The Bloodline

Emma's hands coiled around the boy's sleeve. 

Her entire body was shaken by fear. Her arms throbbed with the burning sensation where light had touched. The skin was red and blistered, and a line of smoke curled off before fading. She stared at the burn, then at the shut door, then at the boy who had just kicked it closed.

 The sun hurt me. The words crossed her mind almost impossible, but yet reality.

The sun actually burned me. The thought wouldn't settle.

"Snap out of it," the boy's voice rang out. "I mean it. Step away from the door!”

Emma hadn't realized she was moving toward it. He pulled her back by the shoulders, gently this time, and steered her into the dark until her legs hit a crate. She sat down hard.

Emma pressed her palm to her ribs again. Still nothing. Her shirt was stiff with her own blood, and underneath it, her skin was perfect.

"So I am a vampire now," she whispered.

"Yes."

"And now I can't go outside."

"Not in the sun. Not yet." He crouched in front of her, keeping his distance. "Your body is still changing. I don't know how far it's gone, so you're staying in here until I figure something out."

"How long?"

"As long as it takes." Tears streamed down her eyes, but it cracked in the middle. “This. This has to be a dream."

"Listen.. ." He paused for a second. “If you don't mind me asking, what's your name?”

“Emma Collins.” She said her name while drying the tears of her face.

"Emma,” his voice sultry. “You were at the door of death, if I didn't step in. Y’d be dead by now."

That silenced her.

She studied him in the dim light. The silver hair, the red eyes, the metal collar. He looked like someone who had stepped out of a dream, and she didn't even know his name.

"Who are you?"

He hesitated, as if deciding how much to give her. "Kira. Kira Tsukishiro."

The name repeated in her head and stayed there.

Tsukishiro Tsukishiro.

She had seen and heard of the organization while growing up in Spain. Her mother used to say: “If you wanted to understand how Japan worked, you only had to follow the money, and the money ended in one name, Tsukishiro.” Which was one of the most powerful families in Japan, with influence extending far beyond the country.

"Tsukishiro," she said slowly. "Like the Tsukishiro Group?"

"That's my family."

Kira said it the way someone says their address.

"You're kidding." Her voice climbed. "They own... everything. Why would someone like you be walking in the middle of the road with headphones on?"

"I wanted to be left alone." A faint, tired smile crossed his face. "It didn't work."

“And besides.” he said while pouting his face “I would have survived anyways,” he smiled almost like he was bragging.

Emma pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Her mind was racing ahead of her. "Then your family, the people you said would be furious. They're..."

"Vampires. Yes."

"All of them?"

"The ones who matter." Kira glanced at the door, as if something might come through it. "There are others, more than you'd think. Our family keeps order among them, and one of the rules is that no one turns a human without approval. Ever."

Emma looked up slowly. "But you did."

"I did."

"Why?"

He didn't answer right away. His jaw tightened, for a second. "Because you shoved a stranger out of the way of a truck, and nobody else was going to do anything for you." He looked away. "I couldn't watch that."

"To be honest with you," Kira said, scratching the back of his neck, "the reason I saved you is because you were pretty."

Emma stared at him. "What?"

"If you'd been really mad ugly, I would've walked away without thinking. Like I never saw anything." He said it with a wide, innocent, baby-faced smile.

The words were childish, but the way he said them was strangely mature.

Emma almost rolled her eyes. Then, in spite of everything, she smiled.
She knew why he was saying it. Deep down, she could tell he was only trying to lighten her mood, to ease a little of the weight pressing on her chest. And the awful part was that it was working.
Then something unexpected happened.

Kira knelt down in front of her. He took both of her hands in his, the smile slipped from his face.

"I know what I did was wrong," he said quietly. "I turned you into a vampire without your consent. I took your choice away, and nothing I say can fix that."

Emma's breath caught.

His red eyes held hers, steady and serious. "But I promise you this. No matter what happens, I'll do my very best to protect you. I'll keep you out of harm's way. Whatever comes for you, it'll have to get through me first."
Emma felt heat rush to her face. She pulled her hands back and turned away, suddenly flustered.

 

"You... you can't just say things like that so easily," 

she mumbled.

"Why not?"

"Because it's embarrassing!"

Kira blinked, confused. Then he burst out laughing, a bright, helpless laugh that echoed through the cold, empty building.

"Your ears are red," he said.

"They are not!"

The anger she'd been building went out of her, and what remained was just fear, and an odd, small warmth she didn't want to examine.

"So I'm one of you now?"

"Yes. You'll be faster, stronger, and you'll heal almost anything. Your senses will sharpen." He paused. "Some of us develop more than that."

"More?"

"We call it a Vampower, well I call it that. Not every vampire gets one, and no two are alike."

Emma stared at him. "Do I get one?"

"Maybe. We'll know in time."

She turned that over, then narrowed her eyes. "So your's is your hair color?"

Kira looked at her for a moment. Then he realized. "Oh, not quite." He gestured to his hair as it shifted through different colors. "It manifested early because I couldn't keep my emotions in check."

Kira's smile faded. He stood and looked toward the door, and when he spoke again, the lightness was gone from his voice. “We can't stay here."

Emma's stomach tightened. "Why not?"

“My family probably already knows about the incident.” He responded immediately.

"How could they know already? It's barely been..."

"Nothing gets past them," Kira cuts her off. "Not even for a second.” He said it so simply that the atmosphere seemed to grow colder around them. "I have a plan," he went on, "but first I need to get something that will make it possible.

Emma was on her feet before she realized she'd moved. "You're leaving me here? Alone?"

"I'll come back."

 "Wait."

He turned.

"You're a vampire," she said slowly. "So how were you walking down Okomora Street in broad daylight?"

Kira touched the metal collar band around his neck.

"This is a Sunveil."

"A Sunveil?"

"My collar is made of it. Sunveil shields us from the sun. It comes in different accessories. He tapped the metal. "Not many vampires are allowed to own one. My family makes them."

That's why he wasn't burned, Emma realized. Her eyes dropped to the blisters on her arm. "Then I need one too."

"That's why I'm leaving, Sherlock Holmes." A sarcastic smile crossed his face. “Later."

Emma let out a shaky breath and wrapped her arms around herself. 

The silence stretched. "What if this all goes wrong?"

Kira's expression softened. "Everything's going to be alright."

She didn't fully believe him, and he could see it.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

Emma looked at him. She barely knew him for a day."Do I have a choice?"

A small smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Fair point."

Kira walked toward the door as Emma watched him, her burned arm still clutched to her chest.


He opened the door. Sunlight poured through the doorway, flooding the darkness with warm, golden light.

Emma instinctively flinched, raising a hand to shield her eyes.

Kira, however, stepped outside without hesitation.

The moment his foot touched the sunlight, he vanished. He simply disappeared, moving with such impossible speed that Emma's eyes couldn't even catch him.

The door slowly swung shut behind him. Emma's eyes lingered in the darkness. And in the darkness alone she stood.