Night's Omen

He wanted to drop her off himself to make sure that she made it, and he growled when she argued and texted Erik, but he was probably Xavier's favorite choice if she was going to travel with someone else.  He was just elitist enough to think that a tiger was better protection than something like a wolf, and they weren't talking any normal tiger.  They were talking tigers with some serious training.  Yeah, he'd prefer she ride with Erik.  If she turned around and said that Thomas was getting her instead, he'd be insisting on taking her himself again.  Shoot on sight from Crimson?  Whatever, he'd deal with it.  They'd be shooting at him soon enough, anyway.

"I don't think it works that way, Kimber," he told her, crisp accent a little lighter than it needed to be in the situation, but he was working on shaking off his worries.  They'd only weigh him down when he needed to be able to move.  He was tempted to go make a grab at someone with some serious juice when he checked in to see who he was after.  He hoped it wasn't anyone that Kimber knew, but he figured that Verity knew enough about the situation to avoid that.  Xavier would hate to have to bring down her partner or one of the wolves she was so fond of, though maybe he'd make a detour to hit up that pack that she didn't like.  There had to be someone that Verity and the others would like in there.  Too bad Kimber hadn't dropped any names, or he'd have been on it.

It wasn't like he had much to do to be ready to go, so he returned to his spot on the bed, just a moment or so before she joined him.  Personally, he'd have liked to stay right where he was, but ignoring Verity (not to mention the other summons) would have been stupid.  "I'll call when I can, just stay out of dodge, right?  They may be your guildmates or whatever, but you're more important."

It was sappier than he ever got, but he meant it.  What he also wasn't saying was that if she died under someone else's watch, even protecting that person, he'd turn around and kill them.  Just for dropping the ball and not keeping her alive.  He didn't often become fond of others, so he'd be pissed if something happened to her. 

Wren woke up so suddenly to the 'cop knock' that she almost fell out of bed, but she caught what Heidi was suddenly yelling through the door.  The gist was that she needed to get up, get dressed and pack some stuff, because the girl's dad was picking them up.  Um, why?

The thing that stuck out in her mind was that Heidi had never pulled this before.  Wren didn't know much about her dad, except that the guy was kind of intimidating, so she wasn't sure what was going on, but she crawled out of bed and did as she was told.  She was too tired to argue, and could probably manage autopilot pretty well at that point.  Clothes on, whatever was on top of her drawers into an overnight bag, then she basically did the same in the bathroom.  She'd only been asleep for a few hours, and the other two girls were grabbing the same things, so she really just didn't even bother trying to freshen up.  She didn't know where they were supposed to be going, but she was going to just sleep again when she got there, maybe even in the car.  Her night had been too stupid for staying up late on top of it, especially if there wasn't ice cream involved.  That didn't mean she wouldn't ask questions, though.

"Where are we going?" she finally asked with a yawn, her bag in front of her where she sat on the couch, pulling her shoes on.  Somehow, she'd managed to take her work schedule into consideration, since she'd packed a pair of nice shoes and worn regular sneakers, with a few pretty dresses in there.  She assumed she'd be able to go to work, anyway.  What did she know about any of it?

 Heidi was by the front door in a pair of black yoga pants, a pink tanktop, and had her white fluffy jacket thrown over one arm of the couch. She looked up at Wren as she asked where they were going, and replied, "To go get ice cream," in a sniping tone.

Zahra was sitting on the couch, busy trying to shove Heidi's jacket out of the way. "Ugh, not now," she pleaded, giving Heidi an annoyed stare. "If you're making us all get up before the sun does, I at least want to know why, too," she said. She crossed her arms and leaned forward, making a groaning noise. She felt nauseous because she'd gotten up so fast.

Heidi sighed. "Fine. I don't know where we're going. When my dad called all he said was that something had happened, we could potentially be in the fallout zone, and he was coming to get us. There. Happy?" she asked, fluffing at her perfect hair. For someone who had just eaten about four billion calories worth of food, she didn't seem to look like it.

"Fallout? Like, nuclear? Oh god, is there a bomb in the city?" Zahra asked, standing up quickly. "I have to call my parents!"

Heidi rolled her eyes. "No, there isn't a freaking bomb in the city. At least, I don't think so." She stopped when she heard footsteps on the stairs, and reached for the drawer to the small table where they put mail when they got home. She opened it and pulled out a small handgun and very, very slowly shut the drawer. She motioned for them to get back down the hallway. Her roommates, apparently, didn't need to be told twice.

"Did you know that was there?!" Zahra scream-whispered at Wren as she scuttled back to the bathroom.

Axel hadn't been kidding when he said that he was on his way, and from the distinct lack of police on the road while he was breaking every speeding law he could find, he was guessing that they were all occupied elsewhere.  If Midnight was dealing the kind of damage that it sounded like they were, he wouldn't have been surprised if they were getting calls from neighbors about disturbances all over the city, then bodies.  He'd turned the police scanner on, and wasn't surprised to hear that he was right. 

"They're hitting hard," Leo remarked, looking unhappy about it, and Axel merely nodded, his jaw clenching.  If they showed up at Heidi's before he got there...he wasn't even thinking about walking into that, but he was suddenly wishing that he hadn't been at Leo's.  The older man lived too far away from Heidi for his comfort, speeding or not.  Even so, he made record time for that distance.  Amazing what worrying about his daughter could do, huh?

Once he'd pulled the car to a stop, he checked his weapons and fixed Leo with a very grim, very serious expression.  "If I'm not down in two minutes or less, you rig this area up with explosives and assume we have opposition," he instructed, opening the car door to Leo's response.

"Two minutes?  What floor is she on?"

"Doesn't matter, I'm not taking my time.  Do it."

"Timer's on, better run."

With a nod, Axel was out of the car and sprinting into the building, not even bothering with the stairs.  He'd put out a pretty unrealistic view of parents in general, especially fathers, for Heidi growing up, and he hadn't even thought about it at the time.  He'd never really wondered if she went to sleepovers and thought about the fact that her friend's dad was slow and had a potbelly, when her dad could sprint up the stairs of her apartment building like he had hellhounds on his tail.  Worse, he was worried that hell was coming for his little girl, and that was enough.  He hit her hallway and that was when he slowed, breathing deep and calm as his sharp blue eyes flicked about and he listened for disturbances.  He was still hoping he was there before the trouble.  No signs of anything, so he took the rest of the hallway at a quick walk, knocking on the door and listening before he spoke.  The sounds inside had been minimal, and were now nothing.

"Heidi, let's go," he called in, counting to ten before he'd kick the door in.  She opened it faster than that, which was what he'd been hoping for.  He dipped inside, saw her with the gun and approved, then saw the bags that must have belonged to her roommates.  "They're here?  We have to move, Leo's waiting downstairs and he's going to start blowing things up if we're not down there in a little over a minute."  They could take the stairs down faster than he'd taken them up, he was confident.

He swept Heidi's overnight bag up, grabbing her arm with the same shoulder it was draped over, and started out the door with a quick glance around.  He kept his body in front of hers, just in case, and gestured to the other two girls who'd suddenly come out of hiding to grab their things that they should follow and be quiet.  "Nobody talks unless they see something that's going to hurt us, got it?"

A few pretty heads nodding, and he was off.  They'd better keep up.

 It was a scary run down to where Leo was, but Heidi was good under pressure. It wasn't terribly weird for her friends to see the 'ice princess' focus on something, but considering it was a situation of possible life and death, it would give all new meaning to Heidi's aggressive nature when they saw her square off with another server or rude customer. As it stood at the moment, Heidi was scared; just as scared as her friends were, and maybe even more. After all, it wasn't their father who had risked his ass to come and get them. She knew that she shouldn't resent her friends for having normal lives, but sometimes she did. Maybe that was why she was such a controlling bitch. Or maybe that was just how she was anyways.

They made it all the way down when Heidi heard something behind them. She turned around before Axel did, just as someone emerged from their apartment door. She kept in step, but she saw a flash of something in the light, and wrenched out of her father's grip. She held the gun just like he'd taught her, firmly but not so tightly that it would change her aim. Zahra had drifted left during the traveling, but Wren was still in her line of sight. She heard her father stop, but she already had the man sighted.

"Wren? Duck."

As the command was issued, her blonde friend shrieked and hit the floor, and Heidi squeezed the trigger. The man went down with a gurgled yell, and Heidi waited to lower the gun until she was sure he wasn't moving. She ran back to the body and fired another round into his already mangled head, then kicked his gun away from them, down the hall towards Wren, who was just getting up. Axel ran back to check out the body, and Heidi picked up the gun. She released the magazine briefly to check the quantity of the rounds, and then put it back in, pulling the slide to observe a chambered round.

"Nine millimeter? That's insulting!" she mused to herself. She held it out to Wren. "You do like this," she said, demonstrating how to work the piece. "Keep the safety off and point it at the ground. If anyone else comes out behind us, you point and start squeezing until nothing comes out." She looked back up to her dad, and nodded.

"Let's go, before Leo blows us up," she said with a lopsided grin. Yes, daddy's little princess indeed.

It was hard not to feel guilty when he had these girls in tow, especially Heidi, who was adapting quickly to the situation.  They were all moving at a good clip, all in good shape despite not training the way women in the guilds did, and he was thankful for that, but when Heidi whipped around to fire at an attacker that had appeared behind them and Wren had ducked on command, he felt that spike of guilt again.  They shouldn't have had to react like this, and Heidi never should have had to open fire on another living creature. 

So, why did he also have this sense of pride in her for being up to the task?  She'd even stepped up to grab the weapon their attacker had been using, then show her friend how to operate it.  Axel watched for the short moment it took after he'd examined the body and decided that it was good and dead (probably with buddies that would be coming out of the woodworking soon), and he only hoped that Wren was a good choice to be armed.  He didn't know she or Zahra well enough to judge, but he'd trust Heidi's opinion.  His daughter prompted them to move again a moment later, and he nodded, lips quirking up ever so slightly at her grin.

Yes, he was proud.  No matter what her mother said, she was still her father's little girl, and he thought she was better for being able to take care of herself the way she did. 

"Almost there," he promised them all, taking point again with his own weapon in hand, but he no longer had a grip on Heidi's arm.  He was trusting her to help keep herself and her friends alive, his cool blue eyes switching between the path ahead of them and the trail of girls behind him.  They all looked a little scared, particularly Zahra and Wren, but he was pleased to see that they were all coping pretty well.  None of them looked to be on the verge of tears, or anything quite so incapacitating as that.  That was good, since he didn't think they were done just yet, and he was right.  At about the same time that two figures appeared from the doors in front of them, which prompted him to open fire, he heard the girls behind him doing the same and flicked his eyes back that way to find that there were significantly more behind them than in front.  As soon as he had the two attacking from the lobby doors down and out, he was yelling at the girls to move, pushing the door open and glancing toward the SUV for Leo.  He got a thumbs up, rolled his eyes at the man's decision to sit quietly (he didn't have the patience for sniping or explosives most of the time), and pulled Zahra out the doors first, pointing at the vehicle.  He wanted Wren out next, since Heidi had the better return fire against this assholes, and he'd started shooting back as soon as he was able, his body pressed against the doorway in the hopes that he could find some cover there while pulling the girls out.

"Heidi, GO!" he shouted, Leo's gesture to hurry making him wonder if the man had equipped a remote or an actual timer.  He hadn't been looking for an exact count on that two minute explosion.  Shit.  He wasn't moving until she was out and headed for the car, though.

 As Heidi handed Wren the weapon, Zahra, had gulped. She didn't want a gun, so it was probably a good thing that she'd been overlooked. Instead she turned back to Axel, who was running at full speed, and tried to keep up and not get shot by someone else or by the nerve-wracked Wren in the back. As they all poured into the parking garage, Axel grabbed her and thrust her in the direction of the SUV. She didn't even look back, just ducked her head down and began running - as if she could run any faster, at this point. Once she reached Leo, she clambered up and into the vehicle and instinctively ducked down in the seat, her backpack tossed at her feet.

Heidi didn't like to admit it, but this was more exciting than scary at moments. If she'd told her father that, he'd have delivered her with a cuff across the back of the head, or a long dull lecture about how this line of work was not for her. Heidi had often toyed with the idea of joining one of the guilds, but with daddy as a guild trainer, it would be incredibly hard to pull it off unnoticed, not unless she did it overseas. Heidi supposed she could brush up on her foreign languages. She jetted out after Wren, making the small adjustments to her frame as the twists and turns needed to fire accurately without having to come to a complete stop. She could shoot and run and be slightly off, because it would make it harder for them to fire back. The whole point of laying cover fire was to screw your opponent up. Nobody likes to poke their head out into oncoming bullets, after all.

She threw her bag at Wren and dropped down by the SUV, motioning for Axel to move. She discarded the magazine out of her gun and slid another one into it, chambering the round. No, she wasn't leaving without him, so he'd better get moving.

Axel hadn't made it as a guild trainer, especially in Frost by being suicidal or stupid.  Frankly, he didn't know how Capricia had managed it, what with her history, but he knew better.  He had no intention of being left behind, regardless of his refusal to move until his daughter had reached the SUV.  He was just trusting her to move fast enough to leave him time to get out, as well, and kept glancing back to make sure that first her friends and then she arrived at the vehicle.  They all did, though she remained outside of it to provide cover fire, and he saw her little blonde friend with the gun, Wren, leaning out the open door to help.  These girls were getting some credit in his book.

With their cover fire and his own abilities at covering his ass, he made his dash for the car, leaning back against it as he gestured Heidi inside.  Leo was actually yelling out the door by now, telling him to get his ass inside and shut the door, and Axel didn't quite grasp the reason until he was slamming Heidi's door and bolting around to the driver's side.  He didn't trust Leo's driving, but he did trust the man's explosives.  Axel had gotten away without getting shot or torn up, which was quite the feat with people heading out the door while he rushed the car, but the explosion that rocked the entire building smacked him off the vehicle and then off the ground before he threw himself back to his feet and finished the trek around the car.  He jumped into the driver's seat, knowing without even looking that the vehicle would be showing signs of the abuse it had just endured, but he was pretty damn sure that his own body was hurting worse.  He could feel blood on his face, and he gave the older man beside him a sour look.

"Timer, right?"

"You said two minutes, I gave you longer," Leo retorted, rolling his eyes.  "Drive."

"This is why you and I don't work together."

"No, we don't work together because I fight smart instead of getting all bloodied up."

"Bullshit."

Leo cocked an eyebrow up at him, glancing him over like that was proof of his point, and Axel bit off the nasty return he could have offered in favor of throwing the car into drive and peeling out.  He glanced into the rear-view mirror then, more willing to focus on the girls than the ugly mug in his passenger seat.  "Everyone okay?  Nobody's hurt?" 

He knew nobody had been hit just because he'd been watching them during the dash through the building, but he still knew to ask.  "You girls did great.  I'm proud of you."

Chaos seemed to be the name of the game in the main hall at Frost. Mike stood waiting for something, anything to let him know what was going on but his impatience got the better of him. "Fuck this", he muttered under his breath and headed back to his room. He had access to a wealth of information since he was after all probably the biggest geek in this Guild. He quickly slid into his computer chair and began accessing programs.

Police Scanners screamed to life through his speakers. Shit was going DOWN tonight and in a big way, there were reports of "accidents" all over the place. He quickly clicked his mouse a couple more times and grabbing a set of headphones he tapped into the EMS radios. Ambulance crews were working overtime, collecting victims right and left. Something must have happened, something big. Unless one of the other houses had gone nuts and rogue, which he knew in his gut wasn't the case, someone had fucked with Midnight. They were the only force in the city well armed and well connected to pull this off.

"Crazy Bitch....stupid crazy bitch", he said. He had known something was up with Sarah, she had been acting stranger than normal after they got the intel about the new Master of Midnight. He could have stopped her....maybe...from leaving with that rifle. He knew she liked to kill up close, and her lugging the rifle that he had only seen her use at the range should have sent up red flags in his mind. He would have never thought she would do something so damn stupid. As bad as Midnight was, the uneasy "truce" that both sides allowed meant you don't fucking try to BOOM HEAD SHOT their leader.

As he clicked around, watching GPS dots signifying Police and EMS units rushing about the city he knew there was no way she had made the shot, Midnight would have struck back with their master dead, but this was too organized, too well planned. As he watched the dots zoom around they were heading to some of the houses he had flagged that belonged to Frost members or their families. Then he hit another a button and the window panned over to where he had Frank's apartment flagged. No EMS or Police in the vicinity, which could mean Frank was fine or he was dead.

Mike grabbed his cell and hit the speed dial for Frank's number. Midnight had launched a full scale war and if anyone knew war it would be Frank. Mike sat shaking his legs up and down in nervous agitation as he listened to the phone ringing.

"Hello...Mike what the fuck?"
"Frank listen, is your place secure? Midnight is on the warpath."
What? Why the...ok...what intel you got?"
"I've tapped Police and EMS radios, massive civilian loses, Frost is massing and bringing non coms and family in...shit is serious Frank, get the fuck out of there now and head to Crimson, and call me back when you get there...I'll keep this Intel feed going and see what new shit I can find."
"Ok...fucking Vampires....I'll load up and head to Crimson, if any new shit develops let me know it, and Mike...take care of yourself."

Mike had never really heard Frank express concern like that...but his last fullscale battle with Vampires had gone pretty bad, but that was before Frank was a hunter, Mike knew if anyone could help them tonight it would be Frank.

"Aight man, will do...if you need any info give me a shout."

Mike ended the call and laid the iPhone close by. He was a good hunter, a pretty damn good hunter in fact, but the way shit was going down tonight it looked like his skills on the computer were going to be the best way to help his Guild survive.