Ssssoooo... not much to do around here. Lots of crying in this one. And I'm rather pleased with it, despite the cheesy end of it... not end of story, just the chapter. Please leave a message after the beep.

- - -

- - -

Talley stared at the chaos in front of him. The humans in their pack attacked with whatever weapons they could find, and some were brutally cut och shot down. They had more trouble with the werewolves, there were several of their enemies lying in a pool of their own blood on the floor. But they must have brought silver bullets along with them, since there were some werewolf carcasses at some places, and the living occasionally whimpered loudly when they were hit. He had caught no sight of any vampires yet.

He gave the female vampire from the League a dark look before he leapt off the table, making his situation less dangerous. He considered transforming and joining in the battle before he realized that was exactly what he had told every one else not to do. Should he fight? There was a chance that he would lose everything that was dear to him. He looked around in the room to see if he could catch sight of Talon or, if she had transformed, her black fur.

He could see here nowhere. Maybe she had already left? But he couldn't see the League's vampire either. A cold spread through his body and he had to struggle to breath. As strong as a werewolf was, it was no match against a vampire.

"VERONICA!" he cried out, leaving the room to search through the house.

- - -

Talon pulled the wood in the window, and when it wouldn't bugde, she merely smashed her hand through it and brushed the fragments onto the ground. Sladjana held her son close to her body. She held her arms over his back, protecting his head with her hands and mumbled gentle words on her language, occasionally giving him a light kiss. Her husband Raschid had a dark look on his face. He always looked over his shoulder, staring at the door. Talon took a tight grip on his arm and turned him towards her. She looked him in his eyes and talked loudly and clear.

"Raschid, I know you want to stay and fight these intruders, but you must think about your family. Do you understand? I forbid you to go back into the house until you are searched out and informed otherwise."

Raschid opened his mouth to argue, but his eyes turned to Sladjana and their son. He closed his mouth again and his face softened. He nodded slowly. She nodded as well, as if they had come to an agreement.

"Good." She said and smiled at him. He went to the window and climbed out, leaping down onto the ground. When he touched it he immideately crouched, absorbing the impact. He turned towards the window and reached up. This was the part that Talon had been unsure of. Could Sladjana jump down with the child in her arms? Could it survive to be dropped for its father to catch it? She motioned Sladjana to move, letting her make the decision. Sladjana walked up to the window and looked down. She looked at her son again and gave Talon a questioning look.

"I'm sure it will be fine..." She began, but felt the presence of another creature close nearby. She glanced at the door. "But no matter, you have to go now!"

Sladjana didn't even turn towards the window before the door was pushed open. A vampiress stood in the door, her long curly hair stained with blood. Her red eyes focused on them and a snarl escaped her. Sladjana screamed, obviously terrified. In the matter of seconds, she made her choice, gave her son one last kiss and threw her son out as gently as she could with a word shouted loudly.

Raschid gasped and stretched his arms up to catch Mentor. He caught the cloth he was wired in. It was not a gentle catch, and the infant began to cry loudly, but Raschid could only hold him close and whisper thanks to Allah. A human child would probably not have survived it. He looked up towards his pack leader and his wife. During this short period of time, Sladjana already had transformed herself and agressivly attacked the vampire.

Her long, vicious claws made whooshing sounds when they traveled through the air, always just an inch or two from the vampire's face. Sladjana howled in rage, throwing herself at the vampire one more time. This time she was prepared and ducked, letting her silver knives cut two long wounds down Sladjana's chest and stomach. She shrieked loudly and collapsed at the floor. Talon saw the fear in her eyes shine like lanterns a few seconds before she died. She heard a long, grieving howl from her husband outside. She snarled and began transforming.

- - -

Tom turned around. No one was attacking him for the moment, so he checked how everyone else was doing. Hyde was, of course, having the time of his life. Laughing loudly, he attacked everyone around, human as werewolf, using his strenght and size alone as weapons.

Occasionally he would use his enemies as weapons against them. Tom saw that most of the crew they had taken along was alive, even if some were wounded. Tom spent a few seconds wondering what they should do with them later. He continued looking. Mina was nowhere to be seen, but he had seen her following the werwolve's leader upstairs. Skinner was... probably not there, and Tom wasn't very surprised about that. There was however one whose absence there was strange.

"Where is Nemo...?" he asked, almost shouting. No one heard him. He guessed that he had left to fight at a better place and forgot about him, fighting on.

- - -

Talon, now halftransformed, took a tight grip around the vampiress' throat and lift her up.

"You DARE come here?!" she screamed and threw her across the room. He slammed into the wall and seemed to be knocked out for a second or two before she got back up on her feet. She calmly met Talon's eraged eyes.

"You DARE kill Sladjana? How?! I will kill you for this, you arrogant bitch!" she screamed and transformed, her size changing at remarkable speed.

The vampire raised an eyebrow at her when the new apparition roared at her. She leapt against the vampire, snarling. The vampire took a step aside, quickly giving her a nasty cut over her upperarm. She landed, glanced at the wound and attacked again, more planned this time. The vampire managed to give her another irrevelant cut, but this time Talon's claws left four long marks on her stomach. The vampire looked at them, and a shadow of doubt crossed her face. Talon grinned and in her present form, it was quite unsettling to see.

"I will rip your pretty eyes from your sockets..." she hissed and again leapt towards the vampire. This time, she seemed to use her full potential. She immediately threw one of her knives at Talon when she leapt and managed to stab her quickly when they passed each other. Talon turned around again and growled at the place where she thought the vampire would be.

She found nothing there. Surprised she looked up and saw her shadowy figure in a cloud of bats. She crouched down to jump towards them when she felt a pain in the side of her neck.

And nothing more.

- - -

Mina looked at the werewolf's corpse. She then turned her attention towards the thin air by it's side.

"Skinner?" she asked, and would have felt stupid if she didn't know he was there. There was a strange sound from said spot.

"I killed it, didn't I? It won't attack now?"

Mina looked at the gaping wound in the creatures neck.

"No, I think it is dead. Thank you, Skinner. You seem to have developed a knack for saving our skins."

Skinner chuckled and Mina got a picture of an anonymous face blushing. It didn't seem like Skinner to do so, so she ignored it. She heard something she thought was a gasp.

"Mina! It has hurt you!"

Mina looked down on the four wounds. They were bleeding slightly, but healing, if slowly.

"I'm sure I' ll manage alright." She said to convince both him and herself that everything was fine. "How many are are left? How are the others faring?"

"They are downstairs, right in the middle of that mess. And... did you hear something?"

Mina didn't hear his last part. She was busy trying to detect exactly where that low buzzing

came from.

"Skinner." She hissed. "Leave."

The door opened and shut and Skinner was gone. Mina looked out of the window just to be sure. She saw a man staring back at her. His eyes were yellow and he bared his teeth when he saw her. He held an infant in his arms. Mina saw the small streaks on his cheeks and understood that they were tears. She looked back at the first werewolf she had killed and remembered that it had been a woman before the transformation. She looked down on the father and motherless child again.

The father snarled, she could barely hear it, and quickly ran away. Mina looked after him. She didn't know if she should be happy that there was one less in the world or sad because an innocent child had lost its mother because of her. She sighed and turned around again. An old man stood in the door, grinning as her, baring his bloody fangs.

"Hello precious..." he said quietly while the remaining four vampires came in through the door behind him.

- - -

Hyde roared again and punched a vaguely human creature straight in the face. It stumbled backwards, bleeding heavily. When it had regained its bearings, it turned and fled. Hyde laughed loudly at the sight of it and fell silent. Wasn't there something in the air he could recognize? He looked around himself to see if it was one of those annoying 'allies', as they apparently were called, but he was alone in the large room. He heard glass break in a room not too far away. He chose the door closest to him and smashed the door open. No point to be polite and actually open it, now, was there?

Nothing there, except for a mangled body. He grinned at it. It had actually put up a fair fight. The thing he was looking for was apparently somewhere else. He didn't have to look any further. With a loud growl a small, tan werewolf smashed through the door. Hyde turned towards it, surprised, but managed to hit it when it pounced at him. It flew back a meter or two and rolled on the floor. It soon got up again and crouched down, it's yellow eyes fixed on him. Hyde grinned again. He knew who it was.

"Do you recognize her, Henry?" he said out loud. There was no response from him for a while.

Adria? God... what is she doing here?

"Take a guess, genius." Hyde scoffed and motioned with his arm against her feral shape.

I know what you are thinking, Edward. Don't kill her!

"Kill her? Why would I? I'll have to think about entertainment too!" he said and laughed at the end. He felt something that probably was a mental frustrated sigh.

Edward! How can you even think about it?! I...'

Hyde ignored the rest of the sentence and attacked the werewolf Adria with a loud laugh. He knew that Henry was watching everything trough his eyes and could do nothing about what he saw.

That was one of the reasons that he laughed.

- - -

"VERONICA!" Talley called again, hoping that she would reply, or hear him. She might have gone to the other house. He saw one last room. Hoping she had been reasonable and hid in there, he opened the door.

And stared.

He noticed when the tears rolled down and was dried up by his shirt.

He didn't know when he began to wail like a harpy.

- - -

Skinner opened the door slightly. He seemed to be in some sort of library. It seemed untouched, there were no bodies on the floor and no blood as far as the eye could see. He stepped inside and looked around. It was a nice room. Red. He felt the carpet against his bare feet and thought that he could almost forget about everything that was going on the the rest of the house if he stayed in there.

No shame in that, he was after all useless in battle.

"Or maybe not..." he thought loudly. "I did after all kill that werewolf..."

He heard the eerie sound of metal against metal and turned around. He sa the shadowed figure behind the door seconds before he felt the piercing pain in his shoulder. He screamed in pain and sank down to the floor. He knew that whatever had hurt him had passed all the way trough. His arm seemed to stop working, in hung limp and useless by his side. He tried desperately to move his fingers, and whimpered when he couldn't.

The pain was almost more than he could take. He closed his eyes tightly, like if he absolutely couldn't see, the pain would go away. He had only felt this kind of pain once before. In the fire, just that this was concentrate to one spot of his body.

He felt something small hit him on his chest. He opened one eye with effort and looked at it. It was the same kind of facial paint he used. He also noticed that the thing in his shoulder was a sword. A familiar sword.

"Put it on. Make sure to cover your forehead and cheeks. Make a stripe running up your throat to your lips. Understood?"

Skinner didn't nod or reply. He just took the lid off and took up some paint on his fingers. He painted himself like this person had told him to.

"Get up." A harsh voice instructed him. Skinner couldn't move. He tried to get up, but couldn't. He felt lightheaded and weak. Something tugged at his wound and bit into the sides of it. He could only whimper. The man seemed to mumble something in a language he couldn't understand and quickly pulled the sword away.

Skinner gasped when it left him and had to lean onto the floor with his working arm not to faint. A hand gripped his throat and lift him to his feet. He felt the tip of the sword against his chest.

"And now, Mr. Skinner, you will stay in here, and you will be very silent and obedient. I hope you have understood my instructions."

Skinner didn't reply this time either. He stared at the man in front of him and didn't want to believe what he saw.

"Oh... god..." he managed to stutter. "Nemo..."