Deadly Friends/Unexpected Enemies 03

When the weight of the NYPD became felt, the Animals and the Nightside Cops had broken contact and fled the scene as well. The Animals were forced to flee across town when the Nightsider Cops barred them from the castle. Unfortunately for the baseline human pursuers, once they broke eye contact for more than a few seconds their 'disguises' returned and the Nightsiders made good their escape.

SID's goal was the 'Cops' though and in the end, only two remained behind to hold off Wolfe and a half dozen SID operatives to cover everyone else's escape. They killed the troll, but dragged the female Were-Fox down in silver chains. It didn't take a crypto-zoologist to know that with that many scars, brands, tattoos and jewelry, she was someone important too.

They now had her in custody, yet she was proving a tough nut to crack both physically, mentally and spiritually. The other two prisoners they had managed to round up were the exact opposite. They answered any and every question asked of them and seemed absolutely terrified of armed humans. From what Jenna's team could figure out they had a 'charm-maker' witch and an iron-crafting elf.

Both claimed to have no idea what was going on. Their liege Marissa was dead and their new liege Armand drafted these two into his 'hunting packs'. They had no idea what they were hunting; they were to act as guide for city landmarks. Yes, they knew of several other portals, though they believed they would be killed if they divulged their locations and passwords.

They did identify their fellow captive as Elilah, Captain of the Nexus Gate, and yes, she was -- or had been -- someone important because the Nexus Gate was the largest in the city. Wolfe and Jenna were going over the torture elements they could use when Maggie had a brainstorm.

"Let me call Tessio and see what his friends can do for us?" Maggie asked SAC Raithe.

"What do you have in mind?" Raithe asked the newest member of his team.

"Maybe the Vampire Queen can get our Fox to help out -- that status thing," Maggie told him.

"I don't like it," Wolfe commented. "They could transfer some information back and forth."

"Hold on a second," Jenna said after pacing for several seconds, "We test this Fox; we ask her if she knows if Marissa is still alive."

"She hasn't confessed to anything -- she hasn't even talked us," Wolfe pointed out.

"All I'll need is a glance," Camille nodded her understanding of the ploy.

The Fox barely glanced their way. Despite the sweltering heat in the room, the female hadn't drunk any of the water placed before her. She sat under the weight of multiple hand- and leg-cuffs stoically. Maggie couldn't miss the style of grim fanaticism it exhibited which was identical with that of her own team mates. She pulled out her phone and made the call.

"Tessio," she asked.

"Yes, Special Agent Alvarado, what can I do for you?" he said.

"I need to talk to Marissa," Maggie pressed. She was ready to boil forth multiple arguments to get her request. None were needed.

"Greetings Magdalena, what do you need?" Marissa's majestic voice rang out.

"I -- um -- need you to talk to one of your people," Maggie began.

"I am not missing any of my people," Marissa cut her off.

"Fine, we captured a VIP defending the Nexus gate against us -- a Were-fox -- but she won't talk and things are going to get ugly if we can't get her cooperate," Maggie explained.

"And this is my problem 'why'?" Marissa responded coolly.

"She got into this mess because one of you called us and led us to the park," Maggie drove her argument home.

"Very well, I will take responsibility for that action," Marissa said smoothly. "Let me talk to her."

"Elilah," she began. The conversation between Marissa and the Were-fox began in English then quickly transformed into an unknown language. About thirty words in, Raithe stepped up and took the phone away from Maggie and from the Fox's ear.

"No ~ you speak a language we understand," he insisted.

"I was speaking in her native tongue which is Delaware, in case you wondering," Marissa said dryly. "It is polite to hold a conversation in the Petitioner's native language. In this case, she's a Native American and her clan has lived in the Susquehanna Valley for over a thousand years."

The room seemed stumped.

"Let them proceed," Camille broke the stalemate. Jenna nodded, then Raithe handed Maggie the phone back. The conversation went on for nearly ten minutes before Marissa's voice called for Agent Magdalena.

"Yes?" Maggie answered.

"She will help you as much as her Oath as Captain of the Nexus Gate allows," Marissa said. "She will remain in your quarters, with a designated individual, or team as she has been fairly taken in battle ~ until a reasonable peace is obtained, her bond is met, or you release her. She will be returned her charms and weapons because there will be attempts made on her life the moment Liege Lord Armand realizes she isn't dead."

"I'm handing you to my Boss," Maggie evaded.

"What exactly is in this for us?" Raithe inquired with steely resolve.

"I thought since you are going to be fighting more of Armand's people you might need one of the best combatants who knows where the gates are and who should and shouldn't be fought," Marissa said. "People -- Nightsiders will see Elilah and they will know of her honor and integrity. You may end up shooting a lot less of my fellow Nightsiders if you follow her lead in such matters."

"We'll be in touch about this matter," Raithe said, then hung up and led the others from the room.

"Opinions," he demanded.

"If we let her out we lose one of our best captures EVER," Jenna points out.

"My gut doesn't tell me that," Wolfe mused. "She fought by their rules; she sent her people to safety by putting her life on the line. As far as we can determine, she attacked the aggressive packs who were attacking the humans. She won't run."

"We have to be careful, but I don't detect deception on her part," Camille added.

"I get the same read off her," Raithe stated. "She's defiant, not about to rabbit, yet isn't glaring hatred of us either. If we can hook, her she is going to give us more than we'd ever get by any aggressive interrogation."

The others nodded, still it was Raithe's call.

"Get her stuff," Raithe decided. "I'll go talk to our prisoner and get the deal done." They got Elilah her equipment and weapons. After every item was affixed and every piece of jewelry properly placed, she opened her wallet and took out two crystals. The team stared at her.

"If I become lost," Elilah talked slowly and patiently, "I will need to be able to contact someone, correct? Who is my minder?"

"That will be me," Wolfe stepped up. "Do you understand how guns work?" Elilah blinked.

"Is that a serious question?" she replied and Camille laughed nervously. "Of course I know what guns are. You've shot me enough times. Why didn't you kill me?"

"You weren't trying to kill us," Wolfe suddenly put together her actions at her last stand.

"Why weren't you trying to kill us?" Jenna leaned forward.

"Time," Elilah stated. "If I was killing your people, you would have killed me. If you merely wounded me, you would take the extra time to take me alive. That increases the likelihood of the gate being secured and the passwords for all the gates changed."

"But now you are going to work with us?" Raithe probed.

"No, I will not try to escape until Marissa meets my bond," the fox 'grinned'.

"What is your bond?" Maggie piped up.

"She will find something that you need or someone you value," Elilah explained.

"Motherfucker," Raithe growled. What in the hell would they do if a NYC policeman was taken in exchange for a prisoner they couldn't admit having.

"Who would they consider someone of your worth?" Maggie prodded.

"A Precinct Captain, a family that contributes more than $100,000 to the political parties," Elilah guessed. "Not some foot soldiers, if that is what you are worried about, Commander Raithe."

"That is not how we do things here," Jenna spoke up. "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

"We are not terrorists, Leader Jenna. We are a nation you have been at war with for thousands of years, so this would be a prisoner exchange," Elilah stated.

"And you trust Marissa to do this for you?" Maggie asked.

"Not really, but I know Armand will try to have me killed, so I don't have many options," the Were-Fox shrugged.

"If Armand was going to kill you, why didn't you help us?" Jenna inquired.

"I have honor, as does Marissa; besides I didn't want to die and Marissa was the only one to throw me a line. Humans are children when it comes to matters of Honor -- correct most often by accident, not design," Elilah related to the humans.

"You don't think much of us, do you?" Wolfe took the crystal and motioned her to come along.

"What do you mean? You have a very limited understanding of things like oaths, the bonds created by words, and honor. You have little concept of what family really means and you are very materialistic," Elilah informed her. "You do possess loyalty, camaraderie, a fantastic sense of what is poetry and music as well as being very mechanically adept."

"In other words, I would follow you into battle if you felt personally wronged, eagerly participate in a jazz ensemble and spend hours gazing in wonder within the halls of your Museum of Art, yet trust you to gamble away your share of the rent money, misplace a Child Support payment and expect you to sell me California swill as French Champagne," she finished with a smirk (they thought).

"What do you think of us?" Camille questioned. "As people."

"Is it important?" Elilah bantered. Jenna headed off her own way, as did Raithe.

"It can't hurt you to know a little about each other," Maggie offered.

"Spoken like someone who hasn't woken up next to a fine male, only to realize he is a blood enemy of your brother," Elilah answered. It was such an oddly human experience that they shared with this very non-human woman.

"Warden Camille is insane for not seeking a coven to shield her mind. You are new," she indicated Maggie, "while he," she indicated Wolfe, "could use time in a Lodge of his Brothers to sing out his pain instead of eating it all."

"You didn't seem surprised to find out Marissa was alive while the other prisoners think she's dead," Maggie noted. Elilah thought that one over as they received quite an unwelcome welcome from the 'ready team' of the SID.

"She's with the team now," Wolfe announced. "She's agreed to give us some intelligence and to not let any of us get killed." Elilah took the bit of news thoughtfully as well.

"Words have weight to her," Maggie whispered to Camille.

"I cannot let any of you die at Nightsider hands," Elilah clarified. "Otherwise I'm your hostage."

"Warden Maggie, I knew Marissa was alive because of the hunters Armand brought to town, the fact his assassin army hasn't left, and because right before chaos erupted around the Nexus, she, the witch Hexane and a human entered the Nightside through my Gate," Elilah stated.

"Why did you let her in when Armand is now your Liege?" Camille asked.

"Salvador put me on hold," the fox grinned. "My orders include keeping traffic flowing through the portal at all times unless I consider it necessary to close it -- a privilege my current Liege Lord removed from me. When I saw Marissa, I called the Liege's man and he put me on hold, so I did what I had to do -- I kept the traffic flowing."

"Your honor is very slippery," Wolfe noted.

"That is what you humans never understand," Elilah looked up at the taller man. "My Honor is a living thing much like my heart and lungs; they all need to be flexible to function."

"It is that flexibility which bothers me," Wolfe grumbled.

"I will fight for you and your men. I will not die for you -- I am not bound to. You will need me before this is over because Marissa is a monster like few others and there will be bloodshed like you've never seen the likes of before she is done," the Were-Fox declared. "You might also need to know who is and isn't a threat ... unless you plan on genocide."

"Do you have any idea how many Nightsiders there are?" Wolfe eye-balled Elilah.

"We don't do a census in the manner of your people. By our reckoning there are between nine hundred thousand and a million of us in Manhattan and the outer ranges," she answered. There was a silence in the room as all of the FBI agents swallowed that enormous number.

"How many will fight?" Wolfe inquired.

"There are three answers to that; three hundred thousand are capable of some level of resistance if they are left with no choice. Ninety thousand are competent, trained combatants who will fight to defend the city. I believe only a few thousand will fight for Armand," she explained. "You have to understand, we are as afraid of you as you are of us."

"After all, when was the last time humans had witch-burnings, werewolf hunts, or killed vampires in their lairs while the Sun still hung high," Elilah jeered. "Now you put us in psych wards, or you SID come in and kill us along with the real monsters. It is as if you can't tell the difference between our civilization and the other denizen's inside the Veil."

"Why don't you put down those monsters?" Bryson, an SID field operative countered.

"Have you ever heard of the Jack-in-the-Box Killer?" the Were-fox asked them. After they nodded. "It killed six women in the city in 2005 -- 2006. Liege Lady Marissa hunted that bastard down -- a possessor ghost, trapped it, then had her best witches and warlocks put several spirit bindings on the cruel little horror."

"Once she was sure it would remain bound for five hundred years, she is put into a vivisection box -- that is coffin with rotating screws and blades moving inside which will skin you alive and bore holes in your bones -- for five hundred years. That is how we Nightsiders exact justice on monsters," she recounted.

"Why didn't she just kill it?" Camille shuddered.

"It was a ghost, Witch," Elilah answered. "Only the blackest of black magics can end a ghost."

"Why is she with us again, Wolfe?" Ames, the SID team leader inquired.

"Raithe thinks plucking her mind is an avenue worth pursuing," Wolfe told them and that was the end of that.

"Will she be going with us into the field?" Ames was highly skeptical.

"How will we know when not to shoot at it?" Bronson growled. Elilah's ears flickered over the insult. Maggie frowned. She knew she didn't have the SID members' experience, yet antagonizing the Nightsider when it was cooperating seemed incredibly shortsighted.

"Only if Hell freezes over," Wolfe snorted.

"Freezes fucking-solid," Ames added.

(LATE AFTERNOON THE NEXT DAY)

FBI: Special Investigative Division (SID) Special Agent Peter Ames heard the alert go off for the sixth time that day and that was just for his team. His three teammates -- the other four were no longer active -- readied their gear and went to check out their AR-14's for another round of monster hunting. The city was rotten with Nightsider infestations and the local NYPD, no matter how well equipped, was having a hard time mentally dealing with the arcane invaders.

"Special Agent Alvarado and Baxter," he addressed two of the three figures before him as his team double-checked their gear. He would rather be putting bullets in the third being, "what do you think you are doing?'

"Your team is down four out of its eight members," SA Camille Baxter answered, "and we have volunteered to go out with you and SAC (Special Agent in Charge) Wolfe has cleared us for action."

"Forgive me," Ames growled. "We are not taking the beast, you may have limited field experience, but SA Alvarado has none for this kind of hunt."

"Enough of your macho bullshit, Dick-for-Brains," Alvarado got into Ames' face, "If I was going to crack, I would think half a day with Elilah here would have done it."

"Besides, Elilah is the reason we are going," Camille gave her best winning smile. "She has decades of fighting experience and has generations of training fighting her own kind."

"She will betray us the second she gets a chance," Ames countered. Elilah's ears flicked.

"My gut says 'no she won't'," Maggie Alvarado stated. "Besides, time is wasting and you have your orders."

Ames took perverse pleasure seeing the rest of his team had the same dim view of taking a Nightsider along on an operation. Ames knew they would be lucky if it was a false alarm. They weren't that lucky. A pack of 'something' had swarmed a taxi distribution center. A few patrol men had them under surveillance with orders to hold back until the 'experts' arrived.

"Stay in the fucking van," Ames told Alvarado. He and his team flowed out followed by Camille and Elilah the Were-Fox. Right before she exited, the Nightsider transformed into a Native American human woman with long black hair, deep copper skin crisscrossed with luminescent grey-green tattoos and deep Bottle-Green eyes. A charm allowed her spear to transform into a staff as well.

"What the ... she's not coming with us -- what the hell happened?" the last FBI member out the team gasped.

"She's a Were, Ames -- which means she has a human shape too," Camille explained. "That way we don't look like we have one of them entering the building -- the spear's charm won't work against a Nightsider mystic and crashes the moment violence happens."

Ames was already talking to the cops while Camille used her 'psychic' gifts to feel the area for enemy. Ames came back over, only to be pre-empted by Camille.

"They are gone," she stated. "Their warlock -- I'm pretty sure it was a warlock -- left some phantom sounds and shadows to make the police think they were still there. There are four dead bodies too," she added sadly.

"Can you track them?" Ames asked the already desperately-worn Camille.

"It will take a while," Camille sighed. "I'll have to walk the area."

"Elilah, can you track them?" Maggie posed to the Were. The creature seemed to mull the question for a while.

"This thing is of no use to us," Ames snapped.

"Shut up, you honorless human swine," Elilah seethed. "I swear if you dare cast any more aspersions on my honor I will pluck off a finger for each insult once my bond is met and I am free." To Maggie, "I need to examine the dead human bodies to see if I can track them and stay within my bonds and oaths."

"Don't," Alvarado cautioned Ames while pointing her gun at his face. "I came to fight monsters and save lives; if this monster helps us kill ten other monsters then she's alright by me. Now stop being a fucking hindrance and let's go."

"Don't you point your fucking gun at me," Ames glared pure menace. Elilah broke the stalemate.

"You may lower your gun now Special Agent Maggie Alvarado. He has threatened your life, so I can kill him and stay within my oaths and bonds," the Were-Fox purred. "Human Ames ... because you are clearly unbalanced, I will give you one more fuck-up. On the following one, I will kill you and make my case before your Commander and Liege Raithe for why you had to be put down. If I am wrong, I will, of course, forfeit my life. I fully expect to live."

Alvarado raised her rifle skyward and waited. Ames started to lower his weapon.

"You are about to make your final mistake," Elilah cautioned him. "I have an Inertial Charm -- your first four, or five bullets won't hit me while you are well within reach of my spear." Camille started walking across the street alone, so Elilah had to race to her side immediately.

Ames was clearly furious, yet protecting the psychic was always a top priority. He got ahead of her and forced the door seconds later. Even as his men fanned out, they saw the situation was exactly as Camille had said it would. Grudgingly he also noticed Elilah kept an attentive watch over the girl.