samurai. [trigger #231]

The vampire and the samurai. Most think of them in terms of things that do not exist. Vampires as things that have never existed. Samurai as things which once existed but do no longer. You probably believe this, too. You would scoff at the idea that both of these things exist, although samurai now exist purely as a subset of vampires. 

I see that I’m losing you. Let me explain. 

You’ve no doubt seen plenty of popular culture’s idea of what it means to be a vampire. Some are closer than others in the particulars of how vampirism works on a purely practical level, with the notable exception that most misunderstand the true relationship between vampires and daylight, but that is best left for another essay. Some of these depictions even deal well with what it means emotionally and psychologically to both crave and require human blood to survive. However, it’s rare to come across any that deal well with what it means to live for centuries. The questions about what make life worth living don’t stop just because you are immortal. They actually only get worse. Questions of meaning still plague the undead. 

All vampires are of course individuals, and so generalizations about them are as worthless as those about any other people group. Still, let me share a fairly common story arc for vampires. Early on, vampires are split into two basic groups: those who go on a bloody killing spree from the outset, and those who attempt for some time to avoid harming human beings in their quest for blood.

Those who begin killing with delighted abandon will often keep up their fervor for decades, maybe even more than a century for those with a special knack for it, but eventually killing grows old, as all things must, and these vampires are left killing for food. Their heart is no longer in it. 

Those who begin non-violently will struggle and scrape for some time. It’s a much harder life. Eventually, decades of watching humans butcher and destroy one another takes its toll, and these former vegetarians finally start feeding on living human prey. However, they are doing it out of nihilistic despair. Sure, some of the more violent sects of vampire extremists come from this group who initially were nonviolent, but most are actually unrecognizable from the previous group. Their feeding comes from resignation and depression, and thus they are merely consumers. 

Many have found various solutions to this problem. Some starve themselves to death. Some allow humans to kill them. Some become barbaric or animalistic. Some resort to vigilantism, attempting to feed only on those guilty according to a particular set of morals or laws. Religions are tried. Philosophies are tested. It is a maturational dilemma that only happens for those who have violently survived for a very, very long time. 

Of all the various attempts to make sense of the vampiric unlife, none has come close to being as beneficial as bushido. The code of the samurai offers a worldview that allows for the necessity of a life of violence, yet is tempered by grace, serenity, and honor. For the vampire, as she struggles to understand her place in the world, who in her better moments will try to improve the world instead of being merely a plague or parasite, the bushido offers answers. Bloodlust is guided by purpose, violence is wielded in wisdom, and society and community is offered to those who are often isolated and secretive. 

Yes, samurai do still exist in 2014, and every one of them is a vampire. 

pioneer square at midnight. [trigger #120]

There is a rite in Seattle that goes back before Seattle was its name. Before the man whose name the city honors, before the whites built an ill-advised town in the mud, before the first peoples deemed the land unlivable, before there were first peoples; before all of these things, this rite was practiced as one of the most holy the universe has known.

On the seventh night of every new moon, at midnight in what is now known as Pioneer Square, a deep old magic is called forth from the mysterious depths of the farthest reaches of the vaguest and most distant dimension yet discovered.

This rite has never been forgotten. It has been guarded by secret religions and societies. Wars have paused, dead have been resurrected, individuals have traded everything and everyone they loved, just to be sure that this rite continues.

If this magic; personified in the minds of many, but beyond personhood in truth; were not called across the far-flung depths of space, time, and dimensionality, all would be lost. Were even a single rite missed, the fabric of existence would slowly begin to unravel, until all things unbecame until it was as if they never were.

This is why, as he sprints across the rooftops and leaps between the buildings of downtown Seattle, Karasu Haruko is alarmed to see that he is still running very, very late.

dribbling down her chin. [trigger #24]

She pulled his head backwards by his hair, smelling his neck with relish.

She paused to enjoy the moment, his mind was so seduced that there was no chance of him thinking clearly enough to fight back.

In that moment, she delighted in many things. She could feel his heart beating through his chest, pumping life through his body, so close she could already taste it. She thought of the little girls he trafficked, not only had he trafficked his last, but she would soon have access to his records, and each girl would be free by the end of the week.

Even though she had long since stopped feeling sorry for what she was, for killing to live, she still chose her victims carefully. There was still the odd innocent here or there in a pinch, but normally she eliminated men and women so evil it was difficult to fathom, even for something like her.

She never gave in to the urge to romanticize what she did. She was killing terrible people, but she was still killing. And while part of her joy at the kill came from the salvation that came to so many with each death, a large part of her joy at the kill was purely in the kill. In the violence and power of it.

She grinned, it was a deadly, feline gesture. Her pressed her fangs into the flesh of his neck, just enough to penetrate the skin, but not enough to feed. She loved these moments just before the slaughter, she almost always chose to draw it out, to savor each second, to prolong the anticipation and desire.

Finally, she threw her head back, then plunged her teeth deep into his flesh, losing herself in the taste of his lifeblood. These moments are when she is truly alive. It’s why she never looks with disdain on her lycanthrope brothers and sisters like most of her kind. She may hunt with the grace and care of the jaguar, but once it came time to feed she was overwhelmed by the savage hunger of the wolf.

She drank deeply, and then pulled away, taking in deep, heaving breaths, the blood dribbling down her chin. These breaths were obviously not because she needed breath to live, God’s first gift had been denied her for some time. No, these breaths were to oxygenate the blood she was drinking one last time before his life had truly gone out of it, to feel a secondary tremor and thrill as she consumed him.