When she turned around to face him, Peter felt his heartbeat accelerate. This was it. His mind had raced furiously the last few minutes, trying to find anything that might help him out of this situation, but there was nothing. Frustration wasn't a good enough term to describe what he was feeling right now. There was nothing!

"So, mister...", Morgan began and closed the gap between them with two decisive strides. The smell of death grew even worse. "I didn't catch your name." Her smile was sweet in the way a puffy snow leopard was sweet up until the point of attack.

Peter had a number of replies at the ready, one more snappy than the other, but right now he couldn't see any advantage in angering his vampiric foe even more, so he turned his lips into as cheerful a smile as he could muster. "It's Peter." But he couldn't keep himself at bay completely, so he continued: "I'd give you a proper greeting, but my hands seem to be stuck."

Morgan put her head to the side and watched him with those deep, dark eyes, but she wasn't angry. Yet. "Don't worry, I'm not all that into conventions anyways. Peter." When she spoke his name, her tongue flicked quickly in and out of her mouth as if she was trying to somehow taste the feel of the name. The thought sent a shudder through his body, but as long as she kept that tongue (and more importantly the fangs!) to herself, he wouldn't complain. And as long as she kept it away from Olivia.

"You put me into a difficult position, Peter", Morgan continued and began moving around him. He turned with her and kept his eyes locked onto hers. If she suddenly jumped him with those fangs, he wanted to be ready.

"Can't be that more difficult than the position you put Emily in", he gave back calmly, trying to study her reaction, but she didn't even as much as blink. The guy behind him, the one that had supported his attacker, however, was a different matter. He gave a hiss at the name, followed by the sound of long nails scratching on metal. Ouch.

"So that is why you and your partner are here", Morgan replied just as calmly and without acknowledging her brother. Her gaze never left Peter's.

Olivia had been right. He had had his suspicions, but now he actually knew that the poor girl had been murdered by someone in this club. And he knew that this was a fringy case too, by now. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything he could do about any of it. "That's why we were here. As I tried to tell your bonehead of a henchman, Oliver left before me." Another bluff. Hopefully, she would fall for it too.

She didn't, but it might have been an act from her side to make sure he told the truth. With slow, controlled movements, she went over to the desk to the right, leaned against it and said: "I don't believe you. You were still talking to someone through that headset of yours just before you tried to leave. But don't bother protesting, it's quite easy to find out the truth." With that, she gave her brother a nod and he left his corner with a skeptical look in her direction. That wasn't good. What was she talking about, easy? Did she mean a lie detector? Death threats? Torture? Whatever it was, it really didn't calm him down, when she added: "But don't you dare drain him, Mortimer. We still need him."

How reassuring. Peter automatically took two steps back, but was stopped by a cupboard. Book titles caught his eye: A History of Vampirism. Interview with a Vampire. Vampires – Truth or Myth? A screamingly pink edition of Dead Until Dark. Then Mortimer had reached him and tried to grab his wrist. Peter made a feeble attempt at evading, but the lack of space and his still lingering dizziness were working against him. The touch of Mortimer's hand was ice cold and had an almost skeletal feel to it, but the grasp only lasted for a fraction of a second and culminated in a quite painful sting on his palm like that of a bee, which Peter answered with a curse through clenched teeth. Then the man hurriedly moved away from him and Morgan tried to catch his eyes once more, speaking in a soothing tone of voice: "It's alright, Peter. You feel completely safe here. We are your friends."

Great, now she's lost it, Peter thought with confusion. Was she trying to hypnotize him? He rubbed his palm with the fingers of his other hand and briefly wondered, whether Mortimer had injected him with some kind of truth serum (by now, nothing would have surprised him), but that wouldn't require Morgan to speak to him like he was a child. And he didn't feel any different. Maybe he should just play along, feeding her the same kind of information he had shared before? Would she know?

Morgan made the choice for him. Her eyes narrowed as she said: "It's not working."

Mortimer's eyes widened as if in fear: "I didn't do anything! I just gave him the glamour!"

The glamour? Seriously, what was this, True Blood? On the one hand, Peter was relieved that whatever they had tried to poison him with didn't have any effect on him. On the other hand that meant that Morgan would have to apply different methods to obtain the knowledge she seeked. And if glamour really meant for them what it meant in the series, they had no way to erase his mind and make him forget everything he had seen here, which again meant that they couldn't just let him go. Not that he had had any illusions of such an easy escape anyways.

"I'm not saying you did something, dear", Morgan tried to calm him. "But I can't sense his mind at all."

Should he say something? Right now he had the feeling that they didn't even notice him anymore. Maybe he should just make a run for it, see how far he would come.

The vampire bride gave a deep sigh. "But I still do blame you. You and your damn greed did it again, and it's only been weeks this time. Weeks!"

Mortimer suddenly looked a lot more pitiful than before and whispered, accompanied by silent sobs: "I didn't mean to kill her! Or anyone... I just... I just... I just couldn't..." At that, Peter looked at him in surprise. That was at least some information he could use to his advantage. Apparently, they weren't just coldblooded killers. Or so he hoped. He hadn't quite given up on the idea that maybe he was dealing with psychopathic vampires here. Wow, he never thought he would have to use those two words in the same sentence.

"...you just couldn't stop", Morgan finished for her brother. "And if I had cast aside all logic, then I really wouldn't blame you. After all, she did taste fantastic. But so did the others."

Those words were just plain wrong, and their effect probably wasn't, what Morgan had had in mind. Because suddenly, a hungry glint appeared in Mortimer's eyes and apparently, all thoughts of Emily were forgotten. So he was just a psychopath. "If the glamour doesn't work on this one, maybe he tastes different too...", he began, and Peter was just about to object feverishly, when Morgan took matters into her own hands. Within a heartbeat she was at her brother's side and gave him a resounding slap in the face that was followed by a surprised yelp.

"No more bites for you before you learn to control yourself, you foolish thing!", she hissed with bared fangs that lent her an even more dramatic look.

"But... but I can control myself! Emily... she was special", Mortimer whimpered and Peter was surprised to see a single tear make its way down the vampire's cheek. At least it wasn't blood-red.

"And apparently, so is he", Morgan retorted and pointed at Peter, who felt rather like a spectator to some bizarre horror-movie. If it hadn't been for the handcuffs and the fear for Olivia's and his own life, it would have felt completely surreal. And he had to get back into the game fast, so he decided to simply interrupt their family drama with a simple statement. "So, vampires."

Morgan looked at him with a mixture of compassion and annoyance that was hard to place. "As far as I know, there is no such thing as a vampire", she finally answered softly. After all Peter had seen, her words didn't make any sense. The so-called glamouring, the fangs, the lust for blood... then again, everything was so cliché that it couldn't be as easy.

"Then what are you?", he asked with a queasy feeling.

Morgan just shook her head in a reply, but then seemed to make up her mind and said: "If I knew that, I guess we'd be living quite differently. I know what we can do, and I know what we have to do in order to survive. Anything else... well." She shrugged and for a second, she almost looked like a helpless and scared little girl.

"Well, you certainly do fit the profile", Peter gave back. He was almost surprised when he felt his muscles relax slowly as the immediate threat of being... eaten... was gone, and finally his headache subsided too.

Morgan laughed quietly at his words. "As far as I know, vampires don't have stingers to poison their victims with", she explained and held up her hand for Peter to see. The gesture exposed a long, slender sting that came out of her palm and retreated again so fast it was almost impossible to see. "And I do love sunlight. And garlic, for that matter."

"And blood", Mortimer added behind them as if he hadn't understood the point of the discussion. His words instantly made Peter tense his body again. The threat wasn't gone, only postponed. How to get out of this? How, how, how? With his mind thinking furiously, he tried to keep up the conversation – as long as they were talking, they at least weren't draining him for his blood. "Then why this show?", he demanded to know and did his best to seem impervious to Morgan's crazed brother. The second he spoke the words, at least part of the answer came to him and he continued: "Hiding in plain sight?"

"That too", Morgan admitted. Somehow it confused Peter that she kept on talking about herself and her condition – if she wanted to kill him, why not just get it over and done with? "But mostly, it's about the taste." There it was again. The taste. If he hadn't felt nauseated from the fight before, the thought of how blood tasted differently to these creatures would have done the trick. "The blood of someone happy, unburdened, it's... ah, there is nothing like it", Morgan said with an infatuated smile on her full lips. "Nothing. But the blood of someone afraid, terrified... Now that's just disgusting."

Peter had to fight back a gag reflex. So they weren't just psychotic pseudo vampires. They were picky psychotic pseudo vampires. Oh, he should write that down. Maybe one day, he might actually laugh at that ridiculous phrasing. But it sure as hell wasn't today.

"So you... what", he began, "You choose one unlucky customer each night and –". Morgan interrupted him before he was forced to utter the unthinkable. "Of course not!" She actually sounded offended, which would have surprised him if he had any emotion of surprise left in him after this evening. "We pick all of them, and they usually don't even notice."

"Emily", he heard Mortimer whisper behind him at that. Morgan proceeded unwaveringly. "The tiny twinge of our fangs can't break through the trance. That way, no one gets hurt."

"Apart from Emily", Peter remarked.

Morgan's eyes narrowed, but she remained calm. "That was a mistake. A terrible one, but a mistake nonetheless", she replied with a side-glance at her brother.

"And apart from me."

This time, Morgan sighed. "Also a mistake. But it's too late to do something about it. We can't make you forget, apparently..."

Peter snorted and said with a growl: "Apparently."

"...but we can make sure that your partner... Oliver, right? … that he gets out of here alive. That's the best I can offer." Her smile seemed to be honest enough, but it didn't change the fact that her so-called deal left him for dead in this scenario. And that he didn't believe her words for a second. Yes, he believed that the part about Emily was true and that her death had been a mistake (the pathetic creature in the corner was proof enough), but her threat concerning him also showed him far too clearly that she hadn't learned anything from it, so it was far too dangerous to expose Olivia. So he decided to stay true to his story and muttered with a sigh: "As I have told you on numerous occasions, by now Oliver is gone. G-O-N-E. And considering that I was supposed to follow him and haven't made contact yet, I guess he'll be back with a search warrant any minute now."

Seemingly, Morgan didn't believe him either, because she simply shook her head. "Oh, Peter, that just won't do. If he actually had left and if he was to come back with the cavalry, he would have done so by now. But we haven't heard anything. You know what that tells me?" She looked at him expectantly, but he refused to answer the rhetorical question. "It tells me that he has been glamoured and is quite happy and inattentive right now. It tells me that you two are on your own. So you either reveal his identity to me and I make sure he lives, or I will force him out of his trance. And believe me, that last option will be quite painful for the both of you." She hesitated a short moment, then her lips turned into a lopsided grin. "Well, mostly for you. So it's your choice, really."

Peter tried to stare her down and to ignore the growing feeling of panic he felt arising inside of him. "There isn't a choice, really", he finally managed to utter a reply in as strong a voice as he could muster.

Morgan's smile never faltered as she said: "Well, at least you'll go out with quite a show."

Now that didn't sound too good. But Morgan didn't enlarge upon her sentence and instead reached for an old-fashioned phone on the desk and muttered: "And I better make some calls."

XXX

How much time has passed? Sometimes, for a short time, she feels tired. Her body feels tired. The music is the only thing driving her on, dancing, dancing, dancing to the perpetual rhythm of the oomph, oomph, oomph. She feels the sweat streaming down her face by now, her black hair – blond, blond, blond! – sticks wet to her skin. This time it takes her longer to register that something is happening. Her eyes are semi-closed, her focus is on the small spot of dancefloor that she can see below. She hears the excited screams of the girls next to her, but it takes her longer to react. Her head feels heavy, so terribly heavy, as she tries to lift it up to look at the reason for all the racket. It's him again. The pretty guy from before with the blood on his face – Peter, Peter, Peter, her mind screams. But it's not important. Nothing is important anymore. Neither the sting of the scorpion, nor the slit throat, nor the names rushing through her head. Olivia, Emily, Rachel, Peter. She can't stop them, but she does her best to ignore them. They are irrelevant. Or so she tries to tell herself.

Then why do they keep on coming?

There must be a deeper meaning, but it keeps to elude her.

A large and ugly man is standing behind the pretty one. She doesn't like him. His face looks cruel. But he is irrelevant, so she ignores him, and this time it comes to her easily. Pretty guy is being dragged towards the cage where the boy had been playing his role quite well. He looks up, looks weak and defeated, and she is really impressed by his skills. As another man takes him down, he almost slumps into his arms as if there is no strength left in his body. She hears a few girls sigh at the sight, a young one in a black-and-silver dress even makes a sound of discontent, but then begins to smile and returns to the dance. The dance... She knows she has to dance. The dance is her life. But somehow this is important. And so she watches him struggle as he is dragged into the cage.