"Knew those old reruns of MacGyver would come in handy someday…"

"Are you done yet?" asked Parker. She was watching him without much interest, simply because he was the only thing in the room that was moving. Hardison let himself feel a little offended. Here he was, completing the last phase of their escape plan, and she was only paying attention because she was bored of Fatal Frame.

Even so, it might also be a sign of her confidence in him. She knew he could successfully rewire this toaster, and so she didn't feel the need to get too hot and bothered by the whole affair. Or maybe she was just saving her strength for the escape.

'Course, she's got the easy part, so I don't even know.

But he carefully made a few more adjustments, crossed a few more wires, and let out his breath in relief as a few sparks flew from the mangled toaster. "Aw, yeah…"

Parker finally got up from the couch to join him at the kitchen counter. She took a critical look at his toaster-turned-taser. "How much voltage can we expect out of this?"

"Ever been hit with a Taser?"

She grinned in an honestly unsettling fashion. "Yeah?"

"'Bout that much."

"Ooh…you know, we could do even more damage if we got the floor wet first. You know, like dropping the toaster in the bathtub, but without the bathtub."

Hardison stared at her for a second, reminded himself that she was probably serious, and shook his head. "We're the good guys here, Parker," he reminded her.

"Yeah, and that's Wolfram and Hart out there," she shot back. "Nate would forgive us. We only get one shot at this."

Her offer was…honestly tempting, given the desperate nature of their situation, but Hardison shook his head again. "I hack. You steal. We've gotta hurt these guys to get out, and I accept that, but no one's getting killed today."

"Especially not us?"

"Especially not us." Hardison pulled a box of rubber gloves out from under the sink and slipped on a pair. "All right. Let's do this thing."

"Right." Parker slid off the kitchen sink and went over to one of the suite's large bay windows. Picking the lock was the work of a second, before she eased the window open. She looked back at Hardison, and nodded.

The guards outside didn't pay much attention when the argument started. The hacker and thief had been locked in the suite for several hours, now, and even in such a spacious set of rooms as the Seaport provided, cabin fever was always a possibility.

They did stiffen up when a loud thump echoed behind the door, followed an instant later by a female scream. The male began babbling incoherently, before rushing to the door and banging on it. "Hey! Hey!"

After a few minutes, it became clear that he was not going to shut up, and so one of the guards risked opening the door. He found himself face-to-face with the hacker, fist half raised to pound on the door some more.

The guard raised his gun and indicated that the man should step aside. Hardison did so, looking grim and scared. Once he had, the guard and the ones that tentatively followed him inside could see the thief sprawled on the floor in the little kitchen, evidently unconscious.

"Please," Hardison was begging. "We, we got into this fight, she was tryin' to escape, an' I told her, I kept tellin' her, but she wouldn't an' we fought and I didn't mean to…"

There was no evident sign of injury, but the guards went to investigate, anyway. Lindsey had given very explicit instructions. The prisoners were not to be harmed in any way, shape, or form. They hadn't been responsible for whatever had happened to Parker – that was on Hardison's conscience – but to a man the security detail knew their employer wouldn't care.

Hardison watched them, carefully, as a few of the guards gathered round Parker. He waited, holding his breath, until enough had his back to him.

Then he picked up the mangled toaster and pressed it into the back of the nearest man.

There was a sizzle sound. Smoke rose, sparks flew, and the man screamed out in pain and collapsed, the force of the electricity from the toaster eating a hole through the back of his jacket.

Hardison's mind was racing. Okay, his makeshift Taser worked, but it was noisy as hell when they screamed out in pain and collapsed and oh, god, the rest of them were turning his way…

Parker catapulted up from the floor like an angry cat, punching and kicking out with a frightening precision. That distracted some more of the guards; Hardison took advantage of that fact to zap a few before they could point their guns at him.

Several crowded seconds passed in a blur of fists, feet, electric shocks, and cries for backup.

That left some guards down, but way more to go, and there were still too many outside.

It wasn't the most elegant of plans, but it was all they had. Hardison hefted the toaster-gun, shoved his way out the door, and ran down the hall like a bat out of hell, aiming for the elevators and praying that Parker could keep up. He zapped the two guards directly outside the door, shoved another aside, and raced down the hallway. Behind him, he heard a brief scuffle taking place. He could only hope that it was Parker getting a few last shots in. He heard a body hit the floor, then footsteps racing after him. They were light footsteps, barely making a sound on the floor. He hoped that meant it was Parker.

But Hardison didn't dare check until he'd reached the elevator and jammed the "down" button three times. Only then did he risk a glance over his shoulder. Parker was indeed following him. So were a couple of the guards, the ones that he hadn't managed to zap.

"Come on, come on…" he muttered feverishly, watching the number over the door slowly counting higher. He remembered something about how a watched clock went slower, but he couldn't look away.

Parker stumbled to a stop beside him just as the elevator let out a "ding". The doors slid open; Hardison hurried inside, pulling Parker after him. He whirled and jammed the button for the first floor, follow by the "door shut" button just as the last of the guards reached them. One of them made a grab for Parker, and just barely managed to get the hem of her shirt. The doors were sliding shut, but the guard in question was bigger and heavier than Parker. He pulled, and the thief stumbled back a few steps, back towards the doors. The sensors went off as she got too close, and the doors froze just shy of pinching Parker between them.

Parker snarled, whirled, and dealt the guard and vicious jab to the face that knocked him off of her and into the opposite wall. She stepped back then, jabbed the "door shut" button again, and even helped push the doors shut this time, glowering at the one remaining guard as she did so.

Then the elevator doors shut. Hardison felt a faint jolt in his stomach as it began to descend, and only then did he remember to breathe. He collapsed against the wall, panting, wondering if the way his heart was beating frantically against his ribcage meant he was having some kind of heart attack. Please, dear Lord, let me get out of this and I swear I will make my next bag of salt and vinegar potato chips last a whole week.

"We made it," he panted, once he trusted himself to speak without crying.

Parker was watching the floor counter above the buttons. "Too easy," she murmured.

"Woman, in what universe was that 'too easy'?"

"We're still alive. That's why."

"But we made it, Parker! We did, just look. Few more seconds and we'll be safe on the ground."

Then the elevator let out a "ding", and juddered to a halt. The doors rumbled and prepared to open, but Parker had jammed the "door close" button before the mechanism had a chance to react.

"Parker, what?" Hardison snapped. He didn't mean to snap, but he was tired and scared and there was just a time and a place for crazy.

"Look," said Parker quietly. She was still staring at the floor counter.

Hardison followed her gaze. A blood red, digital "3" was being displayed.

"Someone called us down," Parker continued. "Before we hit the ground."

The hacker swallowed painfully. "Maybe it's just one of the guests?"

Parker spared him a look of pity. "You really think that?"

Hardison had to admit to himself that he didn't. He shook his head. "Nah. It's never that easy."

With a sigh, Parker released the button. The doors rumbled again, and slowly opened. "Bingo."

What met their eyes was a sight right out of their worst nightmares. It was shaped like a human – two arms, two legs, one head. But it wasn't, it clearly wasn't. The face was where the true terror was, the monstrous, patently inhuman face. A ridged, overhanging brow right out of the dawn of time, piercing yellow eyes that stared straight through them, and the fangs. Always, always the fangs, gleaming in the elevator lights and wickedly sharp. Perfect for tearing through a protesting victim's neck muscles without any kind of effort at allt.

They saw all of this, remembered all of this in the span of a second. The vampire opened its mouth in a snarl…

…before collapsing into dust.

As it fell away, Hardison and Parker could clearly see the woman who had been standing just behind it, the woman who had staked it before it had the chance to get at them. Tall and strong and wild, with long dark hair and dark eyes, she was all too familiar.

Family resemblance an' all, thought Hardison, dazed.

Faith brushed the remains of the vampire from her hands before glancing over her shoulder. "We clear?"

From around the corner, Hardison heard the sound of flesh being punctured. An angry snarl followed shortly after it, and then Eliot strode into view, brushing dust from his shirt. "Yeah. We're clear. Not for long, though – we'd better move."

"So we move." Faith glanced back at Hardison and Parker and smiled wryly. "Hey, kids. Cavalry's here. You both okay?"

"Y-Yeah," Hardison stammered. He stepped out of the elevator, and then tilted his head so Faith could get a good look at his neck. "No bite marks."

"No bite marks," Parker echoed, stepping off after him and brushing her hair aside so that Faith could get a good look at her neck.

"Good deal." Faith looked at Eliot again as he joined their little group. "Means I won't have to drag things out before I put him back in the ground."

"Before I put him back in the ground," Eliot growled.

Faith looked about to retort, before Hardison amazed himself by cutting her off. "Look, mighty hunters, mind marking your territories later? When we're not in a building full of vampires?"

Faith smirked, slipping an arm around Hardison's shoulder. "Relax. Top floors are probably still swarmin', yeah. But Eliot and I staked our way up here – we're five by five, long as we go down instead of up."

"Then I say we go down," said Parker firmly. She went to Eliot and made an effort to push him along. "Go, go!"

"Don't push me," Eliot snapped, but he took the hint and took point. Parker followed so close behind that Eliot looked uncomfortable. Hardison trailed Parker. Faith took rear guard. They trooped down two floors of stairs, as Hardison and Parker flatly refused to get back in the elevators. Their little battle formation attracted several stares once they hit the lobby, but Faith returned every stare with a smile and after that people were suddenly far too busy to wonder what the rescuers and the rescued were up to.

Nate and Sophie met them by the doors. "All clear?" asked Sophie.

"For now," said Eliot.

Nate looked hard at Hardison and Parker. "Are you both all right?"

Parker nodded. Hardison shrugged, a gesture which brought his toaster gun to the attention of the others. Nate stared at it. "Hardison…"

"Just call me MacGyver," Hardison said simply. "Don't touch it, or we'll be draggin' you back to the office."

Nate and Sophie looked suitably impressed as they joined the battle formation. Faith and Eliot cast one last careful look around the lobby, looking for last signs of Wolfram and Hart's employees. Judging by the ways their eyes lingered on a few seemingly random hotel visitors, Hardison and Parker knew that they weren't out of the woods yet.