{{If I touch them, my innate healing abilities will want to work on them.  So you'd better do the staking.  I may be able to hold them still for you though.  It may look a little horrible though.}}  She moved like a giant stalking feline.

Ozzy nodded silently as he pulled a stake from his messenger bag. When the vampires came, he'd be ready for them. He followed behind Meg as he did, using a basic light spell so he wouldn't be seeing by shinlocation, the process of knocking your shins into various objects around a room as you stumbled blindly through darkness.

{{Not sure how much that would do, but OK. After all, you can't fix dead stuff, right? Vampires are dead. I'm more worried about them drinking your blood than anything else.}}

  Meg replied {{You know there's iron in blood?  And phosphorous and magnesium in bones?  Guess what, I can hold those.}}   She held up a hand, and added {{There's a vampire.  I smell the blood, but hear no heartbeat or respiration here.}}

Ozzy followed behind, wondering if the vampire could sense them yet. Regardless, he held his stake at the ready, hoping to not get caught off-guard.

{{I meant more the healing working on them, but OK. I figured you'd at least be able to null-grav them or something. You know, if you can grab them like that, could you pull them apart, Magneto-style? Decapitating a vampire is also quite effective.}}

  Her answer was matter of fact, and rather blood chilling.  {{I haven't tried it yet, even I can't reassemble someone from dead, so I didn't want to experiment on a living person.  Vampires are already dead.  Shall I give it a try then?}}  Clearly, there were mental marks left from when she'd been possessed that she had NOT discussed with anyone.

Unfortunately for the mental marks, Ozzy was not the sort to be flipping out about them. He wasn't exactly 'Comics Code Authority Approved' himself.

{{Go for it. As far as either myself or Grandpa knows, the only thing to be done for these poor bastards is to destroy them. If it works, great. If not? Either stake it again, or burn the body just to be sure.}}

  Meg nodded, and he saw her eyes blaze, just before a wet, sickening cracking noise came to him, and he got lightly spattered with something wet.  Meg said thoughtfully "Oops."

{{Eh. It happens. Glad I didn't have my mouth open, or I might have been 'infected'. Also glad this isn't what I was going to wear on my date tonight. Heh, Vampire Slaying Rule Number Three: Never wear anything you don't mind washing blood out of.}} thought Ozzy, deciding that it was best to keep his mouth shut for the moment. He kept his guard up, trying to watch Meg's back as best he could with the little light he had.

  Meg opened up a mindworm channel between them, and he could see the 'traces' spattered all over the place from her ripping that vampire limb from limb.

  Hearing the sounds in the other room, she nodded once, and then swirled into mist and flowed away, vanishing into the darkness and leaving Tats to have run of the ventilation shaft.  But she'd been wide awake.  Clearly no ordinary vampire.

{{Nice. Are we outta the woods, here, or does Deady McRippedapart over there have friends?}} he thought, still trying to keep an eye out.

Which is when Tats sent Ozzy a message, via their link.

{{Ozzy, the vampire is leaving! I think you may be in trouble... what was that wet ripping noise?}}

{{Just Meg getting her 'hands' dirty. Megs, seems like that wasn't the one who noticed Tats. We've got at least one more target in here. If they're up and about during the day, it probably means they're tougher than the average leech,}} he sent to her via the mindworms. He then used his link with Tats to try to get a relative feel for where his familiar was, to try to predict where the attack would come from.

  Meg nodded, and expanded her scans.  So far, nothing.  The EM signature was too faint, and diffuse to be sure where the vampire had gone.

{{Where are they? Tats isn't that far away, they should be here by now... I'm gonna go get Tats. Watch my back, please?}} thought Ozzy as he started moving towards where Tats was, keeping his guard up the whole time.

  Meg moved with him, and answered {{Their EM signature is fading, I think that the other vampire left!  Means they don't want to face us.  Yet.  Scary idea, isn't it?}}

  Tats couldn't detect the vampire any more, but he definitely had a creepy vibe.

{{Huh. Well, that sucks. The one we killed can easily be replaced by the one that got away. Freakin' vampires. Ergh... I wish we could just go on the news or something and say 'Hey, everybody, carry some garlic around if you go out at night, or into buildings with no windows during the day.' Not that they'd believe us, more'n likely.}} thought Ozzy.

Tats gladly crawled back onto Ozzy's arm, clearly a little shaken up by his close encounter with the vampire.

  Meg gave Tats a gentle stroke, and said {{I know.  This is a frustrating exercise indeed!!}}

Ozzy nodded, {{Heh. Yeah, that's the way of monster-hunting. If you don't get 'em all, they tend to re-populate and try again. Still, what else are we gonna do? Just let them murder people?}}

Tats simply smiled and let Meg do what she was going to do. Despite being a paint construct, he seemed to enjoy the petting.

  Meg nodded, and gave Tats another stroke.  She said aloud, softly "I can tell you like being petted, Tats.  And all we can do is our best at stopping them, Ozzy.  We're ONLY humans, or parahumans."

Ozzy chuckled, "Just because he's not used to it. Our mental link makes it a little... odd, to say the least."

Tats smirked and said, "It's sort of like trying to tickle yourself. It really doesn't work that well."

  Meg chuckled, and said "Well, you fall under the 'small, pettable and pretty' category.  Which means I'll tend to pet you when you're not busy, because you're pretty and it's just a nice way to tell you thanks.  Even if it does make Ozzy give me funny looks!"  Gently teasing Ozzy a little there.

"Meh, I can block it out. It's no big deal." said Ozzy, shrugging.

Tats just smiled and said, "It's about time I got some thanks for all the work I do around here. 'Go crawl through the vents, Tats, Go deliver a message, Tats'. I swear, it's like he thinks he made me or something."

  Meg giggled, and said "You two sound like twin-siblings."

"Wouldn't be entirely innacurate. As I think you know, Tats is a part of my personality, magnified and warped a little. With our link, we can do a lot of things twins sometimes can. Of course, in some ways, we're the same being, but in others, were two separate entities. It's... really complicated," said Ozzy.

Tats just chuckled, "Meaning that he doesn't know enough to explain it. As much as he splits his focus, I'm surprised he can get anything done."

Ozzy smirked, "Eh, true enough. Vampire slaying, my green belt test at the dojo, and a date, all in one day. I'm a busy guy. Of course, some might say that's a good thing. I haven't had time for graffiti in weeks!"

  Meg chuckled, and said "It keeps you running.  And here I don't do a whole heck of a lot unless you count studying gravity, electromagnetics, and now I'm adding genetics obstetrics and actual medicine."

"Damn, girl, when do you sleep? Or do you?" asked Ozzy with a chuckle.

"Anyway, getting back on track... do you think we should see if we can find any more, or just wait for the others to report on their ends?"