A/N - I've had some anonymous reviews, just wanted to say thank you since I can't send a PM to do it.
This is a shorter chapter. I promise to try to make up for that next time :-)

Edgar slumped in the comfortable chair in Daniel's house, wearing a defeated expression, unable to even summon the energy to pace the room.

"How do you know the vampire wasn't guessing?" Daniel asked him.

The other half vampire was sitting in the office style chair by his desk, the seat swiveled to point him away from the dizzying array of computer screens. He leaned backward and the chair reclined with him. He was the very picture of unconcerned. But then, he liked being a bloodsucker, the threat of making someone else into one wouldn't sit quite so heavy with him. Right now, Edgar was fighting the urge to punch him in the face.

"I mean, nearly everyone's got people." Daniel continued. "He doesn't need to know who they are to threaten them."

Edgar shook his head. It was more than that. "He said brother. He knows about Alan."

"Okay." Daniel took in a deep breath and exhaled through pursed lips. "You want to warn him?"

He thought about it, weighing the possibilities. "No," he said. "Not yet. The threat only stands if I keep hunting. Also, he might know about Alan but not where to find him. I could end up leading them right to him."

"You mean like you might have just led them here?"

"You're already a vampire," Edgar snapped back.

"Half vampire, please. I'd have thought you of all people would be careful about that distinction."

Edgar glared at him, angry at the unwelcome reminder of his current state.

Daniel sighed, turning back to his work. "You want me to warn him?" he asked. "I don't have to tell him you're here, just that I heard some chatter on the supernatural grapevine. Maybe I could even tell him what this vampire looks like."

Edgar shook his head. He hated feeling so helpless. "I don't know," he said.

"You can't trust a vampire to keep his word about anything. If he wants to turn Alan, he'll do it whether you keep hunting or not."

Damn it. The stupid halfie was right. Edgar got to his feet. "I'll warn him myself," he said.

Edgar hadn't used a payphone since Santa Carla. He was almost surprised to find out that they still existed. He walked past them most nights, but barely registered their presence. Part of the scenery. Ancient technology. He was half convinced that it wouldn't even work any more.

He fished in his pocket for change and fed it into the slot. The one of the quarters fell straight through the machine and out into the reject slot. Cursing, he tried again, and a third time. Finally the machine accepted the coin. He dialed Alan's number slowly, hoping that he had remembered it correctly.

The phone on the other end of the line rang for so long he didn't think he was going to get a reply. When the line clicked and Alan picked up, his voice was thick with residual sleep. He almost yawned down the line as he muttered a hello. Oh yeah, middle of the night. End of the night, actually. It wouldn't be long before the sun started to rise. It wasn't all that surprising that his human brother was sleeping.

"Alan?"

On the other end of the line his keen vampire hearing could detect Alan sitting up quickly in bed, sheets rustling against one another as he did. "Edgar? Thank God. Where are you? Are you okay?"

"Not really," he admitted, "but I'm still more or less me, if that's what you're asking."

Alan breathed a sigh of relief. "Where are you?"

"Safe," Edgar told him. "Now shut up and listen, I need to tell you something. I met a vampire tonight. It was strong, but it's probably not the head vampire. It told me to stop looking for her."

"Her?"

"Yeah, apparently we've got out first clue. Now here's the problem." He stopped talking as he heard the line go dead. "Alan? Shit!" Edgar hung up the receiver and started fishing through his pockets for more coins. There was nothing there but pocket lint and a few useless pennies.

He reached for the phone again, planning to call collect. Before he could pick it up, it started ringing. He grabbed at the receiver. "Alan?"

"What happened?"

"Payphone, ran out of money. Okay listen. They know about you, Alan. Maybe about Zoe too, Blake, I don't know who else. They threatened you.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line before he heard Alan take a breath. "Threatened us how?"

"Draculasshole says he'll turn you all if I don't stop looking for the head vampire," he said.

Another pause. Edgar waited for a response. On the other end of the line he could hear nothing but silence and Alan's quiet breathing.

"Alan?"

"What are you going to do?"

Edgar scowled at the payphone as though it were the one that had spoken. The truth was, he didn't know. "I'm close," he said. "I must be, or they wouldn't be wasting time trying to stop me. The trouble is, I don't know any more now than at the start. They must think I know something I don't."

"Or they just don't to risk you finding them."

Edgar sighed. "What should I do?" he asked.

"Come home," came the instant answer.

"That's not what I meant, Alan, and you know it."

Alan sighed. "Are you asking my permission to put me in danger? You have it. We're both in danger every night of our lives. But it you're asking if you should keep hunting, no. I'm sorry, Edgar. I know how you feel about this, but patrolling the boardwalk like when we were kids isn't going to solve this. It's going to make it worse."

Anger rose in him. The same anger and frustration of the previous night, but so much stronger now. He was trapped, there were no right moves.

"You know what, Alan? Fuck you! Maybe it'd be better if the vampires did get to you, then at least you'd have an incentive to fight."

He slammed the receiver back onto the phone. The tough plastic cracked under the force of his blow. He caught himself a moment too late to stop.

"Shit!" Hands dove into his pockets again, searching once again for coins that he knew weren't there. He hadn't meant that. He could never have meant that. He needed Alan to know that he was sorry. Again, he found no money. He picked up the phone again and smashed the receiver into the base again and again, until the crack widened and finally the whole thing fell apart in his hand. He didn't feel any better.

More angry with himself than with his brother, he turned and walked back to Daniel's place. The sky was beginning to lighten incrementally. He didn't have time to go to Alan and explain himself, he didn't have his phone, and using Daniel's would reveal his hiding place. All he could do now was sleep until evening and hope that the damage he had done could be repaired tomorrow.

Alan stared at his phone, willing it to ring again. When it didn't oblige, he re-dialed the number for a second time. Nothing happened, there was no ring at the other end. The line buzzed in his ear.

He put the phone down. He should be angry with Edgar, or at the very least hurt. He should be afraid, knowing that he was on the vampire's radar. Instead all he felt was relief. Edgar was okay. Well, the definition of okay was relative, but his brother was still a half vampire and under the circumstances that was the best news he could have hoped for.

He lay back down on his bed, closed his eyes and tried to sleep again, but sleep would not come. Finally, he gave up, crawled out of bed and boiled water for coffee.

There was still no food in the house. His stomach communicated loudly that it had been neglected for far too long. He showered, dressed, and headed out into the town.

Early morning was Alan's favorite time of day. There was something wholesome about the first light of a day. The air smelled new and fresh and there was always so much promise. He had missed that when he had been a vampire. The start of a new night hadn't been the same, it had only held the promise of misery and death.

He walked from the store armed with a few basic food supplies and copies of the latest editions of both local newspapers. He parked himself on a bench overlooking the ocean and allowed the sun to soak into his skin, hungrily devouring a packaged sandwich as he browsed the pages of the papers for any recent disappearances. There had been a few. More than a few, actually. San Cazador had used to be one of the safer coastal resorts, now one article claimed it had surpassed Santa Carla's dubious claim to fame.

As he read, he noted down anything that might be useful, the ages and genders of the disappeared, whether they were locals or out-of-towners, and most importantly, where they had been seen last. It was a pretty mixed bag, especially when added to the notes from the last week.

The vampires were targeting younger people. That was no surprise. Aside from the occasional anomaly, vampires tended to be turned when they were young, and they went after their own. Even when it was just for food, they were drawn the the vibrancy, energy and life of the young. The average age for the disappeared was early 20s. They were fairly evenly split between men and women, slightly more men but not enough to mean anything. They were being taken from all around the city.

From his back pocket, he pulled out a worn and well used map of San Cazador and added six more crosses to the growing collection. He examined it, hoping to see a pattern emerging. The majority of victims disappeared on the boardwalk or the surrounding area, but there were marks over the whole city. Except...

He stared harder at the map, trying to decide whether what he was seeing was coincidence or something more significant. There were gaps, places where no-one had been taken from. It could be that these were less densely populated areas, but on the other hand, maybe the vampires didn't hunt in their home territories. They may be disgusting undead bloodsuckers, but they had rules, and Alan didn't pretend to understand all of them.

Shoving the map back into his pocket, he got to his feet and left, leaving the newspapers behind on the bench, their pages fluttering in the wind.

There was nothing in the area to suggest that it was anything other than what it appeared to be; a residential neighborhood filled with houses, the occasional small convenience store, an elementary school at one end and a park at the other. Honestly, Alan had had no idea that places like this really existed in the world, let alone a short drive from his house. It was just so normal.

Zoe walked by his side, glancing from side to side. "Cozy," she said.

He glanced at her. Her expression didn't give anything away.

"You getting anything?" he asked her.

"Getting anything?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, you know, like weird scents...whatever."

She stared back. "Is that why you asked me to come? You think I'm going to lead you to the vampire lair like some kind of sniffer dog?"

Alan shrugged, looking away. "No," he said.

A mom and two young kids walked past, the older girl skipping ahead, checking back every few seconds to make sure her mom was still there, the younger kid in his stroller happily sucked his thumb. As she passed, them, the girl turned and stared as though she knew that they were the ones that were out of place here. Alan looked at her, she smiled shyly and skipped on.

There was nothing here that screamed evil vampire hideout. No evidence of a history of violence or suffering, no twisting corruption of everything that was good. It seemed like a nice place to live.

"It doesn't work like that anyway," Zoe told him. "I don't have any superpowers. When I look like this, I'm just plain old Zoe. When I change, I'm something else."

"I didn't bring you for that," Alan told her. "Honestly. The first rule of hunting is never go alone."

Zoe smirked. "Yeah, I can see why you didn't want to come into this hellhole without backup."

Alan sighed. "You're right, this is a bust. Let's try the other location."

The second part of town showed more promise. Maybe it was just that the sky had begun to fill with clouds by the time they arrived and the sun was that bit less bright, but this place seemed foreboding somehow. The people on the street were few and far between. There were fewer homes here; more of the space was given over to industry, much of it now closed down and moved out. A vaguely fishy smell filled the air, reminding Alan of their proximity to the sea and of the few boats that docked there. Their cargo had to go somewhere.

Zoe was quiet as she walked at his side. "I don't like this place," she muttered. "I suppose that's a good sign though, right?"

Alan nodded, vigilant for anywhere that might be being used by vampires.

He found it at the end of a road of disused factories. It had been a warehouse in a previous existence. Now it was closed and derelict. The windows were boarded with metal plates, graffiti artists had used the place as a canvass to practice their art. He nodded in the direction of the place as they passed. Zoe glanced at it, then looked quickly away, drawing attention would be a bad idea. A group of kids passed on the other side of the road. Alan felt the urge to cross the street too. The whole structure had an air of foreboding, as though someone had placed a giant supernatural keep away sign on top of the building.

Frankly, it seemed impossible that no-one had noticed before that there was something wrong with the place.

Zoe elbowed him gently in the arm and pointed to an area where the old wire mesh fencing had come away from the post. "Wanna check it out?"

He checked his weapons. Two stakes, one holy water gun. Zoe was unarmed as far as he could see, which meant if she had something, it wasn't much. "Quick perimeter check," he told her. "We're not prepared for a full scale assault."

Alan squeezed through the small gap in the fence, then pulled it aside for Zoe to follow. Inside, the feeling of foreboding increased. "Just to check," he said, speaking in a whisper now, "is this place giving out signals to run away, or is that just me?"

"Major case of the willies over here," Zoe told him. "It's the slaughterhouse all over again."

Alan nodded.

"I'm not smelling anything, before you ask," she added.

"C'mon. And shh."

Alan crept around the perimeter of the fence, checking for other ways in and out. It was topped with razor wire and covered with signs claiming security guards patrolled the area. He doubted that very much. There were no other ways through the fence without the power of flight.

"Ready for a closer look?" Zoe asked him. She reached into her purse and pulled out something that looked suspiciously like breath spray. She held it in front of her like an offensive weapon and walked toward the building. Alan followed.

Up close, it was nothing spectacular. Probably built sometime during the 50's or 60's, the large building was made from brick and covered with concrete that was chipping off at random places, showing the original brickwork through. Plants were beginning to grow through cracks in the floor outside, widening them slowly.

They walked slowly around. Every door and window of the first two floors was boarded with a sheet of steel. An advertisement bolted to one of them helpfully provided the name and number of the company responsibly, just in case any passer by should have need of their services.

"Damn it," Alan muttered.

"Do you think we could pry the metal off?"

He shook his head. "Not without some kind of machine and making enough noise to literally wake the dead. He stared upward toward the higher levels of the building. The boarding up company had neglected to bother with the windows that couldn't be reached. "The only way to get in there is to fly," he said.

"Luckily, we happen to know someone who can do that," Zoe said.

Alan nodded. If he could find Edgar, or if his brother happened to get in touch again, he might be able to use the temporary advantage that half vampirism gave him to gain entry to the building, but what then? They had no idea what he would find inside, no way of getting anyone else in there to be his backup. It would be Edgar, alone, against an indeterminate amount of full vampires. Edgar would probably be willing to take the risk. Alan was not.

"We need to think very carefully about this," he said. "Come on, lets get out of here before we start to attract attention."