Jimmy entered the apartment and looked around.  Vicki wasn’t there and he hadn’t seen her since the aborted mission with the werewolf.  He had seen Eliza also and he wondered if Vicki had met up with her.  He knew Vicki was better since meeting up with the hunters, but he still worried about her and guessed he always would.  Picking up the phone, he dialed a number that he knew by heart.  He hadn’t used it in a long while, but he still remembered it.

Eliza answered the phone on the second ring and said hello.  She started slightly, when she heard Jimmy’s voice on the other end.   “Yes, Jimmy, she’s here.  We’ve been talking over the things that happened to cause the break among the three of us,” Eliza explained.

“Of course you can, all right, soon,” she said.

Looking up at Vicki, Eliza said, “that was Jimmy, as of course you heard.  He’s on his way over too.  I will be glad to see him also.  It’s been so long since the three of us have been together.”

They talked quietly, with sometimes a laugh or giggle, of the “old times” when they’d had so much fun, before it all seemed to go wrong.  There were a lot of those times, not just the ones where they helped each other out of trouble, but also the fun get togethers.  Just spending time together and having fun.  The club or bar runs, Jerry.  

Without realizing how much time had passed, there was a soft knock on the door.  Eliza rose and slowly walked to the door.  Throwing it open, she smiled at Jimmy and told him to come in.  It seems like old times with the three of us together again.

With Jimmy there, it may have seemed like old times, but it was harder to get to the nitty gritty of what had happened before.  Why there was such a rift between them and how it had come about.

Eliza started by saying that she felt the split was mostly her fault as the attack that seemed to start the breakdown had come from the werewolves' attempt to find Christa and herself.  Realizing that Jimmy didn’t know Christa or about her, Eliza broke off what she had been saying to tell Jimmy about her.

After describing their meeting, she went on with telling them how the werewolf had attacked Vicki because he had seen Vicki and Eliza together.  How guilty she had felt when she realized that the attack wasn’t a mugging at all but a werewolf attack.  How they had kept quiet and let Vicki assume that it had been a mugging.  Everything seemed to break down after that.  

“You seemed to get caught up into drinking and drugs Vicki.  It definitely wasn’t the same as before, the more you had the broker you were.  Everything seemed to go to cover your booze or your drugs.  You didn’t seem to care about anything or anyone and it seemed that you didn’t want me around other than to give you money to feed your habits.  I’m not proud of leaving, but I felt it was the best thing to do at the time,” Eliza told them.

Jimmy spoke up and put in his piece of information too.  He went on to explain to Vicki that he also felt blame.  If he hadn’t been quite so protective of her and kept people away, maybe this wouldn’t have gone as long as it had.  Maybe they wouldn’t be tied up with the hunters either.  He had seen what they had done for Vicki, but that they had their own agenda and when you got hooked up with them, it was hard to get away from them.  They didn’t let go easily.

Vicki took a deep breath, looking at both her friends, said, now it's my turn.  “First off, let me say that no one is at fault, but me, for what I went through.  Eliza, I knew from way back, or let me say, I suspected from way back, what you were.  No one could move like you, fight like you or take what you have and be totally human.  You thought several times that I was either out of it or unconscious that wasn’t the case.  I was aware enough to know what was happening.  I knew that you couldn’t heal some of my wounds the way you did, without some special powers.  I went along with you since you seemed to want to keep it quiet.  It didn’t bother me then, that came later.

As Eliza went to say something, Vicki raised her hand quickly and said, “no, let me say it all or I never will.”

“In so many ways, I used you both.  Eliza, it was nice to know that I could call you and you would take over, or call you and you would join in.  I made money off you, although you do all right in that department too,” she grinned.  “I knew if I called you, you would come and it was a nice feeling.  No one has or had ever done that for me.  I never had many or any, to be truthful, girlfriends.  It was great to have one.  I abused that though and I know I did,” she went on.

Looking at Jimmy, Vicki said, “Jimmy, I do love you.  You have always been there for me without wanting anything in return.  That is also a first for me.  Everyone has always wanted something.  Usually my body.  I abused your feelings, using them and taking them for granted.  I got you involved with the hunters.  I know you would never have joined them if it hadn’t been for me.  I wish we had never met them or that they had never found me.  We seem to be in a dilemma now.  I know what they want and why they particularly wanted me to join, why they seemed to hunt me down.”

With a forlorn look at Eliza, she went on, “they seem to know of our past together, Eliza.  I don’t know if I talked when I was coming down off the drugs and booze, or if it was something else.  They know what you are and who you are.  I don’t think they know where you are, yet.  For some reason, you are their primary target.  They will go anywhere and do anything to get you.  If they do, oh god, if they do, they will destroy you.  That is their goal.”

“All right Vicki, since this seems a time for telling all, I'm going to tell you exactly why they are totally dedicated to finding and killing me.  This will give you the ammunition you need to make them love you forever, or put you in the position of fleeing for your life.  Stop me now if you don’t want to know.  You will have to make a choice when you know everything.  If you don’t want to make that choice and wish things to go on as they are now, stop me and I will say nothing,”  Eliza waited to see what Vicki would decide.

With a long look at Jimmy, she turned and smiled at Eliza.  “Tell me, now is not the time for secrets.  I have already pledged to save you.  I will not, willingly or knowingly, do anything to bring you harm,” she vowed.

“Very well, Vicki,” Eliza said.  “This goes back to well before I met you.  Shortly after the time I was embraced and my creator was killed, although I didn’t know that then.  As you know, I have always loved the park.  I love walking there and I used to walk there whenever possible.  Even after I became as I am now, I continued that practice.  I could always seem to think better there.  At the time, I hadn’t fully turned and was walking through the park one night.  My hearing and improved so much, that I could hear the conversation of two men.  Whether they knew, before I even knew myself, or they were just guessing, they were going to kill me.  I was just learning my powers then, I found I could do things I had never suspected.  They were my first kills.  I didn’t know it then, but I needed their blood to stay ‘alive’, as a vampire is alive.  It is not necessary to kill to live, Vicki, although in this case, it was kill or be killed.  Apparently they had been the ones that had killed my maker.  I never learned, through him, all the things I should have, because they had killed him.  I did learn on my own though, both through my research job with John and through others.  I will not give you details on them, as I don’t want anything happening to them through me.”

Standing, Eliza, went to the kitchen and put on another pot of coffee.  More for busy work, than because they actually wanted it.  This was getting to her.  She hadn’t thought of all this in a long time.

Returning to her seat, Eliza picked up her tale.  “This was the first experience with them as I said.  The second was worse.  Much worse.”  She told them what had happened to her in that house in the woods.  Then she went on to tell them what she had done to the hunters.  “It really all comes down to kill or be killed.  That first time the hunters came after me, Vicki, I had never had blood yet.  The second time, I thought I knew what I was and some of what I could do, but was still confused.  The research John and I did was what really brought it home.  All the bad dreams, the weird things happening, were all part of the change I was going through, but didn’t know it.  According to John’s research, this is caused by some weird virus.  It doesn’t affect everyone this way, some never get it, even when bitten by a carrier.  I guess I was just lucky,” she grinned.

“I may as well tell you everything, now that I’ve started,” Eliza commented.

“Sit back, this may take a while,” she said.

Eliza then launched into the telling of meeting Christa and how the unleashing of the werewolves in the city seemed to have come about.  How Christa had left and that’s when the attack on Vicki had come about.  How Christa had come back and together they were fighting the werewolves off and trying to get them to go back to wherever they had come from.  Losing battle, but it was fun trying.

Vicki interrupted, saying the werewolves are what started the downward spiral of her life.  She had glimpsed the werewolf that had attacked her just as Eliza had come out of nowhere to save her yet again.  She hadn’t believed what she had seen and had tried to convince herself that it was a mugging and when everyone had agreed, she’d left it at that.
The nightmares had started shortly after, although the alcohol had dulled the remembrance for a while and the drugs had made her forget everything.  She kept seeing, over and over, the way that thing had leaped at her and she knew it was going to kill her.

“One thing confuses me, Eliza, if you hate the werewolves so much, why in God’s name did you save the one the other night?” Vicki asked seriously.

Just as seriously, Eliza replied, “you know me Vicki, I always root for the underdog.  Never will I allow the hunters to get their hands on any living thing.  If you had been aware of it, they were having fun with that poor wolfie.  They were tormenting him.  If they had killed him outright, but no they had to have their sadistic fun.  That’s what they are, sadists.  They enjoy hurting for the sake of hurting.  If something or someone is different from them, they hurt it.  I never would have attacked the first hunters, if they hadn’t meant me harm, in the first place.  They were stalking me, not me them.”

Making a conscious decision, Eliza didn’t tell them about Adam.  There were already too many things for them to think about.  They didn’t need to know about the Immortals.

Looking back and forth between Jimmy and Vicki, Eliza said, “What do you plan to do now.  You have information that could kill me and several others in an instant.” 

Jimmy and Vicki looked at each other and smiled.  They both walked to Eliza and slowly put their arms around her.  

Jimmy said, “I repeat Vicki’s vow.  We will never harm you, Eliza.  I’m glad we have finally gotten to the bottom of what caused the rift between us and hope that this will end it.  Now, we as friends, have to stick together.”

“That’s all well and good, Jimmy, I’m glad also, but you two are in an unenviable position. 
If you keep all you know to yourselves and they find out, you are in deep trouble.  They wouldn’t think twice about killing you.”

“We’ve already discussed this, Eliza.  If at any time, it seems that they are suspicious of us, we will tell you and disappear,” Vicki and Jimmy said together.

“This is dangerous for you, but not as much as if you both just dropped from sight.  If you ever need me, you know I’ll be there,” Eliza vowed.

All three smiled at each other, glad that the air had been cleared and hoping that this would bring them closer together.

They were not aware of the watchers outside.