The meeting place was one of Lance's choosing, naturally. Josef supposed he was lucky to be granted an appointment with the man at all. He gave Mick's shoulder a reassuring squeeze as they pulled up to the abandoned warehouse. It was a tall miserably grey steel building, with high windows that separated the ceiling from the walls but did very little in the way of shedding any light on the room below.

"Very menacing," Josef muttered darkly as Mick chuckled in his ear. They cast a wary glance behind themselves. "No rabid dogs though."

"He's losing his touch." Mick quipped, gesturing for Josef to lead the way.

To gain entry into the warehouse the pair had to circle the building in search of some kind of door. Curiously, there did not seem to be such a thing. Two large rusting sliding gates adorned the front wall, but these had been padlocked shut. It seemed unlikely that Lance or any of his subordinates were waiting on the other side; the door had obviously not shifted from its moorings for years. They ran around it once more in silence in case there was something they had missed, but to no avail. Mick finally said what they were both thinking.

"He's not coming."

"Maybe." Josef was not as quick to admit that he had been fooled. In the distance he heard the sound of an approaching car. "Maybe not. Just listen."

Within a minute, a sleek stretch limousine pulled up next to Mick and Josef's car, the window at the back already sliding down to reveal an older vampire staring up at them. It was not Lance, and in some ways Josef expected as much; clearly he was being more careful these days.

"Good afternoon, Tobias." Josef called cheerfully as they made their way toward the limo. "I see our friend Lance is as paranoid as he ever was."

The sombre looking vampire merely nodded curtly and backed away from the door, allowing them to get in beside him. Mick had never formally met this vampire before, and took this time to stay quiet as Josef and Tobias reacquainted themselves. He was a very tall and slim looking man, with a shock of platinum blond hair falling just above his misty grey eyes. There were the beginnings of middle age settling around the edges of his mouth, a couple of creases in his forehead, and Mick reckoned the man had been turned when he was around forty-five years old. Considered by many to be in the prime of his life, Tobias could clearly handle himself, and had done so for some time now as Lance's right hand.

For a second he thought of Beth, and wondered what she was doing right now. They had called her that morning as promised, but he had not spoken to her himself. He thought it would have been too difficult. There had been no new photographs overnight, and there was little for her to do at her end but wait. Wait for Josef to call again with an update, wait for Mick to apologise to her, wait for the rogue to make his move. He knew it was safer for her that way, no matter how unglamorous.

Mick found it interesting that Josef appeared to be friends with the surly vampire, though he didn't find it surprising. When someone existed for over four hundred years, they met a lot of people. But there was nothing remotely similar about the pair. Then again, the same thing could be said about his own relationship with Josef.

Is that what it was now? A relationship? Mick considered the notion, subconsciously muttering the word to himself a couple of times to get a feel of the semantics on his tongue.

"Did you have something to say?" The blond vampire was staring at Mick suspiciously, his silvery eyes narrowed.

"Uh, no. Just thinking aloud to myself." He shrugged. Tobias turned away once more, a look of superiority upon his middle-aged features as he continued his business conversation. Josef continued to give Mick the once over for few seconds longer. Perhaps he had heard what Mick had been muttering.

"… I don't think this has anything to do with the Mortal Cure." Tobias was saying, with confidence. "But, you can take that up with Lance. As you say, Josef, if anyone knows, it will be him."

"And there have been no threats against Lance himself?" Mick questioned, earning himself another cold stare from the unfamiliar vampire. "What? I thought maybe we weren't the only ones being targeted."

"That is an interesting point," Josef mused, tenting his fingers against his lips. "The answer, Tobias?"

"No, nothing. I would know if there were any threats against him."

"As well you should." Mick snorted, gazing at the passing scenery as the limousine turned a tight corner onto a deserted country road. There was not much he could see, considering the tinted windows, but Mick stared all the same. He was however, grateful for the shade; the sun had been steadily climbing the sky, and it now hovered, inconveniently radiating heat.

"I'm sure you do." Josef placated quickly. He turned to follow Mick's gaze out of the window, frowning a little. "Where are you taking us anyway?"

"Do not worry, friends, we will be arriving momentarily." Tobias smiled at the pair, in what Mick was sure was intended to be a reassuring manner. It was anything but. He felt like something wasn't right, and by the looks of things, Josef was thinking the same. They shared a glance, Josef giving a barely perceptible nod. If Tobias made a move, they would be ready.

However, a double cross from the platinum vampire became increasingly unlikely the further into the countryside they drove. There were, after all, two of them and one of him. Unless you counted the driver, but he would have had to move around the car at lightening speed even by vampire standards to subdue them before they finished Tobias. Effectively he was outnumbered.

And then finally they were slowing down, coming to a stop outside a ornate country house. Miles from everything, this was the perfect place to lie low. Josef could not help but wonder what exactly Lance was hiding from. He heard Mick breathe a sigh of relief as a figure came into view, standing with open arms on the porch, shaded perfectly from the sunlight. The man wore large sunglasses, but Josef and Mick both knew about the disfigurement that they hid. As they stepped out of the limousine, Lance moved forward, into the sun.

"Welcome boys, to my temporary yet no less humble abode."