Angeline looked at the clunky van and was, well, unimpressed. It hardly gave off a visage that filled her with confidence, and the smell was considerably worse. Under the thin veil of fried foods were much more distasteful scents. It wasn’t exactly what she was used to, but nothing was anymore so with as much gusto as she could manage she drew a deep breath and slid inside along with the other two girls, rather upset at the dust that rose from the seat as Abi tossed herself into it. Surely it was nothing she wanted to breathe in too heavily, she carefully slid down into the seat next to Siobhan avoiding disturbing any dust or dirt. She wasn’t much a fan of smoking either but the promise of fresh air of an open window outweighed the potential negatives of a faceful of ash.

“The key term, I believe is ”if” it gets us where we need to go…”

She was hardly an automotive expert but she didn’t know many cars that ran on cooking oil and was, frankly, unconvinced of its efficacy. But she supposed if it did indeed drive there was nothing else to it, there was a vehicle, there was a location. It doesn’t take a genius to figure there aren’t many other options which could hold all these people.

"Although, um, if it does break down I assume you will know how to fix it...?"

She didn't exactly find much in the way of supplies littered about as she directed her questioning towards Billy, or perhaps any members of the group who had any knowledge about fixing up a... Whatever this could be classified as. Meth den? Actually, she hoped no one in the group had knowledge about meth dens... Angeline checked her ponytail, she didn't want her hair touching the headrest, though as she checked the headrest it was partially broken and just propped up wonkily. She was sure a sharp turn or brake would send it toppling. This thought made her rather anxious. It wasn't just the dirt, she didn't exactly feel like the vehicle was road safe anymore, or just safe at all. But maybe life was just going to be dangerous from now on.

Matthew took the Van in, a slow smile slowly creeping its way across his face. It looked terrible. It probably was. He flinched at the sound of something falling off as the breeze caressed the old girls body. Still, he didn't underestimate her like the others seemed to be. His old car had been only slightly better than this and he had put it through some flat out abuse in the time he'd had it.

He poked his head in through the open door and took a deep breath of that old car smell, coughing a few times from the duct flying around. "I wouldn't worry." He said to Angeline. "Nobody who owns a car like this doesn't know how to get her moving again in an emergency." He pulled himself inside and slid in beside Angeline, conveniently placing himself directly behind the drivers seat in case someone needed to suddenly grab the wheel. "What's that saying? 'The oldest horse knows how to run' or something?"

Of course, he'd have to actually feel her run before he was 100% confident in that assessment.

Ellen watched as people climbed into the death-trap that was supposed to bring them safely to the supply drop. She didn’t have the reverence Abigail did, or the confidence Matthew did, but wasn’t going to let that stop her from getting in it. After all, the strange contraption on wheels was just...the physical representation of how fucked their whole situation was. They could keep patching themselves together, but they weren’t going to ever just be able to go to a store and buy something new and completely functional. Ellen had run before. She had picked up a bag, walked out the door, and resolved to never return. But this was different. The van reminded her that she couldn’t just change her mind and go back...not that there was anyone waiting for her anyway.

She looked down at her wrist, outlining the tattoo for a few moments before she followed Matthew into the van and took one of the open seats. There was no one to go back to, but there were people to look forward to, at least.

Ellen turned her head as she looked over the other folks already seated. Abigail was drawing… a boob? No… probably a sun… Matthew seemed comfortable, Angeline looked like she would have doused herself in hand sanitizer if it had been presented as an option, and the other woman… what the hell was her name? Was smoking a cigarette. She had made some sort of negative comments about their transport earlier, but Ellen didn’t recognize the words, which supported the assumptions she had made thus far about the woman.

“Hey, I’m sorry I don’t think I caught your name before…” Ellen said to her when she caught the brunette’s gaze. “I’m Ellen, and you are…?” She asked. She had figured out everyone else’s names but hers, and figured it was good to know, since they were going to be working together on this mission.

Brooks silently scowled and watched everyone file into the van. “No ones going to bat an eye seeing this thing out where we’re going.” he explained as briefly as possible. He migrated to the front passenger seat, getting in and waiting for a few more people to settle into the van. As he let the others talk he checked over his equipment, loading his pistol and checking it over with careful, methodic movements.

He half-turned in his seat to watch the others. “The people we’re meeting should already be there on arrival but I want a group of you pairing up and combing through the buildings nearby. Ellen, Zephyr and Mat. You three stick together and make sure there aren’t any unwanted visitors hiding about. Angeline, there’s a basic first aid kit in the van here that you can use if we need it.”

---

---

---

---

The van kicked on with a stutter, a gulp, and a sudden waft of fried food as Billy turned the keys with a jerk and what had once been fryer oil streamed into the chambers of the practically-bespoke, homemade, kitbashed engine. For a couple of terrible moments, the engine seemed as though it were drowning, coughing and spluttering under the sudden stress of working again, and a small cloud of blueish blackish smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe - but then, after just a moment longer, it all calmed right down; the fearful yelping under the hood subsided, the smoke cleared, and Billy started to grin as it was all replaced by what almost sounded like a purr.

He turned to face the others in the car, adjusting the position of his rifle - muzzle down, safety on - between the door and his leg, as his grin grew and grew.

"Y'all underestimated me, dintcha?"

The journey was paradoxical in both duration and direction - firstly, in that it took less than fifteen minutes overall, and secondly, in that rather that leaving Goodnight, once everyone had settled into the ancient kombi Billy drove in entirely the opposite direction to what you'd have expected. Instead of turning out of the car park and towards the main road, Billy turned straight back towards the shopping centre and drove around the rear side of it, towards the loading bay. Once there, he parked up about twenty metres from one of the shut bay doors, and waited.

Two or three minutes later, a scruffy looking middle aged man in grey jeans and a tank top emerged from an employee entrance, and gave Billy a thumbs up as the bay door started to open, sliding upwards.

Billy returned the thumbs up, and gently accelerated, pulling the van into the loading bay - which was remarkably empty inside.

"Alright kids, I'd tell ya to buckle up, but from what I understand we ain't even really gonna be moving." He added as the door came down behind them and left you in pitch black darkness.

A minute passed.

Another minute.

Then there was a moment of uncertainty - a most bizarre moment of uncertainty, because it was neither an emotional nor a mental feeling of uncertainty or doubt, but a decidedly physical one, spread across all of your body at once, like a dark stain across pristine white cloth, or like the cold of the sea in the moment after you dive in. It subsided as quickly as it came, but left an impression of itself for a second longer - and in that moment, as opposed to the moment you first felt it, you realise that this is the same feeling as when you passed through the Blue Magic gate on your way to Goodnight, just more intense.

Well, it was either more intense, or you were more sensitive to it.

Whichever it was, Billy didn't seem to react. At all. Another minute passed in the darkness.

“Well, that should be us. I sure hope some of you felt somethin’ there, because I sure as heck didn’t.”

Fearlessly, he opened the door of the kombi and stepped outside, flicking on a torch to reveal surroundings that were completely different to the ones you’d seen before the doors shut on you back at Goodnight. Wherever you were now, it wasn’t where you’d started.

Billy strode up a slope towards a smaller garage door, and tugged on the rope to tilt it back and open it up. Pale morning sunlight streamed into the basement - it was definitely a basement, you were sure of that now - as the door opened up, and Billy took a big breath of the fresh, cool air.

About fifteen seconds later, you were all pulling up the slope and out into the open in the Billy Bus, and that’s when it hit you that something was terribly, terrifically, violently wrong.

There, cast in the wintery light of the early sun, thrown down at the foot of the shed opposite you, a body. The dirt underneath her body was stained brownish-red with blood, and more of the same speckled the ground behind where she had fallen.

Up the road slightly, towards the outhouse, another body, male, crumpled over forwards on the spot like he’d been caught unawares, blood pooling and trickling downhill of the corpse.

The other two bootleggers - and crucially, the medical supplies they were delivering - were nowhere to be seen.

“Oh shit.” Billy said after a moment.

He spoke for everyone.

---

---

Abigail was on a bit of an artistic streak. Whatever coated the windows - some strange mix of grease and cigarette stains - made it easy to draw on. After she drew her sun, she smeared a line for a road. Siobhan regaled her with stories of a rickety little plane which elicited a grunt of acknowledgement, but it was so beyond her meagre scope of existence that she just didn't know how to respond to a tall tale such as that. Better to focus on her masterpiece. She started drawing the Billy bus, but when they entered a dark garage she cut her losses and slumped back into the seat to wait for something to happen.

In those fifteen minutes, Abigail immediately clocked on to a familiar fullness that let her know she needed to cast her flame spell quite soon. Her face twisted up. How long did it take to drive to the outback if you're not driving? What sort of repercussions would she discover if she shot a stream of purple fire out of the window and into interdimensional space? Before Abigail could weigh up the specifics, a new wave of discomfort - like someone slowly pouring a glass of water on her without any of the wet or the chill - swept through her body and she squirmed, screwing her eyes shut and stretching one leg out until that horrible feeling was over. At least it felt intentional; Billy was blessed with the inability to experience all the weirdness of blue magic and she watched him in the gloom from the advantageous circular clean spot of her sunshine. He opened the basement door and Abigail had enough light to keep drawing. She finished the Billy bus but it looked more like an RV than an old Kombi.

They pulled out of the basement and passed a corpse, though Abigail didn't immediately recognise it was a corpse, and wondered something along the lines of 'why's that lady lying down' before the realisation struck and that lapse in concentration mingled with the shock and the fright to produce a very small spurt of fire, one that licked the interior of the back window for little more than a second as Abigail grabbed her (now red and shiny, freshly burnt) wrist and stuffed the offending hand under her armpit. "Are they dead?" She blurted out as she doubled over with discomfort, fear, and the kneejerk reaction to keep her head out of the window lest she becomes an easy target. It was at this point that her missing the majority of the briefing began to have its effect as she stammered "well, what do we do now?!" And pointed at Angeline. "Whatever happens, I'm buddying up with you, first aid lady."

Much like Billy, Brooks felt no discomfort throughout the shift in space and it certainly wasn’t due to being accustomed to it. He readjusted the time appropriately on his wristwatch as Billy opened up the garage door before driving back out. Upon spotting the bodies his demeanor didn't change though his scowl slightly deepened. He reached for the glovebox in front of him and pulled out a pistol as he glanced outside of the window in all visible directions to get a better understanding of their surroundings. He continued to stare out the side window for a second or two before raising his hand at the shed one of the bodies laid next to.

“Slight change of plan, people in the back. We’re looking at two bodies, maybe the bootleggers. Billy, stop the van here for a second. Ellen, Zephyr, Matt, you’re coming with me to clear out the building behind us. Billy, once we leave the van, drive it up behind the shed and have Abigail and Siobhan clear that building. Angline, go see if the bodies are dead. Any information you can get out of their state is useful to us.” he paused, turning back at the people crammed into the back of the van before opening his door and jumping out.

The “travel” to the Outback was uncomfortable, but familiar. Their new location, however, was not.

It became painfully obvious to Ellen, and others who could see out the windows, that there were bodies just outside of their point of arrival. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Billy cursed, and Ellen closed her eyes for a few moments, processing the deaths and changes in plans as quickly as she could. Whatever happened to these people was not something she wanted to happen to herself, or the other folks on the bus--which meant she needed to get over this quickly and move on.

Ellen turned around as Abigail asked if they were dead, her internal concentration broken. The girl had her arm shoved beneath her armpit. She almost snapped at the girl a sarcastic remark about them just using blood-letting as an extreme weight-loss strategy, but she saw the girl doubled over already, and refrained. “I think so.” She said instead, trying to be a bit more… compassionate towards the teenager.

Abigail then tried to align herself with Angeline, the healer. Smart move, and one Ellen had definitely thought about when they were first briefed as well. By the faint smell of burned flesh, though, Ellen figured Abigail likely needed Angeline already, so it wouldn’t have been a bad idea to keep them together.

Ellen turned around in the seat once more, looking out the window as Brooks took charge from the front. He started assigning everyone jobs, and Ellen breathed a sigh of relief. Not only because she was going to be with the really strong guy, but also just because she was given something to do that seemed...manageable. Clear the building. It would have been better if she had a gun but at least she could...Well, she would figure out something.

“Got it.” Ellen said immediately, pulling her hair into a quick ponytail so it was out of her face. There were supposed to be two more people here they were intended to meet, so perhaps they had run off when the group was attacked and were hiding somewhere. Or quite possibly, they were murdered, their bodies left in a gruesome display, and all of the medical supplies destroyed.. She opened her door and climbed out, following Brooks towards the larger building. She was grateful he had the pistol, and wondered if she should keep her ‘body’ in the car and just go out as eyes, but decided against it for now. She would be able to do more to help Brooks and the other guys if she was actually there.

Angeline looked to Matthew as he settled into the van and felt a bit more comfortable, “I suppose that’s a good point.” Though she was more comforted by the fact this guy seemed to know a bit about beaten up cars and gave it, at the very least, a passing grade. She wafted away the dust he kicked up with her hand, it was certainly the most unpleasant part of the experience. At Brooks’ prompt she looked around to locate the first aid kit, she was hardly ‘qualified’ but she did know a bit about first aid, having to patch herself up a fair few times after her own injuries from over-exertion. She supposed she had become the designated one to know about these things so she’ll probably end up being real familiar with it’s ‘ins and outs’ real quick.

As the van… Struggled into life Angie tensed, waiting for some awful ‘pop’ and maybe their little excursion had to be delayed? But eventually it sputtered into an even purr and though she didn’t respond to Billy, the look on her face blatantly displayed that she did, obviously, underestimate him and his rust-mobile. As they started their journey she found it certainly wasn’t the ‘road trip’ she was anticipating. In fact it was a lot of sitting in the dark until an uncomfortable shiver passed through her whole body, a feeling she unfortunately remembered. After another passing moment, Billy stepped out and flicked on a torch, revealing the location had, as she expected, changed, though it wasn’t until the garage door opened that she could really get her bearings in this new area.

As she looked around, before she noticed the bodies, she noticed the flash of light and heat from the young girl. Again a passing thought as to why this girl was qualified to come passed her mind. Although before she could do anything the girl referred to the dead bodies and she immediately craned to look out the window and, well she wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Perhaps she hoped they weren’t actually dead, but Ellen herself voiced the confirmation. As the teen sputtered and stammered and aligned herself with Angeline, Angeline was distracted by the red mark on the girls wrist. As Brooks delegated their tasks Angie looked at the girl sympathetically saying “Doesn’t look like that’s happening just yet, but I can have a look at that for you?” She offered, getting out of her seat and awkwardly shuffling over to where the girl is and taking her arm into her hands. “I mean… Not much in the way of plants around here but I can stop it blistering.” she clarified. She cupped her hands out and they started filling with clear, cool water, like a cup, as if it were coming out from between her fingers. She furrowed her brow as she manipulated the small pool of water to wrap around the burned area and sit for a short while to halt the progression of the burn. Although, once Ellen started getting out she supposed it was ‘get to work’ time and as Angeline herself got up to leave the van the control of the water slipped and it would pour over and off Abigail’s wrist onto the floor. She gave the girl one last sympathetic smile and followed Ellen out of the door.

Unfortunately, she drew the short straw. In many ways. She had to poke at the dead bodies and she had to be on her own. She stood by the van until everyone else had gotten out and decided to take a little charge, herself. “If anyone gets hurt badly, take them back to the van and call for me. I’ll take a look at them there.” It was hardly a good first-aid tent but it was a common location everyone knew and had the first aid kit in there. She turned around to look at the closest body and drew in a sharp breath as a wave of nausea hit her and the memories of her ‘extraction’ came bubbling up to the surface. “Welp… Better get started.” Angeline mumbled under her breath.

Angeline tentatively approached the closest body, the one by the shed. For just a moment she had to take a deep breath and swallow the nauseating sensation in the pit of her stomach. She knelt down beside it and reached out, before she made contact with the body she noticed her fingers were trembling. She gently touched the skin to feel if it was warm... Though looking at all the blood on the ground they probably wouldn't still be warm so she lifts the arm gently, feeling around for any pulse. She was never good at finding it, she had to double-check where she'd have done it on herself a few times while she was poking around looking for it. Still unsure, she shuffled closer to the head of the body and held her hand gently in front of the nose and mouth, feeling for some air to brush against the back of her hand in case they were still breathing. She was a little out of her depth if they would be alive... She wasn't sure how good her first aid or even her healing would be in a place so lacking in rich vegetation. Plenty of dry grasses and shrubs, she supposed.

Abigail was expecting a plaster, or a bit of antiseptic cream, or something of the sort. To see Angeline use magic so willingly was a jarring reminder of what company she now kept, where she was, and what she was doing. Arguably, watching the tepid liquid pool in Angie's hands was more of a wake-up call than the bodies themselves - she was on the wrong side of the war here. Her brows furrowed and eyes widened at the sight of the miracle - some vague hindbrain neurons fired off, muttering vague impulses over Jesus and his purifying water - and it rattled the kid enough to stun her into silence without so much as a 'thank you'. She just stared at the back of the seat in front of her as she disentangled the noise in her head back into thoughts.

It was in this state that Abigail registered her new colleague, perhaps the most heathenish witch to walk the earth. Siobhan had darker skin and funny clothes. She was the epitome of the bewilderingly unfamiliar; Abigail could manage, in these circumstances, to tolerate her presence because the alternative was a higher risk of getting shot. She didn't have to like her companion either, nor did she have to listen to her - after all, they were both complete novices in the face of true bloodshed. Abigail didn't have any words for Siobhan and didn't wait for her as the other mages filtered out of the truck, instead mustering up an awkward little nod of acknowledgement before she crept out of the Kombi and into the shed.

It was sheer dumb luck that kept Abigail from danger. She never bothered to check for any signs of occupation. She just opened the door to the shed as if the shooters ceased to exist the moment they were done murdering those two bootleggers, and the shed just so happened to be devoid of any occupants. In fact, it didn't look like the kid even realised what she had done. She instead wandered around the dusty abode with absent minded curiosity. She wasn't sure what she was looking for but the building wasn't any larger than eight feet square, lined with dusty tools, a few empty water butts, pieces of scrap and construction materials alongside an egregious amount of cobwebs and little nooks and crannies where the local wildlife would have undoubtedly crept in. Abigail fidgeted with a five inch scrap of plywood as she scuffed aside a couple of bent and rusty nails against the concrete floor, sighing softly. "What do you think," she asked the heathen. "Looks pretty clear to me."

---

---

---

---

---

The first thought in Angie's head when she made contact with the skin of the casualty was that although they were very cold - for a person, at least - they weren't as cold as she thought they would be if they were dead; there was a noticeable chill against her hand when she touched them, but it wasn't quite as bad as the chill of the morning, or the cold of the earth underfoot. Were they still alive?

The answer came with the absence of pulse or breath. The woman by the shed had been shot in the chest at least twice, and had either been killed then and there by the trauma, or bled to death at some point quickly after - just not quite long enough ago that she'd gone completely cold.

The man who'd fallen in the road was a simpler, and more gruesome, story. He wasn't moving, he had no pulse, and the sheer extent of trauma to his skull made it all but impossible for him to have not been killed instantly when the bullet struck him, probably in the back of the head. Angie didn't want to look at the exit wound.

No point giving these people first aid. Not any more.

---

As the four of you approach the front door, you get the benefit of a closer look at it. There is blood spattered over the wooden frame, and bullet holes dot its body - just the same as they dot the front of the entire right hand front of the house, cracking windows and wall panel alike. When the door creaks open it becomes obvious that the blood staining the door had been from more than a flesh wound, as much the same lies in a congealed pool of even greater volume on the floorboards of the hallway too, smeared and scraped around by what seems to have been the movement of the injured person. A bloody bootprint on the back of the front door suggests that whoever got shot must have kicked it closed behind them when they fell.

The blood forms a trail, and it leads across a sparse but homely enough living room - still stocked with dusty furniture and a television - to what seems likely to be the kitchen.

Further up the hallway, unmarred by gore, two other doors seem to be ajar; the one on the left leads to a room you can barely see into, but which has tiled walls at the very least, the other of which leads down a set of stairs, presumably to the basement.

The air is still stale in here, bearing the faded scent of ancient, forgotten residents, barely detectable underneath the iron, cloying smell of the blood and the gunsmoke. It smells of beer, cigarettes, and tinned foods.

Brooks in particular is able to recognise the current state of the blood on the floor - congealed and clotted, but still wet, this blood is no longer fresh but certainly no more than half a day old, if that; combined with the strength of the smell of burnt ballistic propellant lingering in the air, this combat must have been no more than two, maybe three hours ago.

As Zephyr takes his own first step over the threshold, he invokes another of his gifts, and immediately he sees things a little differently to the others. His senses both sharper and better guided, he re-evaluates the environment, re-processes the sights, smells, and tactile sensations of it all, and comes quickly to a stark conclusion; the fight was recent, yes, but not all of the blood stinks so equally of the beginnings of decay, and not every room in the house is so quiet.

Through the gap between the door to the kitchen and the walls surrounding it, Zephyr can smell fresher blood, and Zephyr can hear shallow, faint breathing.

Somebody is still alive in here.

---

---

She was with the small, unstable child. Wonderful. Placing her cigarette to her lips she would ease herself out of the vehicle and look around, frowning slightly. Dead people were not entirely new to her; if you went to enough places you saw them sooner or later, but to see people gunned down like this most certainly was. She watched as the girl approached the shed, and frowned as she threw the door open without a care in the world. Even in her past life; without magical police hunting you down and dead bodies scattered about, she'd have been a bit more cautious entering a new place. Another muttered Turkish expletitve, and then she followed the girl into the shed, her tapped-off ash causing a spiderweb to ignite.

"Don't touch that kid." She gestured towards the plank. "If it's got a nail in it you're gonna need a tetanus shot." She couldn't disagree with the statement though. "I'm not sure this would be even ranked when it came to hiding places. Not sure what they really expected to be here." She gestured for Abigail to head out before her. "Let's see if there's something in the house."

A ripple of indignance crossed through Abigail's chest and made it tighten. "Ain't afraid of no tetanus," she muttered under her breath - baseless posturing, trying to make herself out to be unfettered by this strange she-witch and her odd accent. It was the ordering that did it - the gesturing, the expectance. It rubbed Abi the wrong way and made her more acerbic and stubborn. She tossed the chunk of plywood aside and wriggled past the water butts, getting elbow-deep in the assorted old tools in an effort to find something that made their trip into this derelict shed worthwhile. "Relax," she drawled, "ain't like the house is going somewhere."

Some clattering and thumping and a lot of dust later, Abigail had found herself a battered toolbox and began rummaging through its contents. Her eyes lit upon an old box cutter and flickered to her left. The box was just behind a water butt, the gypsy couldn't have seen it yet but...how could she surreptitiously pocket the weapon without drawing attention? As she continued to aimlessly rummage, she found herself a roll of zip-ties. Perfect! She could use this as a distraction.

"Aw, sweet! Look what I found!" Abigail chirped with enthusiasm that definitely wasn't befitting of a bunch of dusty zip-ties. She triumphantly thrust her arm into the air, stuffing the box cutter into the pocket of her jeans as she stood...and had a very, very short time to react to what was coming. After holding in her magic for an extended amount of time, the upwards jab was strenuous enough to elicit a response through a familiar shooting feeling rushing up her elbow - Abigail quickly and hastily quelled the impulse - the flame hardly reached more than five inches height, thank goodness there were a roll of zip-ties in the way of her palm - a roll that bubbled and turned gluey as parts of it sank into her skin...

"Shit shit SHIT SHIT-" Abigail doubled over, grabbing her wrist, dropping the bubbling mess as she stamped on it. The smell of plastic fumes filled the shed. There was no smoke, thankfully, from such a small fire, but it was more than enough of a slip-up to bring a deep, horrible wave of humiliation thumping through her body. Whether it was the pain, the plastic or the sheer misery of it all that made tears smart behind her eyes, Abigail swore up and down the walls and willed herself not to cry. Not in front of the ethnic chick. Not on a mission.

The house was adorned with likely fresh bullet holes. As Ellen approached, her gaze moved over the line, concluding it was likely a series of aimed shots rather than a spray. She was absolutely no expert, but she liked to pretend that if she thought critically about the scene, she could make conclusions that were just as valid as someone who had years of training understanding crime scenes. She watched a few American shows about solving crimes. That made her basically just as qualified, right?

As she got closer, she saw the blood splatter. Some of the bullets found their target. She concluded one of the bootleggers had run inside to try to escape from whoever was shooting at them. This person probably didn’t have the medical supplies--but if they were still alive, they might have some information about their ambush. And they could need medical help. Ellen thought, a few moments later.

The door to the house hadn’t been locked. Which suggested the person running didn’t have time to lock it. Or they were being chased and decided against throwing their body against the frame of a door that already had holes She realized as it creaked open.

Ellen entered after Brooks, and then stepped to the side to get a better look at the entryway. She takes care to avoid stepping in the blood on the floor, and is a bit relieved when the trail to another room seems to indicate the person got up rather than crawled.

The rest of the living room was covered in dust, which was good and bad. The house should be abandoned if they were going to use this as a drop point. But it also meant there wasn’t likely much here in the way of medical supplies, or concrete leads about where to go next. They needed whoever was behind that door to be alive.

It probably wasn’t a bad guy, unless the bootlegger that was shot had died and they left the blood trail as a trap. The room on the other side of the door probably had a window, so Ellen imagined she could go out and go around to the window to get a better view/enter that way. But it would probably take too long, and she was getting impatient. She just wanted to get inside and see what was going on.

Zephyr confirmed as much a few moments later, whispering that someone was alive. He pointed towards the door, and Ellen rolled her eyes. She didn’t mean to be rude, but wasn’t it a bit obvious that the trail of blood would likely lead to the person who was still alive?

At least they didn’t have to split up to investigate the creepy dusty house-- and at least they already knew what was in the basement. See, things were beginning to look up already.

Ellen went over to the door and put her hand on the doorknob. She looked to Brooks, and mouthed cover me?. She figured she could pull the door open, and then if someone was going to shoot at them, Brooks would be ready.

Brooks nodded his head once, his snub nose drawn and ready. “There’s still two bootleggers missing, we were expecting four of ‘em.”

The doorhandle was cold, hard, metallic - not so unlike the tang of blood in the air.

“Wa-it, stop.” came a shivering voice, from behind a terrified hand, as they pushed the door open.

There were two bodies in the room, one of them curled up and motionless on the floor, the other leant back against a kitchen cupboard, raising his hand to shield himself from the new intruders.

“Stop, I’m unarmed!” He wheezed through bloodstained lips, his frame shaking and weak.

“Who’s your people?” Brooks voiced out over the others, hand tightening around his firearm as he patiently waited for a reply.

Ellen had been prepared to charge in upon seeing the unarmed bleeding person, but Brooks entered quickly with his gun and posed a question instead. It was a good question, Ellen had just already concluded that only the bootleggers would be unarmed and left to bleed out when the baddies clearly had ample opportunity to load up the medications and leave. Plus, this guy wasn't armored up like those assholes had been. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to step between the man with the gun and his target.

Instead, she turned to Matthew and whispered. "Get Angeline, now." Then she turned back to wait for the injured fellow to answer.

The man on the ground took a long look up at Brooks, and lowered his hand with an exhausted sigh.

“Same as yours, I think. I- I don’t know what other daft cunts would be all the way out here at this hour, or where you coulda come from except the usual place. We’re the leggers you was meant to meet.” He groaned, clutching at a stomach wound, still wet with blood. “We got hit, everyone’s fuckin dead but me, and I’m fucked up. I’m fucked up. I ain’t, I ain’t gonna…”

"Shit." Ellen moved past Brooks and knelt down in front of the probably dying man. He didn't look like he was going to pull out a gun, and well, Brooks still had his. "We are getting our healer but just in case, tell us what you can." It was callous, yes, but Ellen also felt it was realistic. If he was going to die soon, it would be better if he could tell them details. "How many were you up against, what kind of transport did they use, how long ago did they go and do you know which direction they came from or went to?" Her questions came out quickly, her impatience and cynicism overriding any compassion she might have had for the man.

Brooks didn’t interfere or interrupt the barrage of questions Ellen shot at the injured bootlegger, primarily because those were all the correct questions. He stuffed his firearm into the back of his pants and looked about the house, assessing the fight that happened a bit better as they waited for the man to answer the questions.

---

---

---

---

"Shit." He muttered as he drew his hand away from the gut wound, and saw that the blood was still fresh, red, and running. He shook his head in what might well have been disappointment.

"They hit us about two hours ago. I'd say maybe six guys? Two of 'em came in over the westward hill, had a rifle, killed Michael where he stood. We fought back, but the guys on the hill managed to get Niki before they-" He gave a grimace and a loud, agonised grunt, as he tried to shift himself into more of an upright position. "- oh, fuck. Fuck. Before they pulled back. Alex and I came out when we heard gunshots, but we took gunfire from down the road. Didn't get much of a look at em. Hit Alex in the chest, me in the guts. Alex ain't- he wasn't moving, wasn't breathing."

He stopped, staring at the body of his fallen comrade.

Meanwhile, Brooks was stalking about the house, taking note of the details of the fight. The most immediate thing he noticed was the distribution of the structural damage - the bullet holes where more or less exclusively on the front facing side of the house, and scattered all over, forming three general clusters. The individual shots weren't terribly close together, and did not form obvious patterns of fire like an automatic weapon would - so it was at least three separate people, from three separate angles, firing non-automatics.

One of the patchwork clusters had fewer, but larger, holes - the one that went through the door, in particular. Brooks could recognise that this, at least, was rifle-caliber. Probably a bolt action rifle, firing hunting rounds.

The other two were harder to discern, mostly because one of them had gone mostly through a wooden-shuttered window. The sheet glass on the inside of the shutter had been completely shattered, and there were about twelve holes in the shutters on the other side - but Brooks couldn't see any specific, well-bordered holes on the other side of the living room that would match up to these ones, just some areas of patchy damage to the wall, not unlike buckshot or birdshot. The third source of fire hadn't penetrated very much, but had left lots and lots of much smaller pellet holes where it had - so the third weapon was probably a shotgun.

Overall? Three specific sources of gunfire. One probably a hunting rifle, one most likely a handgun loaded with hollowpoint ammunition, and one a shotgun loaded with buckshot.

The spatter of blood on the floor seemed consistent with a major injury at gunpoint, but at the point where it had happened the blood was too smeared to be easily readable. Enough was on the walls to be sure that they'd been shot and not stabbed, but nothing further could be told. When he took a closer look at the blood though, something else became apparent.

Off to the side, stuck to the floor by the congealing blood, were shell casings.

9mm Parabellum rounds, six of them. Plus one larger, .45 ACP casing.

It didn't seem like very much fighting had happened inside the house, if any. Whoever had hit the bootleggers had been satisfied with killing two of them, suppressing the others, and presumably stealing their cargo.

---

---

"You should be, unless you're up to date on your vaccinations." Did needles even work as a threat on a kid that was a bit older? Time to find out. "But no, the house isn't going anywhere, but our folks exploring it are, and it's best if we can provide some kind of support. Leaning against the open door, she made sure to breathe her smoke out and away from Abigail; she had ruined her lungs a long time ago, no need for the girl's to be ruined by her as well. Hm... Maybe she'd need to switch to an e-cig if she was going to be around the kid so much. Or she could not care, but that rubbed her the wrong way.

"You found some zip ties? They're probably going to be as fragile as-" The acrid stench of burning plastic, even in such small quantities, made the woman's eyes water. "Jesus!" She moved forward quickly, grabbing Abigail's wrist to look at her palm. "You need to be careful with your powers. What if that had happened around people who arent magic?" She examined the area that had been in contact with the burning plastic, sighing. "You'll need to go see Angeline again if you want that fixed up, I don't habitually carry anti-burn cream around with me." Then, in Turkish, "stupid girl."

"Let's go to the house. They might have found something out."

Angeline couldn’t wipe the sickened grimace off her face as she inspected the dead bodies, which she had just confirmed they were. The gruesome scene was enough to make her feel sick as she walked back to the van and sifted idly through the first aid kit until the others would come back. She decided it worthwhile to familiarise herself with what they had as she waited for an update from the others. An idea occurred to her to sit around and try digging up some of the shrubbery around. It was the only ‘trick’ she knew to patch someone up quickly and if anything happened to anyone she may as well have some on hand.

After a few quiet moments she noticed Matthew hurry her way, looking rather urgent, she stood up promptly and listened as he panickedly described the situation inside. She grabbed what greenery she had and was about to go before, as an afterthought, she scooped up the actual first aid kit, since it would probably be useful. She ran over to the house and stepped inside, hit with the warm scent of blood for a startling moment, she gathered herself, she was told briefly what room they were in but it wasn’t too hard to decipher the trail of residual blood was where she was supposed to go. For another fleeting moment she wished she had a different magic, one that didn’t send her elbow deep in blood and gore, but she supposed the person who had let all this blood out was probably in a worse situation than herself. She saw Brooks about the house who merely glanced in the direction she was supposed to go, which she followed promptly.

As she burst through the door she saw Ellen kneeling in front of the bloodied man and a sudden wave of calm washed over her as if she knew what to do, which she didn’t, but it looked good to pretend. “Ellen, move-” she ordered, sternly as she stepped forward “-please..” She added in the end, no need to be a dick about things. As she approached her eyes scanned over the bloodied cloth, he was cradling his core so she could be pretty confident that’s where the problem was. She settled herself beside him, somewhere in the back of her mind said she was kneeling in someone else’s blood, a quick flash of nausea struck her but she swallowed hard to try and settle herself. “It’ll be okay, I got you.” She said, almost automatically, though it was hard to tell from her face if she herself believed that, she was too busy concentrating on the task at hand.

Angeline pulled her sleeves up, placed the shrubbery down on the side for a moment, gently reaching around his clutching hand to tear at the shirt fabric while he maintained pressure around the wound. With a sharp tug she revealed the flesh beneath and could see the blood seeping out from between his fingertips. She instinctively reached to the first aid kit, fingers already slick with blood. Her fingers slipped over the smooth plastic as she took a moment struggling to open it, tearing off some bandage which she used with some water that dribbled over her fingertips onto his core. “Don’t move your hand yet, keep putting pressure on it.” she instructed as she wiped away some of the blood so she could get a better idea where the wounds exactly were. As she mopped up a good amount washing away the worst of the surrounding blood she grabbed a big pack, which she tore open with her teeth, releasing a thick pad of gauze. With her other hand she moved his hand, and took just a second to register where the wound was before pressing the gauze on it, hard. She gently helped the man into a laying down position, gravity should in part keep a little of the blood in if the pulse is weakening. “Ellen-” She summoned the woman “I don’t know how good you are with blood but can you hold this down as hard as you can while I uh… Do my stuff.” She asked, while holding the gauze hard against his gut with both her hands. “Press pretty hard, like… Like lean on him fully if you can.” She looked to the man “This will hurt.” she said, her voice tinged with sadness.

Ellen was relieved when Angeline stepped in. She came in with the perfect level of authority--making the demands she needed in order to tend to-- this guy, whatever his name was again. Hopefully she would be able to do something to stop the bleeding. The fact that it hadn’t clotted over the last two hours while he sat around in the kitchen wasn’t a great sign. Granted, the fact that he hadn’t bled out over the last two hours meant something as well, but Ellen couldn’t quite put her finger on what.

He had recalled how a half-dozen guys had attacked the group. He mentioned a rifle but Ellen didn’t have a great grasp of what one weapon did over another, apart from what she had seen in occasional action flicks. Fortunately, she was usually unperturbed by blood, having seen and experienced a few injuries over the years she spent on fishing vessels. Sure people tried to be safe, but mistakes happened, especially when people were working quickly, on a wet deck, with wet equipment.

She hadn’t moved far when Angeline told her to move, and she stepped quickly to the other side when summoned by the medic. “Can I control blood? No. Am I going to pass out? Don’t think so.” Ellen grinned at the woman and pressed hard on the gauze against his gut.

Instantly, the gauze was soaked. Blood rushed up like a tiny red flood from the wound as his whole body tensed in rigor, through the bandage and up between Ellen’s fingers, and he gave a harsh, agonised scream against closed teeth. In the moment, Ellen withdrew the gauze in shock - just for a second - and she saw a great clot stuck to its underside, pulling away from the wound like glue.

While Angie turned away from the man she bustled together the shrub, tearing off bundles of leaves and branches, trying to separate the foliage from the dirty roots as much as possible. Last thing this guy needed was an infection. As soon as she has a good amount, enough to cover the whole wound she turns back “Okay… This is going to feel and look pretty weird.” she braces both of them for what’s about to happen. She gently placed a hand on Ellen’s arms to move them away from the wound and peeled off the soaked gauze, laying the plant matter over the wound. She laid her bloodied hands over the plant matter and furrowed her brows in concentration. In the tense silence of the room, aside from the man’s pained breathing, the gentle rustling of branches and leaves knitting together into a cohesive ‘border’ sounded from beneath her palms. The sensation can only be described as something burrowing into the edges of the wound, though not in a way that feels stabbing or painful, but in a way that feels as if the branches were just melding into part of the flesh. After a while, as she eventually felt comfortable enough to pull her hands away to check her handiwork, she revealed a complex intertwining of branches and leaves woven together to seal the surface of the wound shut. The blood painted the plant and most of his body red. Angeline slumped back onto her shins and surveyed her handiwork, reaching to the first aid kit and tore off another patch of bandage and wiped up the blood around his stomach, clearing away the worst of it before pulling out a little antiseptic wipe, tearing open the pack and pulling it out. She sighed, it was pitifully small, so she focused the wiping around the new seams of his stomach, the wipe catching a little on the rough surface of the branches. She wiped down her arms and hands as much as she could and pushed herself away from the man, gaining a distinct dehydration headache from all the water she’d used earlier.

As Angeline worked, Ellen felt like she needed something to fill the strange silence, and maybe distract him from the pain. “You know, the last time I was holding a guy down like this, we had some nice mood music going.” She said to the bleeding man. “What about you? Ever have a girl on top of you like this, or two? Why don’t you tell me about it?” She raised her eyebrows suggestively, playfully. Okay, that was probably not the right thing to ask him about, given everything going on. But… at least he would be distracted?

“Fuck. You’re fuckin’ insane, chick. Fuckin’ insane. That’s… pretty hot.” He forced through gritted teeth. “Two girls at once?” the man added after a moment, with a hollow chuckle. “Yeah, one time. Weird night. I’ll, maybe tell you later. Weird night.”

"You idiot. In trying to get you to talk so you don't pass out." She would have punched him in the shoulder if she had a free hand. But both of hers were holding the blood soaked cloth. She was reminded of when one guy, Kyle, got hurt on the boat during a rainstorm, and all of the water made the bleeding look much worse. The blood was diluted with water and looked super thin. "I dunno. Tell me about Alex, or Nikki, or... How long you've been working with the Underground."

Angeline had hardly been paying attention to the conversation going on while she’d been focused. At the very least she was relieved he was talking “That wasn’t an offer, by the way.” She added, appreciating the lighter mood.

"DontouchmeDon't touch ME-!" Abigail whipped her hand out of Siobhan's grip and with it a shelf of forgotten screws and lugnuts in little divider boxes came crashing and pattering down like rain - from the other end of the shed. She registered her need to see Angeline but didn't notice the telekinesis over the searing, bubbling pain - so sharp it felt like the sting of ice, shooting up her elbow and through her shoulder and clutching tighter and tighter over her chest. "Sunnuvabitchin' gyppo, I ain't needing the god-damn pity from someone like-" she cut off into a hiss of pain and frustration. It hurt so much. It wasn't brief and bad because the plastic was still in there, bubbling away at her skin. "Just get on out to the house!" Abigail sputtered. She stumbled past Siobhan without so much as an apology and out into the 'yard' of the site.

No Angeline. A body but not a healer in sight. "Fuuuuck," she groaned miserably and slid down the front-facing wall of the shed, clutching her glistening palm as she inspected the damage. Two misshapen beads of plastic had eaten a quarter of an inch into her palm, which was bubbly and shiny and wet-looking with speckles of red and white in a wonky circle of meat. A choked sob of pain managed to escape from her incredibly tight ribcage as she reviewed her options.

When she looked up for a moment, through her tears, her vision was lit up by the golden glow of the broken sunlit facade of the outback bungalow. The sun had, in that way that the sun sometimes does in books and novels and movies, just crested the hill behind her, and for a tiny fraction of a second the entire world was alive with the dust and hardship of the outback - even the house, for just that little moment, looked new and lived in again.

With the adjustment of her eyes to the brightness of the dawning day, Abi could see properly again - and she saw that Billy had just rounded the corner from whence he’d parked up the van, rifle in hand. When he saw her however, his eyes went wide.

“Hey, hey hey, what’s the matter? You alright over here, Abi?” He exclaimed softly, voice laden with concern as he saw her holding her arm, rushing over.

"I fucked up," Abigail croaked bitterly. "N' I've got...ssshit in my hand," she added on in the hopes that there was someone who could help her with her predicament. With the coming dawn the wound was placed into sharp relief and the clouds of dust stung against her palm.

“Aw, shit. Angeline’s got the first aid kit just now, but let’s take a look.” He ushered her over to the van and had her sit down in one of the seats, taking a knee to get a better look at the wound. “Christ above, that’s real nasty. Can you move it at all?”

"Never really crossed my damn mind to start wriggling it around," Abigail seethed, collapsing into one of the chairs. "What if it gets….stuck." Open sobbing wasn't an option. The kid was literally shaking with pain but in the past two weeks, the familiar pierce of a burn had become a bitter and steadfast reoccurrence. "Just...pair'a tweezers, gnh...a teaspoon, anything." She hiccoughed and held both hands to the light, wrists touching.

“Aw hell, Abigail, I ain’t no doctor or anythin. Alright, aright, just uh, just gimme a second to think here.” He scratched his head anxiously, looking around the van for something that might have been passably useful. After a moment, his eyes lit up with realisation, and he practically leapt to his feet and ran to the back of the van. It took him about six seconds to return with his toolkit in hand, which he plonked down in the dust next to them, and threw open. “We’ll get you some painkillers in a bit, from the doctor bag in the house, but for now this’ll do in a pinch.” He half-mumbled as he retrieved a thin pair of electrician’s pliers and a small bottle simply labelled ‘spirit’. He doused the pliers in spirit, and then looked up at Abi.

“This is really gonna hurt.”

Abigail snorted a wad of mucus up her nose, wiping her eyes with the base of her good hand. "Do I look like the kinda' gal who grew up with health insurance?" She quipped, thrusting her glistening wound in Billy's face as she stuffed the collar of her jumper into her mouth. She couldn't look.

“Yeah, yeah I get you, I just… I mean, I don’t like hurtin’ folk. Awful sorry ‘bout this. Put your other hand on my shoulder or somethin’, you can squeeze as hard as you have to, ok? And just let me know when you’ve had too much, we can take a break whenever alright?” He mumbled, as he pressed the pliers into the blistering flesh until they got a grip on the first ex-ziptie, and then started to pull it out.

Abigail let out a muffled shriek of surprise. Initially she had her hand on his shoulder but the way she lurched made the globule shift in an agonising new direction so she began kicking the seat in front of her like a mule, dirt and dust flying from it as the plastic backing shuddered with each blow. Her watery, bloodshot gaze flipped to Billy in an instant, full of anger and desperation all at once as her face went bright pink and her neck muscles turned to thick cords from the sheer strain of it.

“It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s gonna be ok Abi, you’re doing so well, just… just a bit more.” He continued, as the head of the melted string of plastic came free of her palm, leaving a little trench of flesh in its wake, which filled with blood as the polymer came free. After another ten seconds, the first of the little cords came loose, and he dropped it onto the ground in front of him. “Ok. Ok, one down, like two or three more to go. How you doing?”

"GHHHHHHH." Abigail pawed at and then found purchase on the windowsill of the Kombi, white knuckled and shaking. She looked away and braced herself for the next wave of pain, screwing her eyes shut and pushing out two fat tears along with it.

Billy grimaced, and nodded, reminding himself not to ask stupid questions.

The next band of plastic removed was a slightly quicker affair, but it bled worse when it came out. Compared to the searing pain of the first one, it was almost a relief, and given the sheer extent of the trauma to her hand at this point, Abi actually barely felt it.

But the last of the zipties had melted straight into the crease of her palm, and worse still, it had split in two when it got burned.

“Ok, alright kiddo, this is gon’ be the worst one yet. You ready?”

"Mmfn." Abigail sunk back into the chair. She had stopped shaking but the blood was oozing down her palm and onto Billy's hand. Her gaze was pinned to the grimy window and the changing colours of the sky, her breathing laboured and ragged, a sheen of sweat starting to form on her face and neck.

The first, shorter bit of the plastic tie came out reasonably easily, but Billy had to pull it out along the groove it had left in her hand rather than peel it away from the palm. The second piece was slightly longer, and significantly thinner - like it had been stretched as it melted.

Billy shook his head grimly, and took a firmer hold of Abi’s wrist with his supporting hand.

“Jeez, I’m so sorry Abi.”

Again, he dug the pliers into her hand, again, he peeled the plastic out of her palm, and again, it hurt like a bitch on speed. When eventually the little plastic string came away, it took some flesh with it, and even Billy’s hand was shaking a little.

“Ok, alright, we’re done. You’re uh, you’re in a lot of pain, I’m uh, I’ll go get some painkillers.” He stuttered, dropping the pliers entirely and pushing himself to his feet.

Abigail let her arm drop to the seat, palm facing upward, as she disentangled her clenched jaw from the wad of stale nylon jumper that she'd stuffed in there. An uneven dark patch of saliva followed the dark rings of sweat around her collar and armpits and the shivering started again, as if her body was giving her a rough shake to try and spur it into movement. She stared at the roof of the Kombi as her blood soaked into the cushions, barely registering Billy as her gaze flickers to various spots on the mottled and badly stained ceiling.

Her lips begin to twitch in voiceless syllables as she scrunches her eyes shut tight.

“Alright, ok Abi, I’ve uh, I’ve got you some, uh…” He paused, looking at the packet he had returned with, quite possibly only just reading what it says now. “Aloe vera liddocaine. Acetaminnophen. And aspirin.” He looked up at her, as if for a approval, before remembering that he was the adult here.

“Aight, ok, shit, uh, here have some water, take these pills, I’m uh, I’m gonna try and rinse the burn and put this painkiller stuff on it.”

Abigail nodded sluggishly and grunted again. She sat up a bit more, fumbling for the water first, then shoving the pills behind her lips one by one with her remaining good hand. As she tilted her neck back to swallow the painkillers, she shuffled her wound onto her lap - the edges of the burn were already starting to seal into shiny flesh whilst the deep, dark red holes had stopped bleeding as profusely as they did before.

“Ok.” Billy said, mostly to himself, as he squeezed too much aloe vera out of the little plastic tube it came in, and started applying it to the wound. “Hey, lookie here, you’re already lookin’ so much better.” He said hopefully.

“What happened to you, anyway?”

"Nuffin." Abigail grunted, then her eyes snapped open and a frown formed. "As in, I did nothing. I fucked up. My stupid... magic went off even though I had it covered. Gawh. Ughmh. When is this going to kick in?" She was determinedly not looking at the wound but, in the process, stared at the warped sticks of plastic all red and streaky and somewhat covered in meat and felt the bile rise in the back of her throat. "Couldn't even look through a fuckin' shed without getting it wrong," she grumbled with palpable disgust.

“I uh, I don’t know. Next half hour probably. But hey, look, ain’t no point in kickin’ yerself for trippin’ over. I don’t know a whole lot about magic or nothin’, but all this crap is still new to you, you know what I mean?” Billy said softly, retrieving his pliers and washing them off with ‘spirit’, before kicking dirt over the recovered pieces of plastic. “Now don’t get me wrong, I sure wish you weren’t hurtin’ right now, but it’s all a learnin’ experience, and you ain’t put nobody in danger or anythin’. You’re still learnin’, and there’s just gon’ be some hiccups on the way to bein’ learned, that’s just how the world works. Alright? I don’t blame you for… well, shit, for anythin’. Least of all this.”

"I sure hope everyone else takes the same kinda' mindset as you, buddy," Abigail squirmed in her seat, the pain still throbbing up her arm, "'cause the way I see it, I ain't made the best first impression."

Billy paused, face turned down in contemplation.

“You’re right. You ain’t made the best first impression.” He sighed. “But you can’t change a first impression after it’s made, you can’t time travel. So what are you gonna do about it?”

"Unless you know a feller that can time travel, I'm gonna...sit in this here bus until I look like I ain't been cryin' and tryin' not to hurl for the past couple of minutes. " Despite sweating and shaking like a leaf, Abigail was able to articulate herself enough through the pain to lift one tremulous finger. "May have lost a lotta blood and dignity, but doggone it, I'll keep my pride." She flashed Billy a nauseating toothsome grin as she wiped her brow and swung her legs up onto the bench to have a brief but well deserved lie down.

“You don’t gotta time travel, Abi. You just gotta learn. An’ you will learn, ‘cos you’re smart, even if you can’t see just how you’re smart, yet.” Billy added, softly, as he turned and went to get some more crap from the medical kit, to properly dress the wound.

As properly as he knew how, at least. He was better at talking, and not amazing at that either.

Siobhan considered herself to be a fairly placid person. Well, beyond the fact she carried a switchknife and had had multiple causes to use it. She didn't relish violence, she didn't find fighting to be enjoyable, she'd much rather have just made a nice clean handoff here without any troubles than had to search through abandoned buildings with dead bodies lying in the gritty Australian sand. But, there were some things that could do more than just annoy her. Some things that could set her blood boiling, and what Abigail had just said was one of them. Gritting her teeth, she let the girl leave the shed, breathing in, breathing out.

How dare. How fucking dare this little redneck viper who had never left her tiny little hick community use that word in reference to her. Walking out of the shed, her hands shaking with rage, she placed her cigarette to her lips and breathed in shakily, watching as Billy set about pulling the plastic from the ungrateful little bitch's skin and tossing it down into the dirt. She waited until the worst of the wound had been patched, and then slowly walked up to the girl, making sure she was out of sight until her hand came down on Abigail's shoulder.

"A chonách san ort." She said, gesturing towards her hand, before stooping down into a squat so that she was seeing eye-to-eye with Abigail. "You don't have to like me. I know I don't like you very much right now. But if you ever." She paused, holding a finger up so that it was barely an inch away from Abigail's face. "EVER." She barked. "Call me that again, or so much as think about bringing up my race, by God I will beat you so badly that you won't be going on a mission for a month. Don't think I won't do it because you're little. Racists never cared that the people they spat on were little. The only reason I haven't smacked seven bells out of you right now is because you've already done a great job of hurting yourself right now." She stood up slowly, spat into the ground next to her, and was about to turn away, but remembered something. "And you're wrong. I'm not Roma, and they're a lot more well behaved than you regardless."

Hmm. Perhaps this called for a little bit of theatrics. The door to the house wasn't so far away from her; thirty metres at most. A whiff of blue in the air and she had transported herself between the two points in less time than it took someone to blink, her heart immediately picking up its pace as she entered the shade of the building. She turned, gave a pointed look at Abigail, and then entered the building, taking deep breaths both to calm herself and to ease out the stress the magic put on her body. Opening the door she was hit immediately by the copper tang of blood, dropping and stomping out the cigarette in one smooth motion as she made towards the source of the scent.

Two women, one man, and enough blood to soak her trousers and have room left over to get her shoes bloody as well. Usually, Siobhan Caamaescro was not one to get herself involved in medical emergencies, because those meant attention, and attention was the last thing she wanted, but this was different. Hurrying over, she stood over the trio and looked down worriedly. "Is there anything I can do?"

---

---

---

---

“Not an offer? Fuck me, that’s a shame.” He chuckled weakly, forcing little pulses of blood up through the padding around his stomach wound. “Real shame.”

As Siobhan entered the room he looked up, and gave her a foul grimace and a grunt of pain - the closest thing to a grin he could muster.

“I… uh, Niki, Niki an’ I were in the army together for about ten, fifteen years. She was always a pistol. Pretty intense woman, honestly, but like, my best mate. Very moral. This operation wasn’t exactly her idea, but I couldn’t just let ‘er do it alone.”

“I always wondered if things would’a worked out between us, but I don’t think she was made for marriage, you know what I mean?” He coughed weakly, and then gave a little chuckle, laughing at something he’d thought of. “I mean,” he closed his eyes for a moment, before forcing them back open, “she tried it about three times. Bless her, three weddings, two divorces, one bloke just disappearin’.”

“Michael. Me an’ Niki knew Michael from the pub. Bit of a strange guy honestly, but that’s the sort of person Niki just seems to attract. Eccentric is a better word for Michael actually. It was always like, if you- if you need somethin’, maybe don’t know where to get it? You can ask Michael, he’ll probably know where to get it.”

He went silent for a moment, still and quiet.

“He, uh, it was his idea, all this. I dunno if he knew someone who was a mage, or anything like that, but he seemed to know people, and when he pitched it to Niki she liked the sound of it.

“Well, are ya here to join the threesome, beautifu-[i][b]uuuuuuck![/i][/b]” He gave a tortured scream, stifled by clenched teeth, as he tried and failed to raise himself to a sitting position to get a better look at Siobhan.

He gave up on sitting, and eased himself back down to lie flat on the floor, letting his head roll to the side. He stared at the other body numbly, and swallowed hard.

“Alex… Alex was Niki’s son. Good kid. Good fuckin’ kid. Real eager. Cool head on his shoulders. I- I don’t think smuggling was enough for him. He was plannin’ to ask if he could go back with you guys. To join in proper, be more direct about things. He…” he trailed off, mouth open, words caught up in his throat.
“Fuck. It’s all gone to shit. Look, I don’t care what happens to me now, you gotta get the coolbox if nothing else. There’s- there’s shit in there, needs to be kept chill, and it won’t last once the sun comes up proper and it starts gettin’ hot. You understand?”

---

---