This was meant to be a one-off using S4 characters who may be involved in S5...or who may float away on the breeze never to be seen or heard of again...It is now going to two, or possibly three chapters...slightly shorter due to customer complaints...! A little story of divided loyalties...Reviews and comments are welcome...Any mistakes will be dealt with shortly...The Being Human characters belong to Toby Whithouse, the BBC, and the other very talented writers on the show.

FALLEN EMPIRES

Chapter One

The woman stood alone on the dockside, watching the ripples in the ink-black water. From places like this, her kind had sailed out for the New World, their reach forever exceeding their grasp of humanity's own greed for new things, new places, and new people. New blood...The Old Ones had set off from this very place, if the rumours were correct, and Bristol, of course. Long voyages to distant lands...the odd ship's crew member meeting...a sad end...An Old One at the end of such a journey, their skin paper-thin, the veins...the hunger...

The woman sighed. All gone now...all the familiar names...and the greatest monster of them all...

She shivered. She had forgotten how cold this country could be...even in the summer, or what passed for one...always this damn cold...so many layers...never enough warmth in these old bones...

All gone now...

Well almost...

Who else is out there...waiting in the dark...?

"One day...I will dance on your grave..." The soft laugh...the delight dancing in his eyes...

"Oh child...you have so much to learn...my sweet, dark girl..."

She looked down at her feet. The ground around her looked so drab, grey ash all around. They'd been thorough, but not thorough enough. A gas explosion, apparently. She recognised a vampire cover story when she saw one, but this felt...different...Someone else's fingerprints on the truth. The scene felt too...sanitised...too clean for her kind's damage-limitation teams, the well-oiled, and financed, systems drawn up over so many years...humans and vampires hiding the bones...She thought she would feel something...some connection...when she finally stepped on the earth where the Old Ones had fallen...where their 'King' had fallen...arrogant to the end, she didn't doubt that...but there was nothing but grime and decay...A fitting resting place, perhaps...

She smiled that tight little smile. A little dance, Mr Snow...

They watched the woman spin around on her heel, not believing what they were seeing. She actually seemed to be dancing...The taller of the two men spoke first, whispering;

"I told you...Old Ones are mental..." The woman spun round and stopped, her dark eyes on the man who had spoken. His companion smiled uneasily.

"But they have very good hearing..." A little smile of acknowledgement from the woman, before she turned to face the water again, her dance seemingly ended. The gates behind the two men rattled. A stranger. The men hissed inhumanly at the newcomer, a wolf at this, their most hallowed place now...

"He's gone...get over it..." The arrogance in the stranger's voice...Both men stepped forward, as if to warn off the werewolf somehow. He took no notice, striding past them.

"Relax...I'm expected..." The woman raised her head at the sound of his voice, but she kept her eyes on the water. It had taken her a while to find him. A simple note had brought him here. A polite request. A meeting.

He walked towards the woman, his eyes searching for any hidden vantage points, any signs of a trap. Just two vampire bodyguards...she was sure of herself, he thought. That or she was a fool...She had long red hair, all the better for grabbing...he could break her neck...then stake her, if necessary. All dressed in black...she was in mourning...but there's something else there...a familiar sense of power...an Old One...so Hal Yorke wasn't the only one still officially 'breathing'...he remembered something from Bolivia...

He was only two feet away from her, when she finally turned to face him. There was a jolt of recognition on his part, which he quickly hid with a smirk. He bowed his head.

"Lady Mary...in the flesh..." She inclined her head at the use of her 'title'.

"I prefer Marina...but it will do for now...Mr...?" Like she didn't know his name...

"Milo. Just Milo..." Marina just smiled.

"No second name?"

"Not now..." The werewolf who survived...by running...she thought.

"We have that in common, at least." His smile was cold. She turned to her right, to face the remains of Stoker's. Chains on what was left. A sign stating it was 'awaiting re-development'...some hope...the vampires would spill every last drop of their blood to protect this, or at least be seen to...until new rulers came along. It was the natural order of things. New blood would come along, or very old blood would surface, and make itself known. This was their Gethsemane...or was it Golgotha? She never could remember her Bible...her mother had been right..."You'll end up on the wrong path..." Where to start?

"Milo...nice work...wonderfully executed. I must congratulate...those responsible...Do I detect a little helping hand in what must have been a spectacular explosion? Cooking oil..."

The sharp glint in her eye. Milo's face, a mask.

"A very big explosion, for a few bottles of chip fat..." He was giving nothing away. A wise wolf, she thought. He must already have faced reprisals...Come through unscathed...

"You're forgetting the ghost and the War Child..." Marina smiled.

"Of course..." She gazed over at the two bodyguards, who were watching them with interest. "That's the strange thing with prophecies...if a...person...believes in them enough...they have a way of coming true..." The glare had its intended response. The men looked away nervously, unsure of their new Lady and mistress...

"What will you do now?" Milo looked back at her, wondering what was coming next.

"Now?"

"Yes..." He shrugged.

"What do you care?" She brushed a piece of dust from her sleeve. That could've been a part of...Milo coughed. He's been intrigued to see who had sent the note; the old-fashioned language, a neat hand, but no signature:

I would be very much obliged if you could meet with me at Stoker's, at your earliest convenience. I have a proposition to put to you...

Marina looked up at him, her keen eyes taking in the vials of blood still hanging around his neck. A sensible precaution in uncertain times or something more...

"There's always a bigger threat out there, Milo...a bigger bully in the playground..." He snorted.

"What am I? The milk monitor?" She ignored the jibe, and stepped to one side.

"But will that be you, this time...or a demon of your own-making?" He turned as if to take in the scene for the first time, spreading his arms wide.

"The King is dead...long live the King..." His tone was patronising, the words that meant so much to vampires, as a mark of respect, sounded hollow and trite on his tongue. She stood for a moment, looking back at the water.

"I hope they salted this earth...we Old Ones can be...superstitious..." Milo shifted his feet, impatiently.

"Is this where you give me the old "work with me" speech, because I have to tell you, your pay and conditions aren't great..." Marina smiled, and reached into her coat for something. He stiffened, and reached automatically for a vial.

"Milo," she chided, "Soldier that you are, do you really think you would walk away breathing, if you managed to kill me?" He grinned.

"I'd take my chances. Your nightclub bouncers couldn't stop me..." She smiled again.

"May I?" So polite, thought Milo and such a famed monster...He shrugged. She pulled a slim envelope from her pocket, and handed it to him.

"I believe it is appropriate to offer a new...contract when one employer has...shall we say..."

"Been blown into a hundred million pieces?" Milo's smile widened.

"Agree or disagree, it makes no difference. But you and I both know there's something worse out there. I'm just interested to find out what, aren't you?"

"An Old One giving me a choice?" He could barely keep the sarcasm from his voice.

"It's a new world Milo..."

"Nah," he shook his head, "It's the same one. Too many of you...not enough of us..."

"Is that why you turned traitor...against your own kind, Milo..." her tone so pleasant, so soft.

"Don't give me that...What loyalty do I owe other werewolves? Did I ask to be scratched?" Marina chose that moment to sharpen her argument, moving closer to him, her voice dropping.

"Did you close your ears to their howls...their screams...Wolves would have been a bit hard to find in Bolivia...I'm guessing fights would have been a rarity...but he would have had them shipped in..." A glare as an answer. Point made, and understood. "I'm just wondering how you ended up in Mr Snow's tender care..." she stepped closer again. Milo stepped back, but he held his ground.

"Are you the mercenary you make out...or something more...?" Her dark eyes were scrutinising him; she was looking for something...

"You're a survivor...I give you that...an opportunist, perhaps, but I think you are something else..." She tilted her head to one side, the vampire sharpness there. "A fellow wanderer...a loner..." He didn't look away under her close gaze.

"I don't much like my own kind," she mused. Milo laughed.

"Got that in common..." She turned her head to the other side, still regarding him closely, like a spider watching a fly...

"And yet he trusted you...now what did you do, that would make Mr Snow himself trust a werewolf to stand at his side...at his table...what dark, dark deed did you do...?" He stayed silent, then he shook his head again, changing the subject. A loud sigh.

"You vampires...Snow's barely gone, but you lot will pick over his bones..."

"Dust, Milo..." she said pointedly.

"Whatever...you'll clamber over his grave...to stake each other, to grab just a fraction of that power...should keep you all busy and off our backs for a while...especially now the dirty little secret's out about our blood..." He squared up to her.

"Lady Bloody Mary..." he was enjoying himself, a sardonic grin on his face.

"He had your portrait on his study wall back in Bolivia..." That chilled her blood, alright. The malicious gleam in his eye, that dagger had gone straight to its mark. Her old eyes were unable to hide the flicker of unease, the revulsion...

"You were there in 1779...he told me all about you...one of his beloved 'lost children'...Do you know what he was planning for you...when he found you...what your place in the fall of humanity would have been?"

"Stop it..." She said it quietly. He ignored her, carrying on.

"Giving up your own child...and you have the nerve to lecture me on..."

"He was dying...I didn't know what...Hal was offering..." her voice trailed off, revealing too much.

"I thought so...Lady...they will tear you to pieces...keep the vampires together? That's what you want, isn't it?" He sniggered. "You'll be lucky to get out of the country with your fangs still intact...You really think you can run Head Office?" He started to walk round her in a circle, pressing his points home. "I'm guessing you are at the 'nice' part of your vampire cycle...You haven't killed in...How long? You know, back in Bolivia, they used to laugh at the vampires who tried to go dry...Snow would brick them up in the cellars...he'd leave a hole just big enough...to hear their cries...He'd throw them scraps from the table...then he'd chain any waifs and strays Hetty had picked up from the streets, to the bricks...the vampires would scratch and claw at the mortar...just to get a taste..."

"Enough!" The anger was there now, the vampire was reasserting herself. The bodyguards moved forward. She waved them away.

"Who are you really, Milo?"

"Me? I'm nobody...I just want to be on the winning side. Last time I looked, your slick operation got wiped out by a ghost and a baby...so..." He went to move away from her.

"And you weren't involved in any way..." He sighed.

"Think what you like...I'm guessing there aren't that many Old Ones left..."

"Not even in Bolivia?" she countered. He smiled that cruel smile, he'd have made a fine vampire, thought Marina.

"I heard the cupboard was pretty bare when they left..." That meant he had a full council...or whatever they were calling it nowadays...Hetty would be the youngest...with Wyndam gone, everyone would move up at least one place...Hal would have taken his high place again...It also meant Mr Snow had dealt with any dissenters, removing them, or eliminating them...that might make it easier...

Milo caught the calculating look.

"What do you want, Lady Mary? To pick up where he left off...?" But she wasn't listening...

"What happened to Hetty? The rumour is that she wasn't among the fallen..." He just smiled, wouldn't you like to know...

"Is she alive, or dead?" It would only work if Hetty was dead...then again...Hetty was afraid of Hal in the past...terrified, in fact...and he was the oldest one left now...that they knew of...she wouldn't cross him...he was only ever one thread away from snapping...and with Snow gone, the power should flow down to his remaining "children"...

"What are you planning, Lady Mary?" She'd captured the wolf's attention.

"Milo..." The Old One was a player..."It's not in your kind's best interest for the...wrong kind of vampires to take control of Head Office..." He laughed at that.

"As opposed to the right kind of vampires?" Marina waited patiently, like a mother with an unruly child. Humour him...

"I'm suggesting an alliance..."

"My price just went up...the legendary Lady Bloody Mary wanting an alliance...times must be tough..." There was the edge she was looking for...

"Ever the mercenary..." Milo chuckled.

"Always." He eyed the bodyguards leaning against the gates. "I'm assuming you have a plan?"

A gleaming vampire smile.

"As a matter of fact, Milo, I do indeed..."