Tesla's fingers tapered into claws. His eyes became jet black voids. The cheeky smile he often flashed sharpened into a sinister crest of teeth until finally his true nature surfaced.

His vampirish form broke free of John's grip with a snarl and before John could do anything to stop him, Tesla had lashed out at his shoulder, knocking John to the gravel.

John rolled, protecting his bleeding shoulder as several gashes appeared, seeping through his leather jacket.

It was funny, John thought whilst lying there, after all the years he and Tesla had known each other this seemed inevitable. There were too many levels of betrayal, jealousy and rivalry between them for common civility. Sharing love – it destroys the soul.

Nikola wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, flicking it to the ground with disdain.

"No!" Ashley yelled, diving toward her father.

"Get back," John pushed her away, struggling to his feet as Tesla came in for another go.

*~*~*

Gregory Magnus gripped the handle of his torch tightly as his eyes scanned over the bones on the cave floor.

"Animal bone," he murmured. "Get a grip of yourself. There's nothing here but ruins and –"

He didn't need the shivering of his flame to tell him that something was looming behind, having crept out of the depths of the cave. Gregory could hear a fine sheet of material skimming the dust and the slow, steady breath of the creature at his shoulder.

The air around Gregory crackled. Flecks of electricity crepitated into life with a thousand bright sparks. He felt that soft tickle over his arms as his hair stood to attention. It was like there was a current running through the cave, making molecules dance over one another, bouncing through a sea of electrons.

"Turn slowly," said the creature in Spanish.

Gregory heard a soft, low voice slide in over the air. He didn't understand its words, so he spun around, shaking with his torch held aloft.

"Slowly..." the voice repeated, before it saw the pale expression of the man. It was the face of a frightened and fragile creature, still stumbling about in the world; a brave young human with no idea of the danger eyeing him curiously.

The vampire was tall but hard to make out from the cave. It was as if the shadows curled around him, lapping at the edges of his towering façade, threatening to devour what was left. The top of his cloak glowed with a fine stream of hairline sparks, undulating in ferocity with the vampire's shifting mood.

The initial terror faded quickly as Gregory settled his eyes on the vampire. It was not that the stories had lied – indeed, this was a fearsome figure to behold – more that their descriptions were incomplete. Their writers had neglected to note the sadness of its dark eyes and the horror shining out from their pits, overlooked the fractures through their skin and understated the smoothness of their manner.

Put simply, the creature before him had seen ages die and was the wiser for it. His existence terrified the world and that hurt.

With courage Gregory had been unaware of up until this point, he held the torch back and stepped forward in a non-threatening but firm manner.

"I am Gregory Magnus," he started, "and I have come for your help."

For the human's spirit, the vampire decided not to kill him. Instead, it turned its back and began a retreat into the cave taking the electric air with it.

"No, wait..." Gregory abandoned all sense to follow. "Please. I have come a long way."

Still, the vampire gave no response as Gregory attempted to keep pace with it through the darkness. Gregory held his torch out in front as he struggled over the slippery floor of the cave. The dust had become mud and Gregory found his shoes fumbling through it. The vampire, however, seemed to have an unnatural ability to skim along its surface like a boat gliding through open water.

"Is this not a Sanctuary?" he finished desperately, shouting into the tunnel.

There was silence ahead and for a while, Gregory thought that he had failed his family. He had come all this way, to the other side of the world for a lie. His despair distracted him and he did not notice the return of the vampire just within reach of the light. Gregory couldn't know that the vampire had fractured dimensions in perfect silence.

"You seek Sanctuary?" it said, in heavily accented English.

Gregory lifted his head, finding the vampire with its arms clutched behind its back. Its voice barely broke a whisper, either afraid or unable to speak over the water trickling down a nearby wall.

"I seek the Sanctuary of the Moon," replied Gregory. "On behalf of my daughter."

*~*~*

The boy ducked into his father's box with the heavy lid resting on his back. The trunk wasn't quite big enough for Joe. He had to leave the lid half an inch open – enough to make absolute stillness a necessity.

He had hid just in time. A moment later the creature ducked its head awkwardly and stumbled into the front of the tent. The desert air kicked in behind it, blowing the fabric walls about.

Joe closed his eyes, willing the creature away as children did.

The creature's attention was on the screaming baby, waving its tiny hands in the air, hoping to be picked up and nursed. It couldn't see the sand creature approach with crystal blue eyes and a sharp set of claws.

It was over very quickly. With his eyes still firmly closed, all Joe knew of the baby's passing was a dull snap and an instant return of silence. Nothing in the room moved. The only thing left that Joe could hear was his own loud breathing. He felt his heart skipping through his chest and into his cheeks. Sweat started to dribble down his forehead and suddenly the trunk was very hot.

There was no air. His rapid breathing was sucking too much in before it could be replaced through the keyhole in front of his nose. He had heard nothing for more than a century, though it was likely only a minute. No footsteps or movement. No rustling through the ornaments littered across the tent. Joe couldn't even hear the creature breathe anymore.

The darkness of his own little world finally got the better of him. Joe had to open his eyes. He had to know if it was gone – or had been nothing but a dream; a horrible, terrible nightmare to punish him for wanting to see his presents early.

His lashes unknotted and his eyelid cracked open. Instead of a pale, yellowish glow from the lanterns, Joe saw blue.

It was there.

One eye to the keyhole.

Trailing a clawed hand over the lid of the trunk.

Joe was frozen into place – wanting to bury himself into the darkness of the trunk, unaware of the immediacy with which it was about to be taken away. The creature pried the lid off the trunk in a single movement, flinging it open where it crashed onto the floor, completely separate from its hinges.

The boy inside crouched, tears flowing down his cheeks in terror. Even this young, he knew that he was dead. It was an inbuilt sense consummating in a moment of clarity. Joe had never felt so alive. He was motionless against time and yet his mind was busy streaming through a lifetime of thought.

His imminent death did not come.

Joe lifted his head. Above him, a ragged figure could do nothing but stare. The creature's skin twitched, sometimes vanishing into nothing wherever it emerged from its tattered clothes. Its hair was laden with sand and had twisted into oily knotted lengths. Its jaw line was unnaturally sharp, struggling to accommodate a row of blanched teeth.

The sand creature opened its mouth in a howl, letting go of the box to curve backwards in pain. Its body rippled, changing forms as if unsettled on a design. Falling to its knees, the creature shook its head until the boy crawled out of the trunk.

Joe stood before the creature that had stopped writhing on the floor. The creature looked up at him, this time with soft eyes and lightly tanned skin.

The boy whispered, "Father?" and the creature wailed once again.

*~*~*

The pair of fighting gentlemen no longer cared that there was a sand creature lurking somewhere down the tunnel, or that Helen's daughter was standing to the side, screaming at them to stop. Finally they had each other with no one to stop them ripping themselves to shreds.

"God, just stop!" Ashley tried to catch her father's jacket as he spun, avoiding Tesla's poorly aimed lunge. There was nothing she could do but watch. She'd tried threatening them with her weapon but neither appeared to care. For the first time since the tomb, Ashley wished her mother was by her side. She would know what to do with them.

"You know, I think you've actually gotten worse at this," John's fist thrust into Nikola's chest, sending him backwards through the air and onto the ground.

Nikola hit his head hard. The impact blurred John's follow up and he found himself rolling onto his side, curled out of the way of a powerful kick.

John was about to move in for the kill when his own body failed him. He lost control of his arms and had to lurch to the side at the last moment. Tesla unfurled himself and saw his chance, crawling straight for John with claws outstretched.

Ashley caught his wrist, startling Nikola for a moment.

"That's enough!" she demanded, refusing to let go. Both Nikola and John were weak from fighting and far more manageable. "You can't just stand here and kill each other," she continued, yelling at them both. "Once we get this job finished, you can do what you like but right now everyone is counting on you to capture this creature. If I could do it alone, I'd leave both your useless arses here."

Nikola and John heaved for breath, panting and exhausted with wounds burning over their bodies.

"Even if you don't care about stopping this creature from killing – you were asked for help by the one person you have in common. My mother."

Both of them acknowledge the mention of Helen in their own private way. John exhaled, averting his glance to the floor whilst Tesla stared intently at Ashley. Yes, there was more than a little bit of Helen Magnus in Ashley's stern glare.

"Please," she added, offering her hand to Nikola.

Nikola's vampire accentuations began to fade and by the time he had taken Ashley's hand, he looked relatively normal save the abrasions on his face. Soon he was on his feet, dusting his coat off while Ashley made the same gesture to her father.

John stared back at her but somehow all he could see was Nikola preening himself in the background – straightening his collar.

He couldn't help it. Using Ashley as leverage, John launched himself at Tesla, reaching for his throat. Ashley's arm got caught in the middle and her jacket ripped open. A single vial of blood slipped out, tumbling to the tunnel floor where it shattered in a cloud of sparkling dust.

Everyone stopped.

Pure vampire blood splattered onto the gravel at their feet, trickling away into the ground.

Ashley stared at it in disbelief while John forgot his rage and fell in pursuit, trying to scoop it up into his hands to save it. It was futile, in seconds the blood was barely a dark stain.

"You broke it..." she whispered. "You broke it. YOU BROKE IT!"

John ran his hands over his face. That was his life and now it was gone.

"I..." John ran his hands through the shattered remains. It was his own doing.

Nikola thought for a moment. What an intriguing circumstance he had been presented with. He had never been one to orchestrate things, but Nikola had yet to let a decent opportunity sneak past.

"Ashley," he said softly, eyeing the remaining contents of her coat. When she did not respond, he reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder. He repeated her name as he closed in a few steps. "Do you have your grandfather's journal?"

This time Ashley turned around, narrowing her eyes at him. Nikola took that as confirmation of his suspicions. The diary had disappeared around the same time as Gregory's death. Helen had always suspected that it had been the cause of his murder – but life was far more simple. Gregory's death was an accident and Ashley's acquisition of the diary – blind luck.

"It's okay," he stopped her from replying as it would no doubt be a lie. "You can still save your father, maybe that friend of yours as well."

"You better not be stringing me along," she replied. "Because I'll find out if you are, and then I will kill you regardless of how fond my mother is of you."

His eyes gleamed brightly because for once, he had honesty to play with. "No, this is pure truth. It won't be free, but I assure its accuracy."

John stood up to listen as well as Nikola began.

"Your grandfather kept an interesting journal," he said, pointing to Ashley's coat. She retrieved the journal and held it lovingly in her arms, protecting it. "John over here wanted it for information regarding that sadly expired vial of blood. I, however, have seen it before – flicked through its pages once or twice. He liked to travel, Gregory. When he was young and Helen just an infant, he went in search of the Sanctuary of the Moon – the last known refuge of pure blood vampires. And here's the kicker, I believe that they're still there."

"That's where the blood sample came from?" Ashley opened the journal and found the entry. "He collected it himself?"

"You never wondered where your mother got the idea of a sanctuary for abnormals from? Her father, of course, who in turn borrowed it from the –"

"No," Ashley interrupted. "She never mentioned anything like this."

"Helen keeps her secrets well hidden, especially from you."

Ashley skimmed over the pages, flinching at some of the ink sketches scribbled between the text. Her grandfather had drawn eyes and shadows.

"If you leave now," said Nikola, "you could be there in two days."

"And what about the two of you?" she watched them suspiciously. "How do I know you won't just get back to killing each other when I walk away?"

Tesla grabbed onto John's jacket and helped him to stay on his feet. "Because we promise," he replied, prompting John.

"Yes, yes..." John added, a little less than convincingly. "Hurry Ashley."

Against her better judgment, Ashley turned and left the pair of them deep in the tunnel. When she was gone, the two men turned to each other in the dim light.

"Time to go and catch a sand monster," muttered Tesla, pushing John off of him.

John wasn't sure if he was amused or impressed. "You're actually going to help?"

Tesla tucked his coat back in front of him and started on ahead.

"What did Helen do to you, all those years ago?" asked John curiously.

Nikola stopped but did not turn. "Same thing that she did to all of us," he replied. "Now, are you helping or dying?"

John dragged his feet forward, "I'm coming, I'm coming..."

"I just have one question," said Nikola, as John fell into step beside him. "Was it a lie? Did Ashley really kill Gregory Magnus? Helen was so sure that it was you."

"No doubt by your encouragement." The other man sighed. "I confess, though I did not shoot the old man, it was my fault. I brought Ashley to the past. It was selfish and stupid but I don't want to die, Nikola. Not like this."

"If she finds out, she'll never forgive you," replied Tesla.

"Then we will have something else in common."