Annotation: While Aidan and Vicki are waiting for Henry to become any better, being full of concern and hope at the same time, clouds are ahead on the horizon. An angry and by Vicki´s silent manner (she denies to answer his calls) disappointed Mike decides to pay Vicki a visit, determined to find out what´s going on with his former partner/love affair...

As these events take place in 2013, almost five years after "Deep Dark" of Blood Ties in 2008, relationships have developed further on and Vicki works together with Henry Fitzroy now constantly. By the time Fitzroy has become more than only her partner in investigations. Being in love with a vampire isn´t an easy thing to go. She´s not at war with Mike Celluci, but their former affair has cooled down, even when Mike isn´t willing to accept it and he tends to put an jealous eye on Fitzroy. And we know that both, Mike as well as Vicki, can act out on a hot temper level!

Warning; So this chapter isn´t a smooth one and those readers who are used to a nice and easy going Mike-Vicki relationship will be warned. T+ for language and emotion.

Toronto Metropolitan Police

The files had been sent to Crowley and Mike dug with his fingers through his thick blond hair. He yawned and crossed his hands behind his neck, moaning a bit when he felt the tensed and slightly hurting muscles in his neck. That would be better later on when he would be lying in his bed finally. He felt tired after the prolonged shift, not the first one and it won´t be the last one sincethe government had decided to keep the budget on the level of the year before. What meant that there was no additional personal in sight for the police forces, at least not this year, Mike thought with a sourish smile on his face. The coffee in front of him had become cold in the paper cup and Mike imagined to be at home soon and sitting in his chair, a freshly brewed hot coffee in his hand and how he would be relaxing a bit before he would be heading for the bed. Night shifts were annoying sometimes. And sometimes it reminded him of the time when he had to work with Vicki and her vampire partner to solve any of her crazy cases.

And actually...! I should pay Vicki the visit I was about to do yesterday already! he thought. It would take him some additional time adding to the long shift he had gone through, but what for? Vicki would not appreciate it but he wanted to know from herself why she hadn´t answered his calls. And being in her rooms she would have to answer him. No chance to escape him or ward him off under any pretense. What the heck was she hiding from him that she had acted so secretly? He had met Fitzroy in Dr. Mohadevan´s laboratory and he had the good doctor seen when she came from Vicki´s office and on both occasions a cooler had been involved.

"I can´t wait to learn what they are doing there! And I bet Vicki will get some problems to explain to me what Fitzroy has to do with it too!" he mumbled when he shut down his computer and grabbed for his trench coat. "Damn rain! Can anybody tell me why the heck it´s raining here since days? Looks like anybody has pissed off any good-weather-God! Fitzroy might find this shitty weather nice as it protects him from getting a couple of sunburns on his royal skin!" Mike growled with some inner satisfaction when he closed the door of his office. Some minutes later he steered his car into the rainy morning traffic. Rush hour in the morning and rain was a pretty good combination in Toronto, he thought.

So it took him more time as usually to reach Vicki´s Office at Huron Street.

Vicki Nelson Investigations, Toronto

Mike laid his hand on the doorknob. His eyes got caught on the white sheet of paper that was stuck to the glass shield of the front door.

Nelson Investigations- Dear clients, due to family affairs this office stays closed until next week. We beg your pardon for the inconvenience and will be happy to see you soon. Victoria Nelson.

Mike shook his head, tried to turn the knob. It blocked. He grunted. Was Vicki out for investigations? But there was a light shining through the glass front. She won´t let the lights switched on when she was off.

And what the heck…family affairs?

Mike dug into his pocket and brought out a key, shoved it into the lock and turned it. To his mild surprise it worked and the door snapped open. He slowly entered the rooms. The entrance part was where her office was, her private rooms were lying in the backspace. The public area was not lit. The light was coming from the private part. He stepped through the office and Mike heard voices from behind the living room door.

One he recognized as Vicki´s voice, the other one was a male´s voice. It was definitely not Fitzroy.

Any client despite the note at the door? That doesn´t fit together, he thought and knitted his brows when he armed himself for the moment he would burst into Vicki´s rooms without so much as an appointment.

The living room was dimly lit and a man was sitting in the chair. He turned his head when Mike entered and jumped off his seat. He was tall and had dark and slightly curly hair that was neatly cut. His dark brown, or were they black…? eyes looked right into Mike´s.

He took a position of straight wariness, maybe ready for a fight.

"Hi, good evening! You´re a client? Is Vicki in the next room?" Mike directed to the next door.

The man stepped into his path the very moment Mike mentioned the next room.

"You won´t enter! Ms. Nelson is not available!" His tone was definite and vibrating in Mike´s mind.

Mike stared at him, his lids narrowed when he got the slight feeling that oddly enough the man tried to…intrude him.

"Don´t play your tricks on me, Mister!" Mike warned him and his face became stern. "We, Vicki and I, are old friends! You won´t be the last one to deny me access! Beside, I have a right to be just here! I´m Detective Mike Celluci from the TMP homicide! "He pulled his coat back, showing his police badge.

The man lifted his hands, spreading his arms; "Okay, Detective…Never mind! But Ms. Nelson is busy at the moment and she begged me to take care for, that she won´t be disturbed!"

"Busy with what? With Fitzroy? And she made you the doorman? That's typical for her! So, now…let me in!" Mike walked forward, using his tall figure but the man stepped in front of the door the moment Mike´s hand touched the door knob.

"You don´t dare!" Mike stared at him, his sky blue eyes cold as ice on a winter morning. Black eyes replied his view.

And this very moment he was sure that his opponent was a vampire!

Eyes that turned from dark brown to plain black! He noticed the slight difference to Fitzroy´s vampire eyes which held a slim dark night blue ring around the pupil instead of that what he saw here.

"Get out of my way…Vampire!" he barked at him. "Or I gonna stake you outta the way! Then Vicki can brush up your ashes with a dust pan!" His hand moved under his shoulder where he carried the holster with the Glock 9mm handgun. Only a warning! But he won´t allow this guy to stop him!

The man hissed and grabbed for the door knob, opened the door to the bedroom by himself and bent inwards.

"Vicki, you´re having a visitor! I tried to stop him but couldn´t hold him back without gonna snap his neck!"

"I just heard! It´s Mike! Let him in, Aidan!...Uh god! I hate this guy!" she added from inside the bedroom and the man she had called Aidan, stepped out of the path, letting Mike in.

"You could have gotten that easier!" he growled at Aidan when he passed him and entered the bedroom.

The light was dim despite the fact that normally Vicki preferred as much light as possible because of her progressive RP.

"What do you want, Mike, that you´re about to use sheer police force to get to me! I´m not hold captive here!"

"Then why do you install this guy, this vampire, to guard your door, Vicki? Slowly I´m losing my patience with this crap! If you´re gonna make your home and office a vampire asylum…with what you won´t ever have come up if not for Fitzroy…" He watched over to the bed…her bed…that was occupied by anybody whose body was hidden under the blankets. The only thing he could see was a mess of dark brown curly hair and the blankets barely heaved with the fast and gasping intakes of breath.

Mike directed to the bed.

"Who the heck? Why is Fitzroy using YOUR bed? Did any pissed off friend of one of his occasional meal-on-legs burn down his home or did he steal the window shields to give his rooms a bit more of daylight?"

Mike stepped nearer and grabbed for the covers.

"MIKE!" Vicki warned him and stepped into his path. He simply ignored it, ignored her voice, ignored her figure and bent down. With a swift move he drew back the blankets to reveal what he expected to find…

A naked Fitzroy.

But why was he sleeping at night? Bastard!

Before Vicki could stop him, the blankets flew aside and Mike let out an unintentionally growl.

Why was Fitzroy plain naked and what was going on here?

Fitzroy´s skin was covered in sweat and normally Mike knew him to be a clean and neat guy, but now his skin had blotches that looked like spotted with loosely gray…ashes or dust would meet it the best…

Then Mike noticed slight differences in the facial features.

This man looked like he was a few years older than Fitzroy, his curly hair soaked with sweat and he was shivering now, that the blankets had been removed. Mike stared at him, his mind working. Looking more closely he noticed that the grayish spots weren´t dust but dark colored lesions of the skin.

Abruptly he let drop the blankets as if he had burned his fingers. This wasn´t quite normal. It looked like what they tended to make zombies look in the movies. Like parts of decaying tissue.

Mike stepped back with a gasp, a mix of surprise and fear, keeping back an outcry with much effort.

"YOU…you won´t dare to…to hide someone here with…with the…" all what came to his mind was Black Death. The plague. Pestilence.; "…with the plague! Vicki! Dare you!" he stared at his hands in panic. He had touched the damn infected blankets, soaked with fucking bacteria from a dying man and Vicki… Vicki hadn´t stopped him!

"Are you friggin MAD, VICKI?" he shouted at her and he directed at the body with a trembling finger.

"He´s not infectious to humans! I can appease you with it!" She said. Her voice was loud and cold as ice. Her face was stern and she bent down and covered the body with the blankets, felt for the temple.

"He´s not? Infectious to…Humans? Human? Does that mean…?" Mike couldn´t believe the own suggestion.

"Yes Mike! He´s a vampire! And he caught the flu virus from tainted blood he fed on unwittingly! Does that answer your questions, Detective?" Vicki had put her hands onto her hips and she stared at Mike as if she was going to kill him right away at any moment.

"But...but he can…" Mike began.

"He can´t infect me. I´m vaccinated and it won´t spread on humans but by the blood if he would turn you while he´s infected! Rajani told me, it´s a virus subtype that developed by mutation when a vampire # zero drank from a flu infected human. It even don´t spread among them if not by exchange of blood or body liquids! That´s what Rajani found out…"

Exchange of blood and body liquids! When it spread among vampires... When Fitzroy fucked Vicki there were enough body liquids exchanged! Vicki was... Mike felt cold and hot shivers run down his spine for a moment.

Mike didn´t say a word for a moment. His eyes went from his hands to the vampire and back to his hands. He wiped them at the sides of his trousers, just to feel cleaner. When he had regained his own composure, he stepped nearer and looked at the spot at the vampire´s throat. Curiosity took over now after a first feeling of natural fear for an unknown disease.

"This…lesions…is that going on? I mean…it looks damn unhealthy…something like…tissue…dying off." He avoided it to use the word rotten or decay.

"It´s part of the symptoms. Normally it´s the beginning of the severe state of the infection and mostly…there isn´t much time left over. But Rajani shot him a serum, an antidote she generated from Henry´s blood…it´s difficult to explain…basically she makes use of Henry´s immune system, his ability to ward off any infections. She took his blood and infected it in her laboratory with the virus tainted blood of him…" she directed to the vampire on the bed; "…to develop antibodies, preparing an…uhm…an extract and then Rajani injected the cleaned concentrate into Henry´s body. He still had these spots developed, but it looks like they don´t go on further…" Vicki tried to explain as simple as possible. She wasn´t a doctor and much of what Dr. Mohadevan had told her was difficult to understand for a non-medic.

"The growth of the lesions stopped. I hope that the existing ones will heal and disappear. I can´t say if without leaving back scars, but it is an improvement to get them stop! Because their spreading is related to a massive progress of the infection, finally leading into exitus. Since two days they don´t grow anymore and there are no new lesions appearing. He has a high risen fever what is unusual in vampires and his body shows all usual symptoms of a flu; weakness, fever shivers, fever, pain in the muscles and cough… Our patient here is seriously ill but I have the hope we got a chance by now, that he´ll survive it…" Dr. Mohadevan explained when she had suddenly appeared behind him, a new bottle of Ringer* solution in her hand. ( *Ringer is a water based solution of specific mineral salts for infusions, used for intravenous liquid substitution)

"Uhm…I mean…why does these guys not use a normal vaccination?" Mike thought loudly.

"Their bodies lack of the ability to develop antibodies by themselves. In any way their immune system can´t cope with this virus…" Dr. Mohadevan explained it so that Mike would understand. "I inject him a concentrate of antibodies I have won from Henry Fitzroy´s blood and it looks like it´ll do…"

Mike nodded, pensively scratched the chin with his fingers. He got a strange idea. The doctor had said that she took blood from Fitzroy and this vampire…he looked so much…"

"This blood…uhm blood extract, does it make him…" he directed to the bed; "…look more equal to…uhm to Fitzroy?"

"WHAT?" Aidan interrupted him after he had kept silent for a long time. To be exactly; since the time Mike entered the bedroom. But this idea of the cop was way too crazy! Aidan looked at Mike as if the detective had gone mad.

"What friggin nonsense are you talking about, Detective Celluci?

"You´re crazy, Mike!" Vicki added from her side.

"If that would happen, all vampires would look equal like…like clones! That´s totally crazy, this idea! It can only be risen by a cop´s mind. Even Bishop didn´t have such crazy ideas about the vampires."

"Let´s get outta here, Mike!" Vicki pushed him out of her bedroom, the door falling closed behind them.

Aidan had followed them to the living room, leaving his son to the hands of the doctor.

"Which Bishop? Since when does a Bishop or an Archbishop have any interest in vampires, other than to extinguish them from the surface of earth as God´s lost creatures?" Mike spat at her.

"Not A bishop! His name was Bishop!" Aidan mixed in.

"Who?" Mike turned around to Aidan and shot him a glare, his eyes ablaze. Aidan heard his heartbeat speeding up.

"The one who made me, who turned me!"

Mike´s brows knitted.

"Oh, got it! His vampire daddy! He has a vampire daddy! I thought it to be a woman but maybe this guy had a special taste in men!" Mike´s voice was dripping with cynicism.

"Do you want to insinuate that his maker was a gay guy?" Vicki stared right into his sky blue, now cold as ice, eyes. Her voice all sharp and aggressive. Vicki ready to go blow up thru the ceiling!

"I don´t insinuate it! I affirm it!" Mike shot back at her without any hesitation, ready for the confrontation Vicki was about to deliver in best Vicki Nelson manner.

"And what? What IF? Does that bother you, Mike? That´s none of your business! Don´t act like the saint in here!"

"Act the saint! What are you trying to tell me, Victoria!"

"You´re acting the saint in here and you damn know there´s no friggin reason for it! Not since you lost your innocence in companionship with a specific vampire! You know what! And WHO!"

Mike´s face went gobbler red, and would it have been another situation Vicki would have become concerned for Mike´s health, but she took up the confrontation easily, irrespective the fact that Aidan was still present in the living room.

"I never lost my..." Mike choked on the word; "...innocence...to a specific vampire as you so eloquently put it!"

Aidan thought it to be better not to intervene, simply being listening and watching the confrontation between both of them.

"Since you hooked up with Fitzroy you´re totally obsessed with him, Vicki!" Mike almost shouted at her, ignorant to the fact that there was a sick person in the next room. A person who would be able to listen to them even when they would be whispering.

"I´m not obsessed with him, Mike!"

"No, you aren´t! Of course not! He simply pissed into your brain, Victoria!" Mike shot at her, his voice harsh and he knew pretty well that Vicki hated it when anybody called her by her full name. Fitzroy sometimes used to when he was absolutely serious about anything regarding her.

"He didn´t! Piss. Into. My brain. Before there will be any doubts! I´m still the owner of my brain!" Vicki´s grayish-green eyes were on blaze.

"I hadn´t been the one to start with mixing up with all these paranormal and vampire stuff! Hadn´t it been cuz of you, I would live on my normal life as before the day you pulled me into your crazy world of Voodoo, zombie queens, ghosts and vampires! And the less I lost my innocence to Fitzroy! Not now, not in his shower and not any day in the far future!"

Mike stopped abruptly and bit on his lip, being pissed because that one word had slipped from his lips unintentionally in his anger. Hopefully it had escaped Vicki´s attention due to her temper.

"Mike, you lost your mind´s innocence the very moment you saved Henry Fitzroy from Mendoza!"

"I never lost my mind´s innocence!" he spat back in protest, his face red with anger. His fists were clenched.

"Remember what Henry has told me about what he threw at Mendoza when this guy was about to drain him for the purpose of his own life; You can´t immerse yourself into darkness and emerge from it untainted!"

"WHAT?"

Aidan indicated him with his finger put on his lips to please low down the level; with no effect. Mike was up to everything now. Even to involve Aidan into their dispute.

"Don´t. Mix. IN!" he grunted at Aidan thru clenched teeth.

"Thinking about vampires, regardless if you get involved with them as connecting to them or you´re gonna kill them, you have to set up your personal borders newly!" Vicki replied. "The only point you would stay innocent is to avoid the theme totally! Which you finally aren´t in!"

"Your fault, Vicki! It had been YOU who dragged me into this!"

"You dragged yourself into it, Mike! The moment you mixed into the case I was investigating! The demon killer that roamed Toronto! It had been mine and Henry´s case! I never forced you to watch behind the curtain. You would have solved a case of murder and Rajani won´t have mentioned any paranormal background in her case file! You know her, Mike! She´s a totally scientific person!"

"Scientific enough to support you with THIS!" Mike directed to the bedroom door.

"YES! She is! She´s a forensic and before you´re gonna set this up again; No, Henry isn´t dead enough to be one of her cases! Neither as a heap of dust nor walking along in his flesh and blood! First and foremost she´s a doctor! Despite the fact she does the forensic investigations you need to solve your cases, Mike! And that´s because..."

Vicki made a dramatic pause to intensify the impression of her following words;

"That´s because she CARES about people, Michael Celluci!"

Vicki stared right into Mike´s eyes, waiting for the effect to hit! And the reaction came promptly.

"Are you gonna assume that I don´t care about ANYBODY, Vic?" he stepped forward until he stood only inches away from her, looking down onto her scalp until she lifted her head to stare into his eyes. His hands came up and a mere second they were hoovering beside her shoulders, before he grabbed her.

Mike felt a hand on his back and his head turned around abruptly.

Aidan was right behind him.

"Detective!" His voice near to a growl, a warning to Mike not to harm Vicki!

Aidan was a rather protective person when it came to women in general. He had been grown up to treat women with respect and to protect them. And some of it was still remaining within him, despite the fact he had been turned vampire and he was feeding on humans, women including. And sometimes a feeding went fatally wrong.

Even women had been killed by him accidentally.

"Take your hands off me! Vampire!" Mike wasn´t impressed by the fact that the man, the being, behind him was a vampire, for sure being much stronger than him, able to smash him into the next wall easily.

But he won´t allow it that the detective was about to harm this woman who had given them shelter, the woman who obviously was more than a simple friend to the doctor who was determined to rescue Henry´s life at any cost. Vicki for sure didn´t create the impression that she was the woman who needed help in general when it came to a fight. All what he had seen from her this first night in the backyard of the club, she was well trained in fighting skills and he had seen a punching bag and a punching ball. He never became aware what it had been what had hit him on the head and sent to the ground there.

"You´ll let her go, Detective Celluci!" Aidan commanded, his voice all the timbre it got when he was compelling anybody. The look of the detective got an astonished expression, his face showing his slight undecidedness if either to follow the command or, with a last defiant struggle, to ward off the intrusion.

Mike shook his head, stared right into the darkened eyes which were only inches away from his own and barked;

"Where is this brain athlete going to go, Vic? His head turning around and indicating Aidan.

Mike had the certain feeling that this seemed to be the second time that anybody tried to mix up his brain over the last days. A half hidden memory of meeting Fitzroy in Rajani´s lab…God, he didn´t remember what Fitzroy had said to him…had been the first time then when he suddenly had a slight feeling of not being totally alone in his brain in one way or another. Damn, his brain was his own and nothing else. There was no space for…intruders, taking over his mind! But he couldn´t differ it exactly, couldn´t get together what had happened in the lab other than Rajani gave him the files.

"Into your brain, Mike!" Vicki shot back without any emotion. Her voice cutting thru the mere a second long lasting moment of silence like a knife made from ice. While she was resistant to a vampire´s compelling skills but very familiar with the changes in her partner´s voice timbre, she had heard that Aidan´s voice had gotten these slightly changes which indicated that he was on compelling mode.

"Damn, Vic! You got the same attitude like Crowley! What the freak had Fitzroy done with you? Since you hooked up wi…"

"Yup, you told it a few moments ago; I´m obsessed with Fitzroy! But better to be obsessed with a vampire than me having to handle with a paranoiac and overly protective Ex-Partner, cop and ex-boner!

Mike´s lower chin fell and it would have needed a hand to shove it upwards and shut his mouth again. Aidan and Vicki heard him gasping for breath for a mere second, before Mike exploded.

To upbraid him overly protective and an ex-partner, these were things he slowly got used to since Vicki had left the troupe! But to call him an ex-boner…

"So, maybe a Fitzroy boner is better in bed than me, ain´t he, Victoria?! But as long as you didn´t hook up with vampires in a row, I have been good enough for you in a lack of better options! Do you know what you have become? If ever you heard it! And if not, it´s ME to tell you what you have become;…"

"Dare you!" Vicki almost shouted at him and her fists rose, grabbed Mike by the collar and she shoved him backwards, right into Aidan. The knot of human and vampire both stumbled backwards until Aidan steadied himself, grabbing Mike´s shoulders, fixing him roughly.

Vicki could have him staked by now if Mike would be any vampire and she´d been out for a hunt down.

"Fang-banger! You´re a damn fang-banger, nothing else!" Mike shouted right into her face. His teeth were bared and a deep growl of contempt came off his throat, not unequal to the sounds Josh gave of when he was turning werewolf.

By instinct Aidan´s nostrils widened and he deeply sucked in Mike´s smell, searching for the doggy smell that Josh gave of around full moon and that was so familiar to vampires who hated the werewolves by natural instinct.

Fixed by the vampire in his back, Mike was unable to duck or step back, when Vicki´s slap in the face hit him full force.

"Bastard! GET OUT of here! Before I´m gonna forget me!" she shouted at him and Aidan let him go, whirled him to the side.

The detective stumbled over his own feet, caught his stand with effort.

He groaned deeply, his right cheek burning like fire, the skin becoming red and pounding from his chin up to his temple.

Vicki called a strong left hand her own. Her left hooks were formidable.

Aidan stepped back a few steps and watched both opponents with wary eyes. He wasn´t in for a fight but what the detective had done was unbearable. It was Vicki´s home and her task to throw the detective out of here.

Whatever had been in the past between them… He might have been her lover too but this didn´t give him any right to throw such an insult at a woman. The expression he had used was even known to Aidan from occasionally watching TV, catching up on shows as True blood more by accident than intentionally.

But calling Vicki a fang-banger what meant nothing else but a blood whore, was far from being possible, also in a hard dispute.

"You better leave now, Detective Celluci!" Aidan hissed half under his breath, keeping controls with much effort. He kept his hands down, not provoking a physical fight. The detective´s blue eyes were on blaze and he grabbed for his collar, rearranging it and he shot Vicki and Aidan a venomous look and then the door fell shut behind Mike with a loud bang.

Aidan looked at Vicki, an expression of concern in his face. For a moment he kept silent, giving Vicki some space to come down.

When he heard her heart rate slowing down again and her breath became calmer he looked into Vicki´s face.

"Who´s this guy that he dares to insult you? I mean…what he did is a friggin shit! I and Henry, we are guests here and does Detective Celluci have such less sense of decency to treat a woman like that? In front of other people? If I got anything right in here, he´s not the owner of these rooms. Otherwise it would have been him to invite us in, not you, Vicki…!"

"Mike is…Sometimes he is a real asshole!" Vicki spat back.

"Is he…your Ex…?" Aidan tried carefully. He didn´t know anything about their relation but the way the detective had acted looked much like a former friend, lover or husband.

"He is! He´s my former partner in the homicide and yes, Mike had been more than a colleague or partner. We were lovers too but since I left the TMP we split up. Mike´s prob is that he doesn´t get it or he doesn´t WANT to get it that I have my own life now. He´s jealous…!"

"I have seen you with Fitzroy and if I´m not totally wrong about there seems to be more than partnership in work…" Aidan was aware that he was walking on very thin and very slippery ice now.

"One night after I had left the TMP cuz of my RP I got involved in a strange case of murder. Coreen came in cuz her friend was killed by what she thought to be a vampire! I needed money, so I took over. Normally, as a detective I won´t have shown any interest in what looked like paranormal nonsense…"

Vicki sat down with a sigh and Aidan saw that she was probably tired…no wonder.

"But as I said…I was in lack of money and so I started to investigate this stuff, first against my inner conviction, but then I met Henry in a dark alley. He was off before I could ask him what he was searching for on a crime scene and I met him again in a club. It took another close encounter with him before he convinced me that it wasn´t him who murdered these people and that he revealed himself as a vampire. Okay, I thought! Why not working together to solve this case! I thot it to become just a one case and finished thing, but I was pretty wrong…" Vicki grinned when she thought back how everything had begun. "In some certain way vampires have a very similar character to leeches…once bitten and adhered they won´t let go again…" she laughed.

Aidan knitted his brows than he laughed too about the relation. This Vicki Nelson had a sharp tongue and a strange sense of humor but maybe that was something typical with police officers.

"Henry explained me a lot more about this world and all this otherworldly stuff. Beside the killer had been a demon who was about to prepare the pathway for his hellish master Astaroth. Finally one case was followed by the other and when Mike found out that I was hanging around with a real life vampire he thought that I had lost my rational mind! He accused Henry that he did shit in my brain, compelling me into any deadly crap, to finally suck me dry. Mike is a typical old-world guy! Always protective about women and children…"

"Protective men aren´t the worst case…" Aidan smiled; "I myself was grown up to be protective to women and children…"

"How old are you?" Vicki threw in.

"I was turned vampire during the Revolutionary War…"

"Not bad! Not bad!" Vicki looked over him. "Uhm, yeap…Mike almost killed Henry when he tricked him over to a mad priest who was hunting down witches and vampires since centuries." Her face became stern when she thought back the nights they had searched for Henry Fitzroy until she found him, almost being killed also in the process. "We could rescue him in the last moment before this cretino stupido was about to burn him up! Fact is…finally I work together with Henry since almost five years and yes…Henry is more than a partner now. He´s my lover! And Mike doesn´t want to accept it! But me and Henry…that´s none of his business anymore!"

Aidan kept silent a moment before he dared to make a suggestion. He kept neutral with it in an attempt not to put pressure on Vicki as well as he had doubts that anybody might force Vicki into anything she didn´t want.

"Sometimes a former friend and lover will let go when his girlfriend makes a final and definite step by marrying her new friend…" He looked at Vicki, waiting for any reaction…also an aggressive one.

But Vicki sighed and kept silent unexpectedly long before she answered. He could almost see how her mind was working over the answer. Maybe he had dug too deep into her inner core…

"Henry had made the suggestion too but…to be honest…" What reason for heaven´s sake did she have to open up her inside out to a stranger/man/vampire she barely knew about since two nights. But Vicki felt more used and more familiar meanwhile to vampires and other beings than to humans. Maybe it was simply the opportunity to talk to someone from outside, somebody who didn´t knew her and the persons and relations around her.

Her fingers dug into each other when she went on but he could see how she fought for her composure when she finally spoke. Her face was stern and earnest.

"I would have liked so much to give in to Henry…but there´s one point I can´t deny…Maybe you know what it means to suffer from RP! My eyesight will get worse over the time until any day I´ll wake up to blindness! There´s currently no cure for it, even not any weird transplantation. You can transplant corneas, hearts, kidneys, liver, skin…" she stopped abruptly when she remembered her guest being skinned alive and she simply went over it like Aidan hadn´t been involved in it. But he didn´t mention anything. Vicki went on fast before Aidan would interrupt her; "I can´t be a burden for Henry then! I mean…of what use is a blind woman for him? For a vampire? He has his life, his immortal life and he once said that it wouldn´t matter to him because he loves me but I would never be able to cope with the fact that I might become a burden for him! What right would I have to hang on his tails, with a stick and a seeing-eye-dog at hand?"

"But he said that it won´t matter for him?! Why don´t you believe him, Vicki?"

"Henry may have thought it once, but over a long time…I won´t wonder if he´ll regret such a decision over the years to come! He lives multiple times than me! Henry decided to become a vampire out of free willing, he decided to live thru centuries, to become witness to human life over ages!"

Vicki stopped and he could see how she gulped hard. Maybe she had not spoken about her true feelings over a long time. Even in human life, time could become very long when it came to years, decades. Aidan felt that it should be him now to say something. Usually he spoke very rarely about his own former relations but maybe it would help Vicki to understand and to turn her mind.

"Vicki…maybe that won´t help much but I beg you to listen to me this once;…" when she didn´t interrupt or ward him off Aidan went on; "You´re afraid that Henry would leave you any day because of your eye problems. But you´re human, Vicki! You can´t even imagine the slightest what it means to live forever, to be immortal as long as you yourself aren´t too! Vampires have all time of the world as long as nobody kills them or as long as they won´t commit suicide out of boredom or as long as they won´t be killed by the damn flu! But that also means that we are sometimes very lonely and the longing even for a mortal relationship can become more than strong, Vicki! If you´re together with Fitzroy over five years now he doesn´t keep that simply upright to use you as a safe food source or an occasionally bed affair! If he says that he loves you and you should be able to feel if he tells the truth…"

Aidan stopped to give her time for an answer.

"He says so, Aidan…but…" Vicki answered with hesitation.

"There is no BUT, Vicki! No vampire keeps an interest in any human when he can have every human around if he not really and truly feels something for you. You would ask now why! But I have had a human relationship over years, a woman, her name was Celine. We met in the 70s and when she finally felt that we should split up for my own safety I didn´t want to but she went off to protect me! Celine thought that Bishop, my maker, would kill me if I won´t let go from my human girlfriend! I wanted her to run away with me but she ran off before I could get to her again. I was…"

Aidan stripped down his shirt, baring his chest and Vicki gasped when she got sight of his tattoo on the left side of his chest, right above the heart…

Celine

How deep must have been their love when he fixed her name onto his chest by a tattoo? Not to talk about that every other woman would see it when he took her in his bed…?

"Celine, she…we met again last year and I discovered her in the hospital in which I´m working. She came back because the cancer had come back…"

"Did she know that you are working there?"

"Maybe she did, maybe it was coincidence. The second I doubt. She could have found out easily… Fact is; Bishop came back and tried to kill me what ended up with me lying in the cellar of the hospital, waiting to heal which needed much more blood than usually. He had stabbed me with a stake, missing my heart for millimeters. She offered herself to me to get me up again fast before Bishop would find me…"

"That means that you have…" Vicki stopped before the word sucked dry slipped from her lips; "That she gave her whole blood for you…Oh my god!"

Aidan nodded.

"She offered herself to me and I´ll never forget which words she used…" his voice came down to a whisper; "I´ll rather die for you than from cancer!"

Vicki heard Aidan gasping and he bent down his face but she saw the tears which dripped down his cheeks. She kept silent but Aidan really must have been in love with Celine and she with him, that this woman had been willing to sacrifice her life for him. She was about to die from cancer but she might have had some time left. And for some people, facing their death it became unimaginably important to enjoy every single day left to them. It must have been a sacrifice out of true love.

Vicki thought back to the legends she once had heard about vampires; creatures of the devil, thriving on blood, ruthless killers, unable to retain some humanity and by this full of hatred and unable to love but their own kind...

You see I cannot be forsaken
Because I'm not the only one
We walk amongst you
Feeding, raping
Must we hide from everyone

A song from a movie she once had watched with Henry...the vampire Lestat singing it in Queen of The Damned...came to her mind.

Henry Fitzroy wasn´t a forsaken one, he didn´t hide from everyone. The old legends were telling lies about these creatures. And also Aidan and Henry Durham were living among the mortals, Aidan was actually working as a nurse at a hospital. The last thing you would imagine from a vampire but when he was going for blood.

Vicki sighed.

to be continued