Chapter 20: Volume 1 - CH 4.3

He decided to demonstrate the results of his training five days later.

“Lumi.” Seymour called, as he climbed the loft with the late evening sun still up. “Lumi, wake up.”

Wrapped up in her red blanket, Lumi was curled up like a baby, sound asleep. Light snores escaped her faintly open mouth.

“…Mmh, good…morning.” Lumi sat up with her head lolling and her eyes still closed shut.

“Let’s go on a little trip, Lumi.”

“Sleepy…”

“You can sleep all you want, so long as you hop onto the back seat. Come on.”

“Besides, the sun is still……just a bit longer……”

Seymour smiled at her as she slowly rubbed her eyes, “Even so, let’s go.”

“……”

Lumi suddenly stopped moving altogether. Then she lifted her face. Not even a trace of her previous drowsiness remained. All that was left was a terrifyingly calm and cold-hearted expression.

Seymour supposed that this was only natural. Him trying to take her outside while the sun was still up was a clearer death threat than pointing a gun at her.

“What did you say just now?”

Seymour shuddered. Lumi wasn’t human; even if she looked like one, it didn’t change the fact that she was made of completely different stuff. She merely sat on the bed, showing no signs of abnormality, but that truth emanated from her nonetheless.

A terrifying metallic boom reverberated behind him. Turning just his head, Seymour saw that the garage wall had been gouged out. There had been no such destruction just moments ago.

Lumi repeated the same line once more, “What did you say just now?”

He felt dread settle into the pit of his stomach, knowing that one wrong word would result in him becoming no more than a pile of meat chunks. If Seymour’s senses were working normally, he’d probably have burst into tears already, but thanks to his paralyzed mind and his chronic nausea over the last few days, he somehow managed to keep his wits.

“A stroll. Let’s go out.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. Right now, let’s go. In the car.”

“……”

He didn’t know what Lumi was thinking, with her face cast down like that. And yet, when Seymour extended a hand, she firmly grasped it. Heading downstairs, he guided her to the backseat. Afterwards, he threw up the shutter with a loud screech.

At this very moment, the topmost edge of the sun was just dipping below the horizon, dyeing the city in the crimson rays of the setting sun.

Seymour got into the driver’s seat. Turning the key, he got the engine going. Recalling the map of the city in his mind, his imagination was filled with traffic lights, cars and the sun shining down on them all.

As he adjusted the rear-view mirror, he spotted Lumi hugging her knees and sulking.

“Are we really going to go?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I see.”

She sounded as if she’d kill Seymour the instant he stepped on the accelerator, and like she wanted to be anywhere but here in the car. Despite not driving yet, Seymour pulled his gloves on with his teeth, one hand at a time while laughing.

“Hey Lumi, I’ll make your dream come true.”

He suddenly let the car take off by connecting the gears without the half clutch. The Essex jumped out on the street, leaving tire tracks on the garage floor. At this point Seymour remembered that he hadn’t thought of how to close the shutter, but now it was too late.

Sure enough, Lumi hadn’t killed Seymour despite him driving outside while the sun was still up. Though it wouldn’t have been at all strange if she had killed him for it. Thus, he was flooded with relief.

However, the opposite didn’t happen either. The shadows cast by the factory on the other side of the street stretched long into the street at this time of day, not allowing any sunlight to reach into the car.

Ignoring traffic laws, he crossed through the middle lane, and took a left turn. It earned him a concert of car horns, but Seymour didn’t pay any heed to those sounds.

Lumi continued sitting serenely in the same position, even as the backseat was violently thrown around. It was pretty obvious that unnatural forces were at work here. She looked in Seymour’s direction in confusion while running a hand through her disheveled hair.

“Dream, eh…?”

“Well, it’d also be fine to call it finishing your request, I guess.”

Beach and holidays. The meeting of her father and mother. A walk along the ocean, backlit by the sunset. Seymour knew now that all these words had been lies. And yet Lumi had chosen those lies. She had chosen that setting even though she could have chosen anything at all.

“At this point it’d be impossible to take you to a safe city, and it’s not something you actually desire, right?”

As if caught in a delirious dream, Seymour’s mouth moved all by itself. He kept changing lanes, weaving his way through the gaps between the cars. Barreling towards a crossroad that was dominated by the mad red of the evening sun, not a shadow in sight.

Even though she could see her demise speeding towards her, Lumi didn’t say anything. However, Seymour noticed that her hands tightly grasped the hems of her pajamas.

The instant they exited the shadow, Seymour quickly stepped on the brake and jerked the wheel. The Essex started to skid sideways, moving on just two wheels. Thanks to Seymour carefully adjusting the angle towards the sun, the car’s ceiling just barely protected Lumi’s body from getting hit by the sun’s rays.

As if to prove that everything, including even the timing of the traffic light, had been part of his plan, Seymour continued to tensely stare at the road with bloodshot eyes.

“But look, because I’ve decided to perfectly carry out all details of my requests────”

There was a gap in the factory buildings that had been covering the right side, leaving no shadows on the road ahead. But, Seymour didn’t attempt to head back the way they came, only faintly loosening his hold on the accelerator.

A truck exited the factory grounds. Seymour quickly nestled close, hiding the Essex behind its big frame and breathed out a sigh.

Running side-by-side, the Essex followed the truck so closely as if to vanish into its shadow. Unfortunately, even the truck would leave them sooner or later.

However, Seymour’s destination was already around the corner. The salty air tickling his nose had been gradually getting stronger for a while now. Even though Seymour knew that nothing would hide the car from the sun once he took the corner, he stepped down harder on the accelerator, only relying on the countdown relentlessly tick-tick-ticking onwards in his mind.

“────So, what about it?”

Leaving the protection of the truck, the Essex rushed out onto the street. At the same time, the subway train raced out of its tunnel onto the surface. The vibration and wind from this huge machine was transmitted to the right side of the car, causing the windshield to rattle. The train’s shadow, stretching out long, hid the Essex.

You are reading story No Heaven for Vampires at novel35.com

The only thing visible ahead was the road. That road along the ocean, which also led to the graveyard, extended endlessly into the horizon.

The city was dyed in the red of the setting sun. The roaring of the waves and the clattering of the subway as it raced across its rails mingled within Seymour’s ears. ‘We’re at the sea’, he assessed. Even though he couldn’t see it as it was blocked off by the subway, Seymour could strongly feel the presence of the ocean.

He matched the speed of the subway, plunging onwards.

The difference between day and night, land and sea was just as vast as the difference between human and vampire. Seymour suddenly experienced a pang of sentimentality. Clean, odorless emotions welled up from within his chest, and he suddenly felt a terrible urge to cry.

However, since he was currently a machine that controlled the car from the driver’s seat, Seymour didn’t shed any tears. The two of them continued through the dream that the girl has described.

He didn’t look at the rear-view mirror. That was why he didn’t know what Lumi was looking at or what expression she made right now. However, her small voice could still clearly be heard over the myriad of sounds.

“The world sure is bright.”

Hearing her remark, Seymour lightly shook his head. He even had a passing thought that all he wanted was for just this time to continue forever and ever, but it was precisely the transience of the moment that made it so precious.

Approaching the end of its surface section, the subway dove back into the world where no sun shone. At the same time, the last rays of the setting sun vanished, allowing the huge shadow of the Earth itself to cover the city.

Seymour slowly dropped the speed, now that the subway was gone. Seymour felt like the temperature had dropped, and it wasn’t just because the sun was gone. Now that his objective had been achieved, he lost almost all his zeal and instead felt a gaping emptiness yawn inside him. He had a hunch that it’d be a bit too much of a stretch to call that feeling satisfaction.

Seymour slowed the car almost down to a crawl.

“How was that? Did I manage to fulfill your request?”

There was no reply. When he looked into the rear-view mirror, Lumi wasn’t immediately visible. He could only see the edge of her silver hair right behind his seat. She appeared to be pressing her forehead to the back of his seat. Seymour could faintly feel her forehead through the thick material when she leaned her full weight on it. No temperature, just an existence passed on through stiffness alone.

“……It’s troublesome.” Lumi’s voice was tear-choked. “……Doing something like this is troublesome!”

“I see.”

He didn’t ask why or how. Seymour merely kept driving in silence.

He could hear the girl’s sobbing. He wanted to gently stroke her shivering back, but that was impossible while he was driving.

Listening to her voice, Seymour thought he wanted to cry just like her. Even though it’d have been fine if all of it had been a lie.

She was a monster, and if that meant that her every word was a lie and all her behavior was nothing but falsehoods, something like this would never have happened.

Her mother’s

Her father’s

Her childhood’s

The vampire had hidden something in those identifiers that she had said to him The fact that she had grown up without any family, having been created by the world. She had been concealing the feelings nurtured by that upbringing.

And Seymour realized what she had been hiding.

She wasn’t human, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t feel anything. She was a monster, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t get hurt. He had noticed that discrepancy.

“……Let’s go home, okay?” Seymour turned the car in the direction of his home.

The dark of the city night quietly took them into its embrace.

❖ ── ✦ ──『✙』── ✦ ── ❖

“I’m off.”

By the time she finished saying the words, Lumi had already transformed her body into a cluster of bats, forming an overlapping concert of flapping and rustling. Seymour, who had been lying in the back seat of his Essex, lightly waved a hand.

“Take care.”

The bats rose up all at once, turning into a single stream as they fluttered out of the car. Seymour reflexively closed his eyes as countless wings and leathery skin brushed past him, and when he opened them again, Lumi Spike was already gone. The night sky peeked into the garage through the open shutter.

Lumi had started to inform him whenever she left by herself. Previously she had simply sneaked out in silence, but nowadays it had become the norm for her to give him a holler, albeit never mentioning where she was going. The same applied to Seymour’s reply of 『Take care』.

He peeled off the fur stuck to his face while smoking his cigarette.

I wonder whether this is fine. Well, it probably is. Something like playing house with a monster which ate humans was the perfect funny party story, but it really isn’t so bad. The day where I get killed by Lumi Spike might arrive someday, but that would merely add the perfect punchline to the perfect joke in this city.

For the time being, I don’t feel any more nausea. I don’t know where the future will lead by spending my days like this, but then again, I never wondered about the future during my time as an ordinary courier either.

For the time being, as long as things stay like this, I’ll doubtlessly be reasonably happy.

He tossed the stump of his cigarette out of the window, and pulled himself into the driver’s seat from where he was. Entering the driver’s seat upside-down, he somehow managed to turn himself around, grasping the wheel in proper posture.

For the time being, I’ve got to do today’s work.

For the time being, for the time being, for the time being…compromising on all kinds of things, postponing all kinds of things, and averting the eyes from all kinds of things. Handling things this way, humans can lead an unexpectedly good life and become happy. Should I consider that a salvation or a curse?

While brooding about all this, Seymour started the engine, driving the car out of the garage, but came to a stop just outside. He felt like he had become terribly exhausted just from that, and thus required a break.

It was at that very moment that his car was loudly kicked.

“────?”

Contrary to the noise, Seymour’s surprise was non-existent. When he lifted his gaze, his mind still lethargic, he saw a man. Long, slicked-back hair. Starving eyes. Lips lifted as if to show off fangs. A wolfish man whose impact was on a completely different level. A member of Murder Inc.

That man placed a foot on the Essex’s bonnet. He pressed down on the bonnet with that foot, as if threatening to crush the car underfoot.

Seeing his face, Seymour tilted his head in confusion.

“Do you have some business with me?”

Even as he asked his question, Seymour already had a hunch. The hunch that such a half-assed daily life wouldn’t be allowed in this city.

“Come, courier.” The man growled. “We’ll kill Lumi Spike.”

You can find story with these keywords: No Heaven for Vampires, Read No Heaven for Vampires, No Heaven for Vampires novel, No Heaven for Vampires book, No Heaven for Vampires story, No Heaven for Vampires full, No Heaven for Vampires Latest Chapter