So it may have been pretty much a month since I updated.

Whoopseey?

Vlad woke up cold.

This was not unusual, after all – he had no body temperature but his body had adapted the temperature of the room he was in and his skin was like ice. It didn't bother him but it warned him he'd been unconscious for a while.

His surroundings were unfamiliar but held similarities to the old slayers guild and their imprisonment methods and of course – who else would take him? It was a UV cage with argentalium bars and he was sat in a chair in the centre. The circular cell was about a metre in diameter. Vlad hovered his palm over one of the ultraviolet beams and smiled as the lights flickered; they didn't put much thought into imprisoning him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Erin emerged from the darkness with a devilish smirk and snapped her fingers. Vlad was suddenly yanked back into the chair by ropes slithering out of nowhere. His skin burned as the garlic soaked ropes curled around him like a boa constrictor. He growled and glared at Erin through watery, pained eyes. "You shouldn't have powers."

He snapped his fingers and the ropes around him shifted but didn't release. Erin tilted her head in interest. "And you shouldn't even be able to do that-" she shrugged "-but here we are."

The UV bars flickered out of existence and suddenly Erin was jabbing a needle into his arm and Vlad's senses were dulled. He frowned at her through glassy eyes. "Wha-at?"

Erin removed the needle with more force than necessary and waved the empty canister at the vampire. "It's a shot of liquid argentalium – apparently it would kill a normal vampire but it drained out of your system in several hours." Her eyes flicked to the tip as if she didn't believe her statement.

"Hours?" Vlad was still feeling very fuzzy but he tried to rise out of the chair. He hissed and fell back again as he jostled the ropes.

The vampiress prodded him with her finger. "You're a lot more lucid this time around – the last two times you were out like a light."

She put the UV cage back up and stalked off leaving Vlad alone with the realisation he'd been there a lot longer than he'd originally thought. He couldn't remember any previous encounters with Erin but then again, he couldn't remember how he'd ended up in his new prison at all. He tried to recall what had happened before he'd woken up and dimly felt a sense of déjà vu as he recalled the date, Jonno turning up and Erin slugging him in the head. There was a dull ache where his heart didn't beat due to Erin's betrayal but Vlad was too out of it to really feel the pain yet.

It would come with a vengeance later.

He didn't try to escape. The ropes around him scorched at the slightest movement and his skin smoked even then, not to mention the fact his powers were scarily out of reach and his brain felt rather like one of Renfield's soups.

He tried to use his powers though, despite the argentalium poisoning his blood. His more destructive and kinetic powers were non-existent unless he really concentrated, and only then could he cause the ropes to wriggle and hurt him further. His strength and enhanced senses had also dulled to minute, human level; he could no longer smell the tangy scent of argentalium and the pounding hearts he'd heard once he'd first woken up were no longer legible by his ears. There was one ability he had that might still work however. He panned out with his mind attempting to contact another vampire.

Erin heard his mental cry from where she and Jonno were stood talking, outside the facility. The telekinetic forced her to her knees and her hands flew to her ears, cupping her sound receptors as if it would block out the crippling mental assault.

She felt Jonno's warm fingers around her wrist; possibly in an attempt to comfort her but it all it did was enrage the vampiress. She yanked her arm away from him and snarled as Vlad continued to exert his remaining energy on making Erin's head throb as he desperately tried to reach his family.

After several minutes of broadcasting a mental SOS with all of his might Vlad's telepathy died completely. Erin appeared in the room with a syringe and a distinctly pissed-off expression. The telepathic strain cleared his mind enough of the argentalium solution for Vlad to feel the bitter sting of betrayal. His vision pulsed red briefly as he digested the newly awakened fury and hurt. Erin approached him with a scowl of the angriest variation.

"I know you Erin," She halted, syringe hovering poised at his vein. She glanced at him and saw his compassionate face. A smile curved her features cruelly. "I know you better than you know yourself and if this is the last time we speak," He glanced sombrely at his prison. "I want you to know." Vlad paused allowing a weighty silence to consume them.

Erin leered, leaning forwards towards the vampire until she and Vlad were almost nose to nose. "Go ahead." She dragged the needle gently over the flawless skin of his arm, careful not to inject the conversation killer with the faintest trace of a smile. "Tell me who I really am."

Vlad arched towards her, connecting them by nose and causing their eyes to glitter between black and their natural colours as the frayed edges of their psychic bond reacted to their closeness. The rip failed to connect but still pulled the two vampires together like a magnet.

"You," Vlad breathed and Erin's eyes lit with amusement in expectance for the fight to reach her human heart. "You are a worthless piece of shi-"

-her palm swung out of nowhere; connecting with his cheek with a sharp crack but the expression of hurt was worth it. A vindictive corner of Vlad's soul was satisfied. Erin snatched him by the cheeks and dragged him up to her level pulling his neck painfully taut. Vlad's eyes betrayed none of the seething hurt that bubbled for her treachery. The icy blue with flecks of humanity stared dully into hers and he observed hatred, fear and something he believed had used to be their love.

"You can't hurt me!" She snarled at him her eyes flashing darkly. "I've got you." She pulled him closer forcing the chair to tip and Vlad to hiss as the ropes shifted. "I've got you trapped and when the slayers are finished with you-" Her eyes glistened with tears and Vlad wondered if this was all that the human Erin was left to be – a dying star, killing all it could before fading. "-the pain will never end."

Whose pain? Vlad's eyes asked the question reaching for the life struggling to rise itself.

Erin realised her lips had parted for Vlad's and dropped him. The chair rocked suddenly and the ropes coiled around the Chosen One tightened sharply causing a yell of agony.

She stabbed the needle viciously into his arm feeling a slight feeling of pressure as it dug in deeper than it should ripping the skin in the process. The argentalium solution spread through Vlad's blood and the vampire's head dipped in exhaustion.

Her boots slid slightly as she started to move away from vampire and she realised blood was dripping onto her shoe from where she'd driven the needle into Vlad. She wiped her shoe on the edge of the unconscious vampire's trouser leg and stormed out shooting one last scowl at her ex-lover.

"You should leave." Jonno told her gravely once she returned to the overhang outside the factory.

Erin's face contorted into a playful leer prompting the Van Helsing to fiddle with the stake at his belt.

"So what?" She asked, finely plucked eyebrows creasing her eyes. "So I put in all the work…" She began to circle him. "I cause severe physical damage to myself to force myself into his life that I'd much rather destroy…" Her eyes glittered crimson. "I was forced to act like it was me who'd been the villain…" Fangs snapped warningly near his ear. "I pretend to love him!" The vampiress glared. "Yet I have to leave the second I deliver."

The vampire slayer scowled. "I'm doing you a favour!" He leaned closer to Erin glancing at the door to the factory nervously. "The second they're sure Vlad won't escape then they'll stake you."

Rage flared within the vampiress but she gave the slayer the closest thing she could get to an appreciative nod. "I'll take off then."

Jonno's lip pursed briefly but he raised his head. "Thanks for catching Vlad for us." He gestured with his head at the factory.

Erin nodded again before vanishing into the night.

Ingrid was fairly sure by this point that her brother was a moron.

Despite the fact Ingrid had actually tried to warn Vlad for once about a threat that was very real, and if Ingrid was honest (which she rarely was) very obvious – Vlad had allowed Erin to place the collar around his neck and walk him right into a trap.

That was the only explanation for him not to have come back.

And Ingrid had no leads.

None at all.

But she had to do something, after all – only Ingrid was allowed to kill Vlad and if Erin had or was going to then the half fang was entering a world of hurt.

The eldest (and smartest) Dracula rose to her feet with a scowl and the knowledge that she was going to have to clear up the mess that her family had made and yelled as loud as she could.

"DAD!"

Count Dracula appeared moments after her howl and Ingrid realised with a sadistic sense of satisfaction that the Count was rubbing his head in a manner that suggested that he had hit the roof of his coffin.

Her father scowled. "What could possibly be so important that you drag me out of the coffin at this intolerable hour?"

Ingrid rolled her eyes. "Those day trips to your crush's office have messed up your sleeping habits." She nodded at the antique clock on the mantelpiece. "It's midnight."

"Yes well, no one likes a know-it-all." He glanced around. "Where's Vladimir?"

"Missing." Ingrid sent a dark glare in the direction of her brother's room and a silent (and pointless) reprimand for ignoring her. "He went out on a date with Erin and hasn't returned. Erin wouldn't be back without a reason and apparently she wanted to get at Vlad."

The Count frowned at her. "Are you sure that they aren't-" he made an odd wiggling gesture with his finger "-doing what young people do?"

"What?" Ingrid wrinkled her nose before her eyes went wide at what he was suggesting. She half-snorted-half-gagged at the thought and shook her head. "No no-no- she's definitely planning something."

"Well we'll just go get him back – where did you say he went?"

"I didn't."

Ahhh, nothing better than abuse of unnecessary hyphens :)