Night's Omen

Kenzie nodded as Rafael spoke, but she didn't really hear what he was saying. She kept rewinding back to all of the trouble that they'd had before in the Hollow, where she'd thrown a fit and stormed out. She hadn't even gone to her prom; she'd skipped it, had been a huge bitch up until this point, and had even been staying at friends' houses and at the guild trying to drive the point home that she was displeased. It seemed to have worked, except until now she'd brought the house down with her. She didn't feel like she was going to bounce right back from this, so she just faked a smile and said, "Okay," a few times.

Meanwhile, Indrani and Dev were arriving to the guild in a timely fashion. It seemed everything that they did as a couple was neat and buttoned up, and this was no different. She immediately went to where she gambled Kenzie would be, and knocked softly on the door. When Rafael opened it up, which he would inevitably, she stepped just inside the doorframe.

"Kenzie, take this," she instructed without hesitation, holding a small blue pill out with a motion towards a bottle of water on Rafael's desk. "And I want you to relax. Rafael, can you keep watch over her? I have some things I need to attend to immediately,". By now, Dev was sure to be pulling groups of high level hunters together.

As Indrani left, the voices of Collen and Daniel Watkins, Onyx's doctor and her son/EMT respectively, could be heard bouncing off the walls, their paces brisk as they walked alongside the psychologist. Kenzie glanced up at the open door, and then took the opportunity to drink the pill down. She shut the door herself, and then settled back down in the desk chair.

"This is really, really crazy," she said, blankly.

Lilyana stood in the main room where all of the high level hunters had been gathered, Rigel at her side. Her phone lit up, which was odd, all things considered. She had no family, no friends to speak of, and Rachel had briefed Grayson on what was going on only moments before. He'd given them the go-ahead to proceed with caution, but warned them that he'd pull them if he felt the need. Lily hadn't been worried; she didn't "worry". Instead, she glanced down at her Blackberry, thumb gently moving over the rolling ball until she read the text. It was from Zaine, and it basically ordered her to an address immediately.

"Quinn," she said, tapping the other blonde hunter on the shoulder. "Zaine needs us. Let's jet." She spoke quietly, so as not to alert the other hunters. Zaine always executed his orders with an amount of discretion, and now would be no different. She glanced at Rigel again before she followed Rachel out of the room, grabbing her jacket from the couch as she did so.

Once outside, she pulled it on, clearing her long hair from its collar. "He wants us at the strip club," she informed her, recognizing the address after she thought about it. "Evidently we are his backup." Lily didn't doubt that it was because of their, er, skills, but it still surpised her that he'd summed both of them. Things must be more tense than she'd realized. She watched as the Lincei he favoured pulled into the garage just as she opened her car door, and then glanced back.

"Separate vehicles. I feel like we might be transport."

Rachel, much like Lily, wasn't too concerned with everything that was going on.  Sure, she was keyed up and ready to move, but she didn't have family to worry about.  It was Grayson and his people, and the guild hunters.  They were her people, which easily explained her reasons.  From the sound of things, the hunters were trying to get some teams together to go out and drag non-combatants back to the guildhouse.  She had to give them credit for working together when so many of them were obviously solo acts.  Domingos Verde, notorious for being a bitch to deal with, was displaying what made him so valuable and taking charge right along with Dev and Xander.  The three of them were sounding almost like team captains drafting players for a game, figuring out who was going with them and what was happening.  She mouthed the word 'Zaine' and gestured to her phone as she followed Lily out, giving Dev an idea where they were going, and the man nodded, then continued what they were working at.  She hoped they worked out, but she and Lily had their own mission.

"Got it," she agreed easily to Lily's information, trotting to her own car, hopping in and ensuring that she either met or exceeded Lily's speeds in getting to the club.  If the police wanted to fuck with her, she would be amazed.  The entire city was fucked.

Being Zaine's back-up, in all honesty, was exciting.  It always was, always meant they'd get the chance to fuck someone's day up, and she was all about that.  The guilds were getting hit too hard, their families being their biggest weak spots, so she was way interested in hitting some of the assholes back.  Zaine wasn't kidding when he thought that they would fighting until their limbs weren't attached any longer.  Terminator Barbie at your service.

Raven was only just now awake. She ran weird hours though, so this wasn't anything unusual. What was unusual was all of the commotion - not even in her earshot. She was in the archives, below the guild. She found it better to concentrate when she didn't need to constantly adjust temperature or switch songs or see who was calling or any of that nonsense.. Just a massive, musty library with a table and a comfortable chair and the distant sound of something dripping that was costing Lucien tons of money in the water bill every year. But the - thrumming - she could feel it, and it worried her. As a Chumomisto she was privy to some of the special extra-sensory treats that gypsies had long since lost, and she knew that there was something bad going on.

As she climbed up the spire of stairs leading the two stories back to the lowest level of the above-ground portion of Onyx, she could hear more conversations. She turned, catching Lucien by his shoulder before he could round a corner. "Hey," she said, brows raised. "What happened? I was down in the archives this whole time." Lucien may have looked annoyed until he realized it was Raven - the girl was thankfully on his good side from day one for the information she brought to the table. His posture relaxed a little - admittedly, having the gypsy around made him feel more at ease. Perhaps it was her aura, but whatever it was, he was grateful for it.

He gave her an incredibly abrupt version of the story, and then took her by the arm and deposited her in front of one Domingos Verde and his Ukrainian street witch, Olena. "Right, then," she said, her feminine, raspy voice very controlled given the situation. "Let's go collect my sister." And with that, she turned and the three of them headed to the parking garage.

Dom really didn't appreciate being pulled off of what he was doing to play escort for Raven, despite not minding the Therrayan on a personal level.  He, Xander and Dev just had something going on, pulling teams together to get civilians, and he hadn't been planning on ditching his crew so quickly.  He still did after he shot Lucien a dark look, instantly trying to leave Olena in the team that he had to part ways with temporarily.

Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon. 

He ended up having to appoint what he hope was the most responsible, experienced hunter in the group as a leader, and shouted for Dev to give that team orders while he dealt with this.  Olena obviously refused to do as he said and stay with the team, rather loudly and with much more Russian than he had any tolerance for.  After a few minutes of the two of them bitching at each other in Spanish-English and Russian-English mixes, Raven's impatience was made clear with a sharp jolt to Dom's shoulder.

"Fine, pendejo, but don't blame me if you get yourself killed!" he snapped, stomping off toward the parking garage with the understanding that they were all moving.  Fortunately, he'd made a moment in all the chaos to pull actual clothes and weapons on, a long, dark coat covering some of the more obvious firepower.  He wasn't playing around. 

It was as they hit the car, Dom sliding behind the wheel as though nobody had ever complained about his driving before, that he turned to Raven to ask where the hell they were going.  He was NOT expecting to hear that it was the Hole in the Wall, though he thought that was good news.  The people there weren't total idiots.  "We're just getting your sister?"

He had to wonder what the state of affairs was like there, and if the rest of the place would be targeted just because of Raven's sister. 

[Continued from here.]

Having braced himself for a hell of a lot more than having a few little lines carved into his arm and his throat slit, Alexander would have thought that he got off easy if it weren't for the firestone.  He had NO IDEA why the crazy female vampire insisted on it, since it didn't hurt humans and he couldn't get out of normal handcuffs, so extra power behind it wouldn't have been necessary, but it ended up fucking him over in an unexpected way.

When he died, his throat on fire and his blood spraying into the darkness in front of him, he woke up in his bed at Onyx like he expected, but he couldn't breathe.  He woke up choking, and if he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn he was drowning, but that was impossible.  That he couldn't see and his throat still felt like it was on fire was NOT a good sign, though clutching at it didn't reveal anything to be concerned about.

It took a solid fifteen minutes of just riding it out for the residual effects to wear off, and by the end of it, he'd learned a very valuable lesson: firestone was NOT his friend, in no way, shape or form.  He didn't know why, but that hardly mattered when it had that kind of effect.  That was also fifteen minutes he could have been using to get out to Samantha and the others, since he remembered hearing strange things, including Amanda suddenly giving the male vampire orders and plenty of odd comments out of the vampire himself, but without sight, he wasn't entirely sure what that had been.  Whatever it was, he needed to get to all of them, and fast.

The problem here was that his heart was still racing a mile a minute, and he had to go under again.  He was NOT stupid enough to think that going out for real would get him anything but DEAD for real, especially after the situation he'd just left, and that wasn't the easiest of things.  Still, he made himself calm down and lay back again without having even bothered to get up and do anything, which meant he hadn't noticed the dark bruised ring around his throat.  He still knew it would be there because that was just par for the course, but he didn't know how bad it was going to look later when he finally emerged.

Hint: Really Bad.

The instant he was back on his feet and armed again, he was locking the door behind him and taking off down the hall, which was where he ran into Dev and got a knowing, not so happy look.

"Something didn't go well."

"Rose, Cody and Amanda were attacked.  It's a mess, I have to get back out there," he said quickly, but Dev wasn't stupid.  He knew that if Alexander was here, it was because he'd been killed there, and suddenly, his secret was going to be out. 

"The night keeps getting worse, I see.  Collect them and come back here as quickly as you can.  I have a job that I think only you can survive, in that special way of yours," Dev offered, not waiting for an answer because he knew that Alexander would do exactly as he asked, and he wasn't wrong.  The younger hunter took off for the doors and burst through them just in time to see a familiar vehicle come to a screeching halt and two familiar females get out of it.

Well, this would be interesting.  He'd expected to have just a little more time to figure out exactly how to deal with the fact that Rose DEFINITELY thought he was dead, and Samantha may or may not have heard by the time he saw her next, but given the fact that Rose had apparently been standing in front of him when Scarlet slit his throat and was spattered with his blood, he was guessing Samantha knew, as well.

"Rose!"

 Samantha had to hand it to the girl, she didn't make one peep the entire way back. They had taken Alexander's BMW back, because Samantha didn't feel like wasting time on Rose running back up to find her own keys. She did appreciate the irony that the interior was now coated with blood as Rose struggled to get her jacket off as quickly as possible. She whipped it down into the floor panel, shaking uncontrollably despite the temperature in the car being rather warm (serpiente).

They arrived back at the guildhouse, exiting the car and beginning to go towards the entrance when they both heard someone calling Rose's name. Samantha looked up just as Alexander ran out of the building, darting towards them. Instinctively, she grabbed Rose, who was already mid-bound at him and slid her back so hard that she fell over.

"Stay behind me," she commanded. She pointed her .45 caliber right at the clone's face, knuckles white around the grip.

"Who the fuck are you?" she demanded. Her eyes were wide and wild; Samantha's body language and facial tic where her lip curled into a sneer suggested that she was going to shoot him very, very quickly.

It was fortunate for Alex that Dev came out right after him, giving Samantha the cease fire wave. She didn't lower her gun though, which said a lot about how she felt right then. In fact, instead of lowering it, she raised her other hand from its position of telling Rose to stay back and wrapped it around the grip, shifting her hips only enough to give her better aim.

Yeah, she was going to shoot him if he didn't start talking.

Samantha's reaction was...not unexpected, but once she drew the gun he was shocked that she didn't fire immediately, even with Dev's appearance.  It wasn't like her to hesitate, but all of this translated into important information for him; she'd seen him dead, and she cared a hell of a lot more than she let on.  Both upsetting and just a little comforting, but not while she was pointing a gun at him.

"Listen, if you're going to shoot me, Rose needs to go inside, first.  She really doesn't need to see me die twice in under and hour," he offered, and that was actually his first concern.  If Samantha shot him, he'd have to do it again until she stopped, and then there was Dev.  Unless she wanted to shoot him (extremely unlikely), he would have her disarmed immediately after.  This was not the first time they'd done exactly this, though not with people they knew and definitely not with anyone who knew Alexander wasn't dead afterwards.  Dev took full advantage of Alexander's skills.

The temporary (maybe) guild leader didn't want those skills being broadcast to the entire world, either, which made perfect sense and also explained why he was the one who spoke up with an alternative.  "If you're not going to shoot him, I suggest we all go inside for proper explanations, unless you've all forgotten about Midnight?" he asked, voice deceptively casual.  Alexander was also attempting casual, but what was the sense with Samantha there?  Rose might be fooled from her spot where she'd been knocked to the ground by Samantha (which Alexander did NOT like in the slightest), but Samantha knew every nuance of every expression, so no amount of pretending that everything was alright was going to make her believe that he wasn't relieved as all hell to see Rose alive and unharmed, worried about Amanda and Cody, grateful for Samantha and surprisingly unafraid of her shooting him in the face, though the idea did NOT appeal to him.  He'd learned the hard way that he would be walking around for days with two black eyes if she did it, and the raccoon look was NOT one he appreciated.  

"Samantha, please.  What can I say to make you believe it's me?" he asked, because he wasn't an idiot.  She didn't believe her eyes, so she saw an imposter.  "I deliberately overreacted about you dropping popcorn all over the inside of my new BMW earlier just to give you a hard time, I threaten weekly to get you a maid for Christmas when you've been asking for tickets to a certain amusement park instead, you once invited me through a text message to breakfast in bed with you after you found little pieces of pepperoni under your sheets and I showed up with latex gloves to help you clean up and make you take a shower.  I trusted you with my car, and more importantly, with Rose.  Can I give her a hug now, or will you shoot me in the face if I move?"

Here was the question.  He asked, but he also started towards Rose, so Samantha had to choose right then.  Either shoot him, or let him through.

 Really, Samantha didn't care that he didn't like her kicking Rose back a few feet. He'd care a lot more if she'd let her run face-first at a fake Alexander, wouldn't he? Right then. She looked Dev dead in the eyes, something that she was able to do out of sheer adrenaline and the fact that she couldn't be arsed to be scared of a precious lot at the moment. Her partner had just eaten shit, now there was some guy pretending to be him, and everyone was acting like she was crazy?

She was going to refute all of the ridiculous shit he'd told her, if only because she deeply suspected that they'd been bugged somehow, but the pepperoni thing... that was a little hard to deny. She set her jaw, and then lowered her gun as though nothing had happened, slipping it into her holster. "Those were perfectly fucking good pepperonis," she snapped, looking away and allowing her hair to cover her face so nobody saw her almost-cry. She nudged Rose with her foot, and the girl looked up from her cowering position, which essentially was the "nuclear bomb attack duck and cover".

"Go," she said, nodding back to him.

"Seriously?" Rose whispered. It seemed Samantha had done a good job of being doubtful.

"Yeah. He's real. Go."

Rose firmly velcroed herself to Alexander, and the crying began. Samantha walked behind her slowly, lips pursed in that kissyface/thoughtful way she tended to put them when she was holding back a lot of shit she knew she shouldn't say. She looked at Dev and just narrowed her eyes a little. Nobody saw fit to tell her that her partner was some sort of ditto? That rubbed her all kinds of raw. She'd definitely bring it up at a more opportune point to yell, but right now, they didn't have a lot of time.

"Amanda took her brother to the ER with the help of the vampire who I can only assume was torturing them moments beforehand. I still have no idea how she managed that, but he was pretty much enraptured with her, so I'm going to say that she's got some sort of cool ability I didn't know about." She carefully avoided anyone who looked at her when she spat that last part out. "No idea when we'll see them again, but I sure do hope she brings her new friend so I can ask him a few questions."

Samantha had a point, he WOULD care if she would have let Rose run face-first at a fake Alexander, but that was besides the point because he wasn't a fake.  He was hardly important enough to have an imposter, anyway (he thought).  The problem was that he hadn't initially considered just how flipped out Samantha would be about him dying on a hunt, not right at that moment with everything going on.  He'd been worried about Rose because she wasn't a hunter and didn't have any experience to fall back on to help her deal with this.  Samantha was tougher.

He thought.

The issue here was that as well as Samantha knew him and every facial tic he possessed, he knew her.  She didn't glance away and let her hair cover her face without him seeing, and she definitely didn't get away with explaining it away without him knowing the truth.  It was startling, but it wasn't like he had the ability to tend to her once Rose velcroed herself to him, especially after the waterworks began.  He held her tightly, his hand twining through her hair as he leaned down to kiss her and try to reassure her everything was okay, but it wasn't like it mattered what he said.  He understood.  After just seeing him die right in front of her, after ALL of it, Rose was content to just be koala'd to him and feel him solid, real, and hugging her back.  Too bad Dev was waiting silently to break it all up.

The other hunter had also noticed Samantha's reaction, and while he didn't know her quite as well as Alexander did, Dev knew people and he knew breaking points.  He saw the moment of weakness, and like a shark smelling blood in the water, he went for it.  Fortunately, he didn't do what he normally would have and instead laid his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it firmly.

"I have a job for the two of you, Miss Santos.  I'll take the young lady somewhere safe if the two of you will meet me in Lucien's office?" he offered, glancing over at her.  He was not the talent with emotions and the psyche that his wife was, but he understood that a staggering number of hunters fought off emotional issues until after the work was done when they kept busy.  There was no time, not tonight.

 It wouldn't have mattered if anyone had tried to get anything out of her. The moment had passed. Samantha was full of a very obvious rage that she could consider almost tangible it was so strong, but she wasn't going to be breaking down at any point in the evening. She would definitely maintain that 'busy til it hurt' attitude that so many of the hunters had. She nodded to him and headed towards Lucien's office, blatantly ignoring the fluffy moment occurring between Rose and Alexander.

That girl had no fucking idea how lucky she'd gotten. Speaking of luck, Samantha had a pulse of worry rush through her for the Force siblings. Amanda had seemed very possessed by something or other, and her only priority had been to her brother; Samantha could respect that, but what about the vampire? She got into Cobriana's office and leaned against the wall, allowing herself the momentary luxury while Dev tried to pry Rose from Alexander. It was like she'd put him in some sort of trance. Samantha sincerely hoped it wouldn't wear off before she could kill him. Of course, Samantha had no idea how that trance worked. Was it proportionate to her closeness to death? To his?

So many people were showing up with all of these nifty little talents. Samantha was beginning to think changing into a snake was yesterday's news. She straightened as Dev and Alex came into the room, but didn't sit down. She was still too shaky to trust that if she sat down, she wouldn't get back up.

"So, we're going back out?" she asked bluntly, eager to get to the point so she could get out of there. "Those two assholes did quite a bit of damage. I'm not really anticipating the other guilds' reports." She had no idea that Diamond had just stepped in, either, but if she did, she might have felt a little better.

Frankly, with everything going on, Devraj didn't have time to worry about anyone's feelings, but he would have tried if Samantha expressed a need to talk or displayed anything other than anger.  Since anger was her poison of choice, he was going to let her work it off instead, and if she and Alexander had to have a screaming match on their way to the rendezvous, that was their problem.  He had to give them their briefing as quickly and completely as possible so that he could team up with Jordan and O'Shea to help get this nightmare under control.  Perhaps it was best that he was there instead of Lucien for that, since not being the actual guild leader probably made him less concerned about losing his guild if Diamond wanted to shake things up.  He wasn't worried, not in the least.

What actually proved itself to be difficult enough for a worry or two was the last thing he expected: dragging Rose away from Alexander.  He could understand her sentiment and desire to remain attached to him at the hip because she was afraid he'd die (or wasn't real at all, which he didn't understand, but knew happened), but it was inconvenient and just wasn't going to happen.  Alexander was needed.

Finally getting her free, she contented herself with holding her boyfriend's hand until Dev 'accidentally' passed Indrani in the hall and made an impressive trade of the upset young female for a folder containing the information he'd be needing for the Diamond briefing and for the assignment he was handing Alexander and Samantha.  He personally thought that Indrani got the short end of the stick, but she didn't complain, and he didn't ask.  In Lucien's office, he had bigger problems.

Starting with Samantha's blunt question and acute observations. 

"Yes, Miss Santos, you both will be going back out.  I will put word out to our people to watch for the Force siblings, but in the meantime, you both seem strong and healthy.  Am I wrong?" he asked, the challenge in the statement and his eyes somehow lessened by the calm tone he'd asked the question in.

"You're correct," Alexander informed him, glancing at Samantha to see if she had a response that didn't coincide when Dev already knew that he hadn't found any evidence that Santos was physically incapable.  She didn't HAVE to go, as he could send her somewhere else, but it would be easier not to have to find a different partner for Alexander on this one.

"This is not a requirement.  The two of you are being tasked with a hostage exchange.  Crimson captured one Xavier Rush, a mistari that Midnight's Mistress is very fond of, and I've been informed that Midnight has Christian Shane's brother-in-law.  You have to pick Rush up from Crimson's infirmary, keep him hidden, and negotiate the trade.  Alexander, you will be offering the trade and handling the details, and Santos, you will be guarding the hostage until Alexander confirms that the negotiations are set.  If there are no questions, this folder has the specifics on anything you may need," he told them both, holding the folder out for whichever was inspired to grab it first.

Big surprise, it was Alexander.  Dev didn't envy him that car ride.

 Man, search and rescue didn't even begin to cover the responsibility factor. They really expected her to go to Midnight with a tiger shifter that they'd caught (she'd heard about him, took several bullets to put him down after he'd made a play for Connor with no thought to the danger), guard him, and just hang out while her evidently-immortal partner negotiated?

"Alrighty," she said. Why the hell not? How much worse could this night get, realistically?

She took the file from Alexander when he was done with it, reading more about the tiger. That the Mistress of Midnight was fond of him seemed to be an understatement. "What about his girl?" she asked. Seemed to have been having trouble separating people, lately.

"Tanya and Katya are standing by," Dev said.

She raised her brows for a second, and then nodded. There was no doubt on her mind that both of these shapeshifters were going to go buckwild as soon as whatever vampire tranquilizer they had wore off. That meant they'd need to move. She didn't know that Diamond people were already at Crimson, which could have been both good and bad for Kimber, at least. She might straighten up without the use of Tanya's ability being forced on her like a gag, but if she didn't, she'd have other people she needed to worry about more, if that were possible.

When they were dismissed, she followed Alexander to his room, holding her tongue. She'd wait until they were in the car. Then... then he was going to get it.

Alexander was acutely aware of the guillotine hanging over his neck right about then in the form of Samantha holding her tongue until they got to the car, but he'd read the same information from the folder that Samantha had, and he understood more than that without even trying.  Verity Celestino wasn't just 'fond' of Xavier Rush, she'd raised him from the time he was a small child and treated him like some fucked up cross between a son, a pet and a personal mercenary.  A highly-skilled tiger mercenary.  This was a level of responsibility that had passed 'ridiculous' as soon as it was decided that Rush was to be moved out of the security of Crimson's facility.

With a job like this to worry about, of course he would have Samantha mad at him at the same time.  It was something of a relief (though also nerve-wracking) to finally have cause to tell her the truth as he knew it, though.  That was the purpose of heading to his room, first.  Hopefully, she'd hold to that 'scream in the car' plan.

He swung open the door and immediately stepped aside, letting her in first to the room that his actual body was sleeping in.  Also nerve-wracking, since Dev and Indrani were the only people who had ever been allowed in the same room as him while he was projecting elsewhere.  He gave her a moment to see, actually hoping that she wasn't going to pull her gun again over the idea of a 'clone', and tried to formulate exactly how to explain this as quickly and efficiently as possible.  They really didn't have time to linger.

"Scream at me later, please just absorb right now," he requested softly, shutting the door behind her.  "I'm not immortal, I can just project myself into a solid form while I'm sleeping.  Don't ask me how, because I don't have the slightest idea.  When the projected form, like me standing here next to you right now or the me that was handcuffed to the chair in Rose's apartment, is killed, I wake up wherever my body is left sleeping.  Any injuries the projected me takes will show up on my actual body in a less serious manner.  I kept it from everyone, including Cobriana, under Dev's instructions."

It was a quick explanation, during the end of which, he walked up to the alarm set beside his bed and set the alarm to the time displayed on the clock itself to set it off immediately.  In the span of a blink, the sleeping form on the bed woke and the one standing beside it disappeared, and Alexander stood up with a careful eye on Samantha.  "Just remember, if you shoot me right now, it's permanent," he pointed out. 

Better safe than sorry.

Samantha seemed to take it all in stride, except for the bit where she said, "Cool, so if we ever went in somewhere hot, I'd die for real and you'd wake up like it was a bad dream. Are we done? I have to take my kitty to the pound."

Even if venom wasn't on the list of qualities that Samantha's particular breed of Serpiente included, it was high on the attributes her tongue possessed. She would make her points like pinpricks to an eye on certain occasions, and she felt it was a rather effective talent to employ when it suited her. Now may not have been ideal, but if it would shut Alexander up, she was fine. She really couldn't listen to that stacked with everything else that was going on. She'd process it later with some Mojo and a bar stool, but that would be much later and after the threat had passed.

She didn't really react to anything he said otherwise, and in fact, wasn't tapping her feet or making any other sort of huffy noise or motion that would make him think she was trying to display her anger at him. She wasn't the type to hint around being angry. He knew she was; she knew she was. That didn't change the orders they still had to take care of.

"So do I get a cat carrier or is Katya coming with us? Because I'd rather have her as a buffer if I have a choice," she said, heading out of the room. Dev hadn't really said, but she didn't feel she'd be unreasonable to ask, or in fact even to expect it. The cat-witch was a neutral party to Midnight as far as Samantha could tell; strong enough she may even be able to go inside and not worry about capture. Of course, there was a history with another vampire there that Samantha didn't know about, too.