Chapter 3.

NEW YORK CITY

MARCH 27, 2014

(5 MIN. EARLIER)

After eight hundred years of witch hunting, Kaulder had developed a kind of sixth sense for being watched by less-than-friendly eyes. So, when he suddenly got that same old tingle here in Shelton's, he stopped to carefully look around. Sure enough; he found himself being scrutinized by a thirty-something blonde woman with close-cropped hair wearing a blue turtleneck with black slacks and matching high heels, while the teenage girl with her had long brown hair offset by a red turtleneck, blue midi-skirt, black boots, and a green crocheted beret.

All that taken in during the one or two moments it took them to look back down at their menus, in a futile attempt at pretending they had _not_ been studying him.

Suddenly, there was a crash from behind him. Reminded of his original reason for coming here, he turned back toward his quarry. There, he saw an over-turned table and an Amerasian woman in black "pleather" standing over Ethan Rayne. Balls of lightning forming around her clenched fists!

That was enough for Kaulder. He immediately ran forward; his right hand already palming a pepper spray canister filled with holy water. It had been intended primarily for the Kiasyd who was evidently wearing a good amount of sunblock. Yet, while it wouldn't burn her flesh the same way it would a vampire's, it would still incapacitate this witch just long enough for him to drag Rayne out of the restaurant.

Unfortunately, the situation swiftly became more complicated by two unforeseen events. The first being that Lynn and Bianca Smith thought Kaulder was attacking their client, Ethan Rayne! So, naturally, they sprang to their feet; power-draining athames at the ready.

The second unexpected thing that happened was Ethan shimmering out of harm's way at the exact second Gwen unleashed her twin lightning bolts. Then rematerializing behind Katherine Merteuil who promptly became his human shield.

"Temper, temper, dearie! You're supposed to be a professional. Remember?"

"Not when it comes to being stiffed, I'm not. Give me my money, Connor. Now!"

"You mean, the amount we originally agreed upon? Or the additional one you were going to try and extort from me?"

"Both!"

"I'm afraid that's out of the question, now. So sorry!"

"Trust me; you're going to be even sorrier."

Gwen began charging up again. Instantly making Kaulder realize he could not run fast enough to stop her. So, he improvised. Switching the atomizer to his left hand, he sprayed some of the holy water into a tumbler of ice water atop the table nearest him. He then threw that tumbler like a baseball straight in Gwen's direction. The bio-electric cat burglar, seeing that motion out of the corner of her eye, reacted accordingly. She turned to her right and zapped the tumbler in mid-air!

Simultaneously, the mother/daughter team of Phoenixes threw their power-draining athames at Kaulder's back. Forcing Kaulder to divert his attention and intercept their trajectory with the bottom of a hastily lifted chair! Meanwhile, Amanda Shelton, having seen what was happening from the double doors leading to the kitchen, ran just as quickly towards her office. But, instead of calling the police, as most of her employees naturally assumed she was going to do, she went to the aquarium holding her enchanted pet fiddler crab.

"Help me, Stradivarius!"

Whereupon, the quasi-sentient crustacean began rubbing his smaller right claw across his much larger left one. Resulting in Amanda being teleported, along with a hastily grabbed flower pot, into the dining room. Right behind Ethan and Katherine! Unfortunately, Ethan had sensed that sudden surge of mystical power so similar to the feeling of his own shimmers. Prompting him to spin about and face Amanda, just as she materialized with her flower pot already held above her head in preparation for a painful downward strike.

"You wouldn't clobber your own sister. Would you, my dear?"

"Sister?!" both women echoed as one.

That gave Ethan the chance he had been waiting for. "Time for us to leave, ladies."

Whereupon, he pressed the button atop the time turner. Making all three of them disappear into a chrono-spatial teleportal!

Kaulder, however, only witnessed that disappearance, peripherally. Because, at that very moment, he was hurriedly twirling his improvised shield behind him, in order to let the twin lightning bolts hit the power-draining athames! The aforementioned knives normally drained _magic_ power from a Daughter of Phoenix's target/opponent. Automatically relaying it to the athame's owner, instead. But, in this case, it was the double whammy of electrical charge and much higher power that was relayed to the Smiths. Thereby doing to them what shotgun recoil would do to a first-time trap shooter.

Knocking them flat on their asses!

For her own part, Gwen saw none of that. As she had merely and instinctively, turned her head to avoid flying micro-particles of glass thereby proving to Kaulder that she was no witch.

"Probably a superhuman mutant," he could not help thinking to himself. "Like in those Hugh Jackman movies."

Yet, all further ruminations along such pop-cultural lines were rendered moot by the sound of approaching police sirens. Prompting he and Gwen to flee the scene in opposite directions. She, out the nearest fire exit after first short-circuiting the fire alarm built into it; and he, out the back door of the kitchen. After first brandishing a commandeered meat cleaver (very, very briefly) to show that he was serious about his departure!

COMMUNITY GENERAL HOSPITAL,

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

(JANUARY 18, 1981)

Mrs. Emma Peel, currently better known as "Dr. Barbara Drummond", looked at the astral body of the woman standing before her.* A woman visible only to her!

"Are you sure this is really necessary?"

Magga- -Stargazer Kinfolk ragabash; Verbena Moon-seeker; Hermetic wizardess of House Shaea; headmistress of the Phoenix School of the Akashic Brotherhood (via their 1949 merger with the Wu Lung Craft); and, now, sole-surviving Guardian of Sinea's Daughters- -nodded.

"Quentin Travers' misogynistic paranoia, about the Slayers, has not diminished since that fateful day you broke his nose over your near-fatal allergic reaction to the strength-dampening potion used for the Cruciamentum. Just the opposite, in fact! And I refuse to let that endanger these three little innocents. Better to abduct two, and separately give them up for adoption, so that each has a relatively equal chance at a normal childhood."

So saying, she ended her astral projection. Indicating to the semi-retired secret agent that their meeting was over. . .and she must now return to accomplishing her mission.

SOUTH-CENTRAL FRANCE (1767)

The strange-looking duo was burning the last of the Garou bodies when they beheld an even stranger sight. The arrival, in a bright flash of light, of two women and a man. The latter standing over the prone forms of the former with a most fiendish grin upon his face. And with all of them wearing the strangest clothes the other two had ever seen!

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Jean Chastel. "What new sorcery is this?"

Helene Frisson (a Sister of Gabrielle from the convent of St. Valerie du Petit Chaperone Rouge) was completely and literally at a loss for words. She was that much more astounded than him. Unfortunately, that allowed Ethan time enough to shimmer in behind her and knock her out with a blackjack! He then shimmered the both of them back over to the other two women before activating the time turner once more. . .

. . .and making off with all three women, in the process.

The first thing Kaulder did, upon reaching the safe obscurity of a crowded sidewalk, was to whip out his cellphone and speed-dial Dolan 36.

"It's me. Don't talk! Just listen. I found Rayne, but he got away due to some Phoenix Daughters finding me! Call the NYPD Chaplains' Unit and have them arrange for the confiscation of any and all video security footage of the fight on behalf of the Vatican Swiss Guards (Criminal Investigation Division); UN Apostolic Delegation."

"Understood," replied Dolan. "Where will you be in the interim?"

"Greenwich Village, visiting the head of the local chapter. I want to see if she knows some of her people are working for a suckhead!"

Twenty minutes later, he emerged from a subway station conveniently located half a block up from his destination. A YWCA with a huge mural of a newly reborn Phoenix painted on the brick wall facing in his direction.

He entered the half of the building housing the gymnasium and went up to the desk, where a twenty-something young brunette with her hair in a pony-tail smiled at him.

"Good afternoon, sir! How may I help you?"

"Yes! I'd like to register my younger sister for one of your self-defense classes. Does Ms. Gam still teach the Phoenix system of baguazhang kung fu, here?"

Eurasian by birth (Russian mother/Korean father), Amal Gam was a member of the Wu Lung Craft whom he had helped defect to the United States, from Shanghai, China, at the height of Mao Tse Tung's so-called 'Cultural Revolution' back in the mid-1960's.

"Oh, yes! She just got back from lunch, in fact. Would you like to see her?"

"That'd be great," said Kaulder with his most winning smile of gratitude.

The young woman led him into the private office beyond the anteroom that served as her own office. She opened the door with the frosted glass window pane and gestured for him to proceed ahead of her. Yet, even as he did so, the smile he had continued to wear instantly vanished. Replaced by a look of shocked realization when he saw his old friend cocooned like a caterpillar! He then spun back around, while simultaneously drawing his hidden broadsword, in one fluid motion.

Only to find the young brunette replaced by an anthropomorphic spider. . .who immediately blinded him with a face full of webbing.

Tbc

Special note: "Barbara Drummond" was Diana Rigg's character in THE HOSPITAL (1971) starring George C. Scott