A/N Deciphering the journal of the explorer Vasquez. Will is offered the key to all the answers...for a price.

SEVEN

"What the hell did you do?"

Nikola started, not expecting a fuming Helen Magnus to burst into his room crowing for his blood. Well, at least not so soon…

"What did you do to provoke the Sybarite?" Nikola's mouth fell open. "Helen, I'm shocked. Are you suggesting this was my fault?"

Helen looked at him sternly, but then cooled. "No, but I'm starting to think you're not entirely blameless either. The Sybarite attacked you in reaction to something you did to the female." Nikola's eyebrows waggled suggestively, and Helen's jaw dropped open. "You didn't…"

"No, no I didn't." Nikola finally felt like sparing her some grief. He also didn't fancy her not giving him a chance to finish and breaking his dinner tray over his head. "I tasted her blood. And then she tasted… I'm not sure what it was exactly, but it's their form of a life-source. The male practically drained it all out of me when he decided I wasn't for existing any longer."

Helen sat down heavily on the end of his bed. She could feel a severe headache creeping into her skull. "You're a bloody fool. Always rushing into something to satisfy your curiosity without pausing to think of the consequences first."

Nikola shrugged, this wasn't news to him. "Hello? I built an earthquake machine in downtown Manhattan. I'll be the first person to tell you I'm impulsive."

"We don't know anything about them. The small scraps of knowledge we've gathered from those scrolls open up more questions than answers. We don't know anything about their culture or rituals… especially what seems to offend them to the point of murder," She looked at him pointedly but he only grinned back, "so we have to be careful, Nikola, of our actions. There is much that could be misunderstood."

"Obviously…" Nikola grimaced as he touched his throat ruefully. The skin had finally completely sealed over, but some of the tendons were still weak and needed another day to strengthen. "What did the male Sybarite say?"

"That you had – don't grin like that – marked her somehow." Nikola let out a delighted laugh, grinning tooth to ear. "Too late, I can't help myself. That's such a deliciously ticklish statement." Helen tried to frown sternly at him, but his grin was infectious and she had to duck her head so he didn't see the corners of her mouth twitch.

"What do you think it meant to them? Do you think it has anything to do with the notion of the Sire?"

Nikola shrugged. "Doubtful. Vampires can't turn other people into vampires, and those two haven't had Stephenie Myers' work and other atrocities to fill their heads with silly notions. What I'm more interested in learning about is what exactly they were extracting from me."

"You're right, it's nothing we've ever encountered before. And the scrolls…" Helen's eyes suddenly lit up. She had completely forgotten about the journal. "Wait just a moment," She said before dashing out of the room. Nikola tried to grab her wrist but she was too fast for him. "Where are you going? I'm not allowed to run!"

He was fuming by the time she returned, but instantly snapped his mouth shut on a scathing remark when he saw her flipping through the journal. "What is that?"

"It's a journal written by a Spanish explorer who encountered our Sybarites in the 1600's." Nikola's jaw dropped as he eagerly took the book from her hands. His eyes positively glistened as he flipped through the pages, astonished at the find. "Helen Magnus you are an evil, deceitful, shameless woman – marry me."

"When you're dead."

"I'm already undead."

Helen just shook her head, laughing, and then noticed the empty cage by his bedside table. She looked around the room but saw no feathers or traces of the pigeon from earlier that morning. "Where'd your bird go?"

Nikola looked up, momentarily distracted from reading, but when her question registered he averted her gaze. "Flew away."

…their society functions in a strict hierarchy that when broken is severely punished. The sanguine vampirus belong to the ruling class and the only to wear … the colour of royalty. Having snuck … archives … predating the sanguine vampire…

Helen rubbed at her eyes tiredly, having pored over the minute and generally illegible scrawl of the explorer Vazquez, but paused at the last sentence. Predate sanguine vampirus? She quickly scanned through the rest of the entry and two terms jumped out off the page.

Carniviscus vampirus.

Halispirus vampirus.

The implications of the entry suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. This was information that no one had ever been privy to before, and exactly what it could mean…

She ran out of her office, almost dropping her stack of notes in her eagerness.

"Of course my race were the ruling overlords."

"Focus, Nikola. We've come about this all wrong. We believed that the Sybarites were an evolutionary step after blood vampires. We were wrong. What we're actually looking at now is the possibility that sanguine vampirus is a derivation of a larger species. Like different breeds of dogs."

Nikola's eyebrows jumped into his hairline and his voice was dangerously soft. "I'd be careful with your loose descriptions, doctor."

Helen smacked him over the head with the journal and he yelped, frowning and rubbing the back of his head furiously. She opened the journal to its appropriate page and underlined the other two vampiric species with her finger.

"It says that the halispirus vampirus even predated your ancestors."

"Yes, but this is the testimony of some crack Spanish explorer. What have the Spanish ever gotten right?"

Helen shrugged mockingly. "Food … literature … wine."

"Okay, you got me there."

Helen sat down on the edge of his bed, her eyes skimming over the text for the umpteenth time. It was exciting, but difficult to process that everything she thought she had known about one of the most notorious species of abnormals was based on a false assumption. "Carniviscus vampirus is straightforward enough. They were flesh eaters. But what does halispirus even mean?"

Nikola sifted through her notes, then froze. "Breath and spirit … do you think …"

Helen looked at him somberly, feeling anxiety twist her gut. It was not often Nikola treated anything completely seriously, so that was a good indication of something dire.

"… the Sybarites somehow know how to drain the life out of someone through their breath? Is that what they took out of me? That small bit out of Kate?"

"But what could possibly be in our breath that constitutes more than excess carbon dioxide?"

Nikola shook his head vigorously, eagerly tapping her pen to her stack of notes in a gesture for her to write down his thoughts. "After taking breath from Kate, and from me, their comprehension of English skyrocketed upwards. They can somehow take information personal to us by stealing our breath." A stunned look crossed his face and then a petulant gasp. "What if he's a genius now? How much of my mind, my ideas, has he stolen from me? It's like Edison all over again!"

Helen couldn't help but roll her eyes, a momentary distraction from writing furiously. "Trust me, Nikola, I doubt intellectual theft was on his mind at all."

"You say that like my ideas aren't worth pilfering. That cuts, you know. That cuts deeply."

Helen silenced him with a look, before glancing back down at the journal. "Well, for right now I'm going to have to devise a way to scan their brains while they feed. I think you should take over trying to read through this journal and see if it holds any clues to what's in the scrolls."

"Done." Nikola eagerly took the journal away from her, looking as if he wanted to inhale the volume for all his excitement. "You know … we have a field trip in our future."

"What do you mean?"

"We can find out as much as we want from these texts, but sooner or later we're going to have to go back to that temple. And take our new friends with us."

Will held his suspicions back at bay, grateful that the Big Guy was standing by in the room just in case things got out of hand. The male Sybarite, however, seemed shamed into docility and like he wasn't going to try anything drastic. He moved sedately in pace with Will as his chamber doors were unlocked, and the sensory deprivation tank was prepared for him.

"Are you sure you'll be happier in the tank than in your room?"

The Sybarite nodded gravely, and a look of relief suffused his figures when he slipped into the cool water. He lay down and his entire body relaxed.

"I wanted to ask you a few questions. Things have gotten to a point now where I think everyone involved is at risk of being hurt if we don't get some answers from you."

The Sybarite regarded him coolly, and Will could sense there was still a wall up. But the Sybarite's hesitation now seemed to come from a place different than prejudice. He struggled to find the words. "Much I know … much that you wish to know. I cannot tell you, I have not the words. If there were another way…"

Finally, the Sybarite wanted to cooperate with him, and Will tried to be as encouraging as possible. "What do you need? How can we help you?"

The Sybarite propped himself up on one elbow and looked deeply into Will's eyes. It was as if he were trying to see into the depths of Will's soul. "I can give you the gift of the Silver Lady. But you must prove yourself worthy."

Entranced, unable to look away or even blink, Will nodded. "How do I become worthy?"

"You must not be afraid to die."