By dawn, Gillian, Elissa, Colt, and Boss were the last ones left in the building. They just silently stared at the pictures Elissa took of the labeled bags, feeling utterly useless and dejected.

"Go home, guys. This isn't helping Dana," Boss commanded, his voice gruff, bags under his red-tinged eyes, and day-old stubble coating his chin while his shoulders slumped, his usual fire entirely missing.

They all nodded but remained seated as he made his way to his office, but like them, he wasn't going to leave.

Gillian frowned, bringing up the collated images of the tagged bags. She blinked as her subconscious caught onto something her conscious mind missed at the same moment that Elissa abruptly sat forward.

"Do you see it?" Gillian asked, and Elissa nodded.

"There's a pattern," Elisa murmured, zooming out to try and find the sense in them.

"You guys are seeing things," Colt sighed, her speech slightly slurred and slower than usual from sheer fatigue, but they ignored her.

"Ten rows of three holds the most logical pattern," Gillian suggested, "but I still can't figure it out."

"Write it down, little sister. She would not be apparent enough for him to catch on, and that would not be easy," Elissa said, taking a seat beside her.

"What do you see that I don't?" Colt asked, puzzled, and Gillian nodded at the screen.

"There are mistakes on ten of the labels. Errors in successive letters but not in consecutive rows. Putting the tags into a pattern creates ten rows of three, with two labels missing.

"Now, if you shift the labels so the mistakes align to the right, it doesn't work. If you align them to the left, you find that there is a letter in caps directly to the left or right of that letter, either above or below. Ever so slightly larger than any other in the center text, alone or followed by a small cap," Gillian marked the letters one by one.

"We have eighteen letters, rts dn ncnil rnc suhrw. Now to find the reasoning behind them," she said, tapping the pen against the paper.

"Flip them left to right and read them. What do you see?" Elissa asked, and she complied.

"W-r-h-u-s c-n-r l-n-c-n s-t-r," Gillian spelled, and her sister shook her head at her.

"Read it," Elissa coached.

"Wrhus... Warehouse? Wait, warehouse, corner, and Lincoln street," she read, and her sister frowned.

"Well, that can't be all," Elissa muttered, and suddenly Colt sat bolt upright.

"It isn't. The 3 on bag thirteen and 4 on bag twenty-four on the labels before the missing bags are also larger as well the h of hand and t of toe on each bag. Warehouse at the corner of Lincoln and 34th street," Colt concluded, and Elissa shook her head.

"No, not 34th, but 43rd," Elissa corrected.

"It doesn't fit," Colt started to say, but Elissa's expression gave her pause.

"It's all backward," Gillian reminded, but Colt stuck to her guns.

"The t-h wasn't..." Colt insisted, but Gillian glanced at her sister.

"Trust me?" Elissa asked, and it took a long while before Colt nodded.

"We need to act now, and we may not have time for explanations," Gillian warned, and Colt shook her head.

"We cannot go off half-cocked," she insisted, but Gillian stared her down.

"I know you don't trust me right now. I might do the same in your place, but we need to do this fast. It would be better if you stayed behind,"

Colt held up her hand to silence Gillian.

"I may be angry at you for keeping things from me, but I trust your instincts and judgment. This could be a trap, and we don't know if this guy is actually working alone.

"I cannot allow you to go off on your own. We may be wasting time that the good Doctor does not have, but I won't have your deaths on my conscience. If you go, then I go with you."

The stubborn angle of her chin warned that there would be no arguing with her.

"We'll call for backup once we're close. Explanations will come later. I don't like not telling Boss, but he will need to do this the right way, and I think you're right. We can't wait for the FBI, Homeland Security, SWAT, and who-the-hell-else to get their act together."

Colt checked her gun and didn't see Gillian glancing at Elissa with apprehension. She did not want to risk their secrets or Dana's life, but getting the detective to back down would take too long.

***

They reached the darkened streets of the warehouse district before any of them were ready, strapping on their gear and guns in silence.

Gillian strained her senses, trying to locate him before he found them, but the night remained eerily empty, and even though she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, it was different from before.

"Look, Colt, whatever happens, thank you for being there when I needed a friend. I'm truly sorry for the lies I told by omission, and I hope someday you will forgive me," Gillian said sincerely, and Colt would have stopped her, but she refused.

"Look, Beaumont... Gillian..." Colt began, but Gillian shook her head.

"There are still things you don't know and can't ever learn..."

Something shifted, and a bottle rolled.

They pivoted toward the sound, their weapons at the ready, but nothing stirred.

Now was not the time for sentimentality, and they wordlessly made their way down the alley and to the right.

"Where the hell is a gap in this fence," Colt bit out almost five minutes later, and as her words conjured it, they noticed a hole cut in the mesh.

They slipped through, taking turns holding back the metal, and advanced toward the dilapidated building swallowed by darkness in single file.

Gillian wrinkled her nose, the recent scent of vampire barely stronger than the overpowering odors of decay, sewerage, wet concrete, asphalt, rat, and something long dead. She ignored everything but him, and they unobtrusively kept Colt between them.

They did not waste time pretending to search through the dangerous and unstable building. Although they could see better in the dark, they put on their flashlights to appear human for Colt's sake. It made them a target, but they did not care.

"In here," Elissa called.

They had discovered his impromptu operating room but spent no time there. It was one of the few rooms still intact, and from the smell, it was recently cleaned.

"Keep going," Gillian advised once they cleared the room.

Elissa took the lead as they followed the trail deeper into the forgotten halls of a previous era. They should have ditched Colt and gotten their father's men to go with them, but Gillian hoped they had the sense to follow.

"There's blood on the ground. She's badly hurt," Elissa said, shining her light on the ground.

"Go slow," Gillian warned.

They could not risk Colt and would not be caught in a trap.

When they finally came closer to Dana, she realized his scent seemed less pungent in the dusty, silent, damp corridor.

He had left, and somewhere far away, the sound of sirens chased away the last of the night.

He would not be back. The aroma of vampire blood grew more powerful, and the silence became deafening, damping every movement they made as they hastened forward without rushing.

***

They entered a large room, and a movement drew their flashlights to Dana. She shied from them, small broken sounds escaping her as she mindlessly crawled away as if to escape from them, her body dragging itself oddly to one side.

"Dana," Elissa commanded, and the vampire froze.

"Elissa?" she could barely form words, the scent of death already spicing the air.

"Colt, he's long gone. I think it would be best if you went up there and got us some help," Elissa suggested, and the detective didn't hesitate.