AUTHOR'S NOTE: It took me forever to get this one right. I wrote almost five different versions before settling on this one. :) Enjoy

Chapter 7- From Bad to Worse

Zack and his crew, minus Adam who was keeping an eye on Shawn, adjourned to a more private area where they were sure Shawn wouldn't be able to hear them. They hoped.

Carlos glanced up at Ben as he worked to stop the bleeding on his arm. It looked like it needed stitches, plus Ben's broken nose seemed like it needed to be looked at too. What concerned Carlos most though, was how excited Ben was. The guy was unpredictable and he often questioned why Zack kept him around, but the giddiness Ben was showing couldn't be anything good.

"Oh man. Just think! We have a vampire, a genuine vampire at our mercy. We could put this shit on YouTube! We'll be rich!"

Carlos wrinkled his nose and stepped back after securing the bandage. Why isn't Zack shutting him up? "Damn it Ben! We don't even know what he is yet. Just because he has fangs doesn't mean he's a vampire, there can't be vampires. Someone would have slipped up, proven it. Honestly do you think these people could just exist, walking around and no one would notice? Zack help me out here!" He gestured at Ben.

Zack glanced at Carlos knowing he was right. It was impossible that no one noticed there were vampires. He'd read some Sherlock Holmes when he was younger and a quote came to mind. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable… must be the truth."

Sam stared disbelievingly, "We're in the middle of a crisis here, and you are quoting Spock from the new Star Trek movie?"

Some people have no culture. Zack rolled his eyes. "What I mean you God damn idiot, is that Carlos is right. It is impossible that no one knows that vampires exist, therefore people know… and since we aren't living in True Blood land where everyone knows vampires are real, it means that whoever knows about them is keeping peoples' mouth shut."

Realization dawned on the rest of the group.

"So you're saying we'll get erased if we go public with this?" Ben asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He still wasn't completely buying this particular conspiracy theory.

Zack nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying. We won't get past the local media before the cover up happens." He started to pace around. "We have to deal with this ourselves, and if he gets away you can be sure as hell he'll kill us all for knowing. We can't let him go, ever."

The determination at his crew leader's admission had Carlos super nervous. They were dealing with things that were way over their heads. Sure, they were good thieves and made a TON of money, but he didn't sign up for this kind of thing. "So we just kill him then?"

Zack was beginning to get in one of his moods. He hated being in the dark about things. Before heists he would plan things out meticulously, leaving no room for screw ups. Even Ben knew not to mess with Zack's plans and was well behaved during the actual robberies. "We need more information on the situation." Zack concluded. "His card says he is a psychic detective. It could be some sort of cover for being whatever he is."

Everyone seemed to agree. They needed to know more about what Shawn actually was, vampire or not, and how he ended up finding them when they'd left no trace. "What if he won't talk?" Carlos asked.

Zack set his jaw and gave his three crew members a stoic look, "If we have to force answers out of him, so be it."

As soon as Carlton parked his car he jumped out and headed into the store. It wasn't just because he was freaking out about Shawn, because he actually was… but he was also freaking out about something else. The whole way to the crime scene, he'd felt-sad. His concern for Shawn notwithstanding, he wouldn't feel that sad about it. Like completely distraught, "I don't know how I am going to live without Shawn" kind of sad.

So, knowing that if it wasn't his own feelings for his sire, it had to have been his partner's feelings. He'd smelt her emotions often, but this was the first time he'd ever physically felt them. Probably because he hadn't been a vampire the last time she had been this upset around him. It freaked him out. Shawn had never mentioned that little fact, and if Shawn hadn't mentioned it, Carlton figured meant he didn't know either. Is this how Shawn feels when he picks up my feelings? Is he getting anything right now?

Getting an idea, while Juliet was still getting out of the car, Carlton dug a sharp nail in the back of his hand over and over, hoping Shawn might be able to feel it and get the message associated with it.

"Carlton? What's wrong?" Juliet sniffed, trying to regain her composure after breaking down at the station and again in the car. Her partner had looked more uncomfortable than usual at the display of emotion.

Not wanting to give her any false hope in case his plan didn't work he straightened and dropped his hands. "I'm fine O'Hara."

Juliet didn't have the energy to argue. She just wanted to find anything that could lead them to Shawn and hoped that Gus and Henry were having some luck trying to track him down.

They followed Gus' instructions and found the safe right away. Carlton asked Juliet to back up, closed his eyes, and sniffed. He could almost see the ocean appear in front of him. Whoever robbed this place lived damn close to it if they smelled this strongly.. "They are next to the ocean. I'm sure of it."

Juliet felt a flutter of hope. "That's something to go by at least, but how would Shawn know where they were just from that. It had to have been something else."

Carlton wasn't getting anything else. "Damn it Spencer. Why the hell do you pull this crap?" He cursed as his cell phone started going off. "Lassiter."

It was Buzz. "Detective Lassiter we found the car. It's in a parking lot in Goleta near the University."

"We'll be there in a few." He hung up the phone quickly and turned to an apprehensive Juliet. "They found his car near the university. Let's go."

"You think college kids are involved like in the DeVry case?" A couple years before Shawn had figured out that a couple college students were responsible for the theft of thousands of dollars.

Carlton shook his head. "Spencer is hard enough to figure out when he's here." He saw Juliet's lip start to quiver a bit. He had to hand it to his partner. She was holding it together well considering her circumstances. "Let's just go and see what we can find. Okay?"

Nodding sadly, Juliet followed her partner out of the shop. Not noticing that once again, Carlton was trying to send a message through the pain in his hand.

Shawn stayed silent after the crew left him alone with Adam. It wasn't just the fact that he was pissed at himself for the slip that would most definitely cost him, but more for the fact that he was always uncomfortable with awkward situations. Talking to a someone about the weather or who won the last football game right after you sprout fangs and bite someone is a lot more awkward than just shutting up.

The position he was in was pretty painful and his muscles screamed each time he moved. Not to mention that he had an itch on the end of his nose, and his hand had started to throb a bit. Wait a minute. Shawn's brow furrowed. The throbbing was pretty localized and wasn't rhythmic, like a heartbeat would be. Weird. A few minutes, he felt it again. He concentrated on it more and realized it was Morse code. There was only one person that could be doing that. Carlton. The message started repeating and Shawn fought the urge to smile, he was staying, We'll find you. Over and over again.

He felt like an idiot. He'd gotten into the habit of shutting off their connection, per Carlton's request. Concentrating, he opened it. A flood of emotions hit him hard. Aw, he's worried about me. Mostly though he could feel anger. At least they know I'm missing. It made him feel a little better about his situation, though he felt horrible about how much he was probably making people worry, at least Jules and Carlton. He wasn't so sure about his parents and Gus anymore. For all he knew his dad thought he'd run off again, but knowing somebody cared gave him a second wind and he almost believed that they would find him.

Fifteen minutes later the four other men walked back into the warehouse. Shawn didn't like the looks on their faces and his worry was justified when Zack immediately pulled a gun and pointed it at his head. Oh crap.

Zack licked his lips, trying to hide his nervousness, showing weakness in front of his crew was the worst thing he could do, even if one was having a belief system crisis. Vampires exist. Kept repeating through his head over and over, it was starting to drive him nuts, because they shouldn't exist. He steadied his hand, "Now I have some questions, and you're going to answer them."

Shawn narrowed his eyes. He ever did well with threats. "That's a bit presumptuous. What if I don't want to answer the questions? Maybe I'd like to ask you guys some questions of my own, it's only fair after the horrible hospitality I've had to…"

The gun lowered and went off. Shawn screamed and squeezed his eyes shut as pain seared through his leg. He could feel it start to heal almost instantly but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. "You son of a bitch…"

The men watched through the hole in Shawn's jeans as the wound bled a little and closed within a few seconds. "Oh my God." Zack whispered too quietly for his crew to hear, but Shawn heard it perfectly. He didn't want to believe it, but the proof was now right in front of him. "How did you find us?"

"Suck it Jack." Shawn growled and yelled again as another bullet ripped through his torso this time.

The others looked on in stunned silence as Shawn once again healed.

"How did you find us?!" Zack screamed, losing his cool and shooting three more times until the gun clicked empty.

Shawn groaned and panted as the pain dulled and the wounds healed. He coughed out some blood and glared at the group. "Is that all you've got? I can do this all day." Shawn knew he really couldn't, but bluffing was all he had right now. The fear in the room was almost palpable and he swore he could almost feel it. Zack had turned away and was running a hand through his hair. He appeared to be trying to calm down.

Looking at his watch, Zack saw it was almost 2pm. He was tired as hell, as was everyone else, no one got much sleep last night and they hadn't eaten all day. It was turning into an explosive situation and he knew food and rest would go a long way. They also had a few people to meet and fence their more expensive loot to, so he decided to get out of there for a bit. "Sam, watch him. We got stuff to do but we'll bring you back some food."

"What? Me? Why?" Sam complained.

"Because Adam already had to watch him all night. We need to take turns, and because I said so."

"I'll stay, just in case Sam decides to pussy out." Ben offered being uncharacteristically generous.

Carlos stepped forward to disagree but Zack stopped him. He didn't have the time to argue with Ben and he had to believe he could trust his crew or nothing would work. That didn't mean he couldn't threaten him a bit though. "You pull anything while we're gone and you're out. Got it? This isn't some kind of game. He's dangerous."

Ben gave him a charming smile, "Cross my heart and hope to die..."

Shawn's eyes widened. That didn't sound good. Zack didn't catch it though and headed off with Carlos and Adam.

Ben sat down and pulled out a knife, cleaning his nails. Sam however was freaking out, not meeting Shawn's withering gaze. "Man this is insane. What if he tries to hypnotize us? Can they do that?"

"If he's psychic he could probably get into your mind without having to look at you. Let me know if you start to feel a tingle on the back of your neck." Ben knew as soon as he said it Sam would feel that tingle, just because he mentioned it.

"OH my God, he's trying to break into my mind isn't he?"

Shawn knew what Ben was doing, freaking out Sam would leave them alone together, which wasn't a good thing. Ben had already been looking at him like he was a frog to be dissected. "That's crazy I can't control your mind." Some admission of truth was worth not being left alone with the insane person.

Unfortunately Sam took the statement as an admission, "Ben! He's trying to get into my head! I have to get out of here. Watch him okay?" Sam got out of the room as fast as possible.

"No! Get back here dammit!" Shawn yelled after Sam's retreating form. His eyes settled on Ben, who now had a smug smile on his face. He closed his eyes, knowing this whole situation was about to become very painful. "So um, know any games? How about we play I Spy? I am super good at that one." He tried to distract him a bit, maybe if he annoyed him enough he'd go away too.

"What kind of vampire are you?" Ben stopped playing with the knife and stepped closer to him, his arm was wrapped up, but Shawn could still smell the blood soaking the bandage. He licked his lips again, the taste was still there. He hadn't eaten since yesterday and being forced to heal from multiple gunshots was taking it's toll. Shawn held back a groan, and forced his gaze away from the wound to Ben's dead eyes.

"What? I'm not living up to a serial killer's expectations? I'm hurt, really."

Ben smirked at Shawn. "You know, since we have all this time together, I might as well check some stuff out. I hope you don't mind."

"Are we back to the question thing? I thought we already covered this." Shawn tried to turn his head away as Ben got even closer, the sociopath shook his head.

"I'm not the questioning kind of guy." Suddenly Ben's hand shot out and left a long gash on Shawn's shoulder. Shawn growled in pain. "I'm more of a hypothesis kind of guy. You see, I have hundreds of years of vampire myths to test out on you... and so little time."

Buzz watched as Henry, Gus, Juliet and Carlton showed up at the college campus at almost the same time, having gotten the call. He was looking sharp as ever in his dress shirt and jacket. Buzz had never really been a suit and tie kinda guy and the chief let him go a bit more casual. She had ended up promoting him to detective to replace Dobson who had been killed in the SPBD explosion. He'd taken to the position well, having gotten his fair share of collars already. Carlton had even stopped asking him for coffee, much to Buzz's relief and he was starting to really feel like part of the group.

"Guys, over here!" He waved them over. A few uniform officers were around, collecting evidence.

The group approached and studied the car. "Did they find anything Buzz?" Gus asked.

Buzz shook his head sadly, "No, it looks like he left the car here himself. No sign of a struggle and the alarm was still engaged."

Henry nodded, knowing Shawn wouldn't have parked near a place he was casing out. He'd taught him that. "That means he could be anywhere in this area." The college campus was huge, it was almost a square mile of buildings and the car parked here didn't necessarily mean that Shawn had stayed here.

Carlton, shading his eyes, started barking orders. "Okay, we'll use this as a start point. We'll canvas the area and see if anyone saw him." The officers in the vicinity nodded and got to work

Henry and Gus walked up to Juliet, who was looking at the car, lost in thought. Henry didn't know if he should be asking this, unsure of how mad at him she was, but he didn't want Juliet to be alone if they didn't find Shawn before nightfall. She needed her rest and the stress wasn't good for her. "Did you want to stay with me for tonight? I have an extra room and if we hear anything you'll be right there."

Juliet was still upset about how Henry had treated Shawn the day before, but she needed some comfort now and knew it. Plus, it would give her some time to talk to Madeline about Shawn. "Yeah, yeah okay."

"Good. I'll let you know if I find anything." Henry walked away and Gus gave Juliet a comforting hug before heading off, joining Henry in questioning people in the area.

Juliet pulled out her own picture of Shawn and proceeded to ask everyone she saw if they'd seen Shawn. Someone had to have seen something, it was just a matter of time before they found them. Unfortunately it was most likely time Shawn didn't have.

Things were too quiet when Zack, Carlos and Adam returned around 6pm. Sam was usually a pretty talkative person and the lack of any kind of chatting was a bit unnerving. Zack held out a hand and had the other two stay behind him. He saw that Shawn was still in the chair, but the chair had been displaced from it's original position. Shawn was also slumped over, unmoving. "That son of a bitch!" Zack exclaimed. He knew he shouldn't have trusted Ben to not do something stupid to their captive while they were gone.

As they got closer though, they found out that wasn't the case. Ben lay sprawled out just below Shawn's chair. Blood had pooled around him and he was pale and still. The three men stood there in shock. Somehow it seemed that Shawn had gotten a hold of Ben again and killed him, that didn't explain why he wasn't moving either though. Nothing seemed to make sense.

Zack looked around. Their mousiest member was nowhere to be found, and it concerned him that he wouldn't call if something like this happened. "Find Sam." Zack ordered turning to Adam.

Adam didn't argue, he was more than happy to get out of there.

Carlos pushed past Zack and addressed Ben's condition as Zack checked out Shawn.

Shawn was slumped forward, he was breathing shallowly but didn't look well. He was sweating and shaking slightly. Blood marred almost every inch of any exposed skin. He still had his shirt on, but it too was also slashed. It looked like Ben had tried to give him death by a thousand cuts. Zack almost didn't blame him for taking out Ben for that. His eyes narrowed and he noticed a larger pool of blood near the back of the chair. He bent over to examine it.

Meanwhile Carlos put his fingers to Ben's pulse point and found nothing. He was dead. "Zack, he's gone." He saw a lot of blood around Ben, but couldn't see any obvious open wounds.

Zack hadn't heard Carlos, he was too focused on what he found behind the chair. Shawn's hands had been tied behind him, both wrists tied together crisscrossed. That isn't what interested him, Zack was the one who tied him up in the first place. No, it was the large slash on one of them is what concerned him, it hadn't quite closed and didn't look like it was healing like the gunshots did. "What the hell?"

"Hhmmmm..." They heard Shawn moan. Zack jumped back and returned to stand in front of Shawn.

He put his hand's on the vampire's shoulders and shouted at him, "What happened? What did he do?"

Shawn's eyes slowly and weakly rose to meet his. They were a disturbingly bright yellow where they should have been white, and white, where they should have been green. They could barely hear his answer but his tone chilled them to the bone. "Run."

"What the hell is this Zack?" Carlos backed up. Starting to get really scared. Their question was answered when Ben's hand shot out and grabbed Carlos around the ankle. His eyes opening and revealing silvery white vampiric irises.

END NOTES: Now the fun begins!