Halloween fic. A bit late I know, apologies. Hope you enjoy.

"There's not really any such thing as vampires, is there?"

Jack looked up from the pile of paperwork Ianto had bribed him into doing with a series of intriguing Trick or Treat ideas as a reward for completion. At times, that young man had no morals whatsoever, a fact for which Jack was often quite profoundly grateful.

Gwen was, as usual, at the front of his desk, poised for flight, or more likely action. Ianto always sat on the desk, poised for quite a different sort of action. Tosh tended to hover in the doorway, while Owen generally yelled from outside. It made Jack wonder why he had a visitors' chair at all.

Gwen tapped a foot impatiently. Jack smiled and focused on her question.

"Not vampires as such," he answered, after a run-through of his mental alien index. Plasmavores are pretty close. They don't have fangs, though. The last one I met used a straw."

Gwen's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Jack returned her gaze levelly. Gwen concluded he was serious, but she couldn't help laughing. "A straw? That's ridiculous."

"True though," Jack insisted. "It nearly killed me. Actually," he paused for thought. "Yeah, actually I think it did kill me, maybe twice." But he was smiling too.

"But a straw," Gwen spluttered. "How undignified."

"Bit embarrassing, I have to admit," Jack conceded. He leaned forward. "But why are you asking about vampires, Gwen? Am I too optimistic hoping it's something to do with a Halloween costume?"

Gwen shook her head, all traces of humor gone. "Andy emailed me this," she said, offering Jack a printout. "The victim was found in an alley. Nearly bled out, but no blood found at the site."

Jack shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time someone's moved a body," he said dismissively, neglecting to extend a hand towards the page Gwen was trying to give him. He didn't want another emergency, damnit. He and Ianto had plans for tonight. Tricks and Treats. Jack had never celebrated Halloween before, and he was looking forward to it. Especially Ianto's interpretation, which was bound to be creative. And he said Jack was innovative…

"It wasn't a body," Gwen insisted. "The victim's still alive. He was found in time to save him. The photo was taken in the hospital." She proffered the page again, and this time Jack took it, hoping he'd be able to point out how very mundane the crime was so his night could proceed as planned.

The slim hope crumbled as he looked at the detailed image. Not a blunt force trauma, not a stab wound. Two neat, perfectly round marks on an otherwise unblemished neck. No bruising. Figured. Bloodsuckers always injected anticoagulants.

"Two puncture marks," Jack agreed, frowning. "Two straws, maybe?" He shook his head. "Nah. Plasmavores don't share. And they drain their victim totally. He shouldn't have survived."

"But he did," Gwen answered stubbornly. Jack mentally kissed his quiet evening goodbye as fire kindled behind her eyes. "We have to do something, Jack, because the next victim probably won't be that lucky."

Jack drew in a deep breath. This was what they did, after all. And maybe they could still sort it out before the day ended. "Owen!" he bellowed.

The team hung not-quite-subtly around Owen's desk as he traded jargon with someone from the hospital.

"That was the A and E resident," Owen announced to the ring of expectant ears. "There have been nine so far. Started last night. All around the same age, all male. No obvious wounds other than the punctures."

Jack's brow creased. It might be a result of his yearning for a quiet night, but it didn't strike him as particularly extraterrestrial.

Tosh saved him from voicing his suspicion. "How sure are we that this is alien in origin?" she asked. "I mean, isn't it possible this is some new way of injecting drugs gone wrong?"

Owen blinked at her. Jack concealed a smile. Maybe Tosh had plans tonight as well. He hoped so. The medic could use a shakeup.

"And the supplier moved the victims after?" Gwen suggested. "It'd explain the lack of blood at the scene, wouldn't it?" Her brow creased. "Maybe I should talk to Andy a bit more."

"Go see him," Jack ordered. "You'll get more that way, and it'll save us hacking into the reports from the scene."

"I'll go check out the victims for myself," Owen offered, before Jack had the chance to order him. "Maybe you ought to come with me, Tosh. See if there's any Rift residue about."

Tosh didn't smile too broadly. Jack approved. She was learning subtlety.

-XXX-

"You seemed fairly certain this wasn't a Plasmavore," Ianto said, his voice echoing in the silence left by the departure of the rest of the team.

Jack nodded. They'd be gone for at least an hour, he thought, with a stirring of hope, amongst other things.

"So I suppose I ought to dredge the archives for anything similar," Ianto decided, biting his lip against a smile at the pout that followed.

Jack sighed. "I'm sorry about tonight, Ianto," he said, throwing the puppy eyes behind the force of the pout.

"I'd been planning to cook steaks this evening," Ianto said, with a hint of reproof. The smile broke free. "I suppose I'll be sharpening them instead?"

It took Jack a beat or two before he put it together, but he doubted that made much difference. Ianto could probably hear his laughter at the disgraceful pun from the archives anyway. Relieved, and reprieved, Jack turned back to his office. Might as well get that paperwork finished, just in case he had the opportunity to claim his reward after all. There was still the chance this was all a false alarm.

Then again, there might be a vampire loose in Cardiff. On Halloween. When else?

-XXX-

"Venom on the puncture wounds," Owen announced, before he'd even settled properly into his seat. Ianto quietly placed Owen's mug in front of him, and the level of tension in the boardroom ratcheted up a notch when Owen ignored the mug in favor of continuing his report. "Or at least, one of them. Clever technique, the double puncture. Never had a chance to examine it before. Venom flows down one and blood flows back up the other. Continuous feed."

"Lovely," Ianto answered dryly. "If you like monsters."

"Which we do, of course," Jack put in, with forced cheerfulness.

Gwen took up the thread. "Andy let me read the police reports," she said. "There was no sign of a struggle, any of them. Why didn't they run? Or fight?"

"It is Halloween," Tosh put in thoughtfully. "You might not run from someone in a vampire costume just now."

Gwen consulted her notes again. "All nine were found in the club district. So I suppose there'd be theme nights. No one would look too hard at someone in costume."

"Quite in vogue at the moment, vampires are," Ianto added. "For which we can thank Twilight, I suppose."

"And you might even let one near your neck," Jack concluded. "But once it drew blood…..Was there anything in the venom that might have induced paralysis, Owen?"

Owen shook his head. "It's mostly anticoagulant. Stops the blood clotting during the attack. And after, I suppose."

Gwen leaned back in her chair and passed a hand over her forehead. "For once we can be grateful it was a busy area."

"Ambulance reports noted emergency blood transfusions," Owen agreed. "So yeah, being found quickly probably made the difference."

Tosh shuddered. "If they'd been in some back street somewhere…."

Grim looks flittered around the room. They doubted the victims considered themselves lucky, but they were. No one wanted to consider how many others might be lying in a back street somewhere. Or in a park. Or...

"No Rift residue," Tosh put in, after a pause. "Not anywhere on the victim, and no traces in the venom or blood samples either. So if it did come through the Rift, it's been here long enough to shed any trace."

"But nothing similar before this?" Jack demanded.

"Nothing in the Archives," Ianto confirmed. "But I did a search, on a hunch I admit, based on the way we all reacted this morning. There was a glut of overdoses reported around this time last year. And it was residential back alleys, that time."

The team fell silent as they contemplated the possibility of a bloodsucking alien at loose in Cardiff, of families already distraught at their loss further devastated by news of their sons' supposed addictions. Sons, boyfriends, fathers, lost and tainted.

Jack swung his eyes across the room, seeing the resolution settle on each face, feeling it within himself. None of them wanted this, but none of them would ignore it either, not this time, at whatever cost to themselves.

Jack stretched. "Looks like we're going clubbing tonight," he announced. "Lure it out, if we can." His eyes flitted amongst the team. "Who wants to be vampire bait?" The words were hardly out of his mouth when something clenched in his gut, and squeezed.

Tosh burrowed through the collected notes on the table before her. "All men," she announced.

Gwen smiled faintly.

"And all young," Tosh continued. "Under thirty."

Owen grinned. "Lets you out, too, Harkness."

Jack couldn't find it in him to return the expected smile.

"Well dressed," Tosh added, oblivious to the mounting tension. "But they would be, if they're planning on impressing someone in the club."

Jack's eyes moved as if magnetized to the young man on the other side of the table. Young, definitely male, dressed in that black three piece with the red shirt beneath it.

"Attractive too, from the ID photos." Tosh concluded. "Though I suppose that might be a coincidence." Struck by the lack of response, she looked up, wondered what her team mates were staring at, and followed their gazes to Ianto, who certainly ticked all the boxes in a vampire's most wanted list. "Oh."

"Get your glad rags on, Teaboy," Owen announced.

The rest is basically complete, apart from fiendish editing. Will post as I fix. Assuming anyone reads this first bit, of course!