Full Moon [Yvette, Bacchus, Patrick]

[Capricia Varekova]

Someone had finally called Capricia regarding Connor, thank GOD. She was barely holding her shit together when Holly had taken notice, and the rest of the night was blurry after that. She'd been delegating tasks out as they came in with the help of Mike and Church. Thomas was back out in the field, and Axel had just arrived with his daughter and her two friends. Heidi's boyfriend? had gotten there only moments before, and there was some sort of drama in the hallway she had no patience for. She had a feeling Axel didn't, either, and so she'd called him out of there just as his daughter had managed to wedge herself between he and the boy.

"Axel, Connor's just made contact. I'm headed to Crimson now. Christian is in his office, no doubt. Can you keep things under control until I get back?"

  Axel nodded in confirmation, and Capri offered a small squeeze on his arm. "Thank you," she said sincerely. She paused, a brow raised. "What is that burning smell?"

  Ten minutes later, she was armed and headed towards the other guild. Capricia really did not fuck around this time, either - she had a drop-leg holster with her .45, while a shoulder holster boasted two more. It made her riding jacket uncomfortable as hell, so she ended up leaving the bike against her better judgment (or not, given what happened the last time she'd been under siege) and left in her newer Dodge Charger instead. She was about halfway between the two guilds when her gas light came on, which made her uneasy as hell. Gauging the distance, though, she'd never make it, and so she pulled into a gas station right off of the interstate.

Good on her end, she'd chosen one that was incredibly well-lit. She rested her hip against the black vehicle as she filled it up, watching the numbers on the gas pump slowly roll higher and higher. Unbelievable. She would spend sixty dollars just so that she could avoid this for a few days - or sooner, depending on how the next couple of hours went. She realized that she didn't want to use her bank card at the last possible second, and ended up having just enough in her pocket to give to the old man behind the counter. Thank God she remembered her black peacoat before she'd left, New York was funny about people walking around armed. It was long enough to cover her thigh holster, which was a bonus. She didn't want to keep taking it off and on.

  As she climbed back into the vehicle, her phone lit up with a text message. She examined it as she turned the key in the ignition, and as it turned out, it was from Darren.

Where are you right now? I need someone to come get me.

Well where are you?

Off of 23 and Van Buren. That crazy bitch vampire is at it again.

Where specifically?

Some bullshit diner. Trying to keep it public and lit up.

Be there in five.

And so that was how her night really began. She pulled out of the gas station, unaware that Darren had long been taken in by Midnight. Of course, nobody knew that right then. Capricia had no reason to be suspicious. She was very aware of the 'crazy bitch vampire' that he referred to, an Akka who'd taken a liking to him. She could understand his reasoning for not wanting to leave, all things considered - how she'd help, she didn't know. Capricia could probably project some love at her or something and get her to go away.

Or something.

[Yvette Lefevre]

 Yvette smiled to Bacchus as she closed the phone and set it on the dash of his liquid black Ferrari F430. "Was that what you had in mind?" she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly. Her lips puckered in that characteristic smirk she always had as she watched a grin spread slowly across his features.

"I thought so," she purred. "Now, those texts won't be on her phone but for another ten minutes or so, so when she tries to say that your new cat sent her messages, they won't be there. Won't even show up in any statements or anything. That's the beauty of my work. The drawback is that if she takes longer than the allotted time to get here, she's going to realize something's going on."

She paused. She'd been studying Capricia specifically for a while now - electronically speaking, that was. "I'm fairly confident she'll be here in the next five minutes though, so we shouldn't have anything to worry about. Now, when you go inside, I'll make myself useful out here - pull your car into the alley, for one, and before I jet, I'll knock her electrical system out so even if she does get away, she won't get far."

The look on his face plainly said he wasn't letting her drive his car, and she rolled her black eyes. "Do whatever you want, Bacchus," she teased. "Just remember that I'm the one who told you she was leaving in the first place," she reminded him.

[Bacchus]

 It was true, Yvette had her uses, though occasionally Bacchus wished she were responsive to his touch so that he could bend her to his wiles without having to listen to her. She was a self-righteous bitch, and she wielded her power aggressively and openly; if it had not been for the fact that she was practically Niall's pet, and very useful, he'd have cut her tongue out on his own. As it stood, he would tolerate her for as long as necessary to exact this plan. It had initially been the plan to go after the leaders and trainers individually, but the team dispatched for Connor and his child had failed. They'd taken him down a few pegs, but they had failed nonetheless. Verity's prized tiger had yet to return with any news, either. As of right now, Bacchus, with the aid of not only his masses but also Niall's talented tracker, was the only one who had successfully gouged at two of the guilds with one swipe.

Taking Darren meant weakening Connor, which would no doubt shake up his ability to confidently run Crimson. Through Connor they could get to Capricia, his - actually, Bacchus wasn't sure what she was to him. He knew they shared a child, but he understood that they weren't married, nor engaged. He supposed she was a girlfriend, but the bond they shared was obviously stronger than that. That was precisely what he intended to break - if he could successfully accomplish that, he wouldn't have to raise a finger to create anymore dissension on Connor's part - the man would deteriorate on his own. It would also create a power shift in Frost - he knew that she was an integral part to that guild, as well. Two guilds, one quick bite.

"I haven't forgotten, Yvette," he said, acknowledging the vampire's claim of responsibility. He started the sports car up and did as she suggested, pulling it alongside the diner and hiding it from view by hitting the only street light with a bolt of power. The glass popped and the light buzzed into darkness, swathing his car in a large black shadow that concealed it from prying eyes.

 "I'll need for you to hold the minds of the staff inside while I'm out here," he informed her. "I could just lull all of them, but I really don't feel like dealing with followers at the moment." Yvette nodded, silent for once, focusing her energy towards the task at hand. No sooner had he said that than did he see the bright HID lights coming down the street of the woman's vehicle. He got out of the Ferrari and walked around into the light of the large neon sign, leaving Yvette to the darkness behind him. As he did so, his appearance shifted and altered - by the time Capricia got out of her car, it was effectively Darren Liten standing before her - not the vampire.

As if on cue, Yvette pushed out with her ability, creating a false scene outside of the window that was a quiet, still street. The people inside the diner might have noticed the lights flicker a few times, but they saw nothing strange when they looked out the window. There were only three or four aside from the waitress and the one cook, and neither of them seemed to care to look at all.

[Capricia Varekova]

Capricia got out of the car, slamming the door. She walked around to Darren and opened the door, pointing a finger to the passenger seat. "Get in," she commanded. She had her hand on the door, and she observed his movements for a long moment, her eyes wide with adrenaline as she practically shook with rage. When he didn't move right away, she tilted her head almost violently.

"Darren. I'm not fucking around. Get in," she said.

He lunged at her, and when he did so, the guise of the cat slipped away, revealing Bacchus' true form. He had hoped to draw it out, but he'd studied Capricia as much as Yvette had - maybe more - and her rage was delicious. She reminded him so much of his Deyanira with those smoldering eyes and that sexy, predatory form. It was such a shame that the circumstances were as they were; he'd have made her his in a heartbeat if she'd come along sooner.

Capricia let out a low-toned scream, mainly because she didn't have a shrill voice, and was caught completely off-guard as the vampire dropped the illusion and went for her. He had her by the throat before she had a chance to react, and wedged himself between her legs, lifting her by the throat and bending her back slightly as he slammed her into the side of the car. She was struggling ferociously, grunting and growling. She was like a wild animal, and the lack of fear in her eyes was almost unsettling. She tried to take the pressure off of her windpipe by putting her hands around his. It didn't leave her room to grab any of her guns, which was unfortunate, but she needed air a little more this time.

  Bacchus laughed a little as he squeezed down, causing the huntress to emit a desperate, high-pitched wheeze. He glanced over his shoulder at the darkness, where Yvette leaned against the hood of his car, arms folded. She winked at him, and he turned back to Capri just as she managed to swing a foot up to boot him in the chest. He didn't drop her, though; he threw her. She skittered across the hood of an SUV parked to the right of them, and she cried out as she rolled off and hit the ground.

  Capricia struggled to stand up, black spots dotting her vision. She'd landed bad on her arm, and her shoulder had slipped out of place. It happened every time someone flung her into something. She drew her gun, finally, and fired a round off, but she missed him. His celerity was something he had no problem using, and he was behind her in an instant.

[Bacchus]

"I'll take that," he said. He snatched the gun from her in the fashion of breaking one of her fingers as he wrenched it away, then threw it into the street. She cried out again, but he wrapped an arm around her to restrain her while the other covered her mouth. "Sshhh, shhhh," he whispered, nestling his face into her neck gently. As she tried to squirm away from him, he tightened his arms down so hard that he cut her air off, causing her to squeak again.

Capricia was really fucking not able to breathe at this point. She reached out with the hand she could move, towards the window. She could see people inside - one of them looked right at her, but he didn't seem to notice... anything. He turned back to his friend and they resumed their conversation. She shook her head 'no' as she felt him dragging her backwards, away from the light. This is it, she thought to herself in Russian.

"No, this is just the beginning," he whispered to her, in Russian. He let her go and spun her around, pushing his power out and over her. He watched her visibly relax, and ran his fingers across her jaw, so lightly that it almost ticked her. "Let me fix that shoulder for you, my darling," he said softly. "This will hurt." And with that, he wrenched her shoulder back into socket. She cried out again, and this time he drew her into his arms, amused as she buried her face into his chest and sobbed.

"Sh, it's okay," he said again. He pushed harder with his power, and as he did so, he could feel her fingers wrap against the fabric of his shirt, gripping him tightly. He glanced over at Yvette again, who silently clapped her hands.

[Capricia Varekova]

Capricia, on some level, knew that this situation was not correct. She could remember a before, and a lover, and a child, and a life - but suddenly, there was... just him. His touch felt like electricity on her skin, sending sensations through her body that she didn't even realize she could feel. When he told her that he would fix her arm, she believed him, and she tried not to cry out because she didn't want to seem weak. She had anyways, because it had hurt, and he'd only taken her into his arms and told her it was okay.

That was when she broke apart. She loved him so much that it hurt, and it hit her like a freight train. The situation was so insane, with her friends dropping like flies all around her, and here he was, making sure she was okay, come to find her. "Oh, God, please don't ever leave me again," she said, looking back up at him. She felt like she hadn't seen him in a thousand years, and it made her heart feel like it was breaking. Her eyes were watery and red-rimmed, full lips pressed together anxiously, as though she were waiting on whether or not he would decide the fate of the world.

"I won't," he promised. "Hey, look at me," he said. He tipped her chin up a little, locking eyes with her. The physical contact made his power so much worse than it was in proximity alone - she'd been a little resistant to it, even when he'd been choking her, but then again he'd tried to reign it in as much as possible then. He wanted to terrify her, first, and then diminish her dignity by making her adore him.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. He leaned in for a kiss, to which Capricia responded generously. It was then that he broke away, trailing across her cheek and down her jaw, to her neck. He let his power off completely for a split second, just to let her know what was happening before he broke her.

Capri leaned in to his kisses, hands roaming along his sides. He was incredibly warm in the frosted night air, and she wanted to press against him until there was no way to tell where they were two individuals. "Don't stop," she whispered. She didn't care where they were - she'd take him right there in the parking lot. She didn't care; in the midst of all that had happened, she just wanted him right then. She could think of nothing more than false memories she'd created for herself to explain the sensation that had taken her over, and that fantasy drove so deeply into her brain that she couldn't even remember the name of her own child. When Bacchus snapped his power off of her, it was as though a light cut on in her head, and the fog dropped away, leaving her standing there with strange notions of a world that did not exist - and she was fully aware of it.

She was standing there while the vampire trailed kisses across her neck and jaw, his arms wrapped around her almost tenderly. The last thing she'd remembered was him trying to throttle her, and now - "What the fuck?" she barked. She whipped around, trying to shove him away, and actually succeeded in pushing him off of her. She moved for a knife hidden inside her jacket, and wrapped her fingers tightly around it as he came at her again. When he hit her with his power and she began to feel it take hold, she thrust the blade forward with a last burst of cognizance, burying it into his midsection.

[Bacchus]

When she came out of it, he honestly had not expected her to shake it off so quickly. When she stabbed him...

"You're going to regret that," he said, his voice dangerously low. He yanked the knife out and discarded it on the pavement. The wound healed almost instantly. The look of shock on her face was too precious - she honestly thought she'd get away, from the way her mouth opened slightly and brown eyes widened. She turned to run, and he let her get back to the diner. Just as her hand was on the door, Bacchus grabbed her.

He threw her backwards against the glass, causing a loud THUNK to echo inside of the establishment. Nobody moved. He put his hand back around her throat to steady her. "You know, we really could have had something, you and I - but you had to go and fuck it up, didn't you?"

"AUGH," she screamed, her head bouncing off of the glass. "FUCK YOU! You fucking FREAK, I don't know what you're playing at, but you will never have ANYTHING with - NOOO!" Her scream echoed, blood-curdling and horrific as Bacchus tore into her neck. From inside the diner, the guests never noticed the woman being mauled and slammed against the glass so hard that it cracked and splintered behind her.

[Capricia Varekova]

 It was pain. It was pain and burning and the most horrible thing she'd experienced - and now this was twice. The first time, King had nearly severed her head when his vampire lackies had caused her motorcycle accident, but this... God, she'd been so careful. How could she have let this happen? She was short of air, and the sensation of having blood taken from her made her nauseous, as it always did. She felt like a balloon someone was sucking the air out of with one of those little red coffee stirring sticks. She wanted to beg him to stop, but all she could manage was light pushing as her legs gave out from beneath her.

He didn't kill her, though. No, because that would have been ideal, given the power he had. When he left, he left her on the parking lot by her car, the door open and the alarm pinging to alert her that the keys were in the ignition. She was curled into the fetal position, eyes listless and focusing on nothing as snow began to fall around her. The blood puddle she was in was large, but not all of it was hers - some of it had been his from when she'd stabbed him.

He'd left her there, to die, or not to die, but he hadn't killed her. That must mean that he would forgive her. Of course! As soon as she could stand up, she would find him, and she would beg for him to take her back. And he would, too - because he loved her.

[Bacchus]

When Bacchus had finished, he dropped Capricia onto the asphalt unceremoniously. From the shadows, Yvette approached, her brows perked.

"Quite a show," she observed. "Now what happens?"

Bacchus pointed to his car, and she turned and walked slowly with him, sliding into the passenger side seat as he fired up the engine. "Well," he began with a grin. "She's going to be out of it for a while, and then she'll wake up and have this undying need to find me. I didn't totally brainwash her, though. I aim to put a little strife into that marriage - or whatever it is - of theirs. That ought to fuck Batten up royally in terms of trying to manage shit around him, as well as put Varekova off of her game. And she's emotional - she'll take that fight straight back to Frost."

"So what about the part where she finds you?" she asked, frowning.

"That's the beauty of it," he sang. "She can find me if I let her, and she'll eat from the palm of my hand when she does. Something like this will last for a while. She's strong, so she might shake it off eventually, but I think it won't be before this ordeal blows over,' he added.

"So basically, she's going to be addicted to you?" she asked, smiling now and staring ahead. She looked over at him. "Disgusting."

"Yes, and if you push your luck, I'll see if it'll work on you, too," he purred.

[Patrick Stevens]

So, Trick wasn't exactly unaware of what was going on in the city that night, nor was Fury, but they didn't entirely prescribe to the holding hands and singing campfire songs that the rest of the guild had basically called for, especially when Connor was missing in action.  Honestly, that had been their plan, to go out and find their buddy before he got stomped all to hell (if he hadn't already, which Trick had to admit was unlikely; Connor had a reputation to uphold).  Problem was, it was a mess out there.  They'd already opted to just take the Kargoyle instead of driving separately, mostly because Kargoyle was sleeker, faster and better armed, while Fury's monster truck was massive and had a penchant for collateral damage, but wasn't as fast.  Vampires and shapeshifters could move, so Trick personally wanted to be able to haul ass if they had to. 

The armory in the back of the hearse didn't hurt that decision.

Trick had quite literally tricked out that hearse, complete with a badass paint job and engine to go with the ammunition and firearms he'd stuck back there, and he was confident that if there was a vehicle that could get them through the night, this would be it.  Fury hadn't argued too much, in the end, and so far, Trick was right.  They'd been ambushed a few times, gotten their own families out of dodge, and then hit up any place that they knew a relative of Connor's lived at, starting with his house and working out in a slowly widening circle.  The houses had all been ransacked and a lot of them had featured bloody messes, which wasn't very comforting, but they'd determined that none of the bodies were Connor.  For starters, Trick was positive there would have been bigger messes if one of them had been.

Finding a Dodge Charger with its door open in front of a diner was bad enough, especially when his stomach gave a loud, demanding growl over the brief idea of food, he glanced at Fury for a moment as though to see what his compadre had to say about checking out the vehicle.  It looked familiar.

"Dude, whose car is that?  Why does it look like I know it?" he asked, slowing upon their approach like he was afraid it was going to explode. 

[Daniel Fury]

 Daniel sat back in Kargoyle, chewing on a toothpick. The lights of passing cars and buildings reflected severely off of his state-trooper style sunglasses, which he wore day and night. He had a shotgun sitting next to him, and he'd used it several times that night. He was pretty happy to report he'd done several thousand dollars in property damage along with causing Midnight the loss of several of its employees. He did regret that they'd taken Grave Digger (he'd made a monster truck replica and called it Grave Digger because he was unoriginal) because he'd wanted to drive over some of those minions, but when it came to outrunning them, he wasn't interested in using a tank of gas for every ten miles.

He leaned forward and looked over Trick's profile at the Charger. "'course you should know it," he said. "That's Capri's car." He paused, and then tilted his head down at something on the ground, just out of sight.

"And that's Capri!" he said. He was jumping out of the car while it was still slowly moving, his shout trailing behind him as he ran around the front of it and to where the blonde lay on the ground.

"Trick! Aw, hell, she damn near got her throat ripped out!" he shouted, waving his partner over. "Quick, get her into the back. Fuck her car, we'll have one of the tow rigs pick it up later." He swore a few more times, mostly because he couldn't tell if she was dead or not. She'd lost a lot of blood.

"Why is there so much blood?" he shouted. "Shouldn't it fucking have coagulated by now?" He looked up at Trick with a D: expression.

[Patrick Stevens]

Okay, so Trick was all about getting to Capri as quickly as possible, but Mr. Fury was a little retarded in his delivery, jumping out of a moving vehicle and rushing a fallen form like there was no chance that whoever had dropped her like that was still hanging around.  Trick screamed, "WHAT THE FUCK, MORON?!" after him, but pulled over, left the car running, and exited the vehicle at a much slower pace, watching the shadows around them in the hopes that if something was going to rush them, he'd see it first. 

Daniel was waving him over, prompting the much quicker pace he hit across the pavement, but he didn't like it.  This was all kinds of wrong, what was Capri even doing out here?  She knew what was going on!  Hell, Trick had talked to her personally a few hours ago, trying to find out where the fuck Connor was, so he knew that she'd been aware of the situation at hand.  He didn't get WHY, but there was no denying that Daniel was right about her bleeding and what they had to do. 

"Yes, it should!  Dude, we gotta wrap that with something, I'm not gonna have her bleed out in the back of my fucking hearse!" he hissed, hitting the lock on her car doors, snatching the keys out, and slamming the driver's side shut.  He pocketed the keys, wondering how badly Connor would kill him if Capricia died on their watch and deciding that it was too depressing to think about, so they really had to haul ass to make sure they got her back to the guilds in time.  "Shitshitshitshitshit, Connor is going to freak the fuck out!  You got her?  I think I have a shirt in the backseat or something."

[Daniel Fury]

"What the fuck!" he screamed at Trick, when his partner agreed the blood should have stopped. He waved his hands around like a monkey as he tried to determine the best course of action. He picked her up finally, and when he did she said something that he couldn't understand, and he whipped her around and looked at Patrick.

"Dude I think she just said Bear ass," he told him, glasses tipped down his nose. His mouth was hung open wide in that characteristic look of confusion/idiocy he often had. He shook her a little and looked back down at her while Patrick found some old t-shirt and threw it Daniel's way.

He made a little screaming noise until he realized what it was, then grabbed it and headed towards the back of Kargoyle. He tied it around her neck like a scarf, ignoring all of her other injuries, although he had noticed her arm looked like it was bent back in a way it never should have bent.

As he bent down to try and fix the scarf-tourniquet-thing he'd made, that broken arm shot up against all natural physics and clamped down on his throat. He made a loud choking noise as the toothpick he'd been chewing on went through the bottom of his mouth, and stuck out like a weird piercing.

"GHGHHGHGHGHGHTRICK HELP," he garbled, trying to pry her hand off of him.

"Where. Is. He." she demanded, her voice barely above a hiss. She was barely coherent, her eyes not even fully opened.

[Patrick Stevens]

If the situation wasn't so ridiculously serious, especially in a way that meant someone was probably going to die (and people were out there dying already), Trick might have laughed at his partner getting pwned by a chick.  As it was, the shit was hitting the fan and Connor's girl shouldn't have been all messed up like this. 

Nor should she be strangling his best friend, who was also one of Connor's best friends.  Trick kind of wanted to remind her of that fact, just in case she'd forgotten.  Sure, he wanted to strangle both of them sometimes, and Trick wanted to strangle Fury sometimes (it seemed to be a pretty natural reaction to the guy), but nobody did it.  WTF?!

Trick was on the scene in half a second, a gun in hand and pointed at Capricia's temple as he regarded the situation.  Fury had done a number on himself with that toothpick, and he was not going to live it down.  "We're looking for him, too, Capri, just relax!" he told her in a rushed tone, hoping she'd let go real fast.  If she didn't, he was going to have to do SOMETHING to make her stop, and shooting her wasn't much of an option, despite his current situation.  Pistol-whipping, maybe.  He didn't want to hurt Connor's girlfriend (and he DID respect her on a personal level), but this was Fury they were talking about, and he wasn't about to risk Daniel.  For all of the stupid shit they did, that was something that was taken very seriously (at the time; later, it was usually hysterical, like the time the floorboards in an old house had dropped Fury on his ass, screaming like a little girl, in a room full of newbie vampires). 

"You gotta let go of him, Capri, I can't let you hurt him," he told her, his voice painfully serious. 

[Capricia Varekova]

She released Daniel, but only because she realized that he didn't know anything. He couldn't. With a choked back sob of pain, she tried to shift back into a ball, but found she was unable to. The broken arm she'd grabbed him with was only further mangled now. She had to get out of this god-damned vehicle and get back to Bacchus. Why had he left her?! What had she done? She would figure it out before she got there and fix it, whatever it was. She'd make him take her back; make him love her again.

She struggled to roll over and sit up; Daniel had his back turned and was arguing with the other about her. She couldn't tell what they were saying because of the blinding pain she was in, but she sure as hell knew that it wasn't good. She swung her legs to move herself and tried to launch herself into a sitting position, but was immediately caught by Daniel's hand.

"Oh, no you don't," he said. He rolled up her sleeve and jammed a needle into her arm before she could pull away. "That ought to shut her up," Daniel confirmed, turning back to Trick. Capricia felt fuzzy at the edges of her pain, and then darkness began circling inward on her vision, like she'd been flushed down a drain. She made a groaning sound and fell backward.