Ashley held the remainder of the vampire blood to the light while her mother waited for the final print out of the test results to stutter from the machine.

"Okay, let's go," said Helen, ripping the flimsy sheet of paper free. Ashley placed the vial with the others on the rack and followed.

The door of the secret lab took the brunt of Helen's strength before it finally squealed on its hinges, opening into the gloom. An elevator had just passed by; showering the area in sparks which bounced like fireworks before vanishing into cinders.

Helen brushed one over enthusiastic fizzle of light from her shoulder but not before it left a scorch mark on her taped neck. All too quickly the underground was returned to darkness with only the occasional drip to keep them company.

"This way's faster," Helen caught her daughter's arm, pulling Ashley under a low section of pipe. She pulled a torch from her coat and shined it at the damp corridor in front. The white circle caught a series of stairs in the distance. "There's a stairwell to my study at the end. I find it more convenient than clambering through the elevator shafts."

Ashley was going to ask how her mother had guessed, but she was interrupted.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Helen asked, without turning around. She kept her eyes on the tunnel in front, stepping over scattered pieces of pipe. Ashley's absence had worried her – all the more so because of John's presence. She wasn't convinced that he would physically hurt their daughter, but Helen knew that his words were the most dangerous facet of his personality and John had never been shy of words.

"I already said," Ashley nearly slipped on the wet floor. Her free hand felt for the wall, clutching onto a grey circuit box. "I don't remember what happened. Did you hear that?" Ashley spun around, sliding on the same puddle of grime. The way they had come was almost pitch black without her mother's small torch. Ashley could have sworn that she had heard a moan come from behind. A howl even. "Mum, really..."

"What is it Ashley?" Helen backtracked as her daughter 'shushed' her. She peered into the darkness, listening.

Helen was about to move on when she heard a soft cry in the darkness. It came in a low drone, moving through the hallway as if approaching. "I-" Helen started and then realised what was creeping toward them. "Oh no... I forgot all about him."

Helen grabbed onto her daughter's jacked and pulled her away down the corridor toward the exit.

"We have to go," she muttered, in answer to Ashley's protests. "We left SAM out. He's roaming free – probably made a nest somewhere down here that we stepped through. It's not import now."

Ashley's eyes widened. That horrid creature that she's spent days and half a pint of blood catching was back on the loose? She shook her head in disgust and picked up the pace, overtaking her mother. She could see the door at the top of the stairs, glowing at its edges. A few minutes later they both emerged in the far corner of Helen's office which seemed decidedly warm and cosy after the dank innards of the building.

Helen didn't bother to catch her breath.

"Let's go," she instructed, and the pair of them dripped their way to cells.

*~*~*

It shivered when they approached, darkening its skin a shade. In the time the others had been away, the sand creature had become a new entity. Certainly its appearance retained the same simmering ferocity, but its sinister intelligence – something that they had missed the first time, had overtaken its sharp facial features.

Now the sand creature sat opposite the bars of its cage, calmly picking shards of pottery from its skin. Every so often it lifted its eyes to Henry who paced back and forth, waiting for Will, Helen and Joe to arrive with translation material from the library.

"Stop it..." Henry whispered to the creature, whom he was sure could understand him. If it could have smiled, it would have. Instead, it lifted its tightly stretched upper lip to bare a glint of white where a set of sharp teeth waited.

Henry turned away and continued pacing, checking his watch for the thousandth time as Helen rushed into the room with Ashley in tow.

"Finally – Ashley?"

"Long story," Helen waved him off.

"Cool, cool," said Henry, "whenever just, good to see you in one piece."

Ashley gave him a smile before she followed her mother to the edge of the cell where the creature had returned to a rather large piece of shrapnel embedded in its skin.

"Oooh..." Ashley exhaled as if something horrid had just crossed her vision, "Just as I remember them. Horrifying. Why on Earth did you bring one back with you?"

"It was an accident," Helen explained, taking a second glance at the creature when she saw that its mood had shifted. "A lucky accident," she trailed off, frowning at the cell.

"If you mean that trying to bite my ankle off is a 'lucky accident'," Will entered the room on the tail end of Helen's explanation, still limping a little from his wound. "Then yes, it was lucky." He nodded in Ashley's direction.

"What's the police escort for?" Ashley moved aside so that Joe could stroll by, calm as anything despite the creature in the cell.

Joe had arms full of heavy Ancient Egyptian text books. They weren't exactly texts you could pick up from your local library. At least two of them were hand written by a collection of scholars but they would have to do. Helen's book shelves weren't famous for stocking the most up-to-date works. "Sorry to disappoint but I'm here in translating capacity only."

Will pulled a small desk in front of the cell opposite the creature's seat. Joe quickly deposited his load onto it and collapsed in the chair directly opposite the creature while the others arranged themselves around the room, Henry leaning against the far wall as far away from the cell as possible.

"So," began Joe, "what do I say?" flicking the first book open to a random page.

"Best find out if it really does speak this language before we get too carried away," suggested Will, handing Joe a cumbersome book. Joe frowned.

The creature didn't stop picking things from its skin, but it did flick its eyes up every now and then as the detective whispered things to himself, hunting for the right word.

Apparently satisfied, Joe inhaled before letting a phrase roll into the air. It was an elegant sound, regally shifting its tone.

The sand creature suddenly caught the group with its burning eyes. It was if their curtains had been drawn to reveal a sinister soul smiling back at them, shifting in the darkness. Quietly and slowly, the sand creature repeated the word, accentuating different parts of it in what was the correct pronunciation of the dead language.

The rest of the room breathed sharply as one.

"What – what did you say?" asked Will, slipping his glasses on and leaning over Joe's shoulder.

Joe hadn't let his gaze move from the creature who was now repositioning itself in its chair, apparently curious.

"'Hi' I think," he replied, picking another line just to be sure.

"It defiantly speaks the language," Ashley noted. "Much good that does us. This will take forever."

"I hate this," Henry shook his head as Joe and the creature began an awkward discussion. "It's creepy."

"Are those tracking devices operational?" Helen asked. Henry shook his and then realised that she was giving him an 'out'.

"I'll go – do..." he muttered, hurrying away.

"I want to know everything," Helen whispered in Joe's ear. "As long as you need."

*~*~*

A boy, three days from his fifth birthday, waited for his parents to return to the sand-clogged valley. Burrowed into the ancient shale and dirt was a network of tombs now flagged by excavation markers flapping in the evening breeze. Through the small hole his father had chiselled earlier in the day, the child had seen the walls littered with pictures, plated in gold on the red paint.

They had to wait, his parents had said, to open the last room. Part of the structure had collapsed during their excavation. If they opened the magnificent final room in the day time, the sunlight could damage the delicate ink on the pile of scrolls sitting in the far corner.

Kerosene lamps shivered like pearls under the water as they led the way over the ridge before disappearing into the final sharp drop where the tomb was nestled. A party of workers led by a pair of dishevelled but recognisably foreign archaeologists shimmied through the sand until they reached the open section of tomb.

The boy who was safely left in the main tent, tip-toed across the room so as not to wake the baby sleeping in a wooden cradle. It was early enough in the evening for a cool breeze to billow the tent walls, occasionally finding a way in around the ill-repaired holes. Moonlight patterned the floor, almost as bright as the lamps scattered over the floor.

Somewhere in his parent's backpacks – lined along behind their beds, was his birthday present. He was not going to take it, no, Joe just wanted to know what it was. That was all.

"You in bed, child?"

Joe ducked and then rolled across the floor, slipping into his bed before Mrs. Hibbet pulled back the main flap. Her nose entered first, considerably longer than most human's noses. The little boy, with his covers pulled up to his chin to disguise the fact that he was still fully clothed, thought that she must be a witch.

"I'll leave this open for a while," she continued, tying the flap of the tent open before vanishing back into the small colony of tents set amongst the evening desert.

At once, the tent began to cool.

Joe threw his sheets off and was straight into his mother's pack, prying through the layers of dust ridden clothes. Reaching the bottom, he found nothing but an inch of sand. He quickly moved to his father's things, proceeding more cautiously.

The baby coughed, startling Joe.

It coughed again, still contently asleep. The breeze was rocking the cradle ever so slightly, causing a shadow to track backwards and forwards across the tent. The lamps, burning low, flickered with the wind.

"Sh... baby," Joe whispered. If she woke Mrs. HIbbet would be back and then he'd never get the chance. He scrambled over to the cot and pulled the baby's blanket back over its chest, tucking it gently in. It seemed satisfied by this and quietened.

The cradle shadow crossed over Joe's bony body as he headed toward his parent's beds. He walked slower this time, dragging his bare feet. His excitement had worn off and now he was wondering if perhaps he should just go to bed. It was his father's bag –

Sighing, he removed his filthy shirt and yawned. Just as his mouth reached maximum gape, his eyes caught a second shadow stir across the tent in front of him.

*~*~*

"Well," announced Joe, as Helen returned to the cell. He had a pile of notes scrawled in various piles on the edge of the desk and a line of sweat under his hairline. The sand creature was camouflaged again but she could just make out its outline in the corner of the cell near the power outlet.

"Well?" Helen copied.

"I've learnt the Egyptian word for, 'Vampire'."

"Four hours," she eyed him worriedly. "Tell me you got more than that."

Everyone else had abandoned the room except for Ashley who continued to eye the creature as some kind of unclaimed prey. She'd spent days hunting these things – it was a difficult emotion to switch off.

"I'd say that I have a version of the truth," Joe continued. "These aren't the vampires you think they are. According to this one," he nodded at the empty corner where the sand creature was concealed, "vampires were the pharaohs of Egypt. By the way he constantly snarled when referring to them, I take it they didn't get along. 'He' belongs to a family group of vampires which possess an infectious strain of the abnormal gene. Along with the others, he began life as an infected human. This is not his natural form..."

Helen lowered her eyes. This was not a pure blood sample. It would not do. Indeed, it was useless. She should have known that this creature was not one of the original civilisation of vampires. Yes, it continued to display a high level of intelligence, but its behaviour was too chaotic, unplanned, animal even. There was a desperation about it that could only be human.

"Thank you Detective Kavanaugh," she pushed his desk aside leaving him feeling rather exposed. He quickly got to his feet and carried his chair to the wall where the desk was now discarded, some of his notes floating to the ground. "If you head upstairs, Will will show you out."

Joe looked confused, "And when do you want me back?"

Helen withdrew a set of keys from her lab coat as she moved toward the cell door. The sand creature flickered momentarily back into view, sniffing the air.

"That won't be necessary," she said under her breath. "Ashley, your weapon please?"

She reached for her sidearm but remembered that all her things had been taken from her in the 1800's... "I don't have one. What are you doing?" Both she and Joe watched as Helen slipped the key into the cell lock. A second later there was a faint, 'click'.

"Getting rid of it," was all Helen said.