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?"