Massive thanks to all of you Being Human fans who continue to read this - it really does mean such alot to me. :)) This chapter is made up of lots of little chunks - hope it's not too higgledy-piggledy and that you enjoy it!

Chapter 25

The next morning Zoe woke up to the sound of hammering at very close quarters. Danny was gone and bizarrely, the door stood wide open. She tiptoed to the threshold and cautiously poked her head out.

Connor was knocking nails into the door frame at the end of the short upstairs corridor. As she watched he looped long strips of what looked like ribbon over the nails, so that they hung down like tassels. He carried on bashing away for a while then reached down into a tool bag that was on the floor. She noticed for the first time that he was wearing thick rubber gloves – like street cleaners used. He poked around inside the bag and then – Zoe couldn't be sure at first – oh, for crying out loud, he pulled out at old video cassette. Even before he started hauling it out of it's casing she knew what he was going to do. He looped it around the nails in the door frame, criss-crossing it over the doorway itself, making a spider's web of tape.

He caught sight of her watching and smirked.

"Cursed," he confirmed. "I'd like to see your mates get through that. Dunno how you all managed to avoid that curse before."

So, you didn't work that out then, clever dick, thought Zoe, and then – idiot! Like that's going to stop us.

The fact that Connor had hammered himself into the corridor on her side was rather disconcerting however. She would have to be careful. She crept back into the little treatment room and quietly shut the door. Where was Danny?

Danny was, obviously, on the other side of the tape. He sat downstairs, with a pounding headache and huge black eye. Jack had brought him a cup of coffee – if he hadn't felt so sore and tired he might have thrown it back in his face. As it was he just swallowed a mouthful of it and laid his head on his hands.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," his maker's voice broke in on his thoughts. Danny looked up. "I lost my temper. We didn't know where you were, that's all. And I warned you…" A steely edge crept into his voice.

"I told you," the younger man played along with the story he'd thought up yesterday. "She" – he pointed through to the shop – "told me to get out. So I got out, went for a run, went for a feed and came back. End of."

Which was the truth, he conceded, although the run had been along the railway line to Barry and back, and the feeding had been by courtesy of a very large and mean looking dog who had had the misfortune to get in his way.

"Well," to give him his due Jack did look rather remorseful, "stay around here in future. It'll all be over soon and you and I can go off travelling again. I'm going into Barry later to contact your Old One friend. You can come with me if you want."

Danny shrugged.

"I'll probably stay here." He wasn't leaving his sister on her own with the vampires. He pointed to his fading black eye. "And I'm not exactly an advert for the kindliness of our lot, am I?"

Jack pulled his mouth into a grimace but didn't try to talk him into coming. An hour or so later he put on his jacket, nodded at Danny, beckoned Nathan from the back room and left through the shop, on his way to Barry.

Alex sat in the sitting room of Honolulu Heights. Both of the men had gone to work at the café.

"It may catch them off guard," Hal had said. "They will expect us to be here, I think, all staying together. If we split up and stay in the public eye as much as possible it makes it harder for them to negotiate with us."

"And that's what we want?" had asked Tom.

"Oh yes." Hal had smiled briefly. "It will irk them not to be able to talk to us when they wish to do so. They cannot move on to the next stage of any plan if they haven't been able to complete the first."

Tom had shrugged. "If you say so mate," and so off they had gone, down to the café.

So Alex was waiting, on duty at the house, in case any of the vampires tried their tricks there again, although Hal didn't think that they would. She looked at the growing pile of equipment on the floor of the lounge, arranged neatly in three piles. Straight cut strips of linen, two hunting knives, a bundle of stakes and a litre bottle of Schnapps which Tom had found behind the bar. Bandages, a petrol-filled cigarette lighter, torches.

She went back to the window and carried on waiting.

Hal was right. The café was busy all day as he'd hoped it would be, any vampires trying to 'do business' with them were completely at a loss. They had come in twice, Jack and a younger man. They had hovered, rather unsettled by the activity inside – Tom and Hal had studiously ignored them and both times they had eventually left again.

See how you like that, thought the Old One, as Jack shut the café door with a disgruntled look on his face.

When the time came to lock up Tom looked around outside but there was no sign of them.

"Given up and gone home, I reckon," he said, bringing in the board and turning the 'Open' sign to 'Closed.'

"Not exactly given up," corrected his friend," but hopefully they've gone home considerably more irritable and restless than when they came."

"Come on then!" Tom was literally rolling up his sleeves, beside himself with excitement. "Let's go!"

"Patience." Hal briefly touched the younger man's upper arm. "Not quite yet. Let's get Alex and have a last think about our plans."

Tom rolled his eyes but followed the vampire to the car.

"I dunno why we ever plan anythin' anyways," he grumbled. "It always goes weird like. We might as well just go stormin' in wiv' out a plan – we'll most likely get the same result!"

Hal smiled at him.

"You do have a point. But it makes me feel better if we at least make a plan, even if as you say 'it all goes weird like'. Now, get out your mobile and call Alex. Tell her that we're on our way."

It was a calm, dark, quiet night. The streets were still, almost empty of traffic at such a late hour, just the occasional car driving past in the distance.

The moon was invisible tonight, hidden behind misty skies that threatened rain in the morning. The shadows were deep, velvety, long.

The man who stood in the doorway of the chemist's shop could not be seen. There were no shadows here, all the same the CCTV camera on the tall pole opposite sent back an image to it's control room of just an empty, silent street.

A clock chimed, far off, the sound travelling far across the peaceful town. Three o'clock. Hal shifted slightly, peering into the depths of the shop through the glass front door. All quiet. Lights off. He leant against the window and waited.

Tom and Alex meanwhile were breaking into the small, concreted yard at the back of the chemist's. The ghost glanced up and down the street several times, but nobody was about.

"S'alright," Tom reassured her. "No-one's up. And there ain't no CCTV round the back 'ere."

His fingers felt deftly around the latch on the gate – there was a satisfying click and as he pushed the wood gently, it swung open. Alex pulled a face as it squeaked loudly on it's hinges. They waited, standing like statues, but there was no sound from inside the shop. Tom let out a breath.

"Come on," he whispered, tucking his pick-lock back into his pocket and patting the ghost's arm reassuringly. They heard the clock chime the hour as they crept quietly through the gate. Alex looked up at the dark windows – no sign of life – and yet somehow she felt edgy. If she'd still been alive she would have shivered.

Tom was at the back door, peeping through the glass, listening intently with his head tilted to one side. He took his little kit of gadgets out of his pocket again and started to carefully probe and poke at the lock.

Alex undid the rucksack that her friend had put down on the ground. She took out one of the bottles, half-filled now with some of the Schnapps and a twist of neatly cut rag that had been partly pushed down into the liquid. It must be the strangest Molotov cocktail ever made, she thought to herself with a little smile – thought up by a werewolf and put together by a ghost and a vampire. And whoever heard of a bomb made with Austrian Schnapps? The three of them really were the strangest rescue squad in history.

She looked up as Tom put his finger to his lips. Had he heard something? They both froze for what seemed about five minutes but was in reality only about twenty seconds. Then, quite clearly, they heard the sound of a toilet flushing. Another minute of silence and Tom resumed his fiddling. In no time at all there was a gentle scraping sound and he lifted part of the lock away. Another visit to one of the deep pockets of his jacket and out came a small glass-cutter. He noticed Alex looking incredulously and shrugged, rather shamefacedly.

"Me an' McNair, like, sometimes we used to… like, well…"

"I don't want to know!" hissed the ghost.

Tom grinned and put the cutter against the window in the door. Another minute or two and there was a hand-sized hole that he slipped his fist into. He could feel door handle on the other side – he flipped the catch and gripped it tightly.

"Ready?" he asked the ghost.

Alex squared her shoulders and nodded once.

"Aye. Ready."

Tom opened the door – and all hell broke loose.

Well, you didn't think it was going to be that easy for them did you? Here it comes at last - The Final Showdown! Good Luck!