Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapters.

Elle: We shall have to see with Edgar. :) Glad you liked it.

Jay Jr: Thank you for reviewing. Edgar's going to be wary for sure.

The vampires had left Alan in the alley, battered and unconscious and ready to be dragged away by the rest of those hunters when they found him. Charlotte's victim had been burnt to an unrecognisable crisp and she now skipped merrily behind Logan as he led her back to the Astala Theatre. The building was once very regal looking theatre until its competitor, the King's Theatre, was built and took most of the business away. Marko stood at the back door to the building, taking long drags of his cigarette as he nodded at the two vampires.

"Sounded like a good fight," he said and an eyebrow quirked up, directing his gaze to Logan. "Shame I didn't get a chance to step in."

"You're waiting for the element of surprise, remember," Logan said, patting him on the back as they walked back inside to the abandoned theatre.

"I've been waiting eight months," Marko said, following them backstage. They passed the former dressing rooms and towards the stage. Footsteps echoed across the creaky floorboards of the main stage where bins had been brought in and lit, giving light to the whole room. The red chairs were mostly filled with cobwebs and dust but one vampire sat at the front, finishing off the remaining blood from a male club goer. He hung limply in her arms, eyes wide and flat with his mouth hanging open. She gave a satisfied sigh as she finished the last few drops and dropped the body onto the floor.

"You spent quite a few months making sure you got your strength back. Those vampire hunters fucked you up big time," Logan said to Marko. "But you can start having your fun now."

Marko felt his jaw tighten and he wandered over to the sofa to collapse down on the dusty cushions.

My fun or your fun? he thought, careful not to let any of that slip to Logan. He had an advantage, not being properly back of the pack through blood, and his thoughts weren't completely open to these vampires. But they could still catch flickers of each other's thoughts. Marko didn't have all the privacy he wanted.

Personally, this was all a waste of time to him. A bunch of bratty humans had taken his pack away from him and there was only way to get them back. Those teenagers needed to be sorted out.

He stopped himself from chuckling. He couldn't believe how much he sounded like Max.

After glancing at Logan who briefly looked irritated at him, he cleared his mind and thought no more of the matter. Instead he leaned forward to grab a can of beer and mockingly saluted Logan with it.

From the stalls, Ruby stood up and stepped over the dead body she had dropped. She walked over to the stage, straight back and head high, gracefully hovering up into the air and onto the stage to join the other three vampires.

"You turned the little tadpole?" Ruby asked, referring to Alan and Charlotte gave a gleeful laugh.

"Easily done," she said and beamed. "Hopefully his first kill will that backstabbing, boy-stealing bitch." She laughed, rubbing her hands eagerly and her thoughts came up with images of Alan tearing into Bridget's neck, killing her instantly. It would be nice if she had a chance to drain her former best friend of every drop of blood in her body. However, if Alan did the deed, that would tell her that she had lost him. He wasn't hers. He belonged to Charlotte.

Ruby's lips turned up into a forced smile, nudging Logan when their newest vampire wasn't looking and that smiled turned into a cringe.

Nice little nut-job you initiated there, she thought and directed it to Logan's mind who smirked at her and shrugged.

"Did you say something?" Charlotte asked and Ruby flashed a toothy beam at her.

"No, Barbie Doll," she said and pressed her lips together to fight back a smirk at the girl's lack of telepathic skills.

Logan fought back his own smirk for Charlotte and cleared his throat. "It should mess that little gang up a bit. It'll break them up just by deciding what to do with their new little vampire, never mind what that Frog boy is going to be struggling with. My father's doing a better job hiding than Uncle Max ever did. They should find it difficult to figure out who the Head Vampire could be."

Alan's eyes fluttered open when he started to wake up and straight away saw black beady eyes and a snarling mouth. He yelped, feeling his heart race at the sight of this creature, and jumped up where he lost his balance and rolled right off the bed. Running footsteps pounded against the floor and from underneath the bed, Alan saw the familiar bright coloured converses rush in.

"Aw, Grandpa!" Sam groaned when he saw the stuffed beaver and shook his head. "Sorry, man. He still gives me these ugly things."

Crawling back onto the bed, Alan clutched his throbbing head and moaned. "How did I get here?" He gazed around, squinting at the brightness of the room. There was an awful drumming in his head, pounding in his ears.

"Edgar, Bernice and Bonnie found you unconscious in the alley," Sam explained as he threw the beaver into the bottom of his cupboard. "I drove you and Bridget back to mine."

"Bridget? Bridget!" He sat up as memories of the fight flashed in his head. Quick, brief images of Charlotte, Bridget being thrown into a wall… Alan chasing after Charlotte… wasn't there another vampire?

"Bud, you need to rest. She's fine. Bonnie and Bernice are with her in Michael's room." He was following Alan as he shakily stood up, waving his hands to indicate to his friend that he needed to sit back down.

"I want to see her," Alan mumbled, staggering towards the bathroom Sam shared with Michael. He groaned at the bright light of the bathroom as he stumbled in, heading with a stagger to Michael's room. Bridget was sitting up on the bed, eyes drooping and head resting back in as she winced in pain now and again. Tripping over the mess of clothes in Michael's room, Alan managed to make his way over.

"You should be resting," Bernice told him sternly and he waved a hand.

"I'm fine," he said, sitting next to Bridget on the bed. He greeted her with a smile, reaching for her hand. "Hey. You okay?"

She pouted moodily. "I am definitely not that bitch's friend anymore. God, the next time I fucking see her –." Her rant was cut short as she moved to sit up but must have jerked something that hurt because she suddenly yelped out and she sat back in defeat, clutching her left shoulder. Alan managed to pry her fingers away to see a badly grazed shoulder that was still quite red and swollen.

"You're going to get some bad bruises there," he said.

"Oh, great. How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Sore," he said and left it at that. He was a soldier, not a moaner. He touched the part of his forehead that throbbed and felt a large, grazed lump that intensified with pain even by the lightest of pressure. Then his fingers traced down to his cheek that, like his forehead, felt swollen.

"I ended up getting jumped by another vampire. I think Charlotte was purposely leading me to him," Alan told the girls and Sam who had come to join them all on the bed. He found it difficult trying to focus when everyone started talking at the same time.

"Bud, why the hell did you go running off on your own?"

"I swear, I'm gonna drench that bitch in Holy water next time!"

"You shouldn't have run off. That was so freaking risky, Alan!"

"There were two of them? So it's a pack?"

Alan glanced at Bernice when she asked that question and shrugged. "I don't know. He certainly knew about us, even as vampire hunters. Like he's been watching us."

"Think we're too much of a threat now?" Sam asked.

"We're definitely known," Alan said. "And if a pack wants to settle here, they'll be wanting rid of the obstacles."

"Which is us," Bonnie said and took a deep breath. "Wow, I can't believe we're considered threats."

"It means we need to watch out for them hunting us," Edgar said from the doorway. He marched over to the bed, hands on hips and Alan knew what was coming, already sighing and ducking his head as he ran his fingers through his hair.

"What were you thinking? You almost got yourself killed," he snapped as Alan rolled his eyes.

"But I didn't."

"That was a real stupid thing to do. You don't go after these nightcrawlers on your own. We always stick together –." Edgar suddenly paused, frowning as he thought back to Alan's response. Everyone else glanced up at him curiously, watching the eldest Frog's expression change from confusion to suspicion.

"That's right. You didn't. Why?"

Alan shrugged. "I don't know. Blacked out, didn't I?" He muttered that last part, fists clenching at Michael's sheets and he ducked his head again shamefully.

"It's not like we interrupted them," Edgar continued, gesturing to Bonnie and Bernice. "By the time we got to you, you were lying unconscious in the alley. There weren't any vampires around."

Alan wanted to throw up. He had been left? No vampires around at all? If they were all supposed to be a threat then why hadn't he been finished off? Being beaten unconscious was the perfect chance for those vampires to kill him and have one less hunter around.

A new memory was pushing its way into Alan's head. Something that male vampire had said to Charlotte while he was punching him and throwing him around like a ragdoll. There had been a moment where Alan had stopped feeling the instinct to keep fighting and brave enough to face these vampires even though he was outnumbered. Something had scared him at one point, more terrifying than actual death.

"If we're threats, they'd be killing us off as soon as they got the chance," Bernice said quietly. Alan had noticed she had moved away from him.

"Alan, how do you feel?" Edgar asked.

"I don't know… my head hurts…"

He tried to ignore the pain in his head and cheek. He looked around, still squinting as the lights and colours almost blinded him.

Then he froze. The lights and colours.

He realised, with a chill going down his body, that everything did actually look brighter. Sharper. He saw the quick scampering of a spider on the ceiling. It was only a tiny, fat thing but he saw it, even as it blended into the shadows. He could hear mutterings downstairs from Sam's mother and Michael. And he knew it was them because he recognised their voices clearly. There was a distinct scrape of a chair across the floor as someone got up. Almost like nails on a chalkboard. It was so loud and clear, it sounded like it should have come from the room he was in. He shouldn't be able to hear that so well.

Michael's window was open and cold air blasted in. It blew against his arms but he didn't feel its coldness. In fact, it actually felt warmer than he did. He glanced down at his arm, then at his hand. Even in February he had still been quite tanned from the summer but now he looked to have lost some of that colour. It was noticeably paler now.

"No," he whispered and glanced back up at his brother, mouth hanging open in horror. He could feel wary eyes on him from his friends. "Edgar –."

Water was thrown into his face and the pain seared through him. He yelled, leaping off the bed as his skin burned. He stared at his hands that had caught some of the water. They were red and blistered and his eyes widened at the damage.

"Oh, shit," Edgar groaned. His hands shook as he screwed the bottle of Holy water back on. He suddenly felt cold. A horrible chill down his spine as he gazed at his brother.

"Alan, are you okay?" Bonnie asked, standing up to go near him. When she reached out for him he darted straight to the bathroom, almost skidding as he turned to the mirrors. Whimpering, he clutched onto the sink and stared straight at his reflection.

There it was. That horrible confirmation that his worst nightmare had just come true.

He was like a ghost in the mirror. Fading and pale.

The memory was coming back now. As he began to drift into blackness and faint from the fight, the boy had told him to drink. Something had pressed against his lip and then there was a strange taste, rich and copper that was addictive as he let himself drink more of it.

"Alan?"

He didn't look at Bonnie as she came in, unable to take his eyes off the reflection in front of him.

"I let myself be turned," he whispered.

"It's not your fault," she said.

"I'm a monster."

"No you're not! Alan, stop talking like that." She touched his shoulder lightly and he flinched away. "You're going to be fine."

"You can't promise that," he said. "What if…?"

He pressed his lips together, almost throwing up. He couldn't bear to even say the words.

"You're not going to turn fully. Look, I've been through this. I almost turned last summer but you, Edgar, and Sam saved me. We're all going to do the same for you."

Edgar appeared behind her, cautiously gazing at his brother and Alan wanted to scream at him to stop looking at him like that.

"You cool?" Edgar asked.

"I'm not going to bite anyone if that's what you're asking," Alan said and Bonnie glared at Edgar.

"It is possible to control it," she said.

"But not always. I seem to remember you losing it a few times," Edgar reminded her. "You were about to kill Bridget when Max got staked and roasted."

"Then we help him control it," Bonnie said, touching Alan's arm. "He needs us, Edgar. Especially you."

Edgar glared back at her before he suddenly sighed and his facial expression relaxed. His eyes suddenly looked weary and he gave a nod.

"Sorry, Alan," he said. "We'll get this sorted. I promise you. No brother of mine is going to be sporting fangs for the rest of eternity."

Alan nodded glumly and followed Bonnie and Edgar back inside. He hated the eyes that turned his way when he stepped back into Michael's room. Sam and Bernice stared at him as if he had grown two extra heads. He knew they couldn't help it. Despite being their friend, he was also something else now. Something that could easily lose control and become the enemy and dangerous. He glanced at Bridget as he moved to the chest of drawers, choosing to stay there instead of joining everyone on the bed. Every time he looked her way she averted her eyes and he felt a pang of shame each time she did that.

"We're going to have to do a lot of hunts," Edgar said. "These vampires know us and probably have more in store for us than killing and getting us out of the way. They're going to be bothering us for a while."

"Think they want to turn all of us?" Bernice asked.

"I don't know," Edgar said and everyone noticed his voice shook. "We need to find out more before something else happens."

Thank you for reading. :) If you would like to leave a review, please feel free to. Chapter 11 will be up next Saturday.