Pursuit of the Night Creature (closed for Hikari and I)

[neck_romancer]

The sound of police sirens echoes across the rain-shined alleyways of Chinatown. In the deep of the night, everything else is quiet. Even the elevated train is hushed by the gentle sway of the breeze through the night streets. With neon lights to guide her, the agent walks up to the window of the old Zhou bakery. It is dark inside, and the glass reflects like a mirror. She holds up a piece of paper with a polaroid clipped to it.

Sun Yao. The picture is blurry and dark, but the shadowed lines of his face show that he is as beautiful as his reputation says. His black hair flows down the sides of his long, dark jacket, and his green eyes shine like jade. This midnight angel had already driven three girls mad during his short stay in Chicago. One silently slit her wrists, and another threw herself from the pier to drown. Only the last girl, a poor, wasted thing from Shanghai, had lived to tell the agent of her experiences.

The agent stares into the mirror. The image reflected back is...

 

[Hikari]

Sera Martin

She had been looking at this case for awhile. Everyone else had been too afraid to take it. His blurred face in the picture was intriguing. She wouldn't let it distract her. The silence around her in the old bakery was thick. Silence like this was always unsettling. She folded the paper and placed it into her pocket. She was nearly startled as she saw her own reflection..


Just then she thought she saw someone far behind her..


She turned and drew a pistol, but there was no one there.


"If there's anyone here.. I demand you show yourself this instant!!"

 

[neck_romancer]

Sera jumps again as the door to the Zhou bakery swings open, with no hand to guide it. Clutching her pistol, she looks again into the bakery, then back into the street. There is no trace of the creature. Only a squall of rain swirls up from the pavement.

"Sera," whispers a voice, "These empty streets buckle underneath your beauty. And I, likewise, buckle."

There is no body to the voice, but the sound is like a cool breath upon her ear, making it tingle and shiver. Sera closes her eyes and tries to concentrate, but her mind cannot focus. She cannot see him, only feel his hidden touch as it winds through the streets and over her skin. The feeling is as silk, pulled from a drift of snow. Goosebumps rise on Sera's flesh.

He took them each by the hand and led them to his den. He seduced each of the girls, stripping them bare. He left each with only a scratch upon their thigh, but none of the girls could be themselves again. They went mad because of his touch.

Sera tried to forget that information, contained in the dossier. But as she felt the night breeze shimmer past her legs, she thought she could feel the slightest touch of his fingers there. She shrieked, her heart fluttering, her fingers wrapped tightly around the pistol.

"Come into my home, soft beauty," says the voice, "Through this door you will find everything you seek and more."

Through the bakery door is an deep darkness...

 

[Hikari]

Her heart was racing as she heard his faint voice in the air..

"These empty streets buckle underneath your beauty. And I, likewise, buckle."

No one had ever said such things to her. She had to remain calm and keep her wits about her. How did he know her name? Had he been following her? It was impossible.. Nothing could get by her senses. She remembered the case files as the wind swept across her legs startling her. She shrieked swearing he was there. She gripped her weapon tighter.


"Pull yourself together Sera.." she thought.


She knew that she should probably call for back up, but her pride wouldn't let her do that. Too much was riding on this capture. Then she heard him.


"Come into my home, soft beauty," "Through this door you will find everything you seek and more."


She found herself thinking on his words. What could he have been doing that made these girls want to die afterwards? She tried to extinguish her curiosity. It was obvious that he would sense it. Passing through that door could mean the end of her..


"Look.. I don't know what the hell you are, but I'm here to bring you in.. I'm a... I'm a hunter.. I am not so easily fooled.. Now show yourself or I will alert the others.."


She was only half bluffing. They could be alerted with the push of a button, but she never believed she'd have to use it. Her dark hair blew around her face as another wind went by.


"You are charged with the deaths of two women and the insanity of one.. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.." she yelled out.

 

[neck_romancer]

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way.." she yelled out.

A faint flicker of orange lit up a doorway at the far end of the Zhou bakery, a door Sera hadn't even realized was there. It was like fire from a candle, twisting and turning in the darkness. The source itself was invisible, hidden deep in the recesses of the passage behind. Sera's eyes were drawn to the soft fire, and from that impossible distance she felt its warmth on her skin, an antidote to the chill howling of the night air at her back. One of her hands slipped gently from her pistol, and she began to caress her shoulder with her fingertips.

"We will do this both ways, elegant creature," whispered the voice, enticing her from beyond the door, "But the easy way must come first."

Sera was drawn in. As the door gently swayed shut behind her, the rain-splashed neon world disappeared. The chill of the night was lost, and Sera's whole body thrummed with a pulse of heat. As the distant flames licked up against her body, she closed her eyes, and let a soft sigh escape her lips. When she opened her eyes again, the shadowy outline of the creature could be seen against the firelight. It beckoned, holding up one hand and compelling Sera to come forward. Running her own hands down the tender skin of her neck, feeling her own pulse quicken underneath her fingers, she moved forward step by step, towards the light.

Suddenly, a movement caught her eye. Sera jumped, turned, and fired at nothing. In her mind, she saw the picture of a furry red tail disappearing from sight. The bullet hole issued a wisp of smoke from the linoleum floor of the bakery.

"I am waiting for you, hunter of dreams," whispered the voice, "Come into my light and slay me with your beauty."

 

[Hikari]

Something was happening.. Slowly at first then it drew her in completely.. There was a warmth.. She was drawn to something.


"What's happening to me?" she thought to herself.


She felt her hand drop from her weapon and brush against her shoulder. Her once chilled flesh was warming as she heard his voice.


"We will do this both ways, elegant creature," "But the easy way must come first."


Her legs were moving her forward through the door she'd dare not enter before. Her eyes closed as the heat overtook her. Her eyes flickered open to see a figure against the softlight from the flames. Was this a dream? Her beckoned unto her and her legs betrayed her, walking towards him. Just then something caught her eye and she quickly fired at it. Upon closer inspection it was nothing. It snapped her back to reality if only for a moment. He wanted her and she knew it. All she could think of was why he wanted her? Was it him protecting himself or did he know something about her that she didn't? However, she knew that she mustn't go through with it. It was true that she wasn't a virgin, but having sex once hardly counted for anything these days. He'd hurt her, then left. This..This thing could do no better for her.


"I am waiting for you, hunter of dreams," "Come into my light and slay me with your beauty."



"I..I'm not some weak girl off the street that you can just.. That you can.."



That heat was burning within her again. What on earth was he doing to her?


"What do you want from me.. No forget it.. I know what you want..but answer me one question.. Why me?"

 

[neck_romancer]

"What do you want from me.. No forget it.. I know what you want..but answer me one question.. Why me?"

His first response was silence. As she crept forward, Sera's hold on her pistol became weaker, but her hearing became sharper, keener. She felt she could hear the lick of the flame as she inched through the door, and started to think that it would be his only answer before he ravaged her utterly. She imagined his cloaked body ripping free from the darkness, his cold hands seizing her and forcing her to the floor, where he would consume her body in a fierce, carnal act. Then the thought vanished. It left only the growing heat and pulse of the flame as she approached the creature in the shadows.

"You know much, huntress," said Sun Yao, "But you do not yet know the depths of my desire for you."

"I can't... can't describe what he did to me. You don't want to know... you don't! I'll never tell you. I'm only talking to you because I know you'll find him. I know you can do it, and bring him back to me. Then, I can make him pay for all the things he did. I can't forgive him. Never! I'll tell you where he is, but you have to promise me, do not kill him. That would be too easy. You must not do it. No, he deserves much worse than that. I hate him!"

The poor girl's words echoed in Sera's mind, making her heart skip a beat. She was torn apart, disheveled and starving when Sera found her. When the girl's family came to collect her, the girl would not acknowledge them, and did not go with them. Most of all, Sera remembered how the girl had taken her by the wrist, no... seized her by the wrist, screaming. The girl screamed that Sera must not touch him, must not even look at him. She swore to kill herself if Sera did. The girl was locked away in a hospital now, far away from where she could know of Sera's pursuit, but Sera still heard her desperate voice, howling, utterly mad.

And then... there he was. Sera emerged from the passageway, barely realizing that she had entered it in the first place. This room she found herself in on the other side was impossible. Its ceiling towered in a grand arch high above Sera's head, culminating in a dome of luminous crystal, beyond which lay the stars of a thousand ancient nights. The walls of the room were lined with gold and silk, radiating the heat of the flame in the center. A tiny brazier, little more than a candle, cast its bewitching light across the room from behind the creature. Sera remembered the girl's words, and looked away.

But then, she looked back. The polaroid in her pocket was a cruel lie. Sun Yao was a thousand times more beautiful than that. His raven hair trickled down his shoulders like a cascade of ink, and his green eyes were like two mandalas of a thousand crystals each. The shadows played across his pale skin, swirling shades of black beneath his eyes, cheeks and and chin like a painter mixing coal and obsidian. From beneath his dark cloak, he held up one hand, long and slender like a leopard stretching its legs. He smiled.

"Beautiful Sera," said Sun Yao, "I want you more than anything else because you do not believe. You do not believe in the pleasure that will come to you."

 

[Hikari]

"You know much, huntress," said Sun Yao, "But you do not yet know the depths of my desire for you."


She remembered the girl's words screaming in her head. The whole thing made her uneasy. When she looked upon him she could only stare in awe at him as everything became clear. This man..This thing.. Whatever it was.. It craved women and tossed them aside. He was a one night wonder. He gave these girls feelings they would never feel again then tossed them aside. He was nothing more than a glorified version of the man who left her after using her. Yet somehow she saw how one could give in to such a figure. How one could give up sanity for a night with this master of the shadows.. What was wrong with her? He was gorgeous in her eyes. More than that. What could she do? How would she resist him,even with the knowledge that he would leave her in the morning..


"Beautiful Sera," said Sun Yao, "I want you more than anything else because you do not believe. You do not believe in the pleasure that will come to you."


"I.. I can't do this.."


She pointed her gun towards him shakily.


"Even if you bedded me like one of the others and gave me more pleasure than I've ever felt in my life. Even if I was the best you'd ever had... You'd never stay with me. No girl can ever keep you and I refuse to be a shaking lunatic at your expense. I will not be trash so easily thrown aside.."


The gun was cocked and ready. She dared not look at his beauty for it would only draw her in.

 

[neck_romancer]

She dared not look at his beauty for it would only draw her in.

"You do not see," said the creature, moving both hands to his chest, "That I have been wounded just as you."

Sera cringed and shut her eyes tighter, wanting to look but knowing what would happen to her if she did. But where her eyes were shut, her ears could not close. As Sun Yao swept aside his cloak and unbuttoned the folds of his ruffled jacket, Sera's hearing became her second vision, and it showed her everything. The cold wind whipping across his bare chest. The dance of the fire's light through the hollows therein. The sound of his breath, heaving as his hands touched the spot near his sternum. Somehow, she had expected him not to breathe.

"I loved her more dearly than all the eternities in heaven," said Sun Yao, "She was my life, and my spirit. I awoke every morning, and all I could think of was how I would please her that day. Sometimes, I would rise long before the early twilight and walk an hour's distance from our village, to the farm of a distant cousin. When I arrived, he would give me a bowl of the sweetest cream and a handful of fresh cherries, which I would take back to the village with me. I learned to walk carefully over rocks and stones so that I would not spill a single drop. I would take the bowl to her bedside and wait there until the sun rose. When she awoke, I watched her drink the cream and eat the cherries, one by one. I hoped that when she was done, she would bestow me with the slightest of kisses on my forehead, or the gentle touch of her delicate hand upon my cheek."

Sera tried not to listen. For a brief moment, she felt her wits return, and she raised the gun up steadily, her eyes still clenching shut. With one reluctant thumb, she cocked the lever and steadied her aim.

"We made love only once," said Sun Yao, "The night before she went to visit her dying grandfather in Canton. She told me that we would be married when she returned, but it never happened. I wrote her letters every day, just as once I had brought her sweet cream and fruit. After two months, no letters came back. I was afraid she had died, and left immediately to seek her. I had not been in Canton for more than an hour before an uncle of hers found me, and told me that she was to be married to another man."

As the creature told its story, Sera felt its sway over her loosen, and her confidence come back to her. Her hands were steady on the grip of her pistol, getting firmer and more sure. She could hear its exact location, and felt the barrel of her gun gazing into its soft, whispering mouth...

 

[Hikari]

She heard his story and somehow felt pity wash over her. She knew that feeling. The feeling of being cast aside. She would not kill him.

"You're name is Sun Yao.. Is it not..? If I were to believe your story.. What would you say..? I must know.. What does it have to do with what you've done to those girls?"


She still held her gun tightly.


"What are you and why are you doing these things? Answer my questions and I might spare you."


She thought about her own experience. He was the most popular boy in school. Someone that would never give a girl like her a second look. There was a party. He gave her a drink.. She was dizzy. He asked her if she wanted to, her silence was taken as yes. He acted like he cared, but he didn't. She choked out no when he hurt her. She was too drowsy to fight. The room spun in a dark nightmare. When she woke up her blood was on the sheets and a spent condom was on the floor. "No one will believe you.." he said. "Why would I ever touch you..?" Liquor had been heavy on his breath and her heart sank with his every word. They could never prove her case and she devoted her life to proving the unproven. It was an event she tried not to think about.

 

[neck_romancer]

"Answer my questions and I might spare you."

Again, Sun Yao's voice was silent. In that silence, the smallest of stones that had been holding back the flow from Sera's heart was washed aside. Before she felt the tear run down her cheek, she felt herself loose an unexpected sob. As the memories of the boy's violation of her flooded painfully back, she dropped her pistol to the floor, where a shot rang out. When she wiped the tears from her eyes, the mysterious room surrounding her was gone. She sat on the dingy floor of the bakery's kitchen, with Sun Yao nowhere in sight.

"No!" screamed Sera, "Don't do this to me! Don't leave me here like this!"

The linoleum was cold. Sera hunched over on her knees, remembering the pain as the boy intruded, and the burning shame that immediately followed. Then, despite shaking her head to fight it, her fingers digging into her scalp, she remembered the forgetting. The feeling of pulling away from her body, falling back into oblivion, out of consciousness, out of control. She screamed again, this time unintelligibly. As all the pain flooded back, she smelled the sickly sweetness of the boy's skin, his thrusts tearing into her body, hurting. In that moment, it was all she knew. Perhaps in every other moment, as well.

After her sobs wracked her body for an unknowable time, Sera heard footsteps behind her, and pulled away from her emotional haze. Even that feeling, the feeling of a stranger at her back in a strange place, was a weclome comfort to her own memories. Sera twisted her body around, falling backwards onto the palms of her hands. There he was again, as beautiful as before, but deader, deeply cold against the thin shadows of the Zhou bakery.

"I did this to myself," said Sun Yao, his fingers pressing against a bruised and purpled stab wound in his chest, "Because I believed it would end my suffering. But, my pain was eternal. Not in six-hundred years has it gone away. As I have killed myself, you have, likewise, killed. Only, you believe that your soul still lives, out there somewhere for you to find. The pain you feel is the remembrance of when it was taken from you."

"No! It's not fair!" sobbed Sera, "I didn't want that. I told him to stop. This is not the person that I wanted to be!"

"You told him to stop!" shouted Sun Yao, his sudden change in temper shocking Sera, "As I told her a thousand times! But she had no mercy upon me. Do you think I asked for this? To wander the night as demons wander? No, I begged God to give me anything else. But, a soul once given is lost. As is a soul once taken, my crying beauty. You will never have it again! You could kill every ghost of the night a thousand times only to watch them return, never closer to your desire."

"Then kill me!" sobbed Sera, "I don't want to live like this!"

"Never," said Sun Yao, "Because still, you do not believe in the wonders that await you. If you but listen, I will tell you."

 

[Hikari]

"Then tell me.." she said through her tears.


"What can you give me that he didn't? The feeling they always talk about doesn't exist.. It's not like I care anymore.. I can't become any worse than I am already.. So what does it matter if you have me.."


She stood up and slid off her jacket, revealing the button up shirt she wore beneath.


"I am all ears...Tell me of these things that you speak of... I will listen.."

 

[neck_romancer]

"Tell me of these things that you speak of... I will listen.."

Sun Yao breathed heavily, his eyes narrowing to slits. Suddenly, he dashed forward, ripping through the darkness with the speed of a bullet. Instantly, his hands were on Sera's neck. They were as cold as stone against her skin.

"This is the easy way," said Sun Yao.

His fingers slid up Sera's neck and enmeshed with her black hair. He pulled his mouth close to hers and locked her eyes still and quiet with his gemlike gaze. The creature kissed the air near Sera's lips, long and lingering, the air seeping over her tongue and across his. Then, as though pulled by the empty space between them, his lips touched hers. First just a brush, then soft, and finally pressing into her, consuming her warmth. Then, he let her go.

"You will die before the night is over," said Sun Yao, "As did the three before you. For my kiss, there is no remedy."

Sun Yao held up the brazier that had once sat on the floor of the bakery. As he cupped it in his hands, the coal inside it crackled until it glowed a shade of red near crimson. Warmth flooded his face and body, and touched Sera's body as well. Life, or a cousin to it, welled up in the pits of Sun Yao's chest. Soon, the room was illuminated with red shades. It became not the den of high arches as before, but an island underneath a scarlet waterfall, the rush of liquid hot underneath an eclipsed sun and blackened sky.

"This fire is the light of dreams," said Sun Yao, setting the brazier on the ground beside them, "And if you share it with me, in dreams you will live forever."

The creature wrapped his arms around Sera's waist, the torrent of hot blood rushing from the cliffs around them. His fingers, now warm, pulled gently at the skin underneath Sera's clothes. His lips found Sera's ear, and clasped it, the softness of his toungue warming Sera's skin and sending electricity down her nerves to the tips of her toes and fingers. One hand found the small of Sera's back, and traced a curve up it to the base of her neck. Then, Sun Yao danced his lips down to the pulse at Sera's neck, and lavished it with kisses.

 

[Hikari]

"You will die before the night is over," "As did the three before you. For my kiss, there is no remedy."

"This fire is the light of dreams," "And if you share it with me, in dreams you will live forever."


Those word rung in her head as the heat of him engulfed her completely. What was this feeling? He was worshipping her with his lips. It would be the first and last time that she'd feel such things.. Yet somehow she did not care.. All she cared about was..


"But what will happen to you? If I am dead.. Then will you always dwell in such agony? I can not die in pleasure if you live in agony.. Her hand went to his face as she felt tears come to her eyes.. You must be in so much pain.."


"Those girls all died by their own hands.. and one survived.. Maybe I will not.. Maybe I can stay with you.."


It was wishful thinking... Eternal companionship was something she desired more than life itself and it would be the death of her.

 

[neck_romancer]

"Those girls all died by their own hands.. and one survived.. Maybe I will not.. Maybe I can stay with you.."

"Those girls each led me through their dreams, to you," said Sun Yao, pulling his lips gently from Sera's chest, and gesturing to the strange world around them, "The heart of each one added a new feature to this land, and to a thousand other places like this one. But, they could not accept their dreams as real. They left me here, and madness showed them to their end. And now, I know why they could not stay. Because, your heart is the only one to hold my own richest dream."

Sera looked down to see the wound in Sun Yao's chest vanish slowly before her eyes. Then, she watched in amazement as his flowing, ink-black hair shortened before her, until it pulled itself up into a neater, but no less beautiful cut. His black jacket disintegrated, leaving him wearing the earth-colored garments of a village youth. As the world again transformed around them, Sun Yao stepped forward and embraced Sera anew. Pulling the buttons from her shirt, his lips met the softness of her bosom.

"Make love with me now as she and I did then," said Sun Yao, as the dream of a straw-lined bedroom in the early morning twilight surrounded them.

 

[Hikari]

"Make love with me now as she and I did then,"

She looked at him feeling her heart pounding in her chest. He was so beautiful.. How could that girl have ever doublecrossed him in such a way.


"Only if you will be gentle with me the first time.."


she said before kissing him softly on the mouth and then pulling back to look into his eyes.

 

[neck_romancer]

Sun Yao slid his arm around Sera's waist and knelt down with her until their bodies both rested on a soft tiger skin, which lay on top of a yielding bed of straw. He unbuttoned the last of Sera's blouse, letting it fold open to reveal her trembling stomach. Sera's bra yet held back her breasts, but Sun Yao gently caressed their soft skin with his fingers, then dotted them with warm kisses. Sera's back arched as he kissed her sternum, her lips parted in anticipation of his descent.

Slowly, the tip of his tongue traced a thin line down her chest and to her belly. There, the kisses were slower but longer, and deeper. Sera's toes and fingers curled as his lips drank in her tender flesh, the intense feeling putting her on the verge of retreat, but never letting her get quite there. Slowly, the sensitivity faded into hungry, warm pleasure. She began moaning as his lips slid down to her waist. Sun Yao pulled just the slightest inch of fabric from them, and kissed the skin in the small of her left hip, making her head fuzzy with electricity.

Sun Yao withdrew his kisses and moved up Sera's body until his face was matched against hers. He took each of her arms, one at a time, and raised them above her head. He held her arms down with his hands, then pulled closer to Sera, their lips touching. He parted her lips with his own, then sank his tongue into her mouth, teasing her inside.

 

[Hikari]

His ministrations made her writhe beneath him. His lips on her body made her cry out in pleasure. It was so good. She had no idea that it would be like this. He moved back to her lips and delve his tongue into her mouth. In her teens she'd always avoided tongue kissing because so many guy didn't know what they were doing, but this was different. He was different. She pressed herself into the kiss, massaging her tongue against his and drawing him in.


She wanted this. She wanted him..