Chapter 3

He ignores all of them at first, gathering his thoughts and what exactly he's going to say. Meg is sitting at the picnic table, the whites of her eyes dark with broken blood vessels. He hadn't known she would be so affected by the blast – but he should have. He can feel the changes on her skin and it makes him remember how he used to hunt vampires. Some things have started to dull with time, or fatigue, some days he can't tell the difference. Losing Whistler has weighed more heavily on him than anything he'd imagined.

He takes his time collecting his thoughts. These humans that Whistler thought would take his place are just sad shadows. Blade can't count on them, can't count on a single one, not even Whistler's daughter. She hasn't learned yet, hasn't managed to take all the rage and turn it into something useful, she's just another child. Maybe that was how Whistler was in the beginning – all Blade knows is that he doesn't have the time to teach her how to be like her father – especially not anymore.

Calder and Abby are waiting.

"Are you sure about a vaccine? Maybe the batch of Daystar was contaminated. Or…" Calder starts.

Blade shakes his head minutely. "I saw the vaccination lines. Hundreds of them."

"And you didn't ash them?" Abby challenges.

"I was hunting bigger fish."

"Drake." Meg answers for all of them. It's not the way she wanted to be vindicated but there it is. Abby has doubted her every moment of every day and Abby was wrong. But the sudden thrill that runs along her spine is as frightening as the moment she thought she was going to die. If he's alive…

Calder is moving, already thinking of the ramifications of Blade's revelation. "I'll halt production." Abby spins toward him in surprise as he continues. "It's a huge financial drain. If it doesn't work, then we need to redirect the funds."

Abby's irritation is evident. "Fine. You do that." She turns to Blade, still unwilling to relinquish her position. "Did you find him? Did you find Drake?"

"No."

"Then how are you sure? We watched him die, Blade. The feds took his body and the vamps stole it back. But he was dead. Sure, Meg's seeing him in shadows but…"

He spins on Meg. His entire attitude has just changed, grown more serious, and given Abby the answer she was looking for. Drake is alive. "You saw him? When?"

"Last night."

Abby starts to speak as he reaches down and pulls Meg to her feet. "You should…"

He ignores her.

Hannibal slams in through the door a little surprised by the lack of violence and mayhem. He grins at Meg and dangles Blade's keys from his fingers. "Alright, I parked your car. What's going on?"

"Go get it. We're leaving."

King goggles a bit at Blade. "Leaving? What? I'm a little lost here. Now, normally I wouldn't complain but this is getting…"

"Now." Blade's growl has lost any patience it might have had. Hannibal turns back to the door grumbling about parking attendants and vampire hunters.

Blade turns to Abby perfunctorily. "There are some things you don't understand."

"Then explain it, Blade. We're supposed to be working with you."

"Like I told you before. I don't need your help."

But Abby pushes. "Then why are you taking her?"

Blade's lips pull back over his teeth, a vampire habit. "Because she's the bait." He pauses, his eyes still hidden behind his sunglasses. "If you're so eager to die. Come on then."

Meg's pushed off her momentary disorientation and her own anger is starting to build. She's not some useless piece of meat. She snatches her arm away from Blade with a sudden hiss, he might have thrown her off with the attack, but she's done with the bullshit. Her life has been ruined since she made the choice to follow him down an alleyway, the least he can do is respect her.

"It wasn't you who took him down. It was Daystar. How will you fight him now?"

"You." He says the word like she should already know what he intends. And frighteningly, she does.

"What?" But the word is more reflex than question.

"You knew he was back."

"Yes."

He steps in close to her, so close that she can smell the faint hint of garlic on his breath and the way it doesn't fit with him. What fits is a mixture of sunlight and darkness, life and death, and the utter surety that he holds both for her. This close, his presence makes her faint, almost in the same way that Drake does. Meg would have followed him until the end of the world until he left her. A betrayal because he held her to higher ideals than even he could follow.

Their eyes lock through the slim barrier of his sunglasses. He won't remove them to let her see his eyes. Or the choices that he's made as that are reflected within them.

Then he turns away, towards Abby. "Vampire pheromones. Like the Reapers, he's giving off pheromones, calling them to him. He was content to watch when Talos woke him. He's not content any longer. They're gathering forces, all of them, for an all-out war."

"Why Meg?" Abby persists. "Why call her?"

Blade doesn't answer at first, maybe searching for the words.

Meg's quiet voice resounds in the room. There is a flushed look to her cheeks, something in between horror and truth, of what she is and what she has become. "A vampire born of a Daywalker and cured. Now, I'm none of them and all of them."

He nods his head, a sharp jerk of agreement. "They've spent years searching for a way to perfect the vampire race. For a long time they thought infusing my blood was the key." His fingertips brush against the faint white scars on her neck, the scars he gave her that are only visible to vampire-attuned eyes. "But now there's Meg. A bridge between all three species."

"Neither vampire, nor Daywalker, nor human."

Abby's eyes widen. "The future of our race…. he meant Meg." Her hand drops to the huge pistol on her belt.

Blade gestures for her to put it away but Meg's anger has risen again, strong and volatile against the other woman. "I won't be used. Not by you. Not by Blade. Not anymore."

"He'll bleed you dry for what your blood contains."

"I won't be used."

Abby continues without stopping. "And they'll use your DNA to start a new race one that's not bound to blood. Invulnerable to silver, or garlic, or sunlight. And they'll out-compete the rest of us."

Johnny is staring at Abby and Blade aghast. He's starting to understand where this conversation is going, and heroically, he steps in. "You have to run, Meg. Hide until its safe."

"It will never be safe." Meg steps towards Blade, torn between the desire to move toward him for comfort or to flee. "Not until I'm dead."

Johnny protests but she never hears him. She reaches for Blade's chest, her hand pressing against his linked black armor. He's wearing all black again, no longer taking her advice on anything. Her revelation has broken the bond between them, but it hasn't been a clean break and they both are still ragged around the edges.

"Do it. Kill me." She gasps as a six-inch silver knife is laying along the edge of her throat before she can draw another breath. She didn't really think he'd do it, but his eyes contain the horrible fact that he's drawing close to making the very same decision.

"I can't protect you and fight him."

"I'm not asking you to." Meg closes her eyes suddenly, all too aware that she is tired of seeing her reflection in his sunglasses. He uses them as a barrier and she is so tired of it. "What are you planning?"

"To draw him out."

"With me as bait."

"If I was wrong," he says quietly. "And you could defend yourself against him then things might be different."

"I can't. Not now." She smiles sadly as he withdraws his knife and resheathes it. "Funny how so many things hinge on a single choice."

Hannibal trips back in through the door. "Okay. I'm here. What did I miss?"

He looks in confusion at the shocked looks on the faces around him. "Abby?" But the three humans turn in walk away from him, there are some things that are almost too painful to repeat.

It's Blade who finally speaks, his eyes cold and full of unanswered regrets as he watches Meg walk away from him. "Just the end of her world."

"Meg?"

"Yes."

"You really do screw up every relationship you're in? Don't you?"

For the first time Hannibal is frightened, not because Blade gives him that look, but because he doesn't. The Daywalker turns and walks into the building as Hannibal stands alone in the center of the floor and wonders what the hell he really missed.