Chương 32: Chapter 30 - Vampires don't exist

An hour after sunset, I walked into the main pod hall. Cassandra stood at her station, but she wasn't behind it. She was in front of the holographic workstation, leaning against its edge, arms folded, watching me walk in. She smiled, with a much better smile than two nights ago. This one felt real, wide, and warm, and slightly crooked on the left side.

"Little horn returns." She pushed off the workstation and walked toward me.

"I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me." I narrowed my eyes. Not seeing her for an evening clearly worked well. I kept walking, matching her pace.

"I'm busy."

"Isn't everyone?" She stopped a foot in front of me, tilted her head, and reached up to brush something off the shoulder of my suit. There was nothing there. Her fingers lingered, trailing down my lapel.

"Have you come to waste all your hard-earned tower coins on commons? Well, not so hard earned, but you know what I mean."

"I'll get a legendary today." With the amount of failures, I was due for a hit.

"Of course." She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. The motion was softer than usual. With a wave of her hand, she summoned the tower shop.

"The shop's been updated with your latest loot conversion." She turned, walking back to the workstation. Her hips moved with a deliberate sway that I was fairly certain hadn't been there thirty seconds ago. Cassandra's Tower Shop. My balance read 2, 214 tower coins. Enough for one ten-pull and change. Or enough to actually buy something useful. I looked at the catalog. Nah, gacha or nothing.

"Hit me with the ten-pull." Cassandra arched an eyebrow, but the smile stayed.

"Your frugality with spending money is truly unmatched." She giggled. The screen spun. The winged goddess descended, dropping her ten stars. They fell, unwrapped, and revealed their contents. Common. Common. Common. Common. Common. Common. Common. Common. Common. Common. Ten commons. Not even an uncommon. But her, I could take a common version of the cap my demons refused to wear. Cassandra watched me with an expression that was fighting very hard to remain sympathetic and losing badly.

"I see your luck remains remarkably consistent."

"Perhaps the shop could stop being consistently rigged."

"It isn't rigged. Henrik got an epic staff earlier." She moved closer, her shoulder brushing mine as she reached across the interface.

"Even Liu has an epic item already." I glared at her.

"That was exactly what I desired to know."

"Which is why I've shared it with you." She laughed, in a very real way that she cut off by pressing her lips together. She glanced at me sidelong, and for a second, she looked almost shy about it. She must have really missed me last night. Now she was standing close enough that I could count the lighter flecks in her crimson eyes. I let the silence hold for a beat, then pulled on my soul chamber. The Forgotten Tome materialized in my hand, a heavy leather-bound volume radiating faint spectral energy.

I set it on the workstation.

"I've brought you something from the library floor." Cassandra's gaze snapped to the tome. Her hand moved to it, almost involuntarily, fingers hovering above the cover. The spectral energy pulsed beneath her touch, casting faint green light across her knuckles.

"The Forgotten Tome," she murmured. She picked it up, careful, turning it in her hands.

"These are encoded. The text isn't readable without a decryption cipher that I'll need to derive from the tome's own spectral signature." She opened the cover, and her eyes moved over the first page with the speed of someone who'd been reading alien languages for a very long time.

"This is bound to entertain me for several nights."

"Enjoy." She looked up at me, and for a moment, the real happiness shone in her eyes.

"Thank you." I smiled.

"Always a pleasure." She held the tome against her chest, and the gesture reminded me of how she'd cradled the centaur schema. Like something precious. Like something that mattered more than she wanted to admit.

"Speaking of pleasures from the tower." She looked at me, and for the first time tonight, the warmth came with an edge.

"I heard something interesting about the reaper core." I arched an eyebrow.

"Did you?"

"The centaur reaper's core. Rare drop, immensely useful for my research, given I already have the centaur reaper's schematics." She tilted her head.

"And yet, from what I heard, the Church somehow ended up with it. Through channels so miraculous they must have been divinely ordained." I held her gaze. She wasn't angry. She was jealous.

"Sarah was part of the team that killed the centaur," I said.

"A fair share of loot seemed right."

"She can get her fair share of uncommons." Cassandra clicked her tongue.

"The Golden Sands, represented by me in this case, demand the rares."

"I'll keep that in mind… though, I'm not sure I'll respect it." If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"And why wouldn't you? Bringing rares to me serves double duty. It decreases your debt to the Sands, and it keeps me happy. Don't you want me to be happy?"

"I want you to stop lying about being a vampire." My voice hardened.

"Admit it, or come watch sunrise with me tonight." The tension deepened. She held perfectly still for a moment, her crimson eyes fixed on mine, and behind them I could see the same calculation I'd seen last time. But this time, there was something else. Something that looked almost like pain.

"Damian." She said my name carefully, like it was fragile.

"We've been through this."

"And you stood me up."

"I never told you I would come. I was busy working."

"And I'm sure, what a coincidence, that you'll be busy working tonight as well. And all the other nights too." Her jaw tightened. For a moment, the mask flickered, and underneath it was something raw. Not the controlled warmth or the strategic flirtation. Something older, uncomfortable.

"If I come," she said quietly, "will you stop asking?"

"I won't need to once I see you in the sun." She stared at me.

"Very well then. On our spot."

"Our spot," I confirmed. She picked up the tome, holding it against her chest again.

"I will be there. This time, I mean it."

"I know." She held my gaze for one more breath. Then she turned back to the workstation, the tome tucked under her arm, and waved her free hand. The shop interface dissolved. I smiled, gave her a nod, and walked out. The Pacific air hit me at the dome's entrance, salt and wind and the distant hum of the islands settling into the night. The tower loomed to the east, black against a sky full of stars. I climbed the maintenance ladder on the east side of the administration building. The rungs were cold under my palms.

The wind picked up halfway, pulling at my jacket. The rooftop spread out above me, flat metal, low wall on three sides, the ocean on the fourth. The same spot. Our spot. I sat on the low wall, the ocean side, and let my legs hang over the edge. The moon was a thin crescent tonight, barely enough to light the water. The Milky Way stretched overhead, thick and pale. I leaned back against the wall, closed my eyes, and let the exhaustion take me. Something warm touched my face. I opened my eyes.

Gold light flooded the rooftop, thick and liquid, pouring in from the east. The sun sat on the edge of the ocean, a half-disc of blinding amber cutting the horizon in two. The sky above it ran from deep orange at the water to pale blue overhead, the kind of gradient that made you understand why people once worshipped the dawn. And on the low wall opposite me, bathed in direct sunlight, sat Cassandra. She perched on the wall with her legs folded beneath her, facing east, the sunrise hitting her full in the face.

Her silver dress caught the light and turned molten gold. Her blonde hair, loose tonight, fell past her shoulders, each strand lit up like a filament. Her eyes were closed, her face tilted slightly upward, toward the sun. The light hit her skin without reservation. She looked like she was praying. I didn't move. I didn't speak. Something about the way she sat there, perfectly still, face to the sun, told me this wasn't a performance. There was no calculation in her posture, no angle, no awareness of being watched.

I observed her for a while. A minute, maybe two. Then she opened her eyes. Crimson met gold, lit up from the outside by the sunrise and from inside by whatever burned behind them. She turned her head to face me, and for a second, her expression was completely unguarded. She looked terrified. Not of the sunlight. Of me seeing her in it. The expression lasted a fraction of a second. Then it smoothed over, and what replaced it was softer than anything I'd seen from her.

A small, fragile smile that didn't have any edge to it.

"Stop staring at me."

"You're glowing." She looked down at herself, at the sunrise painting her silver dress in gold.

"That's what silver clothes do in sunlight." She looked back up.

"Now you can stop whining about the vampire thing." I let the smile come slowly.

"That I indeed will."

"Good." She brushed a strand of hair from her face, and in the motion, her fingers trembled. Just barely. Just enough to notice if you were looking, which I was.

"I will hold you to it tonight. Now, I've got a tome to work on, and you've got a dive to attend to. See you tonight." She burst into mist. The mist caught the sunrise, turning into a cloud of gold and silver particles that held her shape for a half second before the wind pulled it apart. I sat on the wall, alone, watching the last traces of her scatter into the morning air. The sun cleared the horizon. The gold turned white.

I climbed down the ladder with the kind of smile that would have made even Astarielle jealous. The kebab stand was already open. The man behind the counter had my lamb doner in hand before I made it to the front of the line. Extra garlic sauce, no questions asked. I ate it while walking, the morning bustle of the island's buildings around me. Construction crews hauled materials. A group of climbers jogged past in matching tracksuits, probably one of the Asian organizations doing their morning routines.

Someone was playing an erhu somewhere in the Yamato section, the thin, reedy melody cutting through the noise of waking civilization. The food sat well. The morning sat better. For the first time in a while, the world felt like it had its priorities in order. I finished the doner, wiped my hands on a napkin, and headed for the dome. Today's dive was scheduled for nine. I had thirty minutes. My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I opened it, and apparently, I was now added to a group chat on an app I didn't know the phone had. It prompted me to put a moniker, so I put in Little Horn and checked the messages. The first message was from Heavenly Emperor of Golden Brilliance, obviously Liu, his message: My dear fellow daoists and anti-daoists, have you found anything on Paradise in the last dive? We met a convoy that was transporting goods between floors. Nothing of relevance, but everything of suspicion. A smile crept onto my face.

I texted them: Sort of. Found a library that talks a lot about the divine rebirth of the tower's goddess to bring salvation. Sounds like something a group named Paradise would look for. Another chatter, named HV, obviously Henrik Voss, replied: That does not indeed sound like a coincidence. I had a floor with worms. Just worms. Did the library have any keywords to ask around for? I typed in the reply: A name, Mefista. Should be the goddess or something.

I'm having my demons check in Hell for any relation to Mephistopheles. Liu replied: Then let's search for that in today's dives. We got ambushed once. Never again. Yeah. Never again. I pocketed the phone. The preparation room was for the main stage one. Finally, back to the spotlight. Sarah stood in the center of the room, fully armored. White-and-silver plate, crusader cross on the chestplate, longsword at her hip, shield on her back. Her blonde braid was pulled tight, her blue eyes sharp.

Four people stood with her. Three men and one woman. They wore dark, combat armor-style clothes, with insignia a mixture of Lucielle Legal, Yamato Syndicate, and the Tribunal. Most likely a team that met on an earlier floor, like me, Liu, and Henrik. The first man was broad, with a shaved head, arms like bridge cables, holding a warhammer across both shoulders like a yoke. He bore the mark of the Tribunal.

The second was lean and wiry, with close-cropped hair and a pair of Japanese short swords hanging from a crossed harness on his back. He leaned against the wall with his arms folded, watching me with intent. The woman was tall, dark-skinned, with a staff planted in front of her and both hands resting on top of it. A mage from Lucielle Legal, from the way the air around her shimmered faintly. The last man was Chinese, in a traditional martial outfit mixed with combat armor. None of them smiled.

Instead, they glared at me with not-so-subtle hostility. Sarah's eyes met mine. Her expression was tight, controlled, and deeply uncomfortable.

"Heaven bless your morning, Damian," she said.

"We need to talk."