Lethal Beauty

XXVIII - The Masque of Death

[TW: This part contains content that some might find disturbing, reader's discretion is advised]

Nikita Yuri Romanov.

That was the name she remembered.

The name she last recalled.

She was barely thirteen when she was first introduced to the Vampire Hunter Guild. She came from the suburbs but was raised in an orphanage when the Templar Knights came in and started taking in young girls to train them as soldiers. They have chosen those with healthy physiques, athletic and agile. Even when there were over a hundred of them who passed the physical exam, only around twenty were accepted and it became even less when they were assigned to the agency.

They said female soldiers were difficult to train, but they were effective for subterfuge and scouting, and they could be effective assassins. The cause to protect humans made her proud of who she was, and she had murdered thousands of these bloodsuckers brutally and without mercy. Until the shtriga came and they were introduced to the Elders.

The House of Elders. A group of ancient vampires working alongside humans yet responsible for the creation of the other vampires. She never understood why would the human government involved themselves in these creatures. Then, it boiled down to that one subject everyone was obsessed with---immortality.

Eternal life. Everlasting youth.

The ability to live forever. Not getting sick. Not dying of disease.

Perhaps it was karma that brought them shtriga. Nevertheless, humans suddenly found themselves on the brink of extinction.

Then, Project Eve came. She was chosen. Again. Out of all the five females who wanted to be the first to bear a child to save the humans from extinction. To carry the first bloodline and result of human and vampire mating through artificial insemination. It left her wondering if she was being judged too. For carrying a child of science. It felt strange that she never experienced any joy in the process but she was still thrilled with the idea of motherhood and that she would have a baby at the tender age of twenty. But as the child's birth approached, she started realizing that this wasn't a normal kind of situation. That what she was carrying was more than a problem.

It was the worst kind.

The supernatural one.

Not only did the child grow much faster in her stomach. There were times that she would wake up with something kicking in her abdomen and she would crouch in pain. In a span of three months, her tummy bulged as though she was about to give birth. Her excessive weight loss was so great that people thought she was suffering from anorexia despite eating food meant for three people. There was also a change in her appetite for she preferred her meat red and raw. Every night she would crave food and, in the morning, she would sleep until noon.

Although she loved her, even before she met her. She was afraid to even have an ultrasound, wondering what would the doctor see in her stomach. The whore of Babylon perched on a seven-headed scarlet beast?

The thing was, she never thought she would survive the war with vampires and war with shtriga only to give birth to a daughter of abomination and filth.

"Hello, Mother. I missed you..." this was what she said.

To Janne, it meant more.

Eve was holding something in her right hand---a Venetian mask. It made Janne recall the moment she first brought the little girl to Rome for a brief vacation. Introduced her to the place where the vampires were first born. Or at least, the first place they were discovered. Considering the age of the House of Elders, no one knew where and how they began.