On some level, it was pretty funny looking at the LeCroix household and knowing that the normalcy that they pulled off so well was a lie. The house looked so cozy, with the flowers and bushes out front softly illuminated by the glow of the porch light that had been left on for the lady of the house. She was working late at Crimson, their surveillance had informed them of that, so the plan was to give her a surprise to come home to. It was just too bad that the hunter had married a man whose skill would have made him an asset to the guilds, or the surprise could have been more interesting. instead, their orders were to enter in force, kill or capture the husband, make a mess and bring the infant back (taking the husband alive was ideal, but unlikely enough that their orders weren't strict). They'd started a wager on the way over regarding the likelihood that Nicholas LeCroix would allow them to take his daughter; some believed he'd kill her himself rather than let Midnight have her, while most thought he'd fight too hard to keep them from her, leaving him too little time to do anything drastic. None of them thought that he'd be too soft for it.
Since they intended to all rush him so that it'd be quick, they weren't all that worried. One of them even went in through the baby's window, which would have worked if Nick didn't have Nico in the living room with him (and if he didn't have such good hearing). He'd heard something outside that had made him slightly paranoid, so he definitely heard the window slide open.
The sleeping child was deposited into her carry-seat as quickly and gently as Nick was able while he listened to the upstairs, and then he set the seat and his baby in the bottom of the coat closet. He took the extra second to try covering her a little more with the bottom of the long wool coat that Skye had gotten him for Christmas the year before, hoping that it might help her stay hidden if the closet was somehow opened. From there, he vanished into the kitchen, procuring a Kimber .45 from the silverware drawer that he'd guarantee would end up waking Nico, then sliding the knife drawer open. He just hoped that she'd stay quiet (or that the closet would muffle the noise some) until the house was safe again. If this was a simple burglar, they'd chosen the wrong damn house.
Of course it wasn't a typical thief, though nobody could have possibly prepared him for the kind of situation that was being dropped on his head. He didn't know what had happened with the guilds anymore than Skye did at this exact moment, or that Harvey was about ten minutes away from busting in and letting Skye and Sitara know what was happening. A little warning (actual warning instead of that sneaking suspicion) would have been nice, but Midnight's whole point in this was to strike hard and fast so that the casualties were as high as possible. Midnight hadn't slacked off at the prospect of taking in two lions, even if the adult male would be more likely to lose his mind than be trained. Niall and Verity were more than willing to let him spend the rest of his days in the arena if that happened to be the case. Either way, they saw it as a win, so Nick having no warning before a load of armed vampires and shifters busted in was definitely a problem.
True to his reputation, Nick dropped the first four bodies that came through the back door into his kitchen. That was when he was forced to move, wounding more and dropping a fifth as the return fire really started up. That alone let him know just how serious this situation was, just because there were still combatants after all that. He'd been hoping that taking a few of them down immediately would be a big deal, but not as much as he'd planned. They still came at him, firing and pushing him back towards the living room just with the number of them entering the house, but he had Nico hidden in the living room. There was cover there, but he was unwilling to put all of the fighting in the same room as the baby, so he ducked into the hallway towards the bedroom and found himself backstepping the entire way, emptying the Kimber, throwing the knife, and finally just bolting for the room he shared with Skye. There were weapons there, if he could just get to them.
He took three rounds in the few feet to the doorway, collapsing inside and rolling out of sight, his attempts to get to the guns suddenly seriously hampered. As if he needed more of a disadvantage. Two of the rounds he'd taken in the back, one in his thigh, leaving a hell of a lot of blood to let his attackers know exactly where he'd gone to when he took cover on the other side of the bed. Chunks of fabric, feathers and mattress hit the air as he ducked and contemplated the closet he needed to get to. There was no way they'd let him through, especially once he heard the window on that side of the room break so that someone else could get in. Trying for the closet would leave him totally open, even if he was heavily armed at that point, so he knew it wasn't worth it. There was a small handgun in Skye's nightstand, something that fit her hand better than his, and he'd naturally grabbed it as soon as he could do so without getting his hand blown off, but his own nightstand (also outfitted with some firepower) was out of reach. Now, he wished they still had the gun case hidden under the bed, but the place had been child-proofed by a lot when Nico was born. If he survived this, he was changing that; they'd teach their daughter to respect guns rather than hide them from her until they thought she was old enough if it would keep them all alive.
He was emptying Skye's spare too quickly to do himself any good, so a plan was necessary and fast. With a few rounds still remaining, he grabbed up the edges of the mattress and flung it up, forming a king-sized shield that might protect him long enough for him to fire a few more shots, then shift. He'd held the thing up in front of him right up until his battered body went feline, and then he hit the mattress so hard with his front paws that he heard a shriek as someone who'd been trying to get in close was forced underneath it. He stepped right across the top of the mattress, letting whoever get sandwiched between a lion, a mattress and the floor before he launched himself at the nearest attacker. They'd brought guns, which would help against him, but he took claws and teeth to them with a sudden roar that shook the walls around them. Right in their midst as he was, it was a lot easier to rend flesh and catch bones in his teeth while they whipped guns in against him.
Obviously sensing a disadvantage with this change of events, the vampires in the group started to fall back while the shifters pushed forward. There were cougars and wolves in the mix, Nick could smell them, and an instant later, he could smell their blood. That was all he needed, that alluring scent on the air, and it was all carnage candy from there. Game on.
It was amazing that the neighbors hadn't gotten the police to the LeCroix resident just yet, considering the sounds coming from the place. Granted, the police were overwhelmed with murders, 'accidents', attacks, 'robberies' and 'car accidents', and that didn't include the fires that the fire department was struggling with, the hospital being under attack and the paramedics that were running their asses off. Another call was easy to lose in the chaos, though hearing a lion roar usually got some serious attention. Deimos heard it a few times, a tell-tale sign that LeCroix was still alive and fighting in there, so he let the fight go on for awhile. It wasn't long, not in the grand scheme of things, but long enough for him to take a few gallons of gas to the outside of the building, then continue into the building. He didn't approach the actual fighting immediately, instead setting another container down behind the tv stand with a remote explosive attached to it. Leaving evidence, especially tonight, would get Grant killed, and he wasn't playing around. Every person he'd hit was dead, and the location of the attack had been torched; nobody was going to get at him because he was sloppy, that was a guarantee he made for himself from the start.
Grant's situation here had been touchy, considering the way he played both sides. He'd been careful all night to make sure that he was never in an area that might put him in contact with anyone who might blow his cover, or who he wouldn't want to go after. It was tricky, playing that proximity issue, but he'd managed it so far. If anything had come up on his family, he'd have had to drop Midnight to play defense, but he hadn't heard anything, yet. None of them were guild hunters, which helped. He just hoped that Angela had the sense to stay away from her ex-boyfriend and Ryan Shane; Grant wouldn't have been surprised if both of them were killed and he didn't want Angela involved in that one. It would be a really bad time to find out if she actually cared about Bastian any longer.
Actually, he'd told Liz that the shit was hitting the fan as soon as it would have been reasonable for him to know, and that she and the others needed to stay uninvolved (and contact him immediately if anything odd happened). He'd always been very obviously into the hunting aspect of being an Arun, so it was believable that he'd be in the field all night. The only reason he was working offense for Midnight was really just because the money was that good. He'd vanish from the mess the second it wasn't working for him any longer.
This house might even be his last. He was damn sure that the baby was somewhere in the building. Daddy couldn't be with her during all of the fighting, and someone would have called it in if they'd found the kid in her crib. As the fighting slowed in the hallway, Deimos glanced over the see the swinging chair with the soothing tune it was singing; the baby was here somewhere. He hadn't decided what he was going to do with her when he found her, whether he'd take her to Single Earth or even drop her somewhere for her mother. He didn't have a huge soft spot for children personally, but he didn't do kidnappings. He was an assassin, and the few times he'd changed his mind on that issue, it had blown up in his face. He was done. If the plan wasn't to leave the target dead, Deimos wasn't involved. It was another reason why he'd waited around to see if anyone else could take the LeCroix man down; if they could, then he'd be a capture. If Deimos had to do it, he was going to die.
Obviously, Deimos had to do it. The baby first, though. As he approached the quieting mess upstairs, he heard her; her crying was muffled and soft, but hearing Dear Old Dad raging out had obviously upset the child. It didn't take much in the way of tracking ability to realize she was in the closet, and as soon as the door was opened, he could hear her loud and clear. With a sigh, he lifted her little chair up and walked her out front, away from the house and the mess that he was about to make of her father. He'd deal with her after he finished.
Back inside, there were still signs of life just in the sounds that reached the witch's ears, and whatever was still alive up there was injured. The breaths were shallow, with just enough of a wet sound to make Deimos smirk. There was a punctured lung, and the quickness of the breathing suggested pain. Deimos could work with that, for certain.
He was armed appropriately for the evening, wearing everything deadly that he possibly could at once under the long black trench, and he had a good, powerful rifle slung across his back specifically for situations like this. With a lion on hand, he planned on having nothing less, so when he sauntered toward the back of the house, he had the rifle in hand, the strap secured around his arm. He found the lion still on its feet, but barely, its wild golden eyes wide and its fur matted with blood and other fluids. Even its mane was sticking to the rest of its body in a wet, matted mess, and Deimos was willing to bet just from first glance that the mane had saved the bastard's life a few times over. There were spots that looked like shifters had made a grab for, either with teeth or claws, and the lion still happened to be the only one left standing. Upon Grant's approach, the creature raised its head and locked eyes on him that had no room for anything but death. If Grant hadn't been so certain of his own victory over this animal, he'd have been worried that it was his own doom staring back at him, but LeCroix was at the disadvantage here. Even so, the eyes were a scary touch, all anger, bloodlust and pain, but they weren't human. Whether the man could have been alright later or not, Deimos knew he wasn't staring at a person right then.
"Poor bastard. Look at it this way; I'm putting you out of your misery before your wife realizes what you are," he offered, raising the rifle to level on the cat's head. It snarled at him, but didn't seem to have the ability to rush him like it seemed to want to. It pressed forward, one of its back legs seemingly useless and that unpleasant gurgle accompanying the otherwise intimidating sound, but it wouldn't be fast enough. At least, LeCroix wouldn't be fast enough.
Deimos heard the movement behind him rather suddenly, a damaged board creaking causing him to twist around just in time to throw himself through one of the holes in the wall and avoid another lion. It was a male, almost as big as LeCroix, and completely fresh to the battle. In a physical match, Deimos wasn't even going to attempt that. It just wasn't happening, not with as close as the lion was. If he had some distance, maybe, but if there was one more lion to the mess, there were probably more. They hunted in prides, and LeCroix was known to be the dominant male in the area. Deimos just hadn't expected the other big male in the group to be showing up, not with as overwhelmed as the police were.
"Maybe I'm not," he added to his former statement, more willing to make a hasty escape than risk being worn down like a zebra by a pride of lions. He was infinitely more dangerous than a zebra, but lions were efficient hunters and these had human intelligence behind them. He glanced back to see the new lion streaking in his direction, past a suddenly human LeCroix struggling not to fall into the mess of bodies surrounding him and into the hole that Grant had disappeared into. The witch was out the second floor window, rolling as soon as he hit the ground and jumping right back to his feet to make a beeline for his vehicle. He heard the shockingly soft landing that the cat made behind him and only made a 360 degree turn to fire a shot off and then keep running. He didn't even wait to see if that one hit, jumping over the hood of his car, firing again as he tore the door open, and revving the engine to the sight of a hulking furred mass hitting the passenger side of the car. The window exploded upon impact, and that was enough for him. He slammed the gas hard enough that the lion's claws tore long gashes in the door it'd been trying to get open without shifting back to human form. It didn't even try to pursue from there.
He watched it in the rearview, its tail flicking around as it roared after him, the loped back up through the ruined front door of the house. Grant went ahead and hit the ignition button on his remote a short time later. Bastards.
Contrary to the attempted assassin's belief, the lion that had come to Nick's aid wasn't Wesley, nor was it even a member of the pride LeCroix had built. Baptiste was Papa's cat, but he and LeCroix had become friendly (and Tempest thought that Nico was the sweetest thing ever), so when Papa had suggested that Baptiste run over to see how the LeCroix household was faring in this mess, Baptiste knew to expect bad things. Finding Nico in her little chair outside was a bad sign to begin with, so he'd put the baby in the front passenger seat of his car, only to go inside to find the stench of gas and blood everywhere. The whole house was trashed, huge gaping holes in the drywall, slashes, bullet holes, broken windows and furniture, and bodies. There was a trail of them from the kitchen all the way up into the hallway where Baptiste could still hear sound, so he shifted before he even hit that scene.
It was a good thing, since he came up behind a man in black who had a rifle pointing at LeCroix's bloodied face. Baptiste had to give the man credit for being fast enough to avoid his jump, not to mention running and jumping fast enough to keep ahead of him, but he pursued and would have torn that car apart if the man inside hadn't hit the gas like he had. The man in black was obviously not human, not with the speed he possessed, but Baptiste really didn't care. Once the attacker was obviously fleeing, he was headed back inside to get his friend. The smell of the gas worried him. Had the man been planning on torching the place afterward?
He was back in his human form, trying to lift and equally human Nick to his feet so that they could get downstairs, when he heard a mechanical little beep. With a quick, hissed curse, he threw both of them in the same direction that the assassin had fled, landing in an undignified heap on the grass below. Nick had screamed on impact, a sound that wasn't all that reassuring to Baptiste, but the house had also exploded as they went airborne, so they had other concerns. Baptiste's most immediate happened to be tearing his shirt off, since he'd been smacked in the back with a chunk of fiery house, and trying to drag the man back up. Nick reacted badly to Baptiste grabbing the arm that had previously been okay, and a second glance suggested that it might be a dislocated or broken shoulder, so he took the other arm. The plan had originally been to walk the man to his vehicle, but at this point, Baptiste was practically carrying him and had to manhandle him into the backseat of his car. Nick sure as hell didn't fit comfortably, but even with all of his injuries, Baptiste wasn't all that concerned with comfort. Nick was tough; he'd survive being jostled around as long as his injuries weren't mortal, and then it wouldn't matter if Baptiste bumped him around a little. Getting to safety was a bigger issue.
"You t'ank me later, mon ami, ah promise," he murmured as he climbed into the driver's seat and took the second to buckle Nico's seat in as well as he could. Jostling Nick was one thing, but not her. He didn't even give any thought to the fact that Skye might show up at home to find the place like that, nor did he bother to call her while he was on the road. They could do that when they were certain of their safety, back at the Lounge.
Timber was going home. She had two-day old mascara stuck to her lashes, her red hair was getting a strange sheen to it only to be attributed to not being washed, and her entire body felt like she had a coating of fine grit stuck to it. She really hated field training some days, and it was even worse when she went out after-hours with her sister's boyfriend and did some off-the-clock drills. Honestly, she was learning how the SWAT approached their battles, and it was helpful. If Zeke had known that she was gleaning a little more information for personal reasons than just for tactical knowledge, he might have said something, but Timber didn't credit him that. He wasn't ever going to move up in her book until he stopped calling her Erin.
Her phone rang, the sound loud and annoying. She reached for the device, short bright-blue painted nails tapping around on the pad until she found the button for 'answer'. On the other line, it was Ezekiel, and he sounded incredibly rushed.
"Erin, where are you?" he demanded
"Uh, driving home?" she said, her youthful voice full of ire at being bothered just so soon after she'd called it a night. "Why?" she reached, her voice almost skeptical.
"I need you to drop everything and go to this address," he said, rattling off the LeCroix household. "Bring guns. Bring everything you have, and don't drive - fly," he commanded. "One of my partners, Wesley, is friends with them, and some shit evidently went down in a big way. There's a child involved. I need you to get there and give us a damage report. You can get there faster, and you can avoid a lot more attention than we can."
Timber set her jaw. These people were nothing to her. "What's in it for me?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral now. She was tired, grouchy, and she wanted to lay down in the tub and soak the grime off of herself.
"Something shiny!" he shouted. She could hear voices behind him, the sound of rounds being chambered, and various other commotions. So, he was at the police station? That piqued her interest well enough; Zeke did not enjoy working after hours if he could help it. Something was up. "Erin, please. His wife is a sniper for Crimson. They have a kid, a like one year old baby!" he pleaded.
"Why do I feel like I want to say no?" she taunted.
"They are lions," he added, and she could feel him squinting his eyes for impact.
"It'd better be so sparkly it rivals the sun," she warned him. She'd do it. The phone went silent and she pulled her black SL65 into the parking lot of a church. She'd get it later; nobody would fuck with it there. As she got out of the car, she swept her red hair back into a loose ponytail and checked her personal artillery. She had a .40 on her thigh holster, with a wicked-looking boot knife jammed down into her left boot. She was still wearing pants of a light material with plenty of pockets, so she shoved two extra magazines into various available areas. She hooked her finger around the shoulder holster on her passenger floorboard and slid it on, checking the status of rounds in the MKXIX .50 Desert Eagle. Mostly, the gun was for brandishing, but it was the only thing that was .50 that she had, and she wanted to ensure she could blow a hole through someone's entire upper half. Proximity was always her advantage, after all. For good measure, she stuffed a grenade down her bra, between her breasts.
She shifted into her crow form and flew into the night, inky wings beating noiselessly in the sky. She could see the address in question even before she could make the house; and how. It was lit up, plumes of smoke reaching into the sky and becoming strewn about by crosswinds. She had to drop height then to avoid choking herself, and when she did, she spotted men moving on the ground. She identified them as vampires, and they were not anyone whose faces she'd been told not to destroy, so she did what any girl would do:
She shifted, yanked the grenade from her shirt, threw it, and then shifted again before she hit the ground. By the time it had exploded, she was literally hundreds of feet away, now posted in a tree. She did not enjoy hand guns when she was in a less defensible position with distance on it, but they would have to do. She turned to see brakelights of a vehicle speeding away, her keen ears catching a screaming child within. Hmm. She flew from the tree without further ado, since they couldn't figure out which way she'd gone with all of the explosions and shrapnel. Instead, she followed the vehicle, very interested in that child that her soon to be brother in law placed so much emphasis on.
When the vehicle came to a stop, Timber dropped down, landing with one knee on the hood while her other was crooked. She looked up, directly into the eyes of a black man behind the wheel, his golden eyes wide. He had a gun in his hand, but he was unable to pull the trigger before she held up her own hands, palms open. "I'm Frost," she said, bright blue-green eyes holding a certain sparkle to them. "I'm sent on behalf of Skye LeCroix via Ezekial Hunter to ensure the safety of her child."
If Timber could do one thing, it was sound like an official document.
The man behind the wheel lowered his gun. "Get in," he said, after a moment of consideration for what he'd been told. As soon as she ducked in, she drew her smaller pistol and looked out the back window, brows arched. With her free hand, she raised her phone to her ear. "Zeke? It's me. I've found them." She paused, regarding Nick. "Mostly in one piece. No, no, but it is quite odd being the only bird in a vehicle full of cats," she confessed. Nico reached up and tugged at Timber's long, red hair.
"Grabby cats," she corrected herself. "Tell Wesley all is well, and I'd like a ruby for my time. Make it a table cut - and lab created. They're a great deal more vibrant." She hung up the phone and dropped it in her lap, gaze still vigilant as they wordlessly drove to wherever the black lion was taking them. She allowed the baby to play with her hair, not making a sound when she pulled to tight or tried to put it in her mouth; for all intents and purposes, it was like Timber was not there at all.
Timber wasn't the only one who, for all intents and purposes, didn't seem to be there, because Nick was certainly laying in a pretty quiet heap in the backseat. Baptiste had to keep glancing back to make sure that he was still breathing, since bleeding out was still an option even for shapeshifters who'd taken enough damage (and it looked very much like LeCroix had taken enough damage), but he couldn't halt their flight to check on him. Having a bird drop on the hood of the car almost got the girl who appeared in its place blown full of holes (right along with his windshield) just because he wasn't playing around with these Midnight assholes, but she was quick enough about identifying herself to avoid that. She hopped inside, had an odd phone conversation with the man who'd sent her, and then shut up. It made for a quiet car ride, and Baptiste didn't mind. He found it odd that she had no questions or demands about where they were going, though it wasn't like it'd have mattered. He wasn't giving her more information until they got there and Papa could decide what to tell her.
Actually, he was even a little hesitant to let Timber carry Nico into the Lounge in her little carry chair when they parked a few paces away from a back entrance, but he'd have dropped Nick in half a second to stop someone making off with that child. It made sense, too, since she certainly wasn't going to be dragging the father in. It just made him uncomfortable, and he was certain to have her go in ahead of him. That was a good idea, anyway, because some of the adrenaline had worn off and there was one thing he was remembering that he hadn't really paid much mind to earlier.
Nick was fucking heavy.
Baptiste was a pretty big dude, well-built and strong, but Nick was built like a tank and completely dead weight here. He was tempted to try to wake the bastard up, just to make him help carry himself, but again, that was on Papa. Baptiste was delivering the two as instructed, then Papa and Tempest would take it from there. He was confident that it would all work out just fine, and wasn't at all surprised when Tempest met them just inside the door to scoop the child out of her chair and leave the crow to carry it without its passenger.
"Where we goin'?"
"Dis way," she said simply, obviously much happier now that Nico was wrapped in her arms. That seemed to be the theme of the night, various adults being more at peace knowing that baby girl was a step closer to safety.
For as emotive as Timber was capable of being, she was still expressionless and dead quiet, as though she had checked out for the duration of the venture. She carried the child in her seat dutifully, handing her to Tempest with a nod. She shifted her form to allow Baptiste and his new-found baggage of Nick go past her, and then followed behind. She'd been in the Lounge before - every shifter had, at some point - but never under a situation of such duress.
Tempest seemed to be in on where they were going, and the tall, slender woman carried the baby effortlessly, making little noises at her and changing her facial expressions as they moved. The baby seemed to respond positively. Timber had a severe lack of knowledge about children, and she didn't much care for them, but it had been expressed to her that this one was important, and she was charged with keeping her guarded, so that's what she did. She could be quite the sentinel when she was instructed to, which was odd again, as she was normally much more boisterous.
"I'll get her settled in," Tempest said. When Baptiste had set Nick down on a cot in the back room they'd been led into, Tempest swung in close for a kiss from her husband. She bent down to Nick, baby in arms. "Give your daddy love, chere, and then it's bedtime," she instructed. Nicole leaned forward and grabbed at Nick for a moment, then made a cranky noise. "Now, now, " Tempest chided softly. "I'll be back. Papa will be in with you shortly," she informed them - and then she was gone.
Timber pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Zeke's number. "Hey," she said, watching Baptiste and Nick carefully. "We're at the Lounge. LeCroix is pretty banged up, so I can't speculate about how long it's going to take to right him." She paused. "I will be here when she gets here, then." With a snap, the phone closed. Timber sighed softly, and then looked at the lion who was still standing.
"Skye is on her way. She's a bit out of sorts right now, which is to be expected. I've been told to stay until she arrives, so if you don't mind, I will remain here unless you think I can do something out there." Her tone was still lacking real feeling, and it was mostly because Timber chose to remain carefully neutral of this situation. She didn't know any of these people personally, so she was trying to remain objective.
Normally, Hamish would have been all over a redhead the moment she'd walked through the door, but when she trailed behind Baptiste (reet!) who was carrying another, larger lion (reet reet!) he knew to stay the fuck away. He practically cowered over the bar, eyeballing Bianca as they all went past him.
"What the fuck is going on?" he hissed.
Bianca didn't dignify him with an answer right away, and then sighed and threw down the rag in her hand. "You stupid, boy?" she finally squawked. "You ain't pay attention to nothin' gone on here tonight? Somethin' bad's happenin'. You do us all a favour and sit there, and don' you move," she warned him.
Hamish looked properly admonished, but it was only a passing moment. He was too curious for his own good. As soon as the lioness had her back turned, he was off of the stool and headed behind the group at a careful distance to see if he could find anything more out. He crept outside of the room they'd gone into, and screamed like a girl as Baptiste stuck his head out the door, presumably to call after the departed Tempest as she walked down the hall.
"Fuck me!" he squealed, jumping back as the imposing lion filled the door frame. He clutched his own chest for a moment, dark eyes wide. "What in the hell is going on? Since when are we taking in the wounded?"