"Are you sure we haven't missed her already?" I asked quietly.

Sam shrugged, "Pretty sure. We got here before sunset, she hasn't gone past us. Maybe she's just late."

I was quiet for a few seconds, then asked "How long will we wait?"

"An hour?" she replied with another shrug. "We can always drop in at her apartment, but I'm sure she'll be here. She takes the subway to get to her new patrol area."

It was early Saturday evening, just past sunset, and we were sitting on a bench in the main entry hall of the subway station that was nearest Jessica's home. I felt self-conscious sitting there holding a bag from the gun store, though at least it didn't say 'Gun Store' on the side. The place called itself a 'sporting goods' shop.

I got that cleaning kit, and two more spare clips. I hoped I'd never need to use the thing at all, but I figured if we wound up doing something crazy like attacking the mansion I'd probably need them.

And the whole time we were in that store I felt extremely self-conscious. I had the gun under my jacket again, and I was positive the guy behind the counter knew it. Every time he looked at me I was sure he could see it.

Sam said I was being paranoid but I figured a guy who sells guns and gun stuff probably knows about that sort of thing. If he did know, he didn't say anything. He didn't even comment on us being there twice this week.

We also visited a pharmacy and bought some large bandages and gauze. Neither of us were hungry yet, but Sam figured next time we fed it'd be nice to be able to leave the person bandaged up and everything. So she and I both had a couple gauze squares and a couple bandages stowed away in our jacket pockets.

I shifted the plastic bag from one hand to another. I always hated having to carry stuff around like that. I just wanted to get back home and put it away. The last thing I wanted was to have to carry the thing around with me all over the city tonight.

With that in mind, I asked "What are we doing after this? Are we going to do a patrol tonight?"

Samantha sighed, "I doubt it. If we have a good conversation with Jess, we'll probably bring her back to our place so she can have a look at the book and the journal?"

I gulped, "What if things don't go so well? What if Jessica freaks out on us?"

She sighed a lot deeper, "Then we'll probably have to kill her. And after that we'll have to figure out what we're doing very quickly, because we'll have everyone else on our asses pretty damn fast once the Family finds out what happened."

On the one hand I basically knew she was going to say that. On the other hand, actually hearing her say it left me feeling uneasy.

I was confident Sam could handle Jess, and Cynthia, and any other peacekeeper in the Family. I wasn't so confident she could take them all on at once though. And I really wasn't sure if she could take Isabelle or the other elders. As for myself, ancient vampire blood or not I doubted I'd be able to handle another peacekeeper yet. I might have some advantages but I didn't have their years of experience and training.

Sam must have known I was uneasy. She probably guessed it by the way I went quiet. She leaned a little closer and slipped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against her side.

"Don't stress too much, ok Tara?" she said softly. "Whatever happens, we're going to be ok. I mean, worst-case scenario? We swing by the apartment and grab our stuff and the money, then we steal a car and just go. We'll find somewhere else to live, and we'll figure it out."

I leaned my head against her shoulder and nodded slightly, "Ok Sam."

She gave me a gentle squeeze and apologized, "I'm sorry you have to deal with all this stuff Tara. It sucks that it's all come piling on right when you were just starting to figure yourself out. You're going to be ok though. We're both going to be ok."

"Thanks Sam," I replied softly as I continued leaning against her. I felt better already. Problems always seemed a little smaller, a little further away, the closer I was to her.

A couple hours ago when we were in bed together the whole world was just a distant afterthought. We didn't even really do anything, we just cuddled and slept. It wasn't much but it still felt like an hour or two of heaven.

I was still sitting cuddled up against Samantha fifteen minutes later when I caught an undead scent a split second before I heard Jessica's voice.

"Well well, aren't you two looking extremely cosy and comfortable together!"

"They do make a rather cute couple," Reuben commented. We weren't expecting to see him here, but he was approaching alongside Jessica.

Jess was smiling as she asked, "What are you two kids doing here?"

Sam and I both straightened up but she kept her arm around me for now.

"Hi Jess, Reuben," she greeted them. She added, "We wanted to speak with you Jessica. Is there somewhere we can go to talk?"

Reuben asked, "Is this talk about girl stuff? Should I make myself absent?"

Sam shook her head, "We'd have been looking to talk with you next. Finding you here works out even better."

I wasn't convinced this was better. If things went badly, now we'd be facing two peacekeepers instead of just one.

Jessica nodded, "There's a park nearby, it'll be fairly quiet this time of night, this time of year."

"Lead the way," Samantha said as she and I got to our feet.

Ten or twelve minutes later the four of us were at a picnic bench in a dark, deserted park. There was a large creek to one side, along with some trees. To the other side was an empty soccer field. I still felt self-conscious carrying that stupid plastic bag around with me, and wished for the hundredth time we could have gone back home so I could dump the stuff before meeting with anyone else.

As Sam and I sat down across from Jess and Reuben my Dame asked them, "So are you two a couple now? Not that it's any of my business, just curious what you're up to."

Jessica sighed, "I needed blood, Reuben had some extra he could lend me."

Samantha frowned, "Why'd you need blood? They didn't short-change you on the last delivery did they?"

The tall redhead shook her head, "I don't know what's wrong with me Samantha but I've been hungrier than usual. It started over two weeks ago? I tried to ignore it, but it got so bad I had to start drinking more. I went through my rations too fast and ran out yesterday."

Sam's eyes widened and she glanced at me. We were obviously thinking the same thing. We both assumed our added hunger came from the ancient magic sludge. But if Jess had the same hunger problems, then it had to come from somewhere else. And it sounded like she'd been dealing with the hunger for about as long as we were.

"What do you know, Sam?" Reuben asked. "I see that look on your face, you know something."

She sighed, "Tara and I have the same problem. Started about the same time. Increased hunger, it got bad enough this past week we started going through our rations too fast as well."

Jess asked, "Are you two ok? Did you get more blood from the Family? I contacted Cynthia and asked for extra rations, I told her about the hunger. I'm worried it's some kind of vampire sickness or something? Cynthia refused my request, and she refused to let me see or speak with Victor. She said vampires don't get sick. I didn't know what to do so I talked with Reuben this morning."

"And I came over with a couple extra bags to get her through till the delivery on Monday," Reuben stated.

Sam ignored Jessica's questions for now, instead she asked Reuben "What are you doing with extra blood? And I take it you haven't had any appetite problems?"

He got a bit of a wry smile on his face as he admitted, "I've been paranoid about running out ever since I moved out of the mansion. For years now I've played little games and things to build up a cache of reserves. It's taken a while but I have almost a month's worth in reserve? Now when I get a delivery, that goes into the 'bottom' of the stack and I take my next serving off the top, so at most it's only in the fridge a month."

"Very clever," Samantha commented. "And you're not feeling the extra hunger?"

"Not a bit," Reuben replied.

Jess frowned, "So if it's the three of us, maybe something got to us three? Last time we were together was when Sally was killed."

I spoke up, though I kept my voice low. "We were already feeling it before then. It started more than a week before that."

"You're right," Jessica frowned. "The last time we were together before that was at the mansion. But everyone was there. The four of us were in the car, but if something got to us there then why not Reuben?"

"Maybe it only affects the pretty ones?" Reuben suggested with a smile.

I looked at Sam and asked, "When was our last delivery?"

Her expression grew darker, "A couple days after we visited the Mansion. So a day or two before this hunger problem started."

Samantha looked at Rueben and pointed out, "And you haven't been drinking blood from the latest shipment right? You just told us you have a system, so you're still drinking blood from the previous batch."

"You think there was a bad batch?" Jessica asked. "I'd say we need to warn the Family, but if they got a bad batch in then it'll be affecting a lot more than just three of us."

Reuben scowled, "If I have to toss out three weeks worth of blood I'm not going to be happy. It's taken years to build up a nice comfortable reserve."

Jessica frowned at me and Sam and asked, "So how have you two dealt with the hunger? You've obviously figured something out."

Sam took a deep breath, then in a quiet voice she told the two of them "We did figure something out. We broke the Covenant last night. We hunted, and fed on a human."

It was obvious from Reuben's expression he thought she was joking.

Jess wasn't smiling though, her eyes widened and she asked "Are you serious Samantha? Because if you're serious, you know we're expected to kill you two on the spot."

I was tense now, and although I had my hands out of sight down on my lap I was ready to go for the gun under my jacket if either of them attacked. At the same time I wanted to clarify something, so they didn't get the wrong impression.

"We didn't kill anyone," I said softly. "We took less than half a pint each, just a couple mouthfuls. She was fine afterwards."

Reuben's smile faded and he asked in a quiet but demanding tone, "Samantha are you serious? After thirty years enforcing our rules, you broke the single biggest rule we have?"

Everyone was on edge now. I could tell both Jessica and Reuben were tense and ready to fight. Sam was trying to act calm, I figured she didn't want to set the other two off. And of course I was very tense. We hadn't even got to the main part of the conversation yet and it was already a life-or-death situation.

Samantha kept her voice calm and quiet as she said, "Tara and I have a lot to talk about with you two, but we need to have some calm first. I don't know if this will work but..."

I didn't feel anything, but there was an immediate effect on the two vampires sitting across from us. Jess and Reuben both pulled back into a cringe as their eyes widened. Reuben grimaced while Jessica almost looked panicked.

Sam was casting her fear aura at them and it was hitting them both hard.

I was actually impressed at how much the two vampires were affected. Reuben was a six-foot-four muscular man, but the way he was reacting you'd think he was a little kid who snuck into a horror movie and found out it was a lot scarier than he bargained for.

Meanwhile Jessica looked like she was actually in a horror movie and she'd just wandered into the slasher. She looked like she didn't know whether to faint or run screaming from the scene.

While they were both practically frozen in fear, Sam reached into her jacket then pulled out some folded up papers. I recognized it as Isabelle's letter.

Samantha unfolded it and set it down on the picnic table in front of our two colleagues and stated, "I need you both to read this."

The two of them seemed to relax again, and I knew Sam had withdrawn her aura.

Jess and Reuben glanced at each other, then Reuben looked at Sam and demanded "How the fuck did you learn to do that?!"

"The letter," Samantha stated as she pointed at it. "Read it."

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