Chapter Two
In which things heat up... literally.

thanks to: The wonderful beta Bee!
dedication: For cybermathwitch, as a gift for a bad week, and because Clint seems to cooperate for her sake.

ii.

Three nights. Three nights of watching, waiting, one eye pressed to a night scope and a finger around a trigger. Three nights that Talia had fed fromher victim for long minutes, an illuminated watch on Clint's right wrist and a talisman on his left. Three nights that she hadn't drained Sheppard, lost control, or walked out into the sun. Three nights, and he was still no closer to answers.

Not ones he accepted, at least.

Restraints engraved with runes bumped against his leg, steel and silver and powerless while he climbed through the forest. Imbuing objects with magic was suicidal and next to impossible, regardless of what the charlatans said, but imbuing them with powerwas another story entirely. The brace-like cuffs would keep her dormant, keep her body a corpse when he hauled her out of the house and to his car, to the motel. If for whatever godsforsaken reason she managed to wake up in transport back to the Oregon base, they would be of no more use than regular handcuffs.

He just had to get them on her while she was dead to the world. Literally.

In front of him, barely visible through the trees surrounding the mansion, the edges of the sky began to lighten. The people in the house would be an hour or so away from waking, the vampire already lying in whatever lair she had chosen to be hidden from the sun and discovery. Not from him, though. Not this morning.

Clint paused just before the forest gave way to the house's manicured lawn, considering the distance. A knife, gun, talisman, and restraints; that was all he had to go up against an inconceivable vampire. Rick would have added luck to the list, but Barton didn't believe that luck had anything to do with it. Not good luck, anyway. He'd left a note in the Skylark's glove compartment, meant for Coulson. If things went wrong tonight, Phil would look for a trail.

He intended to leave one.

Here goes nothing.

Reassured by the weight of wooden band around his wrist and the weapons in their holsters, the Slayer moved out into the open and towards the house.

For a rich man, Sheppard had a shitty alarm system. Clint rigged it easily, rerouting the wires in the casing with a flashlight clamped between his teeth. Most people underestimated how much of his job involved mundane matters like this; they thought it was all hacking and slashing and monsters. He'd give them the monsters, at least.

Got it.

Satisfied that it wouldn't go off and alert anyone to the break-in, he took the flashlight out of his mouth and swept the beam over the hardwood floor, the walls decorated with art and antlers. If the floor plan made any sense, the basement door would be…

Here.

Clint opened the door quietly, easing down the stairs into the cooler air. Couches, chairs, a wide-screen TV; over in the corner, a wooden rocking horse that had to be the daughter's. He glanced into the open doorways he passed, looking for what he needed. A small area, closed off, where she could hibernate without being found…

Right under their noses. How does she get away with that?

Vamps lived near human populations; they had to. From sheds to abandoned properties, and even houses if they made it to a year, got to be old and had control – but with people? And without killing them? He'd never heard of one.

Like that was any excuse, though; he hadn't heard of one that could walk in the sun, either.

What are you?

Clearing the open section and its rooms, Clint headed down the short hallway that led to what had to be guest bedrooms. She wasn't anywhere else, and unless she was bold enough to hide on the first or second floor...

And that would be my luck, wouldn't it.

He turned the corner.

Talia stared back at him, surprise in her gray eyes as she halted in the doorway of a bedroom.

For a moment they looked at each other, clearly taken aback. There was nothing of the supernatural about her, no sign of the thing she was. She could have been the woman he had flirted with in a diner on a slow Thursday.

Then her lips thinned, revealing the fangs that were the mark of her kind, and she launched herself at him.

The fight in the light from his dropped flashlight was brutal, brief, and nearly even. She moved fast, almost faster than he could, and she was fighting to kill. The talisman on his wrist deflected any compulsions, though, and he had no qualms about inflicting a serious injury to get her off and away from him. Too close for the Sig, too quick for it; he needed one hand to wield the Attuni knife and force her back, the other to catch the blows and kicks she threw mercilessly.

They fought in silence, their grunts and ragged breathing the only sounds giving away their struggle. He took two punishing hits to the ribs before she tried to kick him into the wall, only pulling back before he could grab her leg and use it to pin her down. She lashed out as she withdrew, fingers digging into his wrist and sliding to clamp around the brace holding his talisman. When they broke apart, the curved ends of the brace did too – and the talisman pulled away in her grasp. Clint cursed silently and focused on the vampire whirling away from him, none of the humor in her expression that had been there only twelve hours ago.

The real monster had come out to play.

Two can play that game.

Without a talisman, his best bet was to try and see what she would do. Literally. He blinked twice, putting the conscious effort into it that activated his tattoo, and watched as the left half of the world suddenly swam with color. A deep crimson now lay over the undead woman facing him, sparks of oily green flying out of the predominant color. It was darker than he would have guessed, and duller, too. Maybe the weight of the lives she had taken made the difference. If he was right, if he had figured out how she could even exist, she had more blood on her hands than almost any vampire he had ever heard of.

Giving Dracula a run for his money, Talia?

She finished turning and centered herself, balancing on the balls of her feet. He mirrored the movement, resigning himself to pinning her down with the knife and hoping she didn't lose enough blood to die before he had her in the restraints. He wasn't going to kill her, not yet, not when he had so many questions.

There was always time for that later.

Something glinted in the darkness, a wave of that weirdly fluorescent green. It appeared out of thin air and cascaded over Talia's aura, sliding off in glittering sheets that flaked and vanished.

What the fuck?

The hiss was so soft, he almost missed it. They froze at the same time, caught in a tableau of waiting, of trying to understand what was going on.

I'm not the one doing anything, sweetheart –

Between one breath and the next, the hallway around them burst into flames.

Reacting on instinct, he turned off his sight before the magic could burn it out. It had to be magic. Hell, two seconds and the fire's warmth was already reaching out to stroke him like a friendly lover, caressing his face and stretching down his throat to burn his lungs. The hiss was growing louder, almost a dull roar now, and in the room Talia had left the flames were coalescing, forming a massive head.

Oh, shit.

He and Talia stayed where they were for a heartbeat, caught in the light and heat and shock of the inferno now surrounding them. Then she flashed past him as if he was no longer a danger, vanishing down the burning hallway. She was right; right now, a Slayer was far less of a threat than a Salamander.

The huge jaws gaped open as it stirred, tongue flicking out for scents. Clint took an involuntary breath, regretting it as soon as he did, and shoved the knife into its sheath. No knife, made by the Attuni or otherwise, was doing to do any good now.

The heat from the Salamander's breath followed him through the basement, dropping away when he emerged from the stairs onto a ground floor already engulfed in flames.

You've got to be kidding me.

An Elemental powerful enough to burn two floors at once would easily eat the top floor as well. There were bedrooms up there, and people up who would be trapped inside, would burn alive. For a little while, at least.

The walls next to him groaned, another blast of heat washing over him as the Salamander wormed its way upwards. Clint pulled the edge of his jacket over his face, trying to keep the scorching air out of his lungs, and plunged up the wide staircase to the second floor.

There was no ash drifting through the air, no smoke to turn the hallways into a maze; with Salamanders, there never were. He could hear the gleeful crackling of its massive body as it twined through the rooms he ran past, could see the dancing flames that rolled across the floor ahead of him. No, there wouldn't be smoke or ash or rubble until it had finished its meal – but wood and drywall weren't the only things the Elemental ate.

He kicked down the first door he came to, pushing in just in time to see the lizard swallow the sleeping woman inside as it passed by. She came awake screaming, thrashing in the covers as fire spread over her until she was covered… and still she continued to scream, the sound shrill and agonized and not coming from the corpse left behind in the burning bed.

In the room next to hers, someone else began shrieking.

"God damn it!"

Barton turned away and ran, knowing there was nothing he could do and hating it. Who had summoned the fire lizard? How could it be this massive?

Who had murdered these people?

Barely able to keep his eyes open, he didn't see the other survivor before he crashed into them. Only the fact that he grabbed her kept her from being knocked into the reaching flames. In the eerie light of the Salamander's body, Talia recovered her balance and twisted out of his grasp, something cradled in her arms.

No, not something. Someone.

Over the chorus of screams, the house groaned.

"Watch out!" The Slayer seized her shoulder and pulled her forward as the Elemental's head emerged from the nearby room, turning lazily towards them. Backtracking wasn't an option; to the left, the stairs were crumbling away. The only way left was forward.

This time the vampire didn't shrug off his hand as they pushed through the banked inferno, every step another chance for the floor to give way underneath them. Fifteen yards; ten yards; five yards with the tongue of flame licking their backs. Then they were through the window, out into the blessedly cool air, and the ground rose up to meet them.