[IC] Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

[Flagg]

As soon as Cain opened his eyes, he could feel the puke crawling up his throat. It wasn't just the smell of rotting dog that caused it, or the amount of alcohol he had consumed on an empty stomach, or the blinding sunlight that added another cord of pain to the jackhammer symphony in his skull. What really made him feel sick was the young scrawny girl lying next them in his bed, as stark naked as him.

What the hell was he thinking? He knew this was a bad idea, that the forceful flirting, the intimate talk which completely out of place for how briefly they had known each other, and this repetition of how they first met all originated from a strange, discomforting attraction he felt to her. And now that he had had his wish, he wanted nothing more than to undo it. Any pleasure he remembered seemed tainted, in a way. He was old enough to be her father, at least, and yet that wasn't the only thing that made it feel wrong. Maybe it was a mistake to offer tutoring her to begin with. The conditions and orders he gave her weren't just meant to protect her, he had also given them with the ulterior motive of keeping her close. Yes, perhaps she needed somebody to watch out for her and guide her, but who said that he could just go ahead and decide that he was the right person to do it? There were enough other people he had to worry about right now and Valorie had no idea how innocent she was compared to him. If she did, there was no way she would have stayed a minute longer.

And yet... he couldn't help but look at the girl as her side rose and fell, still asleep for all he knew, and he felt lust stir in his loins again, the same thoughts he had just called out for what they were returning in force and testing his resolve.

With an angry sigh, he made himself look away and direct his thoughts back to the pounding headache. He had barely touched his temple in the hopes of easing the pain when he heard a loud 'vrrrrrr' from the coffee table.

"Fuck", he muttered. His cellphone. Cain wasn't exactly feeling very talkative this morning but the only thing he wanted to do less than speak to somebody was to wake the girl he had spent the night with.

He rose and, as quickly and quietly as he could, walked to the couch, finding Sammy sitting right on the pile that was his shirt and Valorie's sweater, looking rather happy with the state of things.

Ignoring the zomdog - or was it a dogbie? Perhaps ghouldog... doghoul... - for now, frowning as he saw the caller ID and walking into the kitchen to muffle his voice a bit.

"Francis Cain?"

"Mister Cain, good afternoon!" said a clipped, accentless voice filled with cheerful professionalism, "This is Kurtz, of Barrow and White. I hope this is a good time?"

"Good enough." Cain tried not to sound annoyed but between the pain and his thoughts, he couldn't help but being a little curt; not that it phased Kurtz any.

"Wonderful to hear. I'm calling, Mr. Cain, because I was hoping you might be able to make a recommendation to me," Kurtz paused for a moment, "I require the services of a bloodmage or a necromancer or spiritualist, perhaps, but I would very much like to use someone who does not- shall we say- run in the usual circles. Now I know that you, my good man, are in the employ of the illustrious Ms. Bloodbloom- I even hear you've had a run in with our friends the Nyctari recently!- but I would rather not hire any of their usual retainers. Certain associations are bad for a business that runs on its reputation, you understand, so your assistance and... discretion in this matter would be very well compensated, I assure you. Protect your brother's privacy for what he knows of you, as the Arabs say."

Another frown darkened Cain's expression. Of course Kurtz knew everything. Barrow and White were always well informed- despite being a relatively small player in this city, they commanded some resources that even the gangs and families could only dream of. Apparently, it paid for itself to be international.

"First of all, you know that any business with the Syndicate and the Nyctari is only a temporary, purely professional arrangement with no strings attached. I'm a freelance entrepreneur, and I think I've shown in our past collaborations that I harbor no loyalties to any of the factions in Santa Somabra."

"Of course", the voice on the other end responded and Cain thought he could hear him smile, "I didn't mean to imply that you were unreliable. The Firm holds you in the highest esteem. Hence my inquiry."

Francis nodded. Kurtz' words were sugarcoated and he didn't like that. Conversations like this had turned the city into what it was; the thugs on the street were just window dressing. His reservations didn't mean he wasn't also contemplating Kurtz' request, though. Could he really throw Valorie to the wolves? Maybe she wasn't ready; if she failed while working for Barrow and White, it could not only harm any future reputation she might earn and Cain's own clout with the Firm, but it could put her in very real danger. Then again, Cain tried to convince himself that it would be good for her to see that he trusted her skills, even when she didn't. And Kurtz always paid well...

"... I know somebody. She is about as low-profile of a necromancer as I can think of; I've taken her under my wing recently and she is more than capable, but still a little inexperienced in our line of work.

"What a fortuitous coincidence!" Kurtz said, "You having just what I need. If I were rather more devout I might attribute it to Someone watching out for us. I must say, though, I am rather surprised. I did not take you for apprentice-taking type, my good man. She must really be something."

"I will not inquire as to what you need her for but I trust you to guarantee her integrity."

"Goes without saying. You know my address. The compensation will be a cut above the usual rate for hired magic, I dare say."

"Then I will send her to your office later today."

"Excellent", Cain felt the unseen smile across the line become even bigger, "And if there's ever any service the Firm can provide you, Mister Cain..."

"There might be, sooner than you think", Cain said simply.

"I'll be waiting."

The call ended. The old detective wasn't sure what to make of this. Had he just helped Valorie or made her life a lot harder? Had he steered her away from danger or sent her right into it? Barrow and White were fiercely protective of their assets and if Valorie left a good impression, nobody could touch her without fearing their wrath.

And that... gave Cain an idea. He had promised to speak to Kennedy, right? Well, maybe all he needed to make him back off was a bluff...

[collab w/ @JulienJaden]

[Zombiedude101]

Guided Meditation

“Did you find them yet?”

”Kid, I'm a ghost not a metal detector. If you hadn't lost the damned things in the first place we wouldn't be in this mess, ‘Detective’.”

“I thought I’d left them on the desk this morning.”

”Anyway, what happened to that trademark Nathan Bishop sixth sense you usually have going on when you’re working?”

“Oh come on, don’t start on th-”

Nate halted himself mid-sentence when he noticed the keys resting in one of the open drawers of his smudged metal desk. He blinked for a moment to make sure he wasn’t just seeing things again - he’d already checked there earlier - and there they were. Glancing over to Gabe, who seemed to have something on his face, he realised he’d been had.

“You moved them.”

”Well, that depends Mr. PI,” A familiar shit-eating grin popped up, ”Am I under oath?”

“Ha-ha.” Nate folded his arms, grabbing the keys off the desk and popping open the filing cabinet adjacent to his desk. Another sheet of casework was still left in the printer beneath his desk, so he pulled it out and quickly stook it in a folder before locking up the cabinet once more.

”What?” Gabe outstretched his arms, playing innocent. ”Must be a ghost that did it, I’m sure.” The way he said it laid it on thick.

Nate smirked, “Yeah, maybe I ought to go around knocking over a certain ghost’s gravestone in town - walk over a burial plot or two.”

The dead man shrugged. ”Ah, c’mon. I needed an excuse to pick something up - being dead can drive ya’ a little stir-crazy sometimes.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to feel that second-hand..” Nate shot back, before chuckling and pulling up a seat. Inside the same drawer where his partner had stuck the keys was a bottle of tequila that he’d yet to touch. Deciding now was as good a time as ever, he cracked it open and grabbed two glasses from the same drawer. Pouring just one glass, he pushed the empty one towards Gabe with a smug look on his own face. “Thirsty?”

”Hah, fuck you too.” The late detective saw the funny side in that one. ”Last time I tried that was a waste of good scotch.”

Nate shrugged, before wrapping his fingers around the glass. “In that case, don’t mind if I do.” He offered a toast to the spirit and would’ve downed it were it not for a shadow passing by the shaded windows and twisting the door handle. “Yeah?” He called out to the mystery visitor, setting down his glass.

“Nate?” A familiar face addressed him as she stepped inside. A girl, no older than eleven, with a messenger bag hanging off her shoulder. Her name was Sarah Knights; a local kid. Or, well - that’s what she seemed like.

“Sarah,” He arched an eyebrow as she stepped inside, cross-legged with her hands closed together as if she was entering new school for the first time. Damn, even after knowing her for almost a year, she still almost had him fooled whenever she walked through that door. “What brings you here today?”

“Got something for you.”

Reaching into her messenger bag, she withdrew a small digital camera and set it on the desk. When Nate leaned forward, he found a couple of photos pertaining to another case he was working on. “Nice work.” He pushed a small wad of dollar bills her way.

“Aw, don’t I get a higher allowance?” Sarah pouted.

”Kid makes a good case. What is this, nineteen eight-nine?”

“Hah. Yeah, fine - here.” Nate pushed a couple of more dollar bills this way. “Not like you’ll spend it all on candy or anything.”

“Nope. I kinda grew outta that about a decade back.” She grinned a toothy grin, a sharp smile glistening.

If there was anyone who fit the combined definitions of honeytrap and jailbait, it was Sarah. She was a vampire who'd been turned before she progressed through puberty, an unfortunate and troubling predicament that she had learned to turn to her advantage by targeting the seedier denizens of the city, luring in would-be child molesters and other predators.

Nate had come to conveniently ignore that fact; he held no love for the kind of quarry Sarah fed on and regarded it as a lesser evil. Besides, she wasn’t that bad of a kid, even worked as an informant for him from time to time - stopped by the office and slept in the back on occasion. Well, what could Nate say? Both he and Gabriel held a soft spot for kids.
“So, got any other info for me?” Nate finally asked. Truth be told, he was hoping for a lead on the Somabra Slayer - Gabe shared the same sentiment.

“Nope, sorry. Buuut....” She leaned forward after glancing over her shoulder. “I found something that might help. Someone I know with the Nyctari; they’re looking for someone who’s good at keeping tabs on other people, if that makes sense.”

Nate furrowed his brow. “Nyctari? What? No. Hell no. I might not be a cop anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have standards.”

“Look, I knew you wouldn’t like the sound of it, but.. trust me, it’s not that kind of work. It’s keeping an eye on other stuff, like the Rats and the Bloodblooms. Not hurting people, I know you’re not like that.” Sarah explained.

Nate was about to speak up, when someone else cut him off. ”Hate to be the devil’s advocate, but this might be our best shot.” Gabe finally spoke up.

”Forget about the pay, forget about the suckers - no offense, kid - think about the opportunities this might provide. You don’t think I never had to get my hands dirty, in all my years of work? Over twenty-five years I’ve been on the force, there’s been times I’ve had to deal with people I’d sooner put in a cell in order to get results. We could track down some leads on the Slayer with this info, even gain an insight into how those Nyctari bastards operate as well, for future reference.”

Finally, he relented. “Alright, fine. I’ll consider it. Sarah, give me the run-down on this.”

[JulienJaden]

Collab with @Atrophy

---

For as long as she could remember, Valorie always woke up first. She had hated this trait when she was a child. Sleepovers, the handful she had ever attended, were always dreadful as she spent quiet hours staring around whatever quote-unquote friend’s room she was stuck in until they woke up. Christmas mornings were an absolute nightmare as every ounce of her body struggled in a desperate attempt to restrain herself from waking her parents at four in the morning to open presents. Once she became, technically, an adult she started to appreciate the peculiarity. It allowed her to sneak in late to her dorm and leave early before any pressing questions from her roommates, and she began to extremely appreciate it when it came to drunken hook ups. Today, however, she reverted to her default stance on the issue as she watched Cain sleep. She couldn’t leave, but with nothing to distract her all she could do was lie still and listening to her self-loathing thoughts.

She heard Cain huff as if the man had peered into her mind and was reprimanding her for disparaging herself once again. She pretended to be asleep as he shifted his weight to get up to answer the vibrating phone, watching him through her lashes as he moved. Despite knowing she should mind her own business (a good rule to live by in this city), Valorie listened with some curiosity to Cain’s part of the conversation. Her interest peaked when he mentioned her, involuntarily snorting as he called her low-profile. It was actually a fitting description in reference to both her notability and ability as a necromancer, but in regards to anything else? She flipped over onto her stomach and buried her face into the pillow, her facing hurting as she tried to not laugh out loud. She got up out of the bed and she stepped into her underwear; Sammy jumped off of the couch as Valorie approached and grabbed her hoodie, zipping it only partially as she and her zombeagle walked into the kitchen.

“Wow. How quick you get rid of me. Typical,” she said cheekily as she deliberately stepped in close to Cain, cocking an eyebrow while looking up at him expectantly through bloodshot eyes. She smirked. “So, what are you doing with me now?”

She seemed to come out of nowhere - or maybe he had just been lost in thought for a moment - but her vicinity and smirk... It was like his deliberations earlier didn't happen.

He possessively put an arm around her and smiled down at her.
"Taking you back to bed, perhaps. Or the couch. The kitchen table is also an option."
Francis even gave her a kiss, a short one that tasted sour - their just desserts for not brushing their teeth - but a kiss nonetheless.

Something about her made him stupid, turned him into a horny teenager. It scared him how little power his rational thought seemed to have over his actions, how she made his breath hitch just a little bit when he saw her padding towards him half-naked, how wrong this felt... and how desperately he wanted her still, despite himself.
He noticed only now that he had zoned out for a second and found that the kiss had not been as short and grew a lot more passionate than he thought, that he had trapped her between himself and the kitchen table and his free hand, never idle, had opened her hoodie and just started grazing her belly.

As if stirred from a dream, he startled back but somehow managed to retain some form of composure. His labored breathing helped mask the small shock at how easily he had let himself go.
"But first: Breakfast. We need to get some food into you... then something else."
He groaned internally at the innuendo and could hear the echo of a facepalm from the back of his head, but the Cain in the physical world turned away, still naked and half-excited, and began busying himself with preparing a simple meal and, as promised, tea.

A cold nose nudging her leg pulled her out of the confused, guilty whirl of her mind and iced her body. She didn't hate herself just because she felt like she was using the detective; she hated herself because she felt like she was beginning to actually enjoy the act. She crouched down and pet Sammy, trying to no longer think of the worries weighing her down. Sammy licked her face; she could taste the rot. Without opening her mouth or moving a muscle, Valorie commanded the dog to stop with a silent urge. Sammy did. A horrible part of her thought of how he reminded her of Cain, much to her own chagrin, and she bit her lip to prevent a wicked smile.

She zipped up her hoodie and went into the other room to grab her borrowed book, cigarettes, and the ashtray. Her eyes greedily danced over the bookcase, singling in on the book about blood magic that Cain had prevented her from reading. The sound of her host cooking in the kitchen was muted as she stared at the spine of the book. Everything returned to normal as she peeled her eyes away, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other as she walked back into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Setting the ashtray near a mug of tea that had appeared and placing a cigarette in her mouth. She snapped her fingers, but as expected no fire came. She lit it the traditional way.

Sammy had not moved from his frozen position; she allowed him to act on his own accord again. The dog laid at her feet as she drank from the mug, idly flipping through the tome while drawing runes in the air with her finger. She muttered parts of incantations under her breath, pausing only briefly as she realized that Cain had never really answered her question. He had mentioned sending her to somebody. For all she knew, it could be to another goddamn cop. Her nose wrinkled.

"In all seriousness," she stated, "I would like to know who the hell it was that you promised to send me to."

"Barrow & White", he answered plainly, moving the ashtray aside with a whispered word of power and replacing it with a plate before sitting down with his own. "Ever heard of them?"
Valorie shook her head.

"Well, let me put it this way: If I'm the sheriff - the guy who has to play by the rules of the strongest local gangs if he wants to stay alive - they are more like the CIA: A legal facade for a big, international firm who have money, influence and arcane artifacts; at least that's the tip of the iceberg. They are 'the big leagues', if you will. And you", he pointed his piece of toast at her, "are going to meet their chief representative in the city: Kurtz."

He couldn't tell if she was too shocked to speak or so excited she was struggling for words, but he pretended not to notice, took a bite and continued as casually as if they were talking about the weather.
"He was asking for a necromancer and I happen to know one. Barrow & White tend to look out for their partners and their reputation is enough to make some people think twice about doing something stupid. Speaking of which", Cain glanced at his cellphone as he took a sip from his own mug, "I believe I should speak to Kennedy and let him know you will make some influential friends today. What do you think?"

Valorie sighed. I feel like a rat in a maze, being prodded around by fingers of snot-nosed little fucks trying to lead me away from one dead end and into another.

"You know best," said Valorie sourly, devouring her toast and sipping from her mug to hide the concerned frown on her lips. Saying she was actually a necromancer was like saying a fifth grader who made one layup was Michael Jordan. If they were as serious as Cain implied then they didn't want someone who could, sometimes, get a dead body to sing and dance for a minute. They wanted someone who could raise a graveyard with a little bit of blood and some hocus pocus. Cain's comparing the firm to the CIA certainly did little to ease any concerns. If anything, it made her even more anxious. She knew the man believed in her, but beliefs often led to disappointment. Still, if Cain thought it could get Kennedy off of her back then perhaps it was worth the risk.

"But yeah, no, this might be good actually," she said, sounding a bit chipper. The more she thought of it, the more her anxiety mixed with actual excitement. "I need more practice, anyway, and if it means I don't work for Kennedy ever again then I'm pretty much up for anything." Her eyes widened as she thought more about the opportunity. "Is there a dress code or something? I should dress up right? Play the part? Get like a real gothic black dress, maybe some dark lace, paint my face real white with powder or something. Some real Vincent Price shit, you know? You think your friend will let me borrow her cool skull mask?" she added, unable to stop herself from beaming as she ran her hand through her hair. "I should dye it black, right? I should dye it black."

"Don't overdo it", Cain said in a stern voice but a hint of a smile made his lips twitch. "Barrow & White are big on appearances - looking and acting professional goes a long way with them. Comes with the firm originating from England, I guess."

He reached out to touch her hand but didn't take it into his - his gesture wasn't possessive, he was merely focusing her attention on himself. Francis had missed some cues in her mimic and tone yesterday but the anxiety and displeasure she had shown a few moments ago had not escaped his attention.
"I know you are here because you decided to be here. I know that it's not my place to choose who you work with and I realize how challenging this job might be. But I want you to understand how important it was that I responded decisively, that I was confident about you... because I am."

His look wandered down to the beagle monstrosity. It still wasn't very kind on the eyes in the daylight but he could feel the magic radiate from it. The dog was the reason he thought she could handle it and, even though her feeling a little better about being here with Sammy around was something he had factored into the equation when he 'allowed her' to bring him along, his main motivation had been to take a look at his aura. The simple fact of the matter was that she did a fine job reviving him, from a magical standpoint, and that was no small feat; only necromancers in movies could revive hordes of undead without a lot of time, blood and talent.

"You have it in you to become a great necromancer, and confidence in your skill is as important as the right incantation. You'll be fine." Francis gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, then picked up his phone and dialed Kennedy's cellphone. "I've got an idea or two on how to make your work a little easier", he said, smirking, as he waited for the corrupt cop to pick up.

"Thanks. Really," she said, her eyes falling on his phone. She nodded at it. "You should put it on speaker; I'll be quiet."

The phone clicked before Cain had a chance to react. Even without the speaker, Valorie could hear Kennedy yelling over the line, although she was unable to make out all of the words. Whatever they were, they weren't nice. Cain, however, got the pleasure of hearing every last thing.

"I thought I told you to never call me at work, you slut. I swear, I when I get home tonight I am going to absolutely fuck the living—" A door slammed. "—sorry, Francis. I was dining with some, hmph, less than professional types. Had to maintain appearances. How are you, my friend? Was any of that information I gave you helpful?"

"As helpful as the SSPD can be", Cain responded, his smile turning sardonic as he followed Valorie's suggestion and put her special friend on speaker. "At the very least, it tells me which leads are dead-ends."

'Less than professional types', huh? Look who's talking, he thought, somewhat disappointed that the phone couldn't transfer the thought or the look that might have conveyed it. Perhaps it was for the better. This could either go really well or really badly and he had no idea which one it would be yet.

"Listen, Richard, I've got some news regarding the girl you had me save the other night, Valorie... something, right?" It was always better to feign ignorance and disinterest than to show your hand right away. "Anyway, I spoke to somebody at Barrow & White this morning and, apparently, they have taken an interest in her."

He paused and let these words take effect. Kennedy was making some noise but it was hard to tell whether he was grumbling, cursing or something else.

"And why, pray tell, would a London company of smugglers and crooks take interest in a doped up Rat from the heartland?" asked Kennedy through his teeth.

Valorie tapped Cain's hand to get his attention and mouthed the word "lie" towards him. If Kennedy knew she was still practicing her magic, she would be in a world of trouble.

Cain nodded almost imperceptibly and responded to Kennedy without missing a beat:
"I don't have the faintest idea. They don't exactly keep me in the loop. Maybe they don't know about Syndicate's involvement in what happened yesterday night and think she killed the other Rats on her own. Or, more likely, she picked up some information on the Rats that they are currently interested in."

He leaned forward, closer to the phone, as if he was leaning in closer to Kennedy, and spoke a little softer.
"It doesn't matter why they want her - they just do. And you know as well as I that they wouldn't have dropped her name in a conversation with me without a reason. Barrow & White is aware that I have contacts within the SSPD; my guess is that they know or suspect she's an informant and they wanted me to pass along the message that she's off limits now."

Cane made himself sound slightly annoyed, just like the last time he talked to Kennedy, to make it sound believable. It wasn't hard to do, really - he was always annoyed when he talked to this man.

Valorie held her breath, waiting for Kennedy's response. Could it really be this easy? She frowned. Before Kennedy even spoke, she already knew that this wouldn't be enough. His laughed confirmed her fears.

"Somehow I doubt that's the whole story. Francis, I truly respect you as a detective, but as I man I do not understand your taste in women. Valorie, sweetheart, was this your idea? Did you put Francis up to this?" asked Kennedy. Valorie stared down Cain and refused to move or make any sound. "Valorie, stop pretending that you're not there. I always know where my girls are. Come on, my little mockingbird, sing for me now," his voice darkened, "or I'll make you sing later."

Valorie glared at Cain as if to demand him to fix everything.

But she was met with glowing eyes as a cigarette butt in the ashtray caught fire.

"That's enough."

Cain's voice was still calm but he still sounded different, more imposing, more... dangerous.

"I don't know what kind of issues you're having with or what you're projecting on Valorie and, frankly, I don't give a shit. All that matters is that Kurtz is interested in her and I'm starting to get curious aswell. You've been playing this game long enough to know that, between Barrow & White and me, she is no longer yours to command. But I'm not unreasonable: I'd accept this as an advance payment on the next time you require my services."

The tension was palpable. Francis was not going to back down, that much was obvious. The only question was if Kennedy really wanted to make this personal.

"Oh god, Francis, yes, you are totally not being unreasonable," roared Kennedy with bitter, sarcastic laughter. "Projecting. Sheesh. Seriously?" There was a sigh over the line. "You've been playing this game too long, old timer, that you failed to notice that the rules have changed and the pieces aren't the same. You think I'm only backed up by a couple of SSPD toughs these days? I could deport those Barrow & White pricks back to jolly old England in a body bag with a single phone."

There was another noise of frustration from the line, but when Kennedy spoke again his voice lacked any of the biting spite he had earlier.

"But you sold me. You know I hate to lose, but, Francis, this bitch just isn't worth our friendship—and considering your prices, this was a real bargain. I had already planned on removing her from my payroll next week anyway, but I guess I can just expedite that order. Hear that, Valorie? No more allowance. But hey, I'm sure Cain and his friends will take care of you. Seriously, congratulations on being bought, you graduated from being a snitch into being a gold digger. Way to go, kiddo. Really climbing that ladder. I'm sure Mr. & Mrs. Pierce will be real proud of their baby now. I know that I'm positively thrilled."

Valorie had sunk into her seat. She didn't respond, her hair casting shadows over her eyes as her fingernails dug into her palms.

"It was good hearing from you as always, Francis. I'll be calling you within a few days to cash in on our deal."

Half the ashtray was ablaze by the time Kennedy stopped talking. It wasn't Kennedy's bluff that angered him - he knew as well as Cain that nothing short of a gang war could drive Barrow & White out of the city, considering their connections, skilled operatives and the invaluable services they provided to several factions - but the viciousness with which he spoke to Valorie. Yet, Cain's expression remained one of indifference and his wrath did not seep into his tone, although he silently cursed the fact that he couldn't set fire to Kennedy's tie over the phone.

"I appreciate your... generosity, Richard. Give Kormos my best."

He ended the call before the bastard could think of more hurtful things to say. The old man got up, phone in hand, and his fingers and arm twitched as if he was about to shatter it, but instead he ungently let it fall back on the table, forced his eyes shut and, with a long, loud exhale, relaxed and let the fire die.

"I should have killed that fucker when we were still patrolling the streets", he muttered but when he opened his eyes, they were blue again and he seemed calm enough when he laid his hand on her shoulder.

"There you have it - he's no longer part of your life. You're free again."

Valorie seethed in her seat. By now, her nails had drawn blood from where they dug in to her palms, Sammy licking at the droplets on the floor. Her mind swirled with rage; her stomach churned with sickness. The harsh truth, or at least what she deemed to be true, of Kennedy's words had dragged her to the edge of a cliff. But it was Cain's words, Cain's voice that pushed her over. Yes, he should have killed the fucker. Her handling would've been pushed on to someone else then. Now what? Any thought of her actually being able to prove herself as an asset to Barrow & White was whisked away from her mind, unless they needed a call girl. Was she to play housewife to some old fucking detective for the rest of her life? Or would it be slave, considering he had "bought" her from Kennedy like she was his property. No, it'd be whore, she thought, remembering Cain's "advice" from last night. Because I just got screwed.

She smacked Cain's hand away from her shoulder.

"Free? Free? Are you fucking kidding?" she said loudly, pushing herself up to her feet. "I'm fucked! I can't be cut dry like that, man. I could hardly make rent as it was, now I'm absolutely screwed. Not to mention every fucking pig in this city will be hauling my ass in every time I set foot in the street. I mean, you really think the prick's going to honor this? He's a total asshole. I'm fucked, I'm fucked," she shouted, rattling the dishes as she slammed her hands on the table like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. She shot a hateful glare at Cain. "You said you were going to make things easier. How is this going to be easier?"

"Do you think I'm some kind of fool?"

It was different from before. Kennedy had set his blood boiling without raising his voice, simply because Cain had come to loathe the man and his cruelty; but Valorie, shouting, cursing and halfway to slamming bedroom doors like an angry child, didn't hit the same spot. She was more scared than anything, he realized.

"Do you believe I would have spoken to him like this, ended the call like this and offered him what I did if I didn't know that he would honor this agreement? I told you before: Barrow & White are influential. Kennedy is a spiteful son-of-a-bitch but he's not stupid enough to rock the boat, not when his life and his money are at stake. And you may not have noticed it yet but I'm a mage, I have other friends in the SSPD and I've got people who owe me favors in every single gang, family and syndicate in the city, so even if he went back on his word and Kurtz' people were out of the picture, I am more than capable of taking on Richard Kennedy, so forget about him and the SSPD - they are not your problem anymore, they're mine, if anybody's."

As he spoke, Cain walked out of the kitchen and over to his wardrobe, finally putting on some boxer briefs to cover himself. In the end, it was the noises Sammy made that had drawn the detective's gaze towards the floor... and his dangling man parts. It was the thought of having been stark naked throughout the entire conversation with Kennedy that put a sardonic grin on his face as he turned to Valorie once again as she followed him.

"As for your money situation, you can leave that to me as well. I have enough in my savings accounts to buy a small island, if I wanted to. I could retire today and live out the rest of my life in peace, if I wanted... except I don't. I'm not done with this city yet. But if all you want is money", the smile had made way for a stern look, "if you'd like ten, twenty, hell, fifty grand to start over, if what you really want more than anything right now is to walk out this door, then I will give it to you and let you go."

His finger pointed at the apartment's entrance for a few seconds later before he slowly closed the gap between himself and the girl again, drawing almost as close to her as they had been between the two phonecalls but not quite so much that she would feel trapped.
"Or you could be my apprentice and learn how to use your gift, if you wanted to. You could go and meet Kurtz and perhaps make a valuable contact, if you wanted to. You could live here where somebody would watch out for you, if you wanted to. You could fuck me or have me fuck you every night, if you wanted to. All of that, every single aspect of what I described, is entirely up to you, Valorie."

He looked directly into her eyes and the look he gave her was sincere, his eyes seeming to briefly flicker from blue to orange when he spoke of sex, but the only move he made was taking a step back, away from her, illustrating the autonomy he guaranteed her.

"I'm not like Kennedy: I may have my manipulative moments but I don't force people into something they don't want - all I'm doing here is showing you your options and adding some more for you to choose from; no more, no less. You are as free as you can be in this city. Now, the only question is: What do you want?"

"I don't know," she said, lamely.

It was the truth. She wanted somebody to help her with her problems, but she didn't want to rely on others. She wanted to be free of her finance issues, but she didn't want to be pitied and donated to like a charity case. She would have loved to learn more magic, but the last thing that appealed to her right now was continuing to be lectured by Cain. She wanted to work for Kurtz, but she didn't to risk the failure. She even knew that a part of her wanted to stay with Cain, but another part of her could only see him as being another Kennedy. She wanted to make a decision, but she feared being stuck with the outcome. Sammy had followed them; she sat down on her knees and petted him for reassurance. As she spoke she stared down at Sammy, the undead dog staring up at her through dead eyes as his tattered tail wagged happily.

"For a while, I thought I was going to do some good with my necromancy, you know? End suffering, give good people eternal life, that kind of childish bullshit...like I was a character in some kind of fucking cartoon show for idiots," she said solemnly, refusing to look up at Cain. "Or maybe I just wanted some kind of control. Who knows? I came to this city to get better at my hobby, but reality checked me and it checked me hard. Turns out pluckiness and a can-do-attitude counts for about as much as it does here as it did back home. Working for Kennedy, well, I guess I was comfortable there. I could fuck around and got paid and occasionally I had to snitch out some asshole, but it was okay because they were a bad dude. Don't get me wrong, I hate the guy, but if I hadn't botched that thing with Gish I probably would have continued on in that lifestyle forever. It was easy; I was unhappy, but complacent. I got it. At least I thought I got it."

"With you I don't get it. You've already challenged me more times in a day then anyone else has in my life; I kind of hate it, I think. I do hate it, actually. It sucks, man. I kind of want to just walk through that fucking door and go back to running guns so I can score some dust. I keep thinking that the other shoe is going to drop at some point and you're going to sacrifice me to some eldritch god to prolong your life or sell me to the Nyctari. Or maybe you have no other motive than the obvious one, and that's somehow even more horrifying. I kind of just want to disappear."

"But I guess that all started when I almost lost you," she said, referring to Sammy. Her voice was small as she cupped his head in her hands. "We both really knew why I brought you back. I wasn't sad, or lonely. I was scared; worried that I would get in trouble. Concerned that I wouldn't be able to go to the movies or hang out with my friends and get drunk because mom and dad would find out about what happened and ground me. I was just running away. Even made you come with me, running alongside me all the time with your stupid, broken, lame body. You deserve some rest, boy." She felt something squish. There was no whimper, no bark as she pushed her hands together, Sammy's tail stopping still as his body went limp on the floor. Her head ached as the mental connection she held over her pet severed. She looked down with glassy eyes; the corpse was now just a corpse. "Guess I want to stop running, too."

"Okay," she said, wiping the gore off on her hoodie and pushing herself up. "Here's the thing. I know you're from a time when people rode around on horses wearing shining armor, throwing roses and kisses at maidens, and trying to stick anything they could with big, sharp poles, but I need you to stop trying to be my protector. My friend, benefits and what not, okay, sure. But this," her voice attempted to drop in pitch to what she assumed Cain sounded like, pumping her arms up and down as if it added to the imitation, "Oh, let me give you money and magic and contacts and contact all out of the goodness of my heart because I know I can fix you up, little girl." It was a bad impression. She went back to her regular, annoying voice. "That? Needs to stop. Chivalry is dead because it's just kinda weird, man."

Cain's mouth looked like it was opening. She waved her hand frantically to prevent him from talking, little visceral drops of liquid flicking from her fingertips. Her foot stamped the floor, as if signalling the beginning of the end of her rant. As she spoke, her motions became more and more exaggerated.

"So, I'm gonna lay down some rules, okay? Okay. First of all," she jabbed a finger out and smacked it as if it emphasized the order, "no more my girl. Ugh, I hate that. I hate that!" She jutted out a second finger and smacked it as well, and so on. "Second thing, if Kennedy becomes a issue, which he will, then it's our problem, okay? Third, you're not giving me money. If I'm living here then I'm going to pay you, and I'm going to pay you in cash, and you're going to take the cash— and yes, my current housing option is either here, homeless, or in a dust den, so I rather pick here, and I can't really think about screwing because there are guts all over my—" She took a breath and composed herself, smacking a forth finger. "I'm going to take the job from Kurtz, and if I fuck up I'm going to fuck up on my own so that I can learn. And finally—"

She ran out of fingers on her hand to smack. Instead, she just extended her dirty hand towards Cain, expecting him to shake it.

"My name is Valorie Pierce. Some asshole I knew once told me that you were a great mage. I would like to become your apprentice so that together the two of us can burn this city down and rebuild it into something a little less shitty. I will work as hard as I can, and I will try to remain focused, and I will absolutely fuck up many times, and you will let me do so as long as I still remain on point, and if it ever becomes apparent that I am not cut out for this then you will cut me out. And I guarantee you that I will clean this mess up. Right after this. By myself. Because I made it. And you have the right to punch me if I ever talk this much again. Deal?" she said, smiling.

Cain vaguely remembered something that Valorie had said the night before: That she was young and stupid and wanted to be because that was how she was supposed to act... or something along those lines. The girl in front of him, however, had done a lot of growing up in the last few minutes. He never thought that she would kill her pet - but no, that wasn't it, not at all. A simple man would have seen it as nothing but killing her pet or putting Sammy out of his misery, but he understood what it truly was, what implications it had: It was as significant as Da Vinci or Michelangelo smashing their first great work, the first object of their making that held a glimpse of future greatness. With one gesture, she had wiped her slate clean and severed perhaps her only remaining connection to the home she grew up in and the person she was before she delved into necromancy.

She was not the same person he had picked up in a bar a few weeks ago, sassy and full of herself and so very talented at pretending that she was mature and balanced. She wasn't the girl from two nights ago either, scared and erratic and barely able to hold it together. Maybe this was a glimpse of what she might become when she had mastered her hormones, her urges, her self-depreciating thoughts and the art of necromancy. The Valorie Price in front of him was not a girl just anybody could toy around with, and that was good on many levels... and bad on others.

But he extended his hand to take her much smaller one without hesitation, unphased by the brain matter, blood or squelching sound the contact came with. She didn't know his motives. She didn't know why he had taken her in, that it went beyond just sex, beyond just curiosity about her talents, beyond just an urge to fix her, beyond 'chivalry'. Not that it mattered at the moment.

He smiled back and gave her a nod of approval.
"Alright, you have yourself a deal, Valorie Pierce. Francis Cain is going to teach you what he knows. When you're done here", he nodded at the dead dog and let the smile fade, "join me on the couch. I'd like to show you how you can focus a little more easily on the magic spark. And if you'd like, I could show you a place where you can bury Sammy. I think he deserves that."

"Yeah," said Valorie, sharing a secret smile with Sammy's violent remains. "He does."

[DJAtomika]

_{Collab with @Rockette}

"Your reputation seems well grounded then, monsieur."

" 'A course, boss lady."

"I trust though that all of the rodents were put down, I don’t want any survivors remaining, such violence will not be tolerated in one of my establishments."

"And rest assured, boss, they're all dead. Hell, my hands ain't hurt this bad in days.""

"No matter, I trust that you’ve completed the job. I’ll send a contingent of my thralls to clean the place up for business to resume as usual. Proceed to the Rouge at your earliest convenience to receive payment and your next objective."

" 'S long as you payin' good, boss lady, we're always ready ta help."

"Au revoir, monsieur."

"G'bye ma'am. And, uh, it's An- "

A dial tone greeted my ear. She'd hung up.

"...dy."

"Hehe, she hung up on ya?"

Kiddo chuckled as he stood by my side, a stogie clamped in the corner of his mouth. With a sigh I stowed my phone in my pocket.

"Nice observation, captain obvious. Now listen, we gotta head down to the Rouge. Our first paycheck's due."

"Cool beans, brotha."

I grimaced and gave him a look as he grinned.

"Jesus fuck, Kiddo, where in the hell didja learn that?"

"One 'a the new guys. Thems the young people lingo, thought I'd try it, see if it made me feel younger. Hehe."

I rolled my eyes so hard I almost felt them fall out of my head.

"Well the only thing it did was made ya sound like a total douchebag. We ain't young no more, Kiddo. Not since we died."

I stalked away to the car as Kiddo took his time in catching up with me. I got into the driver's seat as he plopped his fat, undead ass next to mine. With a twist of the key, the engine purred to life and we were off. Kiddo gave me a scowl out of the corner of my eye.

"Hey, just so ya know, I resented that last one."

"Oh really? Which part? The douchebag bit?"

"No. The age bit."

I exchanged a look with him and we both laughed. Fuckin' asshole.

After we'd calmed down some, Kiddo took a puff from his stogie and voiced his thoughts.

"So, who are we doin' this job for again?"

"Well Kiddo, it's a long story. Sure you wanna hear it?"

"Well, it's a long drive. I ain't got nothin' else ta do."

I smiled and leaned back in my seat.

"Well, it all started with her.

Maharet Roquelaure. The Lady in Red. My connection to her was older than this, a lot older, back in the city's early days. Keep in mind this was, like, in the twenties.

When I was still alive.

Anyway, back then, I was working for the Santoni family. Big shots, they controlled the whole city. I was one of their enforcers, the dumb muscle. Funny how things turned out in the end with our "agency".

Well, the day I died, I was sent out by Papa Santoni on a job. Someone had fucked with him big time, and we were his answer to that problem. He didn't say who, didn't say how, just gave us an address, guns and a car. Told us to fuck up everything there, leave no stone unturned, except for one thing.

A lady with red hair. He told us that if we found her there, we were to bring her back with us.

Well, long story short: we were sent to fuck the Nyctari. And boy oh boy, were we in for a surprise..."

-=- Ninety Years Ago... -=-



Christmas Day, 1929
40 Marlow Heights

"This the place, huh?"

The car pulled up outside the mansion. Fuckin' amazing place, lovely architecture.

Shame almost everyone in it had to die.

I got out and straightened my hat. The cool, seaside breeze tousled my tie as the lot of us started our walk towards the place. We were armed to the teeth, all of us. Big ol' Thompson machine guns, amazing things. Shotguns too, long metal things that spat fat lead balls. Fuckin' amazing weaponry.

On the word of Papa Santoni, we was to head in there and ice everyone inside. Then, we was to find some gal with red hair, get her and take her outta there and back to Papa. Simple job. Simple fuckin' job. Easy peasy. After we did this, I'd be one step closer ta bein' Papa's right hand man. Paid in the grands, instead of the fuckin' pennies we were bein' given.

The gate to the place was unlocked, of course. No one in these gated places ever bothered. Ain't got no neighbours anyway. We strode our way inside, guns up. No need for surprise. Let them get prepared. We'd mow 'em down all the same.

Besides me, there was, like, fifteen of us. A regular fuckin' army. Santoni's best. We strolled up the driveway towards the mansion all cool like. Damn straight. Must've spooked someone in the house, cause I caught sight of windows closing, curtains being drawn. Action.

I raised my Thompson up at the house. Everyone else did the same.

"Alright boys, fill 'em full 'a lead."

-----

Velvet curtains swayed, falling shut on the soft touches of nails filed to daggers of red sin, like talons of a predator that was calm, languid, and quiet despite the arsenal of guns poised directly on the establishment. Equally ruby lips, dark and slick against the pale planes of a countenance that was hardened like diamonds gleaming in the gloom, lifted into a simper of mocking cheer and through the smile was a multitude of fangs of barbaric nature, akin to the dentures of a beast. "Looks like you have some trash on your door step, my pet." The woman purred, her voice a whisper-soft cadence that bore with it a husk: sultry and deadly, all coiled up in the tall frame swathed in lace, silks, poured into a corset that cinched her waist with a bustle poised high at her spine and spinning lengths of fabric behind her. "Expecting some company?"

A figure approached the window much the same, peeking through to witness the men gathered below.

"Looks like Santoni boys..." Eyes of an ebony sludge, oil and slick and dark on his face, narrowed into slits as he inhaled. Sharp whistles slid through nose and lips, fangs poised into a threatening snarl. "Probably here to settle an issue with us, I wasn't too kind to their boss last time I was in his.. presence. Unless he's here because of you, Maman." He sniffed, and made a show of clapping his hands together, summoning a contingent of pale figures from the shadows of his abode who were armed to the full-brim like the boys stationed outside.

"Me? Now why would that be, I haven't done anything.. Yet." She laughed, coiling her dark, ebonette hair around her fists and sauntering off to one of the many chaises settled through the room. She slid herself over velvet and golden threads, dancing to whichever tune was sliding through the depths of her mind much to the distraction of the vampires spread through the space. "This Santoni though... Rumour has been spreading he's after my daughter, foolish girl, she can't stay in doors, has to go out... I wouldn't be surprised if he saw her, and desired her." Her nails speared through fabrics, slicing open the furniture with her obvious displeasure and leaving thick tracks that spewed cotton and revealed the foundations of wood.

"She will never learn," Maman spat, bearing the wealth of fangs through her festering mouth. Her companion merely watched on before gesturing to his own men, guns clicked, metal sounding off as bullets slid into the chambers, preparing for an equal retaliation. Another peek through the curtains revealed they were readying to unleash their own guns upon his home and he smirked at that and swept away to his desk, a plethora of buttons, screens and switches brightened to life. Glowing against his mocking grin, he depressed one of his switches and the front doors of the estate suddenly flew open, welcoming the boys into the foyer, small lights flickering to life on either side of the yawning porch that beckoned them forward. The vampires spread through out immediately vanished from their master's office, descending into shadows, preparing the trap as light flooded through the foyer from the night.

-----

"What the hell?"

Suddenly the door opened by itself and the porch lights flickered on. All the boys with me were spooked as all hell.

But fuck it. We were Santoni boys. We were tough.

"Fuck that, light it up fellas!"

We opened up with our guns. Filled the front of the house full of lead. Marble chips, glass, wood, everythin' went everywhere. When the dust settled, the place looked like swiss cheese. I reloaded my gun and took a few steps towards the front porch, then turned and looked at the gang.

"Alright fellas, I want two a youse guys out back, and three out front 'ere. No one gets in or out alive except us. Everyone else? With me, we go in."

With that, I gripped my Thompson tight and took my first few steps into the foyer.

The floor was covered in lush carpet, of course. Totally pitch black though. Only light was from the porch, streamin' in through the doors and windows. The guys filed in behind me and spread out. I could hear 'em complaining already.

"Can anyone see?"
"Can't see shit."
"Someone get the lights. The lights!"

"Ugh for fuck's sake guys someone find the light switch."

I heard someone walk off to the side. Fuckin' amateurs. Least they could hold their guns straight.

"Stay focused fellas. We're here for the girl. Everyone else isn't important."

-----

A collective of hisses, ear-splitting and rattling like serpentine beasts suspended in the perpetual gloom, immediately exploded into the foyer. Splinters fell, disturbed by the swath of darkness conglomerating in the depressing ridges of bullet-riddled furniture and walls, apparitions almost plagued among the boys that stepped across the threshold and melded into the darkness.

Shrieks tore through, echoing through the establishment as a broad, thick chortle eclipsed the disturbing sounds bounding endlessly by constraint. The man who had swept off to the side, desperately groping across the walls for a switch that would never be found - as it did not exist - stood not a chance as slick, ashen-stone fingers grappled his shoulders, thrust him flush against the wall pocketed with shells and ill intent and sunk pallid fangs deep into the veining pulse of his neck. Ruby sin erupted from lips, pooling over a quivering chin and creating a slick path of death over trembling skin now inflamed with the report of nails tearing across the delicate membrane of man.

Blood-lust descended as soon as sweet copper and salty aromas peppered the air, making it thick with the stench of life and death as a duo of vampires descended upon more of the boys, shout of surprise bloomed; creating terrifying echoes as more vampires followed suit. Following upon their bestial natures and arsenal and disregarding the guns socketed at their hips in holsters or slung about their bodies by straps. Blood was their want and their sin and from somewhere above - tucked away into shadow on the second floor stairwell - a giggle resonated with glowing pools of amethyst watching the destruction with malicious glee.

"Mongrels..." Maman muttered, curled and tucked against the arm of her companion whom watched his followers throw themselves upon the mortals. A small smirk curved over lips as the vampire dame swayed and pressed against his side, entranced by the wealth of death below them. Every human that fell, she seemed to become more excited, and even when one his own succumbed to bullets riddling their stone-flesh or falling to the retaliation, she seemed to laugh all the more.

"You're a cruel woman," he whispered, earning a small laugh.

"You should meet my daughter, her cruelty is much more generous than my own." Maman answered with a small purr, simper wide and bearing her mouth of a horrifying threat.

-----

"Shit!"
"Fuck!"
"Aaarr-"

This was a nightmare. Lights hadn't worked, and as soon as we got comfy they'd jumped us. And these weren't no ordinary goons neither.

These were vamps.

Why'd Papa Santoni send us up against vamps?! We needed holy water and fire, not guns!

"Fuck it fellas, everyone inside! Go go go!"

I grabbed one of the guys next to me and ran for it. The rest of the survivors behind me chased my tail as I ran down a random hallway.

Fuck fuck fuck. We weren't gonna survive this.

I just kept running as I heard guys dyin' behind me, underneath gunfire and the snarling and roaring of the bloodsuckers on our tail.

"Andy! How we gonna know when we reach the gal?!"

One of the guys behind me piped up, panting and wheezing from the running. I glanced back at him and glared.

"Just keep running ya moron! She's in here somewheres!"

When I thought we was far enough, I stopped, caught my breath and did a head count. Of the nine guys I'd brought with me in, there was four left. Seriously?! We weren't gonna fuckin' survive this, and I bet your britches Papa Santoni knew it. We was at a cross hall, and I didn't know where to go next. My instincts were tellin' me not to do what I was thinkin' of doin', but fuck it there wasn't any other way.

I turned back to the guys and gave 'em all a good, hard look.

"Alright fellas. These bloodsuckers ain't gonna get the best of us. We're Santoni boys, remember?! Now, best chance we got of findin' this broad is by splittin' up. Vamps got less chance of rippin' us to shreds that way. At least one of us is gonna find the gal. Once you find her, you get the fuck out and leave with the front guards and you make sure to fuck up everything in your way. We'll get the hit and make a quick exit."

"But Andy-"

"Just do it, idiot! If we all stick together, we're dead. If we split up and scour this whole damn place, we'll find her."

With nods of agreements, the rest of the guys split up. I went with one of them down my hall, while the rest took their own ways.

Fuck me, if this wasn't gonna find us our dame, we were all gonna get gutted in here.

-----

The air was rank with death, and she could taste it.

She slid her way from the depths of silk and velvet, slender limbs reaching out from the threads of comfort and luxury that she was sunk into like the traps of luxuriant, rapid, sand. Lashes fluttered and peeled back in languid draws as lips parted and quivering inhales hissed beyond fangs unsheathed from the dimension of sin and fester. Thus, allowing the copper tang to caress over the pallet of her lips and tongue in tandem with the dilating spheres of her irises pulling in light from the gloom, and moonlight to bathe the area in a predator's gaze. Flimsy edges of scarlet pooled around objects, wispy tendrils grasping onto everything within sight as she disengaged herself fully from the refineries of the establishment’s favour.

Humans...

Maharet carefully examined the confines of the room, having been restricted to the parlour courtesy of her Maman, her lip curled, as a method of lessons and punishment in her previous affairs. After all, when they had met up in Santa Somabra, it had been under the pretenses of meeting old friends and older enemies, simply to make sure of the Nyctari influence within the spires whilst the revenue of drugs and sin continued to fluctuate. Maharet wasn't capable of being sanctioned, no matter her mother's prowess, and it was only the capabilities of her friends that had seen to her current condition, blood-drunk and thus easily to succumb to a killer’s rest. Immaculate gestures palmed and shoved red waves from her brow before she began feeling along the walls, velvet threads catching against the sharpness of her nails that dug through the material until she began clawing the wall fortified beneath the softness of pomp and wealth. The report of gunfire was sharp and quick, immediately silenced by terrifying wails of the dying. Maharet found the seal of the wall easily enough, plying fingers into the small, hidden nook where the concealed door connected and began forcing the brick towards her, revealing the darkened hallway bathed in the thickest of shadows that pinged with blood and hunger.

She had expected a contingent of the vampire Lord's followers stationed somewhere in the depths of the hall, should she attempt to flee from the hidden chambers, but only the thickness of bereavement was there to greet her. Of course, she had considered that Maman was playing one of her many games, attempting to lure her daughter out so as to chase her down later, always there to ridicule her and shower her in the belittling voice that was more proper for a small babe than a cunning, deceitful woman that was constantly wreathed in decay and rotten intention. She was cruel, vicious, lacking morals and care and used others to her own fulfillment. Maharet shuddered, tightly wrapping her person in a blanket of blackened silk to keep herself further hidden in the gloom - she would make this her escape.

Maharet carefully toed her way down plush carpeting, using the seduction of shadows to further conceal her attempt as she descended down the hall, but the quick inhales she performed to gather the scents in the establishment came with the sweat of man and her eyes widened, lashes framing the glow of steel and blue as she came upon two of them, guns poised at the ready and fear bathed over their faces. Her lips curled into a snarl, revealing gleaming fangs before she launched forward, shoving one of the men away with her palm, hearing the crack of skin and bone as he flew back against the wall and her opposite palm came across the other, forcing him flush against the wood and hearing it splinter beneath her force and his weight. Her breath was hot and terrifying on his neck, the eyes of the vampire peering sharp as she gazed up at him and spoke:

"What fools would dare break upon a vampire's abode?" Maharet hissed. "Why are you here? Are you after the Lady or that foolish, damned Lord that she has snared in her teeth?"

-----

"Holy fu -"

crack

"Jesse!"

Shit.

The dame stalked outta her bedroom like an animal. Batted him away like a leaf. Snapped his neck like a twig. All with one hand. In the other, she had me.

"What fools would dare break upon a vampire's abode? Why are you here? Are you after the Lady or that foolish, damned Lord that she has snared in her teeth?"

I didn't understand the context but I did understand the meaning. 'Sides, her head of red hair was a dead giveaway.

This was our dame. Papa Santoni's prize doll.

"We ain't here for them! We're here for you! Papa Santoni's orders! Gonna get you out and back to him, ASAP!"

I didn't know what else was goin' on in the mansion but I sure as hell was countin' my lucky stars I wasn't anywhere else. I could hear the chaos a ways away. Boys dyin'. My fault for sendin' 'em out there. But hey, sacrifices. We had our dame.

I took a quick glance to the sides and kinda panicked a little when I saw no one else.

"Look, lady, we gotta get you outta here pronto, otherwise those lugs back there are gonna kill us all. Mainly us, not you. I got guys out the back, but you've been here the longest. If we can make it out the back door, circle round front and get to the cars we'll be safe!"

-----

Maharet's brow contoured in one of confusion, glimmering into the depths of her eyes that were still coiled and sharpened into her predatory instincts. Her palm only compressed that much harder, the wood beneath creaking in dull protest that ached and splintered further as she leaned into him, intent on tearing that glistening throat out to silence the bated heat of his words.

Safety... It was just a tragic word.

"You can't hope to escape from Maman's clutches, she'll tear you apart herself." She breathed, a peculiar expression creasing the line of her mouth, lips peeling back over her fangs. "I don't know who you're here for... Or why he wants me," Maharet continued, her palms gradually withdrawing, releasing him from the wall's harsh embrace until she stepped back completely, visibly straining to rein in the qualms of her bestial nature.

"Escape while you can, otherwise I'll be tempted to feast upon you. I have barely any strength left." She admitted sullenly, glancing down the vacant hall with her fingers cinching tight into fists before flexing outward, like claws of the beast preparing for the onslaught. Briefly, she glanced down to the man she had slain moment before, a quick flush of her nose proved he was still.. fresh.

"Unless.. You allow me to eat your dead comrade there." Maharet laughed, a tune of depravity reaping through her vocals as more scream fractured the silence of the mansion bathed in death.

-----

"W-well-"

I gasped for air as she let go of me. I fell to a knee, clawing at my bruised throat as she spoke. The words didn't fall on deaf ears. I knew what she wanted.

She wanted to eat Jesse!

Man. Fuck no. This ain't what the kid's momma wanted!

But I had no choice.

"F-fuck it, go ahead, dame. If'n we're gonna get outta here alive, we gotta all be at full steam, right?"

I turned so my back was to her. Couldn't bear to watch her...dig in. Instead I trained my gun down the hall.

Fuck me sideways. If this was the way we was gonna go, I sure as hell wasn't gonna go down without a fight.

"Whatever ya gonna do doll, do it quick! I hear your pals comin', and they don't sound too happy!"

Her earlier words rang true though. She didn't know who we were. Where we came from.

I had to tell her.

"Dame, we here from Papa Santoni. He likes you, an' he heard you was in the company of some pretty nasty assholes, so he sent us to get ya back to him and away from these people. I'm just here as muscle, lady, I'm as clueless as you are why he wants you back this badly."

-----

Maharet gauged his reaction with a quiet gaze, loosely poising her lips to part as she inhaled, enveloping his scent into her fold before she descended upon his dead companion. Her teeth were ruthless daggers and razors piercing and shredding deep into the capillaries weeping already for her puncturing tools, skin mere paper. Her fingers clutched him in a near desperation, muscles and sinew still wired and alive from the function of his mind; she didn't voice it aloud, knowing his companion would immediately protest. Instead Maharet tore through his neck, splintering open every flay of skin her nails touched and her mouth graced, almost with contempt as she literally ate the poor boy.

She wasted none on proper conduct, her countenance bathed in red that fell in literal rivers of death down the front of her body and stained her fingers in black. Her eyes glimmered with a renewed sense of energy, the hunter sated for just a moment as her thirst burned and was tempered. Her insatiable blood lust almost burned with the need to take the other, and the brief curl of her lips suggested that thought before his words fell onto her ears and brought the predator back into reality.

"Come on then pet," Maharet barked then, descending down the hall with an aura of confidence and deadly elegance as the hall swelled with the scent of other vampires.

It wasn't long in their journey she came across them, they stalked across the plush carpet, nails scraping the walls, hissing and spatting in her direction like beasts released from their tethers. Maharet grinned, a malicious simper the carved wide into her pallid cheeks as she came upon them with mouth agape and tearing into their bodies of stone with tooth and claw, she twisted the neck of one and used the splinter of bone to puncture another, allowing none to grace her body in injury. She twisted and thrust one vampire into the wall, sending his body carving a path through the wood and stone and immediately followed through the temporary detour.

"This way," she muttered, picking over the body of the vampire impaled on splinters and decimated beneath her brutality. "We can get to the back from here." Maharet felt along the wall, letting her eyes dilate and pull in light, purposely forcing her footfalls to echo in the brief chamber for her human comrade to follow.

-----

"J-Jesus wept, lady."

I heard her gorgin' herself on Jesse's corpse. Them sounds...awful.

Fuck me. This was a nightmare.

Oh my god I wanted out so badly.

"Come on then pet."

I turned, forcing myself not to look down at what remained of poor Jesse as the lady stood. Fuck, she still looked amazing even with all that crimson cascading down her front. With a weary nod I got on her tail, shouldering my gun in case of anything.

Round and about we went. This place was huge! Like a fuckin' maze! But eventually we got somewhere. I knew 'cause we bumped into some of her "friends". I didn't even get my gun up before she tore into 'em like an animal. Both of 'em were dead before I'd even flinched!

Holy shit! Remind me never again to get on a vamp's bad side.

"This way. We can get to the back from here."

"You got it, lady."

I picked through the corpses and followed her. She wasn't hard to follow; her red hair was like a torch in the dark. I kept glancin' behind me, in case any more of 'em freaks came up at us from behind.

-----

Maharet almost, briefly, felt a swell of confidence the further they managed to make it further and further into the hallways, making progress towards their final reprieve. She had to admit, with a careful glance over her shoulder, that her current charge had done well enough to stomach the alarming amount of death that reaped through every inch of the manor. No wall was left cleansed of matter and blood, ebony pools tinged red on the edges, and every shadow withheld the possibility that they were being followed. The latter is what Maharet dreaded most of all, she was almost positive wards had been effectively implemented through out her holding chambers, and as soon as she had vacated the prison, Maman would've immediately been shadowing her attempt to retreat. She vaguely pondered if it was because she had recently fed, or having this man here with her was poising off the other mistress, which ever the circumstance, she was entirely blessed for the temporary sanctuary.

But, she was so very wrong...

A terrible screech, akin to the wail of a banshee, tore through her head, weathering her down to the crutch of her knees with her nails spearing into her temples; clawing at the skin until red fluids came fresh and thick against the curvature of her palms. Maharet screamed, a terrible sound from the wailing crescendo within her head that literally struck her thick in the throes of terrifying agony.

Soft, peeling laughter bloomed in the shadows then, sliding along thickly with the scarlet vampires terrifying cries. Amethyst eyes peered from the gloom, followed elegantly by blinding fangs and red lips, smooth skin unmarred like alabaster and wreathed in thick webs of blood and grey matter fringed in slick ebonies.

"You thought you could run..." Maman purred, bending at the waist to caress against the slender jaw of Maharet, lips parted at her wonder and laughter until her wrist flicked, fingers poised and her hand drew back, quick and effortless until she swung down, nails biting thick into her cheek and leaving Maharet helpless against the ruthless strike from Maman. Her nails were skin to claws, impaling the stone flesh of her countenance and leaving thick tracks, slicing into her mouth carving into the bone of her jaw from the brutal force. Maharet fell, blood thick and heavy like tar pooling against the carpet as she collapsed at the feet of her mother.

That's when the ebonette vampire noticed him. Glowing pools fell onto him, immediately eclipsing with a murderous intent as she approached him, lips parted and the heat of her breath wrought with strings of flesh. Her hands lashed out, tearing away his weapon with ease, immediately crunching the metal within her palms and tossing the useless heap aside, and descended upon him without hesitation.

"Sorry my dear... Can't leave anyone alive."

And then her fangs fell...

-----

"And that's the story 'a my life. Touching, ain't it?"

"Fuck me, no that was awful!"

I had to roll my eyes. Asshole was tryin' ta be smart. I slapped him upside the back of his head and sighed.

"Ow! Wha-"

"Shut it, dumbass. We're here."

I pulled the sedan in to the Rouge's foyer. Place was massive. Marble and satin and silk. Deep red carpet on the floor. Didn't stop the place from reekin' like vamp. No matter how much you cleaned, nothing got rid of the smell of copper. Got out, slammed the door, drew my coat in tight. Was fuckin' cold tonight. Valet took our car as we exited. Kiddo followed me as we walked up the steps to the place. First time I was steppin' into a vamp nest since all those years ago. Felt friggin' weird.

As we walked up the steps, I took a small spray bottle out from my coat and gave myself a liberal dose of it all over my torso. Then I tossed it at Kiddo, who caught it, though off-guard.

"Hey! What the-"

"It's cologne, wise guy. We smell like rot, 'n vamps fuckin' hate that smell. Reminds 'em of their own unlife. Cover yourself with that. Give yerself a good liberal spray. Makes ya bearable."

With a grimace, he took my advice and sprayed himself with the rest of the bottle. He tossed it back to me and I kept it as we approached the front door. Looked like a regular ball inside.

I'd phoned ahead before the history lesson. They were expecting us. As we reached the front door a tall man greeted us.

"Are the two of you the Lost Boys, sirs?"

Kiddo gave me a look. I returned it, then nodded to the man. He was obviously under their spell. Wasn't here nor there. His eyes told the whole story.

"Yeah. We are."

"May I take your coats and hats then, sirs? You are expected. Madam Roquelaure is waiting for you in her private parlour."

"Uh...okay sure, why not."

I took off my overcoat and hat and handed it to the guy, who also took Kiddo's trench and fedora. Left me in my waistcoat and tie. With a wave of his hand, he ushered us inside.

"Please enjoy your stay, sirs, and welcome to the Rouge."

I nodded thanks and went inside. The smell hit me first before anything else. Perfume, lots of it. And underneath that, copper. Heavy.

Fresh.

Amazing what bein' dead grants ya.

I strolled right in and grabbed two tumblers of whiskey off a passing waiter and his tray. Around me the crowd didn't seem to notice us, but we still attracted attention anyway. Two corpses strolling through a packed ballroom will do that.

The crowd parted as word spread of our arrival. I heard whispers. Faint. Mentions of our infamy. People who recognised us. Recognised me. People who didn't.

Didn't care. We were here for someone else.

As we approached the grand looming staircase that led to the parlours and rooms out back, a lady clad in a dress greeted us.

"Sirs? The Lost Boys? Madam Roquelaure is expecting you, please follow me."

Without waiting she wheeled right around and strode off, her heels clacking noisily on the marble floor. Kiddo gave me a shrug, I returned it, we moved on. The murmurs behind us grew louder. I heard more whispers. Who were these guys? What business did they have with Lady Crimson?

Again. Didn't matter. Didn't care. We were here on business.

The thrall led us through one hallway after another. Like a maze, this place was. Reminded me of the original mansion back in the 20s.

Beside me, Kiddo voiced his concerns.

"What if she doesn't remember ya, Andy? Ain't ya worried?"

I gave him a glance and shrugged.

"I ain't. Vamps like these, they got a memory like an elephant. Remember everything. Don't you worry your little head off."

Eventually though, we reached a grand sorta door. Small but it was real fancy like. All gold trimmings and velvet padding. The lady thrall stopped, turned right around and gestured to the door.

"Please, enter. Madam is waiting."

Without a second thought, I put my hand on the door and went in.

"Madam Roquelaure? Remember me?"

[Flagg]

It was late. The office was dark, save for the dim, yellow circle of light thrown off by the desk lamp.

Kurtz was very still. His eyes were closed, hands steepled under his chin. He looked like a man praying. He was not.

Several sheets of paper were spread out on the desk in front of him, their surfaces filled with slanted, close-knit writing, spattered with ink stains and crimson blots of what looked like blood. Paragraphs were interspersed with shadowy sketches of pale figures and cryptic, crudely drawn maps.

The phone rang, an old fashioned metallic trill. Kurtz did not move, but his eyes slid open, like those of a crocodile hearing the sound of approaching hooves.

He picked up the phone on the third ring.

"Kurtz speaking," he said.

He tilted his head slightly to the side.

"Commissioner, I appreciate you returning my call- despite the hour. I hope you understand what needs to be done?"

He traced one of the etchings on the paper in front of him with a single, manicured finger as Santa Somabra's police commissioner babbled excuses into his ear.

"I- we- understand the difficulties involved, Commissioner, that's why we backed you for the office over the Nyctari's preferred candidate. Over the Syndicate's candidate. You were a man our community of clients and investors could trust in difficult situations. Now we are trusting you to handle Officer Kennedy for us, Bloodbloom connections or no. Or do I have to handle this matter myself?"

A smile flickered over his mouth as he listened.

"I thought not," he said, "I don't much care how you resolve this issue, Commissioner, and I don't much care if this trash-heap-of-a-city's blood suckers, whore mongers and drug peddlers throw a collective fit, as long as Kennedy and his little friends are no longer in a position to act against our interests. If you're so afraid to confront the mafia, don't. See what happens."

Kurtz hung up, green eyes returning to the papers in front of him.

"Francis Cain," he said softly to no one in particular, "You don't what you've found. What you're fucking, even."

A grin broke out across Kurtz's face. He picked up the phone once again and spun the dial.

"This is Kurtz, of Barrow & White. I'm calling for Madame Roquelaire," he said, "Occupied? No, no need to disturb her, just tell her I'm calling with an update regarding our recent arrangement. That I have something here she'll be very interested to see."

- The Afternoon Previous -

It had been a herculean task, but she had managed to conceal the bruises, scrapes, and wounds under layers of makeup and clothing. She had tried, truly, to dress up going as far to make sure that her stockings weren’t torn, her skirt wasn’t skimpy, her shirt didn’t have any weird stains, her cardigan wasn’t burnt, and her boots were clean from the grime of her rumble with Vengeance. However, as she walked past the prima donnas in pantsuits that lined the financial district smoking cigarettes or taking late lunch breaks she couldn’t help but feel underdressed for her meeting. At the very least, she felt that she didn’t appear professional—although, at the very least she no longer appeared as if she had crawled out of the gutter. Valorie paused in front of a reflective mirror, looked at herself, and frowned.

I look like I’m trying to start a glee club or go door to door to tell people about my lord and savior, not offer my services as a fucking necromancer, she thought. But it’s too late to pin some dead crows to my shirt.

She tossed her cigarette in the street as she crossed it, quickening her pace ever so slightly as the little green man started blinking out of existence. Valorie didn’t even look up to admire the building's classical architecture. A piece of gum was already in her mouth as she popped out her headphones and pushed through the rotating doors, stepping into a tasteful lobby with high ceilings, marbled floors, and slate walls. She felt butterflies swell up in her stomach as she approached the front desk; a sharp, shapely young lady looked up at her and smiled. Valorie was about to mention how Cain had sent her here, but the woman spoke first.

“The Firm has been expecting you,” she said and gestured. “Take that elevator to the top floor.”

Valorie nodded dumbly and followed where the woman had pointed. As she called for the elevator, the young necromancer felt eyes on her. The lobby, however, was empty, and looking over her shoulder she could see that the woman at the front desk was absorbed in something on her tablet.

Still, she felt strangely uneasy, and actually jumped when the elevator door dinged to signal its arrival. Shaking her head at her own nerves, she entered the lift and pushed the button for the top floor. There was no slow, horrible muzak pumped through the speaker as she rode up the many floors, leaving her with just enough time to silently contemplate hitting a button to let her off on an earlier floor as she listened to the blood pumping in her ears. Before she could make up her mind, the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

She stepped forward into a softly lit, carpeted hallway. There were only two doors in the hallway. One led to an emergency exit, the other was at the far end of the hallway, and as Valorie approached she felt the air around her grow heavy. The door was crafted out of large, black oak. There was a single glass window set in the door. It was frosted so that she could not see through, with the words “Barrow & White” etched into the window. She grabbed ahold of the handle and, stopping herself from her usual behavior, knocked twice.

The door swung open immediately upon her second knock, and Valorie was greeted by a smiling man in a blue suit. His emerald pocket square matched his tie, and both matched the remarkable shade of his eyes. Shaved bald, heavy set in a neat, tidy way that gave no hint of fat or flab, he managed the rare feat of looking distinctive, even peculiar, without seeming ugly or distastefully odd.

"Hello Ms. Peirce!" he said, clapping well-manicured hands together, "So good of you to come. I am Kurtz. Please, please come in!"

She couldn't help but notice the whiteness of his teeth. It reminded her of that goblin, Gish. More importantly, it reminded her of the sorry state of her own teeth. She offered him a tight-lipped smile, trying to appear confident or polite and feeling as if she had failed at both. At least she had been able to fix her eyes, bloodshot from the cornucopia of drugs that had torn through her system, with eye drops—she would have felt ridiculous hiding behind a pair of shades, especially in front of someone who appeared to be so professional. She immediately felt that she had made a mistake by coming here. She knew Cain was trying to help her out, but god damn it, the man had a pocket square. Valorie didn't actually know what the purpose of the thing was, but she knew what it meant. A pocket square meant that she was dealing with someone way out of her league.

"Okay, yeah, thanks," she said, swallowing her gum but with hopes that it would take her nerves with it. "Nice to meet you."

"I appreciate your availability on such short notice. Unfortunately, our usual contractors could not be used for this particular task- which is rather, ah, politically delicate. Still, I am absolutely thrilled to make a new acquaintance. The Firm is always on the lookout for...rising talent. I hope our partnership will prove mutually fruitful, since the resources we can make available to an ambitious occultist are- I hope you will not think this mere braggadocio- simply unmatched, at least in this city," said Kurtz, leading his guest down a carpeted, wood paneled hallway and into a cozy office lined with bookshelves. A bank of gothic windows gave a fantastic view of the Somabran skyline.

Kurtz seated himself behind a heavy wooden desk and gestured for Valorie to sit. The painting behind him was just slightly too large for the room, depicting Cronos devouring his children. Blood and viscera dribbled from the titan's crooked mouth.

"Can I get you something to drink, my dear? Coffee, tea, something stronger?" asked Kurtz, "One magus of my acquaintance refuses to even begin work without a dram- or two, or three- of some liquor derived from a very rare fungus only found in the depths of the Amazon, and we both know, I daresay, about the drinking habits of our mutual friend Mr. Cain! It has never impaired his abilities in my experience, so please don't be shy."

Valorie pulled her eyes away from the violent painting and gave a knowing smile. She felt herself relax a bit more in her chair.

"I could go for something stronger," she said. Part of her wanted to inquire if he had any of that mystery mushroom drink. She had been told by one of her Rat friends about something called Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic tea made from some vines or something, and wondered if the liquor was like it—perhaps a kind of absinthe that actually really caused you to trip. She refrained.

"I'd take a vodka tonic. Or anything, really. I'm not terribly picky," she said, waving her hand dismissively as if it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't a complete lie. She did have strong feelings when it came to certain types of liquor, but she found it that being under the legal age quickly allowed her to swallow her opinions as well as disgusting shots of cheap tequila and whatever the fuck Jägermeister was supposed to be.

She felt her eyes drifting back to the painting, greedily drinking it in. She suspected that it was supposed to be intimidating in someway, but all it did was excite her. She saw flashes of Vigilance tearing through that girl again; could hear the melodic scream ringing through her ears. She turned away from the painting, staring out one of the windows. She felt the smile fade away.

She should talk, right? That's what business people do, isn't it?

"Fra—" She paused. "Cain only told me a little bit about you guys. I tried my own hand on researching your firm but, well, I couldn't find anything really useful. Just some bull, uh, stuff about art and antiques. I mean, I get it, nobody's going to go right out there and be like, hey man, we do, uh, uh,uh," she said, rolling her hands in an attempt to draw forth something shady sounding while still inoffensive. She couldn't. "Uh, whatever. My point is people generally don't look for a necromancer to help them pick out some artwork. I mean, unless the artist is dead," she said. Her voice kicked up a notch, her mind racing at the idea. "Man, could you bring back a Picasso or a Van Gogh from the dead? I mean, their body would be dusts and bones. I don't think skeletons would reanimate with enough dexterity to actually—" She shook her head and laughed quietly.

"What I mean is, what is it that the firm does, like, for real?" she said, softly adding, "If you don't mind me asking."

And why the hell do you need me, she thought.

"Armand," said Kurtz, depressing an intercom on his desk, "A vodka tonic for our guest, and- oh, it's early, but why not?- a glass of the Derleth merlot for me."

He drummed his fingers a moment on his desk, smiling quietly at Valorie, before speaking, "Art and antiquities are the lifeblood of the Firm's business. No bull, I assure you. As an aspiring mage, you ought to recognize the power of the ancient and the exquisite. I just sold a thirteenth century copy of the Mysteries of the Worm for thirty five million dollars to a collector in- of all places- Arkansas. We recently acquired the only known statue of Tiglath-Pileser IV, better known as the Gore Lord of Assyria. The bidding, my dear, will start at- well...you get the idea. Nevertheless, you are correct that we do rather more than deal in the ancient and occult, which is why I've asked you here."

Armand entered the office with a tray bearing Valorie's cocktail and Kurtz's glass of red. He set the drinks down and left without a word. Kurtz tilted his glass to Valorie.

"To new friends," he said, taking a sip.

"Now, before we proceed, I must ask you to sign a, ah, non-disclosure agreement, of a kind," said Kurtz, producing a formal looking document from his desk drawer, "Don't worry, you're not signing away your -aha- soul, nor your freedom. You agree to keep the secrets of the Firm and not to work with the various disreputable factions who think they run this city. In exchange, you will have limited access to our private archives, and the base pay for a job of this kind: $60,000. If you remain on retainer with us and we...find your services and skills up to the tasks we have for you, I can assure you that you'll earn considerably more than that. No more running around with... Rats, nor unsavory police officials. You accept the jobs we offer you, when and if you wish to. You decline the ones you want no part of."

Kurtz pushed the form across the desk to Valorie. "The only catch," he said, "Is that you shouldn't cross us. Not once you sign."

"I understand," said Valorie, lifting her glass and taking a sip. "I'd never do a friend wrong."

Her head swam as she grabbed the pen. She was still trying to imagine what thirty five mill looked like, let alone how much sixty grand looked like. For a woman who never lived with more than a couple hundred dollars in her bank account at a time, it was all rather hard to fathom what she would even do with that money. Get a better apartment, perhaps, buy some designer clothes, save it? Her father had always talked to her about how she should be investing her money before she moved away. It'd be the smart idea, really, but another part told her that maybe it would be best for her to spend the money on a month-long bender, one final hurrah before completely going clean. Sixty grand could buy her a lot of party favors. No, no, that would be insane, and Cain had told her to stay away from that sort of stuff...but she did deserve a little bit of fun after this week. A reward for getting her shit together.

She signed without further hesitation. Even if they hadn't offered to pay her so much, she would've signed just to get access to what the man had referred to as their "private archives". As she set the pen down she felt a wave of anxiety rush over her as if she had just done something incredibly stupid, but it was gone the second she took a sip of her drink.

"So, since we are now documented besties, what exactly is a job of this kind?" she said, leaning forward with piqued interest.

Kurtz swept the contract into a drawer which locked audibly as he closed it.

He stood, briskly circling around his desk and pulled a thick book, bound in black leather, from a heavy wooden box on his shelves. He set the tome in front of Valorie and retook his seat.

"That, Ms Pierce," he said, "Is a first edition replication of the Blood Atlas of Akhmat Khan."

He sipped his wine, smiling, "I don't expect you have heard of it. Most people, even very learned occultists, have not, though I daresay there are a few vampires who would and could slaughter us both in an instant for even laying eyes on it."

"Huh, good thing it's day then," she said matter-of-factly. She noted how he had avoided answering her question. Still, since she was already, apparently, in trouble for even setting eyes on the cover of the book she decided that there would be no harm in being a curious cat and taking a look inside. Flipping through the pages, Valorie was greeted by a sea of tiny words compacted together in the sort of dense, impenetrable way older books always seemed to be. There were a few pictures as violent and as eye catching as the painting in Kurtz's office. Still, nothing instantly stood out to her that could justify a good ol' fashioned evisceration. She had to ask.

"What's its deal?" she said, jumping to the back of the book. "I know vampires are kind of pricks about everything, but this sorta just looks like an old book."

"The book is being quiet now, with me in the room," said Kurtz, "Sadly, I do not have a knack for communing with spirits- they usually seem intensely agitated by my presence, if not downright afraid of me! Quite mysterious, since I consider myself rather agreeable-no? Even so, I am going to step out in a few moments, and let you and the Atlas become better acquainted."

He slid a piece of paper across the table to her, embossed with the letterhead of some place called The Rouge. The names Samson Murolun and De'Cahors were scrawled in elegant script across it in dark crimson ink.

"Give it these names. Ask it to show you where they are." Kurtz handed Valorie a pen and several sheets of blank paper.

"It may instruct you to write or draw- if so do not be concerned if you cannot understand your own scribblings. I...rather doubt you can read antique Turkic dialects." Kurtz said. He plucked a small dagger like a letter opener from his jacket and offered it to Valorie, "It may also require a blood offering."

Kurtz stood, buttoned his jacket and headed for the door. "Best of luck, Ms. Pierce! I'll be in the parlor, come fetch me when you're finished. Oh, and don't worry about getting blood on the carpet. This office has seen worse!"

And with that, he swept out of the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind him.

Valorie squinted at the note. The Rouge. Sounds pretentious, she thought, setting it down and turning the tiny blade over in her hand. It looked ornate and was probably more expensive than anything she owned. Sighing, she set the knife down next to the note and scooted closer to the desk, looking at the thick leather tome. So she was supposed to, what, have a conversation with this? Part of her worried that this might be a test, that she was supposed to walk out of the room and chide Kurtz for thinking he could pull a fast one on her. She was supposed to say something with an air of haughtiness and perhaps a slight Shakespearean accent, such as, "The Blood Atlas was created by Ibak, not Akhmat, Khan," or, "A replication would not allow one to communicate through spirits," to show her knowledge of the occult. Truth be told, however, if that was the case then she sure as hell didn't know, and Kurtz hardly seemed like the kind of man who vetted people through such dishonest means. She'll talk to the book; worse case scenario she'd just look like an asshole. It wouldn't be a new thing.

"Hey, uh, book," she said, uncertain how to start. "You, er, you come here often—Val, what the hell is wrong with..." She shook her head. "Hey book, open sesame." She gestured her arms wide, as if she was parting the Red Sea. "Hocus pocus. Presto! Sim sim sala bim. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo? Shazam!" Her hands were now above her head; she caught her reflection in the window. "Abracafuck this is stupid," she said, dropping her hands. She grabbed the note and gave the closed book a spiteful sideways glance. "Okay, dick, I want you to tell me where I can find Samson," she slowed her reading, trying to find a way to pronounce the scribbled names, "Murolun and De'Cahors?" Nothing. "Oh come the fuck on, man, give me a break," she whined, grabbing the book and flipping the cover open.

She fell back in her chair as a wave of spectral voices tore through her mind. It was similar to the rush she got when a spike went into her vein, but without the fun follow up feeling of euphoria or the exciting intimacy and morning after feeling of stupidity that comes from sharing a needle. It was too much, way too much. She grabbed onto the arms of the chair, her eyes rolling back into her head as her body thrashed and arched violently. No no no, shit shit shit. Hateful voices that sounded as they were playing backwards taunted her as she jerked back in forth in her chair, her leg kicking against the desk and sending the chair crashing to the floor. She continued to seize as the spirits tried to possess her body, foam spilling out of the corners of her mouth. Valorie couldn't help but think of how weird it was to see herself thrash about like an addict overdosing as she stared down from above. Shit like this should've scared her straight, but it didn't.

She heard herself bark threats at the spirits, something about knowing a priest, something about destroying their book, something about how she was in control and if they wanted anything then they would have to play nice, although she wasn't sure if it was something her body actually said as if flopped about on the floor or something she had just projected through her mind. Whatever the case, she felt herself sit up as her eyes rolled back into place. She wiped the mess from her mouth and stood up slowly. She picked the chair back up but didn't sit in it, propping herself against the desk as she grabbed the pen, pulled back her sleeve, and then quickly sketched some runes on her forearm. A healing spell, but a slow acting one; it would take a minute for its effects to go in. Just long enough for her to give the book a generous offering, but not long enough to make her feel faint. She slashed the knife across her wrist, wincing in pain as she set her dripping arm down against an open page. The blood was already absorbing itself into the ravenous ink.

The voices were speaking again; they were calmer, tamed. Her hand acted on its own, grabbing the pen and sketching like a madwoman on the paper Kurtz had supplied her. Her eyes glazed over again and her vision blurred, but she did not lose her body to the spirits a second time. She listened to the voices as they spoke in foreign tongues that she didn't know but could somehow understand. As her vision focused she could see from the orange sky outside that more than an hour had passed. Her hand felt cramped. The desk in front of her was covered in papers crisscrossed with unknown words and barely recognizable symbols. Several of the pages were covered in drawings of building and maps.

Valorie, who could hardly even draw a stick figure without fucking it up, looked in awe at the few pages that had nearly photo-realistic sketches of people on it. One was of a tall and thin man with long darkly filled in hair and dark eyes standing next to a woman with hair that was hardly even shaded to make it appear blonde. The picture was labeled Samson & Clarice and it was accompanied by two other detailed profiles of their faces. Another one was labeled De'Cahors, their hair smeared with her blood to create a dark red color. From the first picture Valorie couldn't tell a single one of them apart, but the accompanying profiles showed the small, minute differences between the family. Valorie looked over at the book. It was closed, and although the desk around it was stained with blood there appeared to be not a single drop on the binding or the pages.

She took a minute to collect herself and to verify that, yes, the ward Cain had taught her had sealed her wound. She stepped out of the office and made her way down the hallway, poking her head into each door until she found the parlor. "It's finished. No sweat," she said weakly, forcing a smile and pointing to her bloodstained sleeve. "Do you have, like, a towel or something?"

[collab with @Atrophy]

[Kingfisher]

Collab with @JulienJaden

The Pale Veil was a place on the fancy side, as was to be expected of Dawn Peak Heights. Cain hadn't eaten at a restaurant like this in months; not because he couldn't afford it but because he didn't like them. Establishments like this had a tendency to not only be meeting places for the rich and famous or the powerful and their agents, namely him, but they all too often also had a hidden purpose, for example catering to more... exotic tastes. An innocent-looking restaurant like this could be a cover for a bordello or a blood den. That made asking questions at a place like this particularly dicey. Not that he had much of a choice.

So, Cain had given up his coat at the entrance and his gun was hidden under his jacket, now sitting comfortably in a quiet corner of the relatively empty restaurant - it was only around noon, after all - and watched as a young blonde walked towards him with his meal.

"Here you are, sir", she said with a polite smile as she sat down the tray. "A steak, medium, with seasonal vegetables on the side and a quarter of Trollinger."

"Thank you", Cain returned the smile as he watched her set his table, filled his glasses with wine and water.

"Enjoy your meal." She turned to leave.

"Would you sit with me for a moment?"

The question must have been unexpected but how quickly she recovered spoke volumes of how many proposals of this and probably even more indecent nature she had to deal with on a daily basis.

"I'm afraid I have to wo-"

"Don't worry, I have no ulterior motive.", Cain interrupted with a persistent smile. "I'm just a lonely elderly guy who'd like some company while he eats, that's all."

The blonde chewed on her bottom lip and looked around, making sure that nobody was vying for her attention. Didn't Valorie do that too sometimes? Maybe she might have worked in a place like this too, if it wasn't for Kennedy or her knack for necromancy. Francis pressed on.

"Some smalltalk, a sip of water, I'm not asking for much - and you'll walk away with a nice tip in your backpocket. It's not terribly busy right now anyway, is it?"

She nervously looked around once more as he cut into the meat and enjoyed his first mouthful of incredibly pricy and unbelievably tender steak, but by the time he reached for his wine glass, she had pulled back a chair next to him and sat down.

"You look a little intimidated."

"My boss is kinda anal about taking breaks", she murmured.

Cain chuckled and was rewarded with a careful smile by the blonde. "Salute", he wished her as he took a healthy gulp of the off-dry wine and nodded, satisfied. "What's your name?"

"Anna."

"As pretty as you."

It was a cheesy thing to say but the way he said it or maybe the situation caused her to grin sheepishly as the brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. It was always a boost for his ego when he didn't have to use magic at all to have this effect.

"And how long have you been working for your anal boss?"

Between a little charm here and a bit of humor there, she began to relax.
"I don't know, a couple of months? I kinda lost track of time; I've been tired a lot and today was particularly bad."

"How so?"

The blonde shrugged.

"Well, my colleague Stephanie up and vanished about halfway through our shift yesterday night. She didn't let anyone know, just... left, I guess, so I had to cover for her yesterday and today."

"Curious", he murmured, a forkfull of vegetables giving him a moment to think.

"Yeah... Well, it's not first time that's happened here. It's not the kind of job you wanna do forever."

Cain nodded.

"I know what you mean. By the way", he reached into his inside pocket, "I'm trying to get back in touch with a friend of mine. I've been told that she visits the Pale Veil every now and then", he took out the photograph and sat it on the table before her.

"Have you seen this woman recently?"

The waitress' nervous gaze drifted over the photo, lingering on woman's dull grey eyes. There was a slight, almost unnoticeable twitch in Anna's face, like something was tugging at the corner of her mouth with a fish hook.

" "She was here a few nights ago," Anna said with a slight pause, as though she were choosing her words carefully " "I remember her...she ordered a starter, then threw a big hissy fit when it arrived, and demanded to see the manager."

A look of worry fluttered across Anna's features.

"Sorry, that wasn't worded very delicately...ehrrm, I'm sure her complaint was valid!"

"No, that's quite alright", Cain laughed, "'hissy fit' does sound like her."

A well-placed lie made all the difference when it came to credibility.

He ate another bite of steak before continuing his line of inquiry.

"What happened next? I hope she didn't insult you or the manager too much?"

"I t-tried to calm her down," Anna fidgeted with her hands, compulsively sliding her fingers together "but I think that just upset her more. The manager -REALLY- doesn't like to be disturbed...probably has some kind of authority complex, so we're not supposed to bother them unless its an emergency. Not that I've ever needed to before."

The waitress cast one glance off to the side, before leaning in closer to Cain, lowering her voice to a hushed whisper.

"This isn't me trying to plug the restaurant, but...the food here is -GOOD-, like -REALLY- good." she had an awkward staring contest with a table napkin, before regaining her composure.

"Its creepy, like, we -NEVER- have complaints, but this girl really wanted to see the manager." Anna gave a nervous little laugh, which sounded as though it were lodged in the back of her throat and she was trying desperately to force it out "I guess that's why it stuck in my head. I've worked in restaurants before, but I've never seen anyone be this persistent. She started off like any other stuck-up, ehrmm sorry, customer making a complaint, but by the end of it its almost like she was...panicking. Like she'd drawn -TOO MUCH- attention to herself."

"Well, she is excentric and... honestly, a little paranoid too", he said with an understanding nod. "But you don't need to tell me about the food - I'm already convinced."

He was already almost done with his meal and the aging private detective didn't have to lie about the quality of the food: It was genuinely great and a true blessing after several days with nothing but hotdogs, slices of pizza or other food-to-go to keep him sated. Between running his errand for Bloodbloom and his other obligations, he had barely had the time to sit down and have a quiet moment to himself, other than those ten minutes at home before Valorie came in and his angry brooding was interrupted by a strange conversation and some of the most guilt-inducing and, at the same time, most pleasurable sex he had had in ages.

"In fact... I do feel bad about her causing a scene and badmouthing the restaurant's food and service, especially after the delicious meal and", he raised his wine glass to her, "pleasant company I enjoyed."

She gave him a nervous smile but the topic and time she had spent sitting here were taking their toll and he knew that his time with her was almost up either way.

"Here, for you", he said, reciprocating her smile as he handed her a fifty-dollar bill, on top two other twenties to pay the bill. "Consider it an apology for my friend and a token of gratitude for talking to an old man."

Cain found himself reminded of Valorie again as the waitress' eyes widened and warily shot back and forth between the bill and his face, not quite trusting the motive behind somebody giving her a tip this big, but she reached out and pocketed it nonetheless, not before looking over her shoulder again.

"Would you please send the manager to me, too?"

The color drained from her face instantly.

"I... I don't think that's-"

"I insist", Cain cut her off, his tone amicable but firm and his eyes locked with hers, staring her down until she looked away and nodded. "Thank you. And, if I may offer my advice? You should quit. Work in a place like this has a tendency to... eat at you. I'm sure you can find something better, Anna."

She turned and walked away without a response or meeting his eyes again. He didn't know if she'd take his suggestion seriously. Odds were that the other waitress, Stephanie, was dead or being whored out somewhere and that Anna would be sharing her fate soon, but by the time she got to the manager's office, she would no longer remember their conversation or what he looked like - she wouldn't even remember what he had ordered or where the extra fifty dollars in her pocket came from, other than them being a generous tip.
Cain had written a few runes on the bill, a simple form of mind manipulation without which his guarantee of handling a search like this discreetly would have been almost ridiculously stupid. Of course, runes were not exactly easy to overlook and anybody even remotely knowledgeable in the arcane arts would have been able to identify them for what they were, if modern chemistry hadn't come the aid of spies and mages everywhere: As it turned out, invisible ink was as good as regular one for drawing runes and made his work and life a lot easier. The only caveat was that spells without sacrifice like this only worked on people of weak will and no inherent magic. An elf or an orc would be a little confused by this but their memory would be largely unaffected. On the flipside, this property made their blood a more powerful magical reagent than that of humans.

While he waited, he flipped over the photograph and, with a pen from his inside pocket, refreshed the invisible runes on the back of the photo, murmuring along and pricking himself in the finger as a tiny offering. The spell had worked nicely on the waitress, the rune for 'truth' beckoning her to share a little more information than she might have otherwise and the one for 'lie' making what he offered in return seem a little more believable. The game he was playing was a dangerous one; if his target had desperately wanted to talk to the manager, it was fairly likely that they knew each other, which made it all the more necessary for this spell to work and help him out, if he wanted to keep this investigation low-profile. And for that to work, the manager would need to touch the photo.

Not one to overcomplicate things when the simple solution was likely to work best, he put the photograph down a little to his right, where Anna had sat, and covered most of it with a napkin, 'accidentally' covering it. It was sure to catch the attention of whoever came down to see him and as he sipped on the rest of his wine, Cain, hoped that his second interview of the day would go as well as the first.

[Kingfisher]

The slick black car swept through Santa Somabra’s streets with a burst of controlled speed, skidding up to the grimy pavement, and sliding carefully into place. A car door with blacked-out windows popped open, and Agent Voss stepped calmly out onto the street in front of the crumpled old apartment block which lay before him.

“What a piss hole…” He grumbled, hands sinking into the pockets of his trench coat.

“Were you expecting a Hilton?” Agent Kunis said with a smirk, as she joined him out on the street.

“It’d be nice if the scumbags could choose somewhere a bit less...scumy to snort dust and molest children in, for once.”

“I’ll be sure to file a complaint with head office,” Agent Kunis gave a soft laugh “just promise me you’ll focus on putting the child molesters behind bars, and not their interior decorating.”

The pair moved in almost perfect unison, taking the steps up to the apartment in gallant strides, dressed in crisp black suits and ray ban aviators, with the tools of their trade hidden expertly across their forms.

Voss wrapped his hand firmly against the apartment door, once they’d navigated their way up a few flights of rickety metal stairs and corridors that were stained with several substances he’d rather not think about.

“Fuck off!” Hissed a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

“I’m here to see Mister Escuella.” Voss called out.

“I dun’t givea shit! Fuck off!”

“Must be the glasses.” said Kunis.

“Alright, we’ve tried it my way,” Voss rolled his shoulders “guess it's time to try it yours.”

Kunis’ foot shot forwards, slamming into the door, just below the handle, and forcing it open with an explosive burst of sheer force.

“MAGICAL REGULATION BUREAU! HANDS UP!”

The pair burst into the room, weapons raised, as the Nyte Kings inhabiting it hastily scrambled to their feet.

“The Fuck is this?!” snarled Danny Escuella, his blood red eyes bulging out of his pale head “Do you have any idea who yer fucking with?”

“Hands above your head!” Voss barked.

“Fuck this shit-” Danny shot forwards, brandishing a flick-knife.

Before he’d taken three steps, Agent Kunis grabbed him by the wrist and kneed him in the chest. The Vampire let out a startled gasp and lurched forwards, his knife clattering to the floor. Kunis’ free hand vanished into her jacket pocket, and emerged half a second later, grasping a cold metal stake.

The Agent slammed the stake into Escuella’s bare chest, forcing it in with a dark splatter of carmine. The Vampire shrieked in surprise, and then watched in horror as his body began to crumble around him. White flesh turned to powdery grey ash, sweeping across his form in a tide of crawling destruction, until the vampire was little more than a pile of dust on the apartment floor.

“This building is being seized as part of an official Bureau investigation.” Voss announced to the few remaining vampires, who were plastered cautiously to their respective corners of the apartment, most of them off their face on dust or Runez.

“Vacate the premises immediately, or suffer the consequences.”

[Atrophy]

Valorie stared at the black card that Kurtz had given her, flipping it over and over in her hand as if she was expecting it to somehow transform or disappear like an illusionist’s trick. It was heavy for its size, made out of some kind of metal, and was engraved with the same fancy ivory font that said “B&W”. She had already checked it with an ATM, and was surprised to not only find her payment for the job available for withdrawal but an extra bonus of twenty grand thrown in there by Kurtz out of good measure. Sure, it wasn’t as fun as a briefcase full of money, but it certainly was more practical—and she had taken the opportunity at the ATM to pull out a nice stack of twenties.

She put the card away into her new purse (designer, expensive as all hell) and walked out of the bathroom with her new heels clacking (also designer, expensive as all fucking hell. They were the first victims of what would become the mass spending streak of that she had set in motion. Kurtz had made it appear that all jobs would pay this well. In Valorie’s mind, that was code for “go absolutely nuts”. She had almost been killed by a psychopathic elf, herself, a corrupt cop, a bunch of ghosts, and a mannequin in less than a week. She earned a night of hedonism and frivolity.

Already she had sent a picture to Cain, dressed to the nines in the black dress and a black—what was it called, a blazer? Fancy shit, she thought— jacket as a fan of cash hid her mischevious smile and her bloodshot eyes but not the fact that she was subtly flipping him the bird. Kurtz had supplied it to her. The clothes, that is, not her middle finger or the joint that she had smoked afterwards. He thought it would be a bad idea to walk out of his office in bloody clothes. She was shocked by how well it all fit, although she couldn’t help but feel like a little girl playing dress up. Valorie may have thought herself to now be part of the nouveau riche, but she wasn’t about to go through one of those complete makeover nonsense. Still, she took the opportunity to play with Cain a little bit, and to give an excuse as to why she would probably not be in for the night. Her text read:

”Ahh, they turned me into a yuppie!”
“Jokes. If I ever talk to you about the
color of business cards then I give
you permission to set me on fire.”
“I am going to live out my life long
dream of drinking champagne on
some fancy hotel’s private VIP only
rooftop and maybe trash a room. I’d
invite you along but then they’d just”
“Think that you’re a dirty old man
and that I’m some kind of call girl,
and I wouldn’t want them to get the
wrong idea about me. Laters!”

Getting an idea, she took a few more photos and sent it to Cain, tagging it with a heart emote: “So you don’t get lonely tonight, Francis.”

And then she turned her phone off.

Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the dingy surroundings of the photo taken from within the women’s room of the Dirty Bath, the dive bar slash “Rat hole” that she had slept in only a few nights ago. Only today she was not here to escape from the effects of some drugs gone bad; she was here to buy some, and the person she was buying from was none other than her dear friend Quinn who she had been pushing off for almost an entire week. Truth be told, she was excited to see her for three reasons. One, Valorie honestly considered the woman to be both her best friend and somewhat of a bad-influence mentor during her time in the Rats. Two, Quinn always had access to the best shit there was. Three, meeting with Quinn violated Cain’s no drug rule and Kurtz’s no Rat rule: it was totally stupid, completely wrong, and absolutely thrilling.

“Jeeezus, take your time princess,” said Quinn as Valorie rejoined her at the booth.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Valorie, waving her hand dismissively.

“No, no, it’s cool man. Not like you haven’t been snubbing me all week already,” said Quinn, folding her arms across her chest. “What’s another ten minutes.”

“It was not ten minutes!” said Valorie with a huff.

“Ten fucking minutes,” whispered Quinn, leaning her elbows against the table.

The woman was, in Valorie’s opinion, disgustingly attractive. She was tall and lean like a supermodel, but without their emaciated skeletal appearance and unfairly blessed with all the right curves. Her skin was a smooth caramel and free of blemishes—a truly impressive feat, doubly so because the woman was perhaps the biggest junkie Valorie had ever met. Her hair was dyed blue with pink highlights and shaped into a lazy kind of mohawk, a sleeve of tattoos ran up her arm, and she somehow managed to make a body interlaced with piercings looks good. On a normal day Valorie looked sort of odd hanging next to her; today they could not appear to be farther apart, one looking like a businesswoman trying to hid the bruises from her nosy coworkers while the other dressed like a punk princess.

“I’m worth the wait,” said Valorie smugly, before dropping the guise. “Sorry for being a shitty friend this week. Things were kind of crazy.”

“I’d say,” said Quinn. “Looks like you went corporate. What, did the business venture with the Fifth Street Losers not pan out so well?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Ehhhh,” Quinn shrugged. “I heard a lot of stuff. I wanna know the details. Is it true that bitch Tory got completely gutted by that grim reaper freak?” Valorie nodded. Quinn smacked the table and grabbed her beer. Her phone vibrated. “Serves her right. I fucking hated her. So, you ran away and just laid low for the past couple of days or what?”

“Nah, I ditched them before any of that shit even happened,” said Valorie. “I ran into an old friend of mine and stayed with him for a while just in case anyone thought I was involved with that bullshit.” Quinn raised an eyebrow and made an interested noise. “Not like that,” lied Valorie. “Francis is old and a friend. He knew my dad from something and hooked me up with some intern position for some firm or whatever. He’s okay, but I couldn’t really do anything fun with him watching. Wouldn’t want daddy to find out something awful about his little girl.”

“Yeah, like how she’s sending his friend nudes, or how she too stupid to make sure that she isn’t also accidentally sexting her friend as well. Holy shit jackpot,” said Quinn, turning her phone around so Valorie could see the other photos she had sent Cain (and, clearly, her friend). Valorie felt her buzz take a backseat as she turned red in the face and snatched at the phone. However, Quinn had already moved the mobile out of the way. “No way, I’m keeping these. Shit, your camera is quality.” She nodded approving as she kept swiping her phone. “When you said you wanted to get weird with me tonight I wasn’t really expecting this.”

“Dude...”

“Hmm. Have you considered waxing?” said Quinn, tilting her head inquisitively.

“Dude.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It’s cute.”

“Dude!”

“Okay, okay, I’m done,” said Quinn, sipping her drink. “And they’re deleted.”

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” said Valorie.

“What? That you sent me nudes on accident, or that you’re screwing your dad’s old golfing buddy or whatever?”

“Both. Let’s drop it, let’s drop it, okay?” asked Valorie. “It’s already weird enough as it is, let’s drop it.”

“Okay, it’s dropped, it’s dropped,” said Quinn, pocketing her phone and then rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “So! What do you need? I was able to borrow a whole shitload of stuff; they know I’m good for it. You, er, do have cash right? I’d rather not get yelled at for skimming from the supplies again.”

“Yeah. What you got,” she said, nodding to the backpack.

“Look, I know this place is kind of a shit hole,” said Quinn, “but I still probably shouldn’t start listing off names or flashing this junk around. Never know who could be a snitch around here.”

“Right,” said Valorie. “Oh, but it wasn’t a question. I’ll take what you got.”

She was handing her friend something in the shadows beneath the table. Valorie watched as Quinn looked down, her mouth almost hitting the floor as she saw the wad of money. The woman quickly grabbed the stack of cash and shoved it into her leather jacket.

“Holy shit, where did you get all of that?” asked Quinn. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh gross, you gold digging slut!” she said, playfully punching Valorie on her wounded shoulder. The necromancer winced and gave Quinn a pained look. It only reinforced her misconception. She laughed. “I did not know you had it in you. Wow. Way to go.”

“You got it so goddamn—” Oh, fuck it, it wasn’t like her friend was going to be judging her; Quinn had already told Valorie about the time she had been a call girl. Several times, in fact. Now she kept herself mostly to camshows when she wasn’t nodding off in some dust dream. Besides, letting Quinn convince herself of where she had gotten the money was a lot easier than trying to craft her own lie, and there was no way in hell Valorie was going to tell her about her work for the firm. “—right. I believe you were the one who told me it’s stupid to give something away for free?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you actually listened to me. Look, I gotta run this back to the big guy, okay? You know how Tony is. I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t go too hard before I get back here, okay?” asked Quinn.

“Uh huh.”

“For real, Vals. I’m not going to play babysitter, and if you start that biting shit again I will—”

“I got it, man,” said Valorie. “I’ll be a good kid. Scout’s honor.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe that.”

Quinn downed her drink and got up from the booth; Valorie followed her up to her feet. The two hugged, and Valorie could smell the scent of the walking dead typical of a junkie on Quinn, lingering down below a masking of scented lotion and perfume. Valorie pulled away from her friend and gave her a forced smile, noticing for the first time the lifelessness behind her friend’s eyes. It was like looking into an empty being composed of nothing but a desire for drugs, sex, and alcohol. It was pitiful to see her friend wasting herself. Was this the kind of shit Cain felt? Did he also feel guilty and disgusting for pitying her like Valorie did for Quinn?

She raised a hand to say bye as her friend pushed past the ogre bouncer, leaving her alone in the bar except for the elven bartender, an old couple in the corner, and a backpack full of drugs. She grabbed the bag and slipped into a private side room, leaving the door unlocked for Quinn whenever she came back. Maybe she could somehow get her friend clean, check her into a rehab or learn a spell that would force her to go sober. Quinn would need more than simple motivation to give up. Not like Valorie, who believed she could give up any minute as she unzipped the backpack of narcotics.

Tonight’s the last time and then I’m clean for good, she thought, dumping the contents of the bag out onto a table. There was enough junk in the bag to supply a small rave, minus the glow sticks and bad playlists, or make Hunter S. Thompson shit his pants in fear and excitement. A slow smile crept over her face as she gazed into the pile, her eyes vacant and lifeless. It’s easy. Cold turkey. A clean break. I deserve a break.

“I deserve a break,” she repeated aloud, as if it would reassure her guilt.

[JulienJaden]

Collab between @Kingfisher and @JulienJaden

---

Nichole Vielsiti was sat comfortably in her private dinning room chair, taking sculpted yet generous sips of a wine glass that was full to the brim with dark red blood, when the host came to find her.

"Mademoiselle Vielsiti...?"

The hosts prescence in itself was enough to pique the cannibal's interest, and to stay her hand in punishing him for his distrubance.

"Oui, monsieur?"

"My most humble of apologies for interrupting you, mademoiselle," the moustached figure snivelled "but there's a gentleman in the resteraunt who is rather insistant on seeing you."

Nichole placed one hand on her stomach, noting its flatness.

"It would be rude of me not to entertain our guest. Send him up."

Obviously, this conversation meant that Cain's original plan was not going to work. He should have recognized that the waitress' hints towards her boss' behavior meant that it might be more difficult than just asking to see them to actually have them come out. He should have, but he didn't, not at that moment. The easy solution seemed so elegant, so effective, so much more appealing than the potentially messy alternatives he was faced with now.

He still hoped that he could make this go smoothly but there was one benefit of privacy that couldn't be ignored: If everything went south, at least it would be relatively 'discreet'.
Or so he hoped as the dining room door closed behind him and he found himself opposite a woman with a glass of wine - or another red liquied - in hand and her behind resting on a comfortable-looking chair. Something about her immediately evoked repugnance in Cain, though he couldn't tell what it was yet; perhaps the strange way she licked her lips after taking a sip or the way she smiled at him with reddened teeth as she stood up to greet him.

The private detective hid it well, though.
"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, Miss", he said with a respectful bow of his head, "but I just had to come up and talk to you after hearing what happened."

Nichole carefully eyed the figure up and down, drinking in his toned yet ageing appearance, and the silvery grey lines in his short black hair.

"Salutations, Monsieur," she said, gently resting her wine glass on the table "please, sit, that we might discuss what it is which warranted this disturbance."

He stretched out one delicate hand, extending her fingers into the air, and softly motioning for Cain to sit with the lazy flick of her wrist.

"I trust your meal was to your utmost satisfaction?"

"It was, thank you", Cain replied and sat in the chair on his side of the table. He heard the French accent but he also heard how some of the words missed it. Either she was French and had acclimated herself so much to Santa Somabra that she was starting to sound like a local... or - the option he leaned towards - she was faking it to sound more refined and sophisticated and perhaps to hide humbler beginnings than she would like to admit to.

Francis found himself reminded of the first time he'd met Concetto Nyctari. A battle of wills from the start, albeit one fought with words, contracts, obscure and minute technicalities, open and hidden threats and many bluffs on both sides. He had an incling that he was sitting in the lion's den right now and the fake cosmopolitan lioness gave him that same taxing, hungry look the vampires had given him back then.

"I'm actually not here to file a complaint with you - not after enjoying a meal of such refined balance", he smiled appreciatively. "If anything, I'm here to apologize for a friend of mine, Lily Madison."

The woman's mimic didn't change - Cain would have been surprised if it did, given the name he had just made up.
"Ah, I happen to have a picture of her with me."
He casually reached into his inside pocket and held out the picture to her at an angle that made it difficult for her to see the image without taking the picture and falling under the spells, however weak they were.

"Miss Madison, was it?" Nichole pondered aloud, her painted features frozen in place as she carefully eyed the photograph "Quite the little noise-maker I'm told."

The bloody red eyes of the vampress gave the photo one last lingering look, before ever-so-slowly rising to meet the gaze of the detective.

"A deplorable mage, also; who couldn't tell when she was in the presence of one infinitely more powerful and better dressed than she. Yet, even the strongest of magi forget how useful more practical weaponry can be."

From beneath the large oak table, Nichole cocked the hammer of her revolver, pointing the barrel towards Cain's lower torso.

"Such is the folly of those who believe themselves to be Daedalus, when they're really Icarus; flying high on melting wings, and moments from being swallowed up by the dark below."

"Better dressed, you say?"
Cain retracted the picture and looked at it with curiosity, his facial expressions as relaxed as if there was no gun pointed at him.
"Well, the picture doesn't really give away much about her taste, but since you dress like shit, missy, I think you might be mistaken."

His hands sank to his knees and a wicked smile curled his lips as he met her eyes again, his own as blue and cold as ice.
"Really makes you wonder what else you might be wrong about..."

Then, multiple things happened at once: Cain's eyes flared up to an angry, bright orange as the table between them and the chair under Nicole's ass combusted, her analogy hitting a lot closer to home than she could have possibly imagined. But the private detective didn't sit idle while his innate magic took effect - his hands had shot up and flipped the table, obstructing her view, giving her a physical, burning item in her face (along with under her butt) to deal with while he threw himself off his chair, out of the line of fire. All he needed to do was evade the first bullet, the gun she had pointed directly at him, survive her first offensive move.

Once that was taken care of, he'd make sure it was her last.

Out of the long list of garlic, running water, and other superstitious mumbo-jumbo, there are three things that can really, truly hurt a vampire. One is a steak to the heart; a quick and efficient way for turning any bloodsucker into a pile of ash. Another is holy water, but given that every inch of Santa Somabra is drowning in blood and semen, you might struggle to find anything blessed by the Lord on these scummy streets. The third is fire, which is lethal to homo nocturnus for the same reason the suns rays melt them into so much pale goo; they burn very fucking easily.

So as Francis Cain cast the chair of Madame Nichole Vielsiti in a quick burst of cleansing fire, she was in no position to retaliate.

Nichole dropped to the floor, her revolver falling from her hands, and a good portion of her flesh and clothes singed into flaky black paper.

"E-en garde, Monsiuer...." she rasped, as she lay spread out across the carpet.

He rose from the floor and loomed over her, kicking the revolver out of her reach, his ember eyes staring at her uncaringly.

"You got the roles all mixed up. You are Icarus. And I..."
Fire seemed to blaze up around him, covering him as if he was on fire and forming a tight ring around the two of them. Doing this was dangerous and only pyromancers of innate talent and complete mastery of their art could hope to unleash their powers like this without burning up themselves or turning into an Ifrit, a fire djinn, an avatar of flame consumed by the need to destroy everything around him. Even now, a single lapse in concentration was all it would take for him to lose himself to the wonderful, treacherous power overwhelming that surged through his body and were his to command.
Thus was the risk and price of brushing with godhood.

"I am the almighty Sun and I am not satisfied with just melting your wings." His voice was positively vibrating with arcane energy. "You are going to tell me everything - everything - you know about the woman on the picture or I will melt you, skin, flesh and bone."

"Heh-heh-heeh..." Nichole chuckled weakily, coughing fat drops of blood up through her shaking jaw "very impressive, Monsiuer. Now let us not do anything too hasty.

Nichole erupted into a raspy spluttered of strained coughs, before she managed to muster up the strength to keep talking.

"Miss Celestina was here on behalf of that waste-of-blood street trash who parade around their vamprism like a fashion trend. The Mieamangeur Cabal is a bit iffy about eating other vampires...but that voice and that stupid sneer just reminded me too much of her dear daddy...I couldn't help myself."

Nichole started to laugh, but it soon degraded into a fit of gasping, choking, and gulping up air.

"She's in the pantry...minus an arm. I can't imagine that daddy dearest will be too happy...but I'm not the one who has to take her back to him, or let him know that other people know about his little a hundred year old accident."

"No, you're not indeed", Cain agreed and a terrible smile split his face. "And you make a lousy manager, from what I hear. In fact... You're fired."

Bad one-liners like that only sounded good in movies. In reality, they made everything more painful and he could see how her confusion and internal cringing at his words were replaced by utter horror when realization washed over her. She opened her mouth to scream, perhaps even beg, but the temperature around her rose to a thousand degrees in an instant and with her next breath, she was burning up inside and out, evaporating rather than melting as he had suggested. It was merciful, compared to what else he could have done to her - her nerves were cauterized so quickly by the intense heat that she barely felt anything while she died.

Meanwhile, however, this display of power had set some of the cloth in the room on fire and the wood panels were lighting up too. It wouldn't be long until the entire upper floor was beyond saving, but she had feeble pointed in a direction when she spoke of the 'pantry' and he walked towards a set of doors in long, languid strides through the flames, seemingly unaffected by the inferno he had called forth, every step of his spreading it more. He could have put it out, if he wanted to, but he simply didn't. While Vigilance's fire was entirely magic in nature, his was not - only its origin was. The difference was subtle but it made a world of difference when it came to arcane investigations: It was the difference between making something look like an accident and being put behind bars because the fire could be linked back to him. And in this case, Cain found the idea of the place burning to the ground and destroying any evidence that he, Concetto Nyctari's daughter or her butcher had ever been here comforting.

With a slam, he threw open a dark room that smelled of blood, death and sterilizing agent, like a bad mix of a slaughterhouse and a surgical ward, complete with an operating table of sorts, with walls of plate metal and floors covered in drain grates, a room designed to be turned into an absolute mess and cleaned up thoroughly afterwards. In a corner, he saw two small holding cells and in one of them, the woman from the picture, her face covered in cuts and bruises, her clothes intact but their entire left side splattered with dried blood, a bandaged stump just below her left shoulder. The room would have been pitchblack if not for Cain's halo, but she didn't react, didn't move at all, so the detective surmised that she was unconscious rather than dead; perhaps she had been drugged up to keep her docile, since he doubted that this cage could have held her or any vampire if she had been at her full strength. It didn't matter - he didn't need her to be awake or find out what had happened now.

He put his hands around the steel bars and the cell door melted like it had turned into water. The old man picked up the lithe vampire effortlessly, her form unaffected by the heat he was capable of emanating. He was beginning to feel the strain on his concentration now, the stress it put on his body and mind to maintain perfect control over powers that should have been beyond the whims of a mortal. Yet he didn't hurry but carefully carried her out of the room, both it and the corridor behind him catching fire as he strode back to the dining room, Nichole Vielsiti reduced to ash and smoke.

Except not everything was. Where she had lain, something sat in the fire, calling out to him from the insignificant pile that had been its owner: A key, gleaming in an ethereal light, sparkling invitingly. Cain was drawn to it, despite his reservations, and when he knelt down to pick it up, it was cool to the touch, despite the terrible heat it was exposed to, but that didn't surprise him. He knew what it was, knew what it was for - he just didn't know how this woman could have gotten ahold of it.

It was then, in the middle of a burning room and his entire form surrounded by flame that the girl decided to wake up and looked at him weakly.

Celestina Nyctari's eyes fluttered limply open, as she inclined her head ever-so-slightly towards Cain. Up close, her features were hard like marble, but the strength was slowly ebbing out of them. Her body was soft and almost weightless, the fight having gone out of her long ago.

"I don't know who you are," she said simply, without fear or anger, her remaining hand clutching at the stump of her arm "but please...just get me out of here."

He gave her a silent nod and looked at her with eyes that were more like that of a fire demon than a human but none of the wickedness or anger of before was left in them.

"What's your name?"

"Celestina", she murmured.

"That's a very pretty name", he whispered back in a soft tone. Cain was demigod still but not a malevolent one. He held no wrath for her.

Somewhere, a fire alarm started wailing, just as Cain opened the door through which he had entered the dining room only a few minutes ago. He left it open, giving the flames a breathing hole and a way to expand. As soon as he was a few feet away from it, his burning halo and eyes disappeared with a soft sigh, making him as unsuspicious as he could possibly look. Down a flight of stairs, he found the restaurant in disarray as people left the building as quickly as possible. The chaos and panic of the kitchen personnel and few guests made it easy to retrieve his coat and hat and cover the vampire girl in it so nobody would see the mutilation, but of course also to protect her from the sunlight. It was only thanks to how small she was, compared to him, that this was possible; that and the heavily overcast sky turned his coat into just barely enough of a sunblock to secure her survival even though it was still early in the afternoon.

Five minutes later, he sat in the back of a cab, the girl leaning against him and clutching the arm he had put around her. Not that he blamed her - after what she must have been through, anything but seeking comfort would have been a surprise.

"I'm going to bring you home."

Cain felt his cellphone vibrate in his pocket and without disturbing Celestina, fished it out and looked at it:
A message from Valorie, a picture that spoke volumes about how her meeting with Kurtz had turned out and then more that said something else... A soft smile parted his lips and he was glad that the girl didn't lay in his lap where the necromancer's nudes worked their magic.

Deep down he felt a tug, like a fishhook in his intestines, a suspicion, a worry that she was lying. What she spoke of sounded like her but the alternative was... Could he trust her, after only a few days, to not return to her old ways? Yet the simple truth of the matter was that he was too busy to worry about her and he wanted to believe her, or at least believe that she wouldn't do anything too stupid.

He texted her back:
I'll be very lonely after looking at these.
Don't get in trouble, Valorie, and don't overdo it.
Remember: I'll be waiting for you.

Then, he wrote another message, this one to the man he had waded into this cesspool for.
It's done. Where and when?

[DJAtomika]

Christopher Hurk

"Hello?"

"Andy. It's Chris."

"Eyy, how's things, Hurk my man? Me 'n Benji are on a job right now, but I got some time."

"Yeah, same here. Listen, I could use your help."

"No problem, Hurky. What'cha got?"

"I've got a lead on the Rats that offed Dagmar Hahn three years ago. They were operating just shy of Little Lupine. Their group was led by an assassin, name of George Chin. Ring any bells?"

"Hahn? Jesus Christ you've really been on a vendetta for him. Alright, Chin...Chin, yeah I remember him. He got offed last year."

Shit.

There was one dead end.

Hopefully the Rats led me somewhere.

"What about the Rats, Andy? Remember anything about 'em?"

"Yeah, um, I think it was around the same time. There was this group of 'em down in the slums, they were showing off about how they offed a werewolf. With or without help, I dunno. Worth checking out?"

I thought for a sec.

Not many street gangs were as low as the Rats. They were literally everywhere. Spread their filth like a disease. Most of 'em were young ones though, fresh faces that weren't worth killing unless they gave you a reason. Which they did, more often than not. The dust or other drugs that shot through their systems like wildfire did that. Made upstanding, honest individuals more dirty and dishonest than a goblin in a bank.

I made up my mind. This was my only lead.

"Yeah, worth it. Got an address?"

---

The Undercity. Slums, slums everywhere. Sure, in places you had the occasional whitewashed, gleaming star of a hotel or restaurant, but not many places lasted where booze was cheap and drugs flowed like water. Unfortunately for us werewolves, Little Lupine sat right at the edge of the place, and as a result the shit bled over. Nothing like a wolf hopped up on Dust to ruin someone's day.

I hopped off my bike. Little thing was a second hand sports motor I got from a junkyard. Did the restoration over a few years. Thing ran like silk.

The address Andy had fed me was a rundown factory complex next to an apartment block. Handy and convenient for the splinter of Rats that were here.

The Chemical Fiends. Handled production of most of the drugs that circulated in the area. Headed by a guy called the Alchemist. That was everything Andy had given me. I didn't have any numbers, tech or whatever. No intel. The last time I'd flown blind was in Afghanistan, years ago. Bad idea all around. I had gear though. All inside a duffel bag on my shoulder.

But first I had to get off the street. Gearing up here was a big red flag.

I hurried out of sight into an alleyway and dropped the duffel. Inside I had my combat vest, loaded with more magazines than a dime store and two grenades. Underneath that was an assault rifle, a pistol and a knife. I strapped everything on and double checked my rifle. Once done, I took one long, hard gaze at the apartment building next to me.

Hahn, this one's for you, pal.

[Kingfisher]

Collab with @DJAtomika

Christopher Hurk

"If a mosquito has a soul, it is mostly evil. So I don't have too many qualms about putting a mosquito out of its misery".

"Hey Brian."

"Yeah man?"

"Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to live in the city?"

"Like, the big city?"

"Yeah man. Where the rich people are."

"Gosh man, I don't know. We'd have to be filthy rich to know."

"But, like, imagine if you were, Brian."

"Oh. Ohhhhh. Um."

BANG BANG

"OH SHIT BRIA-"

BANG BANG

As the corpses of the two men dropped to the floor, I swung around and checked my six. Those two bozos were at the foot of the staircase leading upward into the apartment complex. The back door had put me out at a store closet. I'd entered through the fire exit, it seemed.

No matter. I was in.

Upstairs I could hear commotion. People swearing in all sorts of languages. Sounds of guns being loaded and cocked. Rushing footsteps.

The Rats nest had been awoken.

In my mind, my feelings and thoughts retreated to their little safe corner as the hunter in me took over. Caution, precision and danger in one neat little package, tied with a bow on.

The Lone Wolf was on the hunt.

"Come to papa, little rats. Exterminator's here."

I advanced forward to the corpses and swiveled round. The first lamb to the slaughter was clumping down the steps, a baseball bat in his hands. Roaring like a man possessed. Eyes bloodshot.

I dropped him with a round to the thigh.

He crumpled like a sack of potatoes and fell, screaming in pain. Tumbled down the stairs like a sack of potatoes too.

When he reached my feet I stomped on his neck and crushed it under my boot. Kept my gun trained on the stairs.

Cue lambs two and three. Armed with pistols.

They turned round the corner and saw me with my foot on their pal's neck. Him gurgling and choking on his own blood. Bubbling at the mouth.

Their guns raised.

Mine barked.

Five rounds left the rifle. Embedded themselves in flesh. Dropped two more sacks of dying meat onto the floor.

I moved up the stairs as one of the soon-corpses tumbled past me and joined his friend on the floor. Reached the second floor. Other soon-corpse tried to raise his pistol at me. I kicked it away and stomped down hard on his chest, where I'd shot him. He spewed blood from his mouth and fell limp.

I moved on.

Turned round the bannister, saw a girl slumped in the corner. Needle poking out of her arm. Eyes wide. Blurry.

She was somewhere else.

The other girl that burst out from one of the doors wasn't.

She had a knife. Tried to bury it in my side. Almost did.

I turned on my left. Slapped the smoking hot barrel of my rifle against her knife hand. Knocked it aside. Held it there. Listened to her scream as her flesh sizzled. Lifted my rifle and slammed the stock into her nose. She flew against the wall, dropped to the ground and laid still.

Fucking Rats. They'd employ anyone who had a habit to do their dirty work. Even girls like this. They had futures. Once.

Not any more.

I moved past the druggie and turned the corner to go up to the next floor and was greeted by a hail of gunfire. Had to fall back as bullets slammed into the wood at my feet. Heard the footsteps of the three goons above me as they hooted like apes and ran after. I dashed back to the end of the hall and dove for the only cover I saw.

The corpse.

I grabbed the limp bag of meat and hauled him across to where I laid on my chest, propped him up against my body, and waited.

From between the corpse's legs I saw the three goons reach my floor. One machine pistol, two handguns. Three druggies looking to get a fix and a promotion by handling the intruder.

Not a chance.

I stuck my gun barrel between the corpse's knees, lined up a shot, and took it.

Goon on the left dropped from a bullet to the gut. Curses spewing out of his filthy mouth all the way. His friends turned, saw the corpse there, and immediately started firing.

I felt the bullets thud into my cover as I lined up another shot and pulled the trigger. Middle guy took a round to the hip and he fell too. His buddy on the right swore and moved forward, still firing until his gun ran out of ammo.

I heard the trigger click on an empty chamber.

Stood.

Kicked the corpse out of the way.

Fired twice.

Bullets found their way into his chest.

Dropped him.

His friends, bleeding and in pain, tried to raise their guns at me.

I gave them each a new hole in their face.

As I moved up to the next staircase, I did a mental ammo count.

Two for each corpse downstairs. That made four. Five more for the two up here. Four, five six. Six plus four plus five made fifteen.

I was down to half a magazine. Still had plenty more to spare.

My boots clomped their way up the next staircase. Rifle at the ready. At the top, I saw no one, but as I turned round the corner I got greeted by another hail of gunfire, heavier this time. Louder too. Heard the distinctive boom of a shotgun. I retreated back down slightly and risked a peek round. Through the railings I saw three more goons hiding behind a blackjack table. Faded felt. One of them had a pump action. Another had an assault rifle, a shoddy AK-47. Last guy had two machine pistols. What an idiot.

In the back of my mind I briefly contemplated where in the fuck these guys had got an actual blackjack table from. Then I abandoned that train as a load of buckshot peppered the wall behind me, along with another round of gunfire.

I knew my bullets couldn't penetrate the thick wood of the table. But I knew what it could.

As the fire eased off I retreated back downstairs. Memorised where they were and stood underneath where they were hiding out.

The thing about apartments like these are that the floors are thin and they're all made the same way.

I took aim and emptied the rest of my magazine into the floor above me. As the bullets punched through the linoleum and wood, I heard their screams of pain. Saw the blood drip down through the holes in the floor and onto my shoulders.

Briefly, I let it. Some primal part of my mind enjoyed it.

Then I moved on. Ejected the spent magazine, stuffed it into an empty pouch. Grabbed another, slammed it into place, cocked the rifle. Headed back upstairs. Turned the corner to find the three bozos dead. Sprawled all over the place. One draped over the table. The other two behind it. I'd apparently shot off the hand of one of the guys. Explained all the blood. They were all very dead.

I hopped over the table and kept going. Two more floors and I'd be done emptying the place.

Next floor was empty, but I found a lot more open doors. Seems like they'd emptied out from here. Went downstairs. Or upstairs. To wake their friends, perhaps. I moved on to the next staircase and slowly moved upward. As I poked my head around the corner, I was greeted by a spray of buckshot. I hid quickly as a loud cackle emanated from somewhere down that hall.

"Whassa matter, punk?! Scared?!"

I risked another look, going slower this time. I saw the same set up. More big, thick tables formed a wall, behind which hid several more guys and gals. All armed. One of them had their foot up on the barricade, his shotgun aimed at the hallway. A maniacal grin on his face. He spotted me trying to sneak a peek and fired again. Wood chips spattered my face and head as he laughed and racked the slide on his shotgun. Heard the empty shell hit the ground.

"C'mon up here, fucker! We'll turn you into swiss cheese! Then our boss'll get us the promotion we deserve!"

I muttered to myself as I lowered my rifle and plucked one of the two grenades I had from my vest.

"Not fucking likely, asshole."

I silently pulled the pin, reared my hand back for a throw, and waited. Ears listened for any sounds. I heard whispers. Muttering. Then a cautious footstep.

I released my hold on the priming lever. It snapped upward and I began a countdown in my head. Synced it with my breathing.

Breathe in
Breathe out
Five

Goon's feet clumped onto the floor as he got over the barricade.

Breathe in
Breathe out
Four

Heard footsteps come closer.

Breathe in
Breathe out
Three

One more footstep.

Breathe in

With all my might I threw the grenade. My arm went round the corner as the advancing goon ducked for cover. I barely heard him start to yell in warning as the little green sphere flew. It must've gone over the barricade because I heard someone yelp in protest.

Breathe out
Two

I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears as hard as I could.

One

An explosion ripped through the apartment complex. Behind me, I heard the floor give way. Screaming. Sloppy noises.

I gave it one more second and then opened my eyes.

At the foot of the stairs, I saw carnage. Mixed into the broken wood and linoleum, I saw blood and gore. Limbs. Chunks of flesh. To the sides, bodies. Those that hadn't taken the brunt of the frag grenade but had still died. Their exposed flesh and clothes were full of burn marks. Blood poured from the myriad holes in their bodies. One was missing an arm.

I stood back up and moved up the rest of the stairs to the top floor. The goon I'd missed was standing in the hallway, dumbstruck at what just happened.

I raised my pistol and shot just past him.

He screamed in fear, fell and tried to wriggle away from me as I advanced forward. He turned onto his back and tried to raise a handgun. I raced forward and kicked it out of his hand, then stomped down on his wrist and shoved my gun in his face. He stopped moving, instead settling on whimpering like a baby.

"A-a-a-a-aaa-"

"Ssh. Not a sound. You only speak when spoken to. Understood?"

He nodded and squeezed his lips shut, tears streaming down his cheeks.

The poor young man couldn't have been more than twenty one. But his arms bore the marks of abuse; needle tracks, strain from tight torniquets, limp flesh. Bloodshot eyes.

Fuck.

"All I want to know is where your boss is. I know you're one of the Chemical Fiends. If you want to end up like your friends down there, I suggest you tell me."

"I-I-I-I-I um um I don't know-"

"You're not telling me what I need to know. Continue that and I'll make sure you tell me, one way or another."

I gently increased the pressure on his broken hand. He started to whimper again and I kept it that way until he started talking about.

"Okay! Okay! Okay I'll talk!"

I eased off and he started sputtering and sobbing. Pitiful.

"Go on?"

"H-h-he's in the factory just next door, p-p-please don't kill me please-"

"Alright alright, that's enough. Thanks. Now get up."

"Wha-"

Without waiting I hauled him to his feet with my free hand. With my gun I gestured to one of the open doors.

"What's your name?"

"What-"

"I said what's your name?"

He gibbered, calmed down slightly and responded.

"D-Dmitri."

"Alright, now Dmitri. I want you to go get your stuff."

"I-I don't under-"

"I said go get your stuff. Don't need to repeat myself. Get what you own and leave. Go clean yourself up and be responsible for your life. And if I catch you hanging out in this part of town again, I'll kill you."

He responded with merely a nod and disappeared into one of the nearby apartments. A few minutes later he reemerged with a small duffel bag, no doubt filled with whatever shit he owned. He gave me a glance and then ran downstairs. I followed him at a slow jog, and watched as he exited the building and ran down the street, sniffling all the way. I felt what remained of my humanity return as I watched his form disappear round a street corner.

Fuck. This job was ugly sometimes, but...you had to save whoever you could. No one in that slaughterhouse had deserved what they'd gotten. Becoming victims in one man's roaring rampage of revenge.

At least I hadn't shot him too, right? Perhaps God would see me as less of a sinner that way.

I crossed myself and made a silent prayer to whoever would listen. Maybe some day I'd be granted a measure of rest.

But until then, I had to fight. Wade through the shit to get to my resting place.

I double checked my gear and headed for the factory. No sense in waiting. Whoever was there would've already heard me.

Time to give them a warm welcome.

---

The Alchemist had been toiling away with his equipment when he'd first heard the bark of gunfire rattling through the factories decrepit halls.

"What in Satan's glorious name...?" He grumbled, hobbling over to a blasted out window and casting his gaze down into the winding steel expanse below.

A figure, clad from head-to-toe in combat gear, was darting through the factory, dropping Rats like it was nothing.

"Such poor service, these days." The Alchemist tittered, slowly padding over to his desk, and cracking open the immense leather-bound tome which sat there.

He traced his finger over one of the many passages, slowly chanting the incantation which was scrawled across the page.

"Al'arwah alshsharirat , wa'ana fi biqeat dayiqatin. Yuqaddim lana yd aleawn , w jaeal hdha alttawaqquf 'ahmaq!"

Down in the factory, gnarled fists of pure stone bust forth from cracks in the ground, lurching upwards and firmly seizing hold of Hurk's ankles, with a tight grip that went beyond strength which was achievable by mortal means.

"You there, boy!" The Alchemist barked down at the figure in his gravely voice "seeing as you're so intent on killing my helpers, mind telling me what the bloody hell you're hoping to accomplish?!"

---

"Yeah! I'm looking for you, asswipe! I know you're the Alchemist and I know you ordered your cronies to kill a friend of mine three years ago! His name was Dagmar Hahn, and I don't know what sorta reason you had to have him killed, but today I'm collecting his blood debt!"

I had to snarl. Bastard had me in a corner, nowhere to run or hide. I'd killed all the minions he'd thrown at me. It was just him left. I'd left his factory in ruins. Blown up his whole operation with quick thinking and the loads of propane he'd left lying around. My guns were almost spent. No more grenades. All that was left that wasn't in pieces was him.

The stone shackles around my legs were hard to break. But I had my ways.

As I tossed aside the rifle, I started pulling off the straps of my combat vest. I called on every single image I could remember of Hahn. His death. The inept police doing absolutely nothing about the case. All the dead ends I'd run into.

A bubbling rage grew inside my belly. Threatening to explode.

I let it grow.

My vest dropped to the floor. A low growl built in my throat.

"You know, you really shouldn't have angered me. I'm like the Hulk."

I could feel everything drawing away, going down a tunnel. Felt the fur build on my arms and legs. Fingernails lengthening into claws. Bones growing and rearranging. I felt the shackles around my ankles begin to stretch, crack and crumble as my legs grew bigger.

I glared up at the Alchemist with eyes that weren't brown, but yellow. Snarled at him with a mouth of sharp teeth.

"Only difference is he has restraint."

I'd slaughtered my way to get here. Left his operation in ruins. Pretty much destroyed the Fiends. All that was left was prying out the information I needed from the Alchemist.

The transformation overtook me. Robbed me of my restraint. With a howl I tore through the stone holding me to the floor.

I remembered that much.

Then my human side took a back seat as the wolf in me took over. It howled and bounded straight for his perch, hopping onto stacked equipment and off walls as it made straight for the raised office. With a punch, its clawed hand tore straight through the adjacent wall, scattering the table and its contents all over the floor. Its other hand grabbed straight for the Alchemist's wiry form, took a hold of him and slammed him straight on the floor.

My chance. Before the wolf bit his head off.

I took back control from the beast just for a few seconds so I could ask him a question.

"Do you remember George Chin? I want to know who killed him. And tell me, before I tell my wolf friend to claw your heart out and make you eat it."

"Oh, will you stop being so melodramatic, you enormous bloody cunt?" The Alchemist scowled, his feet scrapping away at the floor as the Lycan hoisted him up.

"Honestly! Do you think I'd have lived long enough to become an old fart in this city, without being muscled by a few freaks?"

The Alchemist cleared his throat, locking eyes with the beast that had once been Hurk.

"But I don't want any trouble, and I suppose you have me at a slight disadvantage. Ledyiah Gorman. She's one of the better assassins I've come across."

The Alchemist reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a scrunched up note, which he offered over to Hurk.

The Note

“Dearest Lediyah.

I wish to hire your services. My little birds think there might be an informant tampering with our operations. I have nothing solid to go on, but it's worth investigating. I wouldn’t waste your time on something so trivial, but you’re the only agent I have who operates with such refined discretion.

The target’s name is Valorie Pierce.

Kind Regards.

The Alchemist.”

"Now, there's no need to do anything rash..."

"Hmmh. I suppose that'll do."

I took the little scrap of paper in my teeth and set it aside. Little fucker had paid his dues.

But not the blood price.

I raised two claws, aiming them over his panicked eyes.

"Sorry buddy. After what you've done, I can't let you walk away unharmed. Killing you would be pointless, so I'll take your sight instead."

---

I returned to my bike and opened the cargo compartment. I had an extra set of clothes in there just for the occasion when I had to wolf out. As I pulled on the new pair of jeans, I chucked the Alchemist's spell book into the compartment and closed it tight. I repacked my combat gear into the duffel and slung it over my shoulder. Then I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and dialed a number. The man on the other side picked up immediately.

"Hello?"

"Louie, it's Hurk. I need everything you know about two women. One is a young woman named Valorie Pierce. The other is an assassin, Lediyah Gorman. I need everything about 'em, and I'm heading to your place with some stuff."

[Zombiedude101]

Collab with @Kingfisher

His hands were bound and strung up to the ceiling, his captor stood before him, twitching from the demon’s blood, a blade tightly clutched in his hand. It was old; an ancient weapon with ritual markings along it, clearly something from before either man’s time.

He felt the blade run along his skin. It was cold - icy cold, that was one thing he’d remembered so clearly. Crimson ran down his sleeves, then down his cheeks and then down his torso as he felt each cut biting into his flesh. When he glanced down, he saw the blood pooling beneath him - filling the sand that had been sprinkled across the floor, forming into a runic symbol. It didn’t make sense to him; the blood loss aside, it looked like something as old and ancient as the blade that was ebbing away at him.

He tried to fight against it; he kicked and swung, shook his arms as hard as he could, spouting all the profanities that he’d memorised over his long and arduous career, yet it was all in vain. One final cut; this one the kindest, perhaps - a clean, surgical cut across his throat - he soon

SSPD. The Gulf. The projects. It all ebbed away before him as he did. Strange thing was, these weren’t his memories, were they?

Eventually he woke, laid down in the office couch no less. The shades crudely drawn across the windows to block out any would-be voyeurs and give him some peace and quiet, but now light was slowly seeping through. Running a palm across his jaw, Nate glanced to his side, only to find a familiar, ethereal face seated next to him.

“Bad dream again?”

"... Yeah.”

Without so much as a word, he grabbed his keys, locked up in the office and set off for their next little bit of work.

---

The drive didn't take as long as one might've expected, but the silence made it just as prolonged until the dead man finally broke itm

”Back there.. it anything you wanted to talk about?”

Memories that weren’t his were difficult to explain, especially to a man who was by all accounts dead. “I.. no, nevermind.” He waved off Gabriel’s concerns and pulled aside the shade, exposing the car to the fresh daylight. Climbing out, he locked it up behind him whilst Gabriel tapped on the window, before stepping out through the door as if it wasn’t there.

”You mind waiting till I’m out before locking up?” The late detective complained with a wry smile.

"Fair enough. They do say that leaving a dog in a car is hazardous for it’s health.” He quipped.

”Could say the same for the ‘owner’ too.” Gabriel flipped him off.

Wandering around the corner, it soon became apparent what the two had been after; a building a little ways down across the road that would’ve seemed quite inconspicuous to most; an old meat packing plant that had since gone bust after a big scandal involving horse or centaur meat, something of that kind. There was an office beside the street that afforded anyone running the show a nice view of the not-so-nice, run-down neighbourhood that'd seen better days in times of economic boom.

The two of them were privy to a handy snippet of info about its true nature; a production den for fairy dust, controlled under the watchful dominion of the Bloodbloom Syndicate. That particular snippet of info had been provided by their contact with the Nyctari.

One thing that he was still banking on was the fact that these places were less about keeping an eye out for cops and more about protecting what lay inside. After all, why waste time and people on lookouts when half of the SSPD’s command was on your payroll? That was one thing both Nathan and his late partner had never missed - how the top dogs were practically untouchable so long as they had a steady flow of cash and influence. As a PI? The limit was as far as he was willing to risk it.

When the likes of the Syndicate’s ops were actually under threat from law enforcement, all it took was a whisper from someone privy to a little convenient information and these workshops were cleared out in minutes, without a trace. And as for the likes of the Nyte Kyngs or the Nyctari, well.. the former weren’t all that smart to begin with and the fact that the Syndicate had the leeway to function in daylight gave them an advantage that the bloodsuckers lacked.

No, Nate realised the true strength here were in the defences planted on this spot. Aside from the usual muscle you’d expect around a place like this, he could pick up on something else. After a little mulling over, he decided it was probably a basic protection charm; the kind used to keep out internet spellcasters and runez junkies from phasing inside. Yet, that wasn’t a problem for Gabriel - he was a different issue altogether.

“Alright, you know the drill; run some surveillance for me, would you?”

”Want me to wear a wire whilst I’m at it?” Gabriel asked with that trademark sarcastic tone.

“If you’ve got one that’ll pass through solid matter, sure.” Nate shot back.

”Keep you posted on that.” The late detective tilted his head towards him and flashed two fingers forward.

"R-r-really, it wasn't necessary for to come a-all the way down here, Miss Bloodbloom!" The Goblin stammered, fat droplets of sweat streaming down her slimey green forehead, as awkwardly led Nyxvira Bloodbloom into the Dust Den.

"Tritzy, dearest, its almost like you don't want me here." Nyx said in a manner presented in the most offhanded fashion, as the Faerie queenpin just about managed to repress another face-consuming grin. The Goblin had been selling some of her stock off to the Nyte Kings on the Down low, for a hefty profit. The orgional plan was to have a squad come down here and fill Tritzy full of lead, but when someone had mentioned the scandal in passing Nyx had decided it would be more fun to come down here and watch the goblin squirm.

"N-not at all, Miss Bloodbloom!" Tritzy squeaked "I just wouldn't want to waste your time at this th-thoroughly unremarkable establishment."

"Maybe you should stop doing a thoroughly unremarkable job of running it then?"

"Hahah! Yes! Very funny, Miss Bloodbloom!" she squirmed "C-can I get you something to eat?"

"I'll take a few Krispy Kremes. Just not the ones with the pink crap on them."

The goblin went scampering off in search of a box of doughnuts, leaving Nyxvira to chuckle quietly to herself.

Dressed in a tight red baseball jacket and pin-stripped shorts, Nyxvira shifted her gigantic form over to one of the den's cracked glass windows, absent mindedly gazing out into the lamp-lit street beyond, and straight through the ghost of Gabriel Ward.

"What I'd do for some Krispy Kremes.. ah, what the living take for granted." Gabriel grumbled to himself, stepping around the Fairie Queenpin's mass as opposed to walking through it. That said, the sight of one with a form like her's in such tight and revealing clothing was probably nauseating enough to put him off the aforementioned Krispy Kremes even if he could eat some. It was strange, really - he'd never met the fairie in the flesh, back when he actual had some, yet now even in death there was something about her which left a bad taste in his mouth. It made him all the more glad that he'd left Nate outside.

It took him a couple of moments to figure out where the safe was; hidden behind a rust-speckled radiator where the wallpaper conveniently peeled back to reveal a mechanism that contrasted with the traditionalist stereotype of an ancient combination lock, designed by some obscure goblin society. Nope, it just seemed like this 'Tritzy' preferred to stick with a simple, more modernist digital mechanism.

Normally, Gabriel might have had to crack the safe with the aid of a professional or otherwise cracked open a perp's mind for the untold secrets, yet now he could circumvent this altogether by simply sticking his head through the wall.

"Now, let's see what we've got here.." He muttered to himself, awkwardly rifling through the safe's contents as he let his etheral sixth sense kick in.

The safe was relatively advanced for such a battered looking tin box, but complicated locking mechanisms don't matter much when you could walk right through them.

There was a wad of cash wound up in rubber bands, a slim enveloped labelled "Dwight's videos", and what looked like a rather small memory stick sitting inside the safe.

The contents were all in fairly good condition, and the thin layer of dust which coated them implied that no one had been inside in recent memory.

"Huh, now what've we got here?" Gabriel muttered, leaning closer to get a better view of it all. The memory stick and envelope were definitely of interest to him; and whoever 'Dwight' was, it was definitely a potential lead. Except... there was just one small problem.

The safe.

Now, Gabriel was no expert on safes, but these things weren't exactly special. If he had some power tools or even the low grade explosives that SSPD kept for special occasions like these, he'd have probably been able to crack this open without any hassle.

Except he didn't. Nor did he have the time or even the ability to deal with it by brute force. Instead, he opted to defer to the second opinion of another.

"Found something, you better take a look." Gabriel finally spoke, in address of the living, breathing half of their partnership.

"What? Just tell me." Nate had an idea of what his late psrtner had in mind.

"I really think you should take a look for yourself." Gabriel gabe insisted, a shit-eating grin forming across his face. He knew fully-well what he meant.

"Godammit, you know I hate that. Alright, fine." Nate complained, rubbing a palm across his jawline. After an exasperated sigh, he checked down either side of the street, closed his eyes and concentrated. Within moments, his body went into a trance-like state and...

Now he could see through Nate's eyes - and what he saw was the office, with, of all people, Nyxvira Bloodbloom standing by the window, then the concealed safe.

"I took a look inside and found one or two things that might be of interest. A memory stick and an envelope that says 'Dwight's videos', whoever that is. If we can get this thing open, I could probably toss 'em out the window for you to grab." The question was "How the fuck do we open it to begin with?"

Then, Nate noticed something. "See that?" He asked, gaze focussed on the keypad. Or, to be precise, what he saw on the keypad.

"What?" Gabriel asked, before he too clicked and realised what his partner meant.

Three of the numbers on the safe's keypad had what looked like fingerprints etched into them. Goblin-sized fingerprints, that only someone with a sixth sense could've made out.

"You see it now, right?"

"Yeah. What, you're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Three-digit combination, probably. Shouldn't take long to figure out."

"Should be able to do that, just give me a minute..." Gabriel nodded, leaning in close towards the keypad. With that, Nate's perspective shifted back to his own body - and he was glad to have it stay that way. He was never a fan of these out-of-body experiences, not least because it left his actual body unable to fend for itself. Never mind that it just felt.. wrong.

"Let's see.." Gabriel began, before applying some concentration of his own and pressing one of the keys inwards. 397... no. 379? No. 739? Definitely not. 793? 793. The last of those four did it, if the faint click of the safe was anything to go by.

Now only one other problem remained: Bloodbloom. Gabriel could hardly toss this stuff out the window to Nate if she was in here, unless he wanted to bring down a whole lot of heat on their asses. So, instead he took a step back and surveyed the office once more, looking for something that could be used to draw the Queenpin away.

She hadn't seemed too pleased with "Tritzy", maybe that was an angle he could work?

"Two chocolate glazed-"

"Tritzy, you're sweating." Nyxvira said with a twisted grin, as the goblin came wandering back into the room, tightly clutching a plate which held the Kirpsy Kremes that were promised.

"Oh, I'm a bit under the weather..." she babbled nervously.

"Bitch, get your germy claws away from my doughnuts!" Nyxie glowered, prompting Tritzy to yelp suddenly, and put the plate down to one side.

"That's better," The Queenpin smiled "we wouldn't want them getting burned."

"B-burned..?" Tritzy went wide-eyed.

Nyxvira extended one fat hand.

"Cael ei yfed"

The very air around the goblin shimmered and crackled, as a myriad of warped green fire hissed and spat through the air. Tritzy had roughly half a second to try and shield her face, as the barrage of Fay magic swept over her, seeping through her flesh like water through a sponge.

She screamed. Loudly.

The flame ripped at her skin and melted her innards, but never threatened to spread beyond her smouldering carcass. After seven seconds of pure, burning agony, the goblin crumbled into the carpet, a pile of ash and charred bones.

"Always a pleasure." Nyxie gave a little curtsy, before scooping up the plate of doughnuts, and heading on her way.

Even Gabriel cringed at the sight of that particular fiasco. "Better remind Nate to never come between a woman and her doughnuts.." He muttered, before turning his sights back towards the safe. It didn't take him long to draw both the memory stick and the envelope out, before carrying both towards the window. On the other side, he could see Nate quietly progressing down the street and towards him, keeping a low profile.

With a little fumbling, the window latch came loose; allowing Gabriel to just about make an opening. "You ready?" He asked, waiting for his living partner's go. "Toss 'em." Nate discreetly looked over either shoulder, then answered back with a whisper that only the two of them would hear.

And like that, Gabriel pushed both the memory stick and the envelope through the gap in the window and once Nate caught both, he too passed through. "Alright, let's get out of here before I end up tethered to a pile of charred bones." Gabriel urged, gaze directed towards the car. The sooner they got back and checked out this stuff, the bettet.

"Huh, thought I could make out something back there." Nate remarked as he headed back towards the car, brow almost arched. He'd noticed Nyxvira's presence in the office, after all and wanted to keep on top of things. That was one of the perks of having a dead man as a partner; not a soul would know anyone was listening in. Of course, it also meant that to many it could look like he was talking to himself; whether that was a good or a bad thing around neighbourhoods filled with dust-breathers was anyone's guess.

"Yeah, nothing you'd have wanted to see, just a first-hand account of Miss Bloodbloom's propensity for barbecuing those who manage to piss her off." Gabriel shuddered at the thought of that. Dying the way he had was a bad enough memory as it was, yet those few seconds that the goblin had spent aflame looked just as fucked up. Then again, whatever way you looked at it - death wasn't pretty.

Nate was just glad to be getting this sordid affair done with."I'll take your word for it." He nodded. With any luck, they might have had a useful lead and something to take back to the

Rounding the corner, they soon found Nate's car and quickly climbed inside. For good measure, the two of them took a couple of extra minutes to check over their shoulders, before setting off. Last thing they wanted to be doing was drawing any unwanted attention back home.

[Atrophy]

Collab featuring @Kingfisher & @DJAtomika

“Where the hell is she?”

The room was barely bigger than a walk-in closet, with just enough room to squeeze between the moth-eaten couch and the unlevel wooden table. A rusting bucket was tucked underneath the table, permanently stained with the blackout memories of drunkards and druggies who couldn’t hold their liquor. Cigarette smoke was so thick that the solo lightbulb hanging from the ceiling offered hardly more light than a handful of fireflies, giving the disgusting hole an even more oppressive atmosphere. Valorie smashed the life out of another cigarette in the ashtray to rest alongside the carcass of four other cigarettes, her sixth one already lit and in her mouth.

Even as the smoke stung her eyes she could still see the beautiful banquet in front of her through the haze, waving invitingly at her. She glared at the spread with a greedy hunger of a starving animal. Quinn had told her to not go big until she had gotten back, and Valorie had honored her friend’s request. She had distracted herself by organizing and stacking the smorgasbord of narcotics. First she had gone by quantity, and then by quality. Then she had mixed them all back up and organized them in order for the night. First an upper, then a downer, then another upper as long as it wasn’t one that would make her heart feel like it was exploding. The night would end, of course, with some Fairy Dust so she could have some sweet dreams, and then she would wake with something mild to ease herself back into a sober state.

An hour later, however, and she had rearranged the party favors about a million other times. She felt her lips burn and stubbed out cigarette number six, but not before lighting number seven with the dying life of its embers. Valorie’s knee bounced up and down, up and down, up and down as the imaginary clock on the wall tick, tick, ticked.I’ll just get things ready,she thought, pulling a pocket mirror out of her bag and searching through the pile for the tiny baggie of white powder. It was easy enough to find. She sprinkled a small amount on the mirror and split it up with the card Kurtz had given her, trying her best to keep her hand steady as she cut it into lines. Another minute off the clock, another minute where Quinn did not show up.

What the fuck is she doing? thought Valorie, sighing with annoyance.

Digging through her purse and pulling out her phone and turning it on. The message from Cain flashed up on the screen. She smiled, swallowing a good amount of guilt.

“Don’t get in trouble and don’t overdo it, huh?” she muttered to herself, casting her eyes down at the person in the mirror with some disgust. She frowned and set it down on the table and slouched back on the couch, her feet almost knocking over the ashtray as she kicked them up onto the table.

“Come on, man, like saying stuff like that ever works,” she said to herself, trying to think of some clever response as the cigarette drooped lazily from her lips.

---

“ E pensando di lei
Mi sopragiunse uno soave sonno
Ego dominus tuus
Vide cor tuum
E d'esto core ardendo
Cor tuum”

Lediyah sat not too far from the Dirty Bath, at a grotty yet rather quaint little cafe across the street, with Hans Zimmer floating out of her headphones, and softly drowning out the lurid roaring of Santa Somabra.

Nothing goes together quite so well as the elegance of Latin, and the sweet thumping rhythms of a body ready for the kill. Lediyah grinned to herself. The rich humming of a hundred thousand beating cells, twanging with the euphoria of the hunt, flooded through Lediyah’s lithe form, as the woman slipped back into the lucid recesses of her mind, and the monster assumed full control.
She watched the movie star-like figure of Valorie’s friend emerge round the corner, presumably having come from the Dirty Bath, all curvy and Christina Hendricks-like in her cool, calm strutting movements.

Nice hips. Lediyah approved, silently.

The woman cast her glance over to Lediyah for just a split second, but that was all she needed. She formed a fist and raised the pinkie of her left hand towards the sky. A traditional gesture in the Rat’s own sign language.

Valorie’s friend gave her a slightly puzzled look, but made her way over none the less, as Lediyah muted her song, and carefully took out her headphones.

“Nice rack, Tony,” she said as she sat down across from her “When’d you become a woman?”

“The big man couldn’t make it,” Lediyah replied in her usual sweet yet scratchy manner “so you get to deal with me.”

“Sure, whatever.” she laughed dryly, pulling a fat wad of cash out of one of her leather jacket’s pockets “Anyways, my mate’s loaded, and-”

Lediyah’s hand shot forwards, grabbing hold of Quinn’s head and slamming it into the table. She was out cold in a split second, lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. No need to kill unnecessarily Lediyah reasoned, gazing down at the woman’s unconscious form.

Fucking hell. She even looks gorgeous when she's out cold. Bitch.

The Fear Gorta snatched up the cash which Valorie had given Quinn. Anyone with this sort of money was doing more than just working for the Rats. It was a short walk across the pavement, past some ugly grey slab-like buildings, and into the delinquent shit-hole that the lower rungs of Somabra’s gang culture called home, where Valorie was getting ready to go on her drug binge.

Lediyah slipped stealthily through the room, using the thick plume of cigarette smoke to mask her movements, creeping up to the surprisingly well-dressed junkie with predatory grace.

“Snitches get stitches.” She laughed aloud, unsheathing her claws and creeping out of the darkness. She should really have gutted her right then, but she wanted to see the fear in Valorie’s eyes, to know what was about to happen to her, and why it was about to happen.

Kills were personal, and intimate. Like fucking.

---

"Alright Hurk, I got good news and I got bad news. The good news is your girl Valorie's easy to find. She's got a dive down opposite this bar in the Slums called the Dirty Bath. She's a budding necromancer, ain't that sweet, and she's practicing too. Was a junkie once. Rumour has it that she's going clean, working with Barrow and White, you know them, right? Anyway, most likely you'll find her there. If you don't find her at the bar, look for her friend, name of Quinn. That's her supplier, or was. You find Quinn, you'll find Valorie.

The bad news is Lediyah Gorman. She's an assassin. Extremely professional, very very brutal. She's some sorta monster the city ain't never seen before, worse than you werewolves. Currently working for the Rats, their private muscle. Anyway, I managed to dig up some...confidential information that says Lediyah is going for your girl. To silence her or some shit.

Anyway, I say get down to the Dirty Bath and get her. Fast. What I've read about this Lediyah lady ain't pretty. If you run into her there, be prepared for a fight. Expect it to be downright bloody."

---

Christopher Hurk

Back here. The slums. Except these bits were a little more upscale than the rest. I could see the...effort? That wasn't the word. Whatever, someone somewhere sometime had once bothered to try and make this place look nice.

Not like it mattered any more. Graffiti. Trash. Place had gone to shit fast. I could tell city management didn't really care any more.

I pulled my bike up to the sidewalk and cut the engine. The dive bar was just across the road. I pulled my jacket around myself and picked my poison. The news that this Lediyah chick was some monster worse than a werewolf troubled me. I had all manner of gear tucked away in the Lost Boys armoury, but in the end I'd settled for an automatic shotgun. Not the military grade one, god no. That thing was impossible to get here. I had a skeet shooter instead. Loaded with the biggest bore buckshot I could find. I'd stuffed that in my duffel along with a whole shit ton of shells and an extra set of clothes, for obvious reasons.

I took the duffel, slung it on my shoulder and started to walk for the bar when a commotion caught the corner of my eye.

I caught a lady walking away from a café on the corner. Another, younger lady sprawled on the floor. Small crowd gathered around her. The older lady disappeared into the same shambles block that Louie had told me about.

Valorie?

No, not Valorie.

Lediyah.

Fuck.

That meant the girl on the floor was Quinn.

Was she dead?

I could barely hear someone shouting for an ambulance as I unzipped the duffel, drew my shotgun, clicked off the safety.

I couldn't let that monster get to Valorie. Not while I still drew breath.

She was my only lead to Hahn's real killer.

I slung the duffel across my back and charged forward. I heard renewed screaming as someone at the café spotted me and my gun. I didn't care.

By the time I'd reached the entrance, Lediyah was gone. I could hear footsteps nearby though. The place was oddly silent otherwise, smelled of smoke and a cacophony of drugs, uncleared waste and trash and God knows what else. I swept my shotgun across the hallway and advanced slowly forward. There was almost no light, save for the bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

"Shit."

I threaded my way slowly through the smoke and stench. She...they had to be here somewhere.

The hallway was lined with doors. Most closed, some ajar, others open. I figured this place was a crack den or some other shit, full of junkies on a trip. Didn't expect any resistance if I pried open a door to peek. Didn't get any, first few doors. Some were locked so I didn't bother, but others had no one. Some had a man or woman, sometimes both, curled up or sprawled out in various states of tripping balls. I left them be.

Eventually I started to run out of doors. I knew this Valorie chick was a doozy, but did she really value privacy?

I drew up against the last door at the end of the hall. Tried it, found it open and ajar. Pushed the door open slowly with the barrel of my shotgun. Immediately greeted by a cloud of smoke. I held my breath and advanced inward, squinting past the low light to try and see inside.

I saw a female figure, standing over who I presumed was Valorie. The latter was unaware at all of this...monster looming over her. Claws out, probably laughing to herself in glee or some crap.

I got as close as I could without making a sound, shotgun barrel up towards her back. Once I got close enough to smell her, I stopped.

Then I pulled the trigger. Sent a load of buckshot her way.

How's that for subtle, bitch.

---

Valorie was oblivious to the things that go bump in the night slipping into her room as she tapped her foot to the rhythm of the beat on the table, humming ever so slightly to the wispy words of some American guy trying to sound English. The long fade out of an electric guitar streamed out from the buds in Valorie's ears that ended just as the woman behind her laughed ominously, finally alerting Valorie to the presence of another person in the room. God, finally Quinn's back, she thought, rolling her head to the side to give her friend the stink eye. It was confusion, not fear, that crept over Valorie's face as she saw Lediyah standing behind her. She didn't notice the razor-sharp talons in the dark. All she could see was the hunger in her eyes. She assumed the woman was some junkie and was about to tell her off.

But then she noticed the figure creeping through the plumes of smoke behind her. More importantly, Valorie had watched enough movies about zombies to notice the crowd pleaser in the shadow's hands. The still burning cigarette fell from her mouth onto the couch. She screamed a curse that was cut short by the blast of the shotgun as she simultaneously threw herself forward. Her body smashed against the table, tossing the ashtray and the drugs to the floor as it tipped onto its side. She landed roughly on the ground, her ears ringing from the blast as the next song on her shuffle began to play an entirely ill-fitting folk tune.

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? was the only thought she could comprehend as she grabbed for her bag, fiddling around for her stolen gun. Pulling out the old handgun that she was too panicked to understand how to use, the girl scrambled back towards the couch kicking away packages of powders and pills as she moved. Valorie pushed herself against the bottom of the couch and tried to make herself invisible under the smoke as her heart raced at a million miles per hour. Her ears were still ringing from the shotgun blast. She felt something cool brush against her hand and almost screamed, forcing herself to remain silent by almost shoving her own hand down her throat. She looked down at the object that had rolled against her: a vial of Demon's Blood. Still shaking, she smashed the vial open with the butt of her gun and began to trace a rune with it, silently praying to whoever would listen that the drug was not a misnomer.

Lediyah heard a deafening bang, split seconds before the shotgun's spray slammed into the back of her head, and blasted her to the floor. She lay there, in a gushing river of her own blood, for a long moment, as the world span wildly around her. Had she been truly human, this would have spelled the end of her. But she wasn't.

Ready to have your day fucked up, arseholes?

Her limp body cracked and twisted, thrashing about on the floor as skin and bone shifted and morphed. She became withered and lacerated in appearance, as her form took on a pappery complexion. Her limbs stretched and grew, as did her claws; becoming hooked talons. She slowly clambered to her feet, hobbling on bent legs, as the thin veil of humanity melted away, and the Fear Gorta came creeping out.

Get the one who hurt us first. Deal with the junkie later.

The monster swivelled around, her aching bones snapping and crunching, as she loomed above darkish form of Christopher Francis Hurk.

"Time to feast."

She flexed her claws, and pounced forwards, forcing herself ontop of the man, and driving him into the ground. Holding him in place with one withered hand, she began to drive her talons into his chest, easing them in slowly, and grinning with rotten teeth as blood started to bubble out of the fresh wounds.

Her jaw unhinged, revealing shark-like fangs, and she inched closer and closer towards him, so that he could taste the stagnant roar of her breath, moments from taking a bite out of his neck.

"HOLY FUCK!"

As the banshee pounced on him, he held the shotgun in one hand and struggled, trying to shuffle out from under it, even as he felt his body begin to shift in response to the sudden trauma. The banshee slowly opened her mouth and unhinged her jaw, and he responded by shoving the shotgun into her open mouth, barrel aimed high and straight for her brain.

"S-suck on this, bitch!"

He pulled the trigger. And again. And again. Unleashing multiple loads of buckshot straight through her entire cranial cavity. Through her skull, smashing through her brain.

And as he let go of the empty shotgun and lost himself to his curse, he pushed back against its chest with hands that rapidly expanded into claws. The razor sharp edges jammed themselves into its chest as he roared and pushed back with all his inhuman might, using his feet too, jamming his toe claws into her midsection and pulling down hard. Trying to rip her in half at the waist.

"You're not gonna eat me, bitch! I'M GONNA EAT YOU!"

In a frenzy, he jammed his teeth down on her face. Biting and clawing with his fangs. Gouging at her eyes, cheeks, nose, face. Ripping and tearing at any meat he could find. His claws ripped and tore and slashed from her chest as he gripped tightly onto her.

At this close, she couldn't escape. Not without losing almost everything. And even then, he'd chase her down and tear her into shreds. To destroy everything she was and more.

But Lediyah didn't want to escape. Her attacks, like those of a lycan, were best performed up close and personal, where she could inflict the most damage.

The blast of the shotgun left a good portion of her head as gooey red pulp, which trickled down the side of her face, and the werewolf's biting tore out a chunk of her jaw, but she was a phantom of famine and hunger, not a creature of the mortal realms, so such an assault, whilst painful, was not fatal.

Her waist split open, and sickly bundle of intestines came pouring out of the new gash in her stomach, spilling onto the floor.

Gritting her teeth, the monster clutched hold of a long thread of pink innards, and lassoed them around the trunk-like neck of the werewolf.

As Hurk dug into her, she began to pull tighter and tighter and tighter, her muscles looking ready to burst as she fought to strangle the life out of her opponent.

The werewolf kept gnashing at her, and she bit back; ripping into his face, as he bit at her.

With a quick flick of his claws he severed the length of guts that the monster was trying to choke him with. A pitiful attempt to try and make him surrender. No chance.

He pushed it off of himself with his feet, using foot claws to tear her legs and hips to shreds. He gathered his legs underneath her and pushed straight upward, launching her right off himself. Hurk rolled to the side as the monster landed in a gory heap on the floor. He leapt straight to his feet and moved immediately away from her, before turning to look for his objective.

In the haze of combat, he looked for Valorie's cowering form and found her drawing a rune on the carpet in blood. His nose picked up a scent that was definitely not hers, but worse in nature. Demon blood.

"Valorie Pierce?"

His voice was guttural, more a growl than anything else. He made for a fearsome sight; blood dripping from the shallow cavities in his chest, hands and feet both covered in crimson that dripped onto the carpet and soaked into it. But his eyes, though now a bright yellow, still shone with semi-human intelligence. And Hurk knew what he had to do: get Valorie out of here.

"Valorie, I'm not here to hurt you. I heard that the Rats sent this monster bitch to kill you, so here I am. We need to get out of here. Now."

With a growl he limped towards the door and motioned for her to follow.

"Valorie. C'mon. Just get the fuck out of her before she kills you."

The girl should have gotten the fuck out of there a long time ago. The second she realized that the shotgun surgery was not meant for her (around the third or forth blast that was nowhere near her body) and the two creatures began grappling one another she should have ran while they distracted one another. Hell, she should have ran back home after her first night in this goddamn city. Yet of course, Valorie did not run. She didn't even finish her protective ward. The wet noise of flesh being torn apart was too distracting, too enticing. She had to see it. Yes, of course, it was her responsibility as a necromancer, as a student of death, to rubberneck while those two monsters proceeded to mash one another into paste.

So she had watched as the two tore at one another, her head peaking just barely around the couch to get a front row view of the violence. The clouds of cigarette smoke weren't that thick near the ground, and the added light from the hall gave Valorie just enough mood lighting to enjoy her bloody voyeurism. Her lips curled. They were really doing a number on one another; maybe they would both kill each other. That would be something. She had never practiced raising anything other more advanced than humans. She imagined the werewolf wouldn't be too different (perhaps not even difficult, if it was more canine than man), but whatever the abomination was? If she could crack that, raising humans would be no problem.

Her poorly timed necromancer fantasies were shattered the moment the werewolf tossed the abomination off of him and turned towards Valorie. Instead, they were replaced by the reality that she was in a room with two nightmare beasts that could easily rip her limb from limb as if she were a cheap plastic doll and that she really should go about finishing that protective ward she had learned from Cain. As her fingers dipped back into the Demon's Blood, however, she was stopped by the growling of her name—the werewolf was talking to her? She looked at him. Despite all of the blood and gore and fur, the beast didn't seem like the stereotypical feral werewolves that she had heard about. And what he said hit her pretty hard. One, he was right, she should get the fuck out of here. Two:

"The Rats did what? Motherfucker," she growled, gritting her teeth. So, I guess that's why Quinn never came back. Fine. Fuck 'em.

She pushed herself off of the floor, grabbed her stuff, and stepped towards the door. However, she paused before she reached it and turned back, staring at the room. The smoke was dissipating now, filtering out into the hall's vents, so she was able to destruction to the room. The walls and ceiling were peppered with buckshot and blood, the floor was slick with chunks of flesh and guts and packets of drugs. The crumpled figure on the ground should not have been moving, but Valorie could see it was either slowly writhing in pain or pretending to be. She found what she was looking for and took off her blazer, pretending to drop it onto the bloody floor. It was pretty obvious that it was anything but an accident. So much for my fancy new duds, she thought, scooping up the bloodied jacket—and the three vials of Demon's Blood it had covered—in her hands. She feared she'd need them. She turned back towards the werewolf and stepped his way.

"This is like the second goddamn time this has happened to me," she muttered.

Lediyah recoiled, as blotchy red carmine poured out of her tattered lower torso. She limped steadily backwards, pulling herself up to her full height, as she regarded the werewolf with a guttural snarl.

"Walk away. This doesn't concern you, pup." She spat, gnashing her jagged fangs together.

Lediyah flexed her talons, readying herself for whatever came next.

"Ask yourself this, mongrel; is this junkie slut really worth dying for?"

"Honestly? Yes. But I'm still gonna run away."

That said he backed out of the room slowly, still facing her. As he backed away, he swiped up his bike keys into his paw and then clamped them in his mouth. With his back, he gently pushed Valorie out of the room. Once he was fully out of the room, he stopped and spat the slightly wet bike keys into his paw and handed them to her.

"Take 'em. For my bike outside. Once we're out of this shit hole, I'm changing back. Then we're biking out of here before she can catch up."

While he waited for her to take the keys, he trained his eyes on the door and the monster within. She was still. Bleeding, but still.

If it came to it, he'd fight and die.

But for now, he had to run.

"Run if you want, little doggie. I'll follow you."

Lediyah stayed still for a few moments longer...

Then she leapt forwards, charging across the room with both arms raised above her head, and her talons ready to rend flesh from bone.

["Then you can follow me straight to hell, bitch."

Without waiting, Hurk dropped his bike keys on the floor. The monster bitch leapt straight for him and he responded. He drove his claws into her face and ripped her head in two. Hurk threw her against the wall, minus head.

If you took the head off of something, it dies, right?

He panted and dropped the limp meat in his paws. The pain from where she'd stabbed him was finally pushing through the adrenaline, and it hurt.

Hurk slumped against the wall as his body tried changing back into its human form, but he willed it to stay wolf just a bit longer. He had to last until he was sure they were safe.

"Alright...we're done. Valorie, take the keys. I hope you know how to ride a bike cause I'm in no condition to."

With that, he moved away from the stiffening pile of gore on the floor, past Valorie's form. He could feel his blood congealing in his chest fur, but there wasn't much he could do right now.

I had to get back to Louie's.

But as Hurk emerged out of the hovel, the blood loss got to him. His legs lost their strength and his body changed back to human.

Before long he was back in meat suit mode. Long, deep gouges in his chest, blood slowly oozing down his body and pooling on the sidewalk. Also buck naked, but there wasn't anything he could do.

When Valorie approached Hurk, he pointed to the red sports bike across the street.

"T-there. My bike. Cargo compartment. Pants. I'll put 'em on myself. Help me on the bike. I'll direct you."

She followed the man's instructions as the distant shrieks of sirens echoed throughout the empty street. There was no time to argue, no time to try and find out who the hell he was, no time to crack a joke to break the mood, and, worst of all, there was no time to ogle the monster's corpse or try to meddle with its afterlife. The two hurried across the street as fast as the injured man could hobble. As the man stepped into his pants Valorie turned her back to him, slipping the vials of Demon's Blood from her jacket into her purse. She frowned; there was a bitter taste in her throat. All of that money, and she came out with three vials of a drug that almost drove her body into physically tearing itself apart. What a goddamn waste. The thought and gravitas that came with the idea that somebody had been hired to murder her had yet to fully register, pushed back in her mind by an overflow of adrenaline.

Valorie helped the bleeding man onto the bike and slid in front of him, taking a second to familiarize herself with the machine. Okay, sure, I can do this, she thought. For once, she was thankful of that three month period she had spent dating some creepy greaser dude. So you turn this thingy, pull this thing, kick this thing here, and presto! The bike didn't even give a whimper. Valorie hung her head in defeat, fearful that perhaps she had just wasted a whole summer in some relationship based around dry humping, drinking shitty liquor from plastic bottles, and doing whip-its in her parent's basement. She looked back at the man and gave him a guilty smile as her finger continued to prod at buttons.

"Look, it might be easier if you just t—oh, wait, I just fucking got it," she said, the engine roaring to life as she flicked up the kickstand. Her smile transformed into a childish grin as she drove off, resisting the urge to try and pop a wheelie out of the fear of killing both of them.

[Kingfisher]

Annabelle Mitchell crept slowly through the leaky tunnels which made up the Santa Somabra Sewer network, carefull to keep to the stone walkways, and out of the river of literal shit which trickled past.

Sneaking about on secret missions really stops being fun when you’ve got the smell of crap wafting over everything. Annabelle scowled to herself. When had it all gone wrong? You got hooked on dust, flunked school, and fell in with the Rabid Eyed Rats.

Now she spent most nights off her face on some stranger’s sofa, with disapproving visions of her sister glowering down at her.

You really are lost without me, aren’t you?

You really are a judgemental little whore, aren’t you?

Nice. Classy.

It's not like you’re around to get a offended, anymore.

She missed staying up with Becky after their parents had gone to bed, gushing over Billie Joe Armstrong, and bitching about all the stuck-up asshats at school. She missed sitting out in the garden, wrapped in blankets with a mug of hot chocolate and marshmallows on a friday night. She missed her big sister.

Annabelle pushed those thoughts from her head, and carried on through the damp blackness which wound ahead of her, using the bright white beam of a torch to light her way.

“Max!” She called out in the dark “You out there?”

A shadow fluttered across the tunnel wall.

“Max..?”

She turned, shining her torch down one of the passages which split off from the main network.

“Real funny, asshole..” She muttered under her breath.

That same shadow again, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

“If you want the cash then you’ll quit fucking me about, ya prick!” She snapped, a slight quiver of fear slipping into her voice.

She felt something brush against her leg.

Annabelle yelped, slipped, and her foot fell in the river of shit she’d been trying so desperately to avoid.

“Motherfucker!” She spat, as she inspected the dark brown splatter which had soaked through the leg of her jeans.

She hated the sewers. She hated the dark, the stench of human waste, and the giant fuck-off vermin which scattered around, just out of view.

“Right, that’s it!” She shouted out into the darkness “I’m getting out of here, dickhead!”

“You may go on your way, little lamb,” a rancid voice carried through the tunnel “once you have felt the touch of rot.”

A hand, twisted and covered in sweltering boils that looked ready to burst with puss and ooze, cracked out of the darkness and grabbed hold of Annabelle's throat.

She tried to scream, but all that came out was a wet gurgle, as the figure forced her to the ground, and his stagnant blessing swept up her neck and over her chest.

Annabelle grinned with joy as he pulled her into a tight embrace, and his kindness swelled inside her, filling her body with pestilent bloat. She shook and thrashed about; overwhelmed by the love which had been showered upon her. She could see Becky standing over her, smiling warmly, with her mousy brown hair falling around her shoulders.

“Promise me you’ll never leave again.” Annabelle called out weakly.

“I promise.” Becky said, with a smile.

---

For the eyes of AGENT VOSS and AGENT KUNIS only. Reading this document without proper clearance is a FEDERAL OFFENCE.

Following the collapse of the REAPER and ROT FACE gangs, the remaining members of the former rivals banded together to form the BROTHERHOOD OF ROT. The catalyst behind this unification is unknown. Several sources claim that the PALE CIRCLE is responsible. Necromancy is a fickle and unwieldy magic, so a governing body of necromancers is unlikely. The MAGICAL REGULATIONS BUREAU has yet to find any conclusive evidence in regards to the PALE CIRCLE, and DIRECTOR KAZBEGI has dismissed the organisation’s existence as merely anecdotal.Over the past three years, the BROTHERHOOD OF ROT has been responsible for releasing lethal chemical weapons in highly populated areas throughout SANTA SOMABRA, as well as numerous cases of abduction. AGENT ROE’s research suggests that the brotherhood specifically target the various branches of the RATS, given their disorganised nature, and lack of protection.

The exact numbers of the BROTHERHOOD OF ROT is unknown, and it is currently impossible to gauge how large a threat the gang poses to both public wellbeing and national security. At the recommendation of AGENT MYEONG, two agents have been dispatched to SANTA SOMABRA, to observe the brotherhood, and contain if necessary.

[Kingfisher]

Marius could taste the dust in the air as the vampires forced him to the ground and began making preparations for his execution.

You’d think posh types like the Nyctari could afford a cleaner. The Ogre pondered, listening to the dull shrieking of the blade which would take his life, as it groaned against the whetstone.

Do you think they have Burger King in Heaven?

“How unfortunate, little lost lamb,” Concetto Nyctari stooped down so that he was eye-level with Marius, one well-manicured nail scraping against the ogre’s cheek “I thought Nyxvira took such good care of those close to her.”

Marius shrugged his huge shoulders “Not her job to babysit me, like.”

“Ah, the incompetence of Ogres,” Concetto cackled darkly “is there anything so endearing, yet so utterly pathetic?”

“This one time, I got a fruit corner that didn’t have any strawberry bits in it,” said Marius “was cool and all, but I was basically eating a pot of creamy stuff.”

“Naive until the end.” The Vampire smirked.

“Make sure you use one of your strong boys or gals to hack me neck off,” Marius gave a curt nod “Ogres are tough, like.”

“You certainly are an amusing morsel,” Concetto let a broad grin spread across his ugly features

“How long did it take you to gather a basic understanding of the english language?”

Marius shrugged “How long did it take you to find a cave dark enough to hide yer mucked up face?”

Concetto stood there with wide eyes, stunned on the spot. Did he just get outwitted by an Ogre?

“Get this over with!” He hissed at the executioner.

Marius heard the blade cutting up through the air as a vampire hoisted it above his head.

I’m awful hungry. He thought. I could really go for a Bacon Cheeseburger right now.

---

“So you see, sweet Nyxvira, it was merely a matter of respecting the rules which we all must adhere to.”

The Faerie sat across from Concetto, her fists clenching beneath the table.This degenerate piece of shit killed one of her best men, and had the audacity to stand here and lecture her?! If he didn’t have a fancy name to hide behind, she’d have broken his neck right then and there. Fuck that. I want to see him suffer.

“The truce which exists between us is your doing,” He pointed one finger accusingly at her

“and if it is to remain intact then we all must respect it. The Red Lights district belongs to the Nyctari; your Ogre had no business trying to interfere in our matters.”

A Nyctari client had been beating on a working girl, so Marius had broken his spine. Nyxie sighed internally. He never did know when to back off.

“Let this serve as a warning to the people of-”

Anger, hot and fierce, boiled away in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Concetto furrowed his brow.

“I beg your pardon..?”

“Did I fucking stutter?!” Nyxie roared, spit flying across the table “I said ‘shut the fuck up’, you cunt-faced son of a whore!”

The Vampire gazed briefly at the floor, taking a moment to compose himself.

“I’ll chalk that little outburst up to grief, and pretended I didn’t hear it.” He said with a frown “But I’ll be taking any further slights against the character of me and my mother very seriously.”

“You and your mother can eat my dick.” The Faerie snarled.

“Careful, woman. I’ve killed for less.”

“You wanna go?!” She laughed dryly “Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough! I’ll put you in your -fucking- grave.”

Concetto cocked his head to one side.

“You’d go to war over a dead ogre?”

“For a chance to curb stomp your joke of a face into the dirt?” She asked with a sneer “You’re goddamn right, I would.”

The Vampire grinned, adjusting the collar of his suit jacket.

“I couldn’t have dreamed of a better outcome. Very well, Bloodbloom; You just signed the syndicate’s death warrant.”

[DJAtomika]

_{Collab with @Atrophy}

Later...
Little Lupine
Cafe Noir

---

"Jesus wept, Hurk. Could you have gotten into any worse trouble?"

"Shut up, Louie. I know what I did."

"Yeah? Then fuckin' hold still. I gotta finish up these stitches."

I was sprawled out on a low table, dressed in jeans but nothing else. Louie was working on me, or more specifically the five gouges in my chest. That Lediyah bitch had done me a good one, but not good enough to put me out. Louie had stitched me up pretty good, but I'd be in pain for a week or two.

Motherfuck. At least I'd gotten the girl.

Valorie was...somewhere in the cafe. I didn't know. During the ride here, I'd passed out. Woke up here. Immediately got told off by Louie about stirring shit I shouldn't have. Now one of Somabra's top assassins was dead. By my hand. Or claws. Asked me if it was worth it still investigating about Hahn, or my curse.

I didn't know. All I knew was that I'd gotten a junkie out from a relapse, and away from an early grave.

"Louie...where's the girl? Valorie?"

Louie looked at me and harrumphed. He pushed a needle through my skin and pulled the thread taut. Made me wince.

"She's downstairs, I think. Fixin' a drink for herself. Hopefully not messin' the place up. Now shut up, I'm almost done."

With a quick motion he tied a knot with the tiny thread and cut the excess off with a scissors. He tossed the bloody pair of tweezers onto a tray and wiped his hands on a towel.

"There, that should do it. Now don't go tanglin' with monsters again, doofus, unless you want to cough your lungs out through your ribcage."

I nodded and sat up. The pain was...bearable, at least. His handiwork was good, for an info broker. My guess was he'd done this before. Maybe to someone else. Maybe to himself. I didn't know, or particularly cared to know.

"Thanks, Louie."

"Eh, don't mention it. Now, what did you find?"

I shrugged as I pulled on a clean shirt.

"Just her. Lediyah. About to off Valorie. Val was about to relapse on the biggest drug binge I'd ever seen, but that's when that...weird monster bitch decided to show up. I had to wolf out to get the job done."

Louie tossed the bloody towel into a trash can and went back to his desk.

"You're tellin' me. Underground's in an uproar, Hurk. News spreads fast. Your altercation with Lediyah Gorman hasn't gone unnoticed. Peeps don't know who did, but they know someone offed her. Lotta nasty types looking for who did the job. You."

He sat and stretched.

"Half of 'em want your head on a stick. The other half want you to work for 'em. 'Cept, of course, they all don't know it's you. Now as long as you keep your head down and don't brag about it, you'll be fine. The fire'll die down. Eventually."

"Yeah, I guess."

As Louie chewed thoughtfully on a toothpick, I stood and rolled my shoulders. Got the kinks out.

"So. What're you gonna do about the girl?"

I glanced at him.

"Valorie? Well I'm gonna ask her a few questions about her dealings with the Rats. She knows she got marked by 'em, she'll spill everything she knows. It'll lead me closer to who offed Hahn."

He shrugged and gestured to the door.

"Knock yourself out. Just don't bleed on my counter."

Valorie had tucked herself into the corner of a booth, her knees pulled tightly into her chest as she leaned against the wall of some shitty cafe that Hurk had directed her to before slumping against her back. She only knew his name because the owner of the cafe had been cursing it under his breath when she had shown up at his door with the shirtless man slouched over his own bike bleeding all over the damn place. As the two men disappeared into the back, Valorie had busied herself by brewing tea and, in a fit of paranoia, closing all of the blinds and dimming the lights. After all, now that she was safe (for the moment) she had plenty of time to dwell on the fact that apparently the Rats had been out—were out—to get her. She could guess why, and she had an idea of who had set it all in motion. Now she just need to make sure they stopped. She had a thought; her eyes lingered down to her purse.

The owner of the cafe had reappeared and tossed her a towel, pulling her away from her dark thoughts as he bitched at her about not making a mess. She knew she shouldn't blame the guy, all he saw was some grungy junkie playing dress up drenched in blood (Hurk's blood, to be fair) that was seeping into his cushions, but she still gave him a sneer and a roll of the eyes as he turned his back. As if a little bit of werewolf blood would make this place any grosser than it already was, thought Valorie bitterly, despite the cafe's actually rather well-maintained appearance. Compared to the places she had generally hung out at in Santa Somabra, this cafe was more than halfway decent.

Valorie wiped up the blood despite her attitude, grabbed herself two mugs, draped the towel around her, and stuffed herself back into the booth. The first mug was full of freshly brewed, piping hot tea; the second was an empty, makeshift ashtray. Pulling out her phone and her cigarettes, Valorie began smoking as she started to compose a text to Quinn. She didn't know what she was going to say to the girl, only that she knew they were no longer friends. For all Valorie knew, Quinn had set her up to get mauled by that freak lady. She angrily pounded out a message, deleted it, smashed her fingers again against the screen of her phone, deleted it, loop forever. By the time the employee door opened up and Hurk stepped through the first mug was full of cold, placid tea; the second was smothered in ash and cigarette butts. Valorie put her phone down with a huff and gave Hurk a once-over, putting her cigarette out in the wrong mug.

"Fuck man, you look like shit," she said with a smirk, not looking much better herself. She wrapped her arms around her knees and gestured to the seat across from her. "I saved you a spot—look, I have like a million goddamn questions." Her voice broke into its usual, manic pace. "I'll start with the big one: what the fuck happened there?"

"What the fuck happened back there? I almost got my ass kicked, and you were the target for a major slaughter. Thank your lucky stars I was looking for you, otherwise you would've been the smear on the floor, not her."

I tossed the file photo of Lediyah Louie had given me on the table as he sat. Yeah, I did look like shit. At least we were both on the same boat.

"Lediyah Gorman. Monster. Apparently the stuff of some old Irish legend. She's a high end assassin, works for whoever pays her the most. Apparently you were on her hit list tonight. Paid for by the Rats. Don't know who, don't know why, but someone wanted you dead tonight. Funny story, now you ain't. Bet you're looking for revenge now, huh."

"Oh, no, I'm totally chill with people trying to fucking murder me," she said bitingly, tapping the butt of a cigarette against the table. Her other hand flashed about the air as she held a mock conversation with an imaginary Rat. "Oh, hey man, sick gag with that psycho leprechaun. Real good goof."

Her voice shifted into a poor valley girl impression as she tilted her head to one side and said, "Yeah Val! So we're cool?"

"Ha ha, totally man," she said, her head tilting the other way. "Why would I want to gut each and every one of you fucking shitty junkie fucks after you fucking set me up and took my goddamn money, you stupid, lying bitch. So glad we didn't go through with that fucking tattoo," she added as she shoved the cigarette into her mouth.

"Thanks for stopping that thing," she mumbled into her hands as her lighter burned the end of her cigarette red. A frustrated sigh escaped her mouth alongside a cloud of smoke; she cocked an eyebrow and gave Hurk a suspicious sideways glance. "Why are you looking for me?"

"Cause you worked for the Rats. Once. A bunch of 'em murdered my friend while I was deployed in Afghanistan. Led by a hitman, George Chin. Chinese, tall, always wore sunglasses everywhere. Chin's dead, gutted by that monster. Now she's dead too. You're the only lead I got."

I sighed. Watched her smoke. Man, she really deserved something better than this.

"Now, this was about three years ago, but rumours might've trickled through the grapevine over time. Legends or stories of how some gutter rats killed a werewolf by themselves. I was thinking you knew."

"I don't know, with silver?" she said with a shrug, ashing the tip of her cigarette into the makeshift ashtray. She rested her hand on her knees, the cigarette dangerously close to burning a tiny dark ring in the booth's cushioned back. "This might come as a shock to you, but when Rats hang out they don't talk about the good ol' days of three years ago. Hell, I doubt they are really even able to remember the good ol' days of last week. They just get high and try to find something to fuck or fuck up. It's kind of their main appeal. If a bunch of rodents managed to gnash and claw a pup to death three years ago it was probably because they were just high as balls and lucky as shit."

It was how she managed to get by so far. Only now, thanks to a combination of killer assholes ruining her fun and an ever-increasing guilty weight, Valorie just had her luck left—and she was pretty certain she had just cashed out the last of it tonight. Her head slumped forward onto her overlapped arms as she pulled her body tighter into herself, her teeth gnawing at her raw lips. She felt heavy. As she continued to speak the sharpness of her voice was quickly subdued by that of exhaustion, sounding as if she was still waking up or in the beginning stages of a minor cold.

"For all I know, the guys who killed your friend are probably dead now. Rats tend to never last long enough to get tenure, let alone a review. They are just an ever changing swarm of fuck ups that never learn their goddamn lesson before their necks are snapped in a trap," she said, more to herself than to Hurk.

She sighed and glanced towards the man. He didn't deserve to deal with her sulking. She unwrapped her limbs from her chest and turned so that she could sit normally and talk to him face-to-face, the cigarette still burning away slowly in her hand. Valorie pulled the second to last one out of her pack, gripped it in her teeth, lit it with the burning cherry of her cigarette, and held out the new one as some sort of offering-slash-apology to Hurk.

"Sorry about your friend," she said. "What was his name? I don't know, maybe it would jog a memory or something."

"Understandable. And it's Dagmar Hahn. He used to own this place."

I gestured to the café around me as I took the offered cigarette. I had my own lighter, though I barely used it. The harsh smoke made me cough as I took my first drag in a long time. Nicotine soothed my nerves.

"Nice place. Still is. He put a lotta money in making this place cosy. A lotta dirty money in exchange for keeping his mouth shut about literally every dirty secret he knew, but it was still money."

I sighed through a cloud of smoke.

"He was my only friend back then. Someone who understood what it meant to be cursed. Then I got deployed and I lost him. Now I'm just looking for closure. Been looking for three years. Nothing. The Rats have not been helpful. Never have been. Whoever ordered the hit on my friend was so high up the food chain, I haven't found a trace of him for three whole years."

"I, uh, never heard of him," she said. "Sorry. All of that? That sucks, man."

Valorie looked away from the man as the hollow words left her mouth. Her finger pushed down one of the blinds so she could pretend that she was checking outside for any potential gutter runners rather than just trying to avoid seeing the disappointment that she assumed was forming on the man's face. The only Rat she saw was in the ghost-like reflection of her face in the window. Damn, she looked worn down. Her face was a blotchy mess of bruises and streaks of makeup and her lips were creased into a slight frown, but her eyes burned back at her with a healthy dose of self-hatred. She had the answer to the man's problems. She let the blind fall back into place and turned her head back towards Hurk.

"Have you ever..." She trailed off, uncertain of how to phrase what she was going to say next. Fuck it. "Have you ever tried talking to Dagmar about who'd killed him?"

It clicked. She was a necromancer. The idea bloomed in my head.

"No I haven't. Are you suggesting you want to try and...raise him?"

It wasn't particularly...nice. I'd heard that Hahn was buried in Somabra Central Cemetery. Graveyard just outside town. I didn't know how he'd be, three years dead and rotting in a coffin.

But it was my only shot. If I couldn't find out who from anyone else, I guess asking him directly was the next idea.

"He's buried out in Somabra Central, just a few minutes out of town. Do you...have what you need?"

Valorie's fingers brushed her crumpled up, bloody blazer and frowned. It was already in the process of drying and would likely be no good by the time they got there. Likewise, it was much too early for her to be tapping into her veins again after the work she had performed this afternoon. Still, she did have her emergency blood pack she had tucked inside of her purse, not to mention the vials of Demon's Blood; that should be enough.

"Yeah, I'm pretty much good to go. I doubt I'd be able to fall asleep tonight anyway," she said.

The only place she would feel safe resting at this point was Cain's, and she had already told him that she'd be away for the night. He'd ask questions that she wasn't prepared to fess up to, not yet anyway. She slid out of the booth, drowned her cigarette in her tea, and smoothed her dress out as she began to walk to the door. However, Valorie hadn't even made it more than three steps before she turned back towards Hurk with a mischievous smile on her face as her palm shot out expectantly.

"Keys," she said, her eyes dancing with excitement.

I sighed and fished the keys out of my pocket, plopped them in her palm.

"If only because I'm in no state to drive. 'Sides, I need to make a call."

I stood and glanced upwards to Louie's loft apartment.

"Hey Louie! We're heading out! You can lock up now! And thanks for patching me up!"

"Sure whatever now scram I gotta clean up."

I chuckled and walked outside. I fished my phone out of my pocket and speed dialed a very familiar number.

"Hurk?"

"Andy, could you guys meet me at Somabra Central Cemetery? Got some business we need to settle. Together."

[Meiyuki]

So this is South Sombra. Lorelai thought to herself. The sky was black, no stars shone through the smog of the city. The night air was crisp, but somehow also hazy. She surveyed the buildings rising into the black sky like the fingers of some old god praying for someone to save it. Sorry Sombra, but I'm not even human, much less a hero. She smiled at that thought, which caused her servants, who where busy about the task of carrying her personal effects from the plane and depositing them into the black van that awaited her arrival, a unified tremble of fear.

"Mistress...your things are prepared, we leave when you're ready." In front of her was a large man, maybe in his early thirties. She often wondered how long his pride had been dead, that he quivered in fear at the sight of her.

"Give me a moment. I'm acclimating myself." He returned to the rest of her retenue and they began the hard work of looking busy with nothing to do. In a way it was kind of cute, the way they shuffled about repeating tasks with no purpose. She thought of telling them to relax, but where was the fun in that?

She let out a small laugh as she retrieved a folded piece of stationary from her coat pocket. On it was the name, phone number, and address of a 'Scarlet', she wondered whether the woman was a whore, stripper, or simply unimaginative when she picked her name. Beneath that was the address of the suite in which she'd be staying.

Without so much as a word she climbed into the passenger seat of the van. The driver looked surprised, fares where supposed to ride in the back for the safety of the driver, one look into her eyes told him all he needed to know about her contempt for his concept of safety. So without further ceremony he started the vehicle.

Lorelai directed him to depart first for her suite, she'd like to familiarize herself with her new neighborhood. Rolling down the window Lorelai examined her new city as it passed by. She was pleased to see that even in the dead of night Sombra buzzed with life. Between the streetlights and the neon signs advertising the procurement of one vice or another the city seemed to glitter. Darkness still lurked of course, as it did anytime one dealt with the workings of men. Dead eyes women roamed the sidewalks peddling their flesh to ensure their next supper. Crouched in allyways were the destitute and disenfranchised. On stoops clung various youths, reduced to pushing poison instead of attending to their futures.

Lorelai smiled to herself, all that glitters is not gold after all. She herself was proof of that. The way the bright lights juxtaposed the crawling filth invoked a very gothic sensation, a city of layers and secret streets. Soon enough she'd begin the joyous work of peeling back Sombra's secrets.

---

About an hour later. In front of a condominium in the heart of the entertainment district.

The van came to a stop, which broke Lorelai from her contemplative reverie.

"Mistress we've arrived." Said one of her servants, this time the younger girl among them. Lorelai tried to recall the girl's name, Cynthia maybe? No matter.

"I can see that well enough myself. I'm going to see about a bite, sample the local flavor, while you prepare my living arrangements. Text me when you're finished." She stepped out of the van and smiled when she heard the long pent up sigh of relief from her driver.

"O-of course ma'am, right away." Cynthia(?) stumbled over her words as Lorelai passed her.

She walked along the sidewalk, following the sounds of the nightlife. People watched her as she passed. Gaze on the wolf little sheep, I hardly mind, she thought to herself. To her surprise some of those gazes were ones of suspicion or, even more surprising, predatory. Perhaps the grit of the city had seeped into the very blood of its populace, the people here were tough. Exposed to the grime and cruelties of life in Somabra made them difficult to impress, fool, or kill. Surely a will of some strength was required to survive here.

She was contemplating this when she heard the pulsing beat filtering out of a local club. She examined the sign which promised all manner of excitment. Live music, Live girls (were dead ones often put on display?), dance floor. The steady beat of the music awoke the predator in her however, it seemed to mimic the heartbeat of prey. She approached the building.

Standing in front of the building was a wall of a man, hulking in a three piece suit he surveyed her with some caution. "You got ID girlie?"

She didn't hear a heartbeat from the man. She vaguely remembered the Nyctari, she was supposed to meet with them, controlled the red light district. "Surely you understand my predicament." She flashed her fangs at him briefly, not all of her younger kin shared her heightened senses.

"Ah, gotcha, you ain't a fuckin' Kyng are ya? That's just what I'd need right now." He spat the word Kyng with derision.

"My thralls call me princess, but I assure you I'm no...Kyng." Lorelai favored him with a bright smile.

"A'ight, listen, you go in, grab yo'self a bite in one of the private rooms." He stamped the back of my hand. "That there'll give you VIP access for tonight only, you want it on the regular you gotta talk to one of my bosses."

He handed me a card with yet another name and number. "Don't start anything, or I'll have to throw you out, and you look...Old, so I really don't want to do that, Got it?"

"Thank you, and I'll behave. Your name? I wouldn't want to forget this kindness."

"Paul, nice and easy right?" He smiled almost shyly. "And don't worry 'bout it, we were all new here once right?"

Paul huh? He was young, he almost looked living. Lorelai was somewhat humbled by his openess and resolved to try not to make his night any harder than it needed to be.

She stepped into the club. Her senses were immediately assaulted by loud electronic music, the stench of sweaty bodies on the dancefloor, and most disturbingly the scent of other predators. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she spotted several of her kin in the club. She suppressed the predatory desire to establish dominance, she was a guest here after all.

Now came the choice between the dance floor or the tables surrounding the dancers. She glanced over at the dancers, and she was pleased to see they were of excellent quality. Walking over that direction she noticed the tell-tale signs of longtime thralls however, Lorelai wasn't particularly interested in stepping on any one's toes, yet. The dance floor, however, looked promising. The ratio was way off. that was to be expected though, most of the vampires here were male. Which meant Paul had been admitting an imbalance of young women.

Lorelai spotted a pretty young blonde near the edge of the dance floor. She was dancing only half heartedly, perhaps she'd come here with her friends only to be ditched? Either way Lorelai decided she'd make as good a meal as any. She quickly retrieved two drinks from the bartender and made her way over.

"I'm Lorelai." She extended one of the drinks to the other woman, and with a small intrusion into the blonde's mind it was suddenly her favorite.

"Oh, Hi I'm Lexi." She smiled suspicously at Lorelai. "How's your night been?"

"I'm hoping for an upswing soon." She looked Lexi up and down, which brought heat to the woman's cheeks. "You don't seem to be enjoying yourself much."

"My stupid...boyfriend, invited me out and now he's late." She hesitated over the admission that she had a boyfriend.

"It seems foolish to leave something so sweet alone too long. Someone might snap you up." Lorelai already had this girl pegged, college, came into her beauty late, and was unaccustomed to attention which made her greedy for it. "As a matter of fact, I intend to."

Setting their drinks aside Lorelai lead Lexi to the center of the dance floor. There amid the tide of flesh and life Lorelai danced with her prey. The two of them attracted the eyes of several men, whom Lorelai sent away with icy glares. Soon Lexi became pliable, what little resolve she had melted in the face of their closeness.

Leaning in Lorelai gestured to the private rooms. "I want to be that mistake you made in college, what do you say we spend an hour or so of passion and then you try to forget me for the rest of your life?"

"O-okay." Was all the poor girl could manage.

---

A couple of hours later. In Lorelai's suite.

"You seem quite flushed mi'lady, how was your feeding?" Shaun was her butler, confidant, keeper, and bodyguard all rolled up into a impressively muscular six foot three frame. He was a middle aged elf and had been by her side for sometime, he would remain there indefinately as well. Frequent doses of her own blood had afforded Shaun immortality as well as a small measure of her own unholy speed and strength. So long as he didn't miss a dose of course.

"Quite nice, she lived if that's what you're asking. Mostly due to Paul." Lorelai stretched languidly on the chase lounge in the middle of a quite spacious living room. On the flat screen television that hung over one of those silly fake fire places was the local news, it was running some piece on a 'sombra slayer'. Lorelai wasn't particularly interested, but it seemed to be concerning Shaun.

"Oh, quit your worrying old man. Why don't you call this 'Scarlet' and arrange a meeting. That should take your mind off of things for awhile." She threw the scrap of stationary containing the necessary contact information at him.

"As you wish ma'am." He retrieved his phone from his pocket and headed to a different room to place the call.

"Quit calling me ma'am or mi'lady too." He never would, but he'd been around long enough that Lorelai often felt formailities could be done away with.

---

Scarlet, her office in the buisness district.

So she was going to meet the brat she'd be keeping an eye on for awhile. She knew she'd rue the day Vladimir had saved her unlife. Not too many years ago Vlad had pulled her out of a scrape with some Kyngs while he was here on buisness with Nyxie and the syndicate.

She sighed, there'd been an uneasy peace between the Nyctari and the Bloodbloom syndicate for years. Word was trickling down the grapevine suggesting that might be changing soon. She really didn't need a war, she was just a bookeeper. Of course the book she kept was one of many 'black books' she managed clients.

"Boss, I've got a Lorelai here for you." The intercom on her office phone buzzed out the slightly distorted voice of Garret, her secretary. Great, she was hoping to have a little more time to sulk.

"Send her in." She responded. She quickly cleared some papers from her desk and smoothed her dress, the girl might be a brat, but a promise is a promise.

Into her office stepped a small slip of a girl. Sandy blonde hair, generous curves, pouty lips, and stunning grey eyes. Once she could tear her gaze away she noticed a large elf holding the door open for her, He was a tall drink of water, strong jaw, muscular frame, and the kind of green eyes a girl could just drift off in. Were the Von'Strausses some kind of vampire dynasty of models?

Her thoughts were interuppted by a small sweet voice. "Scarlet I presume? I'm Lorelai, and I'm to understand you'll be taking care of me for awhile?" The girl flashed her a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I must warn you, I'm quite difficult to please."

Scarlet looked back to the girl. So this was the...fuck. When you ran in vampire circles long enough you start to recognize signs of age that aren't physical, hard glint to the eyes, a little too much grace, odd speaking patterns, every elder had something that could tip you off. Scarlet had gotten pretty good at picking them up, a survival skill in the company of her fellow vampires.

She was looking into the eyes of a monster, not a girl. It was unnerving in the extreme, she felt as if something terrible was about to rip out of those eyes and consume her. It took a moment to compose herself, something she's sure the little predator didn't miss.

"Yes, I'm an old associate of your sire's. He was hoping I'd take care of your living arrangements while you where here on vacation." She pulled out some papers. "I've heard of your little predicament and have some suggestions if-"

Scarlet feared for her life as the elder's eyes flashed from a tranquil calm to an unholy rage and back again. "Good to know Vladimir has deigned to inform you of my situation. How...Fortunate."

"I'm sorry, I'll not speak of it." She would do about anything to get out of this room. "Why don't we go over some feeding spots? Also you're welcome to join the Nyctari formally, Vlad had said you might want something to keep you occupied."

"I'm not looking to join any clubs just yet darling. Why don't we get to those feeding spots so I can get out there and see what there is to see huh?"

She did, and quickly

---

Castle Von'Strauss

Vladimir was pleased when he'd heard his little protege had arrived in Santa Somabra with no incident. He had old rivals in the city, ones he was hoping Lorelai would destroy while she was there. Originally he had hoped to merely employ her as a double agent, but now perhaps there were more direct routes available.

It would seem, if his agents were correct, that Concetto had offended Nyxie for the last time with the death of one of her favorite enforcers. A war was on the horizon, and if the right people met final death, he and Lorelai come out as lions atop the pride once more. As it should be.

He picked up the small phone on his desk and dialed a number. "Nyxie, my condolences reguarding Marius. Do you remember the matter we discuss last time I made it into the city." He waited as the woman on the other line responded. "I must have told you about my Lorelai."

[Kingfisher]

Under the Faerie Unification act of 1978, the traditional Fae delicacy Gwaed Gwartheg was outlawed, due to the fact that it contained human blood. Nevertheless, some of the noble Faerie houses continued to indulge in forbidden dishes and practices. The House of Bloodbloom was one of them.

Nyxvira sat with her gigantic form spilling over either side of a desk chair, as she ate another delicate spoonful of blood and chocolate. She was dressed in dark leggings and a sleeveless white vest, which bunched up over the lower roll of her enormous stomach.

“Respectfully, Miss,” Grezbill sniveled, straining his neck to see over the desk “Whilst the Nyctari may not be a real threat by themselves, an alliance between Concetto and the other bosses is something that even you can’t hope to stand against.”

Nyxie narrowed her eyes “How’s the bloodsucker managed to get himself such a large following so quickly?” She asked, as she licked a smidge of chocolate off of her lips.

“It's’ hard to say, Miss.”

She already knew the answer.The grass is always greener on the other side. Those fuckers think that they’ll get more leeway under Concetto than they do under me. They’d never try anything alone, but with his backing? He must’ve promised them all something equally ludicrous, but it's clearly been enough to to sway them.

The Faerie Queenpin sighed internally.

How long before they realize they’ve traded Stalin for Hitler?

“What about Jankovics?” She asked after a long pause.

Grezbill went wide-eyed and started to babble “Miss, his asking price is ludicrous! No hunter is -THAT- good! Our money would be better spent preparing for the days ahead! Even with funds such as ours, this would be taking a serious dent out of our profit margins!

“For fuck sake, Grezbill!” She snarled “If Concetto wins then there won’t be any profit margins left to dent! Do you have any idea how important appearances are at a time like this? We could spend some more money on guns and shit, maybe we beat Concetto back, but once we show everyone that he was a threat to our organization, more and more wannabe kingpins will come slinking out of the cracks. The Nyctari might be the first to try a Coup, but they sure as fuck won’t be the last.”

She took a moment to compose herself and catch her breath.
“If we have Jankovics pick them off, without anyone catching wind, then all those degenerate fuck-nuts will know is that Concetto tried to stand up to me, and then he disappeared faster than Yezhov after a purge.”

For the first time since she’d met him, Grezbill seemed ready to answer back. He opened his mouth, took one look at Nyxvira, then shut it again.

“Make the call, asswipe.” She hissed.

---

Once they’d gotten hold of Jankovics, the vampire slayer was in Santa Somabra within a matter of days. A room in one of Nyxie’s favorite hotels was prepared, with lavish furnishings and a long glass table, for the meeting to be held in. Nyxie really couldn’t stress the importance of appearances enough, and made sure that everything from the flowers in the vases to the wine in the glasses was of the highest quality. She hated wine, and went for milk instead.

Jankovics arrived fifteen minutes late, and was hurriedly shown to his seat. It didn’t do to keep the Queenpin waiting.

He turned out to be a tall, lean man, with fine features and a tuft of dirty blonde hair. He dressed well, and carried himself with the stern grace of a decorated warrior. If the matters at hand hadn’t been so pressing, Nyxie would have atleast tried to shag him before they got down to business.

“Good Morning, Mister Jankovics.” She greeted him with a gentle smile. The irony that she was meeting with one of the country’s top Vampire Slayers mere minutes after talking with Vladmir Von’Strauss was not lost on her. “Am I okay to call you Edmund?”

“You’re the employer,” Edmund Jankovics gave a light shrug, taking a brisk sip of his wine “You can call me what you want.”

Nyxvira winced slightly.

“This is just a meeting; nothing’s set in stone.”

“If the word on the street is to be believed, and it usually is, then you’re in dire need of a vampire slayer, and I’m the best you’ll get in the time available to you.” His voice had that kind of calm obnoxiousness to it that suddenly makes a person’s face very punchable.

The Faerie had to fight to keep herself from scowling.“I was told you’ve been in Santa Somabra a few hours. I find it hard to believe you’ve gauged all that in such a short period of time.”

“Because I haven’t,” there was a sharpness in his voice that the Queenpin hadn’t had to deal with for quite some time “I always steak out potential contracts before hand. I’ve had a solid three days to survey the situation here. It's not looking good for you”

And no one spotted him?! Nyxie could’ve stabbed someone. No one should be able to slip through the cracks. Not without my say so.

“Alright, then,” the Faerie said with surprisingly little anger “since you know the situation, you know what I’m going to ask of you; Kill Concetto Nyctari, and all his lieutenants.”

Jankovics gave her a ‘tell me something I don’t know’ look.

“You’re to be paid in halves. You’ll get the full sum once I have Concetto’s head on a spear.” Even at half price, the amount of money Nyxvira had to fork out was staggering.

“I’ve gone up against Euyueuyun Vampire Lords,” Jankovics said smugly “Some gutter-trash from the ass-crack of California barely registers on my radar.” The Vampire Slayer downed the rest of his wine, before rising out of his chair.

“Now, excuse me while I go solve all your problems for you, Faerie.” He smirked, as he turned and walked away.

[Meiyuki]

This was getting tiring. Lorelai was covered in blood, again. She stood in an alleyway surrounded by broken bodies. Three attacks in what? A night and a half? She was starting to wonder if they were attacking her on purpose, but that would be stupid. It had started out a little fun too. Some barely blooded vamp would turn around one corner, his thralls around the other. He'd say some very threatening drivel, offer to teach her a lesson or some such. She'd respond at first with inquiries into the nature of the education she was about to receive, was it a philosophical debate? His eyes would narrow and he'd say something foolishly rude.

Then she'd eat them all. She didn't even remember her mother, but she was pretty sure she would have taken exception to being called...whatever it was.

It was starting to get dull now though. Is this the kind of thing that happens in California when one doesn't return the calls of pompous young fools who have, for some reason she couldn't divine, declared themselves important? She dialed a number on her cell.

"Shaun, I need picked up again. Set up a meeting with these, Nyctari? Or whatever."

"Are you alright ma'am?"

"Unfortunately yes. They didn't even manage to make me bleed a little this time, how rude."

---

An hour later. Lorelai's condo.

Lorelai smiled as she pulled the silk top over her head. She did so love the feel of silk, smooth and almost unnoticeable it glid over the skin without so much as a trace. Like a cat stalking prey, leaving nothing disturbed in its wake. She let out a small giggle, was she empathizing with a fabric? Perhaps she had gone mad after all.

"Mi'lady, your car awaits." Shaun stood at the doorway to her bedroom.

"Will you ever simply call me Lorelai you old bat?" She favored him with a grin.

"I don't believe so ma'am." He hardly showed it, but the small upturn at the corner of his mouth betrayed a smile.

"Would you at least dispense with the titles? You, and only you, may call me asshole." She stood still as he fixed the ribbon on her head.

"I do believe there will come a day when I stop calling you Mi'lady."

"Is there now?" Lorelai made a show of pouting.

"I hear one doesn't get to speak much once they've died for the last time." He flashed one of his rare grins

"Oh you!" She threw her purse at him. "You've offended me for the last time old man. I do think I'll eat you now."

Shaun cocked an eyebrow, not afraid in the slightest. "Do be sure to put on a bib before you do ma'am, blood is hard to get out of silk."

At that she laughed, and didn't stop laughing until they'd reached the car waiting outside.

If only Shaun was a woman. Lorelai thought to herself as she examined the passing buildings. Then she'd...The train of thought took her back to a particular elf.

By the time they'd arrived outside the closed nightclub she was in a foul mood. Shaun was tense next to her, surely thinking about how nice it would be if this meeting went well. Lorelai scoffed, they hadn't even gotten a boss to meet her, this was evidently the haunt of a local lieutenant of some kind.

Getting out of the car Lorelai made her way to the front door. It was being guarded by two very large men.

"What's this? Get outta here, this ain't no place for high schoolers." The first man spoke.

"I'm Lorelai Von'Strauss I have an appointment." She was somewhat accustomed to people making assumptions about her due to her size. So she'd let that one slide, in the name of civility.

"You're Vlad's spawn? I always thought the guy sounded weird, but to think he was a ped-" The first kick stopped his laughter and destroyed most of the man's kneecap. The second sent him skidding down the street half a block, leaving a trail of dead blood behind him.

"Did you learn from his mistake? Or should I eagerly await yours?" Lorelai surveyed the second man with contempt.

The man evidently was wiser than his companion, and simply stepped aside. Lorelai pushed her way into the darkened nightclub. It had a similar layout to the one she'd had her little romp with Lexi in. Lexi, Lorelai had her number, maybe she'd call later. Her thoughts were interrupted by the approach of yet another of her kin, this one a small dark haired woman.

"I trust you found the place just fine?" She asked, trying to make polite conversation.

"My driver seemed to, I can't be bothered to pay attention to such banalities. You're going to need a new doorman I think, the one you had was quite rude."

The woman took a glance at Lorelai's shoes which were stained with the thug's blood. Or rather the blood of whoever he'd been feeding from. "I see, I'll make sure he finds...lower brow employment."

"You know when I was young it was fashionable to offer up offensive servants as a meal to the offended." She sighed. "I was disappointed when that went out of vogue. No matter, see that it doesn't happen again, or I'll start blaming their masters for not instilling grace and manners when they had the chance."

"O-of course ma'am." Smile gone, the woman led her to a back room. "Valentino's in there."

She stepped into a spacious office. What would have been a rather luxurious office was diminished by the poor cleanliness however. Was everyone going to offend her tonight? Behind a wooden desk that was covered in coffee rings, and scratch marks that she could only presume resulted from cutting lines, sat a plump and decidedly unpleasant looking man.

"Lorelai, welcome, have a seat. We've much to discuss." He offered a hand, which Lorelai waved away.

"I think I'll stand thank you." She looked around the room. "I take it the Nyctari aren't much for decorum. Or is that a trait that you alone possess?"

"What? Oh the room? Don't worry about that, we've got some exciting prospects for you Lorelai. As Vlad's progeny we could bring you in as a made man."

"A made man? What is that? I hope no one's going to make me male. That would offend me even more than I already have been. That would not be wise."

"Uh. They weren't kidding when they said you were old huh? A made man is basically a full member of the family, you'd get a cushy job, or a job with some upward growth available. Some prime feeding spots to yourself, nothing too fancy to start, and you won't have to worry about other vamps poaching."

"I see. What are you...Valentino?"

"Well, I'm a Lieutenant. A couple of steps up. You'd be like Larissa outside." It dawned on the pudgy man that perhaps he should have come up with a convincing lie. Or maybe called his boss for a better offer. Too bad it didn't come earlier.

"Shaun, be a dear and hold my purse. I think I'm going to throw a bit of a tantrum."

---

Fifteen minutes later. Outside the club.

"Shaun, call the cleaner for me. I'm afraid I may have ruined my top." Lorelai emerged from the club covered in blood.

"Already done ma'am. There's a change of clothes waiting in the car for you."

"Always anticipating my needs. I'm blessed." Lorelai climbed into the vehicle and began changing.

"You've probably just made a large number of powerful enemies ma'am." Shaun spoke with his back to the open window, to preserve his lady's modesty. "Perhaps we should reach out to the Bloodbloom syndicate. They've been calling as well."

"The thought had occurred to me. The Bloodbloom syndicate? What a colorful name." Lorelai finished changing and stuck her head out the window. "What do we know about them."

"Unfortunately little, other than the streets whisper of some trouble between the two." Shaun had recieved a call earlier in the night from Vladimir explaining the situation.

"Enemy of my enemy and all that? With a name like the Bloodbloom syndicate I'm sure they do something fun."

"Named for their Matriarch I believe."

"Ah! Run by a woman too? Maybe they'll have better sense."

"I hear she's quite corpulent."

"You know me Shaun. It's what's on the inside that counts."

[Wernher]

The meeting room seemed to be the antithesis of the outside. Through the window could be seen the creeping darkness that loomed above the city despite the hour. Tomas found it amusing really, the irony of the fact that the darker it got, the better things were for the city as it meant the industrial park was working at full capacity, the people were employed and life went on. Sun... true sun was witnessed a few years ago here, before Veronika became the Superintendent, and back then those were murderous years... well, more murderous.

In here however? The walls were white, the room was well lit by the bring neon light above and the table formed a perfect symmetry, a green plant on every corner of the room and a folder in front of every person along with a glass of water, the pitcher throning at the center of the table. Veronika insisted only the secretary (In this case Mister Zug) of the meeting used a laptop and with the minutes of waiting going by, Tom was getting pretty bored. Though not nearly as much as Mordecai who turned around his boosted swivel chair, seemingly trying to count the little dots on the ceiling. Ivendale, the elf of the group, let out a long sigh and opened his mouth seemingly to say something but was interrupted by the Superintendent who, without even looking away from the file she was reading, raised a finger to ask him to keep quiet. "Five more minutes." It was all she said, soft spoken as always as everyone darted toward the empty seat of Sid.

It took 3 minutes but Sid arrived, barging in and walking loudly in her combat boots. It was by Veronika's order that everyone here wore their police uniform as to keep the decorum but she really had to squeeze Sid to wear something else than her tactical gear which was, technically, part of the police uniform. Though that white shirt with blue pants looked weird on her and one could say the tie made her uncomfortable. "You're late." Tom didn't need to look to know that was Ivendale being an ass but Sid wasn't the wind of woman you could be an ass to without expecting a reply. "And you're as annoying as ever, business as usual!" As Sid sat down Veronika turned toward Ivendale who had opened his mouth but noticing Veronika's gaze, decided to shut it, knowing deciding to reply would make him look just as bad as Sid.

"Right, thank you all to be here today, the meeting may now begin. If you would open the folder in front of you, you will notice a change in the order of the day due to the latest events. I was informed by inspector Beccel, in charge of weapon smuggling, of large quantities of weapons moving in the city." Mordecai frowned and interrupted Veronika, making her eyebrow twitch a little. "Wait, Beccel? You know that guy eats out of the Nyctari's hands, right?" The Superintendent slowly nodded. "Yes. To be clear he didn't inform me with words, I merely saw he went to work with a new car today. Judging from the model, I'd imagine the bribe would be at the rate expected to let enough to equip a small army in the city." Mordecai sniggered at the Superintendent's ability to read bribes and voluntarily keep people incompetent at such levels as Beccel in service just because they were oblivious to their own stupidity. The others however? The sight of how far the police had fallen wasn't something to laugh at.

"We will presume that this is the most likely scenario, that of a Nyctari and Bloodbloom feud. This, gentlemen, is an opportunity to let others do some of the work for a change. No doubt the Syndicate will try and be swift about this, I'm guessing a decapitation strike, as not to go on a long war of attrition that would no doubt get other gangs, both here and across the country, use the perceived weakness to make a move themselves. This is what we want. We will get the word on the street that the SSPD also approves of the Nyctari actions." Tomas frowned. This couldn't possibly end well. "We will shift patrols to focus around the Nyctari territories but NOT to focus on the Nyctari men themselves. Leave them be but as soon as an attack occurs on Nyctari holdings, we will ride in to break up the fight. Likewise, should attacks occur on Bloodbloom fronts and such, we'll follow the traffic lights. Likewise once we're on location we will concentrate our efforts on Bloodbloom associates. Waste their time and resources, throw dozens of cops to bribe in the mix. This should let the Nyctari gain enough momentum to get the war started." Tomas looked at Veronika with internal rage. This proposed inaction would cost the lives of many innocents! But he didn't talk, her mind never changed when she was the one to come up with an idea.

No, it was Mordecai who spoke. "Waaaaiwaiwait. This isn't how this works Ve- I mean, Mis-, Madam Superintendent sir. The police can't 'Enforce' someone! Other gangs will just see the Nyctari as, Idunno, filthy collaborators! It'll shun the others away from them!" Veronika nodded and let out a faint smile. "For some, it will. But away from Nyctari doesn't necessarily mean towards Bloodbloom. If they smell weakness they'll strike out on their own and it'll prevent Nyctari from becoming too much of a problem once the war is over too. And. If we declare ourselves to be their allies and, weather they distance themselves or not from us, if they are forced in a corner we will be all they have left." Smart Ivendale thought. She wasn't offering an alliance, she was forcing one down Concetto's throat and it didn't matter if he wanted one or not.

Zug raised a hand and Veronika turned toward him, signaling him to talk. The ogre got up from his seat to speak. "Unfortunately I just received report from dispatch that a nightclub belonging to Nyctari associates was raided. Preliminary investigation suggest a single attacker, extremely violent, who neutralized a dozen of their men. I would guess another vampire, multi-centenarian judging by the strength and skills involved. Could be a feud but this is worrying as it might implicate Bloodbloom already being on the move. Multi-centenarians are rare and we try to keep track of them. American databases are inconclusive but I am following a lead with Interpol and Europol." Veronika nodded and turned toward Sid. "Captain Meyer, I want your men in flight ASAP and cruise above Concetto Nyctari's home for the time being. Our information could be outdated and a move could already be in progress. If anything happens I give you field command." Sid got up and saluted, military style. "Superintendent." And with this, she was out.

__________________________

The meeting continued and ultimately, concluded. At the great relief of Mordecai who was almost drooling of boredom. "Meeting adjourned. Mister Sal'Ànewà, I want you to clear what's going on with these shipments and give me a draft of the approximate forces of the gangs involved, Mister Cromarty you continue to search for that vampire, Krubus, you're on standby downtown, keep ready if you're needed." The Kobold saluted and smiled, pleased the Superintendent would address him on first name basis. "Dollan, Crain, stay here for a moment." The zombie and the goblin looked at each other, communicating their fear that something bad was about to happen. The others left and for a long minute, Veronika kept writing notes.

Finally, she looked up. "I have a special task for the both of you. The Hunter. Bodyguard and enforcer of Bloodbloom's boss. I want you both to profile her. Follow her movements and report on them. Find out who he or she is." Oh boy. Mordecai took the side of his hat and pulled them down hard in front of his ears. "AH! Are you fucking nuts woman! It's the Hunter! You don't hunt the hunter, the hunter hunts you! We're cops for Christ sake!" Veronika frowned, annoyed at the coarseness of the goblin. "Please keep the swearing out of this room. And yes, I know that. I won't throw the lives of my men needlessly in danger. I wish for you to make contact with outside elements. Organizing a large surveillance would be impractical and would broadcast our intentions. No, I want you to employ outsiders for this." Mordecai sighed as he tried to undamage his hat. That was why he was with grenade face, she knew he couldn't contact criminals anymore, but he could on his behalf. No one knew him in this city, especially since he got shotgun facial surgery. "Ok. Sure, why not. Let other poor chumps get killed... But they'll want money, you know? Especially for a job like this." Veronika raised her eyebrows, surprised this would even be a concern. "Of course, I'll give you access to the black box." The black box. Where the money for informants and other sensitive cases was kept, away from the eyes of everyone but Veronika. "Seriously? The triple adamantine card?"

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"I don't think I ever held so much money in my hand. I have no idea how much is in there actually, but I bet its a lot." The goblin looked at the seemingly unspecial debit card with a large smile. But it soon faded as he noticed Tomas stare. "Oh fuck's sake. I won't overspend or anything, jeez." Tomas smirked. Why she would put him, the definition of good cop, with the ex-criminal? Who knew. "I'm sure you won't, but I still think I should hold on to that for the time being." He lowered a hand to the goblin who grimaced at the zombie before flinging it at him. "Ah whatever." Tomas placed the card in his pocket. "Oh don't be so grumpy. This is for mission expenditure so I'm sure we can fit a few nice meals. And since I don't eat anymore you can take my share." That seemed to give some joy to the greenskin. "Hehe, yeah, and then we can go undercover in a titty joint!" Tomas smirked. "Let's not push it though, if we want the Superintendent to leave us the card again sometimes. Now, onward to business."

Tomas looked at the phone booth. "Who do we call?"

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@DJAtomika

"Alright, try and sound casual, but not too casual else it'll seem suspicious and don't talk like... well, like you usually do, be more street like. You should be ok with these guys, they're zombs too, just be convincing." Oh yeah, real easy. 'Just be convincing'. The phone rang, and rang and...

...rang. Then, there was the answering machine. Damn, Tomas didn't know if this was a blessing or a curse.

"Yeah, this is T-ony. I got your number from Bruce who told me you could handle yourself. I have a job and if you fuck up it'll make some Bloodbloom people unhappy. I need you to track down one of 'em. Stalk out in the bushes or beat the crap out of people so they talk I don't care. The guy is dangerous and you don't need to know my angle on this but what you want to know is that I pay a heap of money for this. Its 25,000 dollars upfront and 75,000 on completion, plus I have 50,000 extra if I'm super duper satisfied of the work. If you can take it then good, meet me tomorrow at 11 in the morning at the Cubert Coffee downtown, I'll be the guy with half his face gone, eh, can't miss it. Don't forget to take your balls off your purse ladies." And with this, he hung up.

Mordecai looked at him. "...Don't forget to take your balls out of your purse." Tomas scratched the back of his head. "Well, I thought it'd make me sound... you know." Mordecai made a 'I can't even' shrug. "Edgy? I think that's the word you're looking for. Come on, lets try other numbers in case those two don't show up.