White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4) (2 page)

Simon started to walk backwards again, having no trouble navigating the snow. “Oh! What vampire bit you, was it earth? Wind? Oh, oh water? Can’t be fire, they’re all dead n’ all—oh my god, do you have
fangs
? Can I see?”

Tristan sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Christ, it’s like twenty questions…”

The fae gave him a big grin, shrugged and turned to face forward only to prance off towards the line of parked cars buried under snow.

Simon was a constant buzz in Tristan’s ear as they cleaned off his car enough for him and Ash to get in. Tristan rolled his eyes at Ash, making her chuckle and went around to open the door for her. His girlfriend before last would have called him sexist for it—there was a reason they didn’t last—but Ash only smiled warmly and gave him a soft pat on the chest. In the background the fae was
still
talking. Tristan couldn’t believe anyone had so much to say. Not that he was really saying anything at all. 

When Tristan turned to go around to his side of the car he stopped with a surprised noise. The fae was right behind, like all up in his shit right behind him.

“I know, I know! It was the were-house. The
were
-house, like warehouse. You know the lycanthropes? Get it?
Get it
?”

“I don’t have a clue what the fuck you’re talking about, kid.”

Simon looked crushed as he muttered, “It was a joke—”

“Listen,” Tristan interrupted before the kid could get lost in another monologue. “You seem nice, but you’re hard to follow, okay? Just… relax.”

Simon nodded but still had the kicked puppy look. “Okay.”

The two stood there, staring at each other.

“So… you drove here…?”

Simon stared up at him for a long time. The kid looked like he was really thinking. And it was an effort on his part. “Oh yeah! I drove here.” He slumped, letting his arms hang lifeless at his sides. “Can’t I ride with you? I get lonely when I drive alone there’s no one to talk to and Master wouldn’t let me bring Jennifer or Sacha along and I don’t care about my car. Can I?”

“Sure can’t.”

“All right,” he answered and it was the first real frown of the night he’d put on.

Hell, the expression looked so wrong on him that Tristan felt bad for the kid. But then he remembered the constant chatter they’d have to endure for the long ride to Yuki’s place. Tristan was sure is brain would leak out of his ears if he had to spend that much time in a confined space with the kid. Then again, that might still happen, they were off to see Yukihime, Master of Water and all things crazy, after all.

Ash startled him when she took his hand, still standing in the open car door. She offered him a half smile and then, when she seemed to notice his little frown, went on her toes to kiss his cheek. Without a word she teased the keys from Tristan’s hand and went around to the other side. He sighed, knowing that look on her face and got in the car, accidentally dropping snow into his lap when his hair brushed the side of the roof.

Ash maneuvered the car through the snow, not bothering to wait on the exuberant fae. The silence was cold, but not uncomfortable despite Tristan’s focused awareness on Ash and her unspoken thoughts. He could just tell there was something on her mind but knew better than to push. She was as hardheaded as him and would hold onto her musings until she was ready.

“I have something to tell you.”

Tristan stiffened at her sudden words. For Ash, of all people, to come out and say
I have something to tell you
… well, it couldn’t be good.

“You…” She glanced at him with an apprehensive look. “You are not going to like it.”

He turned in his seat and fixed his attention on her face, ready to pick up the tiniest of clues as to what this was about. “Okay…?”

“It’s about Sebastian.”

His hands tightened into fists where they rested on his lap. “Ahuh.”

She let out a sigh as if preparing herself. “There is a chance he isn’t dead.”

“Um…
what
?” He was there. He had forced himself to watch Ash take the fae’s last blood before helping her dump him over the side of the cruise ship.

Ash sighed again, slumping down in her seat. “I have killed a great many people in my life. But the only kind I have ever killed on purpose, of my own will has been vampires, wrong vampires… and a few dozen lycanthrope, out of pity. Sebastian, he—He deserved to die for what he did to you—
us
. But even knowing that, I just, I could not.”

“But then—”

“I drained him near death. When he went over the side, he was not conscious but he was alive.” She stopped and the silence pecked at Tristan’s mind. He was looking out the window again, unable to meet her eyes.

When he said nothing, she added, “He had a fifteen percent chance of surviving, actually.”

His attention snapped around to her again. “And that qualifies as you not killing him?”

She pouted a little. “For me, yes.”

Tristan took in a deep breath and let it out, forcing the tension away. “Yeah… okay. I guess I accept that. But, Jesus, what if he
did
make it? I already have to sleep with one eye open for the vampires, I don’t want to have to worry about all the others too.”

“I know,” she said sadly. “Which is why I thought you should know.”

He nodded.

“I am sorry.”

He looked at her, confused.

“For not killing him.” She glanced away from the road long enough to see his frown. “I know you wanted me to.”

He groaned and took her hand off the steering wheel, giving it a soft squeeze. “No, actually, I’m a little relieved.”

Ash squeezed his hand in return. “It was weighing on your conscious.”

“Yeah.” Along with Audric’s fledglings. He wanted to believe there was no other way, but he just couldn’t. He wasn’t a good enough liar to tell himself otherwise.

When he glanced at her, Ash was looking at him with a sort of “do you want to talk about it” kind of look. But it was not something she’d normally say aloud. Tristan either. They both tended to bottle shit up until it exploded—more frequently for Tristan. In fact, he was sure he was due for his next epic meltdown soon. He just hoped Ash had it in her to pick his broken self up when he inevitably failed to help himself.

Shit, for all he knew, he had one in France and just didn’t remember it. Dammit, he was going to cave and ask her to tell him what happened after all. He just knew it. And knowing himself, he’d do it at the worst possible moment too. Fuck, he was a detriment to himself and everyone around him.

“I will be sure to find a moment to tell Simon.”

“Seriously?”

She glanced at him with a confused frown.

“Just like that, you’re going to tell him the truth?”

Her attention went back to the road. “He knows the world he lives in. He understands the nature of his fellow shinwa. Don’t you think he deserves to know my sin against him?”

“Yeah but… I mean, Sebastian was a traitor. And a monster. Do you really want to be the one to tell
that
boy that? Simon seems like a good kid.”

Ash slumped. “Simon will understand.”

Tristan wasn’t so sure about that but he let it slide for the moment. He had to get his head on right before walking into Yuki’s home. Too bad it was impossible to do in the next thirty minutes what he’d been struggling to do for the past year and half.

Ash caught herself chewing on her lip, much like Tristan did when he was irritated and struggled to find his words. Well, words that weren’t interrupted every other by a curse. Sometimes something resembling eloquent came out.

She smiled to herself and then sighed, glancing over at her love. His mind was open, for once, and he’d been thinking about the whole Simon-Sebastian situation since they stopped talking a few minutes ago.

Glancing at Tristan she caught the image of herself in the rearview mirror, and like she had for the past two months, gave a little start. For over two hundred years she’d been pale, white everywhere but her soft lilac eyes and all the sudden, she was dark again. She looked human with her Greek complexion, brown hair and bright blue eyes. But it wasn’t seeing her human self again that always made her hesitate, it was that every single time she saw herself her first thought was “Eva”, her deceased twin.

Not for the first time, she silently relished Malik’s deserved end. And that was the absolute only way she thought of her Master now.

Ash reached across the car and touched Tristan’s hand. He was always so warm, a brightness in the dark—a flame and every vampire who crossed his path were moths. The simple truth had yet to occur to him and Ash was happy to keep it to herself for now. He has so much on his mind these last months and while he was strong, she was starting to notice the toll adding up.

When she met him, he was already a mess and it seemed that he was getting better after finding the truth behind his parent’s deaths and then killing the vampire who murdered them with his own hands, but really he was only trading one mystery for another and as more and more found their way to him, the deeper into his mind Tristan seemed to retreat.

He was a mouthy man with a whole lot to say but as of late he’d fallen into long bouts of lip-chewing silence in which he usually had his mind locked up tight. The few times he hadn’t Ash had heard his dark ruminations and it made her soul ache. She learned after the second time of trying to talk to him about his thoughts that it only made him angry to the point of shutting her out for hours on end. Sometimes, days. And she wanted nothing more than to be closer to him, in all ways possible.

“You didn’t sleep well, again.”

Tristan sighed, lowering his head. And with that little sigh, his thoughts changed. He was thinking about his parents and the dreams that haunted him up to and after killing Malik. Suddenly he was thinking about France and Ash cringed, realizing that he’d been dreaming a lot more lately about their time in that dungeon.

Hopelessness, fear and anguish—all the feelings that were overwhelming him. He was starting to come to terms with the idea that the bits of dreams he remembered were actually real.

He was starting to remember. Or more accurately, and it gave Ash a chill, he was breaking down Yukihime’s blockade that hid those memories. Did he even know he was doing it?

Ash struggled to swallow and opened her mouth, unsure of what to say. But then Tristan sighed again and his mind filled with the image of Yukihime herself.

She flinched. “You dreamt of Yukihime last night?”

“Mhm,” he hummed softly, his chin resting on his hand while he stared out the window at the grey and white landscape.

Without asking, Tristan focused his thoughts on the dream, recalled it in detail. Yukihime stood knee deep in snow dressed in a white cape with a fur hood that covered everything but her lips and chin. Even not being able to see the small girl’s face, Tristan was hyper aware of her, knew it was the Snow Princess without a doubt.

They were in the field outside of town, the one Ash and Tristan went to spar. But Ash wasn’t with him, it was only him and Yukihime. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear the words. He tried to move close to hear, but he was trapped by the snow, yet not cold. Just confused.

“I can’t hear you,” he called out, agitated.

Still, those thin lips moved, flashing long fangs as invisible words were lost to the wind.

“What? I—I can’t hear you,” he said again, frustrated and she raised a single hand, palm up, asking him to come to her.

It wasn’t like him to go to her, but he did. The snow seemed to part way for him and he marched over with no effort. The moment their fingers met her voice found solidity and filled his ears with the boom of a single hissed word. “
Lies
...” 

Ash let out a shaky breath. “Was it…”

“No,” he mumbled into his hand, shaking his head, still looking out into the dark. “No dreamshare.”

While the House of Water wasn’t particularly adept at dreamsharing, Yukihime was certainly capable. And Ash wouldn’t have put it past her to hide herself nearby their apartment just to toy with Tristan. But it wasn’t childish enough of a dream for Yukihime.

Tristan said a little louder, “It was nothing, just forget it.”

Ash took in a breath as if she meant to say something and ended with letting it out in a small huff. She really didn’t know what to say. For all she’d seen in life, the horrors—and beauty—she never did know quite what to say to make him feel better and that’s all she ever wanted. For Tristan to be happy.

“What?” Tristan groaned having caught her cut-off words.

“As you said, it’s nothing.”

He sighed again, slumping.

A minute later, frowning and despondent, Ash was parking in front of Yukihime’s home.

“Holy shit…,” Tristian whispered.

“Oh my,” Ash answered softly in reverence. “I suppose I should have expected this. Lucien did go rogue after all.”

“Yeah, but look at it.”

“Hmm,” she hummed. “Indeed.”

Lucien was the last of a very rare sect of vampire, the House of Fire. His Master was killed by Malik with Yukihime’s help nearly one hundred seventy years ago. Since then, Lucien bided his time, waiting for the powers he knew he’d come into to manifest. Sure enough, when they did, he finally enacted the start of his plan to ruin the vampire community, and the rest of the shinwa while he was at it.

Yukihime’s home was the first cog in his plan. He couldn’t kill her himself, but he could kill those lesser than him. And so he did. He used his gift of fire to kill those Yukihime allowed into her home. The building had once been a sprawling single story traditional Japanese home kept clean and pristine. There’d always been soft lights on behind grass paper curtains and despite being out in the middle of nowhere and infested with vampires, the home always had a comfortable feeling to it from the outside.

From the looks of it now, there wasn’t much of inside left. The entire left side of the house was gone, nothing but a pile of ash that gave way to a blackened skeleton. Most of the right side was still intact but felt… dead. There were no lights warming the windows, there was no life. Or the walking dead.

On their last visit to the home there was more than two dozen various super cars parked out front. Now there were only three. From here, Ash could only sense half a dozen inhabitants and only two of those were vampire.

“I can’t believe she’s still living here,” Tristan said more as a thought than a conversation piece.

Ash sighed. “It is only Yukihime and a few of her subordinates here…” That Lilith wasn’t among them worried her but she didn’t want to bring it up right then, not when Tristan was groaning at frustration.

Ash followed his line of sight to Desmond and gave into a sigh as well. The vampire always seemed to bring out the worse in Tristan—and Ash, if she were being honest. The man just rubbed people the very wrong way. Mostly on purpose, too.

Ash was reaching for the door when Tristan stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time here dicking around, playing stupid fucking games. Let’s go in, tell Yuki to fuck off, get your book and get out. We’ll get on the first flight out of this country tomorrow night and worry about connections after that. I’m so done with this place.”

She was trying not to smirk when she nodded, thinking that his mouth was getting better. There was only two F-words in that statement. Just a few months ago Tristan would have at least said three times that. It wasn’t that she minded the cursing, it was just… tiresome and unnecessary except for when it was wholly necessary. Desmond usually did warrant a necessity in foul language though. “Agreed.”

Simon pulled into the driveway and Ash saw the way Tristan stiffened when he noticed.

“Good.” He smiled and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek that surprised her.

Since she’d taught him to block his thoughts, he’d been able to surprise her more than once with ninja kisses or little grabs. Maybe she just let her guard down too much when it came to him. But then, she wanted nothing more than to be free with him in all aspects. Like in Greece, in that Gytheio hotel.

Ash stifled a dejected sigh as the couple climbed out of the car together. Simon was still sitting in his car, on a cell phone from the looks of it. Moving slowly, Tristan made a big show of adjusting the new gun holster around his shoulders before slipping on his jacket. He never said so, but she knew he felt formidable wearing it. The saunter it inspired in him made her smile.

Ash’s attention went on Desmond. He was watching with a smirk around the hand rolled cigarette between his lips as the pair approached. Despite the cold, and the snow, the vampire was barefoot and wearing just a pair of jeans and a white tee so thin they could see his pale nipples through the cloth. The mask propped on the top of his head was a noh mask Ash was all too familiar with and it made her anxious.

Tristan stopped short and crinkled his nose. Ash took a few steps past him to be more socially appropriate. Tristan always had this way of stopping very far out of Desmond’s reach and she thought that maybe he didn’t even realize it. Then again, the two had gotten into it enough times that Tristan had every right to be wary of the imposing vampire.

“Evenin’,” Desmond drawled in his heavy Scots brogue. “Yew is looking rather lovely, Asta. Playing human tonight then?”

Ash exchanged a look with Tristan, one of those
what the hell?
looks. In Greece Ash was given an unprecedented spell that made her, for lack of a better word, human. Somewhere between splitting up with Tristan and company, and reuniting with them again while looking for the antediluvian pythia, Agamemnon, she’d been given the counter spell by a man Tristan said claimed to be his father. Tristan was the only one who remembered him. Who the man really was, no one could begin to guess, there were just too many unknowns.

At any rate, since being spelled human, Ash had taken on the pallor of her human self with dark brown hair and sky blue eyes. She still had her full motonō and seikonō abilities but
looked
like a fledgling. And with the extensive ancient knowledge her great, great Grand-sire had graciously passed onto her, she could even project her presence as a fledgling—a powerful bluff if any.

But she was not projecting as a fledging and Desmond knew everything that had happened in Greece. He’d been there for it all. Instead of pressing the issue, Ash jumped right to the thing that was really bothering her.  

“The mask?” she asked a she let imagines of her past experiences with the mask flow freely from her for the other vampire’s consumption.

Desmond made a noise through his teeth, a cringe as he caught the images and offered his own in return. He flicked his spent cigarette over Tristan’s head. “Aye, she be of a
mood
today.”

Ash returned his frown.

“Nothing to worry ‘bout, wee lass. Just…” He sighed. “Be what it be, is’all.”

“I see.”

“Something wrong?” Tristan asked as he stepped closer to the others and then tensed when he heard the crunch of snow and gravel behind him.

Desmond flicked a glance behind them and then smiled sadly at Ash, “Com’n then.”

A flash of jealously hit Ash and she turned to Tristan. His mind was locked up tight, but his emotions, they always leaked off him in waves of tickling fingers that groped at her psyche. And every other vampire within reach.

Desmond thought he loved Ash and Tristan was very aware of those feelings. But Ash saw Desmond’s love, of what he considered love, just a burden to them both. He was fixated on her in the unhealthiest of ways but she understood the why and pitied him for it.

Inside, the same corridor that they’d travelled down just a mere week before Lucien’s rampage was now a wholly different place than it used to be. The dark stained wood pillars butted with massive fusama and oil lamps were all still there, but now they all seemed dead. There was no fire lit in the lamps to give life to the lewd carvings. Everything was cold and empty.

A sudden rush of excitement washed over Ash a moment before Simon burst into the hall behind them, panting and rosy cheeked. He was smiling brightly as he worked off his shoes, hopping on each foot for balance. And when Tristan glanced back to smile at the fae, a tendril of regret flowed out of him.

Anticipating the worst from the ancient Master and not wanting to upset her just yet, Ash slipped her knee-high boots off to leave with Simon’s—Tristan declined, despite her warning. Desmond only rolled his eyes.