Even through the dried blood and mottled bruises that covered it, there was no mistaking the face that had become so strangely familiar to Tara over the course of the past two nights. And above that battered face, though streaked with blood and filth, was a shock of white blond hair, exactly like that of the man in her dream.

*Vampire,* some instinct warned her. *If this is him, he's not a man...he's a vampire. Vampire equals deadly...dangerous...predator...*

Except...the creature before her now appeared to be none of those things.

His arms were drawn behind his back with a cord around his elbows that had been drawn mercilessly tight, so tight that one of his shoulders now hung at an awkward angle, clearly dislocated. As if the bonds on his arms were not enough, the thin leather cord trailed down his arm to bind his wrists were as well, tight enough to bite into his pale, fragile skin.

And "fragile" was definitely the first word that came to Tara's mind as her horrified eyes took in the pitiful creature before her.

She knew with one look that he had to be a vampire, not because of any threat he posed to her - or anyone for that matter - but rather because she knew that no human being could possibly be so emaciated, so horribly starved, and still live. He was naked, no semblance of dignity or modesty allowed him to mask the bones that protruded through paper-thin skin.

Tara gave up trying to take stock of his injuries after a few moments, realizing with dismay that they were countless. Bruises, cuts and burns, as well as other marks she did not want to attempt to identify, covered the vampire's vulnerable form.

Though he didn't seem strong enough - or coherent enough, for that matter - to make much noise at all, he was gagged, bits of a dirty scrap of cloth visible in his mouth, bound there by a tight leather cord that bit viciously into the sides of his mouth before wrapping just as tightly under his jaw and around the top of his head, and had to be terribly painful. A thick collar around his neck was attached to the wall by a short chain that held him in a semi-kneeling position.

Tara supposed that he had been kneeling when he had been placed here, but had long since lost the strength to maintain the position, his legs sliding out from beneath him to leave him slumped against the wall, the thick iron collar pulling at his bruised, abraded throat.

He was utterly still, and gave no reaction to her presence, no sign that he even knew she was there at all.

Tara drew in a deep, shaking breath, raising a hand to cover her mouth in an attempt to hold back the sickness that rose in her throat. Such palpable suffering, such obvious brutality, was beyond anything she had seen in the course of her remarkably sheltered life. She couldn't stand to think of what the poor creature had been through, to bring him to this point.

But she could feel it.

Remembered sensations from her dream filled her mind, despite her efforts to push them out again - the way the sharp leather cords sliced into his tender flesh, the feeling of hunger so deep, so constant that it had become a permanent state of being for the desolate creature. She had felt those things, in her dreams, where she had been both captive and observer. Confused and shaken by the memories, as well as by the current turn of events, Tara was sure of only one thing.

She had to get him out of there.

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

"So...how much for the guy in the back?"

The shopkeeper blinked in surprise at the blonde, her crossed arms resting on the counter. Tara could tell by the trapped expression on his face that he had not expected her to venture into the back room, much less to actually ask about the unfortunate creature imprisoned there.

"Sorry, what?" the guy asked, though Tara knew he had heard her and was simply stalling for time, giving her a suspicious look with a single brow raised in her direction.

"The vampire. In the back room. I'm guessing he's for sale? I mean, the way he's all on display like that, surely he's available for sale...right?"

Tara swallowed hard, forcing herself to meet the man's eyes, though her heart was pounding with fear, and she could feel the beginnings of her usual nervousness clamoring for mastery over the bravery she had barely managed to summon. As horrific as the concept was to her, she knew that the shopkeeper had to consider the vampire as merchandise; otherwise he would not have been on display, in the back room away from the eyes of most of his customers, or not.

And as merchandise...he could be bought.

As abhorrent as the idea was to her, Tara would buy the vampire, if it meant getting him out of this hellish place.

"Well," the shopkeeper hedged, his voice slow and even, his eyes studying her too closely, in a way that only served to heighten her anxiety. "I don't think he'd be much use to you, Miss. He's pretty far gone. Took him off a buddy of mine's hands, as a favor...but I don't expect anyone to really want him. He's a few minutes from dusting, if you ask me, and..."

"I disagree," Tara cut him off, her voice sounding much firmer than she felt. "I w-want to buy him." She inwardly winced at the sound of the stutter in her voice, then set her jaw and stalwartly pushed onward. "How much?"

"Look..." The man shook his head, denying her request almost before he'd spoken at all, his voice sharpening in annoyance at her persistence. "...I'm really not selling the whole package, you know? He's on the verge of death; not much to be done for him. In fact the guy who sold him to me didn't *want* him to make it. I'm really just offering him for..." He grimaced, an almost apologetic expression, but not quite. "...well, for parts."

Tara's eyes widened in horror. "For *parts*?"

"A lot of pretty powerful spells work a little better with vampire parts in the mix." The man shrugged. "He's a pretty powerful, important vampire, at that. So, you add up the value of him, piece by piece...it's a lot more than you can afford, sorry."

Tara raised an eyebrow in his direction. "And h-how much is that?" she persisted, though she could hear the uncertainty in her own voice. She really didn't have a lot of money, but she would pay whatever she had to get the vampire out of here.

"More than you've got," the man snapped. "Look, just drop it. He's not for sale to you."

He turned away from her in dismissal, and Tara felt a hint of panic at the thought that he was not going to let her buy the vampire, and the knowledge that she would not be able to physically overcome the man and insist on taking his merchandise out of the store. As he started to walk away, without thinking about what she was doing she reached across the counter and caught his arm, stopping him before he could turn away.

"*Please*," she pressed urgently, meeting the man's eyes. "Whatever you want to charge, I'll pay it. Please, I *have* to buy him!"

At the touch of her hand on his arm, a sensation like an electric charge passed through the half-demon shopkeeper, and he whirled to face her, eyes wide with alarm. As she made her plea, her eyes locked onto his, and a shiver went through him at the unmistakable power he saw flaring in her soft, grey gaze. This girl had power, he realized, an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.

*Best to give her what she wants...*

"All right," he relented, pulling his arm uneasily away from her hand, holding up his hands in a placating gesture, still watching her warily. "All right..."

Unaware of what had changed the shopkeeper's mind, Tara's face lit up in pleased, relieved surprise. "I...I have a c-couple hundred dollars in my wallet," she explained, reaching for it as she spoke. "That's all I've got. Is that enough?"

"Yeah," the guy hurriedly agreed, glancing anxiously toward the door, eager to get this strange girl out of his shop. "That's fine."

He took the money from her with a trembling hand, taking care not to make contact with her again, and before he had even put it in the drawer, Tara had turned away from the counter, striding back toward the back room and her newly purchased vampire.

She stopped a couple of feet in front of him, her heart in her throat as she stared at the damaged wreckage of the creature before her...and it occurred to her that she didn't have the faintest idea how she was going to get him home. It was nearly sunset, but there was still enough sunlight outside to make traveling an impossibility for a vampire.

She startled slightly when the shopkeeper came up beside her, moving past her to reach for the chain that bound the vampire to the wall. Carelessly he unfastened it, allowing the pitiful creature to collapse forward onto his face on the floor, the heavy chain still attached to his collar falling hard and dragging across the torn, raw flesh of his battered shoulders and bound arms.

The vampire seemed to be unconscious, and he made not a sound, but he twitched slightly at the painful contact, and Tara felt her anger rising up within her, both at the ones who had done this to him, and the shopkeeper who was so careless of his injuries. His back was a mess of raw, bleeding sores and lash marks barely beginning to heal. As the metal chain slid off his body to the floor, an anguished shudder ran through the vampire's body, and Tara fought back her own fury, knowing it was better to simply get out of this place as quickly as she could.

"Careful," she snapped as the man took a large grey tarp from a cupboard to the left, and prepared to put it over the unconscious creature, though she couldn't help but feel a sense of relief as he did...because that solved her problem of how to get him outside. "Don't hurt him."

The man gave her a strange look, as if wondering why she was concerned with further hurt to a creature that had already been tortured nearly to death, but he nodded and took greater care as he wrapped the tarp carefully around the still, limp form on the floor.

He cleared his throat as he explained uncomfortably, "He's, uh...not very heavy. You should be able to manage..."

"Blood," Tara interrupted aloud as the thought occurred to her, and her eyes went wide with realization. She looked up at the man uncertainly and asked, "Do you have any blood here? I'd like to buy some if you do."

The shopkeeper frowned suspiciously. "Why?" he demanded. "He's not gonna make it, sweetheart. He's past blood doing him any good. He's to be used for whatever the hell you're gonna use a half-dead vampire for, and then dusted. That's it." He steeled himself, summoning his courage to state firmly, "That's it, or there's no deal." His eyes narrowed as he demanded, "What do you want him for, anyway? You're not planning on keeping him, are you?"

Tara's eyes narrowed in frustration and anger, and she took a step toward the man without even realizing she was doing it, her hands balled into fists at her sides. "That's none of your business! You already *made* the deal," she reminded him. "And if you don't give me blood, I'll just..."

"Get it somewhere else" was all she was going to say.

A dozen other, less pleasant endings for that sentence filled the shopkeeper's mind, and he hurried to interrupt her before she could finish. He had seen that flash of furious power in her eyes again as she had advanced on him, and he had no idea what this girl might be capable of doing to him.

"Okay, okay," he relented again. "I'll get your blood. On the house, whatever." He hurried from the backroom to get it for her.

Tara nodded grimly, appeased by his agreement to give her the blood she knew she would need if the vampire had any chance of survival. She gently lifted the bundle on the floor into her arms, wincing as she felt the slight, unconscious tremor that ran through him at what had to be very painful movement. Aghast at how light the vampire felt in her arms, Tara blinked back tears as she carried him out into the main part of the store, where the shopkeeper waited uneasily, two gallon jugs of dark red fluid in his hands.

"My car's out front," Tara indicated with a nod, heading toward it, and the shopkeeper followed her with the blood.

As gently as she could, Tara laid the tarp-covered form on the backseat of her car, taking care to make sure that he was completely covered from every angle, before backing out of the backseat and facing the shopkeeper again, taking the jugs of blood from his hands.

"Just don't come back here complaining if you don't get your money's worth, honey," he grumbled, a bit resentfully. "He's already gone. He just doesn't know it yet."

Without another word, but with an apprehensive glance over his shoulder, the strange little man disappeared back into his shop. Tara watched him for a moment before turning her eyes back toward the still vampire in the backseat and closing the car door with a sigh.

"Not if I can help it, Mister," she whispered as she headed for the driver's side of the car. "Not if I can help it."