Blood on the Motorway [Clover, Ethan, Grayson, Quentin, Othello]

[Chandra Shadow]

 Chandra had been working late, as always. Grayson, at the moment, was nowhere to be found, and she had no intention of looking for him as the relief of having him out of her hair for five seconds to finish paperwork for his licensing renewals was refreshing. Really, Grayson had a way about him that just made himself insert into nearly every bit of her ongoings during the day, and it wouldn't be so bad except he himself always offered a gross lack of information about his own personal records that she was better off doing it alone. The man didn't even know his own driver's license number, for Christ's sake.
 
She closed the folder that held the last of the agreements in it, putting a note on them to remind herself to call first thing in the morning and have them submitted. There was no need for this latest contract not to be put into effect because of a pesky expiration or seven. Chandra rose from the chair, long legs propelling her to the window where she looked out into the evening. The inn was quiet, except for soft piano music on the floor from where Othello played to himself. Drunk, no doubt. The girls were all out on different assignments, and she was just stifling a yawn when her phone rang.

 "Chandra?"

 Chandra frowned. Her estranged sister never called her - unless she wanted something. "What do you need, Mya?" she asked bluntly. She narrowed her eyes a little as she caught sight of a car coming down the long, winding road to the inn. They had purposely pushed the property line back from the road so as to offer more privacy from the main highway. The amount of Nyeusi clientele they got was high enough they didn't necessarily need to advertise to random motorists that they were available for vacancy.

 Chandra couldn't hear anything on Mya's end except for static and loud music. She heard pieces of what was being said, but not enough to get anything solid. Attack and Midnight and get out stuck out particularly well, and it took all of her composure not to allow her hand to shake as the phone went silent. When she tried to dial back, it just went straight to Mya's voicemail. She returned her attention briefly to the road outside of the inn, but saw nothing - no doubt whoever it was had been turning around to get back onto the highway.

She descended the stairs quickly, motioning to Clover, who was half-asleep on the couch and listening to Othello 'serenade' her with his horrible singing.

 "Up, the both of you. Clover, call Ethan now."

The way she spoke was as she always spoke - hollow, yet commanding. She stared at Othello but spoke to the room, raising her voice. "Quentin?" she called. She could hear a shuffling and the badger emerged from one of the back rooms, his deceptively innocent features mirroring a heightened concern for why he was being summoned so late in the evening. From the looks of his hair, he'd been asleep, but he was as bright-eyed as he could possibly be. She must've startled him.

 "Are you armed?" she asked him, turning to regard him finally. She hadn't addressed Othello yet, but spoke clearly enough that he could tune himself into the program on whatever wavelength he existed on. She firmly believed he was not the sodding drunkard he made himself out to be, but she wasn't about to argue with him at the moment.

 "Of course," Quentin replied, a brow arched. "What's going on?" He had the faintest of accents, and despite how he tried to hide it, it never went away fully. The badger couldn't help but sniff a little more deeply when he inhaled, and right away picked up the fear that was coming off of Chandra. She was a Phasi, a bird, and couldn't do much to hide it, but Chandra herself was a strong woman, and she did better than most. He glanced at the Mistari, who no doubt had noticed as well, but the blonde was too busy buried on her own phone to say anything.

"Chandra?" he asked, taking another step closer.

 "We have a serious problem," she said firmly.

[Clover Teioh]

 Clover had taken in a glass of scotch at Othello's behest while he dazzled her with silly tales of when 'he was a pirate'. She didn't really follow most of what he said because he spoke with such a thick accent (at times), but he amused her greatly and so she paid as much attention as she could allot. He'd eventually gone to the piano and started to play a variety of tunes, mostly classical, and Clover had settled on the couch. The alcohol had done nothing for her, but she'd already been tired. She'd originally dropped by to see Rachel and play cards, but Rachel was gone, and she'd made her time doing other things.

She was now too tired to drive, and she was dosing in and out on the couch before inevitably she'd go upstairs to the room Ethan always had reserved and pass out for the rest of the night. It was when she heard the demanding click-click of Chandra's heels coming down the stairs in a much faster fashion than usual that she opened one blue eye. The other followed, and Othello's swaying, singing form came into focus as his hands traversed the ebony and ivory keys of the piano.

Chandra interrupted him rather spectacularly, ceasing his playing with a word. When she ordered Clover to call Ethan, Clover couldn't help but leave her mouth slightly agape. She liked Chandra, but calling Ethan at 2 AM was usually not a task she was happy to undertake. He never slept, and when he did, she didn't like to wake him. Ethan was always good to her, but his patience had its limits when he ran two or three days with no sleep, and she wouldn't expect it any other way.

  Chandra immediately turned to the badger and began asking about his gun situation, and Clover believed perhaps calling Ethan might be important. She dialed his number and began walking out of the room and away from the conversation. "Hey, did I wake you?" she asked.

Ethan's reply was a laugh, which told Clover that he obviously had no intention of sleeping for a few hours from then, and she laughed in response. "I shouldn't have even asked." She paused, clearing some blonde hair from her face. A glance over her shoulder told her that Othello was sitting carefully still at the piano bench, his brown eyes not as glazed as they had been as he took the entire situation in. Tricky fellow.

"Listen, I think something's up. I'm not sure of the details just yet, but Chandra's practically run down the stairs, instructed me to call you, and is now talking to Quentin about having a 'problem'. How close are you?"

[Quentin Fairchild]

As a badger outside of his cete, Quentin was always ready for the prospect of trouble. Grayson had ensured his safety by presenting papers that formally employed him as his own sort of mercenary; the 'problem solver', as he was called. He didn't look very threatening, but damned if his sunny expression couldn't change into one of smoldering rage in a few seconds. Right now he was teetering on carefully neutral, but only because he didn't want to let the real personality come out in front of these people. The dolls had only seen him go berserk, and they never remembered.

  "What sort of problem?" he asked, putting down whatever had been in his hand. He looked beyond Chandra to Othello, whom he'd noticed was sitting on point at the piano, very interested in what was happening yet not making a move to interrupt. That man was hiding something, and Quentin didn't know what, but he didn't fucking like it.

  His phone rang right then, and he glanced down at it. It was Rachel - or, Quinn, as she was called commonly. Quentin didn't care for nicknames, and so it had never been an issue of confusing the two Q's. He held a finger up to Chandra as the Phasi visibly gulped down some air and went to sit next to Othello.

By the time he'd gotten off of the phone, shuffling on the stairs caught his attention. The form of Brandon became clear as he rounded the corner and took the last few steps. There was another one Quentin could sense was off in some fashion or another. Brandon called it a lot of good luck, but that wasn't typically a thing which he subscribed to. Strange people that Grayson continued to surround him with, they were.

"Problem indeed. Midnight is on the move."

[Ethan Grancourt]

He probably should have been sleeping, given the hour it was and how long it had been since he'd last bothered with the activity, but he was deeply engrossed in some of the books he'd dug out for research that the thought hadn't entirely occurred to him until his phone had gone off (some pop rock tune that Clover had put onto it just so that it could be her personal ring tone).  It was her soft voice asking if she'd woken him up that drew the light chuckle from him and the thought of sleep to mind, but he didn't bother wasting the time in his own mind in questioning either.  He'd gotten used to the fact that just hearing her voice or smelling something of hers could make him mellow out, like it was some tangible form of peace for him.  He didn't understand it in any way that he liked, so he just had to shut up and deal with it until he actually knew what it was.  Since it wasn't threatening him any real harm at the moment, it wasn't such a bad deal.

Hearing about a 'problem' that had Chandra in a fit and talking to Quentin like that, not to mention telling Clover to call him, was likely a threat of harm to Clover, and that WAS a big deal.  It caused something closer to the sound everyone else heard in his voice, though he'd never talked to anyone else like that because he was worried and protective.

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes, twenty at the most.  If anything happens, stay safe," he instructed, and he was already packing to go get her; Ethan may have been the 'scientist' and 'sorcerer' type of person, intelligent and studious, but there was nothing harmless about him.  He packed knives and a single firearm that he didn't like to carry or use, but kept just in case both magic and blades failed him (that was unlikely).  Anything else he or Clover could have needed was already at the Inn, and given the secretive nature of the necromancer usually, he was confident that anything he kept at the house would be safe.  He had his keys on the way out the door and seemed to hesitate a moment, like he wasn't certain that he should be doing this, before he was in the Bentley and tearing out toward the Inn.  His self-preservation skills were utterly fantastic, so he wouldn't have left for anyone other than Clover, but he had to go for her. 

Hopefully, someone wasn't counting on that fact and lying in wait for him. 

He actually made fantastic time, sticking to out of the way roads to avoid trouble right until he got to the highway that ran past the Inn, and it looked like he would actually make it in the 15 minutes he'd estimated to Clover, and with no trouble to suggest that the 'problem' Chandra had worried over was all that major.  Of course, if he'd heard the words, 'Midnight is on the attack', he'd have been thinking much differently about all of it (and maybe considered a helicopter instead of the car).  He didn't notice anything strange on the long, winding road that led to the Inn until it was on top of him.

[Clover Teioh]

Clover promised Ethan she wouldn't do anything crazy, so she went and sat by the bar as Chandra flitted about. Quentin had gone upstairs, and Othello was still in the other room. The problem with Clover was that she had no real sense of time - she was too much a cat and too little a human in her head if she sat still enough, and so after about five minutes, that car Chandra had noticed got close enough that Clover could see it.

"Ethan's here!" she called, jumping off of her stool. She ran to the door and off of the front porch of the Inn, towards the car as it came up the road.

From upstairs, Quentin looked out of the window across from the staircase, eyes squinted down as he heard her shouting. Those did not look like Ethan's headlights, but he heard the door open and the sound of Clover running across the wooden porch before he had a chance to react. He thundered down the stairs after her at top speed, which was pretty damn fast since not only was he a Chamita but he also was someone who ran avidly.

"CLOVER, NO!" was all he managed to get out before the doors of the cars opened up and out poured people sent to collect them.

Clover skidded to a stop on the gravel and reversed her motion back towards Quentin - by promising Ethan she'd stay safe, that meant running if she had to. She ran past him just as he drew his first gun (first because he always had several on him) and opened fire.

"OTHELLOOOOOO!" she howled, clambering into the Inn. She nearly tripped over her own two feet. The sounds of gunshots rang out behind her and she instinctively ducked down, taking refuge behind the couch. She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide. "Do something!" she insisted.

[Chandra Shadow]

Chandra was sitting on her bed, calmly and firmly dictating directions for the dolls while she waited for Grayson to call her back. Her priority was to protect the assets they had that couldn't easily be replaced. Valentina was safe, she knew - she was in Europe with a client who would not be on Midnight's radar. Rachel and Lilyana were working with the guilds, as they were designed to, but she still needed status updates. From what she'd found out so far, they were headed to the strip club Cobriana ran to get the situation handled.

And yet, Mya was still unaccounted for. That bothered her, but she couldn't actively stop and emote over it, could she? Finally, her phone lit up and Grayson's text came up saying he was on his way with support. She had no idea what support he could be referring to. It had better not have been those two idiot Lemurs that he'd met. They wouldn't do anything but annoy Midnight to death.

When the yelling and shooting started, she stood up and grabbed the Mossberg from the closet. She walked down the stairs with the slow serial-killer stroll and positioned herself in the doorway. "This is incredibly inconvenient, she said as she racked the gun for emphasis.

[Ethan Grancourt]

So, Ethan wasn't all that happy about this situation.  For starters, there was a fucking SUV in the middle of the road, blocking his path like it had known that there would be people approaching the Inn very soon, and its lights were off.  He didn't know that there were two vehicles and that this one had followed the other down the road with its lights out before it pulled aside like this, and he didn't know that the Inn was under attack.  All he knew was that he was NOT digging this mess, and when he stopped the car, there was no movement out of the other one.  He leaned forward, trying to determine if anyone was inside of it, but the windows were tinted like it belonged to a gangbanger or one of the guild hunters, so that wasn't going to work.  He caught movement coming from the side and ducked, slamming his fist up to smash into the glass beside him even as another set of hands attempted to go through it. 

He was just a second slower, so the glass was already exploding around him when his own hand when through, and he plunged the knife in that hand so deep into something's body that he could actually hear the THUMP of his fist and the hilt of the blade hitting bone.  Chest, then.  He twisted, felt something give, and the hands that had grasped at him for just an instant there went still.  He shoved, yanking the bloodied knife away, and gave a good, hard shove with his power while he was at it.  He filled that chasm inside the body with his own power, like water flowing into a pitcher, and as the glass of his windshield exploded and he was yanked out, the fallen body was suddenly on its feet again.

Ethan was bleeding, swearing and whipping knives around, but he was still human and his attackers were not.  That body hadn't been, either, and that was where his advantage came in.  It struck the man that had Ethan in his grip, thrusting a fist into the man's chest, and Ethan suddenly had two corpses rushing to his aid as more shapeshifters appeared from the dark around him.  He got the feeling they were figuring they'd take care of him quickly, just one or two of them, and now they were realizing they were wrong.  The two that now belonged to him rushed the others, confusing their former compatriots with the attack while Ethan wiped blood out of his eye and fumed, waiting for a new body to add to his quickly growing collection.  He had one in a few short seconds, and then another, but the crowning achievement? 

He turned around in a fluid, curious movement at the sensation of someone stepping up behind him, and he actually smirked as he realized what it was.  There was a man, dark-haired and pale-skinned almost like Ethan, even a little taller and Ethan would admit that this man was 'prettier' in that supernatural way that they had. 

"You showed up to the wrong fucking party, my friend," he sneered, smile widening as he reached out without ever laying a hand on the man, pumping power into that hole inside.  "Vampires don't have souls, you're an empty vessel waiting for me to fill you, and now you're mine."

When he stood in the middle of that road, surrounded by things that were under his power and examining the damage they'd dealt to his vehicle, yes, he was satisfied, but he was also pissed.  "If I didn't need you assholes, I'd kill you again for fucking up my car," he snapped, and then there was the task of figuring out which moron had the keys to the SUV, which only made him crazier and brought on more cursing before he stalked off into the dark, down the road toward the Inn.  His monsters followed along behind him because they had to, and Ethan would have been content to be the parade leader for the dead, bitching and fuming the entire dark walk, if he hadn't heard gunshots.

"GO!" he shouted, though the verbal order hadn't exactly been necessary.  They all rushed past him, headed to the Inn and the mess that was obviously going down there.  He ran along after them, slower because he was a human but no less determined to get there quickly.  He had to get to Clover before something happened and they both ended up dead.

[Brandon Haze]

Did Brandon have a clue what was going on?  Not immediately, but he picked up the necessary information quickly and settled into the room that Othello and Clover had been in.  The drunken piano player didn't go anywhere, but he heard when Clover ran off to the door, yelling about her boyfriend, but Quentin wasn't the only one who jumped to stop her.  Brandon's head shot up and he stared in the general direction of the door, frowning.

"Are you sure?  That doesn't sound like his car," he called to her, but he was ignored, big surprise.  He didn't know what Ethan's Bentley looked like because he'd never seen the thing, but he knew what everyone's car sounded like when they rolled up, and that was NOT Ethan.  "Clover!  Get back here!"

She listened, though certainly not because of him, and he felt the wind as she rushed right past him, bullets trailing after her.  He walked forward, head ducked as he listened and felt with his feet, not walking in a straight line because that would certainly get him shot.  The funny thing was that he shouldn't have been able to dance around and avoid dying like he did, but somehow, it worked.  He snatched up a vase without really thinking, just knowing it was there (he knew the layout of the entire place, as long as nobody moved anything) and pitched it in the direction of the door like it was a baseball and he was trying his fastest ball.  It exploded on impact on someone who was trying to crawl in through a window off to the side, and Brandon laughed, not really sure what had happened but delighting in the surprised scream.  "Steeeeerike one!" he crowed, stepping backward without really thinking and ducking behind a corner.  He could hear Clover telling Othello to 'do something', which was pretty funny in itself, and so he was the only one in the gunfight that was actually laughing.

The funniest part yet?  Othello stood, the piano bench legs scratching against the floor, and sighed out a long, "Fine, since you asked, pet," and all Brandon heard after that was another scratch of the piano bench as it sounded like it was picked up, and then more shouting.  He didn't often get annoyed that he couldn't see anymore, but now, he wished he could.

"Clover!  What's he doing?" he hissed, taking a few careful, uneven steps from his spot so that he could sit behind the couch with her. 

[Quentin Fairchild]

As Quentin buried himself into the fray, he was reminded yet again of why he was happy to be a Chamita. They practically thrived on violence. He wasn't himself if he wasn't beating someone to death, and this situation was no different. Well, actually, it was, but only because these were his friends that he was trying to protect. Regardless, his performance was not hindered any by emotion, nor was it ever. That was one of the biggest reasons Grayson had contracted him - he looked fairly clean-cut and unassuming, and then WHAM - badger badger badger badger.

Speaking of which, he fired the last round out of the .45 he had into the face of one of the vampires, not even waiting for the creature to fall before he pushed on. There were humans here, too - he could smell them, their fear in particular, and that made him smile. They'd never seen a badger shapeshifter before, and since Quentin usually got his way, they wouldn't again. There was a loud yowling sound as he shifted, and then -- WHUMP! He'd literally affixed himself to the upper chest of one of them, and dug his claws in deep as he opened his maw, razor sharp teeth taking a chunk out of the man's neck. Blood sprayed everywhere, but he wasn't done yet. He released one paw and swiped up, clawing at the man's eyes as he toppled over.

Quentin shook himself off, and then made for the next man as he tried to run. He latched onto the man's pants and bit into his ankle, severing his tendon and creating an awful lot of ruckus because of it. Once that man had fallen, he bit him square in the face, taking off pieces of whatever he could get his jaws on. No, you did NOT fuck with a Chamita.

He shifted back into his human form now that his fur was thoroughly matted with blood, and grabbed the first gun he found that still had ammunition in it. More lights were headed up the road, followed by a troupe of... vampires? Without thinking twice, he shot the first one he had in his range directly between the eyes, but to his surprise, the vampire didn't fall.

Oh.

"Ethan!" he shouted. "It's about time!"

[Clover Teioh]

Clover was huddled against the couch, which she'd flipped over into some sort of fort-like cover, and looked up as the blind man made trouble of his own. She took his hand and yanked him down before he'd gotten settled all the way, no doubt nearly ripping his joint out of socket when she did it, but that was Clover - girl didn't know her own strength.

"He's regulating," she explained, as though that made sense.

She heard an awful commotion from outside, but didn't dare look over the couch for fear of being shot. "It sounds like they found Quint," she said gleefully. She was worried for her friend, of course, but she had confidence that he'd be able to handle whatever they gave to him. It didn't help that Chandra wasn't quite the girl to fuck around with, and if she was running backup for him, he'd be covered.

"So, I think we should stay right here," she ventured.

[Chandra Shadow]

Yeah, Chandra was mad. Anyone that got past Quentin got a slug to the face. She wanted to wince every time she fired, but she knew she'd sooner have a ringing in her ears for a few days than ever let some Midnight slime put their hands on her beautiful skin. She felt like screaming obscenities every time she fired, for good measure, but she managed to keep her composure. She was known for being cool under pressure, so why change that now?

When the immediate violence stopped, she turned and looked back at the building. Clover was nowhere to be found from her vantage point, but she saw Othello advancing on someone or something and he looked quite amused. He disappeared from the window and she turned back in time to see the Bently heading up the drive. One of the men running in front of it had a massive hole in his face, and yet he was still moving.

Ah, Ethan had arrived.

She picked her way through the bodies, gun trained at them in case anyone decided they weren't done being dead, and of course, one of them tried to grab her ankle. She splattered the back of his head across the immaculate lawn, and then reached into her back pocket for her phone and tried Grayson again.

"Love, I believe we'll need a clean up when you get here," she said calmly.