"Meg?"
"I'm here."
Drake enters the room, his eyes flashing to ovals as he searches the darkness for Meg's form. She is standing on the balcony again, the place he always finds her, looking out at the ocean and the moon above them. She is dressed in dark pants and an off-the-shoulder blouse that shows her bruised and sutured wound from the Council meeting."Where is he?"
"Close."
"Then let me have one last moment with you undisturbed."
She doesn't resist as he pulls her away from the window.
Neither of them notice the pair of amber eyes watching from across the compound. Blade pulls back into the shadows as well as Hannibal and Danielle crawl across the grass toward him.
"Anything?" Hannibal whispers.
"No guards. No vampires. Just the two of them."
"It's got to be a trap." Danielle pushes forth.
"Some kind of trap." Hannibal agrees but Blade remains silent. He doesn't sense anything about a trap from this place and that worries him more than anything else. Just as he can feel Meg now that they're closer and feel the intensity of her emotions. His heart twists in his chest because she'd once offered that to him – the pure intensity of love.
"Blade?" Hannibal said his name for the third time. "What do you want us to do?"
"We move." But there is a tiny bit of hesitation that he doesn't let the others see. "Stay away from Drake. I'll take care of him."
"Why would she go with him?" Danielle muses softly. "I mean he's cute and all, but he's a vampire."
Neither man answers as they look up at the window above them. Sometimes there are no answers.
With that last moment of peace, they head towards the last battle.
The mansion seems to be empty. Blade keeps waiting for an attack that doesn't come. He is alone in the hallway he's searching. The others are searching their particular quadrants but so far no one has found anything.
A sense of discord grows but he can't pin what is wrong with this place, what has really been going on here.
Then, ahead, he's sees light shining from underneath a door. And with absolute certainty Blade knows that Drake is on the other side. He uses the tip of his sword to push open the door. It's a dining hall, although the table is bare and all the chairs are gone except for one. It is in the last chair that Drake is waiting for him without armor although his sword is laid across the tabletop in preparation.
"You've come." It's said with no surprise.
"It's time to end this."
"Did Meg find you?" There is concern in Drake's voice now.
The question wasn't what Blade was expecting. "No."
"Who else did you bring?"
Blade gives a small snort. "She's not in danger, yet."
Meg turns at the last corridor and sees a man move into the shadows. Not that he was fast enough to hide from her eyes. She can tell Hannibal from Blade even if they weren't this sharp, the two men look nothing alike.
"Hannibal?" She calls out.
"Meg." There is no welcome in his voice, she hadn't really expected any.
Her eyes wrinkle in concern as she sees the scars on his cheek and throat and the white hairs that grow around them.
"You bring new meaning to the phrase 'sleeping with the enemy'."
"You can parade me around as a pariah all you want." She answers as they move closer together. "Or you can talk to me. How many vampires have you seen lately? Or are they getting a little hard to find?"
"Easy enough." He lies and gets close enough to see her wounds. "So he likes to knock you around?"
"A gift." She answers. "From one of the Council."
"And where are they?"
Meg opens her mouth in a small smile as she prepares to answer.
"Meg won't be able to stop me from killing you."
"You had help last time and didn't finish the job properly." They're sparring with words as they ready themselves for the final battle.
"It won't matter."
Drake shrugs as he finally stands and lays one hand on the sword. "My house is empty but for Meg and I. Nothing will stand between us if we decide to settle this with blades."
A grin. "The best way."
But Drake stops himself. This isn't how Meg planned it and he wants to stick with the plan. "Are you in a hurry?"
"A hurry, motherfucker? You gonna offer me a beer while we wait?" Blade is abrupt, a little off-balance. He's used to fighting, not delaying, and it is starting to feel like Drake is delaying.
"No. No beer." Drake's mouth deepens in a frown. "She wanted to tell you but I will. There are no more of the old vampires, no more true-bloods at all. What are left of the vampire race are only the turned humans and their numbers are decreasing even as we speak."
"And why would you do that?"
"To strengthen the race." Drake pushes his chair back in carefully. "Danica Talos made me aware of how astray the vampires had drifted. I saw hope in Meg…and in you."
"Old news."
"Perhaps," the two men slowly adjust their positions as Drake continues speaking. "But Meg had a solution. An answer that worked through its simplicity."
"An answer? To what?"
"How to create a world without vampires."
"I have to find Blade." Meg says urgently. "Please. You both need to hear me out."
"Why?" Hannibal has his pistol aimed directly at her.
"I don't deserve your trust." She is looking at the pistol. "But I never betrayed you, not even here."
"Get ahead of me." He gestures her to the front.
"Is Abby here?"
Hannibal's face twists with grief. He thought Meg ordered the attack herself. Then he steels himself, trying to tell himself that she's just like them, trained in the art of lying.
"She's dead." He says. "But you knew that."
The shock and horror on her face dissolve his hopes that she knew. Her amber eyes fill with real sorrow and he has to fight to keep his weapon up. She is the enemy, no matter what.
"When?"
"It doesn't matter. She's dead."
"Then where is Blade?" Meg demands quietly. "I need to see him."
"Busy." She moves to step away from him and Hannibal grabs her injured shoulder to stop her. She hisses in pain but halts.
"Hannibal. Let me talk to you and Blade. So that you understand."
"There's nothing to understand."
"But I've done it." She tells him with tight lips. "I've defeated them all."
This isn't what he expected to hear and it throws him a little further off balance. He wants to believe her. He'd liked her despite Abby's distrust, maybe a little more because he'd been a vampire once too. And now, there is honesty in her words that he can't deny any longer.
"We'll find Blade." He agrees. "And then we'll see what happens."
"A world without vampires?" Blade echoes.
Both men whirl as another entrance to the hall opens and Meg and Hannibal step through. There is no doubt that she has been injured as red droplets weep from the stitches on her shoulder and Drake's eyes narrow sharply.
"We're all here now." Hannibal snaps. "So say what you need to say."
Meg raises her hand gently toward Drake, attending to his concern first of all. "I'm fine."
"Meg." There is a questing concern in his voice.
"It's okay," she smiles softly and all three men relax. "I'm fine."
She takes another step away from Hannibal and turns to face Blade. The explosive sound of gunfire rings out and like lightning, three bullets slam into her abdomen.
"I've got her!" Danielle's shout echoes through the room. "She's down!"