"We're lost aren't we?" Jared asked somewhat in dismay as he looked at the surrounding area.
The pretty dark haired Werewolf at his side frowned. "We're pas égaré. iz London, iz worse.." she sighed, through she probably wouldn't admit it she was scared.
"I Know Chantelle." Jared sighed in irritation at his partner in crime as he looked around with a slight nervous look.
London was far from a friendly place, the city was home to not only Lilith's brood but large contingents of Rebel and Agents which specialised in killing Exiles of all types. Chantelle and her companion Jared had the misfortune of being hated by all three sides, coming to London had been a sever navigation error caused by trying to travel large distances via the ordinary backdoors, an upside down map and general direction skills of a lemming.
A long story short, Chantelle and Jared managed to not only arrive in the wrong country but lock themselves out of the backdoors. They could have phoned their employer the Merovingian and ask him to retrieve them however were reluctant to do so simply on the survival principle. One thing was certain, the Merovingian would not be pleased with such incompetence and would most likely punish them, Chantelle shuddered, she had heard rumours about her employers methods however his money was the best and an Exile had to survive somehow.
The pair had been wandering around the city for the past few hours and nothing bad had yet to happen to them however the sun was setting and it was at night that the streets of London gained a life of their own. Soon Lilith's forces, the Rebels and Recruits would all be on the streets in force with the sole intent of hunting down and killing each other, with no one watching their backs and no friends Chantelle and Jared were decidedly uneasily about that concept however they had yet to work out a way of gaining access to the backdoors without a key.
Chantelle slumped against a wall, tired of walking any further, Jared caught the pretty French Werewolf muttering several fairly impolite phrases under her breath in French about Londoners and sighed before sitting down besides her.
"Hi" He greeted her as she looked up.
That brought a brief smile to her face. "'Ello"
"So... the floor comfortable?" Jared asked as he sat besides Chantelle
Chantelle smirked. "Oui, le c'est véritable confortable" she muttered sarcastically as she shifted slightly on the hard floor.
"Oh, just as long as mademoiselle is pleased" Jared commented cheekily.
Chantelle just stuck her tongue out at him and wrapped her arms around herself as she learned back against the wall.
Jared picked up a loose pebble and threw it across the alleyway before thinking of a conversation starter. "So, what do you think of the Merovingian?" He asked idly.
Chantelle's ears almost perked up. "Monsieur Merovingian?" Chantelle asked giving Jared a probing look to judge if he was trustworthy, obviously deciding she continued. "Honnêtement? 'E iz 'Orrible but 'E pays zhe most."
Jared sighed. "Yeah, that horrible spectre of money raises its head again" he spoke out raising his head to look up at the dusk sky, the light making the clouds glow deep shades of red and purple, creating a scene that would look more in place in a astrological book than anywhere else.
"It iz alwayz zhe same" Chantelle mused wryly "I iz 'oping to 'ave a chateau un jour"
Jared looked down at her. "That's nice, sometimes I think the life of an Exile is too hard though" Jared told Chantelle truthfully.
"Oui, it iz a 'Ard life but it iz life." Chantelle answered as if stating one of the truths of the universe, which perhaps she was.
"True enough" Jared said as he stood up and brushed himself off before offering a hand to Chantelle who accepted it up.
"Oh please, don't get up on our accord" Announced a feminine voice with a delicate British accent from further down the alleyway, both Chantelle and Jared spun to see a dark haired Vampiress, a blonde male Werewolf, a woman with short black spiky hair and a large tattoo'd man with axe in his hands, melt out of the shadows.
"Merde" Chantelle summed up the situation beautifully.
"So what do we have here?" The rather attractive blonde haired werewolf asked rhetorically.
"I don't know Jason, I think it looks like a pair of trespassers" The vampiress answered his question with a smirk that the pair didn't like.
"You know twilight, I do think your correct" The blonde werewolf grinned at the Vampiress
"Look... we're are just a little lost, if you'd open the backdoors for us we'll be on our way" Jared tried to explain their way out of what was becoming a very nasty situation.
"Oh yes.. I'm sure we can get this mess sorted out if you'd just follow us back to the Den" The vampiress stated with a dark smirk, her crimson eyes sparkling with not entirely healthy mischief that brought a deep sinking feeling to Chantelle's stomach.
Jared shifted uneasily behind Chantelle and Chantelle herself coughed. "vell.. vhile that is certainly... gracious... I vouldn't vant to take so much of your time up." Chantelle told Liliths group in her delicate French accent.
It was the blonde werewolf's time to smirk and boy did he have one hell of a smirk. "Oh.. but I insist." He told Chantelle with an dangerous edge.
"Merde. I vas 'oping you vouldn't." Chantelle murmured quietly although definitely loud enough for the werewolf and Vampiress to hear.
Chantelle turned to her companions and gave them one piece of very simple but very good advice. "Run".
Chantelle didn't even wait for her companion as she suddenly burst into a run of extreme speed, she was not going to get caught by Liliths brood, there was some rather unpleasant history between the two groups and whilst admittedly Liliths group was far more honourable, she was not going to test how far that honour extended towards their enemies.
Fortunately for him, Jared sprinted after her followed closely by Liliths bunch who were obviously feeling in the hunt down, kill mood to Chantelles obvious dismay. The pair sprinted down the alleyway at full sprint as if hells dogs were after them, the occasional bullets barely missing them and hitting the alleyway walls, the pair broke into a road which had vehicles in it. They quickly scanned for a vehicle that was still running and spotted an ice cream van further down the road, not perfect but all they had to do was out run the group of Liliths fledglings, not get a sports car.
They ran up to the ice cream van and threw the driver out of his own window before hopping through the window into the vehicle and putting it into gear, hitting the gas making the ice cream squealed away to the disbelief of Liliths group, who had just broke into the road and took half heartedly shots at the departing ice cream van.
A Hippy wagon pulled up in front of Liliths group and a woman with short black spiky hair poked her head out "Get in"
"Eclipse?" The blonde werewolf checked behind him, he could have sworn that she was behind him.
"No... the tooth fairy... Get In" She said stressing it again, the blonde werewolf shrugged and hopped into the vehicle along with the large tattoo'd Exile and Twilight. The hippy wagon squealed as they accelerated after the escaping Ice cream van, weaving through traffic as Liliths group attempted to close the distance between themselves and their prey.
The ice cream van squealed as it went on two wheels to take a particularly sharp corner, coppertop drivers swerved left and right to avoid the bizarre chase scene as the converted school bus hippy wagon powered after a Mr whippy ice cream van with its tinkering music blaring out the speakers.
The hippy wagon smashed a red Toyota out of the way as it came swinging around the corner, barely slowing down as the converted school bus powered after the ice cream van, bearing down on it with its large bulk the front bumper smashing into the back of the ice cream van in an attempt to ram it off the road, the ice cream van swerved from the impact and drove into the oncoming traffic. Cars scattered to either side of the ice cream van in an attempt to avoid hitting it head on, the mass of madly weaving cars creating a gauntlet from the larger school bus to avoid and more often than once it just ploughed straight through any car unlucky enough to be in its way.
The sound of sirens approaching in the background alerted the occupants of both vehicles to rapidly approaching problems heading their way, the ice cream swung back into the correct lane and accelerated in the hope of outrunning the pursuing Hippyfied vehicle.
Inside said Hippyfied vehicles the occupants were thrown about as the bus smashed its way through yet another unlucky vehicle, this time a white transit van.
"Muwhwahahawaha DIE VAN DRIVERS DIE" Cackled Eclipse as she pushed the engine to its max, focusing an insane level of concentration on maiming those in the ice cream van ahead.
"Do you actually know how to drive?!" Jason the blonde werewolf asked in disbelief as a blue ford smashed of the side of the bus. "Maybe you shoul... SHIT!"
Eclipse span the vehicle into a almost instantaneous 90 degree turn into a side road after the ice cream van without braking, in fact Jason swore she deliberately accelerated more if such a thing was possible from the roaring engine. Jason nursed his injured head as he picked himself off the floor before stopping to look at Twilight in disbelief, who was sitting on one of the chairs reading a magazine of all things.
"CLOSER! CLOSER!" Shouted Jackhammer, the large tattoo'd man, gleefully as he took a SMG off his back and readied to open fire at the Ice cream van in front of them, once satisfied he let loose with a stream of heavy machine gunfire at the swerving ice cream van in front, puncturing large holes in the formally pristine white sides.
The Sirens were right on top of them as 5 separate police cars caught up with the two Exile vehicles, Eclipse spared one of the police cars a brief look before she promptly sandwiched it between her moving bus and a building, the results not being pretty. Two more cars heading down the road in front of the ice cream van, swung out in front of it causing the ice cream van to make an unscheduled turning through a park pursued closely by Liliths 'borrowed' hippy wagon and 4 police cars. People ran out of the way of the high speed vehicles, most made it.
Two officers in the police car just behind and to the left jerked as their bodies twisted and warped before revealing the forms of Agent Roberts and Agent Stewart, the Agents took control of the vehicles and began advancing aggressively towards the two Exile vehicles. The Agents police car crashed into the side of the hippy wagon, the police car bounced off the side of the bus and swerved off, crashing through a park bench, having zero affect against the larger mass of the charging bus.
The Ice cream van crashed through a park hedge and barged through the traffic on the other road sending coppertop drivers scattering yet again as Jared used all his driving skills to avoid smashing into any and every object in his way. Two police cars stepped up their attempts to stop the rampaging vehicles and closed on the speeding Ice cream van, side swiping it in an attempt to run it off the road and Jared was struggling to prevent the van from crashing.
"Shit" He swore as the van swerved madly from an police car impact, instead of going against the swerve he turned into it, using it to swing the Ice cream van around the corner whilst Chantelle struggled to hold on in the back of the van, ice lollies going flying everywhere.
Chantelle struggled to get to the front of the van, she threw herself to the floor again as bullets began punching holes through the sides of the Ice cream van as the Hippy wagon swung back into view of the van and opened up on it with Jackhammers SMG again. The Ice cream van swerved to avoid another civilian car as it powered its way down the road, further back Liliths lot were having some much more exciting moments with the pair of Agents which had abandoned their vehicle, having now jumped onto the roof and side of Hippy wagon.
Jason looked up at the roof before opening the bus door and climbing up onto the roof of the Wagon to face Agent Stewart, bracing his footing to ensure he wasn't thrown off by the madly swerving bus. Inside the bus, Agent Roberts had smashed through a window and gotten Twilight in an arm lock which she struggled to get out of the Agents unnaturally tight grip, she twisted before sinking her fangs deep into the Agents arm, damaging the code and forcing him to release her. Once free she slammed her elbow back in face of the Agent, causing him to flail about as he tried to maintain a grip on the side of the bus, Twilight solved his problem by snagging Jackhammers axe and using it to remove Agent Roberts head from his shoulder, the coppertop body fell from the vehicle and was ran over by one of the pursing police cars.
Back on the roof Jason and Agent Steward were in a full clash of punches, Kicks and martial arts manoeuvres as they tired to kill each other in preferably the most painful manner possible, Jason ducked a punch from Agent Steward and swooped down low to kick the Agents feet from beneath him, Agent steward went down hard onto the roof of the Wagon but retaliated by kicking Jason hard in the sternum causing him to stumble back whilst the Agent sprang back onto his feet.
Agent steward rolled his shoulders and smirked at the Exile who winced at the brutal kick he'd just received, Jason scowled and launched into another attack focusing on diverting the Agents kicks and punches, although he was a werewolf and could only be killed by silver he didn't have anywhere near the strength of an Agent so he had to keep ahead of it and avoid getting hit. The new tactics began paying off and the blonde werewolf seemed to be gaining the upper hand over the Agent, Jason delivered a series of rapid punches and kicks to the Agent which almost had him staggering off the edge of the roof but unfortunately the swerving of the bus paid to the Agents advantage helping him stay on whilst knocking Jason off balance.
Two motorbikes roared up along side the 3 remaining police cars and two speeding Exile vehicles, moving like they had a purpose as they came along side the Hippy wagon, the red bike had to swerve to avoid an exploding police car which found itself under the wrath of the Exile SMG, the black bike on the other side came next to the buses rear wheel, the rider pulled a shotgun out of the bikes holster, aimed and fired.
"Woah!" Exclaimed Eclipse as the bus began swerving madly, even more madly than before as she began to lose control, the bus careened out of control off the road up onto the pavement before firmly embedding the front half of itself it a shop window, the Agent was thrown from the bus by the sudden change in direction and bounced along the pavement several times before coming to a complete stop in the radiator of an oncoming van.
Jason was equally unlucky and became very well acquainted with the law that states "Bodies in motion will remain in motion", now of course factors such as friction and gravity do come into the equation but over such small distances they are nearly pointless, the end result of said law ended up with Jason travelling through a brick wall at near 70 mph sending bricks and shrapnel flying everywhere.
The dusk slowly began to settle as Eclipse moaned from besides her place at the buses steering wheel, Twilight was the first one back up on her feet wincing at the array of bruises that were forming on her mid-stomach where she'd smashed into one of the buses remaining seats. She stumbled over to Eclipse and pulled the woman to her feet, ignoring her screams of pain from Eclipses broken leg and all but carried the woman out of the bus into the ruined shop, Jackhammer was close behind her, sporting a rather vicious gash on his head.
Twilight gestured for Jackhammer to take up a firing position at the shop window and doorway to prevent any police entering the building whom were quickly swarming outside the building along with the two recruits with motorbikes, the Agents wouldn't be too far away either. Jackhammer fired at the Recruits and police forcing them to take cover behind the cars whilst returning fire with their own firepower, Twilight dragged Eclipse towards the back of the shop and opened the passage to the backdoors with her key, laying the injured Exile on the backdoor floor, Twilight then headed back into the shop with her own pistol drawn.
The Recruits were advancing aggressively at the shop and to make matters worse both of the Agents were back again, Twilight added her pistols firepower to that of the SMG's, taking down one of the Agents with her experienced eye but it mattered little as the Agent merely took another host. The rubble above the bus shifted and groaned distracting Twilight, She fired another clip of bullets at a recruit who was trying to go around the bullets, catching him in the side before she jumped up to the side of the bus and pulled the extremely battered Jason out of the debris.
One of the bullets coming through the shop window clipped Twilights side and she swore as she dragged Jason to his feet and pushed him in the general direction of the door, the blonde battered werewolf staggered towards and through the door. Twilight ran back up to the front of the shop which was about to be completely overrun and gesture for Jackhammer to pull out, the large tattoo'd man nodded and they fought a running retreat back to the backdoors and away.
You'd expect the leader of one of the largest Exile groups to be an extremely busy person always organising operations, receiving reports and managing the logistics of such a large group of people, yet for some reason here she was bouncing a ball against a wall again and again whilst draped across her "throne" completely bored out of her mind.
If something didn't happen soon she was going to invade the local Agency with a pack of vampires, that or she was going to pay her old friend the Merovingian a visit and maybe shoot some new holes in his latest décor. Her thoughts brightened as she thought of the French toad hopping up and down swearing in French surrounded by his "new and improved" chateau with complimentary bullet holes. Yes, that's what she'd do, she owed him anyway especially after his goons violated her territory, and she didn't care how incidental and it would always give her an excuse to check in with her troublesome and distant childe.
Now her only problem was what to wear, femme fatale or I'm-going-to-kick-your-ass-,-demolish-your-'chateau'-,-put-bullet-holes-your-walls/furniture/henchmen/little dog look? Decisions, decisions...
And shit. Wraith had left to deal with a rebel problem that had developed, still.. you had to admire the rebels really, as they always seemed to have a plan and no matter how many of them you killed there always seemed to be more. Just like cockroaches, Lilith mused as she strode out of her chamber and up onto the more populated floors looking for someone to drag along with her on her hunting party.
"You!" Lilith commanded spotted a figure down the corridor, the girl spun her brown hair flying out and blue eyes wide looking all the world like a deer in the headlights.
Lilith recognised the girl as the one who had required a rather expensive heating system, a half-breed dragon girl if Lilith remembered correctly, a little odd perhaps and Lilith personally disliked hybrid type Exiles but diversity was the spice of life, she could prove useful in the future so Lilith accepted the girl in. Still, Lilith looked dubiously at the girl in front of her; she looked around 15 years old and half terrified by Liliths presence.
"Get five others and weapons then assemble yourselves at the eastern gate in 30 minutes" Lilith ordered the girl whom nodded so hard at receiving the instructions that Lilith became concerned her head might fall off, she dismissed the girl and set about getting ready herself, now where did she put that red dress?
Ember stared fearfully after Lilith as the Clan leader stalked down the corridor away from her with an almost predatory intent, fortunately it seemed like she hadn't heard about that common room incident yet or she didn't care and more pressingly, weapons??? What did she know about fighting?
Still not wanting to disobey Lilith especially a direct order which probably had all sorts of nasty consequences, she just had hope that she wouldn't actually be called upon to fight and worried she went off to round up help, hopefully someone she knew was around.
Ember stood nervously at the eastern gate with a pistol tucked away down the pack of her pants, with her was the Werecat triplets, the Vampiress Raven and the shotgun wielding human Exile known simply as Mortis. The Exile was the oldest of those assembled at 90 years of age; he apparently was an old hand of Liliths and had gained a reputation as being able to survive even the most desperate of situations.
"How long did you say again?" Raven Asked idly as she twirled her long black hair and red bangs around her finger.
"30 minutes" Ember told her, Raven had been one of the vampires who had saved her from a shivering life on the streets and Ember had managed to find Raven lazily flipping though a book in the library. Raven hadn't been hard to convince to come along on the trip as she had apparently feed the previous night and had no plans for the night so was quite happy to have something to do besides her usual research work, plus it would give Ember a chance to get to know her saviour assuming they didn't all die.
Ember chewed her lip worriedly, a lot of the other Exiles she knew could at least fight should the need arise, perhaps she should have taken up karate and some instructions on how to shoot guns, she got the point and shoot principle but that didn't mean she'd actually hit anything.
The noise of some one checking a shotgun attracted Embers attention and she turned to look at Mortis who was checking his gun over, the grim faced black man sat quietly against the wall and was quite an imposing site at a solid 6 ft 2" with a shaved head and wearing a combination of military gear and rebel leathers that Ember had the sneaking suspicious were taken as trophies. She really didn't want to think what had happened to the original owners of those items although she was sure it probably involved blood, pain and excessive use of violence.
The Werecats were lounging around the corridor but instead of the pure lazy attitude she had come to associate with them, they all seemed to hum with that anticipatory energy just like big cats before a hunt, each of them had taken two Uzi's from one of the dens armouries, Ember had never seen that many weapons in one place before and it was safe to say that the armouries were indeed well stocked. Kitty was currently enacting some scene using Ravens MP5 and extremely bad accents some of which Ember guessed were suppose to belong to rebels, Raven rolled her eyes at Kitty's performance. Kitty was about to do an encore when she stopped and turned around to look down the darkened corridor along with her sisters who were equally staring down the corridor obviously sensing something the Ember herself couldn't, Raven cocked her head to listen and then announced the newcomer "Lilith".
"Indeed" Murmured the figure as she emerged out of the shadows wearing a graceful red dress along with an amulet and bracelet with twin blood red stones, Liliths long black hair fell loosely down her back as she turned to look the group assembled before her over. None of them were particularly good fighters except for Mortis, not that it mattered since this was a 'social' visit and Lilith nodded her recognition to Mortis.
"My lady" Mortis said nodding his head before standing up.
"Okay" Lilith stated once she was sure she had everyone's attention "I'll be going to the Merovingian's chateau for reasons of my own, Wraith would probably have a fit and for that reason you will be accompanying me as my bodyguards. Be silent and keep your eyes open for trouble, that's all you need worry about"
Lilith stared at the group watching to see if there was any sign they misunderstood their orders, the half breed girl was practically radiating anxiety and nervousness but she seemed to understand, satisfied they all understood her instructions she then opened the eastern gate with her personal backdoor key. The "Gates" were the few doors within the den that had keyholes and therefore were attached to the backdoors; they were guarded as they were an entrance into the den and open to a possible attack. This particular "Gate" was guarded by a pink haired female werewolf of peculiar attitude and two male Exiles.
"Lets go" Lilith told the group and they left through the open door into the backdoors.
Quentin was hanging around one of the few graveyards in inner London; he knew it was clique but hell if it worked for Buffy it might work for him.
The graveyard was dark and abandoned, the area around the graveyard was located in a fairly deserted industrial block with any workers gone home long ago so the place war eerily quiet. The orange glow from the street lights bathed the empty roads and edge of the graveyard in half light giving the very shadows a life of their own and so in the middle of this creepy setting was Quentin hunting a creature of the night which hungered for human blood.
If that didn't earn him a season ticket to the local asylum then he didn't know what, it felt like he had walked around half the city already and he had covered most of the graveyard already without spotting anything. Turning around the next tree he spotted a dark figure sitting across a pair of headstones, the figure was sitting unnaturally still and was gazing up at the night sky which from this part of the city was amazingly clear and almost free of all light pollution for some reason, Quentin felt his heart race as he looked on this dark figure. The figure suddenly snapped from looking at the sky noticing Quentin staring at his and made to disappear into the night.
"Wait! Don't go!" Quentin shouted and the figure paused looking at him, Quentin couldn't make out any features of the figure as it stood still in the dark shadows.
Quentin shivered, the figure seemed to give off an unnatural predatory aura around their person. Now he had the figures attention Quentins mind went blank and he began randomly explaining why he was here, everything from the itch in his mind driving him to find out if the vampires were real. Something deeper emerged in his ramblings, something he didn't realise lay hidden within his emotions, a sudden desire to join them, to become a vampire.
After his rather long winded explanation that the figure had stood silent throughout for several minutes, Quentin suddenly wasn't sure they were still there and he wasn't rambling to a tree or something, the was about to step forward when a voice spoke out.
"Go back home. This isn't life" a feminine voice answered from the figure before it swiftly disappeared into the night before he could react, leaving Quentin standing alone in the graveyard.