"All the blood should be out of her system," Romero announced gravely to the room. At his words I wondered again how long it had been since I had lost master. Years? Hours? Months? Weeks? Though I had tried so very hard to cling to time while I was here I had failed. I could not tell the difference between the sunlight and the street lights that tried to sneak round the edges of the heavy drapes on the windows. I was too tired and fearful to investigate beyond the bedroom or bathroom either despite everyone and every voice trying to encourage me at one point or another. These vampires had killed my master and for that I wanted to both love and loathe them. They tormented me with talk of the old mes, a vampire me and a human me, neither of whom I could properly identify with. Ariadne and Sarah, sometimes I felt certain I was one, other times the other, and other times again I did not think I was or could be either being again.

"Why do you make that sound bad?" Rob growled out as he folded his arms and glowered at the ghoul with displeasure. Always grumpy, he needed cheering up; perhaps I should bake him a cake or get him a chew toy.

"Because she's no longer healing but she is still bleeding," Kent murmured as his soft grey gaze glanced over at me from the end of the bed. He looked worried, always emotional his kind, poet has a squishy spot for the mad one.

Romero nodded grimly. "When a ghoul goes cold turkey it's a matter of them using the remaining blood in their system to heal to a point where they can survive as a Kine but sometimes they run out of blood before they're healed enough... Sarah wasn't just dealing with all the pains that come with going cold turkey but all the injuries she was left with too and now her body has healed all it can by itself. She's still injured though and she's only going to start declining now."

"And why are we having this discussion in front of her?" Rob demanded as he gestured towards me angrily with one hand. "To frighten her?"

"To make her aware," Romero answered unflinchingly. He turned from Rob to face me, the girl being quiet and good in bed. I supposed I could rant and scream as they could hardly send me to bed as punishment for it but for the moment I wanted to be quiet. Master had liked the screams though...

"Whatever choice is made should be yours," Romero addressed me sombrely.

"What choices are there?" Rob demanded savagely. "Could she go to a hospital? Could they help?"

"The treasure keeper must near soon," I murmured softly. "He made the voices quiet once."

"Treasure keeper?" Damsel echoed dumbly.

I looked at the redhead inquisitively and said, "marshmallow duck eggs." When she did not repeat it I frowned, so she had not become my echo then.

"Isaac," Kent guessed, "well he owns a jewellery shop so it seems log..." He paused and frowned at me. "Not logical," he grumbled, "but plausible she means him, I suppose."

"And the marshmallow duck eggs?" Damsel quipped dryly.

I clapped my hands with delight. "You are my copycat voice!" I frowned and pondered, "or is it I who is the copy?"

Damsel arched an eyebrow and glanced sideways at Rob. "Was she always like this as a human?"

"No," Rob grumbled, "I mean she was...different but not...not like this."

"Kicked from the clan but still entangled in the web," I murmured unhappily, "the voices come but there is no control."

"Anyway," Romero interrupted dryly, "is Isaac going to be here soon?"

Kent shrugged. "I really don't know, you were the last one to speak with him."

Romero frowned. "He didn't know." He glanced back at me again. "And I don't know how long missy can wait."

"She's still bleeding," Kent retorted calmly, "we all smell it and it's faster without the healing."

I shivered slightly at his words, I thought of perishing and finding master again, an eternity with my beloved torment, how I should weep and scream at the thought. I whimpered as fresh, hot pangs of pain rolled through me, rising up through my body until every inch seemed to sting. "It burns where it bleeds," I confessed, "more and more, worse and worse."

Kent nodded empathetically. "If you want one of us-"

"Don't finish that sentence," Rob growled out warningly.

Kent cocked his head in Rob's direction and said sharply, "I'm offering her a choice."

"So many choices, too many," I murmured, "but only one could contain the voices."

"Perhaps a temporary fix then," Beckett remarked calmly. Until now he had been so still and quiet I had thought he was practising at being a statue and wondered if he had plans to learn better about artefacts by posing as one. "You could yet be a ghoul and heal with Kindred blood."

Kent let out a mocking snort at that. "Are you offering?" he queried sardonically.

Beckett gave a small, brief grin in response. "If the situation calls for it," he answered carefully. "Does it really matter whose blood if it is to only be a temporary donation?"

"I don't want another master," I answered angrily, "and no more new voices to give orders and opinions!"

"It doesn't have to be that way," Kent said gently as he turned back to me with a kind, beguiling smile. His face was warm and promised only relief and comfort, I wanted to believe in it and I started to until Romero interrupted by shoving Kent back.

"No tricks, it ain't fair when she's completely human," Romero snapped wearily.

"I'm just trying to help her feel easier about the situation," Kent grumbled with a sulking frown.

"Yeah you Toreadors and your feelings," Romero retorted sardonically.

"Don't undermine those feelings of mine," Kent growled back with an angry flare in his grey eyes.

Romero raised his eyebrows slightly before shaking his head and turning abruptly away from the poet.

I shook my head in frustration as I clutched at my skull with both hands, too many voices inside and out. "I just want to be me again but I don't know who me is," I admitted. "For now I'll have the quiet, yes, go away and let the outside be quiet even if the inside can't." I lowered my hands and glowered at the room's occupants but no one made to move, instead they all regarded me with the same slightly mystified looks.

I felt my bowels give a familiar shift and shouted, "GET OUT! OUT!" Still no one moved and so I was forced to move myself. I did not know why I should care, I had no dignity and no right to it, all rights were master's but master was no more. So I threw my blanket off and made to bolt for the door. Of course I could not move fast, my body was sore and slow. I stumbled awkwardly as my legs tingled and threatened to give way. No one made to stop me, all caught in curiosity or simply surprise.

I let out a groan and doubled over in pain as I felt the blood trickle down my legs. "No," I choked out, "blood must stay in, never out." I shook my head in frustration as I reached for the door handle, missed and started to fall forward.

Strong arms caught me with ease as the door opened too quickly for me to notice. I looked up into a set of amber eyes and felt a rush of humiliation. If ever there was one who I didn't want to see me in a form so disgusting it was he. "You've come too late to save me from my fall," I murmured.

He looked down at me in disbelief but the expected revulsion did not fill his honeyed eyes; instead he pulled me close and let out a cry of joy.

"No," I protested as I felt my bowels turn again, "please no." There it was, another uncontrolled rush of warmth and shame. Only master held control in the end, he had made certain of it.

The Baron recoiled in an instant but if he bore any revulsion he masked it before it I could spy it.

"I'll take her," Romero offered from behind.

"I'll run the bath," Kent murmured.

"No. Run a bath, yes, but let me see her a little yet." The Baron's firm words surprised me; even after I had soiled myself like a yet untrained toddler he still sought my company. I eyed him in puzzlement trying to recall him, my dead self had loved him but how could one love with a still heart? It was madness but I suppose for the lost princess that had been the point. He stepped in from the doorway and only then did I hear the rustle of the bag in his right hand and notice it. Rope handle and fine, italic lettering on its side, well no surprise that the Toreador carried a branded bag.

"Food for you," he explained as he followed my gaze to the bag. "Romero said you were starting to eat a little."

"I'll go sort the bath," Kent said hastily before passing us in a blur.

"Go and help him Romero," Isaac ordered as he looked past me to the ghoul, "I'll bring her in."

I heard the ghoul suppress a sigh before he walked past me slowly towards the door. "Don't make her wait," he murmured to the Baron as he met his amber gaze, "she's in a lot of pain."

"Do you want us to get her more painkillers?" Damsel quipped.

"Us?" Rob snarled. "I'm not leaving her alone with him," he added savagely, "he'll frigging make her one of them."

"Not against her will," Isaac said softly.

"I have no will," I murmured, "the master held my will."

"Yes but he's gone," Beckett spoke up in a deadpan manner, once again reminding us that he was there, "would you follow him into the grave out of a poisoned belief of servitude? His blood is out of your system now, he should be too."

"Should," I repeated as I glanced over my shoulder at the archaeologist. "The belief remains, belief is strong, the voices were strong and they're becoming that way again. Ah history repeats itself doesn't it?"

"It can do," Beckett admitted, "but it does not have to. The past is unchangeable but the future is not young one."

"Dance on the blood strings of the elders, the future is not so free, freedom is an illusion," I mused.

"How can you speak like that still?" Isaac queried. I turned back to him and found him looking at me with fascination and love.

"The madness is me," I retorted. He shocked with me a smile at this.

"Then you are still you even if you don't realise it," Isaac said, sounding pleased.

"Sarah then Ariadne then Sarah then whore, dog and nameless all at once. Which me is me?" I pondered in frustration.

"Those are names, titles just," Isaac retorted softly, "and while they may change you will always be you. Sometimes you may forget or lose track as the Malkavians are known to do but we will always be here to remind you."

I felt the tears spill out of me suddenly and without warning, was it so simple? Was my identity simply lost but not destroyed as I had thought? Broken and misshapen by the Tzimisce to be changed into something worse. Could I come back from that? Would I? Another crippling pain tore through my already broken body and I fell to the ground with a scream as my vision flashed red before I could ponder it anymore.

I heard shouting but it was muffled as if cotton blocked my ears. Many voices were raised and exchanged, some I knew, some I had thought dead, and some new. Some called from without and some from within and for a few minutes there was only a noisy clamour I could make no sense from. When the darkness cleared it was only for an image of master leering, claws stretching out towards me, promising to drag me to an eternity of servitude. I wanted the darkness back.

Master didn't last though, another came, out of the nothingness it grew and grew behind master, a monster that rose and expanded until it was a beast large enough to devour master whole. It grinned at me from behind my still unsuspecting lord like a Cheshire Cat before its jaw dropped down and it swallowed up the Tzimisce with only a couple of screams. In one deep swallow and with a lick of the beast's lips master was gone. The false master devoured by the true one.

I was left with a being neither demon nor god, almost humane even, that settled its mismatched eyes upon me with interest as it folded its ash grey arms and sneered. It had four wings, the top two white and downy like an angel's and the bottom two sable like the crow's, and from its skull and wild tangled mane of hair half ebony and half gold four bull's horns grew. Clothed in bronze and a style from an ancient era his form, for it was a he, was decidedly unfamiliar to me and yet it was. I had never seen a figure like this before but I knew him.

"I should, given my capacity for it, expect the unexpected," he announced to me as he showed me the largest set of fangs I had ever seen. His canine teeth were like those of some primordial chiroptera. "Yet with you I never see it coming," he confessed. Voice? I knew that voice, it was the voice! "You were meant to be free of me but now I am imprisoned by you. I should devour you too but I won't, or will I? Would that free me? Would it free you? Would it destroy one of us or part of us?"

Before I could answer he slipped out of my sight and my vision turned black and then grey as the light began to pierce through it along with voices of a more decidedly real nature.

"She's never going to love just you," the poet remarked heatedly, "it's not her fault I suppose but it is the way it is."

"I know," Romero retorted calmly in his deep, smooth voice, "she was with the Baron when I met her, even if I didn't know it at the time. He helps with those voices of hers, I don't know how, I don't think even he knows how but he does, that alone will keep her with him."

"Well why don't you find someone else?" Kent demanded in a frustrated tone.

I felt the gentle sloshing of warm water and Romero's worn palm brush against my cheek lightly. "That's an awfully fickle suggestion for a Toreador," Romero retorted mockingly. "Surely your kind knows better than anyone that it's not so easy. I didn't even mean to love her."

"No, you never meant to love again," Kent mused, "it's that tragedy that drew Isaac to you, you know. Anyway, that's not what I meant. I mean why don't you find someone to have as well as Ari...Sarah, you have needs don't you?"

"What's it to you?" Romero grumbled back in annoyance.

I opened my eyes warily; the air was scented with blood, my blood. I saw Kent leaning back on the edge of the bath with his arms resting on either side of him, his Ralph Lauren white shirt's sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his thick, ebony hair in a styled mess. It was ironic that when the disarray of hair was unintentional the poet freaked and obsessed with it for hours but when it was intentional he gloated and advertised it like a peacock did its tail.

I made to move and the pain immediately racked through me. Kent's sharp grey gaze turned to me and he murmured, "take it easy kid." He pushed himself up from the bath and turned to give me another look. "Isaac's made you soup so make an effort to eat it if you can," he informed me before trailing off quietly, "even if he did kind of burn it." He shook his head scornfully as Romero snickered before hastening from sight.

"What happened?" I queried as Romero's tired olive gaze peered down at me.

"You had a bad turn crazy cat," he answered, still calm. He leaned down with a thick, fluffy, white towel and lifted me up in it with ease. He dried me off as gently as he could, which was difficult enough due to my sensitivity and the fact that gentleness did not come to the grave guard easily. "From what I heard Rob wanted to take you to the hospital but Damsel talked him down and they went to get you some painkillers instead. I don't think a hospital could you help but I don't know."

"Am I out of time? Is the Baron's arrival to be a sign?"

He shrugged as he dressed me hastily. When I was clothed our eyes met once more. "I really don't know but..." His neck coloured slightly and he frowned slightly. "Damn I'm just going to say it, I can't lose you again so make your choice soon, I know it's not easy and if I could go back in time I don't know that I would accept Isaac's blood but that's neither here nor there, just...life's more interesting with you in it crazy cat." He turned away from me and stood up with me bundled in his arms.

I was silent as Romero carried me back to what had now become my overcrowded bedroom. I smiled faintly seeing Isaac fuss repeatedly over the pillows and sheets before he turned to us with a bashful look and smoothed out his brown blazer.

Romero placed me in the bed and stepped back to let Isaac fix me better so that I was sitting upright, supported by two pillows with the duvet and blanket up above my waist. "Are you hungry?" he quipped with a hopeful look.

I nodded though it was a lie and welcomed the burnt tomato soup Isaac offered me. I tried to reach for the spoon myself but one arm was too sluggish to make any kind of effort and the other wouldn't cease its trembling. So I was forced to let Isaac spoon feed me, perhaps it should have been romantic but it just made me feel helpless. Somehow I was free of master and yet still trapped at others' whims.

I was dosed with soup and painkillers and distracted by idle conversation from Isaac about Hollywood, Ash and VV before he was lured from my side by Beckett.

"I am sorry to disturb you," Beckett announced himself as he intruded upon myselves, the Baron, the ghoul and the poet, "but while I was out enjoying this quaint Oriental part of town I found evidence of something troubling."

"What?" Isaac queried warily.

"Sabbat," Beckett answered with a faint smile, "of the Tzimisce kind."

I don't why I started shrieking but I did. It couldn't be master but it could be master's kin. "Sascha comes to seek of the mind; he'll crack the skull and feed upon this one's yolk!"

Isaac grabbed me gently; both hands upon my skull as he forced me to meet his soothing, golden stare. "Ariadne if they are here I swear I will not let them harm you," he vowed. "Do not be frightened, they will not get within fifty feet of this building." He leaned forward and kissed me briefly on the brow instantly soothing my shrieks to silence.

"Weren't you interested in this Sascha creature?" Kent queried coldly as he stood up and faced Beckett.

"I didn't say it was him," Beckett mused, "but if it is then you would be right to show concern. He is one of the worst of them, if one can really rank such questionable Kindred."

"He, she, neither one nor the other," I babbled, "made many times over, female, male, sane, mad, sire and sired."

"And why have you come scurrying back from them?" Kent asked tauntingly.

"It's not that I don't love throwing myself into the heart of danger on a whim but actually, it's precisely that," Beckett answered, as deadpan as ever. "I am not opposed to helping, I will certainly help stand guard if the need requires it but I will not wantonly seek out the trouble."

"Oh I'll frigging go then I suppose," Kent snapped with a nervous look. "Maybe..." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"I'll come with you," Isaac offered.

I made a whimper of protest. "Don't go, please, they could be many."

"We'll be careful," Isaac assured as he gave me a tender look. "Don't worry, Romero will stay with you."

"Well the sooner we go the sooner we can come back," Kent grumbled. "I've got some good guns downstairs." He hurried off without waiting for a reply.

"How long should we wait before we come looking?" Romero quipped dryly.

"Two hours," Isaac decided with a stern look before he added more kindly to me, "but it won't come to that." With those parting words he too hurried off.

Beckett left us as well to wait downstairs. While we waited and worried I wondered where Rob and Damsel were. I trembled despite myself and Romero's reassurances. He sat beside my bedside, keeping himself occupied by polishing his shotgun with a cloth.

After half an hour or so Beckett returned to us with a steaming cup clutched in his right hand. "Your sibling returned," he informed me as he approached my bedside, stopping just before Romero, "with something to help you sleep." He offered the cup out to me and I peered down at it curiously. The contents looked like warm milk and my sore throat was eager for it.

I tried to reach for the cup but my trembling began anew and I sagged against the bed in defeat.

"I'll help," Romero said quietly as he abandoned his gun and reached for the cup. Beckett surrendered it with ease and the ghoul held it up to my dry, cracked lips.

I gulped it down, my eyes widening at the sweet pleasurable taste that filled me. It was warm, strong and addictive. I gulped quicker and quicker as I felt its nourishment flood through my blood. I was like a wilted plant being watered, my aches were soothed, my tiredness faded and I felt everything brighten slightly.

Romero suddenly pulled the cup away prompting me to lunge forward with a growl and almost tumble from the bed. "MORE!" I snarled.

"What did you put in it?" Romero demanded.

"We were out of time," Beckett answered tranquilly, "and doing nothing was not going to help."

"Your blood," Romero grumbled as he shook his head.

"Only a little," Beckett retorted calmly with a smile, "it will sustain her and start the healing she needs."

"And when she has to be weaned off that?"

"She will be healed and will survive it," Beckett retorted confidently.

"And the Tzimisce?"

"An innocent deception," Beckett confessed.

I looked at Beckett eagerly as my broken nails dug into the edge of the mattress to stabilise me. "More," I repeated in a guttural growl.

"You know Isaac might stake you for this," Romero warned brightly.

"I should like to think the Baron would be beyond such hasty and primeval actions," Beckett replied, "and that he will see the sense in this."

"He's a Toreador, they're a passionate lot," Romero reminded him, "and he is particularly passionate about her."

"Well then I shall simply hope he is unarmed when he discovers our recent plot twist," Beckett answered in a biting tone.