Chapter 9.2

“Aah, I just wanted to play with Aidan, but Miller was interrupting us too much. He talked shit about me with the elders… he was interfering with everything I did. I’ve been living for so long, what’s wrong with playing around?”

Ben breathed. Ah, now I really have to stop listening to him. After listening some more, he felt like his really horrible voice was going to make him deaf.

“What? You don’t think I’m right even though I said this? How much more do I have to tell you?”

Jonas grumbled as he swept over his neatly combed hair. He was so childish that Ben couldn’t really figure it out. He was confused about what he really was like.

Ben quickly pulled out the gun and aimed it at Jonas. Whatever his plan was, Ben thought it would be better to blow his head.

“Oh, are you trying to kill me? But you only have one bullet.”

“I never make mistakes at this distance.”

Ben said coldly to Jonas while clenching his teeth. Jonas applauded as he liked it.

“You’ve got guts. Don’t you want to know? About Miller.”

His hand shook as Miller’s name was mentioned. Jonas didn’t miss it, so he bursted into laughter. He was obviously mocking Ben.

“Pff, it’s boring, so I’ll put it simply. Miller’s about 750 years old. That old fox!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why? Because you guys had sex and he didn’t suck your blood?”

“…”

Ben closed his mouth in a straight line when Jonas blatantly hit the nail on the head.

“It’s possible by 500 years, especially if you’re a fossil like Miller, he was probably born that way. Even if you’re a Dhampir, you shouldn’t compare your patience of living less than 30 years and Miller’s patience for 750 years.”

Now Ben’s hands were shaking. He felt dizzy. Jonas’ body odor, which was stronger than before, began to cover Ben’s entire body starting from the top and couldn’t be shaken off.

“Do you know why he didn’t bite you? Even if he did, there’s no guarantee that you’ll die, and what if he had any side effects after drinking a Dhampir’s blood? No one has tried that yet, so we don’t know if it’s dangerous. Miller doesn’t do anything unless he’s 100 percent sure.”

Jonas continued to speak in a rave voice as if he knew Miller very well.

“So he planned to use a Dhampir to destroy us, and in between this whole mess, of course, the Dhampir would die. Even if you don’t die, killing Dhampir in the Holy Land is really easy, or why would he choose a place that would be extremely unfavorable to a Dhampir? You already know this, but the MKV can still exist without a Dhampir.”

Jonas looked at Ben and talked calmly, but soon couldn’t contain his excitement and added in a fierce voice.

“Brilliant, isn’t it too cheap of him to aim for two targets at the same time?”

Ben barely spoke to Jonas, who stared at him sharply as if asking Ben to agree, and he finally said, murmuring with his molars clenched.

“His pulse… he definitely had a pulse.”

“Pulse?”

When Jonas asked with his hand on his forehead as he thought, Ben held the gun tighter. The gun kept slipping because of the cold sweat.

“Ah, it’s fake, it’s temporary after you suck blood, so there’s a pulse in your throat. In fact, it’s not really a pulse, but the sound of the blood you just drank, but it feels a bit like a pulse. You’ll know quickly if you’ve touched Miller’s wrist. You’ve had sex with him and you haven’t touched it.”

Now Jonas talked so excitedly as if he was having so much fun. He looked good, then bad. His emotions changed from moment to moment like a child. Ben groaned at his stupidity, wondering if this is what mad innocence was like. He really wanted to die.

“You were supposed to get rid of Miller in the first place. If you were actually serious, I’d feel a little sorry for you, chief inspector.”

Jonas deliberately laughed at Ben’s incompetence, calling him chief inspector, not Dhampir.

Ben’s body was cooling cold. The noisy sound of shallow happiness seemed to be clearly heard in his ears, so Ben couldn’t stand it anymore and moved his body quickly. In an instant, Jonas was pushed to the wall with a gun right over his ear.

“No matter what, this distance will only take me an instant.”

“I told you everything, but you’re still being too much. Did you think Miller was serious? Heh- He must’ve been bewitched by him. That’s amazing, he could do it even to this little Dhampir.”

He wasn’t scared at all even though he had a gun on his skin and kept mocking Ben as if he was getting more excited. Anger began to rise from Ben’s toes.

He was so angry that he didn’t know who to blame first. Ben pressed the gun to Jonas’ neck harder. He was born as a Dhampir and met Miller, and it felt like a blessing, but now it was a curse again. Ben should have just killed Miller in the first place.

He stared at Jonas with his eagle eyes. At that moment, a strong wind blew through the two.

“What is your purpose?”

“Me? Of course, I wanted the Dhampir to kill Miller.”

Jonas said and hit Ben’s stomach with his knee. Unable to defend himself from the confusion, Ben couldn’t avoid the attack that came directly and lost the gun.

Jonas kicked the gun far away as Ben grabbed his stomach and fell. Jonas looked pathetically at Ben.

“But what is this? I never thought you’d be serious. It’s the worst!”

A fussy voice pierced through the night air. Ben really didn’t understand him. Ben closed his eyes because he thought his mind was going back and forth as if he was dreaming. Jonas kicked him in the stomach again.

After a while, Jonas touched his clothes as if nothing had happened, he stopped and looked at the end of the alley. Ben’s eyes also moved along Jonas. They saw a black sedan stop without a rush.

“This always happens. He always interrupts me when I’m trying to have fun.”

Jonas, staring at the car, raised and lowered his shoulder. Jonas looked at the end of the alley and whispered in Ben’s ear, who was still bending his back.

“It’s not me who should kill you, it’s the one over there. He tried to use you and throw you away.”

Listening to the whispering, Ben punched Jonas in the face. A dull noise was heard.

Jonas said as he swept the inside of his mouth with his tongue, as if his mouth had been torn.

“At this rate, I’ll do it.”

“Shut up!”

At that moment, a loud sound came out of Ben’s body. Surprised by it, Jonas stepped back and turned in the opposite direction of the sedan.

“Then, I’ll be going. Miller is tired of meeting me in person.”

Jonas picked up the gun that fell to the ground quickly. Ben reached out for the gun, but nothing came out of it.

Ben slowly turned around as he watched Jonas walk in vain. The sedan was still standing at the end of the alley. He stared at the car showing no signs of moving. He was dizzy because he didn’t know how far to believe Jonas’ words.

Ben couldn’t move a step and shouted to his insides. Get off quickly and come here. That crazy guy lied to me. Let me feel your pulse by touching your wrist. I want you to reassure me. Don’t make me doubt.

Ben stared at the sedan with all those wishes. He stared at only one place and his focus was blurred. The blurred vision was because he had tears in his eyes, but Ben didn’t even think of wiping it. He kept looking at the car, but it showed no sign of moving.

Ben pulled up the remaining courage all over his body and took a step toward with his shaking legs.

At that moment, his body began to move slowly. Leaving only a light dust breeze with the engine sound, the black car got out of Ben’s sight.

As the car left the alley, Ben began to laugh like a lunatic.

Ben leaned against a wall and kept laughing. No one would love a child born with this cursed fate in the first place. He wasn’t even loved by his parents. Despair rose from the tip of his toes and anger flowed from the tip of his head. It was clear that Ben was being punished for not being able to recognize Miller properly even though he was stupidly pretending to be a human being even though he wasn’t.

Ben couldn’t walk properly because he was shaking all over. He kept laughing. Tears were falling from his eyes. Ben felt the sensation of blood flowing out of his shattered heart. He screamed at the dark night sky. It felt as if he was going to suffocate in agony. He smashed his chest with his left fist. His head was full of just one thought and it was hard to breathe. It was a really crazy pain.

He crouched against the hard, cold wall and bowed his head. He tried to think about what to do now, but his head couldn’t think properly. When he thought it was all a plan, not destiny, from the first meeting, terrible goosebumps spread all over his body.

Ben tried to calm himself down, but the water flowing from his eyes didn’t stop. In the end, Ben gave up. A string of tears flowed down his cheek, connecting on the chin and falling to the floor. He felt blood draining from his heart as much as tears fell.

Ben cried for a long time on the spot to forget the sense of time, and by the time his trembling chest calmed down, he lifted his arm and rubbed his face with his forearm to remove the tears and stood up from his seat.

In the distance, he could see that it was dawning.

***

As soon as Ben entered his flat, he opened the bottom of the desk drawer. When he took out a dusty old wooden box and opened it, there was a knife that he didn’t know when it was last used.

Ben pulled out the knife carefully. It was a dagger about thirty centimeters long. When the sheath was removed, the blue blade that didn’t dull at all was revealed. His gaze at the blade with a cold head was also so harsh that it could even make a cut.

Now that he had lost the gun but had a knife, Ben left the flat faster than he had come in.

There was no way he could date or love someone in the first place. Ben was born like this and had always lived like that. The death of Han Cheng didn’t mean that everything was over. Now he was betrayed and Ben needed revenge.

Cold snow was falling as he got out of the flat.

Stopping at the door, Ben checked the dagger on his waist. He probably had only one chance. Ben bit his molar and excitedly knocked on the wooden gate.

A little later, the door opened and Daniel looked at Ben with a surprised look on his face.

“Chief inspector?”

Daniel was surprised seeing Ben, but he just went straight into the flat before Daniel could say anything. Aidan was in a nightgown, lying on the couch with a sleepy look on his face.

Without hesitation, Ben put a knife under Aidan’s chin.

“Where is him?”

Aidan didn’t ask exactly who or what Ben was referring to, but it was clear that he was clearly aware of it. Aidan only looked down at the knife aimed at his neck. It was Daniel who closed the front door and entered the living room after Ben.

“What are you doing?”

“Get out of my way, I’m on duty.”

“What duty! Can’t you put that away right now?”

Daniel didn’t back off, and tried everything he could.

“Calm down, Daniel. He’d have stabbed me earlier if he really was going to kill me.”

At Aidan’s words, Ben frowned heavily and put the dagger closer to his neck, but he slowly lost strength in the hand holding it.

Daniel’s expression was blank.

Aidan said while pushing the knife lightly with his palm.

“He put too much force on the edge of the knife he was holding. If he was really going to kill him, he would have grab it a little more lightly.”

Aidan’s husky voice was heard on the flat, calm even though he might have died.

“Oh, god ―”

Daniel said ‘God’ in a low voice. It wasn’t even funny. Ben couldn’t believe he lived with vampires and tried to call God.

Ben put two fingers neatly in Aidan’s neck. Aidan didn’t avoid it as he did before.

“Tell me. To what extent is it real?”