Batten Down {Tag: Rae, Leah, Michael, Melissa}

[Father Dantes]

Dantes watched as the savior of his dinner appeared to whisk away the injured demon. So these people were all in league together...how cute. By the time Jacob reappeared Father Dantes had conceived his master plan.  He was going to deal a serious blow tonight, and let these sinners know that he meant business and that he was here to stay.

Dantes stood facing the two vampires in the street. He was holding The Paladin beside him like a child with a baseball bat. Its tip was resting on the pavement beside his right foot. He raised the revolver in his left hand and cocked the hammer. Quickly, he flipped the sword up to rest on his shoulder.

"So the heretics and demons and sinners have all decided to join together? What a sick and twisted world we live in. You my vampire brother...you are old, ancient, you must know that you are here to judge these sinners and cleanse this wretched place? And you witch...you choose the wrong side in the war in heaven but yet somehow you managed to retain the immortality that is meant only for angelic judges such as myself? Why do you stand against me? Why will you not allow the Lord to do his work in this place? Is there really that much pleasure in rebellion?"

Dantes leveled the gun on Jacob and fired 3 shots as quickly as he could, while at the same time moving toward Michael with the sword. He knew that his chance of actually landing a blow was slim, so he was simply trying to put the witch off balance.  He swung the sword at Light's throat with all his might, and even though it looked like he might connect, he teleported before contact was made.

Dantes appeared in the living room of Leah's apartment, having followed the distinct blood trail Jacob's transportation of the shifter had left in the air. He saw the 3 women cowering in the living room and knew he had arrived at the right place. He smirked at the wounded shifter laying on the floor. He would finish her, then dispatch the other demon, and then feed on the human girl...and leave enough blood in her so she could deliver a message to that heretic West for him.

[Melissa Arthur]

Having Jacob appear beside her so suddenly might have been enough to put Melissa off-balance, considering she hadn't heard Michael's orders to him and was content to just lay there trying to keep pressure on the entrance wound.  She couldn't reach the exit wound, but she'd felt around back there once she'd gotten behind the car, and it definitely felt like the bullet had made it clean through.  That was good, since it left her body to heal itself without worries about a bullet getting stuck inside.  She turned her pale face up to Jacob, not at all aware of what he was about to do, and nearly puked by the time they were stopped inside the apartment.  It wasn't like she was usually so weak-stomached, but the pain of a bullet wound could do that to someone.

"What the HELL are you doing, Jacob?" she demanded, but he was already dropping instructions all over them, and taking off.  Hopefully to go help Michael, but she was doubting he'd be all that useful.  Just like neither of the girls in the room with her seemed as though they'd be doing too much to help themselves, which explained who they were in an instant.

"I'm fine," she insisted, pulling herself to a steady sitting position and pushing on the front of the wound again.  She could practically FEEL the concern wafting off of Leah (yeah, right), but the younger girl seemed to at least be sincere.  "You're the ones he's after, I'm guessing.  There isn't exactly time to figure out the specifics right now, so everyone just stay quiet and try not to---"

Well, nevermind.  She'd been about to tell them both not to draw attention to their location, just in case, but there was a man with a huge sword, a gun, and a generally scary look to him suddenly standing in the living room.  That really negated anything she'd been about to tell them, and left her with a new set of 'orders' for them that somewhat contradicted what Jacob had said.  "Get out, both of you.  Run."

It wasn't as though she really thought that she'd be able to hold Dantes off for long in her condition, but she'd come for the purpose of protecting these girls, and she wasn't about to just sit around so that the madman could kill all three of them.  The way she saw it, she was about to die no matter how she handled this situation, so she was going to screw up Dantes' plans as much as she could.

She started by shifting, straight off the bat and without hesitating even a moment to make sure that the girls did as she said.  She wasn't in great shape, but she was much better off in her cougar form.  Stronger, faster, and meaner.  She stood, shaky but on three good legs, and immediately let out the characteristic shriek of a cougar.  It was loud, scary and surreal, and entirely capable of letting Michael and Jacob both know where Dantes had vanished to.  Tail flicking about, she kept as much of her weight on her back legs as was reasonable for a cat, and leaped for him.  Fortunately for her, she happened to be the smallest of the 'big cats', and therefore not too terribly uncomfortable in the apartment.  She could function and move just fine there, and though cougars could jump high, their real talent was distance (since they could jump about 18 feet vertically, and up to 40 horizontally).  Suffice to say, reaching him in a leap was NOT a problem, and even with her right side damaged from the first bullet, it was much less incapacitating to a cougar than a human woman, not to mention the fact that she still had a strong, undamaged left paw and jaws specifically made for dealing with large prey. 

She hit him like a damn train, her left paw instantly twisting its claws into his right arm.  She wanted that gun GONE, and that was the only one she could instantly reach.  Naturally, however, that left her weight fairly evenly distributed between both front paws, and her injured side just wasn't up for it.  She collapsed to her right side, though she immediately worked to make up for it, snapping her jaws at the closest place she could reach on Dantes.

[Father Dantes]

Dantes immediately sheathed the Paladin. The massive sword was almost useless in the confines of the apartment. He reached for his revolver on his right at the demon began to shift. He cringed as she shrieked into the night. Before he truly understood what was going on she had become a cougar and leaped on him.

Her claws dug into the flesh of his upper right bicep. His fingers went loose around the butt of the gun. He wasn't going to be drawing that one anytime soon. As they fell to the floor the cat sank her teeth into his left arm, causing him to fire into the wall. Dantes scrambled to holster the left revolver and get his hand around the cats throat. With claws embedded in his arm, and his hand around the cats throat, the two were inescapably intertwined for the moment. Dantes heaved himself to his feet, slamming the cats head through the cheap sheet rock ceiling. Jerking it down, he screamed into the creatures face and slammed it through the adjacent wall. The force of his motion ripped the claws from his flesh and deposited the cougar in the room beyond the wall.

Dantes glanced through the hole he had created and saw Melissa lying in a heap. She probably wouldn't be bothering him in the next couple minutes. He knew her unearthly shriek would draw the two from the street back to the apartment if they weren't headed that way already. He headed down the hall to try and find the two sisters where ever they were hiding.

[Melissa Arthur]

Having the mad vampire grab her by the throat and start whipping her around had to have been a strange sight, since a cougar is about the size of a human being, but hopefully there wasn't anyone hanging around to see it.  She took being smashed through the ceiling surprisingly well, all things considered, and after a few seconds of dazed confusion, she shrieked right back in his face before getting thrown through the wall nearby.  Hitting the floor, she would have liked to just stay there and recover, but she didn't have the time for that. 

He wasn't quite giving her enough credit if he really thought that she wouldn't be bothering him in the next few minutes, since Leah and Rae took precedence over her own situation at the present.  For that very reason, she pulled her aching, damaged body back up and did a little limp back through the wall to go after him once more (because Dantes' RPer is bored and wants some more action), even though the last thing she really wanted was to tangle with him again. 

She didn't make another sound, lest she warn him prematurely that she was going for him again, and when she leaped at him this time, it was with the intentions of both taking him down physically, and getting a good grip with her jaws on something vital.  Like his throat.

[Father Dantes]

Dantes gasped as he felt the weight of the cougar land on his back. The force of her leap drove him face first into the floor. He could feel claws ripping the flesh on his back to ribbons. This was NOT happening to him.  With a roar he rolled, feeling the claws sliding and slicing through his flesh. Presently he found himself face to face with the beast.

Father Dantes once again grabbed the monster around its throat. She wasn't making things easy for him, and he could feel claws sinking into the flesh of his forearms.

"Argh, away with you, you foul beast!", he cried.

Dantes lunged forward down the hall. Using his vampire strength and momentum he hurled Melissa out the window at the end of the narrow hallway. He watched as she sailed out. Glass and blood twinkled in the sky, and he saw pieces of his flesh flinging off the claws as the cougar plummeted out the window. He sighed and stood for a minute, feeling the warm trickle of blood as it ran from his many wounds.

[Melissa Arthur]

She did her best and put up all the fight she possibly could to keep Dantes away from those girls, but everyone has a limit, and Melissa was NOT a hunter.  She was nearly at her limit for enduring pain and abuse even as she jumped at him, so by the time he'd rolled and grabbed her again, she was just about finished.  She still tore him up with her claws as well as she could as he grabbed and lifted her, including swinging her back legs up to slice at his body with the four claws she had on each of the paws there, but there was no way she could stop him from throwing her through the window.

That was a hell of a fall ahead of her, she realized rather suddenly, but other than twisting rather painfully around in mid-air as only a cat can in an attempt to put her feet beneath her, there wasn't a whole lot she could do.  She ended up lucking out in that the fire escapes were on that side of the building, and her movements to get her feet beneath her put her close enough that just a little more movement (which made her muscles feel like they were on fire) dropped her on one a few stories down from the window she'd involuntarily exited.

Ow.

She hit the metal flooring on her feet, but the damage inflicted by the bullet prompted her right foreleg collapsing right off the bat, and once she'd hit the floor, she didn't get up.  Blackness swept up around her even as her cougar form slipped away from her, and she couldn't help but feel a vague sense of relief as she lost consciousness.

[Michael Light]

Before the sword hit him, Dantes vanished, which was good, because Michael was angry enough that he might have just snatched it away from him and let the damage be dealt. It didn't take long for his ears to pick up the sound of a crash as the cougar plummeted out of the apartment building, which lead him to his next move -- teleporting inside the apartment itself.

This was going to be bad for every single person in there, and he knew it, but at this point, all of that Single Earthy-ness he'd built up about 'letting go' and 'making amends' had slipped away from his mind. In short: his footfalls were causing burn marks in the carpet as he carried himself down the hall, to his desired position of directly behind Dantes. How very bad for the other vampire. Michael was nearly twice his age, not to mention he had one of the strongest lineages of witch blood backing the dark gift he possessed.

Random objects were going to start catching fire, at this point. Curtains, papers, anything flammable, it was going up.

"That," he said slowly, voice definitely altered by his rage, "was a mistake, sir."

He reached out, but instead of a strike, focused all of that anger and energy into one solid motion. Dantes' long coat was instantly set ablaze, and that was followed by a much more real bolt of power, one not focused on the flames so much as pure energy. This was aimed to send Dantes at the wall, if not straight through it. Michael may appear calm and collected, but a glance at his history shows what damage he could do if left unchecked, which was precisely what the situation had come to.

[Father Dantes]

Dantes was leaning out the window looking at his handiwork when he noticed a rise in temperature. The very air around him became super heated, and he could see the walls crackling and the paint melting and peeling from the heat.  This couldn't be a good sign at all now could it. Dantes suddenly found himself engulfed in flames as his coat ignited.

He spun as he heard the man speak. Dantes' black eyes grew wide as he saw who his attacker was. Before he could even twitch it felt as if a sledge hammer had slammed into his chest. He felt several ribs crack and then he was lifted of his feet. What was left of the window and most of the wall flew out into the alley along with Dantes.

As he hurtled to the ground he caught a glimpse of the shifter lying on the fire escape. Then the concrete rushed up to embrace him. His face met the ground with a wet smack. He felt the bones on that side of his face cave in. He tried to stand and found that he couldn't. As he lay there in the smoldering ruins of his jacket, and in the rapidly expanding puddle of blood, he thought of the one place he might be safe..and reached, and vanished.

[Rae Adams]

The moment Dantes appeared in her sister's front room, Rae let out a shriek and went running for the bathroom where Leah was.  She wasn't sticking around to see anything.  In fact, her first thought was to get the hell out of there, but she couldn't leave her sister there with that nut.  THe other girl, well, she seemed to be able to handle herself.  Rae didn't think she'd still be able to move with a bullet in her.  She wasn't even going to try.

"Leah, we need to get out of here now!"

Leah turned when Rae showed up in the room screaming about the need to get out of the apartment and she dropped everything she had gathered.  "Rae, what the hell did you get yourself into?" was all Leah could ask before she heard the sound of a wildcat roar.  Great.  There went her cleaning deposit. 

"Well?  What are you waiting for?" Leah demanded before pushing Rae toward the door out of the apartment. The two sprinted in the direction, Leah pushing Rae at first until her sister with her long legs was running off.  Then, Leah decided to step things up a nitch for her and her sister, so that she could possibly provide a distraction, should Dantes come for them.  Leah shape-shifted in the hall completely into her sparrow form and hung around at the open door of the apartment to watch the priest and the cat fight.  When the cat went out the window, Leah in her sparrow form stuck around to watch Dantes and possibly peck the asshole if he tried to go after Rae.  After all, it was her job to protect her little sister. 

That's about when things got confusing.  First the apartement and the papers within and the vampire attacking them caught on fire.  Then, a very real force sent him flying through the wall and out the window.  Great, there goes my cleaning deposit, my apartment and everything I own.  Rae, what did you get yourself into?

Leah flew down to inspect things on the ground, but found the vampire gone, though the concrete had a nice vampire-shaped indent.  This was just... wonderful... Leah went in search of Jacob.

Rae turned and sprinted for the door, hoping to God they got out, not even pausing to listen to the crazy stuff that was going on in her sister's apartment and now she and Leah's world.  Rae went sprinting out the door and down the hallway.  However, when Rae turned to look for Leah, her sister was gone.  Rae looked around everywhere, but Leah wasn't to be seen.

She jogged back up to the apartment to find the place in flames, but no Leah.   "Leah?!" Rae called out, now extremely worried.  She couldn't have gone far.