drink,’ he began, ‘…but instead I find two young girls holding up the Yakuza in their own casino. How… intriguing.’
I glanced anxiously at Saga, she looked ready to burst with anger. I blushed and tried to look away as Tyr chuckled, a deep rumble that faded as he continued.
‘You two are nothing alike are you? No matter. There are things we must discuss, things better said in private.’
‘We are staying right here.’ Saga declared, her voice rising as if to challenge him. Tyr seemed oblivious, intently focused for a moment on the swirling of his drink. He slammed it on the table abruptly, suddenly serious.
‘Stop fooling around. Did you honestly think you weren’t the only ones out there?’
‘Only what?’ I blurted, clinging to the table, ‘Can you read minds too?’
I had barely spoken aloud at all in years; it was a strange sensation. Saga shot me a venomous look that set my cheeks burning again. Tyr looked me dead in the eye.
‘You don’t know, do you?’ He shook his head before continuing in a low voice.
‘I grow tired of explaining this to people… There is a race of people like you and I. People with… talents. Some call us demons, some call us gods; it doesn’t matter. We call ourselves the Vanir.’
I stared disbelievingly at him, but he merely nodded and went on.
‘Come now, have you never seen someone do something impossible? I know of at least three in Tankenkuro alone.’
Saga scoffed, but my thoughts trailed back to Llyrian’s fight earlier. I could still remember that strange sensation of kinship that brushed past me as I watched from atop the roof… We had never met before; that I was sure of, but for some reason I felt like I could trust him. I had put it down to my imagination at the time, but now I was not so sure.
Saga however had no such illusions; she laughed coldly and planted her glass on the table.
‘You expect us to believe you? A hidden… race of people like us? Try a girl who is more gullible next time.’
Her eyes widened and her voice faltered. Pure white scales, seemingly cut from the moon itself, were spreading across Tyr’s face in smooth streaks. They sliced through the flesh, tiny beads of blood welling up around the crystalline armour. Icy talons curled from his outstretched hand, carving thin scars across the scotch glass. His warm golden eyes burned away into pools of primordial flame, bleeding an unspeakable malice that shook me to my very core.
‘Do not… provoke me.’
He hissed the words with a tongue of black ice, a feral mask of rage snarled across his reptilian face. A venomous grin curled across those bloodless lips. His razor-like teeth sliced into view for but an instant, a line of painfully white daggers locked together like tombstones.
And then, abruptly as it had started, it was over. There he was again before me, soft smile and handsome if pale face watching the two of us eagerly. Only the thin white scars on the glass remained.
‘I… I think he’s telling the truth…’ I stammered, not moving my eyes from that charming face for a fraction of a second. I didn’t dare. Saga shuddered beside me, but said nothing.
‘Do not deny it; you know it to be true. Vanir can sense one another; you must have encountered one before.’ It was not a question.
Hairs raised on my neck as I thought back- I had noticed a strange sensation when Llyrian was fighting earlier, even before I had seen him. I no longer doubted it; Tyr was telling the truth.
‘There is something approaching,’ he went on, staring at us each in turn. ‘Something ripe from the forge of creation is hurtling towards us even now. There are few among us who can feel it, but a great cataclysm is coming. The sensation grows stronger every day… Perhaps it is the coming war I feel, the echoes cast back along time in the ripple of ages. It is inevitable. With our numbers growing, how long before man realises he is not alone?’
I would have thought him a madman, were it not for those eyes I had seen. Powerful; dangerous even, but not mad.
‘…but what do you want with us?’ Saga breathed curtly. The air of command from earlier had melted completely, torn to shreds by the storm that lay within that man. He smiled reassuringly.
‘I offer sanctuary. Many of our people are without food or shelter; and that is why I founded a home for them. A place where Vanir can live together in harmony, without fear of mankind. An oasis of hope in the desolation of war.’
Saga frowned, biting her lip.
‘Why does there need to be a war? Saga and I managed to live alongside them this long...’ I uttered, trailing off slowly.
Tyr swilled his drink thoughtfully before answering.
‘Granted, you two blend in easily enough. But what of the young girl I met back in Canada who grew a pair of angelic wings? She was fleeing from a mob when I found her. People who had once been her friends turned against her the very moment she… ascended.’
He drank from the glass, a bitter expression crossing his face as he went on.
‘Ethnocentrism. Supremacism. Racism. There are a million different words for it, but they all mean the same thing in the end. Man has feared and hated those who are different throughout all of history- from the plains of Warsaw to the killing fields of Cambodia. And those were just minor ethnic or religious differences; imagine what will happen when the Vanir are revealed. All out, total war.’
Sweat dripped down my neck as I listened. I wanted to shrug, to denounce his words as mere delusion, but I could not. I didn’t dare. I knew in my very core that I was hearing the truth, a truth more brutal and unforgiving than any before.
‘What happened to that girl?’ I stuttered, ‘y’know, the one with the w…wings? He grimaced.
‘She was half dead with terror, crying and running in the snow. The villagers caught her in the end, attacked her. Had I not been there by chance to intervene, they could have killed her. Young Gabrielle is safe back at my mansion now, far from any who would do her harm.’
I nodded, mind rolling amidst a maelstrom of crashing thoughts. How long had we been out there? On the streets of Tankenkuro, taking what we wanted without a thought for the consequences? I felt incredibly small, a mere speck amidst the vast oceans of the world.
Saga stirred.
‘You seem very certain about this coming war. Couldn’t your… our… people hide among the humans? Live in secrecy?’
Tyr burst out laughing, rocking back in his chair. Wiping his mouth, he levelled his gaze.
‘Ha! Hide the deformed behind painted masks, while the angels clip their wings? No, if we did that we would truly be lost. Even if it could be done, it could hardly be called living.’
He sighed, staring at the glass before him.
‘Man will never share the world. The sooner you two come to grips with that, the better. A few Vanir already fight in small groups- the odd gang conflict here, the occasional uprising in Burma… Most governments are still unaware of us, for the time being; they consider us mere rumours. Hopefully we have a few years left before the real war starts, but I want to be prepared for when it does.’
‘At least we have our shield…’ I whispered to Saga. She glanced at me, eyes laced with doubt.
‘If it doesn’t work on him…’
A lump forming in my throat, I turned to Tyr.
‘Then why are you here?’ I whispered carefully. My voice was hoarse with emotion, throat raw and painful. I swallowed, and continued.
‘If you are looking for… for warriors, why come to Tankenkuro? All we have here are fat gunmen.’
‘Actually,’ Tyr began, ‘I came here tracking such a Vanir. A man who goes by the name of Llyrian, here in Tokyo. He and I had a similar talk about an...’
A loud crash cut Tyr off mid-sentence. The great doors of the casino smashed open as three brutish men burst into the room. I gasped as one man pointed at our table, their guns levelling as they aimed directly for me.
The roar of gunfire screeched across the air; I shrank back against my sister in a tiny ball. I h
eard the metallic clink of cartridges bouncing across the floor, breaking the painful stillness. After a moment’s silence, I dared to open my eyes.
Tyr was standing in front of us, his broad shoulders set as he faced those men. In one hand he held two bullets, bullets that had been meant for us. He sighed, turning them over in his hands.
‘Using the weapons of man against your own kind? Fools. You will need more than human toys to bring down me.’
He let the bullets fall, the metallic clatter lost in the sound of sliding flesh as his body began to change. Those scales of moonlight cut across his right arm, white claws casting shadows across the walls. Two of the men turned to flee, but he was upon them in an instant, tearing, biting, shredding as he beat them back into the corner, their faces lacerated with clinical precision. Screams mixed into the sounds of ripping flesh, a raucous cacophony that even I could not shut out. He gave no quarter, no mercy as he cut them down. The voices faltered and died.
At last, he turned from his bloody work, the wall stained crimson behind him. His scaled arm was somehow immaculately clean and pure once more, flawless amidst the visceral wreckage. The last man glared in anger, his eyes glowing a rancid yellow.
He tore away his shirt in one movement. Yakuza tattoos coated his broad shoulders, along with many others. And there on the centre of his chest was a large white star. I did not know what it meant, but Tyr stared at that tattoo as though he saw his own face looking back at him.
The man… the Vanir turned and