*Hello again! Here's the new chapter for all of you. Thanks again for the feedback (Hi Marcy, great to get a feedback from someone new! Feel hugged!). I really need this because there are still a few long chapters to translate and at the moment there are not so many people anymore who are helping me with the translations. So I really need your feedback to spur me. Hope, I can keep the posting-rhythm. But I'm sure to be able to post the next chapter at Sunday again. See you then, yours Jenna*

P.S. A big hug to Jo, who was the beta for this chapter! You're great!


Between rage and hope

Beth had not slept or eaten in more than 24 hours. Simone had made her a hot tea half an hour ago and had put it in front of her on the table. Meanwhile, it had gotten cold but had lost none of its volume. She just could not get it down as long as the cold claw of fear kept her innards imprisoned in such a tight grip. Instead, her eyes were fixated on the open door to Mick's office where she watched Josef restlessly pacing up and down. He was as upset as she was and let the person to whom he was talking with on the phone clearly feel it. His tone was unusually rude and impatient, and as he was excitedly walking back and forth, he kept nervously running his hand across his face or neck. Mick's mysterious disappearance seemed to weigh more heavily on his nerves than Beth had assumed or as she would have wished.

Who she needed at her side was someone who could calm her down, who could tell her that everything was not so bad and would turn very soon for the better. Someone who would be able to ease this simmering feeling inside her that told her that something bad had happened to Mick. But there was no one like that currently in her vicinity. Simone had started a half-hearted attempt to convince her that all would come out all right, but one look into her brown eyes had been enough to tell Beth that the young lawyer didn't really believe it. Mick had been away too long to keep up the hope that he would walk happily through the door at any moment.

"You look so tired, Beth," she heard Simone's quiet voice and turned her face reluctantly to Josef's girlfriend. "Why don't you try to sleep for at least a couple of hours?"

Beth only managed an exhausted shake of her head before her eyes moved back to Josef. He had stopped at the door and listened to what the other person in the line had to tell him.

"Then give me a call as soon as you know more," she heard him say. He hung up, slipped his cell phone into his jacket pocket and came over to them.

Beth wanted to ask him if there were some good news but didn't dare out of fear of being disappointed again.

"And?" asked Simone instead, worried.

Josef took a deep breath and sat down next to Beth on the sofa. Somehow she was under the impression that he looked even more worried than before. He was remarkably pale even for a vampire and that did not bode well, along with the fact that it took him much too long to answer the question.

"That was Lieutenant Davis." The significant hesitation in Josef's voice made the pace of her pulse increase within seconds. "They… they've found Mick's car."

The icy claw squeezed with all its might, squashing her innards painfully while her heart and her breathing came to a deadlock for a moment. She did not feel her hand lifting to her mouth and her eyes filling with tears. Her body was numb and heavy all at once.
She had known it, had known it the whole time… but she hadn't believed it, hadn't been able to believe it. Mick was an intelligent man and so strong. He was a vampire, for God's sake! How could something serious happen to him?

"This… means nothing, Beth," Simone's voice filtered down to her as if it was piercing through a thick wall made of wool and Beth only now noticed that the whole time she had been shaking her head in mute despair.

"Breathe, Beth!" Josef told her gently and more out of a reflex than willingly she obeyed his command and took a deep breath. She felt his cool hand on her back moving with gentle pressure up and down with the intent to soothe her but it only caused her so painstakingly restrained tears to run down her cheeks as a silent sobbing penetrated from her throat.

She did not understand why she reacted so violently to this news or why this vague feeling that something bad had happened to Mick increased. It was only his car and not his body they had found. Simone was right: it still meant nothing!

Beth quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks, closed her burning eyes, swallowed hard and tried again to take a deep breath in order to calm down.

"The good thing about this is that they will now really search for him," she heard Josef say and she was able to discern a slight tremor in his voice that inadvertently betrayed his own turmoil. "He's now officially reported as missing."

Beth lifted her eyelids and looked at Josef. His eyes reflected her fears and worries. "Was…" Beth had to clear her throat because her voice didn't seem to want to obey her, "… was there any indication in his car that he…" She trailed off. She could not voice it.

Josef did it for her: "… is dead?" He shook his head and a whole mountain range fell from Beth's heart. "No blood and no signs of a struggle. At least not in the car."

"Where… where did they find it?"

Josef hesitated for a moment. "In a field outside the city."

Beth's innards contracted anew. Mick had not driven the car intentionally into the field. Either he had been forced off the road, or… someone had brought the car there after he had overpowered and abducted Mick. Please! Please, let him only be abducted! Maybe soon someone would call and claim a ransom from Josef. He was a wealthy man and Mick was his best friend. That was quite possible. Josef would just pay and then they would get Mick back or they would find out where he was and simply get him themselves. Josef certainly had a lot of other vampire friends who could take over the job. All they needed was a sign of life from him, something that could give them an idea what had happened. Nothing was as bad as this agonizing uncertainty.

"Beth…" Josef gave her a cautious gaze. His fear that she might have a nervous breakdown was probably quite large. "We… we should assume that Mick is in considerable trouble." He wrinkled his brow about his own words. "Which, actually, is nothing new," he added. "But it looks as if this time he's not able to get out of it on his own."

"I… I just should have gone with him," Beth replied with a trembling voice and shook her head. "Then it wouldn't have happened." She should not even have let him go without an exchange of information. How could she have been so stupid?

"You don't know," Josef contradicted her immediately. "Probably you would be missing as well now, and I would have to worry about the both of you."

"I've so often in the past been a big help to him," she whispered and needed to fight back the tears yet again.

"Yes, but this time it's probably better that you're sitting here beside me, Beth," Josef tried to comfort her. "I need your wit and intuition to find him. Can I count on it?"

Beth pressed her lips tightly together to get the tremor of her chin under control and then nodded bravely. She now had to be strong. Not only to help Josef with all her might but also for Mick. Mick needed her… wherever he was.


Beth felt as if she woke from a long-lasting dream. It took a while until she recognized her own face in the fogged mirror of the bathroom in front of her, until the gurgling of the water from the tap reached her ears and she registered that she was not in Mick's apartment but in a small, shabby farmhouse in Mexico. She absentmindedly held her already rinsed toothbrush in one of the hands she had propped up on the edge of the sink and was frozen like a freshly-made marble statue. It was really amazing how far memories could sometimes catapult you out of the here and now.

She blinked a few times to really wake up again, put her toothbrush in the glass that stood on the small cupboard next to the sink, and then looked back into the mirror. Her hair was still quite wet from the shower, stuck to her head and enhanced her very pale face. The last hours had pretty much worn out her nerves and she looked it with dark rings beneath her eyes and a stressed line around the corners of her mouth. The journey back into the past that Josef had initiated had not only strained Mick's nerves, but also hers. There was so much out of this terrible time that she had pushed to the back of her mind, so many stirring feelings she really could not use at the moment, much less allow herself to feel. It was not only Mick who had to digest a trauma.

Josef had proceeded in an incredibly ingenious and compassionate manner concerning Mick's repressed memories. He had barely given his memory time to conjure up the nightmarish images that maybe would have instigated an escalation of the situation, but had gained, through specific questions and evading the gruesome details, only the important facts that he needed at this time from Mick. When Mick had given the impression that his nerves could not bear up against the questions any longer, Josef had abruptly cut the whole thing short and adjourned it. And once again Josef had confirmed what Beth had felt on several occasions over the past year: At the bottom of his heart Josef was a compassionate, warm-hearted man who loved his best friend to death.

Beth had to admit that the new knowledge of Mick's fate, despite the bad memories that it evoked in her, did her good. It brought a little light into the darkness which twined around the last year and helped her to better understand the new developments and their particular situation. During his investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Frank Peterson Mick had been able to quickly find out a lot of things. And that was because he not only Logan but behind his back had put another 'hacker' on this case. Sam, Beth's hacker-colleague from BuzzWire had been able to get information from one of the safest databases in the world and it had stuck in his mind. It had also been Sam who had put him onto the 'Jefferson' trail. Gradually Mick had learned that the 'Peterson' case was not only very tricky but had also gained with each newly revealed detail a greater importance for the whole vampire society. He had learned through Peterson's two students that the professor had worked with vampire blood and had been supported in his work by Jefferson and the Henderson & Field Company. So Mick had taken a closer look at this company.

As he had left his home and Beth that day, he had gone to one of the warehouses of the Henderson & Field Corporation. Terence who, because of an acute lack of money, had asked Mick to work for him had been very upset on the phone and had told him that he had come across the bodies of several vampires and also humans. The biggest problem was, however, that someone had locked him in the room with the corpses and he could not break free on his own. Already at this time Mick had been aware that he was messing with a larger organization, and that this whole thing was taking on a scale and a degree of danger he couldn't handle on his own. Even though he often did quite unreasonable things, on this very day he had only wanted to free Terence for whom Mick had felt responsible, and to then ask Josef and his powerful friends for help to prepare the next steps carefully.

The warehouse had been remarkably quiet and empty as he had entered it through an open window and his instinct had instantly told him that something was wrong. However, his need to help Terence had hoodwinked him into ignoring his inner voice and he still looked for his friend. He had been cautious and for this reason and because of his highly sensitive senses the plan of the Legion hadn't really worked out. He had been able to smell the presence of several people and the fact that he hadn't been able to see them had told him very quickly that they were waiting hidden for something or someone. At this point in time Mick had not known exactly with whom he had tangled or that the mercenaries who had been lurking in the warehouse were equipped with weapons that could easily quash his vampire superiority. This was the only reason that he had sneaked up on his opponents rather than taking to his heels. He even had been able to silently take two of them out. But then he had found Terence, or rather his corpse. Even at this moment he had not believed that all of the effort had been made because of him or that all the armed men were here to overpower him.

It hadn't been long until the soldiers had noticed the absence of their comrades and had given the alarm. Mick had been quick and quiet, but not fast enough for there had been too many of them and they had used nets and powerful narcotic projectiles. Mick had to have felt like a lion in a rigged hunt and finally they had brought him down. He had been hit by several bullets at once and then the nets had flown down on him.

The soldiers then had taken him to the basement of a larger building, probably one of the laboratories of the Legion in LA and there a few harmless tests had been done on him which had resulted in his first contact with Peterson. Mick had remained in this laboratory about two weeks. The details to this part of the story came more from Peterson because Mick had quickly lost his sense of time during this time of suffering and at this point in their conversation he had slowly but surely become very nervous and agitated. He had then been moved to the other laboratory in LA where he had remained for about eight months until he had been transferred again, this time by helicopter, to the laboratory in the desert of Nevada.

After getting this information and because of Mick's reaction to it, his breathing had greatly accelerated while his eyes had taken on an alarming ice blue color, Josef had canceled the interview and had anxiously waited until Mick had calmed down again under Beth's gentle words and touches. Only then had he announced that they would postpone the continuation of their conversation to a later date and that maybe Mick's presence was no longer needed because Peterson could also answer most of the rest of the questions.

Beth had hoped that Mick would rest after this intense conversation and would have lunch with her, but, due to the state he was in, he had claimed that he needed exercise to blow off some steam and had disappeared soon afterward, despite her protests. She had wanted to follow him but Josef had stopped her. Unfortunately, he had the same opinion as Mick and thought sports and exercise to be the way to get rid of aggression and stress. Also, he thought it was advisable that Mick spend a little time by himself. And to her anger, Peterson had agreed with Josef. Beth had finally given up and had lunch alone.

However, being alone after all the new information Josef had given them wasn't a very pleasant state. As long as Mick was near her Beth was busy taking care that he was doing well and continued making progress, when she wasn't struggling with her own hormones and the needs going along with them. His absence, however, resulted in her own apprehensions and fears daring to come out of the dark corner into which she had banished them. Although she repeatedly tried to convince herself that in the end everything would go well, somehow she was hyperaware of the difficulties and dangers in the not too distant future which were heading toward them all. Again and again her gloomy thoughts drove her back to the danger she feared the most. The fear that made her breathing falter and her heart race when she thought about it. The fear that compressed her insides painfully: the danger of losing Mick again.

She knew that she wouldn't be able to bear it again. She would rather die than have to endure this pain again. She wouldn't allow anybody to take Mick away from her again, to harm him or even to touch him. Maybe she looked like a harmless, soft-hearted woman, but due to a certain time in her past, deep inside of her slumbered a wounded predator which was preparing to lunge out of the shadows to defend without mercy that which it loved.

Beth hadn't been able to eat much and had finally decided to try to dispel her gloom with a cool shower. It hadn't helped much, as she noticed now. Additionally, these sad disturbing memories came to her, as if her subconscious mind was warning her not to forget that her time together with Mick would perhaps be quite limited. Really not very helpful as she was momentarily trying to fight her growing longing for him by all means possible.

Beth ran her hands across her pale face and uttered an abyssal sigh. Why was life sometimes so hard and stressful? Why couldn't Mick have simply met her as a normal human being back then? She was sure that he would still have aroused her interest and that she would have fallen in love with the human Mick as well. Wouldn't she? Well, this extreme pull he had exerted on her since their first meeting might not have been there then, but they would have met in any case. He could have also been a private investigator as a human. An 85 years old private detective! My goodness, she had forgotten this completely. She had to laugh at herself and shook her head. This is what happened when one let oneself play this silly 'what-if-game'. It didn't change the current state and the fears hunting her. Only one thing became clear: that fate sometimes took some strange paths. Perhaps everything had happened as it was meant to happen. Maybe behind all the suffering they all had gone through there lay a deeper sense they could not yet really recognize. Maybe life wanted to tell them something and they only had to learn to really listen. Maybe... maybe...

Beth sucked the moist air around her deeply into her lungs, squared her shoulders and left the bathroom. A feeling in her stomach told her that it was time now to finally confront Josef. He had asked her for a private conversation and announced that he would wait in the living room for her. She could already imagine what it was about and did not feel particularly comfortable in her skin.

So she was quite astonished when she entered the living room but did not find Josef there. As she had looked around in astonishment, she discovered Seth in the kitchen area moving the glass of blood he had just sipped from behind his back, hiding it from her and trying to give her a friendly smile. He was probably not aware that his teeth showed a suspiciously red color.

"I have no problem with that, Seth," she replied and walked over to him. "Have you any idea where Josef has gone?"

Seth took his glass out again hesitantly and shrugged his shoulders undecided. "Not really. I only know that Mick came in and asked him and Frank to come with him."

Beth raised her eyebrows in surprise and immediately an uncomfortable feeling spread in her guts. "Was he upset?"

Seth took away her first whiff of fear by shaking his head. "Not at all. He looked somehow determined as if he had conceived a plan."

A plan in which he apparently didn't want her to participate, otherwise he would have surely waited for her. Now, also frustration and anger were added to her colorful mixture of feelings. She actually had thought that they had left the time of his evasion and protection mechanisms concerning her behind at last. And now he was doing such things again.

"And where did they go?" Beth asked impatiently. She wouldn't let him keep her out of this so easily.

Seth pointed to the door. "Out. But I don't think they're on the porch anymore."

She cared little. She simply turned on her heels and marched toward the door. "How long ago was that?" she asked Seth over her shoulder.

"Half an hour maybe... but Frank came back after a while and got a bag."

That did not sound good. She tore open the door and stormed outside. This was a lonely region and there were not many places that were suitable for certain experiments that no stranger should be allowed to see. Experiments in which her presence was in fact absolutely necessary to insure that they would not lead to a disaster - dammit!

Beth let her eyes glide over the barren terrain in front of her, the many crippled trees and shallow sand hills, while her thoughts were spinning. It was already pretty hot. The sun was high in the sky and its rays were even burning on her skin. Josef was a full vampire. He needed a shady, cool place, so they could only be... in the barn! Beth jumped down the steps of the porch and just sprinted off. If up to now nothing bad had happened, the three of them would experience a thunderstorm!


"I think you can release me now."

Mick looked up and to my great joy and relief his eyes were no longer white-blue as they had been a few minutes ago, but had almost taken on their normal color. The color had also returned to his face, a sure sign that the re-transformation back to a human was almost complete. It was amazing what things willpower and hope could sometimes create. My friend had indeed succeeded in what I had not really considered possible in this short period of time: He was able to turn back without outside help. Of course, it still cost him much strength and a high degree of concentration, but it was possible!

Nevertheless, I hesitated to instantly free him from the handcuffs with which he had chained himself with his other hand to the combine harvester that stood in the barn. There had been a long moment in which I myself had been a little afraid of my best friend and strongly doubted that we would be able to calm him down without Beth or the use of the meds. And it was not that long ago.

Mick had assailed me and Frank with his new idea and his hurry and I had at first hesitated to involve myself in it. But his arguments had been too good, his considerations solid and incredibly logical, almost like old times. He still knew how to grab me, and played this card off radically. Of course, I had struggled against also putting him in chains, but when he had transformed, I had finally been pretty happy that he had persuaded me to do it. I did not know which thoughts and images he had used to cause the transformation's necessary rage, but the murderous look in his eyes and his clear movement towards Frank had confirmed my suspicion that it must have been some pretty horrible memories of things that had been done to him by the doctors of the Legion. I was not sure whether Frank would have survived this experiment if Mick had not been kept in check by the handcuffs. The vampire had fairly rampaged and had thrown himself forwards so violently pulling and tearing at the chain that I had been afraid he would break his own arm. But that had not happened. The handcuffs had little give in them, for the steel bonds came from the arsenal of the Legion, who had obviously made sure that they could even withstand the tremendous forces of a vampire.

Only when Mick's strength had ceased a bit and his fury had begun to slowly evaporate had he been able to activate his mind and to work on his new self-imposed goal: to get the vampire out of its state of alert and into a mode that equated to the cool, controlled state in which all the other vampires were for most of their lives, without the white glowing eyes and bared fangs.

"The problem is not the vampire in me," he had told me previously, surprisingly energized as he had returned from his 'little walk', a bit sweaty but full of newly developed enthusiasm, "but the state in which he is when I transform. I jump automatically into a state of extreme combat readiness rather than becoming the relatively controlled vampire I had been once. I must get a grip on this!"

It had not been entirely clear to me how Mick had come to this realization but it seemingly got to the heart of the whole problem I realized in the moment when he said it and for a tiny moment I was slightly annoyed that this idea hadn't come to my mind. I now had to probably wait a while before I could praise my keen intellect in Mick's presence again because of it.

With this new plan Mick had also developed an amazing vigor and a large dose of hope that drove him to want to take action on the spot and brought Frank and me into the uncomfortable situation of taking over the roles of his henchmen. That his haste, in addition to the pressure the approaching vampire meeting was causing him, was also linked to his rapidly evolving relationship with Beth, was immediately clear to me. It was only natural that he wished to be able to get close to her without limitations and fears. But because she had been such a wonderful help and he mainly owed his rapid progresses to her efforts, I did not initially understand why he didn't want to have her next to him during his self-experiments until he laid a few more impressive reasons on the table.

Now here we were standing in the barn, and in spite of the surprising success of this ad hoc action, I didn't really dare to free Mick from his handcuffs just yet. There was a hollow feeling in my chest that told me that it was better to wait for a little while. It was quite possible that it was connected to the fact that my friend simply still smelled too strongly of vampire, or that I couldn't really determine the look that Mick was now once again casting in Frank's direction. Perhaps he only wanted his help, because his body was shaken by a mild tremor. Or maybe there was still a small portion of the deadly hatred left that the vampire had shown to the doctor only a few minutes ago. But I definitely didn't want to take any risks, and Frank was probably of the same mind, because I noticed from the corner of my eye that the professor shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Mick's eyebrows drew together a little annoyed. "Josef?"

"I think ...," I began cautiously, but stopped at once because I suddenly felt the presence of another person I really hadn't expected to appear here now. I turned to the only door of the barn, a frown on my face as it opened almost at once with a loud creak.

"What the hell are you doing here?" it burst out of me angrily, even before Hendrik had entered the barn.

The small, beefy vampire appeared to be only slightly impressed by my anger, but approached us with a very provocative smile on his lips. I felt how Mick tensed beside me, sucking air into his nose, and gave him a worried look. My friend's eyes fixated on our new 'guest' in a way that I did not like, as if he had found, with his entrance, a new object on which he could steer all his bottled-up hatred and that he'd love nothing better than to shoot him down in flames. If I wasn't mistaken, Mick's eyes were already brighter again. I decided to counteract his re-transformation my own way and just walked with a deterrent gesture towards Hendrik.

"Is there any reason why you have ever felt invited to attend our little meeting," I smiled artificially, "or is it only due to a slight malfunction of your not really well-working mind, Hendrik?"

Well, maybe it was not a very diplomatic wording, but it suited my emotional needs. At least no one could say that I wasn't honest. I even managed to put my arm around Hendrik's shoulders reluctantly. This was roughly equivalent to having to overcome my feelings to lovingly tickle the belly of a cockroach as I tried to direct him toward the exit, but the insolent fellow, to my great annoyance, freed himself from my grip and glared at me angrily.

"Lance is a little unhappy that you always try to keep me out of everything," he dared to growl at me while I had to fight against the pressing feeling to just grab him by the collar and catapult him out of the barn.

"I have received the order not to let you shake me off and to demand all information from you that I need to report the latest developments to him," he continued, glancing past me over to Mick. "Seems like I appeared at just the right time. What exactly are you doing here?"

He tried to get past me and to head for Mick, whose body was so tense, as if he wanted to take a fatal leap at any moment. I made a big step backwards and blocked the path of the cockroach Hendrik. "We're talking - nothing more."

"And why is he chained up," it said with raised eyebrows and seemed to feel very smart.

I acted surprised, shortly eyed up my panting and very angry friend who had considerable difficulty not to mutate back into the wild beast, and then I turned to Hendrik in astonishment. "Indeed ... I did not even notice this."

My statement confused him considerably. He was for a few seconds dumbfounded and blinked a few times confused, thus showing me how limited his mind actually was. Why did Lance bother with such vampires? The man was even beneath Logan's dignity...

"Do... don't try to shit me, Josef," Hendrik managed to utter with an enormous mental effort. I almost felt sorry for this poor, intellectually challenged creature, as he admonishingly raised one of his short, thick fingers. "I... I won't put up with that any longer! So, explain to me, for fuck's sake, what you're doing here! Or I'll have to inform Lance about your unwillingness to cooperate with us. And then we'll see who here has the final say in the end with regard to your friend and all other related matters."

In former times I would have tried to take this, unfortunately, not harmless threat with humor, but my nerves were too thin and my anger too great to revive the Kostan sarcasm again. Instead, I clenched my teeth so tightly that a slight crunch was heard, grabbed the surprised Hendrik by his collar and pulled him close to me so abruptly that our noses almost touched. I became aware that Frank who had witnessed the whole event so far only in silence, lifted a hand to his mouth in shock and held his breath. But he didn't dare to interfere yet.

"Don't you dare to threaten me, my friend!" I hissed through gritted teeth and I couldn't prevent that I instantly transformed, too, as my fury was now strongly boiling inside me. "The agreement between me and Lance will not last long, I can promise you that right now. And I can be very unforgiving!"

Hendrik really tried to show no fear to me but he forgot how old I was and on what a great wealth of experience I could draw. I could smell the fear which soon came out of all of his pores, could feel this energetic prickling that emanated from every creature when it was preparing for a run or a fight.

"Let go of me, Josef," he growled as lowly as I and the suppressed fear now had also reached his eyes.

"Yeah, let him go, Josef," I heard another voice behind me. Its strangely gentle sound drove a cold chill down my spine and with great unease I threw a glance over my shoulder.
Mick's posture had changed. He stood quietly, almost relaxed, in front of the combine and met me with a fake friendly smile, while his bright blue eyes radiated so much cold and calculated deceit, that my best friend suddenly appeared like a sinister stranger to me. He had indeed transformed, but surprisingly he was not in attack mode, but had managed, despite the recent stress, to get himself into the normal state of a vampire, one that was to me a totally alien vampire. That was not the Mick, whom we had lost a year ago.

"He doesn't bother me," he added and really sounded as if he meant it. No one but me noticed that he was only pretending. Whatever Hendrik had perpetrated in my absence had made this new side of Mick pretty angry and his current behavior did not make it better, for it threatened Mick's future more than that of anyone else here. My friend breathed vengeance, I could clearly feel it. There could be no talk of control, even if Mick gave a much different impression than usual. The vampire had perhaps his feral, wild side under control, but Mick, the human with scruples and conscience, had not really any say at the moment.

I let go of Hendrik and pushed him a bit away from me. "You'd better go," I said emphatically, looking at him intently. But this idiot stuck his chin towards me defiantly instead of accepting my wise advice. "He says I don't bother him!"

'Of course, because he would love to take his anger out on you and mangle you, you smart alec!' It was difficult for me to bottle up these words, but at least I was the master of my emotions and only snorted contemptuously.

"I would love to sit down with you and talk a little bit about all of this calmly," Mick smiled false as a snake. "Only someone would need to remove this annoying piece of jewelry." He lifted his arm and rattled a bit with the handcuff to emphasize his words.

Hendrik in fact proved that there was not a total vacuum in his head, because he knitted his brows slightly and showed the first signs of distrust.

"Why were you fastened anyway?" he asked again.

"Purely a precautionary measure," Mick said, "it's completely useless. Everything's all right with me."

I certainly didn't give a very bright impression considering the way I stood in front of my friend and stared at him in disbelief with my mouth open. This slyness and deadly calculation which I could now sense perfectly clearly began to slowly but surely unsettle me deeply. It frightened me much more than the wild, aggressive vampire, who had previously always appeared. The memories of the time in the lab Mick had used to transform had apparently stirred something inside him that made his darkest and most dangerous side crawl out of the depths of his soul, a side which acted with cool determination and a razor-sharp mind and no longer permitted emotions like pity and compassion. If I thought more exactly about it, this almost manic side of him wasn't totally unknown to me. I had already experienced it a few times in our long friendship, whenever bad things had happened to Mick, when innocent people had died and the killer instinct had woken up in him, which usually had instigated a bloody revenge. Only Mick had previously never been so traumatized and had calmed down again and had finally become the gentle, compassionate man that he really was.

"You... you're a normal vampire again," the cockroach came, unsurprisingly, to only a halfway correct conclusion and indeed stepped a bit closer to Mick, whose eyes at once glimmered with joy .

I grabbed Hendrik by the arm and tried to pull him back, but the idiot eluded me angrily, ducked me, and in doing so almost brought himself into Mick's reach. Mick's whole body seemed to tense immediately, ready to grab him at the right moment.

This situation was really tricky. I knew that I certainly could appeal to Mick, call on his reason and maybe calm him down with that, but in doing so I would show Hendrik that my friend had not fully gained control over himself yet. I would play information in the hands of our enemies, which they later could use against us. But if I allowed Mick to injure or even kill Hendrik everything was over anyway.

Of course, everything had to get even much more complicated, because suddenly the door to the barn flew open for the second time and an agitated Beth arrived on the scene. She stopped confused and tried to capture what exactly was happening here as quickly as possible. Of course her gaze had gone to Mick and the handcuffs that chained him to the combine. One couldn't blame her for this sight stirring her up quite strongly, for she lacked the necessary information she needed to comprehend what was happening.

"What exactly is going on here?" she asked as calmly as possible and walked quickly toward us.

"They're only talking," Hendrik repeated my earlier words in a slightly mocking tone and I resisted the urge to casually ram my elbow into his face only with great difficulty. His nose was so beautiful at this level.

To my great joy Beth completely ignored the yucky insect. Instead, she fixated on Mick again, who, I quickly noticed, had clearly lost his train of thought at the sight of Beth. His gaze flickered and his eyes reflected the inner struggle his new vampire side and the human side immediately waged. Maybe Beth's appearance belonged to the category of 'happy turn'.

"Why are you chained?" Beth unfortunately addressed Mick directly and I felt forced to block her way that directly lead to my once again very nervous looking friend. I was afraid that she, in her concern, would get the bad idea to untie him.

"Not now, Beth," I whispered to her and her eyebrows pushed together, immediately suspicious. But she asked me no further questions about this, as if she was feeling that the situation was getting too hot.

Hendrik unfortunately, had similarly good hearing and approached us, under Mick's disapproving wheeze.

"What do you mean by 'not now'?" he asked, almost aggressively. "You let a human in on all your plans and leave us other vampires out in the cold? Huh?"

I gave the cockroach a frown and began to count to ten inwardly, to avoid going nuts and putting Mick's previous plan immediately into action. Unfortunately, Hendrik did not belong to the patient type of vampires. My silence made him so angry that he indeed dared to grab Beth's arm and pull her in front of me. "What makes the doll so precious to you, huh?"

I could not respond to his question, for a dull rumbling behind me caused me to spin around exactly at the moment when Mick threw himself with all his strength into his chains, stretching out his arm for Hendrik's neck and missing him only by a few inches because the shocked man with the aid of his vampire capacity for reaction dodged aside just in time. But it was not this act that made my pulse stop for a few seconds, but rather what my eyes believed to have just seen; namely, that the combine had moved slightly.

"Don't touch her!" Mick uttered between gritted teeth and his white-blue eyes almost glowed with anger. He threw himself forward again as Beth's attempt to free herself from Hendrik's firm grip was unsuccessful. By now I believed that Hendrik was only holding fast to her out of fear and now I was sure that the several tons of heavy machine had moved. Fortunately for his own good Hendrik didn't miss it this time and this impressive demonstration of physical strength brought about an effect: the cockroach let go of Beth's arm and just stared at Mick with wide eyes and an open mouth. I had to admit that I didn't look any different, nor did Frank, whose mouth opened and closed again and again in silent amazement.

The only one of us who was capable of acting in any way was Beth. And she did something I did not expect at all. She used my frozen astonishment to simply push past me and step up to Mick. I reacted in a somewhat delayed way and reached for her, but Mick was faster. Beth let out a surprised sound, as he grabbed her arm and she flew in the next moment against his chest.

"Mick! Don't!" I blurted out in horror, but to my own surprise, in spite of his uncontrolled rage he didn't immediately sank his fangs into her neck or harm her in any way, but pushed her behind his back and planted himself protectively in front of her with outstretched arms growling at us with hostility.

I blinked a few times to make sure that I could believe my eyes. The girl had been right: even the vampire Mick, as dangerous and unpredictable he was for most people and vampires, wanted to protect Beth. He loved her as much as his human alter ego.

"Mick... don't ...," I could hear Beth repeat my words a bit more tender and I saw how she tried to pass the wall his tense body was building. Without success, it quickly became obvious.

"Now I get it slowly," I could hear Hendrik mumble beside me, and now I couldn't hold back any longer. I grabbed him by the collar again which caused a soft rasping noise beneath my fingers, and bared my teeth with a low growl. My whole body trembled with suppressed rage.

"If you don't immediately bury yourself in the hole you've crawled out from before, I'll guarantee nothing anymore," I hissed, accurately perceiving how quickly Hendrik's pulse was speeding up. "And I don't believe that you are of such an immense value to Lance that he would go to war with me because of your admittedly rather painful, yet easily-digestible death. You are freely exchangeable, my friend!"

I didn't simply let go of him, but gave him such a push that he stumbled backwards several steps and had a hard time remaining on his feet.

"This... this ...," he uttered upset as he managed to steady himself again, but did not dare to continue because the look I gave him made clear how seriously I had meant my words. But maybe it was also due to the fact that Mick was still looking at him so murderously that I wondered how we could ever place the two in one and the same house again.

Hendrik had no other option than to shake his head indignantly and retire. "This will have consequences," he hissed at the door. Then he was gone.

I let out a deep sigh and decided to take care of Mick first, before worrying about Lance's possible reaction to the report of his lackey. So I turned around to Mick, visibly more composed. He had not yet been able to get out of his vampire state of arousal, or to even realize that it was no longer necessary to protect Beth. The young woman tried to push past him once again with soothing words to him, but my over concerned friend pushed her behind his back again with gentle force. At the moment he didn't even seem to really trust me and Frank. This I noticed from the warning gaze he cast at us with his pale blue eyes as we approached him again. I immediately raised my hands soothingly. "Everything's all right again, Mick. He won't come back."

"Go... just go away," he growled at me and stung me with those words a bit. He knew me for so long now and I had previously never given him a reason to lose confidence in me. Of course, this was an exceptional situation, but... it hurt anyway.

"I can't," I replied calmly. "Not as long as you're in this state."

"I'm in... in control of this," he replied, breathing a little bit too heavily for me to believe his words completely.

"Mick ..." This was Beth's voice again and I watched her small hand lying on his arm, striving to make him turn around to her. But his eyes were still resting on my face full of tension. "That's Josef. Your best friend. You know that you can trust him."

Her words seemed to filter through to him. I could see how his mind started to work again, as the rigidity and the aggressive expression in his eyes started to fade. I saw Beth's head appear next to his shoulder. She used his state of distraction to reach a hand around him, grab his other arm and turn him around to her with great effort. Now he had to look at her and I made three crosses inwardly, because I could feel that this was the first step to instigate his re-transformation. Step two immediately followed: Beth laid both hands on his cheeks and stroked his pale face as if there was nothing more wonderful in this world than to look into the face of a murderous super creature. "We don't need the vampire any longer," she said softly and smiled at him lovingly. "All is well again."

Mick closed his eyes and breathed deeply in and out. When he lifted his eyelids his eye color had normalized again. It was just a little bit brighter than usual. Nevertheless, I didn't feel like sighing with relief yet for I sensed what the other two people could not feel in their visible relief: Mick was still a vampire. He had only gotten rid of his battle readiness and calmed down considerably but his smell spoke volumes.

"Would you please free him now?" Beth asked me with slight impatience when she had let go of Mick with a small sigh of relief. That his glance rested much too long on her neck, unfortunately escaped her entirely. Because of this she was of course very surprised that my response to her demand was a shaking of my head.

However, I was much less interested in her reaction than in that of my friend who managed only with difficulty to look away from Beth's main artery and look at me as well. That the hatred and the deviousness which had come over him in Hendrik's presence was no longer to be found in his eyes let the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach subside slightly. He looked almost like the old vampire Mick; somewhat confused about the things that had happened to him and the state in which he was now, but calm and responsive.

"Do you want to explain it to her?" I ventured to ask him.

He hesitated for a heartbeat, and then nodded noncommittally, while Beth's and also Peterson's confusion seemed to grow.

"It ... it doesn't work," he explained somewhat insufficiently and the lines of confusion that had formed on Beth's otherwise smooth forehead got even deeper.

"What do you mean?"

"The fact that he's still a vampire," I helped him, trying to keep the growing concern inside me out of my voice. Was this the thing Frank had warned us against? Apparently it was, because the professor nodded understandingly and walked bravely toward the two.

"I knew it," he said with apparent resignation in his voice. "Now we necessarily have to work with the meds again."

"No!" Beth protested loudly and out of an unconscious reflex it was she who now planted herself protectively in front of Mick. "We can also manage this without the meds!"

"Beth ...," Mick began soothingly, but broke off when Frank who was already shaking his head launched into an explanation.

"This has nothing to do with Mick's psyche, Beth," he said in an unusually strict voice. "He can not turn back into a human right now because he would collapse, and his body knows this. That's the reason why he remains a vampire and if we don't inject him with a preparation that is made especially for him he will weaken further and it will kill him at some point. The balance between his vampire hormones and blocking agents isn't there anymore because of the really fast transformations close behind one another. So we have to help him now from the outside. I've mentioned this to you not long ago, Beth. His balance was already on the rocks anyway."

My young friend and also Mick himself gave the impression that they remembered this conversation and asked no further questions while my own mind had significant problems in following the reasoning of the professor.

Frank put his little black bag with the vials he had brought along on a hay bale which was nearby and began to prepare a syringe, while I wondered if I unintentionally had endangered my best friend's life with my hurry concerning Mick's wild side. Frank had not expressed himself that drastically before, otherwise I would have given the whole thing much more thought. On the other hand we really did not have much more time and did not really have any other choice.

"If he gets this injection now…," I said anxiously.

"... and a few restorative and vitamin injections ...," the professor interrupted me.

"... then ...?" I raised my eyebrows.

"... he'll soon be able to transform into a human again and at the most feel a little tired for a little while."

"That means we don't need to fear for his life?"

To my great relief the Professor shook his head. "He's not yet in a life-threatening condition. The number of his vampire hormones has only grown too strong. We need to reduce them now using the cure and then we have to be careful not to let the blocking agents get the upper hand."

"And if this happens?"

"Then we need to support the vampire hormones again. And so on and so forth until his body is able to manage this all on its own again."

Slowly his babbling began to make sense and it really calmed me down. "These injections have no unpleasant or serious side effects?"

"As I said, just a little tiredness right after the injection," murmured Peterson and drew up the syringe. His eyes flew over to Mick who had been watching him the whole time with an indefinable expression in his eyes, and he looked at him quizzically. "Are you ready?"

Mick glanced at Beth who was still struggling with her own concerns. She had compressed her lips tightly not to voice them. Then he nodded and reached out his arm readily. His dangerousness had in Beth's proximity completely disappeared and I knew that he would do nothing to Frank when the professor stepped up to him to inject him with the cure. However, the queasy feeling in my stomach did not disappear completely although everything didn't seem to look that bad for us, because my vampire senses muttered something to me that I did not want to hear: that Frank Peterson was keeping something a secret.