5. Bloodline

It was still completely black inside the club, only a few coloured flashes of light from the stage flickered over the dance floor. The music blasted in her ears, but she tried to ignore the loud beats, concentrating on finding a way out of this dark hole. But her flight came to a sudden halt after only a few meters. Something that felt like a giant rock crashed into her and threw her to the ground. She gasped in the desperate need of air, her lungs feeling like they were collapsing. A deep animal growl originated from whatever pushed her to the ground. Lilja felt dizzy, her head and her back ached from the sudden and fast contact with the hard concrete. “Finally I have found you, little godblood”, the animal creature said with a raspy voice. “You are the last one of your bloodline, I have found your mother, your grandmother and everyone before them. Now it’s your time to die.” The beast still had her pinned to the ground, its coarse features faintly illuminated by the spotlights. It smiled at her dangerously, sharp teeth glistering in the edges of its mouth. “Some last words on your miserable existence?”, it asked, still smiling. Lilja tried to free herself, kicking and moving, but its grip was as strong as iron. She had no chance. “Screw you”, she hissed, as there was still not enough air in her lungs.

The beast only laughed. “Oh, you are funny little things you kultaveri. Thinking no-one can ever hurt you or even kill you. Your mother was the same, she told me to fuck off. And she lasted pretty long, remained hidden for her entire life. Until January. But I think you now that better than myself.” She did indeed. Officially, her mother had died in a car accident last January, but the story had always seemed…off to her. There were no traces of a car accident, but at the same time nobody had been able to tell her what had really happened. Her mother must have known more about what was happening here in this city, probably the reason why she had left Finland as a teenager. And she had always warned Lilja, told her to not go back here. And what had she done? As soon as she had finished school in Germany, she had applied to Helsinki University. Damn it, she was dumber than she ever thought she was.

The beast chuckled at her panicked face. “Goodbye little kultaveri. Your blood will indeed taste like heaven.” Sharp teeth dug into her neck, and she screamed. The pain was unbearable, its fire burnt away anything else. She tried to gather her thoughts, tried to do something, maybe the same thing she did before with Jyrki, but her thoughts kept slipping away, and she felt herself growing weaker with every second.

Her senses began to fade, and she felt like she was tightly wrapped in a thick blanket when something changed. She thought she heard a loud yell: “Get away from her”, and something big and dark seemed to force away the beast on top of her, then she heard a loud crack. “Lilja? Lilja!” She knew that voice, but she couldn’t put a finger on it. Something lightly touched her face. “Lilja?”, the voice asked again, and whomever that voice belonged to, carried her in its arms now. “Jyrki?”, she whispered as a sudden flesh of thought caught her. Then there was only blackness.