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Thiery stood there, shocked, staring at the wooden stake, Avatar's words running through his mind over and over again.

'Vampire Hunters'.

He had thought that Vampire Hunters were something you only heard about in stories, that they did not really exist. But then again, up until about a week ago, he thought that vampires weren't real. Now here he was, an all but newborn vampire, in love with someone who had been around for over a hundred years. At least he thought Avatar was that old. He'd never actually asked.

Making a mental note to ask Avatar about that later, he turned to look at him, his eyes avoiding the rotting corpse pinned to the door.

"Vampire Hunters?"

"Yes" Avatar said, as his eyes returned to look at the stake in his hands.

"There really are people who hunt us?" Thiery asked, wanting Avatar to tell him more, wanting to ask him why, but not wanting to say it straight out. Not able to.

"There are" was Avatar's reply. Thiery did not say anything then, only stared at him. When Avatar finally took his eyes off the stake and looked at him, Thiery raised his eyebrows and smiled a little. "Well" he said. "Are you gonna tell me more, or do I have to find out the hard way?". He wasn't quite sure what the hard way was, but it sounded good to say it like that at the time.

Avatar smiled a little, understanding what Thiery meant. "I'm sorry" he said, pausing a little before he continued. "There has always been Vampire Hunters. For as long as there have been vampires, there have been those that hunt us down and kill us. Why, only they know, and perhaps God. It's just the way it is. After a while you just kind of get used to it. Never before have they been this close to us though. Never before have they been able to find the place where the Heads of the Lines live, and they most certainly have never been able to kill a vampire in that same place."

Thiery looked at him, understanding the severity of what had happened here. Vampire Hunters had found the sanctuary for the Latin lines. They had not only found the place, but they had successfully entered and killed a vampire. Something that according to Avatar, had never happened before.

"Who are they? The Vampire Hunters I mean" he asked. Avatar looked at him as he broke the stake in half. Putting the half with the runes on it in his pocket, he tossed the other half away.

Turning back to Thiery he said in a disgusted tone, "they are mostly humans. Though some are vampires. Vampires that choose to fight their own kind. To kill their own kind. Vampires that don't want to give up on their humanity. A sorry kind of vampire, but a vampire none the less. Why they do what they do, I don't understand. But that is the way it is. Without them, most human Hunters wouldn't stand a chance."

After he was done talking, no one said anything for a little while. Thiery was slowly taking in everything that he had been told. There were vampires out there, vampires that were hunting them, killing them. He didn't understand why, could not even imagine why anyone would want to kill their own kind. But, as Avatar said, it was the way it was, so he had to get used to the thought. Never would he have imagined that it could be like that though, that their own kind would hunt them.

Turning from Avatar he looked at the rotting corpse again, seeing it in a whole new light. Feeling sorry for it for the first time.

"How did they kill it? Kill him?" he asked, trying to understand what he saw. Avatar looked from him to the corpse, and back at him again, before he answered.

"There are two ways to kill a vampire, direct sunlight and decapitation. Other than that, we can survive anything. Though the definition of surviving can be a lot of things. You can cut off our legs and arms, and we will live, but it would not be much of a life, for limbs take quite a long time to grow back.

The sun will burn our skin, as you saw it burn mine. It will burn with a flameless fire, spreading all over your body until it turns you to dust. You will live until the very end, feeling the burning, feeling the pain, unable to stop it unless you get out of the sunlight. As the burns cover your entire body, you will die, and your body will crumble, and all that is left is a pile of dust.

Decapitation is a different kind of death, a painless death. As the head becomes fully severed from your neck, you will die. The pain is nothing compared to the pain of the sun. As you die, your body will change. Depending on how long you've been a vampire, it will rot, as if you had died the day you became a vampire. If you've been immortal for a century then all that will be left is dust. Have you only been immortal for a few weeks, then it will look rotten, like this one. He is not many weeks older than you. Two months at the most."

Looking at Thiery he could see a question coming, one that always came when newborns found out what could kill them. "No Thiery, wooden stakes through the heart will not kill you. Nor will silver stakes. Garlic has no effect, it just stinks. Fire cannot kill you. It'll leave some pretty bad burns though, and like bullets it'll hurt like a bitch, but it won't kill you. Someone could slit your throat, and you would live. They have to completely separate the head from the body in order to kill you. We are quite difficult to kill, and we heal about ten times faster than humans."

Thiery nodded, understanding a lot more now. It was scary to think that there were people out there that were hunting them, that there were vampires who hunted them. But the fact that only two things could kill you was a comfort. It made things a bit better.

Looking at the corpse in front of him he understood something else. There were hunters out there that were good enough to kill a vampire, to kill one in it 's own home. And if the rotting only showed how long it had been immortal, then when had it been killed? How much time had passed since he had been pinned against that door.

He did not have to ask the question though, for Avatar it seemed had thought about the exact same thing. "He's not been dead for long" he stated, turning to look at Thiery.

"What do we do now?" Thiery asked, weariness evident in his voice.

"We leave, and we never come back" Avatar said, and with one last glance at the corpse he opened the door and walked through it.

He had not been prepared for what would meet him out in that hallway. The second the door opened, something flew through the air, and before he had time to react, a long wooden stake was planted in his chest, running straight through his heart, coming out on the other side.