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Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 01

By: FinalStand



*No one thinks Love is necessary until they have it*

(This chapter is sex-lite; be warned)

Death is only the Beginning

Marissa stepped out of the sedan; black glasses stripped with red, crimson trench coat, red boots that included knee guards, black tights, and magenta blouse. Had she felt amorous enough they would have been shown the silk lace black panties and bra, but Marissa hadn't let anyone that emotionally close in decades – almost a century now and that last time hadn't ended well.

Marissa counted herself as one of the ten strongest powers along the East Coast. Until one hundred and fifty years ago, that they were so many powers so close to one another hadn't been a problem. They had all (but one) been exiles from the Old World – Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The population of humans, and thus the Night Siders, had been small and the distance between Holds seemed great enough.

Then came the railroads, the Industrial Revolution, and automobiles (plus the paved roads that followed right after); distances shrunk and populations soared. Old allies fell to newcomers, the Failing (the inability to keep up and the resultant fall into obsolesce until the world became too unfamiliar a place for you to function in), or even to power struggles in their own organizations.

She could hardly complain though; she hadn't suffered the Failing, she'd grown her brood and her power to levels unimagined by her sire with that one's deep desires to rule from the frozen forests and towns of what was now called Russia (she'd never called it the Soviet Union – she had vampire cousins, aunts and uncles perish to the cruel experiments of the KGB), and crushed numerous rivals in the intervening century.

Nearly twenty years ago though another rival, Armand, came from the bottomless pit of those envious of her status and prestige. It had been the scion of a now-deceased enemy, well-prepared and strong. Armand had destroyed a subsidiary associate in a blitz move, but came craving peace with her on his belly. She should have annihilated him then but ...

Night Siders didn't exist in a vacuum; they created structures inside each city, be they Fey, Vampire, Shifter, or Spirit. Each such structure owed allegiance to a Liege Lord, such as Marissa, who owed fealty to a Dominator (from the Latin) who ruled a designated region. The Dominators in turn reported to the Council of Night. There were rumors of a council within the Council, or even one Dark King, or Queen, who ruled over them; something she been quietly looking into for some time. 

Armand's move had been 'messy' and the Council was concerned that further conflict would make things worse in the Daylight World so they sent in a mediator to establish a peace between the two. Marissa, knowing they wouldn't give her Armand's head, asked for a third of his domain instead. She had made Armand accept the deal, grovel before her ... and she had prepared for the next round.

Five years ago Armand had come for her with more force than she thought he could muster, but she had not been caught napping. The very night after a mid-day fire had burned down her favorite home she'd launched her counterstrike. She'd hurt and embarrassed him more than he thought she could and he had grown cautious.

He had wounded her organization, but the price was him never sleeping in the same place twice and skulking about always in shadow – always in fear. In the past three months he had become more desperate and vicious to the point that things had spilled over to the Daylight World once again. The Council stepped in once more calling for a cessation of hostilities.

This led her to this meeting in the Bronx to be mediated by a Council of Night representative. Both parties could bring two bodyguards, but that was it. The ambassador didn't want another bloodbath. Failing to comply, or violating the sanctity of the parley, would bring down the full force of the Council of Night which was the surest way to end one's existence, so here she was.

Her bodyguards were the Fey Tegus mes' lauda and the Vampire George Upton. Neither one was her best soldier; those were defending her interests just in case Armand decided to be petulant. Tegus was a wandering mercenary, but they had a history and more importantly, he was in her debt. George was a warrior youngling of a close friend on the West Coast who had sent him back to New York to experience some of what Night Side life had to offer in a different city.

As they crossed the street, Marissa saw a figure coming up the sidewalk in their direction. Marissa studied him while she moved – a human male in his early twenties, with two shoulder holsters and ... one at his back and another in an ankle holster? Someone was out for a night on the town, but he was human and not her problem.

Gordon fidgeted nervously causing Marissa to wave him off and Tegus to smirk at Gordon's inexperience. Tegus was millennia old and only the curse that called all Fey to let their dreams bleed into reality kept him, and his breed, from being the best fighters in Creation. Fey were equal parts frighteningly proficient and needlessly flamboyant in all they did which, in Marissa's mind, made them wonderful lays but lousy lovers.

The human reached the doorway first, opened it and then held it for Marissa silently.

"No, you first," she told the man. He nodded and headed in, immediately heading upstairs where Marissa went looking for the basement. She hesitated inside long enough to get a feel for the place, scent the air, and study her environment.

It was an old tenement, probably a firetrap, and inhabited mostly by the indigent and drug users. There was a heavy chemical scent from upstairs that lay slightly beyond the human sensory range. There was also a strange, unfamiliar vibration in the air.

"We don't want to be late," Tegus reminded her when she tried to concentrate on the taint and track its origin.

Marissa sighed and headed to the basement door and headed down. Not even Armand was dumb enough to break a Council of Night parley and Armand valued his own vampiric existence above all else. The greatest asset the basement held was that it had been cleared of all subsidiary walls, creating one large open space broken up by support columns.

The openness also revealed to Marissa that she was alone with her guards; there was no moderator and no Armand. Tegus sensed her unease and turned to look up the stairs they had only then come down.

"I don't like this," Gordon whispered. "Marissa, we should leave." Marissa gave a cur nod and motioned Gordon behind her as she backed up. She owed it to her friend on the West Coast to bring her offspring out of this alive.

"That won't be necessary," a dry voice, devoid of life, spoke out from the darkness. Three figures stepped out of the far brick wall.

"You are the representative from the Council?" she asked.

"No," the leftmost figure spoke in a rasping voice, "I am Armand's messenger."

"Get out of here," she whispered urgently to her cohorts. To the thing before her, "The Council will not be happy with this," she warned. "Where is their representative?"

Marissa's sixth sense felt it before her ears picked up the noise of Tegus' steel clearing his scabbard, casting out his power, crashing the illusion beneath the reality he had enacted.

She spun, words forming on her lips telling Gordon to look out but it was too late. She caught Gordon's head leaping from his shoulders in a fountain of blood.

"Tegus! I hold a debt over you," she screamed at her former ally. Fey were bound by their debts.

"Not anymore Bitch," he sneered evilly, "and the Council of Night says 'hey'." Marissa dodged under his backstroke and kicked Tegus hard enough to send him rolling several feet away. Regrets and reason mattered little right then. She could figure all of this out later but right now she had to stay alive. Marissa bolted up the stairs, taking them three at a time.

She opened the door and squatted to avoid the large clawed hand that nearly tore her breasts off; a werewolf and she could hear another behind it. She slammed the door and raced back down and straight into Tegus, bowling him over. She somersaulted over his prone form, rising and running ... where? The three 'things' she'd seen earlier were rapidly closing with her, short curved blades at the ready in one hand and small crossbows in the other. Their faces were drawn and gaunt in such an extreme way that they could only be one thing – mummies.

She had lived her entire life and met only one of these rare Night Siders; now in the last seconds of her life she was getting to meet three of these immortals at one time. The closest one shot its crossbow and missed. She kept running at them, bent over and grabbed a broken brick and hurled it at the middle one right as he shot her. This bolt took her an inch above her right breast, searing her with unnatural agony.

Her brick struck true, shattering the middle creature's chin into dust and bone fragments. The thing staggered but was by no means dead or even disabled. She bolted between the middle and right mummies but the right one slashed deeply along her side, cutting along the hip bone. The left-most one, the only one to speak, withheld his shot and took steady aim at her.

While she was past the mummies, she was running out of room. At the last instant she caught sight of an abnormality in the ceiling above her; the floor had rotted away, been replaced but was now rotting once more. Marissa jumped up, grabbed a water pipe running along the ceiling roof and swung up with the aim of propelling her feet, followed by the rest of her, on to the first level.

It wasn't a great plan, but her backward glance showed Tegus and two werewolves closing fast. Marissa was sure she could take one werewolf; age and experience gave her the edge. She might take two werewolves but would be hours recovering. Tegus was nearly her equal; Tegus, two werewolves, and three mummies, whose real capabilities she knew only by conjecture, was certain to earn her a painful, violent end.

She grabbed the pipe, felt searing fire lance through her back, slicing between the vertebrae and heart; lucky and damning at the same time. Marissa refused to lose her grip, finished the maneuver and blasted through the rotting ceiling, the first level floor and tumbled uncontrollably into the wrecked space.

Her body answered her commands, allowing her to push up, go to one knee then stand and run for the closest window. The anguish from her shoulder wound began spreading out. She ripped the bolt out because while most poisons didn't work on vampires, a few select, specially prepared toxins would work their way to the heart and paralyze her.

There seemed to be nothing she could do about the one in her back; right now she had to get to some kind of public space where they were far less likely to press their advantage. It wasn't much of a plan but it was all she had. She threw her body through the closest window, getting ready to shatter glass and spill to the pavement of the alley beyond.

Marissa could hardly have been more surprised when she bounced off the frail glass and landed back in the room, driving the bolt in her back even deeper. Magic! Some kind of warding magic that stopped the egress of Night Siders; she was going to die. Only that unconquerable will that had driven her for three centuries stopped her from staying on the floor and accepting her fate.

The first mummy through the hole in the floor got a boot to the skull and tumbled back down. Marissa rode the momentum of the kick, stood and ripped the closest door off its hinges. The first werewolf bursting into the room from the hall took the door as a body shot. She didn't put - her through the wall, but the female werewolf's body made a permanent imprint. 

The second werewolf salivated as it came on next. Marissa switched up the door to use as a battering ram and charged into it.

"I'll kill you Leech," the beast snarled. Werewolves are bigger and stronger than Vampires but they were mortal; they were born, grew old and died. Vampires grew older and stronger as long as they stayed sane.

Marissa drove the door into the werewolf, hitting from throat to stomach and knocking the wind out of her assassin and it off its feet. She let it keep the door, added insult to injury by landing on the thing while running over the monster. Hope against hope she ran with all her might and rocketed into the door - and bounced back.

A third werewolf - a third - grappled with her as she tried to rise. The bolt in her back was injecting a freezing venom into her heart; she only had a minute, maybe two, of mobility left. That probably didn't matter because her current attacker was pressing down on her with slavering jaws snapping for her face.

Bang! Bang! Two gunshots rang out in rapid succession, impacting the werewolf on top of her and throwing it to the front door. The beast shrugged off the blows and regarded the newest player as it regained its feet.

"Shoot it in the head!" Marissa screamed to the young man who had entered with her. Most likely the human was shitting himself as he got a good look at what he just shot but Marissa refused to give up.

Marissa could see two mummies racing her way as she pushed herself against the wall and up. The werewolf flicked its eyes over to Marissa, snarling, then back to the man. That was all the man needed; his gun fired and a chunk of the werewolf's head exploded away. Even as it staggered a second shot virtually decapitated it.

In a vague, drugged out way, her mind struggled to understand who this guy was. All she knew was when she hurriedly staggered up the stairs toward him; his gun moved by a fraction and the gun fired once, twice, three times. Marissa realized he wasn't shooting at her but at the closest mummy.

The first two appeared to have been center-mass which had little to no effect. The third shot sheared off the mummy's wrist, causing its hand and blade to fly off out of sight. Marissa's kick knocked it through the railing, back to the first floor. Now she could get up and race past the human. Two more shots rang out then nothing for a brief second succeeded by a rapid crescendo of a smaller caliber firearm.

She took just enough time at the second story landing to see the man racing after her, a different gun in his off-hand. Marissa saw the stairs going up but was becoming too weak to run.

"How many of those hairy things were there?" the man asked as he slipped an arm through her arm, pulling her along.

"Five, I think ... including the one you killed," she panted. Marissa didn't need to breath but the pain in her chest was so intense it was her only way of release. "Three of those other 'dry' things, plus one - something else."

"Scratch two more hairies then," he stated with an icy calm, "plus one of those undead things."

'By what dark light did this human manage to kill three werewolves in less than thirty seconds?' Marissa wondered. Her thoughts were curtailed by the man swerving away from the stairs and into one of the apartments. Even with her diminished sense she could smell blood, death, and the horrendous stench of chemicals. She was in a meth lab filled with what were most likely dead meth dealers.

The man clearly had formulated a plan and the Night Side Lady was rapidly approaching helplessness in his grasp. He flipped out a knife, stabbed a barrel of some noxious substance and dumped his empty handgun in the gathering pool. They stumbled into the next room as the mummy, this one jawless, came rushing into the room followed by a werewolf.

It took them a split second to track Marissa and the gunman but that was all he needed. The human tossed Marissa aside and under some cover. She heard the oncoming footsteps and so the man's gun switch from the door the assassins had come through to ...

The explosion lifted Marissa off the wall and onto her face. The man went somewhere else.

Marissa pushed herself up and struggled to stand. Her unlikely savior was half-buried under the door that had separated them from the meth lab but he seemed concussed. As she pulled the door off of him her ears picked up slightly unsteady steps from the next room over. She pulled the dagger she kept in her boot and readied herself. The human had reduced the odds to one werewolves, one mummy and Tegus.

"You were always too stupid to realize what was best for you," Tegus coughed. He was suffering burns and blast damage. Sadly he still had his blade and his insufferable ego.

"Why?" Marissa slurred. "I had your debt. We had history."

"The Council transferred one of your debts to me, freeing me from my obligation. I only accepted the bargain if they let me be the one to kill you," he gloated. "As for why, you conceited cunt, you told me 'no'. No one tells me 'no'."

Marissa set herself for one final lunge; one last act of pointless vengeance but all Tegus did was laugh and step back.

"The rich thing is I don't even have to do a thing," he mocked her. "Your body is shutting down and soon I'll take up to roof and watch as the Sun takes you. I'll make sure to use a tarp to let the light creep along your body. I want you to be a long time in dying, but first there is one last task we need to perform."

The man broke Tegus' tirade by moaning in pain, rolling onto his side and curling in a fetal ball.

"The hitman was a nice trick Marissa," Tegus sneered. "There was no way for him break up our little plan, being hardly more than a flea, so I don't know what you were thinking."

"He's not mine, I swear," Marissa shrugged. "Remember I didn't know you were going to break the parley you cock-sucking, limp dick, ball-less wonder."

Tegus glared at her, leaned forward then laughed and stepped back. Marissa could barely stand now. She was done for and that she would go fail not only in life but in the lives of her people ate at her soul like a caustic cancer. At the last second Tegus flinched; he tried to dodge but first bullet hit him dead center between the eyes. The second shot clipped him just below the left nipple and the third shattered his sternum.

Tegus flopped back into the other room while Marissa turned to keep an eye on that door. The man was slow to stand up – humans recovered so slowly and healed even slower. He still kept his gun pointed at the door but it didn't' matter. He had a .22 revolver, his ankle holster weapon no doubt and he'd used three of his six bullets.

"Guns don't work," she muttered to him. The wounds would slow him down, but Fey were more spirit than flesh and bone. To his credit the hitman didn't blanch or run away.

"He's still going to pay for pissing me off," Tegus grumbled as he came back into view.

"Miss, hold this whiny faggot at bay; there is an assault rifle in the other room. I am going to blow his fucking knees off," the human related with utter calm.

He had his effect though; Tegus came stalking forward. Marissa stabbed at the elf futilely and Tegus batted her small blade aside, smashed his pummel into her face and ran her through as she fell down. The elven steel hurt far more than any mortal forged weapon. Her heart shuddered and descended to a tiny flicker and there was nothing she could do.

She had the briefest glimpse of the man diving on a corpse while her near-fatal blow was struck but she was beginning to believe that she and Tegus should have known better. Two barrels of a ten gauge shotgun drilled into Tegus at less than eight feet. It was like a great wind picked him in an angry fist and pummeled him into the wall.

The man didn't stop there. He came on wielding the sawed off shotgun like some Mohican War Club and began wailing into the downed warrior. Tegus would still kill him but he was certainly paying a higher price in pain than he imagined he would; this human was in superb stamina because it was more than thirty seconds before Tegus had healed enough to lash out. Had the remaining enemies come on – Dark Oblivion; the whole building was on fire!


Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 01



Even as Tegus made the same realization he discovered he had a serious fight on his hands. Tegus was a master of a dozen martial styles; blades and body both. Three times the human tripped him or knocked him down but when Tegus finally got his blade into play Marissa knew she was witnessing the final act. Tegus corralled him expertly between a corner and a window.

Marissa didn't see the next thing coming until Tegus lashed with his blade, expertly moved the tip past his shotgun the human was trying to parry with and bloodily exposed a rib. The play wasn't over yet because the human trapped the blade with the gun and his body and spun Tegus into the window. When the Fey touched the ward he was blasted back – just like the human had seen Marissa jolted at the door.

The two males collided, the human grabbing Tegus by the wrist controlling the sword as they fell to the ground. Tegus was stronger, more experienced, and didn't get tired. The human had some kind of undetectable luck and a survival instinct on steroids. Tegus forced them to their feet; the cost being a small belt knife being driven into Tegus' left eye. That really made him howl.

Blows went back and forth until Tegus maneuvered the man against the wall. The man had to use two hands to keep the blade at bay which freed up Tegus' left to start choking the man out.

The human brought his knee up into Tegus' crotch. For Tegus, the act was more humiliating than painful – mortal flesh could do him no lasting harm.

"Enough of you Insect," he spat in English so the human could know his death had arrived. Tegus brought up his left knee to the man's hip, removed his hand from the man's throat and grabbed the boot dagger he had there and got ready to stab his opponent.

The flaw in his strategy was as he shifted his weight he telegraphed the move. Both the man's hands were tied up keeping Tegus' sword arm at bay but nothing stopped him from smashing his forehead into Tegus' face. Silvery elfin blood splashed everywhere and for an instant Tegus was off-guard. As fast as any Night Sider, the man grabbed the wrist that held Tegus' dagger and drove the blade up into the top of Tegus' neck.

The long thin blade punched through the crown of the Fey's skull, leaving the victim with an eternal look of surprise as death took him; Marissa could hardly believe it. It still didn't matter. The building was starting to fall apart in a blaze, her heart had been stilled, and there was no friendly force coming to her rescue. She descended into darkness unable to cry out her anguish and fury.

Skulking from the Ashes

Inside her nightmare Marissa felt every death; as each one of her brood was extinguished, their dying agony was channeled into their dame's heart and mind. Someone was erasing her from existence. If they all died there would be no one to call for vengeance. She had not been betrayed by Armand – he was a bug; a drone. 

No, she had been betrayed by the Council of Night itself, but she didn't know why. Blissful sleep took her before she could tear apart her mind trying to figure out why. Her last thoughts were that it really didn't matter; the diviners of the Council would find her, powerless, and scatter her ashes to the wind.

Marissa regained consciousness as the Sun set once more. Strong vampires such as herself could stay awake during the day if they desired but it took more will than she could currently summon. Her body kept to the supernatural cycle without her to direct it otherwise. What she also felt was warm ... and full. She should have been famished with the damage she'd taken.

She sniffed the air cautiously. There was a vague scent of antiseptic, wood oil, blood, human habitation, some kind of fuel, with a barely perceptible industrial stench behind it all.

"Good, you are awake," the human greeted her. Marissa opened her eyes a slit and regarded him and her surroundings. What she saw made her eyes grow wider and she almost laughed.

"Where am I?" she asked quietly.

"On my boat, the 'Marisol', on the East River," he replied. Marissa snickered, then chuckled then openly laughed out loud.

"Why here?" she questioned.

"It is one of my least well-known hideouts," he shrugged. This was hilarious. One of the few things that could disrupt Night Sider divination was running water and this man had put her on a boat, in a river. She actually wanted to hug the man without ripping his throat out at the same time, and then she noted he had a .45 within easy reach.

Marissa looked around and the next thing she noticed was the IV sticking into her heart. At the other end was a half-drained bag of blood. As she propped herself up she noticed a trash bin nearly full with other bags and medical supplies.

"How long have I been out?" she inquired.

"Four days," he responded matter of factly.

"You've been taking care of me for four days, getting me blood and ... new clothes and, I assume, tending my wounds. Why?" she wondered.

"What was I going to do; leave you in a burning building, or tie you to some chains and concrete blocks then dump you in the Hudson?" he told her calmly.

"I would have thought you would leave me for my own people," Marissa answered. "That would have been the smart play."

"So I'm going to kill all those - creatures and your people are going to do what? Write it off as the price of doing business? Lady, I'm what you call a witness to a crime except there is no law enforcement agency that is going to step in and save me. Helping you is the best chance I have of figuring out what's going on," he explained carefully.

"Did you kill the other mummy?" she hoped.

"Never saw him, but then I didn't want to stick around. I grabbed your dagger, the freak's sword, and you then jumped out the window," he informed her.

"Wait - how did you get me out the window?" she asked.

"I jumped," he sounded confused. "You know, kick out the window sill and take a leap of faith – jumped."

"Ooohhh ..." she grinned. He was human so the ward didn't affect him or anything he carried, even if that thing was a vampire. This fucking human had really saved her life. "Can you -" she motioned to the needle in her chest.

The human picked up the gun and placed it on her stomach then proceeded to gently extract the needle.

"You don't trust me?" she smiled coyly.

"You are a vampire and you subsist on human blood – thirty-eight pints to date – and I've seen you fight poisoned with one critical and two serious wounds; I know, I stitched you up," he said.

"You needn't have bothered; vampires naturally reknit their wounds," she responded.

"I though the same thing, but after I figured out the IV went into the heart, your shoulder and back wounds kept oozing blood. I had to go in and cut out the blackened tissue and stuff the holes with cotton balls and 'new skin'," he explained. "I saved the bolt in case you wanted to try and figure out what in the hell they shot you with."

"Where's the ..." she asked fearfully.

"The bolt is in the trunk at your feet, the poisoned tissue is over there in the tin marked 'Poison', and you expelled the gauze late last night when you were having one of your nightmares. At least I assume they were nightmares; you cried tears of blood," he informed her.

"And you have stood watch over me the entire time?" she whispered.

"No, I go out during the midday hours to get things like blood and supplies, plus I check with my sources to see who is looking for me. Sooner or later someone will put the two of us together and then the shit hits the fan for real. I'm getting ready for that," he added.

"In case you are wondering, I only get two or three units of blood from each source because I figure that is one of your two weaknesses and they'll be looking for that. I am also pretty sure I haven't been followed, at least by normal means," he stated.

"Okay; so I've asked a few questions. Is there anything you want to know?" Marissa allowed.

"What is your name? I've been taking care of you for four days and I don't even know what to call you - besides Vampire Lady," the man said.

"Marissa, Liege Lady - Former Liege Lady of Manhattan," Marissa told him. "Who are you?"

"Tessio Nerospina, independent contractor," the young man answered.

Marissa's head went spinning back to another time and place nearly a century gone. Her eyes gained a tender quality and a dreamy smile crept onto her lips.

"You are Giorgio 'The Rosary' Nerospina's ..." she mused.

"- great-grandson," Tessio filled in when her own genealogical math failed. "You knew him I take it?"

"I didn't 'know him' if that's what you mean," she grinned sensually, "but I knew of him. He was quite a guy during those early days of the New York Mob – a real lady-killer."

"I've heard rumors I have little unclaimed cousins running around out there," Tessio chuckled. 

"I don't doubt it, but I could do a blood test if needed," she joked. 

She would never get the chance to do that; Tessio had to die. From the moment he had interfered in her assassination and been confronted with her inhuman nature he had signed his own death warrant. As soon as she could Night Sider law dictated that she had to kill him.

"I'll keep that in mind," he acknowledged her offer.

"So, are you a 'made man' yet?" she added. This was also taboo she knew, for him.

"No," he snorted. "I'm only twenty-four. I doubt I'll join La Costa Nostra before I'm thirty, if the offer comes at all. It isn't like the Families are what they used to be."

"Twenty-four? Damn, you are younger than I thought," she re-assessed her rescuer.

"Most people think I'm older," he mollified her. "I took my first contract when I was fourteen and I've been told that gives me an older man's eyes."

"There was a time when the thought of a fourteen year old professional killer would disturb me, but not anymore," Marissa admitted. "Now you Humans can't grow up fast enough to kill one another."

"Are you telling me that you've never fed on children before?" Tessio challenged her. Her first thought was what gall he had for questioning anything she'd done to survive.

"So what if I did?" she responded with narrowing eyes.

"So you hated yourself for doing what you had to do to survive," he commented dryly. Had he been smug about it she would have slapped him across the small stateroom, but he wasn't; he understood some of the dark things one did to live and the marks they left on you.

"So why are you alone?" she asked instead.

"Marissa, I kill people for a living. I've been to all seven continents to fulfill contracts usually on short notice, so I'm hardly reliable husband material. I started training in the martial arts when I was six so fighting is pretty much all I know," he confessed.

"You were in Antarctica? How did that go down?" she was intrigued enough to ask.

"A Russian burned some French associates of the Mafia; he fled to a station down there and I hunted him down and put him under the ice," Tessio related. "It was only that one time though." Marissa knew that Tessio wouldn't be telling her these intimate things unless he knew he was going to die, which made her sad.

"So, what are your plans," she attempted to distract him.

"I have about $50K in cash, a big bag full of guns, and an armored BMW stashed a few blocks away - assuming you and I can reach an accommodation," he eyed her. Tessio picked up the gun and stepped away.

Marissa judged the power of the gun and the quickness of the user. He's put one or two slugs in her before she covered the very few feet between them, but she doubted it would be enough except ... too many dead Night Siders had underestimated this man. She noted the gun wasn't pointed at her; it was pointed at -

"What's in the closet?" she asked.

"Three canisters of natural gas," he acknowledged. Yes, that would do it; he'd kill them both and she had absolutely no doubt he'd take the shot and double sure she couldn't stop him.

"What do you want to know?" Marissa smirked, accepting that his 'mere' human had outfoxed her.

"Tell me your situation and honestly let me know if I have any way of getting out of this alive," he inquired as he leaned against the wall and rested. 

"I'm not sure it matters. Any Night Sider – things like me – who sees you and discovers what you know will have to kill you, but since it hardly matters anyhow - I was the head monster in New York City, I had an enemy who controlled things north of the Harlem who somehow convinced our leadership, called the Council of Night, to kill me."

"I am pretty sure that all my - offspring are dead and my allies either dead or scattered. They have had four days to bring my people down, they think I'm dead and I might as well be dead because the Council of Night isn't some organization like the FBI. It is like every law enforcement agency in the World trying to kill me on sight," Marissa explained bitterly.

"Two things Marissa," Tessio wondered, "if everyone on the Night Side wants you dead, why are you enforcing their laws and trying to kill me, and since everyone who was an ally of yours is most likely converted, fled or dead, is there anyone not associated with you that we could go to for help ... assuming we have something to trade for their aid that is?" 

Marissa flopped back down on the bed.

"You are not going to let me just die, are you Tessio Nerospina?" she muttered.

"Lady, if you want to die, I'll load the gun and hand it to you but don't expect me to give up just because you've become a gutless wonder," he said evenly. 

Marissa's eyes grew wide then narrowed dangerously. Before she could scream at him, or tear his head off she felt his words strike home. Who the hell was she to crawl into a grave and pull the dirt in over her? So she was going to eventually die but they were going to know they had screwed with the wrong vampire lord damn it.

She rolled onto her side, her breasts bouncing slightly.

"How would you like to join me and become a Night Sider as my vampiric offspring; become immortal?" 

"No thank you," he responded politely, "but I hardly think being tied by blood to you will help me survive. This is not why I kept you alive, to become immortal. If I am checking out of this life, I'm doing on my own terms." 

***

Armand let his gaze wander around the audience hall – his audience hall and a smile crept to his lips. The latest supplicant had been dismissed and now the worst thing he had to do was decide whether he wanted to hunt in the World or have a victim delivered to him.

"You should not dawdle here, Liege Lord Armand," Salvador Rossini rasped out. "It is unwise to remain in places she knows so well." The mummy's throat had dried up eight hundred years ago. The wind forced upon those withered pipes made a sound that made Armand shudder. Why be Night Sider if you couldn't enjoy the pleasures of the flesh?

"She is dead," Armand assured his 'advisor'. "Surely we would have found her by now if she still lived. Your divinations have revealed not a single sign; she's nothing but ashes."

"Barton has returned," the advisor wheezed. "Zyninski, the Liege Lord of Pittsburgh sent him back minus both arms and his tongue." That implied that the Lord didn't trust Armand's words, fear his strength, or respect his ability to defend himself.

"If he was harboring Marissa, you would have found him there, wouldn't have you?" Armand worried.

"Zyninski is no friend of Marissa, but he guesses the truth and despises you for it," Salvador lectured the young vampire. "If he becomes more than a nuisance we will deal with him."

Armand wasn't the smartest undead in Creation, but he was smart enough to cringe when Salvador talked about 'Their' ability to 'deal with' things. When he first started gunning for Marissa nearly fifty years ago Salvador had approached him with the offer of aid. In time, Armand realized that Salvador Rossini worked for the Council of Night itself and four days ago they had realized their dream. 

Only now was Armand starting to worry why they wanted her dead and what that meant for their relationship now that she was gone - if he was still necessary.

"If she is still alive, where could she be?" Armand asked as the two Night Sider left the room.

"The human has her," Salvador murmured. "She is staying above, in the Daylight World."

Armand laughed. Humans were dangerous in their faith, their numbers, and their technology, but one human was barely a step above cattle.

"Seriously," he chuckled. "What could one puny human do?"

"He could kill Tegus, two of my soldiers and three werewolves, escape with Marissa and keep her hidden for four days," the advisor pointed out. Armand found the whole idea to be preposterous. He'd never found a human to be remotely challenging. Tonight he'd eat out.

***

"I'm repeating my opposition to this plan," Tessio stated. "It is too soon to risk you and you have no guarantees that those you seek are alive, on your side, or being watched. You should have let me go in your place."

Marissa found that so odd to hear this human lecture her on her own safety.

"You wouldn't know what to look for and this is not a skill I can teach, but a gift we Night Sider's have. They would look normal to you, the same way Gordon and Tegus fooled you - disguised their true selves from you," she corrected because looking back on it Tessio's instincts had labeled them, and her, as threats even those his eyes had told him otherwise.

"I did promise to bring you along to protect me. That should be enough," she sighed.

"Hah," he snorted. "I had the car and the money. You couldn't even afford a taxi and your car stealing talent is unknown. You had no choice."

"Is there anything I can do to shut you up Tessio?" she muttered.

"Sure; next time you do what I say," Tessio offered.

"Deal," she agreed, "stay close, keep quiet, and don't kill anyone without my say-so." Tessio fell silent, not even a hint of a mutter. For the rest of the night she poked around the periphery of the city. 

The few Night Siders she believed she could rely in were not around and in one case they had already been replaced. Her last stop was also her last option. Ever careful, Marissa had made one final plan – her Get-the-Hell-out-of Town stash. It was a box with a number of safe deposit box keys she'd entrusted to an old troll grandmother that Marissa had allowed to settle into the subways a century ago.

The troll, Gabra, wasn't fanatically loyal, but Marissa was counting on her repaying kindnesses over the years by giving over the small box she'd given the troll decades ago. With Tessio, she slipped into the underground and down into the tracks, locating the old troll near a substation.

"Marissa," the troll grumbled, "I been hear'n the rats say you was dead." That meant were-rats.

"They say'n that they be taken my trash heaps and my garbage cans, they say," the old troll continued. "Who's the sweat meat? He looks like he need some fattening on his bones."

"He wasn't here and neither was I Gabra. I've come for my box, if you still have it," Marissa spoke. Gabra studied them both closely.

"I think'n that if I give the new Liege you, maybe he stop the rats," Gabra rumbled.

"If you thought that, Armand would have his enforcers here by now," Marissa pointed out, making Gabra laugh. The old grandmother troll put her belongings down and rummaged through them, pulling out a cheap, old tin box. 

Tessio was happy that Marissa had chosen something so inconspicuous to house something so crucial. Marissa took it, nodded once and hurried back down the subway tracks without a word of thank you. Only when they breathed the 'clean' street air did Marissa dare speak.

"They are coming for us," she growled. Tessio didn't bother asking how she knew.

"How do we hide?" he asked instead.




Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 01



"I'm not a witch or a diviner," Marissa thought deeply. "We might still grab a train out."

"I know a witch, or at least someone who claims to be a witch," Tessio offered.

"This is something no human conjurer could handle," she explained. "The Council of Night will be using someone top notch."

"Are our odds any better running than trying out this woman? If she's the real deal you will know right?" Tessio asked. "If she's some fraud, we've only wasted a half hour." Marissa couldn't argue with that logic, mainly because simply running away held such lousy odds. Ten minutes later they were going up to a high rise near Central Park.

"Who is it?" a groggy yet sultry female voice answered the buzzer.

"Blackthorn," Tessio said with a deadly calm – probably his professional voice.

"Ah ... business or pleasure Tessio," the woman said nervously. Marissa groaned; if a woman was afraid of him she was hardly going to have supernatural powers.

"Neither – both; I need some professional advice. Besides, if this was business I would hardly come through the front door and buzz you," he pointed out. There was a long pause.

"Come on up," the woman said, still sounding sexy. The doorman gave them a nod and the elevator came to fetch them up. On the tenth floor the doors opened and Tessio made his way carefully to one of the apartments.

To Marissa everything felt safe and mundane, therefore useless to them both. Tessio came to the fourth door and knocked. A second later the door opened and - the magic flooded Marissa's senses.

"Marissa!" the witch gasped.

"Hexane!" Marissa gasped right back. Hexane reached for an amulet at her throat but before a single word escaped her lips Tessio had a gun barrel pressed to her forehead. Hexane froze; in fact no one said anything for several seconds.

"Hillary, I need your help," Tessio addressed Hexane. "Will you help us, do I shoot, or can you let me and my friend gets back on the elevator and leave?"

"I am afraid you have to kill her Tessio," Marissa told him. Nothing happened and Marissa was at the point of shoving Tessio aside and ripping the witch's throat out herself when Hexane spoke.

"I'll listen to your proposition Tessio," Hexane replied calmly.

In one fluid motion Tessio holstered his gun and stepped aside to let Marissa go in first. Marissa kept still.

"Oh," Hexane smirked, "I welcome you into my home, Marissa the vampire," which allowed Marissa to enter the warded sanctum of her former subject. Once again, Tessio was unaffected because he was human, damn him.

Hexane, aka Hillary Milne, led them into a recessed living room, done entirely in white from the carpeting to the low-set furniture. She took the central seat and waited for the others to get comfortable.

"Well damn," Hexane joked, "I would have never suspected you worked for Marissa, Tessio."

"He doesn't, which is probably why I am still alive," Marissa responded. "Before four days ago I had no idea he existed then he saved my life, but now he knows about us and you know what that means."

"I've never been one for following the rules," Hexane chuckled, "but you always seemed like such a stick-up-your-butt kind of Vamp. How come you've let him live so long?"

"In case you missed it," Marissa growled at the disrespect and wept inwardly at her powerlessness to address it, "I am under a death sentence by the Council of Night so it hardly behooves me to make their job any easier."

"That's the spirit," Hexane smiled. "Tessio, what made you dump this trouble on my doorstep?"

"I need to know if you can do something to protect Marissa from their magical attempts to locate her?" he inquired.

"Marissa, who is looking for you?" Hexane asked.

"Someone good enough for the Council to use," was the only answer Marissa could provide.

"I already know the basics; they have something of you, know your name, and know your regional location, plus they are probably Fourth, or higher, Circle so basically you are pretty screwed," Hexane reported, "but I love nothing more than a challenge."

"What is it going to cost us?" Tessio questioned. Marissa hardly cared at this point.

"I'll want a few things, but let me take some temporary measures to guard us – most likely a Moon ward – it lasts until the Moon rises again, and then we can haggle over cost," Hexane said with some introspection. When Hexane rose, her long bone-colored robe's sash came loose and her robe fell open revealing her naked form. Her long wavy black hair cascaded over her shoulders and covered one of her pale breasts.

It was with more than a twinge of concern to Marissa that Hexane's nakedness caused a reaction in Tessio. She needed Tessio to stay alive especially with daylight coming soon. She had to wait for the witch to finish before pressing other matters. The best spin she could put on the situation was that even when his pulse raced and his eyes flashed to Hexane, he remained on a razor's edge, alert and determined.

"Tessio, would you abandon me?" she found herself asking. He didn't look at her but he was definitely thinking it over.

"No."

"Wouldn't you have a better chance of survival on you own?" she questioned.

"Not relevant anymore," Tessio expressed. "This isn't about survival – that is an illusion; this is about winning or dying."

"Okay ..." she was intrigued, "we can't win. What makes you think we can?" Tessio looked at the ground for a second and took a deep breath.

"If I run on alone, I may live ten years but eventually I'll get killed. In the criminal underground, I have enemies that my current allies keep at bay as long as I play for their side. If I run I lose that protection. All I can do is kill for a living, and that has all kinds of legal problems as well," Tessio pointed out.

"With my human life becoming impossibility, I need to find a way to get into the Night Side which requires you Marissa," he laid it out for her. "My only problem is keeping you alive and in the fight."

"Thank you for seeing that I have some value," Marissa said snidely.

Tessio took a seat before responding. "Everyone fucks up; how you respond is what matters." She sat down beside him without really thinking about it. Her mind made the calculation based on Tegus' betrayal of her and his willingness to fight for her now. Against her well-honed experience she trusted this man by dint of him saving her life when any sane being would have killed or abandoned her.

Hexane came back out, still naked and tossed a glossy black stone to Marissa, who let it hit the coach instead of catching it. The witch smirked but was more careful with Tessio's stone; she delicately placed it in his palm, running her fingertips along his palm and fingers.

"Moonstones; they are the loci for the obfuscation wards. You need to keep them on your person for them to work."

"Marissa, I have dimmed the windows so you can sleep in the guest bedroom," Hexane went on. "Tessio, will you be sleeping with her?"

"I will check her room, but there are chores I need to perform for her tomorrow. I'll take a sofa," Tessio informed them. Marissa was pleased with that piece of news; Hexane was making her seduction of Marissa's pet killer too obvious.

"So how did you two meet?" Marissa asked as she took up and pocketed the moonstone. 

"Tessio is as reliable as he is secretive. I am glad no one has traced that little job he did for me," Hexane stated. Tessio remained utterly silent. "Good boy Tessio, you kept the secret."

"I am hired for both my proficiency and discretion," Tessio told the ladies. Hexane closed her robe and sat back down.

"I hired Tessio to kill three members of the Opus Dei who were holding a young witch and retrieve her if he could or kill her if she'd fallen into the Light," Hexane grinned.

"That breaks so many laws Hexane," Marissa growled. "You involved a human in a supernatural affair – you set him against Light Siders and you had him retrieve a young witch. That could have gone poorly for so many reasons."

"Did Tessio see anything?" Marissa finished.

"Yes; the girl shielded us when the churchmen came. I had no orders to do so, but my instincts guided me to trust the girl and get her out," Tessio remained calm.

"When I arrived to retrieve the child, Tessio threatened to kill me. I could interview the child, but if she wanted me to leave, I have little doubt that Tessio would have killed me if I resisted," Hexane stated.

"He protected her until she was ready to join us and that drew our attention and our appreciation," Hexane stated.

"This is the first I've heard of this, which is probably for the best," Marissa admitted.

"Because you would have torn my head off?" Hexane mused.

"No though that would have been the most likely outcome, but since I never heard of it, most likely the person coming after me doesn't know it either," Marissa pointed out.

"Well, there is a lot you don't know about me Marissa. Witches live by the secrets they keep and one of those secrets is that I'm not Hexane, daughter of Vitoria, daughter of Tabitha, daughter of Hillary. I'm Hillary," Hexane revealed.

"That's - at least fifth circle magic - how?" Marissa murmured.

"Who wants the rare witch who is that old and powerful living in their city, Marissa?" Hexane explained. "Wielding that much a magic warps reality and causes strange things to happen; things that threaten to reveal the Night Side to humans."

"I've known of only one Eighth Circle witch in all my many years; never one higher and I've always wondered why, until now," Hexane hinted.

"You think the Council of Night is killing them off because they threaten to break down the Veil?" Marissa mused.

"There strength comes from the separating us from the Daylight World; it makes sense they would act to preserve their power," Hexane told them.

"So all we have to do is tear down this 'Veil' to bring down the Council of Night and we all get to live," Tessio noted casually. "Well, I know what I'm doing in the morning."

"Tessio," Hexane said mirthfully, "the Veil has existed for eight thousand years. It is hardly going to go away overnight because one killer, a witch, and a dethroned vampire lady want it to."

"Why does it exist? I'm not asking how it maintains itself, but who thought it up in the first place? What was their motivation, what tools did they use, and why did everyone go along with it?"

"I was actually studying that," Marissa stated, "so I know most origin myths of what happened and I was sorting through the fable and the fact. It was -"

"Wait, you were looking into the history of the Council of Night?" Hexane wondered.

"I think I know why you are supposed to be dead," Tessio concluded.

"Where did you keep your research?" Hexane asked.

"It is in my vault," Marissa answered tentatively.

"So much for that," Tessio sighed.

"My vault is a Shadow Shard locked with a Heart Key," Marissa explained and then she laughed, recalling Tegus's almost last words. 'They needed her for something.' Tessio looked at her funny.

"Tessio, a Shadow Shard is a tiny chunk of reality that sits between the Night World and the Daylight World. Usually you stumble across them by accident, but in Marissa's case she has a lock that reveals it and they key is a drop of blood from her own heart," Hexane explained.

"And they can't break in?" he questioned.

"They don't even know where to look," Marissa chortled.

"Where is it?" Hexane prodded.

"I'm not going to tell you," Marissa chided the witch, "but I can say it is in a place that is going to be rather difficult to get into."

"Of course not," Tessio stated dryly. "Why would anything involving you be easy? As far as I can tell that would be unnatural."

"Make her work it out in trade Tessio," Hexane laughed. "I hear she is a real hellcat underneath the covers." There was a pregnant pause. Marissa had been breathtakingly beautiful for so long she took it as her due to be lusted after. Tessio didn't look at her with desire though.

"I don't know," he said carefully, "something about watching her turn into a corpse for half a day doesn't do it for me." Marissa looked into Tessio's honest eyes and his words bit deep, as deep as any of the darts that had pierced her shape. He wasn't revolted by her, or sorry for her; he knew she'd made her choices long ago and he'd made his earlier tonight.

Even if the both survived somehow, he'd leave her. He would never betray her, but it wasn't out of love but out of a strange sense of honor and companionship. Love paled and became bitter but honor ... she'd never known it. At that moment Marissa decided she had to have him. She couldn't let Tessio go, watch him grow old and die. She'd make him want to stay with her.

"That's okay Tessio," she smiled, "you've seen me at my worst, but wait until you see me at my best. You may yet change your mind."

"On that note, the Sun is rising and we need to plan out a few things before it is sleepy-time," Hexane grinned. "Now what comes next?"



Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 02



*If the only option you give your enemy is Death, they will choose your Death*

(This story is sex-lite; be warned) 

***

For Salvador the day had started to fall apart shortly after ten in the morning. He'd spent the better part of fifty years ferretting out Marissa's secret caches of goodies and he was pretty sure he had gotten them all but one. Shortly after ten the human had walked into the bank holding one of those hidden treasure troves and brazenly grabbed up the stash. He had even convinced the bank staff that he'd brought Tegus's sword to store there; that is how he got it in.

Needless to say, he'd changed his mind about the sword. Salvador had dispatched two ogres to grab the human; they were to be discreet but forceful. They never stood a chance. The human charged down the stairs, brandishing the blade and buried the sword through the heart of the lead ogre. He grabbed that ogre's gun out of its holster and turned the second ogre's head into so much modern art before that creature could decide what to do ... and then he was gone - vanished.

Worse, the gunman had disappeared from Salvador's vision and hit four more institutions in the financial district before dropping out of sight, leaving a grand total of six Night Siders dead in the process. Divining his location was also daunting; it was more than mere street magic, fey glamour, or simple blood magic that stymied him. There was a true craftsman of the Art out there keeping him at bay.

Locally, there were about two dozen witches , half as many warlocks and sorcerers but out of that group only six bothered him in the slightest and none of them had ever appeared to be allies of Marissa and certainly not tied to her enough to risk certain death by opposing Armand at this juncture. He was missing something and he didn't know where to start looking.

The other trouble was that the NYC police had half-dozen dead bodies in the most secure part of town -- all armed and with little or no background stories. It was small consolation that he contacts in the police had given him a name -- Tessio Nerospina. It seemed the man was a professional assassin who worked for the Mafia; of all the eighteen million people in the greater Metropolitan area, Marissa had stumbled upon a trained killer -- how utterly unfair.

His opposition was Marissa, who grew this city up around her, Night Side and Daylight both, Tessio Nerospina, hitman extraordinaire, and some unknown yet powerful practitioner of the Art. He would need more tools for this job. Armand was a fool; as much a liability as an asset. He would need some foot soldiers, an Artificer, or two, and two Practitioners to build a hunting team.

Despite his bribes and betrayals he'd failed to kill her, then he had failed to find her, and now he'd gambled he could use her trinkets to draw her out but the killer had taken the trinkets and raised the visibility of the Night Siders in the process. Compounding the problem was that the FBI: Special Investigative Division was on the way, forcing him to make all the dead Night Siders' bodies vanish in a rather obvious fashion; damn all humans and their meddling.

He had a feeling this was going to be horrible, messy and brutal before this was over and a lot of people were going to die. His Masters had told him to do whatever it took to end Marissa and either locate her vault and deliver the contents, or make sure the vault was never found again. When they approved of his plan and his call for reinforcements he began to worry. For the first time he began to wonder what the hell was going on.

***

For an instant Marissa felt the lips of Tessio on her throat, kissing her as his hand brushed against her stomach on the way down ... and then she smelled Hexane's hair, not her killer's.

"What are you doing?" Marissa said quietly and a bit cross.

"I have decided on one of the prices I want for aiding you," Hexane purred.

"What is that?" Marissa said cautiously.

"I want Tessio," she informed the vampire.

"He's not mine to give and besides, what do you want with him?" Marissa grumbled.

"If he's not yours then stay out of my way, and as for 'why', do we have to go into that man's training and genetics? I want him to father my children," Hexane told her.

"Father your children? Are you serious?" Marissa scoffed.

"Witches are weird; are family dynamics very convoluted and bizarre. It isn't like most men want to hang around, so almost all of us are raised by our mothers. Trust me, that isn't as good as it sounds. Witches are Practioners first and women second. With a mate like Tessio I wouldn't have to worry about my child being alone or abandoned."

"Well, why haven't you ensnared him before now?" Marissa countered.

"How? His will is anything but weak so short of reducing him to a drooling idiot, I'm not going to force him to fall in love with me. Marissa, witches are one night stand material. Most guys get what they want and move on. Tessio stood guard over one of us for five days; he never left her side and he never touched her sexually."

"We don't find men like that very often. In over a century of living I've never found someone like him at all. All our weirdness doesn't affect him. I'm sure you've noticed that by now," Hexane related. Marissa knew that to be true. Tessio had calmly blown a werewolf away when the average man would have freaked out and fled in terror.

"He is not mine to give, Hexane," Marissa evaded.

"He turned you down, didn't he?" Hexane countered. Marissa knew lying to the witch was dangerous and the truth would not help her cause. "He threw your brand of immortality in your face," Hexane chuckled.

"So what if he did? I'm not going to offer it to him a second time," Marissa snapped.

"You agree to give him to me then?" Hexane challenged her.

"No. I agree that we will be leaving when he returns; where is he by the way?" Marissa asked.

"He went to retrieve your goodies. To avoid detection I showed him how to get back by using the Parade of Fools," Hexane smiled.

The Parade of Fools was a favored marketplace for Night Siders trading in Daylight goods. A human would not be totally out of place there. It was still the Night Side thought with all of its dangers.

"You sent Tessio into the Night Side unescorted!" Marissa gasped, pushed herself up and searched for her clothes.

"It is the last thing they would expect and they'd lose any specific tracking spells if he crossed over -- for a time anyway," Hexane pointed out.

"It is too risky. I'm going to get him," Marissa insisted.

"You will do no such thing," Hexane commanded. "He will do fine. There is a reason why their FBI hasn't put him in prison by now and that is because he is clever and resourceful."

"Besides," she pointed out, "you being there won't do him any good if he is discovered."

"Besides," Tessio said from the doorway, "I'm already back." Marissa and Hexane turned to him, both surprised. They had not noted his approach.

"Tessio ... did you get my items?" Marissa struggled to remain calm.

He tossed a Macy's shopping bag onto the bed.

"I killed six of your kind getting these so I hope it was worth it. The city is crawling with cops hunting for the killer, but I've heard the bodies have already gone missing and that the FBI is putting a special task force together," Tessio informed them.

"Already ..." Marissa mused, "that can only mean the SID." Since Tessio seemed curious, she informed him of what that meant. "The Special Investigative Division is the government's group that investigates matters involving the Night Side and it is our duty to keep them as ignorant as possible."

"Oh...Okay, I think I know what the next step is then," Tessio asserted. "I'm not sure how I can pull it off yet. I need to study the situation and get more information."

"What are you trying to do?" Hillary asked.

"Right before crossing over through the Parade of Fools I made contact with my family. My Boss wants me to come in -- people are asking about me," Tessio informed them.

"If you are getting bad attention that is the last thing your organization should want," Marissa mused.

"Shouldn't your family be protecting you?" Hexane questioned.

"No, they should be keeping me at arm's length. It broke that I was involved in crimes at five banks, killed six people and have brought in the FBI. The Mafia wants no part of that," Tessio told her.

"They want to kill you or turn you over to someone else," Marissa concluded. "The only people they would turn you over to would be the Night Side under some alias."

"And I thought my people were cold," Hillary chuckled.

"It is business," Tessio stated. "Publicity is bad. The thing is if they wanted to silence me my personal family would have staged an ambush. My uncle's crew is pretty good at killing people; they trained me after all."

"I could have contacted your Don, Marc Scarletti, when I was Liege Lord and kept it quiet," Marissa affirmed, "especially in a case where the Daylight World might miss that person."

"So Armand is going to use a Mafia Don to grab Tessio," Hillary sighed. "How do we react?"

"I kill him...Scarletti that is," Tessio nodded in some internal debate. "Armand is using the structure of the city to hunt us so let's create chaos to mask our maneuvers."

Marissa didn't bother hiding her smile. She admired ruthlessness and she admired loyalty but any passion could be taken overboard. Tessio was loyal to his Don until his leader decided to betray him to an outside force. He was right about the situation too; she was used to working from the top of the pyramid and hating all those termites that gnawed away at the base. Now she was one of those termites.

"I popped some second raters today," Tessio returned to the subject at hand. "What for and why?" Hexane looked to Marissa. Marissa thought she knew but she wanted to have the Tessio's description first.

"Most stood outside the door and waited brazenly for me to come out. On group was parked across the street and the other waited on either side of the door. Also, despite my success, they never deviated from the first 2-Nightsider teams -- zero learning curve," Tessio explained.

"That meant Armand doesn't trust my first string players," Marissa murmured. "Which means the city is ripe for a civil war."

"He killed a few but the Council of Night can't afford to leave their hitters hanging around or they will show their hands so all Armand has is his own meager following and whatever low-lives who would take a bounty on a human," Hexane grinned. 

She was loving this but then witches formed few close ties.

"Okay, that explains the softball approach this time, but we have to figure they will bring in some effective talent soon enough," Tessio nodded. "Now why exactly have I publically killed six people?"

"I doubt there will be bodies by next sunrise," Marissa gave a lopsided smile. "With the SID on the way, Armand had better hide the corpses because no glamor I know of will hide the facts from an autopsy. The why is simple enough," she added as she began laying out the bags and boxes she had stored away in various safe deposit boxes.

Marissa opened the largest box, took the first of the two golden guns out of the box and gingerly handed them to Tessio; sure he would be pleased at a firearm of such exquisite craftsmanship. He took it studied it for a second then looked at Marissa somewhat confused.

"What?" she gasped. "You don't like it?"

"Well -- ummm Marissa, this is a hand cannon -- it is a .454 Magnum," he looked worried. "Did the pimp you took these from give you all of his gold-plated teeth too or was he happy to get rid of these unwieldy monsters."

Hexane laughed so hard she fell off the arm of the plush chair she was sitting on. Marissa was closer to furious as she rose.

"These are precision instruments of death," Marissa growled.

"Instruments of death -- yes; precision -- no," Tessio corrected her. "I am not as strong as you are Marissa and the recoil on these is a bitch for me to deal with. I'd hate to fire them more than three or four times before taking a break and I would be reacquiring my aim after each shot."

"He doesn't understand," Hexane gasped joyously from the floor, "what they are." Marissa's mouth dropped open and she felt so incredibly dense. How could Tessio have knowledge of artificers and the artifacts they created; he was human after all.

"I apologize Tessio," Marissa began again, "These are Invincible Guns; they take on the aspect of the last bullet fed into them. I wished the largest production handgun available so that was the bullet it was given. They will match the style and characteristics of the bullet you feed into it which will also bond the weapon to you."

Tessio nodded quickly. He removed the clip out of the hefty automatic, cleared the round out of the chamber then put the gun on the sofa. He began popping the bullets out of the seven round magazine; stopping when he hit ten. He looked over the bullet then looked to Marissa for explanation. She held up a hand, signaling for him to be patient. A minute later on the dot the bullets began evaporating.

Tessio turn around and took out a .40 caliber and repeated the process to a point.

"One bullet is all you need," Marissa indicated. Tessio pressed the smaller .40 bullet on top of the top .454 in the clip. I fitted perfectly so Tessio put the clip in. It started transforming to a dull grey exterior and black grip -- very generic -- and had finished its transformation in thirty seconds. He was testing the weight when Hexane piped back in.

"It is also undetectable by normal means while holstered," the witch added. Marissa was still getting pissed about Hexane releasing the secret she'd plan to tell Tessio when she caught sight of him closing in. Marissa determined he was going for the cheek but she wasn't having any of that. She met him lip to lip. The first seconds where awkward then Tessio snaked a hand to the back of her head and drew her in tight. Their tongue's flickered then embraced as well. Marissa felt truly victorious.

"Better than my best Christmas present," he panted after a minute, "and that was my first sniper rifle -- I thought nothing would ever top that."

"You are a very unusual man," Marissa purred.

"I am what I am," was his response.

"Aren't you going to ask if those two do anything else?" Hexane teased.

"Hillary, they have unlimited ammo and are the perfect assassin's tool. I don't want it to do anything else," he smiled at her.

(Mafia Showdown)

"Here comes the birthday boy," Special Agent Jason Cooper joked. He meant Tessio Nerospina. Like the other three agents in the room overlooking the Tabula Rasa. When Scarletti had slashed and burned his way to the top five years ago he'd rebuilt the restaurant to make it nearly impregnable to outside surveillance and not bug had made it 24 hours when agents had planted it inside; so all the team could do was take video of the wise guys as the went in.

Not-so-old Tessio Nerospina was a boogeyman and the agents in the room were happy to have a face to put to the contract killings they suspected him of. His sole contact had always been his uncle, Enrico Nerospina who everyone suspected of being Scarletti's own Murder Incorporated. Unfortunately, while his sons were the normal breed of Mafia thug, his niece and nephew where virtual ghosts.

Today everyone in the FBI figured Tessio was going to really become a ghost. He'd fucked up in some unknown manner the FBI was scrambling to nail down. They would have snatched him up before the meeting but they had nothing to hold him on, which didn't matter because they couldn't find him. He'd simply turned the corner two blocks down and blithely walked up to the club.

"I still think this whole situation is plain wrong," Special Agent Magdalena Alvaro muttered from the other camera. "Midday not night; a known hangout when this thing should go down in some abandoned industrial site and a fuck load of guys. Special Agents Foster and Chu chuckled at the 'new guy's' pretense to knowledge.

"They are mobsters," Foster pointed out, "not special forces operatives. Most of them are a step beyond morons."

"No," Cooper backed Magdalena. "Tessio Nerospina asked for this and worse, Scarletti agreed. How often does a foot soldier tell the Don what to do?"

"So, he wants to die so the rest of those scumbags can go to prison -- why should we stop any of them," Chu snorted. "Pinning a crime on that kid was going to take years. This is a win-win."

"What about we not being judge, jury and executioner -- as the Constitution demands," Alvarado snapped.

"You work enough of these Organized Crime cases, it gets harder to see them as citizens," Cooper tried to calm her down.

"Well, he's inside now," Alvarado sighed. "God help him. What do we do if things go wrong?"

"With over thirty armed men inside that club, we try not to get shot," Cooper smirked.

Tessio nodded to the two men at the door. He'd met them twice briefly -- Don Gelano's men, tough but not too imaginative. The fact that there was no verbal recognition confirmed Tessio's status as a dead man. He didn't say they'd see him again because they wouldn't. That wasn't the plan.

Inside the door, in the antechamber, two of Scarletti's men patted him down twice. He lost two generic guns he'd picked up earlier in the day as well as two replacements for his normal blades. He was sorry to see his buckle-blade but there hadn't been time to get a replacement for that. They were good at what they did; not that it would help them this time. One of the two began steering him toward the rear tables.

"I'd like a word with my uncle, Antonio," he requested from the goon pulling him along. The guy grunted, chuckled and kept pulling Tessio along.

"Antonio, I'm going to kill you; that's a given," Tessio said calmly. "If you allow me talk to my family one last time, you'll live five minutes longer." Like most mad bulls, Antonio spun on Tessio with the intention of knocking him to the floor. Tessio bent his body around the blow, hooked the bigger man's neck in the crux of his elbow then fell and twisted.

Antonio's neck snapped like dry timber before Tessio dropped the dying man to the ground. Everyone had guns out except Tessio.

"Please inform the Don that I would like a word with my Uncle before we conclude our business," Tessio addressed the rear of the restaurant. He couldn't see the Don himself through the wooden partitions that separated the place.

Whispered words came to the fore and finally one of Scarletti's grandsons gave Tessio permission. He nodded back then approached Uncle Enrico. Enrico's sons were on either side but Nina was the one closest. Tessio started to lower his head to kiss his uncle's ring but Enrico stood and the two exchanged kisses on each cheek.

"I'm sorry Uncle," Tessio began. "I didn't mean to bring shame to our family."

"I don't know what happened, Tessio," the older man shook his head. "I want you to know that I asked to take care of this personally but..." It wasn't only family honor that drove Uncle Enrico's decision; Tessio's actions had brought doubt about the Nerospina family to the paranoid yet careful Don Scarletti -- that was dangerous.

Tessio could also see Nina angling for a shot at him with a gun she concealed in her lap.

"I could..." she whispered.

"I'm leaving here alive," Tessio smiled at the girl he had always considered his little sister. She wasn't little anymore, but since they were both orphans from different Nerospina siblings, she had clung to him as the only one like her -- both as kinsmen and dedicated assassins.

She and Uncle Enrico were his only true family; he'd never been close at all with Enrico's own sons. They had enjoyed plucking the wings off flies and bragging about all the Penny Anny shit they pulled off, as if knocking over a bodega was high crime. Tessio had broken six bones in the hand of the only one of Enrico's sons to touch Nina. Uncle Enrico's response was to remind the boy of the price of being 'pinched'.




Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 02



"Don't hold back," Tessio whispered to her right before he turned and retraced his steps. He fell in with two more men who did have the presence of mind to search him a second time, in case any of his family had slipped him something new.

"Are you going to kill us too," one of the two mafia soldiers taunted Tessio. Tessio looked at the other man holding him instead.

"Carl, you've got three kids now, right?" Carl nodded. "I'm going to make a special effort not to kill you. I don't know this other moron so I'm going to shoot him through both lungs so chokes on his blood." That unknown man tried to twist Tessio's arm.

"Thanks Tessio," Carl took a totally different tact. "Maria gave me a little girl seven months ago; she kind of looks like Nina."

"Get ready to put the fear of God in a lot of boys," Tessio said deadpan. They were now looking at Don Scarletti, the 58 year old Master of the Reborn New York Mafia.

"Sit down Tessio," the old man said in a genial fashion. Tessio did as directed for the last time. "You said you had a specific peace of information concerning what happened at that meth lab and is germane to the current citywide manhunt for you."

"This city has a magical underworld that is in a current state of flux and I interfered with the hit on their previous Chief and now the current chief wants us both dead," Tessio related. "The people you have sold out me to work for that jack-ass and I'm going to kill him for trying to kill me. For sending me on that insignificant hit that brought this about, and handing a loyal soldier over to him for chump change, I'm going to kill you too, Don Scarletti." The old man chuckled; after all, he was surrounded by thirty gunslingers and Tessio was unarmed -- then the lights went out.

Outside the mafia meeting place and across the street, SA Alvarado kept an active eye on the place.

"Guys," she muttered, "I've got something."

"What is it?" Cooper tracked his gaze to what Magdalena was looking at. He saw a high class woman dressed head to toe in white -- she even had a white headscarf and hat on.

"Okay; do you think she's packing a gun in that purse of hers?" Cooper noted.

"This lady is strictly 5th Avenue, so what is she doing WALKING in this neighborhood," she persisted. The other two agents snickered at the lameness of her hunch.

"Noted," Cooper said intently. If she was going straight to the restaurant, she would have taken a cab -- she's approaching the two goons." Now the others were scrambling. Cooper was the senior agent and he was known for his instincts. Magdalena watched the woman maneuver between the two goons who were torn between ogling her beauty and stopping her from entering the establishment.

The lady in white touched the first goon on the forehead and, through the lenses, SA Alvarado saw the man's eyes roll back in his head as if asleep. The second man moved to get his buddy; one touch to the forehead, and he went down to.

"What the hell kind of language was that?" SA Chu grunted.

The woman took out what looked like a burning black candle -- from her purse (?) and ran the wax along the door seal. She made one flourish with her hands and dodged to the closest door. She finished her production by waving up at the FBI cameras.

"I have gunfire!" SA Chu yelled. "The whole damn place is going up!"

"Set everything on automatic," Cooper commanded. "Foster, inform the Taskforce that we are going in!"

Chad Morse leaned against his car in the back alley of the Tabula Rasa waiting for these piss-ant humans to hand over the maggot that had been killing Night Siders. Long-honed reflexes brought his eyes up to the roof as a figure launched itself down on his small team. Tamara, the werewolf, had only enough time turn before a flashing fey bade bifurcated her, one of Chad's oldest teammates.

"Marissa," the were-rat squealed. Suddenly he realized that he was backed into a dead end alley.

"Kill her!" he screamed at his Troll bodyguard. He was a pebble in the brains department but a titan of strength and toughness. Left undefended by Chad and the troll, his fey diviner sprayed blood all over the rear door to the restaurant. Chad was racing for the wall, transforming into his cross-breed rat form.

He spared a look over his shoulder in time to catch sight of his troll reach out to grapple with the lightning quick Marissa and fail. She jumped up the wall then angled her blade down, thrusting the point straight through the top of the brutes head and driving over three feet of immortal steel into it. She rolled with the strike, yanking the blade free and landed right behind him.

Animalistic fear took over -- for about six seconds when his body realized it had been pinned face-first into the brick wall.

"Marissa," Chad spat up blood, "it's - daylight."

"Yeah, you would even think I planned all this out," she whispered in his ear. The blade twisted and pulled free of him. 

The last thought he hand in this incarnation was of his corpse hitting the asphalt. Marissa made sure her Lazarus Mask was well in place. Chad was right and if it wasn't for the one in only three such artifacts in existence she couldn't have been above ground during the day. She had no pity for those who forced her to wear it now because if it was damaged, or she bled, the Sun's fire would still consume her. Now she listened and waited for any sound of Tessio in trouble, or for him and Hexane to make their escape. After that, she'd go back to running on the rooftops.

Tessio had pushed off with his chair, toppling backwards to the floor as the pistol grips of his Invincible Guns came to his hands. As promised he put a round into Carl's right shoulder. He'd be threatening those boys with his left hand for a while but he'd be alive to do it too. His buddy took one through the throat that exited the top of his skull.

Now everyone was firing everywhere -- most of the mafia did not qualify for MENSA and a good number never graduated high school. Tessio rolled under the falling body of the first man he killed then stood up holding the corpse as a shield. Tessio's arms were under that guy's arms and he was firing away. The true problem was that to everyone else in the room things were pitch black except for the flashes of gunfire. For Tessio, things were merely a foggy grey, so he could track and shoot just fine.

It was a slaughter with only two people even coming close to him -- Uncle Enrico tried to pick out the distinctive thunder of Tessio's guns and Nina actually made a crouched run for the door, trying to get between Tessio and his most likely point of exit. She was good enough to spin and face Tessio, sensing him at some instinctual level, but he slammed the bullet-mangled body shield into her and then summersault over Nina as she fell.

Nina was twisting under the corpse and bringing her 9mm up when Tessio dashed through the front exit. She wanted to rise up and follow him but a hail of bullets aimed at the door kept her suppressed for several crucial seconds.

Hexane folded into Tessio's arm and the two sprinted down the sidewalk.

"Freeze FBI!" screamed out two voices. Tessio and Hexane kept running because they had no evident weapons and with the volume of carnage from the Tabula Rasa, any sane person would be running too.

Nina and a senior shot-caller for Scarletti came out the door at the same time. She immediately tracked the two fugitives about to round the corner of the block and the four shooters in clearly-government suits. Nina tried to take aim on the fleeing male figure when the other mafia guy opened up on the suits. She barely had time to berate him for his stupidity when a series of gunshots left the shot-caller's chest and left arm a bloody mess and one of the agents down.

Nina was under fire too but now her conscience was clear and she could follow her heart's desire. Two agents were on Tessio's ass. She fired 'near' them as well, causing one to dive for cover but the other one stupidly courted death and Nina had to let the girl round the corner too. At least she could tell her Uncle and the next Don that she'd done her best. Nina prayed, and she rarely prayed, that Tessio could make his escape.

Special Agent Alvarado was feeling blessed too; one shot had ricocheted off the sidewalk and the other buzzed passed her back. The two shots had missed and now she was going to collar her first big fish but, more importantly, she was going to get some payback too. Tessio Nerospina had another name and that name was Blackthorn. 

There was a dead female witness in San Francisco; a hitter named Blackthorn had put that girl into an early grave and she was going to beat that confession out of him if she had to shove her service weapon down his throat to get it. She was still thinking those thoughts when she rounded the third corner and Tessio cloth-lined her.

Magdalena was still blinking stars out of her eyes and she thought she might have a concussion when she felt someone ripping her back-up pistol away. As she forced herself to prop up on her elbows she saw Blackthorn swing the cylinder of her revolver and dump the bullets out.

"Stay down," he requested of her calmly, "I know you get into trouble if you lose a piece so I'm going to leave the ammo down at the end of the block. Stop following us Special Agent Alvarado."

"Wound the little weasel," the women in white snickered, "and let us begone."

"I don't shoot legitimate law enforcement," Tessio informed them both. That was enough for Alvarado; she tried to rise up and strike at her captor. It didn't turn out the way she wanted. Tessio pinned both her arms effortlessly and the woman in white touched Alvarado's forehead. At the last second Magdalena realized what was about to happen to her was what happened to the guards outside the Tabula Rasa and she tried to pull away.

"Agent Alvarado," Special Agent Cooper shook the female agent awake.

"What the -- what happened?" she mumbled. "Did he get away? My guns?"

"Your guns seem to be in their holsters," Cooper pointed out, "and he called us to say where you where plus he took you phone." He pulled her from the sitting position against the wall she'd been left in and helped her stand.

"Why would he do that?" Magdalena wondered out loud.

"He said he remembered you and trusts you and that when the Special Investigations Division shows up, he'll only talk to you," Cooper stared at her. "Is there something I need to know?"

"The Ghostbusters?" Alvarado was surprised by the potential involvement of one of the Bureaus most secretive units. "Back in San Fran, I was part of an interstate truck-jacking case and I convinced this young girl to testify against some of the major players. That son of a bitch took her right out from under our noses. He owes me for that girl's life."

"You pretty much owe him now too," Cooper looked down the street. "Do you know why he didn't kill you considering he just killed eighteen other people including Don Scarletti?"

"He told me he doesn't shoot 'legitimate' law enforcement," she shrugged painfully.

"Whatever," Cooper shrugged too. "SID is on the way and they are going to want to talk to you as soon as they deal with those bodies at the back of the restaurant."

"What happened to the two agents back there?" Magdalena worried.

"They saw a black haired woman wearing a dark red trench coat jump down from a two story roof and hack the four guys apart with a sword -- yes, a sword. I am sure they are going to love the one that was cut in two."

"Coop, what is going on?" she pleaded. As she stepped, Alvarado felt a weight in her pocket. She pulled out a phone; just not her own. She showed it to SA Cooper. He took it, flipped the device open and noted a solo number. Seeing how he was about to get booted from this case, Cooper took a risk and hit the number. Alvarado leaned in to listen as well.

"It is too soon to be giving you any information, Special Agent Alvarado," the voice, Tessio's voice, told her.

"I'm going to hunt you down, you bastard," Magdalena seethed.

"That is the whole point," Tessio said in his maddeningly calm tone.

"What...why are you doing this? Why me?" she sputtered.

"I recognized you when you ran after us and I saw an opportunity," Tessio continued. Cooper was busy calling the FBI main office to have the phone call traced. "I picked you in particular because on that job where our paths first crossed because I couldn't get passed you. I had to maneuver you away to get access to the target."

"She wasn't a target, you bastard," Special Agent Alvarado growled, "she was a person with a name; Leda Li."

"I am aware of that and there is nothing I can do about that now and confessing to a contract killing is the least of my worries," Tessio remained peaceful. "We are all going to be in a world of hurt and I need someone in the FBI who has studied me intensely and who believes in saving lives."

"The world will be safer if you weren't in it," Magdalena glared.

"Deal: when the shit really hits the fan, if you can tell me that with a straight face, I'll give you the first shot for free," Tessio pledged then hung up. Magdalena really, really didn't like the sound of that.

The steam tunnels led to Sybil's Way; one of the lesser conduits of New York's Night Side. Tessio had to turn his gun aside as Marissa flung herself into his arms and started to frantically kiss his mouth, nose, eyebrows and eyes.

"There were so many gunshots but you didn't give the signal," Marissa kept her lips all over his face. Her hormones were racing like some besotted teenage girl.

"It is okay Marissa," Tessio said consolingly, "I knew you would have the rear exit and Hexane would have the front door -- I knew I was safe." He wrapped the arm holding his firearm around the vampiress's waist and pulled her tight. She basked in the warmth of his body.

"I, too, was shot at," Hexane teased. "We picked up a female FBI agent as well."

Marissa kept her arms around Tessio but leaned back so she could study his eyes; driving his aroused cock into her pelvis was a bonus.

"What is this about?" Marissa quizzed.

"I ran across Special Agent Magdalena Alvarado of the FBI while fulfilling a contract on the West Coast. She has great instincts and is very dedicated to the job at hand," Tessio explained with a smile on his face but the passion was aimed at Marissa. "My working plan is we use her as a go-between with the SID."

"So you don't have feelings for this chica?" Hexane snuggled in from behind. Tessio coughed uncomfortably.

"She is a fellow professional and, even though she works for the government, we can utilize her," Tessio stated with more nervousness than either woman had witnessed.

"Were does a male go for companionship down here?" Tessio said with repressed emotion. Hexane and Marissa stared at one another then looked to Tessio.

"What's wrong with me?" Marissa inquired of Tessio with a sharp edge of frustrated menace.

"What's wrong with me?" Hexane prodded Tessio with more mirth.

"I am working with both of you," Tessio tried to explain. "I've only broken the rule of having an emotional/sexual relationship with a co-worker once and that was with this crazy Russian sniper girl I worked with on a Trans-Siberian job last year."

"Tessio, you do realize that Marissa is Russian, right?" Hexane whispered in his ear.

"Um -- no, I had not realized that," Tessio took a deep breath.

"What happened to that girl? Did you love her; did she love you?" Marissa asked in a soft, sad voice.

"I left her on the shores of Lake Baikal with both her arms and legs broken; I loved her and I am afraid she fell in love with me and that is why she put two bullets in me when I tried to leave," Tessio related.

"Why didn't you kill her?" Hexane wondered. "This is the second time I've heard about this."

"He didn't kill her because he doesn't love casually," Marissa explained. "He didn't kill the FBI agent because she can help us. Both were a matter of honor -- Tessio?"

"Precisely; anyone can kill but a professional deals death only when necessary and unavoidable," Tessio related to the two women. "Now I need to get some stress relief before I explode. Both of you are far to -- exceptionally intelligent and appealing for me to go on much longer."

"No Tessio," Marissa commanded, "we can't afford to let you out from under our eyes for right now."

"Absolutely," Hexane agreed, "we need kept you close until you snap because I imagine you are a total dynamo in the sack -- and on the floor, over the furniture, in the shower and all over the kitchen counter tops."

"Why would you have sex anywhere but a bed?" Marissa eyed Hexane suspiciously.

"You are going to be so much fun," Hexane laugh. "Now let's go to our new hideout and work on our next move. Maybe Tessio can console me for the loss of my swank apartment." After all, the FBI would be hunting her down soon, as would Armand's people. Hopefully they could collide and then the fireworks would really start to begin.

---------------------------------------------

"Special Agent Magdalena Alvarado," the foremost of the three FBI Agents greeted her. She stood up from the Interrogation room chair where she'd been pinned up for the better part of twelve hours. "I am Special Agent in Charge Ryan Raithe. My colleagues are Senior Special Agent Pierce Wolfe and Special Agent Camille Baxter. We are with the Special Investigations Division of the FBI -- of which you are already aware."

Magdalena made a snap judgment on the three supposed agents before her. Oh, their ID's looked legitimate but she got the oddest read off these people than she had ever felt about any law enforcement agents before. The two men looked like guys who had seen too much and put too many bodies in mass graves. One of her Quantico instructors had talked about running down 'special operations' types who had been in Latin America in the 70's and 80's and here she was staring those exact types.

Baxter looked like she had looked into the abyss on a daily basis -- seeing it in her like a reflection in the mirror. How any of these people passed the annual psych evaluation was beyond her? She was getting a bad feeling about this, as in dozens of civilian bodies piling up over this, bad.

"I would like my guns, badge and phone back," Magdalena began.

"We need you to answer some questions about what you saw and the lady in white aka Hillary Milne," Wolfe inquired.

"Asked and answered repeatedly," Magdalena growled. "Either give me back my stuff, charge me, or release me." She knew a variety of National Security Acts could hold her nearly indefinitely but evoking them was problematic; she was a federal law enforcement agent after all.

"I repeat, SA Alvarado, what did you see of the lady in white aka Hillary Milne?" Wolfe persisted. Magdalena breathed heavily through her nose.

"I will tell you what you want to know but refuse to accept; the woman ordered Tessio "Blackthorn" Nerospina to kill me and he refused. I had every impression he was in charge of their departure from the massacre of the Tabula Rasa."

"Okay, what confuses you about the woman's relationship with the Mafioso? Was he involved with the second woman -- the one in red?" Wolfe questioned.

"I heard something about her from the team covering the back of the restaurant but I didn't encounter her or even see her," SA Alvarado yawned. "The only women were the woman in white and me and I'm saying he protected me and physically restrained me until the witch lady put me down with her touch -- just like she did to those two guys in the club."

"The people in the club were knocked unconscious by a CO leak, SA Alvarado, which induced hallucinations, as well as unconsciousness and death" SAC Raithe stated calmly.

"Are you saying that Tessio didn't kill eighteen people in that club? You are going to let him skate on those murders," Magdalena grumbled. "That's just wrong."




Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 02



"Did he give you anything? When he was talking with you, did he draw any symbols on your body or make you swallow anything?" Baxter opened up. Baxter seemed distracted and not in a good way.

"No; no he only gave me the phone -- nothing else. No, he didn't draw anything on me and no, I don't recall something being fed to me," Magdalena repeated for the thirtieth time. "Do I have to strip again?"

"They are using her to see inside our organization and hoping to know what our next move will be," Wolfe said but not in a language she thought she knew.

"I am not of much use," Baxter continued in the same language, "It is as if she's not in this room as far as I can detect. She seems sincere, but I have no idea how far they've gotten into her mind."

"She knows what we are saying - don't you, SA Alvarado?" Raithe asked the girl.

"Of course," Alvarado responded. "It's funny but I think I've heard it before -- no, it is like something is whispering in my ear, translating your words for me." Baxter stared at Alvarado intently for a whole minute and seemed to be straining over something.

"No luck," Baxter told Raithe. "Maybe Madame Valva could break these barriers in time, but I can't. They are way to complex and given the time line we are looking at a 5+ Circle Artist." Magdalena didn't know what a circle artist was, but a 5+ ranking seemed to impress this crowd. Their minds were running down one way -- Tessio as the women's pawn, so she returned to what she knew of Tessio, the professional killer and what he had been hired to do.

"I think I know where we can start looking," Alvarado began.

"We'll be in touch," Raithe commanded, "Stay here until we come for you." She wanted to scream. 

Four hours later she was screaming for a bathroom break then she calmed herself, tricked them into bringing her some more water then pissed in the cup in the corner of the room. That was the moment Internal Affairs came storming into the room to 'humiliate' her.

That failed but then she'd done well at this section at the FBI academy too.

"That's disgusting!" one agent covered his nose. "You could have simply asked to go to the bathroom." She finished her business and dressed all the while keeping her back to them. When she finished, she resumed her old seat and put the glass of piss between the two men.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she grinned, "I haven't finished my business yet."

"You can go to the bathroom when you've finished answering some questions," the man glared.

"You don't lie during an interrogation unless it serves a purpose," she lectured him on the basics. "If you can give me access to a bathroom do so now, or be quiet. I have helped this investigation enough and we are not at the state that Tessio and company have gotten a hotel, had a good night's sleep and two good meals and are launching the next phase of their plan as we speak."

They laid into her after that, grinding at her the way every good IA team would over the death of SA Foster. She'd barely known the man and had been taking fire at the same time Foster had. She had been pursuing the prime suspect and his accomplice, her partner had taken fire and gone to cover so she had pursued the two people alone and she had been taken down by surprise.

Yes, she had known of the man though they had never met, e-mailed, or tweeted -- she repeated - again. She was describing him for the umpteenth time when Raithe and Baxter strode into the room.

"Excuse us," the lead IA agent stood and confronted Raithe while Baxter sped around the table and offered the phone to Magdalena -- Tessio's burner phone -- like it was volcanic.

"Listen up you bunch of hot-shots," The lead IA suit got out before Raithe raised palm barely an inch from the man's face.

"Shut up," Raithe yawned. "My crew is tired so I'm going to say this to you once then your ass gets circle-filed -- clear? My associate is removing all non-essential personnel from this command center. You will be returned to the Federal Tower where you will pretend to do your normal jobs until we have use of you again and you will come running when we call. You will not ask why; your pay grade doesn't cover it. Go."

"What about Alvarado and my other witnesses?" the IA agent muttered. He and his companion were getting ready to leave. 

"All civilians have been released -- no charges filed, we will deal with the death of Field Agent Foster and debrief the four other agents who were at the scene. They are being processed and transferred as we speak."

"What about the sixth agent -- SA Alvarado?" the IA guy wouldn't let up.

"Her status is neutral, which means she has ceased to be any part of your business, am I clear?" Raithe glared at the man. By simple mathematics, the IA agent was about an inch taller than Raithe, but in the arena of who kills who first and eats breakfast while sitting calmly on their opponent's still-warm corpse, Raithe had the IA agent in spades. The IA agent made people's lives a living hell; Raithe sent them to Hell and covered up the hole. 

The normal FBI agents exited the room right as Tessio's phone rang. Alvarado looked to Raithe who nodded. Two more pseudo-FBI entered as well.

"Hello Tessio," Magdalena began.

"So, have they brought you inside the SID yet, or are they still yanking you around?" Tessio sounded regretful of her predicament.

"They are still treating me like the ugly stepdaughter underneath the stairs," she answered. She suddenly felt an odd symmetry with the assassin, as if he was going through the same thing. She'd still gladly put him on death row too.

"Well, that will pass, or so I'm told. Your techs will trace this to the Old Palladium btw," Tessio added. With a few hand signs, Raithe dispatched one of Wolfe's sub-commanders.

"Magdalena, I don't have too much more time -- what can I do for you?" Tessio offered. The normal things like 'turn yourself in' were impractical and a waste of time, but;

"What is it you and the other two want to accomplish?" she asked. Raithe nodded his approval.

"My companions are Marissa, former Liege Lord of New York City, who owes me a life debt, and sworn enemy of the current Liege Lord Armand, and Hillary 'Hexane' Milne, Mistress of the 6th Circle and who wants Ms. Special Agent Camille Baxter to stick close to you seeing how Baxter is her great-grandchild. Finally there is me," he prevaricated.

"As for our plan: we are going to pull down the Veil and destroy the Council of Night because they are trying to kill the three of us. The point where a compromise can be reached has past. We have each passed beyond that point from which we will turn back," Tessio went back to his death-like calm voice. "We are well aware that thousands, if not millions on both sides will die. There is no other option open to us."

"Why are you even telling us this?" Magdalena coughed.

"The SID has been fighting this war since before the oldest current member was even alive and they are going to keep fighting it until everyone with you is dead and a fresh crop of agents sees too much and is brought in. It will never end as long as the bad guys can slip into the Veil and avoid you. They can do their jobs or they can start winning this war. Now they have a chance to think about it."

Raithe made a cutting gesture with his hand at Alvarado.

"What can we do for you?" she had to ask Tessio despite orders to cease the conversation. This all seemed like fantasy until she saw the grim, desperate looks on the faces of everyone around her. Tessio's words and terms made perfect sense to all of them.

"Don't die," were Tessio's last words to her at that point. Raithe pulled Wolfe close to the point their noses almost touched.

"Bring in everybody, including the Bowdy's, the McGregor's, and the Fallon Sisters; tell them they owe me and today I'm collecting." A third person, a woman with rust-collared hair and the standard FBI suit joined the group.

"Command isn't going to like you using contractors in an urban area," the agent pointed out.

"Jenna, they are professionals, not yahoos taking potshots at Sasquatch; they owe me and they'll do as the SID requests. They know the risks they will be facing more than any SWAT unit does, or aren't going in blind about what we are facing and we don't have the time to teach what we do have to the NYPD in the time left," Raithe explained to what was now clearly his outside liaison officer.

A few seconds to study the woman told Magdalena that this was yet another SID member she wouldn't want to meet in a dark alleyway if she was a mugger. The difference seemed to be that she was better looking and more social than the average SID trooper in that she could make banter and crack a joke -- while she used her high, thick heel in order to savor some other poor bastard's death rattle as she ground their throat to a bloody pulp - and loving it. 

"We'll initiate a five point fortress system and go from there," Raithe began, "We will not pick any fights until Phase 2 and 3 Deployments are complete and our contractors are on site -- that is three days folks. I want psychics to have fields and sensors up in 72; let's move."

With that SA Magdalena knew she was part of the SID now; whatever paperwork covering the transfer would be done somewhere by someone. That is not what these people did.

"He chose you," Baxter snuck up on her.

"What; Tessio chose me for this?" Alvarado choked back her surprise.

"Of course he did and you don't even know how special that is," Baxter studied her, "Even I don't know and I'm the third oldest psychic in the SID."

"Oh -- um -- you don't look a day over thirty-five," Magdalena tried to be kind.

"I'm twenty-three," the psychic said without malice. Now the agent could see some horrid supernatural struggle was draining the life and vitality from the girl.

"Come on you two," Jenna corralled the younger women. "Magdalena, I'm calling you Maggy from now. Experience has taught us that long names get you killed, so you are Maggy."

"Camille, Raithe wants you to stick with Maggy until further notice," Jenna added. "Until she draws down on you or you figure out what the conduit is with this Tessio-character is."

"Wait, can't they work that in reverse?" Maggy worried. "Doesn't that put Baxter at risk from her so-called Grandmother?"

"Yes, it does," Camille nodded, "It is part of the job."

"Fuck that noise," Maggy pulled out her phone. Jenna reached for it mongoose-quick but Maggy was able to back-pedal out of range. "Tessio," she shouted into the phone and everyone around them froze.

"Yes, SA Alvarado," he answered. "I'm a bit busy."

"What did Ms. Milne do to me and I want your word that you won't let her do anything to SA Camille Baxter. Give me your word," Maggy demanded. There was a momentary pause.

"I'll call you back in thirty minutes with the answers. Bye." Maggy now expected to be bitched out royally instead there was a somewhat shocked look on both Camille's and Jenna's faces.

"How do you know about word-bonds?" Jenna inquired.

"I have no clue what you mean, but Tessio Nerospina has a code of conduct he seems to keep and that includes not shooting legitimate law enforcement agents," Maggy clarified. "I was hoping he would extend that to Camille here and have his cohorts follow that code as well."

Again, no one laughed. Camille did take Maggy off to eat and it also was clear that the psychics were shunned by the rest of the SID; they weren't cruel about it, but the humans simply didn't want to be around them if they could help it. Maggy entering their little world felt odd.

"Do you feel it?" Camille said as dinner turned into dessert. 

"Sure; there is a low musical humming," Maggy answered. Camille and the other seven psychics in the room locked onto her.

"That's what we feel; are you sure you are not one of us?" Camille studied Maggy. Maggy was terrified of being a 'psychic'. All of these people looked drained and haunted way before their time. Damn it all, Camille had status for surviving to be "TWENTY -- THREE" and that felt tragic.

"I don't do what you guys do (whatever that is) but I've always had a sixth sense about danger and I can read people well. I sort of know where people are when I concentrate on it," Maggy said and all she could do was think about how magical that now sounded.

"Well, you don't 'feel' like one of us," so you are lucky with that," a psychic named Brian weighed in. On schedule, all the psychics took their meds. "These stop the worst of the nightmares and stop us from freaking out," he explained.

"Does that happen often -- freaking out?" Maggy requests softly.

"We lose as many to suicide as we do to monsters," Camille confessed. "There were two times, before the medical cocktail was perfected, when a psychic betrayed the unit and bad things happened."

"I'm -- sorry," Maggy was uncertain of what to make of that.

"What can you tell me of this Tessio and his history with Hillary Milne?" Camille prodded.

"Before I joined this group, we had evidence that he was over at Milne's place the night before the bank heists by Tessio and he remained there for two days. Clearly he planned out the Mafia hit with her - so going into Day Seven now."

"Oh," was Camille's, and all four of the other female psychics', responsed.

"What; is there something I'm missing; the guy is a cold-blooded killer," Maggy growled.

"Oh, we know," Camille tried to ward the new agent off of a bad impression. "It is -- well -- we have a financial allowance for the purpose of companionship. None of us date -- at all."

"How does my killer fall into this? He's not a hooker," Maggy made clear.

"Maggy, you wouldn't understand, but for any man to be that close to us for that amount of time is an impossibility. A 24 hour liaison with a 6th Circle Witch isn't possible; the man would go mad," Camille explained then; "How did Tessio ambush you?"

"He's the quietest man I've ever met," Maggy related. "I didn't know he was there until I was on top of him. He's not like you guys, who are loud and musical -- he was utterly silent."

"Let's get in touch with Special Agent in Charge Raithe and see what he makes of it," Camille said. The found Jenna first who was doing a first rate job of telling some self-important government official that they would comply with her request for a media blackout or she'd gladly show them how to crochet with their own intestines while their body, their feet sealed in concrete, was being lowered into the Hudson River -- without using those precise words. 

Jenna hurried her conversation along then looked over to Camille when they were done. 

"I think we have a Santa Cruz, SA Lewinski," Camille used Jenna's last name this time.

"This Tessio individual?" Jenna received Camille's nod. "In Santa Cruz seven years ago we found a person who could not only see Night Siders, he could follow their landmarks and access their portals to their realms."

"He was working a case with a private eye hunting down missing children and they ran straight into the Night Side. When what they were doing came to light, both the SID and the Night Siders closed in. We caught the guy but before we could get him with the program, he was lured away from our security detail and murdered by a gang of Night Siders."

"All hostile activity died down after that," Jenna said. "We couldn't find their bolt holes and then we had a dust-up in Cincinnati and Scottsdale, so we couldn't stick around. We never found the body so there was no autopsy and we never could figure out how he did what he did."

"So if Tessio Nerospina is one of these he gets a pass on all his murders?" Alvarado accused Jenna.

Jenna didn't act with words. She took off her jacket then rolled up her left sleeve. Just below the elbow were a multitude of savage wounds still not totally healed. She showed the arm to Maggy.

"This is the scar of the creature that nearly took my arm off and I can only show you it because Camille nearly killed herself keeping it attached," Jenna growled. "What I can't show you is the child I was holding onto when the creature swallowed him -- and my arm. The creature's tongue tore the screaming nine year old away from me and I was pleading for the kid to hang on. So fuck you!" Jenna snarled. "I'll recruit a dozen professional hitmen if we have to because he's a human being and they are not."

Around the three women no one seemed to have cared a damn about Jenna's outburst.

"How does anyone here pass their psych eval?" Maggy muttered.

"We don't," Jenna stated, calm once more. "If you do, we cycle you out as an act of mercy." It took Maggy a second to register that those words weren't a joke.

---------------------------------------

Hexane walked around the small room and contemplated her downfall. It was delicious in one way; her old life had become a boring shroud -- safe and sedate. Sure, she had power but was secretly afraid to use it and she was facing up to that fear. For a hundred years she had played it safe, then a chance had dropped in her lap to save a young witch and she'd reached past the safe and normal to take a different approach to resolve that issue.

Hexane was a 'medium' in the Daylight World, a fortuneteller and object reader. This had given her a variety of contacts, one of which had other interesting contacts and that had led her to Tessio 'Blackthorn' Nerospina. She'd only gotten to see him after the contract was fulfilled; by that time the death of the three Opus Dei operators was making the rounds and everyone was wondering why.

Her first thought was how young he was. Truthfully, her first thought was why was 'how did this huge black hole appear before my eye', she recalled staring down the gun barrel, but when she started talking the second thought was how darkly angelic Tessio looked. When she saw how affectionately his ward looked upon him, how closely she clung to him and how little he minded, Hexane had started figuring out ways to seduce him for one night of passion.

He had eventually delivered the girl when she made her choice and Hexane had shared her story among her kind -- sans his name, of course. They had done dinner and nothing else. A month later they had dinner -- and nothing else again. The third time she wrote a subtle charm and slipped it to him and adored him so much she felt like she would weep, or die. 

Only when she got home and started to strip for a very cold shower did she discover he had slipped the charm back to her. Hexane had rolled back and forth on the floor laughing. He had disappeared for a year and she was dreading it was over but finally she broke down and searched for him. 

She found him in Antarctica making some poor Russian slob climb into a water hole on the ice. Calmly he shoved the dying man's head beneath the surface with a pole until the water froze enough to keep the body down. That level of cold-bloodedness was actually a turn off and that might have ended had she ended her vision there. She held it on the boy for five more minutes and then see saw it -- the Death Note.

Tessio had let the man make a final request, or so she prayed. At Capetown she decided to follow the missive to Kiev where the man's daughter agonized before finally opening and reading the last words of her Father -- both pages. She thought about Tessio, there in the freezing cold, letting that doomed man write out his last request to his little girl. The mode of death had probably been per request, because she had never seen Tessio needlessly cruel since then.

"Your word is crucial," Marissa was lecturing Tessio. "It isn't about lying or the truth, those are mostly human concepts. What I mean is you are responsible for what you promise, be it a boon or a threat."

"So if I threaten to kill somebody, I either kill them or give them a way out when I make the threat," Tessio reasons. Marissa looked at Tessio then nodded.




Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 02



"Very good Tessio," Marissa tried to dazzle him with a smile but Tessio didn't respond. "So, you deal with people based on your status and their own. How high your status stands is determined by your personal power, the power of your family and the power of your liege."

"So I'm a 'nobody' -- no family that counts, no history, and no liege," Tessio assesses the situation.

"You are -- you could be my vassal," Marissa offered. Hexane stopped and stared at the two.

"We are in this together as equals," Tessio shook his head. "In the end, if we end up failing we will all be equally dead."

"Well said," Hexane smiled at him. Marissa nodded in agreement as well.

"I will kill those who deserve death and spare those who need mercy," Tessio recited.

"That's a Night Sider creed," Marissa's eyes grew wide.

"It is also a Latin -- Roman saying," Tessio smiled at her. "People forget we Italians have had three great periods of warfare; the Roman Republic and Empire, the Italian School of Renaissance Warfare and the Mafia."

"Really?" Hexane smiled. "I had no idea that you were a student of history?"

"I know my history," Tessio answered. "Everyone knows of the Romans, but we also gave the world Machiavelli, the Florentine Style of fencing and the condottieri. The Mafia brought forth a brutal yet simple code of conduct; the Omerta." Marissa knew what was wrong immediately.

"You acted to protect your family, Tessio," she said. "He was going to betray you to outsiders and Omerta covers him as well. He broke the code and you killed him."

"Wait," Hexane gasped. "You are upset about killing that old man?"

"He was my Don and killing him put my Capo in peril as well as my family," Tessio stated the facts.

"So," Marissa snarled, "are you going to lie down and die for someone else's fuck-up or are you going to fight like a God-damn male of the species?"

"I have regrets Marissa and Hexane, but I'm going to fight until this is through and then some," Tessio continued, "but Marissa, you don't need to try and play me -- especially using the trick I used with you; you know I don't give up."

Marissa wanted to apologize but she was a creature of immense pride too and she'd been swallowing a great deal of it recently. Hexane broke the stalemate by walking over to the scroll and jotting down the last two ingredients.

"That's it," she looked down at the arcane items and formulas that would create the item Marissa needed. Now they had to find everything on the Night Side with a Prince's bounty on their heads. Better yet,

"I told you before I can't create this damn thing," Hexane cautioned Marissa. "I'm not seasoned artificer; I'm a witch and my strength lies in Charms and Divinations."

"Don't worry about that," Marissa smiled. "My ally hides in plain sight and I doubt that Armand and his advisor will be looking in such an obvious spot; see, she is the Prime Arcanum of the University and she hasn't created any items that I'm aware of in the past seventy-five years since they made my heart-lock."

"You have got to be kidding me," Hexane blanched, "she's a foul, soul-stealing lamia. They are renowned for their treachery and evil. You should have killed her the second she finished the lock."

"This is not some romance novel we are living in," Marissa mocked the witch. "In reality if I kill off everyone who builds a device for me, I'll soon find the price of the simplest help beyond my means."

"Do you kill off your employees in your romance novels?" Tessio was both curious and amused. "It sounds more like a 'What Not to Do If I Want to Rule the World' story book."

"Tessio, do you ever read works of fiction?" Marissa regarded him.

"Do city-wide election results count?" Tessio delivered totally deadpan.

"Holy crap," Hexane laughed. She glided over to a spot behind Tessio and slipped her arms round his hips until her fingers linked up. "You are a treasure."

"I have been influencing election results in this city for a hundred and fifty years," Marissa declared proudly, trying to keep her annoyance with Hexane's closeness to Tessio out of her voice.

"So has the criminal underworld which could explain how screwed up this city is," Tessio finally smiled, his eyes keeping steady contact with Marissa's.

"Let me help you with that," Marissa purred. She stepped up, sandwiching Tessio between her body and Hexane's. The vampire put one hand over Hexane's fingers, which had been migrating down then underneath his pants.

Her second hand grabbed Tessio's cock and 'righted' it, teasing Hexane's fingers as she did so.

"It is filled with blood, Tessio," her hungry look was highlighted by her needle-sharp fangs. Tessio tried to move both her hands with little success; vampires, especially vampire lords, were far stronger than any human.

"My blood engorged cock being in the hands of a sensually nocturnal vampire lady was not where I saw myself when I held that door for you," Tessio coughed. "If my Uncle hadn't called me over, I was thinking of calling you, Hillary. You are the 'least pressuring' woman I know -- or you were." As Tessio discovered; when both women are laughing at you, you know you are in trouble.

***

Granez waited with his thee teammates in a far corner of the room for Salvador to acknowledge them. He wasn't being rude -- he had greeted them when they arrived and had seats, a table, food and drink provided -- all top notch. They were waiting on a second team they would be working with. Granez didn't like the idea of a dual-leadership team but Salvador came highly recommended as a serious and competent employer and the pay was more than he made in the past three years.

He knew the sound of his 'other' by the coil of her tail, the racking of her bottom scales against the stone.

"Hello Zaba," Granez greeted one of his oldest rivals.

"There will be no fighting between you two," Salvador rasped his very will drawing the two powerful bounty hunters' gazes to him.

"I don't work with Human-Bloods," the monstrous woman declared with distain. Her powerful tail coils scraped along the polished stone floor. Her serpentine body rose up to a beautiful naked alien body. She had four well-placed breasts and four arms to match. Her long blue-black hair was divided into three waist-length braids. Salvador knew she barely tolerated mummies, vampires and witches because of their human origin. That she was demon-blooded was never mentioned in her hearing. She was both a blades-woman and Sorceress of the 4th Circle.

"You are not compelled to hunt this time around, Zaba," Salvador stated evenly. "I will have to rely on Granez to hunt down Marissa with the team he has." There was the rub; Marissa had made Zaba pay penance for a Night Sider she'd killed in New York seventy years ago. She had been under contract by Paris' Liege then and while Marissa could have killed Zaba for the breach, Marissa made an example of the Half-demon Lamia instead.

Granez was a different creature all together. His team stalked their prey and picked them off -- stand-up fights in the open were not their forte.

"Who is with Marissa?" Granez asked.

"Hillary 'Hexane' Milne..." Salvador began.

"And the human who backstabbed Tegus mes' lauda," Zaba finished. "His sister works for me and wants her vengeance."

"Mebeala works for you?" Granez sounded incredulous. Mebeala was almost as legendary as her dead brother.

"No, I have P'teaha," Zaba hissed, "She was trained by both of those fine sword masters."

"Where is my brother's sword?" a youngish elf walked forward from the dim hallway into the Throne Room proper.

"P'teaha," Zaba grumbled angrily at the presumptuousness of her underling.

"In a protracted fair fight the human Tessio Nerospina finished him off with Tegus' own boot dagger," Salvador wheezed through dry pipes.

"Marissa..." P'teaha gritted her teeth.

"Was helpless at their feet the entire time -- Dragon-blood venom; Marissa took two bolts," Salvador continued. "I have under-estimated that human twice but it won't be three times. Kill that one quickly -- don't give him a chance to figure out a way to kill you."

"Who has Tegus' blade?" Zaba quizzed Salvador.

"Marissa has been seen with it but there is a high likelihood she will seek out her own blade and return the Tegus blade to the human," Salvador.

"If it has been touched by that human it should be smelted down and re-forged.

"I'll make sure they score your grave marker with 'Wouldn't take advice'," Granez laughed. "What is this guy's human background?"

"Trained by a Costa Nostra hitman from the age of six; he killed professionally for the first time when he was 14 and he's currently 24. He's never been caught or even tied to a crime," Salvador recited the FBI report he had purloined.

"What do we know about Hexane?" Zaba inquired, getting back into the hunter mindset.

"I think that her use of the name 'Hillary Milne' wasn't bravado," Salvador said, "She is using a life-draining charm at the very least. If she has mastered a true immortality spell..." no one wanted to contemplate a true mistress of the 6th circle.

"Zaba, you concentrate on downing Hexane and I'll work on overwhelming Marissa," Granez suggested. "P'teaha can keep the human busy long enough for one of us to get to him when we finish our primary."

"I'll want to keep Taboro with me in case Hexane has any 'up close' surprises. We should use D'Tahnath as a conditional support for you and P'teaha," Zaba altered things slightly. Granez wasn't happy with it but he needed the situation to work and all he really wanted was a clear shot at Marissa anyway. Taboro was a Were-tiger and was good enough. D'Tahnath was a Goblin Artificer whose defensive charms would prove more useful than his diminutive offensive abilities.

"Now that teams have been established, where do we start the hunt at?" Granez asked. Salvador looked away for a second, failing to conceal his embarrassment.

"They made their way from the Bracken Hill to the Shallows before disappearing into the Shallows," Salvador confessed.

"Wait," Granez's living obsidian form shifted and stretched as his muscles strained against the demonic shell. Only the right-most potion of his body looked human, pink and vulnerable yet betraying his mother's parentage. Right now he didn't know if he wanted to cleave someone with his six foot blade, or take random pot shots with his Goblin-built hand-cannon. "How did they cross the entire damn island with none of the Liege's men tracking them?"

"You see," Salvador drew out, "the current regime has a slight deficit of confidence."

"You think?" mocked Zaba who decided to move closer to Granez.

"Who can we rely on to help us?" Granez requested.

"Besides each other -- me," Salvador told them. The two Pack-Masters noticed the supposed Liege was both absent and unmentioned. Granez found himself looking at Zaba who was looking at him. 'We are so fucked' they thought at one another.

***