I was tempted to stop at a cliffhanger again, but I was too afraid of flying cookies. Thank you all for reviewing, alerting, reading. Hope you enjoy the rest.

Ianto waited until the furor died down, jaw set into lines of calm determination.

"You brought me here to be vampire bait, and it worked," he pointed out. "It doesn't make sense to pull me out before I've finished assigned task." Ianto's eyes dropped so he could avoid the look on Jack's face, which was totally ironic because it was exactly the way he'd often wished Jack would look at him.

Owen's latest variation of 'bloody idiot' died away to echoes on the comm.

"We have to stop it, and it'll stop for me," Ianto said. "In fact, I'm probably better bait now than I was before."

"Maybe not," Tosh said, with a quite unusual hint of smugness. "Since it's currently moving in the opposite direction. Slinking away, just as Jack said."

"Or following Gwen's false trail," Ianto pointed out, not missing a beat.

Jack turned to Gwen, brows arched in query. "I did double it back a bit," she replied, cautiously proud. "I'm beginning to see your attraction to roofs, Jack. It didn't even look up once."

Jack grinned. "You're learning," he approved.

"Which only means it'll get back into the street from the other end and start looking for someone else," Ianto countered stubbornly.

"No it won't." Jack began to carefully unwrap himself from around Ianto. "I'll be keeping it busy. You lot can get Ianto sorted then come and collect me. And it."

"But…" Tosh paused, logic fighting with the desire to get her friend to safety.

Jack sighed heavily. This is what you got for encouraging your team to speak their mind. This is what you got for choosing a team with ideas worth listening to. "But what, Tosh?"

"It didn't stop for you last time," Tosh said meekly. "Why would now be any different?"

Jack paused with one arm still around Ianto's shoulder, letting his eyes linger over the paler-than-pale face. "I was trying not to hurt it before," he said tightly. "I won't be quite so careful this time."

"But Jack," Gwen objected. "You have to give it a chance to…." then fell silent as his gaze fell coldly on her.

"You usually do," Tosh pointed out timidly.

Ianto's hand closed on his arm. Jack dropped his eyes to his lover's face, seeing the haunted look behind the outwardly calm blue eyes. The look he remembered from after the Beacons. The one he'd never wanted to see there again. "It's had its chance," Jack said stubbornly. "And blew it."

"It might not have construed having bins thrown at it as an invitation to parley," Ianto pointed out dryly. "You can't blame a hunter for hunting, Jack."

"I have to distract it long enough for Owen to get to this end of the alley," Jack countered. "Whatever that takes."

"I'll be ten minutes, tops," Owen supplied. "Even if I have drive the friggin' thing along the footpaths, which come to think of it might be the only place the nitwits aren't swarming."

"And then, Gwen," Jack continued briskly, feeling privately grateful to Owen for putting the discussion back onto a practical footing. "You grab a containment field generator from the SUV and come meet me wherever you ended that trail of yours, and we'll have it a in a cell and be home in time for …..well, breakfast, I guess."

Jack grinned at Gwen, whose complexion had darkened several shades as he spoke. Ianto thought it was quite ominous that she'd neither basked in the praise nor made a modest attempt at distraction. Not like her.

"So, where exactly does the false trail end?" Jack asked, with a hint of impatience. "I'll go over the roof and be waiting for it."

Gwen waved a hand helplessly. "It…..I didn't think … I was only trying to buy us some time, not…..."

Owen gave a pained snicker. "When you said double-back, Gwen….you meant back to you at the end, didn't you? Oh, that's…."

"Responsible," Ianto cut in firmly. "Because she didn't want it loose amongst the public, and rightly so. And yeah Jack, maybe you can distract it, but maybe you can't. It dodged right past you last time, twice even, and for all we know it could just dodge a bullet, too. Or absorb one, like it did the tracker. But," he paused for breath. "But we know it'll stop for me. It knows I'm injured it's got my scent. It has to think I'm easy prey, and no hunter will ignore that."

Gwen's eyes dropped. Jack's hand tightened on his shoulder. The comm. went silent

"But if I'm not here, when it arrives," Ianto continued grimly. "And it gets out there, into a mass of people…."

Gwen looked up. "It won't attack in public," she said hopefully. "It never has before."

"It won't have to," Ianto replied. "A traffic jam, right Tosh?"

"Yeess," Tosh agreed, very slowly. Reluctantly. It was that she didn't want to come up with a brilliant alternative, Ianto knew. It was simply that she couldn't think of one. Which meant there wasn't one.

"People milling about, trying to get home," Ianto continued.

"Well, yes, but…"

"And there's never enough taxis."

"Still…."

"All it will have to do is offer a lift," Ianto concluded. "You must have seen its human form through the contacts, Tosh. Do you think it'll have any problems finding someone to accept if it offers them a ride home?"

Tosh sigh echoed over the comms. "No," she conceded. "None at all. It was stunning, well, until you looked closely."

Jack made a scoffing noise worthy of Owen. "And they're just going to follow it into a shadowed corner without a backward glance?"

"Nine people already have," Gwen conceded glumly. "It'd only have to tell them it parked in a side street. But," she continued, brightening. "We've got the tracker, we just follow it."

"Speaking of which, it's moving back towards you," Tosh put in, her voice quiet enough that she might have been hoping not to be heard. "It's weaving from side to side though." She swallowed audibly. "Casting for scent, at a guess. I'd say you've got four, maybe five minutes before it hits your corner."

"We can't risk letting it go past," Ianto said, with his best effort at a commanding tone. He had to stop this wavering, before he weakened enough to accept one of the increasingly desperate objections. "You know we can't. If you couldn't keep it off me, with two of you practically on top of me, what chance have you got of getting to someone else in time? Especially through that traffic jam? When we've got no way of telling what the new victim will look like – or the attacker for that matter. There's no guarantee it'll take the same form, and even if it does, neither of you saw it properly before it changed. Did you Jack? Gwen?"

There was a short but telling silence.

"So, I'm going back out there, keep it distracted, and you can all do the hero thing again. Just a bit faster this time, OK?"

"If I might make a suggestion," Owen put in dryly. "Y'know, just as the doctor with a patient bleeding his heart out– through his vocal cords, by the sound of it."

"We're listening," Jack answered. "Make it a good one." But even his voice sounded resigned.

Owen's voice turned brisk. "Right, well, I've had some of Ianto's blood in the nifty little traveling centrifuge Tosh made for me, been hanging out to try it."

Jack cleared his throat.

"Anyway," Owen continued, "I've separated out the clotting factor; on the basis he'll need that more than whole blood. It's ready for transfusion, but I can draw some into a syringe. So Gwen love, hotfoot it out to me and grab it, and that should stablise our noble bait long enough to survive his latest stab at heroics. OK?"

Ianto sighed, and by now he didn't even know if it was relief or regret. Owen had removed the last obstacle.

"Leaving them one down," Tosh pointed out. "You should have let me come with you."

"We'll need you there if it gets past us," Jack said softly. Resignedly. "Ianto's right, it's going to be nearly impossible to find in a crowd. We'll need everything we've got to put enough precision behind the tracker. Which means you and your ungodly alliance with Mainframe."

Gwen got to her feet, and then looked at Jack, eyebrows raised, seeking permission.

"Go," Jack said impatiently. "Don't forget the containment field. And you'd better be back here before the…" he looked at Ianto with a pained smile, "Megamozzie arrives, or I might have to forget my attempt at leniency."

"ETA three point five minutes," Tosh announced.

-XXX-

They sat entwined amongst rustling cardboard until the echo of Gwen's boots died away.

Jack shifted restlessly. "Ianto…."

"We're going off comm. for a moment," Tosh interrupted. "So Owen can give Gwen directions and tell me how he wants the med bay set up when you get back. You won't want the chatter while you're listening for Megamozzie. I'll come back on and let you know when it reaches your corner."

Ianto forbore to point out that they wouldn't need to listen if Tosh was giving them their warning, instead making a mental note to buy her a very large box of chocolates, given that she'd publicly contradicted herself to give them a moment of privacy. He smiled gently up at Jack, trailing a determinedly steady hand along the stubborn jaw-line. The muscles beneath his fingers twitched, and Ianto's heart twitched along with them. He shouldn't be glad for the troubled expression, should he? Only he was. It was an odd, precious feeling, knowing that Jack was frightened for him. That he cared enough to be frightened.

Jack turned his head, catching Ianto's hand with his lips, mumbling around the fingers. "Please, Ianto, I…"

Then again, Ianto decidedly hastily, a frightened plea from Jack might well be the only thing he couldn't brush off. His hand moved to cover Jack's lips, trapping the words behind his fingers.

"I think I could use another energy transfer, Jack. Don't you?"

-XXX-

"Oh shit," Tosh said, over the comm. Too vulgar, too soon and too panicked to be a good thing.

Ianto pulled out of Jack's embrace fast enough to make him dizzy. Or maybe it wasn't the movement…Actually he probably shouldn't have done that with a compromised blood supply, especially considering the direction his remaining supply was flowing in.

"It's moving faster," Tosh said. "It must have pulled something out of the air. What the hell's happened, Ianto? Did you start bleeding again or something?"

Ianto and Jack exchanged guilty glances. "I knew those pheromones would get me in trouble one day," Ianto whispered. Jack glared down at him even while pulling him closer.

"Gwen, where are you?" Jack demanded.

"Fighting off some stupid bouncer with first-aid pretensions," Gwen said, biting off each word at spitting it between obviously gritted teeth. "You might have warned me about the blood on my shirt, Jack. But I'll be there soon." She didn't bother disengaging her comm. again, so they could hear the ensuing argument. "I'm fine, I tell you. It's fake blood. Halloween for shit's sake, don't you own a calendar? No that's not a frigging syringe. OK, yes of course it is, but not that sort….Medicinal…..I'm ….I'm diabetic, you idiot!"

"That's quite clever," Ianto said placidly. "But I think we'll have to start without her."

"I'll be there in a minute! No I don't want your shitty pamphlets, just let me go!"

"She's got the syringe then," Ianto noted. "Hope she remembered the containment field. That way she can stick me while you're zapping Mozzieman. Don't mix them up, huh?"

"Thought it was Megamozzie," Jack said, meeting the gallows humor with an attempt at normality that didn't quite come off. "Look, Ianto, you could just…"

"Go out there as planned," Ianto finished. "Right you are. I could use an arm up, Jack, if you don't mind."

Jack took the proffered arm. "Owen…?"

"Half a block," Owen said tensely. "I'll be driving over the stupid sods any minute."

The blaring of a familiar horn added to the cacophony of a busy block at night.

"It's just around your corner," Tosh said, her voice strained. "Look, just let it pass, Ianto. Owen can head it off in the SUV."

And Tosh was spouting pointless excuses after all. It really was all going to shit.

"You can let go now, Jack," Ianto said insistently.

Jack blinked. How Ianto had managed to lead them out from behind those boxes and into the alley was beyond him, especially considering Jack was supporting them both.

The weight on his arm increased suddenly as Ianto sank onto the gritty paving. "Do your roof thing," Ianto urged. "Or get back behind those boxes. Out of sight, Jack, go on."

Jack gaped down at him. Ianto's mouth was set into a tight line. He looked so darned cute when he was being stubborn. And he looked so good in red. The wad of T-shirt at his throat blazed red against alabaster skin. Bright red. Jack had to stop himself checking the remnants of the shirt, mostly dangling from his neck now, because if he could convince himself he'd worn a red T-shirt today - not that he owned one, but he could have borrowed one of Ianto's couldn't' he? –he might actually be able to leave him there, alone. So alone and vulnerable.

If he could do that, he didn't deserve to have someone like Ianto look at him with so much trust, gift him with so much faith. Jack's feet felt as though they'd sunk into the gritty surface beneath them.

"If you make this all for nothing, Jack," Ianto threatened. "I swear I'm going to dump you."

It broke the paralysis. Jack took a single step backwards. "You wouldn't dare," he answered, after he'd gotten enough moisture back into this throat to get words out.

"Oh yes I would," Ianto assured him. "After we do all the Halloween stuff I planned, of course."

"Can't waste all your effort," Jack agreed. That sound he was making had to be a laugh, didn't it? Because it couldn't be a sob. "Ianto, I….oh God…I can't…,"

"You can't stop it, Jack," Ianto said. Quietly. Calmly. "But if it doesn't know you're here, you might surprise it. Buy us time. Buy me time. Just until Gwen gets here with the containment field. Go on, Jack, just behind you."

Ianto's voice was damned near hypnotic. Jack didn't know he was backing away until his shoulder hit the cardboard of their hideout, making the boxes wobble. He steadied them automatically, and then found a wall to lean against and a space between the boxes to peer through. And waited.

-XXX-

Something sounded along the alley that wasn't the tap of Gwen's boots. A slither. A rustle. A slithering rustle. Gwen hadn't gotten there in time. No containment field, no useful clotting agent to neutralize the effect of the first bite before he had to face the prospect of a second.

Ianto's mind was very clear now, the clarity of one past fear, past pain. It wasn't telling him anything he particularly wanted to hear. He knew exactly how weak he was. He knew he'd lost too much blood for any real attempt at a fight.

He knew he might not survive another attack. So, logically, he had to make sure he didn't get attacked. Delaying tactics, as Jack said. And Jack would help. Jack was just on the other side of those boxes. Nothing to worry about, then.

Slither. Rustle. Slowing. Stopping. A hiss. Who knew hisses could sound triumphant?

It wasn't wearing the fake clothes anymore. And it had wings now, glossy insect wings, iridescent in the moonlight, raised slightly from its back, rustling in the night breeze. Wings. Ianto wasn't sure how shape-shifting worked, but surely it would've been easier to turn them into a cloak than absorb them. Would have been much more impressive, too. Shabby effort, really. Maybe the thing wasn't very intelligent, after all. Altering its appearance to make itself attractive to its prey might well be instinct. Learning the language could just be mimicry. Plenty of Earth animals did both of those.

Mosquito wasn't quite right, Ianto concluded, his overly clear mind occupying itself with analysis in an attempt to fend off encroaching panic. Mosquitoes didn't have claws, did they? And he was pretty sure mosquitoes only had one…stinger?...sucker? Not fangs, anyway. Mind, those tubes didn't look like fangs. More like needles. Hollow needles. Very long ones. And those eyes. Those whirring eyes.

Ianto shut his own eyes tightly. If he wanted any chance of using his remaining physical strength for resistance he couldn't allow himself to be hypnotized again. Only it was horrible, horribly horrible, not being able to see it approach. Not knowing exactly how close it was.

Not being able to glance through that gap in the boxes for the reassuring sight of Jack. Just as well, really. Not strategically sound to look toward his ally.

Ianto frowned. He'd meant to warn the others about the hypnosis. Couldn't remember whether he had. Couldn't remember whether he'd told Jack not to look at it.

Ianto remembered what those claws felt like, though. There was just the one this time, sliding along his neck, under the ridiculous bow tie. Slicing it.

A tiny wet thud as the dressing fell away. A fresh wave of dizziness, the trickle turning into a stream.

Ianto got his hands underneath himself, shoving, feet scuffing against the paving, trying to push himself away. It wasn't working very well. His limbs were operating with much less co-ordination than directed.

Claws closing around his biceps. Lifting him. Hands scrabbling for purchase, finding only air and his own body to flail against. A thumb caught in his waistband. Caught, stuck, held. If it dropped him he'd probably break that wrist.

It shook him again. Did that last time, too. Made his head floppy.

Two cold points against his neck. Again. Jack wasn't coming to the rescue. And he would, if he could. So he couldn't.

It must have trapped Jack's eyes through that gap in the boxes. Maybe Jack was watching this, unable to move. Ianto wished he could tell him it wasn't his fault. He'd never forgive himself.

This was how it felt when hope died,…

-XXX-

This was how it felt when hoped revived. Hope was the sound of crushing boxes, and the bark of a Webley.

The thing shook with the impact of the bullets. Shook, but didn't fall. Shaken but not stirred. No sign of injury, so it must have absorbed the bullets, just like Ianto had feared it would. The claws on his arms didn't loosen in the slightest. But the ice moved away from his neck, replaced with warmth. Liquid warmth. He was bleeding again. Or still.

It was hissing. Jack was swearing. They sounded kind of the same. Maybe Jack spoke Megamozzie. A hissy language would be good for swearing in.

Something fell to the ground with a metallic tinkle. Two somethings.

The hiss turned into a scream. A high pitched, fingernails-on-a-blackboard scream that set dogs barking for blocks around. The claws around his arms unlocked, and Ianto fell to the ground with a thud that rattled his bones. On his side, thankful for small mercies when the hand still hooked in his waistband didn't smash against the ground after all. His elbow wasn't quite so lucky.

It was probably safe to open his eyes now. Megamozzie had lost its sting. Moonlight reflected from two slender tubes that had been its - teeth? Fangs? Ianto still wasn't sure what to call them, but they wouldn't be biting anyone again. The needlelike points were undamaged but the tops had splintered. Whatever parted them from their owner, it hadn't been gentle.

Ianto rolled his head away. And there was Jack. Much more pleasant to look at.

Jack was bloody gorgeous, actually. Bloody and gorgeous. Demonstrably not hypnotized. Hands on his hips, body planted firmly between predator and prey. Holding the Webley by the barrel. Aha. Explained the ragged ends on the …er…fangs. When the bullets didn't work, he'd used it as a club. As he'd said earlier, not elegant, but effective.

The thing screeched again. Ianto's ears hurt. Matched the rest of him.

"You'd better start talking if you want a chance to live," Jack said, in the reasonable voice which meant he was holding onto his temper by its frayed edges. "And I don't have a translator handy, so let's go for English, shall we?"

The creature morphed back into human form, the beautiful vampire Ianto had met the first time. Even in that form its fangs were broken. A vampire with no cloak and no fangs. No vampire any more. Just a battered, broken insect wearing an imitation human face and pretend clothes.

It screeched again, not quite so brain-hurtingly. Mouth open, rubbing its hands over its broken teeth. "I cannot feed," it wailed. "Hungry!"

Kind of pathetic, really. Ianto pushed his foot out as far as it could go, managing the slightest brush of toe over Jack's ankle. Jack's eyes traveled to him, lost several degrees of ice, then swiveled back.

"I'm going to offer you a chance to leave," Jack said, all the ice from his eyes now in his voice. "Only because my girls are softhearted and my boy…." His foot nudged Ianto's. Ianto kicked it. Weakly, but still a kick.

"My boy isn't vindictive," Jack continued. "And he doesn't like it when I am. So you get one chance and one only. Go home. Your home planet, wherever that is. Ask them for some false teeth and tell them to leave Earth alone if they want to keep their own. Do you have a ship?"

"Broken," the creature screeched.

Ianto was pretty sure it meant its teeth. Jack assumed otherwise. "My technician is a genius," Jack said offhandedly. "She can fix it. How good a job she does probably depends on her mood, given you've been snacking on her best friend. Best you ask nicely, and even then I'd check the navigation system before I head home, if I were you."

"I am exiled," it groaned.

"Big surprise. Not my problem. Last chance. Do you want us to fix your ship or not?"

The creature looked at Jack. Looked beyond Jack. Reached out, scooped Jack up and flung him against the wall. Hard. Too hard. Bones smashed audibly. It was Jack's head lolling now. It'd killed Jack. It had killed Jack and it didn't even stop to feed on him, wasteful little shit. Stumbling instead on its human legs toward the alley, towards the crowds. Towards escape. And food.

"No you bloody don't!"

Towards Gwen. Gwen the vampire slayer, resplendent in black leather over a blood-splattered shirt. She'd give Buffy a decent run for her money. All she was missing was the stake.

She had the containment cell instead. Probably a bit more useful, in this instance. Gwen's arm drew back. It was going to be fine. Gwen had been working on her aim since that incident with the chisel. The field generator would hit the floor near the beastie's ankles, and it'd be trapped until the battery ran out. Long enough.

The creature morphed, faster than the eye could follow. Blink and you missed it. Neither of which described the speed, the blur, the eye-twisting experience of….its eyes.

Ianto saw the insectoid eyes whirring and slammed his own eyelids shut, realising a second later that it hadn't been looking at him. He screamed a warning but Gwen didn't hear, or at least, couldn't respond. Ianto risked a peek, and despaired. She was locked in place already, eyes glazed over. The field generator hit the ground, too far away to be of any use, capturing a column of swirling dust and illuminating the alleyway with the blue glow of trapped lightening.

The rustling began again. Guess its teeth weren't hurting anymore. It was leaving. It was laughing. A parody of laughter taken straight from the background of a sit-com, or perhaps a horror movie. The manic laughter of the mad scientist.

Wings rustled as it slipped past Ianto, disregarding him completely. He was beneath its notice now. Weak, bleeding victim. Already drained maybe. No challenge.

Or maybe too much of a one. Bait too well defended. Bait that bit back.

He could still kick, couldn't he? He'd kicked Jack.

Strength was just a concept Ianto's muscles had forgotten how to summon, but he didn't need strength if he had momentum. Momentum and a pivot point. Ianto flailed around with a complete lack of grace, pivoting on the elbow trapped beneath his side, braced against the hand hooked around something rigidly unmovable in the small of his back.

He could kick. Not hard, but it was all about the angle, really. And if he could just get the other leg around…Hey, he could scissor kick. Cool.

The Megamozzie hit the alley with a thud. He might even have heard something snap. Bones? Chiton?

Ianto turned towards the welcome sound of Gwen swearing. She was swearing and crawling. Weak. Drained, and it hadn't even put fang to her.

"Shut your bloody eyes," Ianto yelped. He'd be embarrassed about that later. A bellow would have been much more impressive.

A claw reached for his neck again. Both claws. It couldn't drink him anymore but it was currently investigating whether choking would do. Oh, lovely. As if being bitten to death by a mosquito wasn't undignified enough, now he was being squeezed dry as well, like a lemon. Death by Mosquito Cocktail. Mosquito Mojito.

Gwen wouldn't get to him in time and Jack was dead again. Tosh and Owen were yelling and swearing and contradicting each other and the SUV engine roared in the street. Owen would have a ball driving it through the barrier at the street end, after which he'd find out the hard way that the alley was narrower than the SUV.

All in all, Ianto considered that the team wasn't doing a very good job of saving him tonight. He'd have to save himself instead. Ha. And they'd all thought he couldn't.

That thing his hand had been locked around all this time? Stun gun. Fully charged, of course. Part of his job, keeping the stunners field-ready.

Sizzle. Crackle. Pop.

Fried mosquito. Not elegant. But effective.

See, no cliffie! More or less done. If you choose to read the remaining chapter, please brace yourself for fluff.