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Every fiber in Nikolai's being told him to stand and fight while Rasputin and October got away. He had never backed down from a fight and had no intentions of starting now. He was the oldest werewolf in existence for a reason, he was faster, stronger and more savage than his opponents. If he just ran away like they wanted him to, then he would have to carry the shame of his cowardice. But October spoke to both of them with such conviction that it surprised them equally. But he was an apex predator, running away just wasn't in his nature.

"No, i'll hold them off. Rasputin, take her somewhere safe." he told his mentor.

But October's words still rang in his ear.

"Do you not hear her Nikolai? She needs you to go with her, you don't have to die over this."

Now Nikolai was starting to get annoyed.

"Both of you underestimate me! I am the oldest werewolf in existence for a reason dammit."

"Don't be stupid! You've transformed and fought twice in one night, that's a strain on even you and you know it. You will do her no good if you are dead! They're after both of you, and if you died, who would protect her then?"

He didn't want to admit it, but Rasputin had a point.

His exasperation could be heard in a long sigh.

"Fine, we'll leave. But my car is still in hotel parking lot. How do we get out of here on foot?" he asked him.

He beckoned both of them to come in closer. Once they were within arms reach of Rasputin, he spread his arms out widely in front of them. He spoke a string of very strange words that Nikolai had never heard before and then suddenly a darkness came over them. It was so dark that Nikolai couldn't even see his hands in front of his face. It seemed to linger there for an eternity, but in one quick instance, Nikolai was thrown violently downwards and hit something solid with a loud thud. The force of the impact seemed to shake him out of the darkness. His mind was a bit hazy and it took him a minute to realize where they were. It was the hotel parking lot, and his black Monte Carlo was sitting there just like he left it.

Nikolai staggered to his feet, looking around for October and Rasputin, he was standing upright directly in front of him, but October was still on the ground.

"What the hell did you do?" Nikolai asked bewildered.

"I gave you the best chance to escape, with that wolfsbane masking your scents, you should be almost impossible to track."

He walked over to October and attempted to get her up to her feet.

"Good, you're ok." he replied.

Nikolai was relieved to see October sit up, for a moment there he was afraid that she had been injured in some way. He gently took her hand and helped her stand up properly. He had hit his head pretty hard when they landed on the pavement, but he was no stranger to pain and would easily be able to shrug it off. But he was worn down, even though he would never reveal that fact. Most werewolves only transform during the full moon and therefore didn't have to deal with multiple transformations, but with Nikolai once a day would be easy, but after that it just got more and more tiring, especially when he had to fight. He welcomed the idea of sitting in his car and driving for awhile.

Now that they were standing and recovering, he had to double check that everything was still in place. Pistols, check. Shotgun, check. Wolfsbane, check, and the silver dagger he always had on him was still there, everything was in order.

"Now that you have the car, you two need to drive away as far as you can." Rasputin told them.

So he threw open the doors and jumped in his car, putting the keys in the ignition, once October was inside, he drove off as fast as he could without drawing attention. It was just the two of them now, and for once this entire night, Nikolai could finally relax.

It was a good question, at the moment he really didn't know where they should go. Rasputin had told them that they would now be very difficult to track, but his instincts told him to get as far away as possible, definitely out of state. That was one thing that Nikolai liked about America, the states and their boundary lines, where pone could easily slip away into another area and not be chased down as easily. As he was watching the road, he could see October staring at him from the corner of his eye. His face turned a light shade of red, he still could not figure out why a girl like October would like him, but you wouldn't hear him complain.

"Well i'm not sure yet, there are a lot of places I have in mind, but we shouldn't leave the country unless we have to,"

In mid sentence he heard his phone ringing in his pocket, he quickly took it out to see another number that he didn't recognize.

"Hello?" Nikolai answered.

"Nikolai, is that you? This is Frank, are you still working that job in Washington?"

It was one of Nikolai's hunter friends, he had known Frank for a long time and had gone on many jobs with him, but he was tough and rarely asked for help, so he knew it must be bad.

"It's wrapped up and i'm heading out of state now, why what's going on?"

"I'm in southern California, me and two other hunters are surveying a cult of necromancers and we believe that they're preparing to raise a large amount of corpses, they're based in a large cemetery, it could be a lot of zombies."

This was perfect, he needed to get away from Washington, southern California was a great distance, and he would be able to work another job to boot.

"Send me the coordinates and i'll be there." Nikolai replied before hanging up.

Zombie outbreaks, it was Nikolai's favorite type of job, he couldn't help but smile as he focused on the road.

"So I take it that you overheard us?" he asked her.

October made a few good points, but Nikolai had already put some thought into a few of them. He knew that she needed blood to survive, and against his better judgement he was fully prepared to be her blood source if necessary, if she turned out to be against that, then he assumed that he had no choice to find her another source. Then there was the issue of sunlight, Nikolai had not known whether or not she had issues with sunlight, but now that he was aware that there as an issue, he would have to think quickly. He had hoped that they could travel as far as they could during the day, putting out as much as distance as they could before the vampires could move at night. Then finally there was the issue of the other hunters, truth be told, he didn't know how they were going to handle October should they uncover her true nature. Hunters by trade had very flexible minds, otherwise they wouldn't be able to handle dealing with all sorts of monsters and evil beings.

"So sunlight does affect you, damn. I was hoping that we could do most of our traveling during the day, gaining as much distance as we could before the vampires could start out at night. I guess we'll just have to find some places where we can blend in along the way." he replied.

"As for blood...you can feed off of me when you need to. But the other hunters, i'm not sure about them. Us hunters all possess very flexible minds, otherwise we wouldn't be able to do what we do. The vast majority of them know who I really am, and they don't hold it against me now, i'm kind of like a secret weapon to them. If they can accept a werewolf, I don't see why they couldn't accept you."

He knew that it would take a bit of convincing, but the other hunters probably wouldn't try to kill her. But Nikolai was exhausted from today, if he wasn't driving he would most likely be asleep by this point. So he just waited for October to speak again, her voice was very soothing and alluring when she wanted it to be, he understood now how she was able to lure all of those people into their trap.

Nikolai took a long time to fully digest what October had just told him. For someone who had dedicated his life to hunting vampires, he had just taken in a lot of information that he had never been aware of. He had no idea that feeding was an intimate thing for vampires, he had always just assumed that it was like a parasite feeding off of its host. But for a split second, there was conflict and doubt in his mind. The idea of a vampire, though a half vampire, feeding off of him like that, it just seemed wrong, it seemed like hypocrisy, it seemed like treason. But it was only for a moment, quickly replaced by certainty and conviction, he had feelings for October, she was the first person let alone a girl who he had connected with in centuries. He remembered what he had said to her earlier, that as long as there was a shred of humanity left in her, then she was worth protecting. So he quickly shook his head and left the doubt behind. But there was one thing that still bothered him, "There's also the possibility that if for some reason you had to have my blood and we swapped too often you'd change..."

He knew in his mind that he would never need her blood, and that it was impossible for a werewolf to turn, but it still bothered him in the back of his mind nonetheless.

"I didn't know a lot of that stuff, to be honest you just shattered a lot of preconceived notions I had about their kind, but that doesn't change the fact that...that it's you that we're talking about. If I can do something that keep you healthy and safe, then I will gladly do it. And as for that connection, well part of me is looking forward to it." he stuttered a bit and his face turned red again, so he had to tip his hat downward again to try and cover it.

Nikolai tried as hard as he could to keep his eyes on the road after that, but his mind was elsewhere, as it usually was. It was an odd remark that she had made about her mother, but in a way it made sense considering what he had just learned. He was strong in his conviction to do whatever he could for October, but there was still that small part of him that was wary of becoming a living blood bank. This whole situation must have been completely insane from an outsider looking in, but that didn't really matter at the moment.

Her skin felt cold on him again as she took Nikolai's hand in hers. That same soothing cold that he had felt earlier, it was wonderful.

"In truth I should be thanking you." was all that he said in reply.

The two of them didn't talk for a bit after that, Nikolai continued driving well into the night. He ahd always been fond of night time for mutiple reasons. For the most part, people weren't out at night, so there was more peace and quiet. He could have a reprieve from interacting with people and gather his thoughts more clearly. Then there was the mopre obvious reason, he could operate more discreetly. The darkness had been Nikolai's ally since the beginning, whether he was human or reveling in the power fo the wolf.

The drive until morning came was un-eventful, it was nice for once for his mind to be completelyclear, for him to just relax and be happy. He owed it all to October, she clearly didn't realize what he had thanked her for, but he would explain one of these days.

When the sun began to rise, he made a bee line for the nearest hotel, luckily the first one they came across wasn't one of those nasty, ratty run down hotels, it was a relatively nice one at that. Money had never been an issue for Nikolai, his profession paid well and he worked a lot of jobs in his time. He was relieved to see the sun come up though, he knew that they had plenty of time to rest and come up with a plan.

"Alright, lets stop here for a bit so we can regroup." Nikolai told her, he took off his long duster coat and draped it over her in an effort to protect her from the sun.

They were now out of the sunlight, which brought Nikolai a lot of relief, he didn't want to get October hurt or incinerated. As they both walked into the lobby of the hotel, still the only thing he could smell was her. The odd combination of that sickly sweet scent associated with vampires, and the regular humans scent was confusing and a bit disorienting, although Nikolai would never let her know that.

It was a decent hotel as far as hotels went, it didn't smell of vomit, shame or bodily fluids. The lobby had a few speakers that were playing what sounded like elevator music, and the staff that he could see at least, were all well dressed. He was at least able to take some comfort in the fact that they had a complete day's worth of sunlight to relax and plan before nightfall, Nikolai was completely exhausted, he had been up for two days straight before he had even come to Washington. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on a bed and just shut down for awhile.

But as they walked up to the front desk, another thought crossed his mind.

"Um, I can get you a separate room since you would probably want one, money isn't an issue." he said a bit awkwardly.

Nikolai was an old school gentleman, and sharing a hotel room with a girl he had known for less than a day seemed a bit odd to him.