Amy Blankenship - Vampire Gemini стр 6.

Tasuki listened as the line went dead… hearing his own heartbeat overpower the sound. Kyoko had told him once that if something went wrong with the demons, then she would disappear. “No.” The word rushed from him as his eyes took on the most startling shade of amethyst.

“DAMN IT!” He yelled and threw the phone across the room. Covering his eyes with his hands, he fell back against the lush pillows as he felt his heart fracture and bleed painfully.

He uncovered his eyes after a few minutes… the amethyst color within them still hadn’t faded. Tasuki decided he would bide his time. Just because the old man told him Kyoko didn’t leave a forwarding address… didn’t mean he was ignorant to where she was going.

Unseen to him, the staff Tasuki kept locked in its case by the bed began to glow ominously.

*****

Kyoko opened the taxi door but turned back toward the house when her younger brother came running down the steps and across the yard. She threw her arms around him as he tackled her… barely keeping her feet.

“I don’t want you to go!” he cried, fisting his hand in her shirt.

Kyoko smiled… knowing she was doing the right thing. She loved him so much that it made the decision to leave hurt less. “I will come back to see you soon, and once school is out, I promise you can come to the city to visit me. We will spend so much time together that it will be as if I never left.” She looked up to see her mothers’ gaze lock with hers.

Miss Hogo pulled Tama away from her daughter with an understanding smile. “We will have your room ready and waiting on you. Won’t we Tama?” She brushed the tears from his cheek as he nodded, then looked back up at Kyoko. “See, everything will be fine.”

Glancing up at the house one last time, Kyoko could see her grandpa in the upstairs window. She waved and gave him a smile that almost made her cheeks hurt… then climbed into the cab. If she was leaving home because of the demons, then she was going to go invade their home and wipe them out one at a time.

“The city please,” Kyoko told the driver and refused to look back.

*****

In the heart of the city, Hyakuhei lay in a state of semi-sleep when he heard his twin brother’s voice calling to him. He knew not to open his eyes because there was no use. His brother wouldn’t be there… so he just inhaled sharply and listened to the darkness.

“So, my younger brother still refuses to join me?” The voice held a hint of longing mixed with anger.

Hyakuhei opened his eyes and ran a hand through his long, ebony hair. Without saying a word out loud, he answered the intruding voice. “Younger brother? We are twins Tadamichi, you are no better than I.”

Tadamichi’s voice hardened, “Twins are alike… are we alike? Plus, I am the first born… so that makes you the youngest.”

Sitting up, Hyakuhei let the silk sheets fall from his naked body as he slid from the bed. It was just like Tadamichi to twist events to his liking. “No, we are nothing alike… so enough with the riddles.” He flinched, and then rolled his eyes when the lamp on the nightstand beside him shattered. He would have to learn to keep his temper under control or everything around him would be destroyed. He assumed it was his punishment for losing his temper so long ago with his brother.

“I don’t hate you,” Hyakuhei growled as if trying to convince himself.

“How generous of you,” Tadamichi’s voice took on a melancholy sound as if he didn’t believe the confession. “The last time we were within the same realm… we killed each other. Such senseless acts for immortals… don’t you think?” There was a pause before he continued. “Once the banishment was over, like a faithful brother… I waited on your return.”

“We are destined to be alone,” Hyakuhei cut in with the lie. He knew his brother was no longer alone… Tadamichi had made sure of that.

He could hear his brother’s silent laughter. It made him wonder if it hadn’t been a mistake to think he could come back and face the wicked family his brother had created in his absence. The only way he and his brother were alike was that they didn’t like to be alone… though they had two completely different ways of correcting that problem.

“I knew you would return… here where the night is never dark… here where you will never be alone among so many humans and the children I have created for us.” Tadamichi’s voice had become wishful.

Hyakuhei walked into the bathroom, turning on the shower then whirling to face the mirror. No reflection looked back at him so he just pictured his brother’s face… his own face as he answered. “I want nothing to do with the abominations you have sired.” He backed into the shower as he tore the link apart so he wouldn’t have to hear his brother’s haunting voice any longer.

No… he had not come back to his homeland to join them like some twisted family reunion. His brother was the most destructive of all the demons and the children he sired were disturbing to say the least. Those children where now spawning others and their numbers were growing like the black plague.

Hyakuhei placed his hands on the ceramic walls of the shower… letting the hot water warm his frozen skin. What did it matter to him? The last time he’d tried to stop his brother from infesting the human world with half-breed demons, it had ended in both their deaths… a false death that took centuries to rise from.

Their punishment for that crime was banishment from each other and this world of humans. They had become Shades who walked the realm between realms… casting only shadows of loneliness. That had ended over a century ago. Yet, he’d stayed away from his twin. Even from the darkness on the other side of the world, he had heard this city calling to him until he couldn’t fight the summons any longer.

His brother was right about one thing… he was exhausted from being alone. But now that he was home, he could smell the taint of his brother’s sins plaguing the land. True blood demons he could abide by, but the rape of the city by the half-breed vampires that spawning had created… was provoking.

His twin brother stayed underground most of the time within the lavish catacombs they had once shared during the medieval era… only to resurface once in a while, long enough to bring another victim into the deadly fold.

Hyakuhei looked up into the waterfall of the shower… trying to keep his rage from seeping out, but knew his failure when he heard the bathroom mirror crack.

Tadamichi had accused him of hiding himself away from the world but that wasn’t true.

‘It is Tadamichi who has chosen that path,’ He thought darkly. ‘He cannot see the destruction he is causing. The night is no longer dark nor is it silent.’ Hyakuhei turned off the shower and stepped out, not bothering to wrap a towel around his lithe form. Instead, he grabbed the soft black cloth and began drying his long ebony hair. Within moments he was dressed and ready for the night.

Walking back to his window in the living room, he sat down on the sill and looked out at his view.

Hyakuhei smirked at his own dark humor and looked down at the side of the opposite building.

“The darkness is alive with demons Brother. This city with its high walls has made it so,” he mused aloud.