Fiends of the Rising Sun by David Bishop Page B

thrown into the water looked more like a funeral wreath, and there was nothing happy or cheerful about that.
     
    Hitori remained on the balcony after Constanta had gone, watching the horizon as dawn crept nearer, the imminent sunrise already lightening the distant sky. Night was becoming day once more. For most people, that was something to be celebrated, but Hitori knew it would be fatal for him if he remained out on the terrace. Perhaps that would be for the best, Hitori mused, a kind of vampyr ritual suicide, seppuku for the undead. He had drained the blood from six people in the night, had drunk their life as if it were water, had feasted on their essences. What kind of monster did that make him? What right did he have to take their lives to sustain his own?
    Killing on the battlefield was regrettable, but that was the nature of war. Trainee soldiers were told that it was not murder, but killing in the furtherance of a greater cause. Hitori grimaced. Did he believe that anymore? Had he ever believed it? No matter. The past was irrelevant. He had a decision to make, here and now: embrace the future as a creature of the night, or sacrifice himself to the daylight. The latter choice might keep the vampyr taint away from Japan for a while longer, but there was little doubt Constanta would return and offer the same opportunity to another soldier. No, if anyone had to carry this burden, it had better be me, Hitori decided. I will serve the empire as best I can and for as long as I can, until the hunger undoes me.
    He walked inside as the first beams of sunlight stabbed through the clouds to illuminate the morning. General Tojo was waiting for Hitori, his face betraying nothing. "Well? How do you feel? Has this Rumanian made you stronger, more powerful?"
    "Yes, general," Hitori conceded.
    "Excellent. Word of your demise in Manchuria has already been posted and I sent my adjutant to break the news to your beautiful young wife, Aiko."
    "Thank you, sir."
    Tojo took a piece of paper from his desk and handed the document to Hitori. It was marked with the emperor's seal. "This gives you power to requisition anyone and anything you need to further your cause. War with the Americans is imminent and you will play a vital part in ensuring our first strike is an effective one. The greater the surprise, the deadlier our blow will be." A knock at the office door interrupted them. "Come!" the general snapped.
    Suzuki entered and bowed low to both men. "Aiko Hitori has been told of her husband's unfortunate demise," he reported.
    "Very good," Tojo said. "There is no turning back for you, Zenji. Your future is bound up in the inevitable war to come. The same will soon be true for all of Japan, all of the empire. I have much to do in preparation for that glorious day, and so do you. Dismissed." The general returned to his desk and sat down, doing his best to ignore the others.
    Hitori let his friend usher him out. But the vampyr paused to look back over his shoulder at one of Japan's most powerful men. Tojo was trying to drink from a steaming cup of green tea, but his right hand was shaking too much. The general was forced to use both hands to hold the cup steady, his fingers visibly trembling. He's terrified, Hitori realised, terrified of me. The Minister of War for Japan is afraid of me.
    Suzuki closed the office door. "I'm sorry, Zenji, he made me tell Aiko about you dying in Manchuria. She's... She didn't take the news well." Suzuki waited, but his friend did not react. "Zenji, did you hear what I said?" He grabbed Hitori by the arm. "Zenji!"
    Hitori frowned. "Don't touch me," he warned.
    "But you were-"
    "It doesn't matter, not anymore."
    "What about Aiko?"
    "I can't think about her, not now." Hitori looked along the corridor in both directions. From his time as Tojo's adjutant, he knew that this early in the morning most of the building was still empty. "Your office, is it still by the stairs?"
    "Y-Yes... Why do you ask?"
    "I need your