The movie had been horrible. It was probably the worst one, yet, actually. Samantha stood in line at the concession stand, her large popcorn nearly empty in her hands, squirming uncomfortably. She had to pee. She looked down at Alex (yes, down), and finally with a grunt thrust the trough-sized bucket at his face. "Here," she commanded. "I have to go to the bathroom right now or I'm going to piss on the floor. No butter," she warned him, her accented voice a touch lower than one would expect from a woman who looked like she could be an underwear model.
She turned and raced across the floor, moving with unexplained ease in her ridiculously high-heeled boots as Alex called after her, "If I even get to the counter before you get back!"
She crashed into her bathroom stall, literally, scaring whoever was in the stall next to her. She didn't care. She'd had an entire diet Dr. Pepper before the movie had been even ten minutes in, and between she and Alex the popcorn hadn't lasted much longer. She struggled to get her skinny jeans down far enough in the stall, simultaneously sitting down on the toilet and nearly falling over. Her jeans bunched at her knees, creating more issues because of her boots - and then of course there was the fact that the stall was designed for someone who was three feet tall and six inches wide. After another full three minutes dedicated to trying to pry the toilet paper ply by ply off of the roll in order to get a sufficient amount to wipe, she was at the sink, washing her hands.
"So do you throw up your food, or just not eat?"
Samantha turned, startled by the question of the fourteen year old midget that stood next to her. She was so surprised that she kept pumping soap, pooling it on the counter before she realized what she was doing. A flick of her blue-green eyes sized the situation up - the girl, one of those hair puffy, eyeshadow too blue, baby fat still present, jeans too tight types, was obviously trying to make a rude remark about Samantha's weight.
"You know, only in America can people judge you for not being fat enough. You fit right in here, yes?" she asked, laying her accent on incredibly thick and grinning broadly as though she'd just told the girl she liked her shoes. Which, she didn't. "As for how I lose weight, it's lots of s--"
The door to the bathroom banged open and Alex walked in, spilling popcorn everywhere. The girl screamed, and Samantha looked up.
"This is the girls bathroom, you know," she said dryly, her arms working as she dried her hands with the meager paper towel supplied by the staff.
"No shit. Hey, I hate to break up the bonding moment, but uh, we gotta jam," he said. He held up his phone - the work phone - and shook it a little.
"So does this mean I'll never know what happens to the blue cat people?" she asked, her face mocking disappointment.
"They all die," he said firmly.
Sitting through the movie with the blue cat people made Alexander wonder why the hell he wasn't at home, taking advantage of the chance to sleep dreamlessly for as many hours as he could, but he also had to admit that on some level, he was enjoying himself. The movie itself may have been more pleasant for him if he wasn't with Samantha and could just absorb it on his own, but the fact that he had her sitting next to him, making remarks that he had to respond to in kind, meant that there was no way he could possibly take it seriously. They'd made snarky comments until they'd run out of popcorn, and then they'd both elected to go get it, which was where he'd been left in line by the stork that he called his friend and hunting partner.
Yes, the stork. Samantha was gorgeous and tall in this model kind of way, and then she'd open her mouth and you just couldn't hear her and think 'model' at the same time. Her way of saying that she was in dire need of a restroom was a perfect example, but Alexander was so used to it by this point that he didn't even bat an eye over it, except to shoot back at her about how unlikely it was that he'd make it to the counter before she got finished pissing.
As it turned out, he did make it.
An almost-hesitant tap on the shoulder while their popcorn bucket was filled had him turning around, cocking an eyebrow up at the guy who'd sought out his attention, and frankly, he couldn't help looking the guy over and utterly dismissing him as both unimportant and uninteresting -- except for the fact that he'd made his presence known and stopped Alexander from completely failing to even notice him. For as observant as he could be, the hunter was also very good at dismissing uninteresting non-threats from his mind, and this man was one of them.
He didn't even respond other than to offer the questioning gesture, and that was actually enough, since the other guy made his thoughts known a second later. "Dude, is that your girlfriend? She's like half a foot taller than you, and hot, how'd that happen?"
There was also laughter involved.
It would have been just a little less funny for the other guy if he wasn't over six feet tall, but Alexander really didn't give a damn about height (usually, because he DID mention Samantha's ridiculous heels essentially every time she wore them and she wore them just because he mentioned them and it was more of a joke than a serious concern by now). He knew everywhere to hit this guy to put him on his face without ever actually touching his face.
"You probably wouldn't know this personally," Alexander said calmly, glancing the man over in an obviously distasteful fashion (he was damn good at showing disgust with just a glance), "but it's stamina, not size, that women appreciate. Given the look on your girlfriend's face, I'm thinking that blatantly ignoring her for other women is just one of your many shortcomings. Sweetheart, I promise, most men last longer than five minutes."
He managed to turn that distasteful look into something sympathetic when he looked at the girl with the unhappy look to the side and slightly behind the taller man, and yes, there was a chance he was wrong; he wasn't. She cracked a smile and her boyfriend's eyes bugged out, while Alexander's phone rang at just the right time. "Excuse me."
He took the popcorn from the kid behind the counter, giving a silent eye roll over having been given shit for his height and his 'girlfriend' while out with Samantha again, and yanked his work phone out of his pocket. That was even better, hearing Tuff's cover of 'Sixteen Tons' growling out of the little device to let him know that whoever was calling was all about work. He'd taken to using different ringtones for different people, but that was typically on his personal phone, just for simplicity's sake. Having a song at all on his work phone was unusual for him, since it was usually a more professional, non-descript ring, but he'd thought it was time for something a little different.
Apparently, so did Midnight, since the message that was quickly passed along to him made that ridiculously clear. He confirmed that he and Samantha were together, negating the necessity to call her, too, and that they'd be in as soon as possible. On his day off, naturally. Why couldn't Midnight flip their shit at the beginning of his week? It was Sunday for shit's sake!
He hit the door to the ladies' room at a brisk walk, ignoring the popcorn that spilled as he did it, and found Samantha apparently putting some shrieky girl in unflattering jeans in her place, which he normally could have appreciated if not for the situation at hand. "This is the girls bathroom, you know."
"No shit. Hey, I hate to break up the bonding moment, but uh, we gotta jam," he said. He held up his phone - the work phone - and shook it a little. Yep, because he gave a damn whether it was the men's or women's room. A bathroom was a bathroom.
"So does this mean I'll never know what happens to the blue cat people?"
"They all die," he said firmly, nodding wisely. He could have gone on about how humans would have brought diseases that the cat people had no immunity to and wiped them out (he wouldn't verbalize the fact that he didn't feel like he knew that from reading a book), but it really wasn't the time for playing around. Samantha, other than her feigned disappointment, hadn't stalled around, so when he pushed her popcorn into her hands and fished his keys out of his pocket, he was already glancing around the theater with a renewed sense of caution. The game had gotten more serious, and if they didn't want to go the way of the blue cat people, they needed to be careful. He also needed to warn Samantha, but he wouldn't do it in a crowd like this. They had to make the car, first.
"Be alert, I'll explain in a few," he told her, knowing that it would be enough for the time being. It had to be.
"So it is like Fern Gully!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening as he both threw the popcorn at her while he grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the bathroom. She stumbled like a baby giraffe, because he had a habit of locking elbows with her and just tugging - and that meant he tugged downward and across, which usually sent her wobbling around for a few seconds, all crooked-kneed, until she could regain her footing. Samantha wasn't and had never been clumsy, but Alex managed to run her into a lot of shit as a general rule when he tried to drag her anywhere.
"Be alert. I'll explain in a few," was all she had to go on, although about thirty seconds after her outburst he paused, turned on his heel, and exclaimed, "What? Wait, what?" He waved his hands and squinted his eyes, as though to stop the entire scene they were standing in. "All the fairies in Fern Gully don't die!"
Samantha nearly plowed into him, the popcorn making a loud sound as it was jarred around again. She reached out and picked a piece that now made its home at the top of the slim pocket of his button-down shirt, and squirreled it into her mouth with a quickness. Samantha had also been known to top-surf the trash and eat things she found on the floor, so this was not the most disgusting thing she'd done that day.
"In my version, they do," she informed him. He answered her with a sound of obvious disgust and then began returning to his usual warpath-like hunting mode. Samantha was happy to follow along, and when she got to his car, she set the bucket of popcorn down and grinned at him.
"So, what's the problem?" she asked. She was almost glib, and as if to solidify the matter, she shoved popcorn into her mouth and raised her eyebrows, as though she were ready to hear some long tale of woe. "Should I put on my shitty 3D glasses first?" She made a face not unlike :D at him.
He'd almost let her comment about Fern Gully go while he dragged her along. Denying that he got just a little enjoyment and satisfaction out of her clumsy, unsteady stumbling whenever he locked elbows with her and pulled would have just been an outright lie, but since he'd been known to be dishonest on occasion (especially for the sake of humor), that wasn't an issue for him. She was just too damn tall and her legs were too long, which was something she never minded pointing out when she was picking on him for being shorter, so why wouldn't he find it entertaining that she looked like a newborn foal trying to figure out how walking worked whenever he gave her a yank? Since she'd also elected to wear ridiculous heels to ensure she was even taller, she was getting no sympathy or slack.
Still, he didn't end up missing the Fern Gully reference, and even if it took him 30 seconds to register exactly what she'd said, he did notice. He was slow because he was so focused on not dying, he'd swear it. "What? Wait, what? All the fairies in Fern Gully don't die!" he snapped at her, letting her go as he gestured and squinted at her, wondering what the hell movie she'd seen, because he wasn't remembering wrong. Not about that.
She almost put him on his ass when she kept moving (that's what he got for being human and hanging out with a fucking python), but other than maintaining his balance and making a disgusted sound at her response about the fairies (the popcorn trick was ignored because he just didn't think it was gross; picking out of the trash, however, was in this day and age). He didn't really see how any response he could offer would mean anything after she pulled something like that, so he just resumed his path to the car and his attempts at watching their surroundings. 'Warpath-like hunting mode' wasn't actually a bad description, though if there was one person to keep him from getting too serious and snap him out of it, it was her.
Samantha's apparent inability to take the situation seriously was almost endearing, and he was willing to deal with it as long as it didn't impede their progress, which it didn't. They got to the car and she dug into the popcorn, joked and generally prompted even the smallest amount of amusement out of him. "I don't know if the 3D glasses will do you any good, but I dare you to wear them into the guildhouse," he told her with a quirk of his lips, the image totally inappropriate with how he imagined the guild looking and still something hilarious. "Rafael said that Midnight flipped its shit, they're aggressively targeting all hunters and their families. We're to report to Onyx immediately so that we can join the chaos."
Samantha inhaled on her popcorn right about the time he bomb-dropped on her, and ended up hacking wet yellow gobs of it onto the side of the car he couldn't see.
He paused, and gave her a flat look. "Did you just throw that up on my car?"
She pulled a dirty tissue out of the black Marc Jacobs bag she had slung over her shoulder and wiped absently at the door, below his line of sight. "No," she lied. "Targeting friends and families? You don't say - my parents are dead and I'm an only child. Aside from that, good luck finding anyone in Sao Paolo this time of year. All the people from up north go there for winter. Like birds," she added. She'd finished wiping the frothy bits of popcorn off of his door, and wadded up the tissue in her largish hands before throwing it absently over her shoulder. Yeah, Samantha was not the classy lady she seemed to be. At all.
She tugged on the door handle until he could unlock it during an interval where she didn't yank down, and she slid inside the car, setting her purse between her ridiculously long legs. Even with the seat scooted all the way back, she was wedged into the vehicle like some sort of joke. Unacceptable.
"I will not wear the glasses in, but only because nobody there knows anything about me except you, and I don't think they'd know what to make of it if I chose today of all the days to just walk in wearing them," she reasoned, though she knew he would simply call her a chicken and move on.
"Do you have any idea what we're actually going to be doing? I mean, search and rescue, or recon, or?" She immediately grimaced at the idea they'd have to go to All Hallows to pick the strippers up on the Ho Bus and take them to their respective homes, but she assumed that by now someone had already gotten that far.
Having her choke on the popcorn was almost worth her coughing it up on his car, especially since he chose to pretend that he didn't see her with the tissue and that he wasn't positive that it was an already dirty tissue she was wiping at his paint with. Awesome. It was surprising that she lied about it, but he let her, instead attempting to address her questions while simultaneously fighting with her to unlock her door. This was a regular occurrence because she was just too damn rammy to wait for him to unlock it for her, so it wasn't like he was bothered by it at all, but after about six failed attempts, he stopped, stared at her, flicked the lock as she AGAIN pulled on the handle, and then hit it again quickly after for a win.
Finally.
"Personally? I think today is a great day to show your true colors. Nobody will have the presence of mind to make a big deal out of it, because there's too much going on," he told her, tone surprisingly light for what they were actually driving into in the next few minutes. Stressing about it just seemed ridiculous, and though he didn't quite understand why, it took way too much to ruffle his proverbial feathers. Alexander just didn't stress much, especially not visibly.
That, and seeing her walking around with the glasses at the guild would have been worth faking a lighter tone to convince her. Still, business. "From what I gathered during the brief conversation, phones aren't safe, so plans aren't being discussed except in person," he offered with a shrug, though it made him wonder exactly what had given the guilds that impression. He was betting someone had learned the hard way, and that someone was probably dead. It also made him wonder just how wide the blast zone on this was, considering the police and that mess with Rafael and Gabriel Sullivan, from the NYPD. If this move on Midnight's part had anything to do with the battered state that those two had been released in, then were the police in danger? How broad was their reach? Alexander didn't have any family that he knew of, just friends, and most of them were either police or hunters. Would his police friends be targeted because of him, or were they already targets? He didn't want Felicia and Blair in trouble because of him, but calling them would only draw attention to them in the event that they weren't already targets.
"Probably search and rescue, though. Could you see Crimson rushing in for a snatch and grab operation or Frost not fucking it up and killing everyone?" he offered, smirking just a little. No, he didn't think the other guilds were that stupid and he wasn't particularly partial to any of them except that he was employed by Onyx, but they all seemed to crack on each other (much like military branches did). It helped diffuse some of the tension, and his rationale made sense. If it were his strategies and battle plans, Crimson would be attacking in quick, quiet bursts and Frost would be taking buildings and vehicles out while Onyx busted in to scoop up non-combatants. He couldn't imagine that the guild leaders wouldn't have thought that way, too.
"Maybe," she agreed. "If they're that distracted, we should switch clothes. I want to wear your short man-pants!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands as she laughed. Once, and only once, had she tried on his slacks. They came up to her shins, and she'd hiked them up so high that -- she'd made him take a photo, and called them something derogatory ever since, like boy-clothing - or man-pants, apparently, as that had now become part of the rotation.
She leaned down to go through her purse for something suddenly, popcorn spilling all over the fresh leather seat in his BMW. She ignored it in typical fashion as he tried to steer and frantically brush the oily kernals off of the leather before they stained something. He wasn't a neat freak, but god-damn, it was a month old.
"Hey, you're spilling shit everywhere!" he finally yelped, slamming on the brakes before he almost rammed his car up the ass-end of a Nissan Armada at a light. Samantha cracked her head on the dash and the popcorn bucket shot forward, wedging itself precariously between the bottom of the dash and the seat. She turned her head to the left to look at it, and then slowly snaked her hand to the top, to pull some out of it. She could see Alex glaring daggers at her between the small space the bucket and the dash had between them, and so she finally removed the entire container in favor of the floorboard.
When she did reach down to scoop the fallen pieces (and no doubt eat them), she came across something else. "Oh, a jellybean!" she exclaimed. She popped it in her mouth before Alex could say anything, and only after did he regard her with a shocked, "I HAVE NEVER HAD JELLYBEANS IN THIS CAR!" She replied, "Well, it was still good," much to his utter horror, and seemed content to fiddle with the radio while he tried to slap her hand away.
Driving with Samantha was ALWAYS like driving a 5 year old anywhere. If she could have been restrained in a child seat, he'd have found a way to do it by now. As it was, the only reason he didn't have her in snake form was because she would no doubt attempt to test the dexterity of his interior with her crushing ability, and he really didn't think 'snake' was covered in his warranty for causes of damage.
"You know, I tend to think we are getting shafted on this one," she said openly. "But it could be because I think we're going to have to do a lot of the knelling." She looked over at him, having stopped moving around for once the entire trip. Her right arm was crooked against the window, hand propped against her face, and she turned slightly to him to allow her blue-green eyes to take his facial expression in.
The two of them were very expressive. So much so, in fact, that they said a lot more with their faces than with anything else, although he by far was easier to read (when he wanted to be). For Samantha, it was her face, but more her eyes, and right now they were a little worried. She was right to feel like they were going to get the raw end of the deal here, because Midnight had killed a lot of people so far, and they were inevitably going to find homes where there were no survivors. But could she have said that at Onyx in the presence of the other hunters? Absolutely not. This was why she valued Alexander as a partner - she could tell him the truth about important things and he wouldn't judge her for them. Hell, he might even agree.
"Or we could get lucky and they'll just stop after a day or two," she added with a shrug. She doubted the shit out of that.
He actually laughed at her suggestion and the mention of his 'man-pants' (boy-clothing made sense, but he was a man and they were pants, so that one was just funny wording on her part instead of really being a crack at his height), shaking his head all the while. "No, no, no, don't even go there! I said your true colors, not mine, and there's nothing about mine that would make it appropriate for me to cross-dress, especially badly. Besides, I don't think there's enough distraction in the world for an entire guild of hunters missing me walking in wearing jeans, especially women's skinny jeans that don't fit. Nice try, though," he told her, and it was true, she deserved credit for that one. It was a hysterical image, just never, ever happening. Ever. Nobody could threaten or bribe him enough to cross-dress.
The good humor, as brief as it was, was destroyed father suddenly when she started spilling popcorn all over the inside of his brand-new BMW. No, he wasn't a total neat-freak, but he liked keeping things in proper order and he'd only had the damn thing for like a month. Popcorn stains might have been a hazard of working with Samantha, but they weren't a hazard he was allowing this soon in the poor car's life. Not happening.
Oh, God, and she was eating it off the floor. That was fantastic. And what was that? A fucking jellybean? FAN. TASTIC. Where had it even come from? He didn't even have the ability to SAY anything about it before she'd popped it in her mouth, and then it was like a bottle rocket shooting off into the sky, sudden and loud.
She needed a car seat, seriously, like little kids had. He was going to have to wipe down the entire interior when she got out, and he was certain that he wouldn't have time to that night. That, and stopping at a gas station to use the vacuum would probably be a good idea, to get any random jellybeans and popcorn pieces out. Christ.
Personally, he'd have been content to continue stewing in how much she was doing to the car in his brain, but she had to take it deeper. Fortunately for her, he was probably the best person to be that frank with. He glanced at her, all signs of amusement and even irritation washed away, and he flicked his eyes back to the road with a grim, unhappy expression. It was true that they were both expressive and that he was much easier to read when he wasn't deliberately blanking his expressions, but he didn't blank with her. "I don't disagree. The body count is going to be high when this is done, and if they've planned things the way I would have, Onyx will be the bearers of bad news through this. We'll just all have to be as quick as we can."
It was why he was currently breaking a number of speeding and general rules of the road.
"It's not very time efficient if we have to go all the way to Onyx to get instructions. Do they think the phones are tapped or something?" She dug around in her purse, the popcorn forgotten, and pulled out her phone. She examined it, and then looked back at him. "Have you made any important calls in the last few days? I haven't, but only because I've not had much going on during the week. Paperwork, mostly. I need an assistant I have so much of it," she complained.
Samantha's problem with having too much paperwork was entirely her own fault. Her files lined her apartment - literally. She had, at one point, had a kitchen table, but it had long since been buried by Manila folders stuffed to the brim with assignments that were completed. She had finally, at the insistence of Alexander, gotten a cork board to put current cases on, but it had actually fallen off of the wall when she'd tried to put too many thumbtacks worth of paper on it. She acted like she didn't know it had a weight limit, and Alex spent an afternoon helping her repair the holes in her wall. The worst part? She had all of the same information on a USB drive that she kept in her room, but she still insisted on keeping the paper copies.
"I wonder where they'll send us first," she mused, scratching her long fingers against her chin as she looked out the window. They were really flying - she realized that they were already almost there.
He remained silent, eyes flicking about the road in front of him and a muscle clenching for just a few seconds the only real indication that he was furiously going over the little they knew about the situation in his brain, trying to meet her questions with the absolute best guesses he could, and he didn't really want to tell her. In the same way that she appreciated that she could speak plainly with him without him judging her, he appreciated that he could speak his mind her without mincing words or worrying himself with tact, but that still didn't mean he wanted to be telling her just how bad he thought this had to be. He was still hoping he was wrong.
He didn't think he was.
"Only work calls, guild and police," he told her, back to thinking about Felicia, Blair and all of the other people that he very well might have put on a list because he'd been in contact with them and might have almost considered them friends. He didn't really have much of a social life outside of Samantha, Devraj and Indrani, or sometimes joining Raven with her books (he had a talent for languages, he'd found), so it wasn't like he had a girlfriend to endanger. Just people that were utterly innocent and just trying to do a job. Damn it.
He scoffed at her mention of an assistant, something that might have made him laugh just a little if the rest of the conversation weren't so grim, but he still couldn't resist pointing out the obvious in the situation, and that was that she did NOT need an assistant. "You need a maid and a haz-mat suit, not an assistant. Really, consider it, if only for my health," he told her, and though he wasn't laughing and teasing like he might have, it still held that mixture of truth and banter that was familiar and usual with them. He wasn't kidding when he said she needed a maid (and he was considering hiring one himself for her for Christmas this year, though perhaps without the haz-mat suit), and Victor Batten had started treating him after the third time he'd gotten a virus inside of a month at the insistence of the Rashanas (Batten seemed to hate dealing with illnesses, but he had a good mind for them); the man had told him that he had the immune system of a toddler entering daycare for the first time (he'd also called children 'plague rats' in the same conversation, which had probably endeared him to Alexander more than it should have). While he was obviously gaining immunity with each new illness he was exposed to (and Batten's attention to detail where vaccines were concerned was certainly helping), he caught basically every virus that passed through the police station or guildhouse; he really didn't need to be exposed to whatever was running rampant in Samantha's home.
Truly, continuing to tease her about her mess would have suited him just fine, but there was the issue of the phones, and that was what he was still mulling over. He didn't want to give her false information, and he didn't have enough on his own, but he had plenty of ideas. "Rafael was adamant about not discussing plans and locations on the phone, so they must have come to the conclusion that the phones are tapped. Really, that likely means that the GPS makes us easy to track as well, but the only alternative is turning the phones off and hoping that we don't miss any vital, last-second communications," he explained, shrugging because it was a lose-lose situation there. "If they think the phones are tapped, then they either have an inside source that says they're tapped, they caught someone and made them talk, or the wrong information was passed through an insecure line and someone got into trouble over it. I would be willing to bet that if it's the latter, whoever suffered for that mistake is very dead right now."
Glancing at her again, he fixed her with a level, serious look. For once, he was very worried about her. She was so capable and certainly more durable than he was, so he didn't often worry that she'd be seriously hurt or killed when they went into a job. Of course, he still took chances that he probably shouldn't because he wasn't afraid of dying on those assignments, but he didn't really think that she'd be in trouble or be unable to handle what came at them. Tonight, it was very likely that neither of them would be able to handle it, though he had an advantage that made him uncomfortable in her case.
Samantha blew off his comment about her apartment. "If you get me that for Christmas and not the tickets to Six Flags I told you I wanted, I will beat your face in," she told him severely, her head jerking over at him as her eyes narrowed. She'd been looking forward to the massive amusement park all year. She'd just throw everything in the garbage if she had to - and she would. She only had one cleaning mode - she called it 'putting it in the T file'. T. For trash. It was true she never threw anything away, but once she did, it all got rounded up and burned.
"I'm sure the police can handle themselves," she said, leaning back and returning her gaze to the quickly-passing scenery. She didn't know if she really believed it, but they weren't her obligation. She didn't say that, though.
When they got to Onyx, Samantha was sliding off her fashionable peacoat and silver scarf as they walked down the hall, her bag at her forearm as she walked. She looked incredibly out of place among all of the other, shorter people, but Alexander walking alongside her in his well-dressed way made her look more at home. They complemented eachother more than just mentally. One always seemed to tether the other, in some fashion or another.
"Is Lucien even here?" she asked, crooking her head sideways to Alexander as she casually slid between the thinning crowd. "This guild is empty - incredibly empty. Where have Zaine and Lily and Quinn gone?" She had no idea about the club, or any other nonsense.
It was actually kind of scary how well the two of them knew each other and their thoughts sometimes, and when she not only called him on his Christmas plans (a muscle in his jaw had tightened, but he hadn't said anything or even looked at her to give himself away), but also went and mentioned the police and his concern for them, he couldn't help but shoot her a sharp look. She might have thought that the police could handle themselves (and he didn't actually think she believed it anymore than he did), but he wasn't so sure. If they didn't know what was going on, they were going to be spread out trying to deal with the ridiculous number of calls they would probably have. That would leave the non-combatants alone and unprotected.
Still, he didn't respond, figuring it was better not to discuss it and give his worries more life, and he was still silent as they entered the guildhouse. It wasn't as empty as she made it out to be, but he absolutely understood what she meant when she said it; there were people, but they were all lower level hunters. All of the big guns were missing, and he was hoping that it was because they were assembled somewhere trying to deal with this, or because they were out doing their jobs. He had no way of knowing who had and hadn't checked in to say they were alive.
"Someone has to be here," he pointed out, because there was no chance that none of the heavy hitters had shown up alive and they wouldn't have all left the guild with no leader. Someone was here, it was just a matter of who. Honestly, after glancing at his phone and seeing the calls he'd missed when they were in the movie, he was betting he knew who was there. "Dev and Indrani are here somewhere, they called while we were in the movie. Dev will know what the plan is."
Yep, that was his goal. Find Dev, see what was happening and where they were supposed to be, and go do it. Pretty simple.
Samantha spotted Indrani before she saw Devraj, mainly because the woman was too exquisite to miss. The woman had dressed comfortably and in black, much to Samantha's enjoyment. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, making her eyes appear even more feline than they normally were, what with that exotic green-gray hue. She was standing by the door of one of the offices, papers in her hand and a phone in her other. She was speaking to Daniel Watkins, one of the medics at Onyx, and she looked up as he glanced over her shoulder to the approaching duo.
"Ah, Alexander," she said, her accented voice like a spring song amid the thrum of chaos that swirled around them. "Daniel, your mother will be at Frost for the remainder of the evening. I pray that you can keep up here. Doctor Batten is still off of the grid. I fear the worst, but Devraj has assured me that we would be more likely to know of his death than of his survival."
When Daniel left, she gave her attention fully to Alexander and Samantha. "I assume you've both heard. Alexander, I know this is your night off, so I imagine you are without a doubt thrilled. Come, Devraj has had to take over since everyone else is gone." And with a turn and swish of her long ebony mane, she lead them to her husband.
"That's okay, this just means I don't have to sit through any more blue sparkly cat people. I felt like I was watching a Hello Kitty Pixar movie," Samantha sniped. She heard Indrani suppress a laugh and marveled - had nobody liked that stupid movie? Why was it still in the theatres if everyone she met had that reaction? She looked pointedly at Alex, who glanced back at her as if to say, 'Don't say it.'
"Where's Lucien?" she asked. She set her purse down in a chair and thrust her hands into her pockets as they were brought to Dev, and leaned against a doorframe casually. Not that she objected to Dev being in charge. She was a Serpiente, and Lucien was supposedly the leader - Samantha didn't have loyalty like some people did, though. It wasn't blind, and she certainly didn't feel obligated because of a title.
Alexander would have agreed with Samantha calling Indrani 'exquisite' because it was absolutely true, but there was the usual rush of pleasant comfort that came to him with the woman's presence and his relief at seeing her safe to go along appreciation of the image the woman cut. There was also the fact that if Indrani was here, Devraj couldn't be far, and that was important and a relief in itself. Alexander respected that man enough to follow any order that could leave his mouth, just as he loved Indrani enough to do the same for her. Actually, if Alexander ever remembered enough to remember Verity and the effect she had on the people who worked for her, he'd probably think that Indrani and she had the same kind of deal going on; people did as they wanted because they loved them. Alexander hadn't loved Verity the way so many others had, but he'd been fond of her from the time he met her, and always treated her with respect. Indrani was entirely different, and he'd die at her word.
"Indrani," he greeted with a nod as she said his name, and realistically, he'd never admit just how much he liked these women saying his name in their lovely accents, but he did. It was fine, because they all knew it rolled off of their tongues well, and what man wouldn't like that? The news about Doctor Batten was unpleasant, but Alexander agreed with her and chose not to worry too much over the ordeal; if Victor Batten was dead, what with as close to the guilds and Connor Batten as the man was, Niall would have him strung up somewhere public for everyone to find. The new Master of Midnight wasn't a man to be trifled with. She turned to them fully once she'd sent Daniel off to go brave the infirmary without his mother, and Alexander shrugged slightly at her mention of it being his night off, drawling off a response that might have sounded serious if one didn't know how he made his dual schedule work without falling flat. Indrani did. "Oh, it's fine. Sleep is for the weak, so I didn't need the day off, anyway."
In all honesty, he really didn't mind dissing on Avatar with Samantha, but he hadn't disliked it as much as she seemed to. He didn't tend to have serious issues with many movies, though. Really, he went in and enjoyed them on a very simple level, didn't often pick them apart, and was fine afterwards. It was what made Samantha going on about this one so funny, and at a time like this, so worthy of his 'don't even say it' stern look. Fortunately, it worked, but she went on to ask where Lucien was, and that didn't seem to be much of an improvement.
"We don't know. Zaine made contact with him when all of this first started, and that's the last anyone heard of him," Dev responded, glancing up from the lists and various building plans he had in front of him. He hated sending teams of two out as rescue, but with as many people as were unaccounted for, there really wasn't much choice. They wouldn't get very far with larger teams, so he had to trust that the people he sent out could take care of themselves. "Alexander, what do you think Midnight would do if they had him?"
Dev had his own ideas, but he wanted to know what Alexander had to say. The hunter might not have known that he knew Niall, Verity, Justinian and Iloquil, but Raven had found plenty of rumors and reports in her research of the vampire Alexander being involved with all of them. Frankly, Dev was a little nervous about Alexander going out there against Midnight and Niall because of that history he didn't remember, but he had to be confident about it; fate had given Alexander to them for a reason, so why would it snap him back up when they needed him most? Indrani's faith in the younger hunter was also something he trusted, and so he had faith, as well.
Alexander flicked his eyes to Indrani when Dev asked him, and the best he could offer was exactly what he'd thought about Victor Batten. "If Midnight has anyone high profile or important of ours, they're going to make it known. Niall will either kill him and display him publicly, or he'll keep him alive for some purpose and be in contact fairly soon." He didn't know why he suddenly thought of castle walls with heads on spikes and proud men driven to their knees, but it seemed too true to dispute. He had no doubt that Niall was the sort, and he didn't even have the full details as to what had happened with Gabriel Sullivan and Rafael.
Alexander was surrounded by lovely women saying his name, indeed. He had yet to meet the baby-faced fox from Crimson who'd come in recently, but Samantha guaranteed she'd have to hold him down before he chased after her. Alexander wasn't a dog, by any stretch of the imagination, but when it came to foreign women... He'd tried to go out with an American once, and it had been a date that he'd have to use their 'escape code'... "Samantha? What? I'm sorry Wren, I've got to run! My partner had a flat and she's in the ghetto. You understand, right?"
If Samantha only knew that Wren hadn't had a successful date in.. well, ever.
At the prospect of Lucien being taken by Midnight, Samantha's brain came back down to earth. "Wait, what?" she barked, blinking rapidly. "He's not stupid enough to get caught, is he?" Samantha didn't bother watching her words - it was no secret Onyx had nearly had a coup earlier that week, but the tension hadn't yet been broken completely. Still, Samantha didn't trip over what she said for anyone, be Dev the person currently in charge or otherwise. What would they do, bump her to another guild? Fat chance. Alexander wouldn't have it. Though, she spoke her mind because she spoke her mind, not because she was aiming to be a bitch.
She thought it was odd that they asked Alexander about it specifically, but she didn't say anything aside from an obviously interested glance in his direction. "So, how do we find out? Or will someone just find a hand in their mailbox tomorrow?" She looked from Indrani to Dev to Alex and back again. Indrani gave her an admonishing look, but said nothing, and Samantha shrugged. "Well!" she protested.
Just to set the record straight, Alexander would not need to be held down if he met that fox from Crimson (or any other foreign lady), but he definitely would have been interested in talking to her. The biggest problem he'd actually had with Wren was not that she was American (though having an amazing accent would have probably made him linger longer), but that she seemed to young. Indrani had called him an 'old soul' since he could remember, and the best he could figure was that he would be happiest dating another 'old soul'. Wren had just seemed entirely her age, which was young. Samantha had been very helpful in helping him with that one.
"Actually, I don't think that intelligence factors in all that much right now," he offered with a surprisingly casual shrug. This was a big deal, but he felt like he'd seen worse. He caught the glance Samantha shot him, obviously curious and interested even if she didn't point out what she'd noticed, and he figured he'd hear it later. Since he didn't really know, either, that was going to be fun. How did they find out? The hand was actually possible, though he thought it was less likely than a couple of other things, like a snakeskin. If it was him, he knew that he'd have been sending exactly that, and his jaw clenched at that fact, which he kept silent for pretty obvious reasons. "We either find him alive and free, or we wait. If he's been captured, we'll hear about it."
Dev nodded, having been expecting as much, but hearing it from Alexander cemented it. The things that Raven and Isolde had dug up on the man were enough to make Dev trust his opinion on these things, especially considering who was involved. They would have to hope that they got to Cobriana first, and if not, wait and see. It wasn't as though they didn't have enough going on to keep them occupied until they found something out.
"Then, we'll have to be alert for him, but we can't afford even a pair of hunters to go searching specifically for him. Our guild is making up the rescue squads and bringing in families even as we speak. Crimson and Frost are taking the offensive to take the attention off of our people while we do this. Please go to the conference room to find out where we need coverage and who still needs assistance, and keep your phones with you. I'll be in touch if anything comes up," he instructed, well aware of who his people were. Samantha wasn't partial, but she came as part of the deal with Alexander, who was very much Dev's man. If anything serious happened, Dev would be contacting Alexander to accomplish whatever task he needed, perhaps even before Zaine. Unlike Dev, Zaine was far more loyal to Lucien than anything, and the mamba would go to great lengths for his leader. It was admirable, but Dev truly didn't know what kind of situation they'd find themselves in where Cobriana was concerned, so having Alexander within reach was a good idea.
Dev was no fool.
Samantha's brow arched, and she looked at Dev. Something about the phone situation was bugging her. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she swallowed whatever she was going to say, and nodded. To Alexander, she simply said, "I guess we're on." With that, she bid adieu to Indrani and Dev, and re-shouldered her bag.
"I need to stop and grab a few things from my room, and then we can go." She paused, spun on her heel, and turned to look at him so fast that she had to put her hand out before he bumped her. "How is it that they keep finding all of the hunters? Do you think they're tracking the GPS in our phones? Should we keep our phones on us?"
She didn't really know how to function without her phone, which was funny considering she'd grown up fine without one, but in a situation such as this it was kind of integral to be able to communicate. Messenger pigeon?
When Alexander and Samantha had left, Indrani put a hand on her husband's shoulder and smiled a grim smile. "I fear the worst for Lucien, Devraj. This entire situation is just... " It was rare for her to be at a loss for words, but she held her other hand up with her palm open to explain her lack of ability to explain how she felt.
With a sigh and a brief perk of her brows, she simply said, "I hope that you are ready to take over this guild, because I feel as though it might come to that."
Alexander nodded acquiescence to Dev, gave Indrani's shoulder a light squeeze as he passed her and was gone with his orders, well aware that even if keeping the phones on them seemed like a bad idea, he would do it so that Dev could maintain contact with him, but when he and Samantha split up to prepare themselves for the battles they'd be going into, he was going to make arrangements to ensure that Dev could get him no matter what.
Despite her lack of faith in his reflexes, he probably wouldn't have smacked into her when she twisted around like a maniac, but throwing her hand out to keep him from running into her essentially ensured that he bumped into her hand. Other than pursing his lips and quirking an eyebrow up at her, he took her usual spontaneity being amped up in stride, and since she actually had a point, he was better off not giving her a hard time about it.
Yes, she had a point, and even more surprising was that he had an answer. He hesitated before telling her, but that was more because he wasn't sure how he knew and even how much of it he should trust because he had no idea how he knew it than because he didn't trust her. Dev's faith in his knowledge of this situation was worrisome enough, but that he was consistently delivering was worrying him more. Hesitation or no, he still flicked his eyes away just a moment to choose his words a bit more carefully, and then returned them to her. He didn't like not understanding his own mind, but he'd thought he'd gotten used to it by now. Obviously, he hadn't entirely.
"They're listening in and using the GPS to find and trap us, so being careful about discussing anything in a call is still important, but we don't have a better form of communication right now. We have to hope that Crimson and Frost take enough of the heat off of us that we can get through to the civilians," he explained, not mentioning that while he knew somehow that there was someone on their side that could tap into all of that as easily as the rest of them drove to the supermarket, he didn't know who it was, what they looked like, or even how to find that information out. He had no way of knowing that the time he'd spent with Niall and Verity had told him that much, but that he'd never met the lovely lady who was causing such havoc with her ability. "Unless you have a better plan? I have to grab some shit, too, so I'll meet you in the hall in a few minutes."
He didn't wait to hear what her better plan was, figuring he'd give her time to think on it. If she really did have a better idea, he was all for it, but short of losing contact with everyone, he didn't know how else to utterly fall off the grid, and even then, they'd have to steal an older car, one that didn't have the modern computers and GPS locators in them. It was possible, but it'd be a pain in the ass.
Fortunately, he had something of a response for the issue of ambushes. When his door shut behind him, he didn't hit his closet and load up on weaponry. Instead, he pulled collapsed onto his bed, throwing his alarm clock a glance as he considered whether or not to set it, and decided against it; if he got into that much trouble that he needed to be woken up, he was going to have to figure out a way to kill himself, because he couldn't risk being yanked out of a fight at a crucial moment if his timing was off. With no alarm set, he laid back, took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes. With the mess they were in, sleep certainly wouldn't have come easily, but he had centuries of experience in passing out quickly and getting on with it. He crashed out and projected his thoughts into the still room around him.
He stood up from a seated position at the foot of the bed, dressed in a suit that was custom-tailored to him and designed to prevent snagging or restrictive movement in a fight, as well as to hold the weaponry he would be needing. Having already wasted a few precious moments, he armed himself quickly and completely before pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and dialing Dev. "The usual routine and location are acceptable if you need me."
With that said, he returned to the hallway to meet Samantha, hopefully ready for the night ahead of them.
Watching Samantha and Alexander leave the room, Dev had to wonder if Indrani shouldn't be fearing the worst for ALL of them. He could only hope that it wouldn't be the last time he saw those two leave a room, and though it wasn't going to stop him from using them as the weapons that they truly were, he didn't like this. That was likely Indrani's influence on him.
"I fear for Lucien as well, but he has to make his own way through this situation. Whether the final insult to Midnight was his doing or not, he pursued the chain of events that brought us here, and it may very well be necessary for him to work that karma away on his own. I won't cheat him of that, or save him from it," he said firmly, though he wasn't pleased with THAT idea, either. Whether it was for Lucien's own good or not, he had a lot to atone for, and Dev wasn't sure if the snake was going to survive it. He might not have had Zaine's loyalty to the man, but he was Lucien's friend, and he didn't want his guild leader to die. He also wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of taking his job, either.
He should have thought about what Eden thought of taking Lucien's other job. "Lucien will be back when the time is right, and I will hold his guild for him until then," he agreed, and he hoped he was right. She'd gestured very clearly that she didn't have words for the situation, and he certainly didn't have anything to fill in the blanks, but he took her hand in his and leaned in to kiss her, gentle and chaste. "I hope that I'm ready, as well. I don't think I'm the strong, compassionate leader that this guild needs, but with you here, I am less likely to fall short. Come, Indrani, let's try to ensure that Cobriana has a guild to return to after all of this."
The way things were looking, he might not, but Dev was going to do his damnedest to get this situation under control.
Samantha didn't really have a better plan. She'd grown up in Brazil without things such as cell phones and the internet, so she could have thrown her phone away and never thought about it again. Of course, that wasn't the way the world worked, and so she had to join the rat race like the rest of them, regardless of how she felt it might negatively impact her later on. She could have suggested a pager, but she hadn't seen one in years, and the prospect of trying to talk Alexander into carrying one with his four-digit figured suit on was... not likely.
She didn't bother to change much, but she did shove her hunting knives into the recesses of those tall boots she wore. She had a compact .45 caliber at her back, and after a moment she kicked her boots off and whipped out a pair of boot-cut jeans from a drawer. The shoes and skinny jeans went flying across the room as she leaped (literally) into the jeans while simultaneously kicking a tower of shoeboxes down so that she could locate the ones she wanted. Finally, a pair of more practical black shoes came out, and with that the freedom of an ankle holster, where a .22 could be reached. She hesitated on her knives, and finally found a way to secure the sheathes to a leather wrist cuff she had, making it a hidden but effective piece should she need it.
She dropped a few extra magazines into her bag as she walked out the door, tossing aside her long sand and sable coloured hair as she did so. She almost took a full tackle by one of the Force siblings as he came jetting down the hall, looking concerned.
"Cody?" she asked, shrugging her bag onto her shoulder comfortably as Alexander waltzed his way up to her through the thrum of people.
"I can't find Amanda," he said. "I think she's with Rose."
Samantha looked from the boy to Alexander, her brows raised as her mouth fell half-open. Samantha had sort of assumed Alexander would have made provisions for Rose in the event something like this should occur, but she could tell by the tight-lipped expression he wore that he had obviously assumed Amanda would have been smart enough to just bring her to Onyx as soon as the call came in. Cody confessing he hadn't seen either of them was... bad.
"Alexander?" she prompted.
No, a pager was NOT happening, and part of that was convenience. If you didn't have a cell phone to call the number back or some kind of code set-up, you had to find a pay phone to respond, which was a stationary target instead of the moving one that a cell phone could be, and practically impossible to find. It just didn't work.
He'd thought he was ready to take off with Samantha when he wandered over, but she was already involved in a conversation with Cody Force. That was a bad sign, and Alexander knew it immediately.
See? He should have called Rose, or better yet, gone and collected her himself. Now, he'd avoided contacting her to keep her off of the hit list, and Amanda had gone and put her on the radar anyway. Excellent, and they already had orders.
He clenched his jaw as he considered their options, feeling stupid all the while for thinking that Rose would be safe without his interference, either because Amanda would bring her to Onyx immediately or because she wouldn't be targeted, and then frustrated that he couldn't just go and get her right then. It left him few options, and one of the best was standing directly in front of him. He gestured Cody along with him and Samantha as they made their way to the parking garage, and he was certain to drop orders of his own on the young hunter.
"Bring them back here," he instructed, and no, he wasn't leaving any room for failure there. "If there's too much heat, one of you let me know immediately."
Hopefully, there wouldn't be.
And so Cody went.
"They'll be fine," Samantha said as she and Alexander picked up their pace again. She could hear Cody ripping out of the parking garage as she held the door for Alexander, and nodded to herself, as if to confirm her thoughts. She had no idea what was actually in store for them, but Cody's attitude did inspire confidence at least. That and the threat of what Alexander would do should he return with only one or neither of the girls in tow -- it simply wouldn't happen. Cody would die first. She hoped it wouldn't come to that.
"First on the list," she said with a sigh as she sat in the BMW. "Oh, Rhona," she said, her tone unenthusiastic. "I don't suppose you think she's with Lucien? Or should we try for Dr. Batten first?" She glanced up at Alexander as he began guiding the car out of the garage.
Oh, the things he would do to Cody if he survived and those girls didn't. Alexander wasn't known for being irrational or unreasonable, but there weren't many conditions that would grant Cody any sort of clemency if he didn't protect the two of them, especially Rose. Alexander was surprisingly fond of her, in a way that he didn't really feel was usual for him, and he wasn't about to lose her just because a group of vampires decided to be idiots.
Samantha wasn't exactly the most comforting force at that moment, telling him that they'd be fine as the two hunters went out to his BMW, but she got credit for trying and then did one even better and moved towards distracting him with business. That was a much more fruitful venture, especially when she offered him options.
"If I were to guess, I would bet Lucien went to Rhona first. He's predictable that way," Alexander offered dryly, knowing that Lucien had a brother who ran a business with plenty of exotic shapeshifter breeds represented, but Lucien wouldn't have gone there. It would have been to Rhona. That meant that Rhona was either already dead, or she was safe. Either way, Alexander figured traveling to her would be a waste of time. "Let's see if we can fine Batten. I'm sure Crimson would be happy to have their surgeon back right about now."
All things considered, he was probably right, and he didn't even know what condition Connor had shown up in.