Baku Chapter 1: Lianhua

Then

Yue Fei reached across the bed with its blue silk sheets, half-asleep, just to make sure she was still there. It was too dark to see the sheets, to see the polished wood on the walls, or to read the Chinese calligraphy written on lizhou in the room. It was too dark to see even her. 

But she was there; he could tell even in the dark. His fingers slid through her long black hair, then down along Lianhua’s pale slender side, across the small of her back, where he knew were nine small black lines. They were tattoos not made of ink. She was familiar in a way that didn’t require thought or light or vision. Lianhua was his, whether he could see her or not. She didn’t move, still asleep - still trusting. He didn’t need to check if her eyes were closed - those pale blue eyes that pierced even in the dark.

He exhaled slowly. She wasn’t the only one exhausted. He should’ve been able to sleep. Nightmares. He, of all the people in the world, had nightmares. Usually, he could handle that. He had since he was eighteen. 

But something felt wrong this time.

There was a pressure in his chest - no, lower. A tight, restless pull in his stomach that didn’t belong. He knew this feeling. He had lived with it since he was sixteen.

Hunger.

His brow furrowed.

That didn’t make sense.

Eat.

He had already fed. He always made sure of it before seeing her. That was the agreement.

Don’t touch my dreams.

A simple rule. Clear. And if that was all that it took to keep her, it was something to which he happily adhered.

He pulled his hand back from her; his fingers already missing the heat of her back. He sat up, careful not to shift the mattress too much. The room felt warmer than it should’ve. Thicker.

He swung his legs over the side and stood, unsteady for just a second.

That never happened. Not to him.

Then it hit again - even harder this time, like a storm that was slowly raising the shoreline.

Eat.

Yue Fei clenched his jaw.

There was no one else here, no distractions, no alternatives - nothing to quell his thoughts; no one else was there to sate him.

There was only her.

Eat.

His gaze drifted back to the bed.

Lianhua hadn’t moved. He looked across her body, fit, with scars along her back - three lined marks, from what were lifetimes ago.

He knew her; she wouldn’t move until dawn. She never even felt like she had to; she trusted him.

That made it worse.

He stepped closer anyway, slower this time, like he could drag the moment out long enough for the feeling to pass. Maybe the distance could thwart the desire.

It didn’t.

Eat.

His hand hovered over her, inches above her head.

He stopped there.

That was the line.

Don’t touch my dreams.

Eat.

Don’t touch her dreams.

Eat.

One touch—and it would be broken.

For a second, he held it. Balanced on that edge, at that precipice. There was still time to move away. 

Fucking eat.

Then his fingers lowered.

Contact.

And everything went black.

****

There

Yue Fei felt the familiar sense of the unfamiliar. Everyone had a different set of memories, but there was always the void, the backdrop.

Distorted, disjointed, dissimilar to real life. Different worlds spread out amongst the darkness of her psyche. There were holes in the darkness, like stars, leading to different parts of Lianhua’s soul. They were just like starlight, reaching outwards past his vision, for what seemed like an eternity’s distance. 

Wisps of smoke and memories filled the space in Lianhua’s subconscious. They were trails - not unlike silk threads that moved from one dream to the next. The purple were the most treasured memories; the red the passionate ones; the yellow the fears. 

Eat.

He could at least eat the memories where the yellow threads led. If he was going to feast, he should help her at least. 

It wasn’t so bad if it helped her.

He grabbed them, like holding starlight in his hand - and devoured it. Each time he did, he knew what he had eaten. 

A fear of heights. A fear of fire. A fear of dragons. A fear of weakness. He grabbed her fears - but only her fears. 

The hunger was almost sated. Almost. One more. Just one.

A blue strand curled around his finger, offering itself to him - like it wanted him to follow it. 

Sadness. Shame. 

He followed as the smoke beckoned him, until he reached the star, the hole in the black veil. A looking glass, waiting for him to peer.

He entered.

****

“I don’t think that you need me for this,” Lianhua said to her father over the thundering bassline in the club. The room was purple, like the rest of the club, with only the two of them in the room. Sometimes the most public spaces were the best places to keep secrets - with 808 drums blaring as background noise.

“It doesn’t matter what you think I need. What matters is what the clan needs,” he said, putting out his cigarette. “He is dangerous.”

“He’s eighteen. He’s a boy.”

“And you’re a girl. That’s my point.”

“I don’t think he needs seducing. He needs a bullet.”

The father moved across the room to her. His face invaded her space. The smell of cigarette and liquor followed, invading her sinuses. “I decide who we kill, daughter. The Huli Jing trusted me with that decision since before you were swimming half completed in my ballsack. It’s like I told your brother, there are still plenty more swimming around. He didn’t listen, which is why you are here. I’m capable of living another millennia. Plenty of time to replace you too.”

She broke eye contact, deigning to his superiority as both clan leader and parent.

“Yes, father.”

“We are not going to kill a half-Baku,” he said, his voice a whisper but easily heard within the noise of the outside. “His mother defected here for protection. Do you know how rare that is? A Baku - pureblood or not - is a very strong weapon. Tame him. Love him. Fuck him. Whatever you need to do to get him on our side. With him on our side, the other Seven will have to fall in line.”

“I will never love him.”

“Then stick with the other two. But make sure he thinks that you love him. Sometimes the easiest way to tame beasts is with the carrot than the stick. Give him so much carrot that he gets vitamin k poisoning. Extra servings of vegetables, daughter.”

“Father, this is disgusting. What father asks this of his daughter?”

“This father. This daughter. Get it done, or be replaced. Get out and get to planting those carrots. I have to talk to some delusional American that wants our help.”

Lianhua went back into the club. The sound of the club lost, drowned by her thoughts. She brushed past people on oxy and cocaine, the smells of sweat and desperation. 

She went out into the back alley, sat down with her hands to her chest and cried. Yue Fei watched her in that alley. 

After what seemed like a lifetime, she stood up and wiped her tears with her palm. She breathed in deeply, held her breath, and then exhaled. She removed her phone from her pocket, dialed a number, and put on a fake smile, even though the other side of the phone couldn’t see. Maybe the smile wasn’t for the person on the other side of the phone.

“Hello? Yue Fei? I was curious; is there any chance you’re free this week? I know you just arrived in Beijing, but I wanted to show you the sights.” She waited for a moment, the smile cracking. “That is wonderful, Mo. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She hung up the phone, and the cracked smile stayed. It was time to leave it there for the rest of her life. 

****

Yue Fei fell out of the dream, the memory. He told himself it had to be a dream; she wouldn’t say that. Not about him. He was back in the black void of her psyche, speckled with starlight, each shining from their own dream, memory, fear, or hope. 

Eat. 

It wasn’t satisfied yet. Yue Fei, as hungry as he was looked back at the looking glass. He could eat it, just to spite Lianhua. Destroy what he could. But even he, in his hunger-ridden state didn’t want anything to do with that memory again. 

The thought of it inside his stomach already made him queasy. 

Follow another thread, and maybe that one he could eat. He wanted to consume, to eat, to destroy. 

He found a purple one. A treasured memory. Take it from her. Make her hurt. He pulled and followed into the starlight.

****

“Mother, you should not go,” Lianhua said, tears breaking her voice. 

“Hold on now, child. Twelve hundred years isn’t the worst amount of time. It’s time to let me go.”

“Twelve hundred years is a pittance. It is a blink of an eye to the Huli Jing.”

“If our time together was a blink of an eye, then you are not appreciating your moments,” her mother said sternly, but grabbing her hand softly.

Her mother was lying down, the bed of the hospital looked sterile and uninviting. The faint smell of bleach reminded Lianhua her mother had recently thrown up. She held her gaze with her mother for a long while.

“I don’t want to let you go,” Lianhua said.

“I can die, or you can let me go. Either way I am out of your life. Do you wish death upon your mother?” 

“You can stay, though. For Huli Jing, dying and leaving are two different things.” 

“I will not remember you,” Lianhua’s mother said. “And I will not be kept as a pet.”

The last part was said sternly. Lianhua fell silent then. Lianhua lowered her eyes, looking instead at her mother’s hand. 

Her mother’s hand was scarred with cigarette burns, slash marks, and other marks that were older than Lianhua, but fresher than the day her mother married her father. Every time she should have died, but burned a tail instead. 

“No one’s pet. You never were,” Lianhua said. 

“I’m down to my last tail,” her mother said. “I want to be the one to decide how I use it.”

Lianhua resigned to her mother’s choice. She helped to wheel her mother outside in a wheelchair. 

The land around the hospital was brushed against Hangzhou. It was why they used the hospital - certainly not because they liked the humid air and the sticky feel of it on their skin. 

Lianhua looked around at the trees, about to start their blooming and the orchids already showing off their flowers. It was not the worst day.

Lianhua held her hand out to her mom, palm forward.

“I love you, mom,” she said.

Her mom looked at her and pushed her forehead to her daughter’s palm. It had to be this way, or the magic wouldn’t work. 

Any disease, sickness, cancer, bleeding - anything that could cause death - was removed from her body.

And then the light came. Brilliant blinding light, that masked her mother’s transformation. The light faded, and what remained was not the multi-tailed Huli Jing, but only a fox. A snow white fox, with stunning blue eyes that certainly belonged to her mother.

The fox looked at Lianhua - but those eyes that used to show love and warmth did not recognize Lianhua. 

The fox tilted its head, trying to determine if Lianhua was friend or foe. Its tail moved softly, relaxed but attentive. Its last tail, where there used to be so many. Lianhua felt a pang of anger and resentment towards her father. It made her want to hold on just a little bit longer to her mother.

“Go,” Lianhua said, “before I change my mind and don’t let you.”

The fox turned and rushed into the rainforest, disappearing into the trees.

“I love you.”

****

Yue Fei looked at the starlight in his hand, precious and fragile. 

Eat.

And he did.