Lethal Beauty

LI - Perfect Match

Fifty-year-old Carlisle darted awake and immediately acted as if he was shielding himself from an attacker. But he wasn't alone. A man and a woman were watching him with keen eyes. He was drenched in sweat, with cuts and bruises on his face, neck, arms, and back.

Aside from Delbert and Judy, everything was unfamiliar. The whole room though looked elegant, functional, and minimal blending red, black, and gold. "Where are we?"

"Calm down," Delbert handed him a cup of tea and he noticed a cigar pinned in his mouth. "You're safe with us."

He took the cup with trembling hands. The memory of the earlier battle would be engraved in his mind forever. As a vampire hunter and now Director of the Elite Hunter Protection Unit in Rome, he rarely faced shtriga. When he had a chance to do so, they mostly appeared beastly, not someone familiar nor known to him.

"Jim..."

"Yeah," Judy nodded. "I'm sorry, I couldn't warn you fast. I was trying to but I figured if you knew about him being---"

"You knew?!"

"I felt that he was trying to get me to trust him," she explained. "He was smart at one time, stupid at the other. Switching roles. He also smells...unusual."

"How would you know that?"

She looked at Delbert who nudged her to continue. "I'm a dhampir."

"Ah, what?!"

The door opened, and a man with perfectly accentuated features strode inside, carrying a bundle of clean clothes. He studied Carlisle in a beat, then closed the door behind him and walked closer to where the bed and his guests were huddled.

"Who is this person?" Carlisle turned questioningly at his agents. He hadn't recovered yet from the confession Judy just made.

"Hello there, Carlisle Forster Hill. Great Grandson of Varuca Helena Forster, a professor of Saint Constantine. Let me introduce myself, my name is Jessen Milen Laiho but I am known by many names. I am a writer in your world and shared a couple of information regarding the House of Elders in some of my books. Unfortunately, some humans thought it was nothing but pure fiction. A fairy tale, so to speak."

For this man to know about him and his grandmother meant only one thing. "You're an Elder."

"Good guess," Jessen smirked and threw the change of clothes onto his lap.

"I'm sorry, Delbert you have been with an Elder and a...dhampir?"

Delbert got rid of his fourth cigarette of the day. "It's a long story. But what happened was that you were very nearly done by a shtriga made by a dhampir." Carlisle frowned and stared at Judy. Delbert quickly added, "No, it isn't her. This is someone else. Someone very young and very powerful. This...dhampir is looking for his twin brother and has the ability to turn every living creature into a cannibal beast by making them drink his blood."

"The shtriga that you faced is a very special one that can only be created by this dhampir," Judy said. "The bullet that Jessen used to kill Jim contained the blood of his twin. That twin can do the exact opposite and can take back the Gift of Lilith." As she was done explaining, she gave him a sample of the bullet.

"How did you acquire the blood?" Carlisle was still skeptical, though, in his hand, he could see a very unusual bullet with a transparent container, clearly showing that instead of gunpowder, what was inside was blood.

Jessen returned from the bathroom. "Given to me by their grandmother."

"Wait, their grandmother is an Elder?"

"She was a vampire hunter. Just like you guys. Or what you used to be before you changed your name and your leaders started making a deal with us," the Elder added with a wide smile.