The Seppuku Garden
C9: The Queen's Men

Disclaimer: The characters are mine but the concepts are White Wolf's. Not getting paid, this is just for fun.

"Who the hell are you!" Mike demanded.

"If you don't know, you better ask somebody," Carmen replied.

Amerie explained, "She's the queenpin of vice in Cleveland, and a powerful mage."

A beautiful and shrewd black businesswoman, Carmen united the gangs and families in Cleveland under her rule, whether they liked it or not. Some magick here and there helped, and even the Kindred Prince wouldn't openly act against her. "And I won't tell you again to put him down...on land!"

"Why, will you make my blood boil if I don't?" Mike taunted.

"No, I…" she sucked her teeth in disgust, "Now that's just barbaric. Think snipers instead. Armed with silver bullets."

The shifters looked around.

"The magick is in hiding them from sight, and giving them the word to shoot. Now put. Him. Down."

Mike threw Joss on the grass, next to Carmen. The young werefox growled and looked ready for a fight.

"Be nice!" Carmen ordered, "You two can get a room if you wanna see who's dick is bigger."

"Damnit I'm straight!" Mike said.

"Yeah, right. And was all this really necessary? We're on the same side for once. Or is it just your M.O. to kill everything you don't understand?"

"Okay we got off on the wrong foot," Nolan said, "What's going on?"

"I just figured we'd put our heads together to fight a mutual enemy and..." she glanced at Juanita and her voice trailed.

"What?" the girl asked.

"Um, we need to talk somewhere private. But we don't need to be followed. Joss, can you get us out of here?"

"I can try. I never 'ported so many people before."

"I can give your hedge magic a boost, let's just go."

"Okay, but let's get over on the rocks."

"What's going on?"

"It'll make sense in a minute, just, everyone stand close together," Joss said as he pulled a small glass vial out of his pocket. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a minute, then shattered the vial against the stone. A cloud of blue smoke rose, enveloping the seven of them. The shifters felt a quick disorientation and sudden change in air pressure. When the smoke cleared, they found themselves inside an elegant office.

"What kind of sorcery-" Mike started.

"The kind they don't teach in werewolf school," Joss replied, "I might have saved our lives."

Amerie looked around, "We're in Pharaoh, aren't we?"

"You're smarter than you look," Carmen said as she sat down at her mahogany desk. Pharaoh Niteclub served as both a caern for her (or "node," as mages call them) and money-laundromat. "But you," she said to Juanita, "What's your name?"

"Why?"

"Your aura's familiar.

"To what?"

"I'll get back to that. But you all probably want to know what I meant by 'mutual enemy.' Yes, I sent Joss here to spy on you, and it seems that the same freaks who killed your pack, Amerie (I've done my homework) are the ones who've been giving me a hard time as of late."

"Who's been giving you a hard time?" Nolan wondered.

"Well for starters, I've got a couple mages I'm tutoring here, and Brujah vampires make the best bouncers. But most of my people-the hookers, dancers, dealers, and streetsweepers-are old-fashioned humans. Well, I had to get in a few asses when some of my workers started getting high on the job, then not showing up at all. Now, I've nothing against using drugs for some kind of enlightenment, but weed only makes you stupid and lazy. Do it on your own time.

"About a week ago, I had a vision that I would be killed here. That night, the club was in full swing, and Latoya, one of my disappearing workers, comes in. I saw her from the security cams. Even if I couldn't sense some kind of malignant force inside her, something seemed…off.

"I told my bouncers to get rid of her immediately. Okay, this is gonna get nasty, I'm warning you now," Carmen sighed, then continued, "They took her, and this bitch goes bizerk. Scratching, kicking, spitting, snd-I shit you not-bit one of them with her left breast."

"What!" Nolan asked.

"Her halter top was torn off and her left breast had teeth and a mouth! Tore his hand clean off. The other guard tried to stun her and she spat acid in his face. Finally, my Brujah bouncer seized her and threw her outside; then a bomb somewhere on her (I don't wanna know where) exploded, taking him with her. Thankfully, no one else was hurt. Feds closed the club for awhile, not to mention the Camarilla weren't too thrilled over this."

"Sounds like the fomori we've been dealing with," Ryn said.

"Fomori? Joss was saying they're called 'bakemono' in the East. Tomayto/tomahto I guess."

"They've been popping up left and right," Amerie said, "But where are they coming from?"

"Well," Camren said, "This next part's gonna kill you. I met with one of my pushers a couple days ago, and his aura wa all wrong. He wasn't even possessed; it felt like someone was literally wearing his skin. He attacked me and that's when I shot his ass. Then he broke into a thousand little spiders and ran off."

Juanita looked up at the mention of this. Carmen continued, "You have an aura just like his. Well, almost. His was more…entropic, but still 'smelled' like a shapeshifter. Joss said he's a Kumo."

"Not quite, but he does serve the Wyrm," Juanita expained. " But none of the Wyrm-serving Ananasi worked for you in the past, though. What I think he did, was turn into a bunch of spiders and eat your thug from the inside, then took over his body and memories."

"That's just creepy," Carmen said.

"And you don't all serve the Wyrm!" Mike said.

"Piss off," Juanita replied, "I'd never do that myself."

"Now wait a minute," said Amerie, "This is starting to make sense. A Wyrm-serving werespider killed and replaced a pusher working for Carmen. Then her workers stopped showing up because they were getting high-"

Nolan finished, "-And now the city's overrun with fomori!"

"Wait a sec," Carmen stepped in, "Y'all mean to tell me someone's lacing weed with Banes?"

"That sounds so crazy it has to be true," Ryn said.

"But," Carmen seemed lost for words, "You Animal Planet types don't have the power to do that on such a larg scale. It would take a mage to-"

"Well…" Juanita started.

Mike couldn't believe this, "Don't tell me you spiders can alter the Pattern Web."

"Okay, I won't."

Carmen suddenly gasped out loud and said, "Everybody down! NOW!"

A powerful blast shook the building's foundations, and the world blew up in their faces.