Katrina awoke with Marcus's strong body wrapped around her, smiling she brushed her hair out of her eyes and turned to look at him. His face was relaxed in sleep, looking so peaceful as he slept, Katrina propped herself up on her elbow and watched him as he dreamed. The cool white silk sheets lay pooled across their bodies as Katrina traced her eyes over Marcus's muscular body fully enjoying the sight, unlike some other Exiles Katrina had never had many partners in her life despite being alive since the old world, Marcus was her one and only love that had suddenly appeared in her life one day.

Her life was so full of pain, blood and betrayals spanning over 150 years that she had thought any spark of happiness in her life had been extinguished long, long ago and to find the one person in her life that proved that wasn't true had been a blessing beyond belief. To find the one person that proved you weren't done in life, the one who lived the same curse, the one who understood and whom you could place absolute trust in, it was what Katrina believed was what life was all about.

Marcus was all these things and more, if she wasn't the monster she knew herself to be then she would have said they were soul mates as he was the only person she had ever loved but since creatures like them didn't have souls then they were simply life mates, which was enough for her. She thought herself lucky to have him, shifting she rested her head on Marcus's chest, the sun had set below the horizon in the city above them, this she knew because she would never have been awake otherwise and would still be sleeping oblivious to everything.

She wanted to go back into the city tonight with Marcus, something the Recruit had said managed to attract her curiosity and vampires like cats seemed to have terminal curiosity, so now she wanted to hunt down some Rebels in order to find out more. Having the Rebels messing around with the backdoors was the last thing the Exile community need, that was their one and only means of survival, the Rebels would obviously fuck up at some point and reveal the backdoors existence to the Agents then everything would be over.

Marcus stirred disturbed by Katrina's movement, as he opened his eyes she smiled and kissed him. "Hey..." She greeted him sweetly tucking some of her sleep tousled hair behind her ear.

"Hey" Marcus answered back sleepily before frowning warily "What do you want?" he asked suspiciously.

Katrina pouted an effect which was only enhanced by her sleep rumpled self "Do I need a reason to be nice?" she asked innocently, stupid soul-mate thing, he knew her far too well.

"This early in the evening..." Marcus answered "...yes"

Katrina sulked "Just because you're a grumpy sod early in the evening doesn't mean that everyone else is" she told him.

Marcus sighed "Alright" he said tiredly giving in to defeat; it wasn't worth arguing with Katrina as she always seemed to win.

"I just wanted a night on the town, you and me for a night of fun..." Katrina carried on.

"That sound nice" Mused Marcus as he thought about it.

"...And hunting down a few Rebels" Katrina conceded finally.

Marcus raised an eyebrow "That's an interesting outlook on fun... you haven't been hanging around Wraith have you?" He asked curiously.

Katrina frowned "No, but I heard something that I think needs investigation last night and I want to check it out. The Rebels are trying to mess around with the backdoors." She told him truthfully.

Marcus frowned worried "and you didn't tell Lilith?" he asked concerned.

Katrina looked exasphorated "Well I was asleep and also if Lilith got informed of every single rumour then she'd be buried waist high then nothing would get done. You only report something when you are certain, all I know is what that Recruit told me and it's entirely possible that he is just fucking with us." She explained, this city was Chinese whisper central and if you believed rumours then Neo was a women, Lilith was in love with Pandora and Morganna was their love child.

Katrina made a dismissive sound, she couldn't imagine that snake bitch of a first one being anyone's lovechild, Morganna could give the human Medusa of myth a run for her money and if there was a nastier son of a bitch than the Merovingian then it was Morganna.

"What was that for?" Marcus asked referring to Katrina's dismissive sound; he didn't think it had anything to do with him as she had that far away look in her eyes whenever she managed to derail her train of thought.

Katrina waved his question aside trying to work out how she had gone from rumours to planning an extermination campaign against reptiles; her mind scared her at times. "It's nothing" she told him.

"Right... so when do you want to leave?" Marcus asked as he got out of bed and began searching around for his trousers.

Katrina looked up at Marcus "In an hour or so, I want to get a shower" she answered while getting herself out of bed before walking down the stairs and into their "Apartments" bathroom, although technically being vampires they didn't need all of the facilities of the bathroom it was still full done up. The bathroom was done in a similar style as the main room of white, stainless steel and pine and had a large mirror adorning one of the walls despite the fact neither of them had a reflection.

Marcus gave up on finding his trousers and declaring them missing in action grabbed some fresh clothes out of the wardrobe, all black which was traditional vampire colours but who said he had to be original? He called out to Katrina telling her that he was heading out for a bit before taking one of the room's key cards and stepping out into the corridor outside.

Walking down the corridor he greeted a dozen other Exiles which he recognised as he made his way towards the den's rather massive kitchens, on his way there he had to pass through the 'Aquat' which was an absolute massive 750 ft room in which a large majority was taken up by a massive lake that sank down to almost 300 ft in places. It was a colossal aquatic environment simulated that of a natural lake almost perfectly besides the absence of natural sunlight, the lake was filled with specially programmed plants and animals which were designed to live in this paradise lake with its crystal clear waters with the Mermaids, who were the reason for its original construction and programming.

The other exiles used the remaining land space which existed around edges of the 'Aquat' as a relaxation place and a social meeting place because it was not only being an idealistic paradise with a nice beach along on side, grass and rocks along others but also because of it being located smack in the centre of the Den, near the kitchens and mess hall. Not helped by the beautiful and quite seductive Mermaids the beach area become a café and quiet relaxing place during its daylight sequence and an 'Exiles only' nightclub during its night sequence which was particularly popular with the younger Exiles. The best way to describe the area would be to call it the outdoors indoors, the 'Aquat' had a true day and night sequence that was out of sequence with the world above, it was roughly 6 hours difference between them which allowed the nocturnal members of the Den to enjoy the daylight but without any of that lethal UV light attached.

Marcus greeted Nimee, a Mermaid with long green hair who was current entertaining an elfish faced fairy and a young exile with sandy coloured hair, they both seemed fairly amazed by her various tricks and stories. One thing you had to give to the Mermaids is even though they couldn't do much, they were very definitely social creatures, always seeking out people and being in the thick of the community, Marcus was personally very glad for the handful of Mermaids that had left their oceans or Lakes and had come here to Lilith, they definitely had a way with people.

Leaving the 'Aquat' he walked down a brief stretch of corridor and arrived at the chaos that dared call itself the clans kitchen, the kitchen was a large affair again in its own right at 60 ft by 60 ft with Metal worktops and range cookers sat in a central island, it was obviously build to cater for the vast number of people that made up the clan. Half a dozen exiles slaved over the stoves and counters working on some culinary masterpiece of some sort, hardly any of these exiles would have ever caught anyone's attention if you had past them on the street, they looked like any other person you might meet on the street. Looking around the organised chaos of the kitchen Marcus managed to spot the target of his search and walked over to the 5 ft 6 inches brunette woman who was in the centre of the Kitchen as she worked with something boiling in a pot.

The woman cocked her head in his direction as he approached although how she had heard him over the noise of the kitchen was beyond him. "Hi Iris" He greeted the blind cook as he came up to her.

Iris turned towards Marcus smiling as she recognised the voice "Hey luv" she said as she wiped her hand off on a towel "What can I do for you?" she asked.

Marcus grinned "Well I came to be a cheeky bugger and ask for two decent breakfasts, think I can find them here?" he asked amusement clear in his voice.

"Ruddy rascal, 'specially when I'm try to get everyone's dinner cooked" She teased waving a rather pointy knife in his direction before using it to slice up some meat of dubious origins.

"I'm sorry to be a nuisance" Marcus apologised feeling guilty for giving the poor cook yet more work.

"Nah, don't be" She told him before joking "Don't get much opportunity to serve vampires around her, your not exactly my biggest customers"

"Jameson!" Iris called out to the kitchen, a messy haired man with his short hair sticking up in every which way turned around to look at her.

"Yeah?" he asked across the kitchen while dealing with something in a pot.

"Two English breakfasts now" Iris ordered, Lilith may control the den but the kitchen was Iris domain and she ruled absolutely, her word was more or less law in here.

"Err...right" Jameson replied momentarily lost before dumping his previous work on someone else and moving to carry out the new order.

Iris turned in Marcus's general direction "Be ready in 'bout 20 minutes" she told him before turning towards an approaching girl.

"Thanks" Marcus told Iris gratefully, the girl was Iris's adoptive daughter Lisa, the Exile 7 year old was literately half cat with the lower half of her body being feline as well as her ears, she was also covered head and toe or paws in flour.

"Gah, what a mess" Marcus said looking at the now near white girl, her blue fur and hair was coated in flour as well as her lilac dress.

"What?" Asked Iris curiously not yet knowing the complete disaster her ward had managed to transform herself into.

Marcus sighed "She's gotten herself covered in flour" he told Iris while looking at the little girl who could probably win a look alike contest for Wraith at this precise moment.

"Oh not again Lisa!" Iris despaired as she touched the girls face feeling the flour. "What have I told you about getting in the flour?" she scolded the girl.

Lisa sulked "I didn't mean to" She complained a definite purr present in her voice.

Iris ignored the girl and carried on worrying "How am I going to clean you up little lady?" she said fretting "You know what nuisance flour is in fur..."

"I'll give you a hand" Marcus offered having nothing better to do until his food was done besides it was the least he could do.

"You would?" Iris asked "You're a life saver"

They were about to set to the monumental task of cleaning Lisa up, who was standing there bored with her tail gently swaying and occasionally sneezing as her own efforts to clean herself up lead to her creating a dust cloud which aggravated her nose. When an impressive din started as someone knocked a load of pans over.

"Jennifer!" Iris shouted out having a good idea of the culprit.

She was answered by a redheaded Irish girl popping her head above the counter and a literary of curses. "I know, I know..." She moaned as she set about picking up the pots and pans which were scattered about.

It became fairly uneventful after that with both Iris and Marcus working together to brush Lisa down and get the flour out of her fur as best as they could although with the girl's fidgeting it became a task and a half. Once clean Lisa was bouncing up and down asking could go to the 'Aquat' and play with the Mermaids and Fairies, with promises that she wouldn't go elsewhere than the 'Aquat' she was off and after a few minutes Jameson came around with his food, so giving his thanks to both Iris and Jameson he headed back with the two plates.

He carried the food back though the corridor and down the stairs till he reached the room he shared with Katrina, opening the door with some difficulty he found Katrina sitting on the edge of the bed wrapped in a towel, she looked up from where she was brushing her hair out and noticed Marcus carrying two plates.

"Novelty" She murmured raising an eyebrow.

"Well it's not exactly very often that we get to eat something solid" Marcus explained as he set the plates down on the bedside table.

Katrina snagged a piece of fried toast with her fingers and ate it.

"Nice" she said smiling impishly as she nicked the other slice from the other plate.

"Oi... that was mine" Marcus complained looking forlornly at his lost toast.

Katrina stuck her tongue out between her fangs before she finished of her stolen piece of toast; Marcus grabbed his plate in an attempt to get some of his food before Katrina could devour it.

"So where do you want to go in order to find rebels?" Marcus asked stuffing some mushrooms into his mouth.

"Warehouse district?" Katrina asked rhetorically "Surely their will be a crew out there somewhere"

"Hmmm... don't we know were the Rebels are going to be?" asked Marcus, it seemed unlikely that the clan didn't have a clue on the Rebels current hideouts.

"Honey..." Katrina began "...if we knew were the Rebels where they wouldn't be there any more"

Marcus nodded "True enough I guess"

Smiling Katrina snagged one of Marcus sausages before getting up and walking over to her wardrobe dropping her towel on the way, leaving Marcus to enjoy the sight while she herself stood completely unconcerned about her nudity as she decided on her clothes, it wasn't like it was something he hadn't seen before. Deciding on going practical she went with black trousers, a halter top, her black trench coat and the various other articles such as underwear, socks, boots etc, a few rather unusual items were also added including a rather wicked ornamental knife that was even more wicked once you knew it was a code knife, such weapons were rare within the matrix as they required rather complex programming to create so therefore very few people could create them, which was fortunate otherwise they would be up to their eyebrows in program killing weapons.

Katrina herself had picked up the Code Knife for a rather insane amount of money and several major favours traded in, it was almost a status symbol amongst Exiles the code knife was a symbol of the Elite with the ability to injure or kill every type of program, system or not, abilities or not, in the Matrix the code knife was the ultimate weapon. Checking that the knife was sheathed correctly and wasn't about to slice her leg open Katrina nodded to Marcus that she was ready to go and the two of them left the room with the full intent on hunting down rebel prey.

A couple of hours later both Marcus and Katrina were crouching down on the roof of a warehouse watching a crew of Rebels enter and leave the building across the road from them, personally Katrina didn't understand the Rebels weird desire to hangout in abandoned warehouses, a nice 5 star hotel would do just as well and then they could get room service too. Shaking herself out of weird thoughts Katrina watched the some of the Rebels pull away in a black transit van while leaving three behind to guard the exit supposedly, a perfect opportunity if there ever was one, they waited long enough to ensure that the van was long gone and would not interrupt their fight with the guards once the operator told them that their crew mates were under attack.

"Right" Marcus muttered "Three Rebels there, I see one with a machine gun, one with a pistol and the others gone inside somewhere."

Katrina nodded thoughtfully "we'll take out the two Rebels outside and then question the one left inside, she cant have anything more than a machine gun up there so it shouldn't be too dangerous" She stated before grinning "Just try and avoid wooden shrapnel, I want a partner not a pile of dust."

Marcus rolled his eyes "I know, I did take vampiric survival 101" he answered back sarcastically before checking on the Rebels again.

"Good" Katrina said winking at him as she stood up and walked towards the very edge of the roof, it was a good 4 floor drop till the all but abandoned road below. "Shall we go?" she asked, not waiting for an answer before stepping off the roof and falling down to the ground.

Marcus rushed to the edge and leapt off after her, both of them landed with cat like grace on the pavement, couching down to the ground before spring up to their feet ready to engage the two Rebels who seemed pretty shocked at their sudden arrival but seemed to recover somewhat quickly when faced with two not human figures rushing at them. Katrina went after the nearer target which happened to be the Rebel with the machine gun, leaping onto the roof of an abandoned car she jumped down onto him and kicked the weapon out of his hand before getting caught into a hand to hand fight. That left Marcus with the other Rebel who happened to be armed with a pistol and a good 10 feet away, far enough for him to get several shots off before Marcus could close the distance, the result being Marcus having to perform a rather interesting bullet time dodge as he tried to avoid being shoot more than necessary, he ran towards the Rebel, leaning back into a skid letting the bullets fly over his head and body. When the skid slide him close enough to the Rebel, he dug his feet in letting his body swing upright and stuck his arm out, promptly clothes lining the Rebel sending him crashing down to the ground, the Rebel recovered quickly and sprung himself up onto his feet before letting out a fury of hits and punches which Marcus just managed to block.

Katrina was easily gaining the upper hand in her fight, she had speed, strength and grace as well as 150 years of experience which made the Rebel look like he was tripping over his own feet compared to her clean, efficient and powerful moves, it was almost a lesson if futility as vampires had the same strength and speed of Agents, they were also a hell of a lot more survivable then Agents except for their obvious weaknesses to sunlight and stakes, needless to say Mr Rebel was rapidly going to way of the dinosaurs. Admittedly the Rebel had got one or two good hits on her but he was now beginning to tire and weaken from injuries while Katrina was still going strongly, hitting him with bone crunching force in the stomach the Rebel almost collapsed and Katrina decided to finish it now, she slammed his head hard into the door of the car knocking him senseless before yanking the cars doors open she stuck his head in the door before kicking it closed with all her strength. Bearing in mind that Katrina was a vampire and easily had the strength to punch through a concrete wall, the door slammed into the into the Rebels head with horrific force, something also proven by the sickening sound of bone and flesh being crushed, signalling the snapping of the Rebels neck and/or the crushing of his skull, Katrina didn't pause to check as it was damn certain he was dead.

Marcus had the upper hand in his fight as well because of vampiric strength and speed although he was not doing as well as Katrina had been doing, she had significantly more experience than Marcus being more than double his age, therefore was a much harder opponent to beat in a fight as she knew most of the old tricks and had time to perfect her techniques. Marcus hit, kicked and punched as he fought the Rebel slowly gaining the upper hand as the Rebel began to tire but things were progressing slowly...too slowly for Katrina's tastes, as Marcus blocked a particularly complex move from the Rebel he was surprised to see the Rebel suddenly slump to the ground with Katrina holding a large dented trashcan in her hands, it was quite an impressive dent.

"You were taking too long" She offered in manner of explanation, casually tossing the metal trashcan aside and generally ignoring the Rebel on the ground, she couldn't be bothered to check if she had killed him and they didn't have much time before the main force of the Rebels returned, they had to hurry up onto the remaining Rebel if they were going to get any information at all, if he wasn't dead then when he woke up he might wish he was.

She turned and headed into the building cautiously knowing that the remaining Rebel would have heard the sounds of the fight outside and probably would have been warned by the operator of their approach so they were preceding carefully hoping to avoid being surprised and being put in an unpleasant situation such as being shot full of bullets, which you had to agree was just generally unpleasant in the extreme especially when you had to dig the bullets out of your body afterwards, Katrina shuddered.

Pausing to give the floor of the warehouse a quick look around neither of them was able to see the Rebel and the humming from the warehouses still working fans prevented them from tracking down the Rebel by the sound of her breathing or heart beat either, which was a pity Katrina always enjoyed the way her preys heart rate started shooting up as she neared their hiding place. Crates prevented full un-obscured view across the warehouse so it was possible the Rebel was hiding on ground floor, another possibility was the small office that resided in the corner and up some stairs which seemed more likely as there was a good chance that they had converted that telephone into an exit.

Katrina gestured to Marcus that she was going to check out the office and that he should check the ground floor with simple sign language. Marcus nodded and crept forward towards the crates while Katrina sneaked up the stairs towards the office keeping low enough to avoid being seen by the offices windows, vampires were naturally difficult to see even when they weren't trying to be stealthy, for some reason people simply seemed to overlook them, it was like their eyes couldn't seem to lock onto them as if they were visually slippery and their vision just slid off the vampire, therefore both Katrina and Marcus were a damn nightmare to see now they were both carefully sneaking around.

Katrina was in position to move into the office, she braced herself before kicking the door in with enough force to send in flying across the room and burst into the room ready to deal with anything that moved, one black cat meet an unpleasant demise from having a code knife embedded in its skull before Katrina got out of autopilot enough to realise that their was no 'real' targets in the room, she grimaced at the dead cat and hoped it was no ones pet.

Marcus had been sneaking around a bunch of crates when Katrina had smashed down the door with an amazing amount of noise before terminating the cat in a display of overkill, he was kind of glad it wasn't the Rebel as they did need information not a dead rebel, it was roughly around this point that Marcus discovered the location of the Rebel as a cry and half a dozen bullets came from behind him, Marcus snarled in pain as he collapsed and rolled out of line of sight obviously the Rebel being somewhere behind him.

Katrina hearing the noise grabbed her code knife and then grimaced again as the entire cat came with the knife, she shook the knife hard and the cat went flying off in a rather gory display of blood and code as the motion tore what was left of its skull apart, Katrina blinked at the rather disturbing display before shaking herself out of her reverie, this was mainly helped by another load of gun fire and Marcus's "For fuck sake!"

Jumping over the balcony down onto the crates below Katrina raced across the top of the crates jumping from one group to another until she came above the area when the Rebel was shooting at her rather pinned down partner and jumped, landing rather squarely on the Rebels sending both of the women sprawling across the floor, the Rebel was actually the first to recover and get back on her feet but Katrina cut her feet from under her sending the Rebel crashing back down to the ground.

What took place next was a rather unique version of a cat fight complete with hair pulling, claws scratching and high power matrix defying martial art moves, needless to say it was almost one for the record books except for such things regularly occurred in the Den between various female members who shall remain nameless, Katrina gained the upper hand as the female Rebel was no match for a vampire now she had lost her twin machine guns and Katrina finished the fight by slamming the Rebels head into a crate, not enough to kill her but definitely enough to ensure she would be sleeping for a while.

Marcus limped over to Katrina who was brushing herself off; she gave him a look over and gave him her honest opinion. "You look like hell"

He'd managed to get shot in the back several times and blood had poured soaking into most of his clothes, he would also have to have any bullets which hadn't passed cleanly through removed.

Marcus winced and gave her a fake sarcastic smile. "Thanks"

"No time" Katrina told him, the sound of squealing wheels in the distance told them that the Rebels were on their way back and would be here in less than a minute, she tossed him her Backdoor key.

"Go open the door" She instructed him, picking up her code knife which had been dropped during the fight and then picking up the unconscious female Rebel up as he went to open a backdoor.

Katrina carried the woman through into the backdoors and Marcus closed the door behind them, they managed to miss the commotion that occurred moments later as the returning rebels found one crew mate dead, another in critical condition and another seemingly vanished from the face of the earth although still alive according to the operator.

One of the returning Rebels was a large 6 foot 4 inch man who had short cut ginger hair known as Livewire, he was the Captain of the Banshee, one of the ships that patrolled the London area of the Matrix in an attempt to gain control of the vital resources the city processed, he also was really, really pissed at this precise moment.

"What the fuck happened here!?" He demanded to no one in particular.

It was suppose to be a rather simple mission to gain data on the latest Agent and Recruit movements from a contact and had suddenly resulted in the death of one crew member, the wounding of another and the loss of another, the operator hadn't been able to tell who was attacking the crew of the Banshee harping on about anomalous signatures which meant it wasn't Agents as they had very distinctive signatures or at least not Agents directly, those bastard Recruits were hard to detect or more likely it was Exiles. Exiles were practically ghosts in the machine, very rarely seen anywhere in the Matrix and therefore not much concern for the Rebellion, some in the council even doubted their existence however this city, London, proved to be the exception to the rule, here the Exiles were actually a bigger threat than the Agents and for some reason struck out against any Rebel activities in the city as they often seemed to have conflicting objectives. London practically confirmed the existence of Exiles to the human population and while most people took reports of vampires, werewolves and other monsters with a pinch of salt often believing that it was just the plain incompetence that resulted in the loss of crews, they could not deny such things existed.

The crew of the Banshee also had a more long term mission of researching the Exile threat and analysing how their numerous abilities in an attempt to understand, neutralise or control them to serve the rebellions purpose, one thing of particular interest was the ability of Exiles to suddenly disappear whenever danger showed up either in the form of Agents or their fellow Rebels. Little did the crew of the Banshee know that this particular line of research was about to land the attention of Lilith's forces on them, at the moment all the crew of the Banshee was concerned about was finding out who had attacked them and recovering their lost crew member if possible. Captain Livewire sighed, told his crew to grab Yaren, the injured Rebel, before getting his phone out of his pocket and demanding a new exit as the last one had been destroyed.