Kate jumped in place, trying to see over the heads of the crowd stalled in the narrowing hallway. Finally she put a hand over the whip and pulled it out off the tightly cinched belt. Stepping back to give herself a tiny margin of free space, she cracked it. Hard. "Move!" she ordered, aware of the bemused stares she was receiving. "Now!"

Amazingly, they moved.

It took a couple of well-placed snaps of the braided thongs but in a minute or two she was finally at the stairwell. She stopped for a moment, looking for privacy and finding a small unoccupied corner she could lean into and speak distinctly in the direction of the wire.

"I lost him. I'm in the stairwell to the left off the entranceway. I'm going to try the second floor."

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

Gibbs slammed the door of the van open. "I'll cover the back." He nodded toward the glow of the artificial torches lighting the front door. "Abby, go in there. See if you can find them. Duck?"

The ME was already seated at the bench, an earpiece in each hand. "I'll keep an ear to them." He tilted his head toward the video feed of the brickwork front of the building. "And an eye out."

Gibbs caught the first headset slung toward him in a one-handed catch and handed it to Abby who pocketed it for the time being. He put the second one on.

"Tach 1," instructed Ducky.

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Abby waved her ticket under the nose of the tatt'd bouncer guarding the door, holding the back of her other hand out for inking. She glanced briefly at the slight smearing of the red pentagram then dove into the semi-controlled chaos inside.

She headed to the right, glancing in crowded rooms as she passed them, looking for the telltale white of Tony's shirt. Having made the right-hand circuit she circled back; then, having passed the stairwell and a closed door on the left, she spotted a smidgen of white in the reflected light of the grate in one of the quieter rooms. Heart pounding loud enough to wake the undead, she slid in against the wall.

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

"I still have him."

Gibbs settled into the skinny shadows afforded by the lights in the back alley and whispered into the headset's mike. "He sound okay?"

"So far."

Gibbs didn't like the ME's hesitant tone. "Do I need to break it up?"

"We don't even know quite where he is, Jethro," Ducky cautioned. "Let Kate and Abby spot him."

"Tell me what they're saying." He pressed further back into the shadows as a couple walked by.

"He offered Tony a knife," confessed the ME.

It was not a reassuring answer. "For what?"

"He wants Tony to cut himself."

Gibbs gritted his teeth. "The idiot's not going to do it, is he?"

Ducky's reply came in precise, British-accented tones. "I believe it's a test of whether he will yield control. The milieu of vampiric encounters is usually one of submission to an overwhelming dominance."

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

"I got him." Abby's whispered report hissed through the earpiece.

"Where?" questioned Gibbs sharply.

"One of the first-floor rooms near the stairwell."

"Ducky still has him on wire but keep an eye out." Gibbs drew in a deep breath. "He's got a knife."

Abby's gaze fixed darkly on the back of the red cape. "Sergei?"

"He wants Anthony to practice a little self-bloodletting," muttered Ducky.

Abby's eyes widened. "He's not going to do it, is he? I can go over there."

"No." Gibbs' order was firm. "Let DiNozzo do his job. He can handle it. You just keep an eye on things. If it starts to go bad, I can be there in under a minute."

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Tony's hand trembled ever so slightly as he took the knife but, embarrassingly, he couldn't quell either the faint shaking or the disbelief he could actually do this, even in pursuit of a murder suspect.

"Where?"

A cold hand turned his free one. The pad of a thumb caressed his inner wrist. "The beat of life may be felt in many places in the body." The silver spike he wore on his index finger pressed lightly on the radial artery. "Here." The other hand pressed Tony's thigh. "Here." The light pressure left a kind of tingling behind even after it had moved to his temple. "Even here."

Pupiless eyes appraised him. "But I promised you an aphrodisiac first, didn't I? One shouldn't make promises he can't keep."

The cool, metal point resting on his wrist dug deeper and Tony pulled out of the clasp, looking numbly at the drop of blood that welled deep red from the pricking. He was still standing, as if his knees were locked in place, but he felt he was receding across some vast darkened plain, the firelit room speeding its light away in retreat.

He swallowed, his throat suddenly irritated and dry, and managed to get one last word out of his increasingly numb tongue. "Gibbs."

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"Abby, Tony's in trouble. Move!"

Abby shot upright from her slouch against the wall and rushed toward the bit of white she could see retreating, now, toward the far door offset from the fireplace. She zigzagged through the room's crowd, one hand on the earpiece, the other pushing the recalcitrant out of her way. She pushed by one tatt'd bicep only to find her wrist caught in a strong unmoving grasp. She looked up in surprise and gasped at the smooth-skulled owner of the hand that gripped her. The ankh tattoo moved slightly with the rise of his shaven eyebrows.

"Goethe!" she gasped.

"I know you?"

Tony's white shirt disappeared into the press of the corridor.

"I gotta go." She tried futilely to twist out of the restraining grasp.

"Let her go."

Abby stilled at the familiar voice.

"It's small, but it shoots." Kate reported, revealing the palm-sized weapon. "So let her go."

Abby rubbed her released wrist. Kate snapped the shiny handcuff from where they hung at her hip. "Why don't you try wearing these?" She nodded at Abby. "Go find DiNozzo."

"You got him?"

"Oh yeah, I got him. I'll take him out to the van." Kate glared at the curious audience they'd acquired. "He has this bad-cop fantasy." She kicked at the booted heels. "Move it."

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Tony staggered numbly along, feet seeming to do the bidding of someone else besides him, as he was quite sure, even in this oddly inebriated state, that this was no one he wanted to be following down a dark corridor. His wrist burned where the sharp metal had pricked it and his vision was starting to stretch and bend in unnatural, stomach-turning ways.

Dream. He mentally reassured himself. Just a dream.

One of his vampire dreams, the ones he'd had as a kid in the big, canopied bed. Rococo. He tried to wrap his tongue around the word. That's what you called it, the gilt monstrosities of his youth: rococo. His mother would roll the word around, make him laugh.

Just a nightmare.

Gibbs had them too.

And if Gibbs had them, it was okay.

He stumbled and hands slammed him into the sharp corner of a doorframe. A face too close too his, sharp teeth gleaming in the low light.

He didn't like this dream. Not at all.

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

Gibbs barreled his way through the back door, his tweed jacket incongruous among the monotonous black of the celebrants. Halfway through, he met a breathless Abby.

"He's not that way," panted Abby. "Kate's got Goethe."

"Goethe?"

"Tony's other vampire. He tried to stop me." She drew a couple more deep breaths. "They might be working together. She took him to the van."

"Keep looking," he ordered. "I'll go see this Goethe."

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

"He's not talking."

Gibbs gave Kate's report a curt nod. "Maybe not to you. Get back in there and find DiNozzo."

"Gibbs, I—"she went silent under the unforgiving gaze.

"You lost him, Kate. Least you can do is make sure you find him."

The muscles along her jaw spasmed. "Yes, sir."

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

Tony landed, hard, on his knees. It seemed colder now. And darker. Everything too distorted to make out. He tried to turn his head against the fetid breath huffing against his cheek. Maybe he didn't need to stay alert. If it were just a dream, he decided, Gibbs couldn't expect a report. He'd understand and wouldn't blame him. Even Gibbs would blame him for that.

His arms were pulled harshly over his head. The meager warmth afforded by the thin shirt was stripped away and Tony whimpered. He heard the sounds leak from his throat and he flushed, humiliated, despite the chill shaking him. Pain ripped across his chest but he held this cry in his throat.

His attempt to focus better on the thin strip being dangled in front of him failed. He watched a fuzzy fist crumple the object.

"Many wish to find me, to be led to me, but only the chosen may come."

Tony closed his eyes. Maybe he'd wake up soon.

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Abby's frantic dartings made little breaks in the packed corridors that Kate easily followed. She could see the twin black ponytails bobbing as Abby's gaze swiveled from left to right and back again.

"Anything?" she asked when she caught up to her.

"Uh uh." Abby pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. "Ducky see anything?"

"Nothing out the front," reported Kate, "and Gibbs had the back."

Abby pushed her way out of the hall and stopped to study the staircase. "Roof or basement?"

"Neither. You're not armed."

"Then I won't shoot anybody. If I see something, I can call for help." Abby tapped the headset.

Kate looked up and down the stairs. "Okay," she acquiesced, "make sure someone's on the other end of the line, then take the roof." Kate re-firmed her grip around the small pistol. "I'll take the basement."

"I'm here, Abby. I can hear both you and Kate." Ducky's voice cut in. "I'll be here. Do as Kate says. If you find them, don't try to interfere. The city police are on the way."

"What about Tony's wire?"

"There's been nothing for a while. I have it open, just in case."

"Mmm, okay, I'm going up the stairs."

"Be careful, Abby," admonished the ME.

The reply was a quietly murmured "yep."

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

It was still cold.

And dark.

Tony tried to writhe against the damp feel of the concrete underneath his bare back but his muscles wouldn't cooperate. He could feel the silver fingertip rub along the line of sticky adhesive left by the wire and he shivered under the metallic touch. There was a low buzzing in his ears now, surreal words ebbing and swelling on its noisy tide.

"Just an appetizer while we wait. A small indulgence. Goethe surely will not mind."

Again, an instinctive whimper rose from Tony's throat before he could stop it.

"Never to have been taken." The sharp touch moved to the hollow of his throat and stroked there a moment. "The joy of pure essence."

The buzzing returned and then cleared again. The metal dragged a chilling line across his throat before it stopped to stroke again, directly beneath the jaw.

"Just a prick to pierce the life waters."

It didn't hurt as Tony had expected.

It was still dark.

And cold.

Except where the warmth trickled, liquid and molten.

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

The chain hanging against the wrought iron grillwork of the door blocking the basement hallway was unlatched, and Kate took the heavy lock swinging from the bottom link in her hand, turning it over to rub a finger along the keyhole. She couldn't tell if it had been picked, but it seemed unlikely you'd leave the wine cellar, as proclaimed by the Gothic-lettered sign on the door, open with a party of hundreds raging overhead.

"The door to the wine cellar is unlocked," she whispered, bending in the direction of the wire. "Gibbs might want to get down here."

A gentle metallic tinkling, like metal falling from some small height, came clearly from beyond the gate, through the wall-shaking bass of the band.

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Gibbs pointed the two pairs of officers toward the front entrance, following them into the heated crush of moving bodies. He'd just branched off, in search of the staircase when Ducky's "Jethro!" hissed through the headset.

"Here."

"There's a wine cellar. Kate thinks—"

Gibbs cut him off. "Where's the damn staircase?"

"According to Abby there's a pair of them, on either side of the entrance, about halfway down the hallway."

"Got it. Get those cops down here."

Gibbs took the risers two at a time, stumbling but not falling when he jumped the last four; his clattering landing not even disturbing the intertwined couple nestled in the corner.

The basement hallway was empty.

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

It was the harsh breaths she heard first: the hard, rasping pants that she came to realize were not distress, but a kind of excitement. The sound alone turned her blood cold.

And the vision of the hulking form kneeling over an unconscious Tony, the moon-face pressed into Tony's exposed neck, the reddened tongue ... Kate swallowed back her gasp before it could materialize. She measured the weight of the Glock 26 in her hand, mentally putting the meager power of the 9 mm shells against the possible danger he could inflict to his helpless victim. Against the flow of red from which he was suckling.

And she stepped from the cover of the wine racks and fired until the small gun went silent.

(tbc)


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