AN: I'm so sorry for anyone who was waiting for this, I actually had it finished weeks ago and completely forgot to update here. Eheh...well, it's here now, and I'll get the fourth one up just as soon as I have it finished.

All too soon, they found themselves back in Worth's back-alley room-that-passed-as-an-office, this time with two new group members. They had taken longer at Toni's than expected, so by the time they left the basement, the sun was beginning to rise. The taller zombie had been forced to hide the vampire in his coat pocket until they were safely out of the sun's harmful rays. He didn't know how long it would take for the sun to kill a vampire (especially while in bat form, which was a whole new set of questions) but the poor thing was so weak that he might die just from being under too bright of a lamp.

Toni had also tagged along. For all her complaints about her vampire stalker, she seemed genuinely worried that something would happen to him. Kind of strange, considering her original intent was to kill him. Then again, the dark-haired zombie suspected that she never wanted to. It was probably why she hired them in the first place; she didn't seem like a person who could ever kill anything without feeling immensely guilty about it afterward, no matter how necessary it might be.

When they reached the office, Worth was absent, the lack of his presence all-too-obvious in the tiny room. Hanna seemed unperturbed by this, reaching into the other zombie's coat to retrieve the vampire with a surprising amount of gentleness.

"He's probably just passed out in the back," he said with a shrug, holding the limp bat against his chest. "It's not like he's got anywhere else to go. Anyway, he should have some blood bags around here somewhere, help me look."
"Is it okay to just barge in here like this?" Toni asked with an appropriate amount of nervousness. She looked like she was afraid to touch anything, though whether it was because of the grime or simply because she didn't like to snoop was a mystery.

"The door was unlocked," Hanna said pointedly, as if that justified their breaking and entering. He flung open a small cooler (really, it was just a beat up mini fridge) and grinned as he found row after row of blood bags, fresh for the taking. "Jackpot."

The older zombie joined him. "Will that work?" he asked.

"Well, it's better than nothing." Hanna jostled the small body in his arms. "Hey, vampire dude, do you prefer O negative or AB positive?"

The bat just whimpered, clutching at Hanna's shirt with one tiny claw. Hanna shot him a sympathetic look and grabbed a bag at random, closing the small door with his foot.

"Is he okay?" Toni appeared at the smaller zombie's shoulder. Her hand crept toward the tiny body, but Hanna pushed it back.

"Careful, he might bite you," he said seriously. "I'm safe because…well…but you're full of blood and he'll suck you dry if he gets the chance."

The taller zombie took that as his cue to gently take the girl's arm and pull her to the far end of the room, just behind Worth's shoddy desk. The vampire was weak now, but after getting some blood, he would be plenty strong enough to go after her if he chose. Best to put as much distance between them as he could.

"Okay, Mr. Vampire, time for a snack," Hanna practically cooed, opening the bag of blood as carefully as he could (still managing to get a good amount on his arm, but he didn't seem to mind) and holding it to the bat's lips. At first, he didn't seem to be moving, and the older zombie wondered if he hadn't just up and died, but soon enough the sound of suckling filled the room as he desperately gulped down the life-giving liquid.

Watching the scene, the other zombie found it to be a disturbing pantomime of a mother feeding her child. Hanna's face was no less gentle as he encouraged the vampire to drink, the small bundle eager to comply as his strength returned bit by bit. He wondered if Hanna would continue to surprise him this much, or if he would eventually grow used to the boy's unpinnable personality. Both outcomes seemed equally possible.

"Can you sit up?" Hanna asked as the vampire finished off the bag with one last desperate suck that crumpled the plastic with a loud crackling noise. The bat made a gesture with his head that might have been a nod as he sat up slowly in Hanna's hand. He still seemed a bit weak, as he stretched out his wings and took a tighter hold of Hanna's shirt.

"More," he croaked in a tiny, pathetic voice. The please seemed to be implied. If he had knees, the other zombie had no doubt he would be on them begging right now.

"Fine," Hanna said with a fake sigh of annoyance. "But this is the last one. Worth will kill me if I use up all his blood." He toed open the fridge again and grabbed a new bag. This time, the vampire was able to feed himself. Still cradled in the crook of Hanna's arm, though, the imagery of him being the boy's child was unshakable.

"Looks like he's okay," Toni noted, eying the scene with a somewhat dubious expression, as if she too wasn't sure how to react. "I bet you guys do stuff like this all the time, though."

The zombie's shoulders creaked as he shrugged them. "I'm sort of…new," he said. "I wouldn't know." He was curious, though, despite himself. The girl hadn't mentioned exactly what it was Hanna did (and neither did Hanna, now that he thought about it) but it apparently involved vampires in some sense. He didn't think he was a hunter, not with the way he was treating this vampire, but it was obvious this was nothing new to him. He would have to ask when they had a quiet moment.

When he looked back, the bat was gone. Instead there was a young man that looked like he was in his mid-twenties leaning heavily on Hanna's shoulder. The blood bag was clutched in his free hand, nearly dry even as he tried to suck the last drops out of it. Hanna helped him sit down on a somewhat sturdy looking crate in the corner and plucked the useless bit of plastic out of his hands when it was obvious he wasn't getting anything more out of it.

Toni took a step forward, glancing back at the taller zombie to see if he would stop her. He gave a little shake of his head. It still wasn't safe.

"Stay here," he ordered, striding across the room to join Hanna as the younger boy was inspecting the vampire.

"Look at this, Hector," he said as the older zombie approached. He lifted the man's top lip, seemingly unphased when he swatted the green hands away with a growl. "Did you see? He's only got one fang."

"I'm not a dog," the vampire slurred, something akin to a pout furrowing his brow.

"Kind of a weird vampire, isn't he?" Hanna said, ignoring the man. "I mean, he's wearing glasses. What kind of vampire wears glasses? Aren't they supposed to have, like…super good eyesight or something like that?"

"I don't really know," the taller zombie said, catching the vampire's furious expression out of the corner of his eye. He pulled Hanna a step back just as the vampire took a swipe at his arm.

"I'm right here!" the man snapped. "Stop talking about me like I'm invisible!"
Hanna blinked once (presumably out of surprise since he didn't need to blink normally) and stared at the vampire as if he were seeing him for the first time. "What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

The vampire's expression was somewhere between surprise and fury, facial muscles twitching as if the emotions were duking it out just under the surface. It would have been funny if there didn't seem to be a very real danger of him ripping Hanna's head off his shoulders and chucking it across the room. Maybe he was still a little too weak for that, though, as he released a heavy sigh (did vampires breathe?) and slumped against the wall once more.

"Conrad Achenleck."

"Nice to meet you, Connie," Hanna said, grabbing the other man's hand and shaking it against the vampire's will, seemingly oblivious to the deep scowl Conrad was trying to burn through his head at the nickname. "I'm Hanna Cross, and this is…" Hanna glanced over his shoulder at the taller zombie. "Well, that's not important right now."

"I'm Toni," the girl piped up from just behind them, peering over Hanna's small shoulder with a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that whole…trapping you in a coffin until you almost starved thing." She flinched when his glare landed on her, taking a step back. The dark-haired zombie stepped in front of her.

"Don't," he warned. Conrad's face was startled when it fell on his, and the zombie couldn't help but wonder if his face was really that scary.

"I wasn't…I mean…come on, you think I can't control myself?" He seemed to shrink a bit under the larger man's gaze. "Wasn't gonna drink her dry or anything…I never planned to. But I've gotta eat too."

A weird vampire, indeed, the taller zombie thought, staring down at the pathetic form before him. His shoulders were hunched around his ears, hands disappearing somewhere between his knees, gaze fixated on the hard concrete ground. Hanna had mentioned before that vampires were supposed to be bloodsucking monsters. If anything, this man looked less like a vampire than he had when he was a bat. The single sharp fang jutting over his lip was the only clue that he was anything more than human.

"I really am sorry," Toni said in a quiet voice. Conrad grunted in response, which she seemed to take as a sign of forgiveness. It was probably the closest thing she would ever get.

After that came a silence that the older zombie could only call awkward. Four pairs of eyes shifted, glancing at the others, as they all wondered who was going to break it. As it turned out, none of them.

"Christ, Hanna, can't a guy sleep fer five minutes without having ta deal with yer bullshit?" Worth grumbled, appearing from somewhere in the deep recesses of the building. His fur coat was gone, replaced with a ratty grey t-shirt and plaid boxer shorts that looked long past the throwing-out stage.

"Oh, Worth. Uh…morning?" Hanna grinned, seeming happy for the distraction. "You really shouldn't leave your door open if you don't want people barging in. I could have killed you in your sleep, you know."

Worth grumbled something that might have been "Fuck you, kid," and scrubbed a hand over his dirty face with a yawn. "The hell are all these people doin' here anyway? Someone forget ta invite me ta the party?"
"What? No, that's stupid, Worth."

The dark-haired zombie glanced around at their companions and decided that it probably wouldn't be a very fun party anyway.

Worth's eyes wandered over them as he pulled out a cigarette (he didn't really want to know where it had come from) and lit it with a lighter sitting out on the shelf to his right. "So who's the broad, then?" His eyes lingered a little on Conrad and a smirk split his features. "And the fag."

"What?" Conrad looked as if he wanted to strangle the doctor, but Hanna quickly chimed in.

"This is Toni Ipres. She hired us to kill…well, him. Conrad Achen…uh…doc? Bell?"
"AchenLECK," Conrad corrected with a seething glare.

"So why ain't 'e dead?" Worth asked with a bored puff.

"Well, see…" Hanna's hand found its way to the back of his neck. "We were totally prepared for some badass vampire to pop out that we'd have to have, like, an epic battle for our lives against. But we found him instead and he was just this cute little bat and he was starving to death and I just couldn't kill him. So we brought him here and…."

Hanna flinched as if he expected the other man to yell, but the doctor simply grumbled and rubbed at his temples as if he had a headache. The taller zombie watched as his cigarette dropped bits of ash onto the concrete floor, all but forgotten in Worth's mouth.

"D'ya know how much Monty charges me fer all that blood? Ya better be willin' ta pay me back or I may hafta kill ya all over again."

"Eheh…well, funny thing is…"

"Hanna…"

"I don't really have any money right now!" Hanna's green hands clasped together, acting as a sort of shield for his head, though Worth hadn't moved an inch from the doorway. "So I kinda…can't…really…pay you. But I can do, uh…something else?"

Worth grimaced. "That don't really help me, yer so goddamn useless." He spat out the unfinished cigarette in his mouth, stamping it out with his bare foot as his dark eyes roamed over the misfit party. He barely glanced at the dark-haired zombie, as if he were nothing of consequence to whatever plan he seemed to be cooking up. Toni his eyes lingered on, until she uncomfortably crossed her arms over her chest and shot him a half-hearted glare. When his gaze fell on Conrad, his smirk reappeared, splitting his dirty and unshaven face in two.

"Tell ya what," he said, lighting up another cigarette from the recesses of "don't want to know" land. "Count Fagula over there's the one who drank it, so I says he's gotta work off the debt. 'E stays with me, then we're square."

"There is no way-!"

"Done!" Hanna agreed, ignoring Conrad's spluttering protests. "Heh…sorry, Connie, but he's really not so bad once you get to know him and anyway, you'll have a place to come back to when it's daytime. Plus…I mean, you did kinda drink two whole bags of blood, which don't get me wrong, I totally understand, but still. It's only fair."

Conrad glanced at the door mere feet away, as if wondering how long it would take to push past them and escape. But then he seemed to remember the sun was out and slumped back on the wall, his face a mask of fury as he stared daggers into the back of Hanna's head. The smaller zombie seemed not to notice as he said goodnight to Worth (really good morning, but it seemed Worth kept odd hours) and led his companions out the door into the morning air.

"Well, that was…interesting," Toni said, glancing back at the door with an uncomfortable expression. The older zombie was honestly impressed that she had taken the whole situation so well. Anyone else would have run screaming into the night, though he suspected it was her already existing knowledge of vampires that kept her from freaking out too badly.

He thought now that they were in broad daylight, where everyone could see them for what they were, Toni might have gotten away as quickly as possible and never returned. But she seemed to have no intention of leaving, chatting amiably with Hanna while they walked her home. He could tell she was a pretty open-minded person, someone who rolled with the punches and didn't dwell on things that were, quite literally, only skin deep. He suspected this wouldn't be the last time they saw her.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Toni exclaimed as they reached her apartment. She fished around in her pocket and pulled out a bill, forcing it into Hanna's protesting hand. "I hope it's enough. I never really got to ask you about your rates."

"It's too much! We didn't even really do anything!" He tried to give her back the money, but she just gave them a little wave and disappeared into the complex.

Hanna sighed as he stared at the bill, which the older zombie could see was a fifty. He pocketed it with more reluctance than the other man thought was necessary.

"It's not that much," he remarked. "Aren't you overreacting a bit?"

"I know, but…all we did was catch a bat. That's not exactly a hard day's work." The pout from the smaller zombie earned him a thin smile as they made their way back to the graveyard.

"What exactly is it that you do?" the taller zombie asked. Now was as good a time as any to ask.

"I'm a paranormal investigator," Hanna said with some pride. "Or…well, I was. When I was alive. I still get some cases, though, and there's really no reason to stop, especially now that I don't need to eat or sleep or anything like that. Really frees up my whole day."

That certainly explained why he seemed so comfortable around the vampire. It also probably accounted for the dozens of wounds marking his body. He didn't know much about the paranormal world, barring the fact that he was definitely part of it now, but he doubted it was full of fuzzy bats and sunshine.

There was still the matter of that scar on his chest, though. Something told him that wasn't some offhand wound he'd acquired in some minor (or even major) scuffle. It was deeply personal, something that wounded him deep in his soul.

It seemed impossible not to care for Hanna. The boy had that way about him that just made a person want to protect him. So when he found himself genuinely worried about what that scar truly meant, it didn't surprise him in the least.
Someday, he would ask him about it, and someday he would get an answer. Just not today.