Jean had not had this much fun in quite a long time. Lucien had driven them both to the Royal Cross Hotel and wished her luck with an encouraging squeeze of her arm as he went to go see Major Alderton and Sergeant Hannam. Jean was tasked with finding Hannam's room and sneaking in to get a pair of his shoes so they could compare to the footprints found in the morgue.

Lucien had a theory—a rather good theory—that the two runaway soldiers had worked on the bomb testing and gotten very sick with radiation poisoning. One of them had died and been taken to the morgue per the ambo records, where Hannam killed the morgue attendant and then stolen the body to cover up the awful things the army had been doing.

The plan now was for Jean to use her knowledge gained by her interview and tour of the hotel to find the evidence that would link Hannam to the crime while Lucien tried to distract them and possibly get as close to a confession as he could manage. It was all terribly important and exciting. He had asked Jean for her help, and she was quite pleased he had done so. She wanted to help. She wanted to be useful.

And little did Lucien know that this was all much easier for Jean than he knew. It had been in her mind to shift in order to sneak about more easily, but she had to carry the bag for the shoes, and that required her to maintain her form. She'd be able to enter the mind of anyone she came into contact with, causing them to leave her alone and forget her presence. Actually, she did need to feed and considered taking the opportunity if it was presented to her. But no, she needed to focus. Feeding would take too much time. Though perhaps she could find someone on her way home. Jean was to take the car and drive home after sneaking out of the hotel with Hannam's shoes. Maybe she could feed on the way back.

It was simple enough to go to the front desk and check their register. They just had it sitting out on the counter! Jean was amazed that such a posh hotel would do such a thing. Having the register out like that allowed exactly what Jean was doing, sneaking about and finding the identity and room assignments of any guest.

Once she had Hannam's room number, she just reached down to where the keys were kept. She found the right one on the first try. No one came by. No one bothered her at all. The lax security was almost frightening. It was late, granted, but even so, a hotel as nice as this should have better staffing. Jean was glad she wasn't going to come work here.

For now, at least, she and Lucien seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement. He was going to stay around for a while. She would stay there with him. After all, she'd only begun looking for other employment because she assumed he would be leaving Ballarat and selling the house, leaving Jean without a job or a place to live. She would prefer to stay in a place she knew where she had some semblance of privacy rather than having to figure things out from scratch. Though even if she did stay, Jean would have arrange for her 'death' and disappearance in another twenty years or so. Still, not having to worry about that yet was helpful.

Jean snuck up the stairs and down the corridors and into Hannam's room. There were a couple maids that almost saw her, but Jean was able to evade notice without having to use any of her powers. She opened and closed the door almost silently. And for the moment, she was safe.

For an army man, Hannam did not seem to have much sense of order. Things were not messy, per se, but there was a distinctly haphazard way he'd strewn his items around the room. Not the regimented organization one might expect. Though he was in a hotel and not in army barracks, so perhaps he was allowing himself the luxury of disorder.

These thoughts were pointless, and Jean shook her head to focus herself. Shoes. She needed to find his shoes. The man was most likely a murderer. Jean had to get that evidence and get out before anyone caught her.

She noticed that one shoe was beside the bed. Where was the other? With a frustrated huff, Jean got down on her hands and knees to look under the bed. Sure enough, the other shoe was just within arm's reach for her. She grabbed it and hauled herself up off the floor. It took her a moment to shove the shoes into the bag and fix the pins in her hair so it wasn't falling in her face. And then it was time to go. No use lingering.

Jean made her way back through the halls and down the stairs with the same ease as she'd had going up. The hotel was quiet and felt empty. Jean was glad to leave.

She put the bag in the car and started the engine. Doctor Blake's old car was a little unpredictable time, and Jean hoped it wouldn't give her trouble. The house was not so far, but one never knew how the car would fare. It was dark and quiet. She passed only two cars on the roads. No one out on the sidewalk, though she kept her eyes open for it. The hunger pangs were starting to be bothersome. The adrenaline of sneaking around the hotel had distracted her from them, thankfully. But now she was back to being quietly desperate for blood.

When she got back, Jean would give the shoes to Lucien to send to the police, and then she would go right to bed. Tomorrow she could feed. She could go to the shops and find someone out back somewhere and quench her thirst. She'd have to hide from humans until then to make sure Lucien didn't notice anything and make sure her hunger did not get the better of her.

But another car was parked in front of the Blake house. Jean recognized it. That was Alderton's car. The one Hannam drove him around in, that fancy aqua blue thing. Were Alderton and Hannam in the house with Lucien?

There were voices coming from inside the house as she approached. The front door was unlocked, so she went in as quietly as she could manage. She put the bag with Hannam's shoes under the table in the front entry.

As she hung up her coat and put away the car keys, she could hear Hannam's voice coming from Lucien's study.

"That address, sir," he snapped forcefully.

"Oh for God's sake, Sergeant!" Lucien replied. "Did it ever occur to you that one day, one day it might be your body rotting from radiation that has to be stolen from a morgue?"

There was silence, then. A brief pause. And then the sound of a strangled groan. That was the end of it, and she had to put a stop to whatever was happening.

"Stop!" Jean demanded, walking into Lucien's study.

Hannam had one gloved hand wrapped around Lucien's thick neck. Lucien was scrabbling at the man's wrist, trying to breathe and get him to let go. Both the men looked at Jean questioningly when she walked in. Lucien looked more frightened now than he had before. He was obviously afraid for her safety. As though Sergeant Hannam could do anything to her. Well, Lucien did not know that she was in no danger. Nor did he know that she would ensure that Lucien was no longer in danger either.

She focused her attention on Hannam and locked on to his mind. His thoughts were far more organized that his hotel room. He was singly focused on following his orders and taking what he needed from Lucien Blake. Well, they couldn't have that. "You'll have to kill us both to escape. And that will create quite the mess for the army, Sergeant Hannam," Jean pointed out.

Her words were pointless, since Hannam's mind was under her control now. She knew that he did not have a gun and regretted it. He'd anticipated killing Lucien, if need be. But he had not anticipated another person. Jean had to keep talking and make it seem like she was convincing him to let Lucien go, despite the fact that Jean could make him do that without a single word. But Lucien would ask too many questions if she just did away with Hannam the same way she would with one of the people she fed from.

Hannam released Lucien's neck and put his arms down. Lucien gasped for air and stumbled over to where Jean stood. She spared him a small glance, keeping her attention on controlling Hannam.

"Thank you, Jean," he said gratefully, coughing in response to being strangled like that.

"Call the police, Lucien," she instructed.

He hesitated. "Shouldn't we…"

"Just do it," she snapped. "The bag I brought home is under the table by the front door." Oh this was going to be a debacle. Lucien was going to have a lot of questions now.

He went to the phone on his desk, giving Hannam a wide berth. Hannam, of course, did not move and did not even look at Lucien as he passed. As though he could not see Lucien at all. And of course he didn't. Jean had his mind wholly in her grasp. She was busy replacing his memories of her. All Hannam would know was that he had tried to attack Lucien Blake and been evaded, and upon seeing the futility of it, he'd given up and allowed the police to arrest him. What he did after he arrived at the station was his own affair. Jean had to ensure that he was arrested for his crimes and keep her own secret safe. Easier said than done.

Matthew Lawson and Bill Hobart came to handcuff Hannam as soon as Lucien had made the call. They had him in the back of the police car within ten minutes of when he'd had Lucien's neck in his grip.

"Jean, are you alright?" he asked, as soon as the police left.

"Of course," she answered. That was a lie, of course. Once again, the adrenaline had distracted her but it was gone and the debilitating hunger came back. She needed another distraction. "Are you alright? You were the one being strangled, not me," she reminded him.

"I'll be fine."

"You will be, I'm sure, but are you now?" Jean asked with concern. "Let me take a look here," she insisted.

Lucien sat down in his desk chair and Jean stood in front of him. She gently held his bearded chin and turned his head this way and that while the fingers of her other hand trailed over his neck.

She could hear the thrumming of his blood. She could feel the rush of it through his veins. Big bulging veins in a thick, muscular neck. Her eyes fixated on the spot where his carotid artery just below the surface beside his throat. Jean's mouth watered as she imagined the feel of his hot blood rushing into her mouth and the texture of his skin under her lips and the satisfying sensation of her fangs sinking into the thick muscle of his neck. She wanted him. Her body wanted him more than she could even express.

"Jean?"

The sound of his voice snapped her back to reality. Jean had not even realized that she had leaned in closer to him. Her eyes met his and Jean found herself within three inches of his face. She gasped and stepped away from him and away from temptation. It was a miracle her teeth had not come out what with those hungry yearning fantasies. Jean swallowed hard. "Yes, you're alright. I'm glad. I'm going to bed," she said with a slight stammer.

She turned on her heel and rushed out of the room and up the stairs and did not stop until her bedroom door was closed behind her. That was far too close of a call. Jean would have to be more careful in the future. Tomorrow, first thing, she would have to feed. There would be plenty of people out and about for Anzac Day. Surely one of them would end up somewhere secluded where no one would notice her.

Jean sat on her bed and picked up her pillow and pressed her face into it so she could scream with frustration without being heard. She barely registered that her fangs had now come out and torn the pillow to shreds. Yet another problem to deal with.