V liked to walk. The slow human pace was comforting. He liked to be reminded of what it was to be human. To feel the ghosts of all the walks he’d taken before- countless, wearing a track through the grove that separated his untaxed fields from his fathers humble house.

  Despite the separation of years- decades and centuries of seasons that blurred together, softly blended with the ageless pace of immortality his most vivid and realest memories were still those of his human years. Perhaps this was because they were all lit with sunlight. Human nights were harder to recall, dimmed by the limitation of human eyes. Mostly spent asleep.

  Of all the occupations he’d held- poet, artist, veteran of a thousand battles, caretaker of those he initiated into this parallel path, simple farming had been his favourite. The thing he missed most, the truest life, the virtue of nurturing growing things.

  V did not like to fight. But as a constant citizen, impervious to most mortal wounds, and witness to a hundred cultural shifts what else could he do? Sit back and watch his country struggle when he might contribute? He had had to leave his home to fight anyway. It had been easier for them to believe him dead after the first and last military campaign he took part in as a human. And he would have been dead without Faust.

  It took two hundred years for him to realize that no matter how great his own personal power might be, no matter how fate had plucked him from his simple life and opened the door of all time to him, still he was powerless to change the tide of history that swept him along with everyone else, the mighty and the meek, like a leaf in a stream. This slow dissolution of ego is what V credited with keeping his stamina all this time. Anyone who has lived the better part of a millennium has been a hundred-hundred versions of himself. It always amazed him what changes were still possible, slower now, to be sure but the tree that bends is the one that grows the tallest, a serene thought. How can life, the vast incomprehensible machine of fate be taken personally when each of us has within us a hundred-hundred selves?

  Life will provide you with what you are meant to have. No more and no less. At nearly 600 years he could say this with certainty. Every day, every year, he was still patiently discovering his true purpose, the reasons for his endurance on earth as they came to him one by one through the tide of life that drew close then away again in a rhythm that was both predictable and ever surprising. It was a comfort also, he had eventually decided, this helplessness. If one is free from the human conviction that one’s ego is capable of shaping the world one is truly free. Most human beings are unhappy because they don't know when to submit to fate. V knew, for example, that it had been his fate to be a soldier. He could no more resist the banner and rallying cry than he could live without blood in those early years. Now of course, as a mature vampire things were different. He could go years without feeding, growing thin and peaceful as a monk, living high in the mountains or entombed deep in the earth if he chose to. As though the ultimate goal of the vampire was to be totally free from the exchange of energy that made life possible. He wondered if anyone had ever made it that long. If he would.

  Another truth that he had not hidden from Yeongi was that even we cannot totally defeat death, only put it off. Every life that is punctuated with a beginning must end. Though for the past half century he had lived in the present, had been focused on guiding Yeongi and living a peaceful life with him, populated with few others. When he did feed, as he had taught Yeongi to, the blood he took was always an enemy’s. Not a personal enemy, this, he had also told Yeongi, was a mistake. It was better as he had learned centuries ago, to simply fade from the lives of the ones who knew you and let them remember you as a human, believing your life to be ended.

  He had very few personal enemies there was little room for them in an immortal existence, but in this case he meant rather the enemies of the mortal innocent. Ironic that this was the blanket term the Institute used for all human beings. As if the presence of the Others precluded and overruled any human-level evil. V considered his own “hunting” to be an act of service to his strained and under-resourced country.

  While the current human powers focused on slowly banning freedom of thought and destroying unnaturals, V was eradicating the true monsters of their dark streets. The ones who didn’t need blood, who killed for no reason at all. As the Stalkers liked to say of their dark work killing vampires, sometimes V thought he might be taking the first step toward redeeming their souls in this way.

  V often hated fighting but it gave him something to do. Most battles go on into the night, no one noticed him slipping into the ranks and out again like a vengeful ghost who would dissolve come sunrise like mist, roused to aid the army of his choice. Even if the fight were over by night or came with the dawn he was always needed to help with the wounded or in setting up camp. Even in peacetime he got tired of concealment and often walked among humans, even now because no one living had seen him and known him as himself except Jang Jii and he was not likely to run into him in the dark streets. Much as he might like to. Human friends were so hard to maintain, and he was an interesting man; deeply conflicted in his soul; like V he had been an artist living a violent life. V had often hoped they might come to a truce one day.

  He did not regret fighting. He would fight again. The fact that he did not enjoy it was the best indication that for him it was an obligation. He did not consider his status to be an unfair advantage. Fate had made him what he was. He had not asked for it, had simply chosen to go on living even without the sun. Choosing sides was easy. V fought for his nation against any threatening power. Any power that might become a threat. He would always defend Korea. He may no longer be human but he would always be Korean. Still, always and now he preferred peace. But another unfortunate truth of the centuries was that war was a necessary part of being human. Strange how even now, in the smoking remnants of their civilization, the scorched land opened up but half destroyed in the process, a strip of desert where once there had been a far more devastating border, they still chose to wage war. No longer against each other but against the ones more different than foreigners, more dangerous than prejudice, the enemy within humanity itself. The Others. Unnaturals was the human term, an odd choice when some of us depended on blood for life, when the moon ruled over us all like a goddess. What could be more natural than blood? Or the cycles of the moon?

  To be a vampire is to live free from biological responsibility. No death, no procreation, no disease of the body. What he had been freed from, what he had freed his immortal children from was the merciless quality of time. But still we are present, and physical. Records could be taken, photographs and video, he had impressed upon Yeongi as a cardinal rule the importance of destroying all records of yourself. He accepted that as easily as anything, claiming he would have anyway. V had assured him he was far more powerful now than they ever could be and he need never fear them again, he had said only “I’ll never see them again.” V had smiled. A friend or an enemy… their influence is eternal. But he did not tell Yeongi because he was so young and would find out for himself that even as an immortal, people, the ones you’ve loved or hated always come back to haunt you.

  Of course war attracts unnaturals too. It would be a lie to say otherwise. Chaos and hate. The chance to feel something; we cannot stay away. V could never stay away, no matter his reasoning for it. Maybe we want to fight more than anything. Not out of rage or violence but out of a need to constantly justify our existence- to fight to survive. There is no alternative to fighting. Only death. We choose sides in the hope that the faction we choose will choose us in turn. This of course, will never happen, humans have never been comfortable with our existence and probably never will be.

  This is the first hope abandoned by vampires. And the reason we will outlast all others. Though for how long depends on many factors, in part on what Yeongi finds now. The nail that will pierce the heart of us all- the enigmatic phrase recorded by my maker, half mad with his unholy communion, the first vampire. The end suggested in the very beginning. But prophecies always come late. V remembered when he thought Jang Jii was the one. Faust was gone. Maybe not destroyed but no longer autonomous, he half hoped, no longer lucid, and all of his prophecies had gone with him. And still their hearts remained un-pierced.

  Battle is the natural state between the Others and humanity. The only time we can relate to humans and want to ally with them is in the context of a larger fight. The wolves especially enjoyed this, to their peril because they had been promised clemency, immunity or other rewards. The Institute had started out publicly as an underground movement, a war racketeer, recruiting wolves in the last civil conflict. They had only revealed the true nature of the enterprise when it was all over and 90% of the wolves were under Institute control. By the time they realized their mistake in trading their power and skill for the promise of immunity and status in society most of them were already dead.

  The only reason vampires survived was our distrust. We were smarter. Older. We had the edge even before the Institute was revealed for what it was. The largest organized effort to study and eradicate the plague of “unnaturals” in the eastern world.

  The tragedy of the wolves trusting the Institute was realized in them finally showing their full hand, they had no intention of helping any non human integrate into society. One who had survived this conflict, a friend, was Temper. The last werewolf in Pusan, maybe in all of Korea. V had never heard his true name, had never asked for it. He may also have been one of the oldest, from the Seong family, one of the oldest in Korea still existent in the patriarchal line, he had fallen into immortality some three hundred years before, and fought alongside V in many conflicts in the years since they first met. Though almost all vampires hated and despised wolves nearly as deeply as the Institute, V had felt a kinship with them. They were just the other side of the same lonely coin. Their friendship had begun when V saved Temper from a bear trap. He’d only turned a few times and was yet incautious. V had risked wounds to pry the thing apart and free the angry, frightened wolf. He had not even known the creature was part human until he was approached by a timid young man with dark circles under his dark eyes, in the encampment four days later. All he did was touch V’s hands and say thank you but it must have taken incredible courage for him to do even this because he had revealed himself when the informal penalty for such beings even before the surfacing of the Institute was exile and death. The Institute did not represent the beginning of humanity’s awareness of Others, only the large scale organized effort to destroy them. V had only recognized him by the bandage that showed bulky on his ankle, and though V was careful to moderate his strength in front of the rest of the regiment it seemed he had been recognized too.

  This mutual tenuous trust had become a friendship over the years and as they settled into life in this latest near century of peacetime they had relied on each other for help in keeping Pusan safe not merely for themselves but for V’s creations and for the fleeting, mistrustful few who came through the city now and again. Tempers occult book shop was an anomaly in Pusan, skirted by the local human population but to the Others within a wide range it was a kind of haven. A safe, neutral place to gather and meet. Temper had been skilled in his families traditional ancient arts even before his turning and his wards prevented violence and protected all who entered under a truce of mutual exclusion from the daylight society.

  Despite the Seong clan’s tradition of magical knowledge which Temper now protected in archives beneath the shop’s astrograph floor, his family could not endure the shame of a neugdae son and he never returned from the campaign of 1990 allowing them instead to mourn his human self, the one who had truly passed away the moment he was bitten.

  But V had not seen or heard from his friend in months. At the end of this long lonely walk through Pusan, streets dark because the power in this block had been bad since he could remember, was the little shop where Temper had made a home of sorts. Not merely for himself, this shop represented a stop in the road, a place to rest, a place open all night, where no questions were asked and many books of the type not sought out by mortals could be found. The secret history of the ones like him and like V. Fear or something stronger kept the patrols away. Or perhaps it was merely a lack of resources. The gangs owned these streets and an eccentric bookshop was not worth the chaos that could ensue from reaching in so deep to Ilmul Main check name territory to investigate.

  V had tried to teach Yeongi everything of value that he knew. That was why he had kept him close for so long. Holding on to connections is important. It does not make you weak it makes you wise. What type of life is the solitary one with no one to trust? The secret to life- if something so obvious can be called a secret, is love. Loving is what makes life worthwhile. I don’t hide that from my immortal children either. They’d find out anyway. So I tell him as I told the others I made like me, the only way he can live so long is to love everyone and everything. As I love even the hunter that used me and took my maker. But this does not change my nature. I must do the task assigned to me by fate. Send my gwison huson after his, my son in a sense after his. The one I’ve taught, ones first duty to ones children is education. Life is not a choice for them, so they must decide how to use it. The son is not the father. I hope Jang Junsang is prepared. He’s an adult now. No one is standing in his way. The path he’s chosen is totally open to him. But I have sent a challenge for the way. Perhaps the first real challenge he’s ever faced. How he handles it will be his first test as a Shadow. The first indication of what sort of “hunter” he will be what sort of player in this last conflict. If he is destroyed by the first challenge to present itself he had no right to follow his father in the first place and was never the threat I once thought his father could be. The possibility of danger for Yeongi did not occur to V at this time. He may have been young but Jang Junsang was younger, and though he came from two famous bloodlines he was totally unproven in himself.

  Along with walking V liked light. Living so long in the darkness had not made him mad, another sign of his suitability for such a vocation, but a nocturnal creature has to take what brightness and warmth he can find. Moonlight of course was his natural state. So, walking in Pusan as he was tonight along old paths, dreaming of old friends, missing the company of his youngest gwihan huson, he found his steps circling closer, leading him down in the direction of the shop.

  He had never bid Yeongi to carry out a mission away from himself. Yeongi was so very young, only eighty years had passed since his human birth and fifty-nine since his turning. But V trusted him implicitly. No vampire he had created had taken to this dark life so naturally or so quickly. When he woke it was as if he had half-expected such a turn of events. Simply blinking, expression unfathomable as it had been in life, looking to me to ask “Am I dead?”

  A fact he accepted calmly and without much expression beyond a great measure of relief. Life among the Ilmul Main had not been soft or kind to him. He understood almost immediately that he was safer now than he had ever been in life, extraordinary as that was. He knew intuitively that I would not hurt him. When I told him what I’d done to the one who shot him he had merely nodded. He knew that despite this ones cruelty, he was simply following orders but neither did he judge me for taking that punishment into my own hands. Perhaps he was relieved to finally have someone to champion him. Life had made Baek Geun almost inhumanly pragmatic, without desire save for relief from the pain of living. Even his thirst he took in stride. Wise beyond his years he understood the rule of equal exchange. Only life can pay for life. He already knew the thing that takes us scores of years to learn; blood is not personal. Almost immediately he had understood that the life he had lost was not worth mourning, not compared to the new freedom and power he had woken to. Even the threat of the Institute was an abstract danger to him, nothing compared to the true, immediate horrors he’d faced in life. His imagination and sensitivity made him a sweet and singular companion. And his observational skills and judgement made him perfect to send in my stead to observe the children of Jang Jii, beginning with his as yet unexceptional, but much discussed son.

  V had reached his destination. Though Temper had been away on one of his journeys for some weeks leaving the shop dark, tonight as if by fate, the window was lighted. Out of the night like the signal fire guiding Theseus home, shone the lamp behind a foggy window, old grimy glass that had survived at least two wars and was rippled and inconsistent in its transparency like a sheet of ice.Rain began, soft at first and then growing in power. Once V had cared for rain. Looked for it anxiously, even prayed for it. The necessary fluid of life the prayed for blessing of heaven. Now he had to remind himself it was inhuman not to run from it. Strange. As a human child he never had. He could still call up the sweet relief of warm rain like tears on his sunburned face, a sensation he had lost forever. Not so small a thing with such a long time to think about it. Careful to look both ways he crossed the wet black street, our human-habits as Yeongi called them were what protected us best of all. As natural as breathing. He did not need to pretend. Even now. He still believed he was human. Essentially. Not in the eating and drinking part. But deep inside where it mattered.

  The narrow arched doorway was overhung with a small wooden sign;

  Rose & Cross Books

  And over one of the panes of the windows was a clean white paper banner, clear red characters in an elegant hand now spotted with rain that read

  “Grand Re-Opening”

  He had not been inside in weeks. He had not heard from Temper in months though among immortal beings this is not so remarkable. The light was a beacon and V moved toward it willingly. This rain was not so warm as that which he recalled in his precious memories. Up close V lingered to look at the light from outside. How it made a halo in the night. Its important to give beauty its due consideration. Another piece of wisdom from Yeongi.V was arrested in that moment by a face framed by the black edged pane of glass. The face of someone seated inside behind the counter. A face softly lit by the halo the light made with the twin filters of the rain and the worn down glass. But not the one he had expected. Not Temper.

  V was struck to his soulThe classic profile, the perfect features of the girl had stricken him motionless, in shock he could not look away. The round black eyes behind pink-lenses and rosebud lips an ideal balance to the sharp jaw and delicate brow. The stillness of her face was part of what was so arresting, she was not reading, looking outside or doing anything. Just staring down and away, with the most heartrending emptiness of expression like a portrait of youth in mourning. If she had looked out she would have seen V standing there, eyes wide in unguarded wonder. But she looked at nothing. Seemed to see nothing. But her face, almost absurd in its loveliness, would not quite admit of such a vacant look. She could never fully express meaninglessness. Youth sang in the bright clear skin and thick hair, painfully lovely as she already was, the promise of the feminine glory of her full growth glowed in her face like a half opened flower. Her beauty was much stronger than whatever plagued her. V felt sure of this. It had been many years since he had seen such a divine human face. It was a hyperbolic thought but true, no one had ever struck him quite this way. Yeongi had touched his heart and changed him irrevocably. Unique in his delicate inscrutable beauty and the steel strength beneath it that had sustained him through anything, living a human life fraught with violence and pain and accepting an afterlife of new strength and sacrifice with grace and remarkable poise. But this girl was different Strong and young but utterly defenceless for all that. The girl looked up. V was struck, even through the hazy glass, by the direct stare of those glossy eyes. Merciless in the power of her terrible youth she seemed to see right down into V, illogical as that was. The way the shop was lit probably made it hard to see anything but a hazy figure past her own reflection on the glass. Shaken, he moved to the threshold and opened the outer door. Then paused. He hesitated on the threshold stunned less by his inability to enter than by the implications of thisTemper would never give up the ground on which the shop stood while he lived to protect it. He must be dead.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  * * *

  Iseul looked upThe elegant man stood just inside the doorway behind the worn black marble step into the slightly higher intricate tiled-floor of the shop. A breath of cold rain rushed in with him making the fire flicker. He was tall and dark, his natural hair and simple clothing betrayed his class. Iseul smiled. Despite herself she was relieved to meet another aristocrat out here. A contemporary really. Even if her own families isolation in proud poverty meant they'd never met before. Also she was lonely, she’d already been sitting here for hours with only her own circular thoughts for company, not one customer had come in. But the dark stranger was frozen their face toward her, eyes concealed behind gold filigree glasses with dark blue lenses. Iseul shook off her stupor and welcomed him inside.

  “Oh! Hello, please come in we’re still open” The elegant man hesitated for half a second longer then placed one dark leather shoed foot inside followed by the other. In the silence broken only by the crackling of the hearth his heels made a sharp audible ring against the stone tiles. “Hello” the man said, bass voice soft and pleasant. Iseul stared as he approached the counter, removing black gloves from his large, elegant hands. “Am I to suppose you are Temper’s new partner?” the man asked cautiously He knew my uncle. I wonder how it is he doesn’t know he is dead? Iseul began, delicately, to explain. “Temper was my relative. Though I never knew him. He left me this shop in his- in his will.”

  The elegant man’s brow puckered slightly, closer up Iseul was surprised to see he was younger, nearer to her own age than he'd initially impressed. His clothing, which was dark and simple, along with his calm bearing and the still quality of his face all expressed age and sophistication. Pearl earrings hung like tears at his jaw line, a sleek indefinable style shrouded him as though the influence of several generations of fashion had distilled to a single element which he embodied regardless of what he actually wore. There was an air of quiet power about him but benign power in the undemonstrative but undeniable beauty of his person and the mild superiority of his bearing. Charisma radiated from him as if hidden in the slim body was superhuman strength or under the overlong soft black hair were superhuman intellect.

  “Forgive me but am I to understand that Temper has died?” Iseul nodded feeling ashamed of her clumsy explanation.

  What had her life suddenly become that she seemed always to be explaining the dead and missing members of her family?The man took off his glasses, revealing remarkable eyes, soft and kind, elegant and self-possessed, a colour like the sun shining through the antique blue-green glass apothecary bottles that peopled the shelves of this dusty shop. An errant rain drop trickled down the side of his face, he carried no umbrella.

  “I’m grieved to hear it. Temper was my friend. But your loss of course, is greater”He inclined his head in acknowledgement of his sympathy.

  It was welcome though she had never even met this uncle of hers with the strange name, never heard of him up until a week ago, when the deed in her name to this shop and the land it stood on arrived with a solemn lawyer.

  Why she had been left such a strange legacy she might never find out. The lawyer had been charged with the files of his deceased predecessor, had never even met Jeon Temper. And her parents had claimed to have no knowledge of the distant relation who named himself in the document as Iseul’s “great uncle” which must have had some truth because the bequeathal was legally binding. There had been no letter included, no personal note even. They had planned to visit the property over the Chuseok holiday. That was two days before her parents vanished overnight.

  She would never forget the afternoon when the Dean called at her small dormitory, unshaven, with a criminal investigator to tell her the unfathomable, that her parents had for the third day running not shown up for their morning lectures, were not on the campus, could not be accounted for. She had of course been out all night looking for them herself. It made no sense. They had no other family, had left behind all of their documents and belongings, there was no reason for them to leave her like this without a word.

  An investigation was in effect now but there was nothing she could do so she had come to K sector 2, an area she’d never even visited before to claim this mysterious inheritance and try to decide what to do next.

  The unfortunate fact that she had to face on top of the anxiety and confusion over her parent's status was that there was no money for her to live on. They had earned enough lecturing to keep their places at the small privately funded research campus, and for Iseul to attend classes but no more. Nor had the estate of her great uncle contained any ready money. Just the shop with the apartment overhead and the land it stood on. As far as she could tell it was half dust and half old books, most incomprehensible and the newest at least a half century old.

  She had vague notions of selling, but real estate was easily come by now and the price such a run down old storefront would fetch in such an infamous location, deep in the territory run by the Ilmul Main as she had learned from the first and only realtor she contacted, would hardly cover one semester’s fees let alone keep her on to graduation. There wasn’t enough money in the university for her to earn her keep. They had all the staff they needed. It had hurt more than she had expected to leave the university, her home for more than half of her life.

  She had hoped one day to be a professor like her parents but now that seemed like an impossible task. Tuition was set by the parvenu who could afford exorbitant rates. Knowledge was rapidly becoming the domain of the wealthy. The private theological college where she had lived for the last ten years had been her only chance.

  She already knew she could not feasibly go back this year. But she hoped in time, with the quick resilience and hopefulness of youth, that she could earn enough money in the shop to go back for next spring’s term. She could, ostensibly, live above the shop and take a train to Suwon each day, keeping the shop open on weekends and when she was free. But she wished she had the capital to order new inventory as books about magic seemed to be slow moving goods.

  She’d had higher hopes for this mornings “grand re-opening” than was wise considering the poor turnout. People seemed to walk by without really seeing the shop, their heads down, or glancing over it as if it weren’t even there. So tonight she had tried again, in the hope that a different crowd of shoppers might appear with the later hours, with a pot of cider from the orchard at the university from her friend the caretaker and a rented espresso machine but still practically no one had shown up.

  Iseul had been lost in thought looking sad though she did not realize it, she had lost focus but the elegant stranger was still just looking at her neutral and calm. She shook his head embarrassed, and smiling shyly she introduced herself as she should have done before.

  “Apologies, I’m Jeon Iseul. Would you like a drink?” The elegant man blinked, looking confused for a moment then smiled back. His eyes crinkled and he looked much younger when he smiled. There was a freckle on the tip of his nose.

  “Jeon Iseul” he repeated softly and looked at her for a long moment before bowing slightly. “I’m Yun Tae. And yes I would” “I have lots because we aren't very busy” Stupid. He can see that. He took the cup between his beautiful hands. Iseul looked away“It never was very busy in here”“You're a regular?” she asked, flustered by the thought of disappointing what could be her best customer. Her only customer. He certainly looked like he could afford some useless old books“Ah - please take a pastry-”“I'm not hungry just now. But thank you.” his gentle voice softened his little smirk of amusement“Jeon Iseul do you live in K Sector 2?”She shook her head. “No, I mean yes I suppose now I do. I just arrived last week. I’ve never run a shop before, today is only my second day.” In fact she had never worked anywhere. Had only ever been a student, occasionally helping her parents to grade papers in the last year or two. “I was almost ready to close up, I thought no one would come in” in spite of herself she rubbed her eyes, couldn’t hide her tiredness “Well I would have come earlier but Temper kept rather late hours.” His tone was wryly apologetic Iseul gazed closer at his eyes as they caught the light of a passing car.“Are you light sensitive?” Yun Tae’s expression shuttered “Forgive me.” Tactless. “It's only, I noticed your glasses, they’re exquisite, were they made by Crimander?”“Yes.”

  Iseul’s own had ruby lenses with lacy black steel frames. They had cost her parents dearly, an impulsive purchase. A foolish purchase in hindsight. It was rumoured one could see angels with ruby lenses though she had yet to see anything unusual with them on. She smiled, self conscious of the thought. “Mine too. A brilliant oculist”“And dilettante occultist.” Iseul blushed. Irrationally, she didn't want to be seen as someone who believed in such things, even though Yun Tae had come into the Occult bookshop.

  “Crimander’s shop is not far from here, his son runs it now but he still lives above it. He knew Temper as well. You might speak to him about your..”“My uncle. My great uncle”

  Thinking of him reminded her of her parents. The great hole in her life that had uprooted her, opened up and threatened to swallow her whole. She realized she had changed in attitude since the man came in, had somehow forgotten for a moment or two the reason she was here and not in her small dormitory, or in the great vaulted library studying happily. Alone with her records and papers. She’d smiled for the first time since the morning her parents were gone. It made her feel strange to think she could get used to their absence, even for a moment. Yun Tae set the paper cup on the counter at her elbow with a gentle “tup.” Iseul realized she had been leaning across it, unconsciously drawn closer. He held out his hand and Iseul took it, grateful for the unlooked-for sympathy of this handsome stranger.

  The lamps dimmed for a moment. Iseul looked up at them, quizzical, it was just like an effect in a play she‘d seen in Old Seoul. Dr Faustus. Her family had been invited by the Dean and his wife. “Thank you for re-opening the shop.” Yun Tae said “You've made my life a little brighter to keep it going. In spite of everything I think Temper would be proud to see it”Would her parents be proud of her attempt to manage her own affairs? The only reason she was out here in a strange city, on her own for the first time was because they had left her, seemingly without a plan. Iseul was lost in thought again, and only nodded, half conscious of what the man said in her effort to conceal her fear and sadness from her only customer of the night.By the time she looked up and said “Thank you”He was gone But the cup of cider still steamed there, proof of his presence though un-tasted.

  * * *

  Vs first thought as he walked briskly away in the night, careless of the rain now sheeting down of which he was piercingly violently ashamed, was an anxious throb of desire, almost need, to commit that face to eternity. Pleadingly, desperately, disgustedly he argued with himself. Her face. It should not be lost like so many petals washed away by rain before it… that’s wrong. If any face were meant for eternity it was hers. Surely even a pale shadow should remain- had to remain-A smear on history like a ghost of this living girl ?Is that what Yeongi is? What I am? Just a ghost? But she isn't dying like Baek Geun was she's alive and strong and young. She'd invited me in without a second thought- It was my mistake to go in. She has no idea the type of place she’s taken on. Sad, wounded by life and still far too trusting, though intelligent and curious. V had been taken aback when she noticed his UV blocking glasses which he should never have taken off. But something about the openness of the girl’s face had made him want to answer by revealing a part of himself.Her scent had filled the tiny warm space of the bookshop, magnolias, ink. Her fingertips were stained red with it.

  And her blood… how would it taste?

  V gasped in the cold bracing night. He had not allowed himself to think of it until now. Had not desired a particular living person’s blood in many years. But the thought of those red lips, her blushing skin, the heat beneath.. undid him, had him pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as hard as he could to distract from the sudden fierce throb of thirst. He fought the mournful fiery urgency that was spreading throughout his body like withdrawal, alarmed at the effect he had thought he was long past, safe from, with the distance of centuries. I need to get away from here. Fuck walking at a human pace.

  Several miles away slightly dizzy from the speed he realized he’d headed straight for the church he had attended sporadically for his entire life and afterlife. It was made of stone, shored up and built up over the years but with an ancient core of granite that remained the same. He calmed. Stopped his relentless pacing, could appreciate from a safe distance the memory of the warm light from the shop window made poignant by the rain that streamed over it. It had looked so small. An island of light on a dark river.

  Among those that met in the shop there are dangerous people. Soon they would come back to the beckoning light like dark moths, believing Temper to have returned as V had and finding the girl instead, as he had. Of course to Temper, and occasionally to himself as well, the shop was a safe harbour in the dull world of humans that still welcomed and sheltered those under the broad spectrum of the term unnaturals.

  It was different for a human. As far as V knew Temper’s wards did not extend to protect humans. Nothing protected her there from the dark knowledge of the opposite side of life in Pusan. The highest density of unnaturals in the country, perhaps for its distance from the Institute. Jeon Iseul doesn't understand the usual clientele of this place, V felt sure of it. Her innocence was palpable.

  And what had destroyed the resilient, deceivingly fragile Temper? He felt ashamed to only be arriving at that thought now that his bloodlust had cooled slightly. To distract himself he considered it.

  Something was wrong here.

  Temper was the most careful wolf there was, that was how he had survived so long. He welcomed Others but he was no fool, he did not trust implicitly He had approached the subject, curious and alarmed by the girl’s beauty, clear sadness, and the undeniable resemblance to ageless Temper in the lines of the eyes and the glossy black hair, but discovered little. The girl clearly knew nothing of her benefactor. That he was some kind of relation was possible. But generations had passed since Temper had cut ties with his family.

  Thinking of him as Tempers niece helped to shore up his defences of guilt and grief and obligation against that all-consuming thirst that burned him from the inside, tricking him into believing it was a need, making a mockery of his talk of asceticism and vigilante justice. Temper helped me with a lot, his ability to walk in the sun had made him not only an invaluable friend but a practical ally. It was hard to believe he was gone, but the welcome that allowed him to enter the shop freely would only have ended with his death. There was no other explanation.

  It was one thing for a three hundred year old wolf to run such a meeting place but a human girl? Why Temper had left the shop to his niece was not a mystery either, he had no children of his own. He must have had faith that this young woman could protect the legacy of knowledge that the shop really represented. The forbidden library of the Jeon clan, V only knew about it as a trusted friend. Having a will prepared was a prudent precaution not out of character for the mild mannered wolf.

  Could he have meant for V to help the girl? Why had he left no message for V? No warning? Why had he not asked for help if he were in danger? He would not have destroyed himself, he cherished life, this bequeathal had been a desperate move, a failsafe that ensured as far as he could the safety of the archives after his death. He must have had no opportunity to contact V which meant this was likely a murder. Where had he gone in the weeks before his death and how had he died? Of course he need not ask why Jeon Iseul had never met her “great uncle”, because they would have looked, impossibly, to be almost the same age.

  Her image was burned into V, he could not stop seeing it.His first reaction to being affected like this was fear. And a strong protective instinct this girl would be an influence to him somehow, that much was clear. Its mad, perverse to think of turning her. I only just met her within the hour. It had been years since V thought of himself as evil but this specific thirst, this temptation, was evil, irrefutably so. I'll have to return to observe and just to protect her from those that would harm herShe exists now. And that is enough. That's beautiful. I've been alive long enough to meet her. That's more than I deserve. But what if what the girl needed most protection from in this new role among the shadows and night walkers of the city, was V himself ?

  It was almost sadness he felt to see such beauty enter into the dark world he knew so wellBeing over five hundred years old the girl’s age of twenty or so was as near enough to new born innocence so as not to matter. The same age as Yeongi when I first saw him.The same age I was when I was turned; five hundred and eighty seven years ago. It doesn't feel like so very long ago. But she was also somehow formidable in her beauty that did not acknowledge any other power, least of all death, growing strong despite the human mess around her, her potency and the promise she embodied making lesser things seem absurd. Even the shock and mystery of Temper’s death had paled in such a vital presence.Her terrible youth should have warned V to stay away but then her shy smile, more powerful than a blow had destroyed any such resolve. And humans don't live by mortal rules. Each harbours a secret faith that she may live forever. And this is only right.

  Perspective is gained with time. Only by slowing down could one live so long and not go mad Only by retreating from the quick hot vibrant crush of human lives could he have survived so long. But every so often he would be pulled back in to that kaleidoscope of colour and life, joy and suffering, often by the simple touch of a mortal hand. Only this time felt like the last time. Irresistible. Inevitable.

  In the church he lit the usual candles plus two for Temper and his soul where he walked now cold among the towering darkness of Gamangnara. The last, darkest hell reserved for the ones like us.

  And one new one. Still his hands were shaking, a physiological reaction he had not associated with any human person since he too were human. Water dripped from the ends of his hair, and he felt the damp in his clothing, he had been insensible to the soaking downpour as he walked, blind with the burning need for blood the like of which he had almost forgotten, more beast than man.

  Now he was merely wrung out, transfigured by emotions more powerful than he thought himself still capable of feeling. He felt joyful despite the solemn implication of this revelatory face, because how could such a meeting be anything but a joy? He felt like laughing or crying. Two overwhelming impulses that were so human had not gripped him like this since those walks.. those fields, those rains… In the soft light of the candles reflecting in the golden chancel he smiled, alone save for the one unseen human attendant who knew him by sight. The fact that he felt no compulsion to feed off of the human in the church despite the panic he had been in moments earlier told him it was no common thirst but a specific desire.

  Removed from the initial shock of the situation he felt confident in his resolve never to hurt the girl. I must be approaching the end of my existence because to have lived to see her, to meet her is surely too much good fortune for one man. My time is running out. I feel it. This if nothing else proves it.

  A last gift of heaven for one already blessed with many lifetimes. A warning that says, fragile as this human appears, your own profane life is burning down like a candle and you may not outlive her. How could you dare ask to outlive one such as her? Why would you wish to? He knelt. Maybe he was praying.

  That’s fine. I don’t want to. Truly I don’t. Somehow he already knew; I could not survive her death and remain the same.

  Nor is it right for me to ask her to become like me. My thirst is a symptom of my being. But I can control it, what matters most to god are our actions, not our impulses. I have made my last immortal child. Yeongi was the last.

  V had felt, if he were honest, for several years now, prophecy or not, the winding down of several disparate forces, the slow circling as of ribbons and chains pooling, mingled on the ground. Humans and unnaturals, stalkers and vampires, they were all heading to an end. The end of the longest war that had begun with the first Vampire, Faust (known as Semper 1 to the stalkers), his own Maker almost a thousand years ago. Whether this would also spell his own end was unclear.

  V had lost too many beautiful friends to the ravages of time. The slow creeping of sickness, the mad theatre of war, the endless cold winds that cut down even the proudest flowers with the advent of winter.

  It was not right to offer this dark gift to any who yet had the option to refuse. But if the rest of his nights were lit by the light of that little shop, he would have no complaint even should he die within a year. Or a single season. Before he left the church he lit one more candle for Jeon Iseul.

  The most beautiful girl in the world.

  Gwihan huson : precious descendent/offspring

  Thanks for reading!