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

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

(THE PRINCE AND HIS COUNSELOR)

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

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

(IN THE NIGHTSIDE)

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

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

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

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

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

"Absolutely," Marissa nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is there a reward?" the grandmother asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What for?" the Wolf asked cautiously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(THE PIECES FALL TOGETHER)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[***]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[***]

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

[***]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In combat, do you talk your enemy to death or do you use this fantastic body of yours," Tessio challenged her. "We should have time to chat later; physical sex now."

While the two ladies pondered their next response, Tessio made sure both women were on their sides, facing one another then hooked their legs upon his shoulders and forced their hips tightly together. The ladies squirmed, struggling to deal with their proximity to another 'alpha' female. They missed Tessio wiggling down, their legs riding down his back so that his first lick crossed from Hillary's cunt straight to Marissa's slit.

Hillary decided to drape her leg over Tessio's shoulders and rub back and forth whereas Marissa raised her leg pointing up, hooking her knee with her hand to keep it there. For ten minutes Tessio let his face get sticky wet with their juices, now pumping each girl with two fingers and occasionally a thumb from each hand.

"Kiss each other," Tessio murmured.

"A woman has to be special for me to feel that way," Marissa stated.

"She doesn't do anything for me," Hillary said at the same moment.

"Kiss one another because I find it incredibly hot and horny," Tessio stated. "Do it for me."

Hillary shrugged, Marissa sighed and the two started tentatively to kiss.

That changed when Tessio snuck a thumb up to each butthole. He was seriously testing their sphincters' strength.

"The last Werewolf who tried to do that with me...well, we had a real disagreement," Marissa related. Tessio stopped his licking and slurping to address Marissa.

"I'm not trying to force you down against your will and dominate you," Tessio said then tongue-fucked the two for a few seconds. "I want to give you both pleasure. 'No' means 'no', but I ask you to give me a chance."

"Okay," Marissa tried to relax. Hillary nibbling Marissa's ear and rubbing her breasts helped with that.

For all the stimulation that was going on, it was Hillary who crested first; she didn't do anything he'd seen before. It was similar to watching a cartoon tsunami rising and rising then totally vanish -- consumed internally.

"Oh love ... that was soooo good," Hillary's bosom heaved, "I was famished."

Tessio decided to figure that out later since he was famished too. He flipped Marissa onto her back, hooked each thigh with a hand and yanked her down the bed to him even as he thrust up into her. Marissa grunted from the impact, her sex wrapping around his cock-shaft as it was buried deep within her womb.

Marissa had the impulse to urge him to on, but his hands rose to the back of her knees, folding her nearly in half, all the while trying his level best to pound her through the mattress. Marissa put her hands under his arms then snaked around so she took him by the shoulders from the back. The vampire had heard the vague expression about putting a girl's ankles behind her ears yet never taken the expression seriously until now.

Tessio was pumping her vagina with the efforts of a frenzied athlete. The combination of his sweat, his breath racing past her ear and the sounds of his heart thundering and the blood racing through his carotid was driving her to a bloody frenzy. She was vaguely aware that Tessio had been giving her all he had for several minutes, but she'd become lost in the spell of someone wanting to pleasure her for her own sake and not for her titles, favor, or even her dark nature.

She lost it. For just a second, three hundred years of iron control slipped and the beast broke free. Marissa's jaws found the crux of his shoulder and neck and she tore into him. Savoring the blood overwhelmed every other sensation. She was vaguely aware that Tessio's right hand released her leg and gripped the back of her hair. Her right leg broke free of his left hand and linked up with her left leg in intertwining around his waist, pinning him to her in a vice no human could break.

"Marissa," Hillary whispered warily. The vampire hardly cared. She drank up Tessio's fresh, vital blood and recalled that very first hunt -- that first rush of blood down her throat -- that first kill. Tessio's hand knotted in her hair and pushed her even deeper into his throat.

"Marissa," he breathed faintly. That snapped her back to her present reality.

She had torn his shoulder apart and blood was leaking out everywhere. Hot, scalding semen splattered over her womb again and again, shaking the foundations of her fragile sanity. Marissa's saliva normally acted in a manner that retarded the clotting process but now she turned it around, stopping the blood flow and accelerating the healing of Tessio's tortured flesh.

Tessio collapsed onto Marissa who rolled him between herself and Hillary. She rolled him right over, crying and kissing his face in a desperate attempt to revive him.

"You crazy Bitch," Hillary hissed, "You may have killed him." That criticism barely registered with the former Lady; all that mattered was this frail, faltering human heart beneath her. His hand reaching up, stroking her hair, caught Marissa off-guard.

"It is okay," he groaned. Marissa hovered over him, fighting back tears. "Lesson learned; next time we make love, you get a ball-gag -- a solid steel ball-gag." Marissa grabbed Tessio up in a full-body grapple/hug.

"Can't -- breath," Tessio wheezed.

"Sorry," she backed off Tessio once more. Hillary began incanting a new charm. The witch traced her fingers along the lines of energy centered on his heart, encompassing his lungs and liver in a spiraling pattern marked by a line of sweat. The back of the Witch's warm hand only served to further excite Marissa's enflamed nipples.

Before Marissa could vocalize her arousal, Hillary looked to the vampire, her eyes clouded white with a potent divination.

"We have company," Hillary whispered intently.

[***]

Nina's tactic for getting into the hotel room door was brutally simple; three separate shotguns shooting the two hinges and the door lock with breaching rounds. The door would fall in; they would toss in two flash-bang grenades -- one short so it would catch anyone in the bathroom and the other long sent to land on, or beyond, the bed to catch anyone on that side.

Remarkably the mobsters started off right on the money; the only problem being that the door didn't fall down -- it sort of just hung there, tilted at a roughly 70 degree angle. Nina turned and screamed at the nearest mafia soldiers.

"Follow me," she yelled as she unloaded her Uzi into the door of the room next to Tessio's. She heard the 'thump' of Tessio's grenade launcher as she and two other guys threw their weight against the adjacent door. Experience told her Tessio was using tear gas -- fuck, why wasn't he trying to kill her? He had told her to hold nothing back when they last spoke.

To compound the mess in the hall, one not-too-bright Mafioso had activated the timer on his flash-bang and when the tear gas hit him, he let it fall at his feet in the hall with the rest of his crew pressed against the walls. Nina's small group was still moving though. The door that linked the two rooms was probably locked so she pointed to her lead man with a shotgun, then to the door.

The man blew the door lock while Nina and the third man aimed for the opening. A fourth man got inside the room before the flash-bang went off. The shock rattled them for only a second due to the width of the hall and the sheltering turn of the doorway. When no bullets came through the door to Tessio's room, Nina flung herself belly first through the opening. She fired a few bursts to confuse her 'opponents'.

Two shotgun blasts raced past her head -- her fellows shooting up the room. Nina couldn't see anything, so she popped up to a kneeling position and swept the room with her eyes. She caught it on the second sweep -- the opposite adjoining room door hadn't quite shut.

"Shit," she howled. Nina forced herself up and sprinted for the door, her three men hot on her heels, trusting in her instincts. Unfortunately, the hallway door dropped and the slightly stunned and blinded gunfighters in the hall saw movement and fired. The last man following Nina was cut down by a damn unlucky bullet.

At the door, she signaled the third man,

"Call the snipers and tell them we are moving toward the south corner -- follow and update," Nina growled. She nodded to the second member and kicked the door open and fired two quick, short burst.

'The next damn adjoining...what the fuck were all these rooms doing with adjoining doors?' she suddenly wondered. 'This was wrong', her instincts screamed at the same time she made that chaotic leap.

"They are going out the side of the building," she snarled. "Tell everybody that they are going out the side of the building -- they have a secret door of some kind!"

This time the confused mafia soldiers hesitated. One ran after her while the other tried to use a cell phone to organize the remaining mobsters. Nina felt a degree of vindication when she saw the fireman's pole going down in the final room. How could she have missed this? Quick mental calculations put the pole coming down in a storeroom behind the lounges' bar. Then Tessio's fist hit her.

Her head was ringing from the near concussion. She felt something coming behind her, she lashed out with her right foot and heard a woman yelp. Her only support came through the door, saw Tessio and the mystery woman and pivoted toward them. She saw yet other lady, this one in red, grab the man by his right bicep and shotgun, raise the gun and hurl the man to the far wall like he was a kitten. He hit the surface upside down with a deafening crunch.

Tessio had knocked her Uzi out of her grip though her harness kept it at her side. She needed time, but he was too fast and the head trauma he had given her was too much of a disadvantage. She valiantly tried to maneuver, but the results were a foregone conclusion. There was a blur coming at her and the world went dark.

[***]

Tessio eased his cousin to the ground gently.

"Someone we should know?" Hexane inquired with curiosity.

"I'm actually hungry," Marissa took a step forward. Was that jealousy she was feeling -- toward a human girl -- that Tessio was showing affection for?

"She's my cousin, Nina Nerospina," Tessio confessed. "I trained her." Something did not click with Marissa; her nose was telling her something different.

"If you trained her we REALLY should kill her," Hexane emphasized.

"Tessio, I'm not going to kill her this second but let me check something out," Marissa pressured Tessio. They could already hear the mafia goons coming their way.

Marissa leaned in and licked the blood off of Nina's lips.

"Let's go," Marissa hopped up. Per their protocol, Tessio went first. He wasn't as good at hand-to-hand, but Marissa could absorb the most damage from any pursuit. Tessio went down the pole first, duffel in hand. Hillary went down with her bag, wondering how the combat monsters did this so effortlessly.

Marissa grabbed Nina and shook her violently until she moaned.

"Tessio is mine, you bitch," she whispered with utter menace. "You come after him again and I'll tell him your little secret; you are nothing more than some Estonian whore's mistake."

(S.I.D. ON THE SCENE)

"Sir, I can find no evidence what so ever that any of this work was done with a permit, though the reservation for this room is suspect," Jenna stated the facts to her boss.

"So no one stocking the bar recalls having a fireman's pole appearing in their stockroom," Raithe didn't ask, he stated. He'd seen things this bizarre before, but these alterations were oddly elegant.

The entire second floor of the hotel had been given linking doors as opposed to one door linking two rooms. To the housekeeping staff the doors had simply been there. The alterations had not been so bizarre as to cause any of the humans the mental strain expected from Dark Sider illusions. Wolfe's bounding into the room spoke volumes too.

"We found they used the same trick with Nerospina," Wolfe told his boss softly.

"We need to use their first names because it appears Nina Nerospina is leading the La Costa Nostra in their manhunt," Jenna pointed out. "Sir, we need to use her."

Raithe looked over to her pointing at SA Alvarado. It seemed the Mafia had a source on the Nightside helping them too. It wasn't likely Tessio was risking himself against his own family and the SID.

"Maggy, call him," Raithe addressed her and with that, she was more than the FBI's SID, she was part of the team in the hunt. That was solely because she could get a killer to answer the phone, or so it seemed.

"Tessio," she said when the phone was answered.

"I can't talk long because I'm sure your technical staff is running the number down," he answered. "We are prepared to provide the SID an access portal to the New York City Night Side -- I don't mean some jaunt to a Mirror Realm, or some distant wasteland -- I mean the city itself. We will give you the Real World location soon. Questions?"

"What's your game and what are you throwing us at?" Maggy looked over at Jenna and Raithe to see if she was fishing up the right stream. Raithe nodded. Now if she could only get a straight answer from her source.

"We are waging war on the Council of Night -- please keep that under your caps for now; and you can expect 200, or so rabid beasts coming after us. We either overthrow the existing order or we die. We have a plan, but we cannot save either side of New York, so we are bringing you guys up to speed," Tessio related. "Must go now," and the connection went dead.

Jenna contacted the phone trace unit but all they could tell her was the call was from somewhere in or near Central Park.

"It will be after dark by the time we get there," Wolfe assessed the situation. Raithe gave the nod and Wolfe was sending out orders over his headset. Jenna was letting the Mayor's and Police Commissioner's office knows that there might be trouble.

For now, Maggy traveled with Raithe and Camille and she was smart enough to know what the psychics were now doing -- they were a spiritual secret service; watching over Raithe, Wolfe, and Jenna because if any one of those people went down, the whole mission was in jeopardy.

"What screams at me is an outdoor concert near the castle," Jenna said grimly.

"We need more information from your source," Raithe grumbled. Single-source information was toxic to use in any operation, but he was all they had for now.

"He won't answer," Maggy shook her head. Standing up to Raithe wasn't easy but going against her gut would have been harder.

"They will find a gate and get through it before calling us back or taking a call," Camille agreed.

"Wait, they can use cell service through the doorways," Wolfe growled in frustration.

"Raithe, it makes sense," Jenna worked it out. "We know they've adopted human technology when it has suited them. They probably put their own back-up towers close to their gates -- one on each side."

"No," Maggy spoke up and by the looks she garnered, she, the rookie, was not very well received. "That would be sloppy and I'm getting a serious feel for a thoroughly thought out organization here in New York City. They would compromise the existing towers themselves, so no causal snooping would reveal their existence."

"So the Nightsiders have human agents in the phone companies that maintain the towers," Raithe interpreted Maggy's train of thought.

"Yes Sir," Maggy nodded.

"Good idea, Alvarado," Raithe said. "Jenna, let's find out who maintains those towers and we'll start sweating their accounts, and their souls, to see who is getting taint or cash for their services. Next time, I want to get a jump on either one of those Nerospina."

(CHAOS AT THE NEXUS GATE)

Marissa felt a warmth generating from her middle abdominal region and pulsing throughout her body. The closeness brought about by three sharing a cab's back seat only made it worse.

"Marissa," Hillary whispered insistently.

"Marissa?" Tessio questioned. He put an arm around her shoulder, disregarding the danger and proximity to a disjointed vampire.

Marissa twisted into Tessio, draping her far, left leg over his left leg and cuddled into him. She found her face tantalizingly close to his neck once more. She realized his head had turned to face her and she felt something akin to...puppy love? This was insane for someone of her status.

"Marissa," Hillary was now insistent. She reached for Marissa's shoulder. The vampire's hand lashed out and put a crushing hold on the meat of Hillary's palm. "Ow," Hillary hissed.

Tessio drove his fingers into the exposed wrist of Marissa, causing the hand to spring open unbidden. Hillary whipped her bruised hand to her lap and burned an angry gaze at Marissa.

"Calm down," Tessio whispered softly. Marissa went through a tumult of emotions. Shame, lust and even fear tore at her mind. She was ashamed of her conduct and even more ashamed that she felt she should explain herself. The sudden evaporation of control brought forth frantic youngling energy -- bloody and untamed.

Lastly, she lusted for Tessio. She'd had this secret hope they would engage in intercourse and somehow the spell he'd woven over her would dissipate. It hadn't. It had intensified and magnified her own long-constrained desires. She was about to blather all over Tessio, but he spoke first.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"She's losing her mind," grumbled Hillary. "I'm beginning to think she's succumbing to the Failing." The two Nightsiders had discussed the basics, so Tessio wasn't lost on the subject.

"No!" Marissa growled back. "I would never abandon Tessio." Tessio touched her shoulder.

"If the time comes, you must," Tessio's words ratcheted up their empathy. "What we are doing is more important than any one of us."

"Speak for yourself," Hillary groused. "None of you are abandoning me and I'm getting out of this alive." Tessio snorted and Marissa looked a trifle less pathological.

"I won't leave you behind Hillary," Tessio looked her way.

"Fine," Marissa tried to not feel too upset, "we all will make it out alive."

"Are you going to be okay?" he returned his gaze to Marissa. "We can put this off a few hours if you feel you are not 100%."

"I'll be fine," she snuggled into him, tempted fate and kissed his neck. For a second he was accepting of the action then he recoiled, upsetting Marissa even more. Tessio took off his right-hand glove and touched her cheek.

"Marissa," Tessio whispered, "you are burning up." Hillary started to say something when the taxi rolled to a stop at Central Park. They paid the driver and made their way off to a side path where Hillary began examining her vampire companion.

"You really are burning up," Hillary exclaimed. "I mean you are almost human temperature and you are breathing -- breathing, not faking it like you normally do."

"We should wait," Tessio recommended. Marissa shook her head.

"I'm getting a handle on this and with the Sun setting and the concert crowd growing, we can slip through the Nexus," the vampire pointed out. The Nexus was the crossing of the North-South Axis [the Avenue of Fallen Grace] which ran from The Battery to Boston if you traveled it far enough.

At Belvedere Castle, it ran into the largest East-West Axis, more commonly called the Parade of Fools, which ran from the Brooklyn Heights to the wilds of the Jersey Badlands. It was the most used access in the city and twilight was the time of the heaviest traffic. Combined with the human activity for the outdoor concert, slipping in should have been easy.

It was compassion that screwed them up ... the compassion of Marissa. She saw two Were-Hyenas and a vampire falling on some poor girl whose sole offense was she was attempting to move around the concert crowd and go to ... someplace else. As they pulled the struggling girl into the darkness their glamours failed and their true form were revealed and then the girl's fear really exploded.

Marissa may have felt emotionally like a youngling again yet she wielded the flesh of a 300 year old killer. The vampire never knew what ended its existence; Marissa twisted its head so rapidly, she tore it off. She and the closest hyena grappled, but already their musk of fear was almost overwhelming. Hexane was weaving an enchantment to dampen all perceptions into the area.

The remaining Were-Hyena fled right into the remnants of its team; an elf with a mechanical right arm, another Were-Hyena, two twisted mutant Ogres and a Red Cap. Marissa seemed to be lost in the moment. She put an elbow into the closest monster's trachea. While it tried to breath, she flipped it over and then drew Tegus's blade.

She split its skull in twain as the elf began sending some sort of magic her way. His eyes flashed in Hexane's direction as she continued to weave her spell. She needed time; what she had was Tessio. The human reacted with well-honed instincts, tossing a flash-bang grenade at the elven wizard's feet while bringing a suppressed MP-5 to bear on a path any of that group had to take to get to Marissa.

The Ogres and Were-Hyenas rushed at the vampire ~ Tessio cut them down at knee level. The elf and Red Cap staggered as the grenade went off. For Hexane the world seemed to slow down except for Marissa and Tessio. The jumble of attackers heading Marissa's way fell over one another and then Marissa was decapitating each one in turn.

The elf barely started something new before his face was blasted to a bloody pulp by Tessio's submachine gun (though his magic saved its life). The Red Cap drew forth a dart from its quiver (the real two-foot long weapon; not something to throw at a dart board) and hurled it at Hillary. Tessio was afraid she was in danger so he was suitably impressed when she snagged it out of the air, let it spin in her hand, then let it fly back, impaling the creature through the eye with its own projectile.

The elf was trying to regain its footing and regrow its face when the blurry imagine of Marissa bifurcated it. The fight had barely taken ten seconds.

"Oh fuck, I'm sorry," Marissa mumbled. Tessio ran up to the devastated girl who had set off this chain of event. He snatched up her phone, dialed in Maggie's number, hit send and put the phone back in the lady's hand.

"What was that for?" Hillary laughed as they rejoined Marissa.

"Well, if the current liege wants to bury us using his -- whatever that group was -- let's bring in some reinforcements of our own," Tessio explained.

"A hunting party out this early is obscene," Marissa snarled. "Not in my city, damn it!"

"It is not your city right now Marissa," Tessio reminded her, "and we can never get your city back unless we get to the Nightside right now. Hillary, can you figure out how many of these groups are around Belvedere Castle? I've got a sinking suspicion that taking on these groups is a losing proposition."

"I'll scan for 'crystals'," Hexane responded. Crystals were the Nightside's version of a one-shot cell phone, cheap to buy and capable of about thirty minutes of conversation. "Lookouts are likely to have one and humans aren't." The three clung to the shadows as they approached one of Central Park's major landmarks which was also one of the largest cross over points between Night and Day.

The human traffic made the transit much easier as the Nightsiders could quickly meld in and not be noticed for their 'oddities'. Now the trio had to sneak through and thanks to the violence, Hillary had to reweave their illusions. Time, time, time.

"Divination away," Hillary sighed.

"I see a place where you can work your magic, Hillary," Tessio pointed to a low bridge and the creek bed underneath. "I'll take an overlook position."

"Damn Tessio, if they come after you," Marissa frowned, "you will be alone."

"I need time to reconstructing our glamours so they can stand up to close scrying, and spoofing the gates won't be easy," Hillary explained.

"Tessio's can be something basic because they still aren't looking for him specifically," Hexane sighed as she pulled Marissa along. When they were undercover and alone. "Marissa," Hexane whispered, "what's going on? You aren't Failing, but you certainly not the normal you."

"It is his blood, or his semen," Marissa shook her head.

"Vampires are cautioned against semen when we are young -- it has hallucinatory effects or some such. I didn't believe taking it vaginally would have any affect at all," Marissa struggled to think things through. "Hillary, we (vampires) are dead inside. Males don't have semen and females don't have eggs."

"But the womb is associated with blood," Hillary pointed out as her hand movements began recreating the illusion which would disguise them both. "I doubt you menstruate, but vampire blood remains potent for a long time."

"So you are saying Tessio gave me a shot straight to my circulatory system?" Marissa's eyes grew large.

"From what my rather poor alchemy background tells me, it appears to act like a shot of adrenaline to the heart," Hillary postulated. "I hate to say it with our rivalry ongoing, but we might want to repeat this experiment."

"You aren't the one I'm worried about," Marissa gave a wry smile. "It's tying down Tessio for another session."

"I don't get that," Hexane chuckled.

"Oh, if you kill enough people and have people you have passion for die, you come to understand what he's worried about," Marissa sighed. "He hates having feelings for us because he's afraid we are all not going to make it and that hurts him."

"We need to impress upon him how tough we two really are," Hillary joked quietly. Marissa fell silent as Hillary started chanting the conclusion of her enchantments. A few minutes later they joined Tessio above the bridge. As they walked up to the castle, she wove a simple incantation to include Tessio in that glamour, taking shelter in the steady human traffic in the area.

As they walked into the first floor a ghul came scampering by, heading toward the gate's guardians, no doubt. The three raced to keep up and the two women took hold of Tessio's arms as they plunged through the illusion that hid the gateway from prying human eyes. They tugged on their human because breaching the illusionary wall was a matter of great Will for a mortal man.

Marissa noted that she didn't have to pull much to get him through. A struggle would have been noted by the four guardians as they stepped to the entrance to the portal. Two of the beings, a Troll and a ghost, were questioning the ghul in hushed whispers.

"What's your business," a female Were-Fox inquired a bit nervously.

"We've come to visit the University libraries," Hillary answered sincerely. Marissa knew the fox and her gnomish conjurer companion since she had appointed them years earlier. She knew all of her -- former -- people.

"We need to shut down the gate," the ghost moaned urgently to the fox. "One of the Prince's packs has found Lei -- Marissa."

The three could hear the distain the ghost had for the Prince and his so called 'pack'.

"I'll make the call to Salvador," the fox rumbled, "and see if this is cause for closing the gate."

Marissa couldn't help but show her outrage at that. The Chief Guardian, the fox in this case, had the responsibility for shutting or opening the gate. That she had to wait and call the Prince's personal advisor was infuriating. She'd picked the fox because she was a competent being after all.

"That's absurd," Marissa blurted, "shouldn't you as Chief of the Portal have the responsibility?"

The fox gave Marissa a harsh glare, then made her call. Multiple seconds later she got a response and by that time, Nightsiders started stacking up in the waiting area.

"Yes, I can wait for Lord Sandoval," the fox hissed angrily into the crystal.

Hexane could make out the shimmering of a mummy's face; one of Sandoval's henchmen.

"You three -- go," the fox directed barely above a whisper. "Three coming through," she said in a louder voice into the portal.

The portal looked like a granite block wall. As the fox spoke, her words toppled the blocks inward until a tunnel was revealed.

Tessio, Marissa and Hillary walked rapidly down the pathway and emerged in a side alley to the Parade of Fools. Four more guardians stood a lax guard there -- Nightsiders exiting to the Dayside wasn't much of a problem -- and the three passed into the 'rush hour' on the Parade.

"Okay, does anyone believe that the Fox-lady didn't know who we were?" Tessio murmured.

"She knew," Marissa grinned. "I only picked the best to be my Chief Guardians and the Castle Gate is one of the busiest. As they moved toward the University of Night, several gangs of Nightsiders came shoving and punching their way, heading for the gate clearly in response to the group the Trio had dispatched.

"I hope your FBI buddies brought along the big toys," Hillary smirked.

"This is going to be a mystic nightmare," Marissa took a more practical view of events. Nightside's secrecy was going down the crapper in the big way.

(THE UNIVERSITY OF NIGHT)

The lamia Nabila Najah slithered into her cavernous office, fully expecting company. She already knew someone had accessed her emergency bolt hole (which had been created laboriously by Nabila over the decades.) They'd then crossed onto University grounds and finally had set off the wards around her office in such a manner as to alert her without engaging the various magical and mechanical traps.

"Welcome Marissa," Nabila spoke, once her 15 feet of coiling serpent body had come into the room, the door had shut and the anti-eavesdropping charms had been activated and double-checked. "I wasn't sure you would be stopping by before you left town or exited existence."

"Oh, it's worse than that," Marissa stood up from the Prime Arcanum's couch behind her desk.

"I'm listening and not screaming for the faculty yet, so keep talking," Nabila purred as she moved forward. Marissa spread three things across the desk for Nabila to examine. First was the arcane diagrams created by Hillary, the second was a list of ingredients and the third was the bag with the items in it -- all but one, but that would be child's play to get ... it was a door knob.

"You want me to build you a second doorway to your Shard Realm," the lamia mused. "So who are your friends," she looked up at Hillary first. "You I know and don't like," then to Tessio, "and you I don't know, but do like." Her eyes migrated back to Marissa, "Is he a gift? I could just eat him up."

"Other Nightsiders have made that mistake and never made another, so please take on this work for me first and when you finish, give him your best shot," Marissa's eyes blazed brightly. Nabila put the items back on her desk and slithered over to where Tessio stood.

"Brave human," she rose up on her serpentine body to stare down at him, "or foolhardy?"

"At this point killing you, even to save my own life, is counter-productive," Tessio ignored his natural tendency to make eye contact in favor looking down and avoiding Nabila's hypnotic gaze. "Besides you come across to me as a connoisseur instead of someone who gets a quick bite to eat while on the job."

"That's an impressively steady heartbeat you have there, Human," Nabila noted.

"His name is Tessio," Hillary interrupted, "and he's only being polite and not whipping your scaly ass because he saved Marissa's life and Marissa is under the impression she can count on you."

"Hexane, you remain a mouthy whore as always," Nabila sneered, "except you remain remarkably lucky warding off Salvador and he's bad news."

"That's a secret you don't need to know right now," Marissa announced as she stood up.

"What can I expect from someone who has nothing anymore?" Nabila teased.

"Beyond the ability to betray me at a crucial juncture in my plan; nothing but the praise of three of the most desperate people on this or any other Realm," Marissa taunted back.

"I'll take a Death Debt from the human -- Tessio," Nabila Najah demanded.

"What?" Marissa's eyes narrowed. "Why him?"

"To be hanging out with Marissa, true Liege Lady of Manhattan, and Hexane who is not Hexane, I want a share of the luck this human must have," Nabila explained. "Luck is a rare commodity and ten times harder to distill."

"You have my word that once we exit the university grounds with the device, you will have my debt," Tessio declared.

"Tessio!" Marissa hissed. "She can ask for your death in place of her own."

"We can't make the damn thing and we are on borrowed time. We need it as soon as possible. We are dead if we don't get it ... and my debt is worth nothing if I die before we can get it. Finally, it is my word, not yours Marissa."

"I ..." Marissa grumbled. Nabila twirled a long strand of her black hair in a taloned finger.

"Perhaps the two of you should leave," Nabila suggested to Tessio and Hexane. Hexane tapped Tessio's mid-back. He tripped the key to the secret panel and the two slipped out of the room with the door clicking loudly as it shut behind them.

"What is wrong with you Marissa?" Nabila Najah laughed. "You reek of the human and he's both living and not ensorcelled, so that only leaves love."

"You don't know what you are talking about," Marissa growled. "He's a passing distraction; nothing more."

"I don't know much about humans, but I know my alchemical components and I know you and your kind," Nabila stated. "You smell of human seed, yet it is not where it should be -- on your breath and lips. No, you let a human ejaculate into your womb. Why would you do that?"

"You seem to have all the answers Prime Arcanum Najah, so why don't you tell me?" Marissa snapped back.

"I've never seen you like this and honestly I've never read a single treatise on a vampiric bio-systems and human ejaculate ... which I find odd," Nabila smiled at Marissa's discomfort with the subject. Marissa was letting her anger get the better of her when Nabila's words sank in.

"That's bloody impossible," Marissa agreed. "Since most of the school's libraries date back to the late 1500's, there should be something."

"There are only two libraries in the New World that are better than mine here at the University. One is in Mexico City and the other is your personal collection," Nabila's eyes lit up. "I could simply make a backup key and a beacon so I could find the door and worry about the consequences with you later, or you could give me your permission now."

"You have no idea of what you are getting into Nabila Najah," Marissa cautioned her.

"You are right. What I do know is I've been here at the University long enough ... and I know this city is going to explode under Armand's rule," Nabila pointed out.

"I have never considered you a friend Najah and I'm certainly not doing you a favor right now, but we are going against the Council of Night. They tried to kill me which is how this started. Now we are gunning for them," Marissa declared. "It is the only choice we have, but you don't need to go down with us."

"Ha," Nabila snorted. "True Lamia are a dying breed. Only one of my true breed offspring are still alive; five of my half-breed descendants are still kicking."

"That's no reason to throw your life away," Marissa stated.

"It is said the first lamia was born in the ruins of the first village destroyed in the first human war," Nabila recited. "Since the dawn of the modern age, the ruins aren't staying ruins anymore and the traditional way of life for my kind has been dwindling."

"The Council of Night will not let us live in the old ways; removing forcefully those who won't submit," Nabila continued. "Lamia are as territorial as vampires yet have neither your numbers nor your age -- so what is to become of us?"

"All lamia are inherently magical too, aren't they?" Marissa mused.

"From the moment we burst forth from our leathery eggs, our gazes are hypnotic and our venom can be used to reduce someone's Will. Virtually all of us delve into the Craft somewhat. Why do you ask?"

"My companion noted a surprising dearth of witches beyond the 5th circle," Marissa shared. "This could be the Council of Night doing the same thing: eliminate things that threaten the Veil."

"All the better for me to have a back door into your library then, because you three will most likely die. Just make sure to break into the throne room and set the door in place first," Nabila joked. "And save the human too; he has a charmingly lethal flair."

"I'll let him know," Marissa responded snidely. "How long?"

"Oh, two days," Nabila shot off blithely.

"That little amount of time?" Marissa was stunned.

"I've been working on this from the moment I learned Armand and his cronies failed to find your body. I knew you would come back for your library sooner, or later," Nabila replied smugly.

[***]

Marissa was gone for five minutes before the Prime Arcanum of the University of Night pulled a crystal and concentrated on Salvador.

"They were here and I know why," she smiled serenely at the Council's main lapdog.

"They are looking for a portage gate," he surmised.

"Yes and they gave me all the components for its creation," Nabila answered.

"Very good; I will send some people by to pick them up," Salvador said. "When did you say the artifact would be completed?"

"Two days," Nabila answered. "Marissa knows nothing of sorcery and Hillary is no artificer."

"Very well, call me if there is any change," Salvador ended the conversation. Nabila mused over the possibilities -- betrayal balanced betrayal and the long term goal remained the same: to survive. All she needed was to take the lunar dust glass, glamor a substitute good enough to fool Salvador and then complete her gate in one day's time; piece of cake for a pissed off Lamia of her caliber.

(SHUFFLING THE DECK)

"Nina, this is Tessio. We need to talk," he requested of the Mafia lieutenant sent to kill him.

"Sure," was her clipped response. "Where and when Tess?"

"Tomorrow afternoon at four at Calabria's Carpets on 14th Street," Tessio informed his cousin. "Ask the odd kid at the counter where the back door is and tell him 'Lysander'. Go through the door and I'll meet you on the other side."

"I'll see you then," Nina said then she hung up. Her first call was to Uncle Enrico. Five minutes later, Mickey, her trusted lieutenant, made a secretive call of his own. He didn't know who it was but the person on the other end had been a trusted ally of his former Don -- the one Nina's cousin Tessio killed.

[***]

The FBI's Special Investigative Division got the same message with a fifteen minutes time delay. Their position was a bit different; they had fifteen law enforcement officers hospitalized in severe or intensive care and one NYPD officer dead in a bizarre fight which had raged over Central Park only a few hours earlier. The second the Nightsiders realized the SID could pick them out of the human crowd they had done something Wolfe and Raithe had never seen before -- the monsters attacked as if they no longer gave a crap about being seen.

What added to the bizarreness of the brawl was Camille had identified three separate groups of Nightsiders -- the Animals, the [Nightsider] Cops and the 'Big Fucking Group'. The SID didn't have to do anything. Once the [Human] Police took on the Animals, the 'Cops' showed up and attacked the Animals too. Then the Big Fucking Group showed up. They started out attacking the (human) police near the first victim's unconscious body.

The Animals attacked the BFG who in turn protected the Police and FBI from the Animals long enough for the main body of the SID to arrive at which point the BFG fled the fight into Belvedere Castle, taking as many Nightsider bodies as they could -- in other words, standard Nightside protocol.

When the weight of the NYPD became felt, the Animals and the Nightside Cops had broken contact and fled the scene as well. The Animals were forced to flee across town when the Nightsider Cops barred them from the castle. Unfortunately for the baseline human pursuers, once they broke eye contact for more than a few seconds their 'disguises' returned and the Nightsiders made good their escape.

SID's goal was the 'Cops' though and in the end, only two remained behind to hold off Wolfe and a half dozen SID operatives to cover everyone else's escape. They killed the troll, but dragged the female Were-Fox down in silver chains. It didn't take a crypto-zoologist to know that with that many scars, brands, tattoos and jewelry, she was someone important too.

They now had her in custody, yet she was proving a tough nut to crack both physically, mentally and spiritually. The other two prisoners they had managed to round up were the exact opposite. They answered any and every question asked of them and seemed absolutely terrified of armed humans. From what Jenna's team could figure out they had a 'charm-maker' witch and an iron-crafting elf.

Both claimed to have no idea what was going on. Their liege Marissa was dead and their new liege Armand drafted these two into his 'hunting packs'. They had no idea what they were hunting; they were to act as guide for city landmarks. Yes, they knew of several other portals, though they believed they would be killed if they divulged their locations and passwords.

They did identify their fellow captive as Elilah, Captain of the Nexus Gate, and yes, she was -- or had been -- someone important because the Nexus Gate was the largest in the city. Wolfe and Jenna were going over the torture elements they could use when Maggie had a brainstorm.

"Let me call Tessio and see what his friends can do for us?" Maggie asked SAC Raithe.

"What do you have in mind?" Raithe asked the newest member of his team.

"Maybe the Vampire Queen can get our Fox to help out -- that status thing," Maggie told him.

"I don't like it," Wolfe commented. "They could transfer some information back and forth."

"Hold on a second," Jenna said after pacing for several seconds, "We test this Fox; we ask her if she knows if Marissa is still alive."

"She hasn't confessed to anything -- she hasn't even talked us," Wolfe pointed out.

"All I'll need is a glance," Camille nodded her understanding of the ploy.

The Fox barely glanced their way. Despite the sweltering heat in the room, the female hadn't drunk any of the water placed before her. She sat under the weight of multiple hand- and leg-cuffs stoically. Maggie couldn't miss the style of grim fanaticism it exhibited which was identical with that of her own team mates. She pulled out her phone and made the call.

"Tessio," she asked.

"Yes, Special Agent Alvarado, what can I do for you?" he said.

"I need to talk to Marissa," Maggie pressed. She was ready to boil forth multiple arguments to get her request. None were needed.

"Greetings Magdalena, what do you need?" Marissa's majestic voice rang out.

"I -- um -- need you to talk to one of your people," Maggie began.

"I am not missing any of my people," Marissa cut her off.

"Fine, we captured a VIP defending the Nexus gate against us -- a Were-fox -- but she won't talk and things are going to get ugly if we can't get her cooperate," Maggie explained.

"And this is my problem 'why'?" Marissa responded coolly.

"She got into this mess because one of you called us and led us to the park," Maggie drove her argument home.

"Very well, I will take responsibility for that action," Marissa said smoothly. "Let me talk to her."

"Elilah," she began. The conversation between Marissa and the Were-fox began in English then quickly transformed into an unknown language. About thirty words in, Raithe stepped up and took the phone away from Maggie and from the Fox's ear.

"No ~ you speak a language we understand," he insisted.

"I was speaking in her native tongue which is Delaware, in case you wondering," Marissa said dryly. "It is polite to hold a conversation in the Petitioner's native language. In this case, she's a Native American and her clan has lived in the Susquehanna Valley for over a thousand years."

The room seemed stumped.

"Let them proceed," Camille broke the stalemate. Jenna nodded, then Raithe handed Maggie the phone back. The conversation went on for nearly ten minutes before Marissa's voice called for Agent Magdalena.

"Yes?" Maggie answered.

"She will help you as much as her Oath as Captain of the Nexus Gate allows," Marissa said. "She will remain in your quarters, with a designated individual, or team as she has been fairly taken in battle ~ until a reasonable peace is obtained, her bond is met, or you release her. She will be returned her charms and weapons because there will be attempts made on her life the moment Liege Lord Armand realizes she isn't dead."

"I'm handing you to my Boss," Maggie evaded.

"What exactly is in this for us?" Raithe inquired with steely resolve.

"I thought since you are going to be fighting more of Armand's people you might need one of the best combatants who knows where the gates are and who should and shouldn't be fought," Marissa said. "People -- Nightsiders will see Elilah and they will know of her honor and integrity. You may end up shooting a lot less of my fellow Nightsiders if you follow her lead in such matters."

"We'll be in touch about this matter," Raithe said, then hung up and led the others from the room.

"Opinions," he demanded.

"If we let her out we lose one of our best captures EVER," Jenna points out.

"My gut doesn't tell me that," Wolfe mused. "She fought by their rules; she sent her people to safety by putting her life on the line. As far as we can determine, she attacked the aggressive packs who were attacking the humans. She won't run."

"We have to be careful, but I don't detect deception on her part," Camille added.

"I get the same read off her," Raithe stated. "She's defiant, not about to rabbit, yet isn't glaring hatred of us either. If we can hook, her she is going to give us more than we'd ever get by any aggressive interrogation."

The others nodded, still it was Raithe's call.

"Get her stuff," Raithe decided. "I'll go talk to our prisoner and get the deal done." They got Elilah her equipment and weapons. After every item was affixed and every piece of jewelry properly placed, she opened her wallet and took out two crystals. The team stared at her.

"If I become lost," Elilah talked slowly and patiently, "I will need to be able to contact someone, correct? Who is my minder?"

"That will be me," Wolfe stepped up. "Do you understand how guns work?" Elilah blinked.

"Is that a serious question?" she replied and Camille laughed nervously. "Of course I know what guns are. You've shot me enough times. Why didn't you kill me?"

"You weren't trying to kill us," Wolfe suddenly put together her actions at her last stand.

"Why weren't you trying to kill us?" Jenna leaned forward.

"Time," Elilah stated. "If I was killing your people, you would have killed me. If you merely wounded me, you would take the extra time to take me alive. That increases the likelihood of the gate being secured and the passwords for all the gates changed."

"But now you are going to work with us?" Raithe probed.

"No, I will not try to escape until Marissa meets my bond," the fox 'grinned'.

"What is your bond?" Maggie piped up.

"She will find something that you need or someone you value," Elilah explained.

"Motherfucker," Raithe growled. What in the hell would they do if a NYC policeman was taken in exchange for a prisoner they couldn't admit having.

"Who would they consider someone of your worth?" Maggie prodded.

"A Precinct Captain, a family that contributes more than $100,000 to the political parties," Elilah guessed. "Not some foot soldiers, if that is what you are worried about, Commander Raithe."

"That is not how we do things here," Jenna spoke up. "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

"We are not terrorists, Leader Jenna. We are a nation you have been at war with for thousands of years, so this would be a prisoner exchange," Elilah stated.

"And you trust Marissa to do this for you?" Maggie asked.

"Not really, but I know Armand will try to have me killed, so I don't have many options," the Were-Fox shrugged.

"If Armand was going to kill you, why didn't you help us?" Jenna inquired.

"I have honor, as does Marissa; besides I didn't want to die and Marissa was the only one to throw me a line. Humans are children when it comes to matters of Honor -- correct most often by accident, not design," Elilah related to the humans.

"You don't think much of us, do you?" Wolfe took the crystal and motioned her to come along.

"What do you mean? You have a very limited understanding of things like oaths, the bonds created by words, and honor. You have little concept of what family really means and you are very materialistic," Elilah informed her. "You do possess loyalty, camaraderie, a fantastic sense of what is poetry and music as well as being very mechanically adept."

"In other words, I would follow you into battle if you felt personally wronged, eagerly participate in a jazz ensemble and spend hours gazing in wonder within the halls of your Museum of Art, yet trust you to gamble away your share of the rent money, misplace a Child Support payment and expect you to sell me California swill as French Champagne," she finished with a smirk (they thought).

"What do you think of us?" Camille questioned. "As people."

"Is it important?" Elilah bantered. Jenna headed off her own way, as did Raithe.

"It can't hurt you to know a little about each other," Maggie offered.

"Spoken like someone who hasn't woken up next to a fine male, only to realize he is a blood enemy of your brother," Elilah answered. It was such an oddly human experience that they shared with this very non-human woman.

"Warden Camille is insane for not seeking a coven to shield her mind. You are new," she indicated Maggie, "while he," she indicated Wolfe, "could use time in a Lodge of his Brothers to sing out his pain instead of eating it all."

"You didn't seem surprised to find out Marissa was alive while the other prisoners think she's dead," Maggie noted. Elilah thought that one over as they received quite an unwelcome welcome from the 'ready team' of the SID.

"She's with the team now," Wolfe announced. "She's agreed to give us some intelligence and to not let any of us get killed." Elilah took the bit of news thoughtfully as well.

"Words have weight to her," Maggie whispered to Camille.

"I cannot let any of you die at Nightsider hands," Elilah clarified. "Otherwise I'm your hostage."

"Warden Maggie, I knew Marissa was alive because of the hunters Armand brought to town, the fact his assassin army hasn't left, and because right before chaos erupted around the Nexus, she, the witch Hexane and a human entered the Nightside through my Gate," Elilah stated.

"Why did you let her in when Armand is now your Liege?" Camille asked.

"Salvador put me on hold," the fox grinned. "My orders include keeping traffic flowing through the portal at all times unless I consider it necessary to close it -- a privilege my current Liege Lord removed from me. When I saw Marissa, I called the Liege's man and he put me on hold, so I did what I had to do -- I kept the traffic flowing."

"Your honor is very slippery," Wolfe noted.

"That is what you humans never understand," Elilah looked up at the taller man. "My Honor is a living thing much like my heart and lungs; they all need to be flexible to function."

"It is that flexibility which bothers me," Wolfe grumbled.

"I will fight for you and your men. I will not die for you -- I am not bound to. You will need me before this is over because Marissa is a monster like few others and there will be bloodshed like you've never seen the likes of before she is done," the Were-Fox declared. "You might also need to know who is and isn't a threat ... unless you plan on genocide."

"Do you have any idea how many Nightsiders there are?" Wolfe eye-balled Elilah.

"We don't do a census in the manner of your people. By our reckoning there are between nine hundred thousand and a million of us in Manhattan and the outer ranges," she answered. There was a silence in the room as all of the FBI agents swallowed that enormous number.

"How many will fight?" Wolfe inquired.

"There are three answers to that; three hundred thousand are capable of some level of resistance if they are left with no choice. Ninety thousand are competent, trained combatants who will fight to defend the city. I believe only a few thousand will fight for Armand," she explained. "You have to understand, we are as afraid of you as you are of us."

"After all, when was the last time humans had witch-burnings, werewolf hunts, or killed vampires in their lairs while the Sun still hung high," Elilah jeered. "Now you put us in psych wards, or you SID come in and kill us along with the real monsters. It is as if you can't tell the difference between our civilization and the other denizen's inside the Veil."

"Why don't you put down those monsters?" Bryson, an SID field operative countered.

"Have you ever heard of the Jack-in-the-Box Killer?" the Were-fox asked them. After they nodded. "It killed six women in the city in 2005 -- 2006. Liege Lady Marissa hunted that bastard down -- a possessor ghost, trapped it, then had her best witches and warlocks put several spirit bindings on the cruel little horror."

"Once she was sure it would remain bound for five hundred years, she is put into a vivisection box -- that is coffin with rotating screws and blades moving inside which will skin you alive and bore holes in your bones -- for five hundred years. That is how we Nightsiders exact justice on monsters," she recounted.

"Why didn't she just kill it?" Camille shuddered.

"It was a ghost, Witch," Elilah answered. "Only the blackest of black magics can end a ghost."

"Why is she with us again, Wolfe?" Ames, the SID team leader inquired.

"Raithe thinks plucking her mind is an avenue worth pursuing," Wolfe told them and that was the end of that.

"Will she be going with us into the field?" Ames was highly skeptical.

"How will we know when not to shoot at it?" Bronson growled. Elilah's ears flickered over the insult. Maggie frowned. She knew she didn't have the SID members' experience, yet antagonizing the Nightsider when it was cooperating seemed incredibly shortsighted.

"Only if Hell freezes over," Wolfe snorted.

"Freezes fucking-solid," Ames added.

(LATE AFTERNOON THE NEXT DAY)

FBI: Special Investigative Division (SID) Special Agent Peter Ames heard the alert go off for the sixth time that day and that was just for his team. His three teammates -- the other four were no longer active -- readied their gear and went to check out their AR-14's for another round of monster hunting. The city was rotten with Nightsider infestations and the local NYPD, no matter how well equipped, was having a hard time mentally dealing with the arcane invaders.

"Special Agent Alvarado and Baxter," he addressed two of the three figures before him as his team double-checked their gear. He would rather be putting bullets in the third being, "what do you think you are doing?'

"Your team is down four out of its eight members," SA Camille Baxter answered, "and we have volunteered to go out with you and SAC (Special Agent in Charge) Wolfe has cleared us for action."

"Forgive me," Ames growled. "We are not taking the beast, you may have limited field experience, but SA Alvarado has none for this kind of hunt."

"Enough of your macho bullshit, Dick-for-Brains," Alvarado got into Ames' face, "If I was going to crack, I would think half a day with Elilah here would have done it."

"Besides, Elilah is the reason we are going," Camille gave her best winning smile. "She has decades of fighting experience and has generations of training fighting her own kind."

"She will betray us the second she gets a chance," Ames countered. Elilah's ears flicked.

"My gut says 'no she won't'," Maggie Alvarado stated. "Besides, time is wasting and you have your orders."

Ames took perverse pleasure seeing the rest of his team had the same dim view of taking a Nightsider along on an operation. Ames knew they would be lucky if it was a false alarm. They weren't that lucky. A pack of 'something' had swarmed a taxi distribution center. A few patrol men had them under surveillance with orders to hold back until the 'experts' arrived.

"Stay in the fucking van," Ames told Alvarado. He and his team flowed out followed by Camille and Elilah the Were-Fox. Right before she exited, the Nightsider transformed into a Native American human woman with long black hair, deep copper skin crisscrossed with luminescent grey-green tattoos and deep Bottle-Green eyes. A charm allowed her spear to transform into a staff as well.

"What the ... she's not coming with us -- what the hell happened?" the last FBI member out the team gasped.

"She's a Were, Ames -- which means she has a human shape too," Camille explained. "That way we don't look like we have one of them entering the building -- the spear's charm won't work against a Nightsider mystic and crashes the moment violence happens."

Ames was already talking to the cops while Camille used her 'psychic' gifts to feel the area for enemy. Ames came back over, only to be pre-empted by Camille.

"They are gone," she stated. "Their warlock -- I'm pretty sure it was a warlock -- left some phantom sounds and shadows to make the police think they were still there. There are four dead bodies too," she added sadly.

"Can you track them?" Ames asked the already desperately-worn Camille.

"It will take a while," Camille sighed. "I'll have to walk the area."

"Elilah, can you track them?" Maggie posed to the Were. The creature seemed to mull the question for a while.

"This thing is of no use to us," Ames snapped.

"Shut up, you honorless human swine," Elilah seethed. "I swear if you dare cast any more aspersions on my honor I will pluck off a finger for each insult once my bond is met and I am free." To Maggie, "I need to examine the dead human bodies to see if I can track them and stay within my bonds and oaths."

"Don't," Alvarado cautioned Ames while pointing her gun at his face. "I came to fight monsters and save lives; if this monster helps us kill ten other monsters then she's alright by me. Now stop being a fucking hindrance and let's go."

"Don't you point your fucking gun at me," Ames glared pure menace. Elilah broke the stalemate.

"You may lower your gun now Special Agent Maggie Alvarado. He has threatened your life, so I can kill him and stay within my oaths and bonds," the Were-Fox purred. "Human Ames ... because you are clearly unbalanced, I will give you one more fuck-up. On the following one, I will kill you and make my case before your Commander and Liege Raithe for why you had to be put down. If I am wrong, I will, of course, forfeit my life. I fully expect to live."

Alvarado raised her rifle skyward and waited. Ames started to lower his weapon.

"You are about to make your final mistake," Elilah cautioned him. "I have an Inertial Charm -- your first four, or five bullets won't hit me while you are well within reach of my spear." Camille started walking across the street alone, so Elilah had to race to her side immediately.

Ames was clearly furious, yet protecting the psychic was always a top priority. He got ahead of her and forced the door seconds later. Even as his men fanned out, they saw the situation was exactly as Camille had said it would. Grudgingly he also noticed Elilah kept an attentive watch over the girl.

Alvarado coasted over to Elilah and Camille.

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

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

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

"What?" he answered. "Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(SALVADOR)

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

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

(THE TRIO)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(NABILA -- AFTERNOON)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(MARISSA, HILLARY AND TESSIO)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(AMES)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ames hated himself for asking yet he saw no choice.

"Suggestions?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Move north to 42nd street then northwest to the New York Public Library. Go to the basement at the southwest corner and you should locate the portal there. The password is Alte Treckor."

"Okay," Elilah sounded somewhat bored and disrespectful, "we'll grab a bite to eat and get there."

"No," the mummy corrected her, "You will come immediately, or consider yourself the next thing Liege Lord Armand puts a bounty on."

"Fine, fine -- we are on our way," Elilah muttered before the crystal darkened.

"Now you have a portal," she looked to Ames, "and a reason to not take Camille on a suicidal mission. We need to get this message to your Commander and so will take Camille to safety."

"I'm already on it," Camille grimaced. "Raithe wants all teams to return to base."

As they turned the site over to the normal FBI and NYPD, Ames noted Camille was wearing a sleepy smile. Was she relieved the encounter was over, or slipping off into the delirium which eventually gripped every FBI psychic. He prayed it was the former because he had a really bad premonition things were about to get a whole lot worse.