Wow. Got hurt, which slowed up my typing quite a bit. Sorry about the major delay. Thanks again for the reviews and if anybody has any thoughts/contributions/criticisms let me know. Thanks!
Chapter 2
Meg is standing alone outside of the Nightstalker's new headquarters. Her skin is still flushed with anger, the red a startling contrast to her pale skin and dark hair. The conversation inside didn't go too well.
Abby didn't believe her. Which wasn't surprising, the other woman didn't trust Meg, hadn't since she found out that Blade had spared her life against Whistler's wishes. Usually they had an uneasy truce, but it had gotten harder since Blade left and they suddenly had to rely on each other.
The decision she was weighing wasn't one that made her any happier than normal, but it was starting to seem like the only alternative.
"Meg?" Hannibal's voice didn't startle her, she'd heard his footsteps the minute he left the warehouse.
She turned to look at him and he grinned, she didn't smile back.
"You know I always had this fantasy about living with dominant women."
Her silence throws him off.
"But it's not really all that fun."
Meg shrugs. "She's used to running the show. And I'm used to following my own lead."
"You followed Blade." His remark stings even though he didn't mean it that way.
Her face darkens slightly and Hannibal reaches out with one hand. "I…"
"It's okay."
"Why did he leave? The real reason."
The question makes her shiver. She was trying not to think about that, because it involved Blade and Drake in the answer and was so very much tied into her dreams.
"He left because of me." Her voice is very soft. "Because he found out that I made a choice of survival."
"And?"
Her limbs are suddenly twitching with the desire to move and she strides away from him, Hannibal's long legs easily catching up to her.
"It was in the Talos building." Meg says quietly. "Right after I blew their computer system. He came for me."
"Drake." Is all he says in quiet affirmation.
"He knew that I was of Blade's lineage. A vampire born of a Daywalker and he decided that I didn't really know the truth of my heritage." Her breath catches at the memory. "He staked me against the desk. A fatal wound….. for any normal vampire."
"But you weren't any vampire."
"No, I wasn't."
Their feet crunch through the gravel, a loud desecration of the night. Meg could care less, if anything she wants to run faster away from these memories.
After a long pause she continues. "I had a choice, give in to the thirst or fight it. And if I fought it I would become worse than them, mindless with the need. I tried to pick the lesser evil. And Blade didn't forgive me for it."
Hannibal grabs her arm and spins her to a halt. "Now wait a minute. Anyone who's been saved by the cure has known the thirst. What's so different between you and us?"
"Blade and I had a deal. Break it and he'd ash me. The problem was that Karen gave me the cure before he found out the truth."
"And now you're human."
"That's what I keep telling myself but I don't believe it." Meg looks up at him and feel sorry for what she's about to do to all of them. "My dreams are about the thirst. Even now I can sense the pulse in your neck and the way all humans smell like meat."
He shrinks back slightly. "So we make you an inhaler like Blade's."
"It doesn't work that way."
"Why not?"
"Look." Her tone grows harsh. "It's fine that Abby wants to think that Drake was a delusion of mine, but I know differently. Drake's the reason my thirst is growing and the reason that Blade left. When the body disappeared he went to track it down and destroy it. Because maybe that will stop what's happening to me."
"Why did he leave you behind?"
"Because he doesn't trust me either."
Hannibal is sitting in the middle of the Nightstalker base. He hasn't decided yet whether to tell Abby everything or to keep it to himself. Regardless of whether or not he likes either woman, this situation reeks of complications and some of it was told in confidence. He doesn't want to burn his bridges with Meg, or Blade either.
He's flipping a knife back and forth through his fingers and letting it thunk into the floor every third spin. He pulls the blade back out of the wood and flips it again. Johnny is watching him from where he's working on their gigantic Expedition, installing tiny spray nozzles that they can use to disperse Daystar.
"You got women problems?"
Hannibal shrugs. "I'm gonna get a sign. Only complicated women need apply."
"Yeah, chicks in this line of work gotta be a little crazy."
"But not the men?" Abby's comment makes them both jump. She's been on edge since Drake killed Zoe's mother and stole Zoe and Hannibal. When the little girl left to live with an aunt, another piece of her heart hardened.
"Its testosterone, protects the brain by numbing it." Hannibal tries.
Abby frowns darkly at the both of them. "Get rigged up. We're going out tonight."
"With Meg?" Johnny asks and recoils at the hard look she gives him. "Or not."
Hannibal retrieves his blade and snugs it back into the holster. "You know, this was always what I was better at. Killing things. Good thing I don't need a day job."
"Where is Meg?" Abby asks as she begins to load pistol shells into her belt.
The windows shatter as light and pressure burst them inward. Glass flies everywhere and the Nightstalkers hit the ground arms over their heads.
Outside, Meg is thrown backward by the concussive blast. Everything dissolves into white pain and blindness. Her eyes are normally sensitive and now, there is nothing that she can do. No way to see past the blindness of a vampire weapon turned against them.
Footsteps crunch through the gravel and she swivels, eyes wide and unseeing toward the sound.
One hand starts to sweep toward her asp but she waits. Distance attacks won't work and she can only operate on the assumption that she's alone. Whatever she does will have to be in close and brutal – so that she can feel where to strike.
His steps get closer. A man's because of their weight. She lunges upward, kicking out with the same motion but her leg swings through empty air. Her balance teeters for a moment but she follows through the movement and manages to catch him with a wild blow. Turning on his position she presses forward. For every blow she lands, he is landing his own and her arms bruise under the attack. She can't stop though, can't afford to back off and nurse the injuries.
Her fingers wrap in the heavy leather jacket and her nose wrinkles as she catches a whiff of something familiar. The scent is harder to identify without a source of reference and the blows haven't let up.
One fist hits her hard across the diaphraghm and her breath stops dead in her chest. She staggers back, reaching for her asp, trying at this last moment to defend herself even as her body betrays her with its inability to breathe.
The attacker grabs her hair, she can feel his fingers pulling her throat back even as her eyes finally start to recover and show black dots against a hazy visual background.
"Would you beg?" Came a harsh yet familiar voice.
She manages to get her middle finger up in strident defiance.
"You put too much trust in the humans around you." There was a strange clicking from behind her but Meg couldn't twist in the iron grip. She was starting to see things around her and the vague shape of the warehouse door as it opened and disgorged five blobby figures that she assumed to be the Nighstalkers. "Don't you, Meg?"
The hand releases her and she lunges backward, both elbows jabbing and two backwards kicks to the shins that connected. Survival wasn't nearly as potent a motivator as rage was.
"You asshole!" Her breath came out in sharp accusations. "You bastard! Was that a fucking joke!"
Blade takes the onslaught and finally manages to get back inside her guard. He is in a good mood and spars with her, their fight faster than any of the humans could ever have reached. Meg hadn't given up all of the vampire attributes. She is fast – but Blade is faster.
His hand shot out and caught her around the neck. She struggled for a second, but his fingers cut into her circulation and her vision swam, not with light, but with blood pressure as it dropped off.
He released her and she drops to the ground as the Nightstalkers jogged up.
"What the fuck was that?" Hannibal demanded. "We thought World War III was starting!"
Blade fixed his gaze on him and then extended one hand out to Meg. With a glare and her own fingers massaging her neck she gets to her feet by herself.
"I assume you were trying to make a point." Abby said more calmly for the benefit of the others. "But I'm not sure what it was supposed to be."
"You're vulnerable. All of you."
Johnny's voice was overly optimistic. "Yeah man, but that's what Daystar is for."
"You people don't know a thing about fighting vampires."
"Well, why don't you enlighten us, oh Great Buddha of Knowledge." Hannibal is embarrassed as soon as it came out of his mouth. "Okay, the adrenaline is still going."
"Blade?" Meg's voice is harsh and her eyes are still pinpoint pupils from the exposure. "What's going on?"
He softened then and although Meg couldn't see it there was something infinitely sad in his eyes. For those who could see it, it was how close he had been to killing her and ending everything right there.
"They have a vaccine for Daystar."
Abby almost fell over. "They couldn't have one! It was 100 effective after we mixed it with Drake's blood."
"Unless Drake survived."
Blade nodded at Meg's soft admission. "Antibodies."
"Wait a minute!" Hannibal moved to Meg's side, offering comfort that she felt and Blade noticed darkly. "He's alive then."
"Oh shit." Calder cursed loud enough for them all to hear.
"So why do you look so happy?" Hannibal demanded.
"Because this is what I do best." Blade made a slight motion with his head, and Meg – still off-kilter – moved to his side. He turned back toward the others and tossed something at Hannibal who snatched it out of the air before it could hit him. Keys.
"Wha…?"
Blade grinned suddenly, a flash of white teeth as the others stared after him in shock. "Go park my car."
Then he turned to usher Meg back into the warehouse leaving the Nighstalkers still confused about the sudden change of events.
"I really hate him." Hannibal said finally.
Abby looked at him without humor. "Be quick about it." She strode after Blade with Calder, Johnny and Twist at her heels.
"You know!" He shouted after her. "I hate you too, somedays." She didn't respond and Hannibal sighed as he looked at the keys in his hand. "Fuck."
"Don't scratch it!"
Hannibal was a millisecond away from drawing on Johnny when he saw Abby slap the other man on the back of the head. Grumbling he turned toward Blade's Charger. He'd rather deal with an inanimate object than what was going to happen inside.