They re-entered the castle proper through a gap covered by the tapestries draped in a room that Daniel Jackson did not recognise. Teal'c stepped into the room and looked around impassively.

Magda Pravda took her daughter aside shortly after they stepped from behind the tapestries. They stood out of earshot of either Teal'c or Jackson.

"I am worried," Magda said and then looked over her shoulder. "I thought I would have seen a sign of your father by now."

"What will you do mother?"

"I will go and look for him. And then I will look to see whether the others have secured the cart yet."

"Be careful."

"As should you," Her mother had said and then looked significantly at Daniel Jackson, adding a slightly different slant to the conversation.

"He is interesting mother," she said evasively. "But he is not interested in me, nor do I know him well enough to judge what he may be like."

"He is exotic, do not mistake that for an entirely positive attribute."

"I am no longer a callow girl mother."

"Hmm."

They shed Magda Pravda in their flight at that point.

Jackson questioned Heidi about what her mother intended doing while she led them across the room, and was told that she had gone to raise the alarm and bring assistance. And that she had undertaken to procure a cart to get them out if any of their number should be injured. She figured that the rest of the conversation was not a fit topic to raise with him just yet; perhaps after the action subsided…

It had seemed like a pessimistic attitude to Jackson, but there were a lot of villagers in the building now and some one was bound to get hurt. He just hoped it was not one of them.

"Now hush," admonished Heidi. "There are many guards prowling these halls, and not all of them appear as humans, there are also the wolves to consider. You must trust in me to lead you through this. Be careful to follow my lead."

Heidi stepped through the doorway that led out into the main hall. She waved to Jackson and Teal'c to follow. She led them in a staccato flight from one hallway to another. All the corridors looked the same to Daniel Jackson. If they hadn't been led by the apparently knowledgable Heidi Pravda, he would have been completely lost by now.

Teal'c and Jackson were led past a sequence of closed doors.

Heidi stopped and listened attentively. She appeared satisfied by what she did not hear. She pointed to one of the rooms.

"I could have sworn this was not where they showed us to our rooms," Jackson said. He was not certain, but he was reasonably sure. He looked about and conveyed his scepticism with his body language.

"This is the wing where you were housed," Muttered an exasperated Heidi Pravda. She stopped. And looked around in confusion. "So, if they are no longer here, where else might they have gone?"

"If they're not here," Teal'c said finally. "Perhaps they have left the castle. Or perhaps they have been taken to the room where the Count took you last night," Teal'c suggested.

Jackson looked at Teal'c searchingly. It might have been an attempt at a joke, but he couldn't be sure.

"Let's have a look in Jack and Sam's rooms," Jackson suggested. "Maybe we'll see something there. I don't know, maybe a clue to where they might have gone."

"That might be a wise move."

They re entered the hallway and moved along until they came to the next doorway. It opened to reveal the wreckage that had been left behind during Carter's rapid and untidy gathering of her old clothes. The room looked like a bomb had gone off in there.

The dress that Carter had worn with such distinction at the previous night's dinner was thrown to the floor. The bedclothes were scattered everywhere. Jackson was pretty sure that no one had slept in the room, so the wreckage suggested that there had been a struggle in the room.

The final clue was a broken goblet scattered across the floor. It was dirty with the smear of something.

"It does not look good, Daniel Jackson," judged Teal'c.

"Yeah," said Jackson slowly. He bent and checked the glass. He had been drugged during the previous night, by something mixed with the brandy. The broken goblet was a bad sign.

"Has something happened to your friends?" Heidi asked. She layed a gentle hand on Jackson's shoulder.

"It certainly looks that way," Jackson said levelly. He fingered the butt of his AK-47 and then his features assumed a grim expression behind his glasses. "Teal'c," Jackson asked. "Do we know where the God damned door to the outside is?"

"No."

"Heidi?"

"It is that way, along the corridor and down the stairs," she said.

"No, not the front way. The back way. I think we are going to need to know where it is." His grim tone communicated his anxiety to her. She nodded in sympathy. "I thank you for your help, but it might be too dangerous for you to accompany us any further."

"You will not rid yourself of me that easily Daniel Jackson," Heidi Pravda vowed. "It is not your people who have suffered under this regime."

"Oh, but it is," said Jackson grimly. "It is my people who have suffered."

"I will stay with you," Heidi vowed. "Now, what is it that you wish to do?"

"I want to get out of here and do as much damage as we can on the way. I want to find my companions and I want you to survive this expedition. I need you to show us the way that the underground gets in and out again so that we know in the event of a panic how we should go about that."

"You mean to take the same way that we used when we came in?" she asked. Her expression showed a trace of the same evangalistic zeal that had come over Jackson. It looked so much more convincing on her face, although the lack of age lines suggested more enthusiasm than experience on her part.

"What about the dungeon?" Jackson asked Teal'c. "We should at least make an attempt to wreck the Sarcophagus on the way out."

"I agree," the Jaffa said. "That would indeed make a fine gesture."

"Heidi. The dungeon entrance?"

"It is only just a little further down this hallway."

"We'll try there," Jackson suggested. "And then Heidi. You should go and join your people. We have a few things that we need to do, and they will be very dangerous."

"They will be less so with me accompanying you."

Jackson looked into her intent eyes and fell into the contemplation dopely. Before he knew what he was doing he found himself nodding and wondering if she had a bit of the same will sapping ability that the vampires had demonstrated.

*

The Countess looked Samantha Carter in the eye and smiled. Carter returned a dopey smile of her own. Her expression had gone past dreamy and approached moronic. It did not suit her. It is times like this that it becomes obvious what degree by which women are attractive is caused by the expression on their face as much as the shape in which it is formed. If they look intelligent they make much better mates after all.

The Countess's sister in law has fastened the same vulpine look on Jack O'Neill and she had him pinned to the spot in much the same manner. There was not a lot of cognition going on inside the skulls of either of the SGC personnel. Their personal bio-ware processors had gone into stand-by. If you looked closely you might even see the image of flying toasters flashing past their eyes.

The Count leant against the sarcophagus with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He obviously enjoyed the spectacle. This was so much more fun than working with his accountant (who we should point out is a blood spattered stain on the walls and ceiling of the hallway above them.) We have to question a lot of things about the Count's personality, most notably his tendency to watch his wife in action.

To the entranced Samantha Carter, the Countess's eyes were crystal clear orbs surrounding a pupil that was so deep a brown that it was almost black. They seemed to glow from within. Carter was fascinated, she felt as though she could fall head long into those eyes. They came closer, until she could smell the woman's perfume, feel the humid heat of her breath against her cheek. A little voice inside Carter's head said something about raising her gun and letting loose a prolonged burst of lead pellets, but the bit of her processor that was working the main locomotion routine was indulging in a bit a inappropriate procrastination. It was looking forward to a bit of procreation, which it would not normally consider under these circumstances. In this instance there was something quite seriously crossed among the wiring on her motherboard.

In O'Neill's case, he was conflicted about which part of his processing system to use. He has so much software available for the appreciation of the female of the species. There is the bit that wants to propagate the species and that bit is clamouring for his attention. It has found what it believes is a suitable candidate for the sharing a genetic material resulting in the creation of a new generation of human beings. It has control of the motor neurone system and it is staying put because the search is over for the moment. There is another part of his operating system that thinks that propagation of the species is not a suitable course of action when confronted by someone who is in serious need of orthodontic work, particularly on her canines, which appear to have a life of their own.

A single drop of saliva on the tip of one incisor caught the light of his torch and glittered blindingly for a moment. Rather than draw his attention to the length and sharpness of her incisors, that glistening droplet, drew his attention to the red of her lips and the pout where they were crowded away from her teeth. We all know that red lips refers to a degree of arousal and therefore the sight of them causes a feed back loop to be established in O'Neill's biological hardware. He sank deeper into her spell.

She leant in toward O'Neill. He felt her breath on his neck. Warm and caressing. His hands dropped onto her hips and brought her closer to him, held her against him. He felt her kiss, gossamer light touch against his neck. She nibbled the lobe of his ear and then her tongue teased a line down his neck again.

His pulse pounded, drowning out the rest of the universe, until there was nothing but the woman encircled by his arms and the feel of her lips on his neck and the touch of her body against his. A fire engulfed him. His blood pounded and his sense waned (not that there was much of it mind you). She pulled back from her concentration on his neck and caught his gaze. Her mouth was ruby rimmed. Her lips scarlet in the feeble light spilled form his torch. Her lips parted, drawn open by a smile without mirth. Her teeth were red tinged. Blood dropped from one incisor. O'Neill did not care. He smiled back at her and surrendered to her embrace.

The spell was broken when her head exploded in a shower of blood, bone and grey matter. She collapsed to the ground, to reveal the smoking gun of Daniel Jackson some metres behind her.

O'Neill fainted, joining Samantha Carter who was already sprawled on the floor.

*

"That is hardly the way to repay the hospitality that you were granted by this house," suggested the Count affably. He held his hands away from his body to show that he was not armed.

The body of his wife and her sister were sprawled on the floor between Jackson and the Count. The Count pointedly ignored the sight. Jackson took that as a cue and did the same.

"I would hardly call it hospitality," Jackson commented darkly. "We should include my companion in the conversation. He would contribute greatly."

The Count nodded. "I have seen the mark on his forehead. At first I mistook it for the mark of the Eastern Provinces, where they still hold to the old ways. I see that it is not so. Is it the mark of Apophis?"

"Yes."

"How interesting. Is he coming, no of course not, you aren't Goa'uld at all. Although, I have no idea what else you could be."

"You don't seem terribly concerned for your wife and sister-in-law."

"They'll be back to normal in a few hours."

Jackson shrugged that off, although inwardly he quailed slightly. He thought back over what the Count had said earlier. "You thought that we came from the Eastern Provinces. To do what?"

The Count smiled a grin full of sharp teeth. "Why, to check my books and make sure that we had kept the right amount of taxes going to the king. I hired an accountant."

"You mistook us for Accountants." Jackson was appalled, but not half as much as O'Neill would have been if he were alert.

"At first, yes," He shrugged. "I haven't done for a while. You are not a convincing liar. I rather thought it might be fun to toy with the tool of the System Lord. They are only legends to the general population. It is only us who survived the plague that remember their presence."

"You've had no contact with them?"

"Not for centuries," The Count conceded. "Almost since this colony was seeded in fact. The virus that we contracted after we first came here meant we were isolated. Quarantined from the rest of our society. It has been a trial."

"This is wasting time," Teal'c said abruptly. "He is stalling for his reinforcements to arrive. We must get Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter out of here."

"So what happens now?" Asked the Count, not put out in the least that Teal'c worked out what he was doing.

"We wish to take our people home."

"Where is that?" Asked the Count, with genuine curiosity. "You came through the gate? Obviously! You don't wish to respond? It is no matter. Taking these people home is not going to be easy. I think Miss Pravda can tell you that. Your weaponry is a match for us in ones or perhaps twos, but transporting those two and running for your lives is not going to be an easy task."

For Heidi, that pronouncement broke the spell that was fixating her. She pounced, grabbed his staff from Teal'c and let one fly. It took out the Count with a blast that charred half of his head. He collapsed against the sarcophagus and then slumped to the floor.

"Quick, we need to get Jack and Sam into the sarcophagus," Jackson shouted. It had taken him a few seconds to recover from his shock at the way their conversation had ended. He even had a cutting reply ready to give back to the Count and it died un-said on his lips.

"No," Commanded Heidi Pravda. "I will not allow that thing to be used again."

"But why?" Asked Jackson.

"She is correct, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.

"What?"

"The sarcophagus is the source of the virus of which he spoke."

"You mean a software virus."

"Yes. I believe that is the term."

Jackson looked up at the traitorous device and then down at O'Neill. His expression was desperate.

A thin but steady stream of blood trickled from the wounds in O'Neill's neck. There was no sign that the flow was going to be staunched by the coagulants that normally prevent exsanguination.