Blood Prize (Bloody Dance #1) (3 page)

I was so lost, confused. I dug myself from my grave. I only remembered the day I died. Stumbling my way home, I found my brother. He paled like a ghost at the sight of me. He ran from me. Cursing me, calling me a demon. I was a demon. I lost my mortal soul and became a demon. For what? For the life that I clung to.

“Are you home, Zero?” A voice called into the room. I looked towards my door as it was being pushed open. Aya came into my room. She had a robe around her frame, but I could see she was only in her underwear beneath the robe. She had a tray in her hand as she continued to walk towards me. How many times did you have to reject someone before they understood?

“What?” I asked. She sat the tray down on my nightstand. I could see the sandwich she made on a plate. The scent of human food made my stomach turn. I was too full to eat.

“I figured you would have forgotten to eat.” Funny, being that eating was the reason I didn’t join them when they came in the house today. I only nodded my head. I made no move to touch the food she offered me.

“Thank you, Aya,” I told her.

“Someone has to look out for you. Shu seems to forget that you’re still growing.” Shu, was she trying to say he didn’t care about me? She would be wrong. Shu worried over me more than any of the others. Shu just knew my true nature. He knew that human food gave me nothing that I needed. He knew my only real meal was the blood he sent me to get tonight.

“I’m fine,” she didn’t need to come into my room half naked with food. It wasn’t going to get her in my bed any faster.

“Will we be going after the Blood Demon again.” I blinked as I looked at her. The Blood Demon. No, we needed to go after someone we could actually make some credits off of.

“I’ll talk to Shu.” I turned around on my side giving Aya my back. She sat on the side of my bed for a moment before she left my room.

THREE

Once Aya returned to her room, I moved from my bed. Going down the hall towards Shu’s room. I needed to talk to him. We needed to move on from the Blood Demon. Even Shu had to realize that by now. His grandfather never put off paying work this long. It was time for Shu to wake up from his dream and get back to the real world.

Today seemed to go on forever. First finding the Blood Demon latest work this morning. Then we had to make the drive back to the city. It was around two when I got back in the house and yet there was still no rest for the wicked.

Standing outside of his door my hand rose to knock but I paused. I could hear voices from within. One of the voices were Shu, the other was his wife, Amy. Shu and Amy had been together since they were teenagers. I never saw love as strong as the one they had for each other. They were nothing like the fighting parents I remember.

“Why wasn’t Zero with you?” Amy’s voice was the one that I heard. Amy was like a mother to me. It was weird since I watched her grow as well. We had all been teenagers together. Now these two acted as if they were my parents. Maybe they forgot that I was the same boy who was there with them.

“I sent him to eat,” Shu’s voice replied to her. He had demanded that I went to eat. He was always like that even when he was a child. Orders and demands. Shu just had that kind of personality. It was one of the reasons that I liked Shu. He was a take-charge kind of man. He was a leader, just like his grandfather.

“What about the Blood Demon?” I licked my lips. My mind casting back to this morning. We were late again. I wasn’t so sure that it was a bad thing. The Blood Demon was one of the most powerful demons walking the earth. I didn’t know how well equipped we were in dealing with him.

“We were too late.” Always too late, always a step behind.
Always, always, always.
I knew it annoyed Shu. I knew talking about it annoyed him more. Shu didn’t like to fail. Being late meant he was failing.

“How is Zero?” Why was she always asking about me? Amy was a good woman. She was the kind of person who worried about people. Amy was bright, sweet, and always smiling. She had a way of making you smile. She was also a great mother to her daughter. She was a great mother to everyone on the team.

“Zero’s strong; he has to be,” Shu answered. I frowned at his words. He was right though. Shaking my head, I raised my hand again. This time knocking on the door. “Enter,” Shu called and I turned the knob opening the door.

“You made it home.” Amy gave me that famous smile of her. She was always a very pretty person. Her brown hair, her gray eyes, her tanned skin. She didn’t seem to fit in this world. She stood out against the dull backdrop of this city.

We met Amy on the road when Shu and Amy were teenagers. She once was a Demon Hunter, as well. It wasn’t until they had their daughter that Amy settled into the life of a stay at home mom. We got this house. We brought in the team to live here with us. We were all family.

“You’ve eaten?” Shu asked me and I nodded my head. Why would I come back if I hadn’t already? Even if Shu was annoying with his worrying, I always ate when he told me to. Most times I did it before he told me to. We were just . . . busy looking for the Blood Demon these last three months.

“I collected on a bounty.” I waved my card at him a bit teasingly. Shu rolled his eyes. Even if he was older now, even if he pretended to be my father at times. In the end, Shu was my best friend. Nothing could change that. I teased him and he teased me.

“What do you want?” he asked when he reached for the card a few times, but I yanked it back before he could grab it from me. Shu knew that any credits I earned was for both of us. Not just the two of us but the whole team.

“We have to get real work Shu.” He had to know this by now. We couldn’t keep chasing after someone without money anyway.

“We’re close, Zero.” I could hear the desperation in his voice. I closed my eyes shaking my head. We were days behind the Blood Demon with no idea where he went next. I wouldn’t call that being close.

“We have no idea where he is. He won’t feed again for months. We have nothing.” That was the simple truth. I never bit my words for Shu. He has never sugar coated his for me. Shu was wrong; he knew he was wrong. I could see his shoulders slump as he let out a sigh. He nodded his head in defeat.

“We’ll pick someone tomorrow,” he spoke. Picking someone meant going to the Demon Hunter bar and finding someone to collect on the board. I hoped that we were lucky and found someone that we could make credits off quickly.

“It’s the right move.” Shu looked at me before he nodded again.

“Maybe some other demon will put us on his trail.” That was true. Demons had no loyalties. Maybe if we squeezed one of them tight enough, they would give us the Blood Demon. “Maybe we’ll find your demon, as well.” My eyes shifted to Shu.

I only nodded turning from the room and going back to my own. I laid down in my bed my mind racing. I had been putting so much effect into Shu’s demons I forgot about mine. My demon, my white whale, my . . . Ban.

My hands were above my head. They were tied to the bars of the headboard. There was fear in me that I’ve never known before. I tried to struggle, I tried to free myself. I couldn’t. I was powerless. Fingers pressed up my chest. It made my back arch as a moan parted my lips.

The pleasure the man brought was horrifying. It almost scared me as much as the blood that covered him. Or maybe right now I was scared of myself. Frighten that even after the evil I saw this man do I still . . . enjoyed his touch.

My eyes shifted around my brother’s room. I didn’t know why he had brought me in here. It was a violation of my brother. Maybe it was because he couldn’t actually kill my brother. I silently cursed myself for not leaving tonight. For not going with my brother and seeing this horror. At the same time, a small twisted part of me was happy I stayed. This stranger were doing things to my body that I never even dreamed of before.

His mouth was covered in blood as he ran his tongue over my chest. It was my family’s blood that coated his tongue. It circled around my nipple and I moaned again as my back arched. I wanted this, but I didn’t want this. I knew that soon it was going to be my blood on his tongue, as well. He was going to kill me. He was going to eat me just like he did my family.

As his tongue explored me, I looked into his black eyes. The eyes were the windows to the soul. Did that mean this man had no soul? Was he one of them? It was the first thought that came to my mind.

All over the news in the last few months was about the government opening a door to hell. They said that demons poured from that door. No one wanted to believe them until there were witnessing demons flying through the sky. They were everywhere and now one was over top of me.

How could someone so beautiful be a demon? This man was everything I could want in a person. Everything about him invited me in. That was how he charmed his way into our house. That was why before we knew it we were all at his mercy. Mercy, demons didn’t have mercy.

We all begged; we cried; we pleaded for him not to kill us. I could still hear the screams of my family. I could still see the awful things he made us do. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to feel the pain that I saw reflected on my family faces.

I could feel the tears leaking from my eyes. Even though his touch felt amazing, it still scared me. I still knew that he was going to do to me what he had done to the others. I didn’t want to die. That was why I cried. Because I wanted to live.

The demon pressed his finger to my lips. I looked at him. God, he was so beautiful. He was so evil as well. His other hand was under my body. His fingers were inside of me. It felt so good. Still death was the only thing I could think of.

“Death isn’t so bad.” His voice was sweet in my ear. More tears came with his words.

“I don’t want to die. Please, I don’t want to die.” I begged him as my body arched again. He was still moving his fingers inside of me. Leaning down he pressed his lips to mine. His tongue slipped into my mouth. I could taste my family’s blood. It made me . . . hard.

“Forgive me,” he said as he bite into my neck. The pain and pleasure of it were numbing. It hurt, but the hurt felt good, as well. The fact that it felt good frighten me even more. Removing his fingers, he shoved inside of me.

I gasped at the feel of his thrusting. He released my hands from the headboard and I grabbed a fist full of long red hair. I could hear the headboard hitting against the wall as he thrusted. His mouth was still on my neck. He was still drinking from me. My fingers knotted in his hair. I didn’t know if I wanted to hold him closer to yank him away.

My vision was starting to fade. Reaching with my other hand I pressed it up his chest. He was slick with sweat and blood. Moving my fingers higher they touched something cold and hard. Some kind of object that he was wearing around his neck. The demon pulled away before I could determine what the object was.

“Take me with you. Take me to hell. You don’t have to kill me. I choose you. Please, take me to hell.” Hell was better than death. I didn’t want to die. He told me that I could choose death or hell. I would rather go to hell.

The demon smiled. He kissed me again. This time it was the taste of my own blood that filled my mouth. I didn’t care. I would endure a million bloody kisses if it meant I got to live. I would do anything if it meant he would keep me alive.

“You’re the only one that ever choose hell.” He seemed pleased by that fact. Maybe it met he would listen. Maybe it meant he would let me live. I let out a breath leaning into his chest and licking away the sweat and blood that collocated there. He was still inside of me. He felt . . . amazing. He was big and his thrust were powerful. He moaned with pleasure and I did the same.

Moving to his arm I kissed along his bicep. Then as hard as I could I bit into the demon flesh. My teeth broke into his pale skin and his poisonous blood flowed into my mouth. It was as black as his eyes and the blood burned like acid as it slid down my throat.

My body jerked around on the bed. I felt like a fish out of water as I flopped around. He watched me letting me as he still reached his ending. I could feel him explode inside of me not for the first time tonight.

That seemed to make the jerking stop as my body went still. I watched as he came over top of me. He pressed his fangs back into my neck. It hurt. The blood I had swallowed was burning me from the inside. This was more pain than I could handle. I could feel myself fading away.

“I’ll never forget you.” He whispered in my ear. His lips pressing against mine as he stole away my breath. I used the last bit of strength that I had to reach up. To touch the object around his neck. My hand jerked and the object came away from him.

When I woke from my death, I noticed there was a ring on a chain. Inside of that ring was the name Ban. Ban, the demon that fucked me senseless. Ban, the demon that killed my family. Ban, the demon that killed me.

FOUR

Someone was calling my name. The sound of it brought me out of my little world of me. I was sitting at the breakfast table. My fingers were toying with the ring I wore around my neck. It was the same ring that held the name Ban inside of it. I won this just like I won my life. It was just more proof that what happened to me was real and not some wild dream I made up.

The food in front of me sat getting cold. The smell of bacon and eggs made me want to turn my nose up. The thought of eating this meal made my stomach turn. As far as human food went bacon was number one on the list of things I still enjoyed.

I was so full of the blood I had last night I was certain that one bite of the salty strip of goodness would make me vomit. Human food was heavy, it sat in your stomach like bricks. It took weeks for it to be broken down. It was also necessary to eat in order to look . . . human.

My eyes shifted around the table. The people who I was closest to were here. Shu, Amy, and their daughter Rai. Rai was the spitting image of her mother, younger, shorter but when you looked at her you saw Amy. She was just another person in this family that I watched grow older. I couldn’t wait to see the kind of woman she became in the future.

“Zero, how come you’re always playing with that ring? Did someone special give it to you?” Rai asked. It made me let go of the rings when she called Ban . . . special. Maybe he was special. He was the person that killed me after all.

In the fourteen years of Rai’s life, I never brought up Ban around her. She didn’t know that my family died. I wasn’t even sure if Rai knew I had a family. She probably just thought I was a demon. That was all she needed to know.

“Every one special died before they could give me anything.” I could feel the eyes of the others at the table on me. My family didn’t even get to say goodbye. That wasn't true. Their screams for mercy was their farewell. I was supposed to join them.

“Who gave it to you then?” Shu has never asked me about my past. He knew that it was bloody. He probably heard me and his grandfather talk about it once or twice. In the years that I knew Shu, he liked to pretend that my life started on the side of the road that his grandfather found me on. My fingers reached up again toying with the ring.

“I took it from Ban,” I answered them truthfully. There was a shocked gasped from Aya. Everyone knew the name Ban. Even people that weren’t in the demon hunting business knew who Ban was.

“You took something from the Great Demon Ban?” Aya asked and I nodded my head.

“I ripped it from his neck while he . . .” My words trailed off. While he what? Had sex with me while he made me feel things, no other lover had. While he bit into my flesh and did everything in his power to take my life, a life that I clung to so desperately.

They were all looking at me. Waiting for me to finish.

“While he attacked me. He thought he killed me so he left.” Only he did kill me.

“Ban; he’s the worse one out there.” Dante looked at me with some new found respect. Ban didn’t make flashy displays of violence like the Blood Demon. He didn’t walk around pounding his chest telling everyone to call him a Lord like other demons. Ban was the kind of man that smiled in your face. He kissed you on the lips. He killed you before you even realized the charming stranger was a demon.

He had been one of the fist demons to come from the hell gate. If we were being, dramatic rumors said he was the first to walk through the gate. He was one of the only demons that has never been sent back to hell. His class of Demon was known as S class. These demons were so powerful you had to be suicidal to hunt them.

“I’ve never heard of Ban leaving a victim alive.” That was because he didn’t leave them alive. Ban killed everyone and he walked away from them with a smile on his beautiful face. I hated him; I hated everything he was, everything he stood for. I hated that even now I could remember the way he touched me.

“I got lucky.” Luck had nothing to do with it. Or maybe it did. Maybe luck was the only thing that helped me rejoin the land of the living. Maybe luck was what helped me become a demon. I never heard of any other demon changing the way I had. So maybe I got lucky with a lot of strings attached.

“How? How did you get mixed up with Ban?” Aya wanted to know how I ran into Ban. That was another easy answer.

“My mother invited him in.” There was a few gasped. To think that in this day and age, someone would invite the Great Demon into their house. My mother didn’t know any better. She didn’t know who she was letting into our house. She didn’t know what she let in our home.

“You should throw that ring away. Why would you want to keep anything from Ban?” I could have answered that in a lot of ways. So I could be closer to him. Because sometimes when Ban is close I could feel the heat of this ring. I wanted to keep it because I’ve had it for so long. This wasn’t about Ban. This ring was a symbol.

“So I will never forget what he did. So I never forget what I survived.” So I never forgot I was human once. This ring was important because it was another reminded of what I once was. It was proof; it was vindication.

“We should go before all the jobs are taken.” Shu broke the silence that stretch out among us. We all nodded rising from the tables. Shu leaned down pressing a kiss to Amy’s lips. After we had a target, we would come back home to get our bags. We would say bye to Amy and Rai then we would hit the road. Amy kissed my forehead before Aya, Dante, Shu, and I left the house. Getting into the car we crossed the city so we could go into the Demon Hunter’s bar.

The aura in this bar was different than the one in the Bounty Hunter’s bar. There were no idiots around boasting about their mission. No one was trying to show off their strength or getting drunk just to pick fights with the stranger next to him.

Everyone was silence. There were teams that sat together. All of them talked quietly about an upcoming mission or one that just passed. Everyone had something stronger than beer in their hands. Most of their heads were hung. A few of them even cried. Being a Demon Hunter wasn’t for the faint of heart. It wasn’t for the weak willed. You had to have a tough layer of skin to look evil in the face and want to kill it.

Moving towards the board I could see Ban’s picture. He was sitting in a chair smiling into the camera. It was as if someone asked him to pose and he did. Even with the huge bounty on his head his picture remained untouched.

Next to Ban’s picture was the Blood Demon Kenji. He was looking over his shoulder in the picture. The smile on his face was twisted. I never met the Blood Demon in person. I had the feeling when I did I was going to hate the man. His bounty was only a billion less than Ban’s. Still his picture stayed on the board. Untouched by all those who were willing to claim it.

The third picture on the board was a rare sight. It’s been awhile since I saw a picture of myself in my demon form. I was caught in flight. The bounty on my head was the third highest on the board. It was still three billion less than Ban’s. It read that I disappeared forty years ago. Demons like that were normally back in hell already.

Dante started to reach for the picture of me, but Shu was already shaking his head. We just finish looking for someone who was hard to find. We didn’t need to chase our tails for someone we would never find. Plus it was kind of insulting to hunt myself.

Aya grabbed a picture off the board before Dante could protest. Shu took the picture, looking it over before he passed it to me. The demon was a woman. She was standing on a stage in her picture. She looked to be a middle age with blue hair and cold gray eyes. There were horns on the top of her head and fangs pushing down from her mouth. The name was Maya and she would fetch us half a million credits.

“Zero and I will go shop. Aya and Dante go back home and pack up. We’ll leave once Zero and I get home,” Shu said and everyone nodded as we left the bar. Dante and Aya got into the car as Shu and I walked away.

I could feel Shu eyes on me. It meant that he wanted something. That he was unhappy or maybe just thinking about something. I pushed my fingers into my hair waiting for the old man to say something. We moved into an alley before Shu stopped walked and turned to me.

“You were on the board.” I was on lots of boards in lots of cities. Just because I went on the straight and narrow forty years ago didn’t mean people forgot the sins I commented before then. “Are you . . .” He didn’t finish his statement. I hope it was because he realized how stupid he sounded.

“Do you think I would?” Did he think that I could become the beast I once was? He already had his answer. The board said that I hadn’t been seen since I found his family. “I killed a lot of people in a lot of places. My face was bound to pop up in a few cities. I haven’t killed anyone but outlaws since I met you.”

If that wasn’t enough to satisfy him, then I didn’t know what was. I wasn’t going to fall on my knees and beg to be forgiven for things I did before his lifetime.

“You drank from my grandfather.” Shu said and I looked towards him. That was true. I had drank from the old man. “Why?” Why had I done it? Didn’t we have this talk before. Maybe not.

“He was sick, old, growing weaker by the day. We were going after the Blood Demon again. You wanted your pound of flesh. He knew that he couldn’t make it. He didn’t want to slow the team down. So he asked me too. I needed blood and he didn’t want Kenji to kill him. So I did.” It was that simple. He asked me to and I respected him enough to grant that wish.

“Why not save him? Why not make him like you?” Did Shu hear what he was saying? I missed his grandfather as well but making him a demon wouldn’t have worked. I looked down at my hands. Even if I tried, I didn’t know if I could have.

“I was young, It was Ban’s blood. I had so much fear of dying my will to live was otherworldly. I’m not even sure how I became this. Maybe only Ban can do it.” I shrugged my shoulders. Maybe it was a one-time deal. I got lucky.

Plus, it took me years to have this control. When I first woke up, there was only the hunger. If I turned Kaleb, he would have been a monster. He would have tried to eat the very people that he loved and protected. I would have killed him before he could hurt the family he built. Kaleb wasn’t like me. Even at the cost of his life he would have never wanted to become one of the monsters he hunted.

“I understand. Sorry for doubting you, Zero.” I shook my head. He was human. We all had doubts. “Dante might be watching you. You should be careful.”

“You worry too much.” He was always worrying over something. Maybe Dante was watching me. He should have just seen the troubled teenage boy I pretend to be.

“I’m a Demon Hunter and my best friend is a demon. I have to worry.” I laughed shaking my head at him. Taking out a cigarette I lit it up before passing it to Shu and lighting another one. We both leaned against the wall as we inhaled the smoke.

“Can you see where Maya is?” Shu asked and I looked down at the picture of the demon we were about to start hunting. The paper bird only worked for humans. Demons had a way to hid themselves from that kind of magic.

The center of my forehead opened as the third eye appeared. The third eye was a high-level magic that only S class demons could do. Of course, it also meant that S class demons were protected against it.

Maya was on a stage in a town of Dragun. That town was half a day’s drive from here. The demon was singing as the people in the crowd swayed to the music. I watched as she took a bow when another person walked onto the stage.

Long jet black hair and white eyes that had no pupils. His skin was tanned as if he was kissed by the sun. Tall, lean, deadly I just finished looking at a picture of this man. The Blood Demon Kenji was in Dragun with Mya. What was he up to? Who was Maya that she had such powerful friends? I didn’t know. I was going to find out soon.