Thanks for the reviews! Oh, and Phantom Yuki, as far as length goes, I'm afraid this one won't meet your expectations. I think I'm better suited to drabbles than long chapters. ; Looks like the next one will be a little longer though.

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He came home late, just as he'd told the boy he would. So of course he didn't see it. And Krad had a scarf over his face coming home, which would explain the smell. But how he hadn't sensed anything was beyond the older vampire.

Before he even reached for the front door he knew Satoshi wasn't there. The mansion looked the same, and the old butler had doubtlessly been keeping watch, but his presence simply was not in the building.

He wished he was more surprised. Satoshi hadn't tried to run away in half a year now, and he had seemed quite civil, if not entirely content, for longer. But he wouldn't drink without being forced into it, and he spent all his time in his room and in the library.

He had been waiting. Krad had hoped he had grown out of it, but he had been waiting, and after he had been allowed to roam the house without supervision for a few months, he had seized his chance.

It would be fine. He had chased the boy down before.

But the hunt proved more difficult than he had imagined. The night was nearly halfway through before he picked up any trace of the boy's scent, and then it stopped abruptly by a greyhound station. Krad drew in a sharp breath and whooshed it out.

"You took the bus?"

The vampire was reduced to looking up bus routes that ended before nightfall.

He had to stop in late morning to wait out the strong sun until late afternoon. Even with his scarf, hat and sunglasses, (and a resistance built by years) a vampire had his limits. At least Satoshi couldn't have gotten much farther. He was young and still collapsed each day at the first light of dawn, and nothing could wake him up. Krad had scented him again in the early morning, and the smell gave him a very faint whiff of the boy's well-being, which allayed his fears of early death for the child. Even so, his son could be in danger. And he was probably hungry, too. Krad moved on as soon as he could.

Satoshi had taken a fair deal of money from the mansion.

He had taken at least three buses, and Krad suspected that the mysterious disappearance of his scent late in the night was due to a taxi.

But Krad had plenty of money. After all, he didn't have many uses for it. What worried him was the steady dimming of the scent, and the increasing faintness of the aura that accompanied it. This didn't mean he was farther away; the trail was fresher than ever. What it meant was that Satoshi was hungry and weak, and he was slowing down.

Krad picked up the pace.

An hour before dawn the seriousness of the situation finally cracked his confidence. He was heading to an abandoned house scheduled for demolition to spend the morning, when a sharp pain rang through his heart. This was followed by an incredible stabbing sensation, threaded through with Satoshi's weak aura.

"No." His mind raced wildly, and he looked about him, as though some answer to the terrible question could be found in his surroundings. He willed his heart to calm so he could search for Satoshi's aura.

Nothing.

Nothing.

There—dull and throbbing, but tangible. And close enough to follow on foot, by the feel of it. But the sun—

He looked up. Dawn was coming already—had panic thrown him off his senses for that long? Satoshi was probably six hours away on foot, from the looks of it. He had gone off in the direction of the woods, and this house was at the edge of town. There was nowhere else to stay in sight.

Krad realized he would burn to death if he went now. What to do? Dead, he couldn't help the boy, but there was only a slim chance that Satoshi had found shelter that would shield him from the sun when it was high. And the thought of the pain he had felt through their blood link made his heart race once more.

But he couldn't help him at all if he was dead. That made everything else a moot point. He turned back to the house.

Better late than never, but he feared with all his heart that never might come anyhow.