A/N: We haven't got much longer until this fic is finished; only a few more chapters, then an epilogue. I've definitely got a sequel in mind, but whether I post it or not is up to you guys, the reviewers. If I post the sequel, it will be a great deal more 'magicky' than this one. I really am a fantasy person, so it will be a bit of a crossover with my original fic. So, let me know what you think. Should I post, or not? Oh, and I apologize for the lateness of this chapter. It was due partly to the fact that I had supreme writer's block due to the boringness of exams, and partially because once I got it written, it took my muse FOREVER to check the silly thing. Hopefully, she'll be quicker with the ending chapters. So, without further ado, here's chapter 12! and BTW I DETEST this quick edit thing. It won't let me use my little squiggles to spearate the people. Sorry, I tried. It didn't work. Blame ff.net
Disclaimer: don't own, don't sue.
Chapter 12: Ready to Roll
Michael stopped the car as they pulled into the driveway. He turned off the engine and sat there, hands in his lap. Neither Selene nor Michael made a move to get out. Both were still absorbed in their thoughts, the silence only breeched by the pattering of the falling rain.
"Selene," Michael said, after the long moment had passed. She turned to look at him, and beneath her icy mask, he saw briefly the pain that the loss of her child had inflicted on her. It was quickly gone, but Michael knew it had been there, because he felt it too. Thought he had never known of his little daughter until the previous night, he already loved her, and the thought of her kidnapped made his heart ache with pain and anger.
"We'll get her back, Selene," he said. "I promise."
A ghost of a smile touched her lips and she whispered, "I know. But that doesn't stop me worrying." She got out of the car, slamming the door behind her, and striding quickly up to the door of the manor, ignoring the rain.
Michael hastily followed, almost forgetting to unbuckle his seatbelt, but remembering just in time. He pulled his shirt up against the rain, and hurried to the door. Selene waited, her dark hair soaked. She had walked unheedingly under the downpour, seeming not to notice the soaking she received.
Selene opened the door and turned to Michael.
"You should go back to Farkas Kikötõ. Get the lycans ready. Give them a pep talk or whatever you lycans do." She shut the door, leaving him standing just beyond the reach of the spring rain.
Wondering at her sudden change of heart, Michael ran back to his car, trying unsuccessfully to avoid getting wetter than he already was.
Selene ascended the stairs to Xavier's office. She was glad Michael hadn't protested when she sent him away. Not that she had given him time to. She hadn't wanted to send him away, but she knew that the alliance stressed Xavier, and she was sure that finding out exactly who Ravyn's father was would probably send him off the deep end. He knew that Ravyn was a hybrid, and Selene guessed that that was part of the reason he'd agreed to the alliance. If the renegades had a hybrid on their side, defeating Marcus was plausible. Their attack the next night was not to be the revolt Xavier had been planning for centuries. That would come later, when Xavier was sure they could win on their own, without a debt to the lycans.
She opened the door to the office. Kestral was calmly reading a book and Xavier was pacing nervously.
"There you are!" he exclaimed when he saw her. "Where were you?"
"Didn't we go over this already?" Selene asked.
"Don't mind him," Kestral said, putting her book aside. "He's just panicking because there's a battle coming and he hasn't planned out every last detail."
"Did you need me for something, Xavier?" Selene asked.
"Can you and Kestral check the guns to be sure all the mags are full?"
"Sure," Kestral said, walking out of the study. Selene followed. She had only been to the renegade's version of the dojo a few times, and wasn't entirely sure where she was going.
Kestral led her down a short hallway and up some stair to the dojo. In the back of the dojo, there was a special room filled with weapons. Three walls were lined with guns, and the fourth wall, in which the door was placed, had a case of old weapons, swords and daggers and bow-and-arrow sets. There were longswords and short swords and broadswords. There were several weapons that Selene didn't recognize. In the center of the room, was a long table.
"I've already checked the guns twice today," Kestral told her, putting her hand into a chest on a table in a corner, and digging around in the bottom, looking for the catch to the false bottom.
"Then what are we doing here?" Selene asked.
"Easing Xavier's nerves. He frets better when he's alone." Kestral smiled and pulled out a key. As she turned to the case filled with ancient weapons and fitted the key into the lock, Selene noticed how oddly dressed Kestral was.
She wore a low-cut crimson shirt and a long red skirt with slits high up both sides. She had knee-high black boots. Selene noticed that on the outside of the boots were two loops, one close to the knee, the other halfway to the ankle. She wondered what they were for.
She soon found out. Kestral had opened the weapons case and was pulling out weapons and inspecting them. She had selected an oak longbow and a quiver full of arrows, two twin scimitars with emeralds in the pommel, several throwing daggers, and two peculiar looking daggers with rounded blades and sharpened tips. Carefully scooping the weapons into her arms, she walked to the center of the room and spread the weapons out on the table. She returned to the case and locked it, returning the key to the chest. As she began sorting through the weapons, laying them out on the table so that each was visible, Selene asked, "What are all those for?"
Kestral paused before she answered.
"Tomorrow..." Her voice trailed off.
"Wouldn't a gun be of more use?"
"No. It will be my job to fight Endainme En'Dae, because I am the only one who can."
"What do you mean?"
"Endainme En'Dae was my friend, but she will fight on the side of the Elders. She taught me how to fight and I can fight her. I probably won't win, but I will be able to prolong the fight. Xavier can beat Marcus, but not if Endainme En'Dae interferes. So I will distract her." Kestral's voice was filled with sadness.
She picked up the scimitars and began moving through a pattern dance.
"Endainme En'Dae was an Amazon," Kestral told Selene conversationally. "She worked with me everyday until the day I left, until I was able to fight competently." She glanced at Selene and then shut her eyes, speeding up her dance, the scimitars becoming a flashing silver blur in the air. "Her favorite weapon is the sais. I will have the advantage with scimitars, but she will have a sword with her. She will know I'm coming." As she said the last sentence, she turned, eyes shut, scimitars flashing, long red hair whipping through space, and swung the lethal weapons towards Selene. Her eyes remained shut. She stopped moving very suddenly, her right scimitar stopping a hair's breadth from Selene's neck and her left just above Selene's nose.
Slowly, Kestral's bright green eyes opened, and she lowered her scimitars. She resheathed them and laid them on the table, a slight smile on her face. She picked up the peculiar daggers.
"These are sais," she told Selene, brandishing the weapons. She twirled them in her fingers, and then stuffed them into the straps on her boots, satisfying Selene's curiosity as to what the straps were for. She slid the sheaths of the scimitars onto a belt and buckled the belt around her waist. She picked up the throwing daggers and lined the back of her skirt with them, sliding them into sheaths already on the belt, then concealed two in her boots. The bow and quiver were slung over her shoulder. She selected a single gun from the numerous varieties that lined the wall, checked the mag, and then stuck the gun into her waistband.
Selene noticed that the gun Kestral selected was a Beretta.
"Now what?" Selene asked.
"We wait."
They didn't have to wait long. Erika came bursting into the room not five minutes later. Selene was examining the guns and Kestral was leaning against the table, arms crossed on her chest. They were deep in a discussion about the virtues of a Beretta versus a Night Hawk. They both turned to look at Erika. She was paler than usual.
"The lycans," she said. "They're here. Xavier wants to see you right away." Selene replaced the gun she had taken off the wall as an example and they followed Erika through the halls of the renegade manor to Xavier's office.
As they passed over the front hallway, Selene glanced over the balcony as her nose filled with the stench of lycan. Dozens of lycans were walking into the renegade manor. Most carried guns of various sizes and calibers, but there was no small number of unarmed lycans with a feral look in their eyes that told Selene exactly how they intended to fight the vampires.
Disgusting, she thought. Lycans were so primordial. Under Viktor, the idea that lycans were animals had become very commonly accepted, and Selene could easily understand where the idea had come from. She loved Michael, but she definitely wouldn't miss that side of him, were it to disappear.
And then they were at the door to Xavier's office and she had no more time to speculate on the lycans. Erika opened the door and Selene and Kestral stepped inside.
Xavier was waiting for them. He sat at his desk with his laptop off to the side. The screen was dark, but a small green light indicated it was turned on. Beside him stood Michael, looking over Xavier's shoulder at a piece of paper. Selene wanted to smile when she saw him—he looked so handsome, with his hair damp from the rain and a puzzled expression on his face—but she kept her face emotionless, slipping on her Death Dealer mask.
Xavier and Michael looked up when the door opened. A happy smile spread across Michael's face when he saw her, a smile that reminded her of Ravyn. She felt an invisible knife twist in her heart at the thought of her daughter. Michael saw the flicker of emotion in her eyes and started to cross the room to her, but she stayed him with a glare. Public affection was not something Selene would tolerate. He looked confused, but he stayed in his place. Kestral saw their exchange and smiled inwardly, but Xavier missed it completely.
"I thought you two would take all night," Xavier said when they entered, standing up from his desk. "Michael, this is my second-in-command, Kestral, and Selene. It's her daughter that's been abducted. Now, we all know why we're here. We want to plan our attack on Ordoghaz."
"Marcus is almost as suspicious as Viktor," Kestral said. "If this attack is going to work, then it must be well on its way before Marcus even knows about it. That means we have to get rid of all the guards and the dogs. If we can loop the security cameras too, then we need to do that. Then we should send in the vampires first. They won't be conspicuous inside the manor and they can open the doors for the lycans. Once everybody's inside, then the attack can begin. With our combined forces, it shouldn't be too hard for one lycan and Erika to get Lucian, and for Selene and me to find Ravyn."
"You?" Xavier asked. "Why you?"
"Because Endainme En'Dae knows where she is and she'll tell me."
"What makes you say that?"
"If I know Endainme En'Dae, and I do, then I know that she will not be thrilled with Marcus keeping a baby captive. She'll tell me where she is so that we have a fair chance at getting her out alive. She knows we're coming."
"Won't she warn Marcus?"
"Unless I miss my guess, she already has."
"God dammit Marcus! Why won't you listen to me?" Endainme En'Dae shouted. "The renegades will attack soon! You have to do something to protect the coven!"
"I don't have to do anything," Marcus said calmly. "The renegades wouldn't dare attack Ordoghaz."
"I think being a hybrid has gone to your head, Marcus. Think for a minute, will you? Erika and Selene have been gone for three days! They're obviously planning something!"
"Erika is not a renegade!" Marcus roared. Then he realized what Endainme En'Dae had said. "Hybrid?"
"Don't play dumb, Marcus," Endainme En'Dae said, rolling her eyes. "Anyone with half a brain could tell that you weren't Awakened by a vampire. You don't act normal anymore; you don't smell normal; you don't even look normal."
If Marcus's jaw had dropped any farther, it would have hit the floor.
"Lucky for you," Endainme En'Dae continued, "Most of this coven doesn't have half a brain."
"So it's all settled?" Xavier said. Selene and Kestral nodded. As the most experience of the four, they had mapped out the battle. "You want to go give the pep talk Kes?" Kestral grinned and left. "You should probably go tell the lycans Michael."
"Of course," Michael said, and left too, looking back at Selene wistfully before he shut the door. Once the room was empty, Xavier turned to Selene.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
Selene nodded grimly. "I have to get my daughter back. There's no telling what Marcus will do to her in the meantime."
"Be careful." He hadn't known her for very long, but he cared for the icy vampiress the way he had cared for his younger sister, while she lived.
But she didn't, he reminded himself. Marcus killed her.
Selene waited in the shadows for Michael to finish explaining everything to the lycans. As the young hybrid finished his "stirring" speech and left the hall where the lycans had congregated, Selene stepped out into the light.
"Holy shit Selene," Michael said when he saw her. "You scared me."
"Will you be all right tonight with the lycans?" she asked bluntly.
"Are you worried about me, Selene?" Michael asked with a grin.
Selene didn't answer. She glared instead.
"Yes, I'll be fine. As long as I don't run into Marcus again, anyway."
"Promise me you'll be careful."
"I will. And you?"
"I'm always careful," Selene retorted.
Michael raised an eyebrow, thinking of her driving, and pulled her in for a kiss.
A/N: Yes, I know, moose. Not NEARLY enough kissing. Too bad, get over it. There will be more in the next chapter, I promise. Now, please go press that little purple button by the box that says 'submit review'. You'll make me very happy if you do, and happy writers write faster!
Kesaria: Thank you so much for your wonderful review! I'm glad you liked how Michael found out he was the father. I enjoyed writing it! Now for your constructive criticism. When Raze and Michael are eating the vampires, it's not cannibalistic for Raze, because he's lycan. But you're right about Michael. At that part, his lycan half is really in control, and a lycan would eat the vampires. They are part beast, after all. I considered putting in a scene where Michael, after he's changed back to his human form, realizes what he's just eaten—raw flesh—and goes into the bathroom to throw up. I decided not to though because I was feeling a bit 'delicate' that day, if you know what I mean, and slightly bloodthirsty, so I didn't put it in there. When I repost/rewrite everything when I'm done with this, I'll probably sneak it in there somewhere. Now, about the middle-school dance thing. I really wanted to stress the uncomfortableness of the situation and how the lycans and the vampires were avoiding each other like the plague, and I couldn't think of anything else to compare it to, so I went ahead and put it in. and since then, I've been waiting for someone to point it out that she wouldn't have experienced a middle school dance. But no one did. So congratulations! You're the first! I guess that if she ever watched teenage chick flicks, which I doubt, but hey, you never know, she would have seen one. But if you can come up with something else to compare it to, feel free to suggest, because I would really like to change it, but I can't think of what to change it to. Wow, that was long, wasn't it? Anyways, thank you so much for your review! It really made my day! Thanks!!!