Vacuus a Animus

by suerum

This is an AU Jaspin story. Port Charles has been over run with vampires and Jason and Spinelli are part of a group trying to survive in this new world.

6. Then: There Be Beasties

A/N: I have no rights or affiliation with the characters presented within this piece

Vacuus Animus

Then: There be Beasties

Jason stared at Spinelli in shocked silence. He felt like he had entered some sort of alternative reality. The office was normal enough and even Spinelli looked like himself-a little pale maybe and his chest was heaving from the emotional exertions he had undergone-but he was undeniably still the Jackal. So, the disturbance in this new world must be of an auditory not a visual nature. If he could just have Spinelli say something, anything then Jason was sure it would all be cleared up and he could convince himself he was daydreaming.

"What did you say?" He dripped each word out slow as molasses intent on being clear and forcing Spinelli to reciprocate in kind.

Spinelli sighed, how would Jason ever understand, how? He lacked the smallest iota of imagination. It wasn't that he wasn't smart-intelligent even-or that he lacked intuitiveness and his instincts-well, Spinelli would set Jason's sense of danger against any large predator of the animal kingdom and expect his Master to be the victor. Yet, what he had to possess in order to understand what Spinelli knew down deep in his very soul was an idea of unknown things, the concept that outlandish possibilities might be proven true. It wasn't that Spinelli wanted to believe any of what he was saying it simply was that he did. Jason was the only one that could possibly handle the situation which Spinelli was beginning to suspect was very dire indeed but not if he wouldn't even accept that there was something which needed to be fixed in the first place.

So, knowing he had no option he tried again. This time he attempted to match Jason's calmness, his famous icy composure. "The Jackal is not playing a trick on his Master nor has he taken leave of his faculties." That was an excellent way to start, a calm and reasonable appeal to Jason's rational side. "The Ja…I spent the last few hours researching the flu virus," he cast his eyes down embarrassed at his motivation in doing so, "I…I wanted to know things about it-like how widespread it was, what was the duration of the infection, and so forth…"

Jason understood without Spinelli actually telling him why he had wanted this information. He knew he had been feeling confined and yearned for a restoration of his former freedom. He knew all this and still felt no compunction about keeping him on a short leash, his health came before everything even-if required-his happiness.

"So," Jason prodded him, still entirely unclear how researching the flu epidemic could in any way shape or form have morphed into the unacceptable nonsense Spinelli had been spouting a few short moments ago. "Go on," he commanded knowing there had to be more to come.

"Well," Spinelli tried to organize his thoughts. He knew this was his one shot at making a compelling case at convincing Jason to see things his way. Hopefully, and this was most vital, he would then take action. "The Jackal found a lot of coverage of the health crisis in Port Charles. It seems while he was out of commission," he paused to gesture vaguely at his abdomen while Jason gave a sharp nod of comprehension. "That this insidious," oh, how he didn't want to call it a disease but perhaps if he started off with that old saw of "Mom's on the roof and we can't get her down," he could ease Jason along the path to acceptance. "Infection is rather…well, unique."

Jason cocked his head and looked at him quizzically, he could deal with talking about the flu that was something realistic, something that was actually happening. "How so?"

Spinelli's brow furrowed, "It's most peculiar, the flu appears to have several abnormal aspects to it that set it apart from most such outbreaks. For one thing, while there have been no deaths attributed to the epidemic neither does anyone seem to recover from it…"

That caught Jason's attention, "What do you mean? That doesn't make any sense."

Finally, something they could both agree upon. "No, little about my research has made sense, Stone Cold. No one is dying from this…condition,' he used a compromise word. "Yet, they disappear. At some point they are no longer seen by friends, family, or neighbors-they simply vanish."

"I agree, that is strange," Jason conceded but it was still a far cry from the wild things Spinelli had been babbling about a few moments earlier.

"Then there's the photosensitivity," Spinelli continued to build his case, now approaching it from a different angle.

"Photosensitivity?" Jason asked.

"Yes, you saw it this afternoon, Stone Cold. Those poor souls we saw on our way here. The flu sufferers can't tolerate sunshine touching their exposed skin.

"Yeah," Jason said thoughtfully, "I guess that isn't a normal symptom of the flu. So, it's a different kind or strain or something."

"Maybe," Spinelli said skeptically. "Then there are the murders."

"Murders?" Jason repeated startled. He looked at Spinelli intently, wondering if he were gong to start spewing crazy gibberish again. "I thought we were discussing the flu. What murders are you talking about?"

"For the last two months or so, Stone Cold, beginning about the time I was shot, there have been a series of brutal killings occurring around and within Port Charles."

"I haven't heard about any murders," Jason said doubtfully, wondering if everything Spinelli had been saying was a figment of his overactive imagination.

Spinelli had only to look into Jason's eyes to see the confusion there and even worse the disbelief as to whether what he was telling him was even factual. He shook himself mentally, he had known this wasn't going to be easy and he couldn't let hurt feelings prevent him from trying.

"Well," he responded, "That was about the same time that you separated from our comrades, the mission ended and Mr. Corinthos stepped back in. You were distracted by the Jackal's injuries and I doubt you were perusing the news during the interim. After all, until recently, Stone Cold was also unaware of the insidious flu that had invaded Port Charles. I can show you the records of stories about both events-the flu and the murders. They have created quite a sensation in the national as well as the local media." He stopped to draw breath. He had been speaking more rapidly than usual, trying to spill out all the information he had accumulated before Jason cut him off.

Jason nodded his head in acknowledgment, he had been preoccupied with Spinelli. It was true that he hadn't known about the flu ravaging the city, which meant that he might also have been in ignorance about the murders. It wounded his professional pride that he, Jason Morgan, who knew every low-life residing in Port Charles and every crime that took place within the city limits, could be entirely unaware of a string of killings.

"Tell me about them," he demanded, "the murders."

Spinelli eagerly obliged, he hoped that if he could build his case that Jason would somehow manage to overcome his innate cynicism and allow that perhaps Spinelli's theory, fantastic as it appeared, had some merit. "At first there weren't many, one or two a week and the victims were always taken from the homeless, even some of the wretched remaining Russians. They were people without shelter, without ties to the community," He looked up at Jason, he was listening intently and he decided to take that as a good sign. "Then they increased in number, two or three bodies would be found each day. The deaths always occurred at night and there was never a witness nor a suspect, not a single clue. The police ranks have been thinned by the depredations of the flu and they couldn't investigate properly. Then the victim profile altered, there were men, women, children-everyday average citizens-among them, the killings were indiscriminate. Throughout it al there was only one constant. Stone Cold and that is the method of death."

"Which was what?" Jason asked impatiently.

"Exsanguination," Spinelli peered at Jason's unenlightened countenance and quickly amended his response. "Blood loss, each one died from a loss of blood due to a wound in the neck. Sometimes it would be a ragged tear but more often there would be nothing but two small puncture wounds and the corpse would be pale and totally drained of blood." He paused dramatically, hoping against hope that it was enough, that Jason was convinced.

"Blood loss, puncture wounds in the neck," Jason slowly repeated what Spinelli had just said. "So, that's why you decided that it was…vampires." He was barely able to even utter the word.

"Indeed, Stone Cold! The Jackal is gratified to see that his Master has followed his reasoning. Dare he hope that he shares in his grasshopper's conclusions about the matter? He recognizes that it is an affront to reasoning men everywhere but when all that is probable has been eliminated that only leaves the improbable." He waited expectantly for Jason's reply certain now that he grasped the true gravity of the situation he would spring into action and salvage whatever was possible from this terrible event.

"Spinelli," Jason was choosing his words carefully. "I can see why you might think the way you do…but vampires. You must know there aren't any such creatures."

"Stone Cold!" It was almost a wail of protest. "Surely you cannot be discounting the proof the Jackal has so painstakingly gathered. The evidence…it seems irrefutable to me. The symptoms, the fear of the sun, the people never seen again, the deaths-always occurring at night, the puncture wounds. What else can it be, what other conclusion fits the facts?" He was pleading for Jason's capitulation, his reluctant agreement.

"Lots of things Spinelli. The flu is one thing and I grant you it is weird, an unknown virus or bacteria or whatever. The killings, those are just a result of someone preying on the defenseless population of the city right now as it is vulnerable to attack."

"The method, Stone Cold, what about the method of death?" How could he possibly explain that away?

"I don't know, Spinelli. I've seen a lot of sick and perverted things over the years. This would just be one more example but the perpetrator is a man or men not supernatural creatures."

"What about the fact that no one is ever seen or heard from again after they contract the 'flu'?" This time the quotation marks were clearly evident in his tone of voice. It was his last argument after this he would have to admit defeat. Jason's refusal to see, his obduracy would have carried the day.

"I don't know. Maybe they have died and no one is around to find the bodies or perhaps people have left or maybe both those things combined with all the people who have been killed explain it. Spinelli, I don't have all the answers and I understand that you actually believe in what you are saying." Jason rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "I just…can't," he said softly looking at Spinelli with something like an apology evident in his eyes.

Spinelli's shoulders slumped in defeat. He knew he had done the best he could. It was simply a case of personality differences. Jason was a concrete thinker, he didn't deal in unfathomables like dark matter and quantum theory. Even though those were precepts of science they had improvable aspects to them and Spinelli accepted that. So, when presented with support for a theory he would have laughed at this very morning, his was actually the more adaptable mind.

It wasn't that he held it against his mentor, that he didn't understand why he couldn't embrace what Spinelli knew in his heart of hearts to be the truth. No, it was the fear of what Jason's recalcitrance might cost them, cost those that they loved. Spinelli wanted nothing more than to be proven wrong. Yet, he knew he wouldn't be and that the price for both him and Jason might be beyond their ability to pay.

"Spinelli," Jason spoke cautiously, aware that Spinelli might be angry with him, at the very least he must be frustrated. "Can we agree to disagree for the moment and shelve this whole thing? It's getting late and you need to eat. I thought we could stop by Kelly's-maybe you could have a grilled cheese and whatever else sounds good."

Spinelli bit his lip as he gazed at Jason. It was rare for him to be so diffident. He knew that Jason was worried about him. These days it seemed a permanent factor in their relationship. He knew there was nothing more that he could do for the moment. He wasn't giving up, he literally couldn't afford to but for now he would hold his peace.

"Indeed, Stone Cold, I am a tad peckish. Considering the debacle that occurred the last time I tried to have a grilled cheese sandwich it would seem that I am overdue for another such attempt." He offered up a half hearted smile that did nothing to alleviate the trepidation clearly evident in his eyes. "Just give the Jackal a moment to pack up his trusty cyber companion and I'll be ready to accompany you."

They went their separate ways-Jason to pick up his tools and Spinelli to retrieve his laptop from the office. He looked forlornly at the screen. The computer was still vainly trying to access some positive response from the black hole that had swallowed Port Charles cyberspace. He checked to see if Lulu had responded to the e-mail he sent just prior to his futile attempt to get Jason to see the unthinkable catastrophe that had befallen Port Charles-there was no response. Sighing, he switched off the lights and with a little internal shiver of fear went to meet Jason.

Carly and Sonny strode confidently together into the Metro Court lobby. It was brightly lit, an attractive haven from the storm that was lambasting the city. The large room was almost deserted except for the lone desk clerk on duty behind the registration counter. The infamy of the flu epidemic that was invading the city had caused a full scale sweep of cancelled reservations along with the ignominious retreat of those who were in residence and uninfected had turned the hotel into a ghost town.

A few guests, especially those in town visiting family for the holidays, had contracted the flu. By and large they stayed in their rooms only venturing downstairs in the daytime for a few moments where they would stand around gray faced and blinking painfully in the diffuse sunlight that passed through the lobby or restaurant windows. As time went by they ceased to appear at all seemingly fading away into obscurity, unremarked strangers within a city dealing with the worst health crisis in its history.

Late this afternoon, Jax and Carly had been discussing the advantages and disadvantages of closing the hotel as they waited out the epidemic. Unsurprisingly, they held opposing views on the matter and what was meant to be a civil, rational business discussion had deteriorated into a screaming match. Yet, thanks to the absence of guests or even employees the argument went largely unwitnessed.

"Marty!" Carly approached the solitary desk clerk. "Have you seen Jax and Morgan?"

Marty looked up with a dazed and confused expression watching as Carly bore determinedly down upon him. He had barely noted hers and Sonny's presence as they strode through the hotel doors. He had the flu and only his innate sense of responsibility and loyalty-especially to Carly-had enabled him to make his shift.

He was tired and sleeping poorly. His dreams were intensely vivid with strong erotic overtones all focused on one of the hotel maids-Maureen. Sometimes he was in a lather of anticipation for the dream Maureen to visit him and make languid, unspeakable love to him through the night. At other times he felt suffocated and full of fear as he tried to flee winged creatures sweeping down on him from above. He hadn't eaten in days. His complexion was drained looking and his eyes ringed and sunken as evidence of his perennial exhaustion.

"Yes, ma'am, they're…" he started to reply automatically as he looked up at Carly.

He stopped in mid-sentence unable to continue, to do anything but gape at her. Marty had long harbored a not so secret crush on his employer. He loved her unconquerable attitude, her humor, her toughness that overlaid an amazingly sexy inner vulnerability and her overpowering vitality. He thought that Spinelli's nickname for her of the Valkyrie was the most apt of all his designations. She was beautiful and he adored her but tonight…It was like she had metamorphosed from being a mere mortal-albeit it an amazingly lovely one-into an actual handmaiden of Odin sent to carry proven warriors to the great hall of Valhalla.

Her eyes glowed with an unquenchable light that simultaneously aroused and repelled Marty. Her hair was a tangled mass that blazed under the recessed lobby lights. Two circles of hectic cherry blossomed on her cheeks and her lips were rouge red surrounding perfectly formed white teeth that caused flashes of his Maureen dreams to cross his mind. Suddenly Marty couldn't breath, he pulled at his collar. His fingernails scraped across the wound on his neck causing a dull flare of pain and he vaguely wondered how he had acquired it-shaving perhaps.

"Marty," Carly prompted him. Her voice was throaty the timbre a perfect blend of threat and promise. "What about Jax and Morgan? Are they here?"

"No…no," he stammered as he started to back away from her, something inside him was setting off alarm bells-telling him he needed to run, to get away from her. Sonny hadn't even registered on his consciousness. "Mr. Jax came downstairs a while ago with Morgan and went out into the storm. He…he seemed upset, distraught for some reason and Morgan was crying." Marty was back against the wall, he had managed to put a good six feet between himself and the forbidding couple.

"Crying!" Carly didn't like the sound of that. "Well, did they tell you where they were going?" She asked him impatiently.

"Mr. Jax didn't say anything to me, he was preoccupied with Morgan, trying to calm him down." He looked to his left and gulped, Sonny was standing next to him and he hadn't the slightest inkling of his approach.

"Candy boy!" He growled as he casually reached over to Marty and twisted his neck sharply. There was an audible crack and Marty slumped forward bonelessly his corpse coming to rest behind the desk he had so assiduously and diligently managed during his time at the Metro Court.

"Sonny!" Carly's tone was sharp with irritation and remonstrance. "Marty was the best assistant manager in the tri-state area. The lengths I had to go to keep people from poaching him from me and now you just go and…and do that!" She flapped her hand vaguely at the twisted body lying on the floor.

"He was being fed on. One way or the other he wasn't going to be your desk jockey for long." That was the reason Sonny had killed him out right. He didn't take anyone's sloppy seconds-regardless if it pertained to sex or blood. "Besides, do you really think you're going to be running the Metro Court any longer? What were you planning on doing-making it a destination resort for discerning vampires?"

Carly's eyes sharpened as she looked at him contemplatively. Then she shook her head sharply. "No, I guess you're right, things are different now. What should we do about Morgan and Jax?"

She missed both of them. She hadn't told Sonny but she knew his little secret now that he was thinking about turning Kate, these enhanced senses of hers were a kick. Anyway, two could play that game, if Sonny got to have Kate she wanted Jax. She considered a perpetuity wherein Jax and Sonny fought over her and courted her while she could count on the ever reliable support, love and allegiance of Jason. Oh yes, Sonny and Carly were in perfect accord on that transformation. They would probably have to split straws to see who got to do the deed though Carly knew instinctively that Jason would want for her to be the one.

Sonny looked at his ex-wife cynically. She wasn't the only one that could now clearly discern what was going on under the surface. Jason was fine, he was as much Sonny's as Carly's-they could share. Candy boy was a different matter altogether, he would just have to make sure he got to him before she did. He pondered for a moment wondering what the Australian's blood would taste like-a Shiraz perhaps! He chuckled inwardly at his joke.

"We'll find them," he assured her grimly. There was no way that Jax was going to take a son of his to raise. "Just not tonight, we'll need to wait until the weather clears."

"What if they leave town?" Carly was anxious, she wanted her baby now.

"It doesn't matter. We can track them anywhere they go." Sonny knew what he said was true though putting it into practice might be more complex than his simple assertion would indicate.

"Meanwhile," he said looking at her, "I have somewhere to be-want to come?'

Carly looked at him assessing his intentions. She knew where he was going and it was for him to do. Besides she had somewhere else to be herself. She shook her head. "No, thanks. You do what you need to. I'll catch up you with later." She was out the door before the echoes of her words had died away.

Sonny frowned, "What was Carly up to?" It was obvious to him that she had left so abruptly in order to prevent him from registering her thoughts and determining her intent. He sighed to himself, "She'll never change…" He'd figure it out later, right now it was time to go and recruit the next member of his eternal family.

Jax had been thinking about Carly all day. It was New Year's Eve and a time for laying to rest the old and resolving upon the new. He knew that the prudent course of action would be to deposit Carly firmly in the category of old business and move on to a fresh start. With every other relationship in his life he had managed to do just that and at very little emotional cost to himself.

Just this afternoon in the middle of the lobby they had one of their patented overblown fights. As always it had started over some issue that was merely a trigger but the argument itself was about all the underlying issues that constantly plagued their relationship. Jax sighed, there never seemed to be a moments peace between he and Carly these days. Yet, there was something-a connection, love, need-call it what you will but he couldn't bear to envision his life sans Carly anymore it would be so barren.

After the fight, Carly had left a message for Jax saying she needed some space, some solitude. She was going back to the house and could he pick up Morgan from the hotel daycare and watch over him tonight. To Jax it seemed an incomplete way to be spending New Year's without his soul…"Wow!" He thought to himself astounded, "so that's the difference…"

Jasper Jax wasn't shy about using the word love, in point of fact he tossed it around in an entirely too cavalier fashion. Yet, he had never, not once thought of any of his various paramours, even his wives, as his soul mate. Truth be told, he had never expected to feel that way about any woman. No, that was a relationship reserved for a lucky few like his parents. It was the Mount Olympus of love, of life itself, and Jax had long since resigned himself to only ever residing on the slopes of his unattainable ideal.

He was beginning to have a hazy recognition of just why it was that he couldn't let Carly go, couldn't reconcile himself to yet another failed relationship colored with regret and a faint tinge of relief for his lucky escape. Not so this time, no Carly invaded his senses. With her or without, awake or asleep, happy, sad-any pairing of adjectives, it didn't matter in the least Carly infused every aspect of his existence. It seemed without his realizing it he had indeed found the one person that he couldn't let go, someone whose presence he required for his own well being. In other words, he had inadvertently stumbled on the one person who possessed the other half of his heart, who completed him. Carly was Jax's soul mate and so the only question remaining to be answered-was he the same to her?

He found himself wandering the hotel aimlessly as he deliberated over his new found revelation. He couldn't concentrate on any one task for long. He took the elevator up to the Crimson offices wanting to talk to Kate. Jax wanted to indulge a perverse desire to hear Kate bad mouth Carly, to cut her down so he could test his feelings for her, to see if they could be altered or displaced. Part of him desperately wanted that outcome. He wasn't ready for the cosmic shift that this modification in his feelings, his world view portended. He was thwarted in his endeavor when he only found a very frazzled Maxie attempting to complete a myriad of tasks on behalf of her absent employer. Maxie informed him that Kate had gone home early. She had said something similar to Carly about wanting to see the New Year in alone, that she wasn't in the mood to celebrate.

Eventually Jax had gone to the hotel daycare center to pick up Morgan. He had been outraged to discover Morgan alone and unattended sitting on the floor of the room playing desultorily. Jax stormed around the hotel looking to blame someone, to find the responsible party who had left his step son alone and unsupervised.

"Anything could have happened to him, anything!" He spoke in a sibilant whisper to Marty as he manned the reception desk. He couldn't give full voice to his rage because he didn't want to upset Morgan whose hand was clasped protectively in Jax's as he stood patiently next to him.

"Mr. Jax," Marty spoke as soothingly as he could. He had a throbbing headache and all he wanted to do was go home and fall into the fugue state that passed as sleep for him nowadays. "I don't know what happened. The hotel is operating on a skeletal staff which diminishes further each day. It's the flu. I apologize and I'll try and determine what happened."

Jax took a closer look at Marty's pinched features, his face grey with fatigue and relented. "I understand, Marty. You're trying your best. These are hard times for everyone. I think I just got so angry because I was frightened to find Morgan alone like that."

He hesitated, wishing he could send their obviously ill loyal employee home. Jax thought about closing the hotel as Carly had suggested. As usual, her instincts were turning out to be spot on. He decided on a compromise. "Look Marty, why don't you see if you can find someone to cover the desk for you? If not, then we will just call it quits in a while and shut down. If you start to feel worse go on home but just give me a heads up first. I'll be up in my suite with Morgan."

Marty nodded his head in weary agreement. "Thanks Mr. Jax. I'll try and stay as long as I can. Between the flu and the storm I doubt I can find anyone to help out. Is Mrs. Jax coming back this evening?" Even in his reduced state he couldn't resist asking after Carly in order to gauge his chances of seeing her one more time this year.

Jax grinned knowingly at him, his good humor once more restored. "I wish I could say whether Carly will be back to see the New Year in with us." He cocked his head down towards Morgan to include him. "It's up to her," he concluded ruefully. "I guess we'll all have to keep hoping. Happy New Year, Marty."

"Happy New Year," was piped up from the floor as Morgan waved shyly back at Marty as he walked with Jax towards the banks of elevator.

Marty smiled and waved back, "Happy New Year, Mr. Jax, Morgan."

A few hours later, Morgan was in his pajamas quietly watching a DVD while they waited for room service. He hadn't asked for his Mother. Morgan was beginning to be an expert in accepting that sometimes the people, especially the adults, in his life disappeared. He never knew if they would return soon or even ever. He constantly redoubled his efforts to be well behaved so that his Mother, his Father, Jason, whoever it might be wouldn't stay away permanently like Michael who had gone to sleep and never woken up.

Now, Morgan was always petrified that the morning would never come if he allowed himself to fall asleep. So he balked against bedtime by claiming that he wasn't sleepy, that he needed another drink, another story read to him. Carly always fought him back, insisting that he follow a schedule. She would leave him in his room with the door cracked and his eyes wide open starting at every noise real and imagined in the darkened room. Finally, his eyelids would become too heavy to lift up and he would fall into a restless sleep full of ominous dreams that his little mind was unable to interpret.

It wasn't that way with Jax though. Jax was the one adult that made Morgan feel completely safe and relaxed. He would tell Morgan when he was leaving and the reason why and when he would be back. He always returned when he said he would accompanied by some present or surprise which Morgan would be sure to adore.

Yet, it was Jax's constancy that he truly loved. He was always happily surprised to come out on the mats at his dojo to find Jax grinning at him supportively from the audience and ready to take him out for a movie or ice cream afterwards. Before when Carly and Sonny had fought, Morgan and Michael had always lived in fear of the dissolution of their family unit. Yet, with Jax even if he and Mommy weren't together, Morgan knew that Jax loved him for himself and he would be there for him no matter what. He had seen it this very afternoon when Jax had gotten so angry to find Morgan all alone. Morgan had felt his fear and it actually reassured him, it meant that here was one person that cared, that wouldn't leave him no for some obscure reason that he couldn't comprehend.

So, tonight as Morgan nestled drowsily in the soft cushions of the hotel suite couch he was as content as he could be without his Mother around. Michael was becoming a vague figure fading gradually from his consciousness and while he did miss Sonny he was adapting to his absence from his life. He knew that Jax would order something good from room service and watch the rest of the movie with him. Then he would get to cuddle with Jax while he read him a story and Morgan would gradually drift off to sleep in his embrace waking up the next morning in his own bed. In Morgan's insecure world such an evening was as perfect as things got.

There was a knock at the door and Jax got up to answer it. He swung the door wide open expecting to see a room service cart. Instead, one of the hotel maids stood there smiling widely at him. Puzzled but ever courteous, Jax racked his tired brain trying to recall the maid's name-Martha, Meredith, no he had it! "Maureen, what can I do for you this evening?"

He peered at her curiously. Unlike most of the hotel staff these days she seemed to be bursting with health. Her eyes were bright, almost incandescently so. There were two hectic circles of color on each of her cheeks, her skin was vibrant and glowing and her lips were pulled back in an engaging smile revealing gleaming white teeth. Her hair wasn't restrained in a bun as it had been all the other times Jax had seen her, tonight it cascaded down to her waist in a gleaming raven sheet. He inhaled sharply, previously he had always thought of her as mousy-didn't she ordinarily wear glasses? Yet, this evening she radiated a raw sexuality that sent sensations through his body and images across his mind which had him blushing to be feeling this way in Morgan's presence. Underlying his animalistic and primal response to her was a pervasive unease, a perception of the world being tilted off its normal axis.

"Why, Mr. Jax," she stretched her body across the door frame, her voice was smoky and seductive sounding. "It isn't what you can do for me. It's what I can do for you."

Using all his strength of will, Jax managed to wrest his eyes away from the tempting curves of her body which were causing responsive tremors throughout his own. "What do you mean?" He raised his head to look into her mesmerizing eyes while her full scarlet lips rose up in a knowingly mocking smile.

"I think," she was stretching out a hand, running her fingers up and down his check in an awful caress that he wanted to tear away from. Yet, instead he helplessly groaned as he turned his face into her hand reveling in the contact, kissing her palm. "That you know exactly why I am here." With that she stepped into the room, brushing past a confounded Jax and taking in every aspect of the hotel suite. Her eyes fell on Morgan ensconced on the couch looking at her with curiosity. "Why, hello there. It's Morgan right?" She drifted across the room towards the sofa her eyes glued to the little boy's face.

Morgan didn't answer, something about her was scaring him and he looked anxiously over at Jax wanting his protection, his reassurance. Jax was just standing there staring hungrily at the small sliver of Maureen's profile he could see as she stood between him and Morgan.

Suddenly she was seated on the couch right next to Morgan, crowding him. He tried to sit up, to scoot back or perhaps even get off the sofa altogether. The enveloping cushions trapped him and the more he thrashed about the more he sank into their depths. Morgan started to cry, he was breathing in great gulps and starting to hyperventilate. "Jax," the word came out in a high pitched gasp filled with pleading. He needed to feel safe and he didn't.

"Baby," Maureen was bending towards him cooing softly. Her eyes were great dark empty pools and he could see his pale, frightened face reflected in them. He struggled to escape but was caught in the betraying softness of the couch. "You're so sweet." She reached over and brushed away the tears coursing down his cheeks. "You and I are going to be such good friends…" She couldn't hold back any longer. He was so young, so innocent, so pure and his fear was an additional stimulant acting as the cue to send her over the edge. A growl erupted from the depths within her and she was suddenly feral a wild animal with flying hair, sharp nails and fanged teeth.

"Jax!" Morgan was screaming. He was terrified as she pinned his upper arms in a vice like grip and bent towards the crook of his neck where his life blood pulsed tantalizingly under a thin sheath of skin.

"Let him go, you bitch!" Jax grabbed her by the shoulders pulling Maureen off of the couch and spinning her around to face him. He glanced over at Morgan who was frozen in shock, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed over. "Morgan!" Jax shouted at him, trying to rouse him. He could barely contain the fury that was twisting and hissing in his arms as she clawed at him one instant and attempted to bite him the next. "Go on, run. Do it now!"

Dazed, Morgan looked up at his stepfather as he fought his losing battle with the inhuman creature in his arms. Belatedly his brain translated the orders he had been given-he was supposed to run. Clumsily he extracted himself from the hated couch cushions and climbed down to the floor. He stood there trembling watching the life and death struggle that was occurring in the living room of his temporary home, a refuge no more. Turning towards the door he tried to do as Jax had instructed, no ordered-to run, to leave and hide.

With one final twist Maureen extracted herself from Jax's ever loosening grip. Snarling she turned back towards him and shoved him so hard that he went flying towards the desk in the corner. He crashed into the desk chair and lay there winded, gasping as his lungs tried desperately to get enough air, to get precious oxygen into them. Maureen ignored him and turned back towards the little boy who had almost made it to the open door and the illusory safety of the hallway beyond.

"Morgan," she trilled, causing each individual hair on Morgan's body to stand up in unrelieved horror. "I'm going to get you, here I come ready or not…"

It was a parody of the speech that whoever was it gave when they played hide and seek. Until tonight that had been one of Morgan's favorite games but no longer, he absolutely didn't want to play. He stood in indecision looking over at Jax on the ground fighting to regain his breath. He wanted to go to him, to help him like he had helped Morgan but he knew that was a bad idea. His brain was screaming at him to go, just run as Jax had said an eternity ago.

It was too late. If he had ever even had a choice to begin with it was snatched away from him as once more Maureen reached for him wrapping her arms around him in a grotesque caricature of a mother embracing her child. He was trapped and he knew it. Morgan stood within the circle of Maureen's arms shivering uncontrollably. Savoring Morgan's quivering and the petrified expression on his face, she drew back her lips exposing her fangs as she bent her neck to deliver the coup d'grace.

She had waited past all endurance and she was now pure, obsessive need. She required the release, the satisfaction that only a burning hot river of ruby red blood flowing down her throat could provide. He was an innocent and it was reputed to be an experience unlike any other and she was seconds away from experiencing it firsthand. She liked the conceit that they were linked together in this journey of exploration, this undertaking. Maureen might be the predator and Morgan the prey but they were both virgins in the exchange of this particular elixir of life.

As her teeth grazed his tender neck preparatory to the first thrusting puncture Morgan released all his terror, his heartbreak, his lost mortality in a keening wail that sounded as though it might shatter glass. A shot rang out and then another followed by a third. Maureen jerked upright an intense expression of surprise crossed her face as she tumbled forward trapping a wriggling, screaming Morgan beneath her.

"Morgan, Morgan!" Frantically Jax pulled Maureen's recumbent body off the hysterical boy. He pulled him up and crushed him to his chest one-handed while the gun dangled from his other. Morgan wrapped both his arms around Jax's neck in a death grip and burrowed his head into Jax's shoulder crying and sobbing incessantly. "Ssh, Ssh, it's all right, I've got you. No one's going to hurt you. I won't let them. You're safe, Morgan."

While he was talking and trying to calm the boy, Jax carried him over to a chair. He had started first for the sofa but when Morgan lifted his head and saw Jax's intended destination he started wriggling and pounding at him with tiny ineffectual fists screaming, "No, no, don't go there, bad lady, no go there…"

Jax immediately altered course and stepped up out of the sunken living room and sat down in an upright chair next to the dining room table. He placed the gun on the table and wrapped both his arms around Morgan speaking nonsense words to him and rocking him gently in an effort to pacify him. Gradually Morgan's sobs decreased in intensity and started to trail off. Then there was silence except for an occasional half hiccup, half choked sob as he lay his head on Jax's shoulder still clinging to him with all his might.

Jax pulled away from Morgan and looked down at his tear stained face, the little boy's eyes were huge with confusion and shock as he stared back up at Jax. "Better?" He asked gently though he knew it was a ridiculous question. He might have managed to save Morgan physically but the damage done this night to his impressionable psyche would be lasting, perhaps even irreversible. Morgan's only response was to bury his head back into Jax's broad chest and start sucking his thumb. Jax knew he had regressed and he couldn't begin to face the prospect of bringing Carly back another wounded child.

Jax looked around the room vaguely wondering where he had left his cell phone. It was time for him to call the police and to tell them what had happened. "What did happen?" He queried himself uneasily. He couldn't have seen what he did, he couldn't or at least his mind wouldn't even let him travels down that path. He could just barely make a case for Maureen being a nut job, a schizophrenic perhaps-he had heard tales of them having rage fueled strength that appeared super human. That would explain how a five foot five woman could throw him across the room like she was tossing her purse on the couch. What Jax's mind was refusing to accept was what she had tried to do to Morgan, how both times she had gone for his neck, had tried to bite him. That, by any standard-crazy or no-was some seriously messed up shit.

He had been so preoccupied with the small boy clutched to his chest and his thoughts as he tried to rationalize the inexplicable that at first the noise didn't penetrate his consciousness. There was a rustling coming from the area of the room by the door. Morgan alerted him to it by grabbing him around the neck so tightly he could barely breathe. The little boy scrunched his eyes closed even more tightly and turned his head away. If only he could shut his ears as well he would.

Jax traced the path of the sound, his senses traveling ahead of his brain's interpretation of what it was, what it had to be. He was on overload tonight. He had shot and killed a mad woman who was trying to murder his stepson, any further permutations or anomalies of the occurrence weren't up for consideration. Unwillingly his eyes turned of their own accord and his jaw literally dropped. He had shot her with three thirty eight caliber slugs at a distance of twenty feet no more. She had been dead, he was positive of it, there was no other possible outcome. So, he must be hallucinating,-that was the only other explanation.

Jax might very well have sat calmly in his chair with Morgan in his lap watching Maureen stagger to her feet, her hair in disarray her eyes black pools of damnation and fury as she turned her malevolent gaze upon him. Dotting her back there were three ragged burnt holes denoting the passage of the bullets. He might have let her come up to him and to Morgan to take them both and suck their elemental life force from them as restitution for what he had done to her. All that he might have done rather than risk the alternative which was a complete break from reality, from the world of natural laws and biology the simple understanding that bullets killed people and then they stayed dead.

He might indeed have done all that except for one thing-Morgan. Morgan was twisting and turning in his arms, he knew the moment she stirred, he understood with unerring precision that she was undeniably back, had never been dead and was coming to finish them both off with extreme prejudice. It was the little five-going on one hundred- year old in his arms that saved Jax. If Morgan believed, if Morgan knew what was occurring behind his back and away from his sight then it really must be happening.

Jax had only one resource, one weapon. He knew it was futile but he picked up the gun from the table and without hesitation fired at her point blank as she moved slowly towards them still not quite recovered from her previous wounds. The bullet formed a perfectly round black hole in the center of her forehead and she toppled backwards as Morgan's arms spasmed around Jax's neck and he let out a whimper of despair.

Jax wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. He shot to his feet, Morgan clinging to him like a limpet. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants and stepped carefully around the body once more lying on the floor. Only stopping long enough to grab his car keys and to take coats out of the closet he left the suite. Enough was enough, he and Morgan were going to go get Carly. When they were together again, when he had his family gathered safely in one place that would be time enough to analyze what had happened, to determine what their next move ought to be.

He considered taking the stairs, he wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and that creature in the suite because Jax was now convinced of one thing-she still wasn't dead. It might take a little longer this time but he was sure she would soon sit up and shake her head and climb stiffly to her feet in order to come looking for Morgan and him. He wanted to be long gone before that happened. The ding of the arriving elevator startled both of them. Morgan gave a reflexive shriek and once again started crying from the overload on his already terribly strained nerves.

Jax looked carefully into the inoffensive, empty elevator car before stepping into it with a relieved sigh. He pushed the button for the lobby with a savagery that expressed the turmoil and fear constricting his stomach as the narrowness of their escape finally made itself felt to him. His knees buckled and it was only through sheer force of will and the support of the bar rimming the wall of the car which enabled him to remain upright and hold onto Morgan. He shuddered with reaction to the surreal events of the last half hour as the life saving effects of adrenalin began to wear off. He was suddenly so exhausted he thought he could sleep for a week but he knew better, the night stretched ahead long and unpredictable.

When they reached the lobby it was deserted as it had been all day. Jax strode by the registration desk completely oblivious to Marty's presence. He was solely focused on getting Morgan out of this hell hole of a hotel and back to the safety of his Mother's embrace. With Morgan in Jax's arms they exited the hotel and were almost instantly lost to sight behind a falling wall of snow.

Sonny gazed at Mike through the front windows of Kelly's. His father was busy doing the last minute little chores like topping off the condiments and filling the napkin dispensers that heralded he was getting ready to close. Sonny looked at his watch puzzled, it was early just after eight pm. It was too early for Mike to be shutting down.

"Still," he thought to himself with a slight shrug of his shoulders, "it makes it simpler for me."

Mike looked up startled as Sonny pushed through the doors, his body had tensed but then relaxed as he recognized his son. "Hey, Sonny what brings you here tonight? Shouldn't you be out somewhere celebrating the New Year?"

Mike didn't really know who Sonny would have been spending the evening with-his wife Claudia, his ex-wife Carly or his ex-fiancée Kate and he knew better than to inquire. Now that he and Sonny had managed to find some sort of equilibrium in their relationship, Mike didn't want to risk what they had attained by inciting Sonny's innate defensiveness which lay perpetually close to the surface. Personally he thought the fact that Sonny was so prickly about the women in his life meant that he realized he hadn't always made the right moral decision with regard to his wives and girlfriends. Yet, considering all the poor choices-and he didn't just mean his gambling issues-which he had made in his life he was hardly in a position to judge anyone.

"I wanted to see you, Mike. You're my family." Sonny meant every word.

"I'm touched Sonny, really. I never thought I'd see the day you'd choose spending time with your old man over a woman…" Just in time he managed to avoid spoiling the moment by tacking on…any woman.

Sonny tried to bridge the awkwardness of such a mawkish interlude, "Um, it's a little early to be shutting down isn't it."

Mike sighed in frustration. "It's this flu, there have barely been any customers in the last couple of weeks. Then with the storm and New Year's…"

He was actually really concerned, he didn't care about himself or Kelly's they would be okay one way or the other, but he did worry about the city. He couldn't remember ever seeing a disease hit this hard. His entire staff-waitresses and cooks-were down for the count. Mike had been worried about Sonny but he hadn't been able to check on him since he was running Kelly's single handedly these days. So, seeing him here tonight and looking exceptionally healthy-almost obscenely so-was all he needed to make this a worthwhile beginning to a brand new year.

Also, lately he had been feeling most peculiar. There had been a pervasive sense of-he felt silly saying it-fear or dread everywhere he went in Port Charles. During the day, the streets were deserted except for the odd flu sufferer stumbling around and creeping Mike out. It didn't seem like the flu he admitted to himself. It was something more sinister but that was crazy. Everything was much worse at night. He hated being outside after dark. There were strange noises-shrieks, screams and even howling-that were followed by a dense almost palpable silence. It sent shivers up and down Mike's spine and he was continually tense as he overreacted and jumped at every unexpected noise.

Thus, when Sonny had walked in after not having a single customer all day long he had immediately gone on full alert. It was strange but even now, after Sonny had come in, his body was still sending out alarm signals. Mike felt uneasy as he looked over at his son who was smiling casually at him, his dimples flashing. Yet, somehow there was no matching humor in the flat obsidian of his eyes.

"Sonny," Mike began, not sure what he would say except that all of a sudden he wanted him gone. He had never been afraid of his son before, only concerned that he would disappoint him as he had always managed to do ever since he abandoned him and his mother when he was a small boy. It was definitely fear that he felt at this moment as he looked over at his adult son who stared intently back at him as he stood there with an almost preternatural stillness. "I'm actually kind of tired tonight. I thought maybe I would have an early evening of it, watch some T.V., read a book-you know. What with the storm and all it's pretty messy out there. Why don't I take a rain check and we'll be sure to do this, get together real soon." He couldn't seem to stop talking and all the while without his realizing it he was backing up. His unconscious was trying to move him towards the familiar sanctuary of the kitchen.

Sonny matched him step for step as he seemed to glide effortlessly towards him. "Now, you see, Mike," Sonny sounded off, like an echo of himself. It was as though he was searching the memory traces of his brain for a file marked conversations between Sonny and Mike in order to produce a convincing imitation of how they usually interacted. "I really can't take that rain check. I have other business to attend to, other people that I need to see. I am sure that you can appreciate that I'm a busy man." He spread his hands apart and smiled wryly at Mike as though to say, "What can I do? I'm popular."

"Well, sure," Mike's anxiety level was elevating as he kept backing up and Sonny continued his inexorable forward movement. "I can't expect you to put off your other commitments simply because I'm not up to spending time together tonight. You go on and catch up with someone else, have fun." Abruptly he felt the counter behind him effectively preventing any further retreat. He gave a nervous little chuckle as Sonny ended up inches away from him.

"No can do, Mike. You're first on my schedule tonight. Places to go, people to see…" Without warning his demeanor altered radically. There were no more pleasantries, no more pasted on smiles, no more anticipatory gleam deep in his eyes-all there was now left was the monster Sonny Corinthos truly was.

"Michael…" it was little more than a pleading gasp and the last word that Mike Corbin-dead beat dad, gambler, diner manager, and Port Charles fixture would ever utter.

Sonny stepped back, the red haze that had commandeered his senses, his brain, his urges slowly rolled back enabling him to see what lay before him on the floor. "Shit!" He muttered, furious with himself, with his lack of self control.

You would think being immortal would cure those pesky little personality defects. This hadn't been what he intended at all, to have Mike lying at his feet crumpled and drained and extremely dead. No, he had meant to sire him, ironic that the son siring the father, to make him part of this new family that he clearly envisioned for himself. Instead, he had lost all sense of proportion, had been so immersed in sucking up every last drop of Mike's blood that he hadn't been able to stop himself until he had gone past the moment of no return. He supposed what he was feeling-this exasperation, this frustration was as close to being remorseful as he could expect his new persona to ape, to mimic. Truth be told-regret had never been Sonny Corinthos' strong suit.

"Well, no use crying over spilled blood," he reasoned to himself. Really it had been quite tasty, must have something to do with the familial tie… "What was that?" His head jerked up, Mike's fate all but forgotten and his face intent as he tried to focus his extra-sensitive hearing on the noises coming from outside the diner. A slow, savage smile spread across his dark face. Tonight was beginning to look up after all…

It was strange to be walking the halls of the after care institute and finding them to be full of visitors and staff members. It was exceptionally busy tonight because of New Year's Eve and visiting hours had been extended to enable family members to see in the new beginning with their loved ones. The rooms she passed were alive with buzzing anticipation and hope. It all felt alien to Carly who had become used to the ghost town that was now Port Charles.

Additionally, the press of humanity bothered her because it was all she could do to keep herself under control to manage not to grab someone and suck their life blood out of them and then go for the next and the next like a ghoulish after hours all you can drink buffet. That wasn't why she was here though, at least not now, she had to hold it together until she had done the deed, accomplished what she had come for. Afterwards, well then all bets would be off. Her face erupted in a wolfish smile and her eyes gleamed as she contemplated the feasting she would soon enjoy. People gave her a wide berth as she strode by. The more sensitive shivered uneasily and even some of the patients in potentially reversible comas felt a dark shadow imprint itself over their lost consciousness.

There was a nurse in Michael's room and she had too bite her lip to hold back her impatience, to not reach out and crush her like the slow moving insect she was. Still, she could do this, she would do this. It was all for Michael and it was too important for her to risk her one chance at getting it right. She mustn't call attention to herself not until they were both equally invulnerable and untouchable.

The nurse glanced up to see who had come into the room and recognized Carly. "Good evening, Mrs. Jax. We didn't know if you would make it tonight. I gather you're getting quite a bit more snow up your way than we have down here."

She was chatting away as she made notations in Michael's chart, entirely unaware of Carly sniffing the air as she smelled the tempting hot blood circulating throughout the nurse's blood vessels. Suddenly the nurse froze, had that been a growl? She looked over at Carly who was staring at her fixedly, actually she seemed to be gazing at her neck. While she watched her, Carly's tongue flicked out and licked her lips as though she were anticipating a taste of something exotic and delectable.

In an instant the nurse's long dormant sense of preservation came to the fore. "Mi…Michael's doing just fine," she began to move towards the door clutching the chart to her chest like a protective talisman. "I'll just leave you two to visit."

As she sidled by Carly, she was totally unnerved as the tall blonde leaned in towards her and sniffed at her neck as though checking to see what type of perfume she was wearing. She looked briefly up at her face and saw the smallest flash of what seemed to be extremely large incisors. Almost as soon as they were revealed, they were quickly retracted out of sight inside Carly's firmly closed mouth. With a sigh of relief, she found herself on the other side of the door.

A weak, "Happy New Year," drifted back through the crack between the door and the frame right before she gave a final tug on the door and the latch clicked into place.

The nurse sagged weakly against the door, vaguely aware that she had escaped something unspeakable. Quivering with shock and reaction, she headed down the hall, firmly determined to not mention a word of what had occurred to the other nurses. They all loved Carly and would think she was crazy or even worse that she had been drinking again. One thing was sure, no matter what else happened tonight, she wasn't going anywhere near Michael Corinthos' room-at least not until she knew for sure that Carly was out of the building.

"Michael." God! It was insidious! This was her baby, her first born. She should be immune from her baser impulses when she was with a child of hers. It was irresistible and she was so hungry. She was an unceasing cavern of aching emptiness and she desperately craved the only thing that could fill it. His blood-it smelled so pure, so sweet, so attractive because it was hers as well. "Stop, it!" She slammed her fist through the wall of the room. The pain was a welcome distraction. Carly once more had herself back under control.

"Michael," she was sitting in the chair at his bedside, afraid to touch him because of the uncontrollable cascade it might unleash in her. "I miss you so much, every minute of every day. I watch Morgan playing and I want you there. I go on a picnic with Jax and Morgan and I want you there. I drop Morgan off at school and see him greet his friends and I see you there. I go by your room and as long as the door is closed, I pretend you are behind it sleeping, reading, or playing a video game…"

She placed the palm of her hand against her cheek and looked reflectively down at her unconscious son. "Tonight," she hesitated it was still new to her, it felt like a nightmare. She thought it possible that maybe she would wake up tomorrow and just be plain old screwed up Carly again instead of some unnatural creature of the night. She gave a bitter little laugh. Unfortunately she was too much of a realist to indulge in such hopeless fantasies.

"Tonight," her voice was steady, her resolve firm. "Your Father came to me and he altered everything, everything," she repeated with something akin to wonder in her voice. "He changed me-irrevocably. He gave me this gift, this awful, terrible, magnificent, awe-inspiring gift."

She looked longingly at Michael not quite sure if she wanted to kiss him or bite him. Both most likely, she just wasn't sure which was the stronger impulse and she dare not risk anything until she was entirely sure of what she was going to do.

"I want…I need to share this gift, this opportunity with you and with your brother, but most especially with you, Michael. I can't bear to be separated from my boys but more importantly I think I can save you, make you better."

Carly closed her eyes in an agony of uncertainty. She knew this was wrong on so many levels but it was her only offering and Michael's only chance. Really, it was a no brainer decision, what was there to even consider. He could spend the next twenty or thirty years in this bed or he could once again walk and talk and if it wasn't exactly living it sure beat the hell out of whatever this was that he was currently enduring. She couldn't think of a candidate for transformation who had so little to lose from the trade-offs involved. An immortal, night dwelling, blood dependent being or a virtual corpse in a hospital bed-where was there even a choice implied in the comparison?

Sighing, her mind made up, Carly reached over and risked touching her son for the first time this evening. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. He was due a haircut she noted. "Forgive me, Michael," her voice was small, sorrowful. "I don't know what else to do…"

She wasn't exactly Carly anymore but she was more her than anyone else and in true Carly fashion once she resolved on a course of action there was no time lost in implementing it. With a hiss of mixed anticipation and anguish she drew her lips back and exposed her fangs. Fluidly as though she were born to it Carly bent over her son's exposed neck and surgically punctured it. She sucked the pulsing blood into her mouth and it slid easily down her pharynx. She couldn't allow herself to get lost in the moment, the unbearable ecstasy of her first feeding. Michael was her priority not the warm fluid coursing into her system and already revitalizing her. Still, she had no idea how amazing it would feel! With an audible grunt, Carly stopped sucking and removed her teeth from Michael's neck. Two trickles of blood ran down from the wounds and she bent over him and licked up every remaining droplet.

"Almost there," she murmured softly to her comatose son. "Just one more thing and then it will all be over and I will have you back with me." She leaned over and kissed his forehead leaving a bloody lip shaped mark behind.

Carly looked intently around the room, for this next part she needed…aha, that would work. There was a pair of nail scissors lying on the night table. Carly picked them up and opened them and using the sharp tip scored several deep gouges lengthwise down one wrist. She gasped at the pain but the sensation was quickly superseded by her fascination with the ruby red trails that were filling up and overflowing. She had to fight to resist the temptation to lift her wrist to her mouth and drink down every last globule of the life giving elixir.

"Michael, honey?" She reached for him and pulled him forward as she felt behind him shifting his pillows so they acted as a support enabling him to sit upright. Then Carly gently tugged downward on his chin causing his mouth to fall open. She held her dripping wrist over his mouth and a thin red stream fell from her arm into him. Some of the blood missed its mark and dappled Michael's chin and cheeks.

There was a knock on the door followed by its immediate opening. A young nursing assistant was standing there with a pile of bedding in her arms. She started to apologize for the intrusion, "Oh, , I am so sorry. I didn't know Michael had any visitors tonight. I was just going to…" Her brain finally absorbed what her eyes have seen. The bedding materials fell to the floor as she raised both hands to her cheeks and gave out a high pitched shriek. She turned and ran out in a hysterical panic from the room.

Carly knew that time was running out, she ignored the intrusion and focused on getting her blood into Michael's system. "Come on, come on, baby," she pleaded as she strokes her son's throat trying to help him to swallow.

This time there was no polite tap on the door. Instead it was flung wide open and hit the wall and bounced back. A large and burly security guard was standing in the entrance. The acting act head of the institute, a wispy grey haired man, peered nervously into the room from behind the relative safety of the guard. Carly was oblivious to their presence and continued to alternate between squeezing more blood into Michael's mouth and massaging his throat to get it down.

"Mrs. Jax!" The acting head's voice was a high pitched squeal of indignation and honest confusion. "What on earth are you doing to young Master Corinthos? I must insist that you cease and desist this very moment!"

"Or what?" Carly looked up him, her eyes glowing with a red intensity and her mouth twisted into a feral snarl which clearly shows her fangs. "What exactly do you think you, or him," she flicked a dismissive gaze over the security guard who was coming to the rapid conclusion that he was definitely out of his depth in this bizarre situation. "Or anyone, Mr. Endicott, can do to stop me? I am here to help my son and make him better and until that happens I won't be leaving the institute. So, instead, for your own safety, I suggest you leave quietly and close the door behind you."

He was naturally a timid man but Mr. Endicott knew that it was more than his job was worth to leave at this juncture with what was clearly-well, nothing was actually very clear-but certainly something was abnormal, unacceptable about the situation. Besides he had a duty to the patient, to the young man lying in a coma being forced to participate in some outlandish ritual by his mother without even having any say in the matter.

Mr. Endicott called on resources he was unaware of possessing and with trembling knees ducked in front of the security guard's bulky presence and walked towards Carly. "Mrs. Jax, I must insist you stop what…whatever it is," his mouth made a moue of distaste. "You are attempting to do to Michael, and come with me. Otherwise, I will have Carl here," a quick jerk over his shoulder indicated the guard, "Remove you forc…"

Mr. Endicott went sailing across the room and crashed into the window that over looked the institute's grounds, it was a view seldom seen by any of its residents. The frail little man lay there dazed and disoriented. His head was bleeding profusely from where it had come into contact with the sharp edge of the room's dresser drawers. All the air had been expelled from his lungs with the force of his landing. His diaphragm and lungs were both trying desperately to reestablish a pattern of inhalation and exhalation in order to get life sustaining oxygen back into his system. He was clawing at his chest as he tried to breathe, to live. Spots began to appear before his eyes.

Carly stepped towards the security guard who seeing the cold murderous glint in her eyes turned and ran from the doorway scattering curious nurses, orderlies and visitors who had been attracted by the peculiar exhibition rumored to be occurring within the room. Carly stood at the door hissing and snarling as her animal nature came fully to the fore. Terrified, all the spectators ran screaming, alarms began to sound in the building and there was an announcement over the public address system that the entire third floor was being evacuated and placed under a secure lock down.

Carly was crazed with anger and blood lust and as she closed the door to Michael's room her eyes fell upon the hapless Mr. Endicott who was just now beginning to be able to once again breathe. She could smell the blood from his head wound and she was pure unadulterated hunger. In two strides she was bending down and hauling the small man up by the lapels of his jacket. Without any preamble she sank her fangs into his neck, this time there was no need to be cautious, to stop prematurely. She drank her fill and if his blood was weak watery stuff compared to Michael's viscous and rich vintage it was still nourishing enough to bring color to her cheeks and lips. She dropped the drained corpse unceremoniously on the ground and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand turned to look at Michael.

Mr. Endicott and his one pathetic moment of bravery were forgotten as Carly stared at Michael and hope suddenly flared within her depths. "Michael" she whispered, frightened that the change was imagined, that if she spoke too loudly or moved too quickly it would all just have been a hallucination. "It's Mommy, Michael. I'm here you're safe. You've come back to me-to your Mommy."

She inched closer to the bed carefully watching her son as his eyes flickered open and then shut, his lips moved and small groans emitted from his mouth. Michael's entire body was twitching. He looked like a grotesque puppet that was being jerked around by random and repetitive pulls on invisible strings attached to his limbs.

Carly was elated. She was sure that this was just the beginning, the start of his transformation from a comatose teenager to a vital and strong young man who would prowl the darkened streets of eternity by the side of his proud parents.

Her attention was taken from her son by a loud imperious voice transmitting over the speakers outside Michael's room. "Mrs. Jax, this is the New York State Patrol ordering you to come out of your son's room with your hands up. If you don't cooperate and surrender voluntarily we will be forced to take whatever necessary measures to secure this building and its occupants from the imminent threat posed by you."

"Imminent threat!" Carly snarled in the direction of the closed door. "I'll show you imminent threat!"

She began pacing in agitation. Ordinarily, their coercion would be immaterial to her. She could choose to leave or stay and take out as many of them as she wished. She knew that they could damage her but she would inflict infinitely more harm and still survive the encounter. No, if it were just her she would take her chances but she had Michael to consider. She needed to stay put until he was strong enough to travel, until he had shaken off the last effects of the coma. Carly began to move every piece of the room's furniture in front of the door. It took her a matter of minutes and when she was finished there was a formidable barricade of wooden structures between Michael and her and the exterior world.

Having done what she to could to stave off interference she turned back towards her son as a frown line appeared between her eyes. "This isn't right, "she thought to herself as the first signs of panic, of something gone terribly wrong began to make themselves felt within her.

It wasn't that Michael had ceased twitching or rapidly blinking his eyes or even emitting soft little groans and moans from his partially opened mouth. No, it was that he was doing exactly that, precisely the same movements and sounds he had been making before the interruption, before she had secured the room. It was unceasing and unchanging. There was none of the expected evolution of behavior, of awareness. His eyes ought to open and stay open and he should look at Carly with recognition. He should stop making guttural sounds and actually link syllables and words together into comprehensible sentences. His body needed to stop jerking around and the muscles come together in coordinated motion so that he could walk and have fine motor skills and just be Michael once more. Why wasn't it happening, why?

"Michael," Carly crept close to him and reached a trembling hand out to touch his face to try and still his constant motion. "Wake up, it's time to wake up!"

She was crying and her tears had a faint iron flavor to them. She could feel and smell the change in him and knew that Michael was now what she and Sonny were. He no longer breathed, he had no pulse and by all accounts he ought to be awake, to be conversing with her, grateful for his new existence, another chance. None of that was happening, none of it. Instead his body was jerking around, undergoing endless cycles of muscle spasms driven by random firings of nerve bundles. Carly had thought to return to Sonny tonight with a healthy Michael in tow.

"Sonny," she would say with pride and arrogance. "While you were running around trying to sire people in order to meet your perennial need for surrounding yourself with sycophants like Mike and Kate, I went and got our son, I fixed Michael. See…"

Then she would step aside, savoring the wide-eyed astonishment in Sonny's eyes as he absorbed the sight of his elder son once again whole and healthy. She could envision the sparkle deep in his dark soulless eyes as his mouth creased in a wide dimpled grin. He would hug him and then Carly and then Michael once more. She would have been the one-her, Carly-to bring Sonny's son back to him and not for a day or week or a month but forever.

That had been her plan, her intention and she knew she had done absolutely everything right. So, why oh why, wasn't it working, hadn't it succeeded?

"Michael," her voice was harsh with despair and annoyance, "Stop this, stop it! Open your eyes and keep them open. Talk to me, talk to Mommy."

She grabbed his shoulders and began to shake him. His head flopped back and forth in an uneven rhythm in response to her violence. Frustrated, she threw him back onto the bed where he continued just as he had before-jerking and flailing around as he uttered nonsense noises. Carly covered her ears and slid down the wall near the bed, ending up in a heap on the floor.

Once again there was an overhead announcement that was clearly audible through the blocked door. "Mrs. Jax, we have given you ample time to comply with our demand that you surrender yourself to our custody. It appears that you are choosing to defy said order. You leave us no option except to take you by force." There was a pause and then a popping sound and all of sudden white smoke began to curl lazily into the room through the gap between the door and the floor.

Carly snarled and hissed in reaction from the corner she was curled up in as she tried to retreat from the reality of the situation. Since she didn't breathe, the tear gas would have no effect on her beyond irritating her already reddened eyes. Still, she knew that it was only the opening salvo in what would become an increasingly intense attack.

"There's no time," she whimpered to herself as she looked over at the son who she had inadvertently damned to a twilight perpetuity of pointless motion and sound. It was an existence made even more futile and hopeless than what he had been experiencing prior to her advent into his room this evening. Carly had made things unbelievably worse. In her attempt to save her son she had instead cursed him. Whatever she might have chosen to do in order to salvage the situation-given the time to think or to consider her options-was prevented by the interference of these noxious humans.

The one thing Carly absolutely wouldn't contemplate was letting her son as he was now, or even how he had been before, remain any longer in the care of these puling, insignificant and petty mortals. No, Michael Corinthos son of Carly Jax and Sonny Corinthos deserved better than that. She owed him a better fate.

Carly was back on her feet, her decision was made. There really wasn't any time remaining. Already she could hear them in the hall as they began to storm the door. There were loud thumps and the pile of furniture in front of it vibrated from the assault. She knew it wouldn't last for long, she had to act now.

She looked down at her twitching, unaware son with a desolate longing. Reaching over she ran her hand through his bright red hair. "I'm sorry, Michael, I'm so sorry. I…I just wanted to help, to make you better…" She turned her head away unable to tolerate the emotions cascading through her. Carly understood that all she could now offer Michael was oblivion. She had mistakenly taken his soul and so there was no hope for any other type of salvation.

The noises outside the door were increasing in volume as the door shuddered and buckled under the unrelenting battery. Decisively, she walked over to the pile of furniture against the door. She snapped a leg off of the upside down night table. Carly looked appraisingly at the piece of wood in her hand. She began to peel off splinters and slivers of wood to streamline it the best she could. Carly sighed unhappily, it was bad enough she had to do this unnatural, this revolting thing but she didn't even have an appropriate tool with which to do the deed.

Now, for the final time, Carly looked at her tormented son. She wiped her hand down her face and wished for an infinitesimal moment that she could be a creature of the light. Then she could pray to an all knowing and all seeing God for the deliverance of her son. Naturally, the thought failed to produce any resonance within her. She was entirely abandoned into an abyss of bleakness.

The tower of furniture collapsed as the door was forced open. Carly, using both her hands, raised the ragged piece of wood over her head and without hesitation plunged it deep into the heart of her first born child. Finally, Michael was still. His vacant eyes rolled up in their sockets as his hands came to reflexively rest around the base of the wooden stake lodged irreversibly within his chest.

Carly, her hands still gripping the wood looked down at her son as he began to disintegrate before her very eyes. Several armed men had burst into the room sweeping the small space with their weapons as they checked for occupants-hostile or otherwise. They were hardened veterans of armed and police service backgrounds. Yet, they gaped in astonishment and fear at the sight of the wild haired virago who had plunged a piece of wood into the thoracic cavity of her own son. That sight was unnerving enough but it was nothing compared to what happened next.

The survivors would debate over and over again what they had actually witnessed that night. Some said that a young boy had turned to dust before their very eyes. Others claimed that he had never been there in the first place, that somehow Carly Jax had spirited her son away before they managed to breach her defenses and enter the room. No matter their viewpoint about the occurrences of that night, they never spoke of it to anyone but their comrades that had also been present. They certainly never discussed it if they didn't first contrive to get blind stinking drunk.

When Michael vanished forever so did Carly's sanity. Her mind cracked and she keened her grief out on an unending high pitched note that caused those hearing it to cover their ears as their hackles raised in a primitive fear based response. As she continued to wail over her sorrow and her loss, she focused her rage on the intruders into her son's sanctuary, his last residence on earth. A mist of red rage flowed over her brain and she sprang at the lawmen with all sense of self preservation entirely absent.

The men were taken off guard. They were still trying to absorb what they had seen, to incorporate it into their minds in such a way that they could-unlike Carly-survive with their minds intact. When she lunged at them, all teeth and fury, they had no defense. One or two of them fired wildly but none of the bullets found their mark. She crashed into them-grabbing indiscriminately, breaking bones, ripping into flesh and snapping necks. Then she was out of the room and heading down the hall. Anyone foolhardy enough to remain in her path would pay for it with their life and probably their blood. The sounds of growling and hissing and sucking filled the deserted halls of the after care institute. Only the helpless bedridden residents of the building were ignored, were allowed to live by Carly who saw Michael in each one of them and could not bring herself to inflict injury upon them.

Carly jumped through the third floor window at the end of Michael's residence wing. She landed in the snow directly in front of a startled State Patrol Officer who had been assigned to guard the first floor fire exit. His blood formed black droplets on the white ground as she gorged herself in an effort to satiate her unendurable hunger. Yet, it was impossible to fill the void inside her that was a result of grief and failure. It was a need that could never be met, no matter how much blood she feasted upon.

Jason and Spinelli doggedly trudged through the ever thickening snow on their way to Kelly's. The streets were empty of both cars and pedestrians. Neither the roads nor the sidewalks had been plowed or shoveled. It was all just another indication of the impact that the flu had upon Port Charles. There was no one left to man the city plows, no seasonal workers who would agree to clear sidewalks for a low wage.

Jason had Spinelli walk behind him as he cleared a path, hoping to make the trek easier on his still recuperating roommate. He looked anxiously back at Spinelli who was obediently placing his feet carefully in the tracks made by his mentor.

"You doing all right?" He called back to him, his voice muffled by the falling snow

"Yes, Stone Cold," Spinelli replied, trying to keep his voice even, to not let Jason hear his ragged breathing. In truth, he wasn't yet up to trekking through a blizzard.

"We're almost there," Jason said, hearing his brother's stressful breathing but unable to do anything about it except possibly carry him and he knew that Spinelli would resist that. He silently cursed himself for not bringing a vehicle or taking Spinelli back to the penthouse before getting food or about a million more intelligent solutions that didn't run the risk of causing a relapse in the young man or perhaps even exposing him to pneumonia. "Once we get there, we'll order the food and you can warm up. Then I'll go back to the Towers and get the SUV and come pick you up."

It was clear from Jason's tone that the matter wasn't open for discussion but Spinelli was feeling tired enough that he found he was in complete concordance with the plan. He would have told Jason so except that he needed to conserve his strength in order to make it to Kelly's without keeling over in a dead faint which at this particular moment seemed like a distinct possibility.

Spinelli had been trying to distract himself from his physical discomfort by pondering how he could once again open a dialogue with Jason about a topic to which he was so vehemently set on giving absolutely no credence. Spinelli shook his head and sighed, he didn't know how he would do it but he knew he had to convince Jason somehow. There was too much hanging in the balance for him to just give up.

"We're here!" The relief in Jason's voice was palpable as he opened the door and ushered Spinelli into the welcoming brightness of the diner. "Spinelli, take your jacket off, you're soaking. We'll get something hot into you and you'll feel better." Jason was in full mother hen mode.

Spinelli had handed his wet jacket back to Jason and was in the process of unwinding his scarf from around his neck when he stopped paralyzed. He had his head down and suddenly he stepped back in shocked reaction. He had been standing in a pool of blood and as he scuttled away in revulsion his boots now left their own bloody tracks

Jason looked over at his friend from where he was placing their coats on the old fashioned metal pronged coat rack. "Whoa! He said, as he reached out to catch a skidding Spinelli as he backed frantically towards him, his arms swinging in an effort to maintain his balance. "What's wrong, Spinelli?" He asked him urgently, all his senses immediately going on full alert.

Spinelli couldn't find his voice, he couldn't do anything but stand there with Jason's arms supporting him as he stared in horrified fascination at the end of the bloody trail. His eyes had unwillingly traced a path back from the puddle of blood in which he had inadvertently tread. They warily followed the winding crimson stream leading away from it to the source of all the garish red staining the floor of the diner. His eyes and his brain refused to synchronize. Spinelli repudiated what was before him, even though he could tell from Jason's sharp inhale of breath that he wasn't alone in seeing the gruesomely unwelcome sight. Mike Corbin had never been anything but kind to the Jackal and to see him lying on the floor of the restaurant dead and destroyed with all his innate dignity stripped away from himwas more than Spinelli could tolerate.

He pushed away from Jason's support and though he swayed a little in shock, he managed to stay upright, steady on his own two feet. "At least Stone Cold will now have to accept that such creatures do exist." The grim thought did little to alleviate his overwhelming distress.

Jason stood frozen as he looked in disbelief at Mike's neck which was a torn bloody mess. For once he was incapable of leaping directly into action as an instinctive response to a clearly dangerous situation. Instead all he could think was, "Spinelli was right!" It ran on an endless loop through his brain, "Spinelli was right!" Jason realized that nothing but an animal of some type was capable of so savagely ripping into Mike's neck. "So, that meant…" his brain was sluggish as it struggled with an entirely new world view, with the idea that perhaps there were things beyond his concrete understanding roaming the night.

The thought of a still extant threat to him and most of all to Spinelli was enough to bring Jason back into the here and now. His head snapped up as he ceased contemplating the corpse on the floor and instead began scrutinizing his immediate environment. His eyes narrowed and he began looking intently around Kelly's searching out the dark corners and incessantly scanning to determine if Mike's attacker, his killer was still present but possibly hidden and biding his time before he struck again.

In one fluid motion Jason reached towards his back searching for the reliable comfort of his gun tucked securely away under his jacket. Frustrated he pulled back an empty hand as he remembered that he had stopped carrying his automatic. Jason thought that when Spinelli and he had started up their detective agency then he could once more start worrying about weaponry. Meanwhile, he had wanted to take a vacation from being constantly armed, to be nothing more than a civilian for a time. He had liked the conceit that perhaps his life was no longer all about either kill or be killed. Unfortunately, tonight's events seemed to indicate that he had been mistaken. Now, he earnestly wished for the comforting presence of his constant and reliable silent companion. Without his gun, Jason felt naked and vulnerable in the face of the unknown danger that he and Spinelli faced.

Still, gun or no gun, he was determined to protect Spinelli and catch whoever had done this atrocious deed. He felt confident that the perpetrator was no longer in the diner. "Stay here," he said shortly to Spinelli. "I'm going to check out back."

Spinelli had to exert every particle of self-control he possessed in order to prevent himself from begging Jason, "Don't leave me here alone." Somehow he managed to nod his head silently in response to Jason's decree. He thought that any words he might utter would come out in a high pitched squeak. He did not want to deter Jason's hunt for Mike's killer but he feared greatly for Stone Cold's safety. The assailant was no mortal man.

When Jason had vanished into the nether regions of Kelly's, Spinelli stood nervously in the center of the main room and carefully averted his eyes from Mike's grisly corpse. The familiar venue was forever altered in his perception. He found it to be tainted, a place of evil and he knew that after tonight he would never again cross the threshold of the diner.

Standing in the empty, silent room Spinelli felt unprotected and exposed. He was unable to look in all directions simultaneously and so he decided to enhance his surveillance ability by slowly turning around in a complete circle. He gradually spun around like a lighthouse incising a complete three hundred and sixty degree arc as he intently probed every part of the room.

He heard it during his third circuit, just as he was thinking about what could be keeping Stone Cold and whether or not he should go in search of him in case something had happened and he required the Jackal's aid. It echoed from everywhere and nowhere, causing him to freeze down to his core. "Spinelli." The single word was whispered at an almost inaudible frequency, raising goose bumps over every inch of his body.

"Who…" He despised the croaking noise issuing from his throat and was unable to think of another word to tack onto the first.

"Why, you wound me Spinelli. Here I thought we were such good friends and all." He recognized the voice and suddenly his fear increased tenfold in magnitude.

Spinelli now knew the who but he was bewildered as to the where. He could feel the first stirrings of blind panic starting to build inside himself. He had to fight in order to control his feelings and his reactions. He instinctively understood that if he gave in to his terror all would be forfeit. He desperately wanted to move away from the spot he was in but he was worried that he might be going towards rather than away from the possessor of the disembodied voice.

"Look up…" Spinelli actually felt the voice this time. It was reverberating within his skull.

Terrified but unable to resist the insidious command Spinelli reluctantly raised his eyes and stared upwards. There, somehow defying gravity, Sonny Corinthos lay spread eagled gazing down at him from the ceiling of the diner. Spinelli rapidly looked from Sonny above him over to the mangled still form of Mike. Even though he thought he had accepted that these entities existed, in reality it had still been a purely mental exercise an understanding of the mind yet exclusive of the heart. It wasn't until this horrific moment of disbelief morphed into acceptance that Damian Spinelli truly embraced the notion of unrepentant evil.

With exquisite slowness, trying not to arouse the suspicion of the creature overhead, Spinelli began to inch towards the door. The idea of finding a safe haven within the icy swirls of the raging blizzard seemed preferable to anything he might face within the confines of Kelly's. As he crept in minute increments ever closer to the door and his potential freedom a poignant plea echoed through his mind. "Stone Cold, where are you? The Jackal needs you. Stone Cold…"

"Not here." Sonny said it almost kindly, the words spoken with a false regret.

He was directly in front of him only inches away from the young man's face and his entire body had inserted itself aggressively into Spinelli's personal space. He had moved without a sound, without even creating a tell tale current of air.

"Nope," Sonny shook his head in negation. "Stone Cold," he said the words with a harsh emphasis, "isn't here to rescue the sniveling Jackal."

He smiled cruelly. His teeth were blindingly white but there was an overriding odor of things rotted and decayed beyond salvage that wafted on the air between the two men. Spinelli swallowed and averted his head in an effort to quell the sudden urge to vomit, to deposit his meager stomach contents on the stained and defiled floor of the diner.

"Something bothering you, freaky boy? Something about me you don't care for? That hurts my delicate sensibilities, Sssspinelli." He hissed his name like a snake complete with an accompanying quick in and out flickering of his tongue. "I thought we were tight-you and I." A rigid finger prodded him sharply in the chest as he tried in vain to retreat from Sonny. ''Look what we have in common. Jason, we both want Jason."

At the mention of his mentor's name, Spinelli felt his blood run cold but somehow he managed to dredge up his waning courage. "Y..ou…you leave Stone Cold alone!" He stammered, his face blushing red with a combination of anxiety and anger.

"Why…why…oh, why would I do that?" Sonny mimicked him with a malicious smile. "Jason's mine, you little creep, mine. He's going to spend forever with me as my right hand man and there isn't a thing you can do to prevent it. It's our destiny-his and mine." His voice hadn't increased in volume but now there was a fierce intensity underlying his words which emphasized his belief in the authority, the absolute rightness of what he was saying. "Your time with Jason has come to an end as of this very evening. To prove it to you, I might just let you live long enough to feel his teeth sink into your neck as he takes your puny, insignificant little life and crushes it into oblivion."

Spinelli was at his wit's end, he couldn't bear it if Stone Cold should be turned and then fed on him. To see Jason's eyes glinting with bestiality and endless hunger as he sucked him dry and mindlessly discarded his former protégé's corpse as he had been accounted nothing more than the sack containing his meal. He couldn't let that happen, he simply couldn't.

Spinelli pivoted on his heel intent on only one thing-flight. Maybe if he could occupy Sonny by activating his predatory instincts he could prevent the gruesome outcome just delineated to him. The Jackal would gladly give his own life in order to spare Jason from the fate Sonny had in store for him. He knew that Jason would avenge him and furthermore that he was the single person left in Port Charles capable of handling this scourge, of saving what was left of the city and its yet unaffected residents. Jason and no one else-Spinelli knew that to be the honest truth. So, it was imperative that his mentor survive no matter what the cost to himself.

Before he could twist himself around and even begin to run, Sonny had grabbed him by his sweater and raising him up a good two feet into the air slammed him into the wall by the jukebox. Sonny's face was blatantly animalistic, there wasn't the slightest relic of humanity to be seen in his visage.

"Little hacker!" The sibilance was now even more pronounced. "I wanted to keep you alive as a treat for Jason. Yet, if you persist in defying me I may have to incapacitate you." His hand grasped Spinelli's right arm directly above the elbow as he savagely twisted it up behind the young man's back eliciting a spontaneous gasp of agony. "Just a little twist," he couldn't avoid the hot rank breath in his face. "And it will snap like a chicken bone. Or," Suddenly Sonny released his death grip on Spinelli's arm and ran his hand up under his sweater to rest it on the bare skin of his lower back where it lay cold and reptilian feeling. "I could twist your spine so that you can only crawl along the ground dangling your useless legs behind you, your every movement an exercise in torture. Then you would be begging Jason and me to kill you. We would be doing you a favor by ending your ridiculous and pointless existence and putting you out of your misery."

Spinelli didn't move. He didn't articulate a single sound or word. He recognized the implacable evil within Sonny's eyes. He instinctively realized that total stillness and acquiescence were his only hope for survival, even if it merely meant clinging to life for one extra precious moment.

"Sonny," the voice was low, controlled but had a defined edge of menace to it, "let him go." The command was unequivocal.

"Or what Jason?" Sonny hadn't released his grip on Spinelli's sweater or moved his hand from his back. His tone was nonchalant, even gently inquiring. He acted as though he were genuinely curious as to what Jason intended.

"I'll finish what I started that night in your office." Jason said it evenly, tamping down the fear that was fermenting inside of him.

He was furious with himself for leaving Spinelli behind unguarded. He had gotten wrapped up in searching the exterior of the diner and the surrounding area for signs of Mike's murderer. He supposed he ought to be grateful that it was only Sonny he had to contend with in order to free Spinelli rather than Mike's demented killer. Still, the bottom line was that he never should have left his vulnerable brother alone. It seemed all that Jason did lately was misjudge situations and somehow it was always Spinelli that suffered the consequences of his erroneous decisions.

"Really?" A slow delighted smile spread across Sonny's countenance. "You know," he drawled as he gazed keenly at Jason. "With all this going on," he used his free hand to wave vaguely around the diner. "I'd quite forgotten that little incident but now that you've reminded me…." Sonny looked speculatively at Jason, a nasty little grin quirking the corners of his mouth.

Jason stood there transfixed as he grappled with the implications of what Sonny had just said. He twisted his head to look towards Mike's crumpled body and then back over at Sonny who still had Spinelli pinned to the wall with one hand like some sort of exotic insect.

"It couldn't be…" he whispered to himself in dismay as the first tiny twinges of acceptance rose to the surface of his mind commingling with persistent and stubborn denial.

Sonny released Spinelli without warning. He landed hard on the floor with a spine jarring impact that sent a bolt of pain all the way to the top of his skull. His teeth clamped down on his tongue and a warm burst of blood erupted from his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

Sonny immediately turned towards him with a snarl that died away as he caught sight and scent of the blood. With a rapt, almost dreamlike stare he stood mesmerized by the red fluid coating Spinelli's chin. Jason started to angle his way past Sonny anxious to check Spinelli out, to see how badly he was injured. He was prevented from moving more than a few steps by an outthrust rigid arm that effectively blocked his pathway.

"Get the hell out of my way, Sonny!" Jason erupted, his patience at an end as he was obstructed in his attempt to get to his roommate. "Haven't you done enough damage tonight?"

He pulled at Sonny's arm intending to toss it out of his way. If Sonny persisted in thwarting him Jason would break the appendage. Maybe he would on general principles after what he had just done to Spinelli. Suddenly, he realized that he had been trying to shift or twist Sonny's arm in order to move it away for a good thirty seconds and had entirely failed in the endeavor.

"What the fuck!" he muttered in bewilderment. When had Sonny become stronger than him?

Sonny turned his head, shaking it slightly as though to clear away his previous preoccupation. "Something wrong, Jason?" he asked with a superficial air of courtesy that was entirely belied by the blankness of his eyes. "It might be a little harder to teach me a lesson tonight, hmmm? Perhaps, this time I'll be the instructor. No," he put his other hand to his forehead in a quick little flip of a salute. "I know what, I'll be you-I'll be a Stone Cold Enforcer!"

He finished the sentence with a roar of rage as his blocking arm suddenly whipped around and rammed straight into Jason's chest. There was such force behind the impact that he went sailing backwards crashing against tables and chairs until he finally ended up in a huddled, dazed heap under the front counter of the diner.

"Jason!" Spinelli tried to struggle to his feet, wiping distractedly at the blood still spilling from his mouth as he fought to go to his mentor's aid.

"Not so fast, Spinelli." He was pulled upright by Sonny, his arms pinned to his side. He tried to kick at him, twist out of his hold, anything to get free, to help Jason. "You know," and now he forgot Jason, forgot everything except the urge to flee as Sonny leaned in towards him, his mouth open, the sharp incisors clearly visible. "It's becoming more and more difficult to keep you as an offering for Jason's first feeding. Anyway," Sonny glared over at Jason who was still on the floor as he attempted to stay conscious, to regain his bearings. "I'm not sure I'm in the mood to reward him any longer. He's been very disrespectful lately."

"Do what you want with me, anything. Just…just leave Jason alone. Please." He was pleading, hoping that he could reach something inside this monster that had once loved Jason like a father or a brother.

"Spinelli, Spinelli," Sonny shook a finger in his face in mock disappointment. "You don't seem to understand that you lack the fundamental tool that everyone needs in order to bargain. You have nothing to offer in order to compel me to do as you wish. Tsk, tsk," he sighed. "I thought you were brighter than this. That's the one thing they all said about the Jackal-he's so super smart!"

Now Sonny's voice was mocking, set at a high pitch as though he were a star struck teenage girl swooning over a television star. He shook Spinelli with each word and the young man's head lolled back and forth. Droplets of blood from his still bleeding tongue sprayed around, some of them landed on Sonny's face and his eyes narrowed as he felt the wet beads slide down his cheeks. He reached up a hand and ran it over his face swiping at the blood and then deliberately, all the while holding Spinelli's terrified gaze, he placed his hand in his mouth and sucked at it until every last iota of blood was gone.

Then with a groan he brought both hands up to capture Spinelli's face in a painful grip and drawing him close he darted his tongue out and began to lick up all the blood on Spinelli's chin and neck. It was the single most disgusting and humiliating moment of Spinelli's life. He stood there in submissive silence, his eyes closed, his body quaking and shivering with unalloyed horror and distaste. He was thoroughly convinced that at any instant he would feel the sharp prick of Sonny's fangs as he decided to delve deeper for the sweet warm nectar pumping through the vessels of Spinelli's body. Sonny's breath wafted over him, hot and repellent. Spinelli valiantly fought the urge to throw up, he knew intrinsically that if he gave in to the pull of the reflex it would be the same as signing his death warrant.

Sonny's tongue felt wet and slimy as it laved over his skin searching out every trace of blood present. He was making nauseating snuffling noises and was beginning to emit low incessant growls that signified to Spinelli how close Sonny was to losing control over his actions. He braced himself as best he could for the inevitable sensation of sharp teeth ripping through the tender flesh of his neck.

"Get your goddamn fucking hands off of him!"

While Sonny had been occupied with Spinelli, Jason had battled to recover his senses and regain his feet. He had been appalled to see what Sonny was doing to Spinelli. It was all too much to apprehend at once. Jason was still bemused by Sonny's unexpected physical strength. Yet, all of that was irrelevant, what mattered was that Spinelli was in danger and required his help. Somehow he found himself across the room screaming at Sonny in ferocious outrage.

Jason reached for Sonny's shoulders and forcefully wrenched him away from Spinelli. There were deep red handprints on his roommate's cheeks and a glazed look of surrender and hopelessness in his eyes. They were reminders of how yet again he had failed to protect and shelter his brother from the vicissitudes of life in Port Charles.

Sonny had been so engrossed by Spinelli that his supernaturally sharp senses had been in abeyance. He had been unaware of Jason's approach. Even after he had spoken, had threatened him-he been incapable of responding. He was trapped within a blood induced stupor. Spinelli had been entirely correct, Sonny was only seconds away from a full-fledged attack, from impaling his teeth into the living, breathing, flesh of his prey. He was under the sway of the ancient perogative of the predator and Sonny was eager to reply to its siren call.

Even now as Jason forcibly dragged him away from the spicy, tempting blood that coursed throughout Spinelli, Sonny had only one goal-to finish his task, to suck and feed until he was wholly satiated. He wrestled and twisted savagely against Jason's iron grip. Yet, for the moment he was the weaker of the two, consumed as he still was by blood lust and only focused on the meal that was being denied him. Jason had found additional reservoirs of power in his need to defend Spinelli, to save him from the writhing madness encapsulated within his arms.

Spinelli opened his eyes and looked around himself in disbelief. He couldn't quite absorb the fact that he was still relatively intact, that he was still breathing and that his life blood wasn't gushing out to fall on the floor below. He had been granted an unexpected reprieve but his relief quickly reverted to anxiety as he took in the sight of Jason hauling a struggling Sonny away from him. Intermingled with his worry and concern was an undeniable pride as he observed his mentor tackling a vampire and apparently having the upper hand, might he dare venture-the winning hand-in the confrontation.

That sight was all that Spinelli needed to know that he had been correct in his supposition. It seemed that Jason was indeed the one, the chosen redeemer of Port Charles in its hour of desperate need. He was the only viable defender of the endless night that had descended upon the beleaguered city. Yet, Spinelli suspected that one of the reasons for Jason's current success, his ability to subdue Sonny, was that he actually believed it was still Sonny he was fighting. Granted, he couldn't help but recognize that it was an altered Sonny. The man in his arms who was fighting him every step of the way was crazed, had lost all connection with reality and appeared to be freakishly strong. Still, Jason hadn't yet grasped the concept that he was only wearing the façade of Sonny Corinthos. He couldn't quite allow himself to acknowledge that the man he was barely managing to hold onto was a soulless monster with unparalleled strength, speed, endurance and most importantly, no conscience at all.

Spinelli was petrified about what would occur when Sonny finally turned his considerable arsenal of weapons in Jason's direction. His unleashed wrath would be beyond Stone Cold's physical abilities to withstand. If Jason were still thinking of Sonny as a mortal man-insane, but still human-then he would not be prepared for the unholy onslaught that was sure to come. It was even possible that Sonny in the midst of his red hot rage, his desire to teach Jason a lesson might forget his intention to turn him and instead give into his overpowering need to feed. In that case, he might turn on Jason and end up shredding him as he had his very own unfortunate father. Impulse control had never been Sonny Corinthos' strong suit.

Spinelli knew he had to help Jason before he was taken unawares and succumbed to Sonny's fanged frenzy. Frenetically he made his way across the diner, scanning the room for something, anything that could be used to support his mentor in his uneven contest with the denizen of the night. Already he could tell that the balance was tipping. It was apparent that Jason was tiring. He couldn't contain Sonny as easily as he had just a moment ago. Spinelli had reached the service counter and he had found nothing, absolutely nothing that would help his Master to attain victory in the life and death battle that was raging only a few feet away.

Now Jason was down, he was on the floor using his hands to push himself away from an enraged and revitalized Sonny. The first intimations of panic showed clearly on his face as he looked up at his fierce adversary who had once been his boon companion, his role model and his family. Jason had simply been unable to match Sonny's unflagging and superior strength. He was on the brink of exhaustion, his stamina rapidly depleting and he couldn't seem to protect himself never mind Spinelli.

Sonny stood towering over him, while he looked at Jason from dead eyes that absorbed rather than reflected the lights of the diner. He couldn't believe that Jason had bested him, him-Sonny, when there was no explicable way that it should ever have occurred. He was immortal, virtually indestructible and no puny human should come even close to what Jason had done to him tonight. Not only had he dared to attack him, he had confined him and interfered with his right to feed on whomsoever he chose-even that geeky hacker-he had seriously damaged Sonny's gravitas. When the hell was Jason going to get it through his thick skull, Sonny was his superior and he needed to start acting like he understood that.

In his frustration at being even temporarily blocked, Sonny was having a temper tantrum. He was snarling and hissing, his lips drawing back and forth over his teeth alternating between exposing and hiding his deadly fangs. It was the first time Jason had seen them and he stared at them with a sick fascination.

Sonny was trying to regain his sang froid, his impenetrable attitude of composure and control. Still, the two of them made it most difficult, especially that smart aleck kid. At the thought of Spinelli, an angry, vengeful growl arose from the back of his throat. In a few minutes he would see who the winner was as he faced his own mortality, his screams muffled while he and Jason fed on him together. It would be a cathartic experience and over the wriggling, slowly dying body of the hated hacker they would bond, become true brothers once again. The scene of blood, terror and vindication playing across the screen of his mind had a calming effect on Sonny. His attention reverted to Jason and he was gratified to see the stunned, disbelieving expression on his face as he finally began to appreciate who and what Sonny was.

"Jason, it looks as though you need a lesson in respect. You've obviously forgotten who you're dealing with but that's all right because I'm here to remind you. When I'm done siring you, there will be a brand new world for you to experience. You'll be better-stronger, faster, you'll dominate once more. Yet, this time Jason it will be crystal clear where your allegiance lies, this time there will be absolutely no divided loyalties to cloud the picture. That punk kid over there?" He gestured with his thumb back towards the counter that Spinelli had hopped over and was now scrounging around behind in his harried search for a weapon.

Jason eyes anxiously flicked towards his brother, his heart caught in his throat as fear and pride warred within him as he saw what he was doing in his attempt to help his friend, his mentor. "Run, Spinelli!" He yelled, wanting him gone so that he could deal with Sonny. He had a glimmering of what the outcome would most likely be and then he would be powerless to protect him, to protect anyone.

Sonny laughed at him, he didn't bother to spare a glance over his shoulder, he could smell the kid, smell the terror and the incipient panic on him. He knew he wasn't going anywhere. He mentally gave him a few points of approbation for unexpected courage, for his inability to desert Jason. He might make a decent meal after all.

"That kid-Spinelli, well, he's going to be the tie that binds us Jason. See, I'm going to fix it so that you can have your cake and eat it too." He was chuckling again, he so appreciated his own little jokes. "The Jackal, he'll be a part of you, and me too. We'll just be one big happy family, though he'll sort of be on the inside looking out if you catch my drift."

The smile left his face abruptly and he moved towards Jason, rolling his shoulders back and forth and twisting his neck in a patented Sonny mannerism left over from his mortal days. Now the fangs were permanently everted and there was no mistaking the deadly serious expression on his countenance as he came ever closer to Jason. Sonny was entirely focused on one goal, he was going to transform Jason this very night and then a big part of his universe, his specially created Sonny-after life world would be in place. Once he had Jason back by his side-Morgan, Kate, Kristina, maybe Alexis or Robin-yes, Jason would like to have Robin-would all fall into their pre-assigned slots. Then he could finally start truly conquering this world of night that he so fully knew he had always been meant for, to rule over it as only he could.

Jason looked around him, he was frantically trying to find something, a weapon, a tool, anything he could use to stop Sonny or, if need be, end himself before Sonny could carry out his promise. At this point, there seemed little difference between the choices. All he knew, all he desired, all he felt was an unswerving determination to never become what Sonny was, to foil at all costs his diabolical scheme. If he had to kill himself to avoid such a fate then so be it, it was a small price to pay in order to subvert Sonny, to prevent his own eternal damnation. If he hadn't wanted to follow, to emulate Sonny in life, he sure as hell didn't plan to become his yes man, his go to guy, his enforcer in perpetuity.

He spared a searching glance towards where he had last spied Spinelli behind the counter. He wasn't there, Jason exhaled a pent up sigh of relief. "Thank God!" he thought with elation. "He got out, he's safe!"

Without Spinelli to worry about he could now redouble his efforts towards trying to derail Sonny. He needed to keep him occupied long enough for Spinelli to make a clean break of it, to get away, and most of all to live. Then when the time was right, he'd take himself out. Though in truth, he doubted he could do anything about Sonny in the process. He devoutly wished he could but he was so fucking strong, practically invincible.

"Sonny," he said it softly, almost tauntingly, determined to make sure he was focused solely on Jason while Spinelli increased his distance from this accursed place. He knew that with every passing moment his own chances of survival were dwindling. Jason found himself actually embracing the opportunity to sacrifice for his brother, to demonstrate what he meant to him in the time honored tradition of men everywhere who lived and died by violence. "If you want me, why don't you come and get me?"

Sonny glared irritably at Jason. He was furious at his continuing insubordination, his stubborn refusal to see what a boon, what a privilege he was bestowing on him by transmuting his mundane limited existence into a higher plane where the horizons were limitless. He was offering the gift of immortality and Jason was daring to refuse it, refuse him!

He growled deep in his throat, his fangs were bared as he moved purposely towards the man on the floor. He hated that there was no fear evident in his eyes. He desperately needed to dominate Jason, needed him to respect him, to understand that he had been and always would be subsidiary to Sonny Corinthos. This time around no one, absolutely no one, would be able to deny that he had made, had created Jason Morgan-least of all Jason himself.

Sonny yanked Jason up by grabbing onto his leather jacket. Chairs, flower vases, and other debris littering the floor as a result of the beating the diner had taken this night skittered under foot. Jason was a dead weight as he intentionally dragged against Sonny's attempt to raise him to his feet. His sapphire blue eyes shone with defiance, not a hint of trepidation was detectable.

Sonny bellowed out his frustration, his ancient breath causing Jason to grimace with repulsion. "Don't you ever brush your teeth or maybe floss?" He spoke lightly, resolved to not give Sonny any satisfaction, any reaction that might indicate panic or dread on his part.

Sonny's lips curved up fleetingly in response to Jason's dig. "Funny guy, eh? See if you think this is quite so amusing…"

He bent his head towards Jason's exposed neck, ready to complete the first step of the ritual through which he would irrevocably transform Jason. Jason braced himself, ready to resist Sonny with every part of his body and soul. He had no intention of going where Sonny meant to try and take him.

The first blast reverberated throughout the silence of the diner. It was a miss and shot peppered the walls, shattering the glass of nearby pictures. Before even Sonny's superb reactions could activate, before the echoes of the first shot had died away, Spinelli fired the second barrel and this time he hit his target. Sonny stumbled backwards, gasping in agony as hundreds of tiny red hot spheres penetrated the flesh of his side and arm. A few random pellets speckled Jason's arm as he fell backwards, suddenly free of Sonny's unyielding grip.

Sonny whipped around, supporting his wounded right arm in his left hand. His face was distorted with pain and rage, "You shot me!" He hissed indignantly as his furious gaze seared into Spinelli standing behind the diner counter, the sawed off shotgun still clutched in his nerveless hands.

Spinelli gulped miserably. His plan hadn't worked, he had failed once again. He knew that it was unlikely that he could kill Sonny with the myriad of tiny projectiles but he had thought to effectively disable him, to place him out of commission long enough for Jason and himself to dispose of him for once and for all. Instead, the result had been akin to poking a hornet's nest with a stick. He had done nothing of practical use except to temporarily distract Sonny from Jason and redirect his infuriated attention towards himself.

Without him even registering any movement, Sonny was there next to him ripping the offending weapon out of Spinelli's unresisting hands. "You have annoyed me for the last time, freaky boy!" Sonny spat at him, his spittle landing on Spinelli's cheeks and dribbling downwards. His face was a vituperative mask radiating rank animosity and hostility towards the trapped young man.

Now Jason was scared, he was beyond terrified on Spinelli's behalf. He clearly understood Sonny's abilities, his power, and most of all his ruthlessness. He knew what he was capable of and Jason knew that he couldn't stop him, he couldn't protect Spinelli from him. If, through some miracle they survived this debacle, Jason was going to rake Spinelli over the coals for not leaving, for not saving himself.

Jason could feel the upwelling of panic from deep inside himself. It was threatening to overtake him, to block his reactions, his thoughts until he would be entirely incapable of acting, of somehow managing to save Spinelli. "Think!" He ordered himself fiercely. "Think, god damnit!" There must be some way, some solution, something that could take Sonny down.

He realized trying to reengage Sonny in hand to hand combat would be futile. He simply didn't have the physical resources to take him on, to even stand up to him long enough to provide a window of opportunity for Spinelli to escape. Besides, he recognized that his foolish brother wouldn't leave anyway. He would choose to stay at Jason's side. This would only end tonight with them together-dead or alive-but together.

"God damned fucking little loyal idiot!" he muttered to himself in combined disgust and pride. Didn't he know how precious he was to Jason? He would give anything, sacrifice everything to ensure his survival. Yet, at this precise moment he didn't have anything to offer, Sonny appeared to hold all the cards.

"Movies, movies," the thought flashed through Jason's fevered mind. He knew there were lots of films about vampires. He had come home often enough to see Spinelli watching one from the couch. He would have worked himself up into a lather of pleasurable terror so that he invariably jumped and sprayed his popcorn all over the sofa when Jason startled him with his unexpected entrance. Sometimes Jason had even reluctantly agreed to watch the rest of the film with his roommate knowing that all Spinelli ever sought was a small amount of Jason's time, his attention.

Now was the appropriate moment for some information from one of those movies to come to the forefront of his brain, to give him some practical information about how to deal with, even neutralize Sonny. He would simply have to hope that a cinematic solution would have just as much effectiveness in the real world. The 'real world', Jason still hadn't made peace with the concept of actual vampires never mind that his former mentor was one.

"Silver," he murmured, "something about silver…silver bullets." He sighed in aggravation. Where the hell would he find any silver, actual silver, in Kelly's never mind bullets made from the stuff? "Wait, not silver, that's." and he couldn't believe the next words out of his lips, "….that's for werewolves. Vampires-holy water. Yeah, they didn't like holy water." Crap, this was Kelly's not a church.

He looked over at Sonny. He was tormenting Spinelli, lunging at him, playing with him like a very vicious cat with a very timid mouse. Jason endorsed his plan all the way, the longer he held off, the more time he had to come up with a strategy, a solution. He would take a traumatized, alive Spinelli any day over a dead-albeit quickly dispatched-Spinelli.

"Garlic," finally a substance that was within his reach, which he could be assured of finding in the kitchen. Jason's purpose was renewed. Now he had a task he could accomplish, something that might actually save Spinelli and him as well.

He strode towards the counter, he wanted to try and reach the kitchen without alerting Sonny's suspicions. As he walked by Sonny and Spinelli, he caught Spinelli's agonized glance out of the corner of his eye. It pierced his heart as he saw amazement slowly displace his fear as he realized that his mentor, his brother, his father was just walking by, not even breaking stride or casting a glance towards his hapless, helpless brother held in thrall by the monster in front of him. Jason knew he would never be able to wipe that naked expression of betrayal, of ultimate loss from his memory.

Sonny saw Jason go by as well but he didn't care. This time he was going to finish Spinelli and he was going to feed not just on the rich red fluid inside his body but the terror and dread that he could feel thrumming under his sensitive fingertips as he once again grasped the young man around his neck and forced him to look at him.

"Looks like Jason has given you up as a lost cause."

He looked deep into his green eyes but was only rewarded by a glazed expression, a sudden apathy that Sonny instinctively knew he couldn't dent, couldn't infiltrate in order to get that delicious odor of primitive, atavistic fear floating back up to his nostrils. He shook him viciously, trying to reactivate his sense of self preservation but it seemed that once again Jason had beaten him. He had by his simple act of ignoring Spinelli exerted more influence over the putrid, waste of space punk then Sonny in all his elevated malevolence could hope to match.

Jason stepped into the kitchen intent on finding garlic when his attention was captured by a mop standing patiently in a bucket of water. "Jesus Christ!" He couldn't believe what an idiot he had been. He ran over to the mop, ripping it out of the bucket and cracked the handle over his knee in one smooth motion. He took the smaller upper jagged piece and ran back out into the diner.

Sonny had had enough, he was ready. If the kid wasn't going to play any games with him-well, then he could provide dinner, a meal to build up his strength so he could once again go after Jason and complete his primary objective of the evening. Nothing had gone according to plan tonight and he was not going to let this practically catatonic nerd be one more item on the list that didn't get done. Spinelli didn't resist, was really beyond noticing as Sonny's teeth grazed against his neck. The next touch he felt would be the pain of the fangs puncturing his flesh and then his only desire was for the sweet unknowingness of oblivion.

"Rot in hell, you fucking bastard!"

Jason was behind Sonny, who had entirely forgotten his presence, consumed as he was by his imminent feeding. Jason drove the rough, sharp piece of wood into Sonny's lower back. He thrust upwards miraculously hitting the creature's dead heart on his first attempt. Sonny gave out a screech of surprise and anguish that was cut short as his corporeal form disintegrated in front of Jason's unbelieving gaze. A fine mist of dust floated through the air settling on Jason and Spinelli. The crude stake, having completed its task honorably, clattered to the floor since there was no body to hold it in its embrace.

It had all happened so quickly that Spinelli was still poised to expect the feel of Sonny's teeth invading his neck and searching out his carotid artery. The unexpected sound of the humble mop handle falling caused him to open his eyes and he found himself staring into Jason's concerned gaze.

"Wh…where…?" He stammered out as he looked around for Sonny. Then the more important realization struck him. "Stone Cold, you're here. You didn't leave. You didn't abandon the Jackal to his fate." Pent up tears of relief and renewed hope trickled down his cheeks.

Jason leaned in and placed his forehead against Spinelli's, he looked deep into his brother's eyes, his own glistening in response. "I'm sorry, Spinelli. I know you thought I didn't care, that I was just leaving, saving myself but I had to make Sonny think that was what I was doing. I was looking for something to stop him so I could save you. Can you forgive me?" He waited impatiently for Spinelli's response knowing that he had every right to be angry with him, to not trust him again.

"The Jackal has nothing to forgive his Master for. Indeed, the reverse is the case. I humbly request your absolution for my lack of faith, for so easily believing that you would ever choose the coward's path over doing that which is right."

Jason sighed and reaching out grasped Spinelli's head gently in his hands as he shook it from side to side. "I guess that tonight just proves that we have had and always will have each other's backs no matter what-even against…vampires."

He said the last word with the final remnants of disbelief still evident in his tone as he brushed at the repulsive dust coating his jacket and then did the same to Spinelli's sweater. He didn't want any vestige of that monster touching him or his brother.

Spinelli slowly slid down the wall to the floor, the adrenalin had worn off and he was done in. Jason joined him, they sat next to one another as they regrouped mentally and physically.

Spinelli wanted nothing more than to go find his bed and sleep uninterruptedly for the next week. Yet, he knew their night's work was far from over. Now that Jason understood the peril facing them and Port Charles it was time to start the arduous process of salvaging what could be saved and destroying without mercy that which was already lost.

Stone Cold," he spoke hesitantly, reluctant to rouse his mentor from his well earned respite.

"Yeah?" came the tired response. Jason's eyes were closed but he hadn't been sleeping, instead he had been trying to come to terms with the events of the last hour. His world and everything in it had shifted immensely within that short space of time. He knew nothing would ever be the same again.

"The Jackal ventures to point out the obvious to his Master, he begs pardon if Stone Cold has already contemplated what he is about to…"

"Just spit it out, Spinelli." Jason said wearily. "After tonight, you can point out anything to me, no matter how obvious you might think it is. You were right about the vampire thing and I learned my lesson. From now on out, I listen to what you have to say no matter how out there it might seem." It was the closest to an apology for doubting his friend he was likely to get.

"Well," Spinelli swallowed nervously, he wasn't sure he was ready to wear the newly bestowed cloak of total faith in his views and opinions that Jason was holding out for him to put on. "It's just that now that Stone Cold has thoroughly absorbed the fact that there are indeed denizens of the dark roaming Port Charles it is time for the next stage in our approach."

"Our approach, what approach, Spinelli? I agree there are vampires in Port Charles but what else are you talking about?"

Jason was bone weary and he was wondering how he was supposed to get Spinelli back to the penthouse. He knew that he must be even more exhausted than Jason and all the manhandling Sonny had subjected him to couldn't have been good for his recovering body. He was even contemplating spending the rest of the evening in the diner where there was light and warmth and they could barricade themselves from any further intruders. "Vampires-call a spade a spade," he admonished himself sternly. Tomorrow, in his view, would have to take care of itself. He had his hands plenty full right here, right now.

"Stone Cold," there was almost a whine to Spinelli's voice as he tried to get Jason to see what was so transparent to himself. "This nightmare that has descended on Port Charles, this ineffable iniquity that has the city in its grip is not going to vanish. It will only get worse unless someone," here he paused to look significantly at Jason who shifted uncomfortably under his fixed gaze. "Unless someone takes action to stop the inevitable process of total annihilation, steps forward to shield and protect the remaining innocents."

"Innocents," Jason groaned, this was simply too much. Spinelli's belief in his heroic tendencies, his ability to fix any situation no matter how draconian in nature had gone too far. He couldn't, he wouldn't be the savior of Port Charles against a group of creatures that he could barely believe existed never mind that he fervently hoped he would never meet another one as long as he lived.

Spinelli accurately interpreted every expression flitting across Jason's face. He saw his reluctance to get involved, to once again carry the burden, the responsibility of innocent lives upon his battle weary shoulders. Still, Spinelli knew he had no choice but to persevere. Jason and his loyal grasshopper were all that stood between Port Charles and the ever spreading cloud of darkness that threatened to engulf it. Besides, he knew there were aspects of the situation that were entirely more pragmatic, more personal for both Jason and himself.

Sighing, Spinelli was forced to bring up what he had hoped that Jason would see, would recognize for himself. Still, it seemed he had no choice. "Jason, Mr. Corinthos Sir," he retreated into the safety of the nickname as though he could hide behind it, as though it could make his unpleasant chore more palatable. "He was turned, he was a vampire."

"I know that Spinelli, okay? I get it, vampires are real. You don't have to convince me anymore. You were right and I was wrong." Jason was growing irritable as he sensed the conversation was taking a direction he wasn't going to like, perhaps even be able to tolerate.

"No, Stone Cold, that isn't it." Spinelli pitied him even as he envied him his extra few moments of denial. "If Sonny is a vampire, if he tried to turn Mike, turn you… Well, that means," he paused one last time before forcing himself to say the words that would alter everything in their world forever. "It means that this situation isn't academic for you or for me. We live here, we have friends, you have…have family." He forced himself to look directly into Jason's eyes as understanding followed immediately by horror flooded through them. "It means that we must find out who has been changed and who hasn't. We will have to protect those as yet unharmed and destroy those-no matter who they may be-that have been converted." He gestured at the dust on the floor to emphasize his point and then fell into a miserable silence as he let everything he had just said percolate fully into Jason's brain, his discernment.

A soft "Oh, my god!' drifted across the silent room as despair settled quietly on the shoulders of the two lost men.