We pulled up to an unfamiliar hotel. Shaggy got out first and insisted on scouting for possible ambushes. It would help if Anthony knew about this place or thought to look here.

She came back fifteen minutes later and showed me where to go. I carried Kahina and some blood packs to the penthouse suite. Apparently this location and dozens of places like it were reserved under shell companies. The others were mostly decoys.

We managed to unload everything in one trip. Shaggy had two giant bags slung over each shoulder. She had clearly taken Sensei's training courses seriously otherwise lifting all this stuff would have been difficult.

"The elevator will shut down afterward. Stairs and shaft have motion detectors. Multiple camera feeds hook into the spare room." Shaggy dropped both bags inside the doorway and started rubbing her shoulders. Her bags were filled with clothes and first aid supplies. I got the ammunition.

“Okay,” I said.

"Bedroom's over there, the bathroom's that way." She motioned to different rooms in the suite. The place was nearly stripped bare. Aside from the furniture there wasn't much to look at. Each window had heavy curtains hanging on them, much like the ones at the mansion. Even the lights were dim.

We got Kahina set up in the master bedroom. Her still form was nearly swallowed up by the mattress. A fresh blood bag hung off the wall and dripped down the tube leading into a slender arm.

Shaggy kept right on moving into the rest of the house, checking under cabinets, switching things into the bags, pulling out a change of clothes. Then without further explanation she dashed into the bathroom and started the shower.

I was running on empty and went for the fridge. Rows of bottled water lined the insides. Up top were a few microwavable meals but nothing good. This place wasn't stocked with human comfort in mind. The kitchen cabinets at least had some protein bars.

The secondary bedroom had a clear line of sight into the master. Getting the security system working proved to be fairly easy. It was just a matter of turning on the power switches and everything went into auto pilot. There were two screens showing six different points of view on the building. A third screen showed various words all in green text on a black background. Each item was labeled for where in the hotel it belonged. Main stairway, secondary stairs, elevator shaft, rooftop, outer hallways and so on. How this place had gotten so wired up was beyond me. Maybe it piggybacked an already existing system.

My abilities wouldn't do a damned bit of good in providing any forewarning. All I could do was watch the screens and try to stay awake.

Shaggy used all the hot water in the building and still camped the shower. Nearly an hour later she staggered out completely dressed with her gun strapped. Finally, the woman fell face first onto the bed. The only indication that she had been in the shower was barely damp hair.

I tried to keep quiet while traveling between the rooms. Paced around the entire suite for hours. Anything to keep me awake. A phone rang while I was on lap thirty.

When I made it back to the guest room Ann had woken up enough to shove the phone against her ear. Her face still pressed into the pillow. It was easy to tell how tired the woman was, mostly because she tried to answer the person on the other end without moving her head. The words were muffled would be incomprehensible with fabric in the way. Finally, she tossed the phone towards the chair I had been sitting in.

Talking to the other person was now my problem. The man on the other end was yelling into the phone by now. I picked it up and tried to make out the voice. Once it became apparent who was on the other end I cut them off.

"Start over," I said.

"Lord? This is Myers' phone." Lennon's soft voice answered. He was up early. It was barely sundown. What was this Lord nonsense about? Did he start having the same brainwashed attitude Evan had?

"Status?" I made my way over to the master bedroom and shut both doors on the way. Shaggy needed rest.

"Dead ends. Anthony's gone, completely gone." Lennon responded.

"Anything else?"

"The house is worried, Lord," He said. There it was again. He was calling me that title like Evan did.

"Why are you calling me that?" I asked.

"Calling you what?" Lennon's whispery voice sounded worried. Like he was nervous about upsetting me.

"Lord."

"I..." He faded off into silence.

"Well?" I pressed for an answer.

"It's what I should call you." Lennon finally responded in his quiet tone.

The phone pressed against my forehead as I tried to figure out how to punch people remotely. This Lord thing was getting old quick. First Evan knew what it was, then Candy, yet they wouldn't tell me. Now a third person was calling me this title without knowing why or what it meant.

I had to deal with Candy soon. Knowing that slant eared whore she would probably enjoy it. At least her little illusions hadn't been visiting me the last few days. I sighed and put my ear back to the phone.

"Any new attacks?" I asked.

"No real attacks. The city has quarantined the area and Sector Agents evacuated the houses nearby." Lennon said. Another person was talking in the background, Kurt maybe. One of the household staff also providing a status update.

"Great."

"It's all accounted for, and the Lady made sure each of her neighbors were aware they'd be reimbursed for damages." Lennon kept talking. I squinted at the phone and looked for a way to turn him up. Modern technology annoyed me.

"I don't care." The politics of dealing with local movie stars and doctor's wives didn't matter to me. Though perhaps Kahina should have done this somewhere more rural.

"Alright." Lennon wasn't quite subdued, but there was a tone to his voice that I hadn’t heard before today. Fear? It was hard to tell. "Is she okay?" The partial vampire asked.

I stared at Kahina. Blood dripped down the IV into her arm. Her skin was shimmering again. The fact that her body was still going through some sort of transition was hopeful. If she hadn't been burning off her humanity still then there were two possibilities. One, she had completed the transformation and would wake up, or two, that she was dead. You didn't have to be a math whiz to figure out which of the options was likely.

"She's still going." My eyes were starting to become unfocused. Her body's hazy burn looked weak compared to the rolling firestorm that had been in my dream.

"That's..." For a moment, Lennon sounded frustrated. "Good."

"Hanging up."

"One more thing. A message." Lennon said.

"Hurry up." I had walked closer to Kahina. To this woman who meant too much to me. This person was the only real person I had left after Julianne passed on.

"Keeper advised me to tell you, that everything you saw was real." Lennon’s words made my heart jump.

"What?" I needed to hear more details.

"I don't know. Keeper is far older than almost all of us. He says there are things that the younger and incomplete can't see." Lennon was such a quiet person I almost didn't notice he finished the explanation.

"Incomplete? You mean partial vampires." I said.

"Yes. Keeper wanted you to know he heard your question and wanted you to know that it was real."

"Okay." I clicked off the phone and lost focus for a long time after that. My mind tried to piece together all the things that had happened in that dream. Keeper said it was real.

The two armies of shadow, giant pillars, and rolling firestorm? All of that was real? I asked that question to the shade who seemed in charge of the defenders. His group had been in front of Kahina’s prone form.

If that shade was Keeper then it was easy to assume that each shadow belonged to a vampire. The jump in logic was small. After all, how long had I been following items and people through an aura filled landscape? Years of seeing things made this easier to absorb. Or at least it was possible that this whole thing wasn't some brain aneurysm.

That meant that someone had died when I had pinned them down. Someone attacking Kahina. A grin grew across my face before I realized it. That was exciting. I could kill people attacking Kahina even while sleeping. The grin vanished and was replaced by a scowl. If my conclusion was correct, then the reverse was also true. People could kill Kahina without ever attacking us in person. How could I defend her from all sides? Could I? Could anyone?

A snore came from the back. Loud enough that it could be heard all the way out here. The floorboards let out soft squeaks as I tiptoed back across the penthouse. Peering in the second bedroom showed an utterly exhausted Shaggy propped in an odd position on the bed. Another snore ripped forth.

I studied her face from the doorway. Her eyes had dark circles under them that I never noticed before. She wasn't a still sleeper either. Her breathing increased rapidly for a moment and the left half of Shaggy’s face started twitching. Then it all settled down and she started snoring again. Even in her sleep Shaggy was fighting.

Ann was giving this her all. Shaggy studied furiously and went to every single practice session available. She ran to protect Kahina at the first sign of danger and killed two wolves without hesitation. Finally, she drove for hours to get us to a potentially safe location. The fact that I even paused to think about it was shameful. My partner here was giving this her all, I shouldn't do any less. Not if Kahina mattered. And she mattered. Kahina was mine.

I would protect her on both fronts, somehow.

I slid back into the guest room and stood watch over the security system. Screens fed images of an undisturbed stairway. Occasionally people walked by outside but no one lingered long. No one looked familiar or even remotely nonhuman.

Things stayed peaceful until right before dawn. Shaggy hadn't moved from the bed. I contemplated waking her up once or twice but finally decided against it. She hadn't slept much since the transition started and there was no telling when we might get to rest again.

Right around five in the morning I started having unwanted visions of impending doom. Specifically, Candy started showing up on the security cameras. Her rail thin form wasn't distinctive on its own. It was her walk, taunting and playful, and perfectly positioned to give the hidden security camera the best view. She walked by the street outside not once but five times. As much as the elf's existence drove me crazy, mostly because of what she did to Evan, it was impossible to deny her allure. The shirt was thin and a creamy yellow. A wide neck that slipped off one shoulder.

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Finally, Candy looked straight into the camera that watched the street outside. Her smile was playful. A moment later the woman's form vanished from the screen. At nearly the exact same time, there was a knock on the door.

Shit. This was not something I needed right now.

"Jeffff..." Her voice pierced through the doorway in the main room. It was low and attention demanding. Candy did things with her vocal cords that most normal people couldn't, going from playful and giggly to frightfully serious in a heartbeat. She called me Jeff because I never gave her my real name, just an old pseudonym.

"Jeffffff..." Candy called again.

I turned and looked at Shaggy. Kahina's bodyguard was still unconscious on the bed. None of my normal gear for dealing with elves was here either. There were all sorts of iron chains at my house, though. Mostly for elves.

Candy kept calling my name from the penthouse doorway. A moment later a cheesy but bright arrow showed up in front of my face. It pointed to the door, like a roadmap for the mentally challenged. The female elf was getting tired of waiting for me to answer the door.

It took me a few moments to walk away from the security setup, check on Kahina, and then try to quietly make my way across the floorboards. I took a breath to steady myself before opening the door. It wouldn't do any good to try and kill Candy, she wasn't evil, merely a bitch.

"Jeff!" Her voice went playful in an instant and she hugged me before I could react. A moment later she was back in the hallway watching me. I stepped outside and closed the door behind me, making sure to feel the click as it locked. It was difficult to look at Candy and not think about what she looked like under the revealing clothing.

"Why are you here, Candy?" I asked.

She hummed happily when I said her name. "Well, I had hoped you'd ditched the dead meat for a livelier meal."

"No." My words were flat.

"Perhaps we can make another exchange." The elf's voice flustered my thoughts. Our last exchange had been great in the beginning and terrible at the end. The same could be said for most failed relationships.

"Last time we made a deal it blew up in my face," I said while glaring down.

"Oh, it blew alright." She fiddled with the side of her shirt. Then her pants and finally fussed with her short hair. All of it designed to get my attention. I rolled my eyes. Of course part of me was paying attention to every little action. It was difficult not to. "Sorry, Jeff. I really am, but letting you know could mean the death of everyone. It's bad enough that these people are after you."

"After Kahina."

"No. In the end, the Order is after you. I know, I looked. The cold fish is a way to flush you out." Candy turned serious with her voice and posture. All the playful fidgeting was gone and she crossed her arms and chewed at a bottom lip in thought.

"What?" Shock ran through me. The Order or Merlin was trying to kill her because of me? What the hell could be so important about me that they would wage war against an entire household?

"That's why I'm here to make a deal. I help you stay off their radar and you give me something in exchange." Candy smiled at me and tilted her head.

If there was anything that Candy believed in more than being a tease, it was making a deal. She stuck to the terms of these verbal contracts. Months ago she told me it was a distraction from her real addiction. Even the flirtations were misdirection. Which meant this woman's true motivations had nothing to do with sex or trading favors.

"What's the price?" I asked.

"Ah ah ah." There she was, right back to playful, each noise sounded like a porn star winding up. "Now I can't tell you that, Jeff. Deal or no deal?"

"No deal."

"Are you sure?" Candy tugged at her shirt again while looking down and frowning. She might be pouting at me, or the clothing. A moment later her shirt looked bubble gum pink.

"Because you need me to stay hidden. They've got a Seer tracking you. I can make it look like you've gone back into hiding at dead fish's mansion." The tone was playful, but the implication wasn't. Somehow they were following us. It took me a moment to register her words. A moment later I was nearly knocking the lithe elf over.

"What?" I tried hard to be calm about it. Candy leaned back against one of the walls and slid her hands down by her side. Eyes cast down, her breathing seemed shallow and hitched.

"Oh, angry Jeff." She was biting her lip again with a much different look resulting. "Make a deal, and I'll misdirect the Seer, or you'll need to start running now. It's your call, big guy." Playful tone aside there was something wrong with her voice. Where it was coming from didn't match the image in front of me.

On a hunch, I placed a hand out to Candy's form. There was no resistance where her body seemed to be. The image of a female elf in front of me was an illusion. She had been right in front of me but escaped to somewhere else in the room.

"Now now, Jeff. You can look, but no touching. Not right now anyway." The projection shot me a playful wink as it melted away under my hand.

It might be possible to use my other senses to try and track her down. I had done so once before, using memories instead of objects to flip that mental switch. The effort would take too much time for no payoff. Candy was messing with me. Then again she knew about the Order and that couldn't be a good thing.

"Are you sure about that deal, Jeff?" Her words came from somewhere behind me. There was no one visible in the hallway when I turned around.

"I can't risk her," I said while looking around for signs of a hidden elf.

"What if I promised that your Bloodletter wouldn't be physically harmed from our bargain?" She asked.

"Kahina?" I backed up towards the main door. It was the only threshold that Candy couldn't be allowed past. For all I knew letting Candy by would get Kahina killed.

"Yes. Her." Her voice sounded sour at the name.

"Can I pay your price after the transition?" Stopping these people from tracing us would be extremely helpful. It might even be worth the unknown price.

"Is that a deal breaker?" Candy asked.

"It is."

"Then I believe we can come to an agreement." Her voice was sultry and far too close. I squinted and tried to figure out where she was hiding. There was no ripple of air, no blur or distortion to give away her position. It wasn't like any movie about aliens with cloaking devices. When an elf cast illusions it was visually flawless.

"You keep the Order away from us and leave Kahina unharmed?" I reiterated.

"As much as is within my power, yes," She said.

The choice between having Kahina's enemies lead to our doorstep and having them diverted was an easy one. Downsides revolved around the strings attached to my choices. If this deal went anything like our prior one, I would regret it on some level. Being unable to get information from Evan hadn't physically hurt me, but Julianne had died. Maybe if I had known my origin she would still be alive.

No, having Candy on our side during the change over would be best.

"Fine. Deal." I nodded.

There was no good choice. I couldn't fight on all sides at once, not without help. We had Daniel trying to run interference, and the household was still in position, and Keeper. We had a lot of people on our side. A very big group for a single transition. It still wasn’t enough. We had already dealt with two close calls.

"See, that wasn't hard at all." Candy's image appeared again. She was tiptoeing along the edge of the hallway. Playful, like a child balancing on the edge of a sidewalk. This image was probably fake too.

"The price?" I said while trying to keep calm. It was like dealing with a small pretty looking devil.

"Do you want to know it now or later?" She asked.

"I get a choice?" I tried not to feel stunned.

"Sure."

A choice wasn't comforting. The fact that there was an option of when tied to this bargain had to be a bad thing. That meant it was something that could be done now just as easily as later.

"Now." Bad news up front.

"It's easy."

"When the Bloodletter survives..." Her voice was suddenly husky and very much in tune with the image that had gotten close to me. "You need to leave her." The last part was almost whispered in my ear. She was in my reach now and all my brain could compute was the fact that her top was nearly see through. Had it always been that thin, or was this another illusion?

"Now that's the hard part." She grabbed at my groin in emphasis.

"But..." I tried to form a sentence. This woman was overly aggressive in some ways. In other ways, it was just right.

"A deal's a deal, Jeff." The elf was suddenly gone again. "I'd go pack. The Seer has already sent some men this way. You have maybe twenty minutes."

Only the slight tapping of shoes down the hall gave any hint of her direction. After a moment it was was completely silent and the enormity of our conversation started sinking in. Candy had said 'when' Kahina survives. Like she knew something that I didn't. There hadn't been a tremor of doubt in her words either.

Her other words started to sink in too. The Order was after me but not Kahina? That was confusing. Daniel had said ‘it was all my fault’.

Why was leaving Kahina so important to Candy? These illusions, sexual taunting, the constant reminders, and distractions all led somewhere. Evan had told me it was all part of her plan to keep me from figuring things out. Part of me desperately wanted to fail on my end of the deal. Of course, every news story I had ever seen stated breaking a bargain with elves would have terrible repercussions.

Finally, and maybe worst of all, I had to wake up Shaggy without pissing her off.