Chapter 2 Fading LuLu

Kowloon City.

Night has fallen.

A jeep-like car, entirely black, glides through the night. Even its windows are heavily tinted. Only silver trim and a three-pointed star on the grille break the darkness.

It stops in the district where the infamous Kowloon Walled City once stood. Demolished years ago, the site is now a park featuring a small replica of what the Walled City once looked like.

The car's headlights go out. A door swings open. A heel clicks against the ground as Lu Feng steps out. She is not wearing her black contact lenses, leaving her golden-yellow eyes fully exposed.

Before her are narrow streets, run-down buildings, and aging apartment blocks. Dogs bark in the distance, while homeless men and women sleep in the dark. Potholes scar the road, and tangled wires hang overhead, the government has neglected to renovate the district.

Dying streetlights blink erratically, the only illumination along the streets.

The Walled City is gone, but its colors still live on in the district.

Lu flicks open her phone. Marie has texted her the location where the six ended up, the only clue her assistant managed to uncover.

She walks along the old streets, past empty shops and shuttered doors. A few lights glow in the windows of aging apartment blocks, countless others remain pitch black, lifeless and vacant.

Only a few minutes' drive behind her, the crowded city churns alive ironically.

Lu surveys her surroundings as she turns through the dark streets. Only a few residents are out. Glancing back at the dim screen of her phone, she follows the street signs, hoping they will lead her to the source of the disturbance in her domain.

Lu covers her mouth and nose as an unsettling stench reaches her nostrils. Her vampiric eyes trace its thin, threadlike trail into the alleyways.

Following the street signs, she winds through a maze of narrow alleyways hemmed in by damp, high walls, deteriorating apartments, and low-rise shops.

She lowers her hand and frowns at a lifeless five-story apartment building. The stench pours from its narrow entrance, where a dying blue light flickers.

She checks the address again. She is in the right place.

× × × ×

Climbing the stairs, Lu flexes her hands. Her pistol is holstered behind her open coat, ready to be drawn at any moment.

The dark gray walls are damaged and scarred with scratches, with small patches of graffiti here and there. The wooden stairs shriek beneath every step of Lu's heels.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

Footsteps move just overhead, on the third floor.

Lu quickens her pace. As she steps onto the third floor, she spots a faint, moving shadow beneath the gap of a decaying metal door.

She moves in and swings the door open, her right hand poised to draw her pistol and her left ready for close quarters combat with her sharp nails.

"Whoa!" A terrified woman recoils at her sudden entrance.

Lu lowers her combat stance. "Do you live here?"

"N-no... I-I only joined recently." The terrified woman stammers, clutching her hands to her chest and trembling visibly.

"Joined what?"

"Y-y-you're not one of us?"

"Tell me what this group is." Lu stares at her intensely, and the woman notices her golden-yellow eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

"I-i-it's some kind of secret club... This leader guy said he could grant us miracles a-an-and immortality. My friend was cured of cancer, so I-I followed her and joined... B-but have you heard any strange noises?"

"Noises?"

"I h-hear growling over there... and someone crying out in pain or something... I-I couldn't go any farther. Those noises scared the hell out of me..." Fear constricts the woman's lungs; she gasps each word as though drowning.

Lu has heard enough. Enough to confirm that another entity is interfering in her domain.

"Get out of here," Lu says with sharp authority.

"Ar-are you with the police? Or—" The woman peers closer at Lu's golden-yellow eyes. "Are your eyes re—"

"I said, get out. Now, while I'm giving you the chance." Lu turns away and heads towards the unsettling hallway.

Behind her, she hears the woman hurry away.

× × × ×

Lu walks down the narrow hallway. Every unit stands open; not one has a door.

"What the Cain..." The stench is so unbearable that she covers her nose. It is far worse than the reek of any rotting corpse.

"Uh... hu... uahhh..."

She hears it clearly: the sound of life dying, yet unable to escape its rotting body.

Lu carefully steps into one of the units. It is a cramped apartment, barely large enough for a couple.

The walls are black—but moving. Squirming. She cannot tell what covers them.

Then she glances down. Bodies lie layer upon layer, piled atop one another. Their limbs twitch; traces of life still linger within them.

"Uh... ha... huaha..."

Lu pulls a slim flashlight from her coat pocket and switches it on. Its beam reveals people sprawled atop one another, their bodies riddled with pus filled sores, scurvy ravaged mouths, bloodshot yellow-green eyes, and flayed skin exposing dark red flesh.

One of them turns towards the beam, his eyes widening at the sight of fresh, living prey standing before him.

"Fresh life. Fresh flesh. Fresh skin."

The decaying man rises slowly, wobbling on his feet.

Lu's flashlight follows his movement until its beam falls upon the black, squirming wall.

Swarms of flies blanket the wall.

Buzzzz!

The flies surge through the air like a black cloud of locusts.

Lu quickly shields herself with her coat.

The black swarm whips into a frenzy. Bloated botflies.

Snap.

Snap!

Whoosh!

Lu snaps her gloved fingers, and flames spiral through the black swarm. Her infernal magic consumes the flies, then spreads across the floor. In moments, the entire unit, and then the hallway, blazes red with infernal fire.

Now Lu can see the full extent of the infestation.

Everything is swarming maggots, flies, and rotting corpses that lay dormant against the walls, across the floors, and within the darkest corners. Now they are all moving. Moving towards her.

Lu tightens her left glove. A red rune glows upon it, and a faint trail of smoke curls from the finger she snapped. Rather than draw her pistol, she pulls out one of the relics she brought with her: a knife forged in twisted, angular curves. A blade meant to end these people's misery.

Knife of Quietus.

Bullets cannot kill them. Lu can see that forbidden magic alone sustains them.

One lunges at her.

With one swift movement, she drives the sharp edge of Quietus into his heart, plunging the blade to the hilt.

He staggers backwards and collapses on the spot, like a puppet whose invisible strings have been cut.

Lu fights her way forwards, ending their misery one by one with Quietus. She moves with ethereal swiftness, too fast for the slow, decaying creatures to sink their teeth into her flesh.

Lu stabs another and sends the decaying girl sprawling into the hallway. As Lu emerges from the unit, more staggering creatures shamble out of what were once homes. They differ in age, height, and appearance, but all of them lunge towards her.

She presses forwards, each swift strike of Quietus ending another creature in her path. Fast and relentless, she cuts her way towards the metal door at the end of the hallway.

Thump!

The last one in her path collapses a step from the metal door. Behind her, the bodies lie silent and still at last. Lu looks back over her shoulder, her golden-yellow eyes glowing in the dark. The trail of death she has left behind already resembles an old crime scene, one whose victims have lain undiscovered for months.

× × × ×

Thump!

Lu kicks the metal door with all her strength.

It bursts open, revealing a wide room with a low ceiling, once used for community gatherings. On the small stage stands a shirtless man, runic tattoos carved into his flesh. His followers kneel around a dried crimson ritual circle in the centre of the room.

"My children! A new child has come to join us!" he boasts. His hair is matted and discoloured with rot. His eyes are black, with yellow rings for pupils.

Anger twists Lu Feng's expression. A ritual in her domain, without her knowledge or consent.

"Come, child." He reaches out his hand. "Let our Mother walk—"

Bang!

Lu shoots him in the head, silencing him.

"I'm the Baroness of this city! You fledgling have broken the laws of the Kindred Court—in my domain!"

The cult leader rises, a hole in his forehead. He bares his fangs and jerks his neck sideways with a sharp snap.

"I am the exception, old blood." He turns to his followers. "Continue the ritual. The rest of you—feast on her flesh!"

Several followers rise. Those maintaining the ritual remain on their knees.

Lu surges forwards with supernatural speed, cutting them down one after another.

Then she recognizes the missing six directors among them, her own employees. Their eyes are blank and white. Veins and jawbones show through the half-rotted faces of some.

It is too late to save them. Lu dashes forwards to end their misery, her fangs bared in fury.

But then—

"Oh, great Mother, embrace me as your own!" One of the directors spreads his arms as liquid blood gathers into a shimmering sphere in each hand.

Lu freezes, eyes wide at the sight. The director charges her like a madman, the spheres of blood glistening in his hands.

Lu dodges at the last instant. He crashes into the floor.

BOOM!

Acidic red blood erupts in a deafening explosion.

Lu shields herself with her coat.

The acidic blood burns through the other followers, yet not one cries out in pain. They shamble towards her like drones.

Lu returns to her combat stance and launches into a killing frenzy.

Then the ritual begins to change, no, to glow. A deathly chill sweeps through the room. As Lu kills the last of the decaying followers, her breath clouds before her.

"Yes... yes... Let our Mother walk the earth once more." The cult leader charges Lu Feng.

His assault is savage and relentless, his nails sharp like claws and his fangs snapping like a wolf's jaws. Lu evades him, then swings Quietus through the arm that narrowly misses her. His right arm falls cleanly to the floor. Not a drop of blood spills from the wound.

"Who sired you?!" Lu demands. She wants answers before she kills him.

"The Walking Mother," he replies.

Lu loses patience. She drives Quietus into his heart, tears the blade upwards to his neck, and rips off his head.

The cult leader, the fledgling Kindred, dies on the spot, his body sprawled across the floor. He does not turn to ash. Sunlight will take care of that.

Lu turns her attention to the ritual. It has already reached its next stage.

She lunges at the followers maintaining it, killing them as quickly as she can.

A low groan rises from beneath the ritual circle. The floor splits with the sound of stone screaming, and crooked fissures crawl outwards from its centre.

Infernal fire breathes through the cracks. Burning ash drifts upwards. Between the flames, a darkness thicker than smoke pours into the room.

The room gets enveloped in fading darkness behind her. Something is coming over to this world. And it is bringing other entities along with it. Dread seizes Lu. She flies into a frenzy, desperate to kill the final two followers before—

A red hand thrusts through the crack and lands against the floor.

Lu swiftly stabs the last two followers. All of them are dead.

The ritual dies with a deep, shuddering gasp. The cracks wrench, and getting shut. Infernal fire flickers as the breach closes.

The closing breach cuts the red hand in half.

Silence falls.

Lu catches her breath. Only bodies remain, the fledgling cult leader, his followers, and a severed red hand lying within the dead ritual circle.

"By the Kindred... what were you thinking?"

× × × ×

Lu inspects the aftermath, surveying the ritual circle.

The lines and ancient runic symbols are drawn in rudimentary strokes of dried blood. There are no relics, no sacrificial organs or limbs, no ritual blades.

Nothing at all.

It is an abysmal imitation of a ritual.

But somehow, it worked.

She searches the room for clues, anything she can find, anything that might make sense within the dark world she inhabits. She cannot believe magic of this magnitude came from this. No, it is not even a magical operation, but the amateur work of a child.

All she finds is the black book.

A typical work of fictional Satanism sold a decade ago, written with such wild imagination that it would baffle the true practitioners of the dark arts within Kindred society.

That was it.

Nothing else.

Lu lets out a long sigh and stares up at the dark ceiling, her faintly glowing golden-yellow eyes wide with disbelief.

"This is not possible. It couldn't possibly have worked..."

She pulls out her phone and dials a number, tucking Quietus into the belt at her back.

While the call connects, she stares at the bisected red hand, a reminder that this is real, that an entity almost crossed into this world.

"This is the Kindred Court. How may we serve you, Baroness of Hong Kong?" a cold yet gentle female voice answers over the phone.

"I dealt with an incident in my domain. A fledgling, apparently sired only a few months ago, was performing a Satanic ritual."

"Hm. Yes? Is that all?"

Lu steps towards the red hand on the floor and stares down at it, unblinking. "An entity almost came through from... the other side. Its hand. A red hand, severed in half, is still here. Right in front of me."

"..." The Kindred Court servant falls silent.

Over the phone, Lu hears her faint, shuddering breath.

"Are you certain a red hand remains at the scene, Baroness?"

"It is right in front of me." Lu stresses each word, her gaze fixed on the red hand, her breath still slightly shaken by the sight of it.

"Then I will inform the Court of this. Leave the scene untouched. Will cleanup specialists be required?"

"Sixty-six bodies and one dead fledgling," Lu answers.

"They're on the way. Thank you for upholding the House of Kindred, Baroness of Hong Kong."

The call ends.

× × × ×

Lu returns to her car and climbs in. She starts the engine and drives back towards her company, dialing Marie as she leaves the district.

"Marie, the incident has been dealt with. As for the six department directors, prepare compensation and funeral flowers for each of their families."

Marie sighs through the car's speakers, connected to Lu's phone.

"I'll prepare the paperwork for your signature, Ms. Feng. And the Barons will arrive for the meeting in an hour."

"Have the human staff left the building yet?" Lu turns onto the highway and accelerates well over the speed limit.

"I already sent them home early. Only the Ghoul staff and I are standing by for the Barons' arrival, Ms. Feng."

"I'll be there in about thirty minutes."

Lu ends the call.

She glances at the parchment letter her 'Father', the one who sired her, sent her. She reaches across to the passenger seat, unfolds it, squints at the writing, then tosses it back onto the seat.

"Oh, Father, when will you stop writing in poetics?"

Lu Feng drives towards the Central District.

Heading back to the heart of her domain.

But this is her last night.

× × × ×

Victoria Harbour Ritz Hotel.

On the top-floor terrace.

Beneath the moonlight of a clear night sky.

Snow White enjoys her nightly solitude, stirring a delicate swirl of rich cream into her cup of blood with a fine silver teaspoon.

"How beautiful the moon is tonight." She basks in its light, her silver-white twin tails swaying gracefully. Her fair skin glows with ethereal beauty.

At the terrace entrance stands a tall woman in a black hood and practical armour of the same dark shade. Her face is masked; only her faint, ice-blue eyes are visible. In her right hand, she holds a tall black shield, silently standing guard over the Baroness of Voss.

"I wonder, Grave..." Snow turns towards her, red eyes glowing with a piercing gaze that is almost impossible to escape. Her immaculate white dress leaves her fine legs exposed and showing her flawless figure beneath the moonlight.

"Have you heard anything from the fledgling Baroness? I took such care in writing her a letter." Snow sips from her cup, and a thin stream of blood trickles from the corner of her lips.

"None, Your Grace," Grave replies.

"Hmph. I expected some fun from her." She turns back towards the distant city lights.

"Grave, be a dear and bring me a mirror."

"Yes, Your Grace." Grave heads back inside and returns with a large slab of a mirror, twice her own size. She gently sets it down where it catches the moon's reflection.

Snow crosses to the large mirror, her white heels clicking gracefully, and admires her absolute beauty in its reflection.

"Mirror, mirror, my dear mirror, who is the fairest of them all?"

"..."

"Grave."

"You are, Your Grace."

Snow smirks. "Obviously."