Eternal Samurai (19 page)

“Galloway’s face is still seen on the telly. Vamps watch movies, same as us, might spot him. Besides, you look like you’re jailbait. They’ll go for that. Now, get this off, ya idjit.” Bana continued to paw at Tatsu’s tee.

Tatsu glared as he pulled off his shirt. He blushed at Galloway’s low whistle at his bare chest.

Bana ripped off the bottom half of the black tee with his combat knife then handed the ragged garment back. “Now, you’re gonna saunter over there like you’re on yer first hawking date,” Bana winked at Galloway and Passebon. “He’s cute, ain’t he? Look at them cute abs and that little belly button. Don’t think I’ve seen one this cute in a long while.”

Passebon shook his head in amusement.
Merde
, no denying the boy was pretty.

“Mick, you keep talking like that, and I’d think you’ve gone queer.” Galloway grinned, but couldn’t take his eyes off Tatsu’s naked flesh. The kid
was
more than cute. He was a total prickteasing turn-on.

“Just shut the fuck up.” Tatsu squirmed feeling ridiculous in a ripped tee-shirt that revealed half his chest and the ridges of his abs. Then Galloway told him to take off his belt and undo a couple of buttons of his brown, cargo pants.

“Hell no.” Tatsu clutched the top of his fly with an ineffective desperation.

“Stop whining like a girl, this is a mission,” Bana grinned.

Swearing in Japanese, Tatsu undid the first two buttons exposing his navel and a tantalizing hint of curling hairs trailing below.

Not satisfied with that, Galloway popped two more buttons. He pushed Tatsu’s pants further down to reveal the jut of his hips and the beginning those sexy dips curving down under his jock. At the warm brush of Galloway’s fingers, Tatsu felt his blood pool into his cock.

“That’s better.” Galloway’s prick woke up to the answering heat in that same satiny skin.

“Alright, boyo, go over there and give ’em a chubby.”

Tatsu flipped them off. Dammit, the three were having way too much fun with this.

His hands twitched as he trotted down the winding stairs. He felt naked without his swords. Hell, he felt even more naked with his ass hanging half out of his pants. Still, his gut fluttered with anticipation. This was his chance to prove himself, even if it did mean posing as sex bait. He moved toward the vampires leaning on the bar.

The two fanged predators had just become the prey.

Although his eyes remained on Tatsu, Arisada sensed the two rogues the moment they entered the bar. His lip curled over his fangs in a silent snarl. He watched the Lepers readying themselves for the action. A preparation that looked more like a forced strip tease than men arming for combat.

The older hunter, with much leering and profanity, forced Tatsu to remove his tee-short. Arisada sucked in his breath at the sight of Tatsu’s chest, the ripple and bunch of defined abs as the shirt was pulled off. Creamy honey-kissed skin, only a smattering of hair traveling down to the navel. Something dark—a large bruise perhaps—covered most of the mounded pec above the right nipple.

The groping and grappling as the blond tugged the boy’s tight pants down over his jutting hips sent a deep pulse of want into Arisada’s prick. One button lower and the tip of Tatsu’s semi-hard cock would be exposed. A frission of jealousy stabbed Arisada as he imagined the blond man’s knuckle brushing the silky roundness of that cockhead, perhaps coming away wet with a slick of precum.

The
kyūketsuki
could not tear his gaze from the boy. He followed the mercenaries down to the main floor. Saw them split up and weave their way through the crowd, shifting closer to their quarry. Arisada admired how effectively they used the cover of jostling throng to mask their movements.

Tatsu’s approach to the bar, however, was an aggressive strut, a cocky, shouldering aside of people, deliberately calling attention to himself.

Hidden by the crowd, Arisada was still close enough to Tatsu that even over the thick reek of human pheromones, he sensed the boy’s rising excitement, the blood simmering, the adrenalin pumping high with the eagerness of a hunter.

In what he hoped was a good imitation of a horny, thrill-seeking teenager, Tatsu swaggered across the bar floor, hips swaying He elbowed his way through the press of groupies clustered around the vampires. In a voice pitched high and nervous, Tatsu ordered a beer. The harried barkeep shoved the bottle at him and scooped up his money. Tatsu picked up his drink, and deliberately brushed his arm against the bull. The momentary contact made his skin feel as if it was crawling with ants.

The big vampire smelled the new human crowding beside him—young, nervous, male. Excitement poured in warm, delicious waves from the kid’s skin. The vampire shifted his bulk and looked down at the youth ordering a drink in that unmistakable trying-to-fake-adult kind of way.

The bull eyed his companion, the unspoken command in his eyes. The fem squirmed in beside Tatsu, rubbed her hip against his thigh. As she leaned over to pick up her drink, she mashed her breast against Tatsu’s arm and smiled when he turned toward her. She was a head shorter than Tatsu. Thin-featured, maybe mid-twenties. Her auburn hair, swept up in a French knot, revealed an elegant neck. The sophistication ended there sullied by makeup layered on to make her skin appear flush and pink. Her breasts spilled out of the low-cut, red blouse. Cheap micro-skirt and thigh-high faux-leather boots revealed nothing appealing.

Tatsu licked his lips and pretended interest as he ogled her chest. He felt a slight revulsion at the sight of those fleshy mounds. He almost gagged at her too-flowery cologne that could not disguise her coppery vampire scent.

“You looking for some real action, cutie?” She giggled and stared straight into those unusual jade eyes. As her tongue wet her thin lips, her gaze roamed over the kid’s gorgeous face, down the slim neck and lingered at the ripple of abs showing beneath the torn tee. Her fangs almost dropped at sight curly brown hair peeking above the half-opened fly of his pants.

“Umm, not sure.” Tatsu faked a slight quaver in his voice, prayed it sounded convincing.

“Sugar, we got something you can be sure about.” The fem smiled, no sign of fangs, just even white teeth in a full, redlipsticked mouth. “Don’t we Cabe?” The bull ignored her. He couldn’t take his eyes off the delicate curve of the youth’s hipbones or the flat belly between them. Hell, this kid was prettier than his fem. The vampire’s cock filled.

Sweat slicked under the hank of hair falling over Tatsu’s forehead. His heartbeat revved up a few notches, and knew the male vampire heard it. But Tatsu’s reactions were not from fear, they were from anger. Still, he played dumb and gawky, stammering out he was looking for some real action. He looked into the red eyes of the male and pretended to sink under the vampire’s thrall. The bull’s pheromonal power was strong, a normal human would be a witless idiot. Tatsu did his best imitation of dazed and stupid.

Tatsu suppressed his shudder when the fem hooked her hand through his elbow and guided him outside. He was aware of the bull crowding behind him. Feigning confusion, he looked up and down the street. “Um, can we get away from everyone?” He forced a dreamy tone into his voice and waved vaguely in the direction of the alley behind the club.

The female vampire all but sang her agreement as she wrapped her arm around Tatsu’s waist. With every stride, she bumped her hip against Tatsu as she guided him into the shadows between two buildings. The bull followed, amazed at their luck in scoring such tasty prey. He smacked his lips with anticipation, and his fangs slid from their channels. He crowded behind his fem and the boy, herding them deeper into an alley that was scarcely wider than the bull’s shoulders..

“After we feed, let’s add him in with those girls,” he growled into the fem’s ear, sure the youth was too caught up in the thrall to understand.

The electroshock from the Agonizer short-circuited the bull’s sympathetic nervous system. He crashed face first on the wet pavement, his muscles frozen. His fangs retracted so fast they sliced through his tongue. He pissed himself and bloody saliva drooled from his mouth.

The fem spun around with a startled squawk. At the sight of her mate on the ground, she screeched with rage. Her fangs stretched her mouth into an ugly lipstick-smeared maw. Howling with blood-rage, she launched herself at Bana. Two bolts from Passebon’s bow slammed through her breastbone and throat. The sodium fluoroacetate raced through her blood. Her convulsing body hit the ground with a meaty thud.

Galloway tossed the
katana
to Tatsu who snatched it from the air and pulled it from its
saya
in a single fluid movement. Tatsu spun, the tip of the sword leveled toward the bull’s head.

Bana reset the Taser and hit the vampire with another shock that sent him into spasms. The Lepers heard a sharp crack as the vampire’s vertebra snapped. The air filled with the foul stench of excrement. The Irishman kicked the semiconscious vampire over onto his back “Yer girlfriend’s now a puddle of jelly, and you’re in yer own shit. So talk.” He squatted beside the convulsing body, the Taser hovering just over the vampire’s face.

The vampire glared up at the crouching hunter through eyes filled with hate and fear. Bana zapped him again. The bull arched off the pavement, his back bowed at a strange angle. Blood poured from his mouth where he bit through his tongue. His hate spilled out in a wet burble.

“Doesn’t look like he wants to make polite conversation with you, Mick,” Galloway grinned. That Irishman was a piece of work. Not much longer and the bloodsucker would talk.

Bana shocked the vampire again then dropped the Agonizer, shaking his hand. “Ach, sodding thing zapped me, piece of shit.” Bana yanked his serrated K-bar from his belt and jabbed the vampire in the crotch. “Maybe we’ll turn ya into a eunuch. Or maybe we’ll be nice and let you go with yer clackers still attached. Or maybe I’ll let me little Jap friend have a go at ya.” In voice ladened with menace, the Irishman listed each body part his “little Jap friend” would remove unless they got what they wanted.

The vampire’s eyes jittered from Bana’s sneering mouth to Tatsu’s
katana
shining in the light. The terrified creature babbled out the information.

“Let’s go. We’re done here.” Bana stepped back from the broken creature sprawled in its own waste.

“I’m not.” The quiet menace lay thick in Tatsu’s voice. He pressed the tip of the sword against the creature’s cheek under the lower eyelid. Drew a minute, scalpel-thin line. Blood oozed.

“We ain’t got time fer this shite, boyo.”

Tatsu ignored his partner. With delicate precision, he moved his blade a fraction higher. “You know of a
kyūketsuki
, a Japanese vampire, with a scarred back?”

The vampire dared not shake his head for fear the blade would slice his eyelid. “No, never,” he whined. “I swear.”

“Convince me.” That deadly tip hovered above the creature’s dilated pupil. “Hurry up, my arm’s getting tired.”

The vampire moaned his denial again and again. Truth filled those terror-widened crimson eyes. Tatsu relented and stepped back. “Now I’m done.”

The four Lepers turned toward the street. With a roar, the vampire levered his crippled torso off the pavement and flung himself at Bana’s legs. His fangs sank into the back of the Irishman’s calf. Bana howled and twisted around, pulling out his K-bar to drive it into the bull’s neck. Before the serrated blade began its descent, Tatsu removed the vampire’s head.

Bana jumped back, shaking his drenched leg. “Watch it, boyo. These are me new trousers!”

Tatsu said nothing, merely cleaned the sword on the corpse’s shirt. Galloway and Passebon stared in dismay at the pitiless look on Tatsu Cobb’s face.

The Lepers were oblivious to the observer hidden in the shadows at the far end of the alley. Arisada felt no remorse at the death of two of his kind. The mercenaries had delivered a just punishment. But that cold look in Tatsu’s face as he decapitated the rogue shocked Arisada. Tatsu Cobb was so young to be this ruthless.

Sadly, Arisada remembered another youth as coldblooded in his ambitions. Nowaki, had that same single mindedness. And it had destroyed him.

Wakatta
, perhaps Tatsu would fulfill his blood debt. Or perhaps he might die. Only one thing was certain to Arisada—he had Tatsu in his bed if only the once.

The four men surveyed the hotel where the girls were held. The building was a dark, boarded-up shell. No sign of life.

“I think the bloodsucker lied to you, Mick.” Passebon muttered as he racked fresh bolts into his crossbow.

“No one lies to me when I use Fiona on ’em.”

“How do you know? This is first time you’ve tried it.” Galloway grinned and pointed with his chin in the direction of the defunct Taser shoved in Bana’s waistband.

“Sod you, fag.”

“No thanks, you’re not my type.” Galloway laughed.

“If you two girls are through with your bitch fight, we’ve got to figure a way in.” Passebon’s gaze, all business, surveilled the building.

“That fire ladder’s our best bet. ’Cept I’d lay odds it’s rusted stuck.” Galloway gave his partner a lopsided grin.

“
D’accord.
It’ll make a hell of a lot of noise. They’ll know we’re here,” the Cajun grunted.

“Shite, man, yer foul-stinkin’ French smokes has already announced us,” Bana grumbled.

Passebon merely snorted. Just as he flicked the butt onto the wet pavement, screams of terror ripped through the air. “
Merde! Les enfants
.” Before the others reacted, he had covered the width of the street in two giant strides and vaulted. One hand snagged the lowest rung of the ladder at least twenty feet above the ground. With a painful screech, the rusted hinges gave way. He let his weight pull the ladder down until it locked above his upturned face.

“Sonofabitch, Passebon, if they didn’t know we’re here, they do now.” Bana waved at the darkened building.

The Cajun led them up the shaky ladder to the top-floor landing. They crouched before a grime-covered window. Bana drew one of his Berettas from its holster and chambered a round. His eyes glowed with anticipation. “Stay behind me kid,” he ordered. Tatsu nodded and exchanged the
katana
in favor of the shorter
wakizashi
.