There are certain known facts about vampires. They revile change. They are obsessive-compulsive. They are illogical. They are cursed. They will burst into flames in sunlight.
They are dying.
With less than a hundred vampires left in the world, Yas...
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Sometimes, if he passed from one room to the next, August caught glimpses of Yasuko in various stages. Reclining on a cushion and singing under her breath, her voice a smoky alto. Painting landscapes that weren't quite as hideous as her current works. Eating a meal, her eyes black and suspicious as she stared at her fellow courtesans over the rim of a clay cup. Strumming a stringed instrument in a corner, while men joked over cups of alcohol. Once or twice, August saw her guiding a man by the elbow to another room, but the few times he was brave enough to follow, he found himself in her childhood again. Playing, singing, talking, slowly becoming less of a child and more of a woman.
The next room was darker than the other memories, and a strange taste hovered within, like a veil of smoke. For a moment, August feared it might be the musk of sex, but no, it was something else. Something acidic, colored with anger and bitterness. And desperation.
The oiran he'd seen on the street sat cross-legged by a small brazier. The glow of it painted harsh lines of her face, emphasizing the sharpness of her chin and the spikes of her eyelashes. She had the eerie air of a cemetery, ripe with the peaceful promise of death. August marveled how any man could convince himself to pay for such a woman's company.
With triple-jointed fingers, she braided fine silver threads around a little girl's neck, cooing when the child spasmed and gasped. As if pleased, the oiran smiled.
In the girl's hands, cupped carefully in a cage of fingers, a bird complained shrilly. It pecked at the child's skin, drawing blood, but the girl didn't release it. She did, however, start to cry, her eyes bloodshot and glassy.
