Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 03

Alvarado coasted over to Elilah and Camille.

"Where did they go?" she asked. "Did they become invisible, or something?"

"If they have a mystic who can blend reality around more than two people, the rest of you should leave, but in my experience, simple is better. There are drains in this place?" Elilah asked.

"Drains!" the two human women voiced together. "Ames, look for a popped drain, or grate," Alvarado called out.

"What?" he answered. "Why?"

"They shrunk themselves down and departed out a drain," Camille responded.

No one asked why they simply hadn't left out the door in a cab, or three -- Nightsiders were notoriously bad drivers. Now they need to know where they were headed and how were they getting there. Elilah answered the second question as well as an earlier asked one.

"They headed into the storm drains and I can help you," Elilah stated firmly.

"So now you can help us?" Ames glared.

"Yes; they have eaten human tissue which is against our laws unless they had a permit, which I highly doubt," Elilah said. "So as a Guardian, it is my duty to bring them to justice."

"Whose justice would that be?" Ames kept aggressively prodding Elilah.

"Your Commander Raithe sounds fine to me -- this happened in the Dayside and it isn't like your SID people don't know what we are," Elilah rather gently lectured the human.

"You mean -- all this time, if we had asked your people for help hunting down man-eaters you would have helped?" Ames seemed dumbfounded.

"Of course we would have," she nodded patiently. "Most of your monsters hunt us Nightsiders too. They probably hunt more of us than they do of you. It is most likely our hunting them which drives them to the Dayside anyway. Once they come to you, we stop tracking them. We are supposed to avoid you after all."

"Why have you never approached us," Ames snarled. "The lives we could have saved."

"You tend to shoot us on sight. Those you capture, you tend to torture and kill," Elilah pointed out. "Mind you, I've killed more than my share of nosy human amateur monster-hunters too."

"Ames," Camille shouted. "I've got their scent. They are heading north-west toward the Hudson. I think we can catch them."

(SALVADOR)

"At least the hunt is on," Armand tried to make the best of the situation.

"On? It is almost over," Salvador rasped. "I need you to sign some decrees Liege Lord."

"What is this? I'm removing Nabila Najah as Primus Arcanum of the University of Night; why?" Armand huffed impatiently.

"Among other things, it is a high crime to assassinate any Prime Arcanum," Salvador explained.

"And you want this lamia dead?" Armand thought it over, then shrugged. "Very well," he signed the papers.

"Thank you. Now there is the matter of the media," Salvador sighed. Armand already looked petulant.

"What now? A little activity will draw Marissa out and make the humans more respectful," Armand sneered.

"Do the words 'National Guard' mean anything to you?" Salvador bit down his rage. "They aren't afraid of us -- they are bringing in an army to kill us."

"Well, we control all the gates, right?" Armand sounded nervous.

"It turns out that while covering up your massacre at Central Park, Elilah, the Captain of the Nexus Gate, was taken alive by the SID," he revealed to his Liege.

"Kill her!" Armand yelled. "Why is she even still live?"

"Oh, it gets better," Salvador gave a dry laugh. "I've tried to kill her. It seems the FBI has given her back her own warding charms and in that generosity I see Marissa's hand. The Fox's clan is also insisting you meet her bond if the FBI offers one."

"Why would I? The traitorous bitch failed me," Armand insisted.

"How exactly do you see it that way?" Salvador was confused.

"She should have died defending her post," Armand stated the 'obvious'.

"Oh, my apology for not realizing that she should have died covering up a disaster of your own making," Salvador nodded. "I assure you she's equally upset."

"How is any of this my fault?" Armand questioned.

"You unleashed your 'packs' on the surface and authorized them to draft citizens to act as guides; you didn't realize that the second these common folk saw combat they would abandon your hired murders and flee for their own safety," the Advisor sighed yet again, "leaving your packs stranded without a certain understanding how to get back to the Nightside; and your unrealistic assumptions that murderers are good at anything, but murder."

"Bah," Armand waved his hand dismissively, "your team isn't doing any better."

"Oh really," Salvador sneered, "I'll have Marissa by moonrise."

"What? How?" Armand regarded Salvador.

"By the precision application of force with due consideration for multiple levels of intelligence gathering," Salvador lectured. At that point, they were both firmly resolved to kill the other once Marissa was dead.

(THE TRIO)

"Let me get this straight once more," Tessio's troubled brow furrowed, "we are acting with the understanding that Salvador will set us up to be ambushed on the Nightside of the portal at the carpet shop and that Nina will attack us at the other end on the Dayside, but none of this matters because we will ambush Salvador's group as they prepare to attack us."

"Precisely," Hexane nodded. She also rocked back and forth on his hips, stirring his cock inside her vagina. "Then we have the ambushers ambushed by the ambushers and we ambush both groups -- it is perfectly clear," she smiled down at her male companion.

"Can't we simply use a bomb and blow them up?" Tessio argued over Hillary's bouncing breasts.

"That doesn't get both the Mafia and Salvador's hunters off our case," Marissa kissed Tessio's shoulder. She was naked, belly-first on the bed her calves and feet pointed up. "Tessio, the moment those mafia goons see the inhuman countenances of the other Nightsiders, they will open fire on them. Mafia -- Hunters -- us; we both destroy the hunters then we destroy the mafia."

Tessio decided that the plan had merit and he had two ladies to take care of. This sensual treatment was his reward for a part of the plan that he had solved. All it took was the assurance that Nabila would betray them to Salvador who would betray them to Armand, sensing a trap. They had to kill a hundred Nightsiders really, really fast and he had provided the weapon -- sort of.

With his right hand, Tessio pulled Marissa down to a kiss which she pursued with much vigor. His knees came up, allowing his thighs to rock Hillary harder and harder. His free hand teased and tenderly twisted her right nipple. He was getting Hillary into an orgasmic fit when Marissa whispered into his ear.

"Just don't get killed until the trap is sprung," she imparted and Tessio spasmed deeply into Hillary, once more feeding her tantric magical reservoir.

(NABILA -- AFTERNOON)

Marissa held up the griffon-faced doorknob with an over-sized bronze locking mechanism.

"How soon should we expect Armand?" she asked her old friend.

"Oh, please," Nabila laughed. "You knew I'd call him the moment you left my office, so I have to believe you have an exit plan."

"You people are way too accustomed to treachery," Tessio shook his head after no one else acted the least bit surprised.

"I told him you would have to leave by one of the main exits -- most likely the front doors, because the artifact is so large," Nabila chuckled as Marissa weighed 'said' artifact in one hand.

"What are you going to do?" Hillary congenially inquired of Nabila.

"Oh, two hours after you three left my office I was packed and had my goodies smuggled to some location in our Newark," Nabila said. "Now human -- Tessio --, don't get killed. I absolutely hate getting involved with an endeavor which is without profit."

"I'm sure in my darkest hours your concern will be what pulls me through," Tessio said with a straight face and a bow.

"A handful of jack-asses are trying to pry some divinations through the school's wards as if this WASN'T the premier school of magic in the entire city," Hillary laughed. "Time to go."

"It is best you make yourself invisible for a few days -- in case we somehow don't kill all of them out front," Marissa smiled at Nabila.

Tessio went out the door first, Hillary next, and with a final bow, Marissa shut the door behind her and was gone. Nabila thought about her next course of action and decided she would exit the school through the Prime Arcanum's secret tunnel -- and kill whatever trash the soon-to-be former Liege Lord Armand put there. Yes, she mused, that sounded like a good plan.

(MARISSA, HILLARY AND TESSIO)

Already students were moving rapidly away from four huge doorways of the Administration building which opened on the main plaza for the university. A drizzling rain was coming down making it all too easy for the Trio's plan to work. At the last turn in the stairs, Marissa handed Tegus's sword and scabbard to Tessio. Before he could ask, she leapt up the wall and tore the symbolic shield and two crossed blades down.

She flung the shield aside while she hefted the twin curved swords, weighted toward the blade in the manner of the steppe people of old Russia.

"They were my Mother's," Marissa explained. "I figured hiding them here in plain sight was the safest place for them."

"To think of the countless wannabe Spell Blades who have walked past them unknowingly within an arm's reach of blades from legend," Hillary laughed. Tessio recalled something about a warrior-sorcerer subculture who trained in some of the bigger Nightside metropolitan areas. Tessio swung the sword over his shoulder and buckled it on.

For Tessio, the assassin, this was madness. Marissa insisted she and Armand had to have a face-to-face. He felt Hillary sided with him, though she held her viewpoint tightly to her chest.

"Marissa!" Armand flourished his cape out of the way as what seemed like a hundred other Nightsider brigands formed a crude battle line before them. "You can no longer evade me. Surrender and I might," he got out before Marissa interrupted.

"Oh shut the fuck up, you troll-turd. If you can answer one question correctly, I will surrender. Now, do you know what you get when you combine gasoline, powdered aluminum and a solid-to-vapor incantation?" she shouted.

"No?" Armand seemed confused by the breach of etiquette. "What?"

"A fuel-air explosive," Marissa gifted him with an answer he was far too long in understanding.

Marissa and Hillary were pressing themselves against the interior ancient granite of the school's doorways when Tessio fired off two shots then did likewise. A few of the Nightsiders, guns and crossbows at the ready, got a shot off before their world erupted into a violent, fiery death. Windows were blown inward hundreds of feet away, flames reached inside the main floor and licked at all three of the Trio, tearing their breaths' away and almost sucking them into the inferno outside.

When the thunder subsided, the three went out to the shattered plaza. Here and there, the bodies of those horrifically tough, or ones far enough on the edge of the blast, crawled, or cried out in pain.

"Damn Tessio," Hillary shook her head from side to side, "remind me to never get on your bad side. Two bullets and you killed ninety bad guys."

"This standing up to face your enemy in battle is bullshit," Tessio moved through the wreckage he had wrought, occasionally putting a bullet into a twitching form. There was little remains of what Marissa could identify as Armand. Purposefully, they had placed the two gas drums so that their explosions overlapped his position. It was an inglorious end to a fool.

"We need to hurry if we are going to ambush the ambushers," Marissa ground Armand's skull beneath her foot. This was not the way she'd ever imagined she would have dealt with her enemies, but a whole lot had changed in one week.

"Remember, Tessio, before disregarding our ways; yours led to two world wars and global terrorism," Marissa grimaced. Tessio had no response to that.

(AMES)

Situation: three humans dead and apparently three more trapped by 'monsters' inside a store room. Camille and the brains back at SID's HQ had figured out what this pack was doing. They had a thaumaturge -- a mage who used numbers to work magic -- who was tracking Marissa's use of magical currency with the cabs she had been paying for throughout the city. Apparently he hadn't figured out a way do this by way of the internet, which was why they had to access each cab companies' systems on location.

Right now Ames' mission was to take his three teammates to the storage shed, get the civilians out, then do some monster hunting. Halfway across the cab garage he heard a strange whirring.

"Down!" he screamed to his men. A second later all kinds of hell broke loose. Cab doors shredded and that shrapnel caused one of his men to cry out.

He heard SA Alvarado open fire from the garage doors, shooting off controlled bursts. That was followed by the sound of three thuds on top of some of the cabs -- creatures dropping from the ceilings onto the roofs of the cars. Ames was rolling from his forward arch of fire to pointing up right as a ghul jumped on him -- fucking undead mother-fucker and infectious to boot.

Ames was trying to keep it at bay long enough to unsheathe his silvered knife and bring it into play -- bullets were next to useless. He was starting to lose his struggle when a spear point appeared, darting through its nasal cavity. Elilah, back in Were-Fox form, used the spear to leverage the creature aside, pulled the weapon from the entry hole at the back of its skull and then rolled over the trunk of the cab he was sheltering behind.

There was no 'thank you'; there wasn't time. Given a reprieve, Ames pushed himself up to a kneeling position and began firing off several bursts at the Nightsider whose firearm was keeping everyone else pinned. The creature had some sort of Gatling device with shotgun-sized barrels which was spewing death around the room. One of his other members added their fire in the same direction. Alvarado and the third member were firing on the other two ghuls.

Camille came up fast, running at a crouch over to the downed agent; triage time. Ames finally tagged the Goblin with the death machine when tendrils of webbing dropped from the dark recesses caused by the air ducts. Peters, another agent, grabbed a cab door before the spider-creature could pull him all the way up.

A spear lashed out, thrown from half way across the room, something squealed violently before falling to the ground along with the agent it had attempted to hoist up. Ames tracked the spear to a series of suspended lights. He caught a flash of movement coming the agent's way then something else. Ames unleashed a spray of bullets.

Elilah spotted Ames shooting at her. As she tumbled aside, Elilah nearly bumped into an Anasazi, a spider-like Nightsider, which Ames' concentrated fire was hitting -- cracking its hard carapace. The two tumbled off the catwalk to the ground. He couldn't see where they fell, but growls and squeals echoed from the area. Ames' attention was diverted by an albino elf tossing a globe in the direction of Alvarado, Camille and the downed agent.

The grenade-like device exploded, hurling ice darts all over the room. Alvarado grunted from a hit then popped up and shot the elf as it raised up another ball. Ames fired at it as well. The armed grenade fell and the elf was shredded in a blizzard of frozen shards. Right after that a man-sized badger broke cover and ran for the garage's rear access. It made it passed Ames' shots and out the door.

"Freeze!" called the two police officers armed with shotguns guarding the back. "NYPD ... what the fuck!" Ames was running after the Were-Badger because Weres tended to momentarily freak out normal humans. Apparently if you suffered enough psychological trauma, a human could handle seeing them -- or things like a bloated half-human spider.

One cop got a shot off, wounding the creature, as Ames ran through the open door. A rearmed Elilah was on his heels.

"Badger-kin are really tough, especially in the neck and torso with thick skulls," she imparted to Ames. They ran to the corner of the building. Ames stopped because he could no long hear the Badger fleeing and it was too small to have outrun them.

Ames hated himself for asking yet he saw no choice.

"Suggestions?"

"I'll move down the center of the alleyway to lure it out -- I'm lighter on my feet," she whispered. "Once I've speared it, run up and shoot it in the ear where it is the most vulnerable."

Ames nodded. Elilah slipped past him. As Ames watched her go he was touched by a bizarre sensation. Part of him hoped the monsters killed each other while a new part suddenly thought about how many SID members would have lived had they Elilah's insights and combat assistance. He was on the ball enough to see the Were-Badger charge out from behind a stack of pallets.

Gambling on Elilah's information, Ames dropped his aim and put three bullets into its hips. That staggered the attacker enough for Elilah to spin and let the Badger impale itself on her spear. For an instant, Ames thought the fight was over then the Badger snarled, spat blood and began pushing itself up the shaft to get at Elilah. Her choices were to wait for help, or lose the spear and run for her life.

Ames found himself slinging his rifle, taking five quick steps forward while drawing his 10mm pistol and pumping four bullets into the ear of the bastard before it sensed him. The Badger slumped down to the side, dead. Elilah twisted the spear, yanking her weapon free.

"Good takedown," Ames said. Elilah studied him intently. They quickly searched the dead Nightsider with Elilah handing over what she found.

"You humans are strange," she commented as they walked back to the two cops guarding the rear. "Nothing I did today was for you, or your followers, Leader Ames. Marissa bound me to keep a bond with your Commander Raithe. Hexane aka Hillary asked me to look after her descendent, Camille, so I am. I killed these animals because they are a threat to the safety of the Nightsiders of New York City and I am their Captain of the Nexus Gate."

"You are defending your turf," Ames simplified her statement.

"Precisely," she nodded. Ames had to explain to the policemen they had to put a tarp over the dead body and guard it until help came. He also got an update from the people inside. Special Agent Khuma, hurt by the Gatling shotgun, was stabilized and SA Montoya had taken an ice shard to the calf. Alvarado had a bad tear in her ballistic armor, but was otherwise physically fine.

Unfortunately, Camilla looked like death warmed over -- she wasn't healing anyone anytime soon. Of course the phone rang with another call for help. Ames stared at the device as if it had grown the Devil's face.

"You can't go," Elilah inserted. "As you said, Alvarado is green, one of your people is down and out and the other is mobility-challenged. Camille is essentially dead weight now."

"I don't need you telling me my job," he rumbled.

"I am not, Special Agent Ames; I am outlining your resources," Elilah countered. "I do know this was a small group; most groups number nine to twelve members and will know how to fight, ambush and torture."

A captured crystal began vibrating in his pocket. Ames pulled it out and squeezed it. Elilah plucked it from his grasp before the connection took place then flicked her cloak's hood over to obscure her features. The face was that of a man long since dead, dried to the point of desiccation.

"Bring all your members back to the Grey Tower immediately," the mummy rasped. "Wait there for further instructions."

"Our guide has been misplaced," Elilah whined. "Where is our portal and password? We are in some sort of automotive repair shop near East 40th and 2nd Avenue ... I think."