Night's Omen

Ash was capable, alright, but he was still about to deal with what was essentially a terrorist attack on his bar on a busy night.  He shot through the crowd even as he heard Darren shouting for him, but the leopard and his wolves were already on the move, gestures to direct them where to check all that he needed.  He made eye contact with Eli and then the man alongside him, and Eli twirled his finger in the air, which Ash took to mean that the people needed to be rounded up.  Acceptable.  With a nod, Ash was out the doors with his shifters in tow.

Outside, Aidan, Serena and Aoife were already on site, along with plenty of others, which Ash really didn't have time to deal with.  He was instantly scanning the area for a source, reaching out hard with everything he had, and he was just touching on something strong when Aidan grabbed him by the arm and whipped him around.  Darren, Anthony and Dave were taking to the edges of the people gathered to make a perimeter that would allow them to figure out where the threat was coming from and try to get people back inside, but Ash could feel their attention all zero back in with a rush of the kind of energy that shifters all used.  Aidan was pissed, which Ash understood, but they didn't need this.  He put his free arm up to gesture his people back, irritated to have lost his grasp on that force, but Aidan's fanged face and inhuman eyes staring at him from mere inches away was a bit more important right then.

"This is not helping anyone, Aidan.  Let me go," he told the other, voice calm despite the panic surrounding him.  He could feel it like it was an external voice, everyone around him keyed up and ready to either fight or bolt, his shifters itching to shed their human forms, those that were trained in bad situations on edge and those that weren't scared and teary.  It was insanity. 

"You call this safe, Leone?"

"I can't protect against it if you won't let me," he pointed out, already yanking at the gargoyle's auras as much as he was able to, trying to pull the rage out and throw some of his own calm in, but it was setting him off-balance.  That was how much anger a gargoyle could pump out.  That Ash was also trying to even out the crowd wasn't helping, and Aidan was seriously only a small step away from trying to yank his arm off.  "Take the women back inside, it's safer there.  We'll handle it out here."

He wouldn't dare suggest Aidan leaving Aoife somewhere, even if it would be a huge help to have the gargoyle actively trying to help them, because he figured the bastard would really snap at the suggestion.  He yanked on his arm, and Aidan released it, but he got the feeling it wasn't over.  Unfortunately, turning away from the pissed off ancient, he threw his power out over the crowd harder and didn't feel that presence any longer. 

"Merde!" he cursed, the French and the foul language the best gauge as to how pissed he was, but he kept pushing his influence over the crowd, trying to counteract the panic and fear.  Calm, he breathed, it would be taken care of.

 Aidan being angry wasn't going to change anything, but it did help Raphael a little - the ancient gargoyle managed to make himself enough of a distraction that Ash lost what concentration he'd been making to find where the source of the panic in the crowd was coming from. Raphael took a moment to try and zero in on people who individually had issues with the situation at hand, and lucked out - hate to say it, but most of them lived in New York in 2001, and most of them had a distinct fear reserved specifically for shit hitting buildings.

Raphael pinpointed that, especially on some of the humans, and had them putting out enough aural dissention that the Triste would have his hands full for a few fucking hours trying to fix that. Huehuehue. Raphael was such a fucking troll. He grinned a little as Tucker watched him work, happy for once that someone he'd been paired with was every bit as asshole and was willing to sink to his level of fun.

"Do the cat, do the cat!" Tucker said, pointing down at the female that huddled close to the gargoyle and the - the fucking Elemental.

"I don't know if that's a good idea, man," Raphael hesitated. "I can piss off Leone all day long, but the gargoyles we sort of don't fuck with."

"You don't, you mean," Tucker corrected him. He was fairly certain that fire beat fucking rock any day of the week. "But, I mean, if you're too scared..."

"Oh, fuck you, Tucker," Raphael spat. With that he turned back to the cat and concentrated. He didn't even bother trying to delve into her mind, she was so scared already her protective barriers wouldn't have mattered - her fears were bubbling to the surface. Something about her gargoyle boyfriend (what the fuck was it with these rockheads lately, did they have nothing better to do than creep on NYC?) being deployed, being hurt in the line of duty (he seemed like real life COD based on her mental images of him) and of course, of her dying in some terribly tragic and ultra-normal way because that would mean that life wasn't magical or some shit. He didn't get that part much.

But just because he didn't understand the last fear didn't mean he couldn't capitalize on it, and he absolutely did as much. Serena practically crumbled in Aoife's arms, suddenly unable to breathe and pretty much ready to piss herself in the wild revelation that this was a coordinated terrorist attack and that Ray was dead.

"Aidan!" Aoife said, finally shouting at her lover to fucking do something instead of stalking around angrily. It wasn't often that the Chime was angry, or yelled, but when she was pressed to do both, it generally yielded results favourable to her.

"Ah, shit," Raphael snapped. He saw the gargoyle turn and cast a glance up to where they were."Got that fire ready there, broseph? Because I think we're about to need it."

"Leone's got some oomph," he remarked, glancing at the vampire that was essentially getting into a battle of wills with the triste over whether the crowd was going to be calm or insane, which Raphael would inevitably win because nobody would leave the blonde alone long enough for him to really do much of anything.  If it was up to him, Ash would continue to get distracted, though the gargoyle leaving him alone was unfortunate, especially when Raphael's new tactics (which Tucker had oh so skillfully goaded him into) put the gargoyle's attention in their direction.  New game, fuck with the triste, and preferably get the gargoyle off their backs.  "Fire in a minute.  You get your ass kicked before I get back and I'm telling everyone." 

Or at least, he would until he got his brain fried again, which was probably coming soon, anyway.

The question was where exactly he wanted to take pot shots, since he could target the witch himself, but that would likely get his attention again, and he'd managed to shake him.  Yes, he'd felt the man reaching for him, trying to source him out, and the gargoyle had given him the chance he needed to lose that bit of contact.  Now, it was all about the sneaky.

He dropped down off of the roof they were on, slowed his landing with a small burst of power and landed softly in the alley beside it.  Pulling his hood up over his head, he slipped out into the crowd, mingling and ever so casually touching bits of debris or brushing against the clothing of someone he passed, including the gargoyle's handler or whatever she was.  It was catching the eye of a blonde woman in the crowd that caused him to hesitate ever so slightly, though he wasn't sure why except that she looked right at him.  Who was she?  Why did he care if she looked?  A split second of eye contact that seemed to last minutes later, he turned his head and kept moving, picking up his pace as he heard movement in his direction.

As soon as he neared the edge of the crowd, he set off all of his little flashes, which would sting like a frozen paintball might, but had a loud crack and a bright flash.  They were more for distraction, something to add to the chaos, take the gargoyle's attention and keep Leone on his toes, but maybe they'd also help him lose the blonde woman now. 

If not, he was setting shit on fire.

 Lily had had a slight difficulty in her station at Onyx after what had transpired. They'd even allowed specialists with Diamond to look into her behaviour to see if there were any more cause for concern, and she'd essentially been given a clean bill of health - mentally speaking, anyways. Her counterpart to the equation, Quinn, seemed to have no issue with the matter, having been wiped immediately following the fight on Grayson's orders because he absolutely couldn't risk dolls just running fucking amok trying to take eachother out, and the last thing he needed was any residual aggression there that would make her target Lily unfairly.

Most of the damage was not so much forgotten about as it was unspoken about, and Lily had passed her probationary period and was given back her level 5 status after five months of waiting. The new and improved Lucien wagered that he was fucking himself over not putting her out there, regardless of her indiscretions (or how willing she had been to them), and had essentially told Zaine that he didn't want to hear any more on the matter. That hadn't deterred the mamba who had an unnatural attachment to Lily to take his anger out on her, though.

Of course, it never even occurred to Lily just how damaged Zaine was over the entire ordeal, when it had been that jealous, manipulative asshole who had drawn her back into hunting in the first place. Had he not shown up at she and Alice's apartment one night essentially begging her to come back, using all the right words, things that a struggling, emotionally needy single mother needed to hear, she would never have popped her cork because Niall probably never would have had the opportunity to use her. It was Zaine's fault, and he knew it, but only he and Lily were the only ones who knew what he said to her that night (or ever), and for some reason, she wasn't talking. She refused to even bring him up when she had mandatory one-on-one sessions with Indrani, which didn't escape the beautiful psychologist and certainly didn't go unsaid to her rather vigilant husband (who was now Lucien's right hand while Zaine enjoyed his cooling off period).

Nobody but Zaine and Lily knew why he hated her so much, and even Lily didn't fully comprehend it. It was a love that had grown so ugly and full of jealousy that it had twisted and turned to hate. Zaine had much in common with several of Midnight's vampires, a thing that did not go unnoticed by Lucien either, though he, even as the better, faster, harder, more violent version, couldn't entirely fault his brother (they may as well be, anyways). Lucien only assured Dev that it was a Serpiente thing, and to leave it alone. Dev would comply, or he would until the moment became crucial that he couldn't, and at that point Lucien probably would have gone along with it.

That being said, when all of the magical fuckery started, Lily was about as clueless as everyone else was, and quickly rushed outside. She ignored Ash trying to get everyone back in, Quinn at her side, and looked at her taller companion. "Midnight again?" she asked, blue eyes confused.

"They would never," Quinn said, even though there was hesitancy in her voice. She knew the problem that 'always' and 'never' brought when war was in question. "It would be too reckless."

"Let's try and at least help Ash, then," Lily suggested - right around the time that Tucker decided to try and sneak by. It was like everything had gone into slow motion and they locked eyes; Lily stunned, disbelieving as Tucker emulated something like Luigi from Mario Kart. The fucking Jubilee-esque bursts started and Lily moved just before being popped in the arm by something that felt like a firecracker. "Stay here!" she told Quinn, and pivoted on her foot to run after the figure.

"TUCKER!" she screamed, knifing through the growing crowd. She was having a hard time, especially when Ash started employing others to try and force people back in. Someone grabbed her by the arm and whipped her around. "Let me go!" she shouted. "I saw Tucker, I have to go!" She was near-frenzy as she shouted, yanking back. Had it been someone of Ash's that grabbed her, they probably would have let her go.

But it wasn't.

"Tucker's dead, Lily. You can't use him to try and cover your ass on this one," Zaine snarled. "Niall twist that screw in your brain again, huh?"

"No, ZAINE, no! It was Tucker! It was David, I saw him! Please, I'll show you, you have to let me go, I WILL SHOW YOU I SWEAR - " Lily was tugging back, hard, to the point where it looked almost comical and she actually dragged him a few feet before he actually used more than about 20% to hold her in place. He wasn't trying to hurt her, just detain her, but she was so frantic, so obviously lying, trying to save her own skin so badly that she'd just say whatever she thought would work...

He grabbed her by the throat, which surprised the shit out of her by the look in her eyes. "You're a lying bitch, Lilyana. That's all. I bet after this, Lucien won't protect you anymore. I'd be doing him a favour," he said softly, his voice taking on that rich, gravelly tone it had when he spoke low.

Raphael getting his ass kicked before Tucker returned was a distinct possibility with Serena collapsing into Aoife's arms, Darren off with Anthony, Dave and the rest of Ash's tougher employees trying to maintain a perimeter and Aoife shouting at him to do something.  What he wanted to do was smash Ash in the mouth because this was his place and it was supposed to be safe, but there was still some sort of rational thought that understood that part of what made the Hollow safe was that there were powerful individuals that frequented it.  Leone had made the building as inherently safe as he could without leveling it and rebuilding (which was partially going to be happening now), and he was working the crowd to counter the supernatural aura of fear that was hitting all of them. 

Aidan could feel it in a distant way, but was unaffected because of a gargoyle's born ability to be essentially a metaphysical rock when it came to trying to affect them.  They were magical themselves, but foreign magic took more effort to do anything for them than most people were willing to expend, including healing.  That was a distinct problem sometimes, but not one Aidan typically concerned himself with.  If he was so badly injured that his own healing couldn't handle it, then the fates had finally decided to reunite him with the rest of his clan, and he would accept their decision, but until then?  He was going to wreck shit if he got his hands on whoever was causing this.

Ash caught the glare from the gargoyle, and if he didn't already know how retardedly difficult it would be, he'd have tried zapping him for energy, since Aidan had plenty of it to spare.  The problem was that all the ancient was offering was anger, and that wouldn't help him spread calm.  His own people already had their instructions to try to keep the crowd within the Hollow's perimeter, which was more difficult than it sounded when everyone wanted to be outside the building and he didn't have nearly enough employees for the number of people on site, but the hunters who'd been at the bar stepped up, joining his people at the perimeter and trying to get people back within his firestone barrier.  It wasn't going to keep them safe with a guarantee, but the effects of the crowd control his opponent was working wouldn't reach through his firestone.  They needed to get everyone back inside.

"Crimson has support incoming."  Chase slipped past him, dropping a hand on his shoulder ever so briefly and whispering in his ear to ensure that he heard her, then was gone herself to help usher people back to safety with the knowledge that he'd offered her about the firestone - she may have more than he'd bargained for, as was her ability, but he was confident that she would pass along the information.  That she'd contacted her brother for help was not unwanted, either.

Speaking of help that he appreciated, Aidan seemed to have finally found himself a constructive way of helping when Aoife yelled at him, and Ash was pleased to see the gargoyle focus his attention toward a building, somewhere physical and solid where they could both coordinate their attacks.  Ash focused harder with his power on that spot, pressing back against the fear with a calm stillness that would have made the falcons stop to glance his way, and Aidan started moving in that direction.  He didn't go entirely scary right in the middle of the crowd, but his speed picked up as he moved and nobody dared stop his progress as he broke the perimeter.  By the time he made it to the building he'd decided upon, he had the claws he needed to start climbing.  Look out, Raphael.

He heard the woman who'd made eye contact with him shout his name, a curious thing that made him unsure whether he wanted to stop and stare at her like she'd grown a second head or keep moving - it didn't much matter, since guild reinforcements were apparently incoming, Zaine leading the charge simply because he was closest when the calls started going out.  Since Midnight had attacked, their communications had gotten much faster, more secure and just generally more efficient, which could be attributed to ISIS, and more specifically to Jason Murphy, who'd been 'convinced' to spend the night of the attack and the days following it playing cat and mouse with Midnight's hacker vampire.  He'd gone ahead and set up a system that was so roundabout, had so many redirections and basically came across to other computer people as a ball of tangled up strings that it would make someone crazy to try to intercept their lines.  It didn't make it impossible, but very, very difficult, and Jason was on hand more often than he might have liked, updating and changing up the system to keep it from being learned.

They'd all received new work cells, and once the call had come through from Chase, not to mention the others who'd put in the call for backup as the shit in the fan, Jason had put out a call for nearby hunters to get their asses over there.  In essence, it was his fault that Zaine was on site as quickly as he was, but it also meant that when Connor handpicked his people to show up with him, they were all already aware of an issue and en route.  The guild leader and Stavros arrived within perhaps a minute of each other, the trainer having brought Sean along with him, and both of Crimson's Level 5 snipers were taking rooftops with a partner who was ordered to do nothing more than watch their backs while they worked.

Tucker, having paused over the blonde woman shouting his name and watching her get manhandled by one of Onyx's trainers, glanced around to notice the rest of the situation changing, and if he'd had any unexpected urges to help Lily or attack Zaine, he brushed them aside in favor of getting his ass out of there.  He bolted, using the chaos of his charges to get past the perimeter they'd built and which would soon be impossible to escape, and then had to consider whether he helped Raphael deal with the gargoyle or saved his own hide.  Both were so tempting, I know.

Honestly, he was banking on Raphael making the selfish move to save himself, since vampires had that fancy ability to teleport themselves away from harm.  It was irritating sometimes, but he really didn't expect his partner this evening to wait around if it meant he had to go toe to toe with a gargoyle, especially with how reluctant he'd been to mess with one to begin with.  Thus, the planeswalker tossed another, smaller and harder to source out, fireball at the building just above where Aidan was climbing and stepped backward into a portal he created for his escape.  He'd regroup with Raphael back in Midnight.

 Zaine was in for a hell of a surprise; when Lily lost site of Tucker, she also lost her rationale - the rationale that she could preserve her own life by calming down. She kicked out and connected with Zaine right in the gut, hard. "Fuck you!" she spat, free of his grasp. Her voice was hoarse from lack of air, but she didn't care. "Believe what you want, Zaine. I'm done with you," she snapped.

Lily turned with the goal only to find Tucker, still trying to take advantage of the surprise she'd given Zaine. She didn't get but a few steps before Zaine hit her like a freight train, right in the back, literally smearing her on the ground face-first and bloodying her up in the process. There was no grace in this fight, no precision - he was aiming to beat the living shit out of her. Lily couldn't get out from underneath him, not until other hunters on scene tried to break up the fight.

Speaking of other hunters, a few of them reached in to try and pull them apart - not until Chase yelled for them to get back at the top of her lungs. Whatever she'd seen, it must have been nasty, and as they yanked their hands away from the fray and seemed to momentarily give up on trying to pry them off of eachother, the thing Chase saw manifested itself. It happened so quickly that nobody was really sure it had happened at all, not until Zaine jumped away from Lily, whose eyes were wide as her mouth fell open. Her face and knuckles were bloody, but she still had some presence of mind, and her hand flew quickly to the base of her neck to cover something. It was like everything in their little corner had ground to a halt, and as she pulled her hand away from her neck, she only managed a confused, weak cry, her blue eyes conveying more horror and betrayal than even before (if that were fucking possible).

Zaine himself was worse for wear - Lily had been his prodigy, the crown jewel of his trainees. She had also been his biggest mistake where the Midnight situation was given, but only Zaine blamed himself for that. He had meant to kill her, he truly had meant to snap her neck, he didn't know why she made him so fucking angry, but what he'd just done was so much more shocking because it was personal somehow, intimate. "Lily - " he said, his voice cracking from the damage she'd done to his ribs.

"We need to get her back to the guild. We don't have long. He bit her right on the carotid," Chase said, speaking with haste. She closed her eyes for a second, then bent down to the hunter. "Lily, can you hear me?"

"What's happening?" Lily whined. The venom was already moving through her adrenaline-driven body, setting in and making her limbs feel heavy and clumsy. She felt hot and found it hard to breath; when she closed her eyes and reopened them, Chase was swaying. "Zaine? You bit me?"

"Out of my way, asshole," Quinn ordered, shoulder-checking Zaine as she pushed by him. "We'll have to get one of the vampires to move her. If we try to bring her, we risk her going into cardiac arrest before we ever get her there." She looked back at Zaine. "You'd better hope she lives," she said, and despite how calmly the statement was issued, there was no doubt that it was a serious threat. Quinn looked at Chase. "Help me lift her up," she said, appreciating the fact that the other hunter was trying to keep Lily calm as paralysis began to set in. This would be hard to watch, and it was even worse that Lily kept asking Zaine why he'd bitten her, for one, and two, asking if they'd seen Tucker. Quinn would have to get to the bottom of this as soon as Lily was back to normal.

Assuming Zaine didn't somehow sneak into the medical quarters and kill her in her sleep. She made a note to have a word with the esteemed guild leader about his dog's leash being tightened. Lily and Quinn had beaten the shit out of eachother, sure, but it was nothing personal. What Quinn had just seen was anything but business.

Tucker was absolutely right that Raphael would dip out to fight another day. He was having a great deal of fun, and honestly he hadn't been able to do this sort of work on a crowd in years. With the way he found manipulating individuals within the crowd independently to better add to the chaos, it was a wonder he hadn't already started the next world war somehow. It wasn't often that many got the privilege to see Ash Leone knocked off his game, but the Triste was getting overwhelmed in the madness - at least, for a while, and that pleased Raphael immensely. The idea of perfection out of several of the more legendary creatures never really sat well with him. Everyone had flaws; everyone had fears. He just needed to find them.

When Aidan finally had enough of the fuckery and started climbing the building, though, that was when Raphael was going to leave. For all of the flaws and fears he could locate, gargoyles were their own breed of troublesome, naturally immune to most things vampires had to offer. The supernatural world had a much more effective system of checks and balances on itself than it ever had against the normal realm; vampires were so grossly overpowered by the standards of a human, but in terms of their own realm, they were on the middle/lower end of the totem, especially when there were creatures much older and created for much different purposes.

Aidan only had to get to the ledge across from Raphael before the vampire had capped his fun for the night. "Nope," he said, pointing a finger at the ancient creature. "Not tonight." And with that, he was gone, taking the artificial panic he'd set over the crowd with him. Below, Serena, along with others, stopped going to tears with terror, and Ash's job suddenly became about a billion times easier - throwing out hella calming vibes to match the fear, and then suddenly the fear being gone? Yeah, he was probably still on high-power for a second, so that would have been fun to see.

No, it wasn't common to see Ash Leone knocked off his game, which the triste would give Raphael, but it also wasn't common that this level of insanity was upon him.  His place honestly hadn't taken a hit like this since the 1920s, and that had been a very different sort of reason and solution.  This was just outright madness, though Aidan finally leaving him alone and taking a more aggressive approach to their attackers helped a ton in relieving Ash of some of the fuckery going on.  He could concentrate better without the gargoyle in his face, and Aidan was what ultimately chased Raphael off.  The fact that a fireball hit the building above him and the ancient just jumped up past the crater probably didn't hurt his intimidation factor, but Ash was just disappointed that the gargoyle hadn't gotten his mark.

That Raphael disappeared and left a sudden void where the fear had been was another issue entirely, which meant that, for just a minute or so there, Ash zenned the crowd out so badly that it all got very quiet, very quickly.  Then, realizing what had happened, he eased his influence down, just in time for Chase to shout his name in the quieter air.  He snapped his head in her direction to find Lily down, Quinn staring at Zaine like she might set him on fire with her eyes, and the Seer silently begging him to get over there.

"Ash, we need a vampire to get her to the guildhouse, but she might not make it that far."

He reached out wordlessly for her, trying to get a feel for what had happened, and was surprised by the sharp bite of...poison?  He glanced up towards Zaine, eyes narrowing, but there was no time.  "I don't think I can heal her completely, chere, but I'll give her time.  Someone find that vampire," he instructed, not so certain he wanted to remove Chase from Lily's side when the woman was helping to keep her calm.  He shushed her softly, drawing himself back up for another long haul, and got to work.

Poison.  What the hell was that man thinking?  Mamba poison, no less, which would wreak havoc extremely quickly even in a shifter.  Chase was on the right path, calming her down so that her heart wouldn't beat the poison through her any faster, and he tried to ease her panic down, but neutralizing the poison was the important part.  After his battle of wills with Raphael, no less.  At least Connor, Stavros and the other arriving hunters were taking control of the situation quickly, and Danielle was out there somewhere, so if Ash needed her, he'd have the help.  Since he was now pumping energy that he didn't necessarily have to spare into a body fighting off some of the worst poison the animal kingdom had to offer, needing her assistance was likely. 

Lily would live, though.

Anyone with even the slightest concept of who and what Aidan was wouldn't have been surprised that Raphael noped out of that one, but Aidan shot him a fangy grin anyway, all malicious intent.  "Soon," he shot back, aware that the coward would escape before he could get a claw on him, but he had his face, his scent and his metaphysical 'feel'.  Someone would know who he was, and then, they'd have a 'chat'.  Nobody fucked with Aoife, or Serena.  As clan elder, he'd defend Ray's mate just as surely as his own; the fact that Aoife cared for Serena the way she did really didn't hurt.

With the threat chased off, he hopped down from the building to return to the women, hopefully in better shape than he'd left them.

Aoife and Serena would be fine, shaken up though they were, so other than checking in with his cousin to make sure she was alright, Connor kept his sweep up, trying to figure out who was injured, how badly, and if they were going to need help getting them either to a hospital or one of the guildhouses.  He saw the commotion between Zaine and Lily, but not from close enough that he really made out what was happening through the crowd of people.  Chase was there, and he trusted her to have it under control, at least until he heard her shout for Leone.  Not a good sign.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded when he pushed through the crowd around Lily, shooting a look around the circle.  Quinn was staring very pointedly at Zaine, who looked surprisingly calm and...not really there, actually.  If Connor were to guess, he'd have said he looked like he was in shock, and yeah, he was bloodied, but not the way Lily was.  Casey was on the phone with someone, and he thought he heard her tell 'Alex' to hurry, which probably meant Darling was on the way, and Leone was kneeling beside Lily with Chase.  Casey hung up and looked like she might answer him, but Alexander suddenly stepped seemingly out of nowhere from the crowd, sizing them all up the way Connor had when he first walked up.

"Asshole over there bit her," Quinn snapped, and Casey glanced at her, then nodded like she couldn't have said it better.  Both Connor and Alexander looked to Zaine, though there thoughts went different places. 

"Take her to Crimson, Victor's there and he should have an anti-venom," he instructed the vampire (he still needed better details on that, since he was pretty sure the story he got was that Alexander got so drunk he remembered being a vampire and suddenly was one, and that made zero sense), who nodded and knelt with the other two to wait for Leone to finish whatever he was doing to help.  "Everyone else, spread out, help make sure people don't need help, make sure the threat's completely gone."

"All due respect, I'd like to go with Lily," Quinn said, eye contact unwavering, and Connor nodded.  If Zaine had lost it badly enough to bite her, he couldn't fault the other blonde insisting on staying with her friend.  "Go ahead."

"Take her.  I've slowed it down and reversed what it's already done.  Once she gets the anti-venom and has time to rest, she'll recover," Ash offered, pushing himself to his feet and rolling his shoulders like he was tired, which Connor wouldn't have faulted him for.  Alexander nodded once more, glancing to Chase to see if she was going with, and then lifting Lily as carefully as he could with instructions to Quinn to put a hand on his shoulder.  The three of them disappeared, Chase practically attached to her brother at the hip as she filled him in on the full details, including Zaine accusing Lily of the attack, Lily saying she'd seen Tucker, and Zaine's attack on the woman.  Connor, unsurprisingly, was interested in all of it, as would be Stavros and Sean as soon as it calmed down enough to share that bit with them, which he intended to do.

Alexander, on the other hand, didn't need to ask the Seer what had happened, since he had the source right there in his arms.  He brought her immediately to Crimson and their infirmary as he'd been asked, but he also pulled the information he wanted from her mind; he retained some of his more human qualities because humanity was stubborn, but he was practical in the end.  This was the most efficient way of getting what he needed from her, especially in her condition. 

"This looks promising, what happened?" Victor asked, standing up as soon as he saw them, looking to Alexander. 

"Zaine bit her, Leone did some work on the poison and the damage it caused, but his place was just attacked, so he just took the edge off," he explained.  "Quinn has orders from your guild leader to stay with her."

Just hearing that it was Zaine's poison kicked the surgeon into high gear with a short curse, whether Leone had done anything to help, or not.  Mamba poison was no joke.  "Are there other injuries incoming?"

"It looked like there would be, but I understand Leone has a healer and was holding back with Lily so that he could help with healing.  You may luck out."

"Thanks."

With no more than a nod and a squeeze on Quinn's shoulder, Alexander stepped out of the infirmary for a quiet place to make his phone call.  "Dev?  You were right, Zaine slipped.  Lily's at Crimson, Quinn is with her."