Chapter 40

“Wh—...? Top 1, don’t tell me you’re a vampire too...?”

“Mago, there’s no way we can keep the civilians untouched.”

Belle cut off the Unit 43 agent mid-sentence.

“Right... The vampires will use them as shields somehow.”

“Mago, that point has to be crystal-clear. A victory won by trampling civilians is no victory at all.”

Even Karasma spoke in a low voice.

“I never wanted to play it this way, but... this is my current status.”

“Status?”

“I’ve graduated the Training Center, yet I haven’t been assigned to a unit. Thanks to this solo mission, I’m stuck in limbo.”

“Mago, you’re not...?”

“I’m not even a Special Task Force agent. I’ve been calling myself one here and there, but strictly speaking, I’m nobody. Just a person who made one promise with Captain Shimena. If the Anakonda side crawls out cowardly, I’ll meet them the same way—using this ambiguous position.”

Karasma shut his mouth.

“Let’s hope it never comes to that.”

“Mago, one last thing.”

Belle spoke again.

“Why did you blow this whole thing up in the first place?”

“Ah, that wasn’t my plan. Madam Anne’s little drama really—”

“All we had to do was clean up the Anakonda Tavern, right? The killers of Chief Instructor. When the mission was first handed down, that was the whole job. I bet Captain Shimena never pictured this mess either. She’ll probably say we kicked the hornet’s nest for nothing.”

“Maybe. I see it as a promotion chance. When Madam Anne dies, her artifact becomes mine.”

“You... want that thing?”

“If I get it, the Imperial Army can take the skies.”

* * *

Belle ransacked the inn rooms, throwing on whatever clothes she found.

She tugged the collar with distaste.

“So this is how I end up leaning on my clan.”

She muttered, flipping her hair.

Red hair and red eyes—hallmarks of the Red Family.

Thanks to that vampire-like trait, she slipped into Anakonda without a hitch.

The moment she shed the Special Task Force uniform, every barrier vanished.

No one blocked her at the door.

“Ugh, the smooth sailing only makes this worse...”

Grumbling, she stepped onto the first floor.

After Madam Anne announced she would gift human patrons vampire blood, the tavern was more packed than during peak red-light hours.

Madam Anne had them hooked.

Yet the house rules hadn’t collapsed.

“I got here first! I claimed this seat yesterday!”

“Madam Anne’s away, so shouldn’t the wait-list reset?”

“Since when is that a rule?”

“Let my wife drink first... she’s frail as it is...”

Belle stared, slack-jawed, at the queue snaking from the first floor all the way to the fourth.

‘They’re insane. This is pure fanaticism...’

At the same time, a bitter taste filled her mouth.

‘If the Imperial Army had stopped the Second Invasion, people wouldn’t be this desperate. Fear’s pushed them over the edge...’

The instant that thought surfaced, Belle slapped both cheeks.

“Pull it together. I just have to fix this. Starting now.”

Her loud smack drew eyes.

“Ah—it’s nothing!”

“E-excuse me...!”

A woman beside her seized Belle’s hand.

“I don’t need Madam Anne’s blood! Any will do! P-please...!”

She bared her nape to Belle.

She’d mistaken Belle for a vampire.

“I’m ready to be bitten...!”

Eyes squeezed shut.

“No, no!”

Belle waved her off and backed away.

“Take my blood! Turn me into a vampire...!”

Another person pressed forward.

“I said I won’t drink!”

Belle spun on her heel and bee-lined for the bar.

Beyond the counter, bottles glinted in the cupboard.

She grabbed the nearest, yanked the cork, and poured.

“I’m not drinking blood right now...!”

She gulped as if to quench a different thirst.

‘Damn, picked the wrong one.’

The liquor burned; she almost spat it out but forced it down.

‘Of all bottles, the strongest...’

Clamping her mouth shut, she swallowed the cough.

‘Ugh...’

* * *

Seven Special Task Force agents—everyone but Amon and Belle.

Two thieves.

Five hybrid vampires.

And me.

One by one, we slipped into the back building behind Anakonda.

A three-story roof.

The railing was fairly high.

I pressed my back to it and took cover.

“One to each position,” Captain Karasma ordered.

“Left to right—secure your sight-lines.”

From here we had to snuff the Anakonda lights.

The left-most agent inched his head above the rail.

Anakonda was a four-storey building.

Every floor had a narrow terrace, and behind each terrace a wall of plate-glass.

Beyond the glass lay the corridor.

The third and fourth floors were different: they held guestrooms, lined up like an inn.

Those floors were where the vampires drank blood in private.

To reach a room you first crossed the corridor, and from the corridor ceiling, at even intervals, hung lantern lights—just like on the floors below.

Six ceiling lamps per level.

The plan: seven Special Task Force archers would loose at once and shatter them.

We didn’t each have to hit our own; with me we were eight.

Even two misses were acceptable—so long as the arrows found the lanterns later.

“Sight-line secured,” the left-most Unit 43 agent whispered, chin still over the rail.

The instant the words left him he dropped back.

The next man rose automatically.

“Secured.”

“Clear.”

One by one we signalled Karasma.

“I’m set,” the captain reported himself.

Last came my turn.

“All clear. No issues.”

“Belle, it’s on you now.”

* * *

“Ngh...”

Heat flooded Belle’s face, then her whole body.

She pressed the back of her hand to her burning cheek.

“Aw, come on—it’s nothing!”

A vampire nudged her shoulder.

“I’m a lightweight, okay...”

Belle was already on the second floor.

She had slipped into the group only moments ago and lifted her first glass.

“Wait, I’ve still got—”

“Still got what? We don’t have jobs any more, remember?”

“There’s something I need—”

“Back when we worked the taverns it was brutal, yeah? You must know—Madam Anne’s place wasn’t my spot, but if you’d served there you’d get it.”

“Oh, I get it, believe me.”

Belle lied smoothly to the vampire who wouldn’t stop talking.

“Serving, scrubbing, dish-washing—did it all.”

“I couldn’t mix cocktails to save my life, but Madam Anne demanded I learn. Gave me two weeks, can you believe it?”

The bartender-vampire cut in.

“Before, we could only taste human blood if we worked the tavern. Now we don’t even have to worry! Nothing but free time!”

“Right? This is our world now. Wish it’d always been like this. Humans bend easy if you push.”

“Madam Anne played her cards well...”

“Did you see them begging? ‘Please, just a drop! I’ll give you my own blood, only let me taste yours!’ Too scared to sleep because of the war—hilarious!”

They clinked glasses and roared with laughter.

“Restroom,” Belle murmured, rising slowly.

“Hey, where you sneaking off to?”

A male vampire caught her wrist.

“I really have to go.”

“Promise you’ll come back. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Never told you.”

Belle shook him off.

“Huh? Come on, what is it?”

“Forget it. I’ll be right—ugh...”

“Tell me and I’ll let go, swear.”

He seized her again.

A vampire’s strength is three, four times a human’s—made worse by drink and no sense.

He crushed her wrist like a vise.

Pain flared, sharp enough to break bone, but Belle clamped her lower lip between her teeth.

Show the hurt and she’d betray what she was; she endured with raw will.

“Belle Red.”

“Belle... Red?”

His grip loosened.

Belle bolted straight from the second floor to the third.

“Excuse me! Coming through—!”

She carved a path through the queue that snaked all the way to the stairs.

“Who said you could cut—!”

One of the vampires caught her wrist.

“Touch me again and—mission or no mission—”

Belle’s red eyes flashed.

The moment they registered her crimson hair—and those red eyes—their mouths snapped shut.

“S-sorry...!”

They decided they’d blundered into the wrong vampire and turned away.

Meanwhile, on the second floor, a vampire who’d overheard her name swirled his glass.

“Belle. Red. Red...”

“Hm? What about it?”

“Red’s the family name. The clan name.”

“So what?”

“So it matters. She’s from the Red Family.”

“The Red Family...”

“One of the Empire’s three great houses. Coster, Moonlight, Red—those three.”

“Right...?”

“Which means she’s human...?”

“Yeah...”

“Grab her.”

Every vampire at the table rose at once.

“Grab her—!”

They rushed for the third floor.

“There she is!”

Someone shouted the instant he spotted her back.

Too late.

Belle had already slammed a punch into the plate-glass wall of the third floor.

She never touched it.

No direct blow was needed.

A sudden blast of wind-pressure whipped her hair.

A faint white line streaked vertically across the glass—one clean brush-stroke.

Then, as always, the delayed explosion.

The rippling line detonated in chain reaction, like an overstretched rubber band snapping.

A thunderous roar rolled through the air.

* * *

Shards of glass showered outward.

“Wha—what the hell...?”

A Unit 43 member, seeing Belle’s power for the first time, breathed the words in horror.

“No time to gawk!” Karasma barked.

“Fire!”

At his signal eight figures snapped upright, moving in perfect unison.

They stepped from behind the railing, exposing themselves completely.

Single shots.

Lantern lights burst one after another.

Every bullet found its mark.

The third floor plunged into darkness.

Next: the fourth.

“Block the stairs!”

“We have to catch her...!”

Panicked vampire voices overlapped.

“Haaah...!”

“R-run!”

The queued humans joined the chaos, screams tangling together.

Belle’s stride faltered.

She still had to shatter the fourth-floor window.

But the vampires had already reacted: they clogged the stairwell from the third to the fourth floor.

At this rate the plan would fail.

“Belle...!” I shouted.

“Belle Red! Forget the stairs!”

“Mago! I think we’ve—”

“Cut the chatter and keep going for the fourth! If you fall, I’ll catch you!”

“What?”

“I said I’ll catch you if you fall!”

“Just try dropping me...!”

Teeth clenched, Belle sprinted on.

Bursting through the shattered third-floor window, Belle vaulted upward.

Her foot found the terrace railing.

The iron bar screeched free just as she launched herself again.

Third floor to fourth.

One fluid leap, the terrace rail her springboard.

"Hup...!"

The instant she cleared the fourth-floor frame she lashed out with a kick.

Once more the glass didn’t feel her sole—only the wind pressure she dragged behind her.

The plate glass exploded into glittering shards.

Two back-to-back blasts fueled by liquor were her limit; the moment the second connected she went limp.

"Hhhk..."

The breath left her in a hiss.

I stepped onto the rooftop rail and sprang after her, snatching her out of mid-air.

We landed hard on the third-floor terrace.

I spun around.

Across the alley, on the opposite roof, Captain Karasma lay draped over the railing.

He’d lost his shot while making sure it was me.

Only his mouth was still free.

"Fire...!"

The six Special Task Force agents hidden behind the rail snapped upright.

Neither I nor the captain was in their sights.

One misplaced arrow and the fourth-floor lights would stay lit.

They knew it.

They held their breath, aimed.

When their own hands stopped trembling, they let the arrows fly.