Lethal Beauty

L - Snare

"Don't be a joke! You do understand I can't break protocols---"

"You're the only one who can help us. You have access to confidential files."

"Not all of them! Wait, where the hell are you---"

The call was cut. He looked at his phone exhaling in frustration.

Carlisle raised a hand to acknowledge an acquaintance passing by him as he headed to his office. He returned home only to find several missed calls and messages from Delbert Northwood himself. Although half of the story had been explained to him and he pretty much had a notion of what the World Government did with some of the members of the House of Elders through his grandmother, it still sounded like a fictional story straight out of a damned horror movie!

Yet, here he was returning to the office, unable to resist the urge not to take a glimpse of some of those files. Although his level of access was high enough to gain entry into some of the files considered protected by the superiors of the EHPU, he still needed a valid reason to explain why would he want to access projects that had nothing to do with him or any of the case his agents were handling in Rome. Perhaps, he should access the files first and then think of the consequences later.

As he was nearing his private office, he noticed Delbert's office illuminated judging from the lights slipping behind the vertical blinds of the glassed window. He knitted his brows and looked around the empty hallway and his body instinctively moved on his own.

The door was slightly ajar...

Somebody was indeed inside. He felt his gun on his back, hanging by his belt. Slowly, he pushed the door open, his feet were as light as a feather.

The whole office was a mess. Papers were strewn on the floor, and Delbert's computer was turned on and someone attached a USB on the side, copying files from it. The whole room appeared to be ransacked, even the drawers and filing cabinets were opened.

"What the fuck..."

The bathroom door opened on the right and out came Jim Neuron. Carlisle put two in two together and it suddenly hit him, like a bolt of lightning. Without asking, he immediately pointed the gun at him.

Jim didn't even react. He stood there, as still as a statue. "You're not supposed to be here, newbie."

"I came here at the behest of my master," he uttered.

"Your master?"

Hearing the sound of a CLICK, Jim slowly raised both of his hands. "I only needed some information. Only that. No one has to get hurt."

"Not for you to decide," Carlisle's stare didn't leave his face,

Bewilderment marred the other's face, smiling, sharp fangs started showing, and grayish to reddish veins spread from his neck until it was all over his face. Even the man's eyes transformed from their natural color to bright red. The overall feature of the man morphed into something else---

---something beastly. Horrid. Demonic.

"You're a...shtriga?"

But how could a shtriga appear as a human?

"I was given a gift," Jim spoke as though he had read his mind and unhurriedly peeled the bulk of his hair revealing a bald head. "We don't always have to look beautiful to achieve power. We can be civilized like the elites of this world. Ancient like the purebloods. You can join us, Carlisle."

"You're fucking insane!"

The man laughed and without a warning, he spun abnormally fast. This person in front of him was a shtriga but also a human. As strong and as fast as the Bloodsucking Immortals of the West.