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Dark Jaffar waits for a while before deciseing to leave.
(Exit to Chapterhouse)

Seconds after Jaffar and Jezzabelle left, the phone rang. Will cursed fluently in several languages as he picked up. It looked like his talk with ridget might be delayed yet again. Apologizing and getting her side of the story was important and he hated to wait for it, so he was somewhat brusque when he answered the call. "Jackson! What the bloody hell is it now?"

It was Gail on the phone. "Will... it... Kerri... Kerrigan came in... vampiric bite wounds on her neck... bleeding out and highly injured. She flatlined and I'd covered her up after CPR failed. I was about to call you to let you know that hse'd died, when... there was a crash. Kerri was off the table and writihing on the floor, and then she ran out. Will... I think Kerri's been vamped."

Instantly Will paled, a several prayers went through his head. "I'll be right there. Prepare a medical bed with heavy restraints and a lot of medical blood. If Kerri's been freshly turned, then she'll be in a very bad way. We'll need to find and restrain her. Jackson out."

With that he hung up and rolled frantically towards the medical facilities.

"I-I dont know Will, she just took off. I'm sorry to interrupt like this, but we need to find her." By now, she had already made all the preparations that Will had asked of her. The bed, with extra restraints, was ready for use, a table with packs upon packs of blood laying in an organized fashion. Looking at him, she waited for further instructions.

siger walked into Will's office. Seeing another hunter talking to him . Will? I presume? Tokeru wanted me to talk to you about Kerrigan. He said something about the shadows watching her.

Will sighed and placed his face in his hands. "Thank you for your report. I need to apologize again for my behavior. And... I know what you mean. Sometimes it's difficult at best, to restrain your inner demons once you've let them loose."

Standing, he walked over to the cross hanging on his office wall, looking at it, examining it in minute detail as he kept his back turned to her. Softly, he spoke. "My first kill was a vamp. I didn't know anything about hunting back then, so I relied on movies for information."

A bitter chuckle emanated from his lips as he traced a thin scar right over his collar bone. "Piece of advice for all newbie Hunters; Hollywood knows jack-s**t. So I find this vampire's lair while it's sleeping, and I ram a wooden stake into it's heart. It's doesn't go up in dust, so I remove the stake to try again. Big mistake, since it would've remained paralysed if I'd left the stake embedded in it's heart. It smacked me away, and in a panic I ran. It caught up with me in the house's kitchen, and had me by the throat. I reached wildly for something, and came across a bottle of high grade alcohol. I smashed it over the thing's head, and when it let me go my elbow hit the strater of the nearby stove. Whoosh, instant vampire flambe`. Took a series of second degree burns, but at least I lived to realize my mistakes. So I kept hunting down vamps, taking them down as they slept, only this time I decapitated them. I soon thought myself as a pretty damn good vampire hunter, young fool that I was. But something went wrong."


He truned back and sat down again, eyes haunted as he looked at her. "I tracked down another target. Lived in a cemetary crypt and everything. I thought it was a sure deal. So I crept in during the day while they're usually asleep, and found this dirty, smelly old man dressed in tattered rags. I knew that I'd found my target; what I didn't do was stop and consider if I might be wrong about this. One quick slice, and it was over. But then I noticed that this guy didn't have fangs. No blood on his lips. And with growing horror, I realized that the body was warm. I'd gotten my information wrong, it wasn't a vampire, just a homeless old bum who'd taken to living in that crypt. A human being. And I killed them in cold blood, just like the things I was hunting would have."

Drawing in a shaky breath, he continued. "I was devastated. Later on, I found out that some of the vamps I'd killed were harmless, not feeding on humans, just trying to get by. I came to the heavy realization that just like humans not all supernatural beings are either all good or all evil. After that, I developed one rule; only kill the ones that are going after you. If they are going after you or someone else with deadly intent, then it's your duty to put them down. But if they're content to live and let live, then you leave them be. That one rule has guided me throughout my life as a Hunter, and that's why I lost it when I thought you'd killed defenseless children who weren't actively attacking you. I thought that you'd broken that rule."

"Bridget, what we do is nescessary. I know that. But I don't have to like it. I don't have to like the fact that deep inside of me is something that thrills in battle. The only thing I can take pride in is that I've never killed an opponent that has surrendered; the two Lunites that we're holding here and trying to rehabilitate is proof of that. To do what we do, we have to give up some small part of our humanity, whether or not we're still fully human biologically. I don't have to like that I have to try and lead people like you into situations that nearly garuntee death. I don't have to like the fact that I kill on a weekly basis. I don't have to like the fact that people will never know what I and those like me do to keep them safe, and that if I was ever caught I'd be given the needle because they wouldn't understand that all those I killed were a threat to them. But I know the truth, and I know I'm fighting the good fight. That's enough for me. It's just hard, walking that razor thin line between light and dark, good and bad, right and wrong. And there's nothing I fear more than discovering that I or one of my people has crossed that line."

Slowly, he reached out and laid a comforting hand on hers. "I'm sorry for what you've lost Bridget, but I'm glad to have you here with us. I'm sorry that I didn't act like I was supposed to, that I failed you as a commander. I'm sorry that you only saw the horrors of what we had to do, instead of the good moments like when I was able to reach out a hand to a scared little Lunite girl who'd helped to lay waste to my home and kill my Hunters, and give her the mercy and compassion she needed instead of hatred. I'm sorry that you were the one in that room, that you had to take that weight onto your soul instead of me. I'm sorry for everything, Bridget. I only hope that you can forgive me, and learn to trust us again."

The silence in the room was broken when Will's phone rang. Giving Bridget's hand one last comforting pat, Will picked up. "Jackson here."

Will sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly as it became clear that his Hunter wasn't in any real medical danger. "Jaffar, what am I going to do with you? I'll send Gail and Cookie over to help you get over here. Hang tight."

Hanging up, he hit the button for a conference call and dialed two seperate numbers. "Gail, Cookie, this is Jackson. Jaffar got himself hurt in a sparring match with Tokeru. Please go pick him up at the Shadow Stalkers Charterhouse and bring him back here, ok? Thanks."

Hanging up again, he turned back to Bridget. "Now Bridget, do you want to discuss this topic any further?"