Recap: Ranger discovered that Benito Ramirez is a vampire, as does Stephanie when he isn't injured after shooting him. He bites her and she blacks out.

Ranger

I don't get rattled often. Well, I didn't get rattled often. My life had changed since I met Stephanie Plum. For instance, I couldn't remember the last time I stood there with my mouth open like a gaping fish.

Alpha took the opportunity to try to salvage the situation. "Look, I want to help get her back. What do you need to know?"

"You're telling me she was kidnapped by a vampire, and a psychotic one at that? Is that how he got her out of the building so fast? Can he.." I couldn't believe I was asking such an insane question. "Did he turn to mist?"

Alpha shook his head, carefully. "This is an old building. From the 1920s. Used to be a speakeasy, so there's tunnels. Benito used to play in them as a kid, he knows them like the back of his hand."

That was better than Ramirez being Count Dracula. "What's his car's licence number? I'll have contacts at the police station, we can put out a BOLO."

Alpha said. "He has a Porsche, but he doesn't park it here. Doesn't want it to get any dings in it. But he can hotwire pretty well, especially older cars. And there's a lot of those around here."

Fuck! "Where would he take her? To his house? Where does he live?"

"He has an apartment a couple blocks away, but I doubt he took her there knowing you were following. I honestly don't have any idea where else he would go though."

Stephanie

My head was pounding and my lips parched. For a moment I thought I was hung over. I tried to remember what I had been doing the night before.

When I remembered I jolted up, frantic. Then I fell back down with a gasp of pain. My left arm had been tied to the bed frame, and sitting up so fast had yanked it uncomfortably. I tried to rearrange myself to a more comfortable position, when I heard the most chilling sound I'd ever encountered in my life.

It was a giggle.

A high-pitched giggle, the usual innocence of the sound tainted with a vein of cruelty. Benito Ramirez was sitting in a corner, leaning back on what looked like a kitchen chair.

"Steph-a-nie" he whispered in his sing-sing voice, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "I was going to be nice to you. Buy you a soda, maybe give you a night with The Champ. Why did you have to be so rude to The Champ?"

His eyes glittered with madness in the moonlight. The room was cold, maybe 50 degrees. The temperature when you don't expect anyone to be living in a building for a while, but you want to keep the pipes from freezing. I shivered from a combination of pain, fear, disgust, and the cold.

In less than a blink he was next to me, his hand running down my face in a mockery of a caress. With as chilly as I was, his hand should have been warm, even scalding. But it was as cold as the room. "We could have had a nice time. But you ruined that. So I'm going to ruin you."

Ranger

I glared at Alpha. "Is there anything else you can tell me? What's real and what's fake? There's a lot of legends and I don't imagine all are true."

He gulped, glancing sideways at the gun I still held near his head, though it was no longer pressed to his temple. "I know crosses don't do anything. Not sure about holy water. Maybe silver would hurt him, he used to wear a chain around his neck that was silver but he's stopped. And he only comes in after sunset so I guess the sunlight thing is true."

"How do I kill him? Stake to the heart? Decapitation? Fire?"

"Kill him?! No, please, just let me talk to him. He's not that bad a guy…"

I loomed over him menacingly. "You will tell me everything else you know. If I leave and you think of anything else you will let me know immediately. If he hurts one hair on her head I'm holding you responsible."

Stephanie

My blood ran cold. This time it wasn't from the temperature. I had heard about what Ramirez liked to do. I held back an urge to beg. This man had no pity in him, he would only get off on me pleading.

"The Champ always gets his way. Do you know what I like, little girl? Have you heard about how much fun The Champ has with skinny little bitches like you?"

Normally I would be annoyed at how much he was referring to himself in the third person, but at the moment grammar wasn't in my top 10 list of things to be upset about. I stayed silent, not wanting to answer. I had heard what he liked to do, from Lula and Jackie.

The side of my face exploded in pain. He had slapped me open hand, but it felt like my face had been hit by a car. "Answer me bitch!"

"Yes." I said meekly. "I've heard."

I hated how my voice shook. And I was pretty sure he had fractured my cheekbone.

"What does The Champ like?"

Oh God, I didn't want to think about this. I wanted to be in my room, in my bed. With Ranger curled up next to me and the sheets tangled around us. But Ramirez lifted his hand again, so I blurted out "You like to hurt women. You like having power over them."

"Over who?"

I gulped. "Over us. Over Me."

The grin he gave me would have fit well on the face of a psychotic hyena.

"Exactly."

A/N: I'd planned on writing more with this chapter, but I've had a really hard few days and could really use the pick-me-up I always get from reviews. Toss a depressed person some love please!