They faced each other in the center of a large cavern. The ground underneath was uneven, just rocks upon rocks and dirt. He was dressed again, his stake and silver dagger in his hands, with his wand attached to his arm. The vampire had laughed again when Hadley had demanded his clothes back, saying that his jeans didn't have any give and they would cost him fluidity. Snarkily Hadley had responded that fluidity or no, he was not battling him in just underwear.

There were more lights strung up around the area. How the vampire got electricity in the cave was beyond him, but that was the least of his concerns. Underground as they were, he had no idea what time it was. It could be dawn, or still be deep in the night. He thought briefly that he may never see the sun again, but he quickly shook that off.

"All right, Kitten. Because I'm a gentleman, I'll let you have the first try. Come on. Let's do this."

Without further encouragement Hadley charged him, moving as fast as he could with both weapons at the ready to be used. The vampire whirled in a semicircle that left Hadley sailing past him, chuckling infuriatingly as he did so.

"Going jogging pet?"

Catching himself, Hadley glared at the man over his shoulder. But by Merlin, he was fast. The vampire's movements were almost a complete blur to him. Gathering his wits, Hadley feinted a broad overhead right swing. When the vampire raised an arm to block, Hadley swiped low with his left hand and slashed him before getting a devastating kick to the midsection in return. Doubled over in pain, Hadley still saw the vampire examine his shirt with a slight frown.

"I liked this shirt. Now you've gone and ripped it."

Hadley circled again, breathing slowly to combat the pain in his stomach. Before he could blink, the vampire came at him and punched the side of his head, hard enough for him to see stars. In mindless defense, he kicked, punched, and stabbed at whatever was near him. The returning blows came heavily and rapidly. He couldn't have pulled out his wand even if he wanted to, there wasn't even a moment for him to catch his breath between blows. His breathing was ragged and his vision swam as he lashed out with all of his strength. The room suddenly spun as he was thrown backward, rocks cutting into his skin.

The vampire stood about ten feet from where he was sprawled on the cavern ground. Clearly, in hand-to-hand combat, Hadley was outclassed. He felt like he'd been dropped off a cliff, and there were hardly any marks on the vampire. With a sudden flash of inspiration, he flung his dagger and slid his wand into the hand the dagger had just left. It flew with incredible speed and sank into the vampire's chest but too high, too bloody high.

"Bloody hell, Kitten, that hurts!" the vampire snarled in surprise, snatching it from his chest.

Blood flowed from the wound before it stopped abruptly as if a faucet had been turned off. Contrary to popular belief, vampires did bleed red. Hadley was dismayed, being down a weapon and not even having slowed the vampire at all. Bracing himself, he sprang to his feet, moving with heavy steps.

"Had enough?" The vampire faced him and sniffed the air, once. Hadley blinked in confusion, never having seen a vampire breathe before. Hadley was panting furiously, sweat dripping off of his brow.

"Not yet," Hadley growled.

There was another blur of motion, and then the vampire was on him. He blocked blow after blow and tried to score some of his own, but the vampire was too quick and Hadley couldn't catch his breath enough to cast any spells. Fists landed on him with brutal force. Desperately he jabbed the stake into whatever was nearest, but it always missed the vampire's heart. After 10 minutes or so that seemed like an eternity, he fell to the ground for the last time. Both his stake and his wand lay broken and discarded on the cavern floor. Unable to move, Hadley gazed at the vampire through swollen eyelids. I don't have to worry about his terms, Hadley thought dully. He was going to die from his injuries first.

The vampire loomed over him. Everything was colored red and fading.

"Enough now?"

Hadley couldn't speak, couldn't nod, couldn't think. As his answer, he passed out. It was the only action he was capable of.

There was something soft underneath him. Floating, he was floating on a cloud and covering himself with its fleece. He burrowed farther inside when it spoke to him in irritated tones.

"If you're going to take all the covers, you can bloody well sleep on the floor!"

Huh? Since when was a cloud annoyed?

When he opened his eyes, he saw with horror that he was in a bed with the vampire. And yes, apparently he had the entire blanket wrapped around him.

Shooting upward as though burned, he immediately banged his head on the low ceiling.

"Owww…" Rubbing the sore spot, he glanced around in both curiosity and slight fear. How did he end up here? Why wasn't he in a coma from the beating? In fact, he felt… fine. Aside from the mild concussion he had surely just given himself.

He backed as far into a corner as he could manage. There didn't seem to be any visible exit to the small limestone chamber. "Why am I not in a hospital?"

"I healed you," the vampire replied blandly as if they were discussing tea.

He blinked confused, wondering if the vampire had potions on hand. He would question if he had been turned but he could feel his heart pounding in his ears.

"How?"

"Blood, of course. How else?" The vampire leaned back on his elbows, eyeing him with impatience and weariness. He had changed into a new shirt, from what Hadley could see. He didn't want to find out if the vampire believed in sleeping in trousers or not.

"Tell me what you did," Hadley demanded.

With a roll of his eyes, the vampire fluffed his pillow and then hugged it to him. It was such a human gesture, it was uncanny. Who knew vampires cared if their pillows were fluffed?

"Gave you a few drops of my blood. Figured you wouldn't need much what with your being a half-breed. You probably heal fast naturally, but then you were banged up a bit. Your own fault, of course, having suggested that stupid match. Now, if you don't mind, it's daylight and I'm knackered. Didn't even get a meal out of all this."

"Vampire blood heals?"

He shut his eyes as he answered Hadley. "You mean you didn't know? Blimey, but you're ignorant about your own kind."

"Your kind is not my kind."

The vampire didn't even flinch. "Whatever you say, Kitten."

"Would too much blood turn me? How much is too much?" Hadley wondered aloud.

That got an eye opened balefully at him. "Look, school's out now, luv. I'm going to sleep. You're going to shut up. Later, when I'm awake, we'll go over all of these niceties while I prepare you for our arrangement. Until then, let a fellow get some rest."

"Show me the way out and you can sleep all you want." Again he looked around for an exit, finding nothing.

The vampire snorted in derision. "Sure thing. Hows about I fetch your silver dagger for you as well, then I'll just close my eyes while you plug holes in my heart? Not bloody likely. You're in here until I let you out. Don't bother trying to escape, you'd never make it. Now I suggest you get some rest because if you keep me awake much longer, I'm going to want breakfast. Understand?" He closed his eyes again with finality.

"Prick," Hadley muttered. He didn't want to get back on the bed with the vampire, but then again after he left the Dursleys and after a year of sleeping on the run, he refused to sleep on a floor ever again. Since he was still alive and the vampire had healed him, he figured he was safe enough for now.

Hadley slowly laid back down on the extremely comfortable bed, keeping to the edge away from the vampire at his back. He had stolen the covers back from Hadley, so he shivered in the cold cavern air. There was a brief tussling on the bed behind him, and then a sheet landed on top of him.

"Thanks…" Hadley said reluctantly, wrapping the sheet around him.

"You're a bloody cover hog, but I won't make you freeze. For now."

The sheet didn't do much to keep out the chill, but between the warm bed, the sheet providing a little protection, and the soothing silence of the room, unlike Ron and Dudley, the vampire thankfully didn't snore, Hadley found himself drifting off to sleep easily.

It could have been hours, it seemed like minutes. A hand none too gently shook his shoulders and that dreaded voice sounded in his ears.

"Rise and shine. We have work to do."

Hadley's bones gave an audible creak of misery when he stood and stretched, being mindful of the ceiling height this time not wanting another concussion.

The vampire grinned at the sound.

"Serves you right for trying to kill me. The last bloke who did that ended up with much more than a stiff neck. You're right lucky you're useful, or you'd be nothing more than a flush in my cheeks by now."

"Gee, lucky me." Hadley rolled his eyes.

He wagged a finger at Hadley. "Don't be glum. You're about to get a first-class education in nosferatu. Believe me, not many humans get to learn this stuff. But then again, you're not really human."

"I'm more human than I am vampire," Hadley argued.

"Yes, well, we'll find out just how much shortly. Move away from the wall."

He complied, it was too early and he had not had enough sleep after being beaten unconscious to be arguing with the vampire.

He stood in front of the stone wall that Hadley had been previously against and grasped either side of the rock. With ease, he lifted the slab completely off the ground and set it to the side, exposing a crevice big enough to walk through.

"Come along." the vampire threw over his shoulder, stepping through it. "Don't dawdle."

As Hadley squeezed through the narrow opening, a sudden twist of his bladder reminded him that he was still very much dependent on his organs.

"Um…er, I don't suppose there is a loo here? One of us still has functioning kidneys."

The vampire stopped short, arching an eyebrow at him. There were thin streams of light coming from the limestone ceiling, making crisscrossed patterns of illumination throughout the cave. Daytime, then.

"Do you think this is a bloomin' hotel? What, next you'll be wanting a bloody bidet?"

Hadley's eyes narrowed. "Unless you want me to turn around and piss on your bed, I suggest you show me an alternative, and fast."

A noise that sounded very much like a sigh came from him. "Follow me. Don't trip or twist anything, I'll be damned if I carry you. Let's see what we can come up with. Sodding humans."

As Hadley clambered after him, he comforted himself with mental images of the vampire writhing helplessly under his stake. The visual was so clear, that he almost smiled as the vampire led him toward the sounds of water.

"There." He pointed to a cluster of rocks that appeared to hang over a small inner stream. "That water runs downstream. You can climb on those rocks and do your business."

Hadley hurried over, and the vampire called out with an edge to his voice, "By the way, if you're thinking you'll just jump off and swim out of here, it's a bad idea. That water's about 40 degrees and snakes over two miles before it exits these caves. You'd be suffering from hypothermia long before then. Not a nice way to be, shivering and lost in the dark, delusions setting in. Besides, you'd have broken our agreement. I'd find you. And I would be really, really displeased."

The grim note in his voice made the words sound more lethal than the cocking of a gun. Hadley felt disgruntled, but he got the threat loud and clear. He had been thinking of doing that.

"See you in a bit." The vampire turned around and walked a short way away, his back to him. Sighing, Hadley climbed up on the rocks to answer nature's untimely call. He'd been in worse situations, but that didn't make this one any more comfortable.

"I suppose a sink to wash my hands is out of the question?"

There was a bark of laughter in reply. "I'll add that to my list of things to do, Kitten."

"Stop calling me Kitten. My name is Hadley." Finished, he lowered himself down until he once again stood on somewhat solid ground. "What's yours, by the way? You never said. If we're going to be working together, at least I should know what to call you. Unless you simply prefer answering to profanity, of course."

There was that sly curl to his lips again when he faced Hadley. His feet were planted apart and his hips tilted slightly forward. Pale hair hugged his head in tight waves. Under the pinholes of light around him, his skin positively glowed.

"My name is Bones."

"First things first, luv. If you're going to be truly good at killing vampires, you need to know more about them."

They sat on boulders facing each other. The dim light in the cave from the shafts of sunlight had a vague strobe effect. It had to be by far one of the stranger moments in his life, sitting across from a vampire calmly discussing the best ways to kill one. Hadley knew the basics from when Remus had taught them, but that had been almost ten years ago before he worried about trying to fight any vampires, and Hadley would admit if only to himself that he hadn't been the best of students.

"Sunlight doesn't do anything but give us a bad sunburn. Our skin won't explode into flames like it does in the movies, and we won't turn into bits of crispy chicken. However, we do like to sleep in the day because we are the most powerful at night. That's an important point to remember. During the day we are slower, weaker, and less alert. Especially at dawn. By dawn, you'll find most vampires tucked into whatever they call a bed, which as you could tell from last night doesn't necessarily mean a coffin. Oh, some of the old-fashioned ones will only sleep in coffins, but most of us sleep in whatever's most comfortable. In fact, some vamps will have coffins staged in their lair so some Van Helsing wannabe goes there first while the vampire sneaks up behind them. Done that trick a time or two myself. So if you think throwing up the blinds and letting the sun stream in will do the trick, forget it."

"Crosses, unless rigged up with silver, crosses don't do much more than make us laugh before we eat you. Wood, as you are aware, might give us splinters and piss us off, but it won't stop us from ripping your throat out. Holy water, well, let's just say I've had more damage done to me by someone throwing dirt in my face. The whole religious thing is bunk when it comes to hurting our kind, got it? Your only advantage is that when a vampire sees a special stake like yours, they won't be put off."

"Aren't you afraid I'll use this information against you?" Hadley interrupted. "I mean, why should you trust me?"

"Look, pet. You and I are going to have to trust one another to accomplish our objectives. And I'll make this very, very simple: If you so much as look cross-eyed at me and I even wonder if you're thinking of betraying me, I'll kill you. Now, that might not scare you, being the big brave Kitten that you are, but remember this: I followed you home the other night. Got anyone you care about in that barn of a house? Because if you do, then I suggest you make nice with me and do as you're told. If you cross me, you'll live long enough to see that house burned to the ground with everyone still inside. So if you ever make a go for me, you'd better be sure you finish me, understand?"

Visions of what had happened at the Burrow danced behind Hadley's eyes. Oh, Hadley understood alright.

"Besides," his voice brightened like a spring day. "I can give you what you want."

Doubtful. "What could you possibly know about what I want?"

"You want what every abandoned and orphaned child wants. You want to find your father. But you don't want a happy reunion, no, not you. You want to kill him."

Hadley stared at him. He'd spoken aloud what he hadn't even allowed his subconscious to whisper, and he was right. It was probably why he hadn't felt too disturbed by hunting vampires, the Weasley massacre aside. To be able to kill the one who had made his mother leave tear stains in her journal when writing about him, oh he wanted that more than anything.

"You…" Hadley took a second to find the right words. "You can help me find him? How?"

A shrug. "For starters, I might know him. Know a great many undead types, I do. Face it, without me, you're looking for a needle in a fangstack. Even if I don't personally know him, I already know more about him than you do."

"What? How?"

"Like his age, for example. You're 21, right?"

"22," Hadley murmured, still reeling. "Last week."

"Indeed? Then you have the wrong age as well as the wrong name and address on that fake license of yours."

Bones must have gone through his pockets. Well, it made sense; he'd also stripped him while he was unconscious. "How do you know it's a fake?"

"Didn't we just cover this? I know your real address, and it's not the one on your license. Plus you said your name is Hadley and your license says Catán Raven."

Well, shit. He had a point. It defeated the purpose of why he had gotten the phony ID to begin with, in case he ever lost against a vampire or someone found his things. He hadn't wanted them to be able to use him to get back to his house and find his friends and cousin. That had been the thought, anyway. Stupid of him to never expect a vampire to follow him home.

"Come to think of it, pet, you are a liar, possessor of false identification, and a murderer."

"Your point?" Hadley cocked an annoyed eyebrow.

"Not to mention a tease," he continued as if Hadley hadn't spoken. "Foulmouthed as well. Yep, you and I will get along famously."

"Uh-huh." Hadley let as much suspicion as he could drip into his tone.

Bones grinned back at him. "But back to the subject. You said your mum carried you for what, four months? Five?"

"Five. Why?" Hadley was more than a little curious as to his line of questions. What did that have to do with how old, or how undead, his father was?

Bones leaned forward. "See, it's like this. When you're changed, it takes a few days for some of the human functions to cease completely. Oh, the heartbeat stops right off and the breathing as well, but some of the other things take longer. Tear ducts still work normally for the first day or so before you cry only pink due to the blood-to-water ratio in our bodies. You might even piss once or twice to get it out of your system. But the main point is that he still had swimmers in his sack."

"Excuse me?"

"You know, luv. Sperm, if you want to be all technical about it. He still had living sperm in his juice. Now, that's something which would only be possible if he'd been newly changed. Within a week at most. Right off, then, you can pinpoint almost exactly how old he is, in vampire years at least. Add that to any recent deaths around that time and place matching his description, and bingo! There's your dad."

Hadley was stunned. Just as promised, in a few seconds he'd given Hadley more information on his father than he'd been able to find in years. Maybe, just maybe, he's stumbled onto a gold mine. If through Bones, he could learn more about his father and killing other vampires, and all he wanted in return was to pick the targets…well, then, he could handle it. As long as he lived long enough.

"Why do you want to help me find my father? In fact, why do you kill other vampires? They're your own kind after all."

Bones stared at Hadley for a moment before replying. "I'll help you find your father because I reckon you hate him more than you do me, so it'll keep you motivated to do what I say. As for why I hunt vampires… you don't need to bother about that now. You have more than enough to concern yourself with. Suffice it to say some people just need killing, and that goes for vampires as well as humans."

Hadley still didn't know why Bones wanted to work with him in the first place. Hadley didn't trust him yet, not for a moment, but right now he had no choice but to play along. Find out where this led to.

"Back to the subject at hand, luv. Guns don't work on us either. There are only two exceptions to that rule. One, if the bloke is lucky enough to shoot our necks in two and our head topples off. Decapitation does work; not many things can live without a head, and a head is the only part of a vampire that won't grow back if you cut it off. Two, if the gun has silver bullets and enough are fired into the heart to destroy it. Now that's not as easy as it sounds. No vampire will stand still and pose for you. Likely he'll be on you and the gun shoved up your arse before any real damage is done. But those silver bullets hurt, so you can use them to slow a vamp down and then stake him. And you'd better be quick with that silver because you'll have one very brassed-off vampire on your hands. Strangulation, drowning, none of that does anything. We only breathe about once an hour for preference, and we can go indefinitely without oxygen. Just a breath now and then to put a dab of oxygen in the blood and we're as sound as a pound. Our version of hyperventilating is to breathe once every few minutes. That's one way to tell if a vamp is tiring. He'll start to breathe a bit more to perk up. Electrocution, poisonous gas, ingestible poisons, drugs…none of those work. Got it? Now you know our weaknesses."

"The bottom line is that we are very hard to put down. How you've managed to plant 27 of us in the ground is beyond me, but then the world never lacks for fools."

"Hey!" Piqued, Hadley defended his skills. "I would have had you in pieces if you hadn't made me drive and then sucker-punched men when I wasn't looking."

Bones laughed. It transformed his face into something Hadley realized was quite beautiful. He looked away, trying his best not to blush.

"Kitten, why do you think I made you drive? I had you pegged 5 seconds after speaking with you. You were a novice, green to the gills and, once off your routine, helpless as a babe. Of course, I sucker-punched you. There is only one way to fight, and that's dirty. Clean, gentlemanly fighting will get you nowhere but dead, and fast. Take every cheap shot, every low blow, absolutely kick people when they're down, and then maybe you'll be the one who walks away. Remember that. You're in a fight to the death. This isn't a boxing match. You can't win by scoring points."

Bones was reminding him more and more of Moody, what a terrifying thought. "I get it," Hadley said grimly. He had let his skills drop after the war ended and fought to get back to being normal and not a soldier. But it was a death match every time he confronted a vampire. He had let himself forget that.

"But now we're off-topic, again. We've covered our weaknesses. On to our strengths, and we have many. Speed, vision, hearing, smell, and physical strength, all are superior to a human's. We can scent you long before we see you, and we can hear your heartbeat a mile away. In addition to that, all of us have some form of mind control over humans. A vampire can suck a pint of your blood and seconds later you won't even remember seeing one. It's in our fangs, a little bitty drop of hallucinogen that, when combined with our power, makes you susceptible to suggestion. Like, for example, someone didn't just suck on your neck but you met a bloke and had a chat and now you're feeling sleepy. That's how most of us feed. A little dab here and a little dab there, and none the wiser for it. If every vampire killed to eat, we'd have been outed from our closet centuries ago."

"You can control people's minds?" That sounded like a horrifying combination of an imperius and an obliviate.

Bones' brown eyes suddenly bled to green and his gaze drilled into Hadley's. "Come to me," he whispered, and Hadley could feel the words resound in his head but it was easier to ignore than the imperius.

"No, nice bloody try though," Hadley growled.

Abruptly Bones' eyes were brown again and he threw a cheery grin Hadley's way. "Appears you'll at least be safe. Good on you, that'll be handy. Can't have you getting all weak-minded and forgetting your goals, can we? Probably it's your bloodline. It doesn't work on other vampires. Or humans who imbibe vampire blood. Guess you have enough of us in you. Some humans are naturally immune to it also, but only a very small percentage. Have to have extraordinary mind control or natural resistance not to let us in to meddle about. MTV and video games have solved that problem as far as most of humanity goes. That and telly, as it were."

Maybe being part-vampire is what helped Hadley have the ability to throw off the imperius, it was at least a better theory than he had ever heard otherwise.

Bones shook his head, "Daylight's burning, luv, and we keep getting off-topic. We have a lot to cover still. We've gone through the senses and the mind control, but don't forget our strength. Or our teeth. Vampires are strong enough to break you in half and carry the pieces with a finger. We can throw your car at you if we want to. And we'll rip you apart with our teeth. The question is, how many of our strengths do you have in you?"

Hesitatingly, Hadley began to tick off his abnormalities. "I can see very well and darkness doesn't affect me. I see as well at night as in the day. I'm faster than anyone I know, humanly speaking. I can hear things from far away, maybe not as far as you can. Sometimes I can hear my friend and cousin whispering to each other about me…" Hadley stopped himself, Bones didn't need to know any of his personal issues. "I don't think I can control anyone's mind with my eyes, I have spells I could use but most of those are highly illegal to use. If I could, people might have treated me differently."

Hadley really needed to figure out how to filter himself better. "Anyways," he continued. "I know I'm stronger than the average person. When I was 17, before I moved to the States, I beat up a group of men older and larger than me. That was when I began to realize I wouldn't be able to hide my abnormalities from others. You've seen my eyes and how they change. I have to control myself when I am upset so other people don't see them glow. My teeth are normal, I guess. They've never poked out funny, anyhow."

Hadley glanced at Bones hesitantly. He had never talked to anyone about his differences since he discovered he was a half-vampire. It felt both freeing and terrifying.

"Let me get this straight. You said at 17 you truly realized your differences. You didn't know what you were before? What did your mum tell you about your father when you were growing up?"

This was steering into complicated and uncomfortable topic territory. He hasn't had to ever explain his story to anyone since everyone in the wizarding world knew of him.

"As I said yesterday. My mother is dead. Died when I was a 1 year old, murdered by a madman. Until I was 17 I thought my step-father was my biological father, and he had died alongside my mum murdered by the same madman. But when I turned 17 the magic that my mum had cast on me to hide my heritage and my biological father wore off. When a wizard or witch turns 17 they get a surge in their magic and that surge burned off whatever my mum had used to block my heritage. She had made me look like my step-father so no one questioned my genetics. I have had to piece together what I know now from journals my mum had left behind, letters from an unknown person here in the States, and what I know of vampires from school. But some traits I think were able to leak through whatever magic my mum had used. I used to wander the corridors of my school at night, I liked night the most and struggled to sleep until the sun rose. Sports were easier for me, I was faster than most of my classmates. But it wasn't until those men cornered me right after I discovered the truth about my genetics, that I realized I needed to leave because I wouldn't be able to hide or control the differences if I stayed."

"What did they do?" Bones' voice was softer, almost gentle.

In his mind, he could see their faces as clearly as if they stood before him.

"You have to understand. The wizarding world had just come out of a civil war that spanned decades. That madman who murdered my parents had many followers, and after the war ended, a lot of those followers got off without any punishment. The four men who cornered me were some of the ones who had avoided going to prison. It wasn't my first time facing men like this, I had a large part in fighting in our war. They didn't scare me. But instead of trying to fight me, instead of trying to curse me, or kill me. They decided I was 'pretty' enough to try to rape." Hadley said bitterly. "They didn't even recognize who I really was since my looks had changed so drastically. I could have handled fighting them wand to wand, but I wasn't prepared for what they wanted from me. Wizards typically are the last ones to use physical violence, entirely too dependent on their wands normally. I froze. Then when one of them tried to touch me, I snapped. Broke the one bloke's hand and then broke the rest of him and then his friends. Never picked up my wand. I broke their bodies and then left them for dead in the alley like they would have done to me. I packed up my stuff and moved to the States that night."

Hadley's eyes stung with unshed tears, but he refused to cry. He survived, that is all that mattered.

Bones stared at him in a very peculiar way. If he didn't know any better, he would say there was empathy in the vampire's gaze.

Abruptly Hadley stood up. "Speaking of unpleasant things, I need to call my housemates. They'll be worried sick. I've come home late before, but I've never been out this long. They'll think one of you bloodsuckers finally killed me."

That caused Bones' eyebrows to fly into his hairline. "Your housemates know you've been luring vampires with promises of shagging and then killing them? And they haven't tried to talk you out of it? What kind of people are they to let you put your life on the line? Back in my day, I would've tied you down until sense could be pounded into your thick skull. Hell, even now I wouldn't let my undead mates do what you do without at least some backup."

"Don't speak about them that way!" Hadley burst out. "They know I am doing the right thing. My best mate's entire family was wiped out by vampires, why wouldn't he want me to hunt them?"

Bones' brown eyes bored into Hadley's very steadily. Then he shrugged. "Whatever you say."

Suddenly Bones stood in front of him. Hadley hadn't even had time to blink, he was so fast.

"You've got good aim when you throw things. Found that out last night when you chucked your dagger at me. Just think, a few inches lower and you might have been planting daises over my head by now." Bones grinned as if amused at the mental image. "We'll work to improve your speed and accuracy. You'll be safer if you can kill from a distance. You're too bloody vulnerable up close."

Bones grasped him by the upper arms. Hadley tried to pull away, but he held on. Iron bars would have had more give.

"Your strength leaves much to be desired. You're stronger than a human man, but probably as weak as the weakest vampire. We'll have to work on that as well. Also, your flexibility is shit and you don't use your legs at all when you fight. They're valuable weapons and should be treated as such. As for your speed, well… that might be hopeless. But we'll give it a go anyhow. The way I figure it, we have about six weeks before we can get you out in the field. Yep, 5 weeks of hard training and 1 week to work on your looks."

"My looks?" Outrage filled his voice. "What's wrong with my looks?"

Bones smiles condescendingly. "Oh, nothing horribly wrong, but still something that needs fixing before we send you out."

"You-"

"After all, we're going after some big fish, luv. Baggy jeans and a mediocre appearance won't cut it. You wouldn't know sexy if it bit you on the arse."

"By Merlin, I am going to-"

"Quit blathering. Didn't you want to call your housemates? Come with me. My cell phone's in the back."

Mentally Hadley performed all sorts of tortuous acts on Bones' bound and helpless body, but in reality, he bit his tongue and followed him deeper into the cave.