Disclaimer: I don't own Blade or any of its characters. I do Max, Xavier, Rev, and Cam, so no stealing!

Chapter 12: Downhill from Here

Blade's Charger pulled up on the street, not far from the crash. Both hunters climbed out, the shotgun still in Blade's hand. However, the shotgun had an under-mounted stake launcher. Thank you, Whistler. Blade fired at Gedge, and the stake hit him in the back, knocking him onto the street. The bystanders screamed, falling back and taking cover as Blade and Max approached, both looking rather puzzled. Gedge was still alive, and he was laughing. As the two stood over him, Gedge was looking up at them, eyes crazed and fangs flashing.

"What the fuck is this shit, B?" Max asked in irritation. "You suck heads really immortal now?" she asked mockingly, a smirk on her face.

"Staked you with silver," Blade stated, ignoring Max's humor for the moment. "Why aren't you ash?" Both hunters watched as Gedge coughed up some blood, struggling to speak.

"Why aren't you smarter? Not a vampire, DUMB SHIT!" he shouted angrily, laughing a bit through his bouts of coughing. Blade just looked back at Max, who shrugged. "Set your sorry ass up," he told them, and reached up to tug at his fangs. He pulled his fangs off and held them up. Both Blade and Max paled at the sight. The fangs were fake, prosthetic.

"Oh, fuck me!" Max gasped despairingly. Gedge suddenly smiled even wider and looked past them. When she turned to look, she paled even more so that she knew she looked like a corpse. "Blade," she said urgently, hitting his shoulder and nodding to a rooftop not far from them.

When he turned, he saw what Max did: Danica Talos perched there, a video camera in her hands. As she pulled the camera away from her face, she smiled triumphantly at them. She started to back away into the shadows, but Blade didn't have time to run over and super jump to investigate because police sirens were drawing near.

"Damn…"

"We are so fucked," Max told him, looking down as Gedge died and a helicopter spotlight landed on them. "I take that back, we're being fucking prison raped!"

"Shut up," he ordered and both proceeded to retreat back to his Charger at a dead run. Blade gunned it, speeding away into the night.

"What are we gonna tell Whistler?" she asked seriously, trying to keep the panic in her voice down.

"I don't know."

"You don't know? YOU DON'T KNOW! Well, you better fucking figure it out, Eric, 'cause if you don't then we're dead! That helicopter – not to mention that fucking blood sucking bitch – got us on tape, standing over the body of a dead human! A HUMAN!"

"A Familiar," he corrected. "And don't call me by that name," he ordered harshly.

"I'll call you whatever the fuck I want right now, 'cause I have every fucking right to be acting like this!" she retorted. "And, Familiar or not, that guy was still human, and we were caught on tape and seen by an entire street full of witnesses killing him! WE'RE FUCKED!" she reiterated, kicking the floor of the Charger and slamming herself back into her seat.

"Calm your ass down before I eject you out of that seat," he threatened, and she looked over at him briefly before taking a calming breath, knowing he was dead Charger soon pulled up to the boathouse at the water's edge. As the two climbed out and disappeared inside, both were silently thanking God that the cops didn't follow them; they were too slow.

"What the fuck happened tonight?" Whistler demanded as soon as the two were in sight.

As Blade walked past him, Max sat down at the worktable, admiring the refuge. Since she'd arrived, things had changed a bit. New digs were built into the decaying boathouse, retrofitted for both Blade and Max's combat needs. The sound of loud banging brought her back to reality and she looked up to see Blade taking off his body armor and tossing his weapons onto the worktable in frustration.

"Be nicer to your weapons, B," she told him. "They're what keep you alive."

"No, I keep me alive," he told her, and looked back at Whistler. "And how should I know? He was human," he said, as if it explained everything. As the hybrid took off his jacket, Whistler reached for a bottle of whiskey and took a sip. He'd been doing that a lot lately.

"You've been getting reckless, Blade," he scolded. "You kill a vampire, they ash, don't leave any proof of their existence. Killing humans, it's messy," he lectured, shaking his head. "You better hope nobody ID-ed you."

"Not fucking likely," Max stated, and Whistler turned to her.

"What do you mean?" he asked, and Blade growled.

"There was some vampire sitting on the roof across the street from us, with a video camera," she told, staring pointedly at Blade.

"Well, ain't that just peachy-fucking-keen," Whistler commented, marching over to his worktable and handled Blade's weapons with the proper care.

"What's this?" Blade asked almost suspiciously, holding up a little inhaler on the table.

"A new delivery system for your serum. It's an anderpressant inhaler. Just bite down on the mouth guard. Deliveries automatic," he explained and Blade nodded, impressed with the old man. "Some friends of mine made it," he told him.

"Hmph, "friends"," he scoffed disbelievingly, eyeing his mentor amusedly.

"Yeah, you remember those?" he asked indignantly.

"You mean, you don't think of the old man and me here as friends, B? I'm hurt! I think…yeah," she said with a nod and a hand over her heart, "I think my heart might actually be broken!" As she smiled at the unamused look on Blade's face, Whistler was laughing. "Seriously, I'm wiped. I'm catching some Z's. Wake me up in about three or four hours, or when the pigs come banging on our door for murder. Whichever comes first," she called back as she headed up the stairs to her room.

"That's not funny, Max!" Whistler shouted to her.

"Sorry! Don't know what I was thinking!" she called back sarcastically, leaning on the railing to look down at him. "Why on earth would the cops want to arrest such upstanding citizens like us?"

-----------------------------

"I miss you, too," Max whispered into her cell phone. "Yeah, I know. …Yes, I know we're in deep shit, but I can't exactly talk to Blade about it right now. …I am not gonna crash, okay! Look, I don't want to argue, but talking about whether or not Dracula truly exists is not the type of thing you can just discuss over breakfast, not that we sit down and have breakfast here. …We're going to wait on this, Hannibal. …Why? Because I fucking said so, that's why! …Ugh, listen! He's not ready yet, all right? When he is, I'll come to Headquarters and let you know, all right?"

"Hey, Max!" Max's bedroom door suddenly slammed open and Whistler limped in. Max sighed in relief, lowering the gun she'd aimed at him when her door swung open. "I'm headin' over to the convenience store. Want to come?" Max eyed him a moment before nodding. She could tell that him inviting her to come with him on one of his outings was code for, "we need to talk, now."

"Yeah, just give me a minute," she told him and he walked out of the room, not even seeing the cell phone behind her back. "Hannibal, you still there? …Nothing, just Whistler. Listen, I have to go, but I'll come by tomorrow morning and we'll talk then. Maybe spar for a bit. …Ha, yeah, maybe that, too, lover. …You, too, babe," she said, unable to tell him those three words, even after sleeping with him for the past seven months. Max hung up the phone, tossed it onto her bed, and grabbed her jacket.

As she dashed out of her room, Blade was nowhere in sight, and Whistler was already waiting at the door. She never understood why he liked walking to the convenience store when she could just drive him, but that was Whistler. He was a bit of an odd ball, and she wouldn't change him. Max tugged on her jacket and walked out of the warehouse with nothing but a glance at Whistler, who followed after her as soon as he slammed the door behind him. That was liable to piss Blade off, break his concentration on whatever he was doing at the moment, but what did they care?

"So, who was on the phone?" he asked her, making her look at him in shock. How the hell had he known about that? "I'm not stupid, Max. You hiding that plastic piece of shit behind your back isn't going to fool me." That answered her question just fine.

"It was King," she told him, and he nodded.

"And what did fritz want?" he asked impatiently. "He knows better than to call us. It could compromise everything!"

"One, he didn't call us; he called me. Two, he wanted to talk to me," she explained. "He and Abby are still pushing for me…for us," she reiterated, "to bring Blade to the Hideout, and tell him what Danica and her little troupe are up to."

"Yeah, well, he'll just have to wait until we're in some serious shit," he replied. "Because Blade's not going to follow us anywhere and listen to what Abby and the others have to say unless he tranquilized, hog tied, drag there, tied down, and under heavily armed guard."

"Nice imagery, old man," she mused with a laugh as they stepped up to the convenience store, which was really just a stand.

"Pack of Reds and some matches," he ordered, and the Mexican seller went about getting Whistler's cigarettes.

As the two waited, Whistler noticed a black and white tabloid on display nearby. The cover story featured a blurry photo of Blade and Max's recent melee with the vampires. Whistler picked up the tabloid, studying it a moment before nudging Max and showing her. The next to the photo was an artist's sketch of Blade, Max, and even Whistler, though his was not well done. The headline read, Gun Toting Psychopaths Captured On Film!

"I'll take this, too," he said with a nod to the cashier, handing over some more cash.

"Those fuckers need a new hobby," the cashier said with a laugh.

"Let's hope not," he replied. The two left the store, perusing the tabloid as they walked. "What the hell is this, Max?" he asked furiously, hitting the headline of the magazine. "Well?"

"I told you there was some vampire bitch with a camera!"

"Well, that's just perfect 'cause we've been pinched," he retorted sarcastically, forcefully pulling her back to headquarters by her arm.

"That's not my fault!" she insisted angrily.

"Well, it sure as hell ain't mine! I wasn't the one that went off and killed a human in broad daylight, in front of witnesses," he scolded.

"It was night time, old man, and it was a fucking Familiar posing as a vampire," she shouted at him in frustration. "I said to Blade exactly what you're saying to me, but that doesn't matter! They tricked us! What the hell were we suppose to do, apologize?"

"I would've been a nice start," he retorted, and she growled exasperatedly.

What neither of them knew was that they were being followed and photograph by FBI Agent Cumberland. As the pair walked inside the hideout, they found Blade watching a T.V. report about him, something like 60 Minutes. The guests were calling him a sociopath and a disturbed individual.

"Congratulations! You're famous," Whistler told Blade sarcastically as he slapped the tabloid on the workbench in front of him. "Somebody nailed us. Faces all over the papers, the television. Media's eating it up!"

"Like I care," Blade replied shortly, barely giving the tabloid another glance.

"Well, you should! Something like this," he began, gesturing to the tabloid angrily, "taking out a human, even one working for the Vampires – far as the rest of the world's concerned, you're public enemy number one!"

"Didn't know this was a popularity contest."

"Don't be such a Goddamn smart ass, Eric!" Max shouted at him, and Blade set his glare on her. "I mean, Blade. I obviously meant to say Blade," she corrected and sighed, turning to Whistler. "Your turn, old man," she whispered to Whistler, who shook his head in frustration.

"Damn it, Blade, don't you see what their doing?" he asked as he walked over to his gun locker, retrieved his rifle and cocked it. "The fuckers are finally getting smart. They're waging a Goddamn PR campaign. Now it's not just vampires we have to worry about. We're gonna have to take on the rest of the world, too," he explained, though he was rather adamant about it.

"You worry too much, old man," Blade told him calmly.

"That's why we're still alive, God damn it! I've been doing this since before you were born, Blade, and you're like a son to me," he admitted solemnly, making Blade finally pay serious attention to him. "I'm sorry I got old on you. I see you alone, surrounded by enemies. It breaks my heart. We can't win this war alone."

"They've got us on the run, Blade," Max added seriously, leaning against the table by her elbows. "These last few months, we've barely been staying ahead of the curve. The moment you stop worrying, you're dead," she warned him, both her and Whistler knowing full well that's exactly what Blade was doing.

"I've taught the both of you everything I know," Whistler said with a softened face before he sighed deeply. "But I'm tired. You understand?"

P.S.: Six pages total.