The book of blood and tears

Time: 00:10
Place: Southside, centrum.
Weather: Cold, dark, lonely, a bit of rain
outfit
A topic dedicated to @Letha Aetós

Armed from head to toe, he headed out to find a new vampire, who often was found at the Southside. This came as no surprise to Mono. The dark creatures, not to mention murders, often happened to be at southside. He sighed and continued to walk straight ahead in the dark.
Here he took a folded piece of paper up from his pocket and unfolded it. A drawn picture in black and white was showing of the vampire. After all, they couldn´t be shown on photographs. Curiously he tilted his head. She was a gorgeous girl. But unfortunately a vampire.
It made him wonder. was she a born one or a created one? what if it was against her will?
Then again, her reckord of killing told him, that she indeed enjoyed her power and what she was.
speaking of which. all of sudden, she was there, not more than a few meters from him. She was casually talking to someone else. Here he hid and stayed in the shadows, waited for her to be alone and when she finally was, he followed, still hidding in shadows and walking on tip toes.

It had been a long day, another boy had been reported missing from the area and Letha was starting to fear that there was talk about a serial kidnapper, or even worse a killer. But none of the bodies had turned up yet, which made it every hard to actually finding anything. She had met with another concerned mother, it was clear that the police were overworked in this area as it was, so many thoughted that their boys might end up last on the list, purely because most of them already had a bad history of criminal offences, smaller ones but enough that many investigators just pushed it of as gang related stuff, as one often heard here in southside. For Letha it meant that most of her work always brought her back here even after she moved away.

After getting some of the boys’ belongings in a plastic bag, and a picture of him so she had something to go on, she walked back to her pickup truck to get back to Aston, Zadkiel was waiting for her and she had promised she be back before he went to sleep which, to be honest already was too late for that. She picked up her phone and found his number and called it up, voicemail of course “Hey hun, I’m sorry I didn’t come home in time before you had to go to bed, well just letting you know I’m on my way and I should be there in half an hour, -“ she was so close to say I love you, but ended with just ending the call and putting the mobile back into her pocket that was when she noticed it, it wasn’t very obvious, but something was trailing her, she was sure. Her steps started to pick up speed, hopefully she would reach the car, and realize it was just her imagination playing tricks on her.

The second she took out her phone and talked about not being there to tuck someone into bed, his tongue suddenly felt so dry. Was she talking to her kid? Great. Just great.
Yes. He knew he needed to get his mind straight. Either kill the vampire or don´t kill them at all. Do not think about who they would be taken from. But somewhat in his head… vampires had no one to care for. They were monsters.
… right?
He sighed and shook his head. This one was. He had read her papers. In the past she had done terrible things. That was what he should be focused on right now.
and he was no fool. He knew she now had sensed he was there. She was picking up her speed. A vampire senses was high, so it was no surprise to she had picked up his sent or whatever. Even though he had made sure to stay down wind.
He hissed lowly to himself and started to pick up the pace as well. Before she could reach her car, he threw one of his gadgets after her, ropes there would be clinging around her legs, making her tip over.
Her he ran over to her and would place a foot on her back, if she had fallen over, only to bring out a dagger. With a push one a button, the dagger turned into a spear and as he raised it, she stepped off her and turned her around with his food.
Ready to stab her, he got surprised by a dog´s bark and made him unfocused for a few second, but enough for her to turn the tables around.

She had maybe expected a thief, maybe a madman trying to rape her. So, when something jammed around her legs making her fall to the pavement. “What the hell” she mumbled through the pain of her hands being what had taken most of the fall, and also her chin.
She had never met a hunter; but she had heard about them. Even been warned about some of the crazy one’s that would always kill, even if a vampire hadn’t done anything.
Then she felt the foot that pushed her down. No voice. No warning, just clean and efficient. It was clear that he meant to kill her, without even questioning her. Who did he even now that she was a vampire? She had her aura up!

He turned her around, and her eyes glided up looking at him. This man. A human no less. Was looking down at her, like she was the worst scum he had ever seen. A spear was pointed towards her, and that was when her instincts kicked in. As soon as she heard the dog bark, she grabbed the spear and used the element of surprise to her advantage.
“Get the fuck of me!” she shouted as she pushed him back with the spear, but also used the sharp edge to cut off whatever had her legs tied together. She got up on her legs and took a few steps back. What was she supposed to do? Just run off or try to get into the car?
Once again, she felt herself lucky that she didn’t have any heartbeat or pulse. She felt calm even under this extreme situation. Why was he even trying to kill her? Was this somehow linked to the fact that she didn’t know who she was? This Ilene person?

As expected, she fought back, pushing him back by the spear. By being only a human, he tumbled a bit back, keeping his weapon by his side. Her expression screamed one word: why?
Didn´t she had any idea of what she had done? Why was she looking so perplexed by his attack? She must have known someone would come for her, one day or another, right?!
He huffed and lifted the spear. With a swift and huss sound, it made itself shorter, now more looking like some sort of dagger.
“Don´t look at me like that, You had this coming Ilene, you should know that,” he hissed, but couldn´t help but smirk superior at her. He wasn´t afraid. This was his living and his prophecy. One day he was going to get his future murder. That or he/she would get him.
The spear got placed back in it´s belt and in its place, he brought out the thread, made of silver and barely visible.
Here he ran towards her, ready to snap the thread around her neck, in hopes off getting her killed fast and clean.

Oh great, just great it was because of this Ilene person! Why, why did she come back to haunt her all the time. Of course, she had realized that she had been that person. But the big thing was, had. She wasn’t anymore, she only did good things, she drank blood from bloodbank’s so shouldn’t she get the chance to live a normal live? How come vampires should be killed, juts because they were that vampires.

“I’m not Ilene!” she shouted getting scared now, he was set on killing her so much was sure. She could see it in his eyes, and maybe she deserved it. She didn’t know what she had done after her memory had been taken away from her. Maybe she really had been the worst kind of vampires, those vampires she had helped kill back in the day.
But she had something to live for now, she wanted to show the world that vampires could do good as well. She got up on her feet and started running towards the car, only to feel how his arms swung around her, it was pure instinct that made her hands grab around her neck and stopped the sharp silver thread from cutting of her head in one clean motion.
“Please! I’m not a bad person, I don’t know who this Ilene person is! My name is Letha! I have proof!” she begged and felt how tears of fear started gliding down her cheeks.

She was not Ilene.
That was new. He had never met a vampire who claimed to be another person. It sounded like a bad excuse. He snorted by that and didn´t answer. For now, he just wanted to get to business so he could get home.
Ready to let the string snap her neck, he was not prepared for her to grab it and pleading him not to do it. She even had proof that she was not the one he thought she was. For some reason, it was the word please that hit him. The other part of him was now speaking to him once again. The one who was against all this. The one who just wanted it all to stop.
So… he did… he released the threat and took a step back. He was still ready to defend himself if it was the case.
“Letha? What are you talking about?” he asked sternly. Now she had the chance to show her proof. It was a first time for him, that a vampire reacted to him like this. Usually they tried attacking back and killing him as well. But claiming another identity… that hit his curiosity more than he would like to know.

She started coughing as he finally let her go and put some distance between the two of them. She wasn’t about to squander this chance of getting to live another day, and she started to open her jacket and even as he would see the gun that was in its holster; “I’m just going to reach for my badge okay” she said, and was very careful about how she moved, she wasn’t too fast as she finally grabbed her badge and folded it out. There he would see her picture and her name, and the fact that she was a private detective. It really had its benefits that she had been in the army, and in the police special force, before she had turned to this line of work.
She sank nervously and wasn’t ready to drop her guard just yet. What if he decided that even if she wasn’t that vampire, that she was still a vampire and needed to be killed.

“But I might now why you think I am her” she whispered, not really understanding herself why she was so truthfully with a person that just tried to kill her; “I, lost my memory 30 years ago, and the person you are trying to kill might be me, or her – but I'm not that person anymore!” she tried to exclaim, as she put more distance between them both standing on the other side of the car now. Her blue eyes begging him to understand, and not killing her. Because in the end she wouldn't be able to kill him, not this up close, it had been something else when she had been a sniper. There she had killed because her goverment had ordered her too, and it had been through a scoope, not some one standing directly in front of her. "And I really want to live" she whispered.

It was no lie. In front of him stood a police officer. Her badge proved it and without admitting it, he found himself rather foolish, for not checking up on all of this before attacking her. His face showed nothing of these emotions though. Instead he stood stone cold and raised an eyebrow as she talked.
She lost her memory a long time ago. So, the person standing in front of him was the murderous vampire, vut yet, she didn´t remember a single thing from it. Her life was changed. Her personality had changed.
But what really hit him in the heart was her little whispering pleading at the end. She really wanted to live. This just reminded him of Fleur.
He took a deep breath and sighed. “Alright… this made it all rather tricking… I admit that…” Here he raised his head and looked at her. “How did you lose your memory?”
Not that he didn´t believe her. But it was a rather interesting case. In a way of showing her he would not attack her again, he threw the thread aside, letting it almost disappear in the darkness.
If she decided to attack, he had a backup plan.

She let her fingers wander over her neck and felt how blood was pushing through small nicks from where her hands couldn’t push the metal wire away from her. Just like that? He was going to stop killing her? That seemed rather convenient. She took a deep breath and put a hand over her chest where her heart would be beating if she had a living heart.
How did you lose your memory? Well if she knew that, she wouldn’t give him that kind of information she had just given him. But if this was getting her further out of trouble, she didn’t mind telling him everything she knew. “Woke up in a hospital in Greece, they found me on the stairs, got my name because the nurse thought it was fitting – Letha is the river in the underworld where souls forget their memories” she explained while still having her eyes on his hands. Just as he was ready to counterattack her, she was ready for if he changed his mind. Right now, she only had her own strength and the gun laying on the car.
“Do I don’t know or remember how I lost it, just for the last thirty years I didn’t know where I came from, or who I was before .. this”

They found her in Greece. Just laying there on the stairs?
He took a deep breath and nodded. “Alright, alright… I see… so you don´t remember all these horrible things you have done? You don´t remember who was in your life before hand? And why do I ask you this, when you just told me that you don´t.” He sighed annoyed over himself and slapped himself in the head. Here he grunted behind his hand and removed it. “I do apologize… not that it probably means anything…”
sort of flustered he looked the other way.
He suddenly felt so vulnerable all sudden. Why was he doing this?
He sighed and straightened himself up. No time for weakness!
“I will leave you alone… if you are no longer the person I´m searching for… then there is nothing I can do,” he bluntly said.
 

As he kept on talking Letha started looking a little shaking with the whole thing. She knew that hunter normally was bad news, but in her line of work she also knew that no person was the same. Did he have a job on her? Her eyes got a little smaller as her brows pushed together. Something didn’t feel right about the whole thing.
“It’s okay” she finally stammered, not that it was. But she couldn’t stay mad at a person that clearly wasn’t as bad as she had first thought.
There were so many emotions going through his face, she could almost smell it on him as he tried to pick himself up and not show her that he was feeling something other than the strength he put on in the end.

“Want to go grab a cup of coffee?” She finally asked, and put her id away in her jacket pocket and her gun back in its holster “You look like you had a very long night, and I’m late on getting home anyway” she gave him a soft smile “Besides, I think you owe me” she would have let out a small chuckle, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was still visible shaken from the whole thing.

He couldn’t believe it.
The vampire, or the person, he had just tried to kill, invited him on a coffee and said the words: It´s okay.
And he did not hide his perplexed expression. He even stumbled out a “wh… what?”
Yet… he quickly removed it and smiled softly, removed a bang from his forehead and nodded.
“yeah, yeah, that sounds nice,” he finally answered. “And yes, I am defiantly owing you.”
Here he slowly started to walk towards a coffee place nearby. Luckily, they lived in a city where things often stayed open for a very long time.
The door opened for them and he looked around. There was no one around. besides the barista´s behind the counter. She smiled softly at them and welcomed them.
“What… what would you like?” he kindly asked Letha. He looked from her to the barista.

“Do you want to grab a cup of coffee with me?” she asked again, this time a soft smile formed on her lips, as he clearly hadn’t been prepared for how she was reacting right now. But there was a small ulteriorly motive for why she was asking him to come with her. There had been a reason why he was after her today, and she wanted to know why. Maybe he could explain something more about this woman Ilene than others had wanted to tell her. Always being on the offence and not wanting to let her know too much.
She nodded as he started to walk towards a small café that were still open this time of hour. The small bell chimed as they walked inside, and a beautiful young woman perked up from the counter clearly looking at her phone. “Just a black coffee” she said with a soft smile towards him and then to the barista. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just go over and sit down” she said with a soft voice and before he could answer she was already walking towards a seating area with leather chairs. A small sigh left her lips as she sat down, her legs were still shaking and she had to close her eyes for just as second to get her barrings. What a night.

so... this night had taken a twist.
As she answered, black coffee, Mono smiled with a nod and asked for the same to the barista. Now in silence, they found a booth to sit down, nervously looking around, not knowing what to say. Or maybe that was just him.
He coughed awkwardly down at his hand and looked at her, ready to say something, when the barista came down to them, with two cups and the coffee.
"Here you go," she happily said and then left them alone.
Mono tried to calmly pour them both the coffee. Yet his shaky hands busted him in being rather nervous. quickly he placed the coffee down and lifted his cup.
"Can I ask... why?" he now mumbled out, keeping his eyes on the coffee, feeling its heat hid his cheeks. "why you asked me for a coffee I mean."

“Thank you” Letha said sweetly to the barista as she came down with the coffee to them. She then looked at how he shakily poured them both a cup and then placed it towards her. The vampire on the other hand took the cup and placed it on her lips, as if she was sitting over for a very good friend. It was clear she wasn’t faced by this at all, some would think that it should have been the other way around, since he had attacked her and not the other way around.

“Why?” she asked back, but he quickly added the last part, why had she asked him out for coffee? “There is a couple of reasons” she started and gave him a gentle smile “You aren’t the first that thought I was someone else, and I wanted to let you see that I’m not as dangerous as I clearly once was” that was at least some of them, she took a small sip of the coffee “and you seemed flustered, and I didn’t want you to walk away feeling like you had done something wrong today” she then added turning her pale grey eyes towards him.