SUE VS SUE

[a_sporking_rat]

As mentioned previously, Maureen had been tasked with continuing to recruit therians from New York, and, as also mentioned, she did most of her negotiating via therian spies that she paid to try to do said recruiting from within the major New York groups. This had been difficult, since they had wanted to keep the operation top secret, and it was hard to sway someone to your side when you couldn't tell just who that side was and who was in charge until they were already swayed, and most therian leaders weren't exactly jumping to ally themselves with shadowy people who weren't specific about their purposes.

Now that the cat was out of the bag, however, and intelligence had told her that Jean-Claude was making open calls to his allies in Chicago, Las Vegas, and Cape Cod about the attempted coup. Though it still wouldn't do to say exactly who was leading said coup, since Jean-Claude and his group didn't have that information yet, and anyone Maureen's little recruiters told could easily sell it out to St. Louis for a piece of that pie.

However, she trusted the man before her not to. He was Thomas Sallow, and he was not only one of her 'ins' to the therian world, but a trusted friend and colleague, a fellow lawyer, and a werelion. He had been a Rex in his native Manchester...until he'd gotten power-hungry and his own plans to rule over multiple Prides had bitten him in the ass. He'd left the UK altogether, exiled, never to return, and while he did not trust himself to ever be a Rex again, the local Regina of New York did trust him with a very high position in the Pride despite his past. He had proven himself to her over the years, as he had proven himself to Maureen. Neither of them had many friends, for they only chose to keep company with the worthy. And worthy they found each other. Unfortunately, his loyalty was to his Pride first (his Regina's faith in him was not misplaced) and so Maureen's attempts to convince him on steering the Pride into Oliver's operation had thus far been unsuccessful. But now that she could tell him more, perhaps...

"I apologize for not being able to be more open about this before, Tom," said Maureen. The pair were seated in her lavish-but-tastefully-decorated den, having tea. "But now that you know it's centered on St. Louis, I expect your opinions may have changed."

"My personal interest is certainly piqued," admitted Tom, a short gray-eyed white man who looked 40-ish. "I've wanted a bomb dropped on that city for awhile, or at least for somebody to do something about the necromancer queen turning it into her personal zoo with that...that vampire." Tom did not like vampires at all. Maureen might push legislation against them, but he had in fact actively hunted and killed them in his Rex days when they came into his territory. "But my allegiance is still first to my Pride, and if I put my lot in with this, then it will be seen as my Pride putting their lot in as well. Meaning that if this goes badly, any consequences won't be just to me, but to them. I can only continue to lean on Cleo, though I don't blame her for not wanting anything to do with it thus far, given how shady and vague I had to be."

"Nor do I," said Maureen. Cleo Wilson was the Regina of New York City, and though Maureen had never met her, she felt respect for her because of the respect that Tom clearly had for her. "I expect she wouldn't be Regina long if she did go throwing the allegiance, resources, and safety of her Pride into any little scheme or group that came along and asked. She knows now about St. Louis, then, that this was us?"

"Yes. And she wants to stay damn well out of it. She finds the situation there as abhorrent as I do, but she wants to protect her people, and since St. Louis has never been a threat to us, has never gone after therian groups outside its borders except for that Master of Tiger thing, for which there's thankfully no lion equivalent, there's no reason to risk our necks attacking their very considerable power base, as far as she sees it. Tactically, I must agree."

"Why, Tom, are you backing out on me?"

"Not at all. Simply asking for more time. Now that the threat to St. Louis has been made public, all the upcoming battles will be as well. Every monster in the country is going to be tuned in to these events, and if the scales change to suggest that the St. Louis forces may not be as unconquerable as previously thought...well, there are quite a few groups that I think will then step up to take a pound of flesh from that wretched city, and I do believe our Pride will be among them, with Cleo's full blessing. As I said, she finds it all abhorrent, and if she can help stamp it out with no potential cost to our lions, I think she will. We just have to wait until it's clear that's the case."

"I do love how you speak of that as a when rather than an if," Maureen smiled, sharklike, "It means you know us very well."

"No, Maureen, I just know you very well." The tone was a fond one.

A scream suddenly pierced the room, coming from elsewhere in the house, and Maureen leaped from her seat.

***
There were cliffs and ledges everywhere in that dark, dark place. They extended endlessly not only below, but above as well. There was no sky in that dark place, for it was underground. Down and down and down where nothing living could ever go. On the very end of one of these long cliffs stood a girl, small, sickly pale, clad in dark rags, her long hair blowing around her despite these being far too deep a distance for cave winds to ever reach. Below and across from her, on the other side of the never-ending chasm the cliffs all overlooked, was a palace carved from the stone of the cave itself.

She looked back over her shoulder at something, her blue eyes huge in her wan face. Then, she looked back own at the castle. All vampire senses are enhanced, and so even from this distance, she could see what was looking back at her through one of the few windows. Not a face, but more the outline of a head, all black, nothing but darkness where a face should be. The face moved so that, if it had had eyes, they would have met those of the girl. The moment the eyes and non-eyes met, the girl was inside the castle, standing in the room where the dark human-shaped thing with no eyes and no face had been.

It was not standing up and looking out the window anymore though. No, it was lying on a raised stone slab in the middle of the room, covered by a semi-transparent sheet. The girl stood by it, and looked down at where the sheet covered where its face would be.

All the windows had become mirrors.

The mirrors showed the darkness. And then, they showed the faces of women. Some reflected a blue-eyed blonde who was a little on the pale side, some a dark-eyed brunette who was far paler still, though not as deathly white as the girl.

The mirrors shattered. The figure sat bolt upright. The girl screamed.

"Delilah!"

The eyes of the girl snapped open. Someone was shaking her, and above her---

Her lungs, which normally did not function, allowed her a gasp as she saw the pale skin and dark hair of the woman above her, and then a sign of relief as she recognized that it was not one of the women from the mirrors, but only Aunt Maureen. With a small cry, Delilah sat up from her bed and wrapped her arms around her mother's neck.

"She's still sleeping," she said softly, "Just in lots of different places now."

***
Miles and cities and states away, Nan woke up, having just dreamed what Delilah had, having watched Delilah go through the cave and into the underground castle where the Mother of All Darkness slumbered still, and then watched Delilah wake up and seek comfort in the arms of her foster-mother, the vampire-hating human Maureen.

And she had seen what would come next. That was the most important part. Lucy wanted dreams, did she? Well this one had been a doozy.

It didn't take long to locate Lucille; their blonde leader was on her way to where the Rat King was being kept. Though normally nothing would make her delay the fun of an interrogation, the promise of prophecy from Nan did cause her to pause and listen. Most of it wasn't anything she didn't already know--it was obvious who the dark female figure underground was, as well as the blonde and brunette in the mirrors--but the fact that it had been Maureen's little foundling to have the dream and Nan only to intercept it was interesting. She'd have to call her lawyer lover up later, loathe though she knew the older woman would be at the very idea of involving her Delilah-Dolly in something so dangerous. Well, tough tits, clearly the kid was already involved if she was taking nighttime astral visits to the Mother's lair.
goes to tell Lucille.

"And anything about how it's going to go with our rat friend?"

"He'll come around, but not tonight," said Nan."Just be sure to do what you would have anyway if I hadn't told you, if you don't then it'll change."

"Of course. Thanks Nan, you're finally earning your keep." With a patronizing but genuine pat on the head of the shorter woman, Lucille turned on the heel of her boot to continue her walk to the very back room of the club's underground where the Cackle kept prisoners. Cornelius, who was a professional locksmith in addition to a one-vampire telepathic network, had graciously set up locks both mundane and magic that would hold any supernatural quite securely as well as keep out anyone else. It was a bit tedious to go through the various keys and spells needed to get in, especially when all one was doing was bringing some water or food or a bedpan to the prisoner, but it was worth it. In Lucille's opinion, you weren't safe enough until you were downright paranoid.

"'Lo, Raffi," said Lucille casually as she entered. "Like the digs? We tried to make sure it was worthy of someone of your stature."

Rafael was tied to a chair with bondage implements which, being the property of a BDSM club that catered especially to soda-masochistic shapeshifters, contained both the strength and the silver to hold a powerful werebeast like himself. He only glared at her, his face holding a fierce and stony dignity.

"I guess you think I'm here to torture you," said Lucille, filing her nails with a very nasty-looking pointy instrument. "I wish. Actually, I've got a proposition for you instead. Join up with me and my crew, you and all your rats. Intel says you've got your honor and loyalty and all that, so telling you how I'd make it worth your while--and trust me, I would, you name it--probably isn't what's gonna sway you, am I right?"

"You cannot buy my betrayal."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Weirdo. Had to at least bring it up just in case though. So ponder this instead, since greenbacks don't get your hamster wheel turning: Why the fuck do you owe Anita that loyalty? You don't owe me anything, but you owe her hatred and blood."

She got on her knees so her eyes were level with his. There was nothing submissive in her kneel, nothing supplicating. If anything, she seemed all the more intense and predatory. "Don't think of it as selling out to team up with me. Think of it as me coming to team up with you, to help you take her own."

"Blake has given my Rodere protection! Things are better in this city for therians than they have ever been."

Lucille jerked backward and to her feet as if bitten by a snake, her expression one of furious disgust. She reached forward and grabbed a handful of his hair, her grip tight at the roots as if she might yank out the entire clump. "Did she get in your head too?! I thought she could only do that to the poor saps she fucked!"

Her expression changed then, to a sort of mad, taunting look, "Oh, that's right, she did fuck you, didn't she Rafito? Just once, of course. And you had to beg for that, didn't you? That's what I hear. Beg to be allowed to pay the fee for her supposed protection, beg to do what she would have killed you like Joseph for not doing. The begging is part of it, I suppose? She not only has to fuck each of you, she demands you beg it, beg as if you want it, as if it's all your idea and not her whims ruling you all, life and death for her precious all-encompassing cunt! Well, how was it, Raf?"

She jerked his head by the hair, "Was it worth it? Was it worth it when she raped all your people through you? Was it worth it to them? How about you, huh, Raffi, tell me, you think you made the right call on that one? You think you made the right call, being her whore and pimping the rest of your wererats out while you were at it?"

"That was an accident!" Rafael would have stayed silent on anything else, but this was what haunted him most, and he had to speak. "It was not supposed to happen!"

"No, but it did. And she made it happen, didn't she? It was no accident for her. All your Rodere, all the swanmanes in America, they didn't deserve that, but you and Donovan, you served them up, on purpose or no, you let her get to them...god, and you call yourself a Rom?"

Rafael was silent again. He looked at the floor. Lucille released him and stepped away, tone now idle and pondering, "And what did they get out of it? Protection, you said, but...isn't most the security wererats? Them and the hyenas, they're the ones patrolling all over the Circus, the City Master's clubs, and anywhere the Zoo Bitch goes because she can't so much as take a shit without an escort...why, it was almost rats with a few hyenas in tow that busted in with you on my hotel. A lot of them got hurt, you know. Maybe worse. She and her friends, they sent them into that. They always put you and yours first in the line of fire."

She leaned forward over him, her face just above his. "You're cannon fodder, sweetcheeks. Some protection. I can do better. You'll still be my soldiers, but at least I'm honest about it, and you'll be compensated afterwards...and I don't just mean being rid of her."

She planted a kiss on his forehead, leaving the perfect red imprint of her lips there, and sauntered to the dungeon door.

"Think about it," she said, before leaving him once more alone in the dark.

***
One major party had not been involved in either the siege of the hotel or the purging of spies from the Circus, and that was Anita Blake. Naturally, it therefore took a long time, and a lot of testing of her understanding and clarification of just what they were all saying, but it finally got done.

"And this," she said at the end of it all, "is the guy who told you all about it?"

Yes, he was. That was the first thing they had told her, in fact. But it being the first thing meant it had had the most time to get forgotten, so it was understandable she was asking about it.

"Oui, ma petite," said Jean-Claude, careful as ever to replace any English words with French ones if they were ones he thought she probably knew. "His name is Hieronymus van Pelt."

The witch-boy, Hieronymus van Pelt, had been invited in only at the end when they had finished explaining everything to Anita. Just because he had helped didn't mean it was necessarily alright for him to hear everything. He had looked nervous since he had first come in, and the smile that he gave Anita now matched, "Hi. Um, I know that's a mouthful, you can call me Hiero or just H."

Anita paused a long, long time as she looked at him, like a computer freezing up. However, that was in fact sort of the opposite of what was going on inside her head, where there were indeed gears grinidng and wheels churning; she was registering and memorizing each one of his features in great detail, and it took up her capacity to do just about anything else. Luckily, Jean-Claude was kind enough to wipe away the drool as she noted to herself how this Hiero stood at six-foot-one but looked even taller due to his big, beefy, broad-shouldered build that she could just automatically tell that he had naturally rather than having to work out at the gym for it. How he was in his late twenties to early thirties. How he had vibrantly violent eyes, and golden blond hair that fell to his shoulders in big loose S-shaped waves but would probably become curly if cut short, how his face was square and chiseled and very masculine-gorgeous. For extra nerd cred, to remind herself of her alternative-coolness, she made a mental comparison of him to Thor as portrayed by Chris Hemmsworth in The Avengers movie, albeit a completely clean-shaved version. She did not catalog that he was white, with a medium-peachy skin tone, since of course whiteness was the default in her mental filing system and thus needed no marker.

When she'd finished up describing all of his attire and accesories that she could see, she seemed to snap back on and asked, as if nothing had happened, "Did your mother hate you?"

"What?" Hiero looked even more confused than he had when she'd frozen up.

"I'll bet you were home-schooled. Does everyone in your coven have to take a name like that, is it after the painter Hieronymus Bosch"? So are the others Michelangelo, Cezanne, and so on?"

"Ma petite," said Jean-Claude, who was quite surprised that Anita knew the names of those painters, famous though they were and cultured as she no doubt thought herself for citing them despite said fame, though perhaps the popularity of that turtles television show in the 1980s, her area of expertise, had helped. "He says that he knows who is behind this, that he knows the ring-leader. He comes to share this with you, will all of us."

"She's my cousin. Sister. Well, second-cousin. Our moms were cousins, and we adopted her," Hiero explained, his speech slightly rambling.

"Were?" Anita asked, a brow dramatically raised and her arms crossing, as if pointing out some big hole in the alibi of a criminal suspect.

"Well, see...her mother died. When she was little. And then she was raised by her dad, but he died when she was sixteen, and that's when we took her in." Hiero had slightly lowered his head, and his tone was apologetic. Anita's attitude made him feel like he had done something wrong, and since he was a person who was always screwing up, often without knowing it, he was taking her unspoken word for it. "Her name is Lucille. Her mom's name was Dubois, so that's on her birth certificate, but she had her dad's last name, Lacroix, most of her life, and when we adopted her she got ours, so, um, Lucille van Pelt...I'm five years older than her, and, um...I'm a witch but I swear I didn't know she was anything supernatural till...till now, honestly."

"So what clued you in?" asked Anita. She actually had only heard that very last bit, having been musing to herself for the rest of Hiero's speech after he'd mentioned the dead mother. Her musing was, of course, about her own dead mother, and how damaged she had been by it, and how horrible it had been of her father to remarry at all, let alone to someone who didn't look like Anita and her mother, especially a blonde, and how she'd been the dark family secret and everyone thought she was adopted because she looked mixed!

"One of her victims," said Jean-Claude, answering for Hiero, who had already told him about the beautiful blonde woman vampire that had come to warn him and plea for him to pass that warning on to St. Louis. He knew full well it had been Musette, of course, but it was better for Anita to be fed the same lies that Hiero here had been. "She had the misfortune of crossing Mademoiselle Lucille's path as she tore it towards St. Louis, and felt that, as both a family member and a user of magic himself, the young Monsieur van Pelt would be best for her to run to, to give her message to us of what was to come. Alas, the poor man arrived too late."

Hiero looked ashamed, and as if he were hoping to be forgiven. Jean-Claude put a hand on one of those big football-player shoulders and gave it to him, "But it is no matter. Though they had already nestled themselves among us like vipers hiding in a rabbit warren, they had yet to do any damage or, we hope, gain much knowledge of us beyond the basic layout of our Circus base. Beyond that, we treated them with the caution we do all newcomers, and it served us well. And now we have your help too, do we not, ah, H?"

"What flavor are you?" asked Anita before Hiero could answer.

"What?" Flavor was something Hiero only associated with food, and that meant he was keen when it was mentioned. Were refreshments about to be served?

"Of psychic, what flavor?"

"...I'm, uh, I'm a witch."

"Yeah, what flavor?" Anita seemed to forget that psychics and witches were not interchangeable.

Jean-Claude whispered something in Hiero's ear and comprehension dawned on his clueless but good-natured face, "Oh! I...I'm not Wiccan, or anything...maybe sort of Catholic-Gnostic-Discordian with some Satanist and occult dabblings, but that's just my religion, not my powers...not as much occult as I'd like, either...but like, I work with energy a lot? Sometimes it's chaos energy, but sometimes it's not even that specific...I move things around like a telekinetic psychic could using magic, sorta poltergeist-style, and I've been able to screw around with the earth element and the gravity of individual objects a few times..."

"What does that mean?"

"Well...it means...I make energy do stuff? By using magic to manipulate it? With symbols and stuff?"

"So...you're a witch. Because you us things like symbols, words, spells, systems, versus a psychic whose powers are innate, like an extra sense."

"...yes." Hiero was starting to wonder if maybe it's wasn't him who was making this all very confusing.

"So, what flavor is she?"

"I...don't know. I had my suspicions she was a weretiger for a little while, you know how secretive they are, more than other therians even, but I'm not sure now. Maybe a sorceress, you know, demon dabbling? But she never seemed to know any magic. She even wanted me to teach her some and give her charms. Which I guess could have been an act, she's pretty slick, but...I dunno. She's probably not a psychic either, but maybe. She's just...she's something, okay? And not a vampire. That's...really all I've got. Not a vampire."

Anita complained a bit in her head about how unhelpful this all was, even though he'd actually been quite a help already by coming all this way to blow the whislte in person and thus make sure the message was delivered, then asked if Lucille had any weaknesses.

"She has a son," said Hiero. "But I don't think she'd drag him into this. She's...horrible, but she loves that little bastard." Hiero, however, clearly didn't. He didn't like children in general, and little Thomas van Pelt, not to be confused with Maureen's friend Tom Sallow, was an insufferably spoiled brat.

"She doesn't. Not really," said Anita in an informative tone. "Sociopaths don't love anyone but themselves."

"How do you know she's a sociopath?"

Anita looked at him like he was an idiot, and was about to say something about her experience and insight and cop years being dog years, but at that moment Jean-Claude began to steer their guest to the door, telling him, "Thank you, Hiero dear, you've been quite a help. Someone will help you get set up for lodging in the city; forgive us if we don't wish to let anyone else from outside stay in the Circus again right now."

When he was gone, she looked to the other leaders in the room, as if she only just remembered that they were there. And in fact, she only just had. It was understandable; none of them had done or said anything during the entire conversation between herself, Hiero, and Jean-Claude, as if they had just faded into the woodwork. Donovan had out a book, Narcissus was painting his nails, Richard was looking at something on his phone (which Anita lingered over for several sentences of narration in her head in order to talk about how charmingly inept she was with such things), and Micah was seeing how much he could pinch and pull Nicky, who seemed stuck in some zombie-like daze until Anita realized he existed, at which point he snapped out of it and slapped Micah upside the head.

"Okay, so, what's next?" she said.

"Obviously, we need to find out where she and her lot are hiding," said Micah, rubbing where Nicky had smacked him, then remembering swiftly to add, "Er, I mean, obviously you've already thought of that, we just need to think of how!"

"You guys can all sniff better than bloodhounds," said Anita. "Why not track where they went from when they fled the hotel?"

Everyone blinked. It was utterly, utterly obvious. It was something that everyone should have thought of on-the-spot at the hotel. Why had they not thought of it?

Because Anita wanted to have all the good ideas. And so the universe ensured that she did. No one else got to think of anything first as long as she didn't believe they could or want them to.

They talked about this for an absurd length of time, despite its simplicity, then all got up to go get some people of theirs on it. As they left, Anita looked to Jean-Claude, "Did Hiero say how old that son of hers was? Because, well, I was thinking, Matthew needs a playmate..."

***
"At least you still have Cardinal, Rosamund, and Yiyu," said Meph, lying on his side against the golden satin bed-covers.

"But Max was my first friend outside the Circus," said Envy, holding a pillow to her chest. "Her and Detty and Eva. I've never had anyone be that nice, or listen so much, or...or...and she was just using me to get close! You're lucky, at least you didn't ever get to know that Wander girl." She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of one hand. The pair of them were hanging out, mostly-nude-but-totally-non-sexually-because-therians, in a big golden bed shared by the weretigers, especially the gold ones, hence Jean-Claude's clever (well, in his opinion) decorating choice. There had been requests among the tigers for private rooms, but they'd been poo-pooed and assured that, as wereanimals, they were surely going to be happier if they slept in big naked puppy piles (that exact phrasing was used and someone actually threw up...they excused themselves by saying it was just a hairball).

"Yeah, I guess," Meph put his hands behind his head and turned over on his back to look at the ceiling. "Kinda wish I had, though. Aside from the bit where she was a spy."

Envy rolled her tear-reddened eyes, "That's sort of the point, Devil. You know, you should really be a lot more worried about this than you're acting."

"Oh?" Meph started lazily moving his legs as if he were peddling an invisible bike. "And why's that?"

"They started by shooting Anita. You were out as long as she was because of that." Envy's voice was stern and flat. She'd been terrified when that happened. Meph and her had known each other their whole lives, had been raised together. When you grew up only allowed to ever interact with a small group, you tended to value each member of that group quite a lot. "She's clearly the target, and if something like that happens, you could die. She almost drained you already just to come back."

Meph didn't say anything, just ceased his peddling and looked at the headboard with an expression of mild pensiveness. This worried Envy, more even than his potential death did. Mephistopheles hadn't been the same since bedding Micah and Anita and becoming the Therian Servant of the latter. He had less personality, it seemed, less of himself. Things that he used to have opinions on, he now didn't, or had ones that were radically changed from what they were for no apparent reason. He didn't seem to interact much with anyone anymore. He didn't seem to want to. Envy knew of course that a portion of any Therian Servant's free will belonged to their Master, but she'd never seen one whose personality and opinions had gone with it as those Therian Servants of Anita seemed to. That was more Bride territory. Free will was one thing to her, it did not horrify her that that might be taken; the golden tigers had never had any choices in their lives, and thus did not feel entitled to it, did not place value on it, but they had at least always had their inner selves, their own minds and souls safe from control. Not like Brides. Brides were destroyed inside.

Silently, both Envy and Mephisto wondered if death would perhaps not be better.

***

"I just wish Oi 'ad gotten a chance ter know 'im better, y'know?" said Wander. " 'E seems like a real Robin Hood sort."

"He steals from the rich and gives to me?" asked Max, who was grooming Wander.

"He looks good in tights?" asked Eva, who was grooming Max.

"He had a story in the early Green Hornet comics?" asked Hank, who was grooming Eva.

"He's actually a werefox instead of a tiger?" asked Mikey Joe, who was grooming Hank.

"No! Oi mean 'e's chicken rice! A cuppa geezer! A top cock!", said Wander, who was grooming Mikey Joe.

"Whoooa, too much information!" said Max at that last bit, though by the way she was grinning it was clear that she knew that whatever 'cock' meant in Wander-speak, it wasn't what it meant from anyone else. The five wererats were seated on the club basement floor in a grooming circle. Though they were in fully human form and it wasn't that needed, they'd gotten used to it as the way of socializing that their inner beasts seemed to prefer, and since you could chat and have snacks and such while doing it, they went along with it once they all got comfy with the idea. Anita would surely be shocked to realize they had not been instantaneously so, and even more shocked to know they didn't do it nude thank you very much.

"Ach, you wank-stain!" Wander made a mock swat towards Max.

"You had time before the call came, you must have learned something," fixing a barrette around a clump of Max's coarse black hair, waiting for how long it would take until Max realized the little pink piece of plastic was there ruining her studly image. "What does he like? To do, to read, to watch?"

"Oh!" said Wander, yanking Mikey Joe's hair a bit in her excitement as she perked up. "Well, 'e loikes video games, he says."

She listed the specific games in question that Mephisto had expressed interest in, and which ones she also enjoyed. Hank immediately pounced on a few of the titles and began to discuss them animatedly with her. When there was a pause in the conversation, Eva cut in, "Well, see, clearly you have some common ground you can use if the pair of you ever cross paths again. Once we get this whole takeover-and-rescue operation done and are all on the same side and everything, I mean. Some people have movie marathon dates, you could have a gamer date!"

"Do...do you think Edgar would like that too?" Hank asked.

Elsewhere in the room, Ghislaine stood next to Cornelius, who was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed as she spoke aloud to, seemingly, no one at all, "Alohrs pas, co faire? Non, I' was fine. Go' Nan ou'a ta way and t'en Mizz Lucy chopped mah head off--"

There was a pause, she laughed, and she then spent a few minutes assuring whoever she was talking to that was fine, then continued with her story, "Aand yah, t'en Nicole came and we go' out. Mais, I wis' ya was 'ere ta, cher... bu' I don' really wan' ya anyw'ere near t'at t'ing Mizz Lucy be fightin'. Ej t'aime!"

"You done?", Cornelius asked, looking over at her. Opening her eyes, Ghislaine nodded cheerily at him, "Thanks, podna! You a bon cher."

Cornelius had been good enough to put Ghislaine into Shane, her red tiger boyfriend back in the bayou from which she hailed. Cornelius didn't care for wiring conversations between lovers, seeing as how being their connection meant being in on the whole thing, but Ghislaine had promised to keep it pretty non-embarrassing, and had even tried to bribe him with doing some real Cajun cooking. That was how she got Shane to do almost anything, and though Cornelius reminded her that he couldn't eat any more than she could, he seemed to find the offer itself endearing enough to nudge him into it. He'd already been wanting to try out something long-distance like this anyway that wasn't to the Traveller, whose power he was siphoning off of to do these feats in the first place. He could never have managed these distances or this many people on his own.

"Not that it's my business," Cornelius noted, "but I can decipher Cajun-speak pretty damn well and I notice you didn't pay a single word to telling Shane about the new boyfriend you've picked up."

"Wha--?!"

Cornelius pointed over her shoulder to where Klaus had been hovering, "He been there for the past five minutes, and getting closer than I think you'd like a stranger too. You just didn't notice 'cause you be busy with your call."

Ghislaine looked at Klaus, who seemed as surprised at his behavior being pointed out as she was. It was clear he hadn't been aware of it. "Oh, don' you worry, cher," said Ghislaine, who didn't seem fussed at all. "All de tigers I ever meet, dey like that, Shane say I jes' smell good to 'em, like a grand ol' slab o' meat just the right stage o' rot for tender eatin'. Gimme de freesons at firs' ta find out, but ain't none o' dem tried to gobble me up yet!"

"It's...just enough to be enticing but not make me actually predatory. Attracted but not quite see you as food," admitted Klaus. He was a little embarrassed, but he was well-composed enough that it didn't show. "It's really like this with all the tigers? And just the tiger?"

"Yup, just de tigers," Ghislained nodded.

"Well, good, then her boyfriend will understand," said Cornelius. "Let's hope his does too!"

"I'm single," said Klaus.

"Oh?" Cornelius had a twinkle in his eye. "That's not what I heard when you and Armel made introductions."

Klaus did not appreciate jokes about Armel being his boyfriend, for he felt it was an insult to his taste, and he told Cornelius as much...which Armel was near enough to hear and be insulted by himself.

Cefyn and Astrid were seated on some crates, polishing and sharpening their weapons. Sati approached, "Cefyn? I'm sorry about earlier."

Cefyn blinked at her, "For what?"

"I, um, I bit you by accident in the battle. Sorry, I was just going for any ankles around me, and I got mixed up before I knew it was you!"

"Oh, no worries," the Pictish vampire waved her hand. "No harm done, we all got the anti-venom shot and all beforehand."

"But surely it still hurt!"

Cefyn laughed, "Not as much as the glass sticking out of me everywhere else! Tell the truth, I don't think I even noticed with all that going on. Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you didn't cut your mouth on the shards."

Mitria, Tung, and Fell were in their own little group too. They'd all gone through the...experiments...together, and had come out through it bonded by friendship and trauma.

"I don't know," said Mitria.

"Well, let's ask her," said Tung, and before the others could tell her it'd be rude, she called to the blonde swanmane,"Hey, Detty!"

The bouncy little ballerina left Sig's side and pranced over to them.

"We wondering what you were along for," said Tung.

"Because, well, Nan and Ufa are non-combatants, but they've still got valuable skills," added Fell. "We were curious what yours was."

"I'm cute!" Odette proclaimed proudly, striking a pose. "I'm cute! Like Aggie and Rowan, I'm just here to be a babe."

"Rowan and Aggie are dudes though, said Tung. "Or at least Rowan looks like it. So they can woo Anita."

"Are you to provoke her, maybe?" Mitria guessed, given that Odette was skinny and attractive and blonde and even dared to be shorter than Her Royal Uber Petiteness.

"Oh, well, as the new York Flock Herald, I'm also for reminding Sig what he's fighting for. But yes, at some point Lucy does wants to throw me in Blake's face to spite her because I am tiny and blonde and skinny and precious!"

Modest too, clearly.

And now that she was in their vicinity and conversation anyway, Detty began flirting outrageously with all three of them. She loved the ladies, that one.

Then, all these conversations came to a halt as the sound of Lucille's heels clicked into the room.

"It's time to plan, people," her voice carried so easily through the silence that she barely needed despite the considerable size of the room. In fact, it was pretty big for a 'secret' lair...between this and the Circus, though, perhaps supernaturals of all sorts just prefer to be literally underground, not just vampires who have to.

"We can't camp out here forever; we don't know how they found us out last time, so there's a chance they could do it again, and if we do, we don't want them finding us here. The hyenas are our last in till the rats come around, wouldn't do for Narcissus to be caught sheltering enemies."

"Why haven't they tracked us already, though?" asked Armel. "We left our scent all over the place!"

"And how will we go anywhere without continuing to leave it?" added Klaus.

"Cayenne peppuh-bomb 'em!" Ghislaine pounded her fist in her palm. " Guaranteed to scent-overload 'em! Used it in the bayou to get hunting dogs off my back...now if it only worked with tigers..."

Well, actually it could, but unlike the cadaver hounds weretigers weren't leading vampire hunters to her door so she didn't wish them or their poor over-sensitive noses any harm. So that last bit was a joke, but the rest was a sincere idea, and a good one.


***
The pepper plan worked. It took Nan and Ufa (the only human ones; they couldn't risk the supernaturals leaving their scents in public places for anyone to find anymore!) buying just about every ounce of the stuff in the city for it, but they did it. They made the little cloth bombs, and Nicole's night birds and various critters (squirrels, stray cats, and so on) summoned by Armel dropped them all around the hotel to eliminate their scents and that they had gone to Narcissus in Chains, and then in about a dozen different trails leading to various locations, none of which in fact was the place they were going: Cleveland High School. So that the St. Louis forces couldn't just follow the scent of pepper (horribly painful though it was to them) to the new hideout, they doubled back on their pepper path, which continued to, as mentioned, a good dozen red herrings.

The enormous brick building in Dutchtown that was Cleveland High School was abandoned, but it was still quite a stately sight. It had been designed by the Ittner Milligan architectural firm, who designed most of the iconic school buildings around St. Louis. The front was framed by turrets, giving the place the feel of a castle or cathedral, which was added to by the glazed terracotta panels on the front, showing various vocations such as blacksmith and chemist as a church might show saints and angels.

They would be able make classrooms into bedrooms, supply closets into armories, the gym into training facility, and there was even a pool in the basement for swans and Edgar. It wouldn't have the chemicals that a normal swimming pool would be saturated with, but they preferred it that way. However, they spent little time settling in just yet, for they struck at Circus the next day,

The attack took place in the daylight, a decision made so that the St. Louis vampire forces would not be able to fight them. True, that meant their own vampires would be out of commission as well, but given the few they had among their numbers versus the hordes among their enemies, it seemed a wise trade. Nan helped further by predicting the time that some of the St. Louis therian guards would be going to their previous hotel to try to track them. And they knew that Anita would be there too when they struck, of course, they'd checked her work schedule and been shocked at how unlikely it was they'd ever have to strike her at her office due to sheer lack of time she spent in it.

Getting inside was the first problem. That was why they'd attempted infiltration originally, so that this step could be skipped. But since it couldn't, they decided to take a less than stealthy approach: Wander simply blew the doors open. Naturally, the snipers on the roof might have taken issue with her while she was rolling some of her homemade goodies towards the entrance, but they were busy with an aerial assault from a swan-form Sig, who had found that taking a shit in the eyes of your opponent is a good way of not getting shot while you swoop down to knock him off the building.

Once Wander had cleared the entryway for them, Max and Klaus ran in, both in hybrid form, Max's ratty paws clever and dextrous enough to carry a gun, as well as wield any of the blades she had on her belt. Tung, Fell, Mitria followed, all in human form, as they were still not to reveal themselves for what they really were yet. Luckily training with Astrid and Cefyn had made sure they were quite dangerous in human form as it was, especially with their therian-enhanced levels of strength, speed, and reflexes.

After they had gone down the long stone stairway to where the labryinth beneath the Circus began, they split off into different directions. No matter which hallway they went down, however, each encountered multiple guards and residents, as was part of the plan. And as was part of the plan, they used knowledge of the Circus layout gained while their spies were inside to make sure that they led each fight away from one particular point in the Circus: The quarters that Anita used when she was there. Which meant that The Executioner was all alone when Lucille stepped into her boudoir

"Hello, Anita. Remember me?"