"That's it?"

Jino tilts his head. "What?"

"Aren't you surprised? What are you doing down here? You were a Shadow last night, what's going on?" The questions tumble out, Heli doesn't give Jino any chance to answer. Jino stares back, unblinking.

"Where's Hermina?" Peter steps forward, grabbing Jino by the cloak. "What did you do with her?"

Jino pushes him off with one hand.

"I don't know who Hermina is."

"You took her!" Peter yells in his face. "Where is she?"

Jino looks from Heli to Peter, his head still cocked to the side. "You seem confused."

Heli takes a deep breath and sits in front of Jino on the stone floor.

"You're not a Shadow."

"Where are the other vampires?" Peter hasn't given up the one-sided questioning.

Jino looks up at him, unphased. "Hey man, why don't you relax?"

Peter returns an offended expression, but Jino turns to Heli.

"I am surprised." He holds up the silver cross by its chain. "I thought I was imagining things when this showed up. But I figured that either meant you were here, or I was dead. And I haven't crumbled to dust yet."

"I found that in the mausoleum. Viken said it was cursed," says Heli. "Your cross showed us how to get down here."

This reaction may be an improvement over what he was expecting, but it's still unnerving. Rather than a brainwashed Shadow, Jino doesn't regard him with any more shock or surprise than someone who'd dropped in unanticipated for afternoon tea.

"Jaan didn't think I was real, he nearly took my head off," he continues.

"I put it up there to try and keep the Shadows out," Jino says. "Or maybe it was waiting for you."

"Shadows?" Heli asks. "You're not one of them so…you're not down here hiding, are you?"

Jino nods. "Listen. There were other vampires, when I first came here, almost twenty years ago. They slept under the mausoleums in these caves. They welcomed me, and I learned a lot from them. I always found it funny that vampires stayed near a town that was right about them, and hostile."

He looks up to Peter. "I take it that's where you came from?"

"I was called to deal with a vampire problem," Peter replies stiffly. "So where did they all go?"

"It was really nice for a while." Jino ignores him. "I could keep my promises, and no one minded. In fact they encouraged using blood sources other than live humans, which was part of the reason they were able to hide so well. That was something Lamia always seemed bothered about."

"Bothered is an understatement," says Heli.

Jino leans back on his hands. "I learned it's not really about blood. I mean, it is, but more so what blood does. What it represents."

He pauses, waiting several moments in silence. Heli is about to prompt him on, but he concludes.

"It's life."

"That should be obvious," Peter scoffs.

"Every day you exist you're fighting against death. Our bodies can't make blood anymore, but when you're full of it, it's like being alive, keeping death at bay for just a little longer. Without it, eventually death will overtake your healing power and you'll decay. But you're not really alive, right? All along you're tricking your own body, and it knows you should be dead. That's why you sleep. A small respite so you can stop fighting, even just for a few hours."

Heli watches as Jino's eyes wander over the candles light around them, their light flickering in the streams of water dripping down the walls.

"Human blood is best, of course. Nothing else nourishes quite the same way, but you'll get by."

"Jino," Heli says softly. "What happened to the others?"

"I was getting there," Jino says. "Lamia didn't show up herself, but a whole lot of Shadows did. And they slaughtered everyone. I didn't know if she was looking for me, or what, but I managed to escape down here. I couldn't leave for more than a couple hours without some Shadow on my tail. They have been here ever since, just like they're waiting for me."

Heli leans forward, both horrified and confused. "How do you get down here without being followed? Or out? It looks like you'd be cornered."

Jino shakes his head. "There are two ways down here. One, the tunnel under the mausoleum that you came down, which I've been lucky enough to keep a secret. Two," he points into the darkness behind him. "Through the ossuary, and they won't follow me there."

"Wouldn't they just have to wait outside then?" asks Peter.

"Yes, and they do. So mostly, I'm stuck down here." Jino returns a sad smile. "It's alright though. I came to realise that I deserve this." He gestures to the cross. "For the things I did. The things I did to you in particular."

The words hang between them. Jino seems resigned as the flickering candlelight deepens the lines in his face. He looks at Heli with an expression that conveys how much he really means the things he just said.

"What are you talking about?" Heli says. "You didn't do anything-"

"I did," Jino says. "Don't you remember? This thing was covered in your blood, and it was my fault. If I hadn't pushed you down the attic stairs, and you hadn't gotten hurt, we wouldn't have started drinking your blood. You wouldn't have hit your head and Lamia wouldn't have gotten control of your mind. You could have had a normal life if it wasn't for me."

Heli wants to reach out and shake sense into Jino. Instead he clenches his fists. Jino had had so much promise. It should have been him that Dr. Himmel saved, but knowing Jino's loyal nature, Heli knows he would have followed the others without question, even though he had fully understood what was going to happen. He should also understand Heli would have never willingly abandoned them.

"You think I would have wanted to go on without the rest of you?"

Jino frowns as his eyes scan Heli's face as if he's looking for indications of deceit.

"Even with what you know now? Aren't there too many things that you regret?"

"I-" Heli starts to protest, but an uneasy feeling creeps into the corners of his mind. Things he regrets, things he would change…was there anything like that? Something that would completely alter where he's sitting now. If he'd gone with the doctor, they would have been separated forever. If he'd obeyed Lamia, he might have been the Shadow keeping Jino a prisoner in this cold, damp place. He definitely would have never become friends with Viken or Eugene. But something else is nagging at him, a fragment of a memory he can't quite place.

"That's, I think, not anything that I would think about, it's just not, I mean you can't tell. The things that would be different aren't, you know?"

"What?" Peter turns to him with a confused look.

Heli takes a deep breath with a renewed attempt to sort out his thoughts.

"Staying here and blaming yourself for things that you couldn't have predicted isn't something I can agree with," he says. "Nothing that happened then was your fault."

"There isn't anything you regret?" Jino repeats.

This query feels like a test.

"I didn't say that," Heli says. "I wouldn't argue with being free of this curse, but I don't know if things would be better if I had avoided it."

Jino hesitates, his eyes unwavering from his gaze on Heli's face.

"You still deserved to know what was happening to you. The rest of us were given a choice, and we took that from you."

Heli averts his eyes from the serious expression on Jino's face. This wasn't the reunion he imagined. While he's glad he hadn't found Jino a mere shell of himself, an unquestioning servant of Lamia, he feels like Jino is prying him for something he doesn't have. He still hasn't answered the most important questions.

"Why is there a Shadow that looks exactly like you?"

"Oh, is he using my face?" Jino's eyebrows raise in surprise. "I noticed that most of them left around autumn. That was pretty weird. I knew one of them stayed, but I haven't caught any glimpse of him under his cloak."

"What does he want with Hermina?" Peter demands.

"I still don't know who that is," Jino says. "Maybe he was bored."

"She knew I would come here," says Heli. "She knew I was looking for you."

Jino looks from Peter to Heli, and laughs out a single laugh. "Man, that's some conspiracy."

"It's not a conspiracy that a vampire pretending to be you, if you're not lying to us now, kidnapped a young woman from this town and I need to find her. That's a hard fact," Peter argues.

"Alright," Jino says. "Then let's find her."

He stands with a stretch. Heli follows suit.

"You want to help me?" Peter asks.

"Of course we'll help," says Jino. "I want to make things right."

"Don't try to stake me again," says Heli, earning a weak smile from Peter.

Jino picks up one of the longer candles from the floor of the cave. With a wave of his hand, the rest extinguish.

"This way," he gestures in the opposite direction of where they had come down the tunnel. "Mortals can't really go back out through the mausoleum, I don't think it's easy to climb back up."

The tunnel he leads them through isn't the unfinished, precarious dirt of the mausoleum tunnel. The walls are set with stone blocks. Their footsteps echo on a smoothed stone floor and up a narrow set of stairs. Viken is too far out of range for Heli to communicate with. He would have liked to tell him not to wait for them by the sarcophagus.

"Who is that guy?" Jino whispers to Heli, tipping his head to mean Peter, who follows silently behind them.

"A relative of Dr. Himmel. He hunts vampires."

"What are the chances?"

Jino pushes open a small wooden door. The space they step out into feels huge compared to the cramped underground cave. A high vaulted ceiling rises overhead. Moonlight streams in through the tall windows. Heli grabs Jino's arm as he fully realises what he's looking at.

The walls are covered with bones. Spiraling around the columns of the structure, across the beams of the ceiling and even hanging down, arranged in something like a graceful chandelier are hundreds of browned skeletal remains.

"We're inside the church," he gasps.

"Ossuary," Jino corrects. "This is both a chapel and a grave. Completely safe for you to enter, even if your powers are nullified. The Shadows don't know that though."

He leads them outside, where Heli can hear yelling. Viken's voice carries through the cemetery.

"Go and get Jaan to jump down there then, I'm not going anywhere I can't see the bottom."

"Jaan is here?" asks Jino, but Heli is already sprinting to Viken.

He sits on the mausoleum step while Eugene is peering down into the sarcophagus.

"AUGH!" Viken yells upon seeing him. "How'd you get out here?"

"I found Jino," Heli says.

"Isn't he evil?" Eugene straightens up. "Where's that other guy?"

"There's a lot to explain," Heli says.

A lot to talk about, but the energy the small bit of blood Viken had given him is wearing off, the fatigue of three days without sleep is starting to settle back in. As they settle back into their rented room, Jino retells the story of the circumstances that led to him hiding underground. Jakah eagerly hangs on every word, and Solon listens with a pensive look on his face. While Jakah begins his own account of the events that led them here, Heli's head drops onto Jaan's shoulder, who's sitting on the bed beside him. His eyes close and the others' voices fade. Someone shakes his shoulder, but Eugene's voice rings out.

"No! Let him sleep!"

Jino is already awake, flipping through a newspaper when Heli opens his eyes. It's still a little light, but Heli finally feels rested. His mind wanders back to the night before, fully processing everything that happened, and everything that had been said.

"Jino?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it would be possible if I fell asleep to just…not wake up again?"

Jino's eyes widen in concern.

"You said sleeping was, like," Heli searches for the words. "Giving in to being dead for a while."

"Ah, right," Jino's expression softens. "We're neither dead, nor alive. Always bouncing between the two without ever fully being either. I suppose it's possible, if you really let go of everything tethering you to this world."

Jino turns back to his paper as he quietly hums and taps his foot. His hair is damp, but he's wearing the same clothes as he had been the night before, minus the cloak. Though the colours are bright from never having seen sunlight, he's covered in white splotches of mildew. Just wait until Eugene sees this. They'll really be spending the last of the money from Eira on another shopping trip.

Heli turns over, letting his arm fall over the edge of the bed. In a strange way, they'd been in similar circumstances. Both alone and stuck in the dark for years and years. Jino may have considered it a fitting punishment for perceived wrongdoing, but he didn't deserve that fate at all. He wasn't the one who'd abandoned his friends for Lamia's empty promises. Heli feels more fragile than ever, while Jino appears just fine. The same upbeat disposition, the usual optimism. He doesn't look to be weighed down by his own memories, grappling for some way out of the darkness of his own mind.

Heli may be holding on to the hope they can all reunite and everything will turn out alright in the end, unease still lingers in the forefront of his mind. Like the sensation of having forgotten something so completely, he can't remember what it was, just that there is something missing. The longer he lies here awash in his thoughts, the worse he feels. Eager for distraction, he slides out of bed, quickly dressing just when the others begin to stir.

"I'll be right back," he announces to no one in particular, and opens the door.

Viken stands with a hand raised as if he'd been about to knock.

"Where are you off to?" he demands.

"I'll be right back," Heli repeats, sidestepping around Viken.

"I don't think so," Viken steps in front of him, but Heli walks around, and they continue this pattern down most of the hall. "Peter has been out all day, so don't bother. Look, I don't want to call you an idiot, but you really keep walking into traps like a bloody idiot."

"Nonsense," says Heli. "I don't have to keep up pretenses anymore, it'll be fine. Besides, Jino told him we'd help."

"Then he should go and be the one risking getting stabbed. Didn't you get beat up at a carnival? Nearly lose Sena at the masquerade? Let's not even start about last night."

Peter is dangerous, Heli understands that. But he has too many questions to let him go, and he has no reason to hide his powers any more if he does try anything. The Shadow is Peter's target, not him or Jino. Even though they could just leave with Jino and let Peter go at it alone, Heli doesn't feel right about doing that. Even if Jino hadn't offered his assistance, they can't just run now, not after everything Jino went through. Not when Lamia is still trying to intimidate him even without direct access to his mind.

Viken groans loudly, but it's not enough to drown out the sound of footsteps behind them. Heli turns to see Jino, his hands in his pockets looking up at the ceiling, and Jakah, still in pyjamas.

"Why are you following me?," Heli says. "I said I'd be right-"

"I thought we were in this together," Jino interrupts and Jakah puffs up his cheeks.

"I told you I was never letting you out of my sight!" he says. "Every time I leave you alone you almost die!"

Heli makes a face. "I never actually said where I was going."

"I have to agree, your instinct for self-preservation seems to be broken."

Heli turns. Peter stands in the doorway of his room.

"I hope you've come because you have a good plan," he says flatly. "I still have a vampire doppelganger to track down, and a missing young woman to find, don't forget."

"Of course I haven't," Heli says. "You were right in saying we had the same goal. I was looking for him." Heli points to Jino. "You're looking for someone pretending to be him. There's no reason not to work together."

"To be honest, I wasn't expecting you to follow through. Are you sure there's nothing else you want from me?"

Heli can feel all eyes on him as they wait for his answer with baited breath.

"I want to make it clear to Lamia that I want her to leave me alone."

Peter's face cracks into a small smile until he puts back his stern expression. "And? Isn't she your master?"

Viken stifles a giggle as Heli shifts his weight.

"If we can deal with her minions maybe she'd get the message," he says. "And I want to know what you know."

Peter looks over the crowd in front of him and nods his head. "Alright. Come in and I'll show you what I've got."

He steps aside so they can enter.

"Are you going to tell us how to hunt vampires?" Viken asks.

"I can show you some of my strategies."

"Shouldn't we get Eugene for that?" Jakah asks, but Viken claps his hands together, evidently eager to learn something Eugene doesn't know.

They sit on the bed and Peter leans into the desk, crossing his arms. Viken takes an immediate interest in Peter's weapons kit, which lies on the floor, lid open.

"What's this?" He asks, pointing to various objects. "Do these things actually work?"

"I'm sure you already know most of this," Peter crouches down beside Viken. "In my opinion, this is the most useful weapon in my toolkit."

He reaches down and pulls out the pistol. "Silver bullets aren't easy to get, but they're the only thing that really works. You know why?"

Jino raises a hand in his air.

"Silver is a pure metal," he says. "It's been long thought to be impenetrable to evil spirits."

"Right," says Peter. "A shot to the heart will kill you instantly. A shot to the head will disable you long enough to finish the job. A hit anywhere else will hurt like hell and still give me enough time to wrap things up. Your hearts are so weak, even grazing it is potentially fatal."

"What do you mean 'potentially'?" Viken scoffs. "Anyone would die getting shot in the heart."

"True," says Peter. "But compared to the resilience of the rest of your body though, it's almost comical."

"Can you stop saying 'you' in reference to this?" Heli asks.

"Sorry," Peter shakes his head. "I don't usually have an audience, let alone one interested in how I might kill them." He puts the pistol away and pulls out a couple other items from the box.

"All my weapons are what you might expect. Stakes for the heart, blades for the head. Holy water and religious items, though clearly their efficacy is questionable." He eyes Jino, whose cross is fitted back around his neck.

"This is mine," Jino says. "I've always worn it."

"You also all walked in here despite the cross hanging over the door," Peter replies. "I thought maybe it was due to the fact whoever placed it there is long gone, but you've also been accompanied by a mortal every time."

Heli slowly nods as he contemplates this, but it's true. Whether it was Viken and Eugene or Peter, he'd always been with someone as he passed through that door. While standing outside it may have been uncomfortable, there was no resistance crossing the threshold. In a way, that might have been an effect similar to the fact a mortal could transport or carry them over running water. A lot of variables seem to affect how well something will work against them.

"You don't have any really special weapons then," says Heli.

"Not really. Pretty standard stuff, but I'm guessing it's better than anything you've got."

"I have a cursed sword."

"Oh?" Peter leans into the desk and crosses his arms. "Weapons aren't what really matters though. Mortals can't hope to be stronger or faster than a vampire, so you have to outsmart and deceive them."

Heli averts his eyes, though he can feel Peter looking at him.

"You walked right into that one, too," Viken laughs.

"There's enough of us, if we can find the Shadow we can ambush him," says Jakah. "You don't have any ideas about where he could be?"

"Not if you don't," Peter replies. "My best guess was the cemetery. There aren't any abandoned houses in town that have been left long enough if he's been hanging out for years. I'd wager we want to look for someplace in the vicinity of the cemetery, not so far that he couldn't keep an eye on Jino's whereabouts."

They sit in silence for a few moments, until Jino again raises his hand.

"I've got it."

"Put your hand down," Jakah tugs on Jino's sleeve. "We're not in class anymore."

"There's a farm behind the cemetery. They have a barn and maybe some other buildings, do you think he might be hiding there?" Jino asks.

Peter unfolds his arms as he leans forward. "Not the barn, no."

"We were in the barn," says Viken. "Something weird was going on there for sure. That has to be it, don't you think?"

"I will admit you threw me off that day, but I did thoroughly check the barn. Though the animals were drained of blood, there was no sign of anything else staying or sleeping there." He smiles widely. "He's not in the barn. He's in the house."

"Didn't you look in the house too?" Viken asks. "Can't have been that thorough of a search job. I mean if you were right there and missed an entire vampire."

"I tried a couple times, the people living there wouldn't let me in," Peter replies. "I wasn't about to break in, but if this vampire could convince Hermina to allow him in the house, maybe this family fell victim as well." He pauses. "Especially if this vampire can change his appearance."

"Still just sounds like a wild guess."

"We don't have any other ideas," Heli says as he rises from the bed. "Should we check it out then?"

Though Viken eyes him suspiciously, Peter maintains his smile.

"No opposition from me," says Jino. "Let's go."