Pandie Katteken- thank you, and Ririka will R/R as soon as she gets internet access at home. :)
Rayv- *sigh* Cassia is Ririka's character, but Flame is in this chappy! :)
Jen- yeah!
Airlia de Lioncourt- here ya go! :) Hee hee.
AN: So, who wants more? Reviews please… ;)
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The Inferno
Chapter 1: Ferocious Flames
The midnight air was salty down by the docks; this was where the members of the Inferno had agreed to meet after being posted the information that there was a nice little nest in one of the abandoned warehouses. Cassia felt Jonathan Nish shudder beside her. She cast him a curious glance.
"Cold?" Cassia asked, she returned her attention back to the warehouse.
"No, it's just the docks give me the creeps!" He said, scanning the immediate area. Cassia knew he was probably playing with his unruly mop of auburn hair, she also knew that he was dressed in the mandatory black clothing the Inferno had deemed suitable for such occasions. It was a Burn Out tonight and where as Jonathan shuddered from nerves, Cassia shivered in anticipation.
The docks were quiet, the faint bugle of a foghorn sounded in the distance but apart from that and the rhythmic sounds of the waves breaking there was not a sound. She and Jonathan were on Pointe tonight. It was Cassias favourite designation, it meant they picked off the possible escapees as they jumped from the roof or waded through the flames. Her crews' speciality when dealing with more than a handful of leeches was to blockade them inside their own headquarters, and then set it on fire and watch them burn. Some of course would try and escape by throwing themselves off of the roof whilst others would try to charge through the flames, and so if this happened the three couples on Pointe around the building would shoot them as they tried to flee. It was spectacular, messy and dangerous but otherwise spectacular. They basically turned the building into an inferno, hence their namesake.
"Hey, you see those spate of murders down in Arizona on the news last night?" Jonathan inquired, he was fidgeting with the ski mask that covered his face.
Cassia nodded, smiling that cold grim smile she used when she watched the Night World scum burn. "Yeah, since we declared it hunting season down here in Washington they seem to have relocated to a more secure hunting ground."
"Some of the guys have been suggesting a Party Pooper." Jonathan replied, he nodded indicating his interest. "Sounds good to me, what do you think?" Cassia smiled, it would be fun to go and shakedown the local blood pack in Arizona but explaining the absence to her new foster creatures was the problem.
"Yeah, it sounds like a hell of a day trip. Finding a plausible excuse for the 'family' could be a problem though!" Cassia confided, she and Jonathan had become accustomed to meeting back up after they had been transferred from one family to the next. He, like her was a foster case. Who, after making his mark on a particular state would get himself transferred to another foster home before the Night World pinpointed his location and hunted him down. It was so easy to transition from being the hunter to being the hunted, especially if your identity was leaked.
"Yeah but it's your birthday soon though right?" Jonathan asked, it now sounded as though he was playing with his dagger. Cassia knew he always did that when he was feeling uneasy.
"Yeah, I'll have made it to nineteen!" Cassia informed him. "Can you believe that some of the other Vets said I wouldn't even last a day when I first started out?" She finished giving him an incredulous stare. Jonathan laughed that deep throaty male laugh only guys could do.
"Yeah I remember, didn't you try and kick their asses?" He remarked through his muffled laughter.
"Darn tootin." Cassia said in answer, she glanced back occasionally to watch for the signal. Jonathan's laughter had morphed into spluttering chuckles; at least I made him forget to be nervous, she thought, smiling slightly.
Jonathan sobered from his chuckling fits abruptly. "Anyway, when you turn nineteen you'll be out of the foster system for good and you won't have to worry about families and emotional ties and shit."
At one point in time Cassia would have agreed, but now that the day of her impending adulthood was looming she realised that it was the foster families, emotional ties and shit that balanced out her fairly fucked up life. She had thought about discussing this with Jonathan, but since most of his foster families had been more screwed up than him. Cassia had decided that perhaps his life had no balance at all, and so he wouldn't understand. Jonathan began to say something else but Cassia didn't hear him, she was too busy watching as someone turned on a flashlight and waved it three times in their direction. The fun was about to start.
Cassia fixed the hood on her head so it covered everything but her eyes, it was imperative she maintained her secret identity. She looked over her shoulder to watch Jonathan adjust his ski mask and then they began to close in on the building.
Cassia watched patiently as the building started to blaze, the orange, yellow flames casting a rainbow of colour against the bleak night sky. The fire was just beginning to reach the upper floors of the warehouse and none of the vampires had tried to escape the flames yet. She gripped her crossbow closer to her body and took aim, she was vaguely aware that Jonathan had a similar crossbow and that he was also waiting patiently behind her. Sudden yells reverberated from the third floor of Crupsie Warehouse and then the leeches seemed to leap into action. At least twelve vampires jumped the roof at the same time and Cassia shot off her bolt at the closest one, she then reloaded as the vampire screamed mid flight and landed straight into the fire below. It was soon followed by its undead brethren.
It took the Fire service fifteen minutes to get onto the docks, which was a record since the traffic in Washington was appalling even at two in the morning. They were soon followed in suit by the police and the paramedics. They were still too late to intervene however, because by the time they got to the warehouse the Inferno had completed their task, all the Night World parasites had been eliminated.
"Gee, I forgot my marshmallows too damn it!" Jonathan cracked. He and Cassia were perched on top of one of the other buildings on the dockside marvelling and basking at their success. Cassia giggled, she had never thought she would have been able to giggle. Ever! But somehow watching the emergency services scurrying around below, listening to Jonathan's joke and immersing herself in the pure adrenaline rush she was riding through right now made giggling possible. Cassia felt the warm winds blowing in from the water slide up and down her spine making her shiver.
She would never be quite sure what happened next because everything seemed to warp into chaos too quickly to make any comprehension. The scene below was no longer a victory, but a massacre. Those Night people who masqueraded as humans in places of importance such as the police force had rounded all of the human cops, fire fighters and medical staff together and they were herding them toward the fire.
"Shit! They wouldn't." Jonathan said, standing beside her also watching in fixated horror. The dozen or so vampires in police uniforms were baring their fangs now and the people below were screaming. One guy tried to run, God help him. It was a shifter who broke his neck and left him jerking almost dead on the pavement.
Cassia watched the scene and she was cold. "Yes Jonathan, they would."
"We have to stop them!" He retorted, making a move to climb down the steps at the back of the building. Cassia grabbed his arm and pulled him back roughly.
"Don't be a stupid asshole Nish." She seethed, looking at him harshly. "They are dead already and if you go down there you'll only get yourself slaughtered."
"I can't let them die for something we did!" He ground out, trying to wrench free of her grip.
This only served to incense Cassia more and she tightened her grip painfully on his arm. "Listen to me Jonathan! If you go down there they will kill the civilians anyway and then they will kill you. But before they kill you Jonathan, they will screw with your mind and find out a whole lot of shit about the Inferno." Cassia spat into his face. "Then Jonathan they will hunt us all down, because you know they do have the resources and they will spend countless hours torturing us. Me, you, Casey, Shawn everybody. So take a good long look, and ask yourself whether a bunch of innocents who we have probably saved ten times over are more valuable to you than those who work constantly to ensure their safety." This time when Jonathan jerked away Cassia let him but she continued her verbal tirade knowing she had to get the message through his thick noble skull. "Those people down there lived safely because of people like us, people like them are born everyday. Vampire hunters like us! Are born once in a blue moon. You do the math." Cassia turned back to the screaming crowd below and she watched, as they were forced perilously closer to the flames of the fire, which the Inferno had set.
"I can't just stand here and watch?" Jonathan stuttered, his voice laced thick with angry tears.
Cassia glared at him a look of pure contempt in her eyes. "Then turn away and don't!"
"You know something Edwards, you are a cold hearted bitch." Jonathan bit back; his tears replaced with a cold fury.
She turned in response and there was nothing but concentrated humour in her voice. "Thanks." Jonathan staggered; Cassia could see the surprise naked on his face. He had expected anger or hurt, what he had gotten in exchange was the Edwards attitude. "Don't get me wrong Nish, what is happening here tonight I would stop if I could. But that's impossible and you know it. So get with the programme or get out." She finished never taking her eyes off of the people who were now being roasted. Their terrified screams would add yet another nightmare to Cassia's subconscious but she carried on watching, she imprinted every single detail of the whole horrific scene into here mind as though it had been branded there with a searing hot poker.
It was to remind herself of what happened when you failed to save people. Sitting there was a fellow hunter in the flickering night. She could almost hear his morals sliding away... She almost missed his muttered whisper, "So we're more important than they are?" It was almost lost to the extreme of the fire, getting rapidly out of control.
"We can't save everyone. We just can't. I wish we could..." She whispered back.
Flame reclined against the wall, on the roof of a building. Behind him the water reflected orange and intense red off the black waters. Trust vermin to think of something that would touch even a Vampire. It had been amusing to see that the ones that they had caught had been easily picked off. A plan to mastermind... and improve on.
But first, the little thorns had to be dealt with.
He was being paid an extortionate amount just to be rid of 'The Inferno'. A laugh really, the council where afraid of barely adult vermin that had escaped the NW's culling system. Showed how old and useless they where getting. But it meant he got to have his kicks and get paid for it.
Two on this roof. He informed the 'police' below. He informed them of their identities, and all there was now to do was wait. The best hunter knows where it's prey is going, and waits for it there. Flame could wait forever. He was after all immortal - minus wooden implements meeting his heart, and that was a small threat into day's world.
We got their locations.
And vermin where so easy to track. They'd made it so themselves.
Cassia wasn't quite sure what made her look up in that instant but she did. She cast a dread filled glance up at the neighbouring warehouse knowing with apprehension that they were being observed. In the same instant she saw a number of the 'police' rush toward the warehouse where she and Jonathan were based.
"Shit Jonathan, we've been made." Cassia called, spinning to face him. But she didn't need to worry as Jonathan was already moving into action, he scrabbled down the fire escape muttering various obscenities. Cassia looked back up at the pale figure on the towering building to her right. He was tall, almost six feet, his hair was short and ash blonde and Cassia had a faint feeling of recognition. She felt like she should know this vampire, because she knew without doubt that he was a leech, but she couldn't place a name to the face. She knew one thing for sure though, he was the leader of this little expedition. His whole posture and nonchalant face expression told her that much.
Without another moments notice Cassia swung onto the ladders and disappeared after Jonathan.
They had barely made it half way through the back alley before they were spotted by a shapeshifter, his species recognisable through their fluid movement. "Shit!" Cassia drew her dagger thinking quite calmly that someone that swore as often as she did was definitely going to hell. Jonathan stopped in her stead and turned his back to watch the exit of the alley.
"You stupid Inferno vermin!" The shifter shouted as he charged directly for them. In theory Cassia knew that shifters were meant to be one of the most intelligent species in the Night World, but obviously this shapeshifter was elsewhere when the devil had been handing out brainpower because he practically stabbed himself. Within minutes of yelling and charging towards them he tried to change as he leapt forward. There was no chance in hell Cassia was about to let him shift, if she did it was over. They were almost certainly dead. Rather than await their fateful end Cassia attacked the bear mid shift aiming directly for his eyes.
The Bear was ready for her and if she hadn't ducked at the last minute the shifter would have taken her head off. As it turned out the bear only cuffed her. But that was enough to send swirling white stars crashing through her head. She recovered quickly shaking away the pain. The half bear half man had turned his attentions to Jonathan and so he wasn't expecting Cassia to drive her dagger forward into his face. This time her blade found its mark.
The Bear shifter whirled back on her raking its huge claws down her arms, even as she felt the hot trickles of blood and searing pain course through her body she drove the dagger further through the bears eye socket using the pain to fuel her strength. The Bear slashed at her blindly now tearing more of her shirt and opening new deep wounds in her chest. Suddenly the shifter seemed to slump forward and an unknown pair of hands pulled at her. It took a moment to Cassia realise that it was Jonathan who was dragging her away. The corpse of the half bear man lay motionless in the alley exit. Without looking back they fled.
