Stick Sickly |Gabriel, Xander, Domingos|

[Shannon West]

|Continued from Through the Never|

 It was good for Cerberus that he wasn't still there when Shannon got there. Xander Ulrich walked alongside her, lugging (well, Shannon would have been lugging, he sort of walked with a spring his step) several cases for rifles that Shannon had taken home to clean. She'd had a lot of free time and so she'd decided to make sure all of the guns in the storage unit were well-cared for. That meant doing inventory and taking a bunch home every few nights to clean/assess. That meant someone got suckered into carrying them.

 "I really appreciate this," she said, reaching into her back pocket for the card to get into her building. "Connor can't believe I'm doing this myself, but I'm a one-woman show, apparently. I think he -- "

 "Stay here," Xander said. He suddenly set all of the cases down in one loud sound and opened one. A rather large shotgun was pulled out of the case, and he racked it right before disappearing into the stairwell. That was enough to freak Shannon out - that and, well, she was used to having a partner who told her what was going on. Xander wasn't her partner, though, and he didn't feel obligated.

 She didn't feel obligated to listen, either, and so she went straight after him, leaving the guns unattended for long enough to stick her head into the stairwell. "Hey," she hissed. "Rambo! Why don't you let me know before you go running off next time?" she said. She made an angry hand gesture to beckon him back down the stairs, but he just stared at her before looking up. He put his finger to his nose and then pointed, and vanished into one of the exits.

 "What the fuck," she hissed. She went out of the stairwell and back into the lobby, where all the guns were still stacked. "Good to know," she said, patting one of the cases. She pulled out her cell phone and called Dom, who she'd only said goodbye to maybe twenty minutes before.

 "Hey, I think I have some trouble. Can you come to my apartment?" She gave him the address. Dom acted as a trainer alongside of her plenty of times, and she knew she had his respect. She hoped she had it enough to get him to turn his car around and get over there. She sat down on top of the gun cases, her own pistol drawn. Xander would come back eventually, if anything anyone had ever told her about him was true. He'd either come back dragging a dead body or himself, but he'd come back. That was the cool thing about wolves.

 Eventually he did come back, with a grim expression on his face. "You actually stayed down here," he said first to her, picking up the rifle cases regardless of whether she was still sitting on them. The shotgun was gone for now, and Shannon just stared at him, wondering where it went.

 "Uh yeah, not leaving x-amount of dollars unguarded in my apartment lobby. I'm not the only person that lives here, in case you haven't noticed. Where's the shotgun? Why'd you go all Rin-Tin-Tin on me?" she demanded.

 Xander looked back at her. "Your apartment was broken into," he explained. "When we came in, I could smell another shapeshifter, but I can't identify it. Canine, but nothing I've been exposed to." The thing about Xander as a wolf was his scent recognition; not all wolves could do it, but he and his could. Smell it once, remember it, identify it. He had a nose like a vampire had a memory, so when he admitted he didn't know what sort of breed he'd come across, it was worthy of investigation. Obviously.

 Shannon stopped in her steps, dropping her arms at her side. "What?" she asked, blinking rapidly. "Is it trashed?" she asked.

 Xander shrugged, pushing the button on the elevator, already several feet away from her. "Can't tell if it's how you usually keep house, but if you meant was shit thrown all over the place like a bomb went off, then no. There's someone in there with a note pinned to his shirt, though," he said. "I got a funny feeling I should be calling Lucien right now, but I want you to see if you can make sense of what it says, first."

 He went back to being silent as he loaded the cases into the elevator, and Shannon silently followed him in. She stood next to him, an angry expression on her face with her arms crossed, weight rested on one leg as she stood with as much attitude in her posture as she physically knew how. "Did you get your social training in a box?" she asked him crossly as they stepped out onto her floor.

 "Better. I got it from Onyx," he said with a wide grin. He bumped her purposely as he carried the cases past her, nearly sending her onto her knees. She gritted her teeth and followed him, preparing to load whatever was in her apartment "with a note pinned to its shirt" full of lead if it gave her any indication that she should be threatened.

[Carlos Romero]

As it turned out, she did have enough of Dom's respect for him to turn his car around (very quickly and with plenty of threat to random passersby, just because he could) and head towards her apartment.  Considering their line of work, 'some trouble' sounded suspiciously like something that she shouldn't deal with alone, and he didn't know what Xander was up to.  If everything went their way, Xander would be in the front, already ripping something to pieces so that Dom and Shannon didn't have to do anything too strenuous.  Dom was all for putting some holes in people, but Lucien was actually keeping track of how many days Dom was 'accident-free', and he had a decent record going.  If the cobra had to start him back at zero again, he might go on a killing spree just to vent some frustration.

With a smirk at the very thought of such gleeful violence (which he could really go for sometimes), Dom wrenched his vehicle into something resembling a parking space, climbed out and managed a brisk walk to the door as someone else was walking out, just so that he could make it in without making Shannon buzz the door open.  If there was a situation, it wasn't like that would be all too practical, and he didn't really want to shoot the door up for no reason. 

Once inside, he briefly considered the stairs, knowing that it could be that much faster just to rush upstairs, but he also understood that cutting down on his smoking didn't mean he'd quit completely and that being winded before he even got there would be stupid.  Besides, there wasn't enough commotion in the place to suggest a massive brawl.  Gunshots were loud, especially in enclosed spaces, and enormous wolves tended to get attention.  He took the elevator, and given the time Shannon had waited for Xander to do his search of her place, he actually didn't show up at the door much later than they did.  He found it unlocked, given their recent entry, and that was when he drew his gun, turned the knob and used his elbow to ease the door open.  He hoped he didn't get shot at, because he didn't really think the door would be great cover, but it seemed solid enough that he might be able to move if he was quick.

As it turned out, that wasn't necessary, since he found Xander and Shannon both in one piece and with plenty of weapons within fairly easy access.  His gun went back into hiding, and he stepped more fully into the room with an expression that managed to be a mix of disappointment, irritation and curiosity.  "If this 'trouble' of yours has anything to do with house-cleaning, I would like to point out that I am a selfish bastard and refuse to clean up after anyone else," he remarked dryly, moving to see what they were focusing on.

Well, hello.  A body, and it looked like a zombie, or something.  "Let's take a vote.  I say we shoot it."

[Shannon West]

"I also say we shoot it," Xander said. "But this is evidently Guild business, after all." He gestured to the note quite literally pinned to the half-on shirt of the sallow and pale vampire on Shannon's floor. She moved slowly towards the body, looking back at Dom and Xander for a moment, before nodding and bending down. She carefully picked it up, backing away before the.. thing had time to wake up. It was out cold, whatever it was.

  Lucien.

  Shannon flipped the note over, and then examined it more closely. "Lucien?" she said loudly, obviously frustrated by this piece of non-information. "What? Did they take a class in how to be vague?" she demanded. She handed the note to Dominic and then circled the man on the floor, pulling her gun. "It's a vampire, all right," she said. "A human would be dead. Look at these marks. Where the fuck did they pick this guy up from, a concentration camp?" she asked, gesturing to him.

  "Smells something like that to me," boomed Xander. "But why drop him here? Shannon, do you have some unpaid debt to Midnight we don't know about?" he asked, eyebrows arching. Not that he thought that truly, but she was fun to antagonize in times of panic.

  "No," she said through a clenched jaw. "I don't know what this is all about, but I intend to find out. I'll call Lucien right no-AAAAHH!" she screamed as Gabriel's body jerked. She jumped back, gun trained at that sweet spot on the back of his head, the one that made vampires go away for good. When he didn't do anything else, or at least didn't make any threatening movements, she lowered her gun millimeters and looked at Domingos.

  "Watch him while I make a phonecall?" she asked. She holstered her gun, because his was already out, and pulled out her phone again. She turned her back to them and walked into the kitchenette area, one finger in her ear to drown out the hushed male voices debating on how to take care of the vampire.

  "Yes, I need to speak to Lucien. What? No, this is Shannon West, and it's an emergen -- well, you're going to have to get him out of his office then, aren't you -- listen, you fuckwit, I've got a half-dead vampire on my apartment floor with a note stapled to his chest that indicates I need to speak to Lucien, so this is me, pulling rank. Put him on the goddamn phone," she hissed. After a pause, she smiled. "Sure, I can hold."

[Carlos Romero]

It seemed like a pretty clear-cut situation when Xander agreed that shooting it was his vote, and Dom was about three seconds and a glance at Shannon away from doing the deed personally when Xander pointed out the note.  Essentially, that addressed the body to Cobriana, which was as interesting as it was inconvenient.  "That, or they got the address wrong," he remarked, covering up his further disappointment at not being able to finish off the mostly-dead vampire in front of him.  He was one of those hunters that thought that vampires were only really good dead, though he could tolerate them alive if he had to.  Obviously, he had to in this case.

The one good thing about all of this was that Shannon was even more off-balance by it than he was (a shocker), at least in his opinion.  Of course, it made sense because the concentration camp survivor look-alike was in HER apartment and not his.  That meant that Dom could find it all mildly amusing and disappointing that he wasn't killing things yet while she freaked out over why it was all happening in HER home.  When it came down to it, however, he'd drop any trace of humor to take care of her.  He only made the smart-ass remarks because they had the time and nothing extremely thought-intensive was happening. 

"Of course," he agreed simply when she asked them to watch the vampire, and he had no problem taking up a safe distance and being prepared to put a bullet where it mattered.  It was also a good place to eavesdrop on her end of the phone conversation, which he did.  Xander would have had no problem because of his hearing, but Dom was only human and had to settle for more obvious techniques.  He smirked on her behalf when she obviously got her way.

Yes, she got her way, but Lucien actually didn't leave his office.  He snapped at the idiot answering phones that day and reminded them that being an idiot was WHY they were on phone duty before telling them to transfer her through.  He didn't know what the hell she wanted, but if it was serious enough that she couldn't wait a few minutes for him, then he'd humor her enough to listen.

"What?!" he demanded, not bothering with a courteous answer.  Of course, what she had to say was enough to draw silence from him for a few moments, and he flicked his eyes up to Katherine.  Excellent.  He was going to be taking this from BOTH ends.  It wasn't as though he was surprised, considering how Rafael had been released, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Alright, stop fucking yelling at me, West.  If you can get him here without causing any further harm, I want it done.  If you can't, then tell me now and I'll send someone else."  No, he wasn't discussing this on the phone.

[Shannon West]

  Shannon was going to react depending on how Lucien answered the phone. When he snapped at her, he chose plan B. "Oh, I'll tell you what," she began. The rest had sent Xander and Domingos into peals of muffled laughter as she tore into the person that they worked for. She was quiet for a brief moment, they could only assume that was to let the information she'd dumped on him sink in, and then she began responding.

  "I'm sure we can manage," she said. She hung up.

  She faced the wall for a second, and then rolled her shoulders back and turned around. "All righty then boys, we're taking a field trip. Let's get number nine-seven-twelve loaded up in the truck and we can deliver him to Cobriana. I guess there's something going on I don't know about, because he sure did want him there in a hurry," she said, not batting a lash at the utterly offensive nature of her Holocaust joke. She looked at the body on the floor, and then crouched down next to it.

  "I don't know if you can hear me," she said softly, "but we're going to take you to someone who can figure this out. If you flip out, I will not hesitate to blow the back of your head off, so if you understand me, you need to nod your head," she said. If Niall had thought that dumping Gabriel off at Shannon's apartment would be good for him, he'd thought very wrong.

  When Gabriel indicated he heard and understood her, Shannon reached down and grabbed him by the arm. "Up," she said. She took a broad stance to support his weight as she all but hoisted him up herself (it was funny that she did more heavy lifting as a human than Kat did as a vampire), and then nodded to Xander. "Can you take care of Princess Zelda here for me? We'll cover you," she added.

  The three of them ambled towards the elevator. "Not like the people in this building don't see enough weird shit from my end as it is, now we're carrying what looks like a dead body out like we're about to go play at Weekend at Bernie's. This won't be shocking at all," she said sarcastically as the elevator doors closed.

[Carlos Romero]

Honestly?  Dom didn't know what amused him more.  Listening to her totally hand Cobriana his ass on a platter was pretty damn entertaining, especially since it sounded like the man didn't even try to interrupt her (probably shell-shocked), or her ridiculously non-politically correct comments afterwards.  True, her unexpected guest DID look like a holocaust victim, but it made him choke back laughter to hear her say it.  They DID have a job to do, apparently, so he had to at least pretend that he was taking this seriously. 

Well, pretend was being too lenient.  He was taking it seriously because there was a vampire involved.  Actually, when Shannon said they had to move it, he saw nothing funny about the situation. 

"No, Shannon, neither of us carries it.  Ulrich, you get the honors.  It looks starved, and if it tries to attack whoever is holding it, a human is likely to die," he pointed out.  Xander was very likely to not only survive, but rip the thing's head off.  Dom wasn't an idiot.  Shannon was enough of one to talk to it, assume it would hold to an agreement it wasn't even likely to understand and help it make its way to the elevator, and Dom wasn't happy about that part. 

Fortunately for them all, Gabriel DID seem to hear and understand her, even if he looked like he was seriously in pain just at being so close to her.  He black eyes were clamped shut tight and he was breathing harder than the exertion would have otherwise required, even in his condition.  He needed blood so badly that it was all he could think about, but he was able to hold back.  The fact that he was going to survive Midnight and then get shot in the head if he screwed up didn't escape him, and Dom staring him down was actually helping.  The Spaniard was right about him being dangerous and not thinking straight, and he actually nodded, trying to get that across.  That was all Dom needed to stop them from leaving the elevator at all.

"Ulrich, you need to hold it.  If Cobriana wants it alive, that is a necessity."

[Shannon West]

  Xander glared at Dom, but he didn't dispute what the man said. It was one-hundred percent true, and Xander was really not in a position to deny that he wouldn't mind crushing someone's head like an egg. He supported the vampire up - half-way, at least - begrudgingly as they rode the elevator down. The music was the icing on the cake of the motley crew as they stood in silence. Well, silence except for Gabriel's breathing. Why a vampire was breathing was beyond Shannon, until she realized that the smell of humans was probably agonizing to him.

  "Cupcake, if you even think about taking a bite out of that wolf, I assure you it will be the last thing you ever do," she warned him. She walked off the elevator, gun drawn, and strode through the lobby of the apartment to the side entrance that lead out into the parking garage. By now most of the residents were gone, at parties, or asleep, so they had minimal exposure to worry about, and since Shannon could hack into the security cameras and 'adjust' what they recorded, which she had done several, several times thus far, she wasn't terribly worried about being spotted.

  Once they piled into the truck, Gabriel pinned against the window next to a very irritated Xander while Domingos sat in the back, gun pointed at the vampire's head, Shannon began driving. It was only a few miles before the pitiful efforts of the vampire to curb his appetite finally got to her. "OH, FINE," she exclaimed, slamming the truck to a stop. The area she'd chosen to stop in had flashing yellow lights in every intersection, and the streets were littered with dark figures who began to approach the suddenly stopped vehicle. They were either going to rob them or try to buy drugs from them.

  "Xander, open the door," she said.

  The wolf looked at her like she'd lost her mind.

  "Open. The door," she said. When he didn't, she reached over him and pushed it open, then gave Gabriel a good shove to the three foot drop down onto the pavement. She got out of her own side of the truck and walked around, propping him up against the fender. "Hey," she said, slapping him in the face. "You see this?" she asked. She held up her gun. When he nodded, she continued. "This is your stop-watch. When I fire it once, you're going to go fucking nuts, princess. All these people coming at us, they're disposable, and we're all okay with that here. When I fire it again, you stop. If you don't stop, I fire it into your face, and, well, you really won't be so pretty anymore," she said, brushing something off of his shoulder.

  "Now, do you understand me? One shot, go. One shot after, stop. Third shot, head explode time," she said. She could hear Dom from inside the truck asking her in heated Spanish what the fuck she was doing.

  "Going... to drain them... all..... you don't understand...." he said.

  She gave him a pat. "I'm okay with it." And with that, she turned, placing the barrel of her gun directly into the chest of a thug that had "crept" up behind her, and pulled the trigger, sending blood all over the side of her truck, herself, and Gabriel.

  "Eat up, princess. You have five minutes," she said. She stepped out of the way and climbed back into the truck, leaning back in her seat. When Xander and Dom STARED at her, she put her hands up, gun still in one. "What?!" she demanded. "We have to feed the puppy or he won't be properly housebroken in my truck," she said innocently.

[Carlos Romero]

Dom hadn't missed the dark look that the vampire had given Shannon when she called him 'cupcake' and threatened him over taking a bite of out Xander, and he had to wonder if it was because of the nickname, because he'd be considering doing just that, or if it was actually because he was as insulted as he looked.  It was strange, but Dom wasn't going to psychoanalyze the situation.  He just wanted the vampire gone.

Not in the way that Shannon decided, either.  In fact, he was about as horrified as it was possible for him to get over that, and he had one huge reason. 

"You just set a starved vampire on a horde of humans," he pointed out, and it had to be shocking just to think that he cared, but they were still humans (of which he killed plenty, but he wasn't a vampire) and that was still a vampire.  "Wonderful."

Actually, watching the assholes crowd Gabriel in an attempt to bring him down for attacking their fellows, Dom lost his sympathy.  "Nevermind, you set a starved vampire on a horde of idiots.  You're forgiven."  He'd changed his mind that fast, and he was serious.

Gabe had even more trouble believing what the brunette woman was doing than the other two hunters seemed to, because he stared at her with his black, sunken eyes like she was speaking another language and couldn't understand anything he'd said.

Then, she fired her gun into that man's chest and all of his attempts at being a good person, at being a good cop, completely vanished under the scent of blood all around him.  He hadn't felt like he could move well enough to walk under his own power before, but the blood in the air and against his skin was like a last bit of wind in his sails, and he was on the man before he had a chance to drop. 

Would he be ashamed later?

Yes.

Did that matter now?

Abso-fucking-lutely not. 

All that mattered was the understanding that she'd said five minutes, and that he wanted nothing more than to utterly gorge himself for those entire 5 minutes.  The worst part about the whole thing was that the humans kept trying to attack him, which would interrupt his drinking, and he hated to kill them and then leave all that blood there to cool.  There was no careful planning and no desire to cover up, and later on, he'd be hoping that none of the people he worked with ever got a glimpse of this.  At that point in time, all that was on his mind was taking as little damage as possible in taking down these humans and getting as much blood before Shannon fired her gun again. 

It was inevitable, and of course it felt more like 30 seconds than five minutes, but the shot rang out and Gabriel was surrounded by a mess, left with the (at the time) huge dilemma as to whether or not he thought he could get away.  He couldn't teleport, not with the amount of firestone he'd been in contact recently and how starved he'd been (and still had to recover from, though he was feeling incredible in comparison already), and he didn't fancy his chances of running.  Not with Shannon and Verde both armed, and most certainly not with the wolf ready to chase him down at a moment's warning.  Thus, he wasn't happy about it and it took a sincere force of will to release the warm body in his arms, but he did.  He actually had to push himself back away from it and breathe deeply upwind from the blood to try to clear his mind.  It worked, but it took a few deep breaths.

"Thank you," he managed, and at least made the effort with what was left of ruined clothing to wipe some of the blood from his face.  Whether he liked her way of doing things or not, and whether he liked the fact that he'd just torn up a couple of unsuspecting humans or not, he'd needed it and they'd tried to harm both him AND Shannon.  He'd done worse for less.

[Shannon West]

  Shannon nodded to Dom with a smirk as Gabriel went to town. "Like I'd just randomly pass through the shittiest side of New York City and not expect to get accosted by hoards of idiot gangbangers." She kicked her feet up onto her dash and watched the carnage candy unfold, turning on her windshield wipers as Gabriel got one particularly close to her truck. She stuck her head out the window and screamed, "Hey, watch the paint, asshole!" at one of the men as he tried to crawl across her hood to get away from the monster she'd let loose on them.

  She looked back at Dom and nodded her head lightly to the music she had in the truck -it was a gangster rap CD too, of all things. She was listening to Rick Ross and learning all about his Hustlin' when Xander tapped his watch. "Oh!" she exclaimed. She kicked her truck door open and jumped down, firing a round into the air. The shell casing hit the tarmac beneath her loudly as the street had suddenly gone silent. Those that could walk ran, and Gabriel was left trying to mop the blood off of himself.

  "Here," she said, yanking a blue bandana out of the pocket of a dead body and throwing it at him. "Stain my interior and I'll kick your teeth out. And don't thank me, thank thug mentality and Mr. Ross," she said. She nodded towards the truck. "Let's go Batman, I hear there's someone at Onyx who's right anxious to see you," she said. She hopped back into the truck after him, confident now that he wasn't going to eat the rest of the party.

  "So, like, why were you at Midnight anyways?" she asked, looking back as she drove. "I know you're not supposed to talk about it, but I don't work for Lucien, so I'm not particularly removed to the idea of grilling you before I see him. Your version is apt to be less politically correct, too, which I like."

[Carlos Romero]

It was amazing how she just let the vampire loose, reined it back in and expected to have a normal conversation with it immediately after, but it was even MORE amazing when it worked.  Dom was certain that the vampire considered ignoring her rules about stopping on the second shot, but he seemed to be more aware at this point, which was both good, and bad.  Having him 'wake up' more and more each moment was making Dom feel a little trigger-happy.  That wasn't usually a good thing.

Gabe was NOT at his best, or even at anything that he would have considered his worst up until Niall and his underlings had gotten hold of him, but he was well enough to be cranky, cynical and make some conversation, even if his heart wasn't in it.  She tossed him a bandana, which he only used to clean up for his own benefit.  He didn't care about her car's interior, and really didn't care about her threat to kick his teeth in.  Like he hadn't had worse just that day.  He'd hurt so badly that a kick to the teeth might feel good in comparison.

He wasn't going to tell her that, however, since it didn't mean that he wanted to try it out.  He merely kept his mouth shut, which was more fitting for his mood and energy level (besides being keyed up over feeding, since that was starting to fade already with the instinctual understanding that the feeding was over), tried not to leave any mess that was going to piss her off, and slipped back into the truck with decidedly more grace than he'd fallen out of it with. 

Then, came the questions.  Of course, they were questions that he didn't see Lucien wanting him to answer, but did he care?  Fuck no!  He hadn't really wanted to be involved from the start, but who was he to pass up the chance to fuck that viper bitch over?  He'd been born and raised a pirate, and if there was one thing they did well besides drink, fuck, kill and steal, it was revenge.  Usually with some combination of the others.  "I don't work for Lucien, either, so he can go fuck himself," he growled out, voice still not as smooth as he was used to, and that was annoying, too.  He'd be looking forward to not looking and sounding like he'd just gone through what he went through.

He had Dom's attention from the moment he said that Lucien could go fuck himself, and Dom made that plain just by leaning forward a little in his seat.  "Keep talking.  I like this train of thought."

Gabe ignored Dom, but he did keep talking while he had the energy built up from the blood.  "There's a white viper bitch who kidnapped his pregnant lady and killed my Katherine.  She's holed up in Midnight and we figured out holes in Jeshickah's defenses.  It worked, but Jeshickah isn't in charge anymore, and the new guy plugged up those holes, fast and quiet.  Nobody even knew that he was in charge before he had us," he explained, going for as simple and direct as he could.  Yes, the main reason was revenge, but there was also the fact that if someone could get in and hurt Midnight, it needed to be done.  They'd have had much better chances if the leadership hadn't spontaneously changed, too. 

"There's a rat, too.  Not sure where, but somewhere.  Niall has sources somewhere that had guild information," he added.  Niall had mentioned that someone had told, just not who.  Gabe wanted to know who, and he wanted to harm them very badly for what he and Rafael endured.  He would, if he ever found out.

[Shannon West]

  "Really?" she asked, looking back at Gabriel, her voice so interested she may as well have been a highschool girl finding out that the prom queen had a nasty coke habit. She looked at Dom when he instructed the vampire to keep talking, and then went back to staring at the road. "This night is getting better and better," she muttered. As Gabriel talked, she formed her entirely own opinions about what was going on, but she was surprised to find out that leadership of Midnight had changed hands.

  "Midnight has always been Jeshickah's thing. It's a Katama bloodline thing. I didn't think anyone else could run it with as much finesse. I guess I stand corrected, considering," she remarked. No, Shannon wasn't polite, but she was honest. At least you always knew where she was coming from. "A few things, though," she began.

  "One, I can't believe Lucien is dumb enough to try and rally an attack on Midnight. Two, I can't believe he let a rare shapeshifter like Rafael just roll up in there and nobody would think it wouldn't be a little odd, and three, 'your Katherine' is not dead - at least, not in the literal sense. She's alive, and I could hear her through the phone when I called Lucien. Correction: I could feel her anger seeping through the phone. I think he's got more to worry about form her end than ours, at this point," she laughed.

  She looked pointedly at Xander. "You've remained refreshingly quiet. What do you know about all of this?" she asked him, her stare suggesting that he ante up what he knew or she would attempt to throw him out of the truck and see just how fast he could heel rolling against asphalt at a buck twenty-five.

  Xander rolled his eyes. "I definitely didn't know this much. What I do know is about a year ago, Lucien's fiancée was kidnapped, and she was pregnant. A month or two after that it pops up randomly that we have information as to who it is - a White Viper named Victoria. Last name isn't important. Anyways," he said, stretching his massive arms. He turned more so that his back was to the window and he could face all three of them more readily.

  "The story as I know it is that Lucien flipped his shit. He had us contact the police, and then he retreated into his office to try and hatch some plan to get her out. No doubt she's already dead, kid's been scooped out with a spoon and splattered against a wall, and that Viper is on her knees thanking some vampire very nicely for keeping her ass out of the sling," he said gruffly. "As for Midnight changing hands, there seems to be a lot of shit going on now that never happened before," he pointed out. "Midnight Europe is up and running, and that Master is a real son of a bitch. I think Jeshickah is somewhere watching the fruits of her labor blossom as she enjoys a nice martini on a beach," he added, looking back out at the road.

  Shannon pursed her lips and made a noise before settling comfortably into her chair. "Well, my friend, it seems you're in the right company. I don't think anyone here really agrees with someone who's got as much experience as Lucien letting an untrained man - no offense - and a one-of-two-Macaws-I've-ever-seen walk unarmed into the happiest place on Earth. Why he did it, for a personal reason, is even more fucked up. Can't say I'd have done the same, but then again, I don't date because I'm not into people being 'napped. Either way, he's going to be doing damage control as we speak because if the raw story got out as we just heard it... Mm, there'd definitely be backlash."

[Carlos Romero]

Gabe didn't bother butting in to argue with Shannon on any of her points, since everyone else had more to say and more energy to say it with, but there were obviously things that stood out.  Katherine had been human and happy before, and he knew that a new 'life' as a vampire wouldn't undo the fact that she had died.  He remembered that situation in perfect, horrifying detail and it was plain to him that he'd never forget it.  She'd died, and he'd held her and made that choice, and then she'd hated him for a long time after.  He didn't regret making it, but he hated the very fact that he'd even gotten involved in her life to put her in that sort of danger. 

He actually managed something resembling a laugh, even if he didn't pull it off quite right, over her calling him an 'untrained man', though.  "No offense taken, but I hope you never have to find out if your formal guild training does you more good than my lifetimes of experience did against Niall and his people," he pointed out, and that was something he meant a thousand times over, both about the comparison between her formal training and his 'untrained' experience, and hoping she never had to put it to the test.  That, and the fact that he wanted more blood and to pass out somewhere and not wake up for a long time.  It'd be a nice switch from what he'd had lately.

Surprisingly, it was Dom who spoke up regarding Lucien, and he didn't seem anything but bitter about the understanding he had of the situation.  He didn't like being the one to say it, but it needed to be said.  "That's why we don't repeat what was discussed here.  If the raw story will damage a guild leader's reputation as a leader while the local Midnight, and Midnight Europe, are drawing strength and gaining in aggression, we keep quiet.  Having Onyx doubt its leader now would be a suicidal weakness."

Yeah, and he had no intention of dying for something stupid. 

"For that reason, I suggest we get him into a room with no witnesses and shoot at him until he gets the hint."  What was sad was that he would actually like to do it, and he wasn't so sure that the others in the car wouldn't agree.  That was without even considering the people already in Lucien's company.  Dom personally remembered the whole situation with Lucien's woman and couldn't help thinking about Miranda and how insane he went after she died (and how insane he'd mostly stayed), but he didn't comment on it.  That was more information than anyone who wasn't there for it needed to know. 

[Shannon West]

  "The difference between you and me, my pale friend, is that I'd already be dead," she said with a knowing smile. There was something utterly unsettling about how she said it, but she let it go at that and began listening to Domingos monologue over what they needed to do now. She didn't necessarily say she agreed with keeping things quiet, but she was Crimson, so this didn't concern her. The Onyx guild could collapse in upon itself over this and at the end of the day, she'd be fine. Her lack of attachment was disturbing.

  "I'll second that. I don't appreciate being dragged into this bullshit when I was supposed to spend my night cleaning guns and watching reruns of Lost," she snapped. She knew Gabriel understood what level they were on as far as terms, and she knew he wouldn't take any offense to the shit she said.

  "What season?" Xander piped, glancing at Shannon.

  "Oh, just one. I have it on DVD, Skye let me borrow it. Have you seen them all?" she asked. She frowned. "I only just started watching it but I've heard that the further it goes, the more it starts to suck." Her brows furrowed a little as she slowed down for the turn up the long drive to where Onyx was.

  "Season two was okay. Personal opinion, the rest sucked. I like Prison Break better," he said. He glanced back at Gabriel. "Well, Mario, we're at the castle. Let's hope your princess is still here." The truck barely came to a stop before the large wolf had jumped out, popping open the back door for Dom to get out. On the other side, Shannon did the same for Gabriel.

  "I would seriously advise against not saying anything to anyone until Lucien can gather you for some sort of statement, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't really feel much like a Chatty Kathy right now as it is," she said to him as she shut the doors of her truck.

  She let him walk ahead for a moment and fell back with Verde and Ulrich. "So, I'm okay with playing dumb and seeing how much we get told," she said, looping her thumbs inside the belt loops of her jeans as she walked alongside them. "Although I bet Lucien already thinks we know something, I'm kind of curious to see what gets left out."

[Carlos Romero]

"Fair enough," he agreed with her, because he knew she was right, and she was happy with that fact.  Not that she was right, though she was probably pleased with that, but that she would have already been dead. She wouldn't have gone through what he did unless they really tried to keep her alive, and she couldn't have survived what he had.  Lucky her.  He didn't feel very lucky.

She was right about him not taking offense to what she said, as well.  What did he really care?  He hadn't been the sensitive sort even before, but now?  He just didn't have the energy to care if she was trying to drop passive aggressive insults, which she wasn't.  He had more imprtant things to worry about.  Ironically, he didn't say anything about her plans being interrupted until they jumped into talk of Lost and Prison Break, which caused him to choke out something resembling a laugh.  He wasn't quite well enough to make it sound normal, but it was there and he'd tried.  Leaning against the window, he didn't even move, but added in his own thoughts.

"I heard season 4 got better, but I'm only half through 3, he breathed, trying for normal.  Usually he coud pull it off without fail, but that he was even trying to do anything but sit and listen was pure force of will on his part.

Otherwise, it seemed to be mostly business from there.  He didn't plan on talking to Lucien until he had some privacy, or whatever the snake king chose as 'privacy', since he didn't even want to talk much.  Besides it being uncomfortable and him being in the worst shape he could remember ( short of actually being under the knife), he was in a pretty pissy mood regarding it all.  he got out of the truck on his own, though without the grace he would have normally possessed, and he was walking on his own, so that was good enough for him.

Dom rolled his eyes as they jumped into talk of television, but that was mostly because he didn't watch much of it, so he didn't know much about what they were all talking about.  he got the Mario reference, though.

"Does that make Cobriana Kupa, then?" he asked, though he made it sound more like he was wondering out loud than really asking.  He was also toying with the idea of doing the opposite of what Shannon had suggested and claiming they knew more than they did, but they could try her way, first.

[Shannon West]

"Something like that," she said to Dom. She didn't doubt that he was hatching his own scheme about what to do with all of the information they had, but usually she'd seen him to wait for the less destructive path long enough to determine whether it was effective or not. She hadn't a doubt in her mind that if her idea wasn't going to get them anywhere, he'd have something else cooked up. If it was violent enough, she might just go along with it. Her night had been ruined effectively because of this.

  Xander didn't really seem to have anything to say one way or the other, but he did leave the company of the two long enough to stride up next to Gabriel.

  "At the risk of sounding like a lawyer, I'll echo what Shannon said. I'm taking you straight to the infirmary unless you've got a bone to pick with Lucien now, in which case, I'll take you to his office instead. I don't know where the bird is, but I bet he's mummified in bandages now and not feeling much like talking," he said of Rafael. It was funny that they'd all been calling him "the bird", much like in the Client where everyone kept referring to Brad Renfroe's character as "the child". No doubt Ortega would protest in the same indignant manner had he the breath to. Fortunately, he didn't.

  He pushed the door open ahead of Gabriel with a large hand, and made a disapproving noise of the crowd that had gathered in the foyer. "What the fuck is this shit, the welcome wagon? Do you people not have other shit you could be doing?" he demanded. That sent a few of them scattering, at least.

|Continued in Disposable Heroes|