Twenty-Five
Mick
Mick stiffened in alarm, scanning his surroundings cautiously. He couldn't explain, even to himself, what the problem was, he just knew something wasn't right. It was nothing he could detect with his senses- he didn't see, smell, or hear anything other than what he had for the past half hour, and he didn't sense the presence of other nearby life forms- or unlife forms, for that matter. It was something else, something he'd never really felt before, but he had a powerful feeling that something was wrong.
Weird, he thought to himself, unable to shake the sensation.
He didn't like these hallways. Whomever had been responsible for picking this particular building for its current purpose had likely known the psychological effect it would have; it was nerve-wracking to creep down these hallways, waiting for an attack, with the never ending doors lining either side, rooms that could be hiding any number of attackers, or even Beth. Only his superior sense of smell and his literal sixth sense for others of his kind informed him that the myriad hotel rooms were empty, but that didn't keep Mick from wanting to look over his shoulder after each closed door he passed. If it was affecting him this way, he couldn't imagine how Beth was dealing with it, being unable to sense danger in the same way that he and Josef could.
Mick didn't worry too much about Josef, though; he was probably spoiling for the adventure of a fight, if Mick knew his friend as well as he thought he did.
He'd probably make fun of me for being nervous, Mick mused with a suspicious look at a door to his immediate right. He decided not to mention it to him later.
If there is a later.
Mick angrily pushed that thought from his mind – where the hell did that come from?- and deliberately resisted a look back at the most recent door he had passed, just to prove that he could. He had to think positively; he'd never had a problem with that before, even in similar situations, so why would he now? Mick always started a case with a determined attitude and the confidence that he would succeed in the end, no matter what it took.
But this isn't a case, he reminded himself. This is Beth. They have Beth.
That was true, but it wasn't the first time he'd had to rescue her, so why did he have such a bad feeling about it?
Third time's a charm, intoned the voice in his head.
Mick stopped cold at the thought. Was that it? Was her luck running out? He'd rescued Beth successfully when she was four, then again not long ago....maybe fate or some higher power was determined to have her this time, despite Mick's recurring interference.
He discarded that thought quickly and resumed his cautious progress to the end of the hall. He hadn't believed in a 'higher power' for a good long while. Around fifty-five years, in fact. And he had no intention of surrendering Beth to some unknown force. Or to the vampires that had kidnapped her, for that matter.
Again, Mick stopped suddenly, this time sensing something a little more definite than his previous strange sensation. Another vampire was nearby, an old one. Just as Mick realized that whoever it was wasn't in one of the rooms, a figure stepped into the shadows at the end of the hallway several feet ahead of him. She had emerged from the alcove of a non-functioning elevator.
"Sylvia," Mick greeted coldly.
"What? No hello?" Sylvia didn't try to pretend she was anything other than what she was. Both vampires knew the cards were now on the table; she was not Mick's friend.
The quality of his surroundings shifted as Mick changed, his already hyper-sensitive senses becoming even sharper still, and he hissed his aggression at Sylvia.
Sylvia hissed in response even as she changed mere seconds after Mick, her eyes turning frosty and her face even paler. Mick growled as her fangs descended and his muscles bunched in preparation for a leap of attack or defense, the fifteen feet that separated them not a concern.
"Where's Beth," Mick demanded, his voice emerging with the hoarse rumble caused by his alternate nature.
"She is not harmed. Yet." Sylvia smiled slyly, seemingly unconcerned by Mick's aggression.
"She'd better not be," Mick warned. "Take me to her!"
"Oh, Mick," Sylvia chuckled, her voice deep and throaty. "Always the knight in shining armor. Do you really care for this girl? Wouldn't you rather have someone a little more....mature?"
Sylvia began to approach him slowly, swaying seductively, and Mick growled again but said nothing. Sylvia knew where Beth was; he might need her to find Beth, or at the very least, to make sure Beth wasn't harmed.
Mick held his position as Sylvia came to a stop directly in front of him and looked up into his eyes, faking adoration. "Or does our shining knight just like to be the one to come running to the rescue?" She reached up and ran a finger slowly down the side of his face. Mick's eyes narrowed dangerously, but he kept still. "Then perhaps you should stick with the young ones, the weak humans; those of us of the higher caliber need no protection."
Mick could take no more. He reached up and grabbed Sylvia's wrist, squeezing it tightly as he spoke. "What is it you people want from me? Why all these games? I have nothing you want. Just take me to Beth; she has no part in this."
Sylvia's eyes flashed and she lost her gentle demeanor. "She is a part of this as long as she is a part of you, Mick St John."
Before Mick even knew the other vampire had moved, she'd pulled her wrist free and had him by the throat. Her power was amazing, and he might have admired it under other circumstances. Try as he might, Mick was unable to break her grip, and she lifted him several inches so that his toes barely scraped the floor. His altercation with Malcolm was too recent and too fresh in his mind for him to have already forgotten the power of the Elders, but he was surprised all the same.
"For now, she has served our purposes of getting you here without a fight and without alerting allies. What is to be done with her later remains to be seen. She knows too much for a human. But you won't be around to worry about that, darling. Now here's what we're going to do. You're going to come with me, and whether you are conscious or unconscious makes no difference to me and it is completely up to you. But, as I'm sure you've figured, we have Beth, and if you fight or refuse, your little wisp of a girl will not see morning."
She lowered Mick back to the floor, almost gently, and released him. Mick had to fight the urge to suck in a deep, unnecessary breath. He glared at Sylvia angrily, but she just smiled. She had him right where she wanted him and they both knew it.
"If you're going to kill her anyway, what's to keep me from fighting? Why bother to threaten me with her death now if she's to die later?" Mick wondered if lowering Beth's value as leverage would put her in more immediate peril or give him a chance to rescue her later. Because he knew there'd be a later. There had to be, even if just for Beth.
But Sylvia was on to him. He knew it by the way she smirked knowingly at him.
"As I said, Mick....you are a knight in shining armor, and I learned from all of our friendly little chats how much you care for her-" Mick winced at the reminder of how he'd trusted her with his confidences, "-and I know you will stubbornly hold on to the hope that you will get your chance. You cannot fight me and win, Mick. I'm much too strong for you. But even if, by some chance you managed to take me, there are others here that would make sure you never leave this building. And Beth would be dead long before you reached her, I promise you this." She paused pointedly. "We have Kostan in our custody, as well....are you prepared to risk both their lives?"
Mick had been unprepared to learn that Josef had been captured and his spirits sank. He might have a slim chance of finding one of them, provided he were to evade the enemy vampires long enough, but he'd never find both of them before the Elders exacted their justice on the one that remained. Of course, Josef stood a much better chance of fighting them off or escaping on his own than Beth did, being the least helpless of the two, and logic would dictate that Mick find Beth, but....as much as he loved her, could he really choose between the two most important people in his life?
"Fine," Mick said flatly. "It seems I have no choice. For now." He would have to cooperate and take his chance where he could. He knew there was more to this than Sylvia was letting on, and he wanted to find out all he could. It might help him later. If they'd just wanted to kill him, Sylvia could have done that easily moments ago, and Malcolm had certainly been in the position to do so when he'd overpowered Mick earlier. And the fact that they'd taken Beth indicated that they were going to force his cooperation for something; that wouldn't have been necessary if their only goal was to kill him.
And why all the theatrics, anyway? Malcolm had had Mick at his mercy in Mick's apartment just hours ago. Why hadn't he taken him then, or tried to torture whatever it was they wanted out of him at that time? They'd had Beth then, too, and they had to know that Mick would have caved if they'd threatened her to get whatever they wanted. Why wait until now? Why let them go, simply to kidnap Beth an hour later for the purposes of regaining control of Mick? Control they'd already had and relinquished.
None of this made any sense at all to Mick's logical mind.
Mick stayed silent as he walked ahead of Sylvia, changing course only when she ordered it, a wooden stake pressed against his back the whole time. "Just a failsafe," she'd said, and Mick believed her. He knew she wasn't afraid of him. She had no reason to be, with the superior power that was due to her age. She could have easily staked him into paralysis and carried him. She'd made sure he understood that being allowed to walk on his own was just that- an allowance.
Mick wondered if he could use Sylvia's lack of fear to his advantage. He'd have to be careful; she wasn't stupid. But if they were all going to die anyway, there was nothing to lose by trying.
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Beth
Beth didn't bother struggling this time. She was much too frustrated. She'd worked so hard earlier to escape, and she'd succeeded, only to be caught again. They were taking no chances this time, though, so struggling would have done no good anyway. Instead of ropes, both of her wrists bore handcuffs, the chain threaded over the underpipes of an industrial sink. The floor under her butt and the wall at her back were cold, sending the chill through her clothing. It was obvious to Beth that she was in the large hotel kitchen. It was gray with dim light and had the mustiness of abandonment that was present in the rest of the building, but Beth was just grateful that she hadn't been put back in the all-consuming blackness of the cellar she'd escaped earlier. That had been unbearable and she had been overjoyed to emerge to the upper level to find the dusty dimness that took its place.
And eventually Josef, of course, though he'd frightened the soul out of her. But it had been nice to have company, brief as it had been, and to finally see a friendly face. How funny, Beth mused, that I just thought of Josef as a 'friendly face'. Until now, he's been the most frightening of the vampires that I know, the oldest and strongest, until I met Malcolm. But she couldn't deny that she counted him as a friend. Sort of. For Mick's sake, anyway. Though she doubted Josef would see her, in his sense of superiority, as an equal enough to be a friend of his.
But regardless, she couldn't help but be grateful that he was there with Mick to help rescue her. Or was he just there with Mick, period? It didn't matter, really, because even if he didn't care about her welfare, she couldn't hold a grudge if he was there for Mick's sake. She'd come to realize recently that they were closer than she could fathom, and Beth liked knowing that Mick had someone at his back, no matter what he was doing, and with Josef, he probably always would. That thought brought more comfort than she would have ever thought, and she was suddenly struck by the enormity of the word eternity. If one was to live forever, how would that be bearable without one constant through it all? And from the things Mick had said, that was only part of what Josef was to him. And Beth somehow knew that Josef felt the same way about Mick, that he needed Mick just as much, despite the older vampire's casual attitude about such things. Beth had been devastated when Mo was murdered, then later, Josh, and she'd only known either of them for such a short, human span of time. What if she'd known either of them for fifty years, or sixty, or a hundred, instead of the two or three? Beth couldn't imagine the grief she'd felt being any worse, yet how could it not be under such circumstances? She remembered Mick's confession when he'd thought Josef was dead: "I don't know if I even know how to grieve for him."
She had to fight back a pang of fear at Josef's well-being. He'd been staked, right in front of her eyes. She knew wood wasn't deadly unless it stayed in long enough to allow the vampire to bleed to death, but still; Josef hadn't looked good when he'd fallen, and he'd been dragged away ominously while another took charge of her. The other two vampires had been left where they'd fallen, and she was pretty sure they were dead.
Regardless of her feelings for Josef or Josef's for her, she didn't want Mick to lose him.
Yes, Beth decided, she didn't even care if Josef was there for Mick's well-being and not hers. She was grateful to him for it anyway, even if just for Mick’s sake, that he had someone that not only would always be there for him, but would always want to be there for him. Because at the going rate, she wasn't going to last forever.
But it would be oh, so convenient if they'd rescue her again, and she didn't even care which one.
Beth sighed and settled back against the dirty wall and pulled her knees up to her chest to fight the chill of the room.
TBC
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Mick stiffened in alarm, scanning his surroundings cautiously. He couldn't explain, even to himself, what the problem was, he just knew something wasn't right. It was nothing he could detect with his senses- he didn't see, smell, or hear anything other than what he had for the past half hour, and he didn't sense the presence of other nearby life forms- or unlife forms, for that matter. It was something else, something he'd never really felt before, but he had a powerful feeling that something was wrong.
Weird, he thought to himself, unable to shake the sensation.
He didn't like these hallways. Whomever had been responsible for picking this particular building for its current purpose had likely known the psychological effect it would have; it was nerve-wracking to creep down these hallways, waiting for an attack, with the never ending doors lining either side, rooms that could be hiding any number of attackers, or even Beth. Only his superior sense of smell and his literal sixth sense for others of his kind informed him that the myriad hotel rooms were empty, but that didn't keep Mick from wanting to look over his shoulder after each closed door he passed. If it was affecting him this way, he couldn't imagine how Beth was dealing with it, being unable to sense danger in the same way that he and Josef could.
Mick didn't worry too much about Josef, though; he was probably spoiling for the adventure of a fight, if Mick knew his friend as well as he thought he did.
He'd probably make fun of me for being nervous, Mick mused with a suspicious look at a door to his immediate right. He decided not to mention it to him later.
If there is a later.
Mick angrily pushed that thought from his mind – where the hell did that come from?- and deliberately resisted a look back at the most recent door he had passed, just to prove that he could. He had to think positively; he'd never had a problem with that before, even in similar situations, so why would he now? Mick always started a case with a determined attitude and the confidence that he would succeed in the end, no matter what it took.
But this isn't a case, he reminded himself. This is Beth. They have Beth.
That was true, but it wasn't the first time he'd had to rescue her, so why did he have such a bad feeling about it?
Third time's a charm, intoned the voice in his head.
Mick stopped cold at the thought. Was that it? Was her luck running out? He'd rescued Beth successfully when she was four, then again not long ago....maybe fate or some higher power was determined to have her this time, despite Mick's recurring interference.
He discarded that thought quickly and resumed his cautious progress to the end of the hall. He hadn't believed in a 'higher power' for a good long while. Around fifty-five years, in fact. And he had no intention of surrendering Beth to some unknown force. Or to the vampires that had kidnapped her, for that matter.
Again, Mick stopped suddenly, this time sensing something a little more definite than his previous strange sensation. Another vampire was nearby, an old one. Just as Mick realized that whoever it was wasn't in one of the rooms, a figure stepped into the shadows at the end of the hallway several feet ahead of him. She had emerged from the alcove of a non-functioning elevator.
"Sylvia," Mick greeted coldly.
"What? No hello?" Sylvia didn't try to pretend she was anything other than what she was. Both vampires knew the cards were now on the table; she was not Mick's friend.
The quality of his surroundings shifted as Mick changed, his already hyper-sensitive senses becoming even sharper still, and he hissed his aggression at Sylvia.
Sylvia hissed in response even as she changed mere seconds after Mick, her eyes turning frosty and her face even paler. Mick growled as her fangs descended and his muscles bunched in preparation for a leap of attack or defense, the fifteen feet that separated them not a concern.
"Where's Beth," Mick demanded, his voice emerging with the hoarse rumble caused by his alternate nature.
"She is not harmed. Yet." Sylvia smiled slyly, seemingly unconcerned by Mick's aggression.
"She'd better not be," Mick warned. "Take me to her!"
"Oh, Mick," Sylvia chuckled, her voice deep and throaty. "Always the knight in shining armor. Do you really care for this girl? Wouldn't you rather have someone a little more....mature?"
Sylvia began to approach him slowly, swaying seductively, and Mick growled again but said nothing. Sylvia knew where Beth was; he might need her to find Beth, or at the very least, to make sure Beth wasn't harmed.
Mick held his position as Sylvia came to a stop directly in front of him and looked up into his eyes, faking adoration. "Or does our shining knight just like to be the one to come running to the rescue?" She reached up and ran a finger slowly down the side of his face. Mick's eyes narrowed dangerously, but he kept still. "Then perhaps you should stick with the young ones, the weak humans; those of us of the higher caliber need no protection."
Mick could take no more. He reached up and grabbed Sylvia's wrist, squeezing it tightly as he spoke. "What is it you people want from me? Why all these games? I have nothing you want. Just take me to Beth; she has no part in this."
Sylvia's eyes flashed and she lost her gentle demeanor. "She is a part of this as long as she is a part of you, Mick St John."
Before Mick even knew the other vampire had moved, she'd pulled her wrist free and had him by the throat. Her power was amazing, and he might have admired it under other circumstances. Try as he might, Mick was unable to break her grip, and she lifted him several inches so that his toes barely scraped the floor. His altercation with Malcolm was too recent and too fresh in his mind for him to have already forgotten the power of the Elders, but he was surprised all the same.
"For now, she has served our purposes of getting you here without a fight and without alerting allies. What is to be done with her later remains to be seen. She knows too much for a human. But you won't be around to worry about that, darling. Now here's what we're going to do. You're going to come with me, and whether you are conscious or unconscious makes no difference to me and it is completely up to you. But, as I'm sure you've figured, we have Beth, and if you fight or refuse, your little wisp of a girl will not see morning."
She lowered Mick back to the floor, almost gently, and released him. Mick had to fight the urge to suck in a deep, unnecessary breath. He glared at Sylvia angrily, but she just smiled. She had him right where she wanted him and they both knew it.
"If you're going to kill her anyway, what's to keep me from fighting? Why bother to threaten me with her death now if she's to die later?" Mick wondered if lowering Beth's value as leverage would put her in more immediate peril or give him a chance to rescue her later. Because he knew there'd be a later. There had to be, even if just for Beth.
But Sylvia was on to him. He knew it by the way she smirked knowingly at him.
"As I said, Mick....you are a knight in shining armor, and I learned from all of our friendly little chats how much you care for her-" Mick winced at the reminder of how he'd trusted her with his confidences, "-and I know you will stubbornly hold on to the hope that you will get your chance. You cannot fight me and win, Mick. I'm much too strong for you. But even if, by some chance you managed to take me, there are others here that would make sure you never leave this building. And Beth would be dead long before you reached her, I promise you this." She paused pointedly. "We have Kostan in our custody, as well....are you prepared to risk both their lives?"
Mick had been unprepared to learn that Josef had been captured and his spirits sank. He might have a slim chance of finding one of them, provided he were to evade the enemy vampires long enough, but he'd never find both of them before the Elders exacted their justice on the one that remained. Of course, Josef stood a much better chance of fighting them off or escaping on his own than Beth did, being the least helpless of the two, and logic would dictate that Mick find Beth, but....as much as he loved her, could he really choose between the two most important people in his life?
"Fine," Mick said flatly. "It seems I have no choice. For now." He would have to cooperate and take his chance where he could. He knew there was more to this than Sylvia was letting on, and he wanted to find out all he could. It might help him later. If they'd just wanted to kill him, Sylvia could have done that easily moments ago, and Malcolm had certainly been in the position to do so when he'd overpowered Mick earlier. And the fact that they'd taken Beth indicated that they were going to force his cooperation for something; that wouldn't have been necessary if their only goal was to kill him.
And why all the theatrics, anyway? Malcolm had had Mick at his mercy in Mick's apartment just hours ago. Why hadn't he taken him then, or tried to torture whatever it was they wanted out of him at that time? They'd had Beth then, too, and they had to know that Mick would have caved if they'd threatened her to get whatever they wanted. Why wait until now? Why let them go, simply to kidnap Beth an hour later for the purposes of regaining control of Mick? Control they'd already had and relinquished.
None of this made any sense at all to Mick's logical mind.
Mick stayed silent as he walked ahead of Sylvia, changing course only when she ordered it, a wooden stake pressed against his back the whole time. "Just a failsafe," she'd said, and Mick believed her. He knew she wasn't afraid of him. She had no reason to be, with the superior power that was due to her age. She could have easily staked him into paralysis and carried him. She'd made sure he understood that being allowed to walk on his own was just that- an allowance.
Mick wondered if he could use Sylvia's lack of fear to his advantage. He'd have to be careful; she wasn't stupid. But if they were all going to die anyway, there was nothing to lose by trying.
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Beth
Beth didn't bother struggling this time. She was much too frustrated. She'd worked so hard earlier to escape, and she'd succeeded, only to be caught again. They were taking no chances this time, though, so struggling would have done no good anyway. Instead of ropes, both of her wrists bore handcuffs, the chain threaded over the underpipes of an industrial sink. The floor under her butt and the wall at her back were cold, sending the chill through her clothing. It was obvious to Beth that she was in the large hotel kitchen. It was gray with dim light and had the mustiness of abandonment that was present in the rest of the building, but Beth was just grateful that she hadn't been put back in the all-consuming blackness of the cellar she'd escaped earlier. That had been unbearable and she had been overjoyed to emerge to the upper level to find the dusty dimness that took its place.
And eventually Josef, of course, though he'd frightened the soul out of her. But it had been nice to have company, brief as it had been, and to finally see a friendly face. How funny, Beth mused, that I just thought of Josef as a 'friendly face'. Until now, he's been the most frightening of the vampires that I know, the oldest and strongest, until I met Malcolm. But she couldn't deny that she counted him as a friend. Sort of. For Mick's sake, anyway. Though she doubted Josef would see her, in his sense of superiority, as an equal enough to be a friend of his.
But regardless, she couldn't help but be grateful that he was there with Mick to help rescue her. Or was he just there with Mick, period? It didn't matter, really, because even if he didn't care about her welfare, she couldn't hold a grudge if he was there for Mick's sake. She'd come to realize recently that they were closer than she could fathom, and Beth liked knowing that Mick had someone at his back, no matter what he was doing, and with Josef, he probably always would. That thought brought more comfort than she would have ever thought, and she was suddenly struck by the enormity of the word eternity. If one was to live forever, how would that be bearable without one constant through it all? And from the things Mick had said, that was only part of what Josef was to him. And Beth somehow knew that Josef felt the same way about Mick, that he needed Mick just as much, despite the older vampire's casual attitude about such things. Beth had been devastated when Mo was murdered, then later, Josh, and she'd only known either of them for such a short, human span of time. What if she'd known either of them for fifty years, or sixty, or a hundred, instead of the two or three? Beth couldn't imagine the grief she'd felt being any worse, yet how could it not be under such circumstances? She remembered Mick's confession when he'd thought Josef was dead: "I don't know if I even know how to grieve for him."
She had to fight back a pang of fear at Josef's well-being. He'd been staked, right in front of her eyes. She knew wood wasn't deadly unless it stayed in long enough to allow the vampire to bleed to death, but still; Josef hadn't looked good when he'd fallen, and he'd been dragged away ominously while another took charge of her. The other two vampires had been left where they'd fallen, and she was pretty sure they were dead.
Regardless of her feelings for Josef or Josef's for her, she didn't want Mick to lose him.
Yes, Beth decided, she didn't even care if Josef was there for Mick's well-being and not hers. She was grateful to him for it anyway, even if just for Mick’s sake, that he had someone that not only would always be there for him, but would always want to be there for him. Because at the going rate, she wasn't going to last forever.
But it would be oh, so convenient if they'd rescue her again, and she didn't even care which one.
Beth sighed and settled back against the dirty wall and pulled her knees up to her chest to fight the chill of the room.
TBC
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