I do not own Moonlight or original characters on the show. I have created the character Katherine.

This story is before Coraline's return.

Thanks for reading!

"What brings immortality? What brings hope and love forever? Who can give this to you?" Josef glared at the screen with his eyebrow up and light smirk on his face, his hand in the air holding the remote control. He had been channel surfing, and could not help but find some comedic light in the gestures of this man. He appeared to be an evangelical T.V. pastor.

"Jesus Can!!!" The audience shouted back to the man. Josef let out a chuckle and rolled his eyes.

"I will now heal three people, with the love of the Holy Lord Jeeessusss!!!" Josef laughed out loud now and turned off the television.

"Fire-wielding zealots." He said under his breath.

"Oh, I wouldn't call them that." He heard a soft voice behind him say. He turned suddenly to see her. He smiled wide now taking her in. She was grinning back at him looking as gorgeous as ever. Her light brown hair was swept in a ponytail, and her hands were firmly placed in her black trousers matched with a white blouse that pleasantly revealed her white camisole underneath.

"Katherine." He said smoothly. "Still defending the most Holy I see."

"As always." She said lifting her eyebrow gently. He walked to her and stood before her, admiring the view.

"Yes, I like this new look a lot better. Black hair and corsets just don't suit you as well as this." He smiled taking her hands in his and giving them a squeeze. She freed her hands from his and pinched his cheek lightly.

"Well Josef, you never did like things that were difficult to pull off in the mist of love making." She said walking away and sitting on Josef's couch.

"Yes, this is true. I must say fashion has indeed worked in my favor the past few centuries." He smiled to himself thinking an assortment of naughty thoughts. He took a moment to go over proudly his conquests. "And the hair," He continued out of his self reflection, "Quite becoming. Makes you look even younger." He went over her features quickly to make sure she had not other changes. Expressive green eyes: check. Soft, light skin: check. Luscious lips: check. Scar across the left side of her neck: still check. He frowned that she had still not covered it up even after all this time. Surely she must be reminded of that terrible time each time she saw it.

She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. "I will take that as a compliment." He sat on the other end of the couch and made himself comfortable.

"What do you need?" He said closing his eyes and looking away. She laughed.

"Now what is that supposed to mean?" He smiled and then brought his hand up to his chin trying to look pensive.

"Well, let me take a survey of each time you have visited me since we stopped sleeping together. 1782: Needed a safe place to stay. 1816: Helped kill tracker after you. 1858: Needing another safe place to stay and transportation to evade yet another tracker. 1889…..I don't remember what that was for."

"Needed money." Katherine interjected cheerfully.

"Oh yes that is right. And then finally 1902: Money, kill tracker, safe place, and transportation." He crossed his arms in front of him. "I really can't imagine what would be wrong now." He smiled. "Tracker?"

"Yes." She said quietly

"Safe place?"

"Yes."

"Money?"

"Actually, no."

"Oh wow little girl has grown up!!" She shot a death glare at him.

"Look, I know it has been a while, and you have done a lot of things for me, but every time I have paid you back, in one way or another." She said confidently. He looked down and nodded.

"This is true. I guess I do have to owe some of my success to you. How about 5 percent of it?" She cocked her head to the side and pressed her lips together not appreciated the underestimation.

"Okay, fine 10 percent ."

"I can live with that." She got up then and walked over to Josef's fire place and watched the flames dancing for a few minutes. The memories in her mind were vivid and overwhelming. Josef watched her from the couch knowing what all she was thinking and remembering.

"What is it this time?" He said softly coming up behind her. She looked at him slowly.

"There," he thought, "I can see that pain. How many times have a warned her? She suffers from her own stubbornness."

"They're after me still. I killed one two years ago, and he was pretty ruthless. This tracker….this one now….I can't seem to get on my feet. I feel like I have been running on my knees for months. It took all I could summon to come to you again." Josef could not help but feel sympathetic towards her. He knew what it was to be hunted, but they were usually humans. Her enemies were ones he would never wish on his worst enemy. All she wished for was a normal life should could try to enjoy, but then again he knew that she never could. He would often tell her that she should vanish, and stop chasing a dream that simply would not come true. But no one really listened to Josef anyway.

"They're after me hard this time. It's because I know." Josef looked confused.

"What do you mean?" She put her hand on the mantle of the fireplace and looked down at the flames again.

"I know who the Protector is. I know the name. That's why I came to you." Josef felt a pit in his stomach open up. Could he be the Protector? The Protector's name was kept a secret even from the Protector himself. He swallowed hard.

"Who is it?"

"You know him….."

"I know a lot of people. Who?"

"A private detective. His name is Mick St. John."

Mick observed the scene before him. He hung back as he watched the police cover the body of a woman that had been discovered in this park two hours ago. Cause of death was obviously murder since her throat was slit, and evidence showed a struggle before hand. What was strange about this case was that the woman was naked and ritualistically cut. She had tattoos all over her body anyway, but it appears as if someone traced over them with sharp hot poker. He then felt a presence coming up behind him. He did not turn or even flinch because he knew exactly who it was.

"I just got finished talking to the police officer who found her. Did you see the cuts all over body?" Beth said coming to stand next to him as they watched the coroner place the body on a stretcher and in the ambulance.

"Yeah." He said quietly replaying the mental picture he had taken of the grisly sight. Beth watched as the ambulance drove away and then turned to Mick. He was staring with a furrowed brow at the out going vehicle.

"What is it?" She said concerned. He opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped and shook his head. He looked down as if searching something in his memory.

"Mick, what is the matter?" He turned to her.

"I don't know how to explain it, but the cuts….on the body….they looked familiar." He said slowly. "I know it sounds crazy but I can't ever remember seeing those symbols before, I just know them somehow…." He was looking towards to the ambulance again now long down the road. She looked worried at him.

"What do you mean?" Mick could not put it into words and gave up trying.

"Never mind. What did you find out?"

"Well apparently, her name was Cleopatra." Mick cocked his eyebrow. "Yeah, I know gaudy, but she was psychic I guess, and that was just her public name. Her real name was Samantha Gibbons." She peered over to the crime scene again." She was 34 years old, no family known and no significant other." She said glancing up to him when she said the last two words instinctually. He had been staring at her with a scowl on his face. He bite his top lip slightly still trying to find the connection he was feeling.

"This is really getting to you, isn't it?" She put her hand on his arm. He looked down at the connection he now had with her. He could not help but remember the feeding in the desert, the kiss, and the night of agonizing restraint in the shower. He pushed them hurriedly out of his mind. He nodded.

"I got to figure this out." He said walking toward his car. Beth soon trailed behind him.

"Where are you going?"

"To the only person I know that might know something about this. Josef." He opened the door and sat in his classic convertible. With the top being down, Beth could easily put her things in the back and climb in herself.

"What are doing?" He asked as she situated herself in the passenger seat.

"Sitting in your car, what are you doing?" She replied sarcastically. She smiled as he saw him look away stifling a chuckle.

"Seriously." He said.

"I'm going with you." She said putting her seat belt on.

"No, you're not." He said firmly.

"Yes, I am" She said even more firmly than he had mustered. He rested his elbow on the car door and leaned his head on it for a moment and turned to her.

"You had a problem with authority figures growing up, didn't you?" He said turning the ignition putting the car in to gear.

"Depends." She said coyly.

"On what?" He said backing out of the parking spot.

"On if you are trying to be an authority." He smiled towards her and chuckled.

"Well, technically, I am old enough to be your father, really your grandfather." Beth grimaced and shook her body violently as if to release the mere thought of him being a father or grandfather figure. Mick laughed out loud this time.

"Okay, you are never to say anything like that again! Gross!!" She was smiling and pointing as if presenting an order.

They drove into the night air of L.A. It was November and the weather was classic California, balmy and dry. He looked over at Beth and saw that she was thinking about the same thing. She closed her eyes and let the cool air brush all her worries away. Mick wished he could just forget all this concerns, but watching her do it was close enough.

He looked ahead of him and began once again thinking about the symbols he had seen on the woman's body, a triangle with a horizontal line through it inside of a circle. It was distressing him beyond patience, and he was more than concerned of what the implications were. These symbols were involved in a murder. It could only be pure evil.

He then heard Beth on the phone with her boss. He could hear every word of the conversations thanks to his superior vampire hearing, but he wasn't rude enough to stop Beth from repeating it to him when she hung up.

"It looked like this is the second murder like this in the last 10 years. A woman, another psychic was found in the park exactly 10 years ago tonight, with the symbols and everything. They had kept the symbols classified information so it did not incite copy cats." She said with her eyes bright. Even though she was obviously sad and disturbed that some one was murdered, she still liked the chase toward justice. She was quite the detective, but then Mick figured she would have to be being a journalist.

"So what are we thinking copy cat or serial killer?" She asked Mick.

"No….something doesn't fit here. Why would a serial killer wait ten years to do the same thing? And then why would there be a copy cat 10 years after the fact?" Mick said. Sure anything was possible, but something deep…..something intuitively told him it wasn't that cut and dry. But then what the hell was in this town?

"I don't know... there are some wackos around here. You know it was an unsolved murder 10 years ago. Maybe he is mad that no one figured it out. Or maybe someone became obsessed with the case and wanted to recreate it." Beth seemed to be talking to herself more than him. She turned to Mick.

"Why would Josef know about those symbols?" He turned to her and then looked back at the road.

"He might know. Josef has been around awhile. Something about those symbols…I don't know something tells me they have a deeper meaning then just a ritual death. He is the only one I know that would be able to remember anything like this in the distant past."

"Do you think this is like an ancient cult or something?" She looked more than perplexed. How would Mick know these symbols simply be seeing them and resolving to think they are ancient?

"I really don't know how to explain it, Beth. It's just feeling."

"No, I get it. I really do." She put her hand on his shoulder. Of course, she knew exactly what he was feeling. When she first met Mick all she could think of was that he looked so familiar. It was so intense that even now she felt the same thing. Maybe that is why she kept coming back to him, even when she didn't have to. There was something there, something she could not explain even to herself. She was so positive that they had met before, but her memories where so muddled. The past was always something that Beth endeavored to forget. Who wouldn't when they had been terrorized at such a young age? Being kidnapped at 4 years old seemed to have made the profoundest impact on her life she could not never have imagined, but then Mick was making a pretty huge impact.

"Thanks." He said quietly. How did she manage to distract him so much? He then realized that she was doing what the cool breeze had done for her, she relaxed him. It refreshing to be with someone who could take you away from your thoughts, especially if you have been living with them for almost one hundred years. He could never have expected what an impact she would have on his life the night he found her with Coraline. A child so helpless and frightened had become this strong, determined, and beautiful woman before him. God, he could be her grandfather, he thought to himself. Yeah just another reason to not go down that dark, twisting road.

Soon, they were at Josef's. Like any unassuming gentleman would do, Beth found her door opened and a hand extended to help her out of the car. She could not help but be charmed. He closed the door behind her and then let go of her hand. She was sad to be out of his touch, but then he suddenly had his hand on her back gently guiding her to the door.

It took more than a few rings for Josef to come to the door. He knew he was there because he could smell him even from outside. Not to say Josef had a pungent odor to him, but once again another gift of vampirism. Beth started to look at him concerned and Mick started to get frustrated. It wasn't like Josef could not sense he was there.

When Josef did answer the door his hair was uncharacteristically disheveled and his clothes were more casual than usual. It was almost as if he had thrown them on. Mick eyed him suspsiously, but he could not smell another person with him, vampire or human.

"Hey there, Mick." He was holding the door as if to conceal what was inside.

"Hi, Josef." Mick slightly amused as his best friend's behavior. "Are we interrupting something?" Beth tightly hid a smile fearing that they had interrupted some massive orgy.

"Uh, No. Not really." Josef said smiling

"Oh, really?" Mick and Beth heard the voice inside say rather perturbed. Beth was about to release a giggle, but Mick looked strangely at Josef. Why hadn't he been able to smell the woman that was obviously in his house? Josef rolled his eyes and opened the door now and let them in. Josef introduced everyone.

"This is Katherine. Katherine, this is Beth Turner and….Mick St. John." At Mick's name Katherine mouth opened faintly as if shocked. Mick could not help staring her. Not only was she a mysterious person he did not know was acquainted with Josef, but he was disturbed that he could not detect her. She stood there with her blouse on the floor and her camisole shirt draped lightly over her. Even now, he could not sense her at all. During this time there was nothing but silence in the group as Katherine and Mick stared at each other.

"It is nice to meet you." Beth said approaching Katherine her hand extended in greeting. Katherine shook her hand and looked at her a moment and then returned to staring a Mick.

"Josef." Mick grabbed him by the arm and started guiding him to another room. "Can we talk for a second?"

Beth and Katherine were left suddenly. Beth tried to smile nicely but Katherine could not react with a polite gesture or reply. She was in as much shock as Mick was. She had found what she had been searching for all of her life. The answer to her mounting enemies and hopefully the safety she was hoping for. The setting was more than uncomfortable for the two women. Meanwhile, the feeling wasn't more comfortable to the men

"Who the hell is that woman?" Mick asked forcefully.

"Uh, Katherine. You know that are what introductions are for, my friend. Weren't you paying attention?" Josef said satisfied with his sarcastic barb. Mick looked more than serious though, so he knew the humor was lost.

"Why couldn't I smell her? Why could I sense her at all? What is she human, vampire, what?" Josef found he was rather smug for some reason in the company of his friend.

"Well she is both, but then neither. So don't think you have become sense impotent." Josef said as he put on a robe from his closet.

"Excuse me? What are you talking about?" Josef crossed his arms behind him and approached his friend.

"Have you ever heard of the society Bloodline?" Mick nodded no and Josef smiled further.

"Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, friend, but that woman in there is the future ruler, weapon and enemy of the Bloodline. And guess who her knight in shining armor is? I always knew you were around for a reason."