They say sometimes a hunter remembers his past life.

A mission left unfilled, an innocent human that should have been saved, or a murderous vampire that should have been killed.

It was widely believed to be a myth by most of the hunters.

But for San, it was reality.

 

It came in bits and pieces.

A face. A promise. An apology.

But the man he was supposed to save was not an innocent human. Not anymore, at least.

In fact, he was the most feared vampire the last centuries of the Korean peninsula had known, if not East Asia as a whole.

Park Seonghwa.

 

Once a prince of the old kingdom of Silla, he had been known for his gentle and warm-hearted nature. Often leaving the walls of the palace to mingle with the people and attend their folk festivals, there were more than a few poems describing his commendable behavior and enchanting smile. Intervening whenever injustice came to his knowledge, he had been expected by many to become a benevolent and courteous ruler. However, this great admirability brought equally great misfortune with it.

Some called it the balance of nature.

A treacherous plot by the oldest prince, jealous of his seemingly unflawed brother, led to the bloodiest purge the kingdom of Silla had seen. Joining forces with the Black Vampires, ruthless and bloodthirsty killers, the oldest prince secretly ordered his men to remove all the protective talismans around the palace before leaving for a “vacation”.

Over decades, people told gruesome tales about the palace walls painted with royal blood and the screams loud enough to reach the village at the northern foot of the mountain.

One year later to the day, a “man with crimson eyes, bearing a striking resemblance to the late prince Seonghwa” as it was described in the Royal Records “kicked in the protected gate, whole body burning with the angry fire of the talisman as he slaughtered King Seongja, his wife and their offspring.”

Reportedly, he had lost his humanity due to the bitter grief and pain the loss of his family and lover had brought upon him. Wandering the Eurasian continent in the course of centuries, countless deaths were ascribed to him until he was eventually captured and sealed by Choi Myung-hwan. San’s ancestor.

And this serial killer was the very man his past self told him to save.

-

“San, are you coming?”

San’s eyes were hurting after the hours he had spent in front of the yellowed page, staring at the monochrome picture of the notorious vampire. The newest technology had taken the place of old, dusty books and libraries in most parts of the world, but not in their remote institute.

It had taken him a whole year to sift through the innumerable books of the centuries-old archive and there he was. A smile so sweet, San could only imagine how many poor women and men had willingly followed him into their doom.

“San, hey.”

Wooyoung leaned over the table to get into his line of sight, snapping his fingers as if to wake the other up. San rubbed over his bloodshot eyes and finally unchained himself from the page, flipping the book shut and standing up. His back protested after hours of sitting in the same position.

“Patience is a virtue, Woo.”

“You’re obsessed. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

“And you’re too lazy. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

They spent their walk to the great hall with bickering, only falling into a heavy silence once they stepped over the threshold into the dark, ample building. It might seem morbid for them to joke on their way to the upcoming execution, but it was honestly the only means in this line of work to stay (relatively) sane.

The enormous hall seemed almost narrow with the amount of people crowded inside. They took the stairway up the gallery, finding an empty spot in the far back and leaning onto the railing to look down onto the altar. Choi Se-wook, the head of the institute, stood beside a giant box covered with a blanket of red silk. San made sure to keep his face clean of any reaction, knowing Wooyoung was looking over at him with concern. He did not have the most heart-warming relationship with his father.

Even with a dozen spectators, not a single whisper disturbed the loaded silence. The sound of the closing door echoed from the walls. Then, the man downstairs stepped forward.

“Welcome, my brothers and sisters. Your visit to our small institute gives me great pleasure.”

The man brought both hands to his front and bowed, low and long, before slowly coming back up to look into the faces of the hunters from all over the country. San could even see some of their relatives from Japan and China.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the discovery that will turn the long war against our shared enemy in our favor.”

Mr. Choi grabbed the cover of the box and pulled it off with one swift movement. The sight revealed to them would have normally guaranteed a row of gasps and screams, but the hall stayed silent. The hunters present had all grown up under the hunter’s association and long turned numb to its cruelty.

Presented to them was a vampire – or what had been a vampire. His eyes were wide with fear and horror, mouth opened in a terrified scream that revealed his deadly vampire fangs, and body huddled in idle defense. Every part of him had turned into black stone. Only the three silver spears penetrating his chest and the silver chains on his wrists, ankles, and around his neck were unaltered.

“My honored ancestor, Choi Myung-hwan, sealed Silla’s devil to protect our world from his bloodlust. It is my great pleasure to announce that we have now finally discovered a way to not only seal but annihilate the threat he poses to humanity.”

Normally, a silver blade to the heart or a fire could extinguish the otherwise immortal life of a vampire. But for a creature as old as the devil of Silla such simple means were no enemy. The excitement in Mr. Choi’s voice let San anticipate the worst.

“As can be seen in this example, we were able to subdue him despite his immunity against silver weapons and fire. Injecting a mixture of silver, wild rose, ash, and salt into the afferent artery of the monster significantly weakens his self-healing properties. If we then expose him to sunlight, he turns to stone in a matter of minutes. Though we suppose it could take a few hours or days depending on the age and body count of the monster.”

San warily watched how his father beckoned one of his assistants over, taking the voluminous hammer from the boy’s shaking hands. He should have seen it coming before it happened. The man lunged out and smashed the stone figure into pieces. A big applause ripped through the previous silence of the hall. San just stared at the pile that had once been a vampire.

A silver dagger to the heart or a fire guaranteed painful but quick death. Slowly turning into stone as the hours pass – on the verge of certain death but still conscious while the sunlight burns your skin and hair down – sounded like hell on earth.

The institute had achieved its long-yearned-for objective: Finding a way to dispose of Silla’s devil – of Seonghwa – for good.

He was running out of time.

If he wanted to grant the final request of his past life, he would have to be fast.

-

The hallways of the old institute were dark and quiet when San swiftly moved from one shadow to the next, becoming one with the darkness. From time to time, the light of a guard’s flashlight down the corridor made him change his course, but overall, it was surprisingly easy to get to his father’s office unnoticed. The event of the evening – as atrocious as it had been – gave San the unique opportunity to gain access to the one room that most likely held the information he was searching for. His father was currently entertaining their visiting relatives in the great hall. Exclusively coming to events of high importance, it was a rare occasion that led the elders to drink and talk through the night while the rest of the hunters were still subject to the curfew.

A few years ago, San’s heart would have beaten fast, drops of sweat running down and hands shaking at the mere thought of disobeying his father. By now, he was not even batting an eyelid when he quietly unlocked the prohibited door with the set of keys he had stolen during dinner. In the chaos of the dining room too small for so many visitors, it had been pleasingly uncomplicated to find a moment of inattentiveness.

The spacious office with its giant windows was pitch black. Careful to not make a sound, San closed the door and pulled out his small flashlight. The hunter had been in this room often enough as a child, forced to stand in the corner for hours and hours to “reflect on his failures”.

That was before his father decided the institute’s dungeon would be more effective.

He found the secret drawer without problems, going down on one knee and jamming the flashlight between his teeth to use both hands to unlock the mechanism. Once the lock was open and the stacks of documents revealed, San stood up again to skim through the yellowed paper for any information on the location where Silla’s devil was sealed. Luck was on his side and soon afterward he held the record in his hands.

The quiet sound of the door clicking shut interrupted his in-depth study of the file. He cautiously placed the paper on the desk and lifted his hands, expecting the hunting rifle of the director to be directed at his back.

“San, what are you doing.”

Wooyoung.

He should have locked the door behind himself, but it would have cost precious time. With a sigh, he dropped his hands, carefully putting the paper back in the right order. Once he was sure everything was exactly the way he had found it, San turned around to face his friend.

His friend, who was wordlessly staring at him as if he were a stranger.

“Woo, you don’t understand.”

“Well, then make me understand.”

For a moment, San considered explaining everything to Wooyoung.

Even if he would somehow be able to explain to the other hunter why he was on his way to break the seal on the most notorious vampire, he was already running short on time as it was.

“Can’t I use that best friend card, right now? I really need to go.”

Wooyoung looked at him like San was doing him real dirty. His face was telling all sorts of emotions he was going through. Disbelief, anger, confusion, and worry.

But even behind all that; trust.

A sigh.

“You better have a very good explanation for me once you get back.”

San blew him a kiss.

Wooyoung dodged it.

“Leave the keys and go.”

San pulled out the keys and handed them over to Wooyoung with a quiet “Thank you, Woo” before passing him to go to the door.

“Be careful.”

Doorknob already in his hand, San stopped once more.

“You, too.”

He slipped back into the darkness.

-

When San quietly escaped the walls of the institute through the backdoor leading to the dense forest, he was met by rain. The heavens were looking upon his doings with great displeasure, San was sure. Recalling the coordinates, he pulled out his GPS receiver and started going in the direction of the objective. It took him around half an our hour. Less than he expected, but then again, his ancestor, Choi Myung-hwan, would have chosen a location close enough to the institute to be able to protect the seal and intervene in case of an emergency. The closer he got, the faster his heart beat in his chest. Not with fear, but with something else. By the time he reached the coordinates, the rain had drenched his clothes entirely, white shirt sticking to his chest and dark brown hair sticking to his forehead.

When he looked up from the device, he paused. Contrary to his expectations he was not standing in front of a gate or a tomb entrance. In fact, he was looking at an empty, treeless spot of wilted grass. Stashing the GPS device in his back pocket, he crouched down and inspected the ground. Nothing, but dirt and grass turned to mud in the continuous rain.

No wonder no one had been able to find the vampire until now. San started to suspect that the coordinates had been intentionally placed a bit off the actual location. Not willing to give up just now, the hunter got up and searched the surroundings for a clue.

Time was running.

In the lucky case, he had till sunrise when guards would check if every hunter who had yet to graduate was attending morning practice. In the worst case, one of the guards would choose tonight to carry out a spot check and find one of the beds in their room empty.

San was about to abandon his mission for tonight and wait for a new opportunity to present itself when the world around him started to turn. He held onto the next tree to prevent himself from falling as white-hot pain shot through his head. The other hand shot up to hold his forehead, skin burning even in the cold rain.

It was the same feeling he got right before a vision, but this time it was not a message of the past that came to him.

It was a voice.

San closed his eyes, focusing on the whisper and trying to filter it out through the sounds of the rain and the forest. It was a language he was not familiar with, but he could hear – or rather feel – where it was coming from.

Seonghwa was calling him.

San was not sure for how long he walked, losing track of where the voice led him and blindly following it through the darkness. The closer he got, the clearer the voice.

After what felt like seconds and hours at once, the voice stopped. When San opened his eyes, he found himself standing in front of a huge rock. A wall too smooth and clean to be created by natural processes. Instinctively, he stretched out his hand, placing it flatly against the cold, wet stone. Slowly but surely dark, black letters appeared on the surface. San traced it carefully with his fingers. It was written in Hanja. For once, San was grateful for the hours and hours of lessons the institute forced upon them. Before long, he deciphered it.

Only the true heir’s blood will open the gate to hell for he shall dispose of the devil for good.

San could not help the diabolic smile spreading over his cold lips. Maybe, if he had not been so used to disappointing his family, he would have even felt bad about betraying his ancestor’s trust in their line.

Without hesitation, he pulled out his knife to cut the palm of his hand and pressed it onto the seal. The rain mixed with his blood. Trails of red flowed down the wall until suddenly fine cracks started ripping through the grey stone wherever his blood touched it. San watched in awe how the wall broke down in front of his eyes and revealed an entrance into a sort of cave.

Thunder roared through the forest as San stepped into the darkness as if higher powers were warning him. He continued, nevertheless.

A tunnel led deeper into the inside of the rock. The hunter pulled out his flashlight, inspecting the narrow walls as he advanced. Every inch of the stone was covered in letters. Sealing spells written in the traditional Korean script, that made use of old Chinese characters.

After a short walk, he reached the entrance to what appeared to be a wider space. Two torches decorated each side of the entrance, which to San’s surprise lightened up the moment he stepped into the room. Neither the black walls covered with rows of letters written with what looked suspiciously like dried blood, nor the ground covered in sealing spells drawn with lavender, salt, and once again – blood – attracted his attention.

Instead, his eyes were fixed on the man in the center of the whole formation. Pure silver chained his limbs and neck to the solid stone, body lifelessly hanging in the shackles and black hair falling onto his pale face. Three silver spears pierced his chest, the white of the half-closed shirt tainted with dark blood. A chest, that did not move the slightest. But San knew he was as dead as he was alive.

The man in front of him was even more beautiful than his visions or the picture in the archive could have depicted. Lips as red as blood against skin as white as porcelain, hair as black as coal, and the structure of his face as beautifully sculpted as a work of art.

For a second, San just stared. To say he was mesmerized would have been an understatement.

Seonghwa looked like the prince he had once been, and not at all like the devil he had become. And yet, the more charming the devil, the more lethal it is.

It took a lot of willpower to look away, but San was running short on time. Moreover, he could not be sure that he had not triggered a mechanism that would somehow alarm the institute. So, he refocused on his objective, stashed away the now pointless flashlight, and leaned down to smudge the lines of the carefully arranged seal. As soon as the spell circle was broken, the lavender petals caught fire, throwing angry shadows onto the blood-covered walls. San stepped over them, closing the distance to the notorious vampire. He paused right in front of him, taking a second to capture the moment.

He was about to fulfill his destiny – to honor the last wish of his past life.

A feeling too great to be explained with words filled his chest and made him forget the pain of the freezing cold running through his body and sticking to his wet clothes.

“I’m here.”

The whisper was loud in the quietness of the room, only accompanied by the crackling of the fire behind him. The pale face, beautiful but in its perfection almost seeming artificial, showed no reaction.

He resembled a statue. Something unreal. Unalive.

San took a deep breath to prepare himself for what was about to come. He pulled out the little knife from his back pocket, running the sharp blade over his lower arm just about deep enough to make the red taint his tanned skin.

Save him.

A voice that had visited him so often in his dreams came to him as if to make sure San would not waver. He did not.

“I will.”

Determined, he let the knife disappear back into his pocket before lifting his arm to press the open wound onto those red lips. A shiver ran down his spine as his already freezing skin met the iciness of the other.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Once again, the fastening of his heartbeat spoke not of fear.

But now, San knew what it was;

Excitement.

A gasp of surprise left him as not even ten heartbeats later the silver chains jingled under the force of the vampire’s pull in what seemed like an attempt to grab San’s arm. His eyes remained closed, but San could feel his lips brushing over the wounded skin.

San knew he stood in front of the uncontested strongest and oldest vampire in the whole of Asia, but Seonghwa had recovered way faster than he had expected him to after such a long time under the seal.

He realized that maybe, just maybe, he was underestimating what evil he just released.

Even under his assumption, San did not pull his arm back. He was committed to his cause. To the cause of his past self.

“Good morning, I guess?”

It was a poor attempt at humor to take some of the graveness of the situation away. The centuries-old vampire certainly did not seem entertained. Eleven more heartbeats. His next attempt at breaking the hold of the chains succeeded. Ice-cold fingers wrapped around his arm, nails digging into his vulnerable skin as he kept San in place. The hunter could feel how the drops of his blood and the remains of the rain mixed with the wetness of the tongue ghosting over his skin.

No fangs. San had expected so much. It was a common practice to break off a vampire’s fangs. After not having fed in more than a century, it was no wonder even Seonghwa was not able to regenerate immediately.

Twelve more heartbeats and dark, tired eyes met his own. For what felt like an eternity, they just stared at each other. A mutual assessment. Then, the tight grip on his arm loosened, leaving behind deep imprints.

San understood. He pulled his arm back and quietly observed how the man of his visions freed himself of the other chains with a painful hiss at the supernatural burn of the silver on his skin. He then grasped the spears in his chest, pulling them out and throwing them aside. What would have killed a human merely left three deep holes in dead flesh, only bits of black blood running down his skin and getting caught by the white shirt. It needed a lot of self-control for San to redirect his eyes up to the face of the vampire.

He was met by Seonghwa’s unwavering stare. The loose strands of black hair fell into his pale face, partly covering the piercing eyes that seemed to penetrate to the depths of his soul. Though quite paradoxical, he had something divine about him. The elegance of a predator.

Once again, San could not help but be distracted. This time his eyes had wandered to the stain of his blood on Seonghwa’s lips.

As the vampire seemed to notice the object of San’s attention, he brought his thumb up to his lips, wiping the hunter’s blood away. A smile decorated his pretty face. San felt like he was under a hypnosis. Whatever he had imagined he would do or say once he stood in front of the vampire, neither his body nor his mind moved. In a flash, he pictured the thousands of innocent humans falling for the enchanting trap.

“You rescued me. What is it you desire.”

“I just achieved what I desired.”

San felt an inexplicable satisfaction at the look of genuine confusion on Seonghwa’s face. It changed to realization once the symbol on the hunter’s neck attracted his attention. He took a step closer, and San held his breath as cold fingers pushed down the collar of his shirt. Under the intensity of Seonghwa’s gaze, San felt .

“You’re one of them.”

San just held his wary gaze. Before the conversation could advance, their moment was interrupted by the loud blaring of alarm sirens. Belated, but effective still. Seonghwa stepping over the remains of the seal seemed to have triggered a hidden mechanism of some sort.

San could see the contemplation in the vampire’s eyes. Both of them were fully aware that San would not stand a chance against an attack. He would be dead before he could even whisper the beginning of a spell. Besides, spells had never been his strength, anyway.

Still, there was not an ounce of fear in San’s voice as he said:

“Run.”

Confusion washed over the vampire’s face. Then determination. The next second, he was gone, and San was left alone to clean up the mess he made.