Cauldrons

by Michael Spenik

It isn't easy having the Khan of the shapeshifters as a brother, or having a pair of teenagers looking for advice on adulting, but somehow Autumn O'Connell manages to do fine while also running a successful Magic shop and book store. But unfortunately things get much harder as she receives a visit from the creator of the staff and tablets she bears, and life gets more complicated.

Prologue…

Autumn sits in her shop in Houston, looking over the ledger from the last few months. She has not been on top of her business' details lately, as she has just gotten back from accompanying her brother's shapeshifter group to New Orleans. She had arrived yesterday and had a family dinner with her brother and his family, as odd and extended as it is. She pauses from looking at her ledger as she recalls the way that Maddie had looked at Tony for the first time. The only one in the whole room without enhanced senses, and the only one to catch it.

She shakes her head with a knowing smile as she focuses on the transactions from the last month, skimming through to see what has changed from the normal flow of customers. Atticus had been left in charge while she has been gone, and the shapeshifting Irish immigrant has done well with keeping the till accurate and up to date. He uses old Irish annotations for notes, but since she reads the obscure language, it does not bother her at all. It looks like business as usual, for the most part, but she notes an absence in the transaction record, making a note on a chalkboard for Atticus to look something up for her.

She looks up from the old Irish note as her door chimes, indicating a visitor, smiling as her nephew, Tony, enters. She shakes her head and smiles at him tightly as she waves at his face.

"I have a new rule for the store, no masks," she says, waving for him to take it off as he walks up to the counter.

He sighs audibly, pulling the mask off with a wince, "It hurts, Aunt A. Seriously, light on my skin hurts."

"Hiding from the world won't make the pain go away," she admonishes him, shaking his head. "You grow accustomed to the feeling, and it will stop being distracting, it will stop being pain and will simply be sensations to be interpreted by your mind. Hide from it and the calluses will never form."

"I wonder how you and dad are related, because you are so different, then you say something like that, and it's obvious," he says with a frown of his own, sighing in resignation. "Aunt A, I need some advice, and I don't think dad or Mrs. Nash are the ones to ask."

"It's okay to call her Tasha," Autumn says with a tight smile at him. "She's actually closer to your age than mine," she says with a smile, then frowns with a furrowed brow. "Okay, maybe not, my math is off, but that still makes me feel old…"

"I need to get out of the Bastion," Tony says with a shake of his head. "I can't deal with the looks I'm getting from everyone, the treatment. And I can't get out from the microscope, it seems."

"You make it sound like everyone is watching you," Autumn says with a shake of her head, tucking away her ledger and moving to make tea.

"Someone always is," he says with a sigh. "I can hear them, sense them… watching me. I'm the only human there, and I can sense more than the shapeshifters. They are always watching."

Autumn only nods, not quite understanding, but empathetic, "Well, if you don't mind being under the occasional watchful eye of myself, I have a few friends in the neighborhood, and I know at least one of them has an apartment for rent."

"Yes," Tony says with an eager nod. "When can I look at it?"

Autumn laughs, "It's not that easy. There's the security deposit, first month rent up front, last month too. Not to mention utilities, appliances, furniture…"

"Dad paid me for the New Orleans mission," Tony says with a shrug, uncomfortable. "I'm not rich, but I've got money to get out on my own, enough to get started and have some set aside to pay for schooling and some certifications."

"How much did he pay you?" Autumn asks, practical as ever.

"Base rate was for the expansion, ten thousand, and he gave me a bonus for what was written up as 'extraordinary feats of bravery', killing Poseidon when he had dad skewered," he says with an uncomfortable twist of his mouth. "So I have a bit over seventy grand in an account."

"Okay, let's do math," Autumn says as she pulls over a pad of paper with a brisk nod, and Tony groans, but does not protest.

The young man awakes with a gasp, the pain burning sharply up his entire right side, his vision throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He blinks against the tears, his right eye looking around frantically as he comes to himself. He is lying on a bed in what looks like a hospital, tubes in his arms and one in his nose that snakes down his throat, awkward and making him want to gag. His arms are restrained, strapped to the bed, and he looks around through his watering eyes as the pain remains in his side.

"You died," a raspy voice says from the side, and the young man looks where there is shadow in the corner of the room by the window, night covering the city outside.

The shadow is deep and he can see no one there, his sight sharp and clear despite the darkness, his senses drinking everything in painful clarity. The shadow in the corner seems to swirl and thicken, like fog, and it solidifies into a dark form, which builds. From the shadow steps a man in a black suit and a blood red shirt, his face a mass of wrinkles and a sharp nose. The man smiles with crooked yellow teeth as he walks to the young man's side, his hands covered with black gloves, a long black coat over his suit. He is thin and the clothing hangs on him like on a skeleton, but his gaze is focused and strong, dominant.

"You are alive now, only because of me," the man says in a voice far deeper than his frame should allow. "Because I have use for you, if you wish to stay alive, and to have vengeance."

"That bastard…" the young man says with anger in his voice. "Rebecca…"

"She moved to Dallas, with her Aunt," the man says with a mock frown, shaking his head. "And your family is shamed, your loss public and now the businesses are suffering in the fallout."

"Bastard…" the young man says darkly, his mind picturing the one who put him here, who beat him in the arena.

"I can give you the power, and the knowledge to beat him, to take everything from him, just as he took everything from you," the old man says with a wide smile, pulling a narrow scroll from thin air, holding it before him. "But you must sign, or I cannot affect you, and you will die in this hospital room, tonight."

The young man looks at the old man, the devil incarnate, who smiles a salesman's smile down at him, and the youth nods firmly.

"I'll do it," he says, reaching out a hand.

The man unrolls the scroll and lowers it to the bed, then an old fashioned fountain pen flashes out, pricking the young man's hand. Blood drips on the paper, and the old man's grin is salacious as he pulls the paper up to his face, where he blows on the wet lifeblood.

"Oh, that will do," the man croons, the blood drying quickly. He rolls up the scroll and tucks it in his jacket, then snaps his fingers.

The young man feels control of his legs and body return just before a red smoke shoots from the man's eyes to his own mouth. His lungs burn as his body shudders in racking pain, the old man cackling in the night as he screams in pain, power filling him while knowledge floods his mind.

Cauldrons…

Autumn hums to herself as she organizes the list of recent arrivals in the storeroom of her shop, noting she has an excess of a few items that she is normally short on. She frowns and shakes her head at the sudden largesse, and makes another note on her ledger, the indicators stacking up. She glances up and looks through the small window to the front door as the bell there rings, and she notes Mitchell, the Horde's security head and Alpha for Clan Cat enters. Autumn sets aside her list of arrivals and exits the store room, approaching Mitchell.

Autumn is a short woman, standing precisely five feet tall, with thick hair falling past her shoulders and braided into a thick rope down her back. Her dirty blond hair of adolescence has darkened with age, and over the last five years she's earned some gray in the dark brown as well. She is less than thrilled with the gray, as she is short of her fortieth birthday yet, but she refuses to hide who and what she is, so she does not dye it. She has a round face, though she has a thicker jaw line than would be normal, as well as a figure more stocky than curvy. She picks up her staff as she exits the store room, a heavy iron staff with bronze caps and bands with etched designs along its length.

Part of the reason she has become a bit stockier the last year is because of the staff, which was given to her by her brother. The staff once belonged to Tiamat, god of chaos and creator of dragons, an ancient Babylonian deity. The purely metal weapon is far heavier than anything she had wielded before, favoring a staff as a weapon, and far older as well. The age and inherent power within the staff is the reason she keeps it close, its value incalculable.

"Mitch, I'm glad you came," Autumn says with a smile at the were-jaguar, walking out into the store, wearing khakis and a red blouse. "Would you like something to drink?"

"If you have that toffee chocolate mix, I'd love it," he says with a nod, sitting at a stool at the counter, setting his bag beside him.

The male Alpha for the Cat Clan is a tall man, wide in the shoulders and slim in the waist with thick legs, standing a few inches over six feet tall, of dark skin and complexion.

"I have Tasha's order ready for pickup in the back, but while we wait for Atticus to bring it up with the tally, I have a few questions to ask you, if you don't mind," she says as she sets the cup down in front of him, sitting across from him with the glass counter between them, jewelry and minor items in the case.

"As long as it doesn't violate Horde security," he says with a shrug.

"Well, it's odd," she says, opening her notebook. "While we were gone, my sales went down on bird bones, beaks and minor ingredients. I expected them to rise back up when we returned, knowing that the Vikings use those items the most."

She flips her notebook to the last week as well as the current stores she has, "But they haven't returned, to restock, and there are no businesses in the area that have picked up the sales. So either they're growing and providing their own, or the magic users aren't here anymore."

"I'm not hearing a question," Mitchell says slowly, his dark eyes and flat face looking over the rim of his hot, sweet beverage.

"Did the Vikings take more magic user casualties than I thought they did, during the expansion?" Autumn asks, tapping her notebook with the eraser of her pencil, she and the Mitchell the only ones in the store.

"Not that I'm tracking," Mitchell replies slowly after considering his answer, knowing the witch was careful to craft the question. "But after the battle, they left on their own, after the US Navy and Army took over. Not everyone may have gotten back yet."

"Then where would they go?" she asks, a rhetorical question, as she continues speaking, studying his reactions as she does. "They use our hospitals, and their families are here. And there's no missing persons, as far as I know."

"I got no answers, ma'am," Mitchell says with a shake of his head and a frown, covering it up with a sip from his cup.

"Rich hasn't let go of all the security, has he?" she asks, knowing the answer and continuing. "He is holding cards to his chest, still, isn't he?"

Mitchell frowns at her, then nods slightly, not making eye contact and sipping his cup again.

Autumn mulls over what he had said and not said for a moment, nodding internally as she reaches some conclusions.

"Thanks, Mitch, I appreciate it," she says simply, patting his hand. "I know where to go next."

Mitchell blinks, not really seeing where he had given her much, but apparently enough.

Autumn is sweeping up the back corner of the store when the bells over the door ring, and she unhurriedly moves out from behind the bookshelf, dustpan in hand. She smiles politely at the man who had entered, likely to be her last customer of the evening, as she was only a few minutes away from locking the door for the night. She brushes the small pile of dirt into the trash, then leans the broom and pan into the small broom closet behind the counter. She smiles again towards the man as she approaches the register, where he stands on the opposite side.

The man is olive toned with thick hair and bushy eyebrows, a styled goatee on his face, his hair black with gray in the temples and beard. The man has an aristocratic face, undoubtedly handsome and with a fatherly look to him. Autumn immediately likes the man as he smiles at her, the room seeming to fill with the smile in his eyes and the weight of his presence. Autumn smiles tightly as she checks her reaction to the man, surprised in spite of herself, as the man has not even said anything, and stands only a few inches taller than her. She raises her mental and magical shields in reaction, though externally she has no reaction.

"Good evening, sir," she says pleasantly, wondering if he had used a glamour or spell on her. "Is there something I can help you find?"

"Actually, I came looking for that," he says, nodding to the wall behind her, and she glances at the shelves there. She nods as she gestures to the five hundred year old book on the shelf, encased in glass.

"It's a part of our special collection, and is not up for general sale, though an offer could be made, and I can discuss it with owner of the book," she says with a nod and turning back to him, but he is shaking his head.

"No, my dear, not the book, the staff," he says with a shake of his head, pointing at the iron staff of Babylon leaning next to the shelf. "I come to collect the staff."

Autumn pauses and looks at the man again, this time using a charm on her waist that allows her to quickly look into the magical spectrum without having to do the long spell. She blinks and has to look away from the man, as he appears to be a star of power enclosed in human form. She blinks her eyes against the spots in her vision from the sight, the man chuckling low across from her. She gains her sight back after a few moments, and the man is sitting on the stool in front of the counter, an easy smile on his face.

"I could have warned you, had you simply asked," he says, Autumn recognizing his accent as old and Middle Eastern.

She swallows on a mouth gone dry, and her mind races as she plays out her options, who this man really is and what he is doing here.

"I understand the worth of the staff, having crafted it, and I think you have an inkling of its abilities as well," the man says with an easy smile. "How about something to drink, and we can discuss it?"

Autumn swallows and nods, moving to the tea station, and asking as she moves, "Is there a blend you prefer? I have the largest selection in town for teas, excepting the Japanese Tea House in downtown."

"I would prefer a dark roast coffee, if you can manage it," he says politely. "I abhor the expresso mixes, but have become quite fond of many of the dark roasts."

She goes about making fresh coffee while setting up a cup of tea for herself, and she glances over her shoulder again at him, then at the door, noting that he had locked it when he entered.

"I have found that with age, comes patience, as well as wisdom," the man says as she pulls out the makings for coffee and tea. "Many, however, lack real patience, much less true wisdom."

"I am curious how much of current events you have studied," Autumn says as a conversation holder as she heats the water for their drinks. "I practice Celtic Witchcraft, which did not exist in your time. Technology aside, the variety of pantheons must be surprising, I would guess."

The man smiles at her, which she can see from the reflection of a small mirror nearby, and she concentrates on not falling under his spell.

"I see the reflections of the pantheons I left behind, when I slumbered," he replies easily. "The strongest are still alive today, and they remember. This is why I have come here, to take the broken lands of the Americas as my own."

"Did you know of the Americas, when you went to sleep?" she asks, curious despite the real danger that is sitting not far from her.

He laughs again, "You thirst for knowledge, even knowing that I could erase you with a gesture."

Autumn pauses before responding, looking at the heating and steaming water in front of her, "There was a series of books written, all of which I read. They were entitled 'Lunch with…' and inserted historical figures. The premise was that you would have a chance to sit and talk with those who influenced the world so much, to learn what they knew."

The man nods sagely at her as she pulls the hot water from the flame, "I knew of them, but they were far from my home, and I had no interest in them at the time."

His tone and posture shifts ever so slightly, and he changes the subject.

"I felt you use the staff not long ago, to mend the curse placed upon the Khan," the man says, his posture easy and calm as he looks around the room. Autumn looks him over again in glances, focusing on his attire and dress, having been overwhelmed with his personality initially. He wears dark slacks and a long sleeved silk shirt in red, rolled up sleeves to the elbow, no watch on his wrist, and with a light gray cloak pinned to his shoulders of fine wool.

"When I bestowed the tablets and weapon upon my instrument, he was incapable of understanding the inscriptions and the depth of the gift I had given him," the man says as Autumn carefully pours the coffee and tea. "He had nearly unlimited resources and references, and he could not puzzle it out, and yet you accomplished it with far less in the way of assistance and resources in less than a year."

Autumn is setting out the cups and looks a question at him as she gestures to the sugar and cream, to which he shakes his head.

"You flatter me," she says carefully. "But I was not working alone, as I am certain you know. I had some help from other magic users in the area, particularly the Rabbis."

"Yes, the Rabbis," the man says with a sigh and a small smile, sipping the coffee with a nod of approval. "I am amazed at their ability to remain, when so many other cultures have fallen by the wayside through the centuries, especially when so many attempted to erase them from the face of the earth."

"So, you've come to reclaim your staff, then?" she asks, fully aware that this is Roland, a man of legend and incalculable power and ability. "I am glad that you are polite enough to ask for it, rather than simply take it."

The man smiles at her, "I am travelling, for various business reasons, your brother being one of those reasons. I was astounded when I discovered what he had done with the spoils of war, and wanted answers from the horse's mouth, as you say in this day and age."

"I'm guessing you mean how he simply gave me the staff, and the tablets as well," she says with a nod, the act having surprised her as well.

"He opens his doors to all in the city to look upon his spoils, not as a boast, but as a challenge, to decipher the riddle contained therein," he says with an expansive gesture. "I am curious if you have read them yet, or if you have not. I know what survived the battle, but not if you have unlocked all of their secrets."

Autumn takes a sip of tea to buy herself time, completely unprepared for this conversation. She has been reading and studying the tablets with help for months, but so far she is the only one who has cracked the language and can read it. No one has read what is on the staff or the tablets but her, and she wonders if that information would put her in danger, or keep her safe.

"It took a while, and the archives I accessed were helpful," she says truthfully, presuming a man of such power and age could sense a lie if she were to speak it. "The writing on the staff allowed me to remove the curse, and has opened doors to other languages I previously didn't know."

The man nods slowly, studying her carefully, "You remind me of my last wife, strong and powerful in your own way, impressed and knowing who you sit with, but un-bowed."

Autumn smirks, "My brother could kill me in the blink of an eye four different ways with one hand. He has been that way since he became an adult at far too young an age. I am used to dealing with people more powerful than I."

"And yet, un-bowed," the man says with a nod at her. "You are a little like my daughter, as well. I can sense the stubbornness in you."

Autumn tilts her head to the side ever so slightly, "I didn't realize you had a family."

"I do not, as such," he says with a dismissive gesture. "I was forced to kill my wife, shortly after my daughter was born, and have only recently attempted to reach out to her again."

Autumn pauses then smirks, and leaning back on her own stool, lost in memories for a moment, "I remember when Rich and I were travelling in Florida, not long ago, and he rescued two young girls from some bad men. After he and I talked, he took them as his own, claimed them and treated them as his own flesh and blood."

"A liability," the man says, shaking his head slightly, taking a sip of his coffee.

"He said the same thing," she agrees with a nod, then takes a breath and continues. "But I pointed out that he already had a family, in the Horde, and in me. It's a complication, but it makes him stronger, more focused and determined."

"Immediately, those are the results," the man agrees with a nod, then sets down his cup with a sigh and a sad shake of his head. "But in the end, those you raise are destined to rise against you, to take what you would not give them. They resent, and they try to kill you in the end. It is the nature of humanity… that the young rise and take when their elders begin to fade."

Autumn smiles tightly at the ancient man sitting across from her, "We'll agree to disagree."

The man says nothing, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, taking another sip of his coffee slowly before continuing.

"What would you accept in trade, for the staff and tablets?" the man asks, leaning back casually and his expression focused on her.

"Nothing," she replies immediately, shaking her head. "They are quite literally priceless artifacts of power and knowledge that is incalculable. A billion dollars would be insufficient, a mere fraction of their worth. But if you were to take them today with no payment or compensation, I would still feel blessed to have studied them… to have learned what I have."

The man gives her a small smile and leans forward, his hands clasped on the table before him, "What would you do in return for the privilege of retaining them?"

Autumn blinks, staring at him, unsure what he means, "I don't understand."

"You have proven yourself a scholar, and a shrewd businesswoman, judging by your success here in Houston," he says, gesturing to her well-kept shop and building. "I can sense the potential within you, and I can see that you are not driven by blind ambition, as so many I deal with are."

"Where is this going?" Autumn asks, skipping to the part she really has questions about.

"Tiamat is no more," he says with a shake of his head. "But the new age is coming upon us, and the legends must be reborn again. The cycle must continue."

Autumn looks at him critically as he stops and looks back at her, and she replies honestly, "I am not Tiamat."

The man laughs, a deep, soothing roll of his tongue, and he smiles at her with a glint in his eye.

"I was not there, but I saw the battle, and I know he is truly dead," the man replies, picking up his coffee again. "But legends live on, and dragons must return."

"Why?" she asks, leaning forward and looking at him critically. "Why do they have to return at all?"

"It is like technology, before I returned," the man says, setting his cup back down. "The gun would be invented, the bomb, the nuclear device. It will happen, regardless. So the question I pose is whether you control its evolution, its interaction with man, or let wild nature take its course, and pull the choice from your hands?"

"You want me to be the mother of dragons?" Autumn asks directly.

"There are times when fate chooses for us," he says as he leans back from the counter. "This may well be one of them."

He stands up and turns from the counter with a wave, "I will let you think it over. If you decide that you do not wish to accept the generous offer I have made, to usher in the new species, then merely leave the tablets and staff on your roof, and they will go away. Decide to keep them, and fate will fulfill itself."

"What if I choose neither?" she asks as he opens the locked door with a gesture.

"There is no third choice," he says simply, turning to look back at her. "You hold the staff, and you will be the progenitor. There can be no other way."

The man turns and leaves, and the moment he is gone, Autumn is unable to recall his face.

Autumn rides her horse down the street, her staff settled in its holster on the saddle, a light linen cloak wrapped around her shoulders. It is afternoon, the day after her visitor had come to tea, and she is not sure yet of her answer. In true family fashion, she focuses on work to distract her and let her mind process it. So she is riding north of town, near Richard's home, but adjacent to it. So it is with the sun shining through patchwork clouds that she rides up to where a huge man stands in a combination of chainmail and tactical gear, a long spear in hand and a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

"Halt, and identify yourself," the man calls, and Autumn pushes back her hood, revealing her face to the sunshine.

"Hello Hrothgar, it's me, Autumn," she says pleasantly, halting her horse a respectful distance away from the guard. "I'm here to see the seer and the dwarf woman," she says as she reaches into her saddlebag, pulling out a sack she had made up that morning. "And I brought honey oat cakes, the ones you like."

"I cannot accept a bribe to let you pass," he says, though his eyes are on the bag.

"I thought I would just leave them here, y'know, while I went into town, I'm not on the forbidden list, as far as I know," she says with a smile, tossing him the sack, which he catches with a suspicious look on his broad, bearded face.

"You are not on the no access list," he does say, glancing at the clipboard resting on a rock not far away.

"Good," Autumn says with a chipper tone, pulling her hood back up and kicking her docile mare into a walk down the cobbled road into the Viking town. "Keep the sack, and enjoy your day."

"Pleasant day to you as well, mistress," Hrothgar says with a polite nod, waiting until she is out of sight before tearing into the sweets.

Autumn rides on, pulling her rough spun cloak over her shoulders and the cowl as well. The fabric is soft and light, breathing well, so she does not overheat in the near summer temperatures. The cloak and the linen wrapping over her staff also prevents easy identification as she rides into the small city that serves as the central hub of King Ragnar's realms. The Neo-Viking settlement had rocketed in success over the last few years, especially since Richard had shifted and purchased land on his border. The Horde and the Neo-Vikings have a standing alliance, and were committed partners in the venture recently in New Orleans, solidified with their cooperative victory.

Autumn is doubtful, however, recalling the legends of deceit and guile among the Aesir, the gods of the Norse, as well as being well read on the history of that region. The Norse played politics and power games as well or better than some in ancient Rome, and were capable of far cannier moves and machinations than most give them credit. Most consider them barbarians and drunks, but fail to realize that it is a mask for a cunning and patient hunter and warrior beneath.

With these thoughts in the back of her head, Autumn dismounts and approaches a low wooden building, a thatched roof compared to more modern styles to the sides. A thin line of smoke is lifting through the centerline of the thatching as Autumn walks into the front door, pulling back her cowl once she has entered. She pulls the cowl back slowly, her eyes adjusting, and she walks slowly to where a cloaked figure sits in the corner, bent over a low pile of coals. The figure is not large, a small bony frame with the cloak and robe about it pulled tight, an elder's head of wrinkles and stringy hair falling down past its shoulders and down its back.

Autumn has spoken to the Seer a number of times, but is still unable to tell if it was a man or a woman before becoming the angel of death for Ragnar and his people. In the olden times, the eldest in the village was often an old crone, called the angel of death and thought to be a prophet and a seer of the gods. Since strengthening his hold on the region and bringing Odin and Thor back, many traditions among the Vikings that were merely traditions have become reality.

"How fares the Celt?" the seer rasps in an ominous tone.

Autumn peers at the Seer's face, the sockets of its eyes hollow, giving a skull like appearance, as there are no eyeballs. The sharp features are tight to the skin and nearly cause her to shudder when she looks upon it, but she has seen worse. She approaches and sits across the coals from the Seer, pulling a pouch from her messenger bag.

"I fare well, wise one," she says, bowing though unseen by the blind one. "I bring a gift and a question."

She lays the pouch of silver coins to the side, and the Seer twitches its head as it hears the sound, then shakes its head, waving a bony hand with long nails at it.

"No, no, no, Celt, that will not do, not for the question you wish to ask," the Seer says, a smile crossing its face, yellow uneven teeth revealed as it keeps its head bent low, gesturing with a hand.

Autumn hesitates, then extends her hand, and the Seer takes it, palm up in its own. It flicks a finger across her palm, and she stifles a gasp as a shallow cut is revealed, starting to turn red. Before the blood can fully well, the Seer bends down and licks the blood from her palm, then hocks the spit and blood onto the pan over the coals. The fluid hits with a sizzle, and the Seer bends its head to the side, listening intently to the gob slowly fizz.

The Seer tilts its head, reaching down and scribbling on the iron pan as the spit and blood continues to sizzle.

The Seer snorts, tilting its head, "You look to the wrong question, Celt, but I will give you your answer. They have gone of course, and to where, I cannot say."

"Cannot, or will not?" Autumn asks, leaning forward intently, trying to decipher the message.

"I may not," the Seer says slowly. "Not to you, though you will have an answer before you leave this place, not that you will understand it as such."

Autumn frowns, looking at the Seer and waiting until the pan is dry, then splashing a touch of bleach on the surface, to destroy her blood trace, preventing its use. The Seer chuckles darkly in the corner it has receded to, sitting on a rickety cot and wheezing. Autumn collects herself and exits the building, her next stop the houses of the customers she had from the town, the dwarf woman magician senior among them.

"Ahh, the sister comes to visit," a voice says in sing song fashion as she steps over the threshold of the building, cloth wrapped staff in hand.

Autumn turns her head and surveys the street, sighing internally as she does. Ragnar is leaning against the wall opposite the building, wearing jeans and a black leather jerkin, a wrought iron crown on his head as he looks across at her. He is taller than her, close to six feet tall, solid in shoulders and legs with padding that says he does not like to run much. He has red/brown hair shaved on the sides and pulled back in a tight mane, his beard long on the chin to touch his chest. Further down the street to either side is a pair of guards in tactical vests and axes, pistols on their hips as well.

"Good day, Ragnar Fleethand," Autumn says politely, curtseying to him with a pleasant expression. "Is the king enjoying this fine day?"

"I was," he says as he pushes himself from the wall, walking towards her slowly. "I was, but then I heard of an uninvited visitor in my domain, and I came to investigate."

She smiles and laughs lightly, shaking her head, "Surely you don't mean me? I'm a businesswoman, making my rounds, is all."

"We have no need for your business, begone," he says with a hard expression, his thumbs tucked around the buckle of his belt, close to the weapons on his hips.

Autumn takes the warning seriously and nods to him, then mounts her horse and leaves the city with an escort of four Viking warriors watching her go.

Autumn is in her shop, putting away the unused tuxedos she had gathered up for her nephew Tony. She had been informed by Maddie that he did not intend to go to his only Prom, and she had spent the morning racing around town gathering up various styles of suits for the occasion. Once she had dragged the teen out of bed and cleaned him up, she had him try on a few and sent him to the party in what she deemed the best outfit. He is now out with Maddie at the Prom, and she just hopes that nature takes its course, but not too far.

She smiles ruefully to herself at the internal thought as the front door of the shop crashes open, nearly breaking the glass in the door. In stumbles a were-tiger in warrior form, orange and black fur matted with blood along its upper arms. It takes a moment for Autumn to lower her arms and staff, having prepared to send a spell his way for the intrusion.

"The towing company has been hit by some type of golem swarm," the Agogite gasps, his seven foot frame stumbling into the store in the fading evening light. "We need a magic user, fast."

Autumn runs around the counter, pausing to pick up her back pack with her casting essentials and ingredients, her staff in hand.

"Stay here," she says to him, running out the door and the six blocks to where Mike's Towing is located.

She paces herself during the run, not jogging but not sprinting, and she slows to a slower jog as she turns the corner to the lot that holds the towing company. Mike's father had owned the lot and a towing/repo company before the Shift, and had managed to keep the property during the initial crisis that followed. When things settled, he had set shop back up, and mentored Mike into the family business. Now Mike runs it with his family, his father retired in Dallas.

The lot is over a hundred yards on a side, comprised of dirt and crumbled concrete, with scrap metal and old vehicles and miscellaneous items strewn about in a chain link fence, complete with razor wire on the top. The junk in the yard piled eight to ten feet tall, and in the center of the lot is a two story building which is a combination of a work bay and a house, patched and rebuilt constantly over the last three decades. On the roof of the building, the top six feet visible as she comes into sight of the lot, is a tall warrior form were-tiger wielding a stylized katana sized to match, swinging at metal creatures crawling up the walls. Three other shapeshifters in warrior form stand at his sides, fighting with weapons or whatever is at hand, trying to keep the waves of metal men at bay.

Autumn pauses and tilts her head to digest what she is seeing, now noting the five adult humans in the center of the building, holding bats and axes around a few smaller figures, children. She firms her mouth as she recognizes that it is her brother and his people trying to keep the civilians safe from the goddess only knows what. Before rushing in, though, she activates the charm to let her see the magical spectrum and studies the metal constructs attacking them.

They have a blue milky aura, tinged with wisps of a deep red in it. She files that away for later and looks at the connections of the auras, but cannot see anything significant at this distance. She jogs to the front gate and then slows to a walk, watching the overhangs of old cars and junk, in case something is lying in wait. She makes it to the edge of Mike's parking area and peers around the edge, looking on the attacking waves from behind.

From closer up, she can see they resemble skeletons, humanoid figures made of the scrap metal of the junkyard clawing up the sides of the building. They are attracted to the movement of the shapeshifters, though, not using the unguarded areas of the roof. She can see that Richard has put one of his people on each corner to keep the attackers spread out and to maximize his advantage of a dumb enemy. She takes a breath, and gathers her magic to her, focusing on another charm on her belt she had crafted after receiving a vision from Brigid a few years ago. She steps from the cover of the stack of scrap metal and turns in a circle with the staff extended, chanting in Old Irish before finishing in a flourish, pointing her outspread hand at the twenty or so metal golems climbing the wall to be chopped apart by the Khan.

The automotons slow their movements as the metal that makes their bodies become blurry, then melt into each other, blue and white divine fire engulfing them. They slow then continue to move as the temperature of the metal rises and the consistency improves. The result is not a halt to the monsters, but now molten metal skeletons are moving up the side of the now burning building.

"NOT! HELPING!" Richard roars from the edge of the building where mostly molten metal men are grabbing at him and he is cutting them and batting them away with his enchanted sword, the Uru metal unaffected by the heat.

Autumn frowns, watching as the creatures ignore the heat and slog forward towards her brother and his comrades, now on the roof. The circle around them is tightening, as they chop the creatures apart, they pull themselves together again and reanimate with the smaller pieces. Though gasping from the use of the first spell, Autumn takes a deep breath to center herself and concentrates, pulling a small, fragile charm from her necklace, a null spell she rarely uses due to its dangerous properties. She focuses on the runes etched on the ceramic stone the size of her thumbnail, pushing her magic into it. The beginnings of the spell push on her consciousness, and she frowns internally as she pushes it into a direction rather than a radius, and assessing she will only affect less than a third of the creatures attacking the innocents on the roof.

Together, a voice echoes in her head, and suddenly a magical valve of some sort opens between her and the staff in her hand. Power flows through her to the staff while she is connected to the charm, and the power of the spell she is about to cast increases. Before she can wonder if she should she crushes the stone in her hand and the spell is released, shooting before her and engulfing the creatures and people on the roof before her for over a hundred yards. She can hear human wails at the completion of the spell's effects, and she blinks as she is suddenly on her knees, clearing her head.

She watches as blood drips from her nose to the dirt and pavement she is kneeling on, realizing she has lost time. As that registers a bare human foot is in her view, and she raises her head to look up at where Richard stands naked in human form, black charred patches on his legs, arms and torso, though visibly healing.

"Are you okay?" he asks, reaching down to help her up.

She takes his arm and stands on unsteady knees, looking at where scrap and some melted metal rests on the sides of the building which is burning high now. She shakes her head slowly with her eyes closed, pushing away dizziness, only partly successful.

"Why are you naked?" she asks, blinking and looking around groggily to see what has happened, what changed.

"When you cast the spell, we all fell into human form, and the others passed out from the shift and drain on their magic," Richard says with a solid look at her, dropping his sword to the side point down, which plants itself upright and stays. "I had a moment of dizziness, but I'm the only one awake. I had to carry everyone down from the burning building before coming to check on you."

"How long was I out of it?" she asks, shaking her head, but a headache spiking and she closes her eyes against the pain.

"From the time you cast the spell to me getting here to you, fifteen minutes," he says, a worried look on his face.

"Shit," she mutters, holding her head with her eyes closed.

"I was on the way to visit you about the message you left when I came across Luang running from the lot," he says, gesturing to the burning building. "A couple others showed up to help me, but Mike said that the junk piles of small scrap animated randomly. It's probably a fluke from the magic wave hitting."

Autumn shakes her head, still holding it with her hand while leaning on her staff, squinting at the building, "No, the creatures would have been a brown in color in the magic spectrum. These were different, human magic with a dark twist, red in the spectrum."

Richard stiffens, "So it was intentional. Why?"

"Tony and Maddie did a job for them earlier this week," Autumn says with thoughtful look at him. "Repo of a rich guy's car and paintings, if I remember Maddie's talk about it. But it could have been a different item from another job."

"A robbery," he says with his own furrowed brow. "But it's not Horde business."

"I'm on the neighborhood watch," Autumn says with a shake of her head. "And they're good people, they shouldn't get treated like this because they did their job."

"And you did kinda burn down their house," Richard says with a half smirk and a nod.

"On accident," Autumn points out, frowning. "Do you think we could leave that out of the insurance report?"

"I'll talk to my people about it," Richard says with a light chuckle. "I'll try to get you off the hook, sis."

Autumn blinks and ignores the comment, fatigue drawing her down, and she blinks slowly in the flames dancing in the night.

"Sleepy…" she mutters, then passes out, the adrenaline in her system finally draining and exhaustion hitting her like a train.

Autumn blinks slowly in the dim light of her own bedroom, recognizing the scents and her bed. She wakes slowly at first, then she tries to sit up suddenly, but fails, a hand on her chest holding her gently down.

"Easy, sis," her brother's voice says, and she relaxes back onto the bed. If Richard is here, she is safe.

"What happened?" she murmurs, reaching to her head to feel where the throbbing is behind her eyes.

"You broke the magic bindings on the constructs, or whatever they were, that were attacking us," he says softly, sitting in sweatpants and a t-shirt while holding a cup of water to her lips, which she sips gratefully. "Knocked out my people in the process, forcing them into human form."

"That's why you were naked," she says with a nod, understanding as their conversation in front of the burning building returning to her. "Why didn't you pass out?"

He smirks at her, "You know it takes more than that to knock me out."

"Thick head," she mutters jokingly, taking a breath to relax and feel her toes and fingers. "What day is it?"

"It's still Saturday night," he says with a smile. "You were only out a few hours this time. My people are cleaning up and dealing with the Mike's Towing. What happened?"

Autumn smirks, "I'm surprised you aren't camped out watching Maddie like a… well, like a cat watching a mouse. It is Prom night."

He waves away the comment, "She dumped Joachim, and she's shown she has better judgement than before the Agoge and New Orleans. I trust her."

Autumn smiles, but does not say anything, instead shifts the subject, rehashing what they had said earlier, "Well, she and Tony took a job for Mike, a repo job from a very rich banker, took two of his paintings and his car. I'm guessing they weren't after the car."

"Probably not," Richard says with a thoughtful frown. "Why did Luang go to you, and not Tony? I'd have thought he'd bring you after being told."

"Tony is also at Prom," she says in a simple tone, a slight glint in her eye as she takes another drink of her water without help.

"Hmm," Richard says with an exhale of breath. "At least he'll know Maddie, maybe he'll have a good time."

"How are you so dumb sometimes?" Autumn teases him, and Richard just looks at her confused.

"What? So Tony's going to Prom and so is…" he trails off as it clicks, his face falling into a frown automatically. "Damn."

"I saw it weeks ago," she says with a light laugh. "They're good kids, it will be fine."

"I know, but now you're going to rub it in," he says with a frown at her.

"Of course," she says with a smile. "I'm your sister, I get to do that."

He smiles back at her, "All kidding aside, thanks for the assist tonight."

"No problem," she says, reaching over and patting his hand. "But I still need to find out who did it to Mike, and why."

"You're not the police, or the Order, you don't have to do that, and you technically don't have authority," he says with a finger wave at her.

She knocks his finger aside with a sigh and a shake of her head, "When have technicalities ever stopped us before?"

"Point," Richard concedes with a rueful shake of his head, his tone turning much more serious. "The paintings were not actually paintings, according to what I've been able to glean so far from Mike, though he's nearly frantic and incomprehensible, as his wife and daughter are in the hospital."

"Were they hurt in the attack?" Autumn asks, pushing herself to sit up against the protest of her lower back and the black spots on the edge of her vision.

"Not really," he says with a slow shake of his head. "What knocked out my people, did the same to them. You negated a lot of magic with what you did. How did you do that? I know you're strong, but that was a whole different level of power."

Autumn shifts uncomfortably in her bed as she moves to lean on the headboard, sighing deeply first, "It was the staff, it amplified my power. I don't know how."

Richard looks at her carefully for a long moment, his focused and stern expression reminding her that he is a were-tiger and in charge of a thousand shapeshifters in multiple states.

"Is this the first time something like this has happened?" he asks slowly and clearly, holding her eyes.

She frowns hard as she holds his gaze, unable to disseminate under his scrutiny, "It has also allowed me to speak and read any language."

He scowls in general and takes a deep breath, "I'm not the magic expert, you are. Are there any possible negative side effects from this? Most big magic items have a cost, so what is it for this one?"

She frowns at him in turn and tilts her head down at him, "What you know about magic you learned in D&D in junior high. That doesn't count."

He frowns at her in turn, "I've got twenty seven credit hours in anthropological studies and ancient history over the last four years, sister mine. I'm smarter than I act, remember?"

She scowls in return, then sighs, "I'm not sure what the side effects are, though you can be certain that is on the top of my list for research, brother mine."

"Be careful," he says in a softer tone, laying a hand on her own. "I care and I'm being me. You know that."

"I know," she says with a sigh. "If I need backup, I'll send word. I promise."

Richard rises up and leans over her, kissing her on the forehead, "I'm going to make a few cold sandwiches and put them in your fridge, in case you get hungry."

"You don't have to do that, I can make my own food," she grouses at him, frowning at him.

"I know the smell of fatigue," he says with an amused twist of his lips. "Besides, I'm eating two before I leave."

"Now that makes sense," she says with a nod.

"Water in the pitcher," he says, pointing to the night stand with the pitcher by where she had set down the cup. "Someone will check on you in the morning, and I have someone watching the property, so don't get nervous."

She frowns at him balefully, hating being babysat, but also knowing that he will not change anything because of what she says.

"Fine, tell them to stop in at the start and end of their shift, I'll have lunches and drinks for them," she says with a nod, still frowning at him.

He chuckles, "Got it, sis."

Autumn takes a deep breath as he closes the door, deciding to go back to bed and sleep in tomorrow, she has earned it.

Autumn looks up from the register as she is sorting coins and cash in the drawer as Maddie walks in the front of the shop. She is in jeans, t-shirt and a heavy leather vest, her sword on her back and few other hand weapons on her person as well. She is sixteen going on thirty with a strong athletic build on her five feet two inch frame and short brown hair falling to her shoulders, though pulled back tight behind her head now. Her brown eyes are somber despite what Autumn knows was a great night for her at Prom last night, walking to the counter and her adopted Aunt.

"Aunt A, I heard what happened, are you okay?" she asks, walking to her, concern plain on her face.

"I can hold my own, dear, you know that," Autumn says with a smile at her. "And Mike's family is fine. I do have a question for you, though."

"Hmm?" Maddie says with a tilt to her head, sitting on a stool at the counter.

"The Guild sent your payment for the extermination here, and the reclamation team sent reports here, too, addressed to my business," she says, narrowing her eyes at the young girl who is now fidgeting nervously. "Why is that?"

"Well," Maddie says uncomfortably, shifting and not making eye contact for a moment, then sighing and looking at her with a cornered expression. "I may have listed this as a magic paraphernalia and contracting company," she says with a shrug, looking to the side uncomfortably. "I was looking at the Guild regulations, and if I'm associated with a business, not just solo, I get a discount on items from the Guildhouse stores, and a membership rate discount."

"You should have asked," Autumn says with a frown at the girl. "I'm not registered with the city as anything more than a magic shop and consignment store."

"I can change it if you don't want to help," she says in a soft tone, looking down.

"Don't do that," Autumn says in a firm tone, pointing her finger at her with a demeanor that is more in line with parenting. "This is your fault, not mine. You cannot guilt me, I'm older than that."

"I'm sorry," she says, looking down at the counter with a defeated expression. "I'll go to the Guild and change it today."

Autumn sighs, "Wait on that. I'll call Hoffman's, and ask Rich if adding you and Tony on my payroll and expanding my shop's legal definition will hurt or help me. Then I'll decide."

"Thanks, Aunt A," Maddie says with a smile now.

"Don't thank me yet," Autumn says with a frown, reaching under the counter and handing her a short stack of envelopes. "These are from the Guild, and your 'payment' for the job is out back. I hope you know German."

"German?" Maddie asks, stopping from flipping through the envelopes.

"I'm not spoiling the surprise," Autumn says with raised eyebrows and wave to the back. "Go."

Tony is balancing on his fingertips in the center of his living room, his legs pointed towards the ceiling as he balances all his weight. He slowly lowers himself down and spreads his legs, then bends his arms to bring his hips lower to the ground while bending in the middle, moving his legs to counter the weight. Sweat is dripping from his nose to the floor, his heartbeat loud in his ears from the slow exertion of his muscles. He almost misses the scent of Maddie as she enters the floor from the stairs, unable to hear subtle sounds over his heartbeat.

He hears the door open and a strong scent hits his nose with Maddie, which he had missed when she entered the floor, and he lowers his toes to the ground. Maddie enters the living room with a German Shepherd at her side, frowning as the dog studies him intently.

"Do you know German?" she asks unhappily, looking down at the dog balefully.

"A little, why?" he asks, rising to his feet with a curious frown. "And why do you have a dog now?"

"I don't, you do," she says, handing the leash over to him. "The homeowners association couldn't afford the payment for the job, so they paid in goods, and they did so with a pure bred, fully trained German Shepherd."

Tony smiles tightly, sighing, then kneeling and petting the dog, who now wags his tail at the attention.

"What's his name?" he asks, sensing a tension between the dog and his werewolf girlfriend.

"Maximus," she says with a sigh, walking to the kitchen. "And Aunt A is considering letting us use her shop as a base of operations for Guild contracts."

"Cool," he says with a smile and nod, standing and looking at the dog. "Hello Max, I'm Tony, I think you're going to like it here."

"Festlegung," he says, and the dog lays down. "Bis," he says, and the dog rises back to a sit. "Bis," he says again, his hand up, and the dog rises to his hind legs only, his front paws off the ground.

"Good dog, good Max," Tony says, kneeling and rubbing the dog's neck, his tail wagging as he sits again.

"Have you had dogs before?" she asks as she walks in from the kitchen, a glass of water in hand.

"No, always wanted one, though," he says, still rubbing the dog's neck. "Do you get along with dogs, usually?"

"They know I'm bigger than them, and most have issues with shapeshifters," she says with a frown at the dog. "But if he's smart, he'll figure out where he sits in the dominance game. I think it will be okay."

He rises to his feet, and she closes to him, running a hand over his shoulder, leaning in and giving him a peck on the cheek.

"I had a good time last night, even with the fight," she says, her hand moving to hold his in her own, moving close to him while setting down the glass of water.

"I did too," he says with a nod, smiling at her as he looks in her eyes, then a nervousness returning. "And what does that make us, anyway? I've never really…" he trails off awkwardly.

She laughs with a smile, leaning up and kissing him for a moment, "I know. Its okay, I've only had one boyfriend before. We'll figure it out."

"I don't even have that much experience," he admits sheepishly. "I had a girl string me along, but no dates or anything."

"I heard," Maddie says with a frown of her own. "She's gone, now, and I'm not her."

"No, you're not," he says with his own smile, looking her in the eye, and it is her turn to blush.

"Aunt A is looking into the attack on Mike's," she says, looking to the side nervously and picking up the glass of water again. "We should help."

"I'm going to go to his place today, look at it through the spectrum and look for clues," he says with a nod of his own. "I'll go to the shop after and we can compare notes."

She nods agreement, "I'm going to the Guild to see if anyone posted for it, I'm guessing the insurance company will if it hasn't already. Hopefully we can grab the job, so we aren't competing with anyone."

"Good idea," he says, heading to the bathroom. "I'm going to clean up and then go."

"I'll see you later, then," she says, smiling at him as he closes the door.

Maddie pulls the piece of sausage she had pulled from the fridge to munch on and tosses a piece to Max, who catches it in flight, his tail wagging.

Tony walks onto Mike's lot, Max walking at his side without a leash, recognizing that Tony is dominant and the boss. It helped that Tony fed him fresh meat from the fridge when he had gotten out of the shower, not having dog food yet. He had looked over the small pamphlet the breeder had included which gave the commands, feeding instructions and other details, as well as his certification on his pedigree. The dog is larger than average, a hundred and ten pounds, and with only a collar on, though Tony intends to get a vest for him once he can afford it.

Tony lets out a breath as he looks at the charred heap that used to be Mike's house, debris from the fight strewn about. He walks up to Mike's tow truck, which has a bright yellow sign on it from the city's Paranormal Activities Division that it is a hazardous scene. Tony only gives it a glance, then orders Max to sit and stay as he walks up to the burnt down house, his bow slung over his shoulder. He pulls up his mask, opening his senses further as he breaths slowly through his mouth and nose in short gasps. He does not sense anything here odd, and he moves closer to center, stopping as he reaches a puddle of melted metal, a destroyed golem.

He kneels and pulls out small stones from his pouch, making a small circle around himself and chanting softly. The spell to allow him to look through the magical spectrum snaps into place, and he rises to his feet in the circle he had cast, looking carefully at the rubble with a new dimension to his senses. He can see the colors of the faded magic on the golem, milky blue with a faded red splashed in. He frowns, the red not mixing with the blue, but outlining it, and he pulls out a notepad as he concentrates on the pattern of the magic. He copies the pattern in his notebook, then holds it up as he slowly rotates in the circle.

He catalogues the distance and location of each golem on the ground, drawing it on a hand sketched map. He has done that for the fifty yards around him, then he looks around and he can sense more than feel another spot of magic behind a stack of old cars, eighty yards away or so. He breaks the spell around him and starts walking that way slowly, calling Max to his side. He hands a treat to the dog as it heels to his side, his focus on his surroundings as he moves cautiously.

Around the corner, behind the cars he comes across what he had felt, and he frowns at the chalk outline of a circle of protection. The circle has detailed designs on the periphery, and Tony pulls out his notepad and copies them carefully as he looks at them. When he finishes copying them, he has Max lie down while he draws a circle around himself and casts magic vision again. He now can see the blue milky magic again, with the streaks of red surrounding it, and he copies the patterns again in his notes. He can see where the chain link fence has been cut, and then where the nearby pile of scrap had been diminished and shifted, probably where the initial metal of the golems came from.

He finishes taking the notes and frowns, noting the absence of sacrifices or blood, meaning that the spell was cast with pure magic. Whoever did this is powerful, probably stronger than Aunt A, which makes him swallow on a dry mouth. He breaks the circle and pulls his mask back on, then returns to Aunt A's shop with Max at his side, thinking over the riddle in front of him.

Maddie walks into the main lobby of the Merc Guild, humming a tune under her breath from Prom, her head replaying dancing with Tony after the fight. He had thawed some afterwards, and they had a great night, which is replaying over and over in her head. It is with this distracting her that she does not notice the large pair of men that move from the restaurant area towards her. She is surprised when they each grab an arm above her elbow and pick her up, lifting her from the ground and starting to carry her to the side of the lobby. She reacts on instinct, kicking down hard to her right, hitting one of the men's thick legs, and the man stumbling with a cry of pain.

The man had released her, and she kicks backwards at him while turning in the other man's grip, punching up and into his back left side, her kick hitting the man in the head and knocking him out. The man grunts as her shapeshifter strength knocks the wind from him and likely bruises the ribs there. He tries to pull her in front of him and raises his own fist to hit her, but she has shifted and dropped low with deeply bent knees. A second punch, lighting fast, hits his lower buttocks hard, and he lets her arm go while shuffling away.

She darts after him and uppercuts him with an open palm, and she can feel the jaw breaking and teeth fall from his mouth under her blow. She pauses and turns with her arms raised in a Kung Fu stance, assessing the two who had tried to take her. The other Mercs in the lobby have backed away and watched, not interfering, as there is no pay involved, and she seems to have it in hand. The two beefy men are both unconscious on the floor, and she relaxes as she walks over and pulls the men's wallets from their pockets.

She continues to the gig board, humming again, the fight pushed away as she thinks about dancing with Tony.

Autumn is sitting at her counter, studying the notes Tony had made about the scene, the color and designs matching her own observations. She makes notes in her own notebook, needing to go to the Temple to research her hunch properly, then cross reference the source. Her real question that she needs answered is what was in Mike's safe, Rich's people working on that right now.

She looks up from her notes to her door as Maddie walks in, Max rising to a sitting position next to Tony at the table in the back, studying. She smiles and waves at him, having looked up from his German translation book. Maddie walks over to the counter and lays down an envelope with a smile.

"The insurance company has filed an investigation request with the Guild," she says with barely contained glee. "I grabbed the gig before anyone else."

"What's the code?" Tony asks as he rises from the table, joining them at the counter.

"I don't think that's important," Maddie says with a shake of her head, but Tony leans over and looks at the designation on the top paper Autumn had pulled from the packet.

"Code I-3-16," Autumn says with narrowed eyes, looking at Tony. "I don't know the Guild codes, what does that mean."

"I is for investigation, then other numbers are the contractual requirements to call the job done," he says with a furrowed brow, pushing his finger length dark hair to the side. "I think those numbers require recovery of all missing items valued over five hundred dollars, with certified proof of any losses."

"So," Maddie says with a shrug. "That can't be that hard."

Tony sighs tiredly, "I need to go to the notary's and get a witness, I'll need to go back to the scene."

"Why?" Maddie asks, though Autumn just sighs with a frown of her own, reaching under the counter to her cash box that supplements the register.

"He needs them to certify his findings," she says as she pulls out money from the box. "They charge by the hour to act as witness, and then for each copy of documentation. And they need an up-front deposit."

She counts out three hundred dollars and puts it in an envelope she hands to Tony, "That should cover the down payment. They should be okay with sending me the bill after. If you need an assessor, call me, and I'll come out, I am certified."

"Can't," Tony says with a frown and shake of his head. "Conflict of interest as the investigator, so long as we are doing work out of the shop."

Autumn sighs in frustration, and Maddie has the sense to look abashed, "I have a few folks I know that we can call, then. Let me know."

"Thanks, Aunt A," Tony says with a nod, Maddie echoing him quietly.

"You go with him," Autumn says to Maddie, pointing at Tony. "You need to learn it isn't all about fighting and beating people up."

"Oooh," Maddie says as she remembers her encounter at the Guild, shifting and pulling a pair of wallets from her vest. "I got jumped at the Guild, two big guys I didn't recognize. Didn't say why, and I knocked them out, broken jaws, so they couldn't answer my questions. I took these."

Autumn frowns at the teen who shrugs at the look, but takes the wallets and shifts through the ID cards, money and other various items in the wallets.

"Go, I'll get info on these," she says, shooing away the young couple and their dog.

"This is boring," Maddie says with a frown as she stands next to Tony with a clipboard in her hands, a stack of forms on it she is filling out while they categorize the remains of the house.

"Tell me about it," Tony says with an absent, unseen frown under his mask, also filling out forms on a clipboard.

They are standing in the rubble of Mike's, a certified notary standing beside them as they catalogue the undocumented valuable items caught in the fire.

"This is why it is important to know what code they are using on the contract," he says absently, sighing as he finally reaches the open door of the safe, having pushed the pile of bricks aside while cataloging items in the pile. "That code asks for specifics, and it's time consuming."

"The pay on it is huge though," she argues next to him, finishing writing an item with an assessment, and the notary nodding over her shoulder.

"But after the costs of the notary, the assayers, and the time we're spending on the site," he says as he cracks a chem-lite and walks into the large, walk in safe. "We will make money, but we still haven't gotten anywhere on the perp. If Aunt A weren't running down that end, we'd be following a cold trail by the time we finish this."

"And we've been doing this for two days," she says with a suffering sigh. "And only now getting to the safe's door."

"On the up side," he says, squatting at the door and waving the notary to look, an older man in a pair of coveralls to protect his suit from getting dirty. "It's empty, so we don't have to inventory it. And it looks like the fire got inside, so no copy of the manifest here."

"So, we're waiting on Mike to rebuild it from memory and the paperwork in the truck," Maddie says with a frown, glancing at where the truck used to be parked, having been moved to where Mike and his family is staying, a motel not far from here.

"Yeah," he says with a nod and a sigh, then looking around. "And now we have to finish inventorying the rest of the house."

"Aaarrgh," Maddie says with a frustrated growl, throwing her head back.

Autumn looks up from the book she is skimming, stacks of books on the table she is sitting at in the Temple's archives. She's been here for most of the last three days, researching the spell that had been used to animate the metal into golems. When she had explained the results to the Rabbis, they had been upset, the use of golems usually associated with the Hebrew myths. The use of them implicates them, and they lose public opinion, and they would rather be able to point at other possible culprits.

She blinks away the haze she had been in as she read, looking now at Stanislov Lizovsky as he approaches her with a scroll in hand. The Russian White Vohl is in his late thirties, with a short cropped beard and hair slicked back to the base of his skull, strands of silver in the dark brown. She and him have gone on a number of dates and slept together, though she has been hesitant to put a label on the relationship. She smiles at him as he sits across from her in his white robes, laying the scroll between them.

"I believe I have found a connection," he says, unrolling scroll as she closes and sets aside the book she had been reading, helping her with the research to speed things along. "Your description of the colors and the way they interact in the auras surrounding the affected material led me to this."

Autumn leans forward and looks at the drawing on the scroll, depicting a circle similar to the one Tony had sketched out. She shifts through her notes to pull out the copy she had made of his sketch as Stanislov continues.

"I cannot read the inscriptions, it's been copied and translated from an Akkadian scroll centuries ago and the one who transcribed it used a cipher," he says with a frown and a toss of his head.

"It's a mix of Latin and Portuguese," Autumn says automatically as she studies the words, her mind unlocking the language and code instantly, and she starts muttering under her breath in a tongue unknown to Stan.

The Russian leans back with a surprised expression as Autumn quickly mutters in the ancient language, tossing her head as she does.

"This is a description of an animation spell conceived by an old Hebrew tribe prior to the rise of David," she say absently, looking now at notes made by the transcriber in the margins. "It calls for power fueled by faith, but there's differences in this and what I know our mage used. Our guy fueled this with his own mojo, in the main, not from other powers."

Stanislov has pushed aside the fact that she can apparently read the coded language and addresses her assessment instead, "If he is that strong, then he is more powerful than any other magic user I have ever heard of. This is very bad, I don't know if he could be stopped with less than an army of mages, witches and priests, if he comes around again."

Autumn leans back with a thoughtful frown on her face and looks into the distance, "I know of three or four this powerful, myself… but yes, this is bad."

Stan raises a thick eyebrow at her, smiling, "Why am I unsurprised you know of stronger magic users than I?"

"Point being, this guy animated over three dozen golems and left, meaning he was able to maintain the spell even after he'd broken his circle," she says with a sigh, looking again at the scroll between them. "He not only has power, but control. And he has no regard for the safety of others."

"Because he didn't turn it off after he got whatever it is he wanted from the safe, presuming he took anything, which we have yet to confirm," Stan reasons aloud with a nod. "So he doesn't place value on the lives and property of others."

"I have to stop this guy," Autumn says with a hard frown at the scroll.

"I think you mean 'we'," Stan says with a smile from his beard, his dark brown eyes twinkling slightly. "You are not alone in this. You have your family that is involved in this, your brother and his kids, not to even mention or consider myself or any other affected or possibly affected party."

"How are you an affected party?" she asks with a frown and a tilt of her head.

He laughs lightly, "That is a trap, but I'll answer it anyway. A person with that much power, and that much disregard for the safety of others, should not be allowed to roam about unchecked. And that is not even considering that I feel as though I have an interest in your well-being as well."

"You would have to find a new place to get your magic paraphernalia," she says with a toss of her head, smiling at him slightly.

"Right, that," he says with a mock look of surprise. "That is why, no other reason."

She narrows her eyes at him, frowning now, "Just say it."

He sighs deeply, "I know only a little of your past, Autumn. I don't presume to know more, and I will not push you. But I am here for you, I will help."

She studies him from below her own lowered brows, eyes narrowed, frowning, and she takes a deep breath before answering.

"Things are… complicated in my family," she says, knowing it is an understatement. "And it seems that my life is becoming more complicated in relation to my proximity to my brother. I like you, Stan, but I need to take things slow. I'm cautious, and with things the way they are, I am more so."

Stan nods slowly, "I understand. I am not pushing, just reminding you that if nothing else, you have friends that you have earned in your time here. And if you need us, we will help you."

Autumn looks at him curiously, not seeing him, but looking through him to the others he has implicated, and she smiles, "Thank you, Stan, for the reminder that I am not alone."

Maddie sighs as she walks into her trailer, mentally exhausted from the day of cataloguing and assessing the site of Mike's Towing. This is definitely going to teach her to look at the coding on a job before grabbing it off the gig board. She had gone over the financials with Tony before leaving his place, and they will not make much more over two grand for the job after expenses. Split three ways to him, her and Aunt A, that is not a great job for the time they have put into it, and she hates the cerebral portion of it.

She rubs her nose, the smell of wolfsbane covering her house and the perimeter and covering up most other scents. She had detected Tim Domasca's scent on the approach to the house, and he had likely dropped the herb concoction to foul her nose and surprise her with another gift or something at the house. She sighs as she looks around the inside of her trailer, but is glad to see that there is no bouquet of flowers or gift apparent as she looks around. Her relief is short lived as the bark of a power word hits her from her kitchen and she gasps as magic hits her hard.

She falls to her knees, resisting only for a moment, then hitting the floor hard, her hands following suit as she falls to all fours. The magic grips her hard, and a shadowy figure materializes from the kitchen. She gasps, fighting against the magic holding her, but another word reverberates from the figure and darkness engulfs her.

Tony is sitting in the counter in Autumn's store, glancing at the main door again, unsure and slightly nervous.

"She won't show up just because you keep looking," Autumn comments from where she sits on the other side of the counter, still studying the book in front of her.

Tony nods, frowning, "She said she'd be here before lunch, it's two in the afternoon."

"She's a teenage girl, schedules are a thing to be shifted and adjusted on a whim, relax," she says with a smile, memories rising from her own teen years.

Tony turns back to his history book, studying for another test to finish his GED, frowning to himself, something feeling wrong to him. It's with him and Autumn both looking at their books that Mitchell walks into the store, another Horde security shapeshifter behind him. Autumn tenses, Mitchell's expression hard and somber, both of the shapeshifters tense.

"Ms. O'Connell, we have bad news," he says without preamble.

Maddie wakes up with a throbbing headache, though she cannot see anything. It only takes her a moment to realize she is blindfolded and tied up, strapped to a chair. She is also uncomfortably aware that she is not wearing any clothes either, and she pushes panic down at the realization.

"Oh, good, you're awake," a raspy male voice says from nearby, turned away from her. She notes the accented male voice and she catches the scent of him in her nose, cataloguing it for later. An aspect of it tickles her nose, magic heavy in the scent, reminding her of Tony.

"Let me go," she says, her voice solid, despite her weakness.

The raspy voice laughs darkly, "That would defeat the purpose of me taking you in the first place."

"Do you know who I am? Who my step father is?" she asks, trying for menacing but falling short, unsure exactly where she is, but feeling the concrete beneath her bare feet, her head swimming and disoriented.

"I do," the voice says, moving to her side, and she stiffens and jerks to the side as the person pulls her hair taut, starting to cut off handfuls of it. "But that's not why I took you, not exactly. It's the other's fault."

"What other?" she asks, trying to make his cutting more difficult, but he is simply cutting the bulk of it off.

"Your boyfriend, of course," he says, snarling the words. "I've got nothing against you, or your Khan. This is not your fault, it is your boyfriend's, and I want to make sure you know that."

"Why?" she asks, trying to fish for information.

"He took everything from me, and left me for dead, forgotten," the man replies angrily, moving away from her. "For all that you are the one that turns into a wolf, he is the monster. And I'm going to show you all that. But first, I need a few things."

A door closes firmly, and she can hear the man walk outside, she can start to detect the settling of the small building she is in, leaving her alone.

Autumn walks into Maddie's trailer with Tony beside her, stopping as she finds her brother, Richard, in the living room, his arms crossed as he looks around the room. He turns to look at them with a hard expression and frown, waving to encompass the building.

"Wolfsbane, heavy, so we have no scents, and all I can pull is an m-scan showing that a crapload of power was used, mostly blue, but with purple in it, so it's undead," he says in a near snarl.

"No, it is milky blue, with red encasing it," Autumn says, glancing at where Tony is standing quietly to the side, his mask covering his features. "This is the same person that hit Mike's."

"Can you track her?" Richard asks, waving at the house again.

"Yes," Autumn says, going to the bathroom and picking up a brush and pulling a long strand of hair from it.

She walks into the living room and raises her hand holding the hair, then reaches to her wrist and pulls a charm that will cast the spell. Before she can activate the stored spell, though, she feels a pull, a nudge from the wards on the shop.

"What the…" she starts to say, then she is suddenly hit with a wave of power, and she staggers to the side, her staff falling to the ground.

She gasps and pushes back against whomever is trying to break her ward, but she is outmatched, and she screams as her vision darkens and consciousness leaves her.

Tony jerks as he feels the magic throb off of Aunt A, moving to catch her as she falls, but Richard is faster by far and already has her in his arms.

"What happened?" he asks, looking at Autumn, the question general as there are three others in the building, investigators from the Horde and Hoffman Resources.

"Something magic hit her," Tony says, frowning.

"Does she have a ward up somewhere?" a woman investigator says from where she had exited the bedroom at the scream, a heavyset woman in her forties and with brown and gray hair.

"On the shop, I think," Tony says.

"Someone must have broken it," Richard says, laying her down on the couch and checking her pulse. "Her heartbeat is thready. I need to get her to some medical care."

"I'm going to go check on the shop," Tony says, his voice tight and already out the door, Max running on his heels.

Tony arrives at the shop ten minutes later on horseback, Max still running blocks away, following the scent trail of the horse that had galloped away. Tony dismounts without thought, stumbling slightly as he hits the ground and pulls his bow, seating an arrow. He pauses at the door, glass shattered and littering the inside of the store, listening for sounds from within.

He carefully steps over the threshold as he hears the labored gasping from behind the counter, smelling blood and Atticus' scent. He also hears crunching of glass from the hall and from the back a figure emerges, a pack slung over a shoulder. The figure is wearing a non-descript brown pair of coveralls, leather gloves to match and a mask similar to Tony's over his face, though with a pentagram design on it. In the center of the pentagram is a stylized picture of a goat, and Tony strains to recognize the man's scent, but cannot.

"You made it," the man says in a raspy growl, taller than him and a bit over six feet tall, though narrow and scrawny looking, nearly bony in appearance.

Tony draws and fires with his backup bow, aiming at the man's face, but the figure leans back and to the side, dodging the arrow. Tony is pulling another pair from his back to fire at once, but the man flicks his fingers and Tony flies back through the front display window of the shop into the street. He rolls awkwardly as pain cuts at him from the shattered window, as well as scuffing against the concrete. He regains focus against the pain as he is kicked in the ribs, rolling away and pitching against the curb.

"I want you to remember," the man says from a few feet away. "This is all your fault, bastard."

Tony lunges at the man, pulling his sword out as he leaps, but the figure disappears with a pop and flash of magic, teleporting out. Tony cuts at nothing but air, gasping in pain from the dozen injuries he now has, and wondering what the hell is going on.

Maddie flinches at the sound of a loud pop, almost a crack in the air, not much different than lightning, but not as loud or sharp. The deep scent of burnt ozone hits her though, a large use of magic causing the sound and with it the scent of her captor. She bares her teeth in reaction, her inner wolf wanting to rend and tear the man, as she has tried and failed to break her restraints and shift to her beast's form. Somehow he has dampened her ability to shift and her strength, and so she remains naked and restrained in this unknown location.

She can hear the man moving in the next room, the echoes in the small building leading her to think this is a small cabin of some sort, two or three rooms. She can hear a bag dropped on a table in the other room, a clanking as it does so, and a satisfied sigh from the man. After a few moments, the man enters the room she is in, causing her tense up in reaction as he checks the straps holding her in place.

"They'll find you," she says firmly, clenching her jaw as the man tightens the blindfold.

"Not fast enough," he says in a raspy, distracted voice. "And not before I'm done with you first."

She opens her mouth to respond, but he hits her with a power word, and she shudders as her body goes rigid, shaking in the grasp of his magic.

"Now that I've taken what I want," he says with a malicious tone of voice, releasing the straps on her wrists and ankles. "I'm going to do what I want, and show him how powerless he truly is, in the process…"

She awkwardly jerks forward, her body moving without her permission, and she stumbles and falls to her knees, the magic controlling her. She firms her jaw as she hears the man move behind her, refusing to cry out or beg, her mind retreating as her wolf pushes to the fore. She is tied with her hands over her head and pulled up to her feet and then hung from a rope, suspended over the floor.

"I have magic, but some types of magic are stronger, better than others," the man rasps, and she can hear the sound of leather cracking the air. "Blood magic, brought from pain, always adds a stronger flavor to a spell, and I think you have plenty of that to contribute. So… let's find out how much."

The man works her over with a length of leather, the strap cracking as it breaks her skin and blood drips down her stomach and thighs. The blood drops, unseen by Maddie, onto the Tablets laid under her toes, filling with power. She doesn't recoil or flinch at the sharp pains, locked in place with the magic holding her, and her inner voice reminding her she is an Agogite, that this man will pay before this is over.

Tony takes a deep breath, fighting to ignore the painful stitch in his side as he returns to the start position and begins his sword kata again, his barely healed ribs protesting his exercise. He had been too slow, too unfocused to stop the man who had hurt his Aunt, who he assumes has Maddie. He slices at his invisible opponent, sweat dripping from his hair into his eyes, the salt stinging but he ignores it. He was not good enough, and now the people he cares about are hurting because of it.

He finishes the set again, now breathing hard and angry, trying to push the rage away, the man's words in his head as he stalks along the edge of the roof of his apartment building. The man had told him it is fault, and he was right, he is not good enough, and he wonders if he will ever be good enough. He returns to the start position and takes a deep breath before starting the kata again.

"You've lost your precision," a voice says from the edge of the roof, and he pauses before starting the kata, his father walking from the trap door on the roof. "You need to calm down, to focus."

"How the fuck do I do that?" Tony says angrily as he moves through the blocks and parries while attacking his imaginary opponent. "Maddie's missing, and it's my fault."

"Yes, she's missing, but it is not your fault," Richard responds firmly as he walks around where Tony is practicing, wearing jeans, vest and t-shirt, only a pair of knives on his person.

"The hell it isn't," Tony says angrily, slashing at the air, then stepping back and glaring at his father. "The fucker even told me so, after he swatted me through a wall like I was nothing. Nothing!"

He shouts the last at the sky, frustrated at the world, turning as he drops the sword to the side, running his hands into his finger length hair. Richard approaches him from behind, his own hair and face buzzed to only stubble.

"Anger will not help you," he says in a strained voice of his own, and Tony looks at him, the Khan's eyes flashing orange with barely contained power.

Tony takes a breath, trying to center himself, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to breathe slowly.

"How do you do it?" Tony asks roughly, anger still in his voice as he paces to the edge of the roof and back, past his slightly shorter father. "How are you not roaring and tearing the city apart right now? Because I sure as hell want to."

"It won't help," Richard says, his shoulders square as he walks in measured steps to the edge of the roof, looking out at the city. "Anger clouds your mind, makes you lose focus. There is a time when that is useful, when your foe is in hand, but not during the hunt. And I may look calm, but it is only because I have over a hundred shapeshifters combing the city and countryside within a hundred miles, looking for her scent, and that of the man who broke into Autumn's shop."

"He teleported away," Tony says angrily, stopping next to Richard. "He could be anywhere."

"He'll be close," Richard says with a shake of his head. "For whatever reason, this is personal for him. He wants to hurt you, your family, those you care about. He targeted Mike, then Maddie, then Autumn. The only thing of real value he took, was from Autumn, but the connection to them all is you."

Tony clenches his jaw, "I'm nobody. I practically just got here, you're the famous one with enemies."

Richard frowns tightly, "I do, but he specifically told you that it's your fault. So either he means it, or it's meant to throw us off track."

Tony frowns and takes another breath, wiping sweat from his face with the sleeve of his t-shirt, "I don't have any enemies. I'm just a low level Merc with almost no reputation."

"Almost, not none," Richard says with a thoughtful frown, turning to look at his son. "I need you to go over your contracts since you came into town, all of them. Anyone you wounded or killed, all of them. Then we'll need to look at their connections."

Tony sighs, breathing deep and the solid, calm measure of his father rubbing off on him, focusing him as well.

"Okay, I'll work up a list," he says with a sigh. "It's only a few months, a handful of jobs, what with me having gone on the New Orleans thing with you."

Richard pauses, turning and fixing Tony with a focused look, "Go through that, too. Maybe not the battle, too big, I'll look at that. But everything else connected to it."

Tony nods, glad to have something productive to do, walking and retrieving his discarded sword.

Autumn slowly becomes aware of her person as sounds start becoming recognizable in her vicinity. Shortly after realizing the sounds are voices, pain starts to throb in her head, the first part of her body she recognizes. She holds her breath and clenches up at the throbbing, then releases it slowly as her limbs tingle and she feels the rest of her body.

"She's waking up," a familiar voice says, familiar but not Rich, though registering as safe and allowing her subconscious mind to relax.

The same voice chants a rough but rhythmic tune and the pain in her head ebbs away, clearing her mind and allowing her to think. She opens her eyes to find Stan sitting at her bedside, wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt, his white robe of linen over the back of his chair as he leans forward and takes her hand in his. She recognizes she is in her bedroom at her home atop her shop, sighing as she recalls the events that brought her here.

"What happened?" she asks, looking for clarity as she closes her eyes again with a sigh, forcing her body to relax in the pajamas and thick comforter of her bed, even though she has no idea how she got here.

"The ward on your secure case was shattered," he says gently, holding her hand in his own callused one, his staff of wood leaning on the end of the bed. "A direct attack, not a spell. Whoever did it, purposely hit it directly, specifically to hurt you, from the looks of it."

"It did hurt," she agrees with a slight nod, her neck now telling her it is sore, and she rests her head back deeper into the pillow. "Shit yeah, it hurt. What did they take?"

Stan pauses and she opens her eyes to see he has a pensive expression, frowning with worry, "It was one person, a man, and Tony got here before he left. He attacked Atticus before he broke the ward."

"Is Atticus okay?" she asks, mentally berating herself for not recalling that he had been working while she was going after Maddie. Thank the goddess it was not Trisha, the poor girl would not have survived any kind of attack.

"He'll live," Stan says with a frown and a nod. "The man used a power word to hold him, while he pinned him to the ground with broken furniture. Literally stuck him to the ground behind the counter like a pithed frog. He is not well off, even with his enhanced healing. He is at the Bastion's medical wing."

"And Tony? Did he catch who did it?" she asks, though she feels that she knows the answer, not liking it.

"Confronted him, and had three ribs broken for his trouble, with various other cuts and bruises," Stan says with a somber nod.

Autumn nods slowly in response, feeling that the worst news has yet to be broken.

"What is the bad news?" she asks, mentally preparing herself, because she already knows.

"He took the tablets, all of them," he says simply, and she nods, despite the pain it brings her. "The store is in shambles, and all our attempts to scry Maddie's location has failed. We don't know where she is, or if she's even alive."

Autumn takes a deep breath and lifts her head from the pillow, then pulling her hand from his and pushing herself to a sitting position, despite the pain. He frowns harder, but does not stop her, instead leaning forward to help her up as she groans against the pain.

"Bring me my staff," she says through clenched teeth.

He frowns but reaches to the side where the Staff of Babylon leans against the wall by the nightstand. She takes the ancient weapon in her hand, the bronze and iron now familiar and warm in her hands, and she uses it to lever herself to her feet and stand beside the bed. She stands on shaky knees, knowing she is not the warrior and leader that her brother is, but just as stubborn nonetheless. She takes a breath and starts to walk to the bedroom door, focusing as her vision tilts slightly, Stan beside her.

"You should keep resting, you're not ready for any exertions," he says quietly as they pause at the doorway.

She blinks at the sight of two men in identical black suits and white shirts, both solid looking and with a posture that screams "guard".

"Who are they?" she asks, glowering at them from under lowered eyebrows, which they ignore as they continue to look at the hallway, alert for threats to leap into existence.

"Your brother sent them to guard you," Stan says with a tight expression. "They are his security personnel. And he has been combing the city and area looking for Maddie."

"How long was I out?" she asks with an angry frown, hating the thought of being babysat.

"Two days," he says with a slight hesitation. "And we still have no leads."

"Take me to the roof," she says with a deep frown, then poking one of the guards with the staff.

The tall Hispanic man turns to her at the prod, she remembers his name slowly, his tight haircut and trimmed goatee looking at her somberly.

"Hermano, go to my basement, grab the large black leather backpack that has a piece of red duct tape on it, bring it to the roof," she orders the man, who only nods and moves quickly down the hall, the other guard following her and Stan as she walks slowly under her own power to the roof. "And someone call Tony, tell him to get here now. Rich, too, I need them both."

"What are you going to do?" Stan asks, frowning in consternation. "I've had my sisters and cousins in the Covens working to find Maddie with no luck. What will you do?"

"Accept the mantle," she mutters to herself with a deep breath, her grip firm on the staff in her hand, anger making the world clear to her, rather than clouding it.

Tony strides into the front shop door of Aunt A's store, the glass door gone from when he and the stranger had fought. He pauses inside, finding far more shapeshifters present than he had anticipated, Max at his side, hair on his back bristling at the unwelcome guests. He counts six werewolves from the scents, and two were-leopards, though there is a human witch here as well from the Wolf Clan, Mrs. Domasca.

"Ah, the bastard pet arrives," he hears Timothy Domasca mutter almost silently from the far end of the room, so quiet that not even the other shapeshifters hear him.

Tony holds his tongue and ignores the older male, not caring about his opinion, though he notes that he kept the comment to himself but does not share. He looks to where Mrs. Domasca is sitting at the counter, sipping tea while glancing at him over the rim. She has a slender athletic build, lighter than her son's, and with honey blond hair compared to her husband's and son's hair. She is a senior member of the local Russian Witch Coven and brother to the Vohl Aunt A is dating, Stan, who Tony likes. Tony mutters a command for Max to sit and stay, and the well trained attack dog sits and maintains eye contact with the other canines in the room.

"My Aunt sent word for me?" he asks, looking at the assembled group of shapeshifters in the room, and he can sense another up on the roof where he can tell his Aunt and Stan are, another walking up from the basement to the roof.

The five werewolves square off with him from their various locations in the room, a subtle dominance game that would establish them as dominant to him. He is not in the Horde though, and does not care, so he simply looks at Mrs. Domasca through his mask, his features unreadable. Max is tense at his side, his tail still and his eyes focused on the nearest of the werewolves, a man in a blue shirt and who is simply security.

"She apparently wishes you to help her with the casting of a spell she hopes will locate Maddie," she says with a slight smile as she sets the tea to the side on an unbroken portion of the counter. "I am here to see to it she can succeed," she says with a frown and a sigh while shaking her head slightly, rising from her stool with a look of tolerance.

"If she didn't ask you to come, then she doesn't need your help," Tony says, feeling a power game being played here, shifting his new bow to his hand slowly from his shoulder. The movement causes the werewolves in the room to tense further, and he recognizes the three males and two females as security details in the Horde. She brought muscle and fighters with her, probably expecting either a confrontation here or to send it after the spell to be backup for him and Aunt A.

Mrs. Domasca looks down her nose at him, though he is a touch taller than her, and she frowns at him in distaste.

"You are far from an expert in magic, and I don't expect you to understand," she says with contempt.

"I don't need to understand it," he says with a shake of his head, his tone firm. "Aunt A does, and if she needs help, she'll ask for it, from those she knows she can trust."

"You're speaking to the Wolf Clan's Alpha female," Tim finally says with heat in his voice, taking a step closer to Tony, his suit jacket open showing his off white collared shirt open on the top three buttons. "Watch your tone, or I'll help you adjust it."

Tony has an arrow out, seated, drawn and sighted before Tim has finished his first step, not looking down the shaft but at Mrs. Domasca as he does. Max is on his feet at his side, head slung low and snarling while bristling, the German Shepherd looking more than his official weight of a hundred pounds.

"I would suggest you tell your son to shut up, or I'll pin him to the ground where he stands," Tony says in a barely controlled growl of his own. "It's been a rough few days, and I'll try not to hit anything important, but I can't promise."

"Try it," Tim snarls, his eyes flashing blue at the human ten yards from him.

"Timothy, calm," Mrs. Domasca says with a frown at Tony. "Very well, Anthony. We will wait here, and when you need our assistance, give us a shout."

Tony relaxes his draw on the bow but keeps the arrow seated as he strides past the shapeshifters and witch, not looking back, but his senses dialed high in case they decide to jump him, Max prowling at his side, just as cautious. He ascends the stairs and arrives on the roof a minute later, pausing as he finds his Aunt kneeling bent over on the roof, carefully dropping sand or some such into complicated patterns. She does not look up, but continues to drop the grains into careful patterns as Stan walks to him from the side, his staff in hand.

"Mr. L," Tony says with a nod to the older man, who smiles tightly and nods to Tony.

"She should be done soon, I think, if what I think she is doing is right," he says softly as he looks back at the circle of glyphs on the roof.

"If you think I'm casting an aggressive location spell, you are right," Autumn says in a raised voice from where she leans back to work the kink out of her back, then leaning over to continue on the last quarter of the circle. "When my brother gets here, I'll go over what I need my family to do to help me, so I don't have to repeat myself."

"Anything for me to do right now?" Tony asks, glancing at Stan for a moment, then adding. "Oh, and Mrs. Domasca, her son and some wolves are downstairs in the shop, by the way."

"Please let them know that the tea and anything else they use is not free," she says absently from her crouched position. "Stan can go keep tabs on them, if he doesn't mind."

"I should stay and watch your spell, in case you need assistance," Stan protests, rubbing his brown beard anxiously.

"I'd appreciate it if you keep an eye on your sister, instead, please," Autumn says, her tone not a request.

Stan sighs and bows, unseen, then turns and walks down to the shop, hoping to keep the peace.

Autumn is on the edge of her roof, stretching out the kinks in her joints and body, the days of bedrest after failing to hold her ward being felt down to her bones. She does feel better for the yoga poses and movements in her jeans, shirt, sweater and cloak, waiting for her brother to arrive. She has finished a stretch to touch her toes, Tony sitting on the ledge nearby, when a shadow from the next roof over rises in the night. Tony does not react, and Autumn trusts his instincts to know who is leaping onto her roof.

Her trust is well placed, as her brother, Richard Michaels, Khan of the Houston Horde and a First among Shapeshifters, lands on bent knees on the foot wide stone ledge of her roof. He rises to his full height in human form, only a touch over five and a half feet tall, but solid and covered in his Samurai styled armor. He has a bow in hand, quiver on his back and his enchanted Uru katana on his hip, his stubbled head bare in the after midnight moonlight. He turns to her with a firm expression, and she knows he is wearing his mask, that of the Khan, because she knows how he feels about Maddie being missing. That knowledge is reinforced by his next words.

"What do I have to do to help?" he asks simply, stepping down from the stone ledge.

"We are going to do a three person circle," she says with a look to the other two of her family members, Tony rising to stand in front of her, his mask tucked in his belt. "Before we start, I have to ask a question, Tony, and I need an honest answer, because it will affect the strength of the casting, and I may have to adjust the sigils."

She pauses and looks at him firmly, and he nods immediately, feeling responsible for everything that has happened.

"Are you a virgin?" she asks bluntly.

Tony purses his mouth uncomfortably for a moment, a natural teen moment as he looks at his father and aunt for a moment, then sighs.

"Maddie and I, we've," he pauses, lips pursed. "We've kissed, but not the…" he stutters, uncomfortable. "We've only ever kissed, nothing else."

"I mean ever, Tony," Autumn says gently, Richard practically a statue to the side, not looking at either, but into the distance.

He shakes his head, frowning, "No, not ever, with anyone."

"That will make this easier, and stronger, then," Autumn says with a deep breath, looking at her brother now. "Rich, I will be the crone, you will be the parent, and Tony the virgin. Normally it is all females, but I've done cross genders before, and although it's a bit more complex, it will be far better for potency due to our family tie."

"Tony and I don't have your training," Richard says flatly, an eyebrow raised in query.

"I'll be doing the work," Autumn says with a shake of her head. "Normally this would be a coven of three, seven or thirteen, and it would take hours to pull the power from the earth and direct it. We don't have the time, and even if we did, a full circle of thirteen would take hours to cast a spell that may give a direction, and nothing else. The Covens in town have already tried and failed, and so would any that I led in that vein as well."

"How will this be different, then?" Richard asks, frowning now. "I've called in and borrowed favors from everyone in the city and county that can do magic to find her, and no one has anything."

Autumn sighs and nods, "You are a First, with more magic potential than almost anyone I have ever met, even if you can't use it. Tony, you have nearly as much potential, and again, though untrained, the power is there to be used."

"You're going to use us like batteries," Richard says with a thoughtful expression. "But how? I thought it took circles to intertwine power like that, and that requires training."

"Usually, yes," Autumn says with a nod, then gesturing at the circle she has drawn with the ground bones of an entire family of grizzly bears. "But there is a way to pull the power from blood kin that have no ability, but do have potential. That is what I will do, draw and focus your power into my spell. What matters is that during the casting, you do not fight or resist me."

Richard looks at the circle, his brow furrowed with worry, "You're going to lose a lot of power in the transfer. You'll get less than half of what Tony or I can give you. Is that enough to break whatever protection this guy has cast over Maddie?"

"Based off of what I sensed when he broke my ward…" she pauses with a pensive frown, uncomfortable with the next part, and having hoped Rich would not know that much about magic. "No, it won't be enough."

"Then why the hell are we-," Tony starts to yell but Richard holds up his arm to him, cutting him off and looking at Autumn with a hard expression, knowing now what she will do.

"What is the cost?" he asks, his gaze firm, and Autumn firms her own expression.

"The staff will amplify my spell, just like the null ray I cast before," she says, not answering the question. "The amplification will give it four to five times the power, maybe more, and that will be enough to find out where, exactly, she is."

"The cost, sis, what is the cost?" Richard asks her angrily, waving into the distance. "You're the one that is always warning me to look before I leap, to think of my safety before I run off and take risks. So, what is the risk?"

Autumn frowns hard at him, her own words and actions thrown in her face, and now she needs to come clean.

"If I keep the staff, use it for this spell, then I will bond with it, and I will become the mother of dragons," she says softly.

Richard narrows his eyes at her and leans closer to her, pointing a finger at her with a suspicious expression, "How do you know that?"

She works her mouth, uncomfortable, but continues her admission, "The creator of the staff paid me a visit not long ago. He said that if I kept the tablets and the staff, I would become the next guide for the race of dragons."

Richard closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as he digests that and Tony only looks at her with slowly dawning understanding.

"I thought Roland made it," Tony says slowly. "That Tiamat had that stuff, and controlled the dragons with it."

"He did," Autumn says with a nod. "It's apparently the mantle one receives when they use the staff and read the tablets, which I have. The null spell was an example of what I can do with the staff and tablets, if I chose to keep them. If I don't accept the staff as mine, I won't be able to find Maddie, and this guy, whoever he is, will continue to pick at us until he's ready to hit us hard."

"We are going to talk about this later," Richard says in a voice that has as much emotion as the dead, his expression tight. "But for now, let's get this on with, before the magic wave ends."

"This will only take a few minutes," Autumn says with a sigh of her own, dreading that conversation, and pointing to the circle. "Step around the symbols and lines, and take your places, there and there."

Autumn watches critically as they carefully stand in the smaller circles within the larger circle. She takes a breath and takes her own place carefully at the last circle, staff held to her front in both hands. She begins the chants she learned years ago, when first learning her craft, sealing off the main circle before starting to activate the smaller glyphs and symbols. She can feel her power flowing through the staff, amplified and no more draining than she would use in a standard binding, though now much powerful.

The workings on the edges of the circle completed, she tentatively touches on the power within her brother first, her closest blood relative. She can feel his iron control as he stands with his feet shoulder width apart, bow over his shoulder and his expression firm. The power comes easily, the will of the Khan holding his internal gates open, and it is like turning the faucet on the sink, flowing into the glyphs and symbols of his own smaller circle. That complete, she turns then to Tony, carefully touching his power before attempting to draw it out and use it.

The younger man flinches at the touch of magic, but his eyes are screwed tight as he holds his bow to his side with white knuckles. She can feel him forcing himself to relax against the outside power wanting to take what is his, and though hesitant, she taps his power as well. Where Richard opened like a turn of a knob on the sink, Tony sputters at first before he fully relaxes and the power fills in the circle around him. Autumn reaches out with her own will as she senses and guides the magic from herself and the two others into the larger circle, feeling the magic coalesce and flow.

She mentally takes a breath and steadies herself, the next part of the spell the most dangerous and most difficult. The magic flows and shifts, mixing and dissolving into a single flavor, a single color should someone with and m-scanner look at it. She reaches out with her will and grabs a tendril of that magic, redirecting it into her circle and into herself, through her being and the extension of her will. The first edge of the magic touches the staff and Autumn opens her mouth in a soundless scream as the volume of magic slams into her to be pulled through the staff.

Ambitious, a voice says in her head, surprised, but she ignores it and clamps her mouth shut, her stubbornness taking the fore.

She focuses on her intent, her need, and the magic starts to lean one way in the circle, and she pushes that direction, actually leaning against the staff in that bearing. The larger circle remains intact and the magic flows upwards in a sphere, but stretches like a bubble after a moment, elongating and reaching out. Autumn grits her teeth and concentrates on the magicks around her, and the bubble lances out into a column and then a thread into the night, unseen by any other but those in the circle. The other end of the thread touches Maddie and Autumn can see her location, hanging from rafters with bloody whip marks on her back.

Maddie is hanging from the wooden rafters of a cabin, and behind her is a figure bent over on the ground, a whip dangling from his hand. The figure is a man, tall and lean, and he is vomiting on the ground, apparently the one whose ward she had hit. She looks around, seeking clues to where they are, and pulls out her vision away from her naked and tortured niece to the area. She is floating the vision to the area, and can smell the forest, then the front of the cabin, an address on the front.

"I know where that is," she can here Richard say from the side, sharing her vision. "Show me the man," he states, and she can feel Tony's agreement through the link they share.

Autumn nods unseen, moving her sight back into the cabin, then moving in on the figure bent over in the cabin, retching blood on the floor. She moves closer and as the figure rises a bit from his kneeling crouch, he lifts his face and looks at her disembodied face in the eye. Autumn gasps and flinches out of the vision at the familiarity of the designs on the man's face, scarred and twisted by burns on an unfamiliar face, but with a kaleidoscope of colors like the Aurora Borealis…

Tony stumbles to the side as the spell breaks, his mind already reeling from the sight of Gaston snarling at him from the distant cabin. He slides to a knee and grabs his head as a wave of pain washes over him, and he fights the urge to vomit, a coppery taste in his mouth.

"Who the fuck was that?" Richard snarls from where he stands in the circle, having only shuddered slightly at the breaking of the spell.

"The guy I beat in Baton Rouge, the one who cheated when I spared his life," Tony gasps after a few moments, holding his head with a wince. "I thought he died in the explosion."

Autumn is bent over and breathing deep from her own position, forcing her own headache away as she looks at Richard under her own lowered brows.

"He did die," she says with deep breaths, collecting herself as though she had run a half marathon. "Tony made it because of what you bargained and won. The other guy died, I remember because I followed up with the hospital staff, they said the guy didn't make it."

"Gaston," Tony says with a gasp, his eyes watering as he tries to focus through his enhanced feeling of the pain. "His name was Gaston, and he was the betrothed to Rebecca."

There is a quiet moment as Richard takes a deep breath and centers his anger digesting the information.

"How is he alive?" Tony asks, glancing at Autumn, then Richard.

"He made a bargain," Autumn says angrily as she glares at Richard. "With the same guy you challenged for the boon. Scratch always double deals, and this has him written all over it. The red in his aura, its blood magic, what he's doing to Maddie now, as well. It's Satanic in origin."

Richard frowns and turns away angrily, roaring into the night a string of short commands. A pair of breaths later two were-tigers in warrior form are on the ledge of the building, having leapt from the next building over.

"Assemble the Agogites, and any others that wish to participate, I know where Madelyn is. Assemble at Hoffman's, then we depart," he says firmly, and the two warrior form fighters in Samurai armor made to fit them nod with a snarl, then leap back into the night.

"What is his power level?" Richard asks to Autumn, his mind already in Khan mode, looking at the task ahead like a soldier before a battle. "What will he know after that spell?"

"He is at least equitable to Tony, under normal circumstances," she says as she finishes catching her breath, standing straight. "But he was trained, if I remember right. He knows magic techniques that are beyond the cutting edge of anything the local Mage Academy has been experimenting with."

"So, we bring the A-game," Richard says with a firm nod. "I think between you and me we can take him in the power department, then," he says with a thoughtful expression.

"Don't forget me," Tony says with a firm expression of his own, rising to his feet with his bow in hand, and Richard looks across at the youth with a firm expression.

"I wasn't," he says, not a rebuke, though Tony stiffens on instinct. "I'm gathering my people, Autumn, you and Tony grab those wolves downstairs and start heading to the site. You have the address?"

"I know it," Tony says darkly with a nod, pulling out his mask from his belt. "It's not far from the Viking's borders. I've done contracts in the area before."

For a change, Autumn says nothing as her nephew angrily pulls the ski mask over his face, two splotches of white on the dark fabric. The design is like a Rorschach print from an old psychology book, and to most people it resembles a skull, and brings to mind… Death, and Ghosts.

Autumn is riding in the second SUV from the front, a convoy of four of them having been waiting in front of her shop, all from Clan Wolf. She and Mrs. Domasca are in the back of the vehicle, an icy silence between them as the loud magical engines pull them to the outskirts of town and the abandoned building that Maddie is in. After nearly ten minutes of silence, Autumn breaks it, curiosity getting the best of her.

"Why are you helping?" she asks suddenly, ignoring the other werewolves in the vehicle. "You hate me, and are not fond of my family in general."

Mrs. Domasca smirks sideways at the Celtic Witch, leaning against the door as they drive, "On the contrary, I have nothing but high esteem for your family. Your brother has done great things for our people, even if my husband has been slow to realize it. And your niece, Madelyn, is a wolf herself, and I hope she realizes that when she completes her application for admittance to the Horde."

Autumn blinks, "Maddie applied weeks ago, to Clan Cat."

"She did, but the Wolf Clan filed an appeal, to bring her in with her own kind," the Russian Witch says with a frown of concern Autumn suspects is faked. "Madelyn is a sweet girl, but has spent far too much time with the cats to know her own heart. She needs to understand that wolves have certain needs, and they are far different than that of the cats. She needs proper guidance, from those that understand her."

Autumn frowns hard at the other woman, hating her even more, "That is her decision to make, who she wants to be. Not yours."

"Nor yours," she says with a dark smirk at the Celt. "Nor the Khan's, either, as he has expressly spoken about on numerous occasions, that we are not to influence the choices of others. She doesn't know what she really wants, and is too impressionable to know better."

Autumn glares at the woman, "You put your son up to courting Maddie, didn't you?"

"Female wolves have a habit of picking up a stray of some sort while they grow up," she says without answering the question. "Often it is a human, sometimes a dog or a cat, or some other pet."

Autumn grits her teeth and forces herself to not respond as her grip tightens on her staff, knowing it would be easy to toss an enhanced curse at the other woman.

"She will grow out of her pet, and when she does, someone worthy of the Khan's line will be waiting, patient and kind," she says with a patronizing smile at Autumn. "Understanding of the weaknesses of youth."

Autumn grits her teeth and says nothing, looking instead out the window while Mrs. Domasca all but preens in her supposedly won argument.

Tony steps out of the SUV and stares down the dirt road blocked by a fallen tree that lies in their path. His bow in hand, he stares into the distance, able to taste the magic gathering from here, and he calls over his shoulder while the werewolves gather to the front of the vehicles. Max has hopped out of the SUV as well, at his master's side and peering and listening to the surroundings.

"There is something happening," he says firmly, stepping forward slightly, chin raised as he pulls his mask up enough to taste and smell the area.

Autumn arrives beside him, her staff in hand as she blinks and her eyes become silvery in the night, smoking slightly as she uses her charm to look at the magical spectrum.

"This is very not good," she says quietly. "I don't know how long until they complete the spell, whatever it is."

Tony frowns tightly, shaking his head, "Not long."

"If the magic holds out until they are done," Mrs. Domasca says with a frown of thought, tilting her head as her own eyes glow and assesses the magic gathering a pair of miles away. "They will need at least another twenty minutes to complete that spell, whatever it is."

"The magic wave will last another two hours, at least," Tony says firmly but softly, glancing at Autumn, the only other one that knows he can sense the rise and fall of the magic in the world.

"Quiet, child, grown-ups are talking," Mrs. Domasca says without looking at him, her face frowning in derision. "I'll send my wolves to scout the area, and when the Khan arrives in fifteen minutes, we will have the intelligence he needs to attack effectively."

"Too long," Tony says firmly, pulling his mask down again and moving forward. "I'm not waiting. I'm going after Maddie."

"I'll go with him," Tim says from the side, striding forward from where he had stood beside his mother.

Tony glares at the older male, but only nods once firmly, recognizing a werewolf will aid him, and though he dislikes him, the young man is unlikely to stab him in the back. At least not fast enough to hurt him while he focuses his senses on him, which he will be doing while they move.

"We'll be shortly behind you," Autumn says with a tight frown as Tony and Tim jog into the darkness. "Max, Aufenthalt."

Tony starts in the lead, but then motions for Tim to take point, though the young man does not react to the hand and arm signal the Horde security uses. He realizes the other does not know the signals, and he quietly vocalizes him to lead, that he will cover flanks with his bow. The werewolf is now in the lead, wearing sweatpants, t-shirt and sneakers in the night as they move nearly silently to the cabin in the woods.

Tony chuffs a halt, and Tim lowers behind a bush forty yards from the cabin, the two having moved the mile and a half quickly, though only Tony is breathing hard. After a few moments to concentrate on his breathing, he reaches out his senses and Tony immediately recognizes no one is within a hundred yards of the building. Also, he can also sense only one within it, and he would recognize that breathing and heartbeat anywhere.

Without a word, Tony stands and runs to the front door, already knowing his surroundings, and knowing there is no ward or booby-traps. He kicks the door open and walks firmly across the floor to where Maddie is hanging from the ceiling rafters. He clenches his jaw to see the scars across her back from healed whip marks, and her legs bent wrong. The man had broken her shins and knees, then had tied them in the wrong position when the LycV in her system healed her.

Tim has dashed ahead of him, picking up Maddie in his arms, and Tony draws and slices Maddie's ropes in a pair of cuts with his katana. The rope falls to the dry floorboards with a hollow thud, and Tim turns and runs out of the cabin the way they had come. Tony pauses in a wish to chase him, not having told the other to take her away. He stays though, knowing that she would understand the need to work the job, and she will be along once she is awake and gets some food in her.

He turns his attention back to his surroundings, and he narrows his eyes as he drinks in the lights and scents of the cabin. He frowns as he recognizes the smell of blood, pain and torture, but his frown turns thoughtful as he looks down and sees no blood stains on the floor. The blood Maddie had spent, it is not here, but had been collected somehow, and Gaston had taken it with him. Tony swallows on a dry mouth, no idea what that means, and wishing radios worked during magic waves so he could ask Aunt A.

Autumn walks firmly towards where she can see the magic gathering, Max at her side and noting that the cabin is in sight, but the magic circle and spell is beyond it. As she judges this, Tim leaps from the underbrush, Maddie cradled in his arms as he runs. She opens her mouth to speak, but Mrs. Domasca is already speaking.

"Take care of her, we will handle the guilty," she says firmly in the night, keeping her own gray cloak around her shoulders while her son carries Maddie back to the vehicles.

Autumn says nothing, caring only that Maddie is now safe, and she is now undistracted by that, focusing on the spell beyond, the job ahead.

"I see the blood magic in it," Autumn says, looking at where a pillar of light registers in her magical spectrum. "Strong. He tortured more than just Maddie for it, it looks like they have killed some, or are going to."

"Pain and Death," the Russian Witch says beside her without hesitation. "My family has experience dealing with the darker arts, as we strike a balance between the two, not only one or the other. That is magic fueled by pain, and soon they will kill those within. I recognize the runes, drifting in the magic."

"Norse," Autumn says with a near growl of her own, wondering if this is where the Norse magic users have disappeared to, and to what end.

Tony creeps through the last stretch of forest, his bow ready in his hand as he approaches the building magic, the smell of it heavy on his tongue, familiar… It is strong, but not too strong to distract him from the slight rustle and the snap of a string in the brush. He turns, draws and fires in response on instinct while shifting to the side, and another pair of twangs snap in the night. He dodges the arrows fired at him, missing by hairbreadths, his own thunking heavily in wood before detonating.

He has risen back to his feet with an arrow at his fingers as he pauses before drawing, staring across forty yards at Floki, bastard son of Ragnar.

The Viking archer has paused as well, but his arrow is nocked and drawn, aimed at his head, a clap shot for the best shot among the Neo-Vikings.

"Floki, I'm here to stop the spell, I'm guessing you are as well," he says, and is about to relax his grip on his fletched arrow, but when Floki maintains his aim on him, he keeps his own arm poised to draw and fire.

"I wish you were dumber, you know," Floki says with a hard frown. "It would make this easier, if you were… but we are our fathers' sons', you and I, even though we are bastards."

"Don't do this," Tony says as he immediately puts together that the Vikings are casting the spell with Gaston's help. His senses detect Jark nearby, moving to his right, a heavy axe in hand. "I don't want to hurt you."

Floki snorts at that, "We taught you how to kill, Khanson. You do not frighten us."

"Shit," Tony mutters as he draws a steel arrowhead and fires, catching Floki's arrow in mid-flight two yards from him. He is now firing in defense while dodging thrown axes and knives from Jark, who is advancing on him.

Maddie blinks against the haze in her vision, her senses returning as she pushes into consciousness, the sound of an enchanted engine rousing her. She notes absently the roar of the magic engine in the vehicle she is in, the moonlight coming through the clouds as they drive down a road. She shakes her head, her left hand reaching up and feeling the buzzed away stubble on her head, all her hair gone. She scowls hard, her jaw clenching with the few teeth she has remaining, and she reaches to the door, fumbling with the lock.

"Stop," she says weakly, and she recognizes Tim's surprised voice in the driver's seat, surprised at her movement as she opens the passenger car door.

He swerves and pulls to the side, the momentum throwing the door open, but Maddie manages to brace herself on the door and the frame. Her legs dangle beneath her as she holds herself up, blinking her weakness away and realizing she is naked. She pushes the thought away and lowers herself to her bare feet as she hears Tim rush to her from the other side of the SUV. She fumbles and falls to her face, catching herself on the ground, and realizing now that something is wrong with her legs.

She looks down and her expression hardens further as she looks at her deformed legs, having healed wrong.

"I need to get you to a hospital," Tim says, approaching the last few yards to her cautiously, his tone soothing. "They need to re-break the bones to let them heal right."

"Then why didn't you break them when you found me? You know, when I was still unconscious and would barely have felt it?" she snarls at him angrily, pushing herself up on her arms and looking at the area they are at. "Where is the man that did this? Has Rick finished it, or do they need us?"

Tim blinks in surprise, not the reaction he had expected and flinches back a few feet at the vehemence in her voice, "We found you in a cabin, tortured. They told me to take care of you, while they went after the man who did it."

Maddie swears angrily as she drags her nearly useless legs behind her to the side of the dual engine SUV, pushing herself to lean back on the back wheel. She glares at Tim, her eyes flashing blue with her own wolf as she meets his gaze.

"Get the tire iron out of the back, and break my legs," she growls at him, and he tosses his head in disbelief.

"You need a hospital, and drugs," he says again, reaching to pull her from where she is seated.

She swipes at him with a hand half formed with claws and draws a long cut across his forearm, and he backs away with surprise and shock.

"Fine, I'll do it myself," she snarls at him with another flash from her eyes, and she drags herself towards the back of the SUV, reaching up awkwardly to the latch to get in the back.

Tim has gotten over his surprise a little, and now awkwardly helps her, though his mind is blank. He pulls the tire iron out and is holding it while she pushes her legs out downslope along the side of the road.

"Hit it where the bone is wrong," she says, pulling the med kit from the back area, tying a tourniquet in place but not tight yet. "You need to hit it hard, shatter the bone, so we can push it into the right lines. Then, when they are both lined up right, use your healing spells, I know your mother taught you how."

Tim is blinking in astonishment, glancing at the steel tire iron in his hand then down at the girl lying naked on the side of the road in front of him.

"Are you sure?" he asks, obviously hesitant to hit what to him looks like a vulnerable young girl.

"If you're too pussy to do it, then give me the iron, I'll fucking do it myself," she says as she pulls out a bandage and then shoves it in her own mouth to bite on, reaching out to take the weapon from him.

Tim firms his own jaw then winds up and strikes when Maddie nods to go on. The blunt head of the weapon hits the deformed knot on her right leg and Maddie gives a growling shriek into her gag as she holds her arms tight to the ground by her hips. She gasps and then glares through involuntary tears at Tim, nodding, and he hits her other leg just as hard. She gasps into the gag, and Tim lowers down and pulls the mangled limbs into proper alignment. The LycV in her system is already visibly closing her cuts and mangled skin, and Tim chants Russian healing spells as they do.

Five minutes later, Tim is blinking in near exhaustion as Maddie spits the bandage from her mouth, reaching and undoing the tourniquets from her legs completely. She pushes the used medical equipment away, then shifts and pushes herself weakly to her feet, swaying slightly. She blinks hard and looks at the back area of the SUV, then pulls over the cooler in the back, ripping the top off unceremoniously. She pulls out the flat bread and cold cut meat inside that all Horde members keep in case of emergency. She starts binge eating the food without ceremony or even making sandwiches or wraps.

She has devoured two pounds of ham and turkey, as well as three flat breads when Tim has finally collected himself enough to sit on the back of the vehicle beside her. She just waves at the food, but otherwise does not say or acknowledge him, her eyes glaring into the distance as she fuels her body.

"Why?" he says, shaking his head dumbly in his fatigue, out of his depth. "They want you safe, protected. Let me take you to where you will be safe."

"Those are your words," she says coldly, turning and looking at him with an expression that would more appropriately come from a shark looking at its prey. "Rick would never say that, and neither would Tony."

Tim frowns and shakes his head as he takes a piece of bread to eat, "He's weak… human. No strength, and he's dumb to boot. All wolf females take someone under their wing, but why him? He has no potential."

Maddie lashes out and Tim's eyes are wide, her nose an inch from his, where she has pinned him to the inside of SUV's back area. She has her half clawed hand around his throat, her other gripping his wrist painfully in a complicated lock. He tries for only a moment to resist, but realizes that whatever they taught her in the Agoge is far more than he ever learned.

"You are an idiot," she says with a snarl. "You have strength, speed, healing and magic… and where are you?"

He blinks for a moment then begins to answer but she snarls at him with a flash in her eyes again, snapping her teeth a hair from his nose, and he goes quiet.

"You ran, like a coward," she says with disdain, looking down at him, releasing him with contempt as she moves back. "He is barely trained with none of our advantages, fighting with a bow and arrow against gods and monsters. While you ran at the first chance you had…"

Disgust laces her last statement, her face dripping with contempt as she looks at him in the moonlight.

"And then to try and sound like you did me a favor," she says with another frown, shaking her head. "Like you're a fucking hero for running from the battle."

She is wrapping meat into the flat bread, and turns to Tim with an angry expression.

"You can drive me back, and help, or I will beat you to within an inch of death, truss you up in the back of the car and drive myself back, either way works for me," she snarls at him then takes a bite from the meat wrap in her hand.

Autumn pauses on the edge of the clearing, crouching in the bushes with Mrs. Domasca beside her, another of her werewolves in wolf form at her side. She looks at the circle of power in the football field sized prairie, and mentally curses as she recognizes those there. The Dwarf woman and her clan, all strong magic users and skilled in their arts, stand in a circle thirty strong in the field. A ward of that strength, between blood that are all expert users is all but unbreakable, even if Rich was here to attack it.

"What are they conjuring, that is my question," Domasca says in a bare whisper beside her, her voice smooth in the night.

"Not conjuring, focusing, giving something an embodiment," Autumn says, her eyes narrowed and looking critically at the spell being woven in the night not far off. "They are pouring something into a vessel."

A moment of silence greets her statement as Domasca studies the runes illuminated in the night sky, tilting her head before nodding unseen.

"Someone is looking to counteract Thor and Odin," she says, obliquely agreeing and going to the next logical step. "So who would they summon to balance the scales? My bet is Hel, or perhaps the Midgard Serpent."

"No," Autumn says, reaching out with new found senses passed to her from the staff, not completely understood, but given to her when she had mentally accepted her role as the Mother of Dragons. "It is not a serpent or a dragon, it is another, it is fire…"

Autumn frowns harder as she looks through the distance between her and the circle she would never be able to break, calling on power and a charm on her ankle, enhancing her sight further for detail and distance. She curses under her breath as the figure in the center of the circle coalesces into a hazy outline, the reddish brown hair and figure unsure, but the iron crown unmistakable.

"And I know who volunteered to be the vessel… Ragnar, the man who would be king, but is dwarfed by the Aesir and Richard," Autumn says with a hard frown of her own.

Tony deflects another arrow to the side with his bow, having run out of most of his specialty arrows, his senses and abilities pushed to the limit to survive the last pair of minutes. The string on his bow snaps and he flings the arc of bone and sinew towards Floki while pulling his katana from his hip. He spins the blade around himself, and connects with a thrown battle axe from Jark, though misses the lunge of the larger Viking. Tony releases the sword immediately and grabs the older and more experienced fighter by the beard with his left hand. His right is on Jark's left wrist as the larger man tries to push his long dagger into Tony's chest, the big Viking having a solid grip on Tony's shoulder with his right.

With barely a thought, he shoves magic into his hand and beyond, into Jark's face while his own survival instincts are in the fore of his mind. Jark has a concentrated expression as the blade in his hand slowly descends towards Tony's chest, angled to shove up in between the heavy leather armor, a killing blow. The cold, reflexive magic grabs Jark's flesh and skull, the power of it great and the flesh solidifying into ice under Tony's glowing fingers. Jark cannot even scream in pain as his skull and brain is frozen solid between one beat of his heart and the next.

Tony stumbles to the side under the sudden use of magic, and the dagger in Jark's hand falls to the side in the awkwardly stiff hand of death that grips the young man. Tony pushes the larger man off of him, and twitches to the side to avoid a thrown dagger from Floki, five yards away. Tony rolls and rises to his feet, then dashes towards the young man who had taught him combat archery. Floki has another blade out, a throwing axe as his quiver is empty, and Tony only raises his arm and takes the blow on his forearm.

The axe head buries itself in his forearm between the bones, painful as it strikes against the bones and through flesh. He bites down the pain that racks him as he continues his charge unabated, and tackles Floki. The two men wrestle on the ground, dirt kicked up with leaves and dirt until Floki is on top, the axe pulled from Tony's arm and held close to his throat. Tony is pushing with both his arms against the slightly thinner but more experienced fighter, the edge of the axe slowly closing on his jaw line.

"I am sorry, brother," Floki says with a hard expression, leaning his weight further onto the axe.

Tony grimaces and frowns hard in reply, "As am I, brother."

He turns and grabs Floki's face with his bare left hand while pushing the axe off its course. The head of the axe buries itself in the dirt while placing a long cut along the already scarred side of Tony's jaw. Tony shoves magic into his fingers and into Floki as he does, forcing his mind past the pain roaring in his arm, face and body. The older fighter screams as his face and head erupts in flames, the flesh boiling away quickly in the heat. Tony pushes the soon burning corpse to the side and scrabbles away with gasping breath as he realizes what he has done. The horror of killing those he thought of as friends hitting him hard while looking in amazement and disgust at his left hand, and the deadly magic it had visited on others…

Autumn studies the circle of magic users in the near distance pensively, a large number of figures between the circle of magic and the forest on all sides. Skirmishers, if she recalls Rich's word for it, to keep any but the most determined from approaching the spell. She is trying to formulate how to attack or approach when the decision is taken from her, a primal roar echoing over the clearing.

On the far side of the clearing emerges her bother, the Khan, followed by forty others from the Horde, weapons at the ready. Arrows arc out from both sides and bodies fall, wounded or dead, and more missiles arc out as the skirmishers run to fight the shapeshifters.

"He has bought us a distraction and time, let us go," Mrs. Domasca says from the side, and she moves out of the concealment, jogging with the werewolf in animal form at her side.

Autumn frowns hard but jogs with her, Max at her side, his senses attuned to the night.

Tony is frowning hard as he mutters in an attempt to heal the gash in his left forearm. The skin moves over the exposed flesh and muscle, and he pours more power into the simple spell. He lacks the finesse to create flesh and blood, knowing only how to close a simple cut or chipped bone. He can compensate for that with power, but it is draining, and the scars remain, not pretty like a shapeshifter or a professional medmage. The result of trying to heal his arm is tiring him, and exhaustion is tugging on his limbs and tongue, causing him to mess up the chant. He blinks hard as a sound pulls him from his spell, and he pushes against the tree he leans on to stand wearily in the moonlight, dawn a pair of hours away now.

He relaxes and lowers his sword when he recognizes Maddie's scent, then the sound of her moving from the brush to him. She is wearing baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt four sizes too big, her face has a starved, animal look to it, as well. Her head is shaved bald with dark stubble and her brown eyes are dark under her shadowed brows. He is putting away his sword, glancing at where Tim is behind her to the side, and he can sense a tension between the two.

"Everything cool?" he asks tiredly, leaning back against the tree, not caring if he is showing weakness to Tim.

"I was going to ask you something similar," Maddie says in a soft voice as she reaches him, a tactical gladius in hand to her side.

He closes his eyes and just enjoys her scent as she gently runs her nose along the uninjured and unscarred side of his face. Even through the cloth of his mask, the gentle touch sends shivers through his skin, and he sighs in a moment of enjoyment. He opens his eyes to see her smiling at him, her face gentle despite the situation and the weapon in her hand.

"Is it what it looks like?" she asks, glancing at the area, where trees are splintered among the two dead Vikings.

"They are involved, their dad sent them to guard," he says with a barely perceived frown. "It is my luck to run into them, instead of their rank and file."

"You lived, that is the important part," she says gently, running her free hand along his jaw and neck. "Are you ready to go?"

"I need to finish fixing my arm," he says with a frown as he raises his still wounded arm, having only managed to slow the bleeding.

"Tim," Maddie barks in a harsh tone, and the taller werewolf steps forward and studies the wound, then chants over it, healing the flesh and bone much more efficiently than Tony had.

"Tim is a part time medmage in town," Maddie says, watching the young man critically with a hard expression.

Tony has no idea what has happened, and in general, does not care at all. His girlfriend seems to still be his girlfriend, and they are together again, off to fight an unknown enemy. Feels like a regular date night, actually.

Tony frowns and glances at her through the eye holes of his mask, "I know who did this. It's my fault he is here."

"The man who hurt me is dealing in dark magic, working evil things," she says in a hard tone of her own, looking at him solidly, making him feel like a boy and she the elder. "If he hadn't come here, he would have gone somewhere else, and would likely have hurt someone else, who couldn't stand it, couldn't endure it, who it would have broken. It is no one's fault but his. And we will make him pay for it."

Tony smiles at her, glancing at where Tim has lowered his now healed but still sore arm, and he reaches up, removing his mask in the night. The moonlight off of the plants almost causes him to flinch, but he has grown more accustomed to it, so he does not lose his focus on Maddie's eyes. He leans forward and kisses her gently, and she wraps her arms around him, her fingers tracing into his hair. After a moment, she draws back, a smile on her lips as she looks at him with a possessive gleam in her eye.

"That guy took the sword Rick gave me," she says with a breath. "Help me get it back?"

"Sure thing, partner," he says with a smirk, pulling his mask back on before moving and picking up Floki's bow. The dead have no need for such things, after all, and his is broken.

Autumn curses mentally as she reaches the edge of the ward, within which are thirteen small clusters of people. She can see that the Dwarf clan from the Vikings are at least two in each cluster, each around a kneeling man. The men are facing the center, hands cradled on hip high sticks with antlers on the tops, upon which they rest their unrestrained wrists. The Dwarf magic users have hacked at the men's backs, breaking bones and carving out their lungs while they still live. The men are barely alive, bodies rigid from the pain as they stare at their king, Ragnar, in the center.

"What in the names of all the gods are they doing?" Mrs. Domasca says from her side, astonishment in her voice as she nearly vomits, the magic users now lifting the exposed lungs onto the men's shoulders from behind.

"The blood eagle," Autumn says coldly, her eyes glowing as she detects the magical spectrum within the wards, the magic within it. "Thirteen volunteer sacrifices, offered up in the most severe of their practices, powering the spell."

"That's…" the Russian witch starts to say, her hand still to her mouth as she looks on with horrific fascination.

"Viking," Autumn says flatly. "People forget how harsh they were, and remember only the romanticized movies or the Comic Book hero."

"That is a lot of magic," Domasca responds, now looking on the scene through the magical spectrum. "As strong as a flare, I'd wager."

"They are bringing a god through, to inhabit Ragnar," Autumn says firmly, reaching out a hand to touch the ward. "And we cannot break this ward without a lot of help."

Autumn glances over at where the shapeshifters have nearly finished off the Viking guards. Though outnumbered two to one with nearly a hundred Vikings on guard, Richard's people are far better trained and armed. Richard has cut down three as she watches, having thrown his sword like a buzzsaw that cuts those in his way nearly in half. The blade arcs back into his hand like a boomerang, and Richard is jogging to where she and Domasca stand by the ward.

"I will break it," he says simply, cutting across his hand with the long bladed Viking Uru katana, but before he can shove his magic into the ward to try and break it, the spell crescendos within it.

Autumn gasps and shoves the staff in front of her as she automatically lays down a small circle at her feet, and the magic exploding within the ward slams into it. Even with the magnification from the staff, her breath is knocked from her resisting the wave of magic released from the simultaneous death of the thirteen blood eagled men. She keeps her feet, but barely, and glances to her right and left, where Mrs. Domasca is kneeling in her own small circle gasping and spitting up blood. Richard is on one knee with his sword buried in the ground to keep him in place, his face focused and hard.

The ward in front of them is gone, and all those within are on their backs from the blast of the spell, unconscious or dead from it. Autumn lifts her staff before her as Richard rises to his feet, smoke obscuring the figure in the center that had been Ragnar.

"They have summoned a god, of some kind," she says quietly, and Richard flicks his sword to the side, his eyes flashing orange in the night.

"I can beat anyone in single combat, except Tyre," Richard growls in response, his eyes intense.

The smoke clears and the man in the center rises to his feet, having been kneeling in the obscurement. Ragnar is now transformed, standing nearly seven feet tall now, wide in his shoulders and narrow in the waist in the perfect figure of a male weightlifter. His face retains the same general cast he had before the transformation, but where he before had an unfinished, rough appearance, he now looks like he has been chiseled from cream colored marble. His face is now clean shaven as if fresh from the barber's chair, and his hair now a golden blond, compared to Thor's dirty blond.

Scale armor shined to a silver gleam covers his arms and legs, a deer leather jerkin over heavy scale on his chest. He smiles as he steps through the smoke towards Richard, pulling a long handled mace from his belt, a short spear blade on the butt of the weapon. He spins the obviously heavy weapon to the side as he walks forward, grinning with a gleam in his eye.

"I recognize that look," Richard says, stepping forward with his own sword ready, studying Ragnar critically. "You are scheming, Ragnar. And that sounds like a trait of Loki. What have you done?"

Ragnar laughs, his tone light and easy, matching his fair and handsome face, "Ahhh, Richard Tigerskin, why would I welcome the trickster, when I can be the favored son."

Richard pauses in his approach, ten yards from who he thinks is Loki, and Autumn moving to the side, her eyes narrowed as she studies Ragnar's aura.

"Sis?" Richard asks, ready to pounce as Ragnar continues to stride forward.

"No blade can pierce his skin," she says with a pensive expression.

"I am the son of Odin now, more favored even than Thor," Ragnar says with a grin, his arms wide and weapon held to his side. "I am Baldr reborn, to bring light to the world, and usher in the summer."

"Baldr, huh," Richard says with a sigh and a nod. "I don't have mistletoe, so I guess I'll just bludgeon you with my sword."

With that he dashes forward, and Autumn flinches at the sound of metal on metal as the weapons clang with the force of the blows. She blinks and starts to wonder how she can help her brother, but she looks to the side where she can see a glow of magic. The magic had been washed out of her vision with the Viking spell, but now she can see that at the opposite edge of the clearing is a familiar clash of magic. She frowns hard and jogs that way, looking to find Gaston and find out how he is connected to all of this.

Max is obediently at her side, gasping in the night as they approach the trees and brush, Domasca still gaining her feet back at the edge of the place of the spell. She pauses as she approaches, feeling the magic rising, thrumming with power, and she readies her staff before her. She is ten yards from the trees when the dirt at the edge of the clearing shifts and a figure rises from the ground. She chants and channels her magic through a charm holding a spell on her neck, then pushes it into the staff, holding it before firing. The figure rising looks like a giant juggernaut clad in iron armor, dirt falling from it in a cascade as it stands, thin lines of red light at the edges of the heavy plates in Babylonian script.

Autumn frowns as she looks at the monster, feeling the person within it and recognizing the work of the traitorous Gaston. She releases the spell, and after a fraction of a heartbeat later, the iron mongol before her is coated in divine white fire, gasping at the draw of power from her. The figure flicks his arm to the side, and a blade snaps out, what had been Maddie's gladius, and the fire coats that as well. The armor has a slight sheen under the white fire, and Autumn can see the etching of the tablets, arrayed into the armor, granting protection to the mongol. A dark chuckle comes from the figure as it strides forward, even though it is drenched in the white flames, the trees around it now burning and the ground scorched beneath its feet.

Autumn curses and shuffles backwards as the figure swings in her direction, and only hours of practicing with the shapeshifter trainers Richard had arranged for her allows her to survive. She parries the air in front of her while moving and trusting her instincts, the iron of the staff ringing in her hands as the gladius snaps out at her. The blade rings as well, deflected to the side, then the chain affixed to its hilt snaps it back to his forearm. She has moved forward and swung with the staff on reflex, pushing another spell into it as she does, and she connects solidly with the ten foot tall figure's knee.

The staff rings in her hands again with an amplified flash of lighting, shocking up the leg of the mongol, which flinches at the attack and cuts at her with the sword in its arm. Autumn falls backwards into a roll, the blade missing her by inches, and her breath ragged as she realizes she is not the equal to the monster clad in metal. As that thought reaches her mind a flash skips off the chest of the mongol, and the divine fire there dims as the metal is magically cooled. She recognizes the flash as the discharge of an enchanted arrow, which can only mean…

Another arrow flies out and hits the mongol on the chest again, ice forming on that metal now and the cooled area spreading to engulf the head and shoulders. Immediately after, Maddie, in loose sweats and t-shirt, lands on the part of the armor without fire on it, shoving the gladius in hand at the bend of the neck. The impacts and magic had not affected the figure, but the hundred pounds of angry werewolf savagely shoving hardened steel at its head causes it to stumble to the side. Two more flashes as another two arrows skip off the armor, and the rest of the iron is no longer engulfed in flames.

Another figure has leaped at the mongol, landing on its chest and holding the arm with the blade from where it was poised to stab Maddie in the back. The figure is no hundred pound angry girl, but a warrior form werewolf weighing over three hundred pounds and having shapeshifter strength. The mongol is now teetering backwards and falls to its back as Maddie is fighting to shove the blade further than the few inches she has managed to get it into the neck. Autumn has not been idle, however, and she is chanting another spell, spinning the staff about her as the clouds above coalesce as though a storm is forming.

"Clear!" she hears Tony shout from beside her, and the two werewolves leap from the fallen iron figure as the spell completes.

Autumn has shoved the staff at the sky then swung it down to hammer the ground, pointing in the direction of her target. The sky flashes and lightning crashes to the ground, striking the struggling armored figure on the chest. The figure spasms as the lightning lasts for a full four seconds, then the armor explodes in the night, sending shrapnel in all directions. Autumn has cast a circle of protection in reflex again, surrounding Tony at her side, as well. When the metal and freed tablets settle, smoke is rising from a crater where the armored man was.

Autumn takes a breath as she releases the circle, Tony walking past her with his bow at the ready, and she follows him. They pause at the edge of the crater, ten yards across and scoured clean of everything but dirt and the remaining figure within. The figure is now charred and black on the left side of its body, fresh black burns, but the right side is still a colorful swirl of magical energy. Patches of clothing and burnt armor still stick to the figure as it twitches then starts to stir, trying to push himself to a sitting position. Tony absently holds his bow out to Autumn, who takes it without a word.

Tony descends into the crater and pulls his katana from his side, twirling it to the side and his focus on the other man in front of him.

"Zenthos!" Gaston rasps angrily, the word filled with magic, and a sphere of protection snaps around him and Tony.

Tony has his sword up, but the sphere is locked around them, giving them a circle of ten yards in the crater, Gaston rolling to the side and chuckling darkly. He rises to his feet with the enchanted gladius in hand, his enchanted half scarred but uninjured, the other human half black and oozing blood. Tony is amazed the man is standing, he must be in enormous agony from the burns and blistering skin. As that thought crosses his mind, his vision flickers to the magical spectrum, Aunt A somehow granting him her sight.

Gaston is feeding his magic with his own pain and suffering, blood magic that Tony can see in the lines of red in the man's aura. He pushes magic into his own blade, the blue electricity he had used before on the Jabberwocky, and the gladius flames over with dark red flames, the edges of it black. Gaston moves fast and attacks, slashing angrily, but Tony has been practicing with shapeshifters for months, and the parries and counters come easily. He parries the blows and cuts down and to the side while practically dancing away, severing the charred human leg from Gaston's body.

Gaston falls to his knee, and before Tony can do anything else, the young man inverts the gladius and dives on it, impaling his chest on the burning blade. Tony is shocked and steps back in amazement and horror, more so because the magic spikes as he kills himself, and the body starts to shrivel on itself. Tony moves to back away, but the circle is still intact, and he can see Aunt A outside of it working to bring it down. The body shrivels and sucks into itself then bubbles outwards in a mass of red and black, growing and forming into something far darker than what Gaston had been.

After three breaths, the huddled figure rises to seven feet tall, clad in red scales, a serpentine tail behind it with black feathered wings. Tony holds his sword before him as his mouth goes dry and he stares at the demon standing before him.

"A little backup right now would not go unappreciated," Tony says absently, but though he can sense Aunt A's spell hitting the sphere and Maddie and Tim hammering on the ward with their fists and thrown back from the shock, the ward stays up.

"He had great hate for you," the seven foot tall demon says, his feathered wings at odds with the four eyes and pair of goat horns on his head. "He wished you to suffer and despair at your loss, before you died, when he would finally kill you."

"You planning on finishing that job?" Tony says as he settles into his fighting position, blade behind him and ready, knowing that running is always a losing proposition.

"His payment was not enough for what he wished to accomplish," the demon says with a dark chuckle, looking past Tony to where Autumn is drawing another circle and mixing components for another spell. "He had no idea the power within your family. He got what he paid for."

"And now you're here," Tony says with a hard frown under his mask, and makes a snap decision, rash though it may be.

He charges the larger opponent, slashing at a leg, but the monster leaps and moves easily in the air as it avoids the blade, laughing evilly as it does. The sphere of the ward doubles in size, pushing Autumn back unceremoniously, ruining her spell preparation. Tony dives and rolls to the side, the monster's tail missing him by a foot, turning and slashing but missing the appendage. He jumps and rolls again as the monster has landed next to him and swipes at him with black claws, laughing as it fights.

Tony rises from his roll with the katana in his left hand and the gladius in his right and he spins and launches it as hard as he can while pushing as much magic as he possibly can into it. The gladius flashes with cold, blue and white fire, then buries itself into the demon's left shoulder. The monster roars in the night at the agony, falling heavily to his taloned legs, reaching up to pull the gladius from where it has stabbed through its collarbone. Tony has dashed and leaped forward, sword sheathed at his side, and a pair of arrows in each hand. He lands on the large monster's hip, then shoves the magic imbued weapons into the demon's midsection, breaking the shafts and purposely falling to the ground.

The demon raises a foot angrily and prepares to stomp down on the annoyance as he pulls back the freed gladius in his left hand. He does not get the chance to stomp down, as the delayed blast heads of the arrows explode from within its lower lumbar and its intestinal tract. The resulting splatter of demon ichor and blood covers Tony from head to toe, and the lower half of the monster collapses across his legs. Tony slowly lowers his arms from where he covered his face and looks at the scattered remains of the demon. The upper half is twitching and breathes out its last as he looks on from a few yards away, the ward collapsing as it does.

Autumn rushes down into the crater to Tony, her face firm and tone angry, "Sometimes you are just like your father, you know that?"

Tony chuckles, "I'll take that as a compliment, after all, I did win."

Richard hammers another blow into the Ragnar-Baldr's ribs, and the larger man grunts at the blunt force of the sword on his body. Richard turns and slashes hard on the other side, lower and on the hip, also leaning back and ducking a stab from the butt of the mace. The Aesir staggers from the blow, and Richard pulls back and strikes the same side, but this time on the knee with a vicious backhand. The god made flesh stumbles to the side and Richard draws back for the finishing blow, to cave in the exposed skull before him.

A flash of light blinds him as pain lances through his arms, and he is tossed through the air. He twists and lands awkwardly, rolling after a moment and immediately shoving his broken fingers into alignment out of habit as he rises to his feet. As he stands he glowers through the flashes in his vision, staring at where Odin is in full metal armor and his great spear in hand. The spear is what likely struck his sword, breaking his fingers and dazing him.

His fingers set, he twitches his hand and Krigsherre rises and flies towards his hand, but Odin twitches his own hand, and the Uru weapon buries itself in the ground at the All-Father's feet instead. Richard only glares at the god and clenches his jaw across the distance, breathing deep.

"You cannot kill him," Odin says in a firm voice, looking every inch the lord of the Aesir, gods of the fighting men and women of the Norse. "He is my son, and his death heralds the end of the Nine Realms."

"He's Ragnar, with your son occupying him as an avatar," Richard growls in return. "And as for the end of the world, well… I'll take my chances."

"You will not," Odin says with a hard frown at Richard. "He is Aesir, he is mine to deal with."

"He was in league with the one who kidnapped my daughter," Richard says in a near snarl. "And none of those here had any way of knowing how to do this without a magic flare. This was not an honorable way to return to the world of men. Look at the pain and suffering he wrought to return to Midgard."

Richard waves at the dead warriors around them, the blood eagled elite guard of the once king Ragnar, and the sworn soldiers on the field beyond.

"Hiding in the shadows, torture and death at the hands of them?" he snarls the last as the spellcasters are starting to stir, deformed and shadows in the night. "Those soldiers will never see the hallowed halls of Valhalla, never serve you on the day you will need every hand to battle Ragnarok."

He has fallen into speaking as the Vikings do in a sing song fashion, though emotion is still holding him firm.

"They deserve justice," Richard growls in anger, his eyes flashing orange.

Odin holds Richard's gaze, then nods once, "They shall have it, but I shall mete it out."

Richard frowns hard, but nods, knowing that he will get no more, "I expect to be invited."

"I shall ensure it," Odin says with a slow nod of his head.

While the two had been conversing, the taller incarnation of Baldr had regained his wits, and he now shoves Odin aside, reaching down for Krigsherre.

"I will not be punished for returning!" he roars at the All-Father, but the sword refuses to budge as he pulls on the handle.

Odin recovers faster than a man who appears to be in his late nineties ever would, and backhands his reborn son with his off hand.

"Silence!" he shouts, twitching his fingers, and the sword flies from the dirt and Richard catches the sword on reflex.

A rainbow of light cascades down on the pair and the two Aesir have vanished from the field.

Tony walks wearily down the street, tired and exhausted beyond measure, a part of his mind wondering where his horse is. He thinks he had ridden it to the cabin where Maddie had been, he is pretty sure of that, but with everything going on, he is just too spent to really care if he did or not. The emotional rollercoaster ride of the last week has overwhelmed him, and he slogs down the sidewalk, one foot in front of the other as he walks home.

A short shriek and the sounds of a scuffle pull him from his trudging, his hand lacking his bow, but still edging to his sword handle out of reflex. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to pay attention to his surroundings, and he hears the fight now. He looks the other way for a moment, recognizing the sound of three or four guys mugging a younger girl, probably ten or twelve. They are not out for anything besides money or goods, and he takes a step to continue home, but the sound of the girl's sobbing from a block away arrests him in his boots.

He takes another deep breath and clenches his jaw, then turns on his heel and marches down the street to where the sounds of scuffle was. He recognizes the sounds of the men dividing the goods they have gotten from the girl, likely a beggar or homeless. He turns the corner, and for a moment almost pitches an ultimatum for them to run away, or else. Almost, because they look at him the way Tim did, as another victim to bully, and he simply snarls and pulls an arrow from his quiver.

Though only thrown and not fired, the steel head still inflicts damage, and catches the thugs off guard as it bites into an eye socket. He moves forward and turns while stabbing into a man's thigh with a steel headed arrow, then turns and shoves his elbow hard into the next thug's chest. The man staggers at the blow, and Tony follows through, reaching back then hammering a palm viciously into his face. He turns and dips back, avoiding a swing from another thug, but reverses direction and head butts him hard in the nose.

Tony watches as that last man stumbles back with a broken nose, blood over his face and hands, and he surveys the alley he has fought in. A bag or so of goods, four moaning men in pain, and a girl probably around Jocelyn's age trying to hide behind a garbage can. He takes a deep breath, realizing he does not look comforting in his mask and dark leather, covered in drying demon blood. After a few breaths he pulls the mask from his face, showing finger length dark hair and the bright side of his scarred face. He kneels near the can the girl is hiding behind, and looks out with what he hopes is a soft expression on his face.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he says gently, gesturing to the side. "Come take your things. They won't bother you again."

A moment of silence, then the girl peeks around the can, "I can have my stuff back?"

"Yes, you can," Tony says with a nod, gesturing again to the bag nearby.

After a moment of hesitation, the girl hurries out of the shadow of the garbage can and picks up her bag, then a few items the men had roughly discarded.

"Where are you going now?" he asks quietly, and the girl stills as she picks up a box of matches from the ground, looking at him doubtfully.

"Nowhere," she says in a small voice and a shrug. "I live here."

Tony takes a breath, glancing at the men crawling away, frowning hard at them then holding out a hand to the small girl with black hair and gray eyes.

"How about you stay with me tonight?" he asks, his left hand out without his glove for a change, the fingers glowing softly in the near morning darkness.

Autumn dismounts from her chimera colored mare, tired and dreading walking up those damn planks of wood to where Richard sits, surveying his domain. She enjoys the view but every time she walks up the damn things, her heart is in her throat the whole time. She simply takes a breath and starts towards the barn, but before she can go more than a few steps, Richard hops from the barn and lands on bent knees on the ground. She walks to her brother with her staff in hand, glad he had waited to talk to her about everything rather than dragging her here after the fight, like he did Maddie and a few others.

"So, have we heard from Odin, yet?" she asks as Rich gestures at the picnic table, and they sit across from each other.

"Thor came by this morning," he replies with a hard expression. "He had been visiting the Norse Heritage along the East Coast after the New Orleans battle, had no idea of what was going on. He claims Odin didn't know either."

"I'm surprised that Ragnar would sacrifice so many of his own people for this," Autumn says with a frown and a shake of her head. "He was their king, he was supposed to protect them."

"Not all who rule are magnanimous," Rich says with a sad twist of his head. "They say he will be punished, but I'm skeptical. Now that Baldr is here, Odin has some hard choices ahead, and our own politics with them and with the surrounding area has become more complicated."

"And add in that Tony killed the Ragnarsons," Autumn adds with a frown of her own.

"And that," he says with his own frown. "I told Thor directly that had happened, as it seems that the Ragnar-Baldr had no idea, and was asking for his sons."

"Really complicated and sensitive," Autumn says with another frown, turning as she hears the back door opening, Tasha walking out the back with a six pack of beer in hand.

"Maddie won't listen to us," Tasha says with a frown, setting down the beer and snatching one out with an angry expression. "She wants to agree to join Clan Wolf."

"She is a wolf," Richard says with an unsure frown and a shrug, which earns him an icy expression from both women.

"Bridgette cannot be trusted," Autumn says firmly, trying to contain her hate for the woman. "She machinated Tim and the delay."

Richard snorts, "Of course she did. Thomas is as subtle as a bull in a china shop. Maddie could learn a thing or two from her, I think. And it'll be good to get out of our shadows, as well."

Tasha glares at him, "You know I hate it when you talk sense when I'm angry."

Richard only shrugs in response, unrepentant as he takes a sip of his own beer, "Be angry, but she'll be coddled and spoiled if she stays in the Pride. Call me a liar?"

Tasha only glares at him and angrily drinks her beer.

"I find hitting him hard with a blunt object often makes me feel better," Autumn says with a scowl of her own. "Multiple times, if necessary."

"If you could pick a single word to describe what she is, what would it be?" Richard asks with a frown, driving the point home.

Tasha takes a deep breath and exhales noisily, then nodding reluctantly, "She's a survivor."

"When I met her, rescued her and Jocelyn, you remember what she said to us? What she said to me?" he says, his own expression hard as he looks at his sister now.

Tasha frowns, uncomfortable, and her memory not quite as sharp, though Autumn remembers it vividly.

"She said that she wished she wasn't afraid," Autumn says with sigh, frowning and hating it when he is right. "But that's a tough road, my dear brother. Not all can walk it."

"I never forced her to do it," he says with his own bitter, sad chuckle, looking now at his beer with an expression better suited to a man with three more decades under his belt. "God knows I hoped she would just be a normal teenage girl, wanting pretty dresses and bows, horses and rainbows. But she chose that role, and now she is choosing again. We will always be there to help her, but it is her life to live."

Autumn chuckles darkly herself, and repeats the words their mother had said to them, not long before her death, " 'It's supposed to be awkward, and strange, and uncomfortable, because that is how real life is. We are not a poem or a story, we are real people who fumble about and make it work if we can. We remember it more because of the awkwardness of it all, and we cherish it more.' "

Maddie is practically skipping down the street as she walks to the front door of Tony's apartment building. She had taken some damage from the exploding guy in armor and Rick had taken her to the Bastion to heal and get "fed up to fighting weight", as he put it. She had protested, but no amount of needling and complaining worked to get her out from under the watchful eyes of the Khan. She was going to get violent about it, but the look that Aunt A had given her had quieted her, and she realized that she had to. They had all been worried out of their minds while she was missing, helpless for two days, unable to find her, and when they did, the knowledge of what had been done to her to fuel Gaston's magic…

She is amazed, in hindsight, that Rick had not done worse to the Viking Dwarf magic users who had remained. As it stands, she figures their alliance with the Vikings is now a thing of the past, even if Thor came to apologize and condemned the actions of his father and his brother. Maddie had let Rick take her home, and had not complained at being fussed over by Tasha and Mischa, nor the heaps of food Nita had cooked for every meal to get her close to her normal weight.

The talks with Mischa and Tasha had been hardest, though, because she ended up agreeing with the Wolf Alphas' appeals. The two were-lions had countered that she had family with the Pride, and that she would be watched carefully and taken care of. Her counterpoint was that there were few in the Wolf Clan that truly understood Richard and what he has done for the Horde. Intellectually Mrs. Domasca knows, and in a simple way so does Mr. Domasca, but the Wolf Clan, despite being the largest of the Clans, had the fewest attend the Agoge. The wolves simply do not understand, and she reasons that she can help teach them, if in no other way than by rising in the ranks.

She had been surprised when Rick had simply smiled and handed her back the gladius that was recovered from the battlefield, wishing her luck, and reminding her that the light was always on for her. So now she is a provisional member of Clan Wolf, and her initiation into the Clan and the Horde is this Friday at the Bastion. She is here to see Tony for the first time since the fight to invite him to the ceremony, one of the few non-shapeshifters to ever be invited to such an event. Not to mention that she misses his scent, achingly so.

She pauses on his floor and walks slowly to his door, detecting a new scent that strengthens as she approaches. She frowns at the door as she arrives at it, pulling out her key and opening it with a thoughtful expression. She enters to find a young girl, younger than Jocelyn, sitting on the floor in the main living room. She is looking up at Maddie with the look a mouse gives a cat when caught in the open, four piles of arrows arrayed neatly in front of her, color coded. The girl is probably ten or so, has dark black hair with gray eyes and a narrow figure that indicates she was starved and malnourished until recently. She is wearing what Maddie recognizes as one of Tony's old t-shirts and a pair of Horde sweatpants too big.

"Hello," Maddie says, tilting her head and aiming for a friendly smile. "I'm Maddie."

The girl glances at Tony's bedroom, where Maddie can sense the young man sleeping on his thin mattress. If he is sleeping, then he used magic heavily, which means he probably enchanted all the arrows the girl is now sorting, then passed out shortly thereafter. She smiles and walks to the girl, lowering herself to be closer to eye level with the nervous, cross legged girl.

"I'm Tony's girlfriend," Maddie prompts with a smile, sitting in a lotus position and noting that there is a small nest of blankets by the bookshelf, where the girl has slept for the last few days, judging from the scents.

"He talked about you," the girl says with a small smile. "You're pretty."

"You're pretty, too. I like your hair," Maddie says with a smile at the girl, reaching out slowly and gently touching the dark, thick hair. "What's your name?"

"They called me mouse, but Tony says I should have a new name, because I'm not a mouse anymore," she says in a small voice, and Maddie wonders what the story is that brought her here.

"How does… Ashley sound?" Maddie says with an excessively focused look at the girl. "I think you look like an Ashley, to me. What do you think?"

"Okay," the girl says with a real smile, and Maddie grins in return.

The first thing Tony realizes as he drifts back towards consciousness is that he is not alone in his bed, a comfortable warmth curled into his side. His mind is not fully functional, but he pulls the body closer, his sleeping mind recognizing who it is. He lazily rises from slumber with Maddie tucked under his arm, a sheet over them. He blinks on crusted eyes in the dim, early evening light as she rubs her face on his chest, practically purring into his side. He leans down and gently kisses the fuzz of hair on her head, and he can hear her laugh lightly at his action.

"You met my new roommate, I presume?" he asks after a moment of silent enjoyment, she wearing sweatpants and t-shirt, just like him. She must have changed into something comfortable to join him for a nap.

"Nice girl," Maddie says, not moving from being curled into his side. "Did she follow you home and you couldn't say no?"

"I heard her getting mugged while I was walking home from the battle," he says with an unseen frown, shifting uncomfortably. "After all the crap of the previous days, I couldn't stand it. She was living in the alley, so I told her she could stay here until we figured out something more permanent."

Maddie laughs lightly into his side, "You adopted a stray."

He smirks and leans down to kiss her head again, knowing that his family adopting strays is the only reason he ever met her.

Epilogue…

Tony walks into Aunt A's shop, the front glass and door replaced and still with tape over the center and edges. He smirks to himself as he walks in, then frowns as Aunt A jumps out of the basement door, then to the side, a puff of dark smoke following her. He walks forward firmly as he pulls an arrow from his quiver, focused on the stairway.

"Don't," Autumn says, taking a breath and shaking her head. "It was an accident, he's not evil, just startled, maybe scared."

"Who is it?" Tony asks, his focus on the doorway, his bow ready but not drawn.

"It's… uh… Max," she says with a sour look, a frown. "I was casting a spell, nothing major, but he was nearby, and the mother of dragons thing kicked in, and…"

"So… what?" Tony asks, frowning and thinking.

"I think I turned your dog into a dragon," Autumn says with a frown. "A small dragon… smallish, I mean, I think…"

Tony takes a breath, frowning hard, then setting his arrow back in his quiver, to which Autumn blinks and shakes her head.

"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice firmer as she recognizes the same set of his features that her brother often has.

"Getting my dog back," he says with a hard frown, walking determinedly down the stairs to the basement.

Autumn moves and follows after him, her staff at the ready and the tip giving off a glow to illuminate the darkness. Tony strides down the stairs, his senses stretched out as he detects the creature on the far side of the basement. He can sense the work table tossed over, wood in splinters and materials scattered, the smells affecting his nose. His hearing, though, detects the breathing and heartbeat of the creature, and he guesses that Max is now two hundred pounds, still quadrupedal…

The angle of his descent allows him to see the basement now, and even before the light from Autumn's staff gives better illumination, he can see Max. He is on the far side of the basement, huddled by an overturned counter, looking around with a scent of panic in it. Tony walks forward calmly, then speaks soothingly to the trained creature.

"Calm, Maximus, calm, master is here," he repeats in German over and over again in a calm tone as he walks towards the thing that was not long ago a dog.

Though once a dog, it now resembles a cross between an alligator, a lion and a, well, a German Shepherd. The body is mostly formed like a dog's, though the front paws are fashioned more like a cat's, able to grip its prey rather than just walk and hold it down. The ruff is thicker in the neck for strong biting, like a canine, and the back legs are still reminiscent of a canine without the ability to rend with the back legs. The tail is long and thick, not moving like cat's, but thicker at the base more like and alligator or a crocodile, but held firmly off the ground, as though to counter balance the heavy weight to the front.

Max eyes them warily, but Tony's words, tone and demeanor reassures the deeply indoctrinated creature, and it awkwardly moves forward, unused to the configuration of its body.

"It's okay, boy, master is here," he says now in English, the dog learning the similarities since arriving with his new owners.

The Dragon Shepherd moves forward and buts its head to Tony's hand, tail trying to wag but throwing off balance the front end. Tony tells him to sit, and the creature does, an easier position to maintain with its new design.

"Good news and bad news," Tony says as he gently strokes the heavy scales on Max's neck. "Bad news, there's no way he can stay at my place."

"What's the good news?" Autumn asks, frowning as she studies the creature intently.

"Dad has plenty of land, and since you did it, you get to tell him you need space for your new pet," Tony says with a smirk.

"Shit," Autumn says with feeling, not arguing. It is her fault.

End…