Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 03

*Editing magic performed by KJ24 and Shyqash, plus contributions by the regular gang of brigands and neer-do-wells*

*****

*Warfare is a matter of resources, intelligence and timing*

(THE PRINCE AND HIS COUNSELOR)

"Two more hunter groups have arrived since sunset," Armand crowed. "That brings my strike force talent over 100."

"One hundred what?" Salvador said patiently. "I have checked many of the references that were not total fabrications, My Liege. One group is guilty of inbreeding and forced cross-breeding with humans; another burned down Bartonville Colorado which the Federal Government covered up as a Natural Gas explosion, and the third group has multiple charges of human-consumption and free-range hunting of humans lodged against it."

"Ah, they show initiative, you old fossil," Armand snorted derisively.

"My team will find them first," Salvador said, "give me two days and I will flush them out and bring them before you in chains."

"Let us make it a race," Armand grinned smugly. "I'll wager you that my soldiers will capture Marissa before your tame hounds. I've always fancied your Rain-Serpent Medallion; what do you want on the off chance you win?"

"Your life," Salvador rasped just below Armand's ability to hear.

"What was that?" Armand glared at his 'advisor'

"Nothing, Liege Lord Armand," Salvador bowed. "Besides, I doubt it will be much of a contest."

"Oh, I agree," said the pathetic puppet Salvador had put into power. If Armand thought his 'clever' ploy to allow his new rabble to forcibly recruit the city's inhabitants to act as guides, he clearly failed to appreciate his utter lack of popular support. Enrolling the average fey, vampire, or were into the company of things that preferred sentient flesh was a disaster waiting to happen ... or was that 'yet another disaster'.

There was no getting the bodies of the two Weres and two fey out of the SID's hands. Marissa had attacked in plain sight in broad daylight. The witch Hexane had been just as brazen, and to add to the disruption of usual practices, that damnable human assassin had killed the most reliable human pawn he had engaged to date. His only alternative now was to provide support to the hitman's relatives and allow their band of killers to access the Night Side as well.

He could deal with a loose band of expendable human killers -- they would hardly be missed. Having the police battle Armand's psychopaths on the eleven o'clock news was another matter entirely. Well, it was time to go inspire the hunters he'd gathered and let them know how much tougher things had become.

(IN THE NIGHTSIDE)

Marissa worked her way to the back of the store; it was the seventh artificer's shop in the past three days. They were running out time and she knew it. Armand's people would figure out what she was looking for and set a trap for her and the blood-letting would begin.

"A rod of solarius steel and a ribbon of lunar-dust glass," the artificer, an old Purple-skinned fey elf read off the list. Her granddaughter walked into the area behind the counter, only to come face to face with Tessio. Her eyes widened and the grandmother stopped talking.

"I am a human, Child, and all I want to do right now is to go home to my uncle and cousin because they are all the family I have left and I miss them," Tessio told the child in his calming even tone. Hexane had enchanted his voice so that the Nightsiders could understand him and he could understand them in their native tongues. Most Nightsiders spoke English, but not all.

"My cousin is a girl like you if a little older. She and I used to wrestle when we were younger; do you have friends you rough-house with?" Tessio continued. The girl gave a sly smile and the grandmother gave an appreciative nod. Hexane negated Tessio's charms for a moment.

"That's it," Hexane related in Elvish, "This is the ninth and tenth woman he's charmed. When he gets home I'm raping him. Are you in?"

"Absolutely," Marissa nodded.

"I have a few things that help with male potency," the grandmother elf offered, "Liege Lady." Hexane let the charms take effect once more.

"I am no longer your liege, but I'll take your most effective dose," Marissa told the artificer.

"Are those ladies really going to take you back home and rape you?" the granddaughter questioned Tessio.

"They didn't mean 'rape'," Tessio assured the young girl, "they meant Happy Fun Time Sex."

"What is the difference?" the little girl pursued the matter with Tessio, taking his hand.

"The difference is how fast I run," he gave her a shy smile of his own.

"Well, I hope you run really fast," the girl patted his hand, "those two ladies look kind of scary."

"Lady Marissa," the grandmother started to plead in fear for her child's words.

"Grandmother Aata' me' Hebha," Marissa interrupted, "I think we can all agree that my companion," she indicated Hexane, "and I are scary and neither of us finds the term offensive." Marissa was being respectful, a skill often practiced while in power and paying dividends now. To date, none of the Nightsiders she had dealt with had turned her in, despite the reward.

Marissa bargain for another ten minutes for the lunar-dust glass, because that was all the old elven artificer had to sell -- still it was progress. The coins had barely been exchanged for the glass when the door chimes sounded and three other Nightsiders came in. Hexane moved nonchalantly to the front corner of the long, narrow store.

"Stay close," Tessio whispered to the child, "and if I tell you to, cover your ears and hide." The young elf looked up at the human and nodded. The three newcomers swaggered up to the grandmother's counter. Marissa swept her purchase inside her trench coat and stepped aside. Their leader stepped up and slapped the desk.

"Listen you," the creature, a werewolf who could have spent more time on hygiene, growled at the store owner, "we know that whore Marissa has been crawling through this shithole looking for stuff. When she shows up, you are going to pop us a crystal before you tell anyone else."

"Is there a reward?" the grandmother asked.

"You get to keep on living," the Were sneered.

"I am alive and I'm very old, so that's not much of a reward," the old lady cackled. The Were, hellishly fast, smacked the old elf with studied force. She fell to the ground hard. While the grandmother struggled to stand once more, he bothered to take in his immediate surroundings.

Marissa was within hand's reach and reach out he did. He brushed Marissa's coat aside and dragged the back of his fingers along her waistline. As he graduated down to her ass, he spoke.

"You are a hot piece of ass; what are you doing in a dump like this?"

"I came for a personal chat with an information-client, but then someone invited the scum of the continent into the city and I've been having a hard time getting out," Marissa lied.

"What is it, Vampire; you think you are better than us Weres?" he growled.

"Think -- think wasn't the word I would have used," Marissa bantered back. The Wolf grabbed her arm and tried to twist her around so she faced him; she resisted.

"Why don't I show you what 'going animal' is all about?" he growled with all the romance of a come-on from a sleazy porn director.

"I can't Lothario," Marissa laughed, "I'm under a Forbiddance Notice." That meant she'd committed a crime and had agreed to not do it again for a given time or face death. Nightsiders had few prisons, so most of their punishments were of an immediate and permanent nature.

"What for?" the Wolf asked cautiously.

"Blood Bathing," she smiled though she remained facing forward, so he only got a side view, "He was a Were-Stag and very tasty."

"You killed him?" snarled one of the Werewolf's cohorts, a Were-Panther.

"He was an interloper and I have a Vampire Liege," Marissa snorted derisively, strengthening her lie.

"Why have you come to my shop again?" the grandmother interrupted the conversation, "I mean, why my shop of all shops?"

"Grrr ..." The werewolf was distracted. "This Marissa-bitch is hunting down some artificer materials," he then read off a list of things, almost all of which Marissa already had.

"Well," the old lady said, "what would it be worth to you to tell you how to find all these things?" The Werewolf was getting truly pissed. He shoved Marissa aside and advanced on the little girl, grabbing her and pinching her frail elven shoulder. He would have threatened the grandmother by dragging the girl to him, but he had a slight problem.

The Wolf had Tessio's left-handed pistol deep in the beast's throat. Marissa had not even seen the human draw the damn thing.

"There are a few crucial details you need to digest before you make your next decision," Tessio stated barely above a whisper. "I have a debt with T'beth here," he indicated the fey child, "that rates one-score from death; I do not care what your name is -- it will have no relevance to me."

"I am in the city for the bounty, so if I see you, or those nine [6 of the band were outside] crud-sucking buddies dogging me, I will gladly add your left eyes to my collection. Finally, I am not your friend. I will not give you my name, accept any offer to work with you, or accept any Death Notes before I kill you," Tessio stated with a cool resolve. "Nod if you understand; any other gesture I will interpret as your desire to end your cursed and ill-starred existence."

There was a long silence. Eventually the werewolf gave a slight nod. The gun vanished inside Tessio's own long coat with the same celerity that it had appeared. Clearly the Wolf was considering jumping the human anyway -- he probably assumed that he was fey, Marissa thought. She turned and started hurriedly striding for the front door.

"Where are you going?" the Wolf's gaze snapped to Marissa's quickly retreating back.

"I have heard about this guy," Marissa tried to sound frightened. "He's not fond of allowing contradictory evidence to his account of events to exist, so I'm going now. He is what happened to the Caruso Brothers." Tessio had no idea who the Caruso Brothers were, but the very thought he'd killed them shot ice water thru the wolf's veins.

"I'll take that list Old Lady," the Wolf retreated back to the storekeeper. She dutifully gave a list of items and merchants finishing with,

"The only source of solarius steel is Gjobel the Gnome. He is closed for the day by now," she finished. It was hardly lost to any of the three conspirators this was the last item they needed and they had been saved a torturous amount of dangerous work by dint of her courage.

(THE PIECES FALL TOGETHER)

"How long is this going to take?" Tessio went over the next stage of the plan once again. He was trying to avoid the situation that was playing out before him; namely his two very female partners disrobing.

"I told you Tessio, we will sneak into the college when it opens," Marissa smiled wickedly at him.

Tessio had faced a room of armed goons with barely a blip changing in his heart rate. Two hours ago, he'd made a werewolf swallow his gun and she could have sworn he was about to yawn while doing so. Yet put him in a room with two women who were shedding their clothes and salivating at the chance to run their hands all over his body and she despaired that he might throw himself out a window to escape his fate.

"Well, even with the blinds closed I can tell the Sun must pushing 7 o'clock," Tessio evaded. "Their college must be opening soon."

"It is a Night Side college," Hexane grinned far more seductively. "It opens after dark; that gives us twelve hours with nothing whatsoever to do."

Marissa had already put her/Tegus's sword aside along with her trench coat, shirt and boots. She had to rise off the bed to unfasten the side zipper of her trousers.

"That was a nice thing to do -- the little elven girl," Marissa kept her eyes on him as she wiggled out of her tight leather pants. She almost pulled her red panties with their wide black lace bands.

"I believed the old lady had more information to provide," Tessio challenged her assumptions, "and by keeping the child safe, we would generate some good will."

"You aren't going to drop dead if you admit you had an unprofessional impulse, Tessio," Hexane jumped in. "She was a cute child and the Wolf would have hurt her -- maybe badly. You did a good deed."

"I should have concentrated on the mission at hand," Tessio criticized himself. "What would have happened if Marissa hadn't saved the situation?" Marissa was even more pleased with herself, both for her own quick thinking and for Tessio not missing out on her brilliance.

"It was nothing," Marissa shrugged off the compliment. "I know the woman who actually committed that crime and -- ha -- I had the Caruso Brothers killed by some very discreet people, so there is nothing to trace back to the real assailants."

"Oh, it was you who had those three killed -- Tessio, they were three rather homicidal Were-Bears -- very tough and very mean. Why did you do it?" Hexane pried. Marissa found it was liberating to have people she could actually confide in after two centuries of paranoia and distrust.

"That young vampire they were rumored to have killed in Philadelphia," Marissa related, "had a former, and still very devoted, lover. That lover had a secret favor with me and she called the favor in. I had some people I trusted to do it quietly and to keep things to themselves after the fact. I didn't want a feud with the Saskatchewan Bear Clan after all."

"That's good to know," Tessio looked away from the two women who were now down to their underwear. Marissa looked like she was going to tear hers off at any second while Hexane seemed content with her infinitesimal white strip of cloth that pretended to be a thong.

"Tessio, are we so hideous that you don't want to at least lie down with us?" Marissa sounded and looked hurt.

"The exact opposite," Tessio sincerely stated. "I am not afraid of getting into bed with either, or both of you. I am worried that I won't want this to stop. Also, I am worried that -- ah -- you are far more experienced than me, too."

[***]

Nina and two Scarletti soldiers approached the counter of the Regency Carlton. The fugitives would fit in perfectly here, which had been Nina's thinking all along.

"Hey, we are looking for a 'friend' who is having a little party," the lead soldier, Danny Moreno, ask the female desk attendant. He had a folded $20 bill between his fingers which he tapped as he described Tessio and the two women he was with.

"No, I'm sorry," she shook her head and smiled, "but I can't give out that information anyway." Her world was tight, middle class and law-abiding. Nina caught her looking at the money nonetheless. She stepped up even as the Scarletti men turned to leave.

"I'm looking for a handsome man yet you can't recall what makes him so, with two women who are the same way and they've been here three days -- maybe two?" Nina asked while pushing $300 across the table.

The girl looked at the money then into Nina's eyes. She put her hand on Nina's money hesitantly.

"I could give them a call," the girl offered. The Scarletti men doubled back. Nina slipped $200 more to the girl behind the counter.

"We need to talk to him -- in his room -- in private," Nina emphasized. "It's an ex-boyfriend thing."

"Oh -- oh, well don't wreck the place," the attendant suggested. "Room 214."

"Thank you," Nina's smile was definitely cobra-like and made the hotel girl shudder.

The three Mafioso's moved into the currently vacant lounge area.

"We go up and nail his ass," Moreno ordered.

"No, with someone like Tessio we get the whole gang first. Then we have a go at him. A few shotguns and assault rifles would be wise too," Nina suggested.

"You are not in charge little girl," Moreno sneered.

"Your Capo isn't the Don, Dumbass, and you are thinking with the wrong head," Nina snarled.

"You are thinking with your pussy, Slut," Moreno sneered. "Everyone knows you've wanted to crack open your legs for your own cousin for years now."

Nina had a slung Uzi with a sound suppresser under her jacket. She reached into her pocket and through flap she triggered the weapon, discharging a burst into Moreno's right foot. Before he could scream, she clamped her left hand's fingers around his vocal cords and with an incredibly tight grip, she kept him quiet.

"You will limp your ass to the car, you cock-less wonder," Nina seethed up at him. "In the back seat you will find some duct tape and you will wrap your foot up, shoe and all. Then you will call in EVERYBODY! Are we clear?" Nina used her hand on his throat to force his head to nod in agreement. "Get the fuck to the car." Moreno had made a mess of himself, but Nina didn't care.

She only wished that it would make him smarter as well, but duct tape doesn't fix everything -- or everyone.

"Mickey," Nina turned to the other Scarletti soldier, "go to the far end of the hall and check the stairwell. Find a good place to watch from, but don't shoot. If they leave, we'll track them instead. Are we good?"

"No problems," Mickey smiled. "Ever since the Feds cut us loose, I've been waiting for some payback." Twenty seven minutes later the rest of the mafia retribution squad had arrived and everyone else agreed that Nina was in charge. Since they didn't have headsets they used cell phones and a simple numeric code to put themselves in position.

She even had a van across the street from the room with four guys - two with shotguns and two with hunting rifles -- a poor man's sniper team that would be revealed when the shooting went down. As the last team exited the elevator, two middle-aged women exited their room. The stand-off was resolved by the women screaming and running back into their room. A few of her people belatedly went after the women.

"Go! Go! Go!" she screamed into her phone, sending 18 mafia hitters lurching forward into action.

[***]

"Special Agent Lewinski," SA Cooper was almost screaming himself. "We have incident; The Regency Carlton -- 2nd floor. We just established camera access and the Mob is out to make someone dead -- a whole hell of a lot dead."

[***]

There was that moment as Tessio crawled up the bed when a terrific and terrifying realization came to him. He, the twenty-four year old human, was the most experienced one there. Certainly both Hexane/Hillary and Marissa had more bed partners -- Hillary alone was six times his age, but Tessio's time had been spent almost entirely with professionals.

Not whores; women skilled in the profession of sex, sexual expressions, and sexual positions. Hillary and Marissa had sex, but it was mostly vanilla, with the variations being girl on top and doggy style. Tessio had spent a whole day doing nothing except foreplay once. Tessio wasn't into clubs or partying with total strangers, he had no retirement plans and his only other needs were understated clothing and weapons.

When his Uncle had introduced him to the oldest profession and that sense of emotional isolation professionals exhibited, he had found his sexual focus. He had never dated and never wanted to, until now. Their bodies spoke of lush experience, but their eyes spoke volumes about their desires for something new and different and that is what Tessio decided to do.

"Who is first?" Hillary asked, her laugh a little brittle. Marissa rolled her hips to better present her hips and buttocks.

"I'm taking you both on at once," Tessio smiled. "Roll over so that you are facing one another." They did so reluctantly causing Tessio to spank both their asses hard.

"Hey!" squawked Hillary, rubbing the handprint brand on her hip.

"Hey," growled Marissa. "Do not think you can dominate me Tessio; our bond does not run that deep."