A small moon is born on earth.

The tiny singularity of silver expands and detonates inside the vampire’s chest before continuing on its path. Speeding like a laser it rips into the ridge behind it, completely cutting through the rock. It continues for a while, before widening and expanding. The beam of moonlight irradiates the night sky, so brightly that it almost seems like day for an instant. As if the moon has landed on earth, and shattered into a thousand rays of silver.

Of course, I can’t see most of it since I shut my eyes automatically as soon as the light first detonated. However, after the winds have finished buffeting and the deafening roar in my ears finally subsides, when I finally open my eyes again ignoring the patches of red still dancing around my vision, I instinctively know.

This is her Soul Link.

I stride towards her, taking care not to worsen my wounds as I do so. She lies on her knees panting before the lower half of the feral vampire. Its upper half is nowhere to be seen… along with the middle section of the stone ridge. Instead a huge canyon has formed where the ray of moonlight hit, and a massive pile of debris and dust has settled at its base. I can only barely make out the opposite end of the gorge. The power contained in that single blow can only be described in one word – Godlike. The ability to modify the features of the earth itself, to create new landmarks.

“Moonlight,” Alice whispers.

The silver longsword in her hand shimmers and disappears, its role fulfilled.

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. I have no idea how many lives I ruined today.”

What a fitting name – the name of her Divine Edge could not have been anything else.

“The birds and the insects and the flowers… all for a single enemy.”

I kneel down and touch her lifeless left arm, probing gently. The bones have already set, and are beginning to mend. It will probably take a few days to regenerate a wound of this caliber – as opposed to the few months it would take an ordinary person.

“It’s over now,” I reassure, still trembling at the awesomeness of her attack. “No amount of thinking will change what happened. Your clan is safe. The feral vampire is dead.”

I pull her to her feet. Her hair is disheveled, and snow is beginning to settle on her fine blonde strands. Her frock is torn and bloodstained – we both look like we’ve stepped out of a war movie.

It’s over. We’ve won.

But the look on Alice’s face… is as if she’s lost.

“Hey, you owe me a jacket,” I say, trying to draw her away from her thoughts.

It seems to work. “I… Sorry. I was careless.”

I smile despite myself. We just narrowly avoided death and she’s worrying about a piece of clothing, and the amount of trees she killed.

“You look happy,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying not to dwell on it either. “Thinking of what you’re going to do with the money?”

I freeze. Money… yes, that’s right. It was all for the money, wasn’t it?

Right?

“Y-yeah,” I say.

I hope I’m convincing enough to her, because I sure aren’t convincing myself. Somewhere along the way, the thought of the bounty completely slipped my head. The real reason I’d followed her, the real reason I’d fought with her…

I wanted to help her. I wanted to protect her. By saving my life, even with questionable methods, I… I felt like I owed myself to her.

Looking away in embarrassment, I head over to the vampire’s small alcove. The smell of rotting flesh overwhelms me, and I have to struggle not to throw up.

“It stopped snowing,” Alice says from behind me.

I look at the pile of bones. There are bits and pieces of human litter amongst them – even here, out in the wilderness, humanity has left their mark.

“Wait a second… what’s this?”

Alice has stopped beside me and picks up a plastic wrapping. It looks like a panel of medicine tablets, except all the pills are gone.

“There’s more,” she continues, rifling through the junk.

I come closer to her to see. She’s right, there are more empty bottles and boxes of pills and drugs.

“This… this is cocaine,” she says, holding up a clear zip bag with traces of white inside.

“How do you know?”

“We dealt in drugs during a time when our clan was financially burdened. Those times are long past, but I’ve seen enough to be sure that this is an illicit drug.”

She kicks at the various pills and bottles. “In fact, I think these are all illegal drugs. Why else would they have no labels on them?”

She’s right. An unsettling feeling is taking over me.

“Why… why would there be drugs in a place like this?”

Alice turns to me, her mouth drawn into a thin line. “Drugs have a greater effect on vampires than humans, especially ones that tamper with the sensations we feel. In fact… some of them can make us lose our minds and become insane.”

We quietly stare back at the remains of the feral vampire behind us.

“Where would it have obtained all of this?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Someone… someone gave them to it.”

She tosses the litter aside. At that moment, a small cough startles us.

“Where’d that come from?” I ask.

Alice wordlessly pries apart some of the bones and the rotting corpses in the corner with her working arm. I swallow and help her, trying to ignore the sensation and the smell of the flesh as much as I can. It isn’t long before we find the source of the voice.

“It was a mother,” she whispers.

The newborn vampire stares at us with wide, curious eyes. It doesn’t look very old, a few weeks at most. It looks almost like a human child, except for its red eyes and the feral aura it gives off.

“So this is why it suddenly appeared out of nowhere,” Alice says. “It gave birth, and the newborn probably wasn’t satisfied with animal blood.”

The baby continues to stare wide-eyed at us.

“Are you saying someone mated with that… thing?” I ask.

“Well… babies have to come from somewhere, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if the father was the one who supplied all these drugs.”

I continue to stare at the baby. It doesn’t look dangerous now, but it could well grow up to become a threat to society.

I have to kill it.

Before I know it, I’ve drawn Nightfall.

“What are you doing?” Alice reacts. “It’s just a baby!”

“Its mother was under the influence of drugs,” I say. An unsettling calm has taken over me. “There’s no telling what side effects could be present in the child.”

It has to die.

It has to die, or it could ruin the life of an innocent, just like what happened to me.

It could grow up like its mother, and kill so many like she did.

“Even so… you can’t just kill it! It hasn’t done anything wrong yet!”

“It’s what your father would do. You can’t risk raising a feral infant that may or may not be controlled. If we leave it out here, it could become just as dangerous as its mother was.”

Alice immediately materializes Moonlight, but cringes in pain and drops it. The blade hits the ground and disappears.

She won’t be able to fight for a while, not after an attack like that.

“No,” she says, crouching over in pain. “You can’t.”

I take a good long look at her. She truly doesn’t want to kill it – her soul is too pure. She worries about everything, even the plants and animals she shares the same oxygen with.

Because of this, she is weak. Only the strong can survive in this world.

“I’ll go deep into the woods,” I finally say. “I’ll drop it somewhere where it won’t ever return to civilization. If it can’t fend for itself, it’s not my problem.”

Alice holds my gaze. “You promise you won’t kill it?”

It takes everything I have not to look away. “I won’t kill it.”

She slowly stands up, still maintaining eye contact. “I’ll head back first then. You know the way, right?”

I nod. I know the general direction.

She stays for a while longer, before turning and slowly trotting along the path of severed trunks.

When she moves out of sight, I lift the baby up to eye level. I don’t want to kill it.

Rain.

A horde of wraiths, whispering over and over again.

Dad’s tombstone, carved far too early.

Judith in a hospital bed, tubes and IV drips connected everywhere along her body.

“I have to do it,” I say to myself. “As long as there is a chance the demon could harm society, I have to kill it.”

It’s what ANGEL would want me to do. It’s the ‘right’ thing to do.

But Alice’s pleading look resurfaces in my mind.

Is it really the right thing to do?

I sit on a rock as the clouds eventually clear, and the beginnings of light begin to shine across the horizon. I still haven’t come to a decision. The baby has already fallen asleep.

In the end, I decide to flip a coin.

If it’s heads, I’ll kill it. If it’s tails, I’ll leave it out here with a one percent chance of survival.

The coin toss is the longest in my life. When it finally lands, I can’t help but question what I’m about to do.