From the look on Jon's face, he was seething inside, but his brows arched upwards at her suggestion. "I don't want to hit you. You're not to blame for this. That bloodsucking bitch is!" Just talking about the vampire fueled his rage further and he glanced at the window. "She used me. She lied to me. And now this" I swear to God, I'm gonna f*cking kill her, if it's the last thing I do." And with that said, he threw a punch into whatever was nearby, which just happened to be the slayer. Lei took the hit easily, her head snapping to the side as his fist caught her jaw, careful not to mention how weedy that felt to her. Not everyone had upwards of ten years fighting under their belt, and hardly anyone had been born for combat, so she really had nothing to say on that. She did, however, grin at him encouragingly. "What are you gonna do to her, Jon?" she goaded the actor with slightly more glee than Rufus would have approved of. "Stand in a corner and drool while she makes mincemeat out of your family?" He flinched at her words, jaw muscles twitching with rage, too long repressed. It was either cry or rage and the time for tears was over. He was tired of being a victim, tired of being used, tired of all the blame and the guilt and the misunderstandings, and most of all, tired of having to always be in perfect control of his emotions. The storm that had been brewing inside him for months was finally boiling over. He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding together, not angry at her personally, but at the entire situation. Though he didn't remember it, Ollie had taught him to fight long ago, when they were still boys. When the other boys would call Jon names because of the way he looked, because of the curls and the blue eyes and the dimples, calling him names and poking fun. Though he didn't consciously remember those lessons, some part of him did, and the fist he threw at Lei showed it. Impressed at the technique visible in his form, again she just stood there and took the hit, unsurprised to feel her lip split against her teeth. A good punch never needed force behind it to be effective. Spitting the blood onto the floor, Lei batted Jon's hand away with a derisive laugh. "She's going to have you under her thumb in seconds," she went on, wanting to see just how far he could be pushed. How much he needed to clear out of his system to be able to function effectively during the next few days. "You'll probably end up biting your sister yourself." She was egging him on and part of him knew it, but it didn't matter. He didn't care. He narrowed his eyes, anger seething inside him, hatred for those who'd hurt him and even more so, those he cared for. He dropped the duffel from his shoulder, taking the stance only his body remembered from those lessons long ago, fists up, legs loose, muscles bunched tightly with tension. The left went high, followed by the right cutting across low, forgetting she was a woman and that she was there to help him, letting loose months, maybe years, worth of rage and frustration. The hits Lei knew would do more harm than good, she moved to avoid, but they were few and far between. She would heal, and frankly, if this little outburst was enough to keep Jonathan Granger from getting himself killed through sheer idiotic anger, then a few bruises and a cracked rib or three was worth it. After all, if he didn't survive, she didn't get paid. But the time did come when the anger was hardening to a glinting diamond, and that was when she knew he had everything he needed. The slayer reached out to catch the actor's wrists. "Enough." He'd managed to work up a sweat in those few minutes of sparring, face flushed, eyes flashing, the tension in his muscles relaxing a little with the release of all that anger. He blinked at her, as if only just now realizing what he'd done, and feeling a wave of remorse hit him like a brick. "I'm sorry," he muttered, looking her over for injuries. "You didn't deserve that." "Don't you do that." Her hand snapped out to slap his cheek sharply. "You hold onto that anger, Jonathan Granger. That's what?s going to get you through this. None of this 'oh, I'm such a loser' attitude, because your little friend will be on you like that." Her fingers snapped, a loud sound that echoed in the empty club. "Anger keeps them from getting in. Now either you hold onto that anger, or you back up and leave this to me. I am not going into this with a liability at my back." Jon opened his fists, shoulders relaxing, flinching at the slap, head snapping sideways. He turned back to her, eyes narrowed a moment, her words refueling his anger. "I have a stake in this. I'm not being left out. I'm not going to sit around with my thumb up my as$ waiting for her to come for me or my family. This is my battle, and I want her head on a bloody stake!" Or heart, whichever. Lei's smile was all grim satisfaction at this declaration of intent. "Good," she said firmly. "Remember that." Releasing his arms, she turned back to her copper contraption, setting it in the center of the silver compass inlaid into the box from which it had been taken. In the center of the interconnecting spheres was a small pointer, in the middle of which lay a concave dip. She drew one of her blades from her boot, flipping it to hand the hilt to Jon. "One drop of blood, in the vial, mix it up with the ashes. Please." He still felt tense, like a spring wound too tightly, but he was himself again, the rage under control, lurking just beneath the surface. He nodded at the contraption. "What is that thing" What's it do?" He looked back at her and reached for the blade. One drop of blood was nothing to him now. He stepped forward, slicing open the tip of one finger without even so much as a wince and holding it over the container to let a drop of blood fall into the ashes. "I'm not actually sure what it is," the slayer admitted. "One of Rufus' toys that he doesn't let me play with very often. All I know is that you set it up, you do the ash and blood thing, put a drop of the mixture into the little dip there, and the pointer will spin about and point to where the vampire who turned our pile of ashes is." "Like a compass, of sorts." He handed her back the blade and wiped whatever blood remained on his finger off on his jeans. Most people would have sucked it off, but he had no desire to taste blood again, not even his own. "Seems kind of vague. RhyDin's a big place. All that does is give us a direction. How are we supposed to narrow the search down?" "It spins faster the closer the vampire is," Lei explained, wiping her blade clean and resheathing it in her boot while the other hand furiously shook the vial up and down to mix the contents thoroughly. "That, and you are with a slayer here. I'll know when we're close, and then we won't need this." "So, we're looking for a particular vampire. Whoever made this one. You think he or she will lead us to Josephine." He was stating the obvious, mostly to get it all straight in his head. He wasn't a slayer, after all, just an actor. "You said Gigi was here." In a way, it was just like learning a new script, only this one wasn't for the stage, but a matter of life and death. "Either this vampire will take us to her, or we can use its ashes in exactly the same way," she nodded. "You picked that up quick." Very carefully, she allowed a tiny drop of the ashen blood to touch the central pointer, waiting patiently for movement. It began to turn, slowly yes, but turning until it pointed toward the north-east. "I don't suppose you wanna get the map out of my bag, do you?"

It had taken most of the day to finally locate the resting place of the vampire they were tracking. Lei had had to stop several times and re-prime the compass, but each time it had spun a little faster, edging them closer to their destination. And now ....well, now they didn't need the compass.

Crouched in the deepening shadow of a gothic grotesque as the sun began to sink toward dusk, the slayer peered up at the tightly sealed townhouse in front of them, experienced eyes noting reinforced shutters over the windows, the lack of maintenance to the superficial surface of the building. She glanced at Jon warily, pulling open her dufflebag. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this with me?"

"Not to make a pun, but if anyone has a stake in this, I do. Yes, I'm sure." He, too, peered up at the building, wondering just what might find there. "It's getting dark," he remarked, having to stifle a shudder. He had grown to hate the nights and the darkness that came with them.

"When you hunt the undead, you have to go to the places where they hide," Lei muttered, pulling bottles of holy water from the bag and pressing them into his hands. "Put these in your pockets - drink one. If they try to bite you, they'll end up with charcoal for teeth." She didn't take any of the water for herself, instead drawing her sais from her boots. "I can't be certain, but I'd say there are no more than five of them in here. One more powerful than the others - that's the one we want."

He took the bottles from her and did as he was told, shoving them into the pockets of his jacket. "I wish I'd known that before." Not that it would have made a difference, but the thought of them choking on his blood gave him a strange feeling of satisfaction. "Five, great." He uncorked one of the bottles and drained its contents. To him, it tasted no different than ordinary water.

"Trust me, that's nothing," she told him firmly, nodding in approval as he drank down the short-term protection of blessed water. "Look ....they're going to be just waking up, disoriented. Not expecting an attack. The one we want will be near the centre of the house, probably in the basement. The others will be in the way. Throw the holy water in their faces and slam the stake into their chests as we go past - it's a great feeling." Her grin was bright and exhilarated; it was easy now to see why she did this still.

He was starting to get used to her and even starting to enjoy her company. He smiled back at her, his stomach twisting into knots, not nearly as excited as her at the prospect of intruding on the vampires' lair, but refusing to be left out of it. "You enjoy this too much, I think."

"You sound like Dr Shilo," she snorted, taking a moment to draw her hair back off her face. "You ready to do this?"

He looked up at the building again and nodded his head once, tightly wired with anticipation, excitement, and more than a little trepidation. "I'm ready."

"Here we go, then." With no more than this for a warning, Lei rose to her feet and accelerated from a standing start to charge the main door of the townhouse. It must have been quite a sight to witness a woman no bigger than 5 feet tall smash a heavy front door off its hinges with one well-aimed kick, darting inside with a yell.

Without any hesitation, he took off behind her, following at her heels. No slouch, he prided himself on keeping physically fit and had no problem keeping up with her. The only difference between them was that he was quiet about it, no yelling or shouting to announce his arrival, only quiet determination. It was now or never, and he hardly even had time to gather his courage before they were off. Whatever happened now, there was no turning back.

The first room they came to was empty, choked with dust and grime. The second was also abandoned. The third - what had once been a parlor of some kind - boasted two groggy-looking young men, shaking themselves from the still sleep of the undead as slayer and actor burst in. Lei didn't hesitate; she kicked the first one to hand hard in the face, dropping to one knee to slam the length of her blade through his heart. He screamed just once, calling to his companion, before his body erupted into flaming ashes.

Jon rushed the second, not wanting to give him any chance to fully awaken and fight back. He did as she had instructed, pulling the cork from a bottle of holy water with his teeth and splashing the vampire in the face with it, then driving the stake through its chest before it could even find its feet.

"Nicely done," Lei complimented Jon, rising to her feet as she shook the ash from her arm. "Feels good, doesn't it?" Her grin was, if anything, wider now, more alive with the thrill of first kill. "This way."

It didn't feel good the way a woman's touch felt good, but it sure as hell helped to vent some of the anger and frustration he'd been feeling, focusing his rage and giving it an outlet. There was a word for what Jon was feeling. It was called revenge. He nodded his head and heaved a breath. "Yeah, it feels good." He was bloodied now and covered in ash, no longer innocent, he'd made his first kill. He looked after her, somehow knowing the others wouldn't be so easy, since they'd announced their arrival.

Plunging from full brilliance to complete darkness was never Lei's cup of tea, made worse this time by the fact that what lay immediately beyond the door was a set of slimy wooden steps. Her foot went out from under her, her voice proclaiming a series of angry grunts as she tumbled downward, her arms flung out the moment she found solid - if wet - ground. Her senses were on high alert now; that vampire was down here somewhere, and she didn't think he had gone far. She owed him for knocking the wind out of her sails upstairs.

Jon was a bit more cautious in his entry, not being trained in this sort of thing and following Lei's lead, backing her up, hopefully not a liability. He'd gotten the torch going and held it aloft and slightly in front of him to light his way through the door. Hearing her take a tumble, he was tempted to call out to ask if she was all right, but kept his silence, not wanting to alert the vampire if he was close by.

Marcellus had had any number of bolt holes like this over the years since he'd experienced what he liked to call his 'true birth'. Nearly three hundred of them to learn and strategize. To survive. Rarely did he have to use them, but he had learned never to take that for granted.

The tunnel was cut out of the native stone of the land, slick with condensation as the turning of the season brought salt and moisture up from the harbor's mouth in fogs and mists and damps that cut to the bone, that permeated rock and earth. And he'd improvised. There were other things in the dark, inhabitents of these lands, that flourished underground and he used them to his advantage.

Finding nothing with her flailing hands, Lei rolled onto her knees and up, her stake finding its accustomed place in her loosely clenched palm. The flash of the torch from the top of the stairs gave her just enough light to work with, her eyes adjusting to gloom to seek out her prey with the kind of silent malevolence she thrived on. Hopefully Jon wasn't going to stumble right into the vampire; she could just imagine Rufus' expression if she had to report the unfortunate demise of their client.

Jon had to stifle a shudder as he stepped into the dark maze of tunnels. He had a bad feeling about this, but then he'd had a bad feeling about the whole thing. Getting this far was easy, almost too easy, and he had a feeling the worst was yet to come. Jon's descent down the stairs was slow and careful. He didn't want to take a tumble like she had and risk losing their only source of light. They'd be helpless in the dark. He spotted Lei and worked his way slowly toward her, secretly wondering why the hell he'd agreed to come along. He was an actor, not a hunter. He still held the stake in one hand, just as she'd instructed, his clothes splattered with vampire blood.

The tunnel was long, easily double the straight distance it covered because of all of the twists and turns and switchbacks. It wound through bedrock and into the cavern-studded hill behind the house in a series of tight switchbacks. And Marcellus was fast. Celerity granted him short bursts of speed to put some distance between them. If he chose.

Sound echoed as he fled; footsteps. And other things. Scuttling things. Somewhere in the dark ahead, he barked a command and the scrabble increased.

Jon shot a worried look at Lei when he heard the sound of scrabbling and wondered if they'd gotten in over their heads. "The hell is that..." he asked, his voice barely above that of a whisper, clearly terrified. Not terrified enough to turn back, but it was enough to give him pause.

Lei's eyes narrowed as she peered into the darkness ahead, her nerves twanging with the need for some kind of action. But this was the best part of the hunt; the stalking, knowing that your prey was infinitely more afraid of you than you were of it. She looked up as Jon joined her, laying a finger against her lips. When she spoke, it was in that odd tone just above a whisper - the vocal range that did not travel so well as any other. "Try to keep up. He's got a few pets down here for us to play with." With a quick nod to the actor, she broke into a run toward the sound of the retreating footsteps, her boots making little sound on the bare stone but where water pooled.

Pets" His brain echoed. The image of thousands of scurrying rats came to mind and he had to stifle a shudder. The hell were they going to do about rats" Rats didn't give a crap about holy water, but he only nodded his head and followed her deeper into the maze, trusting that she knew what she was doing. If she didn't, they were most likely both dead.

Servants and pets. The smell would reach them first, a putrescent aura of decay that clawed and bubbled in the air they plowed through as they ran. Whatever scrabbled was still far ahead. Or just around the corner. But this smell. Oh, this was all around them.

Lei came to a halt as the smell wound itself around them, dropping down onto one knee to open up her dufflebag once again. Rummaging around inside it, she came up with the axe, unsheathing the blade. If she was right in her assumption of what was ahead, Jon was going to need something more substantial than a stake. She offered it to him, handle-first, constantly silent.

That brow of his arched sharply upwards, but he didn't make a sound, silently exchanging the stake for the axe. The putrid smell was enough to make him nauseous and he was, for once, glad his stomach was empty. He gave her a silent nod of his head to indicate he was ready.

The stake was tucked into her back pocket, the bag sealed and heaved onto her back once again as the slayer edged forward, wary, cautious, but eager to kill something.

Marcellus had been a busy man. He liked to have his little projects to work on. It helped to relax him while he thought about the various problems that Josephine inevitably brought down upon their heads with her ill-conceived progeny. And no one who really knew him could deny that he also had something of a wicked sense of humor.

One hand found the tunnel wall, setting the slayer's back to it as she edged to that upcoming corner, swallowing against the revolting smell that invaded her nostrils. Her sais came silently from their sheaths as she nodded to Jon once again, and whipped around the corner, prepared to take on whatever stood in their way.

Jon's head was still full of images of thousands of scurrying rats and he wasn't sure what good an axe would do against that, but he once again trusted Lei's judgment. She'd been right about everything so far, and he wondered just what she thought was waiting for them up ahead. He tried to focus his mind and make himself think it was just part of a movie, but there was no script and this was nothing like any role he'd ever played before. He came up beside her, digging deep to gather his courage, and as he watched her whip around that corner, he knew it was now or never.

Once Jon had the axe in his hand, he spun around and took a swing at what looked like his sister's head, intending to decapitate the thing in one fell swoop.

Lei's eyes widened at the sight of the axe heading her way. Only her highly trained instincts got her out of the way, dropping her entire weight into the foul water even as she pulled herself out of her jacket, leaving the ghoul open to Jon's attack. The water was a brackish and stagnant pool, cold as ice and slimy at the bottom of the basin, disgusting against living flesh.

Momentum carried Jon's body weight into the swing successfully. The slayer's axe was sharp, as it should be, allowing Jon to cleave the ghoul's head cleanly off, sending it flying for the opposite wall. Familiar brown curls streamed behind it as the torso fell with a second gout of black blood. From the tunnel behind them, from the direction of the house, something keened, and the scrabble of nails on stone grew, drawn by the scent of death and gore.

Jon had just about reached his limit, at least for the moment, and he lowered the axe, doubling over with a few painful, dry heaves, bringing up nothing but bile and holy water.

Soaked in brackish water and splattered with congealed blood, Lei grimaced, shaking her hands clear of the slime as she made to stand up and reclaim her jacket before the body dragged it into the pool. Shrugging back into the familiar leather, she looked at Jon, seeing all the signs of someone about to go into meltdown. "Not bad, for a rookie. Are you going to turn into a gibbering mess every time you get a good kill?" Nasty, yes, but necessary ....he'd lost the flare of the anger that was going to keep him alive. "Get up, get a grip. It's not over yet."

Not over by a long shot. Because they might be hunting Marcellus, but something else was hunting them now. And it was getting closer if the noise of claws and the gibbering snarls and hisses were any indication.

Jon wiped a sleeve across his mouth as he climbed to his feet, turning to face Lei, unable to hide the horror from his face, about to tell her that he'd just decapitated what looked like his sister, but then he heard something else and there was no time to think on it further. "I'm fine," he reassured her, shoving aside his fear and embracing the anger. What he ended up with instead though was more instinct than anything else - the will to survive.

"Good. Try not to get in the way next time." That was it, no praise, no encouragement from the slayer. Not while something else was on its way. She turned toward the advancing scrabble of sound and scent, her sais drawn and ready to fight, testing the give of the water around her knees as she found a comfortable position, coincidentally in front of the shaken Jon.

Jon nodded his head at her remark, which he took no offense to. She was the expert here and he was just along for the ride. Maybe if they were lucky, he'd have time to think about it later, but right now, it was just about instinct and doing what you had to do to survive. He shoved the thoughts of the ghouls aside and readjusted his hold on the axe, holding the torch over their heads to illuminate the passage from which the noise was coming. The sound was worse than nails scraping against a chalkboard and Jon failed this time to stifle the shudder than ran up his spine. "The hell is it?" he asked Lei quietly. It was the not knowing that seemed the worst.

There was no light behind it to cast shadows. If there had been, they would have seen something coming at them along the ceiling, vicious claws grasping at grooves in the rock, twisting this way and that as it scented after its prey. If it had been human once, it was no more. Too long, too thin, with joints bent in the wrong ways and an elongated jaw made for crushing and tearing. Its head swivelled on an impossibly long neck, and as it came around the corner, the first thing is saw below was 'Eli's' head. It pounced, snagging it between the vice of its jaws and crunching. Eviscera dribbled down its chin and slopped against the stone floor.

"Oh, sh*t." Just one curse, and Lei was already moving, dragging the dufflebag off her shoulders, tossing it onto a dry ledge beside Jon. Turning back to the advancing death, she flexed her muscles, preparing quietly for a nasty fight. "Jon ....put the torch somewhere dry and get into the bag," she told him calmly. "I don't know what it is, but a crossbow bolt or two through it should slow it down a little, don't you think?"

Crunch. And then it paused as it heard Jon. That mantis head swiveled toward them. Crunch; its jaws worked and its throat worked. The muscles beneath its bone-pale skin bunched as it prepared to stalk forward after this kicking prey. Interest and intelligence and hunger stared at them through lamp-like eyes.

Jon followed at Lei's heels once again, swinging a glance around for a dry place for the torch. Finding a crevice just above their heads, he reached up and shoved the torch there, making sure it was secure before snagging her bag and rifling quickly through it for her crossbow and bolts.

Lei's mind was racing as she assessed the creature. "Light the bolts from the torch," she ordered Jon. "Aim for its -" There was a sickening crash of bodies impacting hard as the creature leapt for her, taking her down and into the stagnant water with a loud splash.

Caught off guard by the thing when it leaped, Jon stumbled back, the bag still in his hand. He'd managed to find the bow and the bolts but was surprised by the creature's sudden attack. Once again without time to think, only to react, he fit one of the bolts onto the bow and planted his feet, swinging the bow toward the brackish water. "Lei!" he called, his heart racing, running on adrenaline and fear. He'd heard her tell him to light the bolts, but he wasn't sure if that would do any good if he took aim for the thing while it was in the water. Still, she knew what she was doing and he reached up to set the bolt ablaze.

Aim for what though' Its head" Its mouth' Its eyes?

It was naked, light for its size, strong. Feral. It clawed and snapped at her, its jaw stretching for her with each crack of a bite toward her face. Foul slobber and the detritus of the ghoul's-head meal dripped down.

Drawing in a deep breath, Lei blew her mouthful of lighter fluid into the flames, sending them roaring back toward the snarling mate of the previously charred monster. It went up like a bonfire, shrieking. The cavern was bright with its death. The backlash of the conflagration knocked Lei backward, releasing Jon from her grip as she flailed to keep the torch above the water. Jamming it into a crack in the rock, she reached into the water to drag the actor out from beneath the crackling monster. "You okay?"

He came back up sputtering and coughing and bleeding. No reply just yet. He had to catch his breath. How the hell did she think he was" He was alive, at least. This little adventure had turned into a living nightmare as ash and char floated like a mockery of snow around them. Thankfully, he had not humiliated himself yet, except for that one brief moment of illness. And this was partly why he'd cut his hair, no need to worry about it falling into his face or anything yanking on it. Soaked to the skin, and by this time, shaken, he glanced up at the ash as it floated downward like flakes of snow. "Is it dead?" Stupid question maybe, but he had to know.

Aside from a couple of scratches on her neck, and the fact that she was soaked to the skin, Lei looked none the worse for wear, rooting through the dufflebag once again to wash her mouth out with holy water. "Now I remember why I don't do that more often ..." She looked up at Jon, her gaze flickering to the precipitation of bodily ash in open amusement. "Yes," she told him slowly. "Yes, I think we can safely say it is dead. That, or cremations in its family must be really wild."

Jon glanced at his shoulder and the rip in his jacket. The wound was painful, but not fatal. He'd live. And he wasn't giving up now. They'd come too far to give up. "Where the hell is he?" he asked, turning to give the place a better look, listening for more creatures out of his nightmares, but met with only silence and the sound of water sloshing at his feet. The caverns were silent except for the echo of their voices and the steady drip-drip-drip of condensation on the walls.

A nasty little smirk touched the slayer's face as she turned toward the crevice from which the vampire's flammable pets had crawled. The stake was back in her hand, another tossed toward Jon whether he was ready to catch or not. "Come out, come out, wherever you are ..."

The silence of a hundred tombs met them.

Jon was ready, the fear subsiding, replaced not by anger but a dark desire for vengeance. He caught the stake in right hand, favoring the left. "You really think he'd stick around to say hello?"

Lei snickered quietly. "Well, he will if he expects to be able to use this place, or the house, ever again," she said, more for the benefit of the listener in the shadows. "I know all sorts of interesting things to do to a vampire's resting place that'll cripple him unless he can find somewhere else to hide. And we've got the ashes of his friends up there to track him with, too."

"Burn it," Jon suggested. Burn the whole bloody thing down and let the bastard burn with it. From the tone of his voice, it sounded like he'd like nothing better than to see the place leveled to the ground. There were more ways than one to skin a cat. Burn him out of hiding.

Lei's eyes narrowed slowly as she listened to the utter quiet, every muscle tensed in apprehension. This one was clever, she'd already worked that out. Just how clever, she wondered.

Apart from being very clever, Marcellus had learned patience. He had learned to hedge his bets. He had learned to cover his bases, and any other number of other metaphors that said he made a point of having a fall-back plan. It was very, very quiet in the tunnels.

He was also smug enough that he fully expected to win this one and he wanted to be able to see it, to throw it back in that bitch, Josephine's, face. He wanted to be able to describe to her the way he looked when he died. The way he begged. The way he suffered, like Lucas had suffered. He wanted revenge.

Jon was not nearly as patient as Lei, and every second spent waiting felt like forever. His already raw nerves were being pushed to the limit, and he just wanted it to be over. "He's not here, Lei," he said again, convinced the coward had escaped. It was too quiet, and he didn't have the senses of a slayer to tell him what to do.

Leaning back, the slayer took another bottle from the bag and threw it at Jon. "Drink it, fast," she ordered tersely. She didn't know what she was expecting, but the sense of danger was sharper now, focused upon Jon in malicious desire. "And be ready to run."

"What?" He caught the bottle in his left hand, nearly dropping it. More holy water, he assumed. He knew better than to question her and he uncorked it with his teeth and drained the contents.

Holy water yes, but with a twist ....that bottle had been carefully tainted with vampire blood. It was a cruel device, but in Jon's system, the clash of blood and blessings would send a psychic shock the size of a small volcanic eruption through the senses of anyone sensitive to it in the general vicinity. The slayer had just baited her own trap.

Quiet. Quiet and more quiet. Quiet that stretched into infinity, that reached out and wrapped its fingers around your neck. Quiet that bit.

Jon drained the contents only realizing too late that it contained vampire blood, the one thing he wanted more than any other to avoid. Fortunately, it wasn't enough to do any real damage, but he felt the mix of blood and holy water rush through his veins, like pouring hydrogen peroxide on a festering wound. It was unpleasant at best. "What the hell..." He muttered, narrowing his eyes at her. "You could have warned me."

And then he realized what she was up to. "You're using me as bait. He's not going to try anything with you here."

Jon was still dazed on the ground, only half conscious, having collided hard with the wall and the floor. Had he been conscious, he might have insisted on the kill, to avenge the attack on Lena, but Lei was right. Marcellus wasn't their true target. It was Josephine they were after.

The tense line of her jaw slackened into a smile at this sign of sense. "That b*tch Josephine, of course," she informed the vampire, careful not to relax too much in the midst of conversation. You never could tell what was a bluff and what wasn't. "Let me put it this way ....she's going to be dusted. But you have a choice right here and now; you can either be a casualty of her arrogance and a little pile of ashes beside hers, or you can take over after she's gone." Her head tilted, eyeing Marcellus in the flickering torchlight. "Now which of those appeals more?"

His eyes ticked toward Jon, and the look was suddenly dismissive. The slayer had his attention. "I'm listening, my dear. And I think the latter definitely has more appeal. Go on."

"Set her up," Lei suggested calmly. "I'm sure you're wiley enough to think of some way to get her clear of all her little bodyguards and pets. I'll take care of her, and you can start teaching that little enclave of hers not to f**k with the Grangers."

That was what this was about' He wanted to laugh. Or howl. Lucas died for this" Well, he'd be bloody well damned if he followed him to the true death over Josephine and her petty obsessions. "I don't give a fuck about her boy-toy or his family. Age has made her conceited and mad. You, my dear, have a deal."

"I'm not your dear," she corrected him mildly, but offered her hand to shake - a test to see if he could resist the urge to try and take her down even now. "But you're right. You know where I can be found ....all of you do. When you have your time and place, let me know."

Marcellus eyed her hand for a moment, bemused. She would make a magnificent vampire, this one. The stake shifted in her other hand in subtle warning, one brow rising as she watched him.

But he would be satisfied with ridding himself of Jospehine, once and for all. He took the hand and shook it. "I will."

"Good." Reclaiming her hand, Lei wriggled her fingers toward him. "Run along, then." And she turned away. Only a slayer would have the gall to turn her back on an enemy-turned-temporary-ally to check on the well-being of another human. The dazed Jon got a slap to the face. "Wake up, sleeping beauty."

Marcellus snorted with amusement. Such presumption! She would make a truly magnificent kindred. Pity. As he turned to walk back to the house, he paused and looked down. "Sorry about your wrist," he added off-handedly to the dazed Jon. "Do see yourselves out."

~~~~~

((HUGE thanks to the players of Shen Lei and Helena Granger, without whom this scene would not have been nearly as awesome or as much fun. I cannot thank you both enough. The plot thickens and will be continued soon. Stay tuned. :grin:))

She warned him just a moment too late. Hissing a breath and tensing as the antiseptic did its work, Jon clenched his teeth to withstand the pain until it subsided a little. "Thanks for the warning."

"Anytime." Once the worst of the sting was over, however, he'd notice how gentle she was actually being, disturbingly familiar with how best to treat injuries like this. Her fingertip, covered by the now bloodied cloth, traced the line of one of the marks. "Interesting."

Jon glanced down at his shoulder as best he could, wondering what it was she found interesting, somehow knowing it was the claw marks and not his physique that interested her. "What?"

"The wounds are clean," she said thoughtfully. "Cauterised. But the things went up like dry haystacks. Rufus is gonna be really pissed I killed both of them." She tossed the cloth aside, picking up a dressing pack to set about covering the ugly marks. "You're gonna scar."

Jon frowned at that news. In the past, he'd paid a healer whenever necessary to make sure he didn't scar, but he wasn't sure magic would work on wounds such as these. "That's what makeup is for," he replied nonchalantly, trying to act like it didn't bother him, though it did. His career depended on his good looks, after all.

Lei's brows rose again at the sense of something about what she had said distressing him. "You don't know what I mean by scar," she decided eventually, pulling her hands back once the dressing was in place. "On you, I mean this." She lifted the ragged hem of her shirt, showing him the skinny curve of ribs on her right side. Three barely perceptible thin silvery lines stroked over her skin. "Takes about a year to get to that, though. Anything else you need me to look at for you?"

He glanced to the faint lines of a former wound on her ribs, frowning a little, feeling sympathetic at the life she had been forced to lead, even though she seemed to have accepted it. "Where'd you get those?" he countered her question with a question.

"I nearly came out worst in a fight with a werewolf when I was sixteen," she explained with a shrug, turning her attention to her own injuries, which largely consisted of scratches and bruises. "Rufus saved my life - the thing almost disembowelled me."

"Rufus ..." he repeated. "Why doesn't he hunt with you? I mean, he'd be a lot better at this than I am." Yeah, he'd done okay for a rookie, but he thought he could have done better.

Lei snorted with laughter. "He's squeamish," she chuckled, shaking her head. "And he can't fight for sh*t. Screams at the slightest thing, too. He's a good Watcher, but put a stake in his hand, and he turns to jello."

"I'm just glad I didn't soil myself." Jon smiled a little, trying to lighten things up again. He glanced at his bandaged shoulder and thought about putting his shirt back on, but all he managed was to think about it. "You think this is all my fault, too?" he asked, frowning.

Her lips twitched a little toward a smile, but she didn't add anything to his discussion of his bravery. If he had been a liability, she would have told him by now. As it was, Lei just didn't think it was worth wasting breath praising him when the fight wasn't over yet. At his question, she did him the courtesy of looking calmly into his eyes, no judgement, no disapproval. "Yes."

Jon knew his sister thought as much and probably whoever else knew the truth. "How am I supposed to make amends?"

"Kill the vampire." Simple as that, said her one-shouldered shrug as she turned once again to the medical box, pulling out bottles of pills. "And don't go making damn stupid deals with the undead again."

"How am I supposed to do that with this?" Jon lifted his arm to indicate the broken wrist. "Why'd you let him go?"

"Because if your little friend's childe has the resources to create ghouls that well, her lair is going to be hell on toast," she told him, no nonsense in her tone. "You're going to kill her, but I'm not going to walk you into a nest of vampires if I can possibly help it. Besides, this way, I get two for one." Her smirk was almost evil. "The one I let go will betray his mistress, and he'll hang around to watch her die. Then I kill him, and the controlling force on that entire clan is gone. Ever seen an insane vampire? They get suicidal."

His eyes widened at her plan. She'd thought it out well, it seemed, and without his input or approval. "You're gonna have to draw her out." There was only one sure way to do that, and he knew what it was.

It was the night after opening night, the night after Peer Gynt and Jonathan's performance opened to terrible reviews. Of course, it wasn't really Jon on stage but his doppelganger, but no one knew that. A few suspected something was wrong, but no one seemed to know just what it was and rumors were starting to fly among the cast and crew regarding their principal actor's apparent sudden lack of talent.

The performance this particular evening was no better than the first. Lackluster, dull, boring. Enough to put the crowd to sleep. Tonight, there had even been a few boos from the audience, but the lead actor seemed unconcerned, as if he either didn't know or didn't care.

After the curtain came down, he'd gotten more than a few dirty looks and cold shoulders from his fellow cast members and even a few mutterings that he should be replaced. What the hell had happened to his passion and his talent' It was anybody's guess. If something didn't happen soon, Jon's career was going to be ruined. But this Jon didn't seem to care or notice the hushed whispers that were going on around him. He smiled and nodded politely to his cast mates and retired to his dressing room to change and remove his makeup, all as if he were nothing but an automaton going through the motions of his life.

He had no idea that somewhere in the theater, the vampire was waiting for just the right moment to finish what she'd started.

The audience filed out of the theater, and if they lingered, they only did so to compare criticisms. The lower level emptied first; those in the upper boxes had more reason to linger. First, by doing so, they could avoid the mass of the crowd below. And second, and perhaps more to the point, champagne was still being served. A pale and slender hand emerged from behind the curtains of one to beckon an usher.

In the stalls, the last person to leave the auditorium was one who looked suspiciously like the slayer. Thanks to a tip off from the treacherous Marcellus, Lei had been shadowing Jon's doppelganger for the past couple of nights, ready and waiting for Josephine to strike. However, after sitting through the fake's performance for two nights, she was beginning to think she'd be doing the world a favor if she let the vampire eat it.

Jon - the real Jon - was in the theater too, hiding in plain sight. A gray hoodie covered his head, pulled down far enough to shadow his face, a scruffy beard partially hiding the actor's handsome features. He knew his way around the theater like the back of his hand, and sneaking himself and Lei inside had been a piece of cake.

There was something tickling at the slayer's heightened senses tonight, an awareness of a malevolent being stalking inside the building. She was certain that Josephine had gotten in somehow, her teeth on edge with the need to be patient and wait for the vampire to strike. Stepping into a shadow beside one of the ground boxes, she withdrew a radio, pilfered by the real Jon for them to keep in contact, and murmured softly into it, "Keep on your toes, she's here somewhere."

Jon lowered his head as he passed someone he knew, going unrecognized. He hoped he didn't run into Mataya. She was the one person who'd recognize him and see right through him. The news that Josephine was in the theater somewhere didn't really surprise him. It was their goal, after all, to find her and kill her, but he couldn't help the cold shiver that ran his spine at that news. He replied to the slayer, keeping his voice as quiet as possible. "Don't worry about me. Just find that b*tch so we can kill her."

The usher left the box about ten minutes after he entered it. He held the curtain open for the patrons who exited then: a trio, brilliant in evening dress. The lady was resplendent in garnet satin, her dark hair coiffed elaborately atop her hair and pinned in place with a diamond clip that had been in the ....family....for generations. The two gentlemen who accompanied her, in tails and starched white, flanked her on either side as the usher led them down the wide stairs.

Rather than escort them to the lobby, however, they turned down a side passage that led to the dressing rooms backstage. The lady fanned herself idly with the play program as they went, and the gentlemen made some small conversation between themselves about the horses waiting outside for them. It was all very, very civilized.

The trio, led by the usher, approached Mr. Granger's dressing room. Stagehands in black were still bustling about resetting things for the next night, but this dressing room, the star's, was out of the rush of traffic.

Still in the shadows of the stalls, Lei had come to a full halt, trying to place what was wrong now. The sense of danger had moved on, out of her immediate area, which could only mean ....She turned abruptly, heading for the stage itself as she snapped into her radio. "She's backstage, keep out of sight!"

The real Jon was sneaking around beneath the stage, keeping mostly to the shadows, trying to look busy. He had spent a good part of his life in the theater and knew how everything worked. This was a role that came very easy to him, pretending to be a stagehand. Keeping out of sight was no problem really, so long as no one recognized him or asked him to do any real work. "Backstage ..." A whispered echo into the radio. "What's she doing backstage?"

Jon's double was seated at the mirror in his private dressing room, going through the process of removing his stage makeup, oblivious to the danger that was approaching. Outside, the usher reached out, knuckles rapping against the door. "Mr. Granger?" One of the men leaned in and whispered something to the woman, and she tossed her head back with a flash of brilliance from the diamonds in her hair, laughing.

"Yes?" Came the response from inside the room, the voice sounding exactly like Jon's.

"Some guests would like to meet you. May we come in?"

"Just a minute," he replied, wiping the cold cream and makeup from his face. After a moment, the sound of footsteps could be heard crossing the room, followed by the opening of the door. And there was Jonathan Granger, standing at the door, or what appeared to be him. He looked the small group over, blue eyes settling lastly on the dazzling woman before him who he recognized from Jon's memory.

"Hey, you can't come up here!" Lei rolled her eyes at the ineffectual protest from one of the stagehands as she clambered up onto the stage itself and pushed past the fire curtain. The man hurried after her, requesting assistance through his radio, only to end up with the slayer holding a handful of his shirt and growling into his face. "Shut up and tell me where Jonathan Granger's dressing room is, you pathetic streak of p*ss."

In the dressing room, the usher bent the other-Jon back across his dressing table, jars of cold cream and pans of stage makeup scattered across the floor at their feet. She drank. And drank. And drank with the cold satisfaction of a predator with her prey. His leg twitched. Jerked. His fingers strained for something that was not there. And he fell still.

Strength and agility the decoy vampire might have had, but Lei had experience on her side. She could feel herself being pushed backward toward the real Jon and his trembling stake, twisting to hook a foot around the legs of her opponent, aiming to slam her down onto the floor.

It took Jon a moment, but he realized too late that Violetta was not Josephine. "It's not her!" He called to Lei, trying desperately to get out of the way so that he didn't stake Lei. And if the vampire in garnet wasn't Josephine, that meant she was still in his dressing room. Jon didn't wait for Lei to tell him what to do. She was busy enough. He rushed into the dressing room, to find his double being drained of blood.

Violetta shrieked frustrated rage, her open mouth mere inches from Lei's throat before she was thrown back and over in a tumble of satin and flailing limbs. Jon's feet caught her in the ribs as he scrambled over the tumble.

In the doorway, Jon's eyes ticked from his fallen double to the vampire that had started this whole catastrophic series of events, and with a shout of rage, he rushed her, raising the stake high above his head to thrust it into the middle of her cold, dead heart. He didn't bother with the holy water trick, filled with rage at the sight of her and the desire for revenge.

Lei just barely heard the shout from Jon as she went down, one hand already leaving the screeching Violetta to drag a bottle of holy water from her jacket pocket, biting the lid off to pour the contents into the vampire's eyes. Violetta screamed, clawing at blind and worthless eyes that were smoking like the smudgepots onstage.

The noise of the altercation had echoed through the dressing rooms long enough to draw the attention of those who were still in the theater. Unfortunately for Lei, one of these proved to be the owner of the Shanachie, who came charging up along the corridor, screaming like a banshee, to slam a heavy voltage-effects box down over the slayer's head.

Josephine straightened over Jon's lifeless body. She dropped him where he'd been sprawled, her mouth and chin smeared with blood that dripped dark trails down the front of the dead usher's uniform coat. "What?" She gasped as she stared at the impossible.

Pain exploded through Lei's head as the impromptu weapon caught her off-guard, knocking the slayer into the wall where she slumped, dazed and useless, beside the screaming, blinded Violetta, unable to lift a hand to help Jon as Josephine abandoned her faked meal.

The vampire turned just in time to find Jon thrusting that stake one-handed into her chest, his face a mask of rage and hatred. That's when Josephine, the mind and force and form behind Jon's waking nightmare, exploded into flaming ash, dead at the hands of the one she had sought to torment and turn, to make her pet for all eternity.

Jon had no idea what was going on in the hallway, no idea Mataya had heard the ruckus and come to see what was going on, no idea there was another vampire still alive in the hallway. His one focus was Josephine, and if anyone were to see his face at that moment, they would see the burning hatred he felt for her flashing in his eyes, contorting the actor's handsome features. He fell back when the vampire exploded, covered in blood and ash, nearly stumbling into his own likeness.

"Oh my ....oh my god!" Mataya had fallen back against the opposite wall as the effects box dropped from her hand with a loud clatter, staring in horror at the two women now lying in her backstage hallway, one unconscious, the other's eyes smoking. The flash of flickering light from inside Jon's dressing room brought her stumbling to the door, where the impossible met her eyes. Jon on the floor, dead ....and Jon standing in front of her, driving a stake into the heart of a woman who then burst into flames. And Mataya De Luca knew that CGI just didn't work on the physical level. Lurching backwards, she braced herself against the wall, rubbing her eyes hard. "Jon Granger ....you have so much explaining to do ..."

((Once again, thank you to all the players who were involved in this scene, as well as the entire SL. It would not have been half as much fun without all of your participation and involvement. Stay tuned as we sort out the aftermath and repercussions of all this, and as always, thanks for reading! :smile: ))