Vampire Agent (English Version)

Chapter 1

Widow

I tasted the warm blood of my victim on my tongue. For a few minutes I was busy robbing the body of the red liquid before I let go of him to search the pockets of his suit. Quite quickly I found what I was looking for and held the small data carrier in the air.
"Such a waste.", I muttered and pocketed the flash drive, "That suit must have been very expensive."
Then I dumped the body in a nearby dumpster. I sent a text message with the current location to the disposal service and pocketed my phone again. That job was done. For a second, I looked around and let my gaze slide over the windows of the side street. While I was sure that no one had followed us, I still had to make clear that no one had observed this spectacle. Otherwise, I had to take care of it. Thanks to the hat, they wouldn't have been able to see my face, but despite everything, caution was called for.
Although I was willing to take my chances.... It was early spring and already damn warm during the day. Therefore it annoyed me that I was dependent on the UV-rays resistant clothing, but this brought a life as a vampire with itself.
Nearly 180 years ago I was bitten.
I was lured into a trap. That I survived, I owed only to my partner, partner in the sense of detective, as is understood. He had chopped off the vampire's head during the bite.
In the meantime I knew that the virus was transmitted in this way, therefore I attached great importance to really finish a bite. Anything else would only bring further inconvenience, apart from the fact that it was extremely difficult to bring oneself under control during this kind of killing. There had been many complications because of which I had broken my tents in London and moved to New York at the beginning of the modern era.
I patted my pants down and left the alley to go to my black Jaguar parked a few blocks away. I instinctively took a different path than the one I had come in on. Away from the people and cops who were now gawking and holding notepads by the cab. Unquestionably, I had to hurry. As soon as it comes to a scandal, everyone wants to have something to report, if only to land on television. And a man in a cloak and hat is simply conspicuous, even in New York.
Unnoticed, I got in, started the engine and got in line with the other cars.
As a vampire, life was not so easy, but with enough brains you could adapt to it.
As a simple example: being alone.
After the first phase of loneliness and the first thirty years of watching everything age, you then became painfully aware that you no longer belonged in this society. As a rule, after a few more years, you were glad to have your peace from all these narrow-minded idiots.
In front of me a traffic light changed to red.
I braked annoyed and took off my hat to put it next to me on the passenger seat. Thank God I had combed my hair back with some gel this morning. Otherwise my light, black curls would now hang in my face and drive me crazy.

To directly take the wind out of the sails of all stories: Vampires did not sparkle in the sun, like in those absurd movies, Twilight or whatever the garbage was called.
From a certain generation of vampires on, however, the thing about the missing reflection was true, whatever the heck that was. We were immortal, with a few exceptions, and the rumor that we were mostly good-looking was unmistakably due to the fact that we had excellent taste in our charges. With a newborn vampire there was always the creator and the protégé, explains itself. And there were exceptions, as I was one. Cases in which there were unwanted disturbances. Cases when not the victim, but the vampire was killed. These vampires were then creatorless and could freely dispose of themselves, unless they met an very old noble and pureblooded vampire, which was then the exception in the exceptions.
Sun was harmful, but it was not deadly, even if it was hardly bearable on the skin. If you wore only a T-shirt, or a simple shirt, it was very likely that you would pass out within a very short time, in most cases from pain.
Silver injuries were to be avoided. A clean shot with a bullet could not kill us, but it could poison us. And from the poisoning we could then die. Also deadly for vampires were things like axes and chainsaws, or at least anything that could be used to decapitate us.
Wounds to the heart were also not life-threatening. Unless it was a silver injury, these wounds were just like any other: They healed without fuss. After all, it was the brain that controlled the body's functions, not the heart, which stopped beating in our case anyway.
Why didn't it beat?
Not the slightest clue.
So what exactly were we?
Probably some mutation of the human race, triggered by a virus of unknown origin, transmitted in a very strange way.
So, roughly summarized, I had no idea.
And no vampire I had met so far had an answer to this question.
Finally, the traffic light changed again. I stepped on the gas and drove to my apartment. After I got out of the car, I walked briskly through the stairwell, closed the door behind me and lowered the blinds. Then, relieved, I pulled off my cape and threw it over the only armchair in my small living room, as well as my gloves. I pulled off the sunglasses and put them folded up on the dresser under the windowsill.
Then I went into the bathroom, splashed water on my face, and turned my gaze to the mirror, but all I could see was the small window that was on the wall behind me. With a grumble, I dried my face and left the small room.
Since I had nothing to do for the moment, I sat down at my laptop in my bedroom and connected the flash drive I had taken from my victim. A code blocked my access. I rolled my eyes and set about hacking the password.
A few minutes later, I had access to all areas of the flash drive. I didn't usually check items I was supposed to get, but someone had paid me a lot of money to murder some idiot and retrieve important information. Usually there was between three and eight thousand dollars for a murder, depending on the conspicuousness and effort. This job had been advertised at $20,000 and getting this rat out of the way had been worth about $3,500 of that.
From which it can be concluded that $16,500 was just for retrieving this data. That was too much money for a normal job. And if I was paid a tidy sum, then I also wanted to know why and whether this knowledge was rightfully returned to its owner. Sure, morality in a vampire. But it was less morality, more common... common sense, if you could call it that with our species.
I skimmed a few documents quickly. Chemical contents, technical talk about some substances.
Then my gaze lingered on a saved e-mail:
'Everything about the poison and structure of the clan in the BACKS folder. Should you have any questions, you know how to reach me. Please commission the development immediately.'
...Poison?