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Beckett glanced up smiling expectantly, waiting for Patrick to crack, but he remained standing very still looking back with a steely stare. Behind him, Andy snatched up the stake gun only to have it pushed forcefully out of his hands, breaking apart as it smashed to the floor.

“What the hell are you…?” Andy began before, in the mere blink of an eye, he was shoved back against the wall.

Beside him, Pete gazed in astonishment as he realised that Patrick was even faster than he was; even Beckett was impressed at the speed of one so young. By now, they had all noticed that Beckett had paused, his fangs hovering dangerously close to Andrea’s neck. She trembled in his hands, wishing she could run to the safety of Joe’s arms. Even though she couldn’t see what was happening behind her, she knew from the pause and the tightening grip on her arms that Beckett was growing angrier.

“One hostage, one of us. Two hostages, both of us,” Patrick announced coolly.
“Hey… wait! What? No!” Pete stammered as Patrick offered them both to Beckett willingly.

Beckett raised his head once more, to both Joe and Andrea’s relief, as he considered Patrick’s words.

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” Beckett asked thoughtfully. “How do I know your word works for both of you?”
“Pete?” Patrick half turned. “You want to save them?”
“Well, yeah, of course, but…”
“This is the only way,” Patrick insisted. “You know that as well as I do.”

Pete looked down, pouting distractedly. Yes, he knew it was true, but damn it! Why did Patrick always have to be right? With a determined expression, Pete turned to Patrick and nodded solemnly.

“One for one,” Patrick suggested.
“Peter first,” Beckett replied curtly.
Laughing, Patrick shook his head. “Oh, no, I don’t think so. I know it’s Pete you really want, so, it’s me first.”

Beckett curled his lips in deference to Patrick’s insight into his devious mind. He returned in kind.

“You for the girl,” Beckett nodded as Patrick’ stern face broke into a smile that mirrored his own expression. “And I know you’re fast, but trust me, Patrick, I’m faster.”

Patrick took a step forward, only to have his arm pulled back by Pete.

“How can you trust him?” he asked under his breath.
Uncurling Pete’s fingers from his arm, he moved forward again. “I can, can’t I?”
“We have no choice but to trust each other,” Beckett replied calmly.

Nodding at what seemed a most bizarre gentleman’s agreement, Patrick walked halfway to where Beckett stood, still with a firm grip on Andrea. As the pair stared at each other, Beckett smiled at Patrick’s coolness in light of the situation. Releasing his grip on Andrea, he watched as she ran back to the safety of the warehouse, sparing Joe a worried glance as she passed. Moving forward, Patrick allowed his arms to be gripped by Beckett, the elder vampire’s strength taking him very much by surprise.

Pete shot a glance toward Brendon, still holding Joe, before taking a few paces in his direction. Within moments, he was almost at his side. Waiting for a signal from Beckett, Brendon finally released Joe, who stared with concern at his two friends before finally passing Pete on the way back to the warehouse. Patrick smiled with satisfaction as he saw Joe pull the still terrified and almost tearful Andrea close to him. Andy appeared almost lost in bitter sadness at the sight of his two friends, once again Beckett’s captives.

“You know, of course, that this truce only lasts until we get you back to the mansion,” Beckett asked carefully as he turned his gaze towards the three standing just inside the door of the warehouse. “Don’t consider yourselves safe for a moment.”
“But they are for now.” Patrick spoke the words as a statement rather than a question.
“For now,” Beckett agreed grudgingly as he led the way to his waiting car, a luxurious Bentley. “On this occasion, Brendon, I will drive. You will guard our guests.”

*

Andy watched as the car drove away. He felt numb. In only a few short minutes he had watched his friends taken, he presumed to their deaths, and discovered that a long-time friend had been betraying them for months, possibly more. Simon, now dead at Pete’s hands lay in a pool of blood at his feet. Still feeling the effects of the drugs Simon had pumped him with to keep him from recovering, Andy had never felt quite so nauseous. Within moments the tension and shock of recent events had him retching. Sinking to his knees, he emptied what little remained in his stomach, coughing hard, his eyes watering with the pain of the movement. He felt two pairs of hands comforting him and two seemingly garbled and distorted voices trying to soothe his pain. Looking up at Joe and Andrea, Andy frowned as the pair appeared to move in and out of focus. A rush of white noise filled his head and blackness came down over his eyes. Crumpling to the side, Andy was unaware that Joe had caught him.

*

The doors to the car were securely locked and the windows reinforced, but neither Pete not Patrick could have known that. Watching their two captives closely, Brendon eyed the pair suspiciously. They had almost reached the mansion and neither of them had made even the slightest hint of a move to escape. It wasn’t what he expected and it unnerved him.

“What are you planning, Patrick?” he finally asked.
Patrick stared back, his expression giving nothing away. “What makes you think I’m planning something?” he asked his tone reflecting his assumed innocence.
“Because that’s what you do!” Brendon snapped back.

Turning to look out of the window, Patrick shrugged as he saw the huge mansion gates swinging open to allow the car access.

“We’re entering the mansion grounds, Brendon, if I was planning something, don’t you think I’d have done it by now?”

Brendon smirked as he caught sight of Pete’s nervous sidelong glance. It was clear that he too had expected Patrick to have some plan of either attack or escape, but it appeared as if his only plan was to save Joe and Andrea. It was admirable, but Pete had now to reconcile himself with what he knew would be a slow death for them both.

“Correct, Peter,” Beckett chuckled, as he read Pete’s mind. “You can look forward to a long, slow, tortuous death and the best part? You’ll starve, both you in the same cell until one of you cracks and kills the other.”
“I’m not convinced that ‘look forward to’ is the right phrase,” Pete grumbled, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
“Oh, trust me, it is, but admittedly, it may only be me that looks forward to it.”
“Oh, I don’t know, William, I’ll be taking a front row seat too.” Brendon’s grin turned to a frown as he looked at Patrick once more, unnerved by his continued silence. “He’s up to something, William, I can feel it.”
“You’re frightened of a fledgling vampire?” Beckett scoffed as he drew the car to a soft stop outside the mansion’s main doors. “Take them inside,” he ordered. “To my office.”

Under guard, Pete and Patrick stepped from the car, Pete narrowing his eyes at Patrick’s unconcerned stance.

“What are you up to?” he whispered as he watched Patrick standing apparently admiring the mansion with his hands stuffed into his jeans’ pockets. Patrick merely turned and offered Pete a thin smile, which did little except confuse him more.

Surrounding them, a group of four of Beckett’s coven, acting as guards, brought up the rear as the pair followed Brendon to Beckett’s office. Pete sighed; it hadn’t been so long since he last stood here. He knew now that Beckett would stop at nothing to get him either under control or kill him. As it turned out, it would be the latter, but even that was preferable to the possibility of being forced to call him Master. He looked guiltily at Patrick; it was his fault he was here, his fault he was a vampire and his fault he would die so soon after being turned. Perhaps it was for the best? Surely Patrick would despise him for what he had done?

“Not at all,” Patrick said quietly, reassuringly.

Pete turned surprised eyes towards him, unaware that he had been listening to his thoughts.

“Well you’re a sly one, aren’t you?” Pete grinned at the surprise revelation of Patrick’s abilities.

You don’t know the half of it.

The words sounded clearly in Pete’s mind and he was forced to suppress a smile. Did he have a plan after all?

The door opened and Brendon glanced over as Beckett entered the room, striding confidently in his triumph. His cape, hat, cane and stole now gone, he looked immaculate in a stone-coloured suit, white shirt and white silk cravat with gold collar studs. Taking a seat at his desk, Beckett leaned back in his chair and smirked with unbridled joy at the two hunters finally his prisoners without risk of rescue or escape.

“I can’t say that I understand the foolish sacrifice you made for your friends, but I guess that’s why you’re my prisoners and not the other way around,” Beckett laughed as he leaned back further in his chair.
“I guess so,” Patrick smiled in return.

Pulling his hand from his pocket at lightening speed, he showered both Beckett and Brendon with a handful of tiny spheres looking like ball bearings but with a dull sheen to them. His left hand closed on a small device attached to his belt and squeezing it, he grinned with expectation. Each of the spheres burst into flame with a dazzling phosphorescent flash. Panicking as his clothes caught light, Beckett looked frantically around as Brendon and half the office were alight too. The fire would kill them; they had to act quickly. Wrapping himself in the heavy drapes that hung at the window, Beckett screamed in frustration as they too caught light. Pulling his jacket and shirt from his body with fingers blackened and burnt from contact with the flames, Beckett quickly realised that something within the spheres was fuelling the fires, preventing them from dying. Terrified shrieks from his second-in-command told him that Brendon was in increasing pain and panic stricken. A sudden crash of the windows shattering allowed in both the first hint of dawn and a gust of wind that fanned the spreading flames.

Beyond the office door, more horrified cries told him that Patrick had almost certainly left a trail of the spheres throughout the mansion; the entire building was now a raging inferno. Looking up, Beckett’s eyes widened as the ceiling of his office began to crumble and he missed the collapse only because Brendon, now also stripped to the waist, pulled him away at the last moment.

“William, we have to leave!” Brendon shouted over the noise of the conflagration. “We’ll die if we stay!”
“My house!” Beckett wailed. “My Coven!”
“It’s gone,” Brendon risked Beckett’s wrath as he stated the harsh truth. What wasn’t destroyed by fire would probably be finished off by the light of the dawn now filtering through the shattered windows.
“Master!” Brendon pleaded. “We have to escape now, before the dawn comes fully.”

Racing from the building as the fire raged, and consumed with fury, Beckett screamed loudly at the sight of his beloved car exploding into a fireball, shards of metal flying through the air propelled by the force of the flames.

“The shelter,” Brendon tugged at Beckett’s arm, “Master, the shelter!”

Pulled towards an underground bunker built especially for just such an emergency, Beckett allowed Brendon to lead him to safety. Deep inside the shelter, the exhausted Coven leader stared blankly at first. Brendon looked at him intently, trying to decipher the expression. It wasn’t until Beckett spoke again that he realised that the look on his master’s face was of unimaginable fury.

“Brendon, he’s taken everything from me,” his voice clipped and bitter. “Everything. My home, my Coven, my position. I won’t rest until I take everything from him.”
“Pete?” Brendon queried.
“Patrick,” Beckett growled. “Peter humiliated me, certainly, but that was nothing in comparison to what Patrick has done to me.”
“You’ll get revenge, William, I won’t rest until you do!” Brendon almost shook with rage to think they would have to start the Coven again.
Beckett nodded slowly. “I’ll take everything he has and everyone close to him. I’ll do it slowly, carefully and I’ll relish the fear on his face when I crush his world.”

Sitting in silence, the pair could hear the screams and crackling of the flames raging above them; knowing, at least for the time being, there was nothing they could do.

*

“Andrea! Help me!” Joe called from the car as he pulled up outside the warehouse.

Inside Andy nodded lightly as Andrea placed the bowl of soup back onto the table. It had only been a few spoonfuls but already, he’d had enough; he guessed it would be at least a couple of days before Simon’s drugs began to wear off.

“You got them?” she called, racing outside.
“Yeah,” he replied quickly, opening up the rear car door to reveal two black body bags containing Pete and Patrick. “You should have seen it! The whole mansion was ablaze! You’d have liked to have seen it, I’m sure. I don’t think anything could have survived that, not even Beckett.”

Helping Joe with the two sleeping vampires as the first rays of daylight lit the sky, Andrea couldn’t help but give a sigh of relief at the idea that Beckett and his Coven were finally dead.

Inside the warehouse, the still weak, but recovering, Andy cast his eyes once more over the note left for him by Patrick.


Have a plan to destroy Beckett. Come at dawn with two body bags. If all goes well, we’ll be waiting.

Patrick


All had gone very well and all that remained was for everything to return to normal, or as close as it was ever likely to get for them.

All the while, they remained oblivious to the fact that deep inside the bunker, the two vampires they had mistakenly assumed dead were plotting their revenge.


THE END


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A/N - Many many thanks to everyone who read, reviewed and/or rated all along the way. I really hope you enjoyed it! I know I did! :D