This really wasn't going as well as Josef had hoped. He had not seen Katherine since he was loaded in the trunk of the car, stake in place, and she hadn't said a word to him since their negotiation over Beth. He'd thought for sure that what Katherine wanted was an apology, repentance, an admission of wrongdoing for whatever past transgressions she thought him guilty of, but she had not demanded anything. Maybe he had been wrong about her. She could just want him dead in a slow and painful way, which was becoming more likely with every passing moment. But at least Beth was safe, and that's all that truly mattered to him. Sara he couldn't save after what he'd done to her, but Beth he could, and did. She'd be happy with Mick, hopefully forever, and that thought was his only comfort.

Maybe his ex was enjoying watching him remotely, he wasn't sure, but the lack of her presence was concerning. Katherine he could manipulate, but the little blonde vampire wasn't as inexperienced as the sweet look on her face would lead many to believe. Her obvious expertise with a blade and the child-sized set of silver-alloyed knives were making it harder and harder to stay conscious in between their sessions. He'd lost count of how many times she'd come to him to inflict pain, and he wasn't sure how many days had passed, but the combination of his own blood loss and the silver had him very hungry.

When the child vampire with no name wasn't slicing him up she'd leave him chained, not that she really needed to. He was too weak to heal his wounds or get free of the manacles anyway. In the empty times in between the pain, Josef let his mind wander back to the one night he'd had with Beth. The feel of her so warm and willing in his arms, the look of pleasure on her face, the taste of her blood… the memories did help distract him. Finally he heard her sweet voice calling to him softly and he knew his grasp on reality was starting to slip. He didn't fight that slow slide into the darkness; he welcomed it. Beth was safe, she was safe away from him, away from Katherine and her little minion, and that was the only thing that mattered. He repeated these thoughts in his head like a mantra, gaining some comfort in their truth.

But Beth was there, waiting for him in the dark for him, her warm skin shining in the moonlight, calling to him. The grass was feather light, so alive under his feet as he walked barefoot across it to join her, the smell of her body perfuming the soft, cool air. The night smelled so familiar somehow, but he didn't know why, and didn't care because it all just felt right. All that mattered was the woman in front of him, reaching out to him as he called her name, quietly, content in the knowledge that she could hear him perfectly. When his hand touched hers, she smiled and gathered him into her arms, easing the pain that he could no longer place.

As they stepped directly from the grassy hill into a bedroom filled with dark blue satin, Josef paused, his knees buckling out from under him suddenly. Every detail of his bedroom was as he remembered it… the glow of the candles, the softness of the bed, the rose petals scattered on the sheets. Beth pulled the remains of his tattered clothes away from his body, though he couldn't remember how they'd come to be that way. Her own green silk nightgown slid off of her shoulders with the barest whisper of fabric on flesh.

When he felt her body against his, relaxing into each other in the intimacy not just of lovers, but of a man and a woman in love, he knew he must have finally died for good. This was his private version of Heaven; Beth in his arms, so beautiful and willing, the smell of her desire overwhelming him as he kissed her, feeling her respond so quickly to his touch. Her soft moans of pleasure as he sucked on first one nipple, then the other, plunging his fingers into the heat of her wetness, was all that he had dreamed of since he'd left her. But he had left her, cast himself out of this Heaven, and he searched his mind for a reason why he would have done such a thing.

But then Josef suddenly remembered all of the sins he had committed, damning his soul and making it impossible for him to have this bliss. He had killed too many humans to even remember, hurt far more, and those were only some of his most egregious. A sudden sharp pain in the right side of his chest and Beth was running from him, from those things he had done, from how he had hurt her, and the pain expanded, shattering the perfection.

He opened his eyes and saw only the smile of pleasure on the face of a girl, her hands covered in his blood as she carved his chest open with a small silver knife. He could get past the pain, would eventually get past it from the sheer amount of blood loss whether he wanted to or not, but what waited for him on the other side was most definitely not Heaven. Beth running away from him was truly his personal Hell.

There was no Beth, no peace waiting for him in the darkness. She was gone.

Josef finally screamed, from physical pain, and also for his regrets. The giggles of the girl with him seemed so out of place, more suited to Christmas morning than the slow death she was inflicting on another of her kind. There was no air left in his lungs to beg for mercy, only the heaviness in his chest weighing him down. He didn't want to die in this dank cellar at the hands of a sadistic child, and without seeing Beth one last time.

The darkness swallowed him again, and there she was, standing on the same hill in the same thin piece of green silk, waiting for him. He knew where they were headed when he took her hand, and he wasn't afraid, he wanted to feel her in his arms again, calling out his name. As he laid her down on the fragrant rose petals, he felt his chest tighten, and he could not draw in air to speak. But the thought was pushed from his mind by Beth's hands running through his hair, pulling him closer to her body, and he kissed her mouth, tasting her sweetness, the softness of her lips.

The pain was not so distracting anymore, he thought to himself, aware only at that moment that there was still the pain, holding him back from making love to the beautiful woman on the bed in front of him. But he couldn't remember where the pain was coming from, whether it was real or not.

He could feel her body, hear her heartbeat, not underneath him anymore, but nearby. He looked down and she was no longer on the bed, but he heard her voice, felt the draw of her blood from somewhere else. She was leaving him again; he couldn't let her go, not this time.

"Josef?" Beth sounded more frantic now.

Raising his head he searched the room with his eyes, unable to find the source of her voice. There was no sign of her outside on the grass or at the top of the hill, and he knew he didn't want to go back to the bottom of the hill. Every time he tried to go in the direction of her voice as she called to him, it became fainter, harder to follow. Josef wanted to go to Beth, more than anything else, but he couldn't find her in the dark, and a voice inside of him, the same voice that made him run from her that first time, was yelling at him to stay away from her.

--

"Stay back," Mick yelled at Beth as she tried to go to Josef, his limp body hanging from a set of silver manacles, the small spikes on the inside of them digging into his wrists.

Beth froze where she was as Mick beheaded the vampire child staked at his feet. The splatter of blood reached her clothes, but it wasn't the death of one so young in appearance that made her flinch. It was Josef, his torso and arms covered in deep gashes, his blood on the floor of the basement, too much of it for him to have survived.

"I have to get him down, Mick," Beth said without taking her eyes off of Josef. It was like watching a car accident victim. Seeing him like that was horrible, she couldn't imagine him surviving it, but she had to look anyway.

Mick was in front of her all of a sudden, his hands on her shoulders, and she was surprised that she had taken another two steps towards the motionless body. There was blood on his sleeves and his pants from the two vampires he'd killed, but nothing like what had run down Josef's body and pooled at his feet.

"Is Josef… is he… dead?" she asked, not wanting to really say the word. She couldn't cry, couldn't think, it was too much blood, and his wounds didn't close.

"Beth, if there's any chance he can be saved, Josef will be very, very hungry. He'll kill you before he could even understand that he'd taken too much. I need you to go upstairs and get the blood from the car, and wait up there." Mick took her chin in his hand gently and forced her face away from Josef's battered body. "Please, Beth. Bring me the blood from the car, and I will see if I can help him." The look on his face said that he too was trying to fathom what had happened, if it could be repaired, even in a vampire.

By the time Beth came back with the cooler of blood, Mick had moved Josef upstairs to the small living room there and laid him on the sofa. Beth tried to go to Josef because she wanted to touch him, let him know she was here, that Mick was here, but Mick made her sit up against the far wall as he worked. The first three syringes of blood he injected 

seemed to have no effect, and they exchanged a worried look. Tears were running down Beth's face, and it took all of Mick's courage not to give into the despair. If his head was still attached and he hadn't been burned, Mick wondered how he could tell if a vampire was well and truly dead?

On the fourth injection, Mick saw the largest wound on Josef's chest start to fill in slowly, and he increased the speed of the intravenous feedings into his friend's neck.

Beth noticed the new sense of urgency. "What's happening, Mick?"

"I think he's healing, but it's slow."

Her sigh of relief was audible, and she wanted to go to him more than anything at that moment. She started to edge closer, but Mick reminded her, "it's not safe Beth, please just wait over there, I'll tell you when it's okay to come near him. Can you get a cell phone signal from here?"

With shaking hands, she opened her cell. The signal wasn't great, but it was adequate.

"Yes."

"Good. Call the cleaner and tell her where we are. Make sure to mention that we are also going to need fresh blood." Mick looked down at the rapidly depleting Red Cross take-out in the cooler. "At least another six or eight pints."

"That's a lot of blood." Beth said quietly.

"Yeah, I know." Mick answered as he paused to pull off the tattered remains of Josef's pants, looking for more injuries. His shirt was nowhere to be found. He rattled off the cleaner's number for Beth.

"Aren't they going to know I'm not a vampire?"

"No, but if she gives you any trouble, just hand me the phone."

A few moments and another pint of blood later, Beth closed her cell phone. "Two hours. It's going to take them two hours to get here from the mainland." Katherine had chosen one of the most remote islands off the western coast of Ireland, and she had chosen well. Between the sound of the waves crashing on the rocky shore nearby and the relative desolation, no one would have heard Josef's screams. "She said she'd do what she could about the blood, but no promises she could get that much that quickly."

Five minutes later the blood they'd brought with them was gone, all of it injected into Josef, who finally took a ragged breath and used it to moan.

Mick took his friend's hand and knelt down next to the sofa. "It's okay, Josef. You're going to be okay," he said, trying to sound reassuring while he was wiping away the old blood from Josef's chest and examine the wounds underneath.

"Beth?" Josef whispered but kept his eyes closed. It still hurt to move, or breathe, or lay still for that matter.

She wanted to go to him but the look on Mick's face kept her back. "I'm here, Josef."

He turned his head towards her voice and finally opened his eyes, the light blue of vampire all she could see there until he smiled. Even though his fangs were visible, the smile was all human. It was Josef's smile.

Struggling with the needed breath, Josef said, "I found you," before closing his eyes again, the look of pain on his face gone completely.