SUE VS SUE
Sep. 24th, 2013 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratTung belongs to tungstenmunk
Fell belongs to ladyfellshot
Mitria belongs to mitrian
Ufa belongs to ufa_addict
Wander belongs to wandering worlds
Odette belongs to writtenlision
Edgar and Astrid belong to cygnusrex
Cefyn belongs to evilgrayson
Nan belongs to nanoquill
Anyone else mentioned in this installment who is not an AB canon character belongs to me!
Well, actually, Anita was not all alone. Micah and Nathaniel were with her as well, all lying in a big cuddly post-sex puppy pile in the orgy-sized bed, wearing little else than skimpy shorts and sweat, though their long locks alone made for Godiva-style coverage in a pinch.
"Here, I'll save you the trouble," said Lucille to the startled-looking lingerie-clad Anita. "I'm five-foot-ten and would tower over petite little teeny weeny you, I've got beautiful golden blonde ringlets like those of an antique doll that I'm currently wearing in a ponytail that reaches just to the middle of my back, blue eyes in...some specific shade here...oh, I know, the color they tell you is blue in school? Acrylic? Blue-blue? Regular fucking blue maybe, that's got six syllables! And I'm a touch on the pale side even for a 'whitebread' girl but nowhere near the level of pastyface you've got going on, thank god, and very red lipstick actually looks good on me and is a much better, less smeary quality than yours. And you think I can't have tits this big and this perky without them being fake, but, guess what, we're bosom twins! And since you can't see, let me assure you that they don't even have stretch marks and the nipples are perfect and I can even find great bras for them that are supportive and sexy! Mind if I skip my outfit and weapons?"
She raised one of those weapons, a particularly large and nasty-looking one that looked more suited to taking out tanks than anything close to human-sized. Anita raised her eyes coolly to meet Lucille's gaze, "Not at all."
Then in a flash Anita sprang to her feet, was across the room in record time thanks to her therian speed, and punched Lucille right in the face, knocking her backwards and off her feet. If Lucille had been human, she'd have been sporting some serious Exorcist-neck about now, but instead she was simply surprised. Talking was usually a free action for Lucille, no matter how much time it should have logically given her opponents time to react like Anita had. Lucille made a mental note to herself that not only could she and Anita break little rules of reality like that for themselves, they could apparently mend them back to use against the other too, as Anita had just proved.
Anita actually doing some fighting for once in a very long time seemed to spur her concubines to action as well. Micah and Nathaniel suddenly found themselves in possession of a pair of spines, and they were quick to use them. As Anita had done, they rushed with their preternatural speed to where Lucille lay. Micah began beating her with his flaccid but still absurdly massive and heavy dick, while Nathaniel looped his long hair around her neck and started to choke her. Lucille look bored, annoyed, and a little disgusted.
"Go," she said. And their pretty-rather-than-hamdsome delicate faces went slackjawed with fear. Then they ran from the room, ran as if not in control of their bodies. Lucille sat up, "I can call beasts just like you, Anita. But call isn't the right word, is it? It's control. And that means I can send them away. I bet even yours want to go right now."
Neither Lucille nor Anita noticed, but Lucille's great big gun had disappeared. And neither Lucille nor Anita remembered that it had ever been there. It would have been too great of an advantage against Anita, and while the universe would never disadvantage Lucille, nor would it let anyone get an upper hand on Anita. Thus when the two came into contact and fought, the only solution was for reality to rearrange itself so that they were each on more or less the same footing.
Anita tried some of her less physical abilities now. She tried to turn on fear in Lucille as Lucille had in her leopards, or anger, though no lust because she was not only a woman, but a tall attractive blonde at that, how disgusting. Lucille got to her feet, unaffected, though aware of the attempts, "Oh, don't bother with those. It's just you and me now, Anita. No astral shit."
With that, she paid Anita back the punch, "Our inner beasts are matched." And another punch! Our metaphysical powers are matched." And a jab! "There's only one way to settle this." She kicked Anita in the middle, sending her flying across the room. Anita got up, her gaze steel as she answered, "I can work with that."
***
Klaus, Max, and the experiment trio were mainly there for distractionary purposes, to keep all of Anita's allies away from her while Lucille attacked. However, they had been given orders to kill the sleeping Master of the City if possible, and Tung was personally hoping that she'd get the chance. She had quite the chip on her shoulder against the vampire elite, seeing them as sex maniacs who never did anything useful, like expanding the historical record for instance, and Jean-Claude was practically the poster boy for it. Given her obsessive and angry nature, it wasn't surprising that she considered the solution to this grudge to be introducing him to the business end of a kukri. Okay, to be fair she wasn't usually hateful to a murderous point, but Jean-Claude a special case because of his additional crimes on top of being a worthless fop.
And now it looked like she would get her chance. Out came vampire up ahead around a corner, awake and walking around and all for her. Yup, just here. They had all split up so as to spread their chaos out further.
"Well, well, looks we've got a daywalker," she raised her weapon. The redheaded woman--no, wait, a man--put out one of his hands.
"Wait! Are you with the New Yorkers? And the woman who shot Anita?"
"That's right." With that, she attacked. The vampire, who clearly had some fighting ability of his own, dodged and defended but did not attack, and, when he got the sparest of moments, repeated to her,
"No, I said wait! I want to help you!"
Normally, Tung would not have listened, because it was a common tactic of opponents to spew that sort of thing in order to get you off your guard. It was especially expected from vampires, who could con you into anything with their mind-powers if you gave them half a chance...but in this case, given how things were run here by Anita and Jean-Claude, she could see one wanting to switch sides no matter who it meant teaming up with. She slashed her kukri towards his throat...and stopped it right there, just barely breaking the skin.
"I'm listening," she said.
"My name is Damian, and I'm unfortunate enough to be her Vampire Servant..."
***
Like Tung, Max too was on the hunt for a specific someone in the Circus, but for a very different reason. She knew what Envy must have been told, that she surely thought Max had only buddied up to her, only been intimate with her, to use her for an 'in' then betray her once she was done. This would be horrible enough, but when one added on how Envy had been treated so far already in her life, how few friends she'd ever had, well...it just made Max sick with herself thinking about.
She had to find her. She had to tell her how sorry she was, that she'd only done this because she was trying to help her, to help all of them get away from Blake and her bloodsucker Master boyfriend. Maybe she could even convince Envy to leave this place, to come back with her, to escape.
She heard footsteps running towards her, as well as the thick sound of something heavy and fleshy hitting the ground in tune with them. She backed into a convieniant little natural alcove that was in the stone wall to her right so that whoever was coming could not see her, but she could peer her ratty face out and around to see them. Sure, they'd probably smell a rat, no pun intended, up ahead, but there were so many wererat guards running up ahead, and the wererats here so disregarded, that unless they were rats themselves they probably didn't bother learning all the scents in the Rodere and wouldn't know hers was not a regular.
Ah, she could smell them now too, and indeed, they were not wererats, they were two wereleopards in human form, specifically Micah and Nathaniel. What luck, they'd be a real prize to bag! And now that she could see them, she could see that the source of the thumping was...
...Oh. Oh dear lord. She'd heard stories about it, but she hadn't believed it was true! Egad, how did he run at all with that thing between his legs?!
Despite her shock and disgust, she re-gathered herself just in time to act, leaping out of the alcove as they passed, landing between them, and grabbing on to the long locks that trailed behind him. Pulled back by their own hair, they fell backwards and hit the stone floor, knocking themselves unconscious.
Now, she wondered, just what should she do with them?
***
Before they had even left New York City, everyone in Lucy's band had had things like their addresses removed from public records and their cell phones canceled, so that they could be less easily found and tracked if things did go, as they had, pear-shaped with the attack-from-within plan and the St. Louis power structure learned they were really enemies and might go looking for that sort of thing. They actually had originally planned on using fake names to boot at the introductory meeting with the St. Louis crew, but somehow they had all simultaneously forgotten that and had made the mistake of giving their real names to Jean-Claude, Anita, everyone. Odd, that. Very curious. Almost as if the universe wanted to make things very easy for someone who was very dumb.
Email, however, was still a way that the could all be reached, though it too boasted some impressive protection via programs written by, who else, Cornelius Locke. of course, in the abandoned school there was certainly no cable or wireless, and thus little opportunity to check one's inbox. Sati was hardly a digital junkie, so it didn't bother her too much not to be able to check her Facebook and Tumblr ever day, nor did she play any online games she was missing, but by now she was starting to wonder how her family and friends at home were doing. What if the former, for instance, were targeted by Blake and her lot for interrogation or as hostages? What if the latter were worried about her, despite the fact she'd told everyone she could think of who would care that she was going out of town for a bit? She didn't want anyone to fret on her behalf, let alone be tortured for information, and it wore on her mind enough for her to beg the use of Eva's adorably-decorated phone, and venture outside the school far enough to find a signal.
Once she did, she checked her email, and amid the everyday mundane sorts of things that had crowded up her inbox since she'd left, there was a message from her roommate, Tallulah Kojima. Tallulah was a supernatural too, a mermaid to be precise, but since merfolk had no dog in this fight (or, at worst, might be inclined to side with Blake given her alliance to the Master of Cape Cod) Sati had been told not to inform Tallulah of where she was really going and why. It was evident from the email, however, that someone else had told her, for Tallulah made it plain that she knew...and that she wanted to be involved.
Sati rushed back into the school as fast as she could to tell the others and ask what should be done, how she should respond, if she should respond.
The consensus? Wait for word from Lucy.
***
"Nick," growled Klaus through the muzzle of his tigerman form. "I'd hoped I'd get to kill you."
The words were not ones of hostility, but pity. Klaus had been, along with the other shifters in the New York group, appalled and horrified when they had realized what the condition of this 'Bride' was. He was not the only one in the group to hope for a mercy killing if nothing else could be done for the poor werelion, either. Klaus might come from a society where women ruled, but the difference between that and this was like the difference between, say, just living as a woman day to day in the male-run human world and being a woman kidnapped and kept in a basement by an abusive rapist. Someone from the former society would still be horrified at the latter, and so too was Klaus horrified at this, at Nick, at Anita.
Nick opened fire, and Klaus could not avoid being grazed, but he made a fantastic leap over Nicky's head. An actual tiger can quite effortlessly leap from the ground on to an adult elephant's head, which is at least 12 feet above the ground, and while a weretiger hybrid form is not quite so impressive, this feat was still quite doable. He landed close enough behind Nick to shove him from behind, making him drop his weapon. A moment later, Klaus had pinned him. He raised a huge paw to make the killing blow, then stopped. Keeping him pinned, he said, "You shift too. Beastman, like me. You deserve the right to a fair fight, especially as it will be your last."
"That's what you think," growled Nick, but he did as suggested by his enemy, his form rippling and flowing as the bones shifted and fur sprouted. If this was a trap on the part of Klaus, then by golly, Nick swore to himself, he was going to wish he hadn't tried it. Klaus let him go as the transformation completed, and Nick was on his feet and wheeling around, snarling, faster than the human eye could see. He and Klaus collided against each other, clawing and biting and rolling about on the stone floor like true animals. Whatever training they might have had in guns, knives, martial arts meant for human bodies, it was gone and it didn't matter. There was only their nature, red in tooth and claw.
But the noise of the fight attracted other guards, who came running from both ends of the stone hallway that Nick and Klaus had met in. They surrounded the pair, guns pointed at them.
"Stop! Or we fire!" shouted Domino, who was among them. Klaus had no doubt they would risk shooting Nick without a second thought; what, after all, did a Bride have to lose? His life was already gone in all ways that mattered. And Klaus, pity though he might feel, would not sacrifice his life to end Nick's own. His people, the white tiger clan and all the weretigers of the world, still needed him and his help to liberate them from this so-called Mistress of Tigers, and he would not be stopped by a bullet from a traitor like Domino fired over a werelion slave. He ceased, and Nick now pinned him, restraining him so that he could be collected as a prisoner. At least, that was what Klaus had assumed was the plan. He never found out because a second later, the guards on one side of the circle had been all knocked over by something huge and round that was speeding through the halls like the rolling boulder in an Indian Jones flick. It went past him, though it grazed Nick enough to knock the lionman away, and hit the rest of the guards, sending them falling like bowling pins to slide around in the goop that had come from the two werecats shifting. Knowing who it must be, Klaus didn't waste his opportunity wondering, he jumped to his feet and made a tactical retreat. The ball followed him, running over all the guards and Nick another time over in the process.
As they ran, the ball popped open into a bipedal being that began to run alongside Klaus. It was clearly a therian in hybrid form like Klaus, but what kind was not something even a preternatural biologist could have answered. Its front had soft fur, but its back and limbs were covered in natural armor, made by dermal bones with a covering of horn overlapping one another, hard enough to be bulletproof and yet flexible, which was what had allowed her--the creature was now evidently female--to curl into such a ball. She also possessed a long snout and quite the set of claws on her.
"Nice save, Mitria," Klaus commended her.
"Why, thank you," she demurred politely. For this thing was indeed Mitria, and she was a werearmidillo. The first and only werearmadillo in the world, courtesy of some very fancy lab-work.
They soon came across Max, dragging the still-unconscious Nathaniel and Micah along by their hair. Being knocked out for such a long time, especially via a blow to the head, is of course most likely to kill someone, and, if not, will surely leave them with terrible brain damage. So this pair were quite lucky that therians work on movie rules for unconsciousness, and that they did not have brains to damage. Thus, they would be fine...well, they would be fine in regards to what the black-out did to them. Whether they'd be fine in general...well, that all depended what Lucille wanted to do with them, didn't it?
"Stop right there!"
A new pair of hybrid-form therians had jumped into the path of the trio, blocking their way. Klaus and Max had never seen them in this shape before, but they knew by scent who they were.
"Envy!" Max had wanted to see her, and yet her voice came out with a note of pain in it already.
"Don't talk to her," Meph stepped forward, snarling at her. Envy said nothing, only stared at Max. her face was hard to read in half-animal form, but Max had enough experience with that to see that she looked worse than angry; she looked as though she were holding back tears.
Klaus and Mitria moved forward to fight and to defend their prize, their prisoners, but Meph shook his head, "Take those two. We want Singh."
So Max was on a last-name basis now. She slumped shoulders, which looked odd in her half-rat form, and handed Micah over to Klaus, Nathaniel over to Mitria, and stepped forward submissively to the golden tiger pair.
"It's okay," she said, as Klaus and Mitria protested. "I was looking for these two myself. Go on."
They would have tried further to talk her out of it, even pulled her away by force if they had to, but then Lucille's call sounded in their heads. It commanded them to go, and so they did, and it was Envy and Meph who had to hold Max back from leaving with them.
***
The bedroom looked as though a tornado had come through it. The bed was collapsed, its beams splintered, canopy and curtains fallen and torn, the 'toy chest' smashed and its contents scattered about the room--Lucille had commented, as she'd used various ones as weapons, on the lack of variety and creativity of the sex aids and bondage gear--and the ceiling mirror (oh come on, you know Anita loves to watch herself!) in sharp pieces all over the floor. The two women, however, did not look much worse for the wear. Slightly mussed hair, a cut here, a conveniently sexy and artful-looking tear in their clothing there, that sort of thing. Lucille's makeup wasn't even smudged, and neither had broken a sweat. They had ceased grappling, and now simply stood staring each other down.
"What do you want, Lucille?" demanded Anita. She meant to psyche the blonde out by knowing her name without Lucille have ever told it to her, though actually Lucille already knew that Anita knew of her because Narcissus had already informed her of how her cousin Hiero had spilled the beans. However, she also knew that if she failed to act surprised at Anita knowing who she was, Anita might suspect that Lucille had already been told that Anita knew, and the first person that she'd think of as a spy would probably be Narcissus, given his standing as the only St. Louis therian leader that she'd never had sex with. Of course, Anita being that smart was a long shot, but just in case, Lucille acted as though she were indeed unnerved by the brunette knowing who she was.
"I am going to find out what can kill you, Anita" she answered, after making the obliging show. She was careful to make sure the sentence was very simple, didn't use any words with more than two syllables, and had Anita's name on the end so she could be sure it was she who was being addressed. "I know it's not this, not beating you to death, not ramming your head into your headboard, not stabbing you with glass shards or even choking you with a spreader bar...I learned after shooting you that it wouldn't be that easy.
"So why do it?"
Lucille gave her a big happy smile and shrug, "Because it's fun, silly!" Then, look a little more serious, she fixed her hair as much as she could and said, "But I think I've indulged about enough. And you know what's something I know does work on you, Anita?"
"What?"
"Fainting."
"I never f--"
Her sentence was cut short by Lucille's fist to her face and her resultant fainting from the blow. Lucille was sure to let her fall fully to the floor before bothering to pick her up and sling her ungraciously over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes wearing a very bad 80s wig. She noted to herself that Anita was so not the 110-or-less pounds that Narcissus said she claimed, and planned to tell him this, as he'd surely get a kick from it. Her goal accomplished, she once again used her ability to control all animals and therian breeds to send a command to the inner beast of every one of her people that had come with her: GET OUT NOW. And, like Micah and Nathaniel, they would have no choice but to obey. It was much cruder and more invasive than the telepathy of Cornelius, but he was asleep for the day and Lucy didn't give a damn as long as it did the job.
Smiling to herself and humming a happy little glam rock song, she began to make her way out from the center of the subterranean Circus maze.
****
Narcissus stared as he watched Hiero eat. He'd never seen a human put away so much. From the moment that Narcissus had turned up at his hotel room to ask him on a little lunch date until the second the plates had actually arrived, the poor blond beefcake had had eyes only for Narcissus, big simpering soppy enchanted eyes at that, just like Narcissus liked them (well, when he didn't like them wonderfully wicked and perverse and predatory, that is) and Narcissus might have been offended at being upstaged by a fancy version of a meat-and-three platter if he weren't so astonished at the amount that his guest was putting away. He was at least, the werehyena would give him, not a messy or rude eater in the slightest, just...prodigious. Not that Narcissus had never seen someone eat like this, he was head of over a hundred therian bodybuilders who he damn well insisted better have perfect table manners around him, but, again, this guy was human. Well, Lucille had told him that good food and his own fine ass in a great dress was all it was going to take with this Hiero guy...
"So," he began daintily, patting his hair with a black-nailed hand. It was done today in a slightly more high-volume version of flapper fingerwaves, and he wanted to draw attention to it again, since Hiero had already complimented it earlier. Gushed over it, in fact, though not as much as he had over Narcissus' heels, "How long do you plan to stay in St. Louis? After it all, it must be awfully dangerous for you here, what with how if this Lucille ever found out about what you told us..."
The blond gulped, and it was clearly as much a nervous one as one simply meant to clear his mouth so he could answer Narcissus, "Actually, well...I was thinking of staying until this is over. Helping out. I mean, I've got some pretty strong magic. Strong enough that girl thought I was her best shot of getting the word you lot. Besides, some of my friends in the supernatural community have gone missing, and I...I think she might have something to do with that."
"Really," Narcissus' eyes narrowed for an instant in suspicion, but he quickly turned his expression to sympathy, "How awful. Can you give me any names? We therians look after our own, if I put the word out it will do far more good than saying anything to the police, I assure you."
"Yeah, there's too much going on in New York for the cops to worry about some stray shifters," Hiero said with a slightly sad and bitter tone that surprised Narcissus a little, given that the boy was human, witch or not. Boy, yes, like Jean-Claude he saw the young man in these terms despite the fact he probably wasn't much younger than Narcissus himself. There was just this...childishness about him despite his size and his manly features. He began to rattle off the missing people in his life, wringing his napkin more and more the longer he talked,
"Well, first there's Aggie, he's a weresnake. Um, well, Edgar Christopher, that's his real name, but everyone he's friends with calls him Aggie...and he has a friend named Max who's a wererat, and she's got this other wererat friend, ummm, little guy, I don't know his name but he shouts at me sometimes...and Detty, Odette Advaire, she's a swanmane and I'm really worried about her, she's just this tiny little thing and everything else is a predator and she's not all crazy with axes and swords and guns like the rest of her Flock, she just likes to do ballet and pet puppies, and even that weresnake girl who works in the cafe bookstore I go to is gone and now I find out Lucille left New York and came here to cause trouble and just...just...well, what if they all got in her way, trying to stop her, and she hurt them or..w-worse?"
Ah, good. So he only thought that Lucille had done away with them, not that they had joined up with her. Poor sweet dear.
"There, there," Narcissus reached across and patted one of his hands delicately, "Trust me, they'll turn up."
Hiero gave a sniff that sounded more like it should have come from a toddler than a six-foot-something grown man, "How do you know?"
"Oh, call it Oba's intuition...so, tell me more about your magical abilities and how you want to help us out here in St. Louis, love?"
***
Lucille sauntered easily through the Circus. Getting lost was no issue for her, she just automatically knew the right way. Even if she'd taken a wrong turn on purpose, the whole place would have re-aligned its tunnels to make it the right way for her. As for guards, it was still daytime, which meant that the only guards were therians, so all she had to do was send out continuous beast-repellant vibes like she had against Micah, Nathaniel, and her own crew. Said crew was waiting outside the Circus entrance for her, complete with said wereleopards, now conscious and struggling futiley against the grasp of Klaus and Tung (Nathaniel seemed to be enjoying it). They stopped, however, with the merest metaphysical flick of Lucille's therian-control power, rendered docile and compliant.
"Oh, bonus prizes," she remarked, then looked around, "Where are Fell and the rat?"
"We know Max was captured," offered Klaus apologetically. "And Fell...she just never came out."
Lucille paused, feeling around with her beast-calling power for one specific type of beast. Fell, like Mitria, was the only one of her kind. Yes, yes, she could feel her unique energy.
"She's alive," said Lucille, "Let's go. I'll punish you for losing her later."
"We aren't blowing a sweater?" asked Wander.
"Oh, I'll get her back later, she's an important investment," said Lucille, making her way to a car. "You're all very lucky that she's not dead, otherwise I might actually be mad."
Indeed, they all counted themselves very, very lucky for that.
***
Max, back in her human form, and Fell, who had never left hers, respectively sat and stood in the prisoner cell, neither of them speaking to one another. They didn't dare, in case the place was bugged to overhear any plans they might make for escape. It helped that several guards had their guns pointed at them from the other side of the bars; that sort of thing can put a damper on a conversation. Their therian hearing alerted them to the approach of three sets of footsteps long before the guards parted to let Richard, who was flanked by Jamil and Shang-Da. He addressed the two dark-skinned women in the cell before him with a no-nonsense, grave but level voice, "I'm not going to waste time with you. You don't have it. I'd like to get to the bottom of things without spilling any blood, but my voice doesn't count for very much around here. We want to know where your new base is, everything about your side, and we want to know what you are. You, Max, we know are a wererat, of course, but you..."
He looked at Fell, whose name he did not know, as she had not been one of the New Yorkers who had attempted to publicly join the St. Louis supernaturals.
"We don't know what you are. We can sense and smell that you're therian, like us, and not a snake or a bird but a mammal...but you're not any of the mammalian types, not even the rare ones. You're not even close, whatever you are. We know you're something new; we'd like to know what."
"And I'd like to know," said Fell, crossing her arms over her chest, "why is it your voice doesn't count for all that much? Aren't you the Ulfric around here? I thought St. Louis was an all-for-one-one-for-all one-big-happy? Isn't your whole image based on that?"
"Don't try to change the subject or get in my head. I'm trying to help you. Because if you don't tell me willingly now, the other leaders are going to employ much less gentle means of extracting the truth from you once Jean-Claude awakes."
"Pff. Pet wolf, just like Max said," Fell scoffed, then spat the words, "Pet dog!"
Richard showed no anger, nor did Jamil and Shang-da, though their blood boiled to hear their Ulfric spoken to so...especially since their own opinions were, in truth, not so different these days.
"Think of me what you will. But think of yourself too, at least. I understand honor, and I understand that you feel you will be a traitor if you reveal your secrets. But you're going to reveal them anyway; is the torture worth it, when the outcome is the same? And you, Max Singh..."
His gaze went back to the wererat, "The torture you have already put Envy through...was that worth it?"
For the first time before an enemy, Max felt her face break out in a pain that had nothing to do with any bodily wound.
***
Sati informed Lucille of the message from her mermaid friend the moment that she and the others returned. Lucille did seem to take it seriously, but she told Sati she'd have to wait on answer, as the issue of what to do with their prisoners was a more pressing concern.
"These two leopard losers would only have been worth anything as hostages if Anita were still free to bargain for them, but she's ours now, and only Jean-Frog will want her back," she said, looking disdainfully down at the bound Micah and Nathaniel on the floor, who had been not only blindfolded on the way back to the school so they wouldn't see where they were or how they'd gotten there, but had also had their ears and noses plugged as well so that their enhanced senses couldn't do the same. Their mouths were not gagged, however, since Nathaniel had started sporting a stiffy when that had been attempted. Turned out gags weren't even needed; these two knew better than to say a word. They'd had lots of practice with that around Anita, after all. As for Anita, she'd been safely shut away immediately into the girls locker-room that had been prepared ahead of time with all the same security and spells as Rafael's gym closet had, and more. Of course, Lucille doubted that Anita would make any real effort to escape until she knew for sure whether her captivity came with the bonus of being at the mercy of big bad strong handsome man or not.
"So we've got a bigger barter chip!" crowed Armel.
Lucille rounded on him like an angry dog, "You idiot! There's nothing they could exchange that's worth her! I don't think even they would insult us by trying either."
"But Max and Fell--", he tried to recover some ground with his commander, but she cut him off.
"Fell is valuable, but she's not that valuable. They won't kill her because they'll want to figure her out, see if they can use her, but they know we won't be handing back Blake for anything. Besides, I'm confident we'll have her back soon enough anyway."
Odette, Edgar, and the other wererats exchanged appalled looks on how their leader failed to find Max even worth mentioning. If Lucille noticed, she did not seem to care, for she went on to say that Nathaniel and Micah would be useful in their own ways, and were to be taken to the prisoner area, where she also began to head to after this command.
***
When Anita came to, she was tied to a chair, bound in the same special type of chains that the police had for restraining supernatural suspects effectively. The place was dim, but enough daylight came through the grimy windows to see everything well enough for the most part. The chair she was in was standing on a tiled floor, and there were long benches bolted to the floor, next to rows of rusty lockers. Though no one had been in here for a long time till now, she could feel the unpleasant creep of estrogen soaked into every inch of the place. What got her attention more, though, was the four people in front of her.
Two were Micah and Nathaniel, now with their eyes, ears, and noses free, but their bodies chained, like Anita, to chairs. She was shocked to realize that she couldn't feel her bonds to them despite the fact that they were so close, nor could she contact them mind to mind. Cornelius was telepathically blocking her in the latter matter, and as for the former, while Lucille could not break bonds between Masters and servants like Anita could, her Padma-line power did allow her to force Micah and Nathaniel to shield on their end of the metaphysical connection, closing the door on her as much as they could.
The other two were women, one Lucille, the other someone that Anita didn't know, and wasn't sensing any supernatural mojo from. Lucille introduced her, "Anita, this is Ufa. She may be only human, but she has a very special, specific set of skills that I value a great deal..."
Ufa pulled out a pair of scissors from her apron pocket, and Anita gasped as she realized what Ufa was a moment before Lucille said it, "Ufa...is a hair-stylist. And your boys are due for a trim."
The necromancer's scream reverberated throughout the locker-room.
***
While Lucille was busy watching Ufa work, Eva decided to pay a visit to Rafael. She was on the list of people who were allowed to do so by Lucille, on the basis that, as someone who had already formed a bond with the Rat King, she might be able to persuade him. However, she'd not gotten a chance to see him until now.
"To think I defended you," said Rafael in a bitter tone as she entered the room.
"Would you do different if you'd known?"
He thought a moment, looking away from her as he did, then answered in a sighing sort of way, "No. It was the right thing to do regardless of your alliance, and I won't let my decency be negated by your villainy."
"I like you, Rafael," Eva told him, and then knelt down by the side of his chair. It was not a kneel of worship, supplication, or even just loyalty, she was simply trying to get more on his level rather than looking down at him as they talked. Her voice and face were both concerned as she spoke, her eyes looking over him to see if any permanent damage had been done to him, "You're a good man. And that's what makes me now, more than ever, devoted to helping Lucille."
Rafael sneered, "What, come to convince me that siding with her is in my best interest?"
"It is, Rafael!" her voice rose in earnest, "I want to free all the St. Louis rats from her! And I know you must too! I know how you care about them!"
"I can smell that you really believe that. I have no love for Blake, you're right. In another circumstance, I might side with you. But what makes you think this Lucille is any better? I've seen nothing to suggest that she could be."
"Could she be any worse?"
Rafael did not have an answer to that.
***
Dusk had fallen, and all over St. Louis, regardless of allegiance, vampires were waking up. This included, of course, Astrid and Cefyn, who opened their eyes to see Lucille standing over them, waiting, a patient and welcoming smile on her face.
"That glass has had a lot of time for your skin to heal over it, your muscle to heal around it," she said. Indeed, the glass from the window they'd both jumped through at the hotel battle was still lodged in their legs. Lucille had ordered them not to remove it or allow it to be removed. They both nodded, showing that they had been obediant to her in this, despite how much the sharp shards inside their flesh hurt every time they had moved their legs, had taken so much as a single step, ever since that fight.
Lucille clapped her hands together and said in an excited, praising tone, "Wonderful! Good, I've been looking so forward to digging it out after it got *really* good in there! You're just gonna hurt so much! And look who I found to help?"
The small coffin behind her open, and Valentina stepped out, yawning adorably. She looked at the other two vampires with an expression of innocent eagerness, "I can't wait to play doctor!"
***
Night had fallen, and Nan, being human, went to sleep. And she dreamed. In her dreams, she was standing on the edge of a cliff face. Above her was not the sky, but more and more cliffs. She was deep, deep underground again, like in her last dream, and the girl, Delilah, from her last dream was there too, standing before her. This time, Nan was not just watching her as a disembodied observer, she herself was there too, and Delilah spoke to her, "We're not dreaming of Her, you know. She's dreaming of us."
She stepped forward, and offered a hand to Nan, "Come. We have to go. We have to help find Her, to wake Her up so that She can go where She already is, to join the rest of Her. They're waiting for Her, and I fear there's only so much time."
Nan grasped the cold little white hand, and the two of them jumped from the cliff down, down, down in the cthonic darkness below, in search of its Mother.
Fell belongs to ladyfellshot
Mitria belongs to mitrian
Ufa belongs to ufa_addict
Wander belongs to wandering worlds
Odette belongs to writtenlision
Edgar and Astrid belong to cygnusrex
Cefyn belongs to evilgrayson
Nan belongs to nanoquill
Anyone else mentioned in this installment who is not an AB canon character belongs to me!
Well, actually, Anita was not all alone. Micah and Nathaniel were with her as well, all lying in a big cuddly post-sex puppy pile in the orgy-sized bed, wearing little else than skimpy shorts and sweat, though their long locks alone made for Godiva-style coverage in a pinch.
"Here, I'll save you the trouble," said Lucille to the startled-looking lingerie-clad Anita. "I'm five-foot-ten and would tower over petite little teeny weeny you, I've got beautiful golden blonde ringlets like those of an antique doll that I'm currently wearing in a ponytail that reaches just to the middle of my back, blue eyes in...some specific shade here...oh, I know, the color they tell you is blue in school? Acrylic? Blue-blue? Regular fucking blue maybe, that's got six syllables! And I'm a touch on the pale side even for a 'whitebread' girl but nowhere near the level of pastyface you've got going on, thank god, and very red lipstick actually looks good on me and is a much better, less smeary quality than yours. And you think I can't have tits this big and this perky without them being fake, but, guess what, we're bosom twins! And since you can't see, let me assure you that they don't even have stretch marks and the nipples are perfect and I can even find great bras for them that are supportive and sexy! Mind if I skip my outfit and weapons?"
She raised one of those weapons, a particularly large and nasty-looking one that looked more suited to taking out tanks than anything close to human-sized. Anita raised her eyes coolly to meet Lucille's gaze, "Not at all."
Then in a flash Anita sprang to her feet, was across the room in record time thanks to her therian speed, and punched Lucille right in the face, knocking her backwards and off her feet. If Lucille had been human, she'd have been sporting some serious Exorcist-neck about now, but instead she was simply surprised. Talking was usually a free action for Lucille, no matter how much time it should have logically given her opponents time to react like Anita had. Lucille made a mental note to herself that not only could she and Anita break little rules of reality like that for themselves, they could apparently mend them back to use against the other too, as Anita had just proved.
Anita actually doing some fighting for once in a very long time seemed to spur her concubines to action as well. Micah and Nathaniel suddenly found themselves in possession of a pair of spines, and they were quick to use them. As Anita had done, they rushed with their preternatural speed to where Lucille lay. Micah began beating her with his flaccid but still absurdly massive and heavy dick, while Nathaniel looped his long hair around her neck and started to choke her. Lucille look bored, annoyed, and a little disgusted.
"Go," she said. And their pretty-rather-than-hamdsome delicate faces went slackjawed with fear. Then they ran from the room, ran as if not in control of their bodies. Lucille sat up, "I can call beasts just like you, Anita. But call isn't the right word, is it? It's control. And that means I can send them away. I bet even yours want to go right now."
Neither Lucille nor Anita noticed, but Lucille's great big gun had disappeared. And neither Lucille nor Anita remembered that it had ever been there. It would have been too great of an advantage against Anita, and while the universe would never disadvantage Lucille, nor would it let anyone get an upper hand on Anita. Thus when the two came into contact and fought, the only solution was for reality to rearrange itself so that they were each on more or less the same footing.
Anita tried some of her less physical abilities now. She tried to turn on fear in Lucille as Lucille had in her leopards, or anger, though no lust because she was not only a woman, but a tall attractive blonde at that, how disgusting. Lucille got to her feet, unaffected, though aware of the attempts, "Oh, don't bother with those. It's just you and me now, Anita. No astral shit."
With that, she paid Anita back the punch, "Our inner beasts are matched." And another punch! Our metaphysical powers are matched." And a jab! "There's only one way to settle this." She kicked Anita in the middle, sending her flying across the room. Anita got up, her gaze steel as she answered, "I can work with that."
***
Klaus, Max, and the experiment trio were mainly there for distractionary purposes, to keep all of Anita's allies away from her while Lucille attacked. However, they had been given orders to kill the sleeping Master of the City if possible, and Tung was personally hoping that she'd get the chance. She had quite the chip on her shoulder against the vampire elite, seeing them as sex maniacs who never did anything useful, like expanding the historical record for instance, and Jean-Claude was practically the poster boy for it. Given her obsessive and angry nature, it wasn't surprising that she considered the solution to this grudge to be introducing him to the business end of a kukri. Okay, to be fair she wasn't usually hateful to a murderous point, but Jean-Claude a special case because of his additional crimes on top of being a worthless fop.
And now it looked like she would get her chance. Out came vampire up ahead around a corner, awake and walking around and all for her. Yup, just here. They had all split up so as to spread their chaos out further.
"Well, well, looks we've got a daywalker," she raised her weapon. The redheaded woman--no, wait, a man--put out one of his hands.
"Wait! Are you with the New Yorkers? And the woman who shot Anita?"
"That's right." With that, she attacked. The vampire, who clearly had some fighting ability of his own, dodged and defended but did not attack, and, when he got the sparest of moments, repeated to her,
"No, I said wait! I want to help you!"
Normally, Tung would not have listened, because it was a common tactic of opponents to spew that sort of thing in order to get you off your guard. It was especially expected from vampires, who could con you into anything with their mind-powers if you gave them half a chance...but in this case, given how things were run here by Anita and Jean-Claude, she could see one wanting to switch sides no matter who it meant teaming up with. She slashed her kukri towards his throat...and stopped it right there, just barely breaking the skin.
"I'm listening," she said.
"My name is Damian, and I'm unfortunate enough to be her Vampire Servant..."
***
Like Tung, Max too was on the hunt for a specific someone in the Circus, but for a very different reason. She knew what Envy must have been told, that she surely thought Max had only buddied up to her, only been intimate with her, to use her for an 'in' then betray her once she was done. This would be horrible enough, but when one added on how Envy had been treated so far already in her life, how few friends she'd ever had, well...it just made Max sick with herself thinking about.
She had to find her. She had to tell her how sorry she was, that she'd only done this because she was trying to help her, to help all of them get away from Blake and her bloodsucker Master boyfriend. Maybe she could even convince Envy to leave this place, to come back with her, to escape.
She heard footsteps running towards her, as well as the thick sound of something heavy and fleshy hitting the ground in tune with them. She backed into a convieniant little natural alcove that was in the stone wall to her right so that whoever was coming could not see her, but she could peer her ratty face out and around to see them. Sure, they'd probably smell a rat, no pun intended, up ahead, but there were so many wererat guards running up ahead, and the wererats here so disregarded, that unless they were rats themselves they probably didn't bother learning all the scents in the Rodere and wouldn't know hers was not a regular.
Ah, she could smell them now too, and indeed, they were not wererats, they were two wereleopards in human form, specifically Micah and Nathaniel. What luck, they'd be a real prize to bag! And now that she could see them, she could see that the source of the thumping was...
...Oh. Oh dear lord. She'd heard stories about it, but she hadn't believed it was true! Egad, how did he run at all with that thing between his legs?!
Despite her shock and disgust, she re-gathered herself just in time to act, leaping out of the alcove as they passed, landing between them, and grabbing on to the long locks that trailed behind him. Pulled back by their own hair, they fell backwards and hit the stone floor, knocking themselves unconscious.
Now, she wondered, just what should she do with them?
***
Before they had even left New York City, everyone in Lucy's band had had things like their addresses removed from public records and their cell phones canceled, so that they could be less easily found and tracked if things did go, as they had, pear-shaped with the attack-from-within plan and the St. Louis power structure learned they were really enemies and might go looking for that sort of thing. They actually had originally planned on using fake names to boot at the introductory meeting with the St. Louis crew, but somehow they had all simultaneously forgotten that and had made the mistake of giving their real names to Jean-Claude, Anita, everyone. Odd, that. Very curious. Almost as if the universe wanted to make things very easy for someone who was very dumb.
Email, however, was still a way that the could all be reached, though it too boasted some impressive protection via programs written by, who else, Cornelius Locke. of course, in the abandoned school there was certainly no cable or wireless, and thus little opportunity to check one's inbox. Sati was hardly a digital junkie, so it didn't bother her too much not to be able to check her Facebook and Tumblr ever day, nor did she play any online games she was missing, but by now she was starting to wonder how her family and friends at home were doing. What if the former, for instance, were targeted by Blake and her lot for interrogation or as hostages? What if the latter were worried about her, despite the fact she'd told everyone she could think of who would care that she was going out of town for a bit? She didn't want anyone to fret on her behalf, let alone be tortured for information, and it wore on her mind enough for her to beg the use of Eva's adorably-decorated phone, and venture outside the school far enough to find a signal.
Once she did, she checked her email, and amid the everyday mundane sorts of things that had crowded up her inbox since she'd left, there was a message from her roommate, Tallulah Kojima. Tallulah was a supernatural too, a mermaid to be precise, but since merfolk had no dog in this fight (or, at worst, might be inclined to side with Blake given her alliance to the Master of Cape Cod) Sati had been told not to inform Tallulah of where she was really going and why. It was evident from the email, however, that someone else had told her, for Tallulah made it plain that she knew...and that she wanted to be involved.
Sati rushed back into the school as fast as she could to tell the others and ask what should be done, how she should respond, if she should respond.
The consensus? Wait for word from Lucy.
***
"Nick," growled Klaus through the muzzle of his tigerman form. "I'd hoped I'd get to kill you."
The words were not ones of hostility, but pity. Klaus had been, along with the other shifters in the New York group, appalled and horrified when they had realized what the condition of this 'Bride' was. He was not the only one in the group to hope for a mercy killing if nothing else could be done for the poor werelion, either. Klaus might come from a society where women ruled, but the difference between that and this was like the difference between, say, just living as a woman day to day in the male-run human world and being a woman kidnapped and kept in a basement by an abusive rapist. Someone from the former society would still be horrified at the latter, and so too was Klaus horrified at this, at Nick, at Anita.
Nick opened fire, and Klaus could not avoid being grazed, but he made a fantastic leap over Nicky's head. An actual tiger can quite effortlessly leap from the ground on to an adult elephant's head, which is at least 12 feet above the ground, and while a weretiger hybrid form is not quite so impressive, this feat was still quite doable. He landed close enough behind Nick to shove him from behind, making him drop his weapon. A moment later, Klaus had pinned him. He raised a huge paw to make the killing blow, then stopped. Keeping him pinned, he said, "You shift too. Beastman, like me. You deserve the right to a fair fight, especially as it will be your last."
"That's what you think," growled Nick, but he did as suggested by his enemy, his form rippling and flowing as the bones shifted and fur sprouted. If this was a trap on the part of Klaus, then by golly, Nick swore to himself, he was going to wish he hadn't tried it. Klaus let him go as the transformation completed, and Nick was on his feet and wheeling around, snarling, faster than the human eye could see. He and Klaus collided against each other, clawing and biting and rolling about on the stone floor like true animals. Whatever training they might have had in guns, knives, martial arts meant for human bodies, it was gone and it didn't matter. There was only their nature, red in tooth and claw.
But the noise of the fight attracted other guards, who came running from both ends of the stone hallway that Nick and Klaus had met in. They surrounded the pair, guns pointed at them.
"Stop! Or we fire!" shouted Domino, who was among them. Klaus had no doubt they would risk shooting Nick without a second thought; what, after all, did a Bride have to lose? His life was already gone in all ways that mattered. And Klaus, pity though he might feel, would not sacrifice his life to end Nick's own. His people, the white tiger clan and all the weretigers of the world, still needed him and his help to liberate them from this so-called Mistress of Tigers, and he would not be stopped by a bullet from a traitor like Domino fired over a werelion slave. He ceased, and Nick now pinned him, restraining him so that he could be collected as a prisoner. At least, that was what Klaus had assumed was the plan. He never found out because a second later, the guards on one side of the circle had been all knocked over by something huge and round that was speeding through the halls like the rolling boulder in an Indian Jones flick. It went past him, though it grazed Nick enough to knock the lionman away, and hit the rest of the guards, sending them falling like bowling pins to slide around in the goop that had come from the two werecats shifting. Knowing who it must be, Klaus didn't waste his opportunity wondering, he jumped to his feet and made a tactical retreat. The ball followed him, running over all the guards and Nick another time over in the process.
As they ran, the ball popped open into a bipedal being that began to run alongside Klaus. It was clearly a therian in hybrid form like Klaus, but what kind was not something even a preternatural biologist could have answered. Its front had soft fur, but its back and limbs were covered in natural armor, made by dermal bones with a covering of horn overlapping one another, hard enough to be bulletproof and yet flexible, which was what had allowed her--the creature was now evidently female--to curl into such a ball. She also possessed a long snout and quite the set of claws on her.
"Nice save, Mitria," Klaus commended her.
"Why, thank you," she demurred politely. For this thing was indeed Mitria, and she was a werearmidillo. The first and only werearmadillo in the world, courtesy of some very fancy lab-work.
They soon came across Max, dragging the still-unconscious Nathaniel and Micah along by their hair. Being knocked out for such a long time, especially via a blow to the head, is of course most likely to kill someone, and, if not, will surely leave them with terrible brain damage. So this pair were quite lucky that therians work on movie rules for unconsciousness, and that they did not have brains to damage. Thus, they would be fine...well, they would be fine in regards to what the black-out did to them. Whether they'd be fine in general...well, that all depended what Lucille wanted to do with them, didn't it?
"Stop right there!"
A new pair of hybrid-form therians had jumped into the path of the trio, blocking their way. Klaus and Max had never seen them in this shape before, but they knew by scent who they were.
"Envy!" Max had wanted to see her, and yet her voice came out with a note of pain in it already.
"Don't talk to her," Meph stepped forward, snarling at her. Envy said nothing, only stared at Max. her face was hard to read in half-animal form, but Max had enough experience with that to see that she looked worse than angry; she looked as though she were holding back tears.
Klaus and Mitria moved forward to fight and to defend their prize, their prisoners, but Meph shook his head, "Take those two. We want Singh."
So Max was on a last-name basis now. She slumped shoulders, which looked odd in her half-rat form, and handed Micah over to Klaus, Nathaniel over to Mitria, and stepped forward submissively to the golden tiger pair.
"It's okay," she said, as Klaus and Mitria protested. "I was looking for these two myself. Go on."
They would have tried further to talk her out of it, even pulled her away by force if they had to, but then Lucille's call sounded in their heads. It commanded them to go, and so they did, and it was Envy and Meph who had to hold Max back from leaving with them.
***
The bedroom looked as though a tornado had come through it. The bed was collapsed, its beams splintered, canopy and curtains fallen and torn, the 'toy chest' smashed and its contents scattered about the room--Lucille had commented, as she'd used various ones as weapons, on the lack of variety and creativity of the sex aids and bondage gear--and the ceiling mirror (oh come on, you know Anita loves to watch herself!) in sharp pieces all over the floor. The two women, however, did not look much worse for the wear. Slightly mussed hair, a cut here, a conveniently sexy and artful-looking tear in their clothing there, that sort of thing. Lucille's makeup wasn't even smudged, and neither had broken a sweat. They had ceased grappling, and now simply stood staring each other down.
"What do you want, Lucille?" demanded Anita. She meant to psyche the blonde out by knowing her name without Lucille have ever told it to her, though actually Lucille already knew that Anita knew of her because Narcissus had already informed her of how her cousin Hiero had spilled the beans. However, she also knew that if she failed to act surprised at Anita knowing who she was, Anita might suspect that Lucille had already been told that Anita knew, and the first person that she'd think of as a spy would probably be Narcissus, given his standing as the only St. Louis therian leader that she'd never had sex with. Of course, Anita being that smart was a long shot, but just in case, Lucille acted as though she were indeed unnerved by the brunette knowing who she was.
"I am going to find out what can kill you, Anita" she answered, after making the obliging show. She was careful to make sure the sentence was very simple, didn't use any words with more than two syllables, and had Anita's name on the end so she could be sure it was she who was being addressed. "I know it's not this, not beating you to death, not ramming your head into your headboard, not stabbing you with glass shards or even choking you with a spreader bar...I learned after shooting you that it wouldn't be that easy.
"So why do it?"
Lucille gave her a big happy smile and shrug, "Because it's fun, silly!" Then, look a little more serious, she fixed her hair as much as she could and said, "But I think I've indulged about enough. And you know what's something I know does work on you, Anita?"
"What?"
"Fainting."
"I never f--"
Her sentence was cut short by Lucille's fist to her face and her resultant fainting from the blow. Lucille was sure to let her fall fully to the floor before bothering to pick her up and sling her ungraciously over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes wearing a very bad 80s wig. She noted to herself that Anita was so not the 110-or-less pounds that Narcissus said she claimed, and planned to tell him this, as he'd surely get a kick from it. Her goal accomplished, she once again used her ability to control all animals and therian breeds to send a command to the inner beast of every one of her people that had come with her: GET OUT NOW. And, like Micah and Nathaniel, they would have no choice but to obey. It was much cruder and more invasive than the telepathy of Cornelius, but he was asleep for the day and Lucy didn't give a damn as long as it did the job.
Smiling to herself and humming a happy little glam rock song, she began to make her way out from the center of the subterranean Circus maze.
****
Narcissus stared as he watched Hiero eat. He'd never seen a human put away so much. From the moment that Narcissus had turned up at his hotel room to ask him on a little lunch date until the second the plates had actually arrived, the poor blond beefcake had had eyes only for Narcissus, big simpering soppy enchanted eyes at that, just like Narcissus liked them (well, when he didn't like them wonderfully wicked and perverse and predatory, that is) and Narcissus might have been offended at being upstaged by a fancy version of a meat-and-three platter if he weren't so astonished at the amount that his guest was putting away. He was at least, the werehyena would give him, not a messy or rude eater in the slightest, just...prodigious. Not that Narcissus had never seen someone eat like this, he was head of over a hundred therian bodybuilders who he damn well insisted better have perfect table manners around him, but, again, this guy was human. Well, Lucille had told him that good food and his own fine ass in a great dress was all it was going to take with this Hiero guy...
"So," he began daintily, patting his hair with a black-nailed hand. It was done today in a slightly more high-volume version of flapper fingerwaves, and he wanted to draw attention to it again, since Hiero had already complimented it earlier. Gushed over it, in fact, though not as much as he had over Narcissus' heels, "How long do you plan to stay in St. Louis? After it all, it must be awfully dangerous for you here, what with how if this Lucille ever found out about what you told us..."
The blond gulped, and it was clearly as much a nervous one as one simply meant to clear his mouth so he could answer Narcissus, "Actually, well...I was thinking of staying until this is over. Helping out. I mean, I've got some pretty strong magic. Strong enough that girl thought I was her best shot of getting the word you lot. Besides, some of my friends in the supernatural community have gone missing, and I...I think she might have something to do with that."
"Really," Narcissus' eyes narrowed for an instant in suspicion, but he quickly turned his expression to sympathy, "How awful. Can you give me any names? We therians look after our own, if I put the word out it will do far more good than saying anything to the police, I assure you."
"Yeah, there's too much going on in New York for the cops to worry about some stray shifters," Hiero said with a slightly sad and bitter tone that surprised Narcissus a little, given that the boy was human, witch or not. Boy, yes, like Jean-Claude he saw the young man in these terms despite the fact he probably wasn't much younger than Narcissus himself. There was just this...childishness about him despite his size and his manly features. He began to rattle off the missing people in his life, wringing his napkin more and more the longer he talked,
"Well, first there's Aggie, he's a weresnake. Um, well, Edgar Christopher, that's his real name, but everyone he's friends with calls him Aggie...and he has a friend named Max who's a wererat, and she's got this other wererat friend, ummm, little guy, I don't know his name but he shouts at me sometimes...and Detty, Odette Advaire, she's a swanmane and I'm really worried about her, she's just this tiny little thing and everything else is a predator and she's not all crazy with axes and swords and guns like the rest of her Flock, she just likes to do ballet and pet puppies, and even that weresnake girl who works in the cafe bookstore I go to is gone and now I find out Lucille left New York and came here to cause trouble and just...just...well, what if they all got in her way, trying to stop her, and she hurt them or..w-worse?"
Ah, good. So he only thought that Lucille had done away with them, not that they had joined up with her. Poor sweet dear.
"There, there," Narcissus reached across and patted one of his hands delicately, "Trust me, they'll turn up."
Hiero gave a sniff that sounded more like it should have come from a toddler than a six-foot-something grown man, "How do you know?"
"Oh, call it Oba's intuition...so, tell me more about your magical abilities and how you want to help us out here in St. Louis, love?"
***
Lucille sauntered easily through the Circus. Getting lost was no issue for her, she just automatically knew the right way. Even if she'd taken a wrong turn on purpose, the whole place would have re-aligned its tunnels to make it the right way for her. As for guards, it was still daytime, which meant that the only guards were therians, so all she had to do was send out continuous beast-repellant vibes like she had against Micah, Nathaniel, and her own crew. Said crew was waiting outside the Circus entrance for her, complete with said wereleopards, now conscious and struggling futiley against the grasp of Klaus and Tung (Nathaniel seemed to be enjoying it). They stopped, however, with the merest metaphysical flick of Lucille's therian-control power, rendered docile and compliant.
"Oh, bonus prizes," she remarked, then looked around, "Where are Fell and the rat?"
"We know Max was captured," offered Klaus apologetically. "And Fell...she just never came out."
Lucille paused, feeling around with her beast-calling power for one specific type of beast. Fell, like Mitria, was the only one of her kind. Yes, yes, she could feel her unique energy.
"She's alive," said Lucille, "Let's go. I'll punish you for losing her later."
"We aren't blowing a sweater?" asked Wander.
"Oh, I'll get her back later, she's an important investment," said Lucille, making her way to a car. "You're all very lucky that she's not dead, otherwise I might actually be mad."
Indeed, they all counted themselves very, very lucky for that.
***
Max, back in her human form, and Fell, who had never left hers, respectively sat and stood in the prisoner cell, neither of them speaking to one another. They didn't dare, in case the place was bugged to overhear any plans they might make for escape. It helped that several guards had their guns pointed at them from the other side of the bars; that sort of thing can put a damper on a conversation. Their therian hearing alerted them to the approach of three sets of footsteps long before the guards parted to let Richard, who was flanked by Jamil and Shang-Da. He addressed the two dark-skinned women in the cell before him with a no-nonsense, grave but level voice, "I'm not going to waste time with you. You don't have it. I'd like to get to the bottom of things without spilling any blood, but my voice doesn't count for very much around here. We want to know where your new base is, everything about your side, and we want to know what you are. You, Max, we know are a wererat, of course, but you..."
He looked at Fell, whose name he did not know, as she had not been one of the New Yorkers who had attempted to publicly join the St. Louis supernaturals.
"We don't know what you are. We can sense and smell that you're therian, like us, and not a snake or a bird but a mammal...but you're not any of the mammalian types, not even the rare ones. You're not even close, whatever you are. We know you're something new; we'd like to know what."
"And I'd like to know," said Fell, crossing her arms over her chest, "why is it your voice doesn't count for all that much? Aren't you the Ulfric around here? I thought St. Louis was an all-for-one-one-for-all one-big-happy? Isn't your whole image based on that?"
"Don't try to change the subject or get in my head. I'm trying to help you. Because if you don't tell me willingly now, the other leaders are going to employ much less gentle means of extracting the truth from you once Jean-Claude awakes."
"Pff. Pet wolf, just like Max said," Fell scoffed, then spat the words, "Pet dog!"
Richard showed no anger, nor did Jamil and Shang-da, though their blood boiled to hear their Ulfric spoken to so...especially since their own opinions were, in truth, not so different these days.
"Think of me what you will. But think of yourself too, at least. I understand honor, and I understand that you feel you will be a traitor if you reveal your secrets. But you're going to reveal them anyway; is the torture worth it, when the outcome is the same? And you, Max Singh..."
His gaze went back to the wererat, "The torture you have already put Envy through...was that worth it?"
For the first time before an enemy, Max felt her face break out in a pain that had nothing to do with any bodily wound.
***
Sati informed Lucille of the message from her mermaid friend the moment that she and the others returned. Lucille did seem to take it seriously, but she told Sati she'd have to wait on answer, as the issue of what to do with their prisoners was a more pressing concern.
"These two leopard losers would only have been worth anything as hostages if Anita were still free to bargain for them, but she's ours now, and only Jean-Frog will want her back," she said, looking disdainfully down at the bound Micah and Nathaniel on the floor, who had been not only blindfolded on the way back to the school so they wouldn't see where they were or how they'd gotten there, but had also had their ears and noses plugged as well so that their enhanced senses couldn't do the same. Their mouths were not gagged, however, since Nathaniel had started sporting a stiffy when that had been attempted. Turned out gags weren't even needed; these two knew better than to say a word. They'd had lots of practice with that around Anita, after all. As for Anita, she'd been safely shut away immediately into the girls locker-room that had been prepared ahead of time with all the same security and spells as Rafael's gym closet had, and more. Of course, Lucille doubted that Anita would make any real effort to escape until she knew for sure whether her captivity came with the bonus of being at the mercy of big bad strong handsome man or not.
"So we've got a bigger barter chip!" crowed Armel.
Lucille rounded on him like an angry dog, "You idiot! There's nothing they could exchange that's worth her! I don't think even they would insult us by trying either."
"But Max and Fell--", he tried to recover some ground with his commander, but she cut him off.
"Fell is valuable, but she's not that valuable. They won't kill her because they'll want to figure her out, see if they can use her, but they know we won't be handing back Blake for anything. Besides, I'm confident we'll have her back soon enough anyway."
Odette, Edgar, and the other wererats exchanged appalled looks on how their leader failed to find Max even worth mentioning. If Lucille noticed, she did not seem to care, for she went on to say that Nathaniel and Micah would be useful in their own ways, and were to be taken to the prisoner area, where she also began to head to after this command.
***
When Anita came to, she was tied to a chair, bound in the same special type of chains that the police had for restraining supernatural suspects effectively. The place was dim, but enough daylight came through the grimy windows to see everything well enough for the most part. The chair she was in was standing on a tiled floor, and there were long benches bolted to the floor, next to rows of rusty lockers. Though no one had been in here for a long time till now, she could feel the unpleasant creep of estrogen soaked into every inch of the place. What got her attention more, though, was the four people in front of her.
Two were Micah and Nathaniel, now with their eyes, ears, and noses free, but their bodies chained, like Anita, to chairs. She was shocked to realize that she couldn't feel her bonds to them despite the fact that they were so close, nor could she contact them mind to mind. Cornelius was telepathically blocking her in the latter matter, and as for the former, while Lucille could not break bonds between Masters and servants like Anita could, her Padma-line power did allow her to force Micah and Nathaniel to shield on their end of the metaphysical connection, closing the door on her as much as they could.
The other two were women, one Lucille, the other someone that Anita didn't know, and wasn't sensing any supernatural mojo from. Lucille introduced her, "Anita, this is Ufa. She may be only human, but she has a very special, specific set of skills that I value a great deal..."
Ufa pulled out a pair of scissors from her apron pocket, and Anita gasped as she realized what Ufa was a moment before Lucille said it, "Ufa...is a hair-stylist. And your boys are due for a trim."
The necromancer's scream reverberated throughout the locker-room.
***
While Lucille was busy watching Ufa work, Eva decided to pay a visit to Rafael. She was on the list of people who were allowed to do so by Lucille, on the basis that, as someone who had already formed a bond with the Rat King, she might be able to persuade him. However, she'd not gotten a chance to see him until now.
"To think I defended you," said Rafael in a bitter tone as she entered the room.
"Would you do different if you'd known?"
He thought a moment, looking away from her as he did, then answered in a sighing sort of way, "No. It was the right thing to do regardless of your alliance, and I won't let my decency be negated by your villainy."
"I like you, Rafael," Eva told him, and then knelt down by the side of his chair. It was not a kneel of worship, supplication, or even just loyalty, she was simply trying to get more on his level rather than looking down at him as they talked. Her voice and face were both concerned as she spoke, her eyes looking over him to see if any permanent damage had been done to him, "You're a good man. And that's what makes me now, more than ever, devoted to helping Lucille."
Rafael sneered, "What, come to convince me that siding with her is in my best interest?"
"It is, Rafael!" her voice rose in earnest, "I want to free all the St. Louis rats from her! And I know you must too! I know how you care about them!"
"I can smell that you really believe that. I have no love for Blake, you're right. In another circumstance, I might side with you. But what makes you think this Lucille is any better? I've seen nothing to suggest that she could be."
"Could she be any worse?"
Rafael did not have an answer to that.
***
Dusk had fallen, and all over St. Louis, regardless of allegiance, vampires were waking up. This included, of course, Astrid and Cefyn, who opened their eyes to see Lucille standing over them, waiting, a patient and welcoming smile on her face.
"That glass has had a lot of time for your skin to heal over it, your muscle to heal around it," she said. Indeed, the glass from the window they'd both jumped through at the hotel battle was still lodged in their legs. Lucille had ordered them not to remove it or allow it to be removed. They both nodded, showing that they had been obediant to her in this, despite how much the sharp shards inside their flesh hurt every time they had moved their legs, had taken so much as a single step, ever since that fight.
Lucille clapped her hands together and said in an excited, praising tone, "Wonderful! Good, I've been looking so forward to digging it out after it got *really* good in there! You're just gonna hurt so much! And look who I found to help?"
The small coffin behind her open, and Valentina stepped out, yawning adorably. She looked at the other two vampires with an expression of innocent eagerness, "I can't wait to play doctor!"
***
Night had fallen, and Nan, being human, went to sleep. And she dreamed. In her dreams, she was standing on the edge of a cliff face. Above her was not the sky, but more and more cliffs. She was deep, deep underground again, like in her last dream, and the girl, Delilah, from her last dream was there too, standing before her. This time, Nan was not just watching her as a disembodied observer, she herself was there too, and Delilah spoke to her, "We're not dreaming of Her, you know. She's dreaming of us."
She stepped forward, and offered a hand to Nan, "Come. We have to go. We have to help find Her, to wake Her up so that She can go where She already is, to join the rest of Her. They're waiting for Her, and I fear there's only so much time."
Nan grasped the cold little white hand, and the two of them jumped from the cliff down, down, down in the cthonic darkness below, in search of its Mother.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-09-24 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 06:59 pm (UTC)I also really want to know what Damien is going to offer up to save his own skin.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 08:34 pm (UTC)The necromancer's scream reverberated throughout the locker-room.
Ah, sssoooo goooooood.
I was thinking a justin beiber cut for nathaniel and since micah has such curly hair a bozo rim around the head.
Now that would be a true test of Anita's love.
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Date: 2013-09-26 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 02:00 am (UTC)I'm so happy at what a big hit the hairstylist has been with everyone!
no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 10:30 pm (UTC)I kind of squealed because Shang-Da was mentioned. Yeah. I'm lame.
But he's just so pretty in my head I can't help myself.Wander should go back and rescue Max and see Mephisto. Yesh.
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Date: 2013-09-26 02:00 am (UTC)Oooh, now there's an idea!
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Date: 2013-09-26 03:33 am (UTC)Yay, ideas!
no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 06:51 am (UTC)Also, Detty being worried about Max...
AND HEIRO BEING WORRIED ABOUT DETTY! (And Chris Hemsworth in Rush. He makes me think of bby!Heiro)
...And out of nowhere That Heiro and That Detty appear and Odette turns into a shrieking terror harpy and everyone WTFs.
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Date: 2013-09-26 05:28 pm (UTC)Chris Hemmsworth in general makes me think of bbyH
HAHAH man I never get tired of those two and that weirdness
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Date: 2013-09-27 02:32 pm (UTC)Doesn't he though? I blame Thor.
Scruffy!H ftw! And horses. And shrieking Detty because allllll the No.
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Date: 2013-09-27 04:36 pm (UTC)OMG NOOO HORSES AAAH!
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Date: 2013-09-28 11:39 am (UTC)THEY'RE COMING TO GET HER
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Date: 2013-09-26 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 05:29 pm (UTC)