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Victor poked at the things in the shed thoughtfully. He wasn't supernatural, like Shaper, and he didn't have that extra sight the mask gave the rizen - but he did have intuition, and that put him ahead of a lot of people. He paused next to a coal bin, and examined it. Then he gave it a kick, down near the bottom. It rang hollow, despite the fact there was coal visible under the lid. He braced his shoulder against it and pushed. It shifted, but didn't move. He gritted his teeth, every muscle tense and fangs glinting beneath his lips, and pushed again. It slid to the side, then tipped over, revealing a tunnel and a ladder. He gave a small smile and produced a flashlight. He put a foot on the first rung, then looked over his shoulder at the door, and the dismal gray rain outside it. Heaving a sigh, he turned and headed towards the house. He'd get Shaper, then find out what was going on in there. Three steps towards the door, he tripped over some spilled coal, did a little dance trying not to lose his balance and fell flat on his face, swearing. He propped his chin up on one hand and tapped the ground with his fingers.

"Thank heaven for small favors," he muttered. "Shaper didn't see that." Then he blinked and turned his flashlight on, to see under a garden cart. There was something there. A box. He slid up to his knees, and pulled it out. He opened it up after a second of jimminging the lock, and sorted through the contents.

"Oh... my... God..."

There was a deed to the house, some legal papers, a handful of love letters, and some old worn photos... of Shaper, before he'd died, his skin no longer the ashen pale hue it bore now. Long baby-soft and curly hair, instead of the tangled frizzy mess it was now. Merrill Foxhunter, before he became Shaper. A handsome, happy-looking young man, with another man's arms wrapped around his waist.

And from the clothing, that other man was Charon.

No wonder Shaper didn't want to talk about what the mask showed him, nor would he explain the roses... or why he wanted Charon dead.

When Merrill had been alive, he'd had an affair with a vampire and a man.

Victor grimaced, and sorted through more pictures.

The children, the wife, Merrill. The house, one of just Charon, nothing that did not leave him to believe Shaper had looked into his past, and not liked it one tiny bit. And a conspiracy and mar on Merrill's head like this, not just the affair, but an affair with another man, were enough that the townsfolk had buried his name, and reputation into the very darkest corners of their minds.

Which Victor was definitely planning on doing as soon as he didn't need to know it anymore. He tucked the diary that had been under the pictures into his pockets and replaced the box under the garden cart. Then he clambered to his feet and headed out into the rain. Once outside the shed, he could hear someone screaming in the ruins of the house. He rushed towards it to find Shaper ruining what was left of the interior, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"SHAPER!" snapped Victor. The rizen's pale eyes focused on him for a moment, then continued as if he hadn't seen him. Victor moved forward, grabbed Shaper's arm, and turned him around.

"I am not your 'Sweet'!" screamed Shaper, clawed hand coming towards Victor's throat. But not as fast as the bitch-slap Victor delivered.

Shaper blinked, and saw Victor again.

"Oh. Victor. I needed that."

"Needed that about five years ago, if you ask me. Be happy to do it again." In the relative shelter of the ruins, he lit a clove. Lighting crashed above them, and thunder rumbled.

"Thanks," Shaper said sarcastically, and stole Victor's cig.

"Look, I found a passage down in the shed."

"You weren't behind me?"

"No, come on."

"Whoaaah!!" THUMP!

"Watch out for the coal, it's kinda hard under foot."

"Thanks," Shaper said icily, getting off the floor.

Shaper sighed, and dusted his arse off.

"So where's this tunnel..?"

Victor shone his flashlight on the coal bucket.

And blinked.

Someone had set it back into place again.

Shaper sighed.

"Unless there's a trap door under that, I'm going to call you crazier than I am."

"No one's crazier than you are," Victor spat. "Although with the way my luck has been running the passage will be gone when I move it." He wound up and kicked the coal-bin away, a measure of how pissed he was, as it went flying. "Oh that's nice." He relaxed a bit. "The passage is still there."

"Yeah, but since someone put the cover back - somebody knows that someone knows that somebody was here."

Angel blinked at his companion. "That was almost coherent. Who are you and what have you done with Shaper?" He was dealt a sharp blow across the top of his spiky haired head.

"Don't even joke about that, dude." Shaper shivered. "I'm me alright. Nobody else. I just happened to have had a clear thought is all."

Victor rubbed the top of his head and scowled.

"Alright, just for that, YOU go first."

Shaper sighed, slapped his mask on, and slithered down the hole, Victor behind him.

They ended up in a rather damp, chilly tunnel.

It forked into two tunnels a few yards in. They both took the one on the left.

It led right back to the basement of the house.

"I guess we shoulda gone to the right."

"I shudder to think where the right would lead us," Shaper sighed. They turned around to head back that way.

"But at least it would have explained Charon's disappearing act." They reached the fork, and went the other way. This tunnel connected up to the city's drain system, and soon the pair were sloshing through murky waters of unsavory origins.

"I am SO washing up after this. Eeeewww..." Shaper whined.

Despite the fact Victor agreed with him, he was getting pretty sick of Shaper's constant whining. He took a piece of chalk and marked a tunnel with a small cross at about his eyelevel, and headed down it without even bothering to consult with Shaper.

"Hey! Where're you going?"

"Following my instincts," Victor replied.

Shaper sighed, and decided after what occurred in the house, splitting up wasn't the best idea he could have. Yet he did it anyway.

"I'm going to check this one... Uhm. Meet back here in a few hours?" he said, vanishing down his own tunnel, without even the benefit of a marking.

Victor started to say something, then just headed down his tunnel.

"If he wants to get himself killed..." Shaper heard his friend mutter as they parted ways. He sloshed about, and winced when he stepped on something that went "goosh" underfoot, made a face, gritted his teeth, and kept walking.

"I don't even want to KNOW what that was. Yick."

Suddenly, a familiar face loomed up before him. Or rather, a lack thereof.

Charon smiled, and backed Shaper up into a wall for the second time in one night.

Shaper hissed and looked away.

Charon's hand snapped out, grasping Shaper's porcelain covered chin, pulling the rizen's face up and closer to his.

Shaper, eyes wide in shock, simply went rigid, and trembled as the Faceless vampire kissed him.

With a snarl, Shaper twisted away, and lashed out at the vampire. Charon took the blow, and was sent reeling backwards into the far wall. Shaper hissed softly, and closed in.

"You... you made me summon this thing inside me... that was why you were at the house that fatal night. You told me to let you kill my family. Or I as the demon would've killed them. You said it was all so I'd live forever... with you! But it was all just one big sweet lie. You wanted to drain my demon-mixed blood, and become almost a god. But in the end, I remembered... I saw through the lies and sweet words and kisses. I killed us both. But YOU made ME a MONSTER!" Shaper screamed, and lunged full-on at Charon, the two were taken to the mucky tunnel floor, clawing, biting, punching, kicking and trying to kill each other.

For a brief moment, both combatants split away, panting, grimy, and wet. Charon didn't even feel the cold anymore. Shaper shivered and sloughed muck out of his eyes. When he looked up again, Charon was running back towards Victor's tunnel.

"Shit," Shaper swore, and gave chase as fast as his legs would take him.

Victor heard something coming up behind him - running fast - and trying to be silent. Since Shaper knew better than to try to sneak up on him in a sewer. So he waited until it got closer, then turned, sending his industrial strength flashlight beam to what would be eyelevel for most people.

Charon hissed, and lashed out at the light, knocking it from Victor's hands. Shaper came trucking in moments later, and all three ended up in a dog-pile on the tunnel floor.

"Ow... that wasn't too smart..." Shaper groaned as the threesome untangled themselves from each other.

Charon was up, and running again, Shaper and Victor hot on his heels.

"Aw damn it!" Victor swore as they pelted after Charon. "I left my flashlight back there! That's gonna be hell to replace!"

Shaper skidded on something best left unidentified and slid like a runner reaching home - which meant the swung pipe connected with Victor's chest and missed Shaper entirely. Shaper scrambled back up to standing, as Victor flew backwards into a slimy wall, and body checked Charon, grinding the oozing sore he had for a face into the muck, as Victor desperately scrambled for breaths he really didn't want to take as muck oozed into his boots.

Charon shoved a handful of goo in Shaper's face, causing the rizen to sit back and splutter. Charon made good his escape, but Shaper had other worries.

"Victor? You gonna live? Please nod yes. I don't wanna have to deal with Amy when I tell her otherwise..."

"Of course I'm going to live - idiot," wheezed Victor. "I just had the three times damned wind knocked out of me!" He grabbed Shaper's shoulder and hauled himself out of the muck. "Follow that faceless freak!"

Shaper hissed, and stood.

"I've about had ENOUGH of this freak!" And he was gone into the darkness, chasing down a faceless demon from his past.

"No shit!" spat Victor, stumbling but keeping up. "He's going down and he's going down hard, if it takes the rest of my life!"

"Yeah. You hold him down, I'll rip him into little bloody screaming bits."

But they didn't find Charon. They'd ended up spending the rest of the night looking for him, and bone-weary, headed back home.

Amy had left a note saying she'd gone hunting and wouldn't be back until the next night.

By the time they'd gotten there the driving rain had lessened, but not before it had soaked them to the skin once more, removing most of the slimy muck they'd accumulated in the sewer.

"Why is it every half baked town that has a supernatural problem has nary a good strip joint, but they always have sewers?" muttered Victor half serious.

"I'm up for a cup of hot tea," Shaper said. He needed a little warmth in his body. Especially after chasing down and losing that psychopathic monster they'd been chasing about the town. "You want one?"

A shrug and Victor put down the second of his gloves. "Yes."

Shaper padded into the kitchen, going for the stove and the kettle waiting there, filling it with a bit of water from the tap, hearing Victor follow him in as he turned on the stove and sat the kettle over the gas burner.

"Shaper - " Victor said softly. "What's this?"

Shaper turned, a question on his lips. He hesitated in uttering it when his eyes fell upon the box on the kitchen table. A neatly wrapped gift box with a card and a single red rose through the ribbons at the top.

"I - I don't know," he whispered, the thumping of blood a sudden pressure behind his eyes. He slipped around next to Victor, wide eyed and wary.

"It wasn't here when we left."

"I know." Shaper tentatively reached for the card. Carefully plucked it from its place nestled in the bow.

He flipped it open and one hand-printed word glared up at them.

BOOM!

"Oh shit!" Victor hissed, even as Shaper seized his arm and hurled him towards the back door. He clawed at the door handle, yanked it open and slammed through the outer screen door and into the alley with Shaper on his heels. He wanted to stop and look behind him a few steps out into the rain slick alley, back at the tavern they'd been staying in, worried for all the people inside its confines, but Shaper shoved him on.

"But - What if it's not - ?"

The world exploded before he got the chance to finish that desperate hope. The door hurled outwards. Glass and wood and stones bombarded them. Shaper wrapped his arms around him as they were flung forward, shielding Victor's body with his own. They hit the ground hard enough to knock all the breath from Victor's body. To smash elbows and knees and chin upon the questionable surface of the alleyway. Victor shuddered under Shaper's weight and lay there, dazed.

He tasted blood in his mouth and hardly had the sense at the moment to connect it with the pain of a throbbing tongue. He couldn't think and could barely hear his own voice repeating Shaper's name, over and over.

"Shaper? Shaper? You all right?"

Shaper moved finally, shifted and tried to get his weight up and off of Victor. He failed at first attempt and had to lay there with his forehead pressed into Victor's neck while he collected himself. He struggled to rise again, a sickly wet slurping noise following the movement, alongside an angry hiss of pain. He managed to move this time, but his head was drooping and there was blood running down his cheek from the back of his neck. There were tears in the black turtleneck shirt he wore where he'd been hit by flying debris. Worst of all, was the blood soaking through his shirt, running from his stomach down his legs and pooling on the ground. Victor looked around dazedly and looked around. Next to where they'd landed, the explosion had thrown a thick staff of metal and had Shaper not shifted them as they'd fallen, Victor would have been impaled as well.