XVI

"Happy Halloween!"

K.T. fumbled for a moment, trying to pull his Ruger out of the tangle of his duster, but a gentle hand stopped him before he could draw the weapon. For a long moment the mercenary simply stared up at someone standing over him, unable to completely clear his vision. Finally, Erica came into focus leaning over the end of the couch, smiling down at him as she waited for the Gangrel to gather his wits.

"Hi," K.T. said, his voice lacking its characteristic sour inflections. For a second the mercenary simply gazed up at the young Ventrue, allowing himself to get lost in the girl's eyes.

"I thought you were going to sleep all night," Erica said, leaning in close to the Gangrel. K.T. sat up quickly, pulling himself away from the Ventrue before she could make contact.

"We have things to do tonight," K.T said, pulling his duster around straight on his body. Erica watched him pace away from her quickly, noticing easily the anxiety in the Gangrel's body language.

"You're not much on the whole display of affection thing, are you?" Erica commented. K.T. turned back to her.

"Sorry," the mercenary replied. "Look, I… we're in a bad situation here. I need to keep my head on straight. So do you, for that matter."

"Okay," Erica said, graciously conceding the argument for the moment. K.T. took another look around the apartment, noticing suddenly that he was alone with the Ventrue.

"Where are they?" the mercenary asked, growing instantly suspicious.

"Down the block, getting some blood," Erica answered. "You're really edgy, K.T. Just take a deep breath and relax for just a moment. It'll do you some good."

"Get your stuff," K.T. said. "We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Erica repeated, stunned.

"Yeah," K.T. confirmed. "We're out of here. Out of New York and all this psychotic shit."

"But… you… we're going to the Palla Grande," Erica stammered, stunned by her companion's sudden decision. "Cordoba has his packs back, for the most part, and we can get Hassan extinguished!"

"Get Hassan extinguished?" K.T. repeated, incredulous. "Are you out of your mind? Do you really think everything is cool between Cordoba and his packs? Or the rest of the Sabbat, for that matter?"

"We can get Jerry and-" Erica started.

"Forget Jerry!" K.T. countered, cutting off her statement. "This vendetta thing you've got going is going to get you killed! We have a very narrow window of opportunity here to get out of this God forsaken city, and I really don't want to miss it!"

"Then go!" Erica yelled back. "This city is my home, and I'm staying! Goddamnit K.T., you're so fucking paranoid!"

"That's why I'm still alive," the Gangrel pointed out angrily. "Because I know better than to take anyone's word based on what sect they belong to. You're walking into a trap, Erica. You're smart enough to realize that. Don't throw your life away trying to get some kind of vengeance on Jerry!"

"K.T., don't worry!" Erica said, taking the mercenary's arm. "I've got a way out!"

"What way out?" K.T. asked.

"Well, I saw Clairvius last night, and he said he could get an agent into the hotel," Erica explained. K.T. simply stared at her, dumbfounded. "He can get us what we need on the inside, and provide us with a way out if we get stuck!"

"That's your way out?" K.T. asked, amazed. "Are you that far gone?"

"That far gone?" Erica repeated. "Look, K.T., they've been helping us all along! Why would they stop now?"

"Forget it," K.T. said, throwing his hands up in frustration. He was furious with Erica for trying to use the Setites in the same fashion as they were using her, and furious at himself for getting himself into his current position. He had to leave; it was now or never, before Cordoba and Jaime returned. "Just forget it. You want to kill yourself, go ahead. I'm getting gout of this fucking city."

"K.T., come on!" Erica exclaimed, grabbing the mercenary by the arm once more. "I mean, it's not like we have a choice! Brian'll kill us if we leave!"

"That's been taken care of," K.T. countered, turning back to Erica a second time. "He thinks the Lupines are going to take care of his problems now."

"Okay, so, no more mage problems," Erica conceded. "But, come on, K.T.! We can nail Jerry and Hassan here! Think of the opportunities! Especially with Cordoba on our side, Polonia and the Council of Bishops have to listen to us! They at least have to hear us out, and if they question Jerry, they'll get all the answers they need! We'll be heroes!"

"Listen to yourself!" K.T. exclaimed. "We'll be heroes? Erica, the only thing you'll be is dead if you go to this Palla Grande thing tonight! Forget the Black Hand, forget Hassan, and most of all, forget Jerry!"

"Goddamnit K.T., this is my home!" Erica shot back. "I don't know if some drifter Gangrel mercenary can understand that term, but this is where I live, and I'm not about to let some little shadow conspiracy chase me out!"

"Fucking Christ!" K.T. shouted. He simply shook his head in abject frustration, trying to find some way to get through to the Ventrue. For a long moment the two glared at each other, each one trying to make the other see the opposite side of the argument.

"Please, K.T.," Erica said, finally breaking the silence as she took a step back to K.T. "I promise you, everything will be alright. I know you don't want to deal with the Setites, so we'll only rely on them if we absolutely have to, okay? Please, K.T. Please stay. Everything will be fine. Trust me if no one else."

Everything is not going to be alright, K.T. thought to himself.

"Alright," K.T. grumbled, fighting every instinct in his body. There was a slim chance at best that he would escape the night alive, but he found himself going along with Erica's ludicrous plan nonetheless. Already that voice in the back of his mind was laughing at him, mocking him for forming the emotional attachment that he had known all along would lead him into trouble. He could only hope that he would find some way to either prove Hassan's involvement in some sort of conspiracy, or else find a quick way out of the ceremony, and the city, before anyone could catch up with them. "We'll try it your way. But remember. No stupid vendettas against Jerry. Understand?"

"We get the Hand, we get Jerry," Erica said, neatly evading a direct answer. K.T. was about to pry a more direct response out of the Ventrue when the apartment door opened, and Cordoba and Jaime returned to the apartment.

"Get your Toreador friend on the phone," the older Panders said, speaking to Erica. "We have a party to go to, and we need formal attire."

"Formal attire?" K.T. repeated, looking to the Panders.

"Yeah," Cordoba confirmed. "Everybody has to get dressed up. No exceptions. Not even for Gangrel."

"I'm gonna die in a suit," K.T. grumbled.

"A tux," Cordoba corrected with a smirk.

"Do I get a gun?" K.T. inquired dismally, though he was already fairly certain of the answer.

"According to the rules, no," Cordoba replied. He smiled slightly. "According to me, you can never be too well armed."

"At least I'll go down firing," K.T. muttered. Jaime walked up to him, and gave him a hug.

"Don't worry, mercenary," the younger Panders said with a smile. "We'll be fine. I swear to Caine our packs aren't going to hunt us down."

"I feel so much better now," K.T. grumbled. Erica hung up the phone, and turned back to the trio.

"Okay, everything's set," the Ventrue said cheerfully. "Crystal'll meet us outside the hotel, and sneak us up into a room where we can get changed. After that, we can head back down to the party and see if we can get a quiet meeting with the bishops or someone who'll be able to help us."

"Sounds good," Cordoba said, nodding. K.T. shook his head in resignation. "We'd better get moving. We don't want to be late."

"No, of course not," K.T. said, his voice thick with sarcasm. Erica took the Gangrel forcibly by the arm and started him out into the hallway, smiling at Cordoba as she walked past. Jaime started after the pair, but Cordoba caught her by the arm.

"What?" the younger Panders asked, looking up at her sire.

"You're certain everything is fine," Cordoba said. "Nothing seemed odd when they brought you out of torpor."

"Yeah," Jaime replied. "Look, they believe Peter. And most of them would rather see you in the lead than Hector. Everything'll be fine, Cordoba. I promise."

"You'd better be right," Cordoba said. "For your sake, as well as mine."

"Cordoba, I… I swear everything is fine," Jaime said again, stunned by the implied threat. Cordoba stared at her for a long moment, his face unreadable as he judged her honesty. Finally, the Panders smiled.

"Then let's go," he said with renewed good humor. "We don't want to keep the other two waiting, do we?"

_________________________________________

Despite the relatively early hour, the Marriott Essex on Central Park South was already filled to overflowing with Sabbat, dominating the elegant, gigantic hotel on the boundaries of Central Park. As K.T. got out of the black Lincoln Town Car that Cordoba had stolen earlier in the night, he nearly turned and walked away. At least a hundred vampires were flooding the Marriott's lower floors. Cordoba stepped out of the car as well, and looked at the Gangrel with amused interest.

"Bet you can't wait to get in there," the Panders said with a smirk.

"This is a bad idea," K.T. pointed out.

"Relax," Cordoba said as Erica and Jaime joined the two men. "Just stay low until I can talk to some of the bishops."

"Stay low," K.T. repeated flatly. "Right. We're gonna die."

"Come on, K.T., lighten up," Erica said, taking the mercenary's hand and leading him to the hotel. "Everything will be fine. I promise."

"So you keep saying," K.T. grumbled. He stopped abruptly as he saw a young woman in a low cut, crimson evening gown walking toward them, but Erica simply quickened her pace slightly to meet the stunningly beautiful newcomer.

"Erica!" Crystal exclaimed with a big smile as she reached the Ventrue. The two embraced quickly, then separated. "I see you guys made it. Is it true? Is everything straightened out for you guys?"

"Oh, yeah, of course it is," K.T. said sarcastically. "I'm certain there aren't any traps waiting for us inside."

"K.T. is so cheerful," Erica said with a smile, largely ignoring the Gangrel. "So, did you get what I asked for?"

"Everything you wanted," Crystal replied, casting a glance to K.T. "I think you'll be happy with the results. Anyway, come on inside! I got you guys rooms so you can get changed and clean up a little, and this promises to be one of the best Palla Grandes on record! You don't want to miss anything! You know Alfonzo, right?"

"Only by reputation," Erica answered as Crystal led them to the Marriott. "Isn't he from the Bronx?"

"Yeah, you know him!" Crystal exclaimed. "Well, he's in charge of the Legend of Caine, and he gave me a part!"

"Crystal, that's great!" Erica exclaimed. K.T. glanced back to Cordoba, but the Panders simply rolled his eyes in disgust at the conversation. "You've been trying for a part for six years!"

"I know!" Crystal agreed. "I'm so excited!"

"We're not going in through the front, are we?" K.T. asked, seeing where Crystal was taking the group.

"Humor him and bring us up through the side," Erica requested, tossing an irritable look over her shoulder at the Gangrel.

"Alright," Crystal said, making a quick left and heading along the side of the hotel. She took four card keys from her purse, and handed them to each of the four vampires. "Sixth floor, 619 and 620. I put the dresses in 619."

"That's us, then," Erica said. K.T. nodded absently, his eyes constantly searching the streets for an ambush while Erica and Crystal caught up on the events of the past week or so and Cordoba and Jaime kept pace with their own conversation. Even heading in through a less traveled side entrance, the Gangrel still found himself rubbing elbows with an uncomfortable amount of Sabbat vampires, but fortunately none of them recognized the mercenary or his companions. The Gangrel did not take his hand off the butt of his revolver until the five of them were in the elevator and the cab was ascending to the sixth floor. The doors finally slid open on the sixth floor, and K.T. simply stared out at the immaculate floral print carpeting and beige walls just outside the cab.

"Well, this is as far as I go," Crystal said. "I have so many things to do, and I still have to say hello to a whole bunch of people, but I'll see you guys down there, okay? I'll be near the stage area, so just look for me there."

"Okay," Erica said, giving Crystal a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hey, if for some reason I don't see you before the Legend of Caine, good luck!"

"Thanks, Erica," Crystal said as Cordoba and Jaime brushed past the pair and started down the hall. "See you later!"

Crystal stepped back inside the elevator, and the cab started back down to the mezzanine. For a long moment K.T. simply stood in the hall, glancing in either direction for some sign of a trap.

"Come on," Erica said, taking the mercenary's arm and leading him across the floor. "Just relax, take it easy, and realize that there's nobody up here."

"She took off in a hurry," K.T. observed.

"She has things to do," Erica explained, leading the mercenary to their rooms. "Now go get changed, and I'll see you in a few minutes. Okay?"

"Sure," K.T. said dubiously, dropping his hand back to his Ruger. Erica simply chuckled a little as she unlocked her room and walked inside. After listening for the sounds of a conflict inside Erica's room for a long moment and hearing nothing, the mercenary turned to his own door and hesitantly stepped into his own room.

He almost expected an ambush to be set for him just inside the door. Instead of a heavily armed Sabbat pack, however, K.T. simply found Cordoba examining the tuxedo that Crystal had left for him next to the near bed in the luxurious hotel room. The Panders ignored the mercenary's wary glance around the immaculately cleaned, spacious suite, and simply started to change into his suit for the party.

"Fancy shit," Cordoba said as K.T. finally resigned himself to change for the Palla Grande.

"Everyone has to dress up for this thing?" K.T. asked, eyeing his own tux with obvious distaste.

"Yeah," Cordoba replied, pulling his jacket on and then going to work hiding two knives beneath the garment. He continued talking as he took a knife off of his boot next to the bed and strapped it to his leg beneath his sock. "It's the biggest ritual of the year for us. And when you live in the Cardinal's home city, you don't have a choice. Even if you're Gangrel."

"I've never dressed this well in my entire life," K.T. grumbled, finally accepting the situation and changing into the suit.

"I could tell," Cordoba said with a smirk as K.T. fumbled with his bowtie. The Panders, for his part, simply threw his tie on the bed and started for the door.

"You really think your packs have given up on trying to kill you?" K.T. asked as the Panders began to turn the knob. Cordoba froze for a second, and the mercenary was certain that he was about to receive another tirade concerning how his packs would never turn on him.

"I trust Jaime," Cordoba said evenly. "But I don't trust Peter or Hector right now. Something is going on, but I don't know what it is."

"And you came anyway?" K.T. asked, incredulous. He had hoped against hope that maybe he was simply being paranoid, but Cordoba's own suspicions flushed any last hope of surviving the night down the drain. Cordoba turned back to the mercenary with a nod.

"MacIntyre's not part of the Sabbat," the Panders stated. "Neither is Graime. That leaves us Hassan and Jerry to deal with. Hassan, being as powerful and known as he is among the Sabbat's leaders, will have to be public with them, or at least be dealing with them. Which gives me time to break through to Polonia or one or two of his retinue to explain things."

"That's your plan," K.T. said, skeptical. Cordoba nodded.

"Look, something has been going on with the Black Hand, from what I can tell," the Panders stated. "There have been several occasions where the Hand should have been involved, but Polonia or another bishop purposely left them out of things. My guess is that Polonia doesn't trust the Hand as far as he can throw them. Which means that I simply have to get to Polonia before Hassan can stop me."

"This is great," K.T. said, growing even more convinced that this would be his last night alive. The Gangrel gave up on his bowtie and started to try to figure out how he could carry his Ruger without appearing armed, but finally gave up as Cordoba walked back to the bed and dropped a Glock on the mattress.

"You'll never get through with that hand cannon," the Panders remarked. "Take the Glock."

"Wonderful," K.T. grumbled. "Maybe this isn't such a great idea. Maybe we should try to wait until tomorrow to see Polonia."

"And maybe we should give Hassan another night to hunt us down," Cordoba added, heading back to the door. "Trust me. I'll get to Polonia before Hector and Peter get to me."

"Great," K.T. muttered as his ally left the room. "Fucking great. I'm going to die on Halloween."

_________________________________________

K.T. walked out into the hall to see Cordoba leaning against the wall, staring at the door to room 619. The mercenary glanced over to his ally, but the Panders simply shrugged.

"Did you expect them to get ready quickly?" Cordoba inquired. K.T. shrugged, then started across the hallway to the door. "Very tactful," the Panders commented as the mercenary raised his fist. K.T. glanced back over his shoulder, shrugged a second time, and then pounded on the door.

"Jesus Christ, K.T., give us a minute!" Erica shouted from inside the room. K.T. walked to the opposite side of the hall and leaned back against the wall, a scowl on his face. Cordoba pulled out one of his knives and retrieved a sharpening stone from his pocket, and set about working on the edge. They waited five more minutes before Cordoba broke the relative silence in the hall.

"I'm sure they'll be ready eventually," the Panders stated, seeing the mercenary growing more and more restless.

"The fucking thing'll be over by the time they're ready," K.T. commented. Cordoba smiled.

"I thought you didn't want to go," the Panders said. K.T. simply glared at him for a moment. Cordoba chuckled a little at the mercenary's frustration, then went back to sharpening his knife. "Why don't you try knocking again? It worked so well last time."

K.T. scowled at Cordoba for a moment, ready to make some kind of caustic remark, but the sound of Erica's hotel room door opening caught his attention before he could come up with a suitable remark.

Any comment K.T. had planned to say about the length of time it had taken for Erica to dress for the party died in the mercenary's throat as the Ventrue sauntered out of the hotel room, clad in a tight, strapless emerald green dress that perfectly accentuated every curve of her body. For a long moment the mercenary simply stared at the Ventrue, until a chuckle from Cordoba snapped K.T. out of his momentary paralysis.

"Like it?" Erica asked, smiling at the dumbfounded Gangrel.

"It's alright," K.T. answered, quickly trying to regain an indifferent attitude. Cordoba nearly laughed out loud, but was polite enough to stifle most of his mirth at the situation. The mercenary turned back on his Hispanic ally, but before he could say anything Jaime had gotten in the way, modeling off her black evening gown for her escort.

"That's what I like about you," Erica said, regaining the K.T.'s attention as she went to work on the bowtie hung around K.T.'s collar. "You're so full of praise and compliments for everyone."

"I try," K.T. grumbled, reluctantly allowing the Ventrue to tie the garment.

"Well, we'll meet you two downstairs," Cordoba said, taking Jaime by the arm and escorting her to the elevator. K.T. turned away from Erica, stunned by the Panders' sudden decision to split the group.

"You're not going to wait for us?" the Gangrel asked in disbelief.

"I have people to see," Cordoba explained. "I'll meet you downstairs. By the stage. Like I said, lay low, mercenary."

"Ah, let them go," Erica said, turning K.T. to face her again as their two allies entered the elevator. "We'll have all the time in the world to catch up with them."

"This is bad," K.T. said, growing rapidly uneasy. Cordoba might have been completely truthful about planning to go to Polonia or another high ranking Sabbat to sort out the situation, but the mercenary had a sudden, sickening feeling that he was going to be given to the bishops as a sacrifice.

"Lighten up just a little, K.T.," Erica chided, finishing with the bowtie and taking a step back. "Not bad. You clean up pretty well."

"I feel like a clown," K.T. grumbled, still wondering about what Cordoba or the Black Hand would have waiting for him in the mezzanine.

"Never happy," Erica said with a sigh, smoothing out the mercenary's suit jacket one last time. She smiled slightly as she hooked her arm around his and started for the elevator. "So, you like my dress?"

"It's alright," K.T. repeated. Erica giggled as she stopped and turned to him.

"It's okay," she said with a smile. "Nobody's around to hear you say anything nice. Tell me, K.T. Do any Gangrel actually compliment people, or do they all just look really pissed off all the time?"

"Compliments are against my religion," K.T. said flatly. Given another time and place, he might actually have enjoyed the conversation, but he was too busy worrying about what Cordoba might be planning at the party to give more than a slight amount of his attention to the Ventrue on his arm.

"Somehow, I knew you would say something like that," Erica said, summoning the elevator back up to their floor. K.T. simply scowled at her for a moment, wondering again what exactly he was hoping to accomplish at the Sabbat's largest gathering of the year. The elevator doors finally opened, and K.T. slowly stepped into the cab. After a moment, however, Erica was still standing in the hallway, her smile gone as she strained to listen for something in the hotel.

"Are you coming?" K.T. asked. Erica held up a hand impatiently. Slowly the mercenary stepped back out of the elevator, his hand dropping to the pitifully undersized Glock hidden beneath his jacket.

Slowly Erica turned and started back along the hallway, kicking off her heels as she followed the sound of a very faint voice somewhere on the floor. K.T. crept along behind her, every muscle in his body tensing for a rapid shot or a speedy dodge.

A door opened somewhere behind them. K.T. whirled and nearly drew his gun, but managed to stop himself as a well dressed man in his early fifties turned away from his room. As the older man noticed K.T.'s ready stance, he backed up half a step, fear coming to his face. It only took a second for the Gangrel to notice that the man was clearly breathing.

"Sorry," the mercenary said. "Thought you were someone else."

"Of course," the older man replied, hurrying to the elevator. K.T. watched him go for a moment, then turned back to see Erica coming to a stop in front of a door near the end of the hall. Quickly K.T. made his way to her side, and for a long moment listened to nothing but silence on the other side of the closed door. K.T. glanced to Erica, but the Ventrue held up a finger to keep him from speaking.

"So what the hell were they doing in my office?" someone finally demanded. "I have enough problems trying to balance the Ventrue, Lasombra, and Giovanni without someone starting a gunfight in my building! And my nephew was killed besides!"

"Your nephew's loss was a most regrettable occurrence, Mister Enrathi, but I will not be held responsible for it," Connor MacIntyre stated, addressing Julian Enrathi. Erica's eyes widened as she heard the voice, but she said nothing as the Black Hand lawyer continued. "This past month has seen several shifts in a very delicate balance of power which we have struggled to maintain between the factions in this city."

"Do they know about the chatterlings?" Julian demanded in a tense, almost frightened voice. "I swear to God, MacIntyre, If we deliver those kids and someone's waiting for us there-"

"Mister Enrathi, do you really think that these fugitives from the Sabbat are going to bother looking into something so mundane as kidnapping?" Connor inquired, sounding almost amused as he interrupted his ghoul subordinate. "They have enough problems even stumbling into the right direction, and only luck has kept them alive so far. Beginning tomorrow, send three of your ghouls to track them down and kill them while they sleep. My agents will keep them on the run at night until your men can bring them down."

"Maybe if you had just let Hassan finish that mercenary off without resorting to this maniac, things would have gone differently," Jerry remarked, his calm voice barely concealing his anger with the situation. K.T. glanced over to Erica, and saw the Ventrue's face tighten into a mask of rage. "Maybe we wouldn't be trying to rely on Enrathi's surviving ghouls."

"Hassan was busy," Connor said sternly. Erica began to draw her own Glock from her purse, but K.T. grabbed her wrist and shot a warning glance to her. "Do you think he has nothing better to do than chase down your problems? Who do you think is keeping Polonia from prying too far into our affairs? This mercenary should not have been a problem."

"I think the boy is better than you give him credit for," Phillip stated, a hint of humor in his voice.

"Regardless of his ability, he has completely upset the power balance," Connor pointed out. "We have lost the Toreador in Long Island, and the Sabbat are tearing themselves apart looking for this supposed Camarilla agent and his coconspirators. Given the current situation, both the Giovanni and the Followers of Set could gain too much ground too quickly. We need both the Sabbat and the Camarilla strong, for the time being, to balance each other as well as the Jamaicans and the Italians."

"So what?" Jason Graime said, nonchalant. With all the other members of the Black Hand conspiracy in the room, K.T. was coming to the unnerving conclusion that Hassan al-Khabir was also on the other side of the door, silently waiting for his opportunity to finish the job he had started in Harry's cemetery almost a week earlier. "Guidos and Rastafarians. I'm frightened now."

"Nonetheless, they are enemies of the Ancients and deceptively strong as it is," Connor stated. "Respect your enemies, Graime, lest you grow overconfident and underestimate your foes."

"Ancients?" Erica whispered in disbelief. K.T. shot a second warning glance at the Ventrue, but she barely noticed as she leapt to the conclusion that the Black Hand was fighting for the interests of the third generation of vampires, the founders of the different clans. The Sabbat, however, was violently opposed to the clan founders, fighting instead for Caine, the first vampire and the legendary Biblical slayer of Abel.

"It's a little late for that advice," Jerry huffed. "If he hadn't been screwing around so much with Thiel's wonder boy mercenary for the past two weeks, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"I would hardly go so far as to call him my wonder boy," Phillip countered in a bemused tone. "I simply think that the boy has some minor potential."

Erica turned to K.T., surprised by the odd reference to her ally, but K.T. tried to ignore her as the conversation continued.

"You know, Jerry, maybe if you weren't writing love letters to the boss here, I wouldn't have had to go wiping out your pack and a pair of bishops," Graime pointed out, growing indignant. There was a long moment of silence on the other side of the door.

"What do you mean, if I was writing love letters?" Jerry finally asked. "Connor sent that message to me!"

"I sent no such communiqué," Connor stated, a hint of confusion breaking through his voice.

"Well then who the hell sent it?" Jerry asked. Another long moment of silence followed.

"Well, I think Thiel's wonder boy mercenary is at the door right now," Graime remarked casually. "Maybe he knows."

"They're at the door?" Enrathi exclaimed, stunned by the Malkavian's nonchalant revelation.

"Time to go," K.T. said simply.

The two fugitives turned and sprinted for the elevator, but the door suddenly crashed open and Hassan streaked out into the hall. K.T. backpedaled for a second, drawing his Glock and letting off three shots, but the Assamite ducked and rolled under the bullets without losing a hint of speed, bearing down on his targets with his scimitar drawn and glittering in the hall lights. Graime raced out of the hotel room next, but K.T. wasted no time with the Malkavian as he let a flurry of gunshots off at Hassan in a desperate attempt to slow the assassin. Erica reached the elevator and punched the buttons frantically, praying for the doors to open before Hassan could reach them.

K.T.'s salvo lasted for only a second before his Glock ran out of bullets, but Hassan was nearly on top of him as the mercenary turned and charged for the elevator doors. Erica whirled from the doors and pulled her own Glock, letting off another burst even as Graime's Skorpion chattered to life behind the Assamite. K.T. slammed into the Ventrue and barged forward, thanking God as the elevator doors opened and allowed the two fugitives inside.

"Come on, close, damnit!" Erica shouted, scrambling back to her feet and frantically punching the buttons next to the doors. Hassan reached the doors as K.T. grew his hands into razor sharp talons and leveled a vicious swipe at the Assamite's chest, but the Gangrel hit nothing more than air as Hassan dropped low and scored a long, shallow slash to the mercenary's chest. Erica stepped into K.T.'s place as he stumbled back, blazing away point blank at Hassan and forcing him back long enough for the elevator doors to finally close.

"Now can we get the hell out of town?" K.T. demanded, turning to Erica as she quickly jammed a second magazine into her Glock. A terrible screech ripped through the elevator as Hassan tried to cut his way through the doors. Erica turned on the door and blazed away with wild abandon, putting nine rounds through the metal in the two or three seconds that it took for the cab to begin its descent. "Just trust me, she says," K.T. grumbled as he reloaded his own gun. "I should have my fucking head examined for being here!"

"They're working for the Ancients!" Erica exclaimed, ignoring the mercenary's comments in her panic. "We have to get to Polonia and warn him! Jesus Christ, this is huge! This could destroy the entire Sabbat!"

"Are you insane?" K.T. demanded, grabbing Erica's wrist and forcing her to look at him. "We'll get killed if we stay here!"

"We have to let someone know!" Erica shouted back furiously. The elevator doors slid open, and she turned quickly to rush out of the cab. K.T. was about to try to talk some sense into the Ventrue when the two vampires were blasted by a wave of thunderous music, stopping them both in their tracks.

The two fugitives simply stood and stared out of the elevator, frozen in place by the horde of vampires dancing and whirling through the darkened, deafening mezzanine of the Essex. Sabbat of every description packed the main room, from young, brazen pack members wearing stolen suits and boasting loudly of their latest atrocities to dark, frightening Sabbat power players skulking on the edges of their younger companions' sight.

"Wrong floor," K.T. said simply, taking half a step back and turning to the control panel on the wall. Before he could close the elevator doors again, four young Sabbat piled into the cab, laughing as they nearly crushed Erica against the back of the elevator.

"In or out," one stated, his array of tattoos and ear, nose, and lip piercings somehow perfectly complimenting his ridiculous powder blue tuxedo. K.T. hesitated for a second, quickly trying to gauge the relative power of the four Sabbat. Once the doors closed, they would see the bullet holes in the metal, and they might quickly realize that K.T. was the supposed "Camarilla agent" infiltrating the Sabbat. A shootout in such tight confines would be a no win situation for the mercenary, especially considering the machine pistols that the two young men of the pack were barely concealing under their coats.

"Out," K.T. said, grabbing Erica's hand and dragging her past the four young Sabbat. The mercenary quickly pushed his way through the crowd, feeling the young man's eyes on his back as the two made their way into the mezzanine.

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"Eight years in a row, I run into the bastard before I even set foot in the door. Now when I want to see him he's completely invisible."

"Cordoba, where are we going?" Jaime demanded, trying to keep up with her sire. The two had only reached the dim, cavernous expanse of the Essex' mezzanine five minutes earlier, but since they had left the elevator Cordoba had done nothing but barge through the crowds of Sabbat in search of something in the mass of well dressed vampires. Now, as they pushed their way through the packs of Toreador that frequently gathered near the skirts of the Palla Grande's main stage, the young Panders tried to bring her sire to a halt. "Come on, Cordoba, where are we going?"

"Fucking Turnbull!" Cordoba snapped in reply. "Every time I show up someplace where a bishop might be, the fucker is always there to tell me to stay in line! Now that I actually want to se him, he's fucking hiding out somewhere with Polonia or some other asshole bishop! There's never a fucking templar around when you actually need one!"

"But what about meeting up with the packs?" Jaime asked, trying to bring Cordoba to a halt. The older Panders finally stopped, and turned back to his childe angrily.

"I don't trust Hector," Cordoba stated simply. "I don't trust Peter either, not after what he pulled with me in the Limelight. So we're going to see Turnbull, and get him to bring us up to see Polonia. That way, no one's setting any little traps for us."

"But… traps?" Jaime stammered, stunned by the idea. "They… but everything's alright now!"

"So they told you," Cordoba stated, pushing through the crowd once more. "Turnbull!" Jaime exclaimed suddenly, pointing to their left. Cordoba whirled, and peered through the crowd for a moment.

"Where?" the Panders demanded, turning to his childe.

"I saw him over there!" Jaime said, leading Cordoba away from the stage and back through the crowds. The former pack leader strained to see through the darkness and the irregular flashes of light blazing quick trails across the dance floor, but saw no sign of Turnbull's burly frame or bald pate. Jaime continued to force her way forward, rapidly leading her sire to one corner of the mezzanine. Cordoba looked around quickly, but still did not see any trace of the templar.

"Where is he?" Cordoba demanded, his eyes sweeping across every inch of the room in front of him. The Panders was growing rapidly uneasy, sensing a trap closing in around him.

"I know I saw him," Jaime said, scanning the room herself. "Where the hell did he go?"

"Well, well, well," a familiar voice said behind Cordoba. The Panders whirled quickly, and found himself facing Peter, Hector, and Tony as they stalked in on the pair. Hector grinned maliciously as he took a step in front of his two Nosferatu companions to address his sire. "Looks like we found ourselves a traitor."

"You miserable fucking bastard," Cordoba spat, his hands dropping to the knives that he had hidden under his jacket. One knife was still in its sheath, but the former pack leader's left hand closed around nothing but air as he reached for the other.

"Are you looking for this?" Jaime asked, her voice oddly different. Cordoba turned quickly on his childe, but instead of Jaime, he found Natasha standing by his side, wearing Jaime's black evening gown.

"Where is she?" Cordoba demanded. He took a step forward and began to reach for the hideously deformed woman, but Natasha backed off a step with an evil chuckle.

"She's dead," Peter said, regaining the Panders' attention. "She died the same night you abandoned her in that alley so that you could save your own ass. Were you that fucking dense, Cordoba? Didn't you realize that I knew all about your stupid affair with that ditzy little bitch?"

"You are dead," Cordoba growled, his dark glare locking on to Peter's amused eyes.

Natasha suddenly lunged at the former pack leader, intending to skewer him on his own knife, but Cordoba saw the Nosferatu move and reacted to the attack with blinding speed. In a heartbeat he caught Natasha's wrist and wrenched her forward, driving the far smaller woman into the knife in his right hand. Hector, Tony, and Peter all rushed forward, pulling short lengths of pipes from beneath their suit jackets, but Cordoba whirled the badly wounded Natasha into their path in time to receive Tony's first blow across the back of her head. Natasha crumpled to the floor under her blood brother's misdirected assault, tripping Hector and Peter as they tried to rush past their fallen comrade in pursuit of the former pack leader. Cordoba sprinted back into the crowd, quickly trying to lose his one time packmates in the crowd of Sabbat. The Panders took a few quick turns in the throng of vampires and then rushed for the elevators, certain that Polonia was still somewhere on the floors above and that his only hope in finding the cardinal lay in getting out of the mezzanine. A quick shaft of light parted the darkness from the elevators, and Cordoba pushed himself even harder, trying to make the doors before they slid shut. He pushed one more vampire aside, but suddenly slammed headlong into another man rushing away from the elevator doors.

Cordoba and K.T. both leapt back to their feet in a heartbeat, knives and claws halfway to their targets before each one could recognize the other. Quickly the two allies backed off a step, shocked by each other's presence.

"We've got problems!" K.T. and Cordoba both exclaimed at the same time.

"You ran into the Hand down here?" K.T. asked, glancing around quickly.

"No, my packs!" Cordoba corrected. "What about the Hand?"

"Everyone's here!" Erica informed the Panders hastily, throwing a quick glance over the shoulder. "Hassan, Jerry, Connor, Graime, and even Enrathi! Where's Jaime?"

"It wasn't Jaime!" Cordoba explained. "It was Natasha! The bitch set me up for Peter and Hector! We have to reach Polonia before they do!"

"We've got to get the fuck out of here!" K.T. countered. He looked past Cordoba for a moment, catching a glimpse of Cordoba's one time allies, then turned back to the Panders. "And we have to move now! I recognize those pin stripes!"

"Back to the elevator!" Cordoba ordered, pushing K.T. in front of him. The mercenary had only barely turned around in time to see the elevator doors open, revealing Graime and Hassan.

"Other way!" K.T. retorted, spinning himself around. Cordoba took only a fraction of a second to recognize the two assassins, and quickly turned before the pair of Black Hand agents could recognize him.

"Did they see us?" Erica asked, squeezing between Cordoba and K.T.

"If we run, they'll see us for sure," the Gangrel stated, trying to glance over his shoulder without drawing attention. Graime was fanning out to the left, while Hassan was moving straight for them. "Are there any other ways out of here?"

"Keep walking," Cordoba instructed. Hassan was almost directly behind them, stalking through the crowds and flashes of light with a grim set to his features, but from his searching gaze the Panders guessed that they had not yet been spotted through the crowds of Sabbat. "Just keep walking. If we run, he'll spot us for certain."

"Head for that door," Erica said, guiding K.T. to his right. The mercenary tried to locate Graime with a quick scan of the vampires to his right, but the Malkavian had disappeared somewhere in the darkened recesses of the mezzanine. Cordoba glanced to his left, and easily spotted Tony beginning to stride purposefully in their direction.

"If we get out of this alive, I'm going to kill the both of you," K.T. stated evenly, quickening his pace slightly as he noticed a door ahead of the trio. The mercenary glanced behind him, but Hassan had also faded out of sight, vanishing among the Sabbat. "I swear to fucking God, if I didn't know any better I'd think you two were trying to get me killed."

"We're made for sure," Cordoba suddenly said, seeing Peter, Hector, Natasha and Barry all closing in from the left. The three fugitives gave up on acting inconspicuous and raced for the door, diving through the apparent exit just as two other Sabbat walked back into the mezzanine. K.T. slammed the door shut behind him, then turned to rush farther into the room in search of an exit.

The mercenary stopped in shock as he got his first good look at the room and what it contained. Suspended from the ceiling, their necks at just the right height for a vampire to take a quick drink, more than three dozen mortals hung by their ankles. Pyramids of wine glasses were stacked on either side of the room, set in place for the more refined and subtle Sabbat that wished to take their meals to the main dance floor. Although he was faced with an impending attack from the doorway only a few steps behind him, K.T. could barely force his astonishment out of his mind and continue his flight.

"What the fuck…" was all the mercenary could manage as he stared up at the nearest half conscious victims. Erica had started into the forest of helpless mortals, but turned back as she saw her companion's shock at the scene.

"This is a Blood Feast, K.T.," the Ventrue explained, coming back to his side and taking his hand. Still the mercenary could not quite bring himself to move. "K.T., they're… they're just mortals."

"There's no one in here," Cordoba suddenly said, turning back to his two allies. K.T. met the Panders' gaze with growing realization. "We've been set up."

The two vampires were already moving as the doors slammed open behind them. K.T. dove left and Cordoba right as gunfire tore through the Blood Feast, tearing apart mortals and pyramids of glasses as bullets chased after the three fugitives. K.T. hurled Erica in front of him and spun back to try and force his attackers back, but the Gangrel could manage no more than a wild shot as Tony and Natasha forced him back behind cover. Blood sprayed across the mercenary's head and shoulders as he ducked behind one mortal, sprinting for some kind of cover from the sudden barrage of gunfire. To his right, Cordoba ducked and rolled beneath a pair of mortals just as they were torn from the ceiling, dropping into a full volley of gunfire from Peter and Hector as they tried to close the distance. Hanging back behind the four shooters, K.T. could see another vampire, a thin, pale man wearing red tinted glasses with his entirely black tuxedo, watching Cordoba intently as he mumbled something under his breath. Cordoba whirled just as the Goth finished his unheard chanting, and raised his Glock to fire.

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Cordoba dropped and rolled, barely avoiding getting crushed by a pair of falling mortals, then spun back up to one knee on the blood slick floors with his Glock at the ready. It only took a second to draw a bead on Hector as his childe rushed forward, but before the Panders could fire, the magazine simply fell out of his pistol. Cordoba cursed in frustration and started to reach for the magazine, but fresh waves of gunfire forced him to scramble back even further into the room. Peter slowed to reload his Tommy as his drum magazine finally went empty, but Hector charged forward, throwing his machinegun aside as he pulled his lead pipe once more. Behind them, Cordoba could see Barry at the door, smiling faintly at the effect of his simple spell. The Tremere antitribu apparently considered Cordoba unarmed and relatively harmless without his gun. Cordoba grinned coldly as he dropped into a low crouch, readying himself to crash through all three of his former allies in a single bloody swath.

"You want to party, you little fuck?" Cordoba asked, drawing his Kukri knife and waving Hector forward. The younger Panders closed the distance with incredible speed, launching a heavy overhand strike with his pipe, but Cordoba ducked under the wild swing and carved a deep wound through Hector's chest as he launched a mad charge at Peter. The Nosferatu finished reloading his Tommy gun as Cordoba reached him, but the Panders chopped down through his former ally's right arm at the elbow, severing the limb in one powerful stroke. Peter screamed in pain as he clutched the bloody stump at his elbow, but Cordoba was already past him, dropping his left hand to the knife hidden in his sock as Barry backed up a step to the closed door. The Tremere antitribu started to race through another spell, but Cordoba remained the faster, drawing and throwing his boot knife in a single, lightning motion. Barry slumped back into the door as the knife slammed into his chest, the tip barely poking through his heart and hurling him into torpor. Cordoba took only a fraction of a second to revel in his amazing assault on his three former packmates, but the moment was shortlived as Hector slammed into him from behind.

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He only had a second to make his move, but K.T. was more than ready to make it count as Tony and Natasha stopped for a second to reload their weapons. The mercenary whirled and turned back on the pair in a celerity enhanced sprint, shifting from his normal human form into that of a large brown wolf as he closed the distance. Erica was blazing away on his right as K.T. closed the distance, staggering Natasha and forcing her to drop her fresh magazine just as Tony finished reloading. The Nosferatu turned and started to fire on K.T., but the Gangrel was far too close to launch an effective attack on the charging wolf. K.T. pounced at the last second, taking only a glancing hit from Tony's burst of fire before he slammed into the Nosferatu's chest with all four paws. Tony slammed into the ground under the attack and his head bounced off of the bloody floor with a sharp crack, but K.T. paid the initial damage no heed as his fangs ripped into his prone opponent's throat. Blood poured out as the Gangrel ripped the Nosferatu's windpipe out, but the mercenary was cut off before he could finish killing Tony by the sounds of the doors being slammed open.

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It only took a second for Erica to regain her footing on the slippery floor, soaked with blood from the slaughtered mortals hanging above her, but the Ventrue paid her condition no heed as she rejoined the fight in a heartbeat. Cordoba had somehow managed to take both Peter and Barry out of the fight, at least temporarily, but the Panders was effectively out of the fight as he turned on Hector in brutal hand to hand combat. K.T. was charging back in on Tony and Natasha in a desperate sprint to hit them before they could reload, but even the mercenary had no chance to incapacitate them both before they would be ready to fire again. Erica raised her gun and opened up quickly, hitting Natasha just as she tried to jam her drum magazine into her Tommy gun. The Nosferatu dropped the magazine with the first two hits, but Erica refused to let up on her attack as she charged forward with her gun blazing. Natasha tried to stand up to the onslaught, but she was already caught in the Ventrue's line of fire, absorbing four more rounds to her chest and one to her thigh that forced her to one knee. Erica saw K.T. barrel through Tony and go to work tearing out his downed opponent's throat, but before the Ventrue could reach Natasha and finish her own enemy, the doors to the Blood Feast slammed open.

"Holy shit!" Erica exclaimed, instantly recognizing the three men fanning out into the room. Each impeccably groomed man dressed in a black suit, but their attire was the last thing the Ventrue noticed as she frantically glanced around the room for some kind of cover. The man in the lead, his raven black hair sheared down to a military crew cut, remained stony and emotionless as he turned his combat shotgun on the young Loyalist. "Polonia's templars!"

"Good guess," the vampire said simply. Then he and his companions opened fire on the bloody melee.

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Of all the vampires he knew in New York, there were very few people below the rank of bishop that had any realistic chance of defeating him in an even fight. Unfortunately for him, one of those vampires was Hector.

Cordoba rolled and spun as his childe sprang at him, but this time Hector left no opening for a counterattack. The younger Panders fired a second heavy strike at his sire's head, but he quickly spun left before Cordoba's Kukri could tear through his side a second time. Hector nearly fell backward, away from the slash and through a row of mortals, but Cordoba allowed his childe no time to regain his composure as he chased after the younger Panders. Hector flailed away at the mortals around him as he backed through the rows, launching them into Cordoba's path as quickly as he could cut or throw them out of the way. The older Panders forced his way through the obstacles, determined to catch his traitorous former packmate, but Hector was ready to greet him as Cordoba found his way through the living maze.

He nearly reacted in time, but Hector was a fraction of a second faster. The younger Panders suddenly slammed into his sire from the side, his pipe leading the way and smashing down on Cordoba's head in a massive overhand strike. Cordoba dropped like a stone from the blow, but somehow managed to react just in time to kick his opponent away from him before Hector could finish the job. With his head swimming and his vision blurry, Cordoba stumbled back to his feet as Hector raced in again, this time aiming to land a hit against the older Panders' chest but missing as Cordoba forced himself forward and into his enemy. The two combatants flew backwards through the mortals as Hector slipped on the blood soaked floor, crashing to the ground in a flurry of arms and legs. Behind them, something boomed through the room near the front door, but Cordoba paid it no mind as he concentrated on the foe at hand. Hector scrambled to one knee in time to meet Cordoba's Kukri with his pipe, retaliating with a quick sweep to his sire's legs. Cordoba slammed back into the floor a second time, rolling to the side as the pipe crushed the floor tiles where his head had landed.

"Come on!" Hector screamed, diving after his sire as Cordoba rolled across the floor to avoid a second and then a third strike. "Come on, puto! Ain't so big and bad now, are you? Come on, puto! Take some of this!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Cordoba ordered, finally regaining his balance and launching himself forward. Hector put his pipe up quickly and blocked the Kukri knife before it could shear into his neck, but the younger Panders was bowled over as Cordoba crashed through him. Hector felt his jaw break as Cordoba's skull connected with his chin and snapped his head back and dropped him flat on his back on the floor yet again. The older Panders rolled over his childe quickly, but had his back turned as Hector forced himself to keep conscious and moving. Hector jumped back up into a fighting crouch and leapt forward as Cordoba started to turn, ready to crush his sire's skull with one tremendous swing of his pipe. He was so intent on landing the killing blow that he could not stop his charge as Cordoba spun quickly, shearing Hector's head cleanly from his shoulders.

"Alright, who's next?" Cordoba snarled, turning away from his decapitated childe. He was fully pumped now, moving on pure adrenaline and enjoying the rush of battle like he had when he had been a simple enforcer. Now he was back at the peak of his fighting skills, and battle lust had him craving even more targets. Just beyond the first row of Blood Feast victims, Peter was still whimpering in pain as he tried to reattach his severed arm, but the Panders paid him no mind as he found the source of the boom he had heard during his fight with Hector. He immediately picked out the leader of Polonia's templars as the bald, stocky, slightly short man turned his smoking combat shotgun on the former pack leader.

"That would be me," Quentin Turnbull said simply. Then he opened fire.

_________________________________________

Even in his wolf form, he was barely quick enough to avoid the sudden barrage of incendiary rounds. K.T. dodged and sprinted for the opposite side of the Blood Feast, his headlong dash reduced to an out of control skid as he slipped along the bloody floor. The Gangrel slammed into the far wall even as he reverted to his human form, jumping back to his feet with his Glock in his hands as two additional templars arrived to support their three comrades. The cardinal's bodyguards gave the mercenary no time to recover from his collision before they opened up again, tearing through the already decimated Blood Feast as they chased K.T. across the room until he dove through a pyramid of glasses and took cover behind one of the tables. The mercenary nearly put a hole through the wall behind the table with his head, but K.T. still managed to come up searching in vain for an extra magazine to his Glock.

"Shit!" the mercenary snapped, quickly checking the Glock itself for any extra bullets. He only had two rounds left, not even remotely enough to deal with the five templars on the other side of the table. Desperately he glanced around for a way out, but the only door he could find was the one they had entered through, currently blocked by five elite Sabbat bodyguards. Another person leapt over the table to take cover with him, but it took K.T. almost a full second to recognize Erica through the bloody mask covering his face and the gore staining her clothes and hair.

"What do we do now?" the Ventrue asked quickly, her voice tinged with fear. Peter's Tommy gun rejoined the fray then, forcing the two even lower as he fired through the linen tablecloth at them.

"I'm running out of options in a hurry," K.T. admitted. "You have any more bullets?"

"Four in the gun," Erica replied, ducking as a shotgun blast tore through the top of the table. K.T. shook his head in frustration, then tried to see under the tablecloth to the templars. "What about you?"

"Not nearly enough," K.T. answered absently, racking his brains for a plan. He could see two of the templars advancing on the table, while the other three, as well as Peter and now Tony, waited for a good shot at the two pinned fugitives. Cordoba had to be on the other side of the room somewhere, but there was no sign of the Panders. "We'd better do something in a hurry if we want to get out of here alive. I got it."

"I hope so," Erica said. K.T. hesitated for another second, then ducked up under the table and shoved it out in front of him.

The two templars had nearly gotten to him when K.T. surged forward, slamming into both of them with the sturdy wooden table. The two men stumbled backward in surprise, but the others were not nearly as unprepared for the attack. Smoking holes tore through the table as K.T. sprinted forward for all he was worth, praying that his improvised shield would not give way before he could reach the door. Two shotgun blasts ripped through the wooden table dangerously close to K.T.'s head and a burst from one of the Nosferatu nearly caused him to stumble, but the mercenary charged stubbornly for the door. Erica kept behind him as he punched through the templars and dropped the table, giving up his cover as he raced for the doors and the mezzanine beyond. Just behind him, the templars whirled to fire, but Cordoba suddenly slammed into one from behind and tore the weapon from his grip. Taking the second of distraction for what it was worth, K.T. grabbed Erica by the wrist and dragged her back into the crowded mezzanine, ignoring the stares of the vampires around him as he prayed that he would reach the elevator without incident. Though it was partially covered by the roaring music, K.T. could hear a number of gunshots from the Blood Feast.

"Stop them!" Peter suddenly screamed behind them, his voice somehow managing to carry through the room. "They're trying to kill Polonia! They're after the Cardinal!"

K.T. started to push his way furiously through the crowd, but even he was unprepared for the sudden surge that hit him from behind. Cordoba had also escaped the Blood Feast, and now the Panders was using K.T. as a plow to forge a path through the assembled vampires. The Sabbat were slow to react to the odd sight, and many of them had never even heard Peter's accusation, but more and more of them were starting to reach out for the three fugitives as they shoved their way to the elevators. They only had a few more yards to go to the exits, but the Sabbat were suddenly beginning to close on them.

"Muevele, muevele!" Cordoba ordered desperately, trying to outrun the cries of alarm. Panic stricken, Erica drew her Glock and fired off her last four rounds in front of her, opening a brief hole that K.T. quickly exploited. The mercenary once again grew his deadly talons as he took the lead, slashing through vampires as they finally began to realize what was happening. Two Sabbat hit him from the side, but Erica brought the butt of her now empty pistol down on one even as K.T. gored the other. Cordoba turned and started to backpedal as his Kukri knife flashed around him, but the mercenary focused his concentration of clearing a path to the elevators. One last Sabbat fell to his claws before the Gangrel reached his goal and punched the buttons repeatedly, praying for a car to arrive before they could be slaughtered. Even as he turned back to fight off any more determined attackers, the sea of Sabbat opened up, allowing a perfect view of the templars at the Blood Feast doors.

The elevator suddenly opened up, allowing K.T. and Erica to fall back inside the cab half a second before the templars could open fire. Cordoba dove to the ground and rolled inside the cab beneath a barrage of phosphorous, looking up in time to see Erica pounding on the buttons to close the door and K.T. firing his last two bullets out of the cab. One bold vampire tried to enter the cab after the three of them, but the mercenary threw his Glock at the Sabbat, then lunged forward and landed two solid punches into the man's face. Cordoba jumped back to his feet, ready to take on any more intruders, but the doors finally slid shut just in front of a second flurry of gunfire from the templars. The elevator grew silent for a moment as it ascended away from the mezzanine.

"All we have to do is get to Polonia," K.T. said derisively, turning on his two companions. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"Fuck you," Cordoba snapped, locking an icy glare on the Gangrel. "I didn't see you coming up with any brilliant ideas."

"I'd have left the fucking city!" K.T. retorted. "But no, you two thought it would be a wonderful idea to come see Polonia in the middle of a horde of potentially hostile vampires! Were you born stupid, or did you work on it?"

"I noticed you came along!" Cordoba shouted furiously. "Fuck you, mercenary!"

"Not by fucking choice!" K.T. snarled back. "I should have taken my chances alone!"

"Kiss my ass, K.T.!" Erica shot back, taking the Gangrel's rant personally. "I never said you had to come! This was your fucking choice!"

"Okay, smart guy, you're so fucking brilliant!" Cordoba bellowed. "Why don't you-"

The conversation ended abruptly as the doors of the elevator slid open. K.T. turned to the doors to see Hassan and Graime standing side by side in the hallway, neither one displaying any emotion as they waited for the fugitives to make the first move.

"Okay, this argument can wait," K.T. stated simply. Cordoba nodded in wordless agreement.

Graime started to raise his machine pistol to fire, but K.T. was a fraction of a second faster in launching himself out of the elevator at the assassin. The two tumbled back into the hallway in a flurry of punches, kicks, and a wild, skyward burst of gunfire, but Hassan took no notice of his ally as Cordoba streaked out at him with his Kukri raised to strike. The Assamite dropped low under the slash and swept his own blade out, intending to cut the Panders in two just above the waist, but Cordoba was just quick enough to avoid more than a slight scratch as he spun back on his opponent with another quick strike. Quickly the Panders drew his last knife and launched another attack on the Assamite with both blades, but Hassan's flashing scimitar appeared at every angle, easily deflecting the knives before they could even pose a threat. Behind the two, Erica sprang out of the elevator just before it closed on her, seeing Graime drop his submachinegun as he tried to fend off K.T.'s snarling attacks, and bolted past Cordoba and Hassan to reach the weapon.

"Cordoba, get out of the way!" the Ventrue shouted, grabbing the weapon and turning quickly on Hassan. For the moment, K.T. and Graime were locked in a stalemate, but the silent, lightning quick Assamite was easily fending off everything the Panders could throw at him. Cordoba dropped low and spun to his left, ready to strike again to Hassan's right, but the Assamite simply seemed to disappear for a split second, reappearing in front of Erica before she could even open fire. The startled Ventrue barely had time to realize that the Assamite had closed the distance between them before he tore through her chest with his scimitar, dropping her to the ground with a cry of pain. Cordoba turned back to the Assamite, but Hassan was already once again in front of him, covering the distance with impossible speed and firing off a brutal assault of slashes and feints before Cordoba could try to initiate his own strikes. Put back on his heels, the Panders was slowly forced back to the elevators, unable to do more than block his opponent's dizzying array of strikes.

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Hassan might have been only a few steps behind him, and the elevators just past the Assamite could bring more Sabbat from the party at any second, but K.T. dismissed everything but the fight at hand as Graime chopped away at the Gangrel in a furious attack. The Malkavian almost seemed to overcommit to his rain of blows, but each time the mercenary tried to take advantage of an apparent opening, Graime quickly closed his defenses and launched a new attack. Quickly K.T. glanced around for something he could use to parry the machete, but nothing presented itself as Graime continued to push the Gangrel away from his companions and down the hotel's hallway.

"If you'd just stand still, we could get this over with and move on with our lives!" Graime pointed out cheerily as his machete slammed into the wall just above K.T.'s head. "I mean, this has been a hell of a good time, but we've really got to get this over with!"

"Sorry, but I like my head where it is," K.T. countered, trying to slip in under the Malkavian's defenses and land a claw strike of his own. Graime spun around the Gangrel as he lunged forward, chopping down at his back as he turned quickly, but K.T. dove forward and out of the way of the lethal attack. As he turned again on his opponent, K.T. was once more changing forms, lunging forward on all fours as he shifted again to his wolf shape. The charging canine leapt as it bore down on the Malkavian, taking a glancing hit from the machete as he snapped at Graime's throat.

"Get the fuck off of me, you mangy mutt!" Graime shouted, frantically trying to put up some kind of defense against the wolf's sharp teeth. He tried to bring his machete in for another chop, but K.T. clamped down on the forearm with his jaws and ripped away at the flesh, eliciting a scream of pain from the Malkavian as he desperately beat at the wolf with his free hand. Within moments the Malkavian's arm had been torn to shreds, and the ripped muscles and tendons could no longer keep his hand closed around the machete. Graime ignored the blade as it thudded into the floor and whirled, whipping his arm and K.T. into the nearest wall. K.T. was jarred by the impact, but still held on as his opponent tried in vain to dislodge him. Finally, Graime fell to the ground, reaching into his jacket with his uninjured arm to pull out a snub nosed .38 revolver. The Malkavian managed only a single shot that thudded into the ceiling before K.T. let go of his arm and clamped down on the assassin's throat, tearing through the windpipe and blood vessels until Graime's struggles finally ceased.

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He was fighting like he had never fought before. He twisted and struck, bringing his knives in at impossible angles, launching vicious low kicks, and shifting quickly and unexpectedly to gain new angles of attack on his opponent. Against almost any other person, vampiric or otherwise, Cordoba would have easily outmaneuvered his opponent and landed a debilitating strike with his Kukri or his fighting knife.

But Hassan was no ordinary opponent, and the Panders was quickly learning just how deadly a Dominion of the Black Hand could be. Wherever Cordoba's knives flashed in to attack, Hassan's scimitars suddenly appeared with almost magical speed. The Panders tried to kick the Assamite's leg out, intending to break his knee, but Hassan simply stepped aside with an almost casual slide. Every time Cordoba changed angles or tried to flank his opponent, Hassan kept with him, seeming to read the Panders' thoughts and turning with his enemy. And through it all, the Assamite continued to probe the Panders' own defenses, carefully studying the Hispanic vampire's fighting style for weaknesses that he would, in his own due time, exploit.

Cordoba glanced desperately around him, hoping that someone would be ready to come to his aid soon. Though he would never admit it, the Panders knew that even he was no match for the Assamite killing machine that he faced. To his left and near the elevator, Erica slowly pushed herself back to her feet against the alcove wall, the vicious slash she had taken moments before quickly healing. Back in the hallway, Cordoba could hear Graime screaming at K.T.'s wolf form, but the Gangrel was still fully occupied with the Malkavian assassin. Without anyone to help him for the moment, Cordoba dropped back another step and fought more defensively, trying to turn Hassan's back to Erica as she finished healing the damage she had taken. It only took another second for the young Loyalist to drop back to one knee, almost completely healed, and bring Graime's Skorpion to bear on the Assamite's back. Quickly Cordoba pressed the attack, forcing Hassan to keep his attention on the Panders as Erica lined up a shot.

The shot never came as the elevator chimed and the doors opened on the fight.

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It had taken her far too much time to heal her injury, but Erica was finally ready to rejoin the fight. Her first instinct was to help K.T., but even a sideways glance at Cordoba's desperate battle against Hassan quickly changed her target. The young Ventrue dropped back to the ground and snatched up the Skorpion where she had dropped it, but never fired a shot as she heard the elevator open up on her left. As the doors slid apart, Peter's Tommy gun was already swinging down to aim at her face.

"Oh shit!" Erica breathed, jumping even as bullets tore through the alcove. One round skipped across her shoulder and another parted her hair, but the young Ventrue miraculously avoided the onslaught as Tony joined his packmate in opening fire on the hallway. Breaking combat for only an instant, Hassan and Cordoba both rolled out of the way of the barrage for a split second, bouncing off of opposite walls and rejoining their personal battle in the space of a second. Erica backed up a few more steps, then let loose on the elevator in a desperate attempt to keep the gunmen inside the cab.

"K.T.!" Erica screamed over her shoulder. "We have to get out of here! Now!"

"I'm working on it!" K.T. snapped, reverting to his human shape. Erica continued to blaze away at the elevator, but Tony and Peter opened up again on the hallway with a torrent of lead. Erica tried to skip out of the way, but two rounds punched through her arm and another ripped into her thigh and ricocheted off of the bone. The Ventrue barely hit the ground with a cry of pain before K.T. ripped the Skorpion out of her hand to continue the fight, but even he was quickly forced to duck into a doorway to avoid being ripped to pieces. Already on the ground and ignored for the moment, Erica crawled to the opposite side of the hallway, taking cover only a few feet away from Graime's mutilated corpse.

"What do we do now?" the Ventrue shouted as K.T. pushed himself even farther back into cover. The mercenary looked up from reloading the Skorpion, an astounded look on his face.

"How the fuck should I know?" the Gangrel demanded, turning and loosing a fresh wave of gunfire on the elevator. Tony took the brunt of the assault as the mercenary caught him flatfooted two steps from the cab, but Peter once again sent a rain of lead through the hallway. K.T. glanced past Erica, hoping for an exit to present itself in the other direction, but Cordoba and Hassan had moved their fight just out of gun range and directly in the path of a distant fire exit. "Shit," the mercenary hissed out, searching for another magazine. "Erica! Throw me a clip from Graime's jacket!"

Erica ducked down quickly and fumbled through the Malkavian's pockets, finally coming up with a spare magazine and throwing it quickly in K.T.'s direction. The Gangrel jammed the magazine home and opened fire again, pushing Tony and Peter back into the elevator as they reloaded their own weapons. Taking the instant of respite from the gunfire, Erica pried Graime's machete out of his hand and turned on Hassan, who had finally turned his back to the gunfight in his own battle with Cordoba.

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Hassan had started the fight moving at near impossible speeds. Now it seemed like he was getting faster.

Cordoba backed up another step, his knives flashing around him in a flurry as he tried to hold off his Arabic attacker, but Hassan was slowly and inevitably gaining the upper hand. The Assamite was attacking with terrifying speed and accuracy, his scimitar flashing around him with brutal precision. Cordoba frantically spun with his opponent and continued to parry away attack after attack, but the Assamite was slowly starting to wear through his defenses. Each sweep of the Assamite's blade pushed the Panders' knives a fraction of an inch wider, slowly opening a hole in the center of Cordoba's knives. Cordoba could feel the hole opening bit by bit, but he could not cheat even the slightest bit on his parries; Hassan was simply too accurate. Quickly the Panders dropped one leg back, putting himself perpendicular to the Arab and presenting as small a target as possible. Still Hassan continued his brutal attack, pushing the Panders back even farther along the hall. Without help, Cordoba knew he had no chance of defeating the Assamite, but K.T. was too involved in the gunfight against Tony and Peter to be of any help.

Erica, however, was another story.

Although she was the last person he would want to rely on in such a desperate fight, Cordoba was almost relieved when he saw the Loyalist grab Graime's machete and turn to the Assamite. Hassan had his back to her and was completely involved in trying to cut through Cordoba's defenses, giving Erica a wide open shot from behind. Cordoba dropped back one more step and tried to launch a few quick counters of his own, praying that the Assamite would not notice the Ventrue until his head was cleanly sheared from his shoulders. Erica rushed up the last few steps and pulled the machete back to strike, and launched a vicious, backhanded slash that was perfectly in line with the dominion's head.

Hassan suddenly dropped into a low, spinning crouch, ducking cleanly out of the way of Erica's attack. The Ventrue's eyes went wide in surprise as she realized that her attack had missed, but Cordoba was too busy trying to skip back out of the way as the Assamite's scimitar flashed out around him. The Panders reacted a fraction of a second too late, and the blade ripped through his belt and tore into his waist, then continued around the Assamite to tear through both of Erica's thighs, cutting through the muscles that held her upright. The Ventrue collapsed backwards with a cry of pain, but Hassan paid her no mind as he launched himself forward at the wounded Panders. Cordoba knocked one strike away even as Hassan broke his knee with a single, devastating kick, knocking Cordoba back to the ground before he could stand. K.T. was still pinned in his firefight, unable to help the two incapacitated vampires. Hassan raised the scimitar and sliced downward, expecting to take Cordoba's head from his shoulders.

With the last bit of his strength, Cordoba threw himself forward with his one good leg, ramming into the Assamite with his Kukri leading the way. Unprepared for the assault, Hassan was thrown backward, screaming in surprise and pain as the Kukri tore into his side and up under his ribs. Cordoba continued to drive the knife upward as the Assamite's scimitar dove into his back, severing nerves and breaking vertebrae with the force of the blow. As the two combatants fell back to the ground and Cordoba's body went limp with paralysis, the Panders could only hope that the curved blade of his knife had reached and staked Hassan's heart.

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He was out of bullets again, but this time Tony and Peter refused to stop firing. The two Nosferatu continued to blaze away through the hall, forcing the mercenary to keep under cover or risk being torn to pieces. Within seconds, the two Nosferatu would try to advance again, and this time there was no realistic way for the mercenary to stop them.

The mercenary's eyes snapped to the hall suddenly as he heard both Cordoba and Hassan scream in pain. The two vampires were dragging each other to the ground in a mess of blood and steel, ripping each other to pieces until they hit the ground. Erica pulled herself away from the pair as they fell, trying to heal the damage to her legs and allow herself to stand again. With Hassan down and possibly out, K.T.'s escape route was suddenly open.

"Erica!" the mercenary shouted. The Ventrue turned to him quickly. "Make for the door!"

Erica needed no more encouragement to run. The Ventrue jumped to her feet and raced for the distant exit, hobbling along at first but quickly healing what damage remained to her torn muscles. K.T. sprinted off after her, pausing only long enough to throw the empty Skorpion at Peter just as he tried to move forward out of the elevator. Erica pushed her way through the stairwell door just as Tony rounded the corner and opened fire on the retreating Gangrel. K.T. pushed himself forward with a last burst of speed, reaching the fire exit just as Erica stumbled back into the hallway.

K.T. drove forward without a second of thought, slamming through Erica and the fire door just as another man appeared. Erica gasped out a cry of pain as the wind was blown out of her lungs, sandwiched between K.T. and the newcomer. Still the mercenary pushed forward, desperately flailing out and knocking a combat shotgun wide just before his new opponent could fire. The three crashed into the railing of the staircase with enough force to crack the gunman's ribs, but K.T. wasted no more time as he hurled Erica at the staircase and pushed upwards after her. Tony and Peter burst into the stairwell just as they topped the first half flight, turning the corner a heartbeat before bullets started to rip through the concrete or ricochet through the tight brick shaft. One shot bounced off of the railing and punched into K.T.'s side, but the Gangrel refused to even slow down for the injury.

"Sixth floor!" Erica exclaimed, reaching the next level and shoving through the door. K.T. followed along behind her, racing through the long hallway at full speed. The gunfire in the stairwell had ceased, but within seconds Tony, Peter, and Polonia's templars had all reached the sixth floor and were spraying gunfire down the hall. Erica skidded to a halt in front of her room and jammed her card key into the door, but K.T. barely gave her any time to turn the knob before he crashed through her and into the room.

"I'm running out of ideas in a hurry," K.T. snarled, turning back into the hotel room. Quickly he pushed the oaken cabinet that held the television in front of the door, then glanced around for more movable furniture. "I hope you can come up with something, cause once we go out that window I'm out of options."

"Where the hell are the Setites?" Erica demanded as she started throwing chairs from the far side of the room to the door. "Clairvius said he'd be here!"

"And you believed him?" K.T. asked, stopping for only a split second. "They played us! They played us all!"

"But they need us to break the Hand!" Erica countered.

"They got what they wanted!" K.T. exclaimed. "They set this up from the beginning! They probably sent that communiqué, and they probably were the rest of Stokes' little conspiracy! They set us all up, and right now they're probably laughing their asses off watching the Sabbat tear itself apart!"

"Jesus Christ," Erica breathed out after a moment. "He… he played us all out."

"Yes, he did," K.T. said, turning back to the Ventrue. Outside the room, gunfire tore through the door and thudded into the television cabinet. The mercenary grabbed the one remaining chair at the room's small table, and smashed through the window. "Now come on. We're going."

Erica nodded wordlessly, and turned to the window. The gunfire at the door stopped, but it was replaced almost immediately by the sounds of men trying to break down the door. Finally, after a further second of hesitation, the Ventrue leapt out of the window and dropped down into the dumpster that was almost directly beneath her room. K.T. threw himself out of the window immediately afterward, hearing the door and the cabinet splintering beneath the templars' attacks.

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The battle had long since left his floor. Peter and Tony had rushed past him without so much as a second glance. Footsteps had thundered up the staircase for a brief instant, and then gunfire had filtered down through the ceiling. For the moment, the corpses littering this hallway were forgotten.

Cordoba tried to move, but still found himself unable to do more than twitch slightly. Hassan's scimitar had done so much damage to his spine, and he had used up so much blood during the flight from the Blood Feast, that the Panders was unable to repair everything. He could already feel the dull ache of the Hunger welling up in his stomach as he used the last of his blood to heal what damage he could. The hallway was still for the moment, but the Panders hoped that a police officer or hotel guest would come to check on the apparently dead combatants before the Sabbat could find him again.

Hassan suddenly stirred next to him. Cordoba managed to turn his head, and saw the mutilated Assamite slowly pull away from his paralyzed opponent. With a stifled gasp of pain, Hassan forced himself into a sitting position against the wall, and gingerly examined the Kukri knife embedded to the hilt in his side.

"Guess it didn't reach the heart," Cordoba said, almost nonchalant. Hassan nodded, then pushed himself up along the wall. For a moment the Assamite considered the knife in his side again, then stooped carefully to the floor and retrieved his scimitar.

"You were a worthy opponent," Hassan stated. Slowly her raised the scimitar, taking careful aim for the Panders' neck. "In death, you will receive the honor that your degenerate bloodline could never bring you in life."

"That's great to hear," Cordoba spat out. "Just make sure you spell my name right."

Hassan nodded slightly, and then dropped the blade.