the pain almost more than he could bare, he dropped to the ground on his knees, the sword cooking the flesh of his hands even as it absorbed the last of the gaki's spilt power and sent veins of it spitting along his arm and down his back like a loosened electrical charge.

With a cry, Alek heaved the sword to the ground. Finally, it deemed to let him go and Alek released the hilt. He was trembling so badly from the bolts of wild energy in the sword that he doubted he had the concentration to lift it again had he needed to, had he dared. Instead, he rolled onto his back, his entire body aflutter with power, his hair and clothing hot and sentient around him, fingernails clawing the earth for purchase as the power made his body arch with agony. His back and skull slammed into the ground over and over, compulsively, until the power waned and finally gave him up.

He dropped like a rock. Exhausted, he watched through a veil of tears as Kurayami's mist unraveled in the sky above him. For a moment she was limned like a shadow in the purplish glow of the new morning light, and then the light overcame her outline and she simply vanished with a long low groan of anguish and a sob that seemed almost human.

For a very long time Alek did nothing but simply lay there, shivering ever so often as the overabundance of power drained out of him in sweating trembles. He felt exhausted through and through. Finished.

He'd never rise again, never move again...

Beloved...really?

Someone touched him again, but this time a someone he knew. He felt a woman's soft, coaxing lips on his own, then on his throat, over the pulse, then lower, the touch of them fluttery and cool over the sweating flesh of his chest and stomach, then lower still. Alek sat up and the sensation vanished as the sword slid effortlessly and with no pain into his palm. The feeling was only a shadow but it left behind the echoes of the mischievous laughter of the woman he knew too well, the one he was beholden too in this world as much as the next.

21.

Kage stopped drinking the precious blood of his master the moment he spied the flare of light from beyond the drapes. For a moment even the heavy black fabric could not block the sunburst of bleeding vermilion light that turned the study a lurid shade of red. Then the light vanished and he heard Kurayami scream in agony and defeat.

The Dragon King forced Kage back and went to the window. The skin of his throat was sc.r.a.ped raw by Kage's teeth, yet he did not seem to notice. The drapes parted and he swore violently at the sight of the Slayer. The sun was up, but Kage had fed well enough for the light to affect him no worse than a bad sunburn. He blinked against the piercing day and focused through the tears in his eyes on the figure of the man in the courtyard, the one in the flowing, sentient black coat and hair.

The dhampir. The Slayer.

Kage was speechless. The danger was upon them and Kage felt the war fever rise in him like the hunger had risen earlier: urgent and volcanic. Yet when the Ryuujin turned to him, Kage resisted the urge to throw himself through the gla.s.s at the dhampir and instead concentrated all his attention on the master in front of him.

"So he's free," The Ryuujin's voice was uncommonly sedate. His eyes moved as he spoke, but otherwise he was still. "Take Danny down to your quarters and guard him with your life, Kage. I will keep the Slayer at bay here." Kage was torn. He had two first duties in his life and they were to both obey and protect the master at any and all costs to himself, and right now the order he had been given was an enormous conflict. He must obey the Ryuujin's every order, but to do so would be to leave him to deal with the Slayer alone, with not so much as even Kurayami to protect him. That could not be. Could not.

"My Ryuujin..." Kage began. "I will not--I cannot--leave you."

The Ryuujin looked at him. His eyes were solemn. "Kage...Danny is your master now. Go to him." Then he turned to the window and drew his katana from the red silk sash of his kimono.

The Ryuujin, in his great wisdom and goodness, knew exactly what Kage was suffering and how to resolve it. With those words he had pa.s.sed the mantle of master onto the boy. No, Kage's mind amended, he had pa.s.sed the mantle down to the new master. Kage felt as if he were falling, such was his sudden fear. He knew that one day that mantle would indeed be pa.s.sed on--but it would be in a long and very complex ceremony, a drinking of tea and blood, his hands bound with black silk to those of the young man who would succeed the Ryuujin as master of the vampire Kage.

Danny now was the master. And Danny was with the other human men. Unprotected.

Unprotected.

The word beat at Kage's thoughts like a windblown bird against a windowpane.

Unprotected.

The terror was suddenly too great. Too great, even, for his loathing of the dhampir. Putting the old Ryuujin out of his mind as if the man no longer existed, Kage virtually flew to Danny's side.

22.

It took several moments for Alek to orient himself. For a moment as his head cleared and his senses returned to him he found himself staring at the rising sun, the way it touched the length of stainless steel in his hand with fire. The sun did not disturb him and never had. He was too human. But too wickedly tired to care one way or the other. Tired and...hungry.

He turned to stare up at the big bay window where Ashikawa and Kage had been having their little tete-a-tete only a moment ago. Now only Ashikawa remained, his sword drawn, his eyes pinning Alek like the eyes of a bird of prey, cold and unforgiving...

Alek groaned as a pang of need hit him so hard it nearly doubled him over. It was pain like in the alley last night, but pain of the worse kind because he could not resist it this time. So hard he had worked at not allowing this to happen, so f.u.c.king hard! So much control and meditation was used to curb the hunger, and now all that work had been wasted. He seethed as another and much greater hunger cramp clutched him in iron claws. Instead of letting it drop him to the ground, Alek harnessed the pain and used its momentum to leap at the bay window a good two stories above him. The impact shattered gla.s.s in every direction. Gla.s.s blew in like daggers upon the Ryuujin even as the man took several hasty steps backwards. Gla.s.s rained down on them both as Alek vaulted through the window and landed in a writhing crouch on the window seat.

The Ryuujin of the Yakuza stood his ground, the sword resting against his outer thigh. Alek had to give the man credit for his courage.

To face down and control a vampire like Kage was an astonishing feat.

But for a human man to face down Hunger itself was incredible. But there, just beneath the courage in his eyes, was the fear. Primal.

Natural. Alek felt for him. He wanted this no more than the man, but fate and chance had put enmity between them. He knew Ashikawa would never let him go without a fight, especially now that he felt threatened on his own ground. Alek showed the man his teeth, knowing that as long as Edward Ashikawa had that inborn fear of predation he would not make any bold moves that Alek might or might not be able to fend off in his present state of weakness.

The man almost seemed to read his mind. He stepped forward, his eyes locked on Alek's in blatant challenge, and said, "Kurayami has drained you, dhampir, even as you drained her...so what harm can you bring to me?"

That was true enough, but Alek couldn't let that show. Instead, he started climbing like a great black cat down off the window seat and onto the floor. Unfortunately, another hunger pang cramped his stomach to the point of agony and he dropped to the floor instead of climbing gracefully down. His sword clanked against the hardwood and for a moment afterward he was aware of himself scrabbling among the broken gla.s.s for a grip to push himself back onto his knees. Edward Ashikawa made no move to rush him while he did so. He still seemed afraid, even now, at Alek's weakest point. His eyes kept flicking this way and that about the room as if expecting an unseen ambush at any moment.

"Her name is Debra," Alek whispered through hair and teeth and the pain like a fist in his gut.

"Ah. Should we be expecting her, dhampir?"

"I think I can handle you."

"Are you so sure?" Ashikawa asked a moment before he attacked, his sword fully extended. Alek had no choice but to try and avoid the falling sword. He rolled out of the way and used his coat as a buffer. The sword slipped harmlessly past his shoulder as he avoided Ashikawa's frontal a.s.sault. After a moment he returned the a.s.sault with a savage swipe of his hand that was more animal than warrior. Ashikawa, either seeing it or sensing it in some way, changed the sword's trajectory in mid-strike and sliced Alek's palm open.

Gasping in shock and pain, Alek dropped his sword and grasped his wounded hand, shuffling sideways to avoid a second cut of the blade.

This time the sword landed with a solid thunk into the window seat, splitting wood. Desperate, Alek kicked at Ashikawa's hand and the sword slipped sideways out of the man's grip.

Ashikawa let the sword go and side-kicked Alek in the face. The force of the blow snapped Alek's head around and slammed him like a boneless doll into a tall antique bookcase, making it rock and dump its load of books and porcelain atop him in a pelting, shattering rain. But Alek recovered quickly from the blow, as severe as it was. Too severe, Debra whispered. Alek nodded and moved sideways again to avoid the shelf as it crashed down against the floor with a ma.s.sive breezy whomp, scattering books and ma.n.u.scripts everywhere across the study.

Again Ashikawa came at him, relentless, his eyes fixed on his intended prey. This time Alek saw the man diving at him in the midst of a Gung Fu swan dive and he narrowed his eyes and snarled in response.

And the sight must have been enough of a distraction because Ashikawa seemed to loose his concentration long enough for Alek to grab his ankle in mid-air and twist him over onto his back on the floor. Ashikawa let out a grunt as Alek snapped his anklebone, but the man made no other indication that he was severely hurt. In fact, even as Alek threw himself over the man and tried to get Ashikawa in a submission hold, he felt the man react--not out of fear or pain, but out of perfect discipline. As if in slow motion, Alek saw the man's hand snap out for his throat. He tried to pull back but at the same moment yet another hunger cramp seized him and made him helpless to react.

And then Ashikawa had him by the throat, the ring and index finger of his left hand on the pulse points on both sides under Alek's ears. Alek tried to jerk backward but Ashikawa applied warning pressure, halting his momentum in dead stride. He needed to move but dared not; a bit more pressure and Edward Ashikawa could yank two gaping holes in the most vulnerable place on his entire body.

The Ryuujin of the Yakuza smiled. "You see, dhampir, I know more about your kind than most other humans. One move and you die as easily as anyone else I ever killed." His eyes burned. "Now yield."

Alek's hands twitched on the floor, but he dared not move even them.

He dared not breathe in that moment.

"Yield!" An inch more pressure.

"Yield," he whispered.

Edward Ashikawa let him go.

And Alek palm-heeled him under the nose, snapping Ashikawa's head back against the floor. The blow should have knocked the man out cold; instead, Ashikawa came back roaring, all street fighter now, the gauntlet thrown. Both of his fists slammed into Alek's shoulders with bone-grating power, knocking the breath out of Alek's lungs. As Alek staggered to his feet, struggling to recover, Ashikawa followed through by leaping effortlessly to his feet and simultaneously jabbing both palm heels into Alek's breastbone. The force of the blow lifted Alek up off the ground for the smallest fraction of a second and then hurled him back into the desk at the far side of the room. The desk did not simply crumble but exploded into tinder under Alek's weight. For one dizzying moment Alek found himself moored in the remnants of it. Then he shook himself around to full consciousness and crawled out of the jagged remains, his coat in virtual tatters. Ashikawa...he was so G.o.dd.a.m.n strong. It wasn't natural...

A moment later he collapsed to the floor as the greatest pang of all hit him and turned his whole world red. The pain was like steel claws in his belly, sc.r.a.ping him open and spilling his empty guts to the floor. He almost expected to see himself lying inside out.

A foot landed close to his head, then another. Ashikawa.

Alek flipped over onto his side and clenched himself down like a vice around the craving. Sweating through the pain and the need, he gritted his teeth and whispered, "If you value your life...leave me...alone." Alek's eyes squeezed out tear after tear as the pain waxed and waned inside of him like a silent hungry howl.

"You are warning me?" Ashikawa asked as if it were all a joke. Or some kind of new deception "You live with a vampire...you know what's happening," Alek gasped out from between his clenched teeth, fighting back the cancer eating him alive from the inside out. Nothing he did seemed to fight it, nothing at all. It was an invisible enemy. Something unharmed by teeth or claws or a sword. Something he simply could not fight. "Touch me now..." Alek whispered as his body shivered feverishly, "...and you die."

Something clanked down beside Alek's head. A stainless steel decanter? He didn't understand it, but the aromatic scent of what it contained commanded him. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and brought it to his lips...yes...sucking up the viscous black substance in the container...oh yes. Cold and very old--at least by a day or more-but still good. Still enough to stop the pain. He gulped it down like an animal, mouth and tongue and teeth, much of it going up his nose and over his chin in his greed. Yet his famished body absorbed the blood in any way it could, his mouth and nose, the very pores of his face where they made contact with the substance. He was drinking it in every way possible, not unlike how his sword drank whatever power or substance it encountered. He drank and drank, letting it quell the disaster inside of him...

Yet the moment the pain subsided, the moment the pain let him go, he dashed away the decanter still a quarter full. Blood spattered the floor like a ma.s.sacre. He had discipline, d.a.m.nit, and the last thing he needed was to go all the way. Others did that. And those others never came back. Not ever. He snuffled and pushed himself back onto his hands and knees and wiped at his face with the heels of his hands. He was conscious of being watched by his enemy, and that Edward Ashikawa was doing it with a disturbing mixture of revulsion and pity.

This was like the alley again...how like a wheel was life. Alek watched him back from under the unruly tangles of his hair, glad for it because he face burned and he felt no less human than now, to be seen like this, drinking like an animal... How he hated that look. As if Ashikawa were better than him, if only because he was more human.

"How incredible you are," Ashikawa said with something like admiration.

"You did this to me," Alek snarled. He wiped the remaining blood off his mouth with his fingers and dashed the droplets away. "Why help me?"

Ashikawa said, "As you say--I did it to you." He sighed. "Actually, it's a matter of honor. Something you know remarkably little about." He looked disappointed.

"I don't understand." Alek could stand now, and so he did, even weak and wavering the way he was. Better he stand than kneel here before Ashikawa like a servant.

I must look a sight, he thought to himself.

You look delicious, beloved, Debra answered.

She would think so.

"You are so American," Ashikawa said. He went to retrieve his fallen sword.

He seemed to be walking very well, as if the broken ankle had mended already, even though that should have been impossible for a human. But for Edward Ashikawa? "You shame your human heritage.

Let me explain, dhampir: You warned me off at the moment of your greatest danger to me. I was simply returning the favor, lest I stay beholden to you forever."

Alek pulled his coat close over his ruined shirt. The coat too had absorbed the blood, and its tears were reweaving themselves at a phenomenal speed, like stop-action photography. As if that too was alive. "Good to know we can kill each other like civilized men," he said warily.

Ashikawa smirked. "Something like that. Now yield, Slayer," he said, extending the sword's point at Alek. "Yield for good and I will let you walk out of here today. Fight me and you will never again know another Hunter's Moon."

"I'll yield when you let Robyn and Danny go."

Again Ashikawa sighed. He looked about to pontificate further on that when the door of the study suddenly crashed open and several of his men poured in. Alek recognized them as the ones who had been patrolling the grounds when he arrived at the house. Professional muscle. He put out his hand and the Double Serpent Katana skipped forward over the debris of the study and slid effortlessly into his palm.

More foes. He didn't need this now. Not just now, when he was at less than half his strength.

I'm here, beloved, Debra whispered wetly into his ear.

He had forgotten. Tonight was the night of the greatest moon, the Hunter's Moon, and because of that, her power would be at its peak. She would be most able to affect his world. Still, he wondered what she was capable of affecting... Watch.

Ashikawa's men cl.u.s.tered in and looked to him for a signal. The Dragon Lord of the Yakuza simply nodded in response and said, "Kill it,"

to them.

And then the men as one turned on Alek with their Brownings, Magnums and Desert Eagles--weapons that could tear apart even his immortal flesh. Alek held stock-still, undecided about what to do. But almost from the moment the heavies focused their attention on him, Alek felt it. The men felt it too, because instead of firing, they hesitated, looking around the room for the source of the disturbance.

It was like an electrical charge, subtle and dangerous, a silent growl on the air as if lightning were about to strike. And then, through the broken bay window gusted a sudden black wind and on that wind the angelic, mist-like form of a great bird, a dark phoenix or some kind of giant raven. As indistinct as a dream it wafted in, tendrils of its misty form drifting like loose black flames on the open air. And then it truly did catch fire like a phoenix, the darkness consumed by a whoosh! of heatless flames that sent the men scrambling back through the door or behind furniture, terrified of the fearsome creature because they seemed to a.s.sume it was the gaki Kurayami.

You are so smart, Alek thought to the fire bird. Have I told you enough times how wonderful you are?

No, Debra answered with a sensual laugh, but keep trying, she said as she kept her Glamour in place long enough for him to make a discreet exit out the door.

In the vacant hall outside the study he paused to sheathe his sword and get his bearings. He did not know how long Debra could keep the Ryuujin and his men busy, but he hoped it was long enough for him to find a way out of this place. Shaking off the last of the weakness, he followed the hallway down to a further branch of intersecting and identical hallways. Now he felt like a rat in a maze--or at least a man lost in a large and very posh hotel. He tried to guess where he was, but everything looked alike. He doubted he would find his way out simply by wandering around. For one thing, this place was enormous and he was almost certain to be trapped by Ashikawa's men when they realized Debra's phoenix was only an illusion.

The best he could do was to make an educated guess. The study faced west and the front of the house was east, so if he kept moving in his present direction...

A cry of anguish rose up from somewhere below. It was faint, a very long way off, and only his oversensitive ears picked up on the sound. But it was very familiar. He moved quickly toward the source of the cries and sought and found a set of curving gla.s.s stairways that led in their winding way to the vast foyer he had first seen on entering the Ashikawa manor. By the time he reached it he discovered the source of the struggle: Robyn was on the stairs at the opposite end of the foyer, being manhandled by the young Asian punk from the evening before. As before, his two hopalongs were there, Nunchaku and Ponytail, but all three of them seemed to be having difficulty this time holding the girl.

The moment Robyn spied Alek she exploded into a fighting tigress, slamming her elbows into the two boys who had her and simultaneously kicking their leader in the stomach. With a yelp of surprise, the leader flew backward, tumbled over once, and landed at the foot of the stairs.

He stared upside down at Alek.

"Motherf.u.c.king s.h.i.t!" the boy growled and twisted around, trying to grab at Alek's ankles and take him down. Alek sidestepped him and the boy grabbed at nothing but air. Again the boy swore and threw himself over, scrambling to his feet with impressive speed and stamina for someone who had just taken a header down a full flight of steps. He looked shaken and there was an ugly bruise on his forehead, but otherwise he looked no worse off than last night as he a.s.sumed a light battle stance and flipped out a six-inch switchblade with rust pitting at the guard.

Iron.

The boy smiled savagely, knowingly, at him.