June 2124

Cairo Harris is the daughter of Lilly and her Ex boyfriend, Corrin Thomas a fellow spy who died on a mission in India.

Cairo Harris POV

They say the average fight last's 2.5 second's. I have been in too many five minute long fights to believe that, but I guess if you are a spy, and if you were raised to be a spy, you always question the facts.

Right now as I faced five muscular solders for hire, I wished that I didn't know all the facts. Up to this point everything had been fine. My looks, and some chloroform had gotten me this far. I had already obtained the mission, a diskette, but unless I got the information, out of the embassy all my efforts had been in vain.

The trained thug moved towards me. I knew that I could easily injure two of them with a high punch, drop kick, roll combo, but the rest would kill me in seconds. Then the lead guard charged the temporary truce forgotten.

I ducked down, his punch ineffectively hit the air, were my body used to be, as I pulled his legs forward he fell to the ground. The next guard was behind me I swiveled around one leg out, still squatting and kicked him down to my level. Then I heard something behind me, I turned towards it, hands out ready to punch or block, whatever the occasion called for. I never saw who made the noise. I was unconscious within seconds.

I woke up for a moment, out of time. I could feel my body moving about me. Apparently I was being carried. Was I captured? My foot hit a wall, I was too tired to complain, but my carrier swore. The voice was eerily familiar

I really woke up in my apartment. I checked my clothes for electronic tracking devises, grabbed my keys, and left for the office.

An hour and a half later, after coffee and a preliminary debrief, I headed towards my mothers office, on the second floor.

I saw them through the doorway first, before I spoke. My mother; the executive, her business suit an interesting shade of green, her legs crossed casually, her face animated, and her lips moving. Liam; her fellow executive officer, and friend, my surrogate father, a vampire, was smiling. Like all his smiles there was nothing casual about it. I listened a second in the doorways, not wanting to perturb there peace.

"In my mothers stories, T was never how you described him. She was always talking of his band, The Turtle Doves, and how they almost made it with this song . . . Purple Pit Bulls in the Shower?" my mother giggled at the name

"Yes" Liam said his voice low with a laugh hidden in its depth " I always thought the band sounded like beavers ripping through Mozart's piano. Horrid stuff"

"Say's the man who wont listen to anything, that isn't at least as old as he is"

Liam smiled slightly, then sobered up "but your mother described his death perfectly, he went out a hero. Sacrificing yourself to save a young boy from a drunk drivers in a hummer, tends to redeem all the actions, and inactions that came before"

My mother was quite for a second, and I was about to enter, when she quietly said, "maybe that's all you need to do to shanshu. "

Liam didn't reply, instead I entered with words "reminiscing again"

They both turned towards me.

"So how was the mission, honey?" my mother enquired

"Ask Liam, I owe my continued existence to him" I said indigently.

"Thanks, again . . . and again" my mother said, turning back towards her friend. Most agents aren't comfortable working closely with a vampire, so Liam has been banned from going on missions, for more then a decade. By the time I was finely acknowledged as a full-fledged agent Liam was the supernatural divisions chief strategist, and his life was too important to jeopardize on missions.

Every time he protected me, he risked his life and his career, he didn't care. He also didn't care that his consistent baby-sitting embarrassed me.

"Your welcome" Liam said then he jumped up "I am vibrating."

"Your cell phone" my mother volunteered knowingly.

"Oh, that" Liam said, pulling it out of his neatly ironed and expertly starched black business shirts breast pocket. Then he struggled with the phones opening mechanism for a second.

I shook my head "he's had a cell phone for a hundred years now, right?'

Liam covered the microphone with his hand "Its Vaughn, he has new information about Spike. I will be back in a second".

My mother and I nodded, as he left the room. I set down in one of the chairs next to her desk; I was about to speak when her phone rang. Mom. Picked it up Mouthed the words "just a second" and then went outside.

I managed to stay still, for a minute and a half, in till I resorted to doodling on her note pad and going through her office memos. That's when I spotted the manila envelope. Without concisely thinking about it. I dumped the contents on the table.

Out spilled a letter, a ring, several photos, and a drawing, of Liam and someone I vaguely recognized to be my great great grandmother. I pulled the picture towards me. Only then did I notice the love inherent in the drawing, the care with which each stroke was made, and the tenderness that Liam, and my ancestor expressed for each other,

After resting my eyes on the expertly drawn picture for more then a moment, my gaze shifted to the letter 'It has been my honor to care, protect, and look after the Summers family for generations. It has also been my duty to carry out your matriarch's Buffy Summers, last wish. That all of her decedents would know the truth about her and her lover's (your patriarch) past, and her hope for your future" the first few lines read.

That is when my mother re-entered the room. She was about to chastise me but I managed to speak first.

"What is this?"

"A letter"

"From Liam?" I said trying to make by voice as intimidating as possible. It wasn't hard. I was righteously angry; I had stumbled across a secret I didn't know about.

"Yes, your great grandmother gave it to my mother, who gave it to me"

"What does it say"?

"I don't know?" my mother said slowly, her faced was flushed, and her eyes gleamed with moisture "I never had the courage to read it. All. I know that it's about our great great grandfather."

"Is it Liam?"

"Maybe . . . vampires can't reproduce, but. . ."

"The Miracle birth" For centuries now there has been rumors of a vampire father, and a human mother creating a child. The C.I.A. had even briefly investigated it. To think that I might be the vampire Childs descendent was unfathomable. "Give it to me, I will read it" I said grabbing at the letter.

She held it away from me, and I punched out knowing the importance of this letter, I wasn't about to let it disappear. My mother ducked she knew what to do. She pushed me lightly but her leverage was such that I fell back easily, when I next looked my mother had vanished with the letter.