Betrayal and the thick, putrid, delicious smell of blood wrapped around his mind. He gloried in the freedom as his teeth extended and his eyes darkened and Lucy wasn't Lucy anymore (hunched up in front of him, smelling of bravado thinly layered over terror), just a bag of blood, blood-blood-blood, however had he gone so long without it? Why had he been so stupid?

It was a crazy situation but he was crazier than any situation and oh, but it was worth it. He would kill the reason for this madness and then maybe it would go away and maybe it wouldn't and God Almighty, why had he ever cared?

'Stay out of the cities, George.'

A chink of light. He nodded to himself, lowering his face closer to Lucy's busily throbbing pulse. Stay away because he'd never tested Herrick's theory that werewolves tasted like gone-off dog and he never really wanted to and non-transformed, George was a bag just as appetising on the surface as Lucy.

'ANNIE'. The thought tore into his black brain and knocked him backwards with its bright clarity. 'ANNIE-ANNIE-ANNIE'. He turned, Lucy forgotten at last and looked around in bewilderment.

'ANNIE-ANNIE-ANNIE', screamed his body. Pain hit him in the stomach (so full of sinful blood) and he doubled over with an animal grunt.

Annie's pain. Annie's (listening) ... Annie's desperation and pain and just 'GEORGE! GEORGE!' because she thought Mitchell had abandoned her. Once he would have laughed at that, later he would have laughed at the obviousness of it, but now was no time for laughing, now they were taking Annie.

He had heard the the creak of his own door once, before Herrick's 'gift' to him had closed it and all others forever. He listened to that hundred year-old echo now as he stumbled around the hateful facility that stank of werewolf and werewolf fear and werewolf death (a flicker in his mind for George and he put it aside for later; if they took George too then he would kill them so wonderfully slowly), the pain in his stomach increasing with every step.

'ANNIE-ANNIE-ANNIE!'

Silence.

Painless.

Hollowness.

"Annie?" he whispered.

The hunt for Kemp was different. Black vampire rage was tempered by a human grief so strong that he felt mired in clay and when he finally found him (and he admitted it, the bastard admitted he'd done it on purpose!) and pinned him against the wall, the blood filling his inhuman stomach bubbled and boiled.

There was no enjoyment in the thought of killing now. Only a dull throbbing pain from the hole inside him and wobbling determination. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Life for a life, but Annie was worth a thousand of this maniac, a million and she was gone.

George, all too human-smelling George, screaming at him. Don't you dare do this in her name.

She would have hated you for this, his mind agreed helpfully She was human, after all.

The blood-burn fell from his mind and, unprotected now, it reeled under the grief that ripped tears from his eyes and stole his stength from his limbs. The hole inside him yawned.

Later, he asked George feverishly if it was really true, over and over until George snapped and tried to push him away and to everyone's surprise, Mitchell had let himself fall. What was a bruise or two in comparison?

I'm not even an Annie/Mitchell shipper particularly, this just seemed really obvious after ep 8. I would have liked more dark!Mitchell, though. Next series? ;)

All opinions welcome!

x Maz x