One thing's for sure, Lanie thought with a smile, this ain't your normal crime scene. With no actual corpses to be looked after, Castle brought Lanie to Claudio's Alphabet city 'lair' for one purpose: to take care of her best friend.

Who, to Lanie's disappointment (and slight amusement), seemed to have developed a fondness for getting bitten by vampires.

Setting aside the thoughts of what that said about some of her best friend's ex-boyfriends, Lanie lifted her hand away from Beckett's neck to reveal fully healed skin underneath. "You're all set," said Lanie.

"Thanks, Lanie," said Beckett with a smile.

"I just have one question, honey..."

"Shoot," replied Beckett.

"What the *hell* were you thinking?!"

Beckett's eyes widened. "Excuse me? You think I *wanted* Claudio to bite me?"

"Well you got yourself bit by two different vampires in *two days*, girlfriend. I'm just doin' the math..."

"Perhaps I can be of some assistance, honored ones?" Katya knelt down between the two women.

Beckett looked over at Katya, then back at her best friend, and finally leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes and letting out a weary sigh. "It's all right, Katya. I was just informing the Yīzhì that I have *no* idea why two different vampires chose to attack me two days in a row..."

Lanie interrupted her friend to get her own point across. "And I was just telling Detective Beckett here that two different *vampires* attacking her in two days *cannot* be a coincidence..."

Katya raised a hand to silence Beckett and Lanie, cutting off the argument before the two had a chance to repeat it. Turning to Beckett, Katya declared, "The Yīzhì is right, honored Lièrén. There is a reason both Claudio and the orphan chose you as the target of their attacks."

Beckett looked at the vampire quizzically. "What is it? My perfume?"

"Of a sort," replied Katya, chuckling. She helped Beckett to her feet and led her to a spot where Claudio had set up a CCTV system and monitor to substitute for a mirror. Looking into the monitor, Katya instructed Beckett, "Open your sight to focus on the air surrounding you as you look at the monitor. What do you see?"

"Not much," Beckett admitted with a sigh. "Kind of a blue-green swirl, nothing specific."

Katya smiled. "That is fine for now, honored one. Now close your eyes, and clear your mind." When she saw that Beckett had complied, Katya instructed her, "Keep your eyes closed and picture the aura of the Sìfāng in your mind's eye. Nod when you have this picture clearly."

When Beckett nodded, Katya instructed her, "Now, honored one, open your eyes and look into the monitor.

Beckett did as she was told...and gasped in surprise at the results. "The aura around me, it's...it looks like Castle's now."

Katya nodded. "The aura of the Lièrén is hard to peg because you have the power to change it as the need arises. The reason the vampires you encountered chose you as a potential target is because out of all the Guardians, you are the only one whose aura looked closest to human...at least, on the basic level. I thought you were leaving your aura that way deliberately, to use yourself as bait. If I was mistaken, I apologize."

Beckett turned toward Lanie to see if her friend got the point...which she had. "Hey, how could I have know that you actually had an invisible 'bite me' sign?"

"Oooh," purred a male voice suggestively behind them. "You have an invisible 'bite me' sign? Where?"

The voice was one that Beckett would know anywhere. "Well, Castle," she replied with her own level of flirtatiousness, "If you'll help me get cleaned up, I *might* let you look for it at home later..."

Castle waved his hand with a stereotypically wizard-like flourish, and Beckett's skin and clothes were immediately free of the blood stains that she had been covered with a second earlier. For once at a 'crime scene' where they were among only friends, Castle threw the 'rulebook' out the window, snaking an arm around his girlfriend's waist and planting kisses on every inch of her exposed neck that he could find. "Is it there?" he teased. "Or there? Hmmm...what about...there..."

Katya turned away from her new friends, smiling at their affectionate flirting and teasing of each other. It brought back fond memories of the last man she had been able to spend time with in that way...a man who was now looking at her with an expression of curiosity, mixed with concern, mixed with...was that anger?

"Katya?" asked Ryan.

"Yes, Kevin?"

"Why did you ask me to close the link between us earlier? Did it have to do with the memories you said you repressed?"

Katya nodded with a sigh. "You still have so much to learn, Kevin. I *knew* that Claudio was about to read my thoughts on a hunt for information. So I blocked all my memories of your predecessors, your connection to them, and *especially* the power that your blood has over our kind. I *wanted* him to try and bite one of you...mostly because I knew that would be the most painful way for him to die. But I also knew that you do not have the skill to repress such thoughts in battle yet. If Claudio tapped into all of our minds linked together at once, then we would have lost our greatest advantage."

Ryan relaxed almost immediately, understanding why Katya did what she felt she *had* to do for them to defeat the ancient. Only his curiosity remained unsatisfied. "So how do I block someone from reading memories I don't want them to read?"

"The easiest way to do it is to focus on a memory so potent, so easy to call up in your mind that it blocks out all thoughts of anything else. For now, that might be your wife, perhaps, or a particularly memorable moment at the precinct. Eventually, though, you should rely less on a memory for this and more on your imagination..."

Ryan caught on quickly. "Because if I can focus on a vivid memory that isn't even real, then I can pass misinformation on to my opponent?" As Katya nodded in approval of his answer, Ryan could only respond with a sad smile. Makes me wish I had another telepath around to practice on...

Katya had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Kevin, we've been through this...

I know, I know, Ryan conceded with a teasing smile. He reached up and caressed her cheek with his hand, letting his mind bathe in the memories of their past together one last time. Where will you go?

I do not know, Katya replied with a shrug. Find someplace where I can make a difference and set up shop there, I guess. She squeezed Ryan's hand gently, looking for reassurance in his touch, his smell, his voice in her mind...anywhere she could get it. Accepting the truth with a sad smile, Katya looked into her beloved's eyes for what she was starting to believe would be the last time. At least I can leave confident that New York is in the best of hands...

Having no more reasons to stay at the scene, the Guardians all teleported back to the Loft, which was a far safer neighborhood from which to say their goodnights and return to their homes. Katya, though, opted to walk in the cool late-night air, having already said her goodbyes to the member of this generation of Guardians that she knew she was going to truly miss.

The vampire was barely out of Claudio's now-vacant complex, though, when she heard a voice call out to her in the darkness. "Doctor Petrovich?"

Even with the gift of night vision, the vampire was having trouble making out the features of the being standing in the dark alley across the street from her position. Still, the heartbeat told her the being in question was human...and nervous, judging from the rapid speed and pounding intensity of the sound. "Do I know you?" she asked the figure in shadow.

"Not yet," the woman replied, "but I am hoping that you will be willing to help me regardless." She stepped out of the late night shadows and under the light to show that she was a young Pakistani woman wearing a long, shapeless black dress with matching hijab.

"My name is Nazia Kundun, Doctor. And it is always an pleasure to meet a fellow friend of the Guardians."

The next morning, the four Guardians of the 12th precinct stumbled into the bullpen, sleep-deprived and desperate for coffee. "Ugh," groaned Esposito as he collapsed into his chair, holding his head in his hands. "Can someone tell me *why* we got called in here so early today?"

"I can," replied Gates behind him. Talking to the group, she then asked all of them, "Will the four of you step into my office, please?"

Castle, Beckett, Ryan and Esposito filed quietly into their boss' office; Esposito closing the door behind him. As the four Guardians found places to sit, Gates began, "I got a call from the sergeant in charge of the night shift patrol officers. Last night one of his men came up to him at the end of his shift and *asked* for a psych evaluation. Apparently, this poor officer walks a beat in Alphabet City, and he *swears* last night a brand new 3-story office building just showed up out of nowhere..."

The guilty looks on the four Guardians in front of her was all the evidence Gates needed. "Uh huh," she commented, "I had a feeling that was you guys..."

"But the building had been there for weeks!" Castle countered defensively. "All I did was kill the illusion spell surrounding it..."

Gates stopped Castle with a raised hand. "Castle, I don't need *those* kind of details. I'm assuming this has something to do with the Midtown South case?" As four heads nodded in agreement, Gates recalled something that Beckett had told her the previous day. "The Tesla's DMV registration..."

"Wasn't as much of a dead end as I thought, sir," Beckett went ahead and answered her captain's unspoken question.

"So the owner of our Tesla...?"

"Was our killer, sir," replied Beckett.

"I see," Gates nodded absently, her mind balancing out the levels of information she needed to know with the information that she knew she'd probably be happier *not* knowing. "Can I assume the fact that you paid this man a visit last night means that he will no longer be bothering the people of this city?"

"Or anywhere else, sir," chimed in Ryan as four heads nodded in reply to the captain's question.

Gates allowed herself a small smile as she mentally closed the book on this case and all the questions that went along with it. "You've done good work here, everyone," she announced to the group. The captain's eyes then locked on Castle's as she added, "*All* of you."

The reaction had been small and entirely subtle, but the gasp of surprise Gates watched her comments elicit from the troublemaking writer somehow satisfied her to no end. Focusing her attention back to the entire group, she announced, "I know you've all been pulling a lot of night shifts lately, so take the rest of the day off. Go home and get some rest. You've earned it."

The four heads in front of her nodded with a mumbled chorus of "Thank you, sir..." As they filtered out of the room, though, Gates stopped the last of the Guardians just as he was about to leave. "Ah ah ah, just where do you think *you're* going, Castle?"

Castle turned back to his boss, confused. "Sir? But...but you just said..."

"That was for the supporting members of your team, Castle. *You*, however, are not done with this case yet." Gates led the writer back to his desk, where a manila sat patiently waiting for him.

Castle opened the folder on his desk. In it were several police forms...that he started to slowly recognize as the paperwork that Beckett had to fill out after every murder she investigated. Gates leaned in to Castle with a wicked grin on her face. "Your case, your paperwork, Mr. Castle. I want these completed and on my desk by the end of the day."

Yep, the writer had finally proved he belonged, all right. Gates chuckled as she walked back to her office, listening to Castle mumble to something about having passed a "final test".

In the bullpen, NYPD consultant Richard Castle sat down at his desk, pulled a pen out of his pocket, conjured up a steaming hot double espresso (which he proceeded to drink like it had been on his desk all along) and went to work.

That's it, folks! Don't forget to leave your comments down below. I *always* love to hear from people who have been reading this series. It's your comments (good, bad or otherwise), questions, etc. that motivate me to keep writing for these lovely characters.

This series *will* continue with the next story, Contagion. Y'all know how I am when it comes to this series, so let's just say that the first chapter of Contagion will (most likely) be posted sometime this week. :D

I will let you guys that this next story will focus mostly on Lanie, and while the other Guardians will still be there fighting alongside them, Contagion will mostly be *heavy* on the Esplainie and *heavy* on angst. Don't say I didn't warn you. *g*