Mia opened her eyes at the sound of Remy's surprised cry. The vampire sat up in bed, instantly alert. She heard the ever-present noise of traffic, birdsong, the voices of passers-by on the street below. Then there was a muffled thump. She pulled back the covers, jumped out of bed, and ran downstairs, following the sound.

Mia stopped short at the doorway to the basement. The Professor looked up. He was sitting on the floor, holding Remy in his arms. He had been feeding.

Mia was wearing pyjamas adorned with a pattern of tiny pink hearts; her feet were bare; and her thick red hair stood on end like the spines of a hedgehog. She would have looked comical if it hadn't been for the expression of pure vampiric rage that distorted her features.

"I told you not to hurt her! She was a guest in my home!" she hissed furiously.

The Professor moved Remy's head from his lap to the floor. Slowly, he stood up to face his former apprentice. He smiled at her, his teeth stained pink with Thirteen's blood.

Mia pushed him aside and knelt down by Remy to examine her. She was still alive. Her wounds were relatively minor. There were a couple of ugly gashes and a bite mark on her neck, but the Professor hadn't had a chance to drain her yet. Remy opened her eyes.

Mia smiled at her reassuringly and took her hand.

She took her eyes off Remy for a moment to look at the Professor. He stared back at her, his face blank and unreadable. . That faint glimmer of intelligence, the light in his eyes which had convinced Mia to spare his life, had disappeared. Had he attacked her guest out of malice, to punish his former pupil for being strong and healthy and free, while he had to lurk in the shadows, too ugly and deformed to show his face? Or had he simply acted on instinct, mindlessly? Looking into those lifeless eyes, it was impossible to tell.

Remy's wounds were not in themselves life-threatening, but a vampire's bite is toxic to humans. Mia saw that her wounds were defensive. She had been fighting the Professor. Her body would have been flooded with adrenaline, speeding up her heart rate and respiration, increasing both the absorption and the effect of the vampire's venom. Mia knew that Remy had only a short time to live. The only possible cure was to initiate her as a vampire.

Still Mia hesitated. She liked Thirteen, but she did not think that she had earned the privilege of becoming a vampire. The young doctor's loyalty to Mia was questionable, and she hadn't yet delivered House into her hands.

Letting Thirteen die, though, would be a victory for the Professor. Mia couldn't allow the other vampire to triumph over her; he had to learn that they were no longer master and apprentice. They were equals now, and he was living in her home, under her rules.

"Stay calm," Mia said, looking down at Remy. "We can fix this. I was going to make you a vampire anyway, and this...this just speeds things up a bit.

I'm going to finish what the Professor started. It will hurt a little, but if you trust me, if you stay calm, this can still work. Do you trust me?"

Remy nodded.

Mia had never initiated another vampire, and she had been very ill when she had undergone her own initiation. Her memories of the process were vague. She remembered the Professor chanting, intoning the same phrases, over and over again – Latin words she recognized from the schoolroom mixed with other more exotic tongues. The constant repetition of syllables had put her into a drowsy, trance-like state.

All the usual occult apparatus had been present – dark robes, dripping candles, dusty books, an old knife which he had used to trace symbols in the air – and everything that the Professor did seemed weighted with tradition and solemnity. Most of the ritual was flummery, of course, as the Professor later admitted to her, but it had served its purpose. It made her feel part of something ancient, a ceremony that had been done hundreds or thousands of time before, going back into the mists of history. The ritual had calmed her and made her feel safe.

How much of that ceremony had been necessary, and how much had been window-dressing and spectacle? Mia wasn't sure. She looked up at the Professor, wishing for a moment that she was his pupil again, so that he could tell her what to do.

There was no chance of that; the Professor hadn't said a word since he had called out her name, just as she was about to stab him.

Thirteen was a pragmatic, educated woman in her twenties and she wouldn't react the same way as an impressionable fifteen year old from a country village. Ceremony had little place in Thirteen's life, and it was unlikely that she'd take any comfort in it. In any case, Mia couldn't remember the words to the chant and didn't have any crystal balls or ceremonial swords handy.

What she did know for certain was that the state of mind of the initiate was all important. Tranquility, calmness, and trust were essential so that the initiate could enter the metamorphic state –a deep death-like trance in which the body's normal processes, such as respiration, were temporarily suspended.

Mia smiled at Remy, trying to project a confidence she did not feel. Weakly, Remy smiled back. Mia squeezed her hand.

"Stay awake," she ordered. "Keep your eyes open and don't fall asleep."

Then she put Remy's head on her lap, kneeled over her, and bit.

Remy's blood was sweet and salty. It filled her mouth, almost choking her. Mia wasn't hungry; she'd fed only the day before, but she forced it down anyway. Spitting out the blood would be an insult to the initiate and would tarnish the occasion.

Mia leaned back on her heels. Remy's eyes were still open, and they followed her when she moved. That was a good sign.

"Now, I'm going to bind you up tightly, like a baby in swaddling clothes, so you won't move."

She looked up at the Professor, who had not moved, and was still staring down at her.

"Get me something to bind her in. Sheets, a tablecloth, curtains. Hurry!"

The Professor stared at her for a long moment and then moved towards the door. She could hear his footsteps, deliberate and maddeningly slow, as he plodded down the hallway and up the stairs.

"You're going to be fine," Mia said, stroking Remy's long brunette hair.

Though she did her best to hide her emotions from Remy, Mia was seething with anger. She had rescued the Professor and done her best to rehabilitate him and care for him, and he had rewarded her with ingratitude and insolence.

"You have a lot of nerve coming here," Raymond Hadley said, "I told you on the phone that I have nothing to say to you."

Raymond Hadley had just come home from work, and was still wearing his police sergeant's uniform. He stood blocking the doorway to his modest suburban bungalow. Hadley was an imposing man with dark brown hair only just starting to turn grey. His only obvious resemblance to his daughter were his eyes which, like Thirteen's, changed colour with the weather and with his mood. At the moment, his eyes were the same slate grey as the rain clouds that were gathering overhead.

"I'm not here to talk about past grievances. Thirteen is missing. None of her friends know where she is. All I want to do is find her and make sure she's all right."

"Thirteen! My daughter's name is Remy. You could at least show her the courtesy of referring to her by name."

"Remy...Dr. Hadley has been gone for at least a week. She hasn't talked to her lawyer and she didn't show up at her group therapy session. Carissa Rasmussen said she left her for someone named Mia Winter, but I haven't been able to contact anyone who has met Mia or talked to her. I haven't been able to track Mia down."

"You can't track down someone who doesn't exist."

"You think Carissa lied," Lucas said.

"That or Remy just invented this Mia character as an excuse to get far away from Carissa. I told Remy that Carissa was Euro trash. Maybe this time she finally listened to me."

Lucas nodded, considering the possibility.

"The police think Dr. Hadley's in hiding and she'll show up when she runs out of money. Does that sound like Remy to you? From what I've heard of her, she doesn't sound like the kind of person who runs away from her problems."

Hadley took a step forward. He put his hand on Lucas's shoulder and pushed him backwards, towards the porch steps. Lucas stumbled but regained his balance.

"I think it's time for you to leave."

"Sgt. Hadley, do you know where your daughter is?"

"I do not, but if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't tell you."

While he prepared spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, Lucas told Cuddy about his unproductive day. Cuddy dipped a spoon into the simmering spaghetti sauce. She tasted the sauce and added a pinch more oregano.

"Another dead end," she said.

"Looks that way," Lucas agreed. "Maybe Hadley's right. There is no Mia. Thirteen made her up. That would explain why I haven't found a trace of her. No motor vehicle license, no birth certificate, no records of any kind."

"She's very young; she probably just doesn't have a driver's license yet. "

"I'm starting to think that Mia's just a distraction. House is the person I should be focussing on. Three doctors missing from the same hospital; it can't be a coincidence. And House's voice on the phone ..."

"That can't have been him. It was the middle of the night and you were half asleep. You made an honest mistake."

Cuddy stirred a pot of boiling water, pulled out a strand of spaghetti and bit into it, testing it for doneness.

She sighed, "I think the police were right all along. House is dead. Wilson killed him and then committed suicide."

"You said their theory didn't make sense. You told me that Wilson would never hurt House."

"Wilson was a good friend of mine. He was a compassionate and caring doctor, but he was troubled. He had a dark side. All those failed relationships...his drinking...his struggle with clinical depression...

After Amber died, House was all Wilson had. He could see that House and I were becoming closer, and he was being pushed to the margins."

Cuddy turned towards Lucas. Her voice raspy with emotion, she said, "I still don't want to believe it. Wilson was pathologically jealous, and I was too naive to see it."

Wilson hadn't noticed that Ceci was in the elevator until it was too late. He nodded at her and she smiled back at him, but her smile faded quickly as House stepped on to the elevator after him. She backed away, leaning against the far wall of the elevator, her basket of dirty laundry held in front of her. Their journey continued in awkward silence.

The door to the elevator opened and House stepped out. Wilson followed. He held the door open for a moment and turned towards Ceci.

"Maybe I could drop by your apartment a bit later," he said. "There's a new episode of Iron Chef America on tonight."

"I'm going to be busy."

"Another time then."

"I guess."

Wilson removed his hand and the door shut beside him. House was already outside the apartment building, looking back at him impatiently through the glass door.

"What was that about?" House asked, as Wilson fell into step beside him.

"I miss having friends."

"Aside from me, what friends did you ever have?"

Wilson ignored him, continuing his own train of thought.

"One of the things I used to like about Ceci is that she never asked questions. She wasn't the least bit curious about who I was or what I did. As far as she was concerned, I was the gay neighbour in her own personal romantic comedy. My only function was to listen to her talk about her love life and give her advice."

"That doesn't sound like much fun to me."

"It was so relaxing, not having to think up lies. Being with her reminded me of lunchtime at PPTH. Me, nodding at appropriate intervals while you droned on about Cuddy."

"I never droned. I have a pleasant speaking voice."

"Now, every time I see her, she asks if I'm all right and gives me a significant look. Sometimes she gives my arm a gentle, sympathetic squeeze."

"She touched you!"

"Damn it, House, now's not the time to pretend to be jealous! I don't want Ceci thinking I'm some pathetic battered boyfriend who's too cowed to leave a bad relationship. I want things to be normal between us, so I don't have to hide when I see her in the hallway. "

"Ceci being weird is not my fault. She was born that way."

"Yes, it is your fault. You tried to kill me, and she knows about it. She thinks you're abusive."

"I only tried to kill you once, and you've tried to kill me at least three times. I had to hold you off while you tried to rip out my throat."

"I like that you're stronger than I am. It means that I don't have to worry that I'm going to kill you when the evil vampire in me takes over," Wilson said.

"Your vampire instincts aren't evil," House said with elaborate patience.

Wilson believed that vampires were evil by nature. His simple rule was vampires bad, humans good. All of House's attempts to convince him otherwise had failed. His best friend was impervious to reason and logic.

House paused and Wilson came to a stop beside him. House stood still, all his senses alert. The evening breeze carried the scent of vehicle exhaust, greasy hamburgers, and overflowing garbage bins. He heard the noise of traffic and someone's radio, the words in a language he didn't recognize.

"No sign of Fox Girl, tonight," House said. "Let's forget about her, steal a couple of motorcycles and go for a ride. Just pick a direction and go, straight on till we hit daylight."

"Sounds good to me."

Too weak to protest, Remy had allowed Mia to wrap her up in an old sheet.

"I don't have a coffin ready for you," Mia said, "so we'll have to improvise. There's a blanket chest upstairs in my room. You're tall but you're skinny. I think you'll fit."

"I'll suffocate," Remy said. It was difficult to talk. She had to force the words out.

"You won't. The change will start to happen and you won't need oxygen. It's an...anaerobic process," Mia said, carefully pronouncing the last phrase which she remembered from one of the Professor's many lectures.

Once Mia got her upstairs, it was obvious that Remy wasn't going to fit with her arms and legs straight out, and the sheet was wrapped too tight to allow her to bend. Mia cursed under her breath and began to unwrap her.

"I'll just have to do this again. You'll roll up into a nice tight ball, and I'll wrap you up, and everything will be fine."

"No, no," Remy protested.

"What do you mean, no?"

Mia looked down at her, frowning.

"I'm not sure...this is too fast."

"This is what you want, Thirteen," Mia said. "To be strong and free forever. No pain, no weakness, no fear."

Mia trussed Remy up with the sheet, and carefully placed her guest in the blanket chest.

"Remember - this is very important – you have to stay awake. Don't close your eyes! I'm going to shut the lid and when I open it again, you'll be a vampire, just as you were always meant to be. Everything is going to be fine."

The lid slammed shut and Remy was alone in the dark. She wanted to scream and beat her fists against the wood, but she didn't have the strength. She was very tired.

"Let me out," she said weakly.

"You're going to be fine," she heard Mia repeat. Her voice sounded muffled and indistinct.

Mia sat on the floor next to the blanket chest. There was nothing for her to do now but wait.