Author's Note: Wow...really shouldn't have taken this long, considering the gap that needed filling to complete this bit was relatively minor...
And now, some Kate and Henry just for the fun of it!
Sure the joint was seedy; poorly lit, cluttered, dusty, a little bit greasy. And desolate, excepting a couple shifty customers prowling about and the equally shifty, portly proprietor of the establishment. He was on the back end of 'middle-aged' with a puffy face, puffy eyes, puffy belly, and well just about 'puffy' everything. And he stood, scrutinizing them in a sly manner from the other side of the counter.
Yet despite all of these factors melding into a rather appropriate setting, Kate Freelander would still have preferred to conduct such business in the back room, or even the sketchy alley behind the shop -anywhere, really, just not in such public view.
Then again, her assigned 'partner in crime' for her current endeavour looked rather ill-at-ease for the low digs where they had ultimately arrived after a particularly lengthy and frustrating goose-chase. He probably -okay, definitely- wouldn't respond well to finding himself in the type of circumstances that would've made Kate feel more at home whilst involved in these sorts of dealings. As it was, he currently was making them both look like newbies. And in any city's underbelly, one needed to appear like they belonged, not like they just got in off the boat, or hay wagon, or wherever rubes originated from. Basically, it was 'blend in', or be taken for a ride.
"What's bothering him?" the proprietor, a Mr. Ralph Feinstein, asked as if indicating the universe's consensus with Kate that she'd do a hell of a lot better on her own, rather than being saddled with Fidgety McGee two steps behind her.
Not that she didn't like the guy.
To be perfectly honest, Henry Foss was the closest thing to a friend she had possessed in years. Pathetic, yes, but true. In her previous lifestyle, she had been required to know a hell of a lot of people -business associates, contacts, customers, dealers, informants, smugglers, mercenaries- but not one you'd trust to watch your back. And none of them friends.
It was also probably true, perhaps undeniably true, that he was the one person (abnormal or otherwise) at the Sanctuary that she was closest to. She liked the others. And she was fairly certain they liked her. But for some reason they continued to keep her at a distance. Whether it was her acerbic tongue, former career, questionable morality, or the fact that she was low man on the totem pole, she wasn't sure. And she couldn't really blame them, either. They were all survivors. And she knew too well what sort of hard shell was entailed in order to survive a harsh world.
But wolfboy had seemed to accept her as much as he let anyone get close.
"You know what? I don't particularly like the look of you two," Ralph interrupted Kate's reverie. "Could be informants for the fuzz for all I know."
Kate put on her black market business facade; a smile equal parts sweetness and shark.
"Frankly, Mr. Feinstein, you're not worth the trouble of an undercover op. And I would very much like to do business in London in the future," Kate placated. For all her sarcasm, she did possess the ability to sweet-talk when the situation required.
"So, do you have the merchandise I'm looking for?" she prompted.
"What's the deal with your bloke?"
The plump little middleman was just not going to get past the blatantly nervous man who had begun twitching his nose like mad five seconds after setting foot in the shop and was currently sneezing up a storm. Kate fought the urge to knock her friend on his ass. Instead, she settled for elbowing him in the chest rather forcefully.
"He's a tech geek. You know the type..." she explained away Henry as he choked and growled for the blow she had dealt him. "There's a reason they're not let out of the lab much. But he's good at what he does."
"And what's that?" Ralph seemed sincerely puzzled by the concept that the sniffling, coughing young man could be good for anything.
"Verifying the product you're going to hook me up with," Kate answered without missing a beat. She slid a conspicuously fat envelope across the counter.
Mr. Feinstein shrugged whilst discreetly pocketing the 'finder's fee.' Good thing Magnus had some deep bank accounts...
"Follow me," he directed, heading for the back of the shop.
"Wait, how am I supposed to do that?," Henry hissed in her ear. "Cause you can forget it if it requires me to kiss a dude" he cleared his throat. "...again."
Kate was too irritated by her friend to assuage his fears with 'they're female, idiot.' Instead she reveled in his discomfort, opting to exacerbate it.
"Hey, Hank, when Macrae kissed you, did he do that weird thing with his tongue, you know, with the-" she began.
"Uh, yeah," Henry cut her off, shaking his head in a nervously quick manner, looking as desperate as anyone she'd ever seen for a change in subject. She didn't relent.
"Didn't you find it a little bit sen-"
"Shut-up."
"Because I found it to be quite-"
"Let's go."
He grabbed her arm and hurried her along in an attempt to leave behind the conversation and recollections he doubtless never, ever wished to recall.
...
"I thought Macrae said the stunners didn't work," Kate commented. Normally, she would've been teasing her companion who was absorbed in the tech splayed out before him. But a dark warehouse potentially full of life-sucking abnormals had a way of putting a girl on edge.
She was standing with her back to the make-shift work table, scanning the dark recesses, 9mm in hand. But Kate Freelander was a multitasker, and she could sass and defend at the same time.
"While they are a most impressive piece of tech, if I do say so myself," Henry commented, still concentrating on the work before him, "A megajule of direct electrical current to the nervous system is an entirely different story."
"ZAP!" Kate acknowledged. Oddly, Henry had managed to reassure her of their plan. "Nothing takes down a sucker like a bug-zapper, eh, Hank?"
"That's the idea."
The shadows shifted. Her trigger finger twitched.
Chasing down -being chased down- by deadly abnormals in a dark warehouse in the sketchy part of a foreign city. Actually, not that much of a rarity. Being so creeped out that her body was liable to bolt at any given moment with or without her consent; that was odd for her. And the fact that she was so very freaked by her surroundings only scared her more.
In the corner of her eyes, the shadows shifted unnaturally. She had accounted for all light sources in the dark building. It wasn't a difficult endeavour, considering they were grouped around Hank and herself. Two stationary lamps lighting the young man's workspace. The flashlight in her hand. None of them had moved.
And yet the shadows had shifted.
This place was as creepy as hell, and her friend was taking his damn time to do his whole MacGuyver-meets-Scotty thing. Hmm... was there something about the Scottish that they produced cob-job engineering geniuses?
Kate started.
Her nerves were so fricken raw -tingling, straining, as if to alert her to any danger. So wound up were they, that a mere whisper of a breeze against the back of her neck had startled her.
"Hurry it up, would you?" She snapped at the man who was muzzle deep in random tech.
"Patience is a virtue, Katie," he replied in a sing-song-ish voice without looking up from the project laid out before him on some overturned crates.
"Not in here, it isn't," she muttered under her breath.
Every instinct in her was boiling. She was edgier than a tweaking junkie. She had to give the man credit. Stupid as he was to get tagged by one of the life-sucking bitches, Macrae had to possess some serious tracking skills to capture the crafty abnormals. And to corner them in what appeared to be their favourite environment -dark, spooky-ass warehouses- he had some serious cajones, too. Of course, being in possession of either trait didn't preclude idiocy. In fact, Kate had found the ballsy ones to be especially short on the grey matter.
However, she had to admit that she was really no better, realizing the stupidity of finding herself in her current circumstances as she stood in a pitch black, fully stocked (likely with stolen merchandise and corpses) warehouse, watching shadows that most definitely weren't shadows as her only companion attempted to rig some sort of large scale bug-zapper.
A seemingly random grouping of shadows began to take on a familiar form. Kate strained her eyes, willed her brain to pierce through the scattered shapes to find the image beneath, just like in one of those pointless magic eye pictures.
And then the effort was no longer necessary.
"Hank, we've got company," she announced, tightening her grip upon her firearm). She slowly backed towards her currently unarmed friend...
Several hundred feet away, from her perch atop a towering stack of crates, looking down upon the trespassers huddled by the faint light in a vast darkness, what Helen Magnus would term an 'abnormal' could feel the bubbling of the life energy of those below.
They were so... alive. Tantalizingly so. Young, strong -the pair would provide a sumptuous feast. That is, if there weren't so many attendees to the banquet, demanding a portion of the main course.
It was not the life to which she had been accustomed. By nature, her kind were loners, extremely protective of their territory, the prey contained within its boundaries.
But alas, the world had changed.
The hunger had not.
And now, humans were more... just more. More populous, more wary, more communicative. It had become difficult to survive on one's own, especially whilst eluding detection. The clan at first had been all conflict with little benefit. But once Alpha had asserted herself, proven her prowess, ingenuity, strength, they had all fallen into line. And the ease of acquiring sustenance was more than enough to justify submitting to the will of another.
All the effort of the game -the stalking, the preparation, the adornment of the facade, the seduction- It was no longer necessary every single time the hunger became pronounced. They took turns playing the bait when Alpha was not running one of her elaborate cons to bring them a haul fit to keep them fed for days, if not weeks. Yes, she was a crafty one -a young one- but clever and willful.
She'd have to keep an eye on Alpha.
The hunger -the need- tore at her, every single part of her. She clenched her teeth, twitching as her body attempted to defy her will and pounce. The hunger had been so great while being held captive in that place. And the meager offerings they'd managed to dredge up since they'd been freed did nothing to sate.
So hungry. Starving. Just a nibble. All she needed was a morsel, a meager taste to keep her going. But she fought it. Knowing that though the previous trespassers had killed two, their little 'family' still numbered strong enough to rip apart any who stepped out of line.
And they would. So obedient were they -it was disgusting. Unnatural! Following a bitch like a pack of werewolves!
Speaking of, what was taking her so bloody long?
Movement in the shadows on the ground level. The others had taken high ground, like her, like Alpha had taught them, to better scope out their prey. The deliciously vibrant young woman twitched. Anxiety wafted off from her, a tantalizing aroma to the initiated.
The old ways, hunting alone, required the skill of seducing the prey, of tricking them into willing submission. Coaxing, petting and stroking them until they gave you precisely what you wanted. The new way required no such subtly. Prey were often filled with anxiety, terror when the pack feasted. And they had all developed a taste for the intoxicating novelty of the flavour.
These two were steeped in such tantalizing fear -perhaps, because they knew, really knew what lay in the dark surrounding them.
Ooh...a third! A tempting figure, female and curvy, judging by the silhouette against the pathetic glowing light of the anxious pair's nest. Women had always been more difficult in the past, when seduction had been necessary. She was experienced, skilled, but she had only successfully pulled a few. Men only required the suggestion of a naked woman to entirely submit. For women, sex was all in the head -it took more work. But since terror seemed to work just as well when one possessed strength in numbers, the more the merrier...
But wait.
Her aura was wrong. She was like a cold spot, an abyss, sucking energy in rather than dispelling any.
This was no woman.
"Whoa, lady!" Kate kept her gun trained on the newcomer who had emerged from the dark. Damn! The former mercenary had checked and rechecked the warehouse prior to entering, but apparently she had missed a vital gap.
"Stop right there," she barked. The woman did as she asked, but in a manner that left no doubt as to who was in control of the situation.
I'm the one with the gun. Kate had to remind herself in front of this...this... you know. She was one of those chicks. Almost a femme fatale. So confident. So gorgeous. Despite the trench knotted closed about her waist, every curve of the woman was apparent. Hidden ones seemed to present themselves directly to the brain though the eye couldn't specifically locate them. And even in the poor lighting, she could see the striking features of her face. Smooth, high cheekbones. Full, pouty lips. A perfectly manicured eyebrow quirked inquisitively.
"Who are you? And what the hell are you doing here?" Kate asked.
Finally pulled from his work, the geek jumped upon the realization that someone else had apparently found their way into the warehouse.
"Holy- Who-Who's that?" he exclaimed.
"Shut up, Hank! I've got this. You focus on whatever it is you're doing," Kate snapped at her friend without removing her eyes from the odd woman standing before her. She gave her the heebie-jeebies and for some dumbass reason the lady had slowly begun to approach the slightly pissed-off girl with the gun. Stupid!
"I said, Don't move," she hissed between clenched teeth.
"I just wanted to show you this." Her voice was like honey, a bit mesmerizing, and all soothing. But Kate wasn't one for being coddled like a child. She was always anticipating the next fall, the next scraped knee.
Perfectly manicured nails offered identification, but at such a distance that begged Kate to lean in a little closer. No dice, sister!
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked instead, proud of herself for not being a complete fool and falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book.
"My name is Lorraine Wilcox." Miss Wilcox smiled. It was a sparkling smile, full of straight, white teeth. Not unlike a shark's. "I'm from the Sanctuary. Osbourne sent me to check up on you two."
Likely story.
Kate only realized that she had been slowly backing away from the unsettling woman when her ass bumped against the crate Henry Foss was using as a makeshift worktable.
It was indefinable, but something changed about 'Lorraine' Something subtle, something that raised the hairs on the back of Kate's neck. Something that made her trigger finger itch as Miss Wilcox approached. Something that darkened the woman's eyes.
The smile on the pouty lips remained. All innocent and the more sinister for its apparent innocuousness.
Movement in the corner of her eye made Kate's heart jump, but she remained focused on Miss Wilcox There was no doubt which threat was the most imminent. Probably not actually possible, but Kate could swear that she felt the others pressing in... they had definitely found the place, the nest of the London clan of succubae.
"Any time, Hank," she said out of the corner of her mouth, her voice sounding strained.
"Just a minute," he responded. God, was it a knee-jerk reaction with that man?
'We're all going to die.'
'Just a minute.'
'The world is going to end in a fiery explosion.'
'I just need a few more seconds.'
Well, we're screwed, then, aren't we!
"God! Why does Magnus keep you around, anyway?" She cried, desperately wanting to unload her clip into the creepy-ass woman who was practically within arms' length, knowing she had no real grounds to do so. What if she weren't what Kate thought she was? What if she was who she claimed to be?
Dammit! Hank!
"For things like this," Henry announced grabbing her bodily and pulling her to the hard cement floor, as a flash of light exploded over their heads.
The sound wave was a nanosecond behind and deafening. Yet she heard the thumping of deadweight as bodies hit the ground.
"Alright!" she cried, jumping to her feet in the excitement of escaping whatever dreadful fate had been closing around them.
"Well done, Mr. Foss," she praised, mimicking Helen Magnus' old school dialect as she helped him to his feet. He smiled shyly.
"I have my moments," he said quietly, proud in that little boy way of his, like he had won the science fair rather than taking out half a dozen life-sucking abnormals.
"I'd say so," Kate affirmed, shining her maglite about and counting bodies. She prodded Miss Wilcox with the toe of her boot, just to be sure.
"How long do we have?" she asked.
"Not very," Henry replied. "Hour tops."
"We had better get to work, then..."
A/N: Kate and Henry for the save...but is it enough or in time to aide Declan?