Beautiful Death (30 page)
It’s really, finally over.
“Almost,” Ash said. Her voice was harsh, but there was a wicked smile on her face. She stood and went to Tristan. Pale knees appeared at his side and he looked up, forcing himself not to linger on Ash’s naked body, and smiled. She was covered from head to toe in blood, some dry, some dissolving already, most tacky and wet. Even having that smooth, radiant skin covered in blood, she was still the most beautiful woman he knew. Ash returned his smile, touching his cheek gently and pushed his hair from his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded, shutting his eyes. He just wanted to sleep, for a few minutes. He deserved a small nap after that, right?
“Hai!” sang the familiar voice and Ash’s presence moved away.
Tristan heaved a sigh and cracked an eye open. Ash was over Malik’s body, cutting it into bite-sized pieces. Vampire nuggets. Bare feet stopped inches from his face and Tristan looked up. Of course it was
her
. He groaned and forced himself to roll over to his back. Yuki looked down at him, bent at the waist, head tilted to the side and smirked, all upside-down.
“Dammit. Yuki,” he snapped, “why didn’t you help?”
She grinned all fang. At her side, fisted in her little hand by a mop of white hair was Malik’s severed head. “
Yare yare
, you two put on a lovely show. When can I catch the encore?”
To his left, Ash harrumphed.
“Nothing to worry about, Ryōshi-san. Always knew you would pull through. Shame Asta-chan didn’t turn you though. I was so wanting to see what you could really do. Pity, pity, pity... Ahhhhhh, zannen, zannen da!” she sang and then giggled as she spun in a little circle, dancing with Malik’s head held out in front of her.
Tristan put on a cynical smile, lifted a hand and answered, “Fuck off,” as he gave her the finger.
Ash tensed, but Yuki, finding humor in many places, laughed. Not that Tristan gave a shit if he offended her or not at this point. She leaned over him, tiling her head so that he almost saw her right side up. “You and Asta-chan play so very well together,” she practically sang through a big smile. “Such an
interesting
partnership you have made... am I right in saying you are lovers?”
The fuck if he knew. He groaned and mumbled something not very nice in response about it being none of her damn business, just not put so nicely. Yuki burst into laughter again and danced out of his range of view with Malik’s head to do her version of Hamlet. He shook his head and whispered, “Freak.”
He let out a long sigh, blinked up at the sky, fighting off sleep. Virgin white snowflakes started to fall. There was a sort of supernatural flavor about these snowflakes though as they filled the night with tiny, twinkling drops of luminosity. The flakes landed on his face only to immediately melt on his skin, but they felt warm.
“So warm,” he whispered.
“I need that,” Ash’s stern voice said over the wet sounds of flesh being cut apart and the crack of bones.
Yuki laughed and he shivered, feeling the first hint of being touched. “Do you still wish to go through with it? Because you know—”
“Yukihime,” Ash hissed.
“No,” Yuki said. “I told you, fifty years ago and again today, I will not be the one to do it.” For once, Yuki sounded… upset. That raised a warning in Tristan and for good reason. “I refuse to kill you.”
“Yukihime!”
Tristan’s eyes snapped open. “Ash?” He started to move, but then Ash was suddenly at his side, leaning into him, pushing him to lay back down. He gasped, surprised. “Jesus Christ, Ash. What’s she talking about. You can’t really mean—”
“
Sleep
.” Her voice filled his ear, his head. It was all he could hear. His vision went black as if the lights on the world had been turned off. All of the tension in his body was suddenly gone, he was completely relaxed. He took in a deep gasping breath, chest burning slightly with that intake of air—just enough to remind him that he was alive. And then, there was…
“…
nothing
.”
THE old man was hacking again, that wet cough that shook his whole body, filled his chest with pain. It’d been five days now that he’d been held up in the stale hospital room with that gaijin fellow. He was a nice enough roommate anyway, never said a word. Never complained about the coughing.
The old man’s fit subsided and, feeling eyes on him, he looked up, meeting his roommate’s tired expression. The old man smiled big, his entire expression lighting up as if he were genuinely happy to see the stranger.
“Yo,” the old man drawled out, holding up two fingers.
Tristan blinked at him and then looked down to his hands—opened and closed them. He was having a hard time understanding that he was alive. He didn’t die…?
“Genki ka?”
Tristan sighed, shutting his eyes as he turned his head away. “Don’t understand you.” Now, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d been there long enough to pick up the basics, like “how are you?”, but he just didn’t feel like talking. He was still digesting the fact that he was alive.
“
Anata wa eien made nemashita.
”
“God,” he huffed, jabbing the palms of his hands into his eyes—they hurt. So did his arms, chest, stomach… He was sure there’d be more once he started moving. “I told you, I don’t know what you’re saying, old man.”
The man smiled at him.
As he rubbed his eyes he wondered how he went from cutting out Malik’s heart to being in the hospital. Then it hit him full force… Malik was dead. The man who killed his parents for nothing, made his life a living hell, was dead.
I’m sorry it took me so long to find the truth behind your deaths. I’m sorry you died for me. Please, forgive me
...
“
Anō sa,
anō sa!”
Tristan let out a huff and looked to the old man again. He was so ready to get the hell out of there and he’d only just woken. He flipped back the bed covers and looked down at his legs, made sure they were working. “What?”
“Anata wa
… Igririsu jin
desu
ka?”
He didn’t understand all of that, but enough. “No, American,” he answered as he climbed out of bed. His side pinched in pain and his head spun. He grabbed onto the edge of the bed while he waited for the disorientation to pass.
“OooOoh,” the old man answered and fell into a coughing fit again.
God. Did that guy ever shut up? And holy fucking hell, his head hurt. It more than hurt, it felt like an alien was trying to climb out of his skull, boring through the hard bone with a spoon—‘cause it’s dull, you twit, it’ll hurt more. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a headache, and never one worse than a mild nuisance. Turned out he took a bigger beating than he realized. He was still amazed he was alive.
He looked over to the old man, watching him, grinning away like they were the best of friends. Then again, maybe this was his hell. Tristan groaned, unsure of whether to clutch his head or side when the door opened. He looked up, meeting the gaze of a pretty little Japanese nurse with bobbed hair and thick bangs.
“Ah!” the old man called out in a gravelly voice. “Naoko-chan!”
She stopped just inside the door, smiling. “Oh,” she said looking at Tristan. “You are awake.”
Thank god she spoke English.
“You shouldn’t be up.” She rushed over to him and tried to make him sit down. It was almost comical to watch the tiny woman take on the six-foot-three American. Frankly, his body hurt so he decided to acquiesce for the moment.
“How long have I been here?”
She screwed her mouth up before answering, “Seven days.”
The old man raised a wrinkled hand and shouted in Japanese, “I told him!” Well, he hadn’t said exactly how long, just that he’d been asleep for a while.
“I understand, Kimura-san. Please stay calm, it’ll keep your attacks to a minimum.” She turned her attention back to Tristan and asked in English, “Can I do anything for you? How do you feel?”
“Like shit. What the hell happened? How did I end up here?”
The small nurse rung her hands together. “I was not there, but I heard that you were brought in by a young man just before dawn, a week ago. He said you had an accident. Said to make sure you lived and then just disappeared.”
He was the talk of the small hospital. Everyone was going on about the two gaijin who showed up at the hospital—one pale as a ghost, the other tall as a giant and badly hurt. Hell, half of the town knew of Tristan, it was just too small to not notice the foreigner. When he first arrived in Japan, he was fawned over, at a distance anyway—oh look at the handsome American, isn’t he exotic? But now, with news of his battered body showing up at the hospital, half dead, everyone was leery of him. More than usual.
The little nurse put a hand to her hip and gave him a stern look. “Sir—ah, sorry, but what is your name?”
“Tristan.”
“Tristan-san, I don’t know what you were doing but you are very lucky to have woken.”
He gave her a wry smile. “Thank you for being honest.”
“I’m just happy to see you wake. You’re probably hungry. I’ll see what I can find for you to eat,” she said, turning to leave.
“Just tea for me!” Kimura called out after her.
Tristan let out a deflating sigh and stopped to think for a moment. He realized, without Naoko telling him, that it was Ash who’d brought him to the hospital. But why? It was well within her ability to care for him. But then, the memory of their parting words came back to him. Yuki, her tone angry, words biting as she told Ash, “I refuse to kill you.” Ash had asked Yuki to kill her. Ash wanted to die.
“Fuck,” he grumbled, going to his feet again. “I’ve got to go.”
“Eh?” Kimura popped up, on alert. “Nani shiteru no?”
Tristan ignored him as he started for their shared bath. He came to a sharp stop when his arm pinched and he remembered he had an IV in his arm. Not only that, he had a catheter. He was tied to his bed by tubes. With a sigh he sat back down on the edge of his bed.
He was picking at the tape around his IV when the nurse came in.
“I found a dinner tray left over—” She looked up and stopped. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he answered. “There’s—I have something very important to do.”
“Stop that.” She rushed over, shoved the tray on the bed, bumped into Tristan’s knees harshly and smacked at the hand he was using to pull off the tape. “You just woke up after being unconscious for a
week
. You need rest and tests. You can’t leave.”
He grabbed her arms, making her stop fussing with him and look him in the eye. “You don’t understand… It’s so important that I leave. Please, help me. Pull this shit out of my arm, give me some drugs for the pain and let me check out. There’s someone I have to see.”
She dropped her shoulders. His pleading, those honest and sad deep blue eyes made her weak. She was on the edge of her decision. Tristan decided to try for her softer side in hope of her understanding. He was going to leave with or without her help, but he wanted to give her the choice to do right by him.
“Please, it’s for someone I—” He caught himself something dangerous slipped past his lips. Was that his real feeling? Naoko gave him a curious look. He took a deep breath and said, “It’s for someone I care about very much. I’m afraid for their life.”
She sighed and reached for his arm. Shaking her head, she pulled the tape free. “Just know this is a really stupid idea young man.”
He chuckled. She looked younger than him. She pulled out the I.V., and the catheter, blushing the whole time, and sent him off to the bathroom to get dressed in the go-home clothing the hospital provided. With pink cheeks Naoko explained that he had only been wearing leather pants when he was brought in and they cut those away. She then showed him how to wrap the brace around his ribs, since they were broken and technically should have still been—Tristan was thinking not since there was only a dull ache. It was his stomach, the gaping hole he had there from before, that really hurt. Naoko left him to dress while she went in search of drugs.
In the bathroom, Tristan stopped for a moment to take inventory before the mirror. Considering he took on a handful of jikininki and three Master vampires, and Yuki with his “fuck off”, it could have been worse. His stomach wound was pink and smooth under a row of stitches. There was going to be a nasty scar when it was completely healed, something to show for his efforts.
His left forearm had faint teeth marks lined with purple engraved onto it, but no open wounds. His right forearm, the one Aaron split open, what felt like a year ago, was completely healed. The stitches were gone and replaced with pale pink scar tissue. There was a small cut over his left eye and both eyes were lined in dark purple. The bottom of his right foot hurt and he couldn’t think why—then he remembered smashing one of the jikininki’s bony necks to pieces under his foot. Yeah, that’d do it.
Feeling a surge of mild panic again about needing to find Ash, he dressed quickly and went back to the room to find Naoko fussing with Kimura. The old man was in the middle of a coughing fit so that all she could do for Tristan was nod towards his bed.
“Those are yours,” she said and put her attention back to the old man.
Tristan smiled when he opened the little plastic bag and saw his car keys. He marched over and gave Naoko a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you so much for your help. You don’t know what it means to me.”
The old man laughed through his coughs as the nurse blushed hard.
On Tristan’s way out the door a familiar, feminine voice, called out, “Ne, Ryōshi-san!”, and he stopped, goose bumps rising all over. Slowly, he turned with wide eyes to look at the old man in the bed. Naoko, tucking in the edges of his sheets, didn’t even notice the change in pitch of her patient’s voice. “Remember, I have faith in you.”
Tristan’s mouth dropped open as he started at the old man. Where his eyes always that pale?
…
Yuki
?
The old man smiled at him before closing his eyes and resting his head back to sleep.
Shaking off the totally impossible notion that it was the old crazy vamp, Tristan left. He never bothered to stop at the desk to check out properly. No one stopped him either. He found his car in the darkest, farthest corner of the parking lot. He kept glancing over his shoulder, searching the darkness for Ash or another vampire, even Desmond would have been invited at this point. No such luck.
He pulled out onto the main road and realized he was very close to his apartment. He sped through the streets as fast as his little car could handle towards his building, hoping to find Ash there. That she had decided to live, even if it was selfishly just for him. He couldn’t imagine not having Ash in his life. Some part of him called to her like no other person he’d ever known. He wondered, briefly, if it was the Uruwashi part of him, but he didn’t really care at that point.
Tristan practically fell through the front door of his apartment, panting from the exhausting jog from the car and his side practically killing him. The place was exactly as he had left it over a week ago after sneaking out of Ash’s house during the day. He had only one other place he could think of to find her. The trip took more than two hours. He couldn’t remember exactly how to get there—that was the point of having a home out in the middle of nowhere when you were something like a vampire.
He forced himself to go slow up the gravel drive. A flood of emotions overtook him when the small form came into view, crouched at the edge of the remains of a charred home. He almost cried, he was so relieved. He parked the car and got out. It was colder out than he had noticed before and shivered in his borrowed hospital clothes as he walked slowly towards the woman picking at a pile of ashes that was once her home. Tristan stopped just behind her, waiting for her to acknowledge him. It was a feat in itself; the urge to grab her, kiss her… it was nearly crushing. He was just so happy to see her.
Ash picked up a brunt scrap of wood and examined it. “I had not planned to return here.”
Tristan let the dead silence of the night hang for a moment before answering. “I know.”
Ash sighed and tossed the wood away. “When I first met you, I thought you were just an ignorant, loudmouthed, rude American. I thought that I had to have been mad to bring you to my home. Yukihime taking my memories just compounded the whole blasted thing. I could not remember why I was helping you… but I, I wanted to. As you got further under my skin and I got to really know you, understand you…” She fell silent.
He waited to hear what she had to say.
“I like you,” she said plainly. “I can read your mind, and yet, you still manage to constantly amaze and surprise me.”
He gave a short laugh, relaxing. “Just because you can read my mind, doesn’t me you know me.”
She nodded, standing. “As it would seem.” She looked over her shoulder to him. “I really do like you, Tristan.”