That was bad. Water...water was bad, he remembered that much even through the heavy, soothing haze that covered him. Water meant pain and torment, punishment and crippling, burning agony.

So...why wasn't he in pain?

Why wasn't he afraid?

Perhaps it had something to do with the soft, gentle voice, murmuring in a quiet, rhythmic chant, clearly audible to him even through the magically induced trance that surrounded him. Her words were soothing to him, despite the fact that he could not understand them. They accompanied a healing warmth, a pleasant, electric tingling that began in his arms, then his legs, moving inward toward the very core of his body and filling him with a new sense of life and strength.

It all vanished the instant Tara touched the strange mark on his back.

A vague sense of unease began to creep back into the edges of his mind, echoes of harsh voices and violent hands filling his memory, just under the surface of the sensations the healing spell was awakening in him. The peace and warmth he felt was gradually replaced by a cold, seeping feeling of fear and shame that left him trembling, even in unconsciousness.

Suddenly, he couldn't remember where he was, couldn't remember the cause for his recent inklings of barely birthed hope.

Something was terribly wrong.

Tara's hands shook as she pulled herself to her feet, staring with wide eyes down at the vampire in the tub. He had fallen back onto his back in the water when she had been thrown away from him, and despite the slight tremor of his body that had begun again, he still seemed to be asleep.

She glanced around the room, her eyes adjusting to the sudden near-darkness, the only light in the room the muted daylight filtering through the curtains from outside. Tara was both stunned and disturbed to see that the candles had all gone out, apparently at the same moment that she had been thrown away from the vampire's side. Downstairs in the kitchen, she could hear Mac barking furiously, a low, protective sound - territorial, like she might have expected to hear from him if an intruder was in the house - and yet tinged with a high note of fear that she was unaccustomed to hearing in his bark.

She suppressed a shudder, a chill trickling up her spine at that thought.

She struggled against a vague sense of dread, unwilling even to look at the strange mark again for the moment - not that she needed to; the image of it was seared indelibly into her mind, along with the deep darkness and evil she had felt when she had touched it.

She hesitated a moment at the side of the tub, her mind racing as she tried to decide what to do.

What *is* that thing? Who did that to him? What kind of terrible, dark magic must it be to have caused such a reaction to the healing spell? Or maybe...maybe I just did it wrong. Maybe it wasn't that mark at all, but...but my own sucky magic skills...

However reassuring the thought might have been, Tara could not quite bring herself to accept the latter as a possibility. She had felt the intense sense of dark malevolence emanating from the mark on the vampire's back, even before she had touched it. Whatever it was, it was clearly evil and dangerous...and she had no way of knowing what might happen if she tried to continue the healing spell while it was still in place.

Somewhat relieved and satisfied that she had at least made some progress in helping the vampire's injuries, Tara laid a soft, thick towel down on the bathroom floor, and then lifted him carefully in her arms and laid him down on it. She studied his face for a long moment, a troubled frown creasing her brow as she wondered again about the mark, unable to get the image of it out of her mind. Her frown deepened when a slight flinch jerked the vampire's features, even in sleep, and she wondered at the troubled dreams that seemed to be infecting the peaceful rest the soothing spell should have allowed him.

What he must have been through...what must have been done to him...that even with a powerful sedative spell like that, he should still be having nightmares!

She tried to put her troubled thoughts out of her mind as she gently blotted his pale, delicate skin with a second towel, drying him as best she could. Then, she covered him with a third dry towel before heading down the stairs again to check on Mac and prepare the living room for the vampire's return.

***********************************

He shivered in the never-ending torment of cold in which they kept him, desperate for a trace of heat to relieve his suffering, yet not daring to move, or make any attempt to warm himself. Such defiance would certainly be harshly punished...not that he even *could* move anymore. The temperature of the room had long since left his limbs numb, aching, cramping with the cold.

*Please...please...make it stop...let me out...please...*

Tara took the dirty tarp from the couch and covered it with a soft, clean blanket, setting out fresh bandages and other supplies from her first aid kit on the floor next to the sofa. Once the makeshift, temporary "bed" was prepared, she headed to the kitchen to check on Mac.

His frantic barking had gradually tapered off to a soft, plaintive whine of unease, and Tara felt her guilt return as she opened the kitchen door and fell to a crouch in front of her pet. She gratefully accepted his enthusiastic affection as he licked her offered hand and pressed in closer to the arm she wrapped gently around him.

"I'm sorry, Mac," she murmured against the shaggy fur at the back of his neck, taking comfort in his familiar combination of softness and strength. "I'll make it up to you, Sweetie...I promise. But...but right now...this guy needs a lot of help, okay? I've gotta help him..."

Mac seemed to understand. He let out a weary sigh, before giving her hand one last lick and lying down on the floor, his head on his paws. Tara hated to leave him, but knew that she had no choice. She reluctantly rose to her feet and closed the kitchen door again, returning to the bathroom to retrieve the unconscious vampire, who did not appear to have moved at all since she had left him.

She carried him carefully down the stairs and laid him down on the sofa, then knelt beside him. She reached for the roll of bandages on the floor...then hesitated, setting it back down as her gaze was drawn to the still, pale form on the sofa. She found herself examining him more closely than she had done thus far, mostly because she hadn't exactly had the opportunity to do so before.

She was relieved to see that despite its interruption, the healing spell seemed to have helped the vampire's condition quite a bit. None of his injuries had healed completely, and a few of them seemed to be completely untouched by the spell...but many of them were very much improved.

Besides the one deep laceration that ran the length of his injured right arm, the various cuts and bruises that marred his arms had mostly faded away, as had the dark bruising on his shattered legs, which had straightened considerably, though they had not healed completely.

The lash marks on his torso and back had not improved as much, though they at least seemed to be clean, and to have closed up some. She carefully turned him onto his side to inspect the most personal of his injuries, and was relieved to find that his abused backside seemed to have mostly healed as well. The deep wound in his stomach was barely healed at all, however, just barely scabbed over.

Tara carefully unwound the bandages over his head injuries, just enough to inspect their progress...and was disappointed to find that his neck looked almost completely the same, as did his badly damaged eyes.

She frowned as she rewrapped the bandages, confused by the inconsistency of what she was seeing, wondering what had made the difference, what had determined which injuries had healed and which had not. Gradually, however, a pattern of sorts became clear, and her eyes widened with realization.

The mark...it's the injuries nearest to it...those are the ones that aren't healing...

A shudder passed through her with the remembered sensation of the malevolent magical power she had felt when she had touched the strange markings, and she tried to put the image of it out of her mind for the moment, and focus on the nearly overwhelming task still at hand.

Later...once he's resting...I'll try to find out about it...try to figure out what it is...but for now...for now, I...I can't think about it...

With a slow, trembling, but deliberate hand, Tara began to unroll the bandages, her jaw set as she gently began to wrap the vampire's remaining injuries...which would have to take their own natural course in healing, she decided reluctantly.

She was not about to try that healing spell again...not until she knew exactly what had caused it to go so terribly wrong the first time.

Terror seized him at the first touch of her hand, unusually hot against his cool skin...but it faded swiftly when he realized that the person touching him was not hurting him, was in fact being gentle and careful and...

...it was her.

His brow furrowed in confusion, and he shook his head slightly, caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness as the effects of the calming spell began to wear off, more swiftly than they should have, due to the ominous influence of the dark magic Tara had encountered. The vampire struggled to make sense of his thoughts and surroundings, both real, and the remnants of his nightmares.

The doctors...they'd been hurting him...cutting him...doing their sadistic tests while he helplessly fought against the restraints they had forced upon him, unmoved by his desperate attempts at escape, the plaintive, strangled moans for mercy he had tried to utter.

Except...they weren't hurting him anymore. He tried to figure out why they had stopped, where they had gone, but couldn't seem to make sense of any of it...not that it really mattered at the moment. There was nothing he could do to stop them if they decided to hurt him, no benefit that would come from muddling out the mystery.

And besides - it was Tara who was touching him now.

He knew, because no one else had touched him so gently, with such compassion and concern, in as long as he could remember.

As he gradually became aware of his surroundings - the soft surface beneath him, the pleasant warmth of the room, with all its increasingly familiar scents - the vampire began to relax a little, opening his one good eye to allow the faint bit of blurred light he could see into his world, to allow the dark, cold terror of the nightmare to fade away under the gentle pressure of Tara's hands.

He noticed with a sense of awe that, as she had promised him...his pain had lessened considerably. His broken legs, the vicious cuts and burns that had scored his arms, even the worst damage that had been done to his most private parts...the countless injuries that covered his entire body...all seemed to have faded under the power of...whatever it was she had done to him.

He did not know why she would take such time with him, why she would bother with such things as ointments and bandages, but he relished the simple pleasure of her sympathetic touch - of the compassion for which he had become so desperately starved - as she patiently worked over him. She was taking her time, but working steadily, her skilled hands tending methodically to the injuries that covered his body...and all too quickly nearing the completion of their work.

He wished that she would never finish.

As the last bandage was fastened in place, Tara rose to her feet, and he fought off a sense of panic, even as she softly explained where she was going, what she was doing.

He did not hear a word of it.

All he knew was that she was getting up, seemed to be getting ready to leave the room...and the thought filled him with a cold sense of dread. It seemed, he realized, that whatever place this was he was in, they only came when Tara was not there.

Please...please don't leave me alone...don't let them find me again...