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The hunter was dying.
Even Subaru hadn't believed it. "It's a trap," Kamui had said at once, fighting to keep his voice flat, breaking into fear and frustration. But Subaru had wondered, not whether the story could be real, but what it could mean, and he'd smiled and agreed and slipped out alone anyway.
The hunter's bloody face was tipped up, eyes closed and lips curved in a serene smile, as if basking in invisible sunlight. He'd propped himself up against a tree trunk – unless one of his opponents or attackers had done it? – and had one leg stretched out in front of him in a mockery of a casual sprawl. There was no doubt he was dying: with his keen senses attuned to every flicker of life, Subaru had no trouble feeling death lapping at the hunter's being.
Subaru melted out of the darkness by degrees. By the thin moonlight, he might have stayed a shade, if he'd wished it.
"So you did come," said the hunter in a thick voice. "How interesting."
"You shouldn't talk. I think you've punctured a lung."
Slowly, the hunter opened his eyes. "I don't think it matters," he wheezed, shockingly carefree, before going into a fit of almost silent coughing.
"What did you want so much that you'd risk this?" Subaru asked. He hadn't meant to ask; he was tense from the smell of fresh blood, from the wrongness of the whole scene. "I thought you'd be gone by now. Kamui… He wants to kill you."
"I don't think you understand me at all, Subaru-kun."
Subaru winced, took a single step forward. "No, I don't. You knew what we were all the time, didn't you? You could have given us away, but…"
"I wasn't going to let anyone else have you."
An instinctive flash of fear: Kamui would have killed him if he'd heard that. But that was beside the point now.
It was one thing to be a vampire: many people had some vampire blood, and there was a brisk, if not entirely legal, trade in it. The advantages were tremendous, and just about everyone thought they were strong enough or wise enough or just plain special enough to overcome the disadvantages. Subaru had met a few who'd been right about that; most of them hadn't been.
Being a purebred vampire meant something else, though: it made you a target. That was something Kamui had always accepted more readily than Subaru. It hadn't been so bad when they were young; but they hadn't been young in a long time.
"Seishirou-san…"
"It was nothing." A faint, bubbling breath. "Stupid favor. My brother." He gasped and smiled, blood dribbling down his chin. It was nearly time. As always before a death, the air became a little more dense, as though something were waiting raptly for the end.
Subaru swept back his cloak and knelt, still just out of the hunter's reach. Brow furrowing, he watched and said nothing.
He was almost used to the cloak, as ridiculous as it looked. It had been Hokuto-chan's idea, and a good one. Hokuto-chan: a girl they'd met in the last city they'd stayed in, who looked so much like Subaru she'd said she should have been his twin instead of Kamui. Kamui hadn't liked that at all, but Hokuto-chan had made fun of him for sulking until he'd become flustered and agreed to a truce. For a few months he'd been as mellow as Subaru had ever known him, until they'd come close to being discovered and captured for their powerful blood. That was when Hokuto-chan had put together the outfits: "It's so stereotypical vampire in a castle, no one will suspect you're actually powerful vampires! It's perfect." It had worked pretty well, too, and it was something to remember her by.
He knew now that Seishirou-san – that the hunter – had followed them from the city. The peaceful reprieve had been a lie.
"Why did you want me to come?" Subaru asked the hunter, who could no longer answer. "Why me?"
Nothing.
"They didn't make it. The others, Seishirou-san, the other hunters. I saw…"
He'd seen them on his way to the little copse behind the new castle. One had nearly made it off the grounds before the poison had caught up with him. The others had succumbed much earlier. Subaru had recognized the rotten-sweet smell at once: something Seishirou-san had used for weed killer, when he'd been pretending to be a gardener.
"It's another lie about your brother and the favor, isn't it? You fought them for us? I don't need protecting, Seishirou-san." Subaru wiped his face with the back of his hand. He had begun to tremble. He crept closer to the hunter, who had toppled over, and pulled his head into his lap. "I really don't understand you."
He'd jarred the hunter's hand when he moved him. It fell open, and a broken glass vial rolled out of it. There was a seal of some kind carved into its stopper – some kind of magic, not vampire magic, but Subaru didn't recognize it and didn't waste time puzzling it out. He drew one sharp nail across his wrist, raising a line of blood, and watched it fall onto the hunter's lips, mingling with the blood he'd coughed up.
It was the one thing he'd always known he must never do. In a way it had been easy for him to resist the temptation: it was an unconscionable thing to inflict on someone unwilling, and an impossible thing to do for someone who asked for it. And to give anyone his blood, ever, would have put Kamui in danger.
At first he thought he'd been too late, and the last flame he'd sensed of the hunter's life had only been an echo or a hope. But no: the convulsions were beginning. Subaru had no trouble, with his strength, wrestling the hunter down. He was eerily silent. Subaru's experience of vampire transformations was limited, but there had always been a great deal of noise. Not screaming, though: the body was taxed too far for screaming to be possible.
It was over quickly, though not before Subaru had broken into a cold sweat. He was standing, half supporting the hunter, who was on his knees, one rigid hand clutching a fistful of Subaru's cloak. Seishirou-san looked up at him, and Subaru froze in confusion: a new-made vampire's eyes flashed golden and catlike, but the hunter's eyes were still warm brown.
In a scratched-up voice he rasped, "I do have a brother, you know." He gave a sigh almost like a laugh. "Thank you for the blood, Subaru-kun." And then he faded from consciousness, and Subaru was alone.
No: not alone. He turned his head slowly. Kamui stood among the trees, his face a pale beacon of rage and hate and terror, his eyes glowing yellow. The moment Subaru released the hunter, Kamui was at his side in a blur of speed, his hand on Subaru's shoulder, shielding him with his body from Seishirou-san, who was no threat just now.
"What did he do to you?" Kamui asked. "What happened?"
Subaru shook his head, recoiling a little from Kamui's fierceness.
Kamui dragged himself into a calmer state. "We… we have to go. Come on, Subaru, we need to get out of here. It's not your fault, I'm not mad at you, we just have to leave now."
"You can't kill him," Subaru said. It seemed important to say. He wasn't really sure why.
"I know you don't want me to…"
"No."
"So we'll just have to outrun him."
At some point the situation had passed outside of Subaru's comprehension. He let Kamui lead him away, because Kamui would always do what was best for them, in the end.
"I don't understand," Subaru said, quietly.
Kamui didn't answer.
"Did he know I'd do it?"
But he didn't really want an answer to that.