**A/N:So I hade page breaks in this and the website keeps pulling them out no matter what I do! So if it seems as though the chapter is jumping around without any warning that is why! There should be a page break right after Veroncia screams, then again before the paragraph on Casey and finally one before Mac starts speaking. Reviews keep me motivated so send some my way! And I had no correct answers to my guessing game! boo! lol Enjoy!
"Look Mars, I know we haven't always been the best of friends…" He spoke as he floored the accelerator.
"That's the understatement of the century," she chided.
"Let me finish," he looked at her as she nodded her head and gazed out the window not allowing herself to accept the walking dead sitting beside her, "ok. I know we haven't always been the best of friends and I know you hate my wife with a fiery passion…"
"WIFE! That thing is your WIFE?" Veronica's jaw hit the floor as she snapped her head around to face him. Thinking back she laughed, "well that does explain that little game of tonsil hockey in the elevator of the Grand during high school."
"Yea yea, you knew all along. I know I know, don't remind me."
"What can I say? I am what I am and I am Veronica Mars after all."
"Of course. Anyway I can't speak for my better half, God knows she can be a bitch when she wants to be, but everything I did, I did it to help Josef, he really should never have gotten involved with you, and truth be told I don't hate you as much as I just take pleasure in irritating you. Think of it is brotherly love," he grinned in her direction.
She stared at him blankly, "If that is brotherly love I am very thankful to be an only child." Lamb yanked the steering wheel and turned the truck sharply down an alleyway.
"Be careful!" She yelled and braced herself against the dashboard, "BABY ON BOARD!"
"Yea yea," he smirked, "I'm gonna be an uncle and all that gooble-de-gook. I am trying to ensure that my little niece or nephew in there cooks long enough to be born. There is a little black car back there that had been following us since we left your buddy. I'm trying to lose them."
"Whatever-Ok," she grabbed the seat as he jerked the car once more, "Ok. Uncle Donny it is- Just tell me next time you do that!"
"Ok… NEXT TIME!" He yelled as he swerved onto the interstate and blasted between two motorcycles and a tractor trailer.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Veronica Shrieked.
"What the fuck are you doing here Madison?" Dick was appalled at her presence.
"Saving your ass," she smiled sarcastically at him, "Cut the crap Dick. What do you think I'm doing here? Helping Josef- I owe him."
"So you are a…?"
"Yup."
"And Lamb, he's a…?"
"Yup. And they called you slow at Neptune High."
"I'm not as dumb as I look."
"Oh baby," she clutched his face in her hand, "yes you are."
He swatter her hand away and continued with his erratic line of questioning, "So you and Lamb are ah, together?"
"Going on four years," She smiled all the while keeping her eyes affixed to the road as they barreled through rush hour traffic.
"Four years? But the thing with Logan?"
"He wasn't strong enough to leave her," her words wreaked of distain, "and Don had just changed me, told me all the deep dark secrets," she chuckled, "He and Josef grew up together you might say which is why when Josef was in trouble he settled in Neptune where Don could keep an eye on him. We knew he needed to leave Neptune, and Veronica, cleanly so we staged the one thing we knew would make her push him away. I never slept with Josef. Anyway, it backfired, I mean look at where we are now! Josef found out what I did and was angry that we didn't clue him into our plans. That's why I owe him this favor."
"So…" Dick could not find a way to ask the question burning in his mind.
"No, I was not a vampire when we were screwing."
That seemed to ease his racing thoughts and he relaxed a little, "So you like living in L.A?" He had run out of questions for her to answer and he was reconciling himself to being chauffeured around at break-neck speeds by one Madison Sinclair- nay Madison Lamb.
He had been sleeping the day away when he got the call. Josef's voice was frantic as he quickly explained the situation and the danger they were all in. Casey owed Josef his life, after all hadn't Josef been the one to save him when Josh, the leader at the Mooncalf collective had syred him intending to use him in a short lived dream of total vampire domination? Hadn't Josef stopped the cleaners from destroying him when all they wanted to do was burn him mercilessly with most of the rest of the collective? Josef had bought off his parents, and sent the "deprogrammer" to teach him how to live peacefully in a world full of humans despite his blood-lust and had never asked for anything in return, until now. He didn't need to be reminded of his debt and Josef didn't mention it. All he needed to know was that the only two people who had stood up for him, protected him-even saved his life were in trouble and he had the means to help them.
He'd harbored a soft spot in his heart for Veronica Mars ever since he'd seen the fire dancing it's reflection through her eyes at the bonfire of the mooncalf collective. He had realized how much she truly meant to him at his grandmother's funeral as she held his arm to comfort him. No one else had cared. None of his 09er buddies had shown up, but Veronica had been there. He could still see her face, the caring in her eyes while she asked how he was really doing and the fear that shot across her when the "deprogrammer" had pulled him into the car. He had turned away Veronica's friendship at the time for fear of her safety but he had never forgotten her unconditional offer of friendship when he had needed it most. His biggest regret had been pushing her away when he realized exactly what he had been turned into and how truly dangerous he was to her.
Casey had left Neptune high and all but disappeared. When they thought about him at all everyone assumed that he had forgone college and taken his place at the helm of the family's publishing empire. Which he did, but he juggled his responsibilities remotely from a house hidden in a small corner of the Alaskan wild. It wasn't a big place by 09er standards but boasted five bedrooms and three baths, enough to harbor the motley crew that was currently en route. There was a game room and an indoor pool. Josef had immediately offered to fly in beds and anything else the human companions needed as he knew Casey had never quite gotten around to hiring a decorator or purchasing any furniture that didn't scream bachelor (or vampire). There was a restaurant style walk in freezer that housed enough blood to keep the vamps in the party stable at least for awhile and Josef would continue to have blood airlifted in for then every week just as he had done for the past couple of years, with a little help from Guillermo. The nearest town was one hundred miles south and the nearest neighbor twenty five miles to the west. He didn't even have to sleep in a freezer most of the time considering it was cold and dark most of the year. Casey had been quite happy in his little piece of the world. He had never longed for a companion but the thought of his old friends descending on him en mass had the promise to make an otherwise dull existence a little more cheery.
"Where are we going?" Mac's voice was barely a fearful whispered as they raced onto the unfamiliar airfield, a small plane waiting, doors open for their arrival.
"Casey's house," Josef jumped from the car and started tossing their luggage onto the plane without another word.
"Casey? Casey Gant?" Mac's jaw dropped. She had met several vampires during her employment with Josef but Casey Gant was not a name that had ever crossed her radar, at least not in tandem with the vamp empire. She hoped it had not crossed anyone else's desks either. She leapt from the car and bounded up the stairs to the plane. Her laptop battery had died on the way and they were running out of time to get everything she needed to get done finished. There was money to hide and safe houses to secure, not to mention a vampire attack to avoid and firewalls still to crack.
Mick and Beth had been the first to arrive and with Josef's added help they had the plane prepared when Veronica and Dick arrived with their unsolicited chaperones.
"Why the hell did you send her to drive me?" Dick protested when he saw Josef heading toward the car, "of all people!"
"Because if I had sent her for Veronica she would not have survived, vampire or not," Josef smiled.
"She hates me huh?" Madison in her vampire state had grown a conscious and after several hours of lectures on the ethics and compassion from Josef and to a lesser extent, Lamb, she had realized how far from OK the last stunt she had pulled really was.
"Has Ronnie ever liked you?" Dick grabbed the bags from the back of the car and headed toward the plane. Calling back over his shoulder as he walked away, "Has anyone ever liked you?"
"You used to like me when I did that thing with my tongue and Donny thinks I'm pretty great," She yelled back full of venom.
"Oh give him a century. He'll change his mind," Josef pinched her cheek, leaving her standing alone to approach the truck that was pulling onto the field.
"Someone was following us but I lost them. We need to move," Lamb was out of the car and shouting, "her heart rate is really fast."
Josef had scooped Veronica up in his arms and was walking toward the plane, "I'm going to get her comfortable and then we need to dump the cars. There's a private lake about three miles that way," he motioned to a clearing in the distance, "Drive the cars into it."
"NO!" Dick screamed from the plane, "NOT THE FERRARI!"
"Madison and I can take care of the cars. You guys need to go… now," Mick patted Josef's back and reached out to hug Beth, "I will be a day behind you. Clarence and I are going to take care of what we can from this end."
"No, Mick…" Beth had until then been blissfully unaware that Mick would be staying behind.
"I will only be a day behind you," he stroked her face and headed towards the Ferrari.
Madison and Lamb quickly kissed goodbye, "I'm headed back to Neptune to keep and eye on things. Call me when you get there?" She made him promise and tossed Lamb a paper bag with several disposable cell phones in it.
"Scouts honor."
Veronica could not contain herself, "Scout? My ass. Why's he coming with us?"
"We need a pilot," Josef set her down on a couch as Lamb pulled the door closed, securing the cabin for take off.
