He had had that feeling for awhile now. You know, that feeling. That intense, bone-chilling cold that filled his mind with uneasiness. It was subtle at first, shrugged off as an inner defense mechanism to the lingering presence of his enemy…

But as time pressed on, something added to his uneasiness, something that tugged at another section of his consciousness. Cherry hadn't been seen or heard from in over four months. This was perfectly normal for him, he had been gone for longer periods before, but now…he was worried. Images and voices whispered in his head, all about Cherry. Evil whispers, sinister images. He shook them off. Barry was just fucking with him.

As if to prove his point, the voices eventually stopped. The images ceased. The feeling ebbed away, slipping from his mind like dirty water down a drain. Apparently Barry got tired of the game. Life was back to normal.

Johnny awoke from his sleep to the sound of an irritating tap tap tap on his coffin lid, followed by a small female voice saying,

"Rayflo-sama, there is a nun on the phone asking for you. She says it's urgent. What shall I tell her?"

Odd. She usually called for Cherry. He shoved the mahogany lid aside and sat up with a groan.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take it. Fetch me a robe and bring me the phone." he muttered as he rose to his feet, absently scratching his bare back. The fur lined silk robe materialized out of seemingly nowhere and slid smoothly on his naked skin. He knew the robe was terribly cliché, but hey, when you've lived as long as he had, then as far as he was concerned, you could…bite him. The maid appeared at his side with the phone in her hand, which he snatched away and bid for privacy, immediately gotten.

" Cheryl, how are you, you little concubine? Are you ready for the dark side yet?" was his greeting. For once, the voice on the other end was not amused.

"Now's not the time, Johnny. There's something you need to see down at the church."

"Oh, and what would that be? Did Jesus rise as a transves-"

"It's Chris. I'm not saying any more."

His smiling charm faded. That cold feeling returned, hitting his gut like a sack of bricks.

"Just get down here, NOW. Though I'm not sure even you can help him."

"What do you mean?" he snapped, but the line went dead. He snarled and tossed the phone over his shoulder as he rushed to an open window, his body already dematerializing into a swarm of bats. The night air was muggy, and thick enough to almost touch. The moon gave it's Cheshire grin. Johnny's amassed body squealed and screeched as it swarmed about, waiting for the entire body to gather. After about a half minute, he made his way to the church that Cherry tended to haunt. He wished that bats were faster creatures…

Ten minutes in, he heard a faint giggle. It took him quite a bit of time to realize that something was flying among his masses.

"Heh heh heh…got my messages, Addy…?" snickered the tiny winged creature.

Barry. He fuckin knew it.

"Barry, I'm not in the mood to play your damn game. What the fuck did you do to Chris?"

More laughter. It sounded positively gleeful. Johnny's many little guts lurched at the sound. Hundreds of spines tingled as one.

"Your Cherry is dead, dear Addy. Oh, how beautifully dead…so beautiful…."

Johnny paused, his body colder than the skin of Satan. He could swear he saw the creature grin.

"You…you're a damn liar. Damn it all to hell you're fucking lying to me!"

"Who are you trying to convince here?"

"Fuck you."

"Oh, Addy. Such pretty words you speak." the creature visibly swooned.

"Shove it, Barry. What have you done with Chris? Tell me or I'll-"

"I'm sure you'll know soon enough, won't you? Ta, now." it crooned before Johnny swarmed it and tore it apart.

Cheryl was waiting for him on the front steps of the cathedral so she could allow him onto the threshold. He barely hit the ground and re-formed before she spoke.

"What took you so long?"

"I was held up. What happened? Where is he?!"

Cheryl sighed and took a moment before beckoning him in.

"One of our the priests came into a confessional for his nightly duties and found him on the other side."

She paused, as if expecting him to say something. Instead, Johnny tightened his robe. His skin was crawling. He noticed a couple of nuns pass looking stricken.

"Chris attacked him. He's not himself-"

"Wait… he's alive?" he interrupted. Cheryl looked up at him and shrugged.

"About as alive as a member of the undead can be, I suppose."

"Where is he?" he couldn't hold in his sudden excitement.

"Still in the booth. He's hurt bad, inside and out. I've got a sort of protective shield around it, just in case he goes haywire. I know it would make no sense to say this to you, but…be careful. Like I said…he's not himself." They approached the confessionals. Cheryl stepped back and dropped the shield. Tentatively, Johnny opened the door to the booth that she pointed.

It was awful.

Cherry splayed on the booth with his back to the door. He gave no indication that he heard the door open. There was blood, and a lot of it. It was obviously his. He couldn't tell for sure where it was from, or even if it was from one place, but thankfully he was in one piece.

Unfortunately, that meant Barry got creative.

"Hey, Cherry…" he whispered, trying to sound calm. He moved in to hug him. "Come on now, let's go-" he was cut off when his chin met the barrel of a gun. He froze with his arms halfway around the man.

"Get your fuckin hands off me before I rip that pretty head from your shoulders."

Oh, not a good sign. Cherry would usually eat his own nuts before he cursed in a church.

"Cherry…" Johnny started. Cherry physically flinched at the sound of his pet name. Johnny was actually scared now.

"Charley, it's me… it's….it's me."

God, what the hell did Barry do to him?

The gun lowered slightly. Charley's head turned.

"Master?"

"Yeah. It's me."

"Master." the gun disappeared.

"Yeah." Johnny took the opportunity to slip his arms around him and gently pull him out of the booth. Charley gave with no resistance, but hung limp in his arms. Johnny helped him to his feet.

"Come on, let's go home. We'll get you home."

"Home. Yeah."

An hour later they were both in the master tub of the manor. Johnny was refilling it with fresh water after the entire tub had dyed red with Charley's blood. He ran a wet plush washcloth along the body that leaned against him, both to clean and to soothe the uneasiness that permeated trough their very pores. When Johnny had first gotten him in the bathroom and undressed him, he managed to take a sizable inventory of whatever damage there was sure to be. One of Charley's cyborg arms had been rendered useless, the wiring cut in various places and left to fray and oxidize. One of his earpieces was crushed and gone. Also, there were scars patch worked all over his body. Not a good sign. Healthy vampires didn't scar. Which meant…

Cherry had been starved.

There was a limp in his walk, and as far as he could tell, there were no serious injuries to his feet or legs. Johnny tried not to think of what that meant as his gaze fell down Cherry's back and beheld the scarred proof that lay before him. He had placed a hesitant finger on it, trying not to shake.

Your Cherry is dead, dear Addy. Oh, how beautifully dead…

The words echoed in his head as he ran the cloth gently down Charley's scarred spine. Barry's signature, apparently.

And Johnny had felt so special…..

"I'm…sorry. Master. Sorry. I tried." Charley said quietly as his master ran a steady hand along those scars. The hand stopped. They were pressed together momentarily as his master leaned forward and turned off the water. The silence was like lead in the air. It panicked him.

"Master?"

The only response he received was for a pair of warm and gentle arms to wrap around his chest and pull him back into a hug. His master placed a gentle kiss on his shoulder before resting his chin on it.

"Never mind that." he whispered. "All that matters is that you're here with me. You're safe with me."

"Safe." he repeated, as if hoping the feeling would wash over him like a quilt. He wasn't feeling it. As if to read his mind, Johnny turned Charley's head with a hand on his cheek to look him in the eyes as he washed his face. His master smiled, a look that he reserved only for him, one that he had given him all his life. Wrapped in those arms with that smiling face as he carefully cleaned away the filth suddenly made him feel seven again . It was like the old days when they scrounged in the battlements of war. Slowly the memories began to wash over him.

"You're a strange little kid, you know that? I'm sitting here about to eat you and you start fattening yourself up."

"Let's cut your hair. You'd look so cute."

"You need a name, right? How about… Chris? Would you like that?"

Good times.

Charley closed his eyes and turned away, letting the warmth cover him. He leaned into the loving body behind him. He felt a hand creep along his stomach and rest on his thigh. The warm cloth slid along his chest slowly, in no real hurry. He listened as the water dripped back into the tub and the gentle splashing from their small movements. His master nuzzled his shoulders and neck, placing chaste little kisses here and there, humming an indistinct tune. Charley absently took the hand on his thigh into his own. Though he didn't see it, he knew his master was smiling.

That was all that mattered, right?

Johnny felt Charley relax in his arms. His breathing deepened. He went limp. How he loved him. How he relished the feel of the hand grasping his own almost desperately. The love he felt for the head that leaned against his shoulder. Though he was in a certain respect clean, the master vampire continued to wash him, if for no reason other than to sooth his own uneasiness.

How could he have let this happen? The dreams, the voices…they had been real. He had ignored them.

"I'm gonna feed you your own dick, you asshole. You better watch your damn back." he whispered to no one as he dropped the rag and settled for just holding his sleeping charge until the water ran cold. When that happened, Johnny simply transported him to his bed and wrapped the covers around him. He even found his cat and dropped her on the thick covers as well. She obediently curled herself into a ball on his chest and fell asleep. He stared at the spectacle with a warm feeling, his biological clock giving a twitch. Something was missing, he thought to himself. He brooded over it for a moment until he realized.

Where was the dog? Was he with Cherry when the church found him?

Did Barry have him?

Doubtful. Barry had little interest in animals. He thought of them as nothing other than clothing.

Shit. He tried not to imagine the dog as a hat. He tried even harder not to laugh at the image. He took another glance at his sleeping Cherry, and made a decision. He set four of his deadly blood-maids on guard duty, not to leave the room, and not to allow anyone in. Or out. As soon as they were assembled to his liking, he dematerialized, ordering them to close the window when he left. Though a closed window wouldn't deter the baddies that he was worried about, it would at least give his sentries a half-second to contact him. He didn't have much time, the sun would be rising soon, but he knew that Cherry would truly appreciate the company of his day companion.

The swarm divided into quarters almost immediately, each fraction taking on a different needle of the compass.

The first place checked was chapel grounds, figuring the robotic mutt would look for his master there. Nothing but bats. Real bats. The poor things were highly confused at his presence.

Towards the south, he found nothing but a barn owl that was hell bent on trying to eat him. It soon discovered that having an angry swarm of dozens of immortal bats was a very unsavory meal. He made a stray cat happy though.

Miraculously, he found the mutt at Charley's occasional hideout, his home-away-from-home. The place was the very definition of irony. The abandoned attic of a strip club named 'The Cherry Topping". It looked like an mix between an auto shop and a fucked up S&M den. Robotic hardware, blades and strange do-dads littered the place. He found the dog cowering in his oddly fluffy bed, conveniently located next to Cherry's god awful ugly ass coffin. Plywood! Really! The beast guarding it was frightened, agitated and hungry, but blessedly not a hat.

"Hey boy…" he called out quietly. He could never remember the mutt's name. The dog growled. Johnny put a hand on his jutted hip.

"Now, come on. You know me, you little shit." The dog didn't budge, but continued to growl and snarl. He sighed.

"And here I was, about to buy you some lovely thick-cut pork chops…" he trailed off, his voice adopting a tragic air.

Robotic or not, a dog is a dog. The growling immediately ceased. His head drooped slightly, eyeing Johnny wearily.

"That's better." he kneeled and held his hand out for the dog to sniff. When it did, it began to wag it's tail.

"See? You know me. Now let's go get you fed so your daddy can see you."

The dog let out a high whine and looked up at him with intelligent eyes. It bowed his head and it's tail tucked itself in between his hind legs. The guilty, submissive please-don't-hurt-me pose. Johnny knew the dog enough to know that next to nothing could possibly make the semi-immortal cyborg Doberman cower in fear. A cat person himself, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity for the thing.

"Yeah, you know something happened, don't you? There was nothing you could have done, boy. Between you and me, it was smart to run."

It seemed to understand. It at least uncoiled itself a bit from it's cower. Johnny smiled and stood. With a snap of his fingers the dog was at his side. They made their way to the house without a word except "sorry, but you'll have to settle for meat at the house, I gotta sleep."