A/N: For stylistic purposes, the dream Kerry awakes from in the beginning of this chapter is recounted at the end of the chapter. I did this because 1. I'm evil and thought it made a good end-of-chapter, and 2. That's it.

Dreams

Chapter 5

Kerry awoke to Luke climbing into bed with her, sharing his warm body heat by curling his arm possessively around her waist and falling asleep within moments, his breath soft against her neck. She had been asleep for a total of three hours, she realized as she glanced at the clock, and she had a chance for one or two more before she had to be at work. I hate you, Michel, she thought, turning over and snuggling against the warm form of her sleeping boyfriend. She felt protected and safe in his embrace, and as she curled in his arms, she could feel the heat radiating off his body instead of the cool sheets she had fallen asleep to. Her stomach felt vaguely sick, a reminder that she had dreamed about him again, probably due to their close proximity the night before. She was almost used to it these days, even as far as having good days, sometimes even weeks, where she didn't even see him as she slept.

But that memory, that dream, had been particularly brutal, especially after their serious conversation the night before. She had wanted to shove his face in the fact that if she was unhappy, if he thought she should be doing bigger and better things with her life, it was his fault that she wasn't. He had been the one to marginalize her and strip her of her dreams. He had killed something inside her and it had taken her years to get it back.

There was no way Kerry was about to give him the satisfaction of knowing what effect his actions had had on her. There was no way she was going to show him how weak she had been four years ago, or how important he was to her despite all his warnings for her not to love him.

Finally realizing she would be unable to go back to sleep, Kerry crawled out of bed. She felt exhausted and overheated as though she had a fever, and she stumbled into the bathroom for a drink of water. Today, she would have to finish her article on the annual apple pie festival, carefully finding a way to praise each contestant – even Mrs. Evans, who had made crust with baking soda instead of powder and had topped it off with cheese. She would also have to do some leg-work for Michel during the day, but she didn't think she'd find anything as they had been coordinating their efforts at finding the vampire leaving a trail of dead bodies in its wake for days, with barely any result.

Kerry wasn't sure what more she could do. There wasn't much left besides standing on a street corner for hours in the middle of the night as bait with Michel hiding under a bush to apprehend whoever attacked her as easy prey. It didn't actually sound like that bad of an idea, she mused, staring at her red eyes in the mirror. Maybe she'd suggest it to him if she didn't find any new information out today.

And then Luke could come along and arrest her for solicitation.

Kerry padded into her living room and sat on the couch, staring out at the street and reflecting on the pre-twilight calm. Michel was probably still awake, she reflected, she could run the bait idea by him. She put her head down on the side of the couch, finally feeling her body temperature start to cool down as she debated the merits of calling him. Instead, she awoke four hours later to the sun shining over her eyes and her cell phone ringing. "Hello?" she asked, voice husky from sleep.

"You're fifteen minutes late for work," Nelle hissed. "The gossip and horoscope columnist – whatshername – just came over and asked if you'd been in yet. I told her you planned to talk to one of the pie ladies this morning before finishing your article."

"I'll be there," Kerry croaked.

"Are you ok?" Nelle asked. "You sound sick. Are you coming down with something?"

"No. I just woke up. I couldn't get to sleep last night without Luke, and then when he came home he woke me up." Kerry rubbed her eyes, wondering why she was on the couch. She knew that her words to Nelle had been a lie, since she had not only been out with Michel until three in the morning, but she had also slept for about an hour before that, but she felt like they should be true. Was it odd that she had been unable to fall back to sleep with Luke next to her?

"That's so sweet," Nelle crowed. "I can't wait to be in love."

"I'll be in as soon as I can. Just keep covering for me." Kerry was already on her way into the bathroom. There was no way she was going anywhere without a shower, especially with the night she had. She probably still smelled like the morgue and possibly even sweat from the hot-flash she had taken.

"I will," Nelle promised. "I still owe you from the time you ran interference when I was hung-over."

"Yeah, you do. See you in a bit." Kerry closed her phone, feeling like an idiot for sleeping in. It took her twenty minutes, including driving time, to reach the newspaper office, and she managed to slip into her seat without anyone making any sleeping-in jokes. Nelle gave her a crazy wink as Kerry booted up her computer and set to work reorganizing her desk. She quickly pulled up her notes on the pie festival, and managed to finish the article within fifteen minutes.

"Here," Nelle said, placing a mug of coffee from the place next door by Kerry's elbow. "I figured you didn't have time to grab any on your mad dash out the door."

"Bless you," Kerry breathed. "You're the best friend a girl could ever have."

"I know," Nelle said smugly. "I forwarded the picture I selected for the pie article to your email. I thought you'd like to see it before submitting your final draft."

"Thanks," Kerry responded, pulling up her staff email account.

"If there's anything you want to talk about," Nelle offered, suggesting she thought there was something Kerry was keeping from her.

"Not right now," Kerry said, taking another sip of coffee. "But I'll tell you all about it when I can."

"Gotcha," Nelle said, moving away towards her own desk. Kerry didn't think she did. Nelle probably thought Kerry was working on a news story she didn't want to mention yet out of some superstitious belief that silence was golden until the big revealing, but instead the problem was far too personal. How did Kerry tell Nelle that Michel was back when Nelle hadn't really been around four years ago? How did she put it into words?

You know Ethan Bryne? The guy whose bones were just drudged out of the river? Well, he's not dead, or well he is dead but he's not really dead. You know what I mean? Anyway, he and I had a tumultuous affair four years ago when I was in college where we jumped each other's bones. A lot. He left. Now he's back. Are there any doughnuts?

Yeah, that wouldn't go over too well. Not that it mattered, because Nelle was already wandering back to her computer and Kerry would never even think to let her friend in on the secret. She had kept Ethan Bryne to herself for eight years. It wasn't even that difficult anymore because a part of her wanted him all to herself and telling would be sharing.

It wasn't Nelle's email which caught her eye but the one which had been sent just after six that morning. The name on the email address was unfamiliar, but she knew who it was from and without realizing it she smiled before opening it.

Kerry,

I've included a list of suspects in the immediate area. Don't get too excited over the secrets I'm sharing. These people have relatively no ties to me, so if you hound them be aware that they probably won't hesitate to off you in a painful and complicated manner. Have you been involved in any drug-related crimes recently? They probably also won't tell you my age, even if you ask nicely. You should probably wait for me before paying them any visits. They won't be awake until a time when I'm available anyway, so you won't miss anything waiting for me to wake up. See how easily this became a duel investigation?

M

PS: I've added pseudonyms and last known locations for your researching pleasure.

Kerry shook her head as she viewed the list of vampires in the north-west area of New York state, including those listed in Rochester. After the incident with Ethan Bryne eight years ago, she had been under the impression that the vampires were staying away from the area, but Michel's directory listed a good two dozen vampires as well as the other information he promised her. It boggled her mind to think what she could do with information like that. She could write one hell of an article, backed up by hard facts, that was sure to make headlines, be picked up by the New York Times and other forerunners of American journalism. He was right; she did want the recognition of being one of the top journalistic minds in the country.

It would be so easy to pretend she was doing the research to catch the rogue vampire in order to lend legitimacy to her actions. Instead, she' be writing an amazing article behind Michel's back. One that people would talk about for years to come – the article that outed vampires as walking among humans. She'd take everything Michel ever told her and turn it into a three part expose.

The level of trust he was putting in her amazed her a little bit. Did he not see what she could possibly do with it? She had assured him she wasn't after recognition, but what he had said the night before was also true. Kerry wasn't sure when she had forgotten about her dreams of receiving writing awards, having a busy news desk in the Times or Globe and Mail and competing for above the fold stories, and exchanged them all for getting full-time work at the Brockport Tribune and marrying her white-bread boyfriend. She wanted her life back, and oddly enough it would be Michel who gave it to her. It would be his downfall.

At the same time it was difficult to betray Michel like that. She might not love him anymore, but part of her was loyal to what had been between them.

He trusted her, and he very rarely trusted anyone.

She could never betray him. She couldn't even entertain the fantasy of doing so without feeling an extreme sense of guilt, as though she were betraying herself.

Kerry was in the process of immediately sending him a response, slightly teasing him about how drug related crimes were his modus operandi, when she realized that he wouldn't get it until after she had finished her research for the day. It would be far smarter of her to just reply with one update than several, far more utile, and he hardly needed hourly updates. She couldn't help but wonder whether he would enjoy reading little casual notes from her, even if he wasn't around to receive them right away. She did occasionally send emails like that to Luke, especially when he was working during the day, and –.

But Luke was her boyfriend, and she didn't care for Michel on the same level.

"Nowicki!"

Kerry jumped as her boss exclaimed her name from next to her elbow. Her first reaction told her to minimize the window with Michel's half written response, but logically she knew that Gallant had probably already read it over his shoulder while she was woolgathering. "Yes, sir?" she answered as respectfully as possible, swinging her chair to the side in order to meet his gaze.

"Writing personal letters on company time?" he wanted to know. "You know how I feel about that."

"Not a personal letter," she corrected him. "Just a note back to a friend who just hooked me up with some privileged, incredibly difficult to obtain info." As luck would have it, she had even started the thing off with 'thanks for the info' so it wasn't as though she was lying. "And then I came up with a fantastic approach to the article, and started to think that through instead." As far as explanations went, it was pretty decent, but Kerry wondered at the reason why she felt it was necessary to say all that. Obviously, she had a guilty conscious at being caught both writing a personal letter and thinking about boys.

"What article?" Gallant asked, hovering with renewed interest and not just to make her feel uncomfortable.

Great, Kerry reflected, he had latched on to the one thing she was lying about. She couldn't just say it was for the pie piece, as she had already sent it off to be edited. "Something new I'm working on in my spare time. I'm not sure it'll pan out."

"Don't give me that line. We both know its complete bullshit. That's what you say when you don't really have a story—"

"Or when you're in the process of breaking a few laws to get the proper information. If you must know," Kerry lowered her voice to a whisper. "I think that mysterious animal attack last week was really murder and that it'll happen again shortly."

Gallant's eyebrows winged up. "Murder," he mused. "Seems impossible in Brockport, but I admire your ambition."

Ambition. There was that word again. Kerry reasoned that now that she was thinking of her own ambitions, the topic just seemed to stick out whenever it was mentioned. She smiled vaguely at Gallant, despite the fact he was discouraging the idea that there was actually a story involved. He thought she was seeing things where there was nothing to be seen.

"Mrs. Morton on Pine street. Her cat got caught up in the tree again, and it took almost the entire fire department and a pair of scissors to get the thing down. Write something amusing, but that won't have the old broad and her eleven cats traipsing into my office to complain."

"Yessir," Kerry muttered.

"You can work on your other story once you're done," Gallant offered, walking away from her desk ruefully shaking his head and muttering 'murder' under his breath. Kerry knew that once a third body was found, she'd have to have a piece ready to be printed, outlining the case and why it was murder. She was sure it would be a balancing act, trying not to compromise the investigation by reporting information Dr. Roberts had told her in confidence and never even hinting at the idea of vampires. Without those two factors, she basically had nothing.

Kerry sighed, exiting the window of the unsent message to Michel. It seemed like her work was piling up to epic proportions. Before Ethan Bryne had been pulled out of the canal, she had gotten by with writing an article or two a day, doing minimum research, and playing a billion games of solitaire and freecell on her computer. She had been coasting through her career, intent on getting a comfortable full-time position at the Tribune, and content with being told what her next assignment was.

She had also been bored out of her mind.

x.x.x

Kerry was at the scene before most of the officials arrived, including the medical examiner. This time, the body wasn't in a secluded area of a jogging trail, but in the living room of the victim's own house. His neck had been brutally ripped open, sharp furrows from claws or nails marring the pale skin of his cheek. A few feet away from his oddly bent head rested the hunk of flesh torn from the front of the throat, a splatter a blood oozing from the jagged remains of the jugular. She avoided looking directly at the wound, knowing it would expose far more insides than she was comfortable seeing. Kerry could see the clouded brown eyes, widened in both pain and shock gaping at her, and she swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. It had been a while since she had seen a body still lying in the place where a living being had died, and as indifferent as she felt seeing someone set up in the morgue, this scene brought Marsala back to mind. At the same time, it was far, far worse. With Marsala there hadn't been nearly as much blood and the horror of the situation had been deeply negated by the fact that his death had been in self defence. This new victim of the vampire attacks was innocent. As far as she knew.

Kerry couldn't help but feel that his death was her fault too. She wasn't moving quickly enough to find this rogue vampire.

"Don't any of you people watch CSI?" Dr. Roberts bellowed upon reaching the scene and finding her standing within the perimeter. He was addressing the young officers who were with her, supposedly guarding the body. Both had been sick in the bushes since she arrived. "Do you think Gil Grissom would have been happy to find a reporter in his crime scene?"

One of the poor lackeys shook his head. The other looked like he was about to bolt back to the bushes.

"I watch TV, doctor." Kerry said. "I knew to stay back and not touch the body. I also know that one of the first things I would do is bag his hands. It looks like he might have put up a fight and have DNA under his fingernails."

Dr. Roberts gave her a stern look. "Don't you have any weddings to cover? Or maybe interview one of those mothers who are trying to ban the Harry Potter books from the school library."

Kerry snorted. "Murder sells."

The medical examiner looked sadly down at the body. "It doesn't look like this one can be mistaken for an animal attack, does it?"

"No," she said quietly. "I know you have to get to work. I'll stop by later for an official statement before the story goes to the printers tonight."

"I don't appreciate this, Kerry," he said coldly, crouching over the body and examining the hands. "I spoke to you in confidence, not so you could make headlines."

"If I was trying to make headlines I would have ran the story back when it was still news. In a town like Brockport, everybody and their dog will be gossiping about murder by suppertime, and by breakfast tomorrow it'll be old news." She turned to leave, acutely feeling the injustice of being mistrusted simply because of her profession, especially in a situation where she was putting her job second and her friends first.

"Let's hope so," Dr. Roberts murmured as she left.

Out in the light, Kerry shielded her eyes against the sun, rummaging through her large bag in order to locate her sunglasses. The weather seemed to be inexplicably sunny these past few days, or maybe she was only noticing the sun when her mind was on the blackness of night. She slipped the RayBans on her eyes, grabbing her phone and dialling the pianist.

Hi, Michel's voicemail said in a tinny sounding recording of his voice, I'm sorry I can't answer the phone right now. Leave a message and then wait by the phone until I call you back.

"There's been another one," Kerry said with no preamble. "On of those streets with the cutesy name. Hold on a sec." She glanced to the nearest street corner, squinting as she attempted to see what was on the far-off sign. "You'd probably be able to see this thing no problem," she muttered. "I think it's at 35 Lark's Song Avenue. It's a pretty gruesome scene. No one is going to take this as a random animal attack."

She hung up the phone and got in her car, heading back towards the newsroom. She had a half-written article to finish and forward to Gallant, and even more research to get through. Half way to the office, she remembered that she should also call Luke and let him know that she probably wouldn't be back before he left for work. As she reached for her phone, her head was finally cleared of the cloying, bitter feeling that had stayed with her all day from waking up with the remembrance of Michel and that night in her dream.

But, she never truly escaped, because it wasn't really a dream at all.

x.x.x

I sighed, turning to cuddle against his side with my head pillowed against his cool shoulder. We were both sticky with sweat, and I could audibly hear each intake of breath and each rhythmic beat of both our hearts. They would never beat in tandem, so long as I was still human and he was a vampire. Lately, I had been wanting to hear a sense of synchronization when I was with him like this. His fingers were pressed against the pulse in my neck, and I felt like kissing him but I didn't think I could move my head. "I want to come with you," I told him breathlessly.

"You've come with me a few times tonight already," he teased, caressing my shoulder.

"You know what I mean." I was not allowing him to deflect the conversation this time. My inner voice, the one which ensured my self-preservation, screamed at me to stop. "I've been offered jobs practically everywhere in the states. It would be so easy."

"You want to watch as I fool around with other women?" he asked sharply. "Because that's what will happen. I'll need to feed, and you'll get hurt."

I lifted my head to scrape my teeth along the pulse point on his neck, waiting for him to react. His hand clenched around my waist, and he exhaled sharply as I pressed my tongue against the pulsing flesh. "Change me," I offered, a tantalizing seduction.

He pushed me away from him so quickly my head snapped back, leaping out of bed and glaring down at me with his mouth gaping open and his eyes wild with speculation and distrust. I immediately knew it had been the wrong thing to say, wrong time, wrong everything. "Is that what you're after?"

"No," I denied. "You know me. I just want to be with you."

He shook his head, unwittingly copying my denial. He was the Greek god of fury in all his naked wrath. "No," he said, and then repeated it in a firmer voice. "I don't know where you got the idea that this was more than—"

"Michel," I appealed, trying to stop him from saying what surely came next. Noo, that inner voice was wailing. Look what you've done, look what you've done.

"Goodbye, Kerry."

And he just left. He didn't come back.

My heart was broken. My life was turned around. I could never be happy again.