Geoffrey stumbled off the claws as the Vulkod collapsed behind him, he wasn't entirely certain what had happened but the lack of movement said that its second life had ended. Not that that felt like it mattered right now, the pain was still pulsing through his torso. It was fading rapidly but it was being replaced with a hunger that wanted to rival how he'd felt in the beginning. He put a hand to his stomach, other hands reaching up and grabbing at his shoulders and twist him around to sit him down. He looked at the red that coated his hands, only rivaled by the red pulsing in front of him.

"...-eoffrey." His body was shaking again, and he blinked, resorting to closing his eyes to keep the sight from tempting him. Hodge was trying to shove his hands out of the way to check on the wound but the hunter could feel that it had already nearly closed on its own.

"Geoffrey." Hodge said again, louder. "Sir, stay with me."

"Get out of here." Geoffrey ground out, clenching his jaw and feeling the fangs in his mouth dig into his gums, the taste of his own blood in his mouth just fueling the hunger all the more. "Fuck…" he mumbled, he needed to get out of here, he just wasn't certain how he was going to do that.

"Sir, I'm not going anywhere, but you have to let me see so I can help you." Hodge was still trying to pull his hands away from the wound and now that there was nothing there to see, Geoffrey let him, it's not like this was going to be able to get much worse…

There was a pause, a moment when there was no sound, and then the captain's heartbeat picked up double time and he took a couple of steps back, the sound splashing in the slush and muck coating the ground. Geoffrey opened his eyes, shame winning out against hunger for the moment to see his captain staring at him in open shock before fumbling for his gun, leveling the weapon in his face. The leader could see the slight tremble in the man's aim, not that he would miss at his distance.

"How long? When?" Hodge barked out at him. McCullum took a deep breath in an attempt to clear his thoughts and immediately regretted it, catching wind of Hodge's blood from some minor cut or another.

"I…" he started to sit a little further upright along the wall when he heard the safety click off and stopped instead raising his hands, he didn't know if he had claws right now or not and if he did he didn't think that he could recall them.

"Not long," he said, gaze catching on the body of the Vulkod in the water, the red leaking out of the ruin of its head in a way that made it hard to focus… "the uh… the fight with the doctor…"

"I knew we should've put him down when we had the chance." Hodge spat

Geoffrey took a moment to process his words and shook his head. "Wasn't the doc, no, you want a free bit of advice. You take this job, make sure that you think real hard before you use any artifact buried in the vault." McCullum closed his eyes then, he hoped that Hodge wouldn't make too much of this when he got back to headquarters, Geoffrey didn't want to die but he wasn't going to fight one of his own men just to keep this under wraps.

He could hear Hodge breathing uncertainly, his heart pounding beneath his skin and the sound of the trigger being slightly compressed, he could even hear the small muttered expletive as the man dropped the gun and took a couple of steps forward. Geoffrey opened his eyes in surprise to see the other man pulling a knife from a boot and kneel down to his level.

"What are you doing?" McCullum asked, while he didn't want to die he'd much prefer the gun to a knife, over in an instant and less likely to muck up.

"I can't." Hodge said with a sigh, looking him in the eyes.

Geoffrey growled, the sound reverberating in his chest, trying to force the other man's hand, trying to scare him. From his distance he could see Hodge's eyes blow wide with fear, see them glance down at the fangs visible in his mouth.

"Get out of here." he growled. "If you're not going to get it over with, get out of here and leave me to my misery. Get a group and chase me later, I won't fight back." He was hoping to scare him into it, if the cat was out of the bag they might as well get this over with.

Hodge's eyes were pale green, and the hard cast to them contrasted their gentle color as he frowned and gripped the heel of his glove in his teeth and yanked it off.

"What are you doing?" Geoffrey managed, there was a sinking sensation in his stomach that he couldn't quite place.

"Proposing a test." Hodge said with steel in his voice, he continued, rolling his sleeve up as he spoke.

"Wes…" McCullum said, warning, he could guess what the other man was going to do and didn't like it.

"You keep your teeth out of me, we'll talk some more after this," the cut was on the back of his arm, not deep, barely allowing for a trickle but Geoffrey's eyes were on it the second the slightest bead followed the blade, the rest of Hodge's words barely audible over the heartbeat pounding so loud in his ears that he could feel it in his head, in his teeth.

"But if you don't…" the sound of the gun cocking barely registered with him.

Geoffrey didn't want this… didn't want to do this, it could only end in disaster… but when the blood was pressed against his lips any resistance crumbled.

It was bliss, pure and simple and above all else it was warm. He could feel the heat of it flowing down his throat in waves. He wanted more. The red could be more, he could have more. The slide of his fangs against flesh was slick and he could feel the resistance beneath them, he wanted nothing more than to bite down, to rip, to tear. He hesitated, shaking, wanting to enjoy the moment longer, to ride that bliss all the way to the bitter end.

Prolonging the moment was enough to remember, to remind him that he didn't actually want to take a chunk out of his captain's arm. The other man didn't deserve that, he at the very least deserved a clean explanation. And a stern talking to if he was just going to open a vein for every leech that blinked pathetically in his direction. He took another swallow, he didn't bite but he wasn't able to keep himself from running his tongue over the cut and shivered at the taste. Hodge shivered under his hands as well but Geoffrey didn't think that he was going to lose himself again the way that he nearly had. He took another hard pull, the captain was going to have a hell of a bruise but that was the least that he deserved for his stupidity, and then he pushed the other man back hard enough that he stumbled.

McCullum wiped the back of his sleeve across his face, thankful that his coat was dark and wouldn't show the blood easily. He was surprised to realize that he wasn't shaking the same way that he had after his first kill. Sure he still felt like he could run a marathon and still take on the world but he could still think, he didn't know if it was the quantity of blood or if human blood just imparted more clarity but there were other concerns at the moment, namely, the human man in front of him.

"I have half a mind to punch you for that." McCullum said when it was clear that Hodge wasn't going to speak first. An almost hysterical laugh came out of the captain

"A punch I'd take over a bite." he said, he paused and then asked. "So… a relic huh?"

Geoffrey nodded and got to his feet, glancing briefly with annoyance at the new holes in his shirt, he was glad that he'd healed quickly, better him than Hodge. All the same it was going to be frustrating to keep replacing clothes if they got beat up faster than himself.

"I'm happy to chat but let's get out of the sewer first." he said with a wrinkled nose. Hodge seemed to take notice of his surroundings again for the first time in a while and nodded.

"I should bandage this too." he gestured to his arm, Geoffrey turned around and began heading out in order to not think about the warmth oozing out of the captain. It was harder when he could still taste it on his tongue…

Winding their way out of the sewer was easier than coming in, easier still because Geoffrey could confirm that there were no Skals to be concerned about without worrying about blowing his cover. Silver lining he supposed. The smoggy air of London never tasted so good as when you had spent time amongst her filth and the Ekon took his first deep breath in some time, letting it clear the stench from his nose. He glanced over his shoulder to see Hodge tying a spare scrap around his forearm to staunch the bleeding until he could get back to base. Geoffrey swallowed against the sudden influx of saliva, at least his vision wasn't fading out this time. The captain's eyes were hard as he caught his commander staring but he didn't comment on that, asking instead

"Where to?"

"The park," McCullum inclined his head, he'd prefer to go somewhere warm but there was more likely to be extra ears in the area if he did that and he wanted to keep this small if it was going to end the way it should. With him on the end of Hodge's blade.

"Not a secluded area to finish me off?" Hodge seemed to catch onto the commander's line of thinking.

"Out of hearing of most gossips but there's still witnesses, even this time o'night." Geoffrey shrugged. He could hear the other man scoff even as he started to follow

"Yeah if you count the crazies and how reliable their stories are…" but he followed the vampire all the same as they made their way through the cold night to the open area of the park. Geoffrey settled onto a bench, shivering slightly, thankfully only due to the cold air and not the bliss that he'd fallen into previously when hunting.

"So…" Hodge paused, about to blow air into his hands when he seemed to realize that they were covered with grime and blood, his own, McCullum scented it on the air, and reconsidered, instead stuffing them in his pockets. "An artifact you said?"

"Aye…" Geoffrey sighed. "The Blood of the King."

Hodge perked up and the vampire sighed

"So you know about it?"

"Read about it when going through some old files, I thought it was just supposed to increase your strength, put you on par with a powerful leech…."

"Yeah, you could definitely say that it accomplished that." Geoffrey rolled his eyes. "Whoever left that for us is laughing in their grave, and don't I feel like a right fool, didn't even work out anyway…" He looked down at his own fingers, summoning the claws to cover them and letting it go. Hodge stiffened next to him and McCullum could hear his heartbeat pick up before slowing back down again.

"So what now?" Hodge asked after they both sat, the quiet of the dark night pressing in on the pair of them.

"I have no idea. It's not as though I have a good reason to keep this to myself, I just wanted to save my own sorry skin." Geoffrey sighed, he barely suppressed a shiver and wished not for the first time that being undead took away his sensation of hot and cold.

"You… seem to be handling it pretty well, if… you don't mind my saying." Hodge said slowly. Geoffrey turned his gaze on the other man, he didn't know if the couple of sips that he'd taken changed anything about his eyes but he almost hoped that it did right now. He was nearly reconsidering what he'd thought previously on Hodge's aptitude to take over command. Whatever the captain saw in his gaze clearly disquieted him but it didn't make him back down, instead he matched his commander's glare beat for beat.

"I've held up this farce for too long Hodge, all I ask is that you make it quick. Tell them whatever you want, but I'd prefer if you told them I went down swinging rather than the ugly truth."

Hodge stared at him like he'd grown another head.

"Sir, I thought it was clear by now, I'm not going to do that."

"You forgetting our path boy?" McCullum growled, Hodge swallowed stiffly

"No. And I don't think you have either sir. What I was saying was that things have changed, I think they've been changing for a long time, since you took over, maybe longer. We have to be more… thoughtful about our approach. Going in guns blazing every time is just going to bite us, literally. Between you and the doctor I think we're starting to establish that there's some leeches that can sit lower on the priority, heck maybe they'd even be able to help us out and make keeping an eye on them easier." Hodge shrugged and looked out across the park. McCullum took a deep breath, he hadn't expected the conversation to go like this.

"You've put some thought into this." He said, Hodge nodded

"For a while, don't think that is captains haven't noticed that you've had your eye on some of us for a while. It's about time you took on an apprentice to groom for command." The captain gave a small laugh. "Never thought it would actually be me, but here we are."

"Presumptuous of you to think it's you." Geoffrey grumbled

"Unless you're planning on going back to command and tell them all about this," Hodge gestured to Geoffrey in general, "I think you've made up your mind."

"Oh and you plan on using this as blackmail to get the spot?" McCullum teased, Hodge was right but he couldn't help but poke fun at the man a bit.

"Frankly I'm tempted to use it as leverage to get the exact opposite, I don't want to have command." Hodge shook his head, a ghost of a laugh escaping him before he looked up at McCullum again. "So what now?"

"I don't know. I wish I did." For a much as he was glad that Hodge wasn't going to end him, he now felt like he was grasping in the dark.

"What were you going to do if I hadn't learned what I had tonight?" The captain asked

"Find an excuse to hunt alone for a bit, go home, avoid doing paperwork for as long as I could." Geoffrey shrugged.

"That sounds like any other day, or night really."

"What were you expecting? That I was going to start adding "kick puppies" to my to do?" The commander laughed

"Dunno what I expected, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."

"That's a dangerous idea Hodge, don't trust a leech."

"You could have ended me, you didn't, the Guard needs you, simple as that."

Geoffrey took a shaky breath. "I didn't want to stop, I really really didn't." He didn't know why he was saying this, why he was pressing the mercy he'd been given.

"But you did. C'mon, those green kids are probably rallying the troops to recover our corpses, I think we are safe to keep arguing this tomorrow if you're dead set on it." The captain stood and brushed the dirt from his butt, not that it helped since they'd been in the sewers and looked back over his shoulder at McCullum. Geoffrey still couldn't quite believe that tonight was going the way that it was.

He stood up after Hodge but didn't follow, Hodge raised a brow and Geoffrey sighed.

"I… go ahead, I'll catch up." When the captain didn't move Geoffrey looked away, his cheeks didn't color but he felt the shame regardless. "I need to hunt. The little sip I got from you wasn't enough."

The other man's face was a strange combination of understanding and disgust.

"I'll go with you."

"Are you deaf? I just said alone." McCullum grumbled, he didn't want the captain watching him, didn't matter that an hour ago he'd opened his own vein.

"Never trust a leech." Wes turned his previous words back on him and McCullum wilted, he didn't want to argue anymore, tonight had gone on for longer than the few hours they'd been out.

"Whatever, I'm not waiting for you to catch up." the commander said, turning to leave the park for a shadier part of town where he knew there were no patrols and knew that there were likely still Skals to hunt.

"It'll be like I'm not even here." Hodge said, following behind him. Geoffrey didn't point out that there was no way that he could not know the man was there when he still had a bleeding wound on his arm. Instead he took off at a brisk pace for a hunt.

-Face your Fears-

Despite his words, he took a slower pace than he knew he was capable of to the southern part of the city where there were more dead than London knew what to do with. Some of those dead didn't stay down and he was banking on it.

It was… as they trudged through the city, a stubbornly quiet night and Geoffrey was getting antsy, not only due to the hunger itching under his skin, but due to his own impatience. He already knew that leeches had no patience for satisfying themselves, but it would have been nice if immortality granted him just a touch more of it. Instead he huffed out a breath and was about to call it in and just deal with the hunger in grouchy isolation when there was the screech of a beast. Hodge must've heard it too as the other man's head also lifted up at the noise. Geoffrey grinned and took off in the direction that it had come from, quicker than he had been moving before. He could hear Wes curse and try to keep up behind him.

Locating the beast was easy, it wasn't exactly hiding from anything, but the commander didn't want to set it off to his presence. He liked a fight but right now…? Right now he just wanted the cool blood against his teeth. There was a scuffing sound and Geoffrey recognized Hodge's heartbeat, but if he did… so did the beast. The captain was spared a frustrated glance as McCullum dove into the fray. A step to the side, a swipe with his own claws to send it reeling back and then slamming his sword through fur and muscle and tendon alike so it couldn't escape as he went for the throat.

Beautiful, blissful, glorious relief. It was like a breath of air after being underwater and while normally Geoffrey would have felt ashamed of the sound that he was certain was escaping from him in that moment, he couldn't feel anything other than the delight that shot through every nerve. After what had to have been several minutes but only felt like a few seconds Geoffrey let the body drop to the ground, and followed quickly after it. Ah, there's the shaking and shivering, he thought as he leaned back against the dumpster. He tried to take a deep breath, instead it turned into something between a wet hiccup and a shaky gasp. It took several more attempts before it went smoothly and he could open his eyes and focus on anything reliably.

Hodge was standing there, hand on his gun and looking more than a little shaken. When he focused, Geoffrey could hear his heart racing. The captain shifted his weight, watching his commander warily before taking a step forward.

"Sir?" he asked

McCullum took another, slightly wobbly breath and nodded.

"Yeah, it's okay." he said, licking his teeth and just barely held himself together. "I'm… It's a lot. Still getting used to it."

"That… it wasn't like that earlier." Hodge said, moving forward and squatting down so that he was eye level with the other man.

"No…" McCullum agreed, he looked at his fingers, still shaped like claws, he wasn't sure if he was ever going to get used to that, still covered in the blood from the beast. They were halfway to his face before he even considered if he should be licking them clean. The smell convinced him, despite being satiated, it had his mouth watering. It wasn't like the younger man hadn't just seen him at his lowest. The captain's mouth twisted in disgust but he didn't say anything about it.

"Why is it so… I could've done anything sir, for all that you paid attention. You weren't in there." Wes said softly, his own gaze distant

McCullum suppressed another shiver as he dropped his hand to the cold stone beneath him. "No, I really wasn't."

"In the sewer, it wasn't like that, why?"

"Don't rightly know." Geoffrey sighed, he glanced down at his ruined shirt and decided it was a lost cause and wiped at his face the best he could, it wasn't much but it would do until he could actually wash up. "Thought at first that maybe I was just getting better at how it felt in the moment but… dunno, maybe you just don't taste good." he met the younger man's eyes then, watched as it hit him that his commander was joking with him while covered in the viscera of a beast he'd killed with his teeth.

"Har har sir. I think all the other leeches who've tried to take a bite outta me would like to argue with you." Hodge offered him a hand up and Geoffrey gratefully accepted, rising to his full height slowly, waiting to make sure that he felt stable before moving away from the bin that was really starting to smell foul.

"I really don't know Wes."

"Leech blood though…"

"If it keeps me off your neck, I'll take it." McCullum shrugged, yanking his sword from the beast's leg where it was keeping the monster still partially upright.

"But-"

"If you really want to keep talking about it tomorrow Hodge, I'm happy to, but right now I just want to get back to command, wash my face and avoid Lloyd long enough for the old man to go to bed and not pile paperwork on my desk." Geoffrey grumbled, heading out of the alleyway first, Hodge quickly on his heels.

It worked for about a block.

"So how come no one else has noticed yet? How come I didn't notice until I saw a stomach wound close up in a matter of seconds?" He asked. McCullum sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and begging for patience.

"I don't know, I wish I did. Perhaps all of us have just lost our edge." He said to the dark clouds above their heads.

"You mean that you didn't notice at first either?" Hodge took an extra step to catch up with the commander, glancing over his shoulder to check the alleyway that they just passed, thankfully not completely caught up in what they were talking about. What he was talking about.

"I'm used to seeing it take a couple hours at most." Geoffrey said, intentionally slipping his vision into the bloodsight that he'd only had happen on accident until now. There was not a soul around beyond the two of them.

"How long did… it took longer for you?"

"Aye, wasn't all at once either, took days, thought I just had the flu, or it was a repercussion of the artifact," he chuckled "guess that wasn't wrong."

"So you're some special kind of leech then," Hodge ventured. McCullum shrugged, thankful when they rounded the corner in view of headquarters and he could escape a bit of these questions. And the cold.

He had to fight the urge to squint when they entered headquarters as the bright light enveloped them. The crew that had left them in the sewers was in their face all asking questions at the same time. He raised his hands up in the air and they all quickly quieted.

"One at a time." He said, looking at Imogen. She paused for a moment, looking at her compatriots before speaking.

"Are you and Captain Hodge okay sir?" She said first

"Aye, no worse than a few scratches." He said, hoping that they didn't comment on the blood soaked into his shirt. Seeing as he and Hodge were both covered in other grime, it was probably safe.

"And the Vulkod?" She continued, Zachary and Bernie nodded in agreement.

"Dead." Hodge piped up from behind him, slipping out of his coat and rubbing his hands together to get more blood flow into them. "Again." He added with a light grin. The group relaxed, most of their concerns addressed.

"How is Will doing?" McCullum asked, he wasn't with the crew that had ambushed them.

"He's with Ross," Imogen said, "nasty twisted ankle but nothing a few nights rest won't fix."

"Good, make sure that he stays off it." The commander ordered as he untied the straps of his crossbow. The conversation then turned into the crew asking about their performance and how they could improve. McCullum took a backseat to that conversation and let Hodge take the lead. He stuck around to listen though, to see how the captain handled debrief with his crew and was pleasantly surprised, giving him a nod of approval before making a detour to his room to change and clear up any blood that had clung to him.

When he glanced in the mirror he was once again surprised that no one had said anything to him or even reacted. His eyes were so bright that they were practically glowing against his pale skin and the veins around them seemed more prominent than ever. Was everyone blind? Was he the one seeing things? Maybe talking with Reid wasn't the worst idea in the world… He shook his head, now he really was losing it. The stairs creaked as he made his way down and folks met him the second that he got there, smiling and asking him questions and just telling him about their night. He made eye contact with Hodge briefly but the man just raised a brow, giving him a bit of confused expression that made McCullum think that he may have been glowering a bit. But there was dinner that he mostly pushed around his plate in hopes that it would look like he'd eaten it. Not one questioned it when he pushed some of the meat over to one of the rookies' plates, not something he'd never done so no one even blinked.

Lloyd got lucky and cornered him after the large meal and wrested some new patrol routes out of him. They talked briefly on the quantities of Skals and other beasties skulking about and what to do once the numbers were back to a more manageable size.

"I suppose we might be poking back at the Ascalon problem." Lloyd suggested, Geoffrey frowned, they'd barely had a chance to mourn those they'd lost in the first raid. They needed to be more careful if they were going to poke that bear again.

"Maybe." He said, his thoughts turned to what he could do himself against another Ekon which inevitably led down the path of what one of them would taste like now… he swallowed stiffly. "We'd need to take it slow this time, they'll just keep pulling back into their shell if we go after their headquarters again."

"No one's going to like doing more scouting than fighting." Lloyd pointed out reasonably.

"I think they'll like being alive more." McCullum scoffed, he paused and then swiveled topic. "What do you think of Hodge?"

Lloyd leveled him with a look and held it.

"What?" McCullum grumbled, looking back at the stake that he was cleaning the edge up of. "I told you that I was going to actually think seriously on naming a successor and now you're going to judge who I start keeping tabs on?"

"No, I just didn't think that you were actually serious." Lloyd said. "I thought it was going to be one of those conversations that we had and then it wasn't brought up again until you nearly died again."

"Warn me next time you go for my throat." Geoffrey laughed, the wood flaking off at a bad angle and he had to rethink where he was putting the point.

"Wouldn't say it if it wasn't true." The older Gaurdsman said, a little testy, but he put down the tea he'd been barely sipping on and considered briefly. "But I think he's at the very least worth putting to the test. Take him under your wing, see if he can live up to the pressure. He's got a good head on his shoulders and isn't a bad leader but I think he's a little green when it comes to making the tough calls."

Geoffrey nodded, he thought much the same of Hodge, granted the other man had a leg up on his competition since he knew the exact reason why McCullum was trying to pass off the leadership role, but he certainly couldn't tell Lloyd that.

"Good, I'll have him under my wing for a bit, some of a trial run, see if you can't bring him up to speed on some of the logistics that he isn't already a part of." Geoffrey said, waving a hand and fighting off a yawn. He could feel that the sun was on its rise again, he needed to get back to his room.

"Do you have some time to go over these inventory lists?" Lloyd asked gently, holding out a piece of paper. Geoffrey glared at it like it was the cause of all of his problems. He should get it over and done with now, but the words seemed to swim before his eyes and he knew that he wasn't going to be able to hold onto wakefulness for much longer. He must've taken too long to respond because Lloyd clapped a hand on his shoulder and set the paper back in the stack.

"Still shaking off the end of the illness eh? I think routine things like this are a good trail for Hodge, go get some sleep McCullum."

Geoffrey wasn't going to look this gift horse in the mouth and stood, he knew that this excuse wouldn't last forever, but he would take it while he could. He shuffled upstairs and fell almost immediately into deep dreams of blood and the shouts of battles he could not remember…